Create a Totem of Your Goal Achieved

An elixir is a potion or aid you receive from achieving some degree of fulfillment along the path to attain your highest goal.  The elixir is like an alchemical agent in that it raises your energy levels, your awareness, to a higher plane that you have attained with your accomplishment. So you come away from the ordeal you have successfully met with a greater power of insight or a force of greater love that you can carry forward with you on the next leg of your Journey.

A Totem is an image or object you can literally plant in your ‘growing space’ or carry with you as a reminder of the qualities you have gained and of your higher Goal.  It could be something as simple as a talisman, like a necklace amulet, pin, or charm bracelet representing the qualities or goal you wish to focus upon.  It could also be a collage of images you compose and place in a highly visible personal space to serve as a Vision board. (I do these often and pin them on my office bulletin board).

Totems are anchors that “ground” your vision and amplify your intentions like a magnifying glass that concentrates the rays of the Sun.

To create a personal Totem of your goal or aspiration, whether that be a concrete objective or a value you wish to strengthen day to day, find or create an object, or create a collage of images that will remind you to center your attention on your ideal.

With online imagery such as at pixabay.com or with clipart, it is easy to find images to represent your goal or the values you aim to strengthen.  I recommend placing an image or photograph of the goal or value itself, or of yourself having achieved this goal, in the center of the page to form a mandala composition.  You can surround that central image with additional images that represent how you are to attain this level of fulfillment and what will be the outcomes when you do!

Place your collage or object somewhere that you will see it often. It could be at your office or in your bedroom or kitchen, somewhere you spend a lot of time thinking about your goal and actively pursuing that.  Or you could wear your totem talisman close to your heart or on your person. It could be private, like a special stone that you carry in your pocket, or even a personal mantra or prayer or poem that you repeat inwardly as you move through the day or before sleeping at night.

Your totem can be any means of focusing your intentions deeply. This plants your intention in the loam of your everyday life, infusing your activities with a greater sense of mission, of value and purpose, and of unconditional love.  For no one but you can fulfill your deepest Soul objectives, which enhance not only your own capacity to live but your determination to serve Life Itself.

images are from pixabay.com

I value your Comments and stories!

Sowelu: Be Like the Sun…

 

Nourishing the Self is so important for manifesting our highest potentials in any endeavor. Through eating nourishing foods, or through prayer/meditation/ contemplation, or a walk in Nature, we store positive energy for the new day like a solar panel collects the rays of the Sun to energize Life. (Betterendings 7/26/16)

On this July 31^st we are at the cusp, a meaningful cycle shift, from the Archetypal energies of the Nourisher (July) archetype into that of the Golden Child (August).  To me an apt symbol of this powerful shift is found in the Nordic rune of Sowelu (see the rune below that looks like a lightning bolt, third line down on the left.)

Sowelu (various spellings) has always been a special rune to me. It is a symbol of WHOLENESS and represents the energy of the SUN, which always gives and is of service to the Whole, “without asking anything in return.”

When once my beloved harlequin calico cat Ariel fell from a balcony and punctured her lung on a grill underneath the balcony window (!), at an emergency clinic I placed a Sowelu rune stone with Ariel in her special oxygen chamber to give her strength. She survived and lived til twenty!

I wear the Sowelu as a talisman on a necklace in times when I choose to exert extra strong focus on a goal. This past ten days or so I have been wearing Sowelu as my book proposal for Your Life Path is now in the hands of publishers.

Here below is one of many versions of a descriptive summary of the Sowelu rune (http://www.drnikki.com/readings-chat-and-email/modalities/rune-stones/rune-stones-sowelu/) :

The rune of Wholeness Sowelu

Sowelu is the final of the runes of the Elder Futhark. After travelings through the entire set of Runes we come to Sowelu – Wholeness. Sowelu is the wholeness to which we all belong and are connected. Sowelu is finding wholeness and completeness within whom we are and how we interact with others. Sowelu is the Sun in it’s most magnificent and beneficent guises. Sowelu is the harvest from the fields stored and ready to carry through the dark of winter’s night. Sowelu is achievement. Sowelu is celebration. Sowelu means having what we need when we need it – even if we can’t see the truth of that in the current moment.

Sowelu’s wholeness can also be the wholeness found in a happy and appropriate relationship. Sowelu indicates that your personal regenerative powers will allow for you to continue to grow even after you have achieved wholeness. It is once you have achieved wholeness for the self that you can truly participate as an equal partner in a romantic relationship. For, as it is often said, we must learn to love ourselves before we can turn the internal light of self-love out to the world. Loving ourselves allows us to choose those relationships that are healthy and nurturing for us and our partner.

