life

Ask Your Mama

Mama Donna Henes November, 2011

Are you cyclically confused? In a ceremonial quandary? Completely clueless? Wonder no more.

*Ask Your Mama™

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Spirituality and Didn’t Know Who to Ask™

by

©Mama Donna Henes, Urban Shaman

A Question of Passion for Life

Dear Urban Provocateur/Shaman,

Is there really such a thing as a passion for living? Or is joy an idea promoted by the movies (or maybe you?) to offset the tragedies reported daily. I hear that water is being compromised with too much waste matter. I won’t even go into the air quality, or quality of thought around the world. I am always dealing with matters of no intrinsic interest. Interruptions. Spent four hours traveling to and shopping at the super-market. I read your messages and realize I am certainly in need of spiritual guidance. Or do I just need household help, a carpenter, and a car and chauffeur?

A Starving artist for Too Long in New Jersey

Life is a banquet and most poor suckers

are starving to death.

—Auntie Mame

Dear Starving,

Yes, yes, yes! I fervently believe that life is grand. And, besides, what is the alternative? That is not to say that life is easy. I was lucky, I guess. I was raised by the world’s greatest pessimist, who certainly never told me that it was going to be easy. Consequently, I am never disappointed!

The trick, and again, it is not easy, is to concentrate on the positive rather than the negative. The best way to find joy is to seek it out in every aspect of your life. Look for only the good — in others, in

your self, in your home, in your family, in your work. By the Universe’s own Law of Attraction, what you focus on will expand.  The more you seek joy, the more of it you will have.

In a wide range of happiness studies conducted lately, including several with major lottery winners, it was clearly demonstrated that professional, educational, or financial success are not predictors of contentment. Nor are gender, age, race, religion, health, or ethnic background.

The key, common factors across the board that seem to determine satisfaction, peace of mind, and yes, happiness, are: optimism, self-confidence, self-control, connection to community, and a living sense of spirituality. And, I might add, the desire to be so.

Take me, for instance. I was the most miserable of children. Painfully shy, sadly confused, and badly bruised; constantly abused by great chilly blasts of debilitating negativity. All I ever wanted was to be happy. When an adult would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would — in my imagination where I dared — answer, “Happy.”

I hung hand lettered and illustrated affirmations (before there was a word for such things) all over my room: I WANT TO BE HAPPY. I WILL BE HAPPY. And then, when I was eighteen years old and living away from home for the first time, it suddenly, incredibly, indelibly occurred to me one marvelous morning that I could be anybody I wanted to be. I could be a happy person!

Happiness is fleeting (as is pain.) The trick is to court it. To recognize it — even in camouflage. To acknowledge its presence when and where we least expect it. To celebrate each second of the healing heart and soul of it. And to rejoice in our own exhilarating ability to create it for ourselves and others at any given moment, in any circumstance.

Our natural souls live in a state of eternal joy, of grace, of balance.  And we, the human extension of our souls, are joy. You’ve just forgotten. Remember that you are a creative person. You are an artist, after all. You have the power and the talent to create a little excitement for your self. Some joie de vivre. Invent the life that you want. Paint it in wild colors.

Just keep breathing. Nothing ever stays the same forever, including being depressed.

Yours for love of life,

xxMama Donna

People say that what we’re all seeking

is the meaning of life. I think that what

we’re really seeking is the experience

of being alive.

—Joseph Campbell

*Are you cyclically confused? In a ceremonial quandary? Completely clueless? Wonder no more. Send your questions about seasons, cycles, and celebrations to Mama Donna at: CityShaman@aol.com.

**************************************************************

Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy in Exotic Brooklyn, NY where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.

