The Winter Solstice; the Time for Thanking Truth

On this shortest day of the year, we celebrate the longest night.  We are symbolically offered a longer span of darkness to sit with our dreams for what we might be, could be, will be as we consciously commit to being more completely our Self!

Have a wondrous and inspired solstice!  Light a fire or candles to celebrate the gift of darkness, to remember of the gift of light that is eternally within your being, to offer gratitude for the balance of life-the gift of rhythms and cycles.

Self Reflection: I thank Truth for my light, which becomes visible to me in being with my own dark times.

How the Will Centers Feel in Our Physical Body

Recognizing who's WILL is in directing our life is truly an amazing fete.  It reflects a commitment to to be more fully our True Self.  A 'self-hug, pat on the back' is in order.  Do that now!

Now, how WILL feels as it is present in our body:

Energetically, the will centers are energy centers in the backside of our body. They are in alignment with the chakras as  represented on the front of the body. It is helpful to think of WILL as the force which supports us in moving out in the world. It is the energy which gives us the little (or sometime forceful) push to take action in our lives. One of my teachers, John Pierrakos, talked about the importance of aligning our will with Divine Will. The question, he said was whether we were aligned with other peoples will, our will, or God’s will? Of course, whose will is in charge dramatically effects our personal development as well as  self-discipline, self-determination, and showing up Truthfully in the world.

When we work with our daily review practice, our goals and our vision for our life, it  becomes clear which use of WILL mostly informs our life and our choices. To Live Truth is to have our personal Will and Divine Will be aligned (or as the mystics say, 'as one').


Self Reflection:  Who's really in charge of  your life? Give yourself a 'self-hug, pat on the back'  for anytime you have given over to Divine Direction-the 'will' of a higher dierction!

Inner and Outer 'Workings' of Our Cycles of Truth

There are 12 Cycles of Truth as shared  by Twylah Nitsch, the Seneca  Elder who brought these teachings into the world.
As I have worked with these cycles, I have come to see the first five Cycles of Truth are invitations and instructions for relating to our inner growing, knowing, being.  They are in some ways correlated with our senses.**
1. Learn Truth--touch
2. Honor Truth--taste
3. Know/Accept Truth--smell/scent
4. See Truth--sight
5. Hear Truth--hearing/auditory
(Working with each of these cycles incorporates and helps us develop our intuitive/sixth sense.)

The remaining seven Cycles of Truth are invitations and instructions relating to knowing, being and expressing in the world around us, in our relationships with all-people,creatures, places and things. As we work with cycles 7-12 our intuitive senses and our connection to our understanding of Source also grows and develops.

6. Speak Truth  --speaking only truth as we understand Truth
7. Love Truth --Truth as expressed through our heart
8. Serve Truth --live servicing truth as we understand what is Truth
9. Live Truth -- awareness of Truth resonating in our being
10. Work/Walk Truth  --conscious and intentional expression and actions in/of/with Truth
11. Share Truth --willingness to share in actions, words and intention our understanding or Truth
12. Thank Truth --living in/with gratitude

When Jamie Sams wrote her The 13 Original Clan Mothers, she honored the 13th Cycle 'Be Truth', is the clan mother, Becomes Her Vision.  This cycle occurs as the final new moon of the year in our Gregorian calendar.  In my work, I use this thirteenth cycle as a month of reflection, self assessment and integration.

**These are my interpretations and understanding.  It is not my intention to represent them in any way as 'official'.

Self Reflection: Moving through the 13th moon cycle,  take time to review and reflect on your experience with each of cycle of Truth.

The 13th New Moon's Invitation to Be Your Vision, Be Your Truth

I am the Thirteenth New Moon.
Reflective.
Instructive.
From where have you come, so far? So far!
You are already the vision Creator/Great Mystery/All That Is/God birthed you to be.
Be here now and...
Learn who you are
Honor who you are
Know and Accept who you are
See who you are
Hear who you are
Speak who you are
Love who you are

I am the 'Be-ing Moon'.
Be with me in my rhythm and flow
My new is your re-newing
My waxing is your filling
My full is your fullness
My waning is your releasing
My void is your resting
Then you will begin again
On the path of your vision.

I am the 13th Moon Cycle.  I am 'Be Truth'.

Self Reflection: Become Your Vision; Be Truth.

Closing Moon for December: Using Our Senses to Make Sense of Our Vision

When we can  be present with all of our senses, we are present to our Self.  This helps us take full advantage of all the gifts that ultimately show us our vision.  We learn to be fully present to life in the moment and to become more fully aligned with Creator’s purpose for our individual life.  We learn to use our senses as tools for connecting to higher frequencies of awareness.  We are able to have our senses become more acute and sensitive so that we can respond more proactively, rather than from fear or anxiety.  We become more able to use our senses to wake up to the world around us and to our own unique path.  Wise use of senses help us let go of, or at least set down, what keeps our vision from being visible (mostly to us).

