Thank you to all of the readers, clients, students, confidantes, comrades, and spaceholders who have contributed to Soul Intent Arts’ sustaining life force. Bless all of your dear hearts.

• All creatures tend toward balance, wellbeing. There is no such thing as good or bad, only the disconnection from wellbeing. “Good and “bad” are value judgements based on perception. I encounter many energies that are imbalanced, what one might call dark entities, demons, suffering spirits, and just plain souls of sick people. I have run into some sticky situations, some flat out scary interactions. In all of these, I have never encountered an entity that did not on some level recognize connection to All Things, which implies a connection to light, love and compassion. Did I drag them all screaming toward that light when they rejected it? No. I’ve never been dragged toward a light that I instantly embraced, and I’ve never known others who have. It is not my role to interfere. It is my role to meet beings where they are, to embody as much of myself as I know myself to be in all my light and shadow, to present the spectrum of wellbeing that is available to us all, and to support the diverse paths we all take in reaching that balance. Other perspectives on how we reach healing are presented in To Heal or Not to Heal: Shamans in the New Era.

And one more, because I have never been good at math:

• Karma is as karma does. I frequently run into the notions that karma is reward or punishment, and that it’s set for all eternity. My work has shown me that neither of those things is true. Karma is not a system of reward and punishment, but a law of balance. How you create yourself is the way you will be, and it is the way the world will form around you. We have the power to change our karma by releasing outdated patterns. Releasing patterns frees us to recreate ourselves. In this way, destiny and free will work together to create healing. Karma, Collective Conscious, and Facebook.

Thanks for your note, Lu. In another manifestation of yourself, I see a pattern in which you assumed that men would hurt you before they actually did. The way you dealt with that possibility was to murder them before they could harm you. When I ask this manifestation of yourself her reasoning for dealing with men and potential problems with them in this way, she tells me that her father used to spank her before she did anything wrong, an effort to keep her aligned with making good choices. In both scenarios, there is an assumption of guilt and justice before there was a crime. On a spiritual level, there is a removal of free will and blindness to observing the present moment. This is a karmic pattern that you brought into this life. I ask this aspect of you if she would like to step out of this dynamic and go up for healing and she does, readily. Her ability to do so frees you of this dynamic in the present, leaving you free to make choices based on information in the present.

Balance, by Dreamstime

On a spiritual level, that you see these varied levels of being is great. It means that you have the ability to see the highest aspects of anyone you choose–including yourself. On a more practical, mundane level, it means that you intentionally ignore signals telling you when someone is not acting in accordance with or even seeking to act in accordance with his highest ability. You have very clear indicators for when someone, something, or a situation isn’t supportive of you. Listen to them. There is no judgement in this fact, it merely is what it is. It takes a fine level of discernment to be able to hold the High Self of someone, and to see this person’s earthly self, and not to judge either. There is a difference between realizing that someone’s behaviour isn’t right, and realizing that it isn’t right for you. We are all where we are, and we can’t be anywhere else until we’re ready to move ourselves. This, of course, all complicates when emotions become involved.

The bottom line is that you are ignoring your own insight, your own signals telling you when someone isn’t the best match for you at this time. That habit stems directly from this other aspect of you having been taught to apply action before intuitively assessing the situation. It’s an imbalance of power. You have a perfectly finely tuned system for intuiting information and culling out what feels right or wrong for you. You are wise. This means that you don’t have to fall back on merely one level of input. You can feel longing for a longterm mate, observe the people around you, gauge your reaction to them at all levels, and honor when a connection isn’t fulfilling.

You can still look to the potential of the men who come into your life, but be honest with yourself about what you see in the whole picture. And remember, none of us act through the wisdom of our High Selves all the time. It’s our human nature to appeal to varying levels of awareness. What is telling is that we remember those various levels are there, and that we honor all of ourselves even if we can’t access it all the time. When we honor all of ourselves, we attract others doing the same.

Be well, Lu!

Thanks for writing, Shelley. Initially, I see you in a very fragile state. It’s very important to focus healing on yourself right now, in the form of affirmations–”The Universe loves me”–”My needs are met.” Upon taking the soul part of you that I see up for healing, my sense is that the relationship you are leaving was karmic. The hurtful dynamic you are leaving is one that you have played out with this person many times. The closure you are finally feeling indicates that you are done with it. You are currently experiencing a freedom that you haven’t in many manifestations of yourself. The other person is not finished; however, this doesn’t need to have bearing on you or your choices. Stand in your free will to realize that you have completed the cycle of karma with this person and do not need to go back. This person, though, is still struggling, and will be quite persuasive in seeking your attention. Do yourself the kindness of not looking back. There is no guilt in this. You’ve done the work. The other person has the opportunity to choose differently but does not. The path ahead is bright for you. It’s also relatively calm. In the next 6 months you will gain building stability and confidence, and the allure of this person won’t seem so attractive.

