“Spiritual direction is the process of accompanying people on a spiritual journey. Spiritual direction helps people tell their sacred stories every day. Spiritual direction exists in a context that emphasizes growing closer to God (or the holy or a higher power). Spiritual direction invites a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. Spiritual direction offers a place to explore prayer practices, meditation, spiritual experiences, and our growing desire for significance.  Spiritual direction is not psychotherapy, counseling, or financial planning.

Spiritual direction is specific to your spiritual journey. If you are taking the first steps to learn to pray, or have been meditating for decades, spiritual direction is valuable. Taking into consideration your unique personality and temperament, spiritual direction is a place to reflect on how to pray, your ongoing or unfolding spiritual practices, and the stages of spiritual development in the life of a sincere seeker. Like prayer, contemplation and meditation, spiritual direction nourishes the spiritual aspect of being human, allowing us to serve with authenticity and grateful hearts.”

Quote from Spiritual Directors International Website

I like to refer to Spiritual Direction as walking with a soul friend, as in the previous post where I quoted John O’Donohue. A “soul friend” is one who listens to you with one ear and to the Divine with the other ear. ( Its why we were given two of them). A soul friend is able, through the art of Sacred Listening, to help you to discern where your Divinity   ( your soul) is guiding you and speaking to you through the experiences you are having in your life. I take this a step further in my practice to see where this is living in your physical body. What do you notice in your physical body that is calling your attention?  There are many different ways Spirit communicates with us, and often times we don’t have the discernment that enables us to figure out what this is. This is where a Spiritual Director comes in. It is in that place of active listening that the Director or guide comes in to point out the subtle signs that your soul/body is sending your way. For those of us who seek a deeper understanding of the Divine this is an important piece in becoming more aware, more awake to our higher selves and therefore becoming  more whole in our Divine purpose.  May we all be blessed with such a ’soul friend’  in our lives.

Soul Connection

Mind connects to heart

Heart connects to Soul

Soul connects to Divinity

All are within and through me

I breathe with my soul’s breath

And knowing permeates my body

My soul has been with me since the beginning of time

And will be with me until the end of time

As I connect in this incarnation

I know my purpose

The cloud of unknowing is no more

Only by connecting within do I feel my soul’s essence

Only by bringing it forth do I allow it to shine

I ask to be congruent with its essence

I ask for clarity in my purpose

And honor what was agreed to in my soul’s fusion with this body

I am blessed with connection

I am blessed with purpose

I am blessed with divinity

I breathe with my soul’s breath

I am on fire, my soul ignited

In love, in life

I walk my souls path

And I am set free….

by Joanna Salerno

May you be blessed with good friends,

May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.

May you be able to journey to that place in  your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness.

May this change you.

May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you.

May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging.

May you treasure your friends.

May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth,

and light you need for your journey.

May you never be isolated.

May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with with your anam cara.  (soul friend)

by John O’Donohue

Choosing a New Start

a message from The Council of 12 channeled by Selacia
DEcember 30

A new cycle is about to begin. People in every corner of the world are moving into juxtaposition in order to take part in a quantum leap in consciousness.

If you have felt that you are in waiting mode, or that you have had a setback, remember the massive amounts of preparations you and others are making and have made. Put away your linear yardstick. Acknowledge that there is an accumulation of efforts involved, and sometimes your human self doesn’t see the whole picture.

To be sure, your efforts are individual, yet they are also cooperative as great numbers of people wake up and begin to connect energetically to create positive changes.

The initial phases of humanity’s transformational shifting, underway for a very long time, have led you to where you find yourself now. Some of this evolutionary growth you experienced before this incarnation, as you were preparing for what would occur during this pivotal life. As an example, you may have previously incarnated with people who you would meet again this time, helping one another to progress spiritually.

In this lifetime, you have encountered one or more wake up calls causing you to seriously challenge the status quo. There is no correct way for this process to occur, so avoid the temptation to label your experience or compare it with that of others.

Your Catalyzing Life Event
Your catalyzing life event could have been losing a job, experiencing a financial reversal, moving to a new place, divorcing your partner, facing a debilitating illness, or experiencing some other major change in circumstance. Any one or a number of these could have stirred a deep inner discontent and questioning of things you never before questioned. When this happens, it’s really a nudge from your soul, waking you up and guiding you to travel the path of spirit.

In today’s upheaval, people are oftentimes receiving what may appear to be more than one wake up call simultaneously. Also, people can have supplemental wake up calls a long time after their initial one.

