Getting Rid of Dark Side Thinking Patterns

Dark Side Thinking Patterns is the best phrase I can think of to describe unwanted thoughts. These may be thoughts about ourselves or others. They may repeat like a broken record in our heads or come up when we are triggered.

It doesn’t matter what they are about because it will be different for each individual.

I used the phrase “Dark Side” because I relate to the Jedi on a deep soul level. (I will talk about that another time.) As I am not a psychologist, I like to use terms that I identify with and that others can relate to.

If my relative geekiness is too much for you, please bear with me and just call it negative thinking patterns.

Dark Side Thinking Patterns are habitual thought processes that have become ingrained within us. They are usually oriented in the past (as depression) or the future (as worry or anxiety) and have no meaning in the present.

I wrote this post because I still struggle with negative thoughts and I intend to break free from them. Completely.

If you have a lifelong battle with unwanted thoughts in the form of anger, hatred, worry, fear, anxiety, or feelings of low-self worth, I’m talking to you. If you have struggled your entire life in some area that no one around you has a problem with, I have been there also. Many times.

If you have no problem with negative thoughts and you know of someone who may benefit from reading this post, please share it.

Dark Side Thinking Patterns may be deep-seated fears caused by our beliefs that we are not good enough on some level. We may be more critical of ourselves than others. Our thinking patterns may carried-over from previous incarnations. We may not even be consciously aware of the reason.

In order to grow, we must break free of these negative thoughts in whatever way we can.

Here are techniques that I use:

STOP

STOP stands for the 4 parts of this technique.

The following is from the Cognitve Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles blog.

STOP is an acronym that stands for:
  1. S: Stop. Whatever you’re doing, just pause momentarily.
  2. T: Take a breath. Re-connect with your breath. The breath is an anchor to the present moment.
  3. O: Observe. Notice what is happening. What is happening inside you, and outside of you?
  4. P: Proceed. Continue doing what you were doing.

It is all about mindfulness, being in the present moment. Shifting your focus to the here and now. Which leads us to the next technique.

BEING PRESENT

You are not your thoughts. You are the one thinking the thoughts. Thoughts are mental projections created by you. When you are lost in Dark Side Thinking Patterns, you are not in touch with what is happening outside of you.

Being present and looking around wherever you are is a way of bringing you back to where you are. Just observing the present moment, the temperature of the air, the scents, the sounds, the feeling of the ground beneath your feet. Take a moment just to be in the present. This is practicing mindfulness. It is even more helpful when practiced along with the next technique.

GRATITUDE

When we are in a negative emotion, we have lost all sense of everything. Practicing gratitude allows us to see that things are not as bad as they seem. I think about how grateful I am daily. I have a roof over my head, heat, and warm clothing. As I write, the sun is shining and I’m grateful for that as we haven’t had many sunny days lately. I am grateful for the breakfast I just ate. I am grateful that my fingers can type these words. I am grateful for my computer. I am grateful for the chair that I am sitting on. I am grateful for my eyes. I am grateful for my breath.

Just going through a small list uplifts me. I have so much compared to others in the world. When I express gratitude, the focus shifts from me to everything else.

If I stay in the feeling of gratitude, I can feel the shift internally. This brings me to feeling a great sense of compassion for others. Oftentimes when I express gratitude, the Buddhist Metta prayer of loving-kindness comes to my thoughts.

May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings awaken to 
the light of their true nature.
May all beings be free.

Metta Prayer by Ginny Gaura

We are all in this together. When one person helps themselves to break free of negative thinking, everyone benefits. Imagine how uplifting the world would be if we all do.

May you break free.

Always,
Alice Always

P.S. The Metta Prayer is available as prints and on other products. To see more designs, visit my Prayers and Blessings Galley on Fine Art America.

Metta prayer products in two different sun designs by Ginny Gaura. See more on Fine Art America. 

Diary of An Elf – The Dancing Snow Wizards

Before I left Cabin Number 9, I stood before the sign that was posted near the door. It read: Remember, the Christmas Spirit lives within you. Make sure to Shine it brightly.

I had made that sign a long time ago. As one of the resident artists at Santa’s Magical Realm at the North Pole, it was my appointed task to hand-letter signs and other written materials. Making signs was always one of my favorite things to do. Trying to interpret other signs was another.

Taking a breath, I looked in the mirror next to the sign. It also had a sign above it, painted by yours truly. It read:

Be Whoever You Want To Be

Mirrors show only one reality. They reflect the physical image of our body. We may like what we see or not. We may fall in love with our outside image and create a world of egocentricity, believing that we are more important than others because of our vanity.

If we don’t like what appears in the mirror, we may feel ugly, insignificant and may not want to interact with the rest of the world. This can cause a lot of loneliness and despair.

The magic mirror in Cabin Number 9 doesn’t reflect the starkness of reality. It shows the light shining from within through brilliant colored sparkles. When you look at it, you see the dazzling love of your own heart. When I looked in the mirror today, my sparkles were dimmer than usual, looking a little rusty-brown.

