 |
 |
| |
| Departments |
Home
Columns, Special
Topics & Features:
The Columns:
Angels, Guides, &
Loving Spirits:
Angel Blessings:
with Dr. Doreen Virtue
Ask Valerie Morrison,
Internationally
Acclaimed Psychic
Trust Your Vibes
By Dr. Sonia Choquette, PhD.
Internationally Acclaimed Psychic Healer & Author
Astrologer's Notes:
Carin Martin,
Astrologer
Donna Cunningham, MSW, Astrologer
Basil Fearrington,
Astrologer
Diana Stone,
Astrologer &
Huna Shaman
Jeff Jawer
Astrologer
Glenn Perry,
Astrologer
Ray Merriman,
Financial Astrology:
MMA Market Week
Noel Tyl,
Astrologer
Daily Aspect Calendar
by Care
MoonWatching with Dana Gerhardt and Friends
Creating Bridges:
The Spiritual &
Philosophical
Act of Power
Discovering the Key to Living Your Sacred Dream
by Lynn Andrews
Avant-Gardening:
Insights
by Frank & Vicky
Giannangelo
From The Heart:
Alan Cohen
Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions: The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
by Jacquelyn Small, Eupsychia
Spirituality in Daily Life: by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron
The Conscious Column
by David Ault
Spiritual Mastery
for the 21st Century
Dr. Gwen MacGregor
Pearls of Wisdom:
with Care & Aeon
Encounters on the
Shaman's Path with
Dr. Hank Wesselman, PhD.
Anthropologist, Zoologist, Author, Shamanic Healer & Teacher
The Divine Human
by Ornesha De Paoli
Awakenings
by Karen Johnson
Worshipping by Wondering with
Sankara Saranam, MA Founder of the Pranayama Institute
A Woman's Beauty
by Robin Rice,
Shaman & Author
Wisdom Walks
In Circles
Margaret Lewis,
Shamanic Practitioner
The Awakening Generation
by Ann Marie Judge
Divination Systems:
Be Your Own Oracle
By James Wanless, Ph.D.
Creator of the Voyager Tarot Deck
Feng Shui & Chinese Metaphysics:
Inside Chinese Metaphysics
by Barbara Finch,
Feng Shui &
Chinese Astrology
In Practice:
Juliet's Marketing Wisdom
by Juliet Austin, MA Marketing Coach, Author & Consultant
Kabbalah:
Kabbalah Revealed:
Rav Michael Laitman, PhD, Kabbalalist
"Letters from Heaven:" Spiritual Guidance from
the Hebrew Alphabet
by Avigayil Landsman
Pet Care:
Dr. Carson's Holistic Animal Care
by Dr. Kathleen Carson, D.V.M.
Tarot:
Moment to Moment
by Gigi Miner
Author, Tarot Consultant, & Teacher
Reviews:
Tarot, Cartomancy,
Oracle Decks,
Books, & Software.
by Bonnie Cehovet,
Tarot Master
Humor:
Wake Up Laughing.Com:
Swami Beyondananda
Features:
Blessings & Messages
Event Calendar
Historical Notes & Data
The MetaPersonals
Opinion-Editorial
News Briefs
Symbols, Seals,
Amulets & Talismans
The What in the
World Department
Trivia & Life's Other
Novel Moments
Interviews:
Watch for Upcoming Announcements
Healing & Alternative
Health:
Living in Harmony-Astrology, Yoga & Ayurveda:
Venkat & Christine Machiraju
"Spirit and Practice
of the Wise Woman
Tradition"
By Susun Weed
Tai Chi & Qigong
by Bill Douglas
The Holistic Mystic,
by Lonny Brown
Medical Intuition: Tune
in to Your Body and Improve Your Health
by Caroline Sutherland, Sutherland Communications
Transformational Healing through the Violet Flame!
by Eva Kettles
Herbs for Health
with Kami McBride
Lose Weight Permanently: Stop the Endless Cycle of Dieting
Rena Greenberg,
Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming & Hypnotherapist
The Directory
The Book Nook
Archives:
Past Issues
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy:
Wisdom Walks In Circles:
Falling From Grace
|
|
|
by Margaret Lewis |
|
|
Dear Friends,
Finishing a manuscript is a daunting task. There are pangs of labor that are at times, unbearable. Moments of inconceivable angst creep up and then dog my trail. Fear, doubt, all the demons of creative endeavor come knocking on the door of my computer screen, vying for my attention in the hopes of distracting me from the finality of the task. Writing the book is fun, easy, and blissful! Finishing the book is Dante's inferno! This month I share my musings on the process of finishing.
