Category: Blessing Cord

Blessing Cord

Blood

Adam Sartwell

The thirtieth bead of the blessing cord is the blessing of blood. It is the blessing of water in Malkuth. Blood is the river that passes through the generations. Our blood has passed through our ancestors, through us, and on to the descendants who come after us. It is this river of blood that moves through us and gives us the ancestral patterns and memories of our people. Our blood holds within it the memories of all the ancestors who have gone before and all the memories of our descendants in the future as well.

When we talk about our family we say “they’re my blood” or use the adage “blood is thicker than water.” We acknowledge that our blood ties us to our people. Many have postulated that our past life memories could also be memories from our blood ancestors, passed to us like the instincts of birds to return to the same places as their ancestors. Whether this is a genetic transmission of information or a morphogenic field impression or something else doesn’t matter. It is true that we have information, patterns, and “blueprints” that are passed to us through the “river” of blood that flows through time.

The things that are passed through the river of blood are both good and bad. Our strong determination, optimism, decisiveness, as well as a weakness for sweets, want for a steady job instead of self-employment, or alcoholism, for example, are all passed through this connection of blood. We are deeply connected to our family and the information passed through the blood. Both good and bad are passed to us and can be awakened within us. They give us those peculiar talents that are passed to us and the addictions that plague us.

The best thing about this river of blood is that you can commune with it in your meditations to be able to go back and see why a pattern is within your psyche and change it, if you so desire. You can also go back and activate talents from your ancestors to deal with your life in the present. You are the product of a thousand loving choices and these ancestors have a vested interest in what you get from them and in transforming the harmful things that may have been passed to you.

In this meditation we visit the river of blood and use it to commune with the ancestors and the patterns passed on to us. You have the opportunity to call forth gifts and talents of your ancestors and transform the patterns harmful to you.

Meditation of Blood

Hold the thirtieth bead on the blessing cord. The blessing of blood, the bead of water in Malkuth.

Count yourself down in to a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand out around you, forming a sphere. Feel the slight shift as a garden begins to grow up around you in the sphere of your mind. Resonate the god name of Malkuth: Ah-do-nai Ha-ah-retz

Explore your garden. You find a cave within the garden that leads deeper into the earth of your consciousness. As you walk into the cave, it spirals deeper and deeper. Finally the cave opens up into a cavern with a river flowing through it. This river is a bright red and blue. As you come closer, you can hear a heartbeat. Listen for your own heartbeat and allow it to attune to the rhythm of the river. Step up to the edge and dip your fingers into the flow. Tell it your intention to connect through it to your ancestors. Share if you have a particular intention to awaken or transform talents and patterns that are passed to you from the ancestors.

Feel if the river is ready to connect to you. If it is, step into the flow of the river of blood. As you get to waist depth, turn into the flow toward you. Ask to know where the pattern you want to release began. You may have an ancestor rise up from the river or you may see it played out on the surface or in the depths for you to view. See why this pattern started and why it has continued. You can trace this pattern down the flow from your ancestors to see why it continued in your family. Follow what you see until it comes to your generation.

Acknowledge why this pattern continues in your life now. Explain why you want to change this pattern that no longer serves you and your descendants. Thank the pattern for the aid it has given those who went before and then ask that it be transformed and released, putting your intention behind it. What is the effect within the river of this intent? Does the pattern boil out? Does it just fade? Thank the river for this healing and awareness.

Ask the river to show you the pattern you want to foster in your life. It may be a talent of an ancestor or their knowledge. Call this up from the blood. An ancestor may rise to talk to you from the blood or the pattern may appear on the surface of the river or in its depths. Ask to see how this pattern originated. See how it has served your ancestors in the past. Thank it for helping your ancestors and ask that it be re-awakened in you. Dip your hands into the waters of the river of blood and scoop up the pattern and pour it over your body to absorb it. Feel as the pattern mixes and mingles with your own blood and spirit. If an ancestor rose up from the river, you may embrace and merge to gain the pattern and awaken it within you. Thank the pattern for being with you and fill it with light so you can pass it on to your descendants in the river.

When you are finished, leave the river. Give thanks one more time to the river and your ancestors and descendants for their aid and love. Turn back and walk out of the cave into the garden of Malkuth. Return to where you entered and the garden fades around you. Allow it to fade as you feel a slight shift. The screen of your mind returns to its normal size.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness.

Give yourself clearance and balance and ground, as needed.

Contemplation

What are the gifts you have received through your blood? What are the weaknesses passed to you through your blood? In what ways could these strengths be weaknesses and what ways can these weaknesses be strengths? What will you leave to those who receive the river of blood after you?