I set out to change that.

Outside I tracked through the snow to the nearby forest of pine trees. I walked between them, creating a winding pathway.

With each step, I grew melancholy, remembering times when I danced among the trees. Today, I did not dance as my body hurt, making movement slow. When I got to the midst of the forest, I looked for a convenient rock that I could sit on.

Here in this Winter Wonderland, as in all realms of Wonderland, things may not be as they are perceived with the five senses.

I asked a large grey rock if I could dust off the snow and sit upon it. When I received no reply. I took it as an “OK, no problem,” and sat down.

Closing my eyes, I breathed in the heavy pine scent of the trees. Deep green energy surrounded me and helped me to open up the power from within.

I began to hear the snow wizards talk. You may call them trees but we call them wizards because of the energy and wisdom that they possess. The winter pines are known as snow wizards because here they are always covered with snow.

Alice! Aliiiice! Allllllice! Aaaaalice! Ali-Ali-Alice! Any which way you can say my name, they said it.

“What took you so long?” the nearest pine asked. “Weren’t you supposed to be back here a few years ago? Maybe 4 years ago? Or is it 24?”

“Actually, probably longer than that,” I answered. “It has been a difficult journey back into remembering.”

“Alice,” another said. “You need to watch what you say. Difficult implies that you put too much Dark Side thinking into a particular situation. When you do this and remember the feeling you had of anger, regret, or guilt to describe something in the past, you bring it into the present moment. A suggestion would be saying something like… interesting.”

“Or amusing,” someone else said.

“You a-moooze me,” someone said to its neighbor. Then another said it to a neighbor, and so on, until everyone was amusing themselves. Within a few minutes, the entire pine forest was amused.

After a while, their musings faded.

“What’s wrong, Alice?” said the tallest and eldest tree known as Earl.

“Dark Side thinking,” I said. “I can’t seem to rid myself of it.”

“This is a start, Alice. Being with your old friends. We can talk about happier things.”

“I can’t dance like I used to,” I said. “My body can’t do things that were once easy. I know that many peeps can’t dance. I feel blessed that I once could.”

“Not true,” said Earl. “All peeps can dance. Look at us. Our roots are planted in the ground, yet we dance as the wind flows through our branches. You need to remember that dancing is an expression of feeling. You can dance with your own mind.”

Then the wind picked up and whistled. The cold made me shiver but I focused on it as energy flowing through me, moving in spirals and curves in my body. I was dancing inside myself.

The trees rejoiced in the wind, the snow blowing off their branches.

“Ahhh!” “Ooooo!” “Wow!” “I feel so light!” “Me too!” One after another, each pine voiced their content.

I felt happiness for the trees. I smiled like I hadn’t in a long time. A warmth grew within me, radiating from my center. I felt a golden light sparkling in my heart.

The snow magically melted on the ground.

I sat there on the rock and looked in amazement. Aside from the Elves’ clothing, I had never seen so much green at the North Pole.

“Alice! You did it!” Earl said. “You did the impossible! You restored us to ourselves!”

“Did I?”

“Yes, Alice, you transformed the feeling within from sadness to joy!”

“Imagine that!” I said. “And you know what?”

“What?” the newly named pine wizards replied in unison.

“It’s the first day of Spring!”

Always,
Alice Always the Elf

Invictus: A Powerful Poem to Help You Through Difficult Times

“Invictus” is a poem by William Ernest Henley that was published in 1875. It reads:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus - Old Parchment Design by Ginny Gaura
Invictus – Old Parchment Design by Ginny Gaura

The poet invites the reader to feel empowered. When I read this, I get the image of a captain steering his ship through a terrible storm at sea. It is his sheer determination that will get through him through the ordeal. He does not bow down to fear but stands steadfast and strong. The narrator acknowledges the hardships of life and tells the world that he is in control.

Is life a challenge for you right now? Are you in control?

Control is not about trying to manipulate the situation in ways that are not in alignment with your soul. Being in control means that you let go of identification with the negative emotions about your situation; you let go of your ego-self.

You can’t control the external situation; you can only control your response to it.

Yes, it’s OK to feel temporary anger or sadness but when you continually dwell on things, it only makes them worse because it plays out as negative thoughts in your head. Maybe even over and over like a broken record.

Guilt and blame are two emotions that surface in times of extreme difficulty. It is the ego rearing its head.

Whatever happened in your life cannot be undone. The problem won’t be solved by you feeling bad or wracked with guilt because you think that you could have done something differently in the past. That will only keep you dwelling on the problem. Again, the broken record scenario.

Perhaps what is occurring right now is necessary for your soul’s growth. Maybe there is a larger picture that you cannot see.

Are you blaming someone else for something that happened? The other person may be totally unaffected by what is happening inside of you. By forgiving them, you release your own internal suffering. You lighten your own load.

I wrote a blog post about the Dark Night of the Soul, which I am currently experiencing. For me, I recently went through a string of negative experiences: my income diminished, I was in a car accident where my car was totaled and widespread arthritis and pain are taking its toll on my body.

