PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in healing

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Crystal Healing: Helping Ourselves

Hey everyone!

Another question has come up that I thought I would address as a blog post. Curt asks:

"I find my crystal work is more effective in assisting others than it is when I assist myself. What do you advise?"

That's a really great question, and one I have often asked myself over the years. Why is it that most healing modalities seem more effective when we apply them to others than when we work on ourselves?

When we work on ourselves, many different factors come into play:

Last modified on

Everyone comes to the healing path in a different way. This is the first post in my "Steps on the Healing Path" series, in which I'll share some of the pivotal moments of my journey.

A slightly different version of this post appeared on my personal blog in 2012.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Helper: Help Thyself

Step One is "We admitted that we were harming ourselves and others and that our lives had become overwhelming."

When I am overwhelmed, my primal brain is in control, and all it cares about is survival.  I've been under the control of my primal brain for most of the year so far, even when things were going good.  I was aware that something was wrong, but I kept putting off examining myself to find my problem while I helped other people find and work out theirs.

...
Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Michele L Warch
    Michele L Warch says #
    Thank you. That was very helpful to see them side by side. I think I've always understood the wording in my own head to be in keep
  • Michele L Warch
    Michele L Warch says #
    Thank you for your review. Its funny the way the world works -- not really, just synchronicity. I was having a conversation, last
  • Ashley Rae
    Ashley Rae says #
    Thank you for your insight, Michele! I have to admit that Christian wording turns me off. I can't get through A Course in Miracl

b2ap3_thumbnail_sun-copy.jpg

“Gold lion’s going to tell me where the light is…” Yeah Yeah Yeahs

...
Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    I'm really enjoying your writing. Maybe we'll run into you at the next Phoenix Pagan Pride Day. My wife and I don't get out as m
  • Aleah Sato
    Aleah Sato says #
    Greetings, Ted! So glad to hear you're enjoying Juniper & Crow. I'd love to meet the two of you at the next Pagan Pride. Yes, I
  • Meg Beeler
    Meg Beeler says #
    Great blog!! The energy and vibration of gold are so fun to work with, and you capture them well. A long time ago I wrote "Finding
  • Aleah Sato
    Aleah Sato says #
    Oh, thank you so much, Meg. I look forward to reading your essay. Blessings to you.

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Recently, I received a message about health and healing. The questions centered on healing from physical injury, support during surgery, and common practices in ancient Hellas in these types of situations both of the injured and their families. Seeing as most of us will most likely wat to request the healing aid of the Gods at one point in our lives, I though I would make a blog post out of it.

In ancient Hellas, people got sick just like we get sick now. With the poorer hygiene conditions and often heavy physical labor that was undertaken, epidemics one one illness or another must have been quite common, and accidents were prone to happen. As such, there were quite a number of deities who were especially prone to help humanity recover from diseases and injuries.

When we discuss health and healing, we must first look at the worship of Asklēpiós. Asklēpiós was, and is, a much beloved Theos. He started out being honored as a hero--the son of Apollon and Koronis--but became a God in His own right because of his healing skill. It seems Asklēpiós was such a fine healer, He could even bring the dead back to life, even though He is no longer permitted to do that. Apollon presides over the healing proccess as well--in general with the Hellenic deities, younger generations preside over the building blocks of the previous generation, so while Apollon has 'healing' in His portfolio, much of the actual healing is done by his younger son, and specific subsets of healing are distributed amongst Asklēpiós' daughters.

Last modified on
Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    Ms. Temperance, Thanks for sharing! These are deities that most Hellenists, myself included, should probably honor more.
Where Women Gather, Magic Rises: Journeying Into WomanSpirit In 2014

It is a new year, and it’s time for this woman to focus on her quest of connecting with womanspirit, and to focus on this blog as the home base for the exploration of the feminine mysteries and sisterhood.

This year I will be attending the monthly Women’s Sacred Circle at my local Unitarian Universalist congregation, I’ll be making new friends and hopefully forming a coterie of women, and I’ll be starting a spiritual practice that will delve into the feminine mysteries to blend them with my animistic and solitary journey. I might even pray. :) I’m hoping music will have a part, too. In 2014 I am emerging from the wild hedge to dance in the circle of women.

I keep finding myself imagining Artemis emerging from the woods… not lonely since she lives with the animals and plants and moon and earth, but curious about the gathering women, and sensing a sisterhood she belongs to… and taking her place among them, contributing to their presence and magic, and helping to ground it in the earth and lift it toward the stars. Grow…

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Rebecca Buchanan
    Rebecca Buchanan says #
    Where did you find that awesome olde timey photograph?
  • Paola Suarez
    Paola Suarez says #
    Clicked on your post thinking you were writing about Where Womyn Gather (www.wherewomyngather.com) the gathering I've been going t
Femme: Women Healing the World...The We and the Us, Not the I and Me

     In ever-increasing numbers women and men are seeking spirituality beyond traditional religious institutions and more and more their new normal includes the deities, ideals and archetypes of the Sacred Feminine.  They have a desire to get beyond the patriarchal dogma of the Abrahamic religions that so often perpetuates sexism, homophobia and the domination of Mother Earth and all her inhabitants.  Women, in particular, are hearing and heeding their calling, stepping forth to take on their mantle of leadership as rabbis, ministers, priestesses, Nuns on the Bus and Womanpriests.  They are exercising their spiritual authority in circles at their kitchen tables, in their living rooms and classrooms, in brick and mortar churches and temples, in political arenas and groves.  They are flexing their spiritual wings and allowing themselves to be guided by their intuition, innate female wisdom and inner-knowing.  They encourage their congregations to know and feel the essence of Goddess and understand what that new knowledge might mean for themselves personally and the world.  They refuse to go back to a time when men have dominion over women's bodies and tell them to put an aspirin between their knees as a form of birth control!

