Awakening To Your Spirituality Workshop

Many people come to spirituality looking for what's laying hidden deep within them already, spiritual studies merely bring it out into the open. We are born blessed with gifts: talents and abilities natural to our makeup, a Spirit Group of Guides, Teachers, Helpers, Allies, and Protectors. Bless them, they don’t give up on us. As we begin our spiritual awakening our awareness of the path we are walking allows us to see that we are not alone, that we are not helpless and we begin to grow into knowledge where we understand our potential and explore its fullness.

The Ancient Ones will rise up from the past to teach us if we do not have a physical teacher to work with. They teach of hidden knowledge or lost lore, of sacred truths, of ceremony and ritual and we are thus given permission to use that knowledge. Through experience we gain understanding and it becomes ours in essence only. We become keepers of this knowledge and we are taught by our Spirit Helpers and Teachers how to apply it and share with others. The Teachers, spiritual or physical, give us Songs, Dances, Teachings and more initiating us into understanding the role we are to take as we walk our spiritual path through rites of passage. This is how we know we can do these things and do them right because they have imparted to us the appropriate use and methods of application making sure we understand things. With our innate gifts we demonstrate through sensory abilities and physical talents adding the enlightenments into the mix and our knowledge becomes enhanced.

Honoring your own path and potential is enough. You should never feel you need to compete with someone else or allow the ego to lead you into competition. Your personal potential is a compilation of all that you are mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Along with your guidance and what that brings to you, your abilities and what you can do with them, your Gifts of Spirit and how you apply them ... serving and sharing who you are with others that cross your path, touching a life, one touch one life, at a time is enough. One or multitudes, what matters is that you touch in the best of ways you can. That’s how we make a difference. We all contribute to the quality of life this way.

Potential needs to be honored or it can be lost. If ignored it grows weak fading away and simply ceases to be effective. It's like a muscle...unused it will atrophy, abused it will suffer damage and thus so will we. Used appropriately and for the higher good it grows strong. The power we hold and learn to wield belongs to Spirit and the Earth Mother. The success of your work is because Spirit and Mother align through you as the conduit to Source Energy, to Mother and Spirit's Love and Grace, and you act as a Hollow Bone to channel it with love and grace directing it where it is needed. Your abilities are your gifts and your blessing for in the sharing and touching of lives others touch you back in the most beautiful and profound ways, energy always exchanges itself in one form or another. If all we do is give there is no room to receive and replenish ourselves and we grow weak. The balance of giving and receiving needs to be present always. Spirituality teaches us about balance, about harmony and the state of centeredness where all functions flow in synchronicity. If your life is unbalanced then you need to make a choice about what you are involved with and the cause you are so graciously serving. Is it serving or is it feeding insatiable needs in yourself or others? In that giving or exchange we share bonds through learning experiences because we do these things for the higher good. Those bonds are very special...even if we never touch again or if it’s many years between visits, the relationships hold respect when our touch has been a healthy one.

In respecting your abilities you learn to be humble and to give respect to the Great Ones as well as all those you come to know. This is done through passing your gratitude on through prayer and thanksgiving to the Source, to Creator and the Earth Mother from whom it all flows. If we are given the gifts of artistic talents, of mechanical ability, of technical skills, or any other physical aptitudes we tend to follow those paths into our careers. We're best in those areas and that’s where we excel toward our successes. We're already good at what we do or have the capability to become better. Our spiritual abilities are the same. The trick is learning that they can and are meant to intermix between the spiritual and mundane. We can and are meant to apply all that we are to any level of reality we happen to be facing at the moment. Spiritual gifts are as much a part of the physical reality as they are the dimensional realms and we need to remember they are in our pocket at all times and interconnected. We’re interconnected too we have a physical body and a spiritual body within us. We need to honor them both by using them appropriately in all that we do to fill needs with love and grace.