Depression from the situation and lack of sunlight adds to all of this. Anyone who has ever experienced it can tell you that when you are depressed, you cannot think clearly. So even writing this blog post took enormous effort.

It has been a challenge emotionally to maintain faith that it will all work out. But I have to believe it will.

I am determined to get through all of it. It may take a while, but I am going to do whatever it takes to get to a better place. The storm is temporary.

Like the captain of the poem, Invictus, and just like you, I have to focus on getting through the difficult times to the smooth seas beyond.

The last two lines are a powerful declaration:

I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul

Whatever you say following the words “I am” become your reality. If you make a statement that is in conflict with your subconscious thinking, it will create disharmony within yourself.

During his incarceration, Nelson Mandela recited the poem to other prisoners. He was empowered by its message of self-mastery. His transition from this world inspired me to create digital designs of the poem.

The featured Invictus design above is one of my best-selling prints. It is a popular poem and people buy it for themselves as well as gifts for loved ones going through any kind of adversity.

I created the designs, just like I created this blog, out of love. For me personally, inspirational poetry and other writings help get me through difficult times. I keep going on though so many times I have wanted to give into the pain and just end it all. But I haven’t ended it because I know that I came here on a mission and I am not finished.

If you are encountering a difficult time, I pray that you have the strength to get through whatever ordeal that you are currently experiencing. But more importantly, you yourself have to believe that you will get through it.

Remember, this too shall pass.

Watch what you think and say without judgment. If you catch yourself in a negative thought like “I am not good enough” turn it around and declare the opposite out loud. Reaffirm what empowers you, not what brings you down.

Release your suffering by focusing on what you are grateful for here and now. Allow yourself to see the silver lining in the midst of the clouds.

If you feel isolated and alone, reach out to someone. You are not the only one who has your problem, though it may feel like it. Sometimes just being able to talk to another person makes all the difference in the world.

When you feel overwhelmed, place your hands over your heart and breathe. It will connect you back to your center, which is your heart.

Always,
Alice Always

P.S. Having an inspirational print nearby may help you or a loved one. Please check out my Invictus Gallery on Fine Art America. Items can be purchased as prints, greeting cards and more.

Invictus Designs by Ginny Gaura
Invictus inspired designs by Ginny Gaura

Illuminating the Dark Night of the Soul

“Dark Night of the Soul”, otherwise known as “Dark Night” is a poem written by the 16th Century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross. He writes of the journey of the soul from isolation to its union with God. The journey itself is “The Dark Night”, darkness representing the difficulties the soul meets in detachment from the world before reaching the light. Once the soul touches the light, union with the divine takes place and the person is transformed.

Loreena McKennitt has a beautiful rendition of it in song. You can watch her  here.

A dark night of the soul has come to mean a spiritual crisis when life has lost its meaning and the person has sunk into depression and despair.

Some people experience many dark nights of the soul while others may have a prolonged one lasting many years.

I myself have had many dark nights starting at age 13. Puberty is a difficult time for most of us. In my case, my friends had drifted away and gravitated to new groups. I was alone, desperately alone.

Making new friends was difficult because I was an extreme introvert. I didn’t know what to say because I never could do the whole chit-chat thing. I still can’t. It is simply not part of my personality. Deep conversations interest me more.

Back in the summer when I was 13, I was lonely for companionship. My depression had reached the point where the only thing I could think of was suicide to end the misery.

My only solace was Led Zeppelin‘s Physical Graffiti double album which I had received as a present for my birthday. I had asked for the album that had Stairway to Heaven on it but it was April 1975 and Physical Graffiti had just come out 2 months before. That was the only Zeppelin album in stock at the local department store.

Back in the pre-internet age, information like names of albums and where you could purchase them was not readily available for a young teenager.

If you grew up with the internet, you might not be able to fathom not having all the information you need at your fingertips. But back then, the main use for your forefinger was to dial the phone. It was actually fun to leave your finger in the cutout circle of the dial and let it move back on the return rewind. At least I enjoyed it. But now, having arthritic fingers, I am grateful for technology.

This was also the time before the popularity of antidepressants when depression was not talked about. When I finally told my mom that I was suffering from it in 1989, her response was to deny there was anything wrong with me. The stigma of depression was still strong, even with the introduction of the drug Prozac.

Back to Physical Graffiti, it literally saved my life. The song Kashmir stirred forgotten memories of sitting with elders of a gentle race, which in my imagination actually happened.

10 Years Gone reminded me that “We are eagles of one nest, the nest is in our soul.”

But it was In the Light that saved me. I would listen to it repeatedly under headphones on my older brother’s stereo.

To me, the beginning of In the Light feels what a sunrise would sound like. It gave me hope. The ending is pure exhilaration.

One of the lyrics puzzled me. What I thought I heard was: I would share your love. What Robert Plant actually sang was: I would share your load. It makes quite a difference.