Still, take the time to heal. This present rawness is very important, very powerful. Allow yourself to feel grounded and well. Walk in Nature often, and allow that connection to reach you. You have a strong affinity to birds and an strata of Nature that is elevated above (literally) what most humans look up to see. So, too, allow your hopes and desires to elevate, as well. Healing is here for you.

In the year and a half that I’ve been on Facebook, several people have remarked that the utility unexpectedly reopened old wounds, and in some cases, caused new ones. Presented as a simple Internet networking tool that does all the work for you, Facebook is and has been the hottest social media networking strategy to date. The Internet, in and of itself, has done an amazing job creating of the world a neighborhood pub, uniting old friends, passionate crocheters, Dolphins fans, and sellers with bidders. Some modern sages argue that the Internet is a digital manifestation of the collective conscious, a vessel we all contribute to, a result of our cultural foci and intellectual and spiritual development. As on no other networking site, users swarm to friend each other through Facebook, due to its suggestive relational viral connectivity via alma maters, places of employment, geographies, cousins. Unsuspecting users enter personal landmarks and interests, frequently not realizing that unless secure privacy is enabled, that information is used to match them with every other compatible user and to suggest them as possible friends. Adding one person you knew when is a singular connection spiraling out, not just to every person you know, but to every person that person knows, and so on. It is possible to be deluged with friend requests in mere hours, even with partial security enabled. The volume of the past surging into the present overwhelms those who aren’t ready, and it would seem, a lot of users aren’t.

Certainly I’ve known many people who reconnected fabulously with old friends. I count myself fortunate to have found people on Facebook that years of Internet searching didn’t deliver. However, for many, the wonder years aspect of Facebook is a reminder of a horrible time. The sticking point doesn’t seem to be that it merely reopens old wounds or brings up painful memories. Slogging through old hurts is one thing, but Facebook elicits a communal shadow reaction that many don’t foresee. A hyper-distilled family reunion, digital social display leaves many users feeling forced to confront old demons, not just face the demon, but do so with the demon’s posse looking on. Also, where many have enjoyed the anonymity of a raucous Internet social life, for Facebook to work as intended, you have to be honest in the personal data you feed it. To that end, some have pioneered into lifestyles and experiences that are upsetting to those still at the old stomping grounds, or to employers or potential clients. And then there’s the base embarrassment in friending Aunt Bee, who’s scanned your adorable fifth grade yearbook picture for the world to see…

Who sees what of you is one thing. What you see of others is another. The foremost insight Facebook gives into others is through status updates. Some use this blurb as an opportunity to keep others abreast of their morning coffee selection, what film they saw, or how they feel about sitting on the front porch. Some users are decidedly candid, sharing intensely personal insights. All of these are perfectly fine, though I often wonder if people considered that every status update they enter alters the collective consciousness of the planet, if they would say something more authentic? Because it does. If more people observed such, perhaps their updates would more their soul’s words rather than their ego’s. No contention, mind you. I like to know if my savvy friends think a film sucks, or they posted some gem about our healthcare system. But if the Internet is a manifestation of the collective conscious, and Facebook is its most prolific platform, could we improve how we thrive here if we chose to make social networking a more spiritual experience?

The thing about Facebook is that for it to be a social networking success, it demands radical honesty, as does spiritual growth. Indeed, that honesty can be selectively doled, based on privacy settings, interests entered, and the choice not to friend. Even in that closed scenario, I’ve known people whose pasts were still skillfully unearthed from the bowels of Facebook by some haunt, throwing them into a moment of panic. I think it is in that moment that the real life of Facebook thrives, not in the choice to friend or ignore, the celebrity who friends you, or the smackdown you give your old boyfriend. Certainly those things can be empowering and bring closure to karmic patterns. I think the real power of Facebook is that it’s a cutting edge, worldwide awareness, within which the Universe holds up a mirror, as we all know it does from time to time, making sure we really do know where we stand on the trials, paths, and joys of our lives. We can look into the bytes of our past and make an empowered choice based on the free will of our soulful present.

[1] Facebook Is Increasingly Cited in Divorce Cases