Shakti Sutriasa
The Doorway to Freedom

On the spiritual path, we’re often told that we are light, that we are love, that this light and love are always here and available to us. And yet often we don’t experience that!

In March of 2020, just as the entire world was going into lockdown because of Covid-19, I was getting ready to move in with Tom Carpenter and his wife Linda, who had been Course in Miracles teachers and mentors for decades. They needed support and my husband and I had volunteered.

The Doorway to Freedom
Shakti Sutriasa
Your Theme for 2025

A few years ago, my daughter turned me onto the idea that there's a Major Arcana Tarot card that informs the overarching energy for the year on a global scale. She now has a business offering astrology and Tarot card readings! (​click here to learn more​)

One way to think about this is that the card sets a tone for the year on a world-wide level.

To determine which card is being activated is simple. Add the numbers of the year together. So, for this year it would be: 2+0+2+5=9

Your Theme for 2025
Shakti Sutriasa
What is Your Soul’s Vision for 2025?

Ready for a New Year’s exercise?

It’s to make a vison board – but with a twist.

I’m sure you know that I LOVE making vision boards. Perhaps you’ve even made one with me in the past!

**If you’re new to vision boards, click here to get my how-to download.**

Making a traditional vision board is fun, inspiring, & a wonderful exercise in intentionality. It gets you thinking about every aspect of your life – from your health, wealth, learning, fun… 

What is Your Soul’s Vision for 2025?
Shakti Sutriasa
An Invitation from the Darkness

Have you noticed that certain times of year evoke different feelings or orientations?

What does December ask of you?

For me, it’s about LIGHT, about opening to it and receiving it.

How do you define light?

Perhaps you think about it as: inspiration, healing, divinity, truth, love- or something else. 

Whatever your definition of light, the dark days of December seem to call for a kindling of that spark, a nourishing of our inner light.

How about A practice to help you connect more deeply to that light?  

Here’s a simple one: How would you complete this sentence? 

An Invitation from the Darkness
Shakti Sutriasa
Death of Normal: Embarking on a Hero Journey

Last week I began an online class focused on the arc known as the Hero’s Journey. If you’re at all familiar with the mythologist, Joseph Campbell and his work, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about!

Essentially, the idea is that we are all the hero of our own story, and within our lifetimes are invited, encouraged, urged, and sometimes dragged onto a journey of self-transformation.

It all begins with the death of normal.

Death of Normal: Embarking on a Hero Journey

A Time for Standing Still

A Time for Standing Still

There’s a rune (Nordic oracle system) called Isa, translated into English as stand still. It looks like the capital letter I.

In his Book of Runes, Ralph Blum describes Isa as symbolizing, “the winter of spiritual life.” In other words, a time to stop and do nothing.

He goes on to say, “positive accomplishment is unlikely now. There is a freeze on useful activity, all your plans are on hold… trying to hold on can result in shallowness of feeling… seek to discover what it is you are holding onto that keeps this condition in effect, and let go. Shed, release, cleans away the old. That will bring on the thaw.”

Body Aches & Memories

Body Aches & Memories

I’ve had sciatic pain in my left leg for over 20 years. There’ve been times when it was excruciating, times when it was a continual dull ache, and times when I’ve barely felt a thing.

For some reason, it flared up recently. And even after I went to my massage therapist for her usual magic which LITERALLY makes the pain go away for months, it came right back!

That got me thinking about the chiropractor Dr. Scott Walker. He’s the founder of NET- Neuro-Emotional Technique of which I am a certified practitioner (learn more here).

The story Dr. Walker likes to tell about how he came upon this technique was that he was manipulating a patient, and the next week she returned with the same pain! This got him thinking that there must be something else going on besides his patient needing a physical adjustment. He stumbled into the recognition that we hold emotions in our physical tissue.

3 Strategies for Feeling Less Defensive

3 Strategies for Feeling Less Defensive

From the time I was a little girl, I’ve always felt like the world was a scary place. Maybe it was growing up in a city, possible harm lurking around every corner. Maybe it was how I was hardwired for potential threats.

Either way, it’s my default operating system.