Blessing Cord

Dream

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-ninth bead of the blessing cord is the blessing of Dream. It is the blessing of water in  Yesod. Dreams both waking and sleeping can help us in so many ways. Psychological thought says dreams are our subconscious trying to sort out all the things we observed and thought during the day and any underlying conflicts within ourselves. Every dream holds symbolism that helps us work out our unresolved feelings. It is well-documented that people also use their dreams to figure out things the waking mind just can’t grasp. The subconscious is also the part of us that holds our psychic mind. Dreams can be predictive and perceptive of things we consciously hide from ourselves.

Many inventors and scientists have used their dreams to figure out problems in their work and dream up new solutions. I am sure you have too, whether you know it or not. The issue with a dream is that we can’t fully understand its meaning sometimes because we are the dreamer. This is where a good friend comes in handy. It was surprising to me that sometimes in dreams we are like the metaphor “unable to see the forest for the trees.” A good friend or loved one can sometimes intuit what your dream symbols mean because they know you well enough.

You may not have a close friend who gets you in this way, and that is okay because there are many other ways to interpret dream symbolism. There are many books on the subject, and I find they have helpful suggestions, but our psyches are not all the same, and this cookie cutter approach doesn’t work for everyone. To determine your symbols consciously you could try listing out everything you remember from your dreams. All the nouns, adjectives, and actions should go into your list. Take this list and begin to free associate. Call out the first word or two that comes to your mind as you hear or see that word. You will get a feel of what the dream symbol means to you by seeing what you associate with it. To help organize your own symbols and what they mean, you can make an alphabetical card file of each dream symbol, or get an address book and write your symbols into the alphabetical sections.

Another way to interpret a dream is to go back into it in meditation. While you are in the dream, everything is alive and responsive. You can have a discussion with your grandmother’s table—or anything else—in the dream world and ask it what it means within the dream. In this way we get to interact with our dream symbols and get understanding of the dream at a rapid pace. In this meditation we go back to a dream and speak with its parts to get a greater understanding of the meaning of our symbols. If you don’t have a specific dream to analyze, you can ask to be taken to the realm of dreaming so you can experience a new dream and receive a message.

Meditation of Dream

Hold the twenty-ninth  bead of the blessing cord. The bead of dream, the blessing of water in Yesod.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand until it is a sphere around you. Feel a sensation of rising as your sphere begins to fill with a misty purple light. Resonate the God name of Yesod: Sha-dai El-chai.

As the purple light begins to clear, you find yourself inside the dream you want to interpret or, if it is your intention, a new dream. Everything in this dream can speak and communicate with you. Colors, inanimate objects, animals, people, and whatever symbols you see or experience you can talk to and have them respond.

Begin with the nearest symbol. Say hello to it and ask what it is doing inside your dream. What is its meaning within the dream? Ask if it has a particular message for you in this dream. Take what it tells you at face value and ask it any questions you need clarity about. When you feel like you and the symbol have had a complete conversation, thank it for its help. Then move on to the next symbol and repeat the process. The more you interact with the dream, the more you will understand what the dream as a whole means. Don’t limit yourself to just going symbol-by-symbol; you can also ask the whole dream to explain what it means for you.

If any dream symbol seems reluctant or doesn’t talk at all, ask another symbol and ask it to explain the other. Ask another symbol why that one wasn’t willing or able to converse with you.

When you feel as though you have gotten the message from this dream, conjure forth the misty purple light to surround you again until the dream is obscured. You feel a slight gentle descent as the light fades from view. The screen of your mind becomes its normal color and shrinks back to its normal size.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness.

Ground and center, as needed

Contemplation

Consider the symbols your dreams present you: Are there ones that appear in your dream multiple times? What do they signify to you? When you think about your dream, how could it be interpreted in response to what you are experiencing right now in your life? Do you have specific symbols that happen when you are getting a dream that is beyond the normal? What would your  symbol be for a dream that was a message from spirit?

Blessing Cord

Expression 

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-eighth bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of Expression. This blessing is the water of Hod. Expression is the art of creating to convey our thoughts, feelings, spirit, and sometimes just our love of creating expression. In our world, we have a lot of reasons why people shouldn’t express what they want or perceive. Social norms lead us away from making public spectacles of our selves. We are told to be quiet, don’t make a mess, and that our art isn’t very good. Over time we begin to hear this outer voice in our heads coming from us. I took an art therapy course in college and I remember one of the continuing education students leaving the course. She was a talented musician but when it came to art she didn’t have any confidence in her skills. When confronted with the requirement of creating an art piece for class of her first memory she couldn’t even pick up the brush. She professed she had no skill at art and thought that she would be able to create music as her art therapy. The teacher said that wouldn’t work for the confines of the class. The student became very upset because she just couldn’t do art. She dropped the course before the next class. I always wondered how she became so closed off to all other types of expression but music. She and her children were all talented in music. I wondered if she had only been encouraged to express herself as a youngster without judgement whether she would have been able to paint that memory. I wondered what the music she would have wrote for it would have sounded like. 

