Tag: catalysis

BE the Grasshopper: How to Create Your Ideal Life One Leap at a Time

~ soulunfold ~ Leave a comment

A co-worker and friend once told me, “E, you always make so much meaning out of your life.  I like how you put things together into a story.”  She has always been a keen observer of human nature, and she had a point.  I make meaning out of the seemingly random observations of my everyday life, both my physical and my spiritual lives (arguably they are two sides of the same coin, but you will have to read my book to see what I mean there).

You can do this too, and I’ll tell you why it’s a great practice.  Narrative is one of the most powerful survival tools given to humans.  Narrative weaves cultures together, starting all the way back to when stories were passed down by word of mouth and painted and carved by firelight.

Narrative brings meaning to life.  And meaning is what drives us forward.  Without meaning, we are pinwheeling through a sea of chaos, which is exhilarating and hopeless and horrifying, but still, we build a narrative to explain that, too, the narrative that nothing matters because there is no end game and no reason for existence and you either follow rules for comfort’s sake or live in anarchy, but nothing really matters.

It is true.  We live in a world of disorder, a two-sided Janus of a Universe built on opposing poles of chaos and yet infinite, magical wonder, right down to seeing the Golden Ratio in a leaf’s design and the beauty of the tides and their magical, yet dependable movements. We are disorder and order infinitely and miraculously woven into complex designs that only beings beyond our reach could have engineered.

We are a narrative built of the energy created when polar opposites revolve around one another, and we cannot escape this story.  Even the endings of our stories are just another part of the narrative structure.  Think about it like this—your life structure follows a narrative that you have created through your actions.  Most of this narrative you wrote yourself, with some of the structure gifted to you by forces out of your control.

Each one of us is a narrative within a greater narrative, and each of our physical lives is part of a soul’s greater, overarching narrative.  Starting to see the structure now?  Each thread of the tapestry is composed of millions of other threads, all weaving together to create one big book.

In keeping wzth my own narrative, at the end of every day, I love to spend a few minutes with my journal, piecing the events of the day together and making sense out of the signs and symbols sent my way.  I aid it along with mini readings for myself, as well, and I string each day together to see the overarching trends of my soul’s direction and what my spirit guides are urging me toward.  It is an incredibly easy and fulfilling practice that anyone can do—and you will find yourselves more spiritually attuned and feel your soul growing and reaching when doing this practice. You will feel more connected to the Divine in a personal, comforting way than you have ever been before.  There are even mediums among you, some of you who have not yet fully discovered your own abilities.  This is the practice that will bring those abilities to shine.

So last night, I worked in my journal, then in the minutes before sleep, I sought some inspiration in fitness boards on Pinterest, then looked at the savvy workout program I have created for myself.  I thought “I’ll wake up in the morning and do my workout.  Nothing’s going to stop me.”

Well, the Sandman stopped me, but not for long.  After I had readied myself for the day, I was on my way out the door but heard a loud noise coming from the direction of the window air conditioner.  I went over to check it out and realized I had to add a shim to the window to stop the rattling.  As I looked for the perfect spot for the shim, I encountered a horrifying object.

A 4” grasshopper crouched at eye level, daring me to do something about his presence.  I am terrified of insects—just a visceral, lizard-brain reaction takes over and I can hardly focus when one is nearby.  However, I finished shimming the window, finished my locking up, and went to work.  I probably should have identified the grasshopper being so high up, so large and so insistently in my face as a sign from Spirit, but I did not realize that until I was in the car and my fight or flight response had finished hurling insults at the little green monster.

I thought throughout the day about the significance of the grasshopper, and my intuition told me it was important. I researched the symbolism and there it was.  In some Native American traditions, the grasshopper is a symbol of making dreams come true, of grounding your dreams to the Earth, yet also making them fly.  The message suddenly unfolded before me, and I pulled an angel card to see if I was definitely on the right track.

The angel card that came up stated “Healthy Lifestyle.”  The grasshopper was there to remind me of my dreams, telling me to bring them to life, nudging me with a note about how I prayed for help with my fitness and how I need to make consistent steps to making it happen.  Because I like nothing more than to see good messages come in threes, I also queued up my music player for a random song, and it played a song titled “Vrkshasana,” which translates to “being grounded without being inflexible.”  It is notably also a song with a picture of a woman doing yoga on the front of it, and yoga is one of my favorite fitness practices.