Falling From Grace
A writer’s house can grow lonesome when her characters withdraw into silence at a book’s ending. Alone with only the memory of their dance across the page, she wonders if she's done them justice. Did she say enough; were the players described well enough? Are there enough pages to tell the truth of the tale? Characters are rich and fully varied in the mind, but does the complete picture materialize when pen meets paper? Perhaps, but perhaps not, she wonders, vacillating between confidence and insecurity.
Finishing a manuscript is like falling over the Niagara. Falling water seeking its depth reveals the striations and hues of shadow and filtering light. It is movement from a pinnacle of perhaps success, perhaps illusion, and perhaps false hope, into a current flowing with self’s relentless search for self. It is a leap into a roaring flux of feeling.
At book’s end, the writer’s mind empties into stillness and the heart suffers loneliness that is barely tolerable. With no solace in chatting characters, one sketches a hollow space within the inner life of story. The writer’s duty is to release the pen and resist the urge to pick it up again. A story needs its natural end. So the writer must let go and allow the book to move down river and into the current of its published destiny.
Finishing my new book, Landings, at a time when the entire world is in bloom, is a torture of distraction! No one should ever leave the state of Ohio during the months of April and May, not even for a day. The pageant of bulbs and fruit trees in bloom is a march of color and scent, which one must not turn a gaze from, for surely there is only beauty to be missed. Ohio in bloom brings out the lover in us all and I feel the ardent urge to fall out of my 2nd story office window and land in the dark humus of my flower beds below. There I will lay and allow the violets and lily of the valley to overtake me. Who can work at a computer screen when first the magnolia, followed by the weeping cherry, crabapple and redbud burst into flaming colors that frame a clear blue sky?
Daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips bob their luminous heads in the wind, teasing me with their fleeting entrance. For they will exit all too soon, with stems seemingly melting back into black earth with the unfurling of the oak and beech leaves. It is all too sudden, and too soon past. So I stand as sentry while the parade slips over the horizon and summer hints at its inevitable arrival. I witness the grandeur of winter’s dreams realized in the flowering of springtime, and I see how change, like winter into spring, involves risk that requires a fall. Stalling the risk of finishing my book, I let spring’s glory distract me from my task. Yet, even the clouds of glorious distraction must inevitably float on by, returning me to face the dragon of my fears.
Black Sun
Each new risk requires a fall from grace. The secured plateau now challenges the next hill and mountain. Ego’s cautions ignored, falling requires a deliberate breath that cannot be sucked only inward. It must be exhaled, given away to the swift falling deluge of water plunging toward bottom. The bottom. A place scrambled away from in fear and trepidation. It is a dark, dank, murky ground of muck and mire. It lies beneath the fragrant blooms of light. To finish a work nurtured tenderly and secretly for years is to fall to the bottom. To finish anything is to fall. To see anything clearly is to fall. To find truth is to fall. Falling into life we find all our little deaths.
The shine of rebirth is a promise and the sure fate of the fallen. For a black sun lies in wait behind the heart, revealing the soul. To fall and hit bottom is to find this dark illumination. Filtered light reveals its texture, the black glow of the inward sun. The shine is there, truly. Infinitely interesting, it captivates the shadows. A black sun of self-revelation dawns only in the dark, where all hope of light is dashed, where only surrender is acknowledged.
