Category: Spirit

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Happy Fall Equinox

Today is Mabon, the Fall Equinox. The day and night are equal. The sun rises due east and sets due west. This is the harvest of fruits. Lammas (August 1st) began the harvest season with harvesting grains. In Greece it was the time of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a major initiation. It’s also my granddaughter’s birthday, and she’s bringing us a new life next year!

I remember watching my grandmother and her daughters can during August and September. She had a wood stove, so this was quite an undertaking. Someone stoked the fire, another cleaned the jars, another put the jars in the big pot to sertilize them. Then others were cutting up vegetables or fruits, putting them in the pot to cook just a bit. Then there was getting it in the jars, a touchy business. My favorite was waiting for the tops to seal with a wonderful pop. I was very young then, always underfoot until Grandmother decided to put me to work keeping the fire in the stove burning. It was hot in that kitchen, before air conditioning.

It’s harvest time. Time to enjoy the fruits of your garden, trees, writing, work and life.

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Crystal Skulls

Mystery writer Steve Berry puts a section at the end of his books that talks about what’s real and what’s made up. Yes, mystery and fantasy  writers do research and use it in their novels. What we do with that research is sometimes made-up, but it’s the mix of the real and the imagined that makes for a compelling read.

In Beneath the Hallowed Hill, Megan attends an Emergence Ceremony at the age of thirteen to discover her place in Atlantean society. She travels with her parents to the Temple of the Oracle where she consults with a circle of crystal skulls.

Crystal skulls do exist. Crystal skull researcher Nick Nocerino classified three types of crystal skulls:  contemporary (less than 100 years old), old (more than 100 years old), and ancient (more than 1,000 years old). There are thousands of contemporary crystal skulls carved in Latin America and China predominantly.

But why? After all, the skull and cross bones is used to label poison. We think of them as representing evil. Mexican and Latin cultures use these skulls on the Day of the Dead and to meditate on death, but the Maya see these skulls as images of enlightenment.

Why enlightenment? Next time you’re in a crowd of people, look around at all the faces. Notice how different everyone is. Yes, we have two eyes, one nose and mouth, etc. (for the most part), but we all have particular features and are each different from the other. But imagine the bone beneath the face. Imagine the skull. They all look alike.

The skull represents this underlying sameness. It represents Divine Consciousness, that I Am presence that we all are at our very foundation.

Are there really ancient crystal skulls? We’ll talk about that in another post.

This was the day I met Stephen
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Is Enlightenment Possible?

At the end of Under the Stone Paw, the characters who are carrying crystal keys go into the temple beneath the Sphinx and they all slip into a higher state of consciousness. I describe it this way: “Just as a river surrenders to the sea, all their limitations simply washed away. A door opened in their unified mind, an ancient door containing certain knowledge.”

At the beginning of Beneath the Hallowed Hill, Michael asks Anne if she misses being in that state of consciousness:  “In the temple, when we all merged, that moment of—” he searched for the right word, “—illumination.” Anne turned back to the road. Now they were driving through a tunnel of trees. “It was real, then.” Michael nodded.

All the spiritual traditions agree with Michael. Humans can experience enlightenment. When I was studying to become a meditation teacher, I learned a simple way to describe different states of consciousness in terms of the objective measurements of the physiology and the subjective
human experience. In other words, a physiologist could read our measurements in another room and know which state of consciousness we are likely experiencing.

Let’s start with the ones we’re most familiar with. In waking state, the brain expressed beta waves, our blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen consumption is at an active rate. Objectively, we experience what we call the real world, external reality.

In the sleeping state of consciousness, the brain goes into theta and delta waves. The heart rate slows, along with blood pressure and oxygen consumption. Objectively, we are not aware of anything. During dreams, the brain goes into alpha and the heart rate and other measurements can rise. We also experience rapid eye movement. Subjectively, we experience our own private movie. Humans don’t call this the real world, but
think of dreams as messages from our deeper selves. Of course, this can be more complicated, but for now, that’s enough.

Maharishi, my meditation teacher, talked about other states of awareness, starting with transcendental consciousness. This is that state we sometimes reach in mediation or listening to music or sitting in nature where the mind quiets down completely and merges with the larger divine consciousness that we are all an expression of. In this state, our brain waves are synchronous across the hemispheres, a very rare occurrence, and we experience alpha and theta waves. Our body’s activity slows to a deep state of rest. The breath rate slows and breathing is shallow. The heart beats very slowly. Yet subjectively, we are cmpletely awake, but the mind is quiet. We are not aware of anything. We become Awareness itself.

