Monthly Archives: March 2024

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Mirror

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By Heather Williams, H.W., M. (with permission)

March 8, 2024 (TheProsperos.org)

MIRROR = to reflect; to resemble; a smooth surface that forms images by reflection

QUESTION: Have you practiced mirror work?

STORY: I learned to do mirror work when I worked with Louise Hay 1987-1999. This valuable practice helped me move forward through some challenges and I recommend that you try it. Mirror work is a spiritual practice of sitting calmly and looking at your own reflection in a mirror – without judgment – for about one or two minutes. As you look at your reflection you notice that you have little or big criticisms or judgments about your hair, your nose, your mouth, or something else. When these criticisms come to mind – you say: “Thank you for sharing” and then you return to looking without judgment. When you feel ready – say these words three times – to yourself: “I am willing to learn to love and accept you exactly as you are.” “I am willing to learn to love and accept you exactly as you are.” “I am willing to learn to love and accept you exactly as you are.”

QUOTES

The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are.” ~ Thomas Dreier

“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.” ~Byron Katie; “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.” ~Khalil Gibran

“Everything in your life, every experience, every relationship is a mirror of the mental pattern that is going on inside of you.” ~ Louise Hay

EXERCISE

STOP.

Sit quietly. Assume an erect posture.

Sense the breath.

Sit calmly and find a mirror.

Gently look at your reflection. Pay attention to thoughts, judgments, feelings that pop up. Say: I am willing to learn to love and accept you exactly as you are. Repeat this 3 times.

Get your pen and paper and write words and draw lines expressing your experience. Move forward into your day loving and accepting yourself.

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We Are Defining Love the Wrong Way

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Getty Images

IDEAS

BY RABBI DAVID WOLPE

FEBRUARY 16, 2016 (Time.com)

Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, the author of eight books and has been named one of the 50 most influential Jews in the world by the Jerusalem Post.

It is time to change the meaning of the word “love.”

The word is mostly used according to the first definition given in the dictionary: “an intense feeling of deep affection.” In other words, love is what one feels.

After years spent speaking with couples before, during and after marriage; and of talking to parents and children struggling with their relationships, I am convinced of the partiality of the definition. Love should be seen not as a feeling but as an enacted emotion. To love is to feel and act lovingly.

Too many women have told me, bruises visible on their faces, that the husbands who struck them love them. Since they see love as a feeling, the word hides the truth, which is that you do not love someone whom you repeatedly beat and abuse. You may have very strong feelings about them, you may even believe you cannot live without them, but you do not love them.

The first love mentioned in the Bible is not romantic love, but parental love (Genesis 22). When a child is born, the parent’s reaction to this person, who so recently did not exist, is to feel that “I would do anything for her.” In the doing is the love—the feeling is enacted. That is why we often hear the phrase “you don’t act like you love me.” We know in our bones that love is not a feeling alone, but a feeling that flows into the world in action.

Between human beings, love is a relational word. Yes, you can love things that do not love you back—the sky or a mountain or a painting or the game of chess. But the love of other people is directional. There is a lover and a beloved—you don’t just love, but you love at someone. And real love is not only about the feelings of the lover; it is not egotism. It is when one person believes in another person and shows it.

In Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevye asks Golde whether she loves him after a quarter century of marriage, her wry answer is exactly on point:

For twenty-five years I’ve washed your clothes
Cooked your meals, cleaned the house
Given you children, milked your cow
She asks then, “If that’s not love, what is?”

Of course it is possible to perform all sorts of duties for someone and feel little or nothing for them. Love is not about being hired help. Love is not an obligation done with a cold soul. But neither is it a passion that expresses itself in cruelty, or one that does not express itself at all. The feeling must be wedded to the deed.

We would have a healthier conception of love if we understood that love, like parenting or friendship, is a feeling that expresses itself in action. What we really feel is reflected in what we do. The poet’s song is dazzling and the passion powerful, but the deepest beauty of love is how it changes lives.

(Contributed by Steve Hines)

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Tarot Card for March 13: The Four of Wands

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The Four of Wands

The Lord of Completion marks a point where a circle has been completed. It can apply to work projects, personal situations – even phases of life. In some respects it’s like a lesser reflection of the Universe, the final Major Arcana card.Another aspect of the Four of Wands associate it with the Major Arcanum of Adjustment, or Justice. This is because this Wand indicates the manifestation of balanced forces, resulting in the fulfilment of earlier hopes, ideas and dreams. The balance aspect, combined with the overall morality of Wands, brings us to think about injustice being resolved, inequity acknowledged and set right.This is a good card, promising not only the sense of natural satisfaction which arises when we follow our ideas through to their logical conclusion, but also the opportunity to start new things off.If we stop when we have achieved a goal along the way, we begin to stagnate. We need to take the sense of contentment and channel it into the stage on our journey – that way we continually grow.
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Modern Occultism: Safeguarding the Search with Mitch Horowitz