One of the lyrics that I really identified with is:

And if you feel that you can’t go on
And your will’s sinkin’ low
Just believe and you can’t go wrong
In the light, you will find the road (You will find the road)

I would close my eyes and envisioned I was standing in the light. It felt uplifting on one level. On another, felt I was connecting to something more. Something I could not grasp, a notion that felt just out of reach.

I realize now that listening to the song back then was an integral part of the larger story of my life. That getting through that difficult time enabled me to write about it and share it with you now.

There is a deeper, more mystical revelation that came out of this. I will go into further detail at another time.

The road in the song reminded me of J.R.R. Tolkien. If you haven’t read them yet, I wrote a few posts about him here and here. There is more forthcoming also.

Many of Led Zeppelin’s lyrics contain Tolkien references. The author has several passages in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings that feature the Road. Here is one:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

I read that verse often, thinking that I needed to hold on and continue down that road not knowing where it would go, but perhaps somewhere where I needed to be.

Are you suffering from the Dark Night of the Soul right now? If so, you can get through it. You must believe that you can and you will. You will find the road.

It needn’t be through Tolkien or Led Zeppelin but what calls out to your soul.

Music heals. Stories help us to see ourselves in them.

Listen. Read. Sing. Dance.
Go out in nature.
Play.

Do something that you love,
something that uplifts your soul
and connects you with the divine within you.

Lighten the load of depression and despair. Find the way that lightens yours. As Robert Plant sang: Everybody needs the light.

You will get through it. You must have the determination and resolve to do so. Believe that you can and you will.

Often in the spiritual awakening process, a dark night of the soul precedes a breakthrough. Remember, the night is darkest just before the dawn.

Always,
Alice Always

P.S. This blog post features Invictus, an empowering poem that might help you through the Dark Night of the Soul.

Spiritual Awakening: A Process of the Soul

Spiritual awakening is a process of growth that can happen many times during one’s lifetime. The entire awakening process is not completed until Ascension. I’ll go more into details about that in another post.

I’m going to simplify things for the masses, so if you are a fully awakened master, please bear with me or share this with people who you feel could benefit from reading it.

There are people on Earth who are completely awake. I wrote about them in another blog post.

What I am about to tell you is what I know personally. Others may explain it differently depending on the sources of their information, be it what they read, channeled, or encountered personally.

I am writing from what I have found through my own meditations, poetry, inner knowing and personal experience.

Let’s start with basics: We each have a soul, an individual spark of awareness that existed before you were born in your body and will continue after you leave it. Each soul is multidimensional and is not limited to time and space.

If you don’t agree and are not open to the possibility of having an everlasting soul, stop reading. The reason I say this is that you must have a degree of awareness to grasp this. If your mind is closed, all the words in the world will not open it. Only you can do that and it will only happen when you are ready.

Are you still with me? OK. Read on…

Before you were born, your soul existed as pure consciousness. You made an agreement to come to  Earth at this time to live a life in a body. You might have lived here before or on other planets. This is the concept of reincarnation.

What you decide to do in this lifetime or any other is totally up to you. We all have lessons to learn to help us grow and people to help us along the way. Our greatest teachers are usually our relatives and the lessons are not always easy.

After a lifetime, you review it and decide what you will do in the next one. You decide who your parents will be, your name, what you will look like, your life situation and general themes about your life.

Some people choose very challenging lives like abuse, debilitating illness or extreme poverty. Others choose a life of ease.

Sometimes we are living our lives and something suddenly comes up to change our thinking. Then we don’t see things the way we did before.

We wake up. It could be a simple thing like tasting a new food or more complex like realizing the political world was designed to keep the rich in power and the rest of society under their thumbs.

In the case of the new food, you think something like, “Oh, this is so yummy!” or “Bleh! Icky! I am not enjoying this!”

When people wake up to the inequalities within the political world, revolutions happen.

Imagine you get up one day and say, “Hey, I just can’t take this job or relationship anymore!”

It is your soul saying, “Yoo Hoo! Wake up! This isn’t for you anymore! You deserve to feel happy, content and appreciated. You deserve a life that you love filled with loving people who uplift you.”

Many people stay asleep, refusing to change. Change itself is constant but many lead a complacent, secure life.

If your soul decides that it is time for you to wake up, a situation or several will present themselves to show you that you must do something different. If you don’t listen and take action, life will find a way to get you to wake up. Some situations that could happen are: your partner leaves you, you get laid off from your job, an illness or accident may happen. It can be several things at once.

When the wake-up call occurs, you can fight it, go into depression, anger, desperation or you can choose to accept it. You can say, “OK, this happened to get my attention, now what do I have to do?”

A relationship ending might signal that it is time for you to be alone for a while, to learn to love yourself. A job that ends could mean it is time to do something completely different; time to re-evaluate your skills, abilities, and interests. An illness may mean it is time to make healthier lifestyle choices or let others help you.

These are just examples. As we are all individuals, all of our situations are different.

When something totally unexpected occurs, there is no reason to blame yourself. That is a manifestation of the ego.

