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Inspiring Interviews

Spirituality In The City

by Taylor Grimes September 26, 2024

written by Taylor Grimes

Our Autumn Issue is out now and available at a health store near you. The theme of this mag is Divine/Christ Consciousness! For a full list of our stockists, see https://www.positivelife.ie/magazine/stockists/

Spirituality in the City

‘Tell us a time when you felt uplifted by the divine, a divine moment in time, when you felt divinely guided or a presence within you…’

I had a Divine encounter about a year ago. During this I encountered what I can only describe as loud thundering. It felt like my ear drums were going to burst with the intensity of the sound. It was not easy to put the sound into words. This thundering translated as the uttering of “Let there be light”.

I was shown that these words were uttered at the beginning of time, and that these words are uttered every time a soul incarnates in this world.

This was followed by the giving of my name, which was David.

I felt the fatherly love of the Divine principle and the intensity of this love. It was so strong that it caused me to purge violently.

This was a pivotal moment in my life as I have experienced the guidance of the Divine father and the love and nurturing from the Divine mother ever since. Feeling that every step is guided and that is no more turning back to who I was.

My life has since become a life of service, proclaiming the kingdom of heaven as we feed those around from the tree of life. For the tree life will become the new paradigm in this world.

Ryan Barnes

During my yoga teacher training back in 2014, I recall practicing asanas alongside a group of individuals whom I was gradually getting to know. At that particular time in my life, I felt overwhelmed and my nervous system was in disarray. Our yoga instructor led us through a sequence of warrior poses, then invited us to move freely, tune in, and establish a connection with our bodies. I experienced a deep and heartfelt connection to something outside of the physical me and space. I felt a release of warmth and tension from my head and throat and in that space discovered a newfound inner strength as I moved. The sense of ‘I’ transformed into a collective ‘we,’ as if someone was gently guiding me forward by placing their hands on my back. This subtle touch lingers with me to this day. Whenever I feel adrift, I turn to what grounds me – meditation, nature, openness, deep listening – which acts as a daily compass that has significantly shifted my outlook on life. Everything changed.

Tara O’Rourke

Saolbeo.ie

A moment when I felt deeply connected to something greater than myself was during an early morning walk through a peaceful Canadian forest at 6 am. The sunlight gently filtered through the trees and I was alone in the serene silence. Suddenly, a wave of overwhelming love washed over me, as if a golden thread within me stretched up into the sky, linking me to a loving creator. In that instant, I felt an intense connection to the world around me filled with profound inner peace, power, and love. My fears seemed insignificant compared to the presence I was experiencing. It felt as though I was being lovingly embraced by the creator, reminding me that I was part of something much greater and encouraging me to dream even bigger. This moment of divine connection shifted my perspective, marking the beginning of my spiritual journey from atheism to a deep sense of faith.

Ella Ringrose

The past and present connected: This was a spiritual moment when the divine interconnection on my life path met. I renovated an old VW campervan and reluctantly had to leave a place behind. I have a large cohort of elderly aunts who proceeded to guide me to a tiny village in the south of Ireland to seek a long past ancestor who cared for them as children. Her name was ‘Polly’ – a matriarch of the village who cared and fed many of the young school going children. I enquired and eventually found an ancient old graveyard on a hill, and a grave overgrown, and took a photo that kept my elderly family happy. Fast forward three years and once again I find myself lost, seeking spirituality in my life. I call a random number for Yoga. To this day I still don’t know where I got the number. Only to find out that my now Yoga teacher lives in Pollys’ old house. She still cares through time. Destiny and Yoga.

Daniel Doyle

I’ve never considered myself a spiritual person. I come from Poland, from a Catholic family. As a kid, I used to go to church every Sunday and sang in the choir, but it never resonated with me. When I became a teenager, I started skipping Sunday Mass, which often led to quarrels with my dad.

The moment I began questioning the meaning of life and what happens to us afterward came very unexpectedly. I was 33 years old when my father became gravely ill. I spent his last seven days with him at home, watching his agony and feeling powerless against the disease. The only thing I could do was be by his side. On a Monday at 6:00 pm, he died in my arms, just an hour after his last morphine shot. Holding his head close to my heart as his soul left his body was the most spiritual moment I’ve ever experienced. I feel grateful and privileged to have been by his side as he left this world.

