Potent Potions

Felix Felicis: Liquid Luck!  J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter wins this helpful elixir by concocting the most perfect potion in Professor Slughorn’s Potions class at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  So, when Harry really needs a boost of fortuitous inner nudging in order to achieve an important aspect of his mission as the Chosen One to save the world from the evil horcruxes of Voldemort, he drinks a vial of this potent potion and knows just what to do to accomplish his purpose.

So, what is your Felix Felicis? For some of you it may be a Mantra, which focusses your attention on higher awareness.  Or it could be a talisman, like a rabbit’s foot or a very comfortable, old pair of socks. (We may explore both of these topics later this month.)

“Luck”…after all, what is it?  Is it magical, or is it a matter of focusing your attention on a goal and persisting in the direction of that central focus? Can you create your own good fortune by committing wholeheartedly to its worthy cause? I would say the cause does have to be worthy, and then, yes absolutely, the sky’s no limit!

Is Liquid Luck for real then, or does it provide Harry merely a placebo effect, allowing him to draw upon his own deepest wisdom based upon the self-confidence that comes with his belief?  Rowling alludes to that assumption when she portrays Ron Weasley winning a Quidditch contest because he thinks Harry has gifted him his Liquid Luck.

images are from pixabay.com

Placebo effect or a direct causal agent, it matters not.  Use every possible positive means to achieve your worthy goal!  Now then the only caveat is, choose well that which is truly worthy of your focus.

I welcome YOUR comments and story!

The Helpers

In every Hero’s Adventure—as in your own Journey of life—“when the student is ready, the Teacher appears.” Teachers, Masters, Mentors, Guardian Angels, Guides, and Signs or signposts arrive to escort us or to prepare us for the challenging passage into the Unknown.

When we look back we can appreciate how a Helper arrived who allowed us to advance in ways we probably never would have otherwise considered. That special teacher appears who lights up a whole field of study for you at school, or that talented role model who demonstrates qualities you long to develop in yourself; by accepting such encounters we connect with our deepest aspirations and claim our life’s motivating Mission or Purpose.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is playing as I write this, so as we are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of J. K. Rowling’s gift of the wondrous world of Harry Potter, let’s focus on Dumbledore as the archetypal Mystic Helper. The qualities Dumbledore exhibits in his mentoring of Harry are those latent qualities Harry is needing to develop in himself in order to fulfill his destiny: magical abilities, teaching skills, the practice of right discernment, balancing good vs. evil impulses, and dedication based on love foremost.

Think of a Helper who appeared or is now present in your life and whose example and insights have helped you develop aspects of your own nature that have allowed you to move further along on your own purposeful journey.

How did you meet this Helper? What interests or abilities has s/he aided you to develop?

images are from pixabay.com

This month we honor and celebrate The Helpers.

I invite your Comments and Stories.

Mystical March

March corresponds with the MYSTIC Archetype according to the Avalon Archetype Institute pantheon of the Twelve primordial Archetypes developed by Dr. Charles and Nin Bebeau and Debra Breazzano (MS/LPT).

All twelve of the primary archetypes of the unconscious dwell within us all, with some being more or less dominant and more or less in Strength or in Shadow mode.

Archetypes appear both in the culturescapes around us—in literature, film and historical accounts, e.g.–and in role models within our own sphere of social relations. Archetypes are also internalized and part of our own psychic makeup, embedded as energies within our unconscious matrix of role identities and persona attitudes or perspectives.

What is YOUR Mystic persona ‘about’?  This month I’ll provide examples and techniques for connecting with and for integrating your MYSTIC Archetype Ally with the rest of your Archetypal Ally Assembly.

Let’s start then with a very clear popular MYSTIC Archetype image, Dumbledore from the Harry Potter saga.

Dumbledore represents the classic Magi archetype. A bona fide Wizard, Dumbledore mentors young Harry Potter to develop his own Mystic potentials. As the universal-collective Mystic form, Dumbledore’s powers of awareness span from the Below to the Above; he can go into the depths to retrieve the Gold and bring it to the surface or he can ascend for higher awareness.  He is also a Shapeshifter, able to duel with the evil Voldemort via a Protean battle, constantly transforming and adapting his defense to counter any evil cast against him.

Of course there are also feminine forms of the Mystic, as with any of the Twelve.  Minerva McGonagall plays this part well in J.K.Rowling’s saga, and it is she who assumes the role of Headmistress once Dumbledore has stepped Beyond, engaging in her own Protean battle in the final segment of the tale.

  

images are from pixabay.com

So, who is the Mystic? Who is it in YOU?

I invite you to call upon your Mystic Archetype part-of-Self this month, and to integrate Him/Her with your conscious pantheon as your Ally.

Countering Self-Limiting Beliefs with Better Endings (“Riddikulous!”)

This week we can apply the principle of Better Endings to transforming self-limiting beliefs and personal myths. What are those beliefs that hold you back from Living Your Dream, Now? Are there any personal myths, or restrictive postulates, that you carry in your mindset about yourself, others, or the world/universe?

Joseph Campbell, the comparative mythologist–many of whose ideas my life mapping approach is operationalizing for everyday heroes–refers to self-limiting postulates as your “Dragons.” To slay (or, tame) your Dragon means in Campbell’s terms that you must identify and confront your limiting beliefs to conquer their illusional hold on your potentials so you can become all that you care to be, do all that you dare to do, express all that you ARE.

I’m a big Harry Potter fan. Dispelling limiting self-talk and negative beliefs reminds me of Remus Lupin‘s lesson to Hogwarts students where they confront “Bogarts” representing  their deepest fears and they counter their force by focusing on positive thoughts and saying, “Riddikulous!” Isn’t that exactly what we are talking about this week? Our limiting beliefs are only mental constructs; think powerfully happy thoughts to dispel their oppressive energy. They have no power greater than your own force of positive affirmation or intention.

A Samuel Taylor Coleridge poetry shard has lodged in me since college days:

Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

 And having once turned round, moves on,

And turns no more his head,

because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

If he turns around (I always remembered the pronoun as feminine until checking sources today), well along down the road, will the dragon-fiend still be there? Applying the Law of Assumption, the monster is no longer there so long as you do not bring it with you; so long as you stop running from it.

Of course, there are deep, shadowy, real tormentors and dire conditions that will not go away just by wishing they might. All conditions have their purpose and if they persist, there are good reasons for their presence in one’s life. Better Endings is not about being Polyannish or wearing rose colored denial glasses. Still, how we respond matters. That’s why Rowling’s “Riddikulous!” resonates for me as such a marvelous, profound ‘spell’. Try it on the worst of scenarios and, like Mary Poppins‘ spoonful of sugar, some light can return that might illuminate an opportunity to grow, to learn, to laugh at our fears and to unfold in awareness. So with that, we cannot lose, see?

As eternal Soul, made of spirit substance or the indestructible, vital life energy of the universe (however we call it), we are greater than any physical or emotional circumstance and we are lighter than any ‘heavy object’ that might attempt to weigh us down or hold us back from manifesting all that we are, the I AM, that you ARE.

Related articles

• Being the Hero of your own Myth (southwarkorganising.wordpress.com)
• How do we overcome our fear? We expose the stuff we fear to scrutiny. (eagleman6788.wordpress.com)