Accept the challenge as a blessing in disguise. Your soul knows everything is working out for your highest interest, to get you to wake up.

It doesn’t end there. Once you are able to move into acceptance over the situation, you must start living from the heart. What that means is to stop trying to force solutions that are out of alignment with who you are deep down inside.

Your soul doesn’t want you to jump into a new relationship just because you don’t want to be alone. Your soul doesn’t want you to get a job that doesn’t fit you just to have enough money to pay the bills to barely get by.

Your soul wants to live a life of purpose, thriving and using your unique gifts.

You have to look at the big picture, ask yourself, what is this situation telling me? How can I take this challenge, accept it and move forward? What actions do I need to take?

Your soul wants you to move into harmony and alignment with yourself. Your soul wants you to live from the heart, making heart-centered choices instead of choices made out of desperation.

Are you doing that?

I have been in a place of desperation far too many times.

Once you awaken and begin living from your heart, awareness increases. You begin to see the world for how expansive and all-encompassing it actually is, and each new awareness awakens you to the next level of consciousness.

I like to think of each spiritual awakening in terms of a stairway. New understandings must be realized and embraced through expanding your awareness to get to the next step.

What happens when you reach the top of the stairway in a fully awakened state?

You experience heaven on earth.

Always,
Alice Always

Diary of An Elf – Feeling Like Frodo from Lord of the Rings

Diary of an Elf is a reoccurring feature here on AliceAlways.com. Alice shares her story as her elf-self.

It was one of those crisp winter mornings when I finally left the closet of Elf Cabin Number 9 at Santa’s Magical Realm at the North Pole.

It seems that the other elves at the cabin had left to go on holiday and taken whatever blocked the closet door. I assume it was luggage, as all the bags that are usually stored under the beds were gone.

My recent rereading the novels of Tolkien filled my head. My life in what we call The Real World had its challenges.

At this moment, I really identify with Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo is the Ring-bearer who must journey to the darkest depths of Mordor and throw the Ring of Sauron into Mount Doom.

As I am writing this, the Led Zeppelin song, Ramble On is playing in my head. The exact lyric I hear is:

‘T was in the darkest depths of Mordor
I met a girl so fair
But Gollum, and the evil one
crept up and slipped away with her

I am dealing with my own burden which is my own thinking process. Sometimes I feel that I am in the darkest place imaginable. Recently I totaled my car in an accident and contemplated suicide.

My life has been a struggle and I am still working on releasing limiting beliefs that plague my conscious and unconscious thoughts.

I am a work in progress. I will get through this and not succumb to the darkness.

In The Lord of the Rings, many are tempted by Sauron’s Ring, especially the Ring-bearers. On one level, the Ring represents the thing we hold onto even if it is causing us undo suffering. It is a tangible object in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, but deep down inside it is a thought, either conscious or unconscious.

For some, letting go is easy. For others, the repetition of unwanted thoughts can play like a broken record in our heads.

But as the elf queen Galadriel said to Frodo, even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

We are not our burdens, we are not our doubts.

We must all rise above what holds us in a dark place by releasing whatever is causing our suffering.

To do that, we must believe that we are able to get through whatever challenge we are going through.

Frodo is the unlikely hero, a small hobbit with an enormous task. He volunteers to take the ring by saying, “I will do it, though I do not know the way.”

He doesn’t follow a map, instead, he is guided by circumstances. He perseveres because he trusts that he will get there.

It is Frodo’s faith that gets him to Mount Doom. He knows what he has to do and he keeps moving in the necessary direction until he accomplishes his goal.

We all can do the impossible.
We just need to have faith that we can do it.

Always,
Alice Always the Elf

Diary of an Elf – Reading the Books of J.R.R. Tolkien

Diary of an Elf is a reoccurring feature here on AliceAlways.com. Alice shares her story as her elf-self.

Since I knew that I might be in the closet of Elf Cabin Number 9 indefinitely, I looked around for ways to entertain myself. On a shelf high above my head, I found my personal Holy Grail: the fantasy novels of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Hobbit

We call him Master Tolkien, as he is known here to us elves at the North Pole. His writings inspire us greatly. They remind us that in our imaginations, we are not just short peeps with generally pleasant dispositions, but also tall, fierce warrior types as depicted in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

As I said before, in your imagination, you can be whatever magical being you choose to be.

In the closet, I moved the rolling shelf ladder along the wall to the place where I could climb it and get the books. When I got to the top, I grabbed them. The books felt like magic in my hands.

My memory flew back many years to the first time that I held The Hobbit in my hands.

It happened in September 1973. I was 11 years old in the 6th grade and picked to be in a special reading group of students. Back in the day, teachers had to order books and wait weeks for their arrival to come in a big cardboard box.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Mrs. B had gathered us around the box and was handing out the paperbacks. On the cover was a top white area with the title, subhead, and the author’s name. Under that was an illustration of peeps (my word for people) riding on barrels down a winding river with trees on the riverbank.

