Day 78 The Meaning of Aloha

The Meaning of ALOHA

A = AO
L = LOKAHI
O = OIAIO
H = HA'A HA'A
A = ALOHA
 As a way of living in harmony with yourself and the whole world. Grab your surfboard and take a ride now.
A = AO Light - i, the light of the sun shining down on the islands and on you. In ancient terms the A in Aloha are about awareness: awareness of our place in nature, our loving relationships with our fellow brothers and sisters, our interconnectedness in this web of life. When you have the spirit of Aloha you are like a child in the playgound of love, fully in the moment, fully present to all the goodness and blessings, beauty and joy around you. Paddle out in the beautiful sunlight and get ready for a great wave to come up behind you. Be watching for it as you get a tan with your fellow surfers. You have to be aware!
 
L = LOKAHI  Oneness. Being in the wave, riding it along with everything else in the wave. The unity of everything and your part in this unity. You can feel this unity on the islands so very strongly. It requires and openess and honesty that children are so famous for. Speaking your truth and respecting the truth of all brings this unity to the forefront. You are moving in this wave and letting it propel you towards the shore lined with palm trees. You can ride freely when you are one with this wave.
O = OIAIO I'O = Truth. Feeling the energy of the wave as strong and true. Recognizing this energy of nature's truth we can learn from it and how to use it in our own lives. There is an honesty that pervades the islands. You can't live there long without facing your own deceptions and dealing with them. This is the spirit of aloha, being truthful with yourself. Do you think you have no power? Do you believe that you can't change your life for the better? Come into this wave of nature, into the territory of Madame Pele and feel truth all around you. It is bound to show you what you can really do if you choose. You ride in your truth and you are better at it than you thought!
H = HA'A HA'A = Humility. And as we ride this great Hawaiian wave of power how can we not feel humble in the immense force pushing our sufrboards towards the shore! We are just little things in this incredible wave of life, love and abundance! 

A = ALOHA Absolute, true love. That beautiful touch of Divine essence permanently installed in each one us.

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Day 68 Stuffing Emotions or Using Emotions

There is a difference between stuffing your emotions and controlling your emotions. Stuffing means not recognizing them, not allowing yourself to express how you feel emotionally, feeling that by showing your emotions you are doing something wrong. I think that stuffing is not balance.

Emotions are tools like screwdrivers. The best use for them is to bring happiness joy and love to those around us and thereby attain these things for ourselves and also to propel your intentions forward into manifestation. Now if you hide all your screwdrivers, how can you use them to build that patio? So it is good to see your screwdrivers, to learn what they are, how they work, what they are for and how to use them properly. It takes a bit of practice to learn how to use a screwdriver properly. Sure you can throw it at a wall but that won't do much good. And that is what we do with our emotions. We throw them around and even at each other without realizing that they are actually tools!

Too many people walk through life these days with one driving thought, "how does this make me feel?" They let how they emotionally feel make all their decisions and judgments for them. That is like a baby crying for its bottle! We have so many other ways to determine our decisions and judgments for us. We have life experience, our own beliefs, our own goals and goodness to choose with. Emotions are just screwdrivers. It would be like saying, "what does my screwdriver tell me to do now". ! LOL!

If I gave a screwdriver to every person walking around being led by their emotions we would see everyone talking to a screwdriver constantly! LOL!

So yes, emotions are valuable, as tools! We should learn about them, experience them, learn to use them wisely. Emotions are also part of our sensory equipment. I use my emotions to alert me to negative or positive energetic fields. I have stood in "places of emergence" and just felt what I felt just to feel it. It taught me something more about that place than if I had stuffed my emotions and not used them in that place.

Emotions are tools. We can easily use them for our own good and the good of others. Why didn't anyone teach you this? Good question!

Aho  ( “I speak my truth”)

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 56 Choosing Your Beliefs

You are accountable ultimately for your beliefs so it is important to know what you believe and why. And if you have some belief that doesn't work for you, that may have been given to you by someone else, especially childhood beliefs, this course is a good time to get rid of what doesn't work and get something that makes you feel whole, that is yours, that you do really believe in. This is the process of becoming an authentic person. This is what I offer you in this course at www.shamanelder.com.  A Shaman is authentic with him or herself first and foremost. In 50 years of examining my belief system, believe me, I know where my human frailties lie, I know my strengths and weaknesses, I know which beliefs are authentic to me and which ones are still held over from other people's belief systems that I still have to come to grips with. It is a process. And I accept myself as fully human, fully alive. I love life! I love being human! I have found the joy and happiness, the peace by creating a more authentic life for myself by examining my belief system and making it my own!