Sometimes, the most profound spiritual experiences come from moments of deep loss and connection.

Marta Vera @marta_vera_wellness

Photographer: Jadwiga Skital @jadwigaelizabethphotographer

September 26, 2024 0 comment

Good Life Inspiring Interviews Love & Relationships Positive News & Interviews

Reclaim Your Creation with Bruce Lipton

by Admin July 21, 2024

written by Admin

Our Summer 2024 Issue has hit the shelves and this issues theme is The Heart! The magazine is now available at a health shop near you, or you can subscribe to have each issue delivered right to your door at https://www.positivelife.ie/subscribe/

Reclaim Your Creation

THE NEVER-ENDING HONEYMOON.

Interviewer: Paul Congdon Interviewee: Bruce Lipton

By Persephone Kianka

In our chat with Bruce H. Lipton, PhD, he told us that 1.6 planet Earths are required to support today’s global population, evincing our disregard for the web of life. We are the web of life because we evolved from nature, yet looking at the current state of the world, it is clear we have forgotten.

As an internationally recognised leader in bridging science and spirit, Bruce expertly reminds us of who we are so that we may experience the heaven on earth that is our birthright.

TENDING THE GARDEN

Referencing the story of the Garden of Eden, Bruce acknowledges our natural state of existence is paradise.

“A garden is not a battleground. A garden by its nature is the height of cooperation, and the only things that are not cooperating in the garden we came into is us,” he explained.

All the indigenous people, from Native Americans to Druids, recognised their role as gardeners, tasked with caring for the gardens they were born into. The result was harmony and abundance, which most humans feel disconnected from today due to our scarcity mindset.

We think we’re just victims thrown into life due to our belief in competition or “survival of the fittest” instilled by Darwin.

“A garden is cooperation, not competition,” Bruce reminds us, and it’s only a false program that makes us believe otherwise.

“We have been programmed to believe we are victims of life, and as a result, we have no control over anything.”

In reality, we are powerful creators, and recognising this is crucial to our survival as a species.

PERSISTENT PROGRAMS

“The most valid science on the planet today is called quantum physics,” Bruce says, and the life-changing knowledge it gives us is nothing new.

From 1927 to this day, the first principle has always been “consciousness is creating our life experience,” yet not everyone is ready to acknowledge this.

Whether we like it or not, our creations directly result from the programs we have downloaded into the hard drive called subconscious.

Initially, this programming takes place three months before birth until age 7, when we’re in the theta state, just below consciousness.

Nature designed it this way so we can learn what to do before going out into the world, but unfortunately, most of the programs we receive nowadays are more harmful than helpful.

When these programs become the predominant source of our behaviour 95% of the time, it’s no wonder we’re dissatisfied with our creations.

According to science, the average person is only present 5% of their day, meaning that’s the only time they’re truly in control.

“When you’re conscious, you take over the computation”, Bruce explained, so how do we regain control?

THE RED PILL

The answer is love.

If you’ve seen The Matrix, science has recognised that falling in love is equivalent to the red pill in our world. It allows us to escape the matrix because the moment we fall in love, we stop thinking; when we stop thinking, we’re back in control.

Bruce assures us that the genre of this movie is not sci-fi but a documentary.

“Science has recognised the moment you fall in love, you stop thinking,” he told us, meaning you stay present and thus can experience heaven on earth.

Those of us who have been in love know that in that state, everything seems wonderful, even the areas of life that were troublesome or mundane before.

Contrary to what we may have thought then, this has nothing to do with the person we’re seeing and everything to do with ourselves.

When we’re in love, whether with a person, place, or activity, we stop playing the disempowering programs and return to our natural state of bliss.

We’re in creative mode and can easily manifest our wishes and desires, which we often call the “honeymoon phase” in a relationship.

RECOGNISE YOUR POWER

The truth is the “honeymoon phase” can last forever, but most people sabotage it by returning to thinking.

