Our Passions, Our Joy

And a bit on meditation

One of the core messages of The Bliss Blog is that happiness is both a deliberate decision, and an inside job.

We talk about a lot of other things here, all of it stemming from the basic Law of Attraction, which holds that like attracts like. And by “law” I mean like the Law of Gravity is a law. It’s just how things work.

From that basic knowledge, we can delve into infinite layers of understanding. If like attracts like then what’s around me must be in some way like me. And if that’s the case, I can change the circumstances of my own little bubble of life by changing myself. I can shift from having a mostly bad time here, to having a mostly good time here. I can do that myself.

And we also talk here, about all the different applications of this law as it applies to the practice we call natural magic or witchcraft, which has always been about matching the vibration of the magical goals.

We talk about its implications in our own personal lives, too, with our work, our family, our friends, our homes, and all the “problems” that are part of the mosaic that make life worth living.

I’ve been really thinking deeply about all that, this past week, because it’s been a challenging week for me, and I think, for a lot of you, too.

But it crystallized for me that this challenge, though maybe broader and wider than those we face in our daily lives, is otherwise no different. Abraham-Hicks would call it contrast, because like all problems, it comes to highlight a need for change.

Change will be required to solve this contrast, and the problem will get bigger until and unless we male the change required. We have to grow past the problem. We have to evolve into the solution.

Every problem, big or small, global or personal, is the same: A result of stagnation/stillness/complacence in some area where we’re supposed to be growing. It’s the result of us being too slow in making necessary change.

So if that’s the cause, what’s the solution?

The cure is growth. Expansion. We have to continue moving forward, learning, evolving, progressing, opening our minds to ever-more expansive, norm-busting ideas, embracing the new and innovative, rushing eagerly (rather than fearfully) into the future, our arms open wide.

That’s what this blog’s heart and soul are about. Growth, expansion, new ideas, new ways of understanding and applying what we know.

But the biggest area of improvement our current contrast will spark in us (and require from us) will be in our ability to feel good anyway. Put another way, our ability to focus.

And that, too, is what Bliss Blog is about. Its mission is to help us attune ourselves with all that’s positive. As our fulcrum shifts to slightly more light than dark, more plus than minus, the negative to falls away. Shifting our default setting from negative to positive is like switching off an electromagnet. Things that matched our old energy can’t linger with us. They no longer match our energy. They cant’t breathe in this atmosphere, so to speak. Their key no longer fits our lock.

I have a million metaphors!

I love the idea of tuning ourselves like a radio dial. We pick up the signal at which we’re aiming. We pull in the channel at which we point our dial. Our general attitude and approach to life, our default setting, is our radio dial.

Suggestion

I think it’s important to fill our lives with our other passions that are NOT political/social issues. (Mandatory disclaimer: this doesn’t mean not to continue working for change. It means maybe don’t make it your main or only thing for a while.)

There are so many areas in life to get passionate about! And I think most of us already have a number of passions.

Some of my passions

Cooking and nutrition. Learning how to reverse all those chronic diseases stamped “age-related” just by changing my diet and lifestyle has been a huge passion for me for several years now. (So much I have a blog about it called Eat Like You Give a Shit.)

Law of Attraction has been another area I’ve studied in depth for decades, as has my *made-up religion of choice, (*they’re all made-up) a distinctly western brand of Wicca, which I’ve also been studying for decades.

I study the ancient civilization of Sumer, read the books, watch the documentaries about it. I use it a lot in my writing, especially with the immortal characters in my paranormal fiction.

Speaking of, I’m passionate about my writing, my storytelling. It’s hardest to write fiction when my alignment is out-of-whack. It’s a very good barometer for me. If the writing’s not going well, my vibration needs a tune-up.

I’m passionate about my home. There are plenty of hours to be filled around here with touch-ups and hoe-outs.

I’m passionate about gardening. Though last year the chipmunks ate everything I planted.

But I’m researching compassionate, vegan solutions to the munk-invasion so I will try, try again.

What else, what else? Music. Yoga. My lawnscaping, when the weather permits. Yearning for spring. Planning for spring. Re-facing our fireplace.

Reading! Don’t forget reading. I am constantly reading. Just yesterday I finished David Suzuki’s The Sacred Balance, a new edition with commentary by Bill McKibbin and Robin Wall Kimmerer.

BTW, Kimmerer’s books are like healing balms. Especially the audiobooks, which she narrates. Today I’m starting her latest, The Serviceberry.

Pick a subject and learn

Awaiting me is a lifetime subscription to Babbel whenever I decide to choose that as my next passion. I was passionate enough the day they ran the sale!

Help the community

Life is loaded with opportunities to get out and help others. There are people shelters and animal shelters and Habitat for Humanity branches and schools and libraries just waiting for volunteers.

But it’s not the time we need to fill…

It’s our minds. We need to occupy ourselves with things that feel good to us. Thoughts and causes and projects and hobbies and interests that feel good to us. And here’s why.

Feeling good is infectious. When you are vibing high, everyone within reach of your energy is uplifted.

When the string of one guitar is plucked, the same string on a nearby untouched guitar begins to hum. It’s called sympathetic vibration or sympathetic resonance, and it’s a known phenomenon.

The string sends a sound wave, which is a vibration, and a matching vibration is drawn from those in the vicinity that are likewise tuned. This is how Law of Attraction works. It’s a perfect way to understand it.

