Lulu Loving Life: January 2010

As many of you know, I'm leading a Leap Into Life Meditation this Sunday at Moonheart where we will embrace the energy of first of the tarot archetype the fool. This meditation came to me very clearly just before the last new moon. I am very familiar with the fool, on many levels (you can giggle that's ok), so to be honest I didn't really feel like I needed to do a lot of prep work. However, after having a lovely conversation with my dear friend Miki yesterday afternoon, I realized that there was something that I was supposed to be doing in my life that I clearly had not acknowledged. Interestingly, I hadn't made the connection yet, even though I had reached a slump when working on my website. So, if you didn't know, I have been working fast and furious on my new web site to be unveiled later in February, and when I came to the part where this needed to be added, I had lost my inspiration or desire to keep going. I realized after speaking to Miki that this is something I need to pursue, but needed to find a way to put it into words. So tonight, before I went to sleep I thought, ok teacher use what you want to share with others. I didn't do a full meditation with the Fool; however, I did call in the energy of the Fool with the intention that I would receive the creative ideas to go forth. Since I wasn't specific about when and how I expected the information, the Fool or, perhaps the Fool's Muse, woke me around 3:30 AM. So basically I got a four hour nap and since then the ideas and inspiration have been downloading. Typically I fight this but I have decided not to so since I'm up, I may as well blog about my excitement right And the alarm was due to go off right about now anyway. Interestingly I had made a connection back to the Power Mask assignment I gave to the December New Moon participants. Little did I know when I listened to spirits suggestion about creating masks that I was also creating a logo for a consulting service I'm supposed to offer. Ooops, did I let the cat out of the bag...not too much....and the point is, that I listened to what my heart told me to share. I did it without attachment to the result and within a month something brand new and exciting for me was birthed.

Oh did I tell you that the fool is about creation. And also about non-attachment as the Fool is also about taking leaps of faith. Often people say the fool is about no-fear. I don't think that is possible, fear is a reality. The truth is the Fool is about courage. First the etymology of the word courage comes from couer, which means heart in French. So in trusting our heart we can leap into life fully, not without fear but despite fear as we trust that we must take that direction.

So I guess the reason that I am called to write this blog is because even though I know ceremony and working with archetypes is powerful, when it comes in so strongly and clearly after a simple request, I am in complete and utter awe. So I guess it's true that we teach what we need to learn and also to let you know that the energies around this full moon are certainly ramping up and the Fool is ever present and most definitely willing and able to work with you.

Interestingly the Fool is the first card yet is represented by the number 0 (zero). Representing the circle of unity and as Oscar often says, in correlation with Hermetic principles "As Above So Below. As Below, So Above. As Within, So Without. As Without, So Within. As the Self, So the Circle. As the Circle, so the Self." Also 0 representing "No-thing" - need I say more about the wisdom in that and non-attachment.

The other energy that is often associated with the Fool is Christ Consciousness. And I stress consciousness and not what religion has interpreted him and his teachings to be about. The pure consciousness of Christ is about unconditional love and forgiveness. The most obvious association with the Fool is the clown, the trickster and the jester that was a key part of every royal kingdom since after all "laughter is the GPS for the soul."

So as I get ready to to go out into the world and get myself some caffeine and sugar in the form of chai, I leave you with this fool/christ consciousness/laughter like quote:
"Humor offers a revolutionary yet simple spiritual paradigm. If you can laugh at yourself, you can forgive yourself. And if you forgive yourself, you can forgive others. Laughter heals and grounds us in a place of hope. It fosters intimacy and honesty in our relationships with each other and with God. And isn't that what grace is all about"

To give credit, where it is due. Both quotes came from Ode Magazines, August 2009 Issue, which was dedicated to laughter. Which coincidentally arrived just before my clowning trip to Costa Rica last September....oh I digress.

So I look forward to sharing the wisdom of the Fool with you on Sunday evening in person or if you can't be there, invite the fool to visit (I can give you recommendations if you need them) and let me know how it works out for you.

Wishing you a day filled with Light, Love and Laughter,
Lulu

As I mentioned in Facebook, I am still moon-toxicated from this month's New Moon. Part of that means that I easily "forget my zip code" (which I'm getting used to and is fortunately less dramatic than pre-NewMoon) and most importantly I am filled with love and everything appears more beautiful. Every New Moon Ceremony has been special yet this one holds the record to date and I have to thank all the participants for making that my reality.