The NOW of Native teachings is where we are standing right at this moment; it is the present and the center of our existence. It is where we need to focus ourselves. From the present standpoint we can look back to learn from the past or forward to see where we’re going, but to get where we’re going we need to pay attention to where we are now. Native traditions have always ignored the clock. When we stop listening to that tick tock we are able to listen to the beat of our own heart in unison with Spirit and Mother. In that we enter the Oneness to see things more clearly. There's no pressure to be in the moment for we are there already, only the need to focus our awareness in the present. If you move with the current of the moment you are in the flow and productive. It is where you are meant to be and the contribution you make today, here and now matter most. Energy is the breath of Spirit, the pulse of life, the changes encountered through death and rebirth cycles in nature where the Mother brings forth manifestation. We are creators too when we align with Spirit and Mother.

Spiritually speaking, we are all Called to walk a path in life, to use our abilities to serve ourselves and others along the way. How we perceive that Call may vary. The Call to walk a spiritual path in any capacity or role is one we all share since we all have some special purpose in that regard, and somehow we need to find the path that's right for us. A Call to serve the Higher Good through the Great Ones is made to everyone, and the right path Calls to us as well. But how do we recognize it? What does it feel like? How do we respond? How do we validate it? Is it the same for everyone? These and other questions come to the minds of anyone who is exploring their path earnestly and wishing to discover the purpose they have come to this life to fulfill. What's yours? How do you find that out? How do you know it to be valid information?

I confronted these same questions over the years and in many cases had to find my own answers. There wasn’t anyone there to guide me initially, other than my Spirit Guides, and because of that I set out to validate the things they shared with me. I literally felt my way through the darkness into the light of understanding time and time again through trial and error. Believe me I took the long way but I wasn’t alone, guidance was there—even when I got frustrated or head-strong and tuned it out. Either from the standpoint of those starting to seek answers or from the perspective of those who have been there to demonstrate the variances within common ground we all have to pass through, we learn of our path one way or another. We need only honor the desire within our spirit to do so. It may help you sort through any confusion you are having and shine a light on issues you struggle to express or are shy about discussing for whatever reason if I address these questions.

How do we recognize our spiritual potential and the path before us? It is an inner drive to explore initially, a hunger that demands to be fed through insatiable curiosity. Your ears pick up when topics of interest are being addressed anywhere whether you’re directly involved in the conversation or not. Anything on the topic of interest catches your attention if you are within earshot. As you follow your curiosity and search areas of interest you come to find things that make sense. A sense of being "home" and comfortable with concepts being presented is felt deep within you. You KNOW, there is no questioning, you simply know and a door opens and hands reach out to welcome you home. Validations come in ways that can’t be ignored, be that one profound instance or several synchronistic events pointing to the same thing. You will learn what works for you that way, what fits into your reality. I believe very firmly that we are seeded with interests, dreams, and goals in life and for good reason. We are seeded in our spirit and it’s is up to us to nurture the seeds in healthy soil…in sound understanding of what their potential holds. If we pursue them our path naturally unfolds in the process, the very same path you’re on right now. It’s brought you here. It is taking you where you need to go. Honor that path and the now of this moment. Make the most of it you can.

As we trust in those seeds and their potential we find our interests begin to take in the spiritual landscape. We reach for the knowledge about this new environment and are guided through it by our Inner Spirit. To grow, our spirit needs to be recognized. This happens if we choose to awaken, to be aware enough. The light is shed by the Great Ones to follow the path we walk out of darkness and into the light of understanding. The Inner Spirit strives to get to the end of the dark tunnels we roam. Seeing those interests as seeds for the knowledge we need to gain initiates seeking to understand the sacred mystery of the spiritual realms. It’s our awareness and rising consciousness that allows the nurturing of growth and spiritual evolution to unfold. In awareness we must see not only the physical side of life but the spiritual side of life as well for the two are in truth One. Through understanding we create union between the two and walk forward aware of that Oneness—we are Awake.