The key is to recognise the disempowering programs for what they are: neutral stories that we don’t have to buy into, no matter how many generations have done so before us.

Even genes are just blueprints; they aren’t turned on and off, Bruce clarified. What’s important is the architect who’s reading the blueprint.

“The mind is the architect,” he revealed, which has become alarmingly clear in epigenetics.

This new science exposes “how your consciousness is translated into chemistry, which is sent to your cells via the blood, and this chemistry controls your genetics.”

In other words, our belief system controls our biology, so adopting a favourable one is crucial to living the life we want.

After 40+ years of dysfunctional relationships, thanks to the program Bruce downloaded from his father, he changed the program and met his partner Margaret.

They celebrated 28 years together recently, and what’s worth celebrating even more is that they have been living every day in heaven and harmony.

“A honeymoon is a personal creation,” he assures us.

LIVING FROM THE HEART

The next time you’re faced with a decision, questioning whether you should do this or that, Bruce advises you to ask your heart.

“Don’t answer the question until you do this: ask yourself how you feel about the answer or the choice. The answer now comes from your heart, not from your head, because the heart reads vibration.”

We can weigh as many pros and cons as we like, but the heart doesn’t care about the details; it cares about energy.

We can’t change our programs by talking but by feeling.

“There’s nobody in the subconscious, so talking to your subconscious is like talking to the air,” Bruce clarified.

To write a new program, all we have to do is “push the record button”, return to presence, and then we can reprogram ourselves in 15 minutes.

To grasp this life-changing knowledge even deeper, join us for our live events with Bruce this September in collaboration with seminars.ie.

“I’m living a life I swear to god I never thought possible,” Bruce remarked, and it’s about time more of us step into our creative power to experience our versions of paradise.

seminars.ie

positivelife.ie/events/

Drop into your Heart this Summer and pick up a copy of the magazine at a stockist near you! Our full list of stockists can be found here, https://www.positivelife.ie/magazine/stockists/

July 21, 2024 0 comment

Good Life Holistic Health Inspiring Interviews Positive News & Interviews Spirituality

The Inherent Divine with Paul Selig

by Admin May 17, 2024

written by Admin

The Inherent Divine

WHAT IS ALWAYS TRUE.

Interviewer: Paul Congdon Interviewee: Paul Selig

By Persephone Kianka

Our Spring 2024 Issue is out now! The theme of this magazine is Equanimity. Pick up your copy at a health store near you or subscribe to have the magazine delivered to your door each season https://www.positivelife.ie/subscribe/

“The deepest level of awareness is the inherent divine,” according to the guides of Paul Selig, a conscious channel and award-winning author living in Maui. While Paul doesn’t care about labels, his guides have shared that their energy is called “the Word”, which means “the energy of the creator in action.” Acting as a radio through which these higher beings can speak, Paul cares about the truth of the teaching and the value it brings to people.

TRANSPOSITION

“The guides say that everything that we see we’re in vibrational accord with,” he told us, so it is our job, as individual creators contributing to the collective, to “transpose” everything to a “higher octave”. Humans tend to label everything as good or bad, right or wrong, but the guides insist that everything is of the same divinity. To explain such concepts, they often use musical vocabulary: “You can sing any song in any octave into infinity, even beyond what you can imagine can be sung.” Whether you sing it in a higher or lower octave, it’s still the same song. Everything on this planet, whether deemed good or evil, is of the same source, though this can be hard for some people to accept.

THE HUMAN DILEMMA

Paul’s guides define the primary problem of our species as “the denial of the divine.” Earlier in his life, when reading twelve-step literature, he came across a line that enforces this idea: “God is everything, or God is nothing. What’s our choice to be?” Though baffled initially, Paul began to understand that God is not a platitude but “the realisation of the inherent divine where it has been denied.” It is similar to the idea that it is never the thing itself that is the problem but our thoughts about it.