But with each belief you examine, whether you choose to keep it or replace it with something that does work for you, you will feel this coming home to yourself, this growing in your own self, this sense of freedom to be who you really are.

Its up to you!

Aho

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 24: How Much Time Do You Have?

The Yaqui people of Mexico tell us about four things that are enemies of the Shaman and the fourth one is - that by the time we find the knowledge we seek and the empowerment we need, we are too old to do anything with it. And I find that to be true. So how much time do you have? The Yaquis also tell us that death walks by our left side all the time, close enough to reach out and touch us at any moment. Rather than fear what will indeed happen to all of us, the Shaman learns to walk in this knowledge that he may not be here tomorrow. And so he makes all he can out of today. It is called impeccability. Being all you can be, doing all you can do, loving all you can love and walking as far as you can walk each day.

Read more at www.shamanelder.com Want to know the other three things that are enemies of the Shaman? Write me an email! Shaman@shamanelder.com

Aho

Shaman Elder Maggie Wahls

Day 22 – You are Perfect Just the Way You Are.

I have had the honor to sit at the feet of many of the worlds greatest teachers and one time I asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche, “ What is our main problem?” The lama answered, “It is that we think, "I am the worst person in the world. I am full of hatred, desire, and ignorance." These concepts are totally negative, and you have been carrying around this self pitying view all your life. Cry, cry, Fear, Fear, emotion, emotion. Obsessed with your own shortcomings, you put tremendous pressure on yourself. You punish yourself by regarding yourself as ugly and worthless. Other people may think you are beautiful, but still  you project yourself as ugly.”

“Right now just stop whatever you are doing and visualize a beautiful blue light, which is like clear blue sky all around you. See yourself just being in this clear blue sky color with nothing else but the color blue around you. As you just experience this beautiful blue light notice how your dualistic thoughts start to break down. You no longer believe in those self deprecating dualities. They no longer exist, really. This radiant blue light helps us to touch reality, which is the most important thing in the world. This is no longer an fantasy world of projections and self deprecating thoughts and judgments. This place you are experiencing in this sky blue light is inner and outer reality. There is no self judgment in this place. Can you feel it? See yourself as a being of sky blue. You are perfect just as you are. You only need to realize it. “

Lama Zopa knows this truth and we need to know it too so that we can experience our own natural perfection.

Aho
Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 18: How to Use Emotional Energy

Fear is an emotion you know. Emotions are sensory devices to give us input about outside things, just like eyes give us input and ears and noses. We take in all this input and use it to gain knowledge and make good decisions. But we don't necessarily make decisions just based on one kind of sensory input. That would be like: oh, it is dark so I cannot see. But if you wait a moment you can see the stars that you would not have seen if you had just gone with your sensory input that it is dark. We use our sensory input along with our thoughts and memories and knowledge gained.

Our senses do not control us. They are just antennas, feelers. Fear should not control us. it is just a sensation. Weigh it out against other input you have, what you know, and use it as the antenna it is, not the final decision maker in your life!

Emotions do have another purpose. They are the gas behind our intentions. Let’s take an example. Let’s say a man wants to get a job that is being offered to manage a restaurant. He knows he is a good manager and has experience and can do this job. But there is another offer to drive a cab that he has been given. He knows he should manage the restaurant as that is his career. But driving the cab seems so easy.

So he goes to the interview for the restaurant job. Then he goes to the interview for the cab driving job. He fails the restaurant interview and passes the cab driver interview and ends up with something that does not really work for him financially or career wise and that in the end was a poor decision on his part. But what happened?

At the restaurant job he was polite and knowledgeable, answered all their questions and was checking out the restaurant for cleanliness and asking about time off and hours. At the cab driver interview he was animated, excited, interested in this new field  of endeavor, absorbed in learning how to do this job. If he had shown as much enthusiasm at the restaurant interview he would have gotten that job. See how his emotions played for his intent. He had made up his mind that he wanted the cab job. He displayed emotionally his desire with enthusiasm and gusto at the interview and got the job.