The cherry on top, though, was last night, in pure, effortless synchronicity, I heard two quotes stand out from a show I was watching on Netflix with my boyfriend.

Pennsatucky: Man, do you know what it means when there ain’t nobody up there punishing the evildoers? It means there ain’t nobody giving out prizes for the good ones neither; ‘Cuz there ain’t no judge. There ain’t no justice. We just crawl around this earth like ants…
[pause]
Pennsatucky: And then we die.
Then, perhaps somewhat unbelievably, later on in the show, long before I came face-to-face with the jumping green monster on my window:
So-So:  BE the grasshopper.

BE the grasshopper, Erica.  Dare to jump, therefore to fly.  Exercise.  Become both supple and strong.  These are important elements to living my best life.  Important elements to bringing forth the narrative I want to create with every breath I take in this incarnation.

Later in the day today, someone close to me also reminded me to take the vitamins I have been neglecting to take for weeks.  Guess what?  Those amazing vitamins made me feel great, allowing me to power through my day’s work until 9:30 p.m., then create this blog post. They also help me stay motivated for morning workouts.

One of the elements of this world for which I am most grateful is cause and effect. Throw a rock, hear a splash.  Put effort into something, it will respond.  That is the beauty of this world, that we can make an impact, we can effect change, because with change comes transformation, and transformation is the whole reason we move around this Earth.

Cause and effect.

Call and response.

Some people would call this naiveté on my part, but I don’t believe we are destined to just crawl aimlessly around this Earth until we die.  We are the meaning makers, we are the storytellers.  The truth is, the world IS chaos.  It IS meaningless.  It IS designed to make us question meaning, to make us think there is nothing beyond it.  We are given the tools to MAKE meaning.  We are the narrative, we are the myth makers, the legend creators, the heroes and the villains.

Like Joan Didion said, we tell ourselves stories to survive.  We shout into the wilderness and we are the voices that record on the ages.  We are also swallowed up by the vastness of the Universe and snuffed out like candles at a moment’s notice.

Today, my story is about bringing my dreams to light, and yours.  My spirit guardians are guiding me toward fitness, telling me to take that first leap, and even right now as I write this, I see one of my guides making a grasshopper leap in my third eye to show me that if I just try, if I just give it some effort, they will take that effort and expand it, turn it into a miraculous leap forward, like the huge (yes I was horrified when I saw it, anybody who knows me knows I was horrified) 4″ grasshopper exploding effortlessly almost 6′ up to my window to remind me of my role in bringing my dreams to light.  Tomorrow, I will finally wake up as early as I need to and start my new regimen.  And my guardians will make sure that my results are faster and more powerful than I could have dreamed.

In making that pact, I turn back to you, because you are my true focus here.  I already know my path, and I am following it as my guardians light the way, 6′ in the headlights at a time.  My question for you this post is simple and it’s also a challenge.

What story will YOU write today?

The Single Psychic: French Night

~ soulunfold ~ 2 Comments

The single life. As a young girl, I fantasized about becoming the ideal adult single woman, drinking Perrier, eating French bread, hanging impossibly eye-attracting art on the wall, living aloofly with similarly aloof cats, generally being cool and mysterious (stop laughing, people who have met me). As a single woman, I have been slumping lately and not fully living out the single lady life I promised my tween self.

I am having a good hair day though:

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The Single Psychic (thes inglelady.com)

I don’t read enough books (Mary Karr’s Lit has been woefully ignored on my nightstand for months). I do enjoy fashion, but I could stand to pull it together and organize my closet and jewelry drawer, then create a fabulous outfit for every day. I entertain a bit, which is good, and I am always penciling the next blog post (or 4 at a time). I’m not changing my living space as much as I would if I were focused on enjoying my life.

And dammit, I am in an eternal struggle with finding Perrier in cans, or reaching it on the shelf at the store.

So, like thousands before me, I decided to make an attempt at curating the life I always wanted.  I am using my secret Pinterest vision board for inspiration, and I am going to blog about it as I go, mostly because I’m a sucker for a good narrative. I also figured SoulUnfold was getting a little high-minded due to my love of theoretical musings, and could use a dash of cat hair.