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Gazing at the Moon

Barefootkitchenwitch February, 2010

To Life
I was putting my son to bed earlier this evening when he said, in a smaller voice than the one he’d been using moments ago, “Mom, can I tell you something?  I don’t want to die.”
He is seven.  He thinks about these things sometimes, usually at bedtime, when there are no distractions.  Some nights he will dwell on all sorts of thoughts that are scary to a seven-year-old, and occasionally this brings him out of his room and down the stairs to where my husband and I are.  Thoughts, when you are seven, are not so scary when you are surrounded by loving parents and bright overhead lights.
I told him that I didn’t want to die, either, and he followed this up with “Then why do we have to die?  We don’t deserve it.”  And I went on to talk about how all living things, plant or animal, have a life cycle – they have some sort of birth, they grow and mature, maybe they have some sort of babies, they grow older, and, eventually, they die.  My son did the math quickly and told me he hopes to live at least another 93 years, so he’ll be a hundred.  I told him one of my grandmothers lived to be 98.  His odds are pretty good genetically, at least on my side of the family tree.
Next he asked if he’d live a long time if he did healthy things.  And that’s where I stumbled a bit.  I told him that usually eating healthy foods and getting plenty of exercise will help you live a long life, but that other things are important, too.  Things like creativity and curiosity and enthusiasm.  I wanted to convey, somehow, that it’s not just how long you live, but how you live.  He knows, without me telling him, that sometimes life is cut short too soon, no matter what foods you eat or whether you brush your teeth twice a day or only once.  He has lost pets, and he has lost an aunt, and a great-uncle.  He has grieved, and questioned, and come to terms with death in his own way and in his own time.  We talk, occasionally, about a person’s spirit, or soul, or whatever one chooses to call it.  But he does not seem ready to pursue this idea, and so these are short conversations so far.
I am considerably older than my son, and sometimes, usually late at night or too early in the morning, when the house is quiet, I think of scary things, too.  All those “what ifs” drifting into my mind.  Thoughts I don’t want to complete, because I don’t want to give them power.  The older I get, the more I believe that what we send out there, into the universe, into the ether, comes back to us.  Or at us, depending.  And so, I fight harder to banish the fearful voices and their horrible questions.  I don’t want to dwell on what ifs.  I want…just a good night’s sleep, actually.  Once upon a time I had anxiety attacks on a regular basis.  I was afraid.  Of what?  I don’t know.  Everything, maybe.  Death.  Life.  Or lack of a life.  There were family issues that probably weren’t helping.  But whatever was going on, I wasted years of my life frozen.  So much time.  So much time I will never get back.  I am not in my twenties any more.  I’m not even in my thirties any more.  Where did it go?  Why did I let it fall from my hands so easily?  So irresponsibly.  And now, in my forties, I am trying to cram in as much as I can.  I wasted so much time worrying about the “what ifs” that I never really did much.  Foolish, sad, frightened girl.  I want to hug her, and tell her to let go of those scary thoughts.  And the only way to do that, I think, is to strip away all those protective, self-preserving cloaks she wrapped herself in, and find her, and give her a chance to live the rest of her life way she should.  Fearlessly.  I think our time here is meant to be stuffed to overflowing with things like love and laughter, passion, curiosity, creativity, compassion, generosity, and, yes, fruits and vegetables.  All the good stuff.
That’s what I want my kids to learn.  (I have a daughter, too.  She has giggling fits at bedtime.  She’s five.)  But the thing I’ve learned, and continue to learn as a parent, is that my kids won’t necessarily remember what I tell them when they are drifting off to sleep.  But they are watching me, and watching their father, and they are observing and absorbing every little thing about us.  Some of it will stick with them, some of it won’t.  I can only hope that the good stuff sticks.  To this end, and to combat my own unbanished fears, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak.  I’m learning to ski.  That may not seem to make any sense whatsoever, but trust me, it does.  I’m facing fear.  I’m facing death (okay, I exaggerate a little there).  And I’m (hopefully) teaching my kids that you are never too old to try something new.  That you can, and should, continue to learn all through your life.  That if you are living fully, you’ll have no time to worry about death.  And that their mother will risk embarrassment and broken limbs in order to prove those points.

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Questioning Life With Deathly Issues

Lynn OBrien September, 2009

Recently our oldest daughter had a double balloon valvuloplasty on her ventricular heart valve. She was born with this heart defect, where two of the three leaflets in her heart valve were fused together; this procedure inserts a tiny balloon catheter into her artery in her leg, runs it up to her heart, and very gently blows it up to help ease the two leaflets apart.