The purpose of meditation, contemplative prayer, and other spiritual practices is to reach a state in which this connection with the root  awareness of the universe is constantly there. We do not lose touch with it again. Our individual awareness floats like a small boat on top of the ocean of universal consciousness. Subjectively, we feel whole. What we need to know is delivered to us through that universal awareness. Our actions are in harmony with the laws of nature. Maharishi called this Cosmic Consciousness.

Many spiritual traditions discuss this state of consciousness. Rumi and the Sufis call the Divine Consciousness the Beloved and writes eloquently and poignantly of the human yearning to unite with the Divine Beloved. “A craftsman pulled a reed from the reedbed, cut holes in it, and called it a human being. Since then it has been wailing a tender agony of parting, never mentioning the skill that gave it life as a flute.” We yearn to reconnect.

Christ said, ‎”Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” Western metaphysics speaks of the individual consciousness climbing the Tree of Life like a snake (kundalini) and finally resting its head just beneath the Crown, the great I Am presence.

The spiritual traditions agree. Enlightenment is your birthright. That’s why I love exploring higher states of consciousness in ordinary humans in my novels.

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Guest Blogger A.J. Walker–Ancient Monuments

Beneath the Hallowed Hill is set in Avalon, home of the Tor and the Twin Springs. One scene takes place in Avebury, the largest megalithic monument in the world. Medievalist and archaeologist A.J. Walker drops by to talk about ancient stone monuments in “Fertility, chastity, and ancient monuments.”

The landscape of Western Europe is dotted with megalithic ruins as well as strange natural rock formations. These enigmatic stones have created an entire mythology around them that’s probably only vaguely related to their original purpose.

Take this naturally cleft stone pictured above in this photo courtesy of Lisa Jarvis. It’s a naturally occurring rock on top of a Celtic hill fort at Traprain Law in Scotland. The little one is called the Maiden Stone, and the big one is the Mother Stone. If you pass naked between them you’ll get good luck and lots of kids.

This is a common legend for both natural and artificial stones. In European folklore, it seems to be the women who are more interested in them, so it’s no surprise that many of the legends have to do with fertility and childbirth. A married woman had to have children to have status, yet childbirth was often fatal. A little help from the stones must have put many a worried mind to rest!

People were especially attracted to stone circles where one of the stones had a hole through it. Babies would be passed through the hole to give them health or luck, or women would crawl through to ensure fertility. At the Odin Stone in the Orkneys, men and women would join hands through the hole in order to get married. At the Mên-an-Tol in Cornwall, pictured here in a photo courtesy of Jane Osborne. Babies with rickets would be passed through naked to cure them. For some reason these folklore cures often required a person to be naked in public, something frowned on in a traditional society. This added a layer of danger and rebelliousness to the ritual.

The Bhacain in Scotland is different than other stones. It’s a monolith (what we archaeologists called a menhir) but it curves around like a P. In the 19th century, women leaving the Highlands to take jobs in the city would sit under the overhang to ensure they didn’t get pregnant while away from the stern protective gaze of their parents. Most menhirs look pretty phallic and were used for fertility rituals. Perhaps because The Bhacain is a bit droopy it was believed to have the opposite effect!

A.J. Walker is the author of Roots Run Deep, a fantasy novel published by Double Dragon. He works as a medievalist and archaeologist in England.

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Guest Blogger Alayna Williams on her Oracle series

In Beneath the Hallowed Hill, I imagine Avalon (the Isle of Glass, Glastonbury) as it might have been. My Morgen le Fey is not a jealous witch out to kill her brother the king, but a great oracle. The power of the twin springs and the Tor still exist today. In her series, Alayna Williams imagines that the famous Delphic Oracle has survived into the present.

Ancient and Modern Oracles

by Alayna Williams

 The Delphic Oracle is probably the most famous oracle of the ancient world. The priestess of the Temple of Apollo, the Pythia, wielded a great deal of political influence over leaders who sought both her advice and the advice of the priestesses who served the temple. The Temple of Apollo was sited over a crevasse in the earth emitting noxious vapors, leading to modern-day speculation that the Pythia’s visions were not sendings from Apollo, but toxic hallucinations. The Delphic Oracle operated from roughly the eight century BC until 393 AD, when all pagan oracles were ordered to be dismantled by the Emperor. After that, no one knows what became of the priestesses. 