“When you say God cannot be, you’re actually reinforcing the very thing that you don’t want. To bring the light to the thing that’s held in most darkness is to transpose it or to clear it.” Though we can learn from painful experiences or our collective mistakes, for example, realising the futility of war through killing, there are other ways to learn, which the guides are teaching. We can change any situation by changing our thoughts about it, and the guides encourage us to do this by recognising the inherent divinity in everything. “We can transform our reality through the awareness of what is, they say, always true,” Paul remarked.

SOUL PURPOSE

When asked what we’re all doing here, Paul shared his understanding that the soul comes to earth with lessons that it requires for its experiential growth. “The guides say our problem is that we’ve mistaken who we really are with what they call the personality structure.” When he struggled in his youth, they told him: “Freedom comes when the throne relinquishes its king.” In other words, we must be mindful of what aspect of us is running the show. While many people in the spiritual community compare life to a video game, Paul views it instead as an opportunity to have a higher experience of who we really are.

“You can’t be a victim and a master at the same time,” the guides have told him.

COLLECTIVE TRANSFORMATION

Nowadays, many people frame the current state of our world as chaotic, but from a higher perspective, this is not the case. Paul acknowledged that we’ve been trying to sweep our problems under the rug for a very long time, and now that it’s all finally coming to the surface, we perceive it as chaos. It’s really a time of significant change and healing, as “nothing really gets healed or reseen until it’s seen”. The world is finally in the process of reclaiming its divinity after millennia of casting things into darkness. “If you know you’re in a ship that’s at sea and it’s rocking back and forth and you understand the nature of the storm, sometimes it’s easier to make it through instead of just jumping ship and trying to swim back to the known. I don’t think we get to swim back to the known; I don’t think we go back to the way things were,” he said.

Though collective shift is a positive thing, it can feel uncomfortable. According to Paul’s guides, this transition will take several generations to come to fruition, so we have no choice but to get comfortable with that discomfort.

KNOWING, NOT THINKING

Paul shared, “So much of our experience is about how we invest meaning in things,” which is mainly determined by historical data. The guides say that “because our experience on this plane has been informed by a false belief in separation […] every memory we have is actually faulty.” We don’t even realise how much of what we think has been programmed by the past, and that’s why it’s crucial to tap into knowing rather than thinking. While thinking is not wrong, it is not a reliable way to find the truth. Paul explained an easy way to discern whether you know or think: “When you truly know something, there’s never a question attached.”

THE UPPER ROOM

“Christ consciousness, which is basically what they call the upper room”, is the level of strata from which the guides teach. It is also available for us, and when we begin to operate at that level, many unnecessary things start to fall away, such as judgment of self and others.

If you want to access this truth, join us for our upcoming event, “The Upper Room”- A Channeled Evening with Paul Selig.

Paul admitted that he never quite knows what will happen at these events because, through him, the guides speak on whatever they want, which is generally what the people present require.

In the lovely Irishtown Gospel Hall & Chapel of Ease on July 9^th, Paul will bring this intimate and powerful channelled workshop to Ireland for the first time.

Through lectures, attunements, Q&A and energy work, he and his guides will bring you on a remarkable journey of self-development, allowing you to reach new heights of alignment, healing and life purpose.

paulselig.com

positivelife.ie/events/

May 17, 2024 0 comment

Good Life Inspiring Interviews Positive News & Interviews Spirituality

A Message From Deva & Miten

by Admin May 17, 2024

written by Admin

A message from Deva & Miten

Sing your prayers in cosmic circle

By Alison McEvoy

From Ashram to Ireland

“We love Ireland. Miten’s family hail from county cork. It’s like a homecoming for Miten and, because we are so close, it feels like that to me too!” says Deva.

“We never began this journey into music with the idea of attempting to be successful in the ‘music business’. Our music was born in an ashram – it’s our spiritual practice. From day one we have sung our prayers…whether people are there, or not. It just happened that we caught a wave where people began to want something more than just entertainment…and they found us. Years later they gave us a Grammy nomination. Ironic, don’t you think!?” (Miten)

Musical release

I, for one, await the moment when I’ll share a room with Deva, Miten, their musicians and a crowd of heartfelt voices again this summer at the RDS concert hall. The mantras they share seems to scan my energy body for feelings that my heart hasn’t felt ready, or strong enough, to feel. The music softens my heart, melts the walls of ‘protection’ and allows those feelings find their way back home to my heart, for feeling and release. As Miten notes, I’m not alone in that experience either;

“We are the messengers of a five thousand year old tradition. Mantras have no emotional content – there are no tear jerkers or anthems in them…and yet, we see people shedding tears of release as they experience the mantras unfold.”