Before I go into details of the ceremony I want to speak a little bit about the day after. The next day, I had to leave the house at 5:30 AM for a business trip to Warwick, RI. As the effects of the ceremony kept me alert for many more hours, I headed out for what I expected to be a 3 1/2 hour drive on about the same amount or less of sleep. My mind was a little concerned, so I made sure that when I got in the car I put a little poqpo (protection of light) around myself and the car. It also helped that I had my friend Laurie with me for 2/3 of the drive. She had spent the night and lives up by New Haven so I dropped her off. Good conversation and company helped. As the sun started to rise, we would break up the conversation with a "Look at the sky" or "Did you see that, the clouds are amazing". The pinkness of the sky as the sun rose and the actual sunrise was stunning. It was hard to keep my eyes on the road. After I dropped off Laurie, the beauty continued. It truly felt like I was driving IN a painting. I remembered having a similar experience after I had a road trip after the October New Moon, so the theme was a New Moon Ceremony the night before. Hence the common deduction is, ceremony gives me rose colored glasses, I like it, and reinforces my desire to doing more New Moon ceremonies.

And in my typical fashion I let my mind wander and I recalled an experience many years ago in a ceremonial weekend with Oscar in Rye, New York. We had an intense ceremony that was phenomenal; however, afterwards, I felt like I was spinning out and lost my zip code in a personally dramatic sort of way. The next morning Oscar, looks at me and says, "How you doing Lulu?", as if he didn't know. I was closer to home, but still trying to figure out my zip code and replied. "Since you asked, I have a question. The funny thing is that during ceremony my experience was great and I 'kept it together'; however, as soon as we closed the circle, I spun out and felt disconnected. Do you have any recommendations?" Oscar simply replied, "Be in ceremony All the time." Of course, he included the Oscar belly laugh too.

I thought, "Very funny Oscar, hah, hah....not possible". That statement has haunted me at times and, as time has progressed, I've re-interpreted the very wise Oscar as meaning, make your life a ceremony and that, yes, it is most definitely possible. The benefits of the metaphorical ceremonial applications to life has helped me realize that life is truly artistry and I'm a co-creator of all this beauty. We truly are in the kingdom of heaven, we just don't always re-member. I'm guilty of forgetting at times, yet I know practice makes perfect, and as I continue the literal ceremony, the metaphorical and literal applications to my life unfold more easily.

As many of you know, I gave each participant their tarot soul archetype based on their birthday. There is the traditional Ryder Waite tarot archetype; however, since it was my intention for us to awaken our inner divine children, I chose to use the Inner Child deck by Isha Lerner and we called in an equivalent for each of us. For example, my numbers add to a one which equates to the magician in a more traditional deck. In the Inner Child deck, that is Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. Personally, I have found her information and style quite profound. In addition to what comes with the cards and is her workbook, what has truly made this profound is my continued personal exploration of the nursery rhyme as it applies to Lulu.

In my personal explorations, I read all of Isha's information, I also bought the original story in the Arabian nights and plan on watching the Disney version. Sountracks if they exist can also be helpful. Also to continue opening those child's eyes, that see life with wonder and awe, in you, I recommend seeing if Robert Sabuda has a pop-up rendition (www.robersabuda.com or via Amazon or your local children's book store). I was introduced to this author through my friend Cheri and his books are amazing. He didn't have one for my archetype but I bought some others anyway and they are amazing. So as you can see when my inner child is awake, I get inspired and am easily diverted from my original intention of sharing how the ceremony went. Before I do; however, it is important for me to stress the importance that you continue to nurture your experience from the ceremony like a new seedling. As has been my experience, when you "consciously" put intention and effort into transforming your life, you receive abundantly and magically as well.

Let your experience continue to unfold. It doesn't have to end here...let it continue by playing and exploring. I have chosen a playful approach, because it makes my life a little sweeter. I also find that when your more playful and joyful, manifestation occurs seamlessly. By using the children's version instead of the traditional, which is equally profound, for me the medicine is more like sugar and as Mary Poppins says and sings, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." And I encourage you to find what makes it sweeter for you.

Mary Poppins also says that "anything can happen if you let it" and it is through the ceremony that we are letting our dreams come true, so back to the ceremony...

We had record participation. Unfortunately, my ceremonial play room only fits 12 people so, I have expanded the ceremony to include dreamwork. Well, I developed this aspect because of the space limitations and the fact that we all have very busy lives. Just because the timing is inconvenient; doesn't mean anyone should miss out. If you haven't figured it out, I'm a girl who wants it all and loves to share. And most importantly and from a purely selfish perspective, I have friends all over the world, and I didn't want location of the ceremony to eliminate them from being able to play and pray along with me. Besides time and space are just an illusion of the 3rd dimension, right? So I give people the opportunity to do "like" ceremony in the conveniently comforts of their home prior to the new moon. Don't get me wrong, I like the company in the room to.

The dreamworkers send me the seeds of their dreams before the start of the ceremony and they are ceremonially integrated. And for those that are so busy that it is hard to do the dreamwork, if requested, I will call in their sombre/spiritual essence into the room. Their sombre receives the ceremony and is returned to the respective owner when we are done. I also know that the more the people that particpate, the louder the amplifier for our personal and global prayers.

Once the dreamwork, starts to be distributed the energy ramps up for me and it becomes more intense as we get closer and people are actually doing the dreamwork. So for me the ceremony was really in high gear by Tuesday night.

