A Path with Heart

How Do We Find A Path With Heart?

Carlos Castaneda told us all about taking the ‘Path with Heart’ he also said that if you were already on a Path that you found had no Heart, then there would be no shame in leaving it and taking another route.

How many times have we found ourselves on a Path that we know has no meaning for us any more, even if it did in the first place?

There are so many occasions that we find ourselves saying yes when we really want to say no, and just to be clear this is where you recognise the feeling of a no Heart Path!

What Castaneda was saying was about enthusiasm, inspiration, joyful anticipation, and there being so much of all of that, that we carry on immune to the pains of being the first to make that route through all those obstacles.

We are so wrapped up in the bundle of aspirational, energetic flow of the dream about to come true that we can’t hear naysayers! Those mountains are molehills, those figures and facts are for other’s businesses not ours.

It may not even be a business it can be anything. A new look for our life. A new outlook on life. A different belief about who we are in this life. Anything at all.

Understanding it is there waiting for us, is one thing.

Reaching out, taking action and making it happen is another….yet another is sustaining that change and making it our own and be identifiable as the person who now is….

For many of us, our lives were mapped out via someone else’s expectation of who we should be. Historically this would happen

To Know Where You’re Going, Remember Where You’ve Been

Not saying at all that other’s ideas of what we should be doing and where we could be going with that thing we do is wrong…at least it’s not wrong for them… but is it right for the individual they are making decisions for?

It is ultimately our choice to either live our lives on the back of someone else’s expectations and desires or our own.

The thing is, it’s all about the consequences of choosing to go our own way.

When we do there will be many nay sayers who will so enjoy ‘I told you So!’ They may well be super smug at the news of an apparent failure or setback that ‘could be seen’ as a failure but isn’t necessarily so…

Come on. Did you really think that even if you had gone out and done what others expected of you, it would be all plain sailing?

It can be more daunting to go out on a limb, to go your own way, to take the plunge etc. etc. etc. that doesn’t mean that you can’t change tack and look in other directions to make life work for you, the way you want it to be.

We can, you can, they can. Even when things are set in stone, they can be ‘weathered out’

We don’t really want to wait that long though.

The one thing that may help with your decision to do what you want as opposed to what you perceive is being expected of you is to ask the question.

‘Am I doing this for me, for my wants and needs or am I placating, easing, allowing someone else’s ideas and expectations to be mine?

You tell me which is going to be the more fulfilling and inspiring.

do your thing

When we are doing what we really want to do, something we have passion and drive for; we become more at ease in ourselves. We become content. We are also inspired daily to see what we do as something wonderful and fulfilling.

There is always at least one Maverick in a family, why not be the one in yours…. I know I am the Maverick in mine!

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If Music Be The Food Of Love

The top of my top list of albums

The prompt for today is Music and the question is ‘what’s on your playlist?’

Being an older personage and having an eclectic taste in music there is more off my playlist than on it. That is not to say that what is not on it is not favoured…more that the storage capacity of my phone just can’t handle the list!

From Beethoven to the Beatles, from Jim Croce to Eddison Lighthouse, from A – Z from the 1920’s all the way to now there are songs and memories attached to those songs and pieces of music. I remember Mozart’s 40th symphony getting into the charts when I was still quite young, 1971 as it happens. The year before All Things Must Pass, was released, though my introduction to it took a wee bit longer to occur.

Music can be an all consuming passion. It certainly manages to transport us TARDIS like as within the notes, lyrics and melodies are the hooks to faces, places, times, events, loves found and loves lost. Bitter Sweet Symphonies indeed. There is so much of our lives in the music, like touchstones, each song is a memory, a feeling, a place in Space and Time.

All Things Must Pass is a treasured box of memories. It is also a good thing to remember. Impermanence, even now I wonder how many songs are not on my list that hold pieces of my life’s experience.

Shall I seek them out, or wait to be surprised while listening to a radio show sometime?

For me there is less music that is new. The compulsion to have everything, all the time, in a gadget does not fill me with glee.

I would rather dance myself into trance with James Asher’s Shaman’s Drums than listen to ads with musical interludes.

Shifting The Shape of Success

What does success mean to you?

Ikagi: a Japanese concept to show meaning of life and…

What is success to you? Is it the culmination of years of work and effort to the expense of all else? The idea of the Japanese concept of Ikagi is about understanding and making meaning of purpose; our purpose in life.

Each of those circles represents some part of our lives: That which we love, that which is our passion, that which we deem our mission, our profession and our vocation. Last but very much not least; that for which we would be paid.

The circles are all linked, and they all intersect to reveal one space where Ikagai is found. The fulcrum. The one distinct but intangible thing that glues it all together. The concept that is the meaning maker of it all.

Perhaps the Ikagai is the key to our connection with Spirit.

As it encompasses all the psychological aspects of duty, care, passion, drive and the twin ideals of vocation and mission, all that is left is the inner Divinity of a Higher Self perhaps?

In Hawaiian Shamanism the Huna idea of the Aumakua, which is also deemed an Ancestral Soul part that is carried by us through reincarnation; it knows all, it has experience and knowledge we could never have access to other than when we connect with it fully.

There are many times we put success down to intuition, just some idea that came from nowhere… know where… Think on that for a moment.

To know where to think so that the answer may be found.

We have a train of thought; therefore we have stations, platforms where knowledge can alight and board that train of thought: there are ocasions where missing the train or derailment can be variables in this metaphorical journey.

Where are the limits of your imagination?

Have you spent time thinking and mithering over ways to become successful in a venture? Did the thought ever occur that this venture was not what you really wanted; deep down you were less than invested in the idea of it?

Did that Dastardly Sabateur, the deeper ensconced Opponent, rise up and whisper in the dark ‘do you really think you will do well here?’

Sabotaged Trains of Thought

Let’s talk about limitations for a moment.

When you talk of what you want to do; what you want to be successful doing, do you ever hear yourself put a limit on that?

Any time there is a ‘but’ in the sentence there’s a place to start. It might be that you don’t want to be seen as arrogant? This is someone’s opinion and not a fact. Arrogance is all about the energy behind the action. The word is the descriptor of that energy. So listen to the limiting descriptors YOU say, not what others gift to you.

Limitations are ubiquitous in life. We get them from our parents and Grandparents, we then progress to our peers when we go to nursery school and onwards. There is always some ‘A’ type personality, which may even have been you yourself, saying ‘you can’t do that because…’ and whatever goes at the end of what they say, it really should be ‘because I don’t believe I could do, like, be that, so don’t you dare make me look weak by doing it instead.’

Somewhere along the line though they evolve from remembered phrases to thoughts riding on the great horses of emotion and then they become edicts we live by, that we now believe to be true.

I invite you to be Limitless this year. I invite you to seek out connection to your Aumakua or Ikagai or your Higher Self, whichever floats your boat.

Find out how limitless you can be by learning to Journey to the Drum. We are holding Shamanic Journeying taster sessions for beginners the first is on the 26th of January https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/237520659687 come and have some fun. Reconnect with your inner Child and your SuperPowers!

Remember when you could do ANYTHING?