S2. Ep.2 | All is Mind: Change Your Mind, Change Your Reality

“There are no happy endings in Love.  Because as long as love exists there is no ending but transformation. Love is the force that transforms eternity.”  Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon

 (Angel singing all you need is love) “Love is all you need.” The Beatles

Yet, love is not enough for a relationship between two people to flourish. Long-term romantic relationships require effort applied to the appropriate object (the relationship) in order to work long-term. And the appropriate object is not the other person in the relationship with you - that results in the desire to change the other person, or fixate on them for good or bad, and it creates dependency on them like a substance. (now you want to love and care for and be kind to the other person but that is not the focus point of your effort when in a romantic relationship). 

So, let me backup for a second. Let me describe what I’ve learned about relationships hermetically.  Imagine that a relationship is a pyramid (a triangle). The two people in love and in relationship form the base of the pyramid so man and woman or man/man, woman/woman are at the two corners - then at the top of the pyramid is The Relationship. It is a 3rd entity, a “child” so to speak created by the two beings in relationship, through the exchange of masculine and feminine energies. The Relationship itself is an entity and it is born of the two making a commitment to themself and to the other to always better themself (because we are not perfect) and better the relationship (because its made of two imperfect beings - so needs effort and nurture and improvement of those two beings to thrive). The only way the relationship is going to work is if there is

1. TRUST - consistency of actions and repeatedly doing what you said you were going to do for and with the other person, and for and with yourself in relation to that other person.
2. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - recognition that as a human being you are not perfect and that you are always seeing, hearing,doing things thru a filter of your mind/thoughts/programming and that you are going to do your best to acknowledge and take responsibility for your mind/thoughts/programming in all of their imperfections.
3. COMMITMENT - commitment to the relationship via the discipline of being a better individual through personal growth and development. Discipline to know thyself better and be better in the world through the positive actualization of your purpose. Finally encircling all of these, ideally there is a shared understanding of value in something between the two people - family, faith, spirituality, purpose. Maybe simply the recognition that all humans are just that, human, and we all deserve to be treated as such. 

Returning to the point - If you are committed to making yourself better because you Love yourself and respect yourself as a divine being then you can respect the other human in the relationship the same way, and then work with that person to nourish the relationship like you are raising a child. Resting this nourishment on the foundation of Trust, Honesty, Personal Responsibility, Commitment and Care - you can love and flow love in this cycle because the channel for that love to flow is held open by those foundational elements I described and the archway they create. (and if one of these elements is missing then like a dam the flow for your love gets blocked and the child/relationship will suffer).

If you can’t see yourself first as the central sun of your universe, making your own world with your thoughts, actions and perspectives, all of the foundational elements are challenged.  If all you see is the world acting upon you, standing in need, or in victim or blaming other people for not treating you right or giving you what you need, then you are not able to take responsibility for yourself as the creator of the central source of awareness in your universe. It is essential to recognize that every relationship with every single person, place or thing in your life starts in your mind.  It lives first in your thoughts and those thoughts are colored by that mind. 

So let me put a pause on the relationship between two people, for just a moment so we can understand this extremely important point.  First let’s just define what is a relationship period, and how relationships work in your life.  A relationship is simply a connection you have with a person, place or thing and it can be positive or negative. It does not require there to be affection, for example you can have a relationship with your car, your computer, your house, your city of residence. You can also have relationships with pets and with people - family, friends, colleagues, employees, your favorite barista.  And then you have romantic relationships with your spouse, lover, partner whatever label you choose and state of commitment you are in. 

Everything you do is in relationship and every relationship is colored by your thoughts and thus your mind (because this is Hermetic Principle #1 ALL IS MIND). It is an oversimplification but no matter where you go, what you have or who you are with THERE YOU ARE.  You cannot leave yourself out of any relationship, or else you would be dead and there would be NO RELATIONSHIP for you (you can have relationships with dead persons but that is a whole other topic for another day). You are the CENTER of your relationships not because you are the center of everyone’s universe but because you are the center of your own universe.  And all relationships with everything in your life first take place in your mind. Your thoughts affect every interaction and connection you have.  And these thoughts come from your mind. You act on what is inside your head for better or for worse. Thus, if we are going to improve our world and our relationships (which are our world) we first have to clean up our thoughts/mind so we can start to discern what really is going on inside us and thus truly see what is happening outside of us. In addition - how we treat ourselves is tantamount to how we treat others. So we have to take responsibility for how we love and care for ourselves, and know ourselves first before we can really know what it is to love another person, and understand better what is happening in the relationships we choose to make. And we choose all of our relationships consciously or subconsciously, we are 100% at the epicenter of every positive or negative relationship in our lives whether those are with people, places or things.  So the Key to us having healthy positive relationships (and a good life because our entire life is made up of relationships) is having a good relationship with yourself. Knowing Yourself. Taking care of yourself. Loving yourself. Taking responsibility for yourself. If you first know thyself - you will have good relationships with persons, places and things because you’ll realize that your external reality is a reflection of your inner reality (Hermetic Principle #2 As above so below, as within so without). And you will start to actualize the reality you desire to live in and experience actual joy and purpose.

OK so with that all reviewed let’s go back to