Expression of our art is so important and powerful. In my later work, I found teaching kids to do art and encouraging any expression made them feel more confident. They were able to share what was on their minds and hearts more easily. They were calmer and happier because they could express what was inside. We just need a safe space where we can express those feelings. In this meditation we go to a place of expression and let loose our inner selves. I encourage you to express your experience in physical art by painting, drawing, making music or whatever your art may be.

Meditation of Expression

Hold the twenty-eighth bead of the blessing cord. The bead of expression, the blessing of water in Hod. 

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand until it is a sphere around you. Feel a sensation of rising as your sphere begins to fill with an orange light. Resonate the God name El-oh-heem Tza-ba-oth. 

Feel the mercurial orange light rise around you like mist. As the mist begins to clear, you are in a white room with no furnishings. All around you are just blank walls. This a place that calls out for expression. In this place your mind and thoughts can paint whatever you please onto your room like a blank canvas. 

The first step is to start to create your expression. You may just want to splatter paint against the wall or make a detailed outline on the walls. It is up to you, it is your expression. Get into your expression and paint whatever you want to in this space. Get into the process of creating and really feel it. In the meditation you can fix any mistakes easily, but realize that any mistakes can lead your expression in a different way. Really get into the process. The process of expressing is part of the value of the experience. Connect all your senses into your creation. Feel the paint, the clay or other medium. What do you smell as you work? Feel the passion of expression. Claim this expression and love it just as it is. It is beautiful because it is yours. Express in this space fully with only the limitations that you choose. Here you can paint, sculpt, or do any art you want. This is your expression. Let your feelings flow out onto the walls of this room.

When you feel ready. Observe your room. Are there any things you would like to change about it? Make those changes now. When it feels right to you. Let this expression and place go as the orange misty light begins to obscure your work.

Feel a gentle decent as the light begins to fade from your sphere. The screen of your mind returns to normal coloring and then shrinks back to its normal size.

Count yourself up to waking consciousness. 

Give yourself clearance and balance. Ground if necessary.

Contemplation

What are the underlying feelings that came out when you expressed yourself in the space? What was the process of expression like for you? Will you try and recreate a part of your room of expression in the physical world? How did you feel after you had expressed what is inside of you?

Blessing Cord

Forgiveness

Adam Sartwell

The twenty sixth bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of Forgiveness. It is the water of Tiphereth. I admit, as a pagan, forgiveness felt alien to me. It always felt like a Christian concept that had nothing to do with being spiritual and more to do with being a martyr. It wasn’t until I  heard that forgiveness isn’t for the other person, that it was really for you, that it made sense to me.

We unconsciously hold the energy of the disagreements and betrayals between people. Our soul’s path becomes strongly linked to the anger, hate, and resentment we feel for a person.  This energy is another thing that can block our flow to manifesting what it is we are truly here to do. We don’t have to forget what someone has done. We don’t even have to let that person back into our lives. By forgiving them, we let go of how they affect us.

If you had the flu last year and got it treated and now you are fine, do you still feel the sickness? No, you may remember the sickness, but you don’t feel it any more. This is how you want to be with forgiveness. You can remember what was done but it no longer holds any emotional charge for you. It is a good test to use for if you have really forgiven someone to imagine someone telling you how great they are doing now and how they have everything they want. If you feel any pain or anger, you haven’t fully forgiven them.

When you forgive and let go of this energy your holding both your lives will improve. When I have done the meditation that follows I have felt lighter every time. When we forgive, we make room for newer and happier circumstances, just as in the work of releasing with the previous bead.

Before this meditation, you may want to list all the people you think have done you wrong in some way and memorize the release statement.

Meditation of Forgiveness

Hold the twenty-sixth bead, the bead of the blessing of Forgiveness, the blessing of water in Tiphereth.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand into a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as your sphere begins to fill with radiant golden yellow light. Vibrate the God name of Tipereth: Yod-heh-vauv-heh el-oh-ah Vah-dah-ath

The golden light fades and you are in a golden field. Above you is a golden white sphere that represents the highest and best of the universe. Within it you might see Goddess, God, Great spirit, your guides, or your higher self. It is the highest guidance and power. Thank it for its presence in this work and ask for its aid.

Conjure the people you have to forgive. You can do this by calling up a person who is on your list or just calling out to someone you need to forgive. They appear in the field. Tell them what they did that you are trying to forgive.

Then say the following statement of release and forgiveness with all of your being:

“(Their name), I forgive you for your imperfections as I forgive myself for mine. I release (what you are feeling) I have against you. I forgive and release you to be who you are and to be happy. I release you to be free. With that I am free.”

After you feel it has done its work, the person begins to rise in the air to the ball of golden white light above you. As they float away, you are releasing them to the universe. You can then repeat the process with others on your list.

When you are done, say to yourself in this place of power. “I forgive and release you all, as I forgive my self for all. Blessed be!”

Golden light again begins to fill the area around you, making the world go opaque with the intensity of its glow. As the light fades, you feel a gentle descent. The screen of your mind begins to return to its normal size.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness.