What does it feel like? Finding your personal path can be comfortable with family or cultural tradition or a long and twisting road with a fascination to break free of tradition and expectation of others to honor one of your own. You may be drawn to the spiritual more than the religious or a combination of both. Likely there will be interest in folklore and mythology, the metaphysical and occult, world religions, and various cultural spiritual beliefs as truths are sought. You’d want to know what others teach and believe comparing that to your own spiritual experiences. You’ll need answers to questions held on many levels...philosophical musings, unexplainable experiences that did not fit with the "natural laws" of physics or science that life is supposed to conform to. These sources provide hints, clues, and paths to explore, but you’re not home yet, you’re just in the neighborhood. There is a need, a hunger inside that demands answers. You must seek those out as the questions will not leave you alone. That's what the Call to a Pathway feel like…a nagging need that will not leave you alone until you fulfill it.

The Call to serve is generally seeded as a knowing deep inside you. The reason you are here may be whispering to you through your spirit. Perhaps you just Know there is a message you are to pass on and help others awaken to spiritual awareness. You may have gifts and abilities to heal or foresee things that will benefit others in need and these gifts will call for you to understand them so you can use them. The Inner Spirit's role seeps through you as it’s about the need to connect to it and to the Great Ones in order to fulfill your destiny. You may not have words for it, but will feel it inside yourself…your Self. Through the years, and following areas of interest, that seed begins to sprout, nurtured along the way by truths that stand out as valid. Experiences that are "different", Spirit Guides, Spirit Teachers, physical teachers, books of knowledge and a multitude of other sources all begin to merge. Your abilities grow stronger and all this serves to validate what is taking place within you. The Call to serve grows louder. It gets deafening if you ignore it and drives you to find a way to respond to it either as an embrace or to shut it out.

That's when you open to the answers needed and through that willingness come the answers. We do have to open our eyes and become aware that guidance is with us and within us. Coming home will explain the process of getting there once you arrive, the bridges you’ve crossed, the convoluted path you may have walked, perhaps the understanding of many paths behind you and a natural acceptance of them being valid emerges and leads to the tolerance for all paths as being right for those who needed to walk them. As time passes guidance brings messages and enlightenments that point the way...to walk, to serve, to evolve and become the person you are right now, right here, today. Finding the path beneath you is when the Call begins to make a lot more sense. Things begin falling into place, and you know you are on the right path for you, perhaps not for another but for you it is right, you just know it. That knowing comes from your Inner Spirit and it stirs within you to say you are home. Consciously you agree. We serve our gifts and abilities with the knowledge and understanding we hold for it is our wisdom gained by these experiences. Again, it does not matter if we serve one single person or a multitude. What matters is our touch.

How do we respond to that insight? By recognizing the path that is right for you and walking it; and by recognizing that you are already on it. This allows more experiences to manifest for they have been waiting for you to explore them...placed along the way to appear at the right time for you to discover them, not someone else, they have their own enlightenments to discover but your path unfolds in Divine Timing. Those experiences are the lessons and if you willingly embrace them you grow at a fantastic pace that is right for you. It's an easier journey because things make sense and you’re not complicating matters with resistance. Your willingness is the initiator of that journey, a journey where the events along the way point you in the right directions and enhance the understanding of Self, your abilities and thus you begin to see where and how to use them. The trouble is we often resist our path fighting changes, the unknown in life and ourselves gives rise to fear of change, so we kick and scream our way through like a child having a tantrum if we don’t see the spiritual guidance around us—and sometimes even when we do. We’re silly that way, it’s not going to go away, we may deny it but it’s there in the background always whispering our name. Our spiritual awareness is a choice we all make. Spirit and Mother wake us from our slumber when the time is right for us to awaken. For some that is earlier in life than for others but the timing is Divine and should be respected, never forced upon someone. Force feeding only meets with resistance; the person simply can’t hold that insight yet.

