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4/15/2020 0 Comments Spring ReflectionsBy Melanie-Dawn (Ollenberg) Bessa The shift from winter can now be felt as the streams thaw, life reawakens, and the buds emerge. Since the Spring Equinox in March, when the day and night were of equal time, the light has been gaining momentum. We can feel the effect in our own restlessness as the seeds and buds make their way to the surface.  Life emerging at the Rosseau Sanctuary Historically, there are many myths and archetypes of reawakened life. Here are a few examples:
The return to life has so many qualities that we experience in our own lives when we live seasonally. Renewal takes strength, endurance, and eagerness in order to amount to an abundant harvest. Just look at how hard yet how calm that seed has to work to reach up through the mud to the surface. Like those seeds, we need to root around in the dark, make mistakes, and clarify our boundaries. With the heightened energies abounding, fears and doubts also emerge as a barometer for change, exposing opportunities and processes to bring you us closer to peace, or expose an area in our journey that is being called to grow. Renewal also requires discernment around what to keep and what to release, to make room for the new - it's the perfect time for Spring cleaning, both inside and out. 5 Personal Reflections for SpringDeveloping confidence in your innate ability to shed and rise up will both strengthen your connection to yourself as well as your ability to trust and surrender to your soul's yearnings. To help you on this road this season here are some personal reflections to consider:
Blessings of Growth, Healing and Renewal,
Melanie-Dawn
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5. Finding your Strength and Power in your Core, and sending that power down your feet into the earth to anchor it in the web of support that is gaia. With Spring comes the time to reconnect with the feeling of the earth beneath your feet, and the realization that we are not separate from the earth - but an extension of it. The earth is here to support you. Feel your power in your belly, send it down your legs into your feet, like roots into the earth. Sway your hips, feel your center, touch in with your anchor. Breath, walk and dance from that place. While individual Reiki Sessions always have their sacred and unique energy, it is fascinating when there are themes across sessions, and I can't help but think about the impact that our individual healing efforts have on group consciousness. Perhaps individual sessions can give us a glimpse into the collective consciousness, and when we work towards a brighter future for ourselves, we are setting into motion healthy changes on a systemic level. At any rate, I do hope the insights gleamed through others will also support you in your path this Spring.
Many blessings, Melanie 10/29/2018 0 Comments The ancestors at your back: Welcoming Samhain, All Soul’s day, and Venus in Libra (by Liz Worth)It’s not the first time I’ve seen repeating cards when I write these messages. Once again, the Nine of Cups has followed us into the week. I love this card. It’s one of my favourite to see in a reading, as it represents so many blessings all at once. But most of all, it represents simple joy, something we all need and deserve. This card might at first feel like a strange juxtaposition to the week ahead. On Wednesday, October 31, we welcome Halloween, or Samhain. And then All Soul’s Day on Thursday, November 1. While all of Scorpio season is a powerful time to connect with your intuition, ancestors, and magic, these are the dates that are so often discussed as the times when the veils between worlds are at their thinnest. As Scorpio season helps us to embrace any change in season within our own lives, October 31 and November 1 encourage us to find support, guidance, and remembrance in those who have come before, too. And so that’s one of the messages I’m taking from the Nine of Cups this week: To allow yourself to lean on those who have come before you. It’s so easy to forget that so many other lives had to be lived so that we can be here, now. It’s also easy to feel detached, or distant, from our ancestral lineages, especially if it’s not something you know, or were taught to understand. But Daniel Foor, author of Ancestral Medicine, talks about finding that connection through the land itself. By not focusing on the ancestors who you may have known as extended family, but to think more holistically about all the places your body came from, and the people and stories – a thousand years’ worth – that your body contains. How might you feel a little more supported, a little richer, a little more connected, if you took some time this week to learn a folktale or myth from part of your distant past? What if you took a moment to find richness there, and to celebrate it by lighting a candle for those who came before you? Use this light as a way to say thank you, or to sit in meditation and invite some ancient guidance into your life. October may have felt energetically charged so far, but some of that energy will begin to lift