 I was intrigued by the idea of an order of women exerting subtle and powerful influence over the ancient world. I wondered what would happen if that order of priestesses went underground and survived to the modern day. What would their role in world events be? In Dark Oracle, the title of Pythia is handed down through generations of women, all oracles with their own unique talent for foreseeing the future. Delphi’s Daughters are a secret organization, nudging world events and gathering information through vast networks of helpers. Their behavior is sometimes sinister, sometimes pure, but always secretive. No one but the Pythia herself knows how the puzzle of world events fits together, and her priestesses are often left in the dark, guessing at her motives. 

 In the worlds of Dark Oracle and Rogue Oracle, the current Pythia is a pyromancer. She sees the future in dancing flames. The heroine of the story, Tara Sheridan, is a cartomancer who uses Tarot cards to create criminal profiles. Other characters have abilities with scrying, astronomy, and geomancy. Delphi’s Daughters come from all walks of life: they are physicists, soccer moms, artists, farmers, and dancers. They are women just like women you know and walk past on the street. But they are women with a secret. 

 Tara’s talents were a challenge to create. Use of Tarot cards requires both an intellectual understanding of the ancient symbolism of the cards, as well as the ability to make intuitive leaps from the cards to one’s current situation. Using the cards in her work as a profiler, Tara spends a great deal of time in her own head. She’s not a brash woman who rushes into situations with guns blazing. She’s a thinker, a planner, and it’s simply not in her analytical nature to shoot off at the mouth — or with her guns — when she can get her mission accomplished using less attention-getting means. She is accustomed to having to hide her talents from the people with whom she works, which makes her very circumspect… and isolated. Especially since she’s survived an attack by a serial killer that has left her scarred for life. She’s withdrawn from her work as a profiler and as a member of Delphi’s Daughters.

 In thinking about how such an order might survive into the modern world, I imagined the limitations inherent in being an oracle in a secret organization. It would require secrecy, sacrificing a large part of one’s life, and committing to a larger ideal. I decided that, as time passed, fewer and fewer women would be interested in unquestioningly serving Delphi’s Daughters. In Dark Oracle, the order is dying out. Tara Sheridan has left the order after her mother died, refusing to return. After surviving an attack by a serial killer that left her scarred for life, she is unable to bear children. And there are no young women in Delphi’s Daughters any longer. 

The Pythia must try to continue the line, whatever the cost. She is challenged to convince the rebellious Tara to return. Or she must find new blood to move into the future, a new order for a new age. And blood will be spilled in the process. 

 —

 Alayna Wiliams (a.k.a. Laura Bickle) has worked in the unholy trinity of politics, criminology, and technology for several years. She lives in the Midwestern U.S. with her chief muse, owned by four mostly-reformed feral cats. Writing as Laura Bickle, she’s the author of EMBERS and SPARKS for Pocket – Juno Books. Writing as Alayna Williams, she’s the author of DARK ORACLE and ROGUE ORACLE. More info on her urban fantasy and general nerdiness is here: www.salamanderstales.com

  —

 Blurb for ROGUE ORACLE: 

The more you know about the future, the more there may be to fear.

 Tara Sheridan is the best criminal profiler around – and the most unconventional. Trained as a forensic psychologist, Tara also specializes in Tarot card reading. But she doesn’t need her divination skills to realize that the new assignment from her friend and sometime lover, Agent Harry Li, is a dangerous proposition in every way.

 Former Cold War operatives, all linked to a top-secret operation tracking the disposal of nuclear weapons in Russia, are disappearing. There are no bodies, and no clues to their whereabouts. Harry suspects a conspiracy to sell arms to the highest bidder. The cards – and Tara’s increasingly ominous dreams – suggest something darker. Even as Tara sorts through her feelings for Harry and her fractured relationships with the mysterious order known as Delphi’s Daughters, a killer is growing more ruthless by the day. And a nightmare that began decades ago in Chernobyl will reach a terrifying endgame that not even Tara could have foreseen…

 ROGUE ORACLE is available now from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. 

Laura Bickle – also writing as Alayna Williams
Author of EMBERS, SPARKS, DARK ORACLE, & ROGUE ORACLE
www.salamanderstales.com | www.alaynawilliams.com

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Happy Beltane!

May 1st is Beltane, the day of the May Pole, flowers in your hair and hanky panky to help bring fertility to the world, and the day that my latest novel Beneath the Hallowed Hill ends in a grand meeting beneath the Tor.

In the Celtic calendar, this is the first day of summer, also the time when the Pleiades rise on the Dawn horizon. The word means “bright fire” and it is a solar holiday, the cross-quarter day between spring equinox and summer solstice. People drove their herds between May fires and couples jumped the fire for fertility and blessings. The Green Lord and May Queen preside over the festivities on this day, showing us the union of male and female in all their manifestations. It’s also a good time for a royal wedding.

