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
Shakti Sutriasa
3 Practices to Help You Live Life Your Way

Have you ever thought about the unique track of your life and your experiences as being tailor made just for you?

It’s kind of a radical idea, one I learned from the Manual for Teachers, which is part of A Course In Miracles (ACIM).

In it, it says that in our journey to God, we have,

“[A] curriculum [that] is highly individualized, and all aspects [of it] are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance.”

When I first read this, I smiled.

3 Practices to Help You Live Life Your Way
Shakti Sutriasa
How to Move Through the Veils

According to Celtic tradition, we’re about to get to the time of year when the veils between worlds is purportedly thinnest.

The actual date is from sundown on October 31st to sundown on November 1st which coincides with Halloween and the Day of the Dead.

Supposedly, this 24-hour period is a powerful time:

  • for divination (since the veils are more porous)

  • for reflection on the balance of life and death

  • for connecting between the physical and spiritual worlds

  • for honoring and remembering loved ones who have passed on

How to Move Through the Veils
Shakti Sutriasa
How to Discern Between Love & Like

I'm sure you’re aware of the difference between liking someone and loving them. But would you indulge me for a minute?

Call to mind a friend or colleague. Someone you genuinely like who perhaps is reliable, trustworthy…Now think about someone you love. A family member or close confidante.

Can you feel the difference?

Yes!

Unfortunately, sometimes the lines between love and like get blurred, especially with members of our family.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

When I was in my early 20s, I moved across the country to live near my sister. Growing up, our relationship was complicated. Sometimes we got along wonderfully, other times, not so much.

How to Discern Between Love & Like

Why Rejection Is Actually Good For You!

Why Rejection Is Actually Good For You!

Rejection can definitely feel painful, but have you ever considered that it isn’t necessarily the enemy? Could you perhaps see rejection as a helpful guide?

I say this because we might not always know what’s in our best interest.

WHAT?!?

Think about it this way, perhaps you're convinced that working for a specific corporation is your dream job, only they don’t hire you. Instead, a smaller organization does, and it turns out to be exactly where you fit and what you needed to build your skills and open new doors. 

Rejection offers a chance to re-think your plans, to realign or challenge your initial beliefs, and ensure that where you think you want to go is indeed in your highest and best good.

Anchoring Into Benediction

Anchoring Into Benediction

The other day, I was looking through a book of poems called The Gifts of God. It’s a compilation of writings by Helen Schucman. She’s the scribe who for nearly a decade received the words that became the mystic Christian book, A Course in Miracles (ACIM).

During that time, mostly in the 1970s, she also wrote poetry. She was pretty adamant that they not be published and so they were not until after she died. That was when the not for profit organization that publishes ACIM put the book together to honor what Helen had gifted to the world.

A New Way to Explore Creativity

A New Way to Explore Creativity

When you think about creativity, or being a creative person, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?

I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never thought about creativity like the legendary jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal who died recently at the age of 92.

In an interview he did with Karen Michel on National Public Radio, he said: “People get after me… because I say there's no such thing as a creative person… we don't create a fly or a raindrop or a snowflake, but we can reflect creativity. And when we reflect creativity, we discover. And that's the whole thing about life - discovery. And that's what I live for - discovery.”

Are You A Tortoise or a Hare?

Are You A Tortoise or a Hare?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the moral of Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare.

You read it when you were a child. Yes?

So you know the tortoise wins the race because of his deliberate pace, while the rabbit- although faster moving- often stops to rest.

The implicit message being that “slow and steady wins the race.”

When I first got together with my husband, I would joke that he was the tortoise and I was the hare. It just fit our personality styles and ways of working.

He is deliberate and takes his time. I, on the other hand, want everything done yesterday, am more impulsive, and quick.

For years I thought that I should be more like him. Well, more like the tortoise. Actually, for my entire working life I felt that. Until recently.

Step into Your Holiness

Step into Your Holiness

I worked with a shaman a while back, and one of the ideas that’s really stuck with me is the notion that I (and by extension, you) are the temple, the sacred space, the church, the seat of power.

It lives in you.

I know it sounds weird, and it’s taken me a bit to get it. But the idea is that there isn’t any holy place outside of you that you need to visit in order to experience something transcendental.

THAT SPACE IS ACTUALLY WITHIN YOU.

I was reminded of this the other day, that I/we are the temple, and that wherever I/we go, there is peace, love, holy presence.

But how, then, do we remember this?

A New Way To View Your Life's Purpose

A New Way To View Your Life's Purpose

When I lived in Hong Kong in the 1990s, one of my closest friends was a painter. And whenever I’d get too insular, too focused on the nuts and bolts of my life’s journey, she’d remind me to “view the mountain from the plain.”

As you walk this spiritual path, it can be easy get consumed with looking at your feet, at the rocks and puddles along the way, and forget to take in the larger expanse, the view!

Why not do that right now?

Take a moment to zoom out. View your life’s journey from afar.

Where are you?

What have you accomplished thus far?

Part of why I appreciate her words is that they help us to remember to honor ourselves and the journey we have already undertaken.

What's Your Theme Song for 2023?

What's Your Theme Song for 2023?

January's already in full swing and yet it also feels as if the year has just begun! In part, that’s because of the giant gas ball of a planet, Saturn. According to Vedic astrology, it’s been in the sign of Capricorn for just about 2 years – pretty much the exact time we’ve been dealing with Covid!

And now it’s getting ready to move into Aquarius, meaning a new 2+ year period is getting launched! Supposedly, this period will be more calm and peaceful than the last one! Phew! 

In a way, thinking about this transit is exciting. It makes this time feel even more potent as a fresh start than a regular new year normally does. And it really begs the question, what do you want?

From my limited understanding, the invitation of this Saturn transit is for us to continue our individual and collective work towards greater harmony.

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.