Sowelu speaks of basking in the glory of the sun’s rays. The spiritual warrior has achieved his center. His final arrow has been released and he now knows the inner workings of his own character. Through this position of wholeness a new, stronger, more solid, and higher foundation is created.

images are from pixabay.com

So, fellow bloggers and readers, shine on! Be like the SUN that always rises anew; You too can illumine the darker spaces and fill your Day with Light.

Establish Your Goal Totem

One valuable tool–or, Seed–that can support your commitment to realize your purposefully meaningful life Goals is finding or creating a Totem and keeping that symbol with you or in a special place you visit often. A TOTEM is a symbolic token that represents some value you associate with your Goal or it may represent a personal Strength you draw upon in the process of manifesting your Goal.

A carefully selected or creatively composed Totem stands for something meaningful to you. It focusses your love and your dedication and intention to accomplish your worthwhile  mission, purpose, or goal. It may focus your commitment to be of service to others in realizing your Life Dream.

Your Goal Totem might be a spiritual or religious emblem or it could be an animal figure representing those personal qualities by which you aim to realize your Goal. You might fashion your totem as a piece of jewlery or clothing that you can wear and hence keep close to your person daily. Or it could be a collage you create or pictures you assemble and place in a personally meaningful place as a reminder of your intentions and Goal.

I welcome your insights or stories!

Touche! What I Learned about Transforming Self-Limiting Beliefs through Fencing

I am 5’3″ and weighed 110 lbs until around 30. I was a rather shy, skinny, short and nerdy sort of kid and I thought of myself accordingly; until, one day at high school in 11th grade, my friend Lawrence opened a conversation that would forever change my life:

“Say, ‘Yes’!”

“Okay! …What are we doing?”

“Fencing! There’s a fencing class that starts this week at the Arts Center, and you and I will be there!”

Fencing. Who knew? I would learn more about life and about myself and others that next several years than I could ever have anticipated with that simple agreement with Fate in the form of my friend, Larry. I would come to revise my notions of what is possible in this world, a Life Lesson I would come to apply regularly, not only to my own choices and actions but also by imparting these lessons to those I would ultimately teach, and coach, later in life.

After the 10-week class in fencing I took with an exceptional fencing teacher who became a lifelong friend, I went on to fence on an intercollegiate team at SUNY College at Buffalo that placed in the top ten in the nation in 1975, a nearly unheard of result for our small college team. So, here are some lessons in transforming self-limiting beliefs or postulates that I learned through the art of fencing:

1) Focus. The “peak experience bout”, as I used to think of it philosophically, is one in which both fencers wholly incorporate their opponent’s ‘field’ within their own. That is, they are intuitively in tune with every action and intention of their opponent. This results often in “La Belle,” a very close match in which both fencers are so deeply immersed in the swordplay that they are not even thinking but they are acting and responding unconsciously, in the Moment. Both are winners, here!

2) I learned when to advance, when to retreat; when to initiate, feint, parry-riposte, or revise an attack. I learned how to stand my guard and not be intimidated by bluster or a nasty look. Being in the Moment and trusting your well-trained instincts and intuition leads more often to success than to failure.

3) I can do it!  Put all negative self-talk behind you and “go forth, brightly!” Be mindful, centered, aware, and ACT accordingly. Or as a fencing coach who was a former Olympian would put it, “”Suck it up!” Pull yourself together if you lose one point; focus on the present point only; exhale as you lunge! “Et, la!”

4) Whatever your personal characteristics are, you can use them to your advantage. Being short and lightweight,I was fast. I learned to maintain greater distance than normal from a taller fencer until ready to launch an attack; then I would use moves like a running attack (fleche) or a double-to-triple ballestra (short hops before a lunge) that would close the distance too rapidly for a taller opponent to counter. (An attack is made with the extended arm in foil; the tall opponent would not have room to attack with such a maneuver.)

5) Fencing is life. For my entire life, I am a Fencer. It doesn’t matter that now, at 59, I am out of shape and overweight. Fencing became and remains a way of thinking, a way of being in the world. I find myself applying the logic and wisdom of fencing daily, in all kinds of life situations.

Fencing–like any sport, musical instrument, art or skill that you hone with ardour and diligent practice (think, Karate Kid, for a more popular example)–can instill a healthy, positive self-concept and a balanced or “centered” point of view, a positive attitude of response-ability to life events. Of course, I often have to remember these lessons, hopefully more inthe mindful Moment; if not, then in retrospect, remise!

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