In the midst of the beauty of a blooming world, I fall into finishing this book. All the while, the lime green parasol leaves of the ginkgo tree gracing my driveway watch over me, shimmering in bright new costumes of spring’s tender opening. I open too, like the ginkgo, but not before I look to the shadows revealed by the inner sun, the black glow of all my doubts and perjuries. Finishing anything requires self- examination of the lies I told myself, the insults of others, and bereftness of character both inner and outer. I travel the path of the outcast walking toward the new land, the new village of self. Encountering the shine of the inner black sun is a required segment of the journey. It is perhaps, the most vivid of all traveling companions encountered on this puzzling path.
Rebirth
Serendipity strikes during a phone conversation with my elder aunt. She offers an idea for a new book, only she is unaware that I am already writing the next book in my head. My mind types both day and night, yet I am incapable of connecting the dots, for I am lost in the fall of finishing the previous papered story. Her suggestion strikes a match that ignites fireworks of exhilaration. Aunt Jeannie, my muse, I thank you!
Rebirth is conceived in a vision of blind trust. Out of gestation, out of the warm womb, commences a fresh version of reality. Newborn eyes see what the mind cannot conjure. The soul’s imaginings impregnated the new vision, so I trust blindly and hope singly. Walking alone, I finish the game and follow the path through the dismal bottom while the black sun glows in the dark. Like attracts like and the universe responds to the soul’s longing. There are no accidents or mistakes. It was all meant to be. A smile and a nod take the next step onto an uncharted continent of being. The dark shine reveals all I was meant to see and learn in the finishing task of a book I can now release.
Spring’s breezy moments stir the descent of a shower of white crabapple blossoms. Budding crabapple leaves push the blossoms over the falls and they spin and float and touch bottom. Petals salt the lawn in pretend downy snowflakes while Amanda, my new book’s main character, extends her story-fingers to me. She reaches out as I wander my depths. Grasping her hand, I look up and perceive the glassy surface above, which propels my ascent. Fresh air greets newfound lungs filling with the bliss of my passage. Dawn arrives and hope inhales, after the long exhale of night’s falling. One door closes to the sound of a window stretching open.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Margaret Lewis,
Author & Shamanic Practitioner
|
 |
Margaret is a highly regarded professional speaker, workshop facilitator, business and personal development consultant, gifted spiritual practitioner and author. For over 20 years she has provided countless training seminars and workshops on a wide range of life management and personal development skills.
Margaret H. Lewis offers self-development tools for personal transformation that include books, spiritual counseling, and online courses. Embark on your journey of self-empowerment and discover greater access to your inner voice of intuition, which will bring you clarity of individual purpose and the bliss of manifesting your dreams.
Margaret’s upcoming book, Landings, The Spiritual Return to Living Fully in the Body, is due for release in 2006! Read a brief overview of the Landings storyline --
http://www.wisdomwalks.
com/
WhatsNew/WhatsNew.
htm
Margaret’s first book, Wisdom Walks In Circles, The Spiraling Journey of Your Inner Voice, offers a compelling story of a hero's journey to the heart of intuition. In private consultations, Margaret has assisted hundreds of people in releasing the blocks that are holding them back from achieving their goals and visions of fulfillment.
To set up an appointment with Margaret, please email her at
info@wisdomwalks.com
or visit her online store at
http://www.wisdomwalks.
com/.
A Note from Margaret:
Each Wisdom Walks Online Learning Experience, whether it be an online course, personal seminar, or a focused mini-course, addresses a specific life stage and its particular attribute of intuition. There are no pre-requisite courses. You are welcome to join our series of courses from any stage on the wheel of life.
Online courses include a comprehensive workbook, online audio versions of all the meditation and visualization practices, two conference calls with your classmates and Margaret, and the online message board for discussion circles relating to the work of the course.
To Read more about Margaret's Online Offerings
http://www.
wisdomwalks.com/
Services/courses.html
Come join Margret in an online adventure of spirit with unique coursework offering pathways for reuniting with your Wise Inner Teen!
Visit her site for a full course description:
www.wisdomwalks.com/
Services/kuanyin.html
|
 |
You'll find it in
The
Directory! |
|
|
|
|