In fact, Tuesday night I was awoken in the middle of the night with a little more information. I realized that I needed to keep the ceremony going by not finalizing weaving of the garland of dreams until Saturday night. I didn't know why at the time, but now I believe that is is because we needed to keep the loving juices open for the people of Haiti. So I've also decided that aside from the distributing the tithing from the donations received to the Heart of the Healer Foundation (www.heartofthehealer.org) as originally stated, I am also going to tithe to a cause, still to be determined, that supports the people of Haiti. So all of your donations are going to support "the work." If your interesting in donating, there is a paypal link at http://www.lululovinglife.com/Lulu_Loving_Life/Thank_You.html (Please note that if your called to check it out, most of lululovinglife.com is still under construction, this is small step towards it's creation)

Aside from the 12 of us in the room, we had the dreamwork participations of 32 people from all over the world. Aside from the representation from many of the contiguous US states, we had participants in France, Holland, India, Puerto Rico. There were 25 people who asked to have their sombres included with the lite version. And this month, we also called in the essence of 11 children, and I believe that probably assisted our work most of all. I love it!. When I started to do this, I never tried to guess a number, but certainly didn't imagine this. I also received feedback that many did sit ceremonially at the same time. In fact, our participants in Puerto Rico took it on their own to meet as a group and feedback from my dear friend and hermanita Lymari was "OMG that was amazingggg! I'm so exited, because i
too, are very grateful that you shared this with us! I have a lot stories to share with you tomorrow but I can't wait to tell you I love you and give you a big bear hug!" As Lymari told me this morning, being in circle was like being a hug. I'm sharing this feedback to reinforce what happens as more people come together in unity to plant seeds for positive transformation from their hearts. I'm actually feeling more like spirit's pawn and because it's so much fun, I'm fine with that. So if you want to share some of your feedback with the group, I encourage you to put it in the comments section of the blog. If you want to share privately, you know my email. If you want to chat and don't have my number, ask and you shall receive.

On with the ceremony....we started with the traditional opening of the directions calling in the unseen forseen forces and the wisdom of the respective guides. And here is a photo of the pre-ceremony altar set up.

Attendees announced themselves and their nursery archetype to the altar. I then called in the dreamworkers and their archetypes, children and lightworkers. Needless to say the room was truly full. So the attendees could get an idea of the dream-workers and truly weave the circle, I read a sweet story of my Dutch friends experience of sharing the dreamwork with his wife and 2 daughters. We started with a journey to surrender all that no longer serves us. To ensure that we truly surrendered, each of us washed our hands with the water in the white pitcher and bowl, surrendering as we looked into the eyes of our representative divine child (one of my favorites from Alex Grey), reminding us of our true essence. It looks really cool in the dark, highlighted only by the altar candles.

We were all squeaky clean after this. With the intention of providing compost/fertilizer for our dreams, the bowl of cumulative water from the individual cleansing was placed beneath, the white bowl that contained the dream-workers seeds and the blossoms for the garland of dreams.

We then went on a journey. We opened our hearts and allowed our inner child to jump out and join us. We spent time communing with our inner child and discussed our dreams. We then called in our nursery tale archetypes to advise us on how to best achieve our soul's dreams. We thanked our guides and had our inner child return to our hearts. And since our hearts our open, our inner divine child is far more accessible to us on a regular basis. Basically just a thought away...

We blew our dreams into a cup of water from a pitcher that was already pretty charged with the prayers from all. We then embodied our dreams by drinking the water. Each of the attendees put their seeds on a piece of people and they were added to the white bowl that contained the seeds of the dream-workers. We then offered prayers for any of our friends or family that is in the need of healing or assistance and surrounded them with munay/unconditional love. We also offered to prayers and unity to our global family in Haiti. We closed the circle and ended with the acceptance of sweetness in the form of chocolate prasad that was juiced up from the ceremony. Dream-workers, yours will be in the mail, but hope you had some already to let the spirit world know that you are ready, willing and able to take sweetness into your life. No reason to wait.

The room was still humming when I returned from RI and it smelled so sweet, truly like a garden. I'm sure sewar q'enti, the royal humming bird, that bestows joy and bliss upon us, was feeling well fed so that in ayni and sacred reciprocity you should be receiving in abundance. In fact, there was still some water left in the pitcher of water that was used as part of the embodiment of our dreams. I finished it off and I have to tell you it was even yummier.

Saturday, evening I followed through with my promise of weaving the garland. I took each of your seeds and transferred them into a garland woven on a gold-colored thread. I included the one orange gerber to represent our communal and global prayers.

I placed the garland in the center of my altar so that your prayers are anchored on earth as they are in heaven. I just placed it down around the center piece of my altar and it "coincidentally" took the shape of a heart. Yes this falls into the "I can't make this stuff up" category.

While your dreams were being further anchored and so that no part of your intentions goes to waste, I ceremonially transformed your dreams through the element of fire.