“Our gatherings – they are full of love, humour and a deep dive into godliness – brought on by the power of ancient healing sounds, created thousands of years ago when the science of the times was exploring how sound affects the body/mind organism.”

“Our invitation to our audiences (friends) is to enjoy the silence that follows a mantra…as opposed to filling it with the social obligatory sound of whooping and cheering and clapping (that may happen, and if it does it’s a spontaneous outpouring that always leads back into a communal silence)….that’s what happens when we don’t include the noise of hand claps; a moment of communal and individual ‘off-the-hookness a burden being lifted – a communal out-breath.”

Get Mantra ready

“OM Shanti OM is for universal peace which, of course, begins at home – in the heart. Chant it 108 times every night before sleeping to bring a sense of inner peace and resolve.”

Also, “the Gayatri mantra is the cornerstone to what we share. Deva was born to the sounds of her father chanting it at her birth – i doubt her mother joined in at that point, but for the first 11 years of her life she was taught to chant it as a bed time song. Bless her parents for that.”

“Miten, as a contrast, was exposed to the pop songs of the day – bye bye blackbird being a big fave – which his mother, God bless her, sang in the pubs that her and her husband managed in and around London town.”

Join the Cosmic Circle this June 24th

“These’s nothing more equalizing that sitting in a theatre and feeling you’re part of a cosmic circle; no audience – no performers (hence, no reason to clap). Simply, a community of like minded souls who have come to sing their prayers.”

“We teach deep breathing, which is an antidote to fear and panic. To sing is essential for humans, a forgotten practice that seems to be on the rise thank god..for Deva and I it is our tantric practice, but that’s another thing, for another day.”

With love from us both.

miten and deva

http://Positivelife.ie/event/deva-premal-and-miten-singing-our-prayers-2024-with-special-guest-joby-baker

May 17, 2024 0 comment

Good Life Holistic Health Inspiring Interviews Love & Relationships Positive News & Interviews

Love From The Inside Out with John Gray

by Admin May 17, 2024

written by Admin

Love From The Inside Out

Hormonal Harmony

By Alison McEvoy

John Gray, author of ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus’, one of the best selling relationship books of all times, has struck again. His newest addition to the world of relationship navigation is a book called ‘Beyond Mars and Venus: Relationship skills for Today’s Complex World’.

We spoke with John recently to hear his updated take on how relationships could evolve, bringing the worlds of men and women together to unite in harmony and love.

Hormonal harmony

“People are understanding the importance of hormones these days,” says John. Neuroscience and hormonal science, John believes, holds the key to evolving our relationships.

Men and women are coming together within societies whose way of living, being, earning and consuming is one that we have never experienced before as a human race. Our biology, our hormones are also being affected by our new lifestyles, habits, attitudes, freedoms and burdens. If we are to come together in harmony then an understanding of what we ourselves are experiencing is necessary, as well as an understanding of what those who we wish to be in relationship with are experiencing.

As mother to a toddler, and bear with me on the analogy here, I know the power of researching the biological needs and capacities of the one you are desiring to learn how to love through challenges. When I studied the brain of my toddler, I was so much better equipped with patience and understanding and thus able to adjust my expectations of his responses (aka ‘big feelings’) to things. Put simply, neuroscience helped me to actively love my toddler better in daily life.

In the beginning…

All beings, biologically speaking, are born equal. For the first three weeks of life in utero there is no difference between an egg about to become a male and one destined to be biologically female. The “sex differentiation chromosome”, aka the Y chromosome, comes into play at around 3 weeks. It releases an “extra” 23 genes that make a child male, thereby enabling him to “override certain female functions.”