So, imagine my surprise when I began my spiritual journey, and one of the invitations was to rest in God, to see the world as safe, to trust that I really am taken care of! Ha!

Honestly, it’s been decades in the making, this transition from fear to love. And it’s ongoing.

I still fall back into fear and forget.

Something Lost & Something Gained

Something Lost & Something Gained

This past Sunday was my sister, Melissa’s birthday. If she were still alive, she’d have turned 54. Only she died 12 years ago from metastasized breast cancer.

I still miss her every day, although as the number of years stretch away from her death, it grows easier. Less sorrow and more smiling in happy remembrance.

This year on her birthday something special happened. My grandson was born!

His arrival will never fully take away the loss of my sister, but it has brought so much joy and love into our family.

It isn’t that he fills a void per se, but it does feel as though the circle has been completed. A circle I didn’t even know felt incomplete.

10 Ways to Cultivate Inner Peace

10 Ways to Cultivate Inner Peace

Recently, I received an email from a woman who told me she was struggling with life challenges, and yearned for more inner peace.

Can you relate?

It might sound counterintuitive, but the most successful way to experience peace is to cultivate it within our own beings.

We think that our focus needs to be on external strife- on conflicts in our communities, aggression among nations- and while it is important to work for justice and world peace, it is even more critical to develop that quality within ourselves.

So, how do you foster peace within?

Here are 10 Ideas for You

Accessing Infinite Possibility

Accessing Infinite Possibility

One of the metaphors that’s worked for me over the years in my spiritual practice, is the RIVER.

I’ve often imagined myself in the flow of its gentle current, relaxing into Source, floating in safety as I'm gently lead on life’s journey.

It’s been a great metaphor to help me develop trust.
Lately, however, a new metaphor for what I call this “Big Love” has been coming to me – the OCEAN!

Yes, still a body of water,​ but one that feels completely different.

Because Divine Love isn’t just a river.

How to Live Open Heartedly

How to Live Open Heartedly

Recently I had a conversation with someone who told me he wanted to live openheartedly.

In truth, don’t we all?

The question is how…

We can certainly experience heart opening moments, but how do we sustain that space every moment of every day?

Whenever I think about opening my heart, I ALWAYS see an image of Lord Hanuman in my mind’s eye .

If you’re not familiar with this Hindu god, he is the one who looks like a monkey and is known as the servant to God/Love for he has devoted his life to serve Lord Rama.

Image from Photo Mix on Pixabay

A Journey Into Healing

A Journey Into Healing

Have I told you about the Black Madonna?

Ugh, she is so beautiful!

We received her last year. Take a look.

It was one of those synchronistic things. One day last January I began thinking about this painting, La Virgen Negra by Alfredo Arreguin.

It might sound weird, but it was almost as if she was calling to me.

You see, a few years earlier, I’d seen it at a gallery show where I was absolutely mesmerized by her. The photo I’d taken promptly got pasted onto my 2020 vision board!

Realizing I needed to say something to my husband, I confessed that I wanted to purchase this painting.

Fathers & Forgiveness

Fathers & Forgiveness

We just celebrated Father’s Day here in the U.S. and that got me thinking about relationships between fathers and children.

Many of us feel that we didn’t have the kind of father we wanted or needed in our lives.

Is that you?

Did you experience your dad as unavailable? Either physically, emotionally, or both?

Perhaps your dad was an active addict and wasn’t available to you. Maybe you never saw him as he lived in another state or country, or was incarcerated.

I have a friend whose father became homeless when he was a teenager.

The Buzz in My Root Chakra

The Buzz in My Root Chakra

Since last December, I’ve been doing a curious exploration.

It started over the winter holidays when one day I had this acute sensation that I was going to be “replaced.” At first I didn’t even have words for the intense anxiety and fear I was in.

It wasn’t until my husband asked me what was going on, that the words popped out of my mouth. “I’m afraid that I’m going to be replaced.”

You can imagine the look of astonishment on his face.

It’s illogical.

In my desire to understand the root of this fear, I ended up tracing it back to infancy.

This makes perfect sense because when I was just about to turn one, my younger sister was born. And to my infantile reptilian brain, that meant I was getting replaced!