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New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove • Mar 12, 2024 • “For all the problems in our country as long as we’re protecting the individual search for meaning, we’re going to make it. When we stop protecting that, that’s when we’re going to fail.” -Mitch Horowitz Misunderstood and associated with sinister elements or conspiracies, the occult has, in fact, played a prominent role in promoting religious freedom, social justice, and the individual search. When we think of free-thinking societies, the freedom for all women and men, regardless of color or creed, to believe or doubt, we think of the value and protection of the individual search for meaning. In this conversation, Mitch Horowitz, alternative spirituality scholar and PEN award-winning author of “Modern Occultism,” “Occult America,” “One Simple Idea,” “The Miracle Club,” “Daydream Believer,” and others examines the positive role of secret societies such as the Illuminati. Horowitz delves into the impact occultism has had on social movements including suffragism and abolitionism and how it fostered greater religious equality. He explores the significant influence of women on these movements with figures such as Madame Blavatsky and the Gnostic Cathars and highlights alternative approaches to spirituality such as Thomas Jefferson’s view of the Bible to reshape American spirituality. Horowitz discusses how occultism sometimes must lower its profile (“light must be taken underground”) in order to protect the “individual’s search for meaning.” Finally, he asserts how occultism and mysticism can transcend political borders, creating a unifying effect. Be sure to listen for Horowitz’s comparison of Gnosticism to the first twenty minutes of the 2024 film “Barbie.” 00:00 Introduction and Setting 04:54 The “Mystical Core of America” 10:02 Occultism, Enlightenment, Equality & Social Movements 15:41 Pushback Against Occultism 19:32 Secret Societies: “Sometimes Light Must Be Taken Underground” 21:15 The Illuminati— “Protecting the Search” 26:55 The Gnostic Cathars and Their Persecution 31:39 Madame Blavatsky, Gandhi, MLK 39:24 Modern Occultism People & Stories 46:00 Skeptical Inquiry: Debunking & Denialism 48:30 The “What-Ifs” of American Spirituality 57:15 UFO Disclosure as a Bipartisan Issue 01:09:10 “Turning Down the Heat” in 2024 Order the new book by Mitch Horowitz “Modern Occultism: History, Theory and Practice” https://amzn.to/3Tta3zA

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Extend

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By Heather Williams, H.W,. M. (with permission)

March 5, 2024 (TheProsperos.org)

EXTEND = to stretch or spread out; increase, enlarge; to cause to reach

QUESTION: To what extent do you extend yourself?

STORY: For several years now I have been engaging in the practice of extending my temporary self toward my TRUE SELF. We all have these two selves. Our temporary self is our physical form – the part of us that is separate from others and it is the part of us that was born and will one day die. Our TRUE SELF is ever present, birthless, deathless, formless, boundless Energy of ONE Infinite Consciousness and it is always available to us. Here is how it works: When I become aware of my temporary self falling into anger or fearful reactions in response to something or someone – I STOP and pause and instead of running away or fighting – I calmly remember that my TRUE SELF is here now – and I allow it to flow into my body and guide my mouth, my thoughts & actions. It is a lifetime practice. I still have lots to learn. Learn more: Get the book SELF REMEMBERING by Red Hawk and join my Work Chamber!

QUOTES

“If, with all your heart and all your mind you sincerely assume the attributes of Infinite Mind, disease (lack of ease) will flow right through you.” ~ Thane Walker

“Earth is a school, a kindergarten for souls, where undeveloped souls are sent to learn. The curriculum is simple but not easy. We are here to learn to love without limitations, expectations or conditions. Self observation and self remembering are our tools.” Red Hawk

“I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible.” ~ Michelangelo

EXERCISE

STOP.

Sit quietly.

Assume an erect posture. Sense the breath.

Sit calmly aware of your body.

Open your consciousness and calmly be aware of the formless energy flowing through your body.

Get your pen and paper and write words or draw lines expressing your two selves.

Move forward into your day remembering your True Self.

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Poem: Gift

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Gift


Some ask the world
and are diminished
in the receiving
of it. You gave me
only this small pool
that the more I drink
from, the more overflows 
me with sourceless light. 

R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)
Welsh Poet

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR DAILY REFLECTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SCHOOL OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
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The bees that can learn like humans

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nature video • Mar 6, 2024 Scientists have long accepted the existence of animal culture, be that tool use in New Caledonian crows, or Japanese macaques washing sweet potatoes. One thing thought to distinguish human culture is our ability to do things too complex to work out alone — no one could have split the atom or travel into space without relying on the years of iterative advances that came first. But now, a team of researchers think they’ve observed this phenomenon for the first time outside of humans, in bumblebees. Read the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158…

(Contributed by Michael Kelly, H.W.)

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Tarot Card for March 12: The Two of Swords

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The Two of Swords The Lord of Peace is a friendly Sword, which comes as something of a relief when we have spent so much time dealing with his more belligerent cousins. However it must be noted that the card often comes up to indicate that a conflict has been resolved or a breach healed, so there will have been trouble earlier on.It indicates that a painful and difficult situation is being reconciled. Friendships are rebuilt, old wounds are healed. However in this context it is very important to look carefully at the cards which follow it, for there is often a feeling that a relationship will never be quite the same again as it was before the conflict or quarrel. If the Four of Swords comes up nearby, this is a clear indication that one should remain cautious and thoughtful, not giving too much in the way of trust, for some time. If the Moon was up in the reading, we would be forced to consider the possibility that all is not as it seems.At an inner level, the Two of Swords really comes into its own, for it marks the period of tranquillity and calmness that can arise when we have finally made difficult decisions, and acted upon them. Often it will come up to show that, now we have got to grips with our confusion, we can rest and recover.The card will also come up to show that we have let go of old fears or anxieties that were holding us back. It’s a still card indicating a time to rest and recuperate.