Highly developed senses, while they may require our attention and cannot be easily ignored, can bring a sense of ease to our lives once we come to trust them and to use them wisely.  The increased awareness with our senses also awakens our intuition, often called the sixth sense,  Our sixth sense points the way to becoming our vision.  We are at the eve of the New Moon for the 13th Moon Cycle of the year; the cycle of Be Truth. 

Self Reflection: I take time to sit in gratitude for the year that has been. I take time to sit in gratitude for the gifts I have received and for what they portend may already be coming my way. 

Gratitude Replaces Resolutions

Carolyn Shares:  I try to be positive every time the end of December draws near, but I am most always crabby as I approach the final weeks of the year.  For me, there is a difference between the idea of starting over everyday and starting over in a 'new year' with a set of resolutions. So, here is my resolution solution:

The 13th Moon cycle, 'Be Truth', arrives during these weeks as well. For those of us who use the moon cycles as guides for growth and change the date of the ‘Real’ new year begins with the New Moon for January. One that day/night, we will take a deep breath in, and breathing out, start on the next leg of our journey.  

As we look for this new cycle to begin, do a review of the past year by asking for Guidance and Wisdom to see the Truth of your journey.  For the struggles there may have been that don’t yet make sense, set a place of gratitude for what is yet to be revealed.  For any successes, great and small, give yourself appreciation.  Sit in Praise for the journey that has been, and yourself for making the journey up to this point.  Rest in place.  Just rest and have gratitude for yourself, your fellow journeyers and the earth upon which we all travel.  Taking these remaining days of the waning moon phase to rest in thanksgiving without giving into new plans or resolutions will give more energy and clarity in the week to come as we prepare to step into the starting block for the 'real' beginning of a new year.

Self Reflection: This year instead of writing resolutions for the coming year instead, take time to reflect  with writing a gratitude list. Trust the time for new will come after this period of rest and reflection.

Holy Time, Whole Me TIme

This is a post from a year ago on the Circle of Self Muse Blog  It is even more relevant, more true, more important to have these holy times--the Whole Me times as I intentionally spend these last few days in the Thank Truth cycle reviewing what I have come to know of my life.

My early mornings are Holy Time.

Actually, all time is Holy Time,

And I am so distracted

 I don’t recognize the holy minutes and holy seconds

as they flow in and out of me.

But if I practice experiencing my early mornings as Holy Time,

Perhaps it will seep more and more into my days as a WHOLE.

And perhaps my nights will become incubation for Holy Time,

So my dreams will carry more and more a holy message for my life.

And then perhaps my life will have enough holiness

My breath can be a holy mist out to the lives of others.

My early mornings are Holy Time.

Self Reflection: Take time during these last few days of the cycle of Thank Truth to hold sacred and abundant gratitude for your Self and your self.

What it Means to Honor Truth

From Sara we  receive this words of wisdom: "Within us is already everything we need to know."  The difficulty comes in that there are many layers or levels of knowing with us.  We can be aware of many things that are 'true' about ourselves.
As we dig deeper into our consciousness, we find that what is true in one experience is not true in another experience.  We see that what is true in one relationship is not true in another.

We are called to have gratitude for whatever truth is revealed, regardless of how we experience that truth. To begin to discern the difference between what is 'true' and what is 'Truth',  take all that you have held as true and distill it, refine it, examine it.  Where you find a reaction and a rigid response there is likely to be something 'not true'.  

Self Reflection: With gratitude for the experience, thank it and let it go.  Where you have found ease, love, peacefulness and compassion, there is likely to be a Truth.  With gratitude, place these knowings in your heart, and carry-on.

Who We have Been and Who We Are Becoming

By taking time to reflect on our gratitude, and on how the life we have lived so far interfaces with the vision WE have for our life,  we come out of from hiding ourselves from ourselves and the world. We come to know we are already whole. Perhaps we just need to take off the shell that covers our wholeness.  We have not allowed ourselves to see the Magnificent Wholeness of who we are. 

We are manifestations of Creator/Creation.  We all have experienced the magnificence of nature; we too embody that kind of magnificence in our own being. Now we sit in wonder of the magnificence of ourselves-whether we feel we are currently expressing our self in the world, or whether still in the becoming place. What a place of gratitude this is!