Before she handed us our books, Mrs. B told us that this was an extraordinary book and that it came to us in a momentous time. The author had just passed away, she said and so reading it now would be extra special.

Wow, I thought, really not understanding the specialness on a conscious level. I knew somehow deep inside myself that this author J.R.R. Tolkien and I were connected.

After I was given the book, I turned it over to see a picture of the author, a profile image of a smiling grey-haired gentleman holding a pipe. An old building was in the background.

I opened the book and smelled it. I fell in love with the scent of words on paper. If you have never smelled a freshly printed book, you might want to try it. It is like nothing else in this world.

Throughout the school year, we read The Hobbit and the three The Lord of the Rings books in class.

I was thoroughly enchanted by Tolkien’s world of Middle Earth. I would think about it all the time. In my imagination, I envisioned myself as several of the characters.

I was a full-blown geek. I still am. I embrace my geekiness wholeheartedly.

After school had ended, I spent the summer rereading the trilogy. Then I started looking for more information about Tolkien and his work.

Back in the early seventies, resources for a preteen were far and in between.

At some point, I came across a writing of Tolkien’s in which he said wrote that he never felt that he had created Middle Earth, he was merely recording the events as they were happening somewhere else.

When I read that, I knew that to be true deep down in my soul. I also knew I had to do something in regards to this. I didn’t know what.

Now I do.

To be continued…

Always,
Alice Always the Elf

P.S. Make sure you bookmark AliceAlways or subscribe to find out what happens next.

The Great Awakening, Ascension and the Role of Lightworkers

We are in a time of the Great Awakening when the masses are waking up from our collective sleep of unconsciousness. This is happening on every level of our existence. We see it being played out in the news stories of the day as well as in our individual lives.

Old systems are on their death knell as people are getting fed up with the ways things are. The powerful patriarchy is coming to an end, but not without a fight as witnessed in the political arena here in the USA. Women are coming forward in the MeToo movement taking down men who used their positions to subjugate them through sex.

These systems have been in place for over 2,000 years
and it is beginning to shift.

Since the 1960s, we’ve been hearing about the Age of Aquarius. It’s even immortalized in the Grammy Award-winning song of 1969, Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by The 5th Dimension.

This song talks about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. In the 60s, hippies woke up to the knowledge that something was happening on the planet and it corresponded to the positions of celestial bodies. They also took on the old belief that was trampled by industrial progress, that the Earth is sacred and an actual living being with consciousness. Many refer to her as Gaia.

Whether you accept that the Earth is a living entity depends on your own level of consciousness. I am not here to persuade you to believe in anything. I’m only here to tell you what I know. It’s up to you as to what you do with the information.

Astrologers feel that the Age of Aquarius will begin in December of 2021, either on 12/12/21 or 12/21/21. They both are significant because the ones and twos reduce to 333. The time between is a gateway, an opening of energy between two significant days.

The repetition of 3s in 333 makes it a Master Number, increasing the energy of the vibration. It is the number of Christ Consciousness, the return of the Christ within each of us. It goes beyond religion to the core of all spirituality. Basically, spirituality is our personal connection to all of creation.

333 is also the number of the Ascended Masters, spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans, but who have undergone a series of spiritual initiations leading to transformation.

There are many on Earth who have incarnated on Earth at this time to help heal Gaia and help anchor Christ Consciousness. They are masters also and when they are ready, they fully ascend to the next level of consciousness, which is the fifth dimension or 5D.

It is no coincidence that the group that performed the song Aquarius was named The Fifth Dimension.

5D is a state where you have left the suffering of the 3D world behind and come into alignment with your soul. It is living from the heart and not the head.

Not an easy thing to do, if you are heavily indoctrinated in the 3D mindset. Religions, with their indoctrinated rules and rigidness of thinking, are manifestations of 3D. Spirituality, feeling connected with everyone and everything, is an aspect of 5D. When you are fully operating from 5D, you live from the heart, trusting in the Universe and allowing for the unfolding of your own divine perfection.

Before we all were born,
there was a clarion call throughout the Universe
that Gaia was ascending to the next level
and she needed help to do so.
Her ascension to 5D
happened in December 2012.

Throughout the galaxies, many beings stepped up to assist. Though some came in before, most started incarnating here in mass after the destruction of World War II.

These souls chose to bring their Light to a planet that sorely needed it. Commonly referred to as Lightworkers, each had a specific mission to accomplish. All were asked to use their unique gifts to the benefit of humanity, the Earth, and her creatures.

Some call themselves Lightwarriors because they chose to battle the dense thinking patterns of 3D Earth.

They incarnated in waves, the first being the hippies and flower children of the 60s. Often referred to as Starseeds because they came from various planets and star systems. Their task was to bring in the new awareness.

A few colors are often used to describe Lightworkers. The oldest groups to incarnate are the Blue Rays and Indigos.

The Blue Ray Beings are a soul group with empathic qualities. Coming from ascended planets and light realms, they are here to enlighten the genetic code of humanity and raise the consciousness on Gaia.