on the 31st, too, whether you choose to have it supported by your ancestors or not. Mercury leaves Scorpio for Sagittarius at 12:38am EST on October 31, allowing our thoughts to come up for air and eventually take flight with the agile, inspired energy that Sag offers. You might feel optimism, hope, and understanding deepen for you later in the week. Venus continues its retrograde, slipping back into the sign of Libra later on Wednesday, at 3:42pm EST. This, too, will bring a change in perspective, though relationships continue to be strongly highlighted here. Expect conversations to begin to circle around what is fair and just within your partnerships. Lovers, friends, and colleagues will all be expected to pick up the slack, so anyone who hasn’t been doing their fair share can expect to be called out on it. Here’s an intention you can use throughout the week: “I trust that my ancestors stand behind me, and I open to their guidance.” And if you’d like to connect with the energies of Samhain or All Soul’s Day, here is a tarot spread to try: 1. What story did my ancestors give to me? 2. What lesson do they want me to see now? 3. How can I honour my history? 4. How can I invite my ancestors to guide me? Until next time, Liz xo
19 years ago was a turning point in my life. I had completed my MA in adult education and had worked several years as a frontline crisis counselor. I was a change maker and was getting burned out fast. I was in a relationship which caused me great internal conflict and I wanted to make changes on many levels but was unsure of my direction. As well, I was having anxiety attacks. Finally, I made a decision to go to Vancouver for a break and a change of scenery. Before I left, I spoke with the man I was with about my anxiety. I was quite shaken and he gave me tobacco wrapped in a red cloth and told me to offer it in a natural place (Tobacco is one of the sacred medicines in many First Nation traditions across North America). He told me I would know the moment. So with tobacco in my pocket I left for Vancouver hoping that I would know the moment. After three days of walking on the beach by the mountains, being with good friends and writing down my thoughts and feelings, I began to come back to myself and all of the anxiety subsided. On the third day, my walk along kitsalano beach was met by the most beautiful sight of a Bald Eagle perched on top of the totem pole outside the Marina museum. I was overcome by emotion and I felt an intense gratitude. I knew this was the moment. I reached for the red bundle in my pocket, which I opened and offered to the earth. I sat and was with the Eagle for a long time. It seemed that nobody even noticed that she was there. I didn’t understand what the significance was of this experience but I knew it was sacred, healing and important. I also felt that somehow life had sent me a message. I had been exposed to Native spiritual teachings through my work at a Native Women’s organization in Toronto and was aware that the Eagle was a powerful symbol as a messenger of the Great Spirit. What that meant for me was not clear except that I felt an urgency to discover more about the Eagle and its message. So I began my search about Eagles, beginning with searching in the new age bookstore for any clues.  Pixabay Image
It is the relationship between the hills and the rivers that speaks volumes, reminding us that the hidden aspects of the moon are as important as the visible, like this quote by Max Heindel:
We have so much to learn from nature, and from seeing ourselves not as disconnected from it, but another aspect or embodiment of it, adhering to the same laws and principles, the same resources and processes to pull us through times of change and transformation. If you're interested in learning how to apply palmistry into your assessment process with clients over time, you may be interested in attending my upcoming workshop, scheduled for May 27th from 1:30-4:30pm at the Inner Arts Collective: "The Landscape of the Hand":  Registration Required. Please email Melanie at innerartscollective@gmail.com, or use the link provided here: Melanie Ollenberg Melanie has been reading hands for over 20 years, with appearances on the Discovery Channel, Much Music, the Steve and Chris Show, and Talk3600. She has a degree in Health Science, is a Reiki Master, and Kundalini and Hatha Yoga practitioner. Melanie has tried her hand in a range of positions in the health, education, and psycho-spiritual sectors, and after 25 years of counselling, community development, program design and system improvement work, she realized how deeply her work was rooted in a passion for the healing arts.
Now a mother of 2, Melanie is committed to creating communities of resilience, learning, and transformation through her family, work, and neighbourhood. She believes in bringing worlds of resources, knowledge, and experience together to make communities stronger, aware, and sustainable - particularly through her journey as Co-Founder of the Inner Arts Collective, and through her palmistry and reiki instruction at Kore Changes. |
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