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Samhain • How to Break Out of Old Patterns • [Silver Chalice Wiccan 'Zine #70] October 31, 2019 |
Table of ContentsEditor's Note Energy Fields & Astrology -- November Energies New Video - So You Want to be a Wiccan? Wicca Students Speak Out New Article - Breaking Out of Old Patterns Sabbats & Esbats & Other Wiccan Rituals - Samhain Quotes - on Change & Discomfort
Editor's NoteMerry Meet! Welcome to the Silver Chalice Wicca 'Zine!
For this edition I chose to do a video version of an editor's note. Click here to view:
Also, I recently made a new video called "So You Want to be a Wiccan?" which is mentioned later in this 'zine. Another new part of this 'zine is the article about breaking out of old patterns, which I hope is useful to you. Happy Samhain! Wishing you brightest blessings,
Energy Fields & Astrology:
There’s been a lot of “offline brain” syndrome going around. Does it feel like you can’t get your brain working clearly, you can’t think or figure things out these days? The ongoing energetic upgrades happening on the Earth is shifting us from ego-mind, creating (forcing?) an opening for intuition to come forward. In other words, we’re meant to be learning how to think with our bodies, with our hearts, with our souls... and temporarily inhibiting the brain’s clarity is a not-so-subtle push in that direction. As we move into the New Paradigm, the Ascension, the Spiritual Golden Age (whatever you like to call it), we will be incorporating more forms of knowing and dethroning the brain as the only viable source of information. Note: the harder you resist this and try to stay in your head, the more uncomfortable this experience will be. Relax the need to know, the fear of not knowing... and you’ll find that you actually DO know what you need to know. And it’ll be deeper, more true than what your head thinks it knows. 😉
When an oyster is breaking open, it doesn’t realize the magnificent pearl it will be bringing into the world. Taken literally, that’s maybe not so nice an image, but this is a metaphor: We are the oyster! Breaking open changes everything, including who we thought we were. But isn’t the pearl of our truest self and our highest good worth the pain? After decades of intense “breaking,” I definitely feel it is! Since this past Sunday, we're in a New Moon cycle in Scorpio. The Sun/Moon in Scorpio means that we are being called to let go of old wounds, secrets, and our shadows, so we can be lighter and free from our old habits and security blankets that are keeping us in our old reality which felt like safety. One emphasis of Scorpio is about power - the balance of power, how to hold space for power, what powerlessness feels like. It's also about the purging process to allow for a new, more powerful state of being to exist; it can come forward through deep psychological probing and acknowledging our darkest parts of ourselves. Uranus is bringing major change and disruptive energy to this new moon cycle, which will be helpful with recognizing and breaking open things or relationships that will not serve us in the future. The energy of Uranus assists with you showing up in your full strength, so you can step into your personal power and transform into your future self. Be aware of Uranus' energy bringing forth chaos or rebellion or unexpected changes or insight, which, though potentially uncomfortable, might inspire freedom or changes in your life. Mercury is in retrograde from October 31st - November 20th. So in addition to the energy from this turning of the wheel, Mercury is assisting with now being a good time for introspection and re-evaluation. Next Full Moon: Tuesday November 12th @ 5:34am PST, 8:34am EST, and 1:34pm GMT
New Video:
Click on the image below to view:
Wicca Students Speak Out:
"I want to express my gratitude because this is really an amazing course. So well structured, so well written, so full of very practical information. This
course is just WOW. I have seen other home study courses about Wicca, but yours is really outstanding and I dare to say far better than the others. This course is way ahead of anything else offered online. " - Charles V.
"The classes are easy to read, easy to understand and I've learned oh so much even in just six lessons! [Erin] never speaks down to us, she is always uplifting with so much encouragement and sometimes a bit of humor thrown in which always gets me giggling. There is no sugar coating, just straight knowledge. It is obvious Erin wants you to feel good in your calling and give us as much information as she can to allow us to grow." - Margo R. "Your course is clearly written. It leaves no questions, because you have
places to go that explain it further if need be.
Mostly I love your course because you make it fun to learn. It is not cut and dry. You inject humor, which has value when you are learning. I am so glad I found you and your course." - Linda C. Click here to see more feedback from students
New Article: How To Overcome the Stuck Places on your Spiritual JourneySilver Chalice Exclusive!Have you ever had the experience where you’ve done a lot of reading and taken courses and maybe even gone to healers, and you've done all of this work, yet you can't seem to break out of old patterns? You've come a long way, and then you kind of plateau — it's like no matter what you do, you can't seem to get that next step up. When we hit those plateaus, those stuck places, there are 3 ways that we can go forward that will boost us up to the next level. And they're kind of extreme. Because up until this point you've been doing the work with your conscious mind, making changes in your life and in your self, etc. But there comes a point where you can't do that anymore, where the very essence of your ego is at risk. If you were to make the new changes that you want to make, you would no longer recognize yourself as You, you would no longer be the “I" that you know and are comfortable with. And that's where it bogs down. As they say, “You can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools." You can't use the ego to dismantle the ego. It absolutely won't work. The ego will do everything in its power to let you THINK that that's what you're actually doing and that you're making headway, but the reality is that the ego cannot dismantle itself. So it takes something so dramatic that it basically knocks you out of your ego and you're forced to find a new way of being. That's what I call the 3 options for boosting past that plateau to the next level: cliff falling, skydiving, or base jumping.Cliff FallingCliff falling is when you are not making progress, not consciously doing your inner work, so life comes along and boots your butt right over the edge. And you are falling — free falling; you have no control. Everything that you thought you were and everything you thought life was, has just fallen apart into a million shards and you have no idea where to even stand or how to cope. The key to this option is that you haven't done it consciously. Your life just blew up, seemingly on its own, and you're left to pick up the pieces. That doesn't sound like fun. It's not fun. At the same time, though, at the other end of that crisis, you are reborn.SkydivingThis is where you put yourself voluntarily in a situation so far over your head that you have no choice but to break out of all of your old patterns, old ways of being, old ways of seeing yourself and thinking of who you are. You just put yourself right on the edge and then you leap into something that you have no idea how it's going to turn out— you're going on faith and you're flying. There are a lot of different ways of doing this — going to a meditation retreat so intense you think it’s impossible, or in some other way pushing so far past your limits you feel like you don’t have any idea how you’ll get through it. Whatever that looks like for you, the one thing I can guarantee is that it will scare the pants off you. It feels like it’s so far beyond impossible, there's no way you can do it. And yet you do it anyway. You leap, and you hope that you’re going to learn to fly — somehow! — on the way down. Please realise this isn’t referring to putting yourself into actual life threatening situations. It should be threatening to your ego, which usually feels like the same thing. ;-) But it will keep your skin and bones intact.Base JumpingI think of this as using your daily life as your launching pad for spiritual growth. Base jumping is when you continually rip out your safety nets and jump out of your comfort zones and your beliefs about yourself and your expectations about life. You continue to take them and throw them away, notice them and throw them away... breaking your ideas of yourself over and over again, whenever a sense of “I” starts to calcify. “I” like this, “I” can’t do that, “I’m” just this way…
This is powerful spiritual alchemy. And it always makes me think of the Goddess
Akhilandeshvari: the Goddess Never-Not-Broken, who I see as the matron Goddess of this planetary transformation into the Spiritual Golden Age that is dawning now.