With all the technical mumbo-jumbo aside, let me get to the real issue here. Leading up to the surgery, my main worries were ones of allergic reactions, recovery time…the fact that my baby was going under the “knife” even though she had no open heart surgery. Something like this makes you reach deep inside yourself, to your deepest beliefs and values to find the strength to overcome what is worrying you.

A chapel was offered to us in the event we wanted to go pray; when I walked in, I was disappointed but not surprised to find that it catered to the three major religions, Christianity, Judaism and Muslim. It was a rather pleasant room, awash in a soothing color, with beautiful backlit stained glass window of a peaceful scene, instead of religious symbols. There were three small storage tables, each with their own religious paraphernalia, one with a rug for praying. But many of the more spiritual religions like Buddhism, Paganism, and Hinduism….they were not present in the room in any such way.

For some reason, my ire was up with this, feeling that my spiritual preference was not as important as those three. I walked back to the admittance desk for the Children’s Ward and asked for the paperwork I had filled out earlier. On it was a spot for marking your religious preference and I had marked “other” because it only listed the three major and then other. When I got the paperwork back I wrote next to it “pagan”.

I felt rather relieved and liberated by writing that one little word, but I wanted to do more. On one of the latter pages, it left room for giving your opinion about the service and experience of your stay. Oh boy, I opened my pen up and let ‘er rip! I mentioned how the lesser recognized religions were grossly under-recognized and that some would like to feel welcome when they come in for a time of spiritual need and fulfillment.

I had no space in her room to set up a brief altar or space, but that brief sojourn into the sanctuary provided left me with a fleeting feeling of calm. I wanted more, I wanted to be in a place where I could feel fulfilled and complete and serene.

The Children’s Garden was magical in itself, with flowers and creatures of varying mystique scattered around the small space. The Tin Man carrying Dorothy’s ruby slippers, a giant dragonfly swooping near a tree, two colorful and mischievous turtles as well as a colorful and playful cow were my clergy while I regrouped my scattered emotions and inner turmoil.

A few days after we left the hospital, I received a call from the hospital wanting to know how our daughter was doing and what our stay was like. I told her about how she was doing and that things were returning to normal with our daily life. She mentioned my little side-note about making other spiritual believers feel welcome, and that they were going to make the chapel a more non-specific setting, with relaxing music, candles, and books of inspirational quotes compiled by various sources. Beautiful artwork would line the walls, creating a place out of time for gathering one’s senses. Then she did something not many people do when I mention my religion….she thanked me.

Needless to say, this left my heart feeling light and bright with the fact that one person taking one step made a difference.

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Hally’s Hints

Hally Rhiannon Nammu October, 2008

What are You Telling Yourself?

“I am such an Idiot”; “I can’t believe I stuffed that up. I am so useless” and my favourite “It’s all my fault”. These are examples of some lines that we use when self talking. Not very positive is it? Have you ever stopped to wonder the impact that any of these sentences have on you, your self esteem and how you perceive yourself?

How often do you stop to tell yourself “you are so amazing” or “you are such a beautiful person”. Once a week? Once a month? Or have you ever?

We often get so caught up in what others think of us that we do not stop to look within on how we are projecting ourselves to ourselves. What you think of yourself and treat yourself is what is going to come out in everything you do. There are some that believe loving yourself involves complete self absorption and I am not talking about this. I am talking about appreciating and acknowledging yourself for the person you are today. Not focusing on the faults that seem so plentiful rather focusing on all the fantastic parts that make us unique and magnificent every day simply by being.

Words and language are the most powerful medium in which to communicate. The effect something someone says to has is very powerful and lasting. How often do you focus on something negative someone had said to you rather than a positive that may have followed?

Because we are so busy telling ourselves off for something we haven’t done or achieved rather than acknowledging the fact that several steps were taken in the right direction somehow deems it acceptable for others to do likewise. The irony is that it doesn’t feel very nice. Yet, when given a complement it feels uncomfortable because it is so unfamiliar. So many of us complain because no one says anything positive to us and yet, we don’t even do this for ourselves. We crave validation and really, it starts with looking in the mirror and telling ourselves “you are awesome”.