So, from 3 weeks on, men and women embark on their unique hormonal journey through life. Testosterone is known as the ‘male hormone’ and oestrogen is known as the ‘female hormone’. Both men and women require both however hormonal balance in men requires them to have 10-20 times more testosterone circulating in their system than women. Conversely, women’s hormonal balance requires them to have 10-20 times more oestrogen than men.

In the messy middle…

Stress is the factor which most often disrupts this balance. Chronic stress, and stress which feels insurmountable, creates an excess of a stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol blocks the normal functioning of the hormonal system.

“When a man is stressed…his testosterone goes down and he oestrogen goes up,” states John. This hormonal disruption can bring out the worst aspects of masculinity; lack of motivation, anxiety, passivity or irritability and aggression/anger. In this kind of state, a man needs “to have a mindset and a behaviour which is going to stimulate testosterone.” If you are a woman in relationship with a man, you will also need a mindset and behaviour which will encourage testosterone.

Testosterone building Tips

“You don’t need to suffer in a marriage (or relationship) if you know what men need, what women need, and how to respond in ways that will support them in feeling loved and motivate them to be more loving.”

As a woman, you can help your male counterpart by simply understanding what he is going through and what he needs to do. He will need to take action, challenge himself where success is anticipated, build his confidence by proving to himself and others what he can do. This might look like getting more into his sport, taking on a project around the house, solving a meaningful problem or issue, or going for a promotion at work. If you can understand that these actions are his nature’s way of building his testosterone and leading him out of stress and into hormonal and emotional harmony, then you can be a supporter. Your appreciation for his achievements will also contribute to a rise in his testosterone.

“Women are chocolate”

“Men are vanilla….women are more complicated.”

For women, life has changed drastically in the last 100 years. We are now in positions where we experience a lot more testosterone, as well as cortisol. We achieve outside the home, we work, we get promoted, we create successful business (testosterone building activities). However, this ability to have financial independence and a career does not raise our oestrogen levels. This is significant, as “if you are a woman and you’re feeling stressed, you need to have a mindset and a behaviour which is going to produce oestrogen.”

This means our home life needs to be oestrogen building, or in John’s words “you need to anticipate coming home to a relationship or life that generates a lot of oestrogen.” Our significant other needs to engage with us in a way that creates an abundance of oestrogen.

This kind of oestrogen rich life is one where women experience being listened to non-judgementally and understood. Where problems are worked on in tandem with others, interdependently rather than solo. Where there is a feeling of trust and safety. As a man, this is the way to make a woman feel loved-up.

Emotional balance = hormonal balance

So, there can be no more eye rolling when you man needs to play some footie, or your woman wants you to sit with her and listen to her with full attention. These are not whimsical requests. They are fundamental to hormonal and emotional balance in your beloved.

Marsvenus.com

John Gray will be joining us this October for a wonderful full-day workshop!

TIME TO HARMONISE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN,
WE WELCOME THE AUTHOR OF MEN ARE FROM MARS WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS, JOHN GRAY, TO DUBLIN FOR A ONE DAY WORKSHOP!

For tickets and information, see https://www.tickettailor.com/events/positivelifemagazine/1163795

May 17, 2024 0 comment

Good Life Holistic Health Inspiring Interviews Spirituality

Time To Wake Up with Daniel Schmidt

by Admin February 21, 2024

written by Admin

Our Winter 2023 Issue is out now! Pick up a copy at a health shop near you or subscribe to have the Positive Life Magazine delivered to your door each season here: https://www.positivelife.ie/subscribe/

Here we have an interview with the incredible Daniel Schmidt, Time To Wake Up…

With spiritual awakenings becoming more commonplace around the globe in retreats, spiritual courses and private meditations, what is going on in people’s consciousnesses? Are we waking up to a new human experience, and what will that mean in everyday life?

Daniel Schmidt, founder of the Awaken the World Initiative, believes that the current state of the world is accelerating our spiritual ascension. “There’s sort of this pervasive feeling that the answers are not out there, and it seems like the world is priming people for awakening the way it is now. At this point, there is almost no choice but to go through the “dark night of the soul” due to a growing “disillusionment with the matrix”_-the institutions and systems we once exalted. In our conversation with Daniel, who created the Samadhi Center in Ontario, Canada, we explored what is on the other side of that disillusionment.