They came here to transform the damaged, mutated DNA of humanity and set the stage for the later rays to come. Their mission was to infiltrate the system in a normal capacity, always remembering who they are and where they came from.

Then came the Indigos, also known as Indigo children, called such because of the indigo color of their auras and their high attunement to operating out of the third eye. They are creative beings with heightened psychic abilities.

Some abilities are clairvoyance and clairaudience. Each has unique gifts specific to them. Some see spirits and angels, detect dishonesty or have accurate inner knowing about events, situations or people. Sensitive and intuitive, they are wise old souls returning to lead us into a new age of cooperation, creativity and functional society where there will be no corruption and deceit.

The Crystal children were the next group to incarnate towards the end of the last 20th Century. They came to show humanity the way to peace and acceptance. They are the peacemakers. Some are autistic. This is because they are vibrating at higher levels of consciousness and the density of the third dimension can be overwhelming.

Crystals are highly telepathic, many have the ability to read minds and people’s energy. Sensitive, caring and forgiving are aspects of their nature. Remarkedly different from generations ahead of them, they are the frequency holders of 5D consciousness and above. They are able to feel the universal consciousness.

The latest group to arrive is the Rainbow children. Born with ninth dimensional consciousness, they have huge hearts that exude joy. They are drawn to color. Their abilities are that they are natural healers and instant manifesters. Strong willed with large personalities; their gifts are revealed as they grow older.

This is a general outline. Each Lightworker is unique and chose to incarnate with specific gifts that would help fulfill their mission. Some came in remembering who they are and some chose to awaken at a certain time when they are ready. Younger ones are born awake.

You may be a Lightworker or may know someone who is one. As we are all at different levels of growth, there is no need for judgment. Being a Lightworker does not make you superior to others. It simply means you are here at this time to help transform the planet.

Just as the French philosopher and Jesuit Catholic priest,
Pierre Teilhard de Chard proclaimed,
we are all spiritual beings having a human experience.

It’s not the other way around. Our collective task is to move from separation into Oneness.

My appointed task in this time of the Great Awakening is to wake you up in the world of imagination.

Always,
Alice Always

The Shadow, Instant Karma and Thoughts of Suicide

We all have a shadow, the dark part of ourselves that we sometimes deny or project on others. It comes out in times when we are triggered, in fear or feel separated from everyone and everything.

But the truth is that we are all in this together. Anyone who tells you differently is living in their own shadow. Anyone who thinks that they are more important than others is merely deluding themselves.

On the flip side, anyone who feels low and insignificant is also living in their personal shadow.

Each one of us matters. Every single one of us.

It has been said that something as seemingly insignificant as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon on the other side of the world. This is because everything is connected.

But then, you know that already. You might even call it the Internet.

My personal shadow has been a lifelong battle with depression. But I made a promise before I was born to get through this and shine as much light as I can. That’s why I started writing this blog.

My journey in this lifetime has taken me to the depths of despair far too many times.

My life has been a struggle for most of it. I live too much in my head trying to find solutions to my problems, many of which are money related. Whenever I put those solutions into action, they never turn out how I expected. In fact, many choices that I made with my head have made the situation worse.

My financial problems had gone from bad to worse. I wasn’t getting enough work at my job to support myself and last month my online sales were the lowest they have been in December. I usually make enough in the holiday season to get me through a few months but despite all my marketing, I lost money.

I was at my lowest point I’ve ever been.

Last Wednesday night, I sat in my car as I contemplated suicide.  I was going to leave the car running in the garage and attempt to kill myself from carbon monoxide poisoning. I didn’t because I thought that maybe the poison could leak into my neighbor’s condo unit.

The next day, I totaled my car.

It was a freak accident that was caused because of my thoughts and actions. The front of my little Ford Focus went underneath the bumper of a giant Hummer. That vehicle was left with a few scratches. My hood bent in two and was pushed into the windshield.

I didn’t die. I walked away from the accident.

I’ll get through this rough patch. I have to. My inner guidance tells me that if I take my life, I will set things back for myself and end up reincarnating in a much more difficult life.

What we don’t overcome, we are forced to repeat.

We need to embrace our shadow and love it. And to do that, we have to live from the heart. We have to be careful what we think and say because like John Lennon sang, Instant Karma‘s gonna get you, gonna knock you right in the head.

It got me. It changed my life. I don’t know what’s going to happen. The only thing I know is that I have to make it through this.

Maybe you are in a dark place also. Maybe something that I write will help in your life. Maybe we all need to get through the darkness together.

I am here to serve humanity. We are all pieces of a puzzle of life.  What if I am a piece of your personal puzzle? What if you and I had decided before we were born that we would connect our puzzle pieces to create a new, wonderful world? Ending my life would never allow that to happen.

Some of the things that I am planning to write in the future have never been written before. I know that I hold an important piece of the cosmic puzzle about imagination. I am not saying this to be elitist. I am merely speaking what I know, from my own heart and soul.