What She does is She continuously breaks Herself open, so the Divine can shine through. Every time She starts to solidify into an idea of Herself as an individual, separate from the Divine, She shatters Herself again against the spear of Light.
The practice of continuing to break open, on purpose, is the whole point of base jumping as a spiritual technique. If you want the evolution, if you want transformation beyond the level where you get stuck, where the ego can't dismantle itself, you've got to really rip away the ground under your feet. You've got to put yourself in the situation that feels impossible. You’ve got to break down the ideas of yourself over and over again, so that Truth can shine through.
And that's the whole point—of any of these 3 methods: if it
doesn't feel like it scares the pants off of you, if it doesn't feel like you can't possibly do it, then it's not going to take you to the next level.
I’m not going to lie. It’s hard work. It’s may well be the hardest thing you ever do. It certainly was for me, every time! But it’s worth it.
For one thing, you get to avoid the tension of waiting for life to kick you over the edge when you’re least expecting it.
What’s really great, though, is that in doing them, you will discover that you are so much more than you’d ever really imagined. And when you start to know this true self, life gets magical! And peaceful. And joyful. Everything you really wish life could be, is waiting for you on the other side of your false “I”-dentity.
Why not take the leap, and go meet it?
Sabbats, Esbats, & Other Wiccan Rituals:
"Samhain" comes from the Old Irish word Samuin, which meant "Summer's End," according to generally accepted etymology. The Moon is fully in ascendency; the Sun's Power ebbing to its lowest point. This Sabbat is associated with the West (the dying away), and therefore with Water... particularly the very deep, dark waters associated with the Ocean.
Samhain is a time of deep magick. It's a time of subtle beauty, that people of shallow perception miss noticing. There are 3 primary Energies of this season... 1. Crossing Between the Worlds 2. Honouring our ancestors and those who dwell in the Summerlands, on the Isle of Apples 3. Descending to the Underworld — Winter, the realm of Death There are some very powerful underlying Energies as well: 1. Final Harvest Samhain is the celebration of the third harvest of the year. This is called the Final Harvest because anything left on the trees or in the fields after October 31 is said to belong to Hecate, and left there for the animals to consume through the winter. 2. The Journey Within As the Earth journeys into the dark season, we enter a journey within as well… exploring the misty, hidden realm of our own subconscious and Shadow Self. To liberate our Powers and heal old wounds... to become the person we were born to be. 3. Cleansing and releasing Samhain is a powerful time of releasing, cleansing, and purifying — yourself, your house, your Energy Field, your DNA... 4. Surrender Samhain speaks to the most challenging and most powerful of all spiritual practices — that of letting go. Without resistance, we enter into the Flow of life — life becomes smoother, more harmonious, easier, and blessed with gifts of grace. 5. The Ending is the Beginning Samhain also marks the Celtic New Year. The Wiccan perspective is that all birth actually begins in the darkness; the hidden growth happens long before any sign of it rises into the light. Wiccans see Samhain as marking the end of one cycle of seasons, and beginning the hidden gestation of the next. 6. The Sacrament of Death Samhain is a time that speaks to us of what lives beyond the mortal world: the soul, the eternal, other realms of existence. One thing all Wiccans have in common based on our beliefs and experiences is that death is not an ending... merely a transition to a new beginning.
Other Ideas for Celebrating Samhain
This information about Samhain is from parts of Lesson #40, "Celebrating Samhain" in A Year & A Day: 53 Weeks to Becoming a Wiccan.
Quotes: "Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort." "Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean giving up familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, and relationships that have lost their meaning." "All discomfort comes from suppressing your true identity."
"Growth is painful. Change is painful. But, nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you do not belong."
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There is
so much breaking up, breaking down, and breaking open happening! So many things passing out of our lives, necessitating a rewiring of who we think we are and what we think is important in our lives. A challenging time for sure. But how much beauty and potential in it!
Samhain is when Witches bridge the gap between the world of the living (material reality) and the realm of the dead (spirit reality), and that bridging is what sets Wicca apart.