Your improved vibe will reach out to and find the matching vibe in everyone around you, if it exists in them. There’s good in everyone and your energy will draw it from them. Their vibration will rise in response to yours like a flower opening to the sun. Their goodness will recognize itself in your hum, and it will awaken, arise, and hum right back at you.

And then, when that person leaves you, they’ll lift up everyone they encounter.

The unmatched benefit of challenging times

Esther Hicks tells a story about trying to meditate in her favorite spot, and having constant distractions come along. An airplane, a noisy bird, a truck rumbling by. There were several things, one after another.

After each new distraction, her quiet mind would ripple with the interruption. Then she would release it from her attention and refocus on just quietly counting her breaths. Three beats in, five out. She’d sink deep again, then would come another distraction. This happened over and over.

She realized later that she had never been so purely focused before. The interruptions had caused her to really sink deep, to truly tune them out, to purely focus on her breaths, allowing her mind to achieve an even better state of quiet than usual.

The challenges made her ability to focus stronger.

She realized that’s what all challenges do.

In cultivating an ever-higher, ever-purer vibration

We improve the situation globally. A handful of light is more powerful than a roomful of darkness. So say the teachers of all times. The positive energy of a few outweighs the negative energy of many times more.

I know for sure that like attracts like, so our light finds and gathers to it other light out there around us, and the light grows, reaches further, finds more light, grows, reaches further, finds more light.

Darkness isn’t the same. It doesn’t express so much as it absorbs. It is contagious, but not as contagious as light. Prolonged exposure to it is required before a higher vibe will adjust itself downward. And when the higher vibe person leaves the presence of the shadowed one, they tend to bounce right back to their previous level. Nobody enjoys feeling bad and they want to feel better as fast as possible. They return to their default setting.

People who leave the presence of the light-beamer continue to beam for some time, uplifting others along the way. They might seek to re-experience that high vibe, and after repeated exposure, they inevitably adjust their default setting higher. Everybody loves feeling good, and they want to repeat it as often as possible. (This is also the root cause of addiction. Humans! Amiright?)

Morning Meditation

This morning’s meditation kept bringing me the image of a jigsaw puzzle. I’ve been working one all week, so I thought I was letting reality creep in, but it kept coming back, along with the words, “Everything’s going to be all right,” and a feeling like a little child held in her mother’s arms and comforted.

It was a lovely sensation, and I hope it’s a positive sign. If I must interpret—

Oh, you must! You must!

—I’d say this big thing I’m experiencing as contrast is a small piece in a large puzzle, and the implication is that it won’t make sense until all or nearly all the other pieces fall into place.

All this to say…

We’re going to get through this. That’s all. It’s not the end of the species. It’s not necessarily even the end of democracy in the US, though I’ve probably whined that it was on Bluesky. It’s contrast, a single piece of a giant puzzle. It has come to highlight areas in need of change. And it’s a pretty big contrast, so it must be a pretty big change that’s required to get through it. Maybe many big changes.

But we’re going to do more than get through it. We’re going to grow through it. We’re going to improve through it. We’re going to emerge from the contrast better than ever before.

And you know why we’ll do all that? Because it’s the only way to get through to the other side, where the contrast vanishes in a puff of dust like a staked vampire, and the new reality that came to replace it gleams like gold.

A word about meditation

A meditation practice is highly recommended. It took me years to find a method that works for me, and I found it in the guided meditation downloads in the ebook version of “Getting into the Vortex” by Jerry and Esther Hicks. The e-version comes with a “Bonus track” not included on the paperback/CD version, and the bonus track is “Mostly Music.” All the other tracks are guided, but on this bonus track, Esther only speaks a line or two at the beginning and end of the 15-minute session. The rest of the time it’s soft music and you just count your breaths. There are very subtle musical cues for the breathing rhythm, but it took me some time to notice them.

Ever since I discovered that one, I've used the three-beats-in, five-beats-out pattern. If my mind is particularly chatty, I add colors. Red, orange, yellow on the inhale, green, teal, blue, indigo, purple on the exhale. When thoughts come, I notice, release, return to the counting, the breathing. Within a couple of minutes my hands start to tingle, and then there’s a sense of disconnecting from my body.

As we quiet the mind-chatter that’s usually running in our heads by distracting it with the counting, we allow our inner being, what we call our soul, to take the reins. She links up with the larger part of ourself, which is still outside the physical body, fully expanded, and there’s an instant download.

• We download all the information and knowledge we’ll need.

• We download healing for any physical damage in our body.

• We download re-balancing of our body’s chemical systems.

• We download regulating of our body’s electrical systems.

• We download well-being.

I can’t prove any of that.

I can prove the following, all mentioned in a Harvard Health article

Meditation…

• Is as effective against depression as an anti-depressant

• Relieves pain

• Relieves anxiety, and the higher your anxiety level, the more it helps

• Reduces stress and mitigates stress-related conditions including IBS, PTSD, fibromyalgia

• Reduces cortisol production

• Reduces negative thinking

• Lowers blood pressure

• Reduces LDL (“bad”) cholesterol

• May reduce age-related memory loss

• Helps with addiction

• Improves sleep

• Lengthens attention span

• Enhances self-awareness

• Can generate kindness

• And may lead to a longer life

For practitioners of natural magic, meditation is one of the “Paths to Power.”

It has been said that prayer is speaking to the gods.
Meditation is listening for their answer.

There is no doubt that a person who meditates is healthier, more aligned, more positive, and more powerful a manifester than one who does not.

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Sources:

Choosing Your Meditation Style, Psychology Today

What Meditation Can Do for Your Health, Harvard Health

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