The Call emerges and at the same time you see some of what your role is to be. That comes a step at a time until you are holding all the pieces to your puzzle of destiny and a picture begins to clearly emerge. That picture continues to evolve with us over time, but we grasp what it holds and we dwell within it as the seasons turn. We always have the choice to accept or reject things, and as we do embrace we lend more to our own efforts and the path that we'll walk. The trick is in honoring your Inner Spirit enough to let it take the lead. The trick is in trusting it enough to know that it has full knowledge of your purpose in life and will feed that to you as you go. It is accepting the truths that are being shown as they are shown and being patient enough to wait for them or to ask for guidance when we feel lost. All at once it would be too overwhelming, we couldn’t accept the fullness of our path initially, but a little at a time we are able to Witness and digest the information, to hold it. Once in our keeping we are to apply the understanding to ourselves, our needs in alignment with our visions and the way we interact with others. We’re to apply it to our abilities and honing them, to expanding them, to the way we conduct seeking enlightenments. It becomes clear that this is not something you start and stop, but a continuous journey and the illusion is that it is only a physical one. We come to see that the spiritual reality is the source of true guidance, and the physical reality is the vehicle by which we become mobile and able to experience manifesting that growth...but it requires a blending of the two to achieve balance and centeredness.

How do we validate it? Through experience, trusting the Self, and honoring our truths as they present themselves. Those truths are part of our reality and it truly is okay if our reality is different than someone else’s. We all perceive life through our own eyes and the physical world we know is an illusion in many ways. Yes, it is tangible, but we need to see that it is not the only reality, that others exist within it, that we achieve through intangibles as well, only to see them begin tangibly manifesting in the physical realm later. We must accept the seeding in a spiritual manner and nurture these spiritual roots through us in the fertile soil of Self with understanding. As the roots grow our spirits rise up and move us out into the world where we, as tender shoots, break ground and reach upward to become strong and beautiful. We can grow and do so once we embrace spiritual truths. Thus, by embracing experiences as lessons, teachers physical or spiritual when they come to us, knowledge and understanding where we find it and bringing that out into the world we co-create to manifest. We need to learn we acquire knowledge from guidance and others as it pertains to the path we walk. We receive our validations and come to see the way in which we serve that path...our purpose emerges just by being who we are and how we use our gifts to give back to others. Serving is simply responding to needs and giving of ourselves to make the world a better place no matter what capacity we hold to do that. Everything we do matters no matter how large or how small.

Is it the same for everyone? No, not when it comes to specific experiences. While those experiences may be similar with fundamental themes, patterns or cycles, the experiences themselves are like stages set for a play so that we can learn in ways that we relate to as the drama unfolds. They are very unique to our individual needs, thus we need to adapt in our own fashion and accept on our terms without blind faith, but the faith in ourselves to recognize and honor our truths. In this way we come to connect to our Guides, to Spirit, to the Earth Mother and our Inner Self. We see for ourselves the validation of that interconnectedness and our place in the Web of Life. This is how we acquire the tolerance we need for others in that process as we come to see they have their own way of learning, their pace, their lessons. If we are wise we remember what it took for us to get where we are and through the timing of the lessons that have challenged us. We then come to compassion for where they are at in their own evolution. If we are walking our path properly we can share knowledge if we are asked. We do this with discernment for the seeker must be ready to receive. If someone asks us for our knowledge we are obliged to help them understand what we share and it is through the sharing they reveal to us how much they can hold. We need to understand they are responsible for how they use it while not attaching to their outcome or what might be. They must walk their path, we must walk ours. If the two run parallel we can walk together but all paths have their twists and turns, the forks in the roads, and there are times we must part ways. It is meant to come at that point and we need to bless the parting with acceptance it is right for us both. It is important to employ discernment in who we share with and to be certain they will honor what we give, but in that we are to give what we can appropriately. Knowledge is meant to be passed on honorably.