Ground and center yourself.

Contemplation

Think about the people you have had to forgive: Is there a pattern to the story that manifests this pain? What are your contributions to this pattern? Can you forgive yourself? Can you forgive what was done to you? Can you release this pattern?

Blessing Cord

Release

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-fifth bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of Release. It is the water of Geburah. Geburah has great power but also brings hard lessons. The lesson and blessing it brings is release. Release needs to happen for us to have clear, flowing connection to spirit and our own life path. Sometimes it is a pattern we have been consciously engaging in that needs to be let go of so we can move forward. It might be something left over from our parents or a past life that needs to be released. It can even be something we manifested that is no longer good for us, like the junk in our house or a job that is no longer working for us.

In the craft we use the waxing moon to grow things and the waning moon to dissolve and banish. We get all excited during the waxing moon to start new things and make new manifestations. One of the best pieces of advice I have gotten was to make room for these new things in my mind, in my heart, and in my home during the waning moon. The older I get the more I see this as true. I now know that I need to prioritize what I keep and hold on to. I have created a lot and I have to be able to let some of the things I have collected go, whether they are destroyed or move on to a place where they can be loved.

This process can be hard. Ask yourself: Does this still serve me? Does it bring me joy? Does this help me along my path? Evaluate if this is something you still need. If not it is time for release. Make some room for new manifestations.

In our minds we may have patterns we need to release to be able to move forward in to the world we want. These old patterns can still be creating the things we don’t want in life and draining some of our energy or blocking our flow. Sometimes just making a list of what our limiting beliefs or patterns are can help us in this process. Get a piece of paper and write on it. “The reason I can’t have (your goal) is because…” Set a timer for two minutes and write down every reason that comes to mind about why you can’t have your goal. When the bell goes off stop and look at your list. These are the patterns you are going to have to clear away to help your manifestation come into being. Do the meditation of release and then rip up this list.

Meditation of Release

Hold the twenty-fifth bead, the bead of the blessing of Release, the blessing of water in Geburah.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand to create a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as the sphere fills with a red light. Vibrate the god name of Geburah: El-oh-heem Gi-boor

The red light fills you with the power to release. As the light clears, you are in a place that represents your mind. This could be a large garden, a house, a castle or any place that resonates with you. This is your special place. You have full control of your environment. Focus your thoughts on the first belief on you list to be lead to the place where this belief lives. Follow you intuition to the place where this belief lives. It will have a symbolic representation in your inner space. Once you have found it. Observe how it is reacting to the things around it. How does it affect your place. Touch it and ask to see when this thing was created. Why did it serve you then? Does it serve you now?

Begin to change the belief. In a garden of the mind this may mean weeding it out of the garden. In the attic of the mind it may mean cleaning it out to be dumped or burning it in the mental yard outside. In the castle you might want to put it in a catapult and shoot it outside. The solutions to changing this symbol of your old belief are infinite. Choose one that works for you.

You can now repeat the process with all the beliefs on your list. When you are done, feel how clear you feel. In a later meditation, plant or create some new beliefs that move you toward your goals.

The red light begins to fill your sphere again, blotting out the grove. You feel a gentle decent as the red light fades. Your sphere returns to the shape and size of the screen of the mind.

Count your self up into waking consciousness and ground and center yourself.

Contemplation

Look around your home and begin to release the things that are cluttering your energy. Ask yourself: does this bring me joy? Does this serve a purpose? Is this in alignment with my great work? If it is not why keep it at all? Observe your mind. Are there patterns you could release to have a better flow and clearer mind?

Blessing Cord

Compassion

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-fourth bead on the blessing cord is the blessing of compassion. It is the blessing of water in Chesed. Chesed is the sphere of Mercy. It’s vibration is one of care and concern, but it also sees the bigger picture better then some of the other spheres.

Compassion means “to suffer with”. This can spur many forms of response depending on our nature. It is hard to suffer along with someone. To feel empathy for what is going on with someone, knowing that you can do little to help. Part of life is suffering and most of us create  more for ourselves by becoming too attached to our wants.

I have found in my own path through life that my best expressions of compassion for others come when I am not attached to a certain outcome. I have had students in the past where I would observe their struggles with life with what I thought was compassion and then give them advice and offers of assistance, only to see them manifest mental blocks and excuses to why all my advice would not work, being told I was egotistical to think I could help, flat-out refusal, and in some cases a loss of a friendship. I came to realize people both want and need to solve things for themselves and they are not always in the place to do so. I had become attached to the outcome of my friends’ success without letting them process the suffering and come to their own answers.

Now I hold compassion for where people are at in the present. I ask questions to get clarity about what it is they are experiencing, so I can hold compassion for them where they are. I ask them if they want advice and then release any attachment to them actually doing what I said. Compassionately I know that they must find their own way. It is a hard stance to have knowing that I want them to do well.