The first Single Psychic adventure went off last night exactly as I would want it to. My personal psychic (even a psychic needs a psychic) came over to help me salt seal my apartment against negative energy. This is her with my kitty Bucket, sometimes known as Sir Buckington, le chat who hates his purple scarf:

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She came up with the idea of “French night” a few weeks ago.  We regularly exchange reading time because it’s hard to read for yourself as a psychic. What you all may find particularly interesting (yay for me always burying the lead) is that I also found it necessary to salt seal the apartment yesterday due to the text I received that morning from my super, asking me about a “recording” my neighbor could hear repeating through the wall.

I unplug my electronics when they are not in use, so that recording could not have come from anything I own. Just in case it was an issue, as I do live in a very old building, I immediately reached out to my fellow single Psychic and she showed up at our French night, sea salt in hand.  We created a saltwater mix, blessed it, and ran a line along every window and doorway in the area, then I burned more sage and we sealed the main doorway again with more saltwater, sage and prayers. It was a very silent night after she left, as this sort of practice will remove the “background energy” you are accustomed to feeling in a living space, and make it feel almost too silent.

French night was a rousing success!  We had a beautiful rosé wine, bubbly French pink lemonade from Trader Joe’s (mix them, you will not regret it) and 5 different French cheeses to sample:

A beautiful wine we mixed with pink lemonade and tall tales that may not turn out to be so tall after all.
Cheese and Tarot await two single psychics.

It was exactly the kind of evening my 11-year-old self imagined my adult self having. My psychic friend’s French tarot cards (le jeu de Tarot) had a frisky energy to them, and they loved to bound out of the deck and declare themselves as we dealt. Here M explains a particularly cheeky message the cards were displaying (no I’m not telling you, it’s mildly scandalous):

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Overall, I loved French night and it felt like the perfect kickoff to rediscovering my psychic single self. I am already considering new adventures to try over the summer and hopefully share with you, in between my more spiritually and theoretically inclined articles.  As I learned while writing about Catalysis, it’s time for me to encourage werifesteria in my life:

werifesteria: To wander longingly through the forest in search of mystery.

This sounds like the perfect time to encourage the cultivation of newness, excitement and renaissance in my life.I hope you join me in my travels this summer–let me know if you want to see more.

In love, light and werifesteria,

Erica

 

Catalysis

~ soulunfold ~ 1 Comment

As a medium, I often encounter clients who refuse to acknowledge signs of change. Spirit communicates with us in every way that we can sense-through occurrence, thought, feeling, dreams, sight, smell, sound, touch, taste, intuition, you name it. Your life has a story arc, a narrative structure, that did not happen by accident or entirely by your conscious design. Your life unfolds according to a basic blueprint prescribed by you and your soul group when you are in Heaven, then you add the details on the fly here on Earth as you live out your lessons, some in triumph, some in despair. To guide you along that narrative, Spirit throws signs in your path, directing you toward necessary change. When you studiously ignore those signs and bluster forward while looking behind, Spirit has a way of opening the blinds.

Just when you need it, Spirit sends a catalyst to spark and accelerate change in your life, enabling you to transform. That catalyst often feels like all hell breaking loose, or as a friend of mine recently put it, “a series of WTF moments” (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, of course).

What brings me to talk to you today about catalysis is what brings me to talk to you about anything, any day.  The word “catalytic” appeared to me three times (plus one for good measure) this past week in very distinct and separate occasions, clearly pointing to a message. The message is that transformation and freedom from pollution and stagnation in life require a catalyst, and to allow Spirit to send catalysts into your life, you need to embrace the Unknown. It’s time to flirt with disaster, to set off on a journey, even if it’s a metaphorical one. It’s time for a grand adventure.

The word catalysis refers to an increase in the rate of a chemical reaction. The first instance of “catalytic” last week occurred about 10 feet from me in a Walmart store.  It was humorous enough to catch my attention and make me chuckle while I shopped.  A young lady told her gentleman companion that the “Cadillac converter” in her car had “gone bad.”  The gentleman kindly corrected her with “catalytic,” inspiring her to say “I don’t even know how LONG you can DRIVE a car with a bad Cad-cata-CONVERTER.” For all of his knowledge of pronunciation, the young man also did not know the answer to this question. More to come on that later, as the answer, apparently, is “forever, it is not intrinsic to the operation of the vehicle” (courtesy of my research and my own gentleman companion).