Meaning of Wake Up Calls
If either of these is your situation, consider the following. First, the typical progression from wake up call to full awakening is anything but usual these days. You live in very different times, never before seen on the planet.

Humanity and the Earth are ascending, in a process that is leading to a more enlightened existence. You and others like you on the path of Light are creating a brand new way to co-exist and be. You did not have the same opportunities for awakening in earlier lifetimes.

Likewise, before this life you did not share the planet with so many people, nor was it possible for such a significant shift in consciousness to occur for the masses. Your wake up call, then, in the previous life had a different meaning, scope and potential impact.

Your Soul is Preparing You for Success
The second factor is this. Wake up calls in modern times are the soul’s way of preparing you to succeed on your path of Light during humanity’s shift. Your first one tends to set the stage for what follows.

If you pay attention to the first one, taking the opportunity to assess your life and noticing the nudges of your soul, you are redirected to a different course. How you respond to that redirection, and what actions you take, help to determine your forward spiritual progression.

As an example, if you respond to your soul’s nudges with an attitude of willingness and acceptance, your road ahead will have fewer bumps. The learned tendency, of course, is to resist change and to want to maintain the status quo.

When you are in resistance, you are likely to be blocked from receiving your inner guidance from spirit. The guidance is there, but you cannot access it. Instead, you may simply feel anger and alienation. These responses can leave you feeling disempowered and a victim of your outer circumstances.

The Process of Awakening
Here is the third factor. Despite how willing and accepting you are, and how connected you are to the nudges of your soul, your awakening is a process and not a single event. Remember that during this most precious human life, you have the potential of quantum levels of awakening not before possible!

This means that you may be a seasoned traveler-familiar with wake up calls and practiced in responding effectively-yet you won’t be complete with your awakening journey until you really ARE complete. Your ego-self can and will try to convince you that you represent a finished product. You can fool yourself into thinking you are fully enlightened, with no more awakening to experience.

This ego-based response is particularly prevalent within circles of lightworkers who compare themselves with the general populace. Certainly, when you compare yourself on a surface level with the masses that remain asleep, you are leaps and bounds ahead. Comparisons are a trick of the ego, though, and can derail you when you least suspect it.

Ready for The Big Changes
The fourth factor relates to readiness. How ready do you feel, on an everyday basis, for the big changes about to occur? Is your enthusiasm for positive change waning as you envision what’s ahead? Do you feel prepared to take on the challenges that are sure to come? Are you willing to go deeper within yourself to access the more stable sense of empowerment you will need to navigate the unpaved road ahead? Are you able to step back from the world’s fear-based messages often enough to stay in your center?

To be enmeshed in such a gigantic shifting process as you face today can take its toll. You likely are feeling impacted on a number of levels. The obvious includes your outer conditions involving your home, work, finances, human relationships, and physical health.

Other key elements include your emotional stability and repetitive thought patterns. These will determine the meaning you place on current events, and will trigger limiting belief systems recorded in your DNA. Examples are commonly-held beliefs involving lack, failure, and authority figures having power you can’t access. As belief systems such as these are catalyzed, your ability to successfully respond to crisis is compromised.

Most likely, you are being challenged beyond what you think your limits are. A part of you intuitively knows that much of your current world functioning is out of sync with where you want to be headed.

It’s not just the world financial system, now knee-deep in crisis. It’s virtually every sector of your old paradigm society that has been based on fear, greed, and ego-based manipulation. Each of these worn-out structures will need radical reshaping over the coming years.

The year 2009 is a turning point, for it is the start of several years of reconfiguration. The reshaping involved will be both personal and global.

Remember Your Role
The fifth factor is remembering your role. That means letting go of fear-based human conditioning that tells you some outside force is coming to the rescue. That same conditioning tells you that you are flawed, need fixing, need to be told what to do, and are simply lacking in what it takes to succeed this life.

It may feel comforting to imagine an advanced group of beings from the stars coming to save you and the planet. Is it also comforting to imagine that, without such intervention, you would be helpless and fail at what you came to Earth to do?

Certainly, life does exist beyond the planet you now call home. And to be sure, there are boundless intelligent life forms existing that your scientists and governments have yet to make public. Some of these life forms have been in regular contact with humanity, and not just in recent decades.

Have you ever wondered where YOU came from? Has anyone ever told you that YOU are Divine? Have you ever associated your humanness with a Divine imprint that is eternal?

Remember that you, as a Divine Changemaker, are an integral part of the shift. The key changes involve shifts in consciousness within individuals such as you. As you make these, and then interact with others and society, there is a domino effect.