Our world always seems filled with suffering if we let it be. Prejudice, privilege, poverty, hunger, despair, our political climate, our world climate, fear, xenophobia, and much, much more. Watch the nightly news for a while and you will see the harsh suffering in the world. It can make us feel powerless. Don’t believe the hype. You can make a difference. You can be the change you wish to see in the world.

The meditation is inspired by the Buddhist practice called heart breathing. We breath in some of the suffering of the world and transform it into peace and love. This practice is a tough one and should not become a daily practice for anyone. It is emotionally draining and can effect your health after a while. This is why in this meditation you are lead to cleanse both before and after and are set in a place where you can be distant from the suffering of the world so you can have compassion without attachment.

Meditation of Compassion

Hold the twenty-forth bead of your blessing cord, the bead of Compassion, the bead of the blessing of water in Chesed.

Count your self down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand to create a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as sky or electric blue light begins to fill the sphere. Resonate the god name of Chesed: El

A blue cloud seems to form around your feet. It is strangely solid and you can stand upon it. As the light begins to fade around you, see that you are high above the world on a blue cloud. From this place you can see the bigger picture of the world. Look up into the endless blue of the sky. Start to breath this blue light of the sky into yourself. As you breath out, release your tension and worry. Breath in this light and feel yourself filing with cleansing energy. It begins to transform your energy, making your vibration stronger. It builds until you are filled with light.

Now feel your heart begin to open like a swirling vortex of light. You notice it growing large as it fills with compassion. There is an endless flow of this compassion and peace. Focus on the world below you. Breath in some of the suffering of the world, filling your lungs fully. Hold the breath as it mixes with and transforms in your vortex of the heart. Release your breath, imagining yourself breathing our peace, harmony and compassion.

Breathe in again the suffering of the world for the count of seven. Hold and let this energy transform within you for the count of seven. Breath out peace, compassion, and harmony back into the world. Do this about five more times or until you think you have had enough. Breath in the suffering on your last breath, hold and transform, and breath the energy up to the gods in a prayer of peace and compassion for all.

Begin to breath in the light of the sky and release out anything that doesn’t serve. Keep doing this breathing practice until you feel clear and balanced again.

Allow the blue light to return obscuring your view of the sky, world, and cloud. As the light dims again feel a gentle decent. Your screen returns to its normal size.

Count yourself up into normal consciousness.

Ground, center, and balance yourself.

Contemplation

Is there a difference between compassion and pity? When you are hardest on yourself can you turn that into compassion for yourself where you are? Have you had compassion for the people in your life without attachment to their success or failure, just unconditionally giving them compassion?

Blessing Cord

Surrender

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-third bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of surrender. This is the blessing of water in Binah. When we talk about surrender it always makes me think of cowboys raising a white flag of truce made out of someone’s nickers tied to a stick. This surrender is not the one we are talking about, however. When I say “surrender,” it refers to surrender to the Great Spirit’s direction and flow.

In the previous blessing of flow, we recognized where the flow was taking us and went with it or against it. We decided to go one way or another. In surrender, we open up to the Great Spirit’s flow and surrender to it. Surrender is the act of opening up and letting the flow of spirit move through us and guide us. We surrender control and expectation. We accept the divine’s energy and blessings, trusting them to lead us where we need to be.

When we hold to tightly to what we want to be or to an idea, we can strangle the energy for its growth. The energy of spirit can be much like water through a hose: If you hold the hose too tightly or pinch it off, the water can’t flow. We have to surrender our tight hold to let the water flow, as it needs to.

In the Wheel of Time series of novels by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson there are two ways to connect to the One Power that is the source of the magic in their fantasy world: One for the male side of this force, and one for the female side. The male side enters a visionary void where there is nothing but a flame in the center, representing the male side of the One Power. The void brings detachment, but also awareness. They reach out a grab the flame in the center and the more forcefully they grab it, the more energy they can fill themselves with. The detached awareness they gain from the void is their surrender. They let go of all attachment and feeling to grab their source. The feminine way to get energy from this source is to visualize they are a flower with their source above them. Their flower relaxes and opens up to the source, drawing in that energy and letting it flow through them. Their relaxation and openness to this source of power is their surrender to this energy. This fantasy series gives two great, and different, examples of how to surrender to gain energy and wisdom. I have personally used both in meditation and found them both to be interesting exercises. They inspired my meditation of surrender.

Meditation of Surender

Hold the twenty-third bead of the blessing cord, the bead of the water of Binah, the bead of Surrender.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand to create a sphere around you. Feel a rising sensation as the sphere begins to lose all illumination, until you are surrounded by a black endless void. Resonate the god name of Binah: Yod Heh Vauv Heh El-oh-heem.

Allow yourself to relax deeper as you float in the inky void. You are weightless here, as if you were in the depths of space. Surrender any tension or thoughts to the void. Allow any emotions to dissipate into the void. Release your expectations and find the peace of detachment that comes from the void.