Yesterday, on a walk in nature, my beloved and I saw a young bald eagle. He later asked me to read about what eagle stood for in terms of Animal Spirit Medicine. I read the passage from Ted Andrew‘s Animal-Speak book.

I cried through the entire last paragraph:

To align yourself with eagle medicine is to take on the responsibility and the power of becoming so much more than you now appear to be. From a karmic aspect, it reflects that the events will now fly faster, and the repercussions for everything you think, do or say (or fail to think do or say)–positive and negative–will be both stronger and quicker. To accept the eagle as a totem is to accept a powerful new dimension to life, and a heightened responsibility for your spiritual growth. But only through doing so do you learn how to move between worlds, touch all life with healing, and become the mediator and the bearer of new creative force within the world. 

It reminded me that I have a mission to fulfill and I cannot leave until it’s finished.

So, until then, I’m gonna shine on like the moon and the stars and the sun.

Always,
Alice Always

If you would like to donate money to help me, please click on the donation button. 

I appreciate all gifts of any amount. Another way of helping is by purchasing my art and designs on products. Many of my designs are uplifting and inspirational. Thank you.

My Illuminating Rainbow Led Zeppelin Sungazing Meditation

I’m a sungazer, and as such, I meditate with the sun at the dawn on sunny mornings.

The title of my last blog post was Eleven Illuminating Insights about Illumination.

Because I was bubbling with silliness, I decided to use that phrase as a mantra in my morning sungazing meditation on the second day of the New Year. Knowing that we were still in the midst of full moon energy, I knew it would be extremely powerful.

Every sungazing session is different as each day different energies are present on all levels. More on energetic influences and levels another time.

Sungazing is an intuitive practice for me, so I don’t prescribe any formal techniques. As I said in a previous post, sungazing is dangerous, so, if you are thinking of doing it, read my post about it and do diligent research before attempting it.

As I repeated the magic phrase that pays, eleven illuminating insights about illumination, I saw the sun with two large number ones in the center forming a gateway. In my mind’s eye, I felt myself pass through this gateway and into the sun.

My seven chakras were lit up with the energetic colors they represent: red base to violet crown.  A curved rainbow ran through my body and into the ground behind me and connected me to the sun in front of me.

My Faerie feet lifted. I call them that because they remind me of Irish dancing and my maternal Celtic ancestry. You have Faerie feet if you walk or stand naturally on the tips of your toes. I’ve been doing that since I learned to walk. Maybe children outgrow it; I didn’t. I even got teased in sixth grade for walking on my tippy-toes.

Back to the meditation. I saw the chakra rainbow as a flattened lp album and I was part of it. Now, if I get to choose which album it is (which I do because I’m writing this) it would be the second record of Led Zeppelin‘s Physical Graffiti double album because I used to play the first track of side 3, In the Light, repeatedly over and over when I was 13. More on that another time.

Oh, my! So much to write. Sorry about the tangent. Back to the subject at hand.

In my meditation, I saw the Green Fire.

I have never heard talk of the Green Fire and I will not even do a Google search until after I complete this. I don’t want my awareness to be colored. Yes, pun intended, so make sure that you do that ba-dum-bum-tss drum sound in your head.

The green fire in my vision is the energy burning through my own heart. Green is the color of the heart chakra, the color we associate with the Earth, just as blue is to the sky.

My internal programming is high visionary functioning. I think I just made that phrase up but that’s how I would describe it. I have what others call mystical experiences on a regular basis when I am connected with my Source.

When I am in disconnect, I fall into depression. That might be the same for you. Your disconnect may be anger. Or greed. Or hatred. You can pick your own deadly sin or add a new one to the list.

Whenever you, me, or anyone else is out of harmony with our true selves, we react instead of responding rationally to any situation.

We go into the darkness that is our shadow. I’ll write on this topic another time.

Anyway, back to my vision in my morning sungazing meditation.

The green fire separated into as ones and zeros. I went into the Matrix, the binary code that runs computers.

I saw the Matrix completely for what it is, an elaborate program, that was created to connect our disconnect. It’s also its opposite: a system that sucks us into it and disconnects us from our true Source, which is within.

When we were ready for this insight, it became available to us.

It’s part of our collective imagination. I thought I made that term up but it’s an actual documented term.

This is what we create collectively. It’s been going on since our arrival on this planet.

Wait! Did I just say arrival? Did I mean to say that, you think?

Anyway, there’s more to the Matrix thing and collective imagination and I’ll write about them at other times.

In my vision, I left the Matrix and ended up back in my own heart.

In the Light played as music in my head. I felt peaceful.

After a while, I spontaneously started repeating the phrase: I Am the Light, the Light I Am. I learned this mantra from Matt Kahn, a spiritual teacher whose wisdom corresponds to my inner knowing. His talks are filled with humor and insight.

Because my mind is so enmeshed with the Led Zeppelin song, it was a natural progression from that to repeating I Am the Light, the Light I Am.

The meditation ended with my hands on my heart and a feeling of being pure light.

Always,
Alice Always