Underneath the layers of falseness you unknowingly took on in human form, you really know the truth. At the core of your being, there is really no doubt about who you are, why your human experiences are such a gift, and how you are meant to be on Earth now to forever change the landscape for humankind.

In the early weeks of 2009, world leaders and people everywhere will be taking stock and choosing what will play out in this next phase. Some of this choosing will be conscious, with people being aware of what they are choosing. On other levels, the choosing will take place under the radar, masquerading as something like inaction or avoidance.

Checklist for a New Start
What kind of new start would you like to choose? What would you like 2009 and the next few years to look like? How do you see yourself taking your place alongside other Divine Changemakers? Consider these questions and the following as you envision what you want to create next. Invite your heart’s wisdom to guide you as you reflect on these ideas.

Biggest Obstacle
What is my biggest obstacle faced in 2009?
What can I do differently that will resolve this?
What resources have I not yet used fully that could help me resolve this?
How can I involve spirit more in resolving obstacles such as this?

Biggest Choice
What is the biggest choice I must make in 2009?
What’s the big picture surrounding this choice?
How will my making this choice, and acting on it, change my life?

Greatest Allies
Who are my greatest allies on my path of Light?
Who helps me to find my center when I get off track?
Who in my circle connects me with laughter and lightness of being?
Who teaches me the most about myself?
Who helps me to connect with spirit?
Who helps me to connect with my inner truth?

Greatest Opportunities
In what direction will I find expanded opportunities?
Who are the people I am meant to serve?
How do I find and connect with these people?
What can I change in what I offer to be of most service to these people?
What is the one thing to let go of for greater success?
How do I get in the way of my own success?
What can I offer that will be in demand in any economic climate?
What do I need to know or do in order to successfully offer this to the world?

As you continue the journey of rediscovering your Divine nature, we surround you with our love and blessings. We are The Council of 12.

Copyright 2008 by Selacia, Channel for The Council of 12 * All Rights Reserved * www.Selacia.com

Just sitting here being.. Being in a comfortable state of mind.. No looking back, no looking forward.. surrendering all attachment to end result.. this is peace, in this moment. There is chaos all around me… The kids are home, packing to leave in the morning for our trip up north.. their friends are over, the phone is ringing, the TV is on full blast.. And me, I am just being. Sometimes peace just happens no matter what is going on around me.. I love times like this.. Going with the flow, feeling free and just being me.

My husband Tony started the tradition years ago when the kids were little. We would wake up early before they got up and he would put the coffee on, pour in the Baileys and we would sit in the living room looking at the lights on the tree, talk quietly and anticipate the look on our kids faces when they saw what ‘Santa’ had brought them…It was my favorite part of Christmas day and I think it was his too.. As the kids grew and changed those Christmas mornings with Bailey’s were a constant. The first Christmas after Tony died, two priests from my church heard of the Christmas tradition and showed up on my doorstep early that Christmas morning to share Bailey’s and coffee with me, together we sat in front of the Christmas tree, looked at lights and talked quietly. Their gift of time to me that first Christmas without my husband was one I will never forget. Since then I have shared this tradition with friends, a couple of years with a lover, and now that they are older, my kids( of course they don’t get up as early as I do) And so this Christmas morning I will get up, put on the coffee, pour in the Bailey’s, sink into the couch and look at the lights on the Christmas tree and I will remember with bittersweet clarity all the the Christmas mornings that have passed and I will smile. Thank you, Tony

as I woke I found myself reflecting on manifestation and thoughts…its the mind set that as we think.. we create and manifest, but this morning I was pondering if this is really true, or is it possible that as things manifest we are given the thought..???? So… here is what I was dreaming last night…. I was walking in this huge building and all the people that David knew, spoke to, coached or touched in some way were there as well as all the people that those people knew, spoke to helped or touched and it was thousands of us all connected and connecting… The faces were all familiar and smiling, laughing, talking, vibrating at such an incredible frequency that the energy was tangible and visible. Big screens were placed in different rooms.. as there were too many people to fit in just one place and we were there to listen to each others stories of how our lives had been changed by one another. This is what is being manifested here at this moment in time.. as each of us write and read these blogs, as we meet, and touch each other, even for a second or speak only one word to a stranger, we have been given the gift of this connection, this energetic exchange and we watch and listen as we change each other by our vibration and our light. So what comes first the thought or the manifestation? I allow myself to enter into the mystery, knowing that I have no need to know the how’s or the why, I allow myself to lie in the hammock of mystery, to bask in the questions, to watch as it unfolds before me…and my only response is Yes.