A brilliant star of light bursts into life within the void. This star is a representation of the Great Spirit. You can feel it calling to you. As its light hits your crown, a beautiful flower blooms within your head. Surender all as you open up to the Great Spirit. Your mind clears even more as you open, as you connect to this infinite light.

As this bloom begins to open, another blossom opens in the center of your chest at your heart area. It opens and drinks in the light of spirit. You may feel a sensation of bliss that comes from surrendering to spirit. Your heart grows lighter the more it opens.

A bloom opens at your pelvic bowl’s root. Right where your body meets a chair. As this flower opens, you surrender any tension as a wave of healing strength flows from spirit into this flower. as you surrender, the light flows into this bloom and from this bloom the light spreads to your whole body. Relax and surrender to the energy of the Great Spirit.

At this point, open to any messages spirit might have for you. Surrender and accept what comes, in voice, vision, or knowledge. When you feel like you are ready, send a breath of gratitude up toward the Great Spirit.

The void and star begin to fade as you feel a gentle descent. Know that this place is always there when you need it. Your screen returns to its normal shape and size.

Count yourself back up to waking consciousness.

Give yourself clearance and balance. Ground if necessary. Write down your experience.

Contemplation

What do you need in order to surrender and be open to the plans of the Great Spirit? What are you holding too tightly? Now that you know what the connection to spirit feels like, review some of your choices: Do they make you feel alive and filled with the divine or do they feel diminishing and constraining?

Blessing Cord

Flow

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-second bead in the blessing cord has the blessing of flow. This is the blessing of water in Chokhma. Chokhma always adds motion and movement to the elements it affects. In air, it is the movement of the word, and in fire it is the movement of doing our will. When it comes to water, it is flow. Flow is the currents and tides of our surroundings. It can be the stillness of stagnation or the rushing flow of too much activity. This can be on many levels of reality: energetic, emotional, physical, mental—all have a tide and flow to them. This can be affected by astrology, the surroundings, geopathic stress, group-minds, and even your own personal flow.

When I was a kid, we had a big round pool in our backyard. My friends and I would make a whirlpool in it by starting to swim around the pool in a circle until the water began to move with us. Our flow began to change the flow of the pool. Then we would all let go and float and let the flow we created carry us around the pool. Sometimes we would all try to go against the flow to test our strength. In this smaller environment of the pool we had enough flow to change the overall flow. In the ocean of life we would need a lot more energy to change the flow.

When a coven works together to make a cone of power it is much like this example of the pool. If the coven is using dance to raise energy, they dance around the circle faster and faster making a sort of whirlpool within the “pool” of their circle. When the energy gets moving, it is easier to feel and direct than stagnant energy. Much like air you can feel it more when it is moving like the wind. This movement of energy in circle is the way we increase the intensity and purity of the energy.

If we want to engage the flow around us, we first have to be aware of where it is going. This is where we connect to what we can feel and intuit about the flow of energy. Sometimes the current of flow is so big it is hard to tell where it is flowing. Like when you get caught up in an ocean current. Being aware of the energies in your area can help. Like knowing where places of power are and where ley lines are. It can also be helpful to know the effects of planetary energies going on because this can effect the flow. When it comes to magick the moon’s cycle can affect the flow. Knowing the effect of a flow may also take just going along with it to explore where it goes. We don’t always know. Let your intuition be your guide. Connect to the flow around you and ask it where it is going.

Once you have awareness, you can choose to go with the flow or go against the flow. Both have good points. When the flow is going in a direction you want to go in, you can use that flow to surf or swim yourself towards what it is you want. You can enhance your efforts by going with the flow to get to your next destination or manifestation faster. It takes less energy to go with the flow then against it. If the flow is not taking you where you want to go or you need to build some strength, going against the flow is an option. Going against the flow takes more energy yet can be rewarding because you become stronger personally. The next time the flow goes your way you will be stronger because you had the discipline to go against the flow. This method can lead you away from where the flow is taking you. The last option is to use the flow to get out of the current. By moving at an angle out of the current you can use a little of the flow and your own strength to get you to a place where you have more control of your motion.

Meditation of Flow

Hold the twenty-second bead on the blessing cord. The Bead of Flow, the blessing of water in Chokhma.

Count yourself down into a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand around you to form a sphere. Resonate the god name of Chokhma: Yod heh vauv Heh

You feel a rising feeling as the sphere begins to fill with gray misty light all around you. The mist begins to clear and in front of you is an estuary. You can see the small bay of sea water all the way to the other side as the mist clears. Beside you are three floating lanterns ready to go into the water. Throw the first out into the water. This one gets caught by the current immediately and begins to move around the estuary. The current takes it quickly around the small bay an out into the ocean.

Throw the second lantern out a little further. This one moves a bit slower as it goes around the middle of the current and out into the ocean.