It is OK to look at things like this. It is not about judgment but rather introspection, why did I do what I did. What was my motive, what was I intending, what do I want to intend, how do I feel about that intention, how can I express what I feel about my intention. Questions I ask myself all the time. This practice keeps me in tune with what I am trying to do and keeps me doing it the best way I can. Back to being impeccable: If you can't be impeccable with yourself, who can you be impeccable with.

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 16: Detours

I have had my share of detours.

Sometimes we get "tested". We get asked by Spirit to make a choice. We find ourselves in a very uncomfortable place we do not like and we have to make some choice. Often we do not even know what the choices are! But I have learned that when you commit yourself to a certain path, every now and then along the way you meet a path crossing yours, a detour, a sidetrack, a u turn, and we all reach these places. If you are not committed fully to your path, then you run into conflict when you encounter these places. You start to feel unwell, dragged down, unsure, restless, unhappy because you are being asked to once again confirm your commitment. You may have already found your path as a healer. You understand the power and the holiness of this path. And then you met a crossroads and you faltered, you hesitated, but now you have chosen your path as a healer once again and are practicing and the crossroads is over and you can continue to walk stronger than before!

It is painful only when we do hesitate, only when we are not sure about what we believe. One's own unsureness about one's healing path caused this offer of a crossroads. We actually place these u turns in front of our own selves. So by believing strongly in whatever you believe and being committed to whatever you believe you will not see too many u turns or sidetracks in your life. And when you do see them you will recognize them as sidetracks and u turns and just ignore them or better yet realize that you are trying to fool yourself. How do we fool ourselves? We say we do not have time for our healing gifts. We say they don't really work. We say we can't do it. We say we are too lazy to do it. But the truth is your healing gifts do work and you know it. Everyone has healing gifts and skills. You do have time for your healing path every day all day long, It does not interfere with time for other things. You will have to judge yourself to see if other reasons have come up and if they are true or not. It is all about being true to yourself, being authentic.

Aho ( Yaqui language meaning “I speak my truth”)

Shaman Elder Maggie

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Day 15: Death

I have learned:

Impeccability means doing your best in every way and every day. Impeccability doesn’t mean being perfect, it means working to the best of your ability. An old Yaqui shaman who was my teacher in Mexico taught me that death walks on our left side all the time, close enough to reach out and touch us at any moment. He taught me this not to scare me, but to point out that we don't know how long we have here. We may not have years to find our mission and walk our path. We need to live each day as though it is our last. We need to hug our parents as though we may never hug them again. We need to leave our rooms as clean as we would want them if the mortician was the next one to come in to it. We want to smell the flowers like we may never smell them again. I want to leave my house clean each day in case I never come back here. I keep around me what I need. I don't keep a lot of stuff I don't need. I treat each person I encounter as though I am looking at their spirit and not their body. I salute and honor their higher self even if they are not. Everything I do this day is done with impeccability. I do my very best at mowing the lawn, taking the dog for a walk, grocery shopping, talking to people, studying my spiritual reading, even sleeping impeccably, in other words getting enough rest. I also play and laugh and express joy as though it is the last day I will get this chance to do so. My life is very much joy filled!

When you start living your life impeccably, the very best you can, and you realize that you have no time to waste, and you become aware and balanced so you can reach the higher state of the causal body, and you start dialoguing with your guides and teachers, then Wow! Life suddenly is not the thing you are living right now! Your path becomes known to you. Your purpose becomes clear, You start to walk your path and things just blossom along the way and gifts and real world opportunities are given to you and your efforts are rewarded one hundred fold and you know you have purpose and you receive thanks and money and joy and peace and that inner happiness. My goodness it is all worth it!

This is what I teach in my course, exactly. I teach this because no one else is. I teach this because it is the universal way of the Shaman. I teach these universal truths that all Shamans from all cultures and all times throughout history have known and have practiced in their own lives. This is not some secret recipe! It is just that humans concentrate on being a member of the status quo. And the status quo today is about getting a job, finding a mate and having babies. Not much of a mission is it! And it is indeed not a mission at all. Just the way the status quo live. It is a physical existence and that is all.