Self Reflection: Think about your most awe inspiring experience in nature. YOU are that magnificent, that awe-some as well. We all are.  We can and will embrace this as Truth, by our willingness to travel fully in our humanness. These days approaching the new year are times to allow the Vision of your being to visualize.  Express your gratitude, then YOU prepare to be manifest in the world.

Preparing to Receive; Preparing to Begin Again

When we fully Thank Truth and express gratitude for our lives, we are willing to receive the Vision for Our Being,  we consciously join with Creator to live our life to our fullest potential.   We make the decision to let go of our need to be in charge and control of our creative energies. We become willing to have an open mind and heart to receive Creator’s gifts—inspiration, guidance, direction, and impulse so we may be out in the world manifesting and fulfilling our birthright, our purpose.

Here in this place we do not work alone!  And yet, we alone do the work.  We alone are responsible for our actions.  Yet our actions are made known to us ONLY by our letting go of ‘my way’, the need to control. Preconceived ideas, notions and beliefs—which may be conscious, unconscious or subconscious MUST be set aside for our vision for our life to come clear.

Self Reflection: I am thankful for the Truth of my life. I live in gratitude. Am I ready to begin the journey to know and become my vision I know from living in these Truth cycles? I will rest and reflect in gratitude for my journey of the past year so I may be re-energized to begin again.

How Truth Reveals Our Lives

 "...Does truth work in our lives?...Truth Heals the body, purifies the soul, reforms the sinner, solves difficulties, pacifies strife. There is no such thing as undemonstrated understanding. If you wish to know where you really stand spiritually, look about you at your environment, beginning with the body.  "There can be nothing in the soul that is not demonstrated sooner or later in the outer, and there is nothing in the outer that does not find some correspondence in the inner." (pg 201)       From Emmet Fox, July 20, (1886-1951), a pioneer of the New Thought movement, continues to inform many wisdom teachers and spiritual searchers.  Around the Year With Emmet Fox,

It seems all great spiritual teachers, mystics and holy ones were/are seekers of Truth. All of them! When we seek the vision for our life, Truth is likely to show up in one of the many forms we experience working with the moon cycles, which is just one path for searching and knowing Truth.  

Self Reflections: When I intentionally follow the path of my unfolding vision, I am living my life purpose as best as I currently know it, with the Truth I currently know. I can trust teachings on Truth to pop up synchronicitically in my life. This synchronicity is confirmation of my connection to Creation

Receiving Guidance: Gratitude as a Guiding Force

Carolyn writes:  I have a journal which I write in only when I am in deep awareness of connecting to Guidance-It is my G.O.D. journal' (G.O.D. is my acronym for Grace of Divine/Guidance on Demand/Good Orderly Direction).
Sometimes I write in it everyday for a week or so, then months can go by without an entry. I began this particular journal in 1994 and there are sill a few pages left to fill!  Here is the page that caught my attention as I sat to seeking and writing for guidance this morning.  What a page to show up, as perfect now as it was the year I wrote it. What is REALLY Truth is eternal.  

Self Reflection: What is my gratitude for Truth list for the year now ending?

Can It Really Be True?

Can it possibly be true that already within us is everything we need to know? How different our lives would be if we acted as if we believed this to be Truth.  Yet is is Truth.  Across the long  timeline of Spiritual Teachers, this message is given repeatedly. The difficulty comes in that there are many layers or levels of 'knowing' within our being.  We can be aware of many things that are 'true' about ourselves, yet 'true' only under certain conditions.  As we dig deeper into our consciousness, we find that what is true in one experience is not true in another experience.  Or what is true in one relationship is not true in another. Just because something is true, does not mean it carries the wisdom of Truth.

Self Reflection: As I begin to discern the difference between what is 'true' and what is 'Truth' in terms of becoming my vision I take all that I have held as true and examine it with a desire to know what is true for me NOW. If I find myself in a negative reaction or feelingintreanched in my self-examination, iit is likely I have come across something 'not true'.  I can acknowledge what has been revealed and set it aside.  If I find a compassion in my reflections, it is likely to be a Truth.  With gratitude, I place these knowings in my heart, and carry-on toward becoming my vision.

Flipping the Coin of Forgiveness and Gratitude

In practicing gratitude for our experiences in life, we come upon times where we experience hurt, anger, frustration, dissolution, pain.  Can we even think about being grateful during these times?  The gift in this cycle is 'Thank Truth' .  We look for the Truth, open ourselves to what is Truth, (with an uppercase 'T') when we are confronted with the challenges of living life. 


Self Reflection: Forgiveness and gratitude are two sides of the same coin.
If this coin comes into my possession, I have received a gift more priceless than gold. It is a gift which brings me a freedom greater than I have ever known!