Throw the third lantern into the middle of the estuary. This one just swirls around the middle of the small bay. Now that you know the estuary’s flow, It is time to feel it for yourself. Step into the water and feel the flow. The current is strong and moves around your body. Allow the flow to move you as you float. Feel the effortless movement as you engage the flow.

Now try to swim with the flow. See how fast you can move when you are going with the flow and adding your energy to it. Enjoy the speed and rush of movement.

Try to now swim against the flow. Feel your strength. See how your efforts stop you in motion or reverse your motion. The more you work against the flow the stronger you are.

Now shift yourself to swim at an angle to the flow so you can move into the center of the estuary where the last lantern is still swirling around. Here you can feel the flow moving around you and swirling. Move again at an angle to slip back into the flow before where you started swimming. Allow the flow to bring you back to the shore where you started.

As you sit on the shore reflect on your experience. What are you doing now, going with the flow, going against the flow, or swimming for the center where you can plan where you will engage the flow? This is just a metaphor for tapping into the energies around you. Take this knowledge with you. Become aware of the flow around you and choose how to respond appropriately.

The gray mists rise up around you, filling your sphere. Feel a gentle decent as it begins to fade and your sphere becomes its normal color. Allow the screen of your mind to return to its normal size.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness.

Give yourself clearance and balance.

Ground if necessary.

Contemplation. 

Where is the flow around you going? When you connect to the flow, what does it tell you about itself? What is your choice of how to respond? How can you use awareness of flow to enhance your life?

Blessing Cord

Intuition

Adam Sartwell

The twenty-first bead in the blessing cord starts a new elemental cycle of water. The blessing of this bead is Intuition. This blessing is the water of Kether. Our intuition is always with us. We all have it to a variety of degrees and there are a multitude of ways it can come to us. We may feel, see, remember, dream, hear, feel, know, smell or taste our intuition speaking to us. Many of us can get hung up on what way our intuition speaks to us but it can be different every time. It is always trying to speak to us. Our own filters of reality, beliefs, fears, and reactions can block out this ever-present gentle prodding from spiritual guidance.

Our upbringing can block our intuition by giving us patterns that don’t let us connect to a greater source. You may have gotten a wild idea as a kid and your parents shut down this intuitive burst with their own fears. Don’t blame them though, they are just the current line in a chain of family and culture that taught children not to listen to intuition. Thankfully we are our own people and can choose to change these beliefs and fears.

What I think is the hardest part of intuition is to “hear” it and to trust it. To hear it we must quiet the louder parts of ourselves: the fears, beliefs and our doubting self all have loud voices in our minds. Stilling these can be done with passive meditation and focus on your breathing until your mind becomes still. This is when our intuition can speak clearly, but we don’t always need to be in this state to hear it. Just by thinking about a situation and focusing our attention lightly on it and clearing our mind momentarily so we can receive intuitive signal is enough. The first thought, image, feeling or memory, or other sensory input is our answer.

The second part is to trust it. Some wild and strange things can come through the intuition. Sometimes it skips forward to the end steps and you find it hard to see how it got there. The important thing is that you trust it. You can start small by listening to your intuition and following its guidance on small issues. This builds your confidence in your intuitive connection. The more we trust our intuition and psychic guidance the more of it we seem to have. Our lives begin to feel more alive when we follow our intuition. Things seem brighter and people start to wonder where you got the ideas from.

In the following meditation we use an interface called the tube of intuitive flow so we can clear our intuitive flow of any blockages like beliefs, fears, or reactions. This meditation shows us we can connect and ask anything about itself and receive intuitive answers. We can follow these answers to clear our energetic connection with our guides and spirits. The clearer we are, the stronger the “voice” of our intuition is.

Meditation of Intuition

Hold the twenty-first  bead of the blessing cord. The bead of Intuition, the water of Kether.

Count your self down into a meditative state.

Visualize the screen of your mind expanding into a sphere around you. You feel a sense of rising as your sphere begins to fill with radiant prismatic light. Resonate the God name of Kether: “eh-heh-e-yeh”

When the light clears, you see above you a spherical shape made of whirling light. This sphere is the divine source of intuition. You may see within it guides, radiant energies, and sometimes passing images. Ask to conjure your channel of intuition from the radiant source. See it as a tube that comes down from the source and passes through your crown and all the way down the trunk of your body, down into the center of the earth. This tube is an interface with your stream of intuition. Send your thoughts inside the tube to observe its interior.

Inside the tube you may see clumps or clots. Places where your stream of intuition is blocked in some way. Each of these blocks slow your intuition or even dam up its flow. You have the power of intuition and can reach out to connect to these blocks and speak with them. Choose a blockage and mentally connect with it. Ask it what fear or belief created it. The blockage will give you a memory, an image, words, a feeling, or just a sense of knowing about how it started in the first place. Know that this is your energy speaking to you. You have the power to use your awareness to change it. Let the blockage tell you how it started. Then ask what intuitive action you need to take to change it. The blockage may give you instructions. You may need to forgive someone, change a thought process you have, do something daring, trust your intuition to help you. Once you know what it is the blockage needs to change, ask it if you can help it clear energetically right now. If yes, place it between your two mental hands. Imagine white light flowing from your hands and dissolving the blockage.  Any stagnant energy will naturally flow down the tube to your place of grounding at its end. You may feel lighter. You may have more intuitive flashes without this blockage. Seek to trust your impressions.