STEPPING OUT OF CHARACTER

For him, the most “direct path” requires recognising our “choiceless awareness” that is ever-present and has no preference. “The more my sense of “” rests as awareness, the awareness that doesn’t come and go, the more free energy is to oscillate on this continuum.” Once we no longer identify with our “character,” our preferences, we can be open to all that life offers. Daniel believes that “our natural state that isn’t mediated by this character is just an openness to everything so there’s not a judging of good or bad or positive or negative.”

Though it is human nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure, when we try to hang onto only the good experiences, our energy contracts, and we actually get less. Having started on his spiritual path 25 years ago, Daniel can confirm that there is much less suffering in his life now, one of the many fruits of this path.

THE GREAT UNKNOWN

He explained that our human experience becomes richer and more awesome as we realise how little we really know. When the character has been humbled over and over by life, there comes a point when it stops seeking “truth” from an analytical perspective. “I think a point for me on the path was that little conditioned self really came to know its own limitations and the giving up of that seeking.” When we let go of that seeking, a more profound recognition of the present moment and all the direct wisdom it holds is possible.

For example, some shifts are happening at the Samadhi Center, and Daniel doesn’t know how things will unfold, but he is more than okay with that. “For me, there is an aliveness in that,” he said, acknowledging the excitement of not knowing. He believes having a “beginner’s mind” is the most intelligent way to approach life because even the greatest masters, like Socrates, would acknowledge how little they know.

LETTING GO OF LABELS

While we, living as our characters, feel a need to label everything, there is a value in staying in unfiltered awareness. Having gone through diverse experiences of “death” or letting go, Daniel got to understand this first-hand. “From the perspective of that character, fighting for life, this experience didn’t feel benevolent; it felt hellish, it felt like death.” When a blissful rapture followed this uncomfortable experience, his character naturally tried to hold onto that. However. in his most recent “death”, there was no charge attached to either end of the experience. “It was fully experienced, but it was just the body going through it,” Daniel shared.

“I AM” CONSCIOUSNESS

“If we can create conditions for awakening to happen, what are those conditions?” This question has been top of mind for Daniel in his work at the Samadhi Centre over the past 15 years. For him, “conditions of no escape,” as he was meditating in an extreme container, worked best, so, in his intensives, he creates those conditions for participants. Moving away from the idea of techniques, Daniel said that coming into beingness through mediation and self-inquiry practices with a partner are the best tools he knows of to precipitate awakening.

In particular, looking into a partner’s eyes is an effective way to become completely present and aware of what’s happening within the self-structure. It is also an opportunity to recognise the other as self. “So to me, there’s a deeper sense of love that is what the mystics talk about: love, divine love, that is connected to the truth of who I am. The realisation of the one consciousness that we all are sharing Most of us have encountered the concept of oneness before, but it is another thing to realise it directly and live from that state. In a beautiful summary of our human experience, Daniel explained, “There’s this continuum of possibility, and when our sense of “I” is not wrapped up in any preference or any experience, then it’s all a show, it’s all just a magic show.”

To always be the first to read insightful articles just like this, subscribe to have Positive Life Magazine delivered to your door seasonally here: https://www.positivelife.ie/subscribe/

February 21, 2024 0 comment

Good Life Inspiring Interviews Positive News & Interviews

Path To Sovereignty

by Admin January 2, 2024

written by Admin

Our Winter 2023 Issue is out now and available to pick up at a health shop near you! Here we have an article on the Path to Sovereignty by Alison McEvoy in conversation with Mari Kennedy.