The Amazing Gift of Gratitude for 'What Is"

The gift of  'Thank Truth' is a gift supporting us to start each day anew with the willingness to begin again, and again, and again. Gratitude allows us to miraculously be present to life in an amazing, powerful way.  It truly is a gift to be able to see beauty in the everyday and the mundane.  It truly is a gift to know hope and possibility in the midst of chaos.  It truly is a gift to be able experience change as it is happening in our feelings and actions.  Gratitude = a path of living in the present/in Presence.

Self-Reflection: Today I begin again. Today I will live in the present of each moment. Beginning again and in the present I experience Presence. I live Gratitude

A Practice of Gratitude Changes Consciousness

As we move through these weeks of the waning moon our focus of gratitude turns outward as we explore our perception of others and the world around us. It is easy to express gratitude toward others when we are getting what we think we want, or when things are going our way.  This is only a tiny part of the gift of Thanking Truth.  We receive the gift of greater consciousness when we can be grateful for the whole of the Truth, which may be very different from our original perceptions and beliefs--as was noted in yesterday's post,

What DOES it mean to look for the Truth in every situation and experience, especially those that are challenging in some way? We can start with a question teacher and writer Byron Katie  asks, "Is it really true?"  Through deeper exploration we often find the Truth is different than our personal perception and experience.  We come to understand how important our life experiences have been/are for the growth and healing of our being.  This space of expanded understanding of what is reality is the place where we truly and deeply feel gratitude for the Truth.

Self Reflection: Check out Byron Katie's guided questions here in her process called: The Work. Choose one current belief which is challenging you and explore "Is it really true?"

Full Moon and Sacred Traditions

The December Moon Cycle is always in rhythm with the holidays and holy days. Moon cycle awareness doesn't hang it's lantern on the mantle of any particular spiritual practice, religious tradition or culture.  It includes and incorporates the sacred present in each tradition, and the agnostic and atheist traditions are included as well.  How we label ourselves, and how or why we have come to hold as Truths what we know from the traditions we embrace is irrelevant to the universe in which the moon ebbs and flows. The sacred is contained within each of us, as a spark able to give light, love and hope out into the world.  If we celebrated the sacred days and nights of all the traditions on our planet, it would be a rare day that was not considered holy, sacred or celebratory. If we looked for the wisdom regardless of the source, how much softer and receiving would our world be.

The teachings of all the wisdom givers, all the traditions, which some might call religious traditions, and some might call philosophies and some would have other names, they all teach us the same elemental Truths.  The language may be different, as well as the nuance. But the Truth is fundamentally the same.

Self Reflection: Take time on this holy day of the Full Moon to have gratitude for the Truth shared. Ponder a commitment to learn and have gratitude for the Truths shared on all the holy days in all traditions.

To 'Thank' Requires Action

I can be grateful for what is true/truth in myself. But, what is truth of myself that I do 'thank'?

What does it mean to thank the truth of myself?  This moon cycle we are instructed to 'thank' truth;  not just being grateful, but actively 'thank'.  It’s easy to be grateful for what we deem to be ‘good’ about our self; more challenging to be grateful for what we deem as ‘bad’.  Being grateful is an internal process.  We just think, 'Oh, yes, I'm so grateful ...."  There is a lovely feeling that arises when we sit in gratitude. But, to thank 'Truth' requires active engagement with that we are thanking-whether it is something within our self or another person, place or thing.  The very act of consciously being thankful for what we accept as 'Truth' opens a space for conscious creation of something even more true. This action invites transformation.  This is what deep personal transformation work invites—getting us look at our current view of what is true about how we experience our life, and opening the door for a bigger and more active truth to be created.

Self Reflection: When I find a way to thank everything I think I know about myself, regardless of how I judge it to be good or bad, I will have freed myself of the binding that keeps me stuck in unpleasant pain, patterns, and distress.  Am I willing to thank ALL of what is Truth of the person I am? 

December Moon Gift of Thank Truth Reveals Our Deep Truth

When Jamie Sams writes of 'Gives Praise' as the Clan Mother for December, her story reminds us that we have levels of being and depths of character which are revealed as we journey through life as a human beings.  Many cultures give a 'spiritual name' to children-when they are born or enter into adolescence.  In Jamie Sam's writng in The 13 Original Clan Mothers, a number of stories tell of different ways a spiritual name may be made known.  In our 'modern' culture, such namings are not usual, but that does not mean we don't have a 'name', different from the one by which we are publically known, that represents the deep spiritual qualities of our being.  Is it not  ironic that knowing this identity helps us to live more as the being we really are.

Self-Reflection: What is the name I call myself?  Is it a name which honors or shames my being?