You can continue this exercise with each blockage you find or end it now and return to this conjured tube that contains your flow later to clear it more. When you are done, move your consciousness out of the tube. Imagine your awareness of it fading, knowing it is just a symbolic interface of your intuitive flow. See the source of your intuition above you and give it thanks for its guidance as it fades from view.

The sphere begins to obscure as prismatic white light fills the sphere again. You feel a gentle feeling of decent as the sphere again returns to normal color. It shrinks back to its normal size as the screen of your mind again.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness. Ground and center if necessary.

Contemplation

Throughout the day connect with your intuition by asking yourself what you sense about your daily situations. Do you recognize your intuition when it “speaks” to you? What holds you back from sensing your intuition? Do you trust your intuition?

Blessing Cord

Incarnate Spirit

Adam Sartwell

The twentieth bead in the blessing cord is the blessing of incarnate spirit. This is the fire of Malkuth. The earthy sphere of Malkuth could not move and live without the spirit which animates it. Every flower, every animal, every human being is a part of the Great Spirit that has inhabited a body to have an earthly experience. Each one of us is an incarnate spirit that has come into this world for a reason. Some of us have done this many times, if you believe in reincarnation. We emerged from the well of souls and returned to the earthly plane to learn, to grow, to experience and, at the end of our lives, return to that well to share our experience with the Great Spirit.

If you are reading this blog, you have chosen to become an incarnate spirit for this time. This gives you different options on how you can affect the world than, say, a spirit guide.

I was asked by one of my students recently why spirit guides would want to work with us. Spirit guides want to work with us because we can affect this world. We have more power in the world than they can easily manifest. We can tap into the very soul and nature of this world, which spirits have a lesser ability to do. Just as spirit guides can channel energies form spiritual realms to us, we can in turn channel physical plane energies to them to use for their benefit. We are spirits just like them, with our own access to wisdom of bodily experience.

A powerful technique is to work in concert with these spiritual guides to mix spiritual energies with the material energies of nature. When we run energies with a spirit guide, we can build up power to make changes in our lives.

Meditation of Incarnate Spirit

Hold the Twentieth bead on the blessing cord. The blessing of incarnate spirit, the bead of fire in Malkuth.

Count yourself down in to a meditative state.

Allow the screen of your mind to expand around you, forming a sphere. Feel the slight shift as a garden begins to grow up around you in the sphere of your mind. Resonate the god name of Malkuth: Ah-do-nai Ha-ah-retz

Explore the garden of Malkuth around you. Take off your spiritual footwear (if any) and allow your feet to connect to the earth. As they touch the earth, you can feel the energies of the manifest around you. Allow the energy centers in your feet to open gently and begin to cycle this energy of the manifest world. The earth’s energy begins to flow up your legs. Into your pelvic bowl. Up into your belly. Rising into your chest. Overflowing into your arms and up into your head. Filling your body with this manifest energy.

Put out the mental call to your spirit guides. See them come into the garden. Ask one of them to exchange energy with you to show you the reciprocal nature of the energies of spirit and the energies of the manifest. Choose a guide you trust and have worked with before. As your guide comes before you one of their hands (if they have them) begins to form a ball of energy around it made of the highest spiritual vibrations. This is the energy the spirits use to make changes on the spiritual levels.

Like them, you raise your hand and a pulsing ball of manifest energy comes into being around your hand. Your guide reaches out with their other hand, then the one with the energy to touch your hand with the energy. You reach out with your other hand and touch their hand with the energy. Once you have both connected, the energy begins to flow in a circuit between you and your connected hands. You feel the pure energy of the spirit world flowing into you and the material energy flowing out of you into your guide and then back around. The energies begin to blend. Feel the power you are sharing with your guide and your guide is sharing with you. The longer you hold it, the more intense it feels.

When you and your guide feel like you have built up enough energy let your hands release and send the energy out like a shower above you both. This technique can be used to raise energy to be sent out for a desired change. For your first time, just feel the release, without any focused intention.

Thank your guide for their aid. They may also thank you for the experience.

Return to where you entered the garden. Become aware of the garden around you in your sphere. Allow it to fade as you feel a slight shift. Your screen of your mind returns to its normal size.

Count yourself up into waking consciousness.

Give yourself clearance and balance and ground.

Contemplation

Why did you incarnate? Why do you think spirit guides want to work with us? What advantages do you offer to the spirits and what advantages do they offer you in partnership?