Many moons ago, I dreaded the descent into winter each year. The weakening sun left me feeling vulnerable. The long dark evenings tuned me in too deeply to things I had no tools to fully feel or explore. As the escape routes of long summer days dwindled to a close, I felt an increasing sense of anxiety, fear even.
It wasn’t until 2018, upon discovering the work of Mari Kennedy and the Celtic Wheel of the Year, that my relationship
to winter, darkness and letting go, completely transformed. I completed the transformation from fear of the diminishing of sunlight, movement and activity, to relishing the opportunity for rest, release and true transformation. In terms of polarities, I moved from being more comfortable in my masculine, to finding a place of greater ease with the deep feminine in me.
If you find winter a fearful place, the Celtic Wheel can help you move into right relationship with darkness and wintering; the process of shedding and going inward that happens throughout nature, and within us. The Celtic Wheel, for many of us, unearths the feminine force within, helping us live in a more balanced and sustainable way.

What is the Celtic Wheel of the Year?

“The Celtic Wheel of the Year is a calendar of eight festivals gifted to us from the many waves of ancestors – pre-Celtic, Celtic and post Celtic – in Western Europe. Like much of what has been passed down from pre-history, it is a collection of whispers from the past. It appears to have its origins in mythology, the Coligny calendar, pagan ritual celebrations, archaeology, sacred sites, linguistics, folk traditions, druidry, wicca, neopaganism and archeoastronomy. The Wheel is a beautiful Immram (an Irish mythic soul journey) that shows us how to live more fully with the ebbs and flows of being human, while reclaiming our sovereign centre… It tracks the archetypal journey of transformation through the sacred cycle of birth, death and rebirth. It also helps heal the split between our feminine and masculine nature.” (Mari Kennedy)

Stand at the Sovereign centre…

It is very common to feel more comfortable in one aspect/season of self. For many of is it is the summer self. This is the self that can keep going, is full of energy, buoyant, outgoing, sociable and progressive (The masculine aspect of self ).
Standing in one aspect of self and resisting change, ebb and flow can eventually lead us to burnout and exhaustion. Mari experienced this first hand. While she was flourishing in her high-performance career, her deep feminine was suffering. The body, which never lies, held her truth for her:
“I couldn’t get pregnant. I was so stressed out in my life. I was so out of sync with my menstrual cycle. I pushed my body beyond its limits and I know now that it couldn’t create a human being… I was so busy with everything external that my body stopped producing progesterone because my body couldn’t keep up with what I was doing. My body was really asking me to come back to cycles. We are forces of nature and we forget that. We have cycles, like the tides, the seasons…”
“I was a 44-year-old woman when I found the Celtic Wheel. It’s a gentler way of being in the world and yet it’s also a more fierce way, because you are learning to fully inhabit all eight seasons – from Samhain to Autumn equinox – and you are learning how to work with all the energies of the creative cycle – the sacred cycles of birth, death and rebirth. It’s a return to original wholeness.”

Learning to stand in your Sovereign centre, allowing life to cycle through and around you, means you are aligned with the creative flow of Life, inner and outer nature. The Wheel helps us to embrace whatever we are resisting in life; whether it’s the experience of death, disruption, loss, grief, embodied by the winter season, or, whether we are afraid to be seen, to blossom and shine out into the world, embodied by the summer season. These, and many more states in between, we gently learn to inhabit, unlock and flow through…ultimately enriching our lives.
“It’s coming into a new relationship to our depths, from there we can flex and flow with all the energies of being alive…We can’t be sovereign when we are half existing, only privileging the bright and the bigger. When you learn to inhabit the darkness you know how to be quiet, connect with the soul and that’s what I call evolved 21st century sovereignty…You learn to honour sadness and failure as much as delight and success. You put yourself at the centre…and become the highest authority in your life.”

Join us…

You are not alone with the burdens you carry. The darkening nights needn’t be a place of fear or torment without light. The darkness when embraced reveals magic luminosity. The Wheel invites us to lay down our burdens as the trees lay down their leaves, drop them into the deep soil of winter to be transformed. It’s time to rest our bones and let wintering do its deep work. The deep feminine shows us the power that lies in letting go.
Mari celebrates her 13th year round the wheel this year and reflects that, “Every time I do the wheel I learn so much…it unravels me, undoes me, teaches me. It’s amazing. It’s such a gift journeying with it and letting it work me.”

Check out more from Mari Kennedy here: http://www.marikennedy.com

January 2, 2024 0 comment

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