Often the shared message of these like-minded women and men is one of female empowerment, equality, social justice and environmental responsibility, sometimes referred to as eco-feminist spirituality.  The liturgy may contain social, cultural and political messages of liberation thealogy using Goddess mythology, archetypes and metaphors as benchmarks and templates for a more just, peaceful and sustainable future.   Gone altogether or tempered is the message of the strict authoritarian Father whose mythology gives license for a male-dominated society with women in a subordinate role.  Nothing less than peace, partnership, justice, equality and care for the planet are at the heart of this Sacred Feminine wisdom.  Gone are the greed is good or survival of the fittest mentalities.  As more and more people find themselves “the other” and with little hope of achieving the American Dream, they are willing to rethink the status quo and vision another future and a government that serves more than the 1%.

In answer to this collective call to restore and re-write our values and find a new social and spiritual path women and men are blazing a trail using their pink handled machetes to find their way.  Within religious groups it might manifest in progressive churches using gender neutral names for God in prayer and song.  Others include liturgy embracing the Divine Mother in equal partnership alongside the Father.  Altars might not be dominated only by male images.  Still others give themselves permission to conduct women-only services and exhibit only female images of deity at their gatherings.  Congregants worship together in circles rather than in hierarchical configurations with a male intermediary between them and deity.  In fact, these groups and gatherings might be leaderless, egalitarian or organizers might share leadership.

To push these new values forward in society Goddess advocates recognize the need to stand in solidarity with pro-worker, pro-women, pro-science, pro-immigrant, pro-peace, and pro-environmental groups who feel the weight of  rich, white, male privilege on their neck.  It means partnering with secular people, particularly the millenials, who feel the most disenfranchised with the current state of the economy, their crushing student loan debt and their hopelessness about the future.   It means legislating real family values,  restoring worker stability, shoring up the depleted social safety net and investing in people and jobs.

Social justice and uplifting the common good are key and those values are not only prevalent in ideals of the Sacred Feminine but their importance is punctuated in a newly released documentary that addresses the issues of patriarchy, women's rights, and our desperate need for partnership. Femme: Women Healing the World is a brave film that starts at the beginning, unafraid to talk about pre-patriarchal times, when women and Goddess were revered and people were more concerned about the We and the Us instead of the current climate of greed and selfishness, aka, the I and the Me.   Femme is unafraid to examine the relationship between religion and the oppression of women and the economic disparity that is the result of our following a patriarchal or male-dominated agenda. 

With Red States and Republicans around the country taking away women's freedom and dignity in mandating they be penetrated with state sanctioned vaginal probes and limiting access to birth control in the year 2013, never has such a film been more needed.  With women doing 80% of the work with only 20% of the assets, never has a film been more important.  With so many hungry children,  women retiring in poverty and austerity measures being thrust upon the poor and middle class, disproportionately affecting women and their kids, information in this film is vital to help shift consciousness toward a more equitable and sustainable future.   With Republicans about to destroy the full faith and credibility of the United States with needless manufactured crises,  it's time to step up and demand a return to balance, sanity and majority rule.  With the daily assaults on our finite resources and Mother Earth, it is time to awaken and this film is a wake-up call! 

The Dalai Lamma said it would be Western women who would save the world.  Certainly it can be women across the globe, stepping up, taking on their mantle of leadership, demanding they no longer be diminished and oppressed under male authority, and with that, a tipping point toward love, balance, peace and an inter-connection among us all. Nothing less is acceptable. Nothing less will save humankind and the planet.   Femme features American women  Jean Houston, Marianne Williamson, Celeste Yarnall, Riane Eisler, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Sharon Stone, Gloria Steinem, Barbara Marx Hubbard, myself, and numerous other women across the globe speaking out on how we might change the world along-side our beloved men.   Most importantly, it offers real solutions for a sustainable world and should be required viewing in religious, corporate and educational settings the world over.  If we can vision it, we can manifest it, and manifesting a new world is our moral imperative for the majority of us on this planet.

About Femme:  Women Healing the World -
Click here to watch: http://ykr.be/4ik59m1n6
You can download the video or stream it for only $4.99
Or DVD copies of Femme will be available in early 2014
For more information about the movie, go to

www.FemmeTheMovie.com

READ MORE ABOUT FEMME -

http://www.examiner.com/article/femme-women-healing-the-world-screenings-los-angeles-july
http://www.examiner.com/article/down-with-patriarchy-make-way-for-femme-women-healing-the-world-part-1
http://www.examiner.com/article/down-with-patriarchy-make-way-for-femme-women-healing-the-world-part-2


About Rev. Dr. Karen Tate --
Author of Walking An Ancient Path: Rebirthing Goddess on Planet Earth, Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations and the soon to be released Goddess Calling: Inspirational Messages and Meditations of Sacred Feminine Liberation Thealogy and Voices of the Sacred Feminine: Conversations to ReShape Our World.  Karen is a speaker, social justice activist, sacred tour leader, workshop presenter and host of the long running radio show, Voices of the Sacred Feminine Radio.  She can be reached at www.karentate.com or on Facebook and Twitter and can be seen in the documentary, Femme: Women Healing the World.  She resides in Venice, CA with Roy, her husband of thirty years who she describes as the wind beneath her wings.

Last modified on

Additional information