With the Cadillac converter long forgotten, I set off on an adventure to the movies Saturday night to see “The Nice Guys” with Ryan Gosling and the lovely Russell Crowe.  A major plot point in the movie centered around the emergence of catalytic converters in the automobile industry and what it meant for preventing air pollution.  Oddly enough, I and my gentleman partner were unaware of this plot point going in, and he had noted that he thought he saw smog lying near the ground as we drove to the mall that evening.

This, my friends, is not a long, boring story for much longer.  This is synchronicity #2, Catalysis edition. Still just a series of coincidences, however, that I chalked up to “life is funny.”

That was, until the next day, Sunday, when, feet on the dash of the car in the pouring rain, I read aloud a truly excellent horoscope written by Rob Brezsny in a local paper. The horoscope (for my sign) ended with:

Now is an excellent time to reap the catalytic benefits of being willingly lost in a wild, idyllic, relaxing setting.

Well, what do you know.  Spirit is trying to talk to me about catalysis.  I proceeded to meditate on the subject of catalysis, and to read everything I could find about how catalytic converters work.

Essentially, a catalytic converter sets off a chemical reactiont that converts emissions into less harmful gases. It spurs and accelerates a reaction to ultimately result in reduced pollution-cleaner air, greater clarity.

I also asked Spirit through my music player to help me further understand their message. The lyrics were daunting:

You were my fire, so I burned, ’til there was nothing left of me

I, I touched your face, I held you close, ’til I could barely breathe

Why give me hope, then give me up, just to be the death of me

Save the rest of me-“Hesitate,” Stone Sour

Catalysis is about igniting a reaction, firing up an essential change in the elements at play. It is about burning off what existed before until there is nothing left of it and creating something new, and in the case of a catalytic converter, it is about breathing easier.  The final sign was undeniable.

Breaking the messages down to their basic elements, we have a repeated message about a catalyst.  Catalysts set off reactions, they spark change. A catalytic converter, at the heart of this synchronicity, results in less pollution in the air and is better for all surrounding life. It clears the air and presents stagnation.

What the angels and Spirit are telling me is that they want me to experience more of life, to allow for change, because change leads to transformation. To willingly enter a time of uncertainty and allow it to be a catalyst for positive change can be wildly refreshing. Embracing change and opening space for a new version of yourself allows you to create a platform from whatever life throws at you next and to build on it, instead of holding onto the past and being shoved into the future by a catalyst you could not have foreseen.

Faith and trust are important at times like these. I have experienced catalysts before, including when I was first building my mediumship. The catalyst for my psychic development was being initiated into the practice of Reiki. A channel opened up to the Divine during the very first attunement and I never looked back.

Probably the most moving catalyst I have ever encountered is a man named Ken Baldwin. He was written about by journalist Tad Friend in an article in The New Yorker titled “Jumpers.”  Friend captures the memory of Baldwin leaping from the Golden Gate Bridge, stating:

As he crossed the chord in flight, Baldwin recalls, “I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was totally fixable—except for having just jumped.”

Baldwin’s catalyst was leaping from a bridge known for ushering in many gruesome deaths.  But Baldwin survived to tell his incredible story, and, wherever he may be right now, that one act of bravery, of telling that story to a journalist for The New Yorker, has saved someone. That act has given someone the catalyst to achieve a new mindset, to look at life from a new perspective. When i’m in times of despair and anxiety and I just don’t know where to turn next, I think about Ken Baldwin.  I consider that moment of perfect clarity as he arced through the air, and I think about how my busy mind would snap to and solve all of my problems as I spun out of control, rear over teakettle, like he did.

This, my friends, was one of my early catalysts, my spark for change in the depths of depression.   I share this story with you not for sympathy, because I am miraculously strong and healed now, on most days. I share it because, essentially, stories like this enable others to heal and to step into an imaginary space with a new perspective, without actually leaping to imminent danger.

I share it only because I want you to answer a question for me, and for you. First, gather all of your most pressing problems, and sit in front of a computer or a pen and paper. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine Ken Baldwin taking that last step.

What solutions do you see?

In love and light,

Erica