Every minute of every day there is a conversation happening in our minds. How often do we take note or rather when don’t we? The voice doesn’t always provide us with the right choices or offer us positive re-enforcement as it often works as a voice of protection, of safety and comfort. Consequently, we tell ourselves that we can’t, we shouldn’t, we won’t and often let this guide the decision of our actions, whether this serves us or not.

However with a bit of reprogramming this voice can actually support you as the beautiful person that you are today and provide caution not detriment.

It starts with knowing and believing that what you want and how you want to live our life is for the greater good of yourself and moving towards the best that you can be. Believing that you deserve a life of happiness, fulfillment and success.

This however isn’t enough. When you think about your dreams and what you want to fulfill in your life what do you say to yourself? I can’t; I won’t; I shouldn’t or do you tell yourself I am awesome! I have strength and courage to do anything?!

Each day when you hear your self talk becoming negative, use a different, positive word in replacement. Start with one word and slowly replace a sentence. See the difference this makes to how you view yourself and how you come across.

You know you are fantastic. You just need to tell yourself.

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Life In Iraq

Medicyne_Eagle April, 2006

Well. here I sit in Kuwait after a 2-week mental break back home. A “Safe-zone” they call this place, as safe as you can get for being in the Middle-East. No attacks here minus the sporadic drive-by shootings of a military bus from some disgruntled Middle-Easterner. I think of the bigger-picture. Civil war is looming on Iraq’s horizon, attacks have slowed down, or have they. They still find weapons caches, there are still daily IED attacks on our convoys if your on the road.

Fortunately for me, I never leave my base; however, In Desert Moon I do have Soldiers living in isolated areas, some go on daily patrols, some guard terrorist captives on a daily basis, each has a job with a piece to the bigger picture.

Life here is slow, yet highly unpredictable. It can be quiet for hours, days, even weeks on end and that can breed complacency. I have seen quiet and then mass chaos in a mere moment on past deployments so I’am always ready for that change and I try to instill that in my normal Soldiers as well as Desert Moon. We are ready to react in a split-second.

Desert Moon nightly gatherings are for many of us, our unwinding time, coffee or tea, and a time to reflect on the day and discuss the next Sabbat, an item he or she wants for their altar or energy work they need done for a family member back home or comrades going on the road the next day. Desert Moon is here for the morale of our Pagan Soldiers as well as the growth of Spiritual development and mentoring I can give them.

I get stone-walled here and there by higher-ups as per there need or ignorance of Pagan needs but these are fights I have to pick and choose as to importance and the effect of the group. Sometimes you just suck it up and go with plan B. I try my best not to let ignorance lead to anger and for the most part I bode well and calmly approach my installation Chaplain with the bigger problems when rank will just get things done easier. I actually met an ex-Pagan Chaplain when I was on my journey back to the States for my leave. It was a refreshing 5 hour discussion we had, and ended up with my getting his e-mail address in the event I needed another Chaplain for support with our endeavors.

Well it is now almost 6am and I will be on a plane in just a few short hours from now taking me back to Talafar to see what chaos has bred on Desert Moon in my absence; thus far, I know we have lost our tent which we used as our meeting place which our illustrious higher-ups felt they needed more then us, but like I said you choose your battles. My trailer is sufficient enough for us to meet in and the E-5 i left in my stead has already spread the word to Desert Moon where we meet so that is temporarily solved.

There are two wars we fight as Pagan Soldiers, one here in Iraq as Soldiers on the battlefield, and the other fighting ignorant ones to practice our faiths as the other religions practice. No fight is greater then the other. However, political fights are always harder to fight then physical ones, its just a matter of knocking down the red tape and crawling through and deal with the feelings I hurt in the process. Personally, poltical wars are easier for me to fight and more fulfilling as in the Pagan wars are more fulfilling to fight as at least I know what i’m fighting for.

Until next month, Blessed Ostara. Take care of yourselves and stay tuned. Bright Blessings.

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