The traditional Shaman is all about living in the 100%. I can show you how.

Aho

Shaman Elder Maggie

www.shamanelder.com to find out more about the course I teach. You can  begin today!

Day 14 My Shaman Grandmother

I come from a long lineage in this lifetime as my grandmother immigrated to America from her Ukrainian clan to evade persecution as a young girl. Imagine her mother and father trying to scrape up the money needed to buy her a ticket on an ocean liner ( in the lowest part of the boat) so they could send her away to a place they had never been and never see her again. That is how much they loved their daughter. That is how badly my people were being persecuted. Imagine this young girl spending 4 weeks huddled with sick strangers going somewhere she knew nothing about. She clung to her knowledge and heritage of traditional Shamanism. It became hugely important to her life and to her well being. Even there on the ship she used her skills to bring healing to the other passengers who spoke many foreign languages and came from many other countries.

I watched my Grandmother practice traditional shamanism all my life. I heard the knock on the door from those who needed her help and the freshly prepared meal that would come with it. My grandmother always gave her healing away. She never charged anyone and would only graciously accept whatever offerings grateful patients would donate. She was not rich but she was never left in need.

She always was laughing. Everything was such a joy to her and her grandchildren were her precious jewels. She would spend hours twirling my long hair into beautiful curls. As she twined her hands through my locks she would tell me the stories, the metaphors that were the key to understanding the ways of the Shaman. She taught me traditional Shamanism as I practice it and teach it today.

Later she would let me observe her work with her clients and help her in preparation. I watched her keen sense of observation as she would look at a person not just with physical eyes but with her "other" eyes that could see beyond the words being spoken into the heart of the truth. I remember listening to the plights of her patients and watching my grandmother take a totally different kind of healing path that seemed unrelated to what the patient said. My grandmother explained to me that what we think we want on the outside may be a long way from what our spirit needs.

Later as I studied with my friends who are Native Americans I learned that the totem animals of the medicine wheel also show a hidden spiritual quest behind the conscious wish. In my studies I found many things that my grandmother taught me were actually identical to the Shamanic practices of other cultures throughout time. The Celtic Shaman, The Native American Medicine, the Gypsy Shaman, the Inuit Shaman, the Japanese Shaman, the Incan Shaman all have the same core truths! I find that amazing considering the separation of time and distance.

My grandmother put my feet firmly on the path of Traditional Shamanism and I have spent the last 50 plus years studying and teaching this path. I have travelled around the world and sat at the feet of some of the most important Shamanic healers of our day. I have learned that nothing is ours without knowledge, intent and emotional control. This is what I teach. This is what my Shaman Grandmother taught me. She was a wise and incredibly loving woman. And I think the most precious thing she taught me was where love fits into Shamanism. Love is the key to Shamanic healing in any culture.

You are welcome to take the online course that I offer.

 Just go to www.shamanelder.com  to read about it and to start today.

Aho

Shaman Elder Maggie

Day 1: I need to slow down today.

Come Walk with A Shaman

I have been rushing around so much this holiday season, I would like to slow down now and take it easy. So to begin I need to change my speedometer to say 10 instead of 35. To do that, I begin to pay attention to this moment now. I notice the coolness of the air on my cheek. I notice the feel of my clothes on my skin. I focus on what I am doing now and do it with awareness and love. I can still get everything done in a day whether I speed long at 60 mph or be a steady turtle moving at 10 mph. The difference is that the turtle can notice things that go by too fast for the hare. So I want to focus on teh things around me, on the things I am doing. This will automatically slow my day down to a gentle delightful pace. You see, the change happens in the way I approach this day, not in what this day contains. The change is in my deliberate focus on this moment now, on what I am doing now. on what I am thinking now. That is how to make my day slow down so that I can enjoy it so much more. 

And if I am still having trouble focusing on this moment now I can always take an attitude of gratitude and be thankful for everything around me. That is another way to focus on this now moment and all teh blessings it contains that I should give thanks for in my life. If I take the time to see what gifts and blessings I have in this moment now I can automatically slow down and have a happier more peaceful , gentler day. 

This is the way of the Traditional Shaman.

Shaman Elder Maggie