Beltane stands opposite Samhain in the calendar, two times when the veils between the worlds thin and the faery troops may be seen. On May Eve the Tuatha De Danann arrived in Ireland. This night is called Walpurgisnacht in Germany—”Woods Purging Night” when other worldly forces fill the forest. Celebrants meet on Germany’s sacred mountain, the Brocken, celebrated in Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain.

Gwyn ap Nudd is Lord of the Faeries who lives beneath the Tor whom all the characters of Beneath the Hallowed Hill meet on May Eve. He shows each of them a secret.

 How beautiful they are,

The lordly ones

Who dwell in the hills,

In the hollow hills.

 

~ Fiona Macleod

1922

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Glastonbury’s Holy Thorn Tree

Legend tells us that when Joseph of Arimathea arrived in Glastonbury a millennium ago, he stuck his staff into the ground. The next morning it had sprouted. The tree is considered sacred by Druids and Christians alike. After all, Joseph was the uncle of Yeshua ben Yousef, better known as Jesus. In Glastonbury, the Druids and Christians found their teachings to be in harmony.

Beneath the Hallowed Hill is set in Glastonbury, and Anne le Clair visits the tree in the novel.

The tree, or its descendent, still lives and flowers twice a year. That is until just recently when someone took it upon themselves to try to kill it. One morning residents awoke to find the Holy Thorn had been chopped up. Many residents feared the worse and all wondered who would do such a thing and why. But spring has sprung in England, and with it the Holy Thorn has bloomed again. It’s still alive.

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The National Mall as the Tree of Life

Many people have speculated that the National Mall in Washington, D.C. is laid out as a Tree of Life. Some dispute this idea, pointing to the fact that L’Enfant’s original plan stopped just past the White House and the far side was still marsh. Masons have continued to influence the architecture in D.C., however, embodying spiritual principles in stone, wood and landscapes.

Many place the Capitol at the foot of the Tree, representing Malkuth, Earth. This is where the ideals of liberty and freedom are supposed to be made manifest in law. If the Capitol is the foot of the Tree, then the Lincoln Memorial is the top, representing Kether, pure consciousness. The Gettysburg Address and Lincoln’s second inaugural speech are inscribed there. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his moving “I Have a Dream” speech from its steps.

I’m not sure how Chokmah and Binah are represented on the National Mall, but the next levels do seem clear. The White House stands at Chesed, the station of Mercy, the place of ideal rulership. The Jefferson Memorial represents Geburah, ideal justice. Inside, Jefferson’s idea of a world ruled by justice inspires the visitor.

The Jefferson Memorial is backed up by the Pentagon, a five-pointed star, a prominent symbol for this fifth station on the Tree.

The Washington Monument is the heart of the Tree, Tiphareth, represented by an obelisk. In ancient Egypt, the name for obelisk was “Ib-Ra,” with “Ib” meaning heart: the heart of the sun. The Washington Memorial stretches high into the sky to capture the sun, the planet of this sphere, and channel that energy back down  to illuminate the Tree and spread that light all through the governing bodies of the U.S.

The National Museum of Art, the Sculpture Garden, the National Archives and American and National History hold Netzach’s place on the Tree. Netzach is Victory, expressing the bounteous energy behind the arts and literature. Across the mall, we find Hod represented by the Air and Space Museum and the Department of Agriculture (which should be Netzach, but nothing’s perfect). Hod takes the exuberant energy of Netzach and brings form to it. The intellect and science reign more on this side of the mall, balancing the arts.

Yesod is probably the fountain in front of the Capitol. Yesod is the Moon, the Imagination. Perhaps it needs to be better represented on the mall.  The Capitol Building receives all this energy and is topped by a statue of Liberty. Malkuth is represented by a Queen on her Throne.

Some people on the web have suggested that all this mysticism is satanic. Why? Because it uses pagan imagery. Because the National Mall is supposed to be aligned to Sirius. This is ridiculous to me. The Masons are one of the recipients of a stream of wisdom that has been passed down through the ages, through different religious and spiritual expressions of those ideas. Seeing the common teachings in different religions is not evil. It is the opposite.

Has the United States harnessed all this idealism and expressed it perfectly yet? No. And now, in the midst of our nation’s Pluto return, we’re experiencing perhaps our most intense challenge. We are still striving for a more perfect union, just like it says in the preamble of the constitution. Have the opposite energies sometimes flowed through the Tree that is the National Mall? Perhaps. But next time you walk there, imagine the balanced expression of each of those Ideals manifesting themselves to flow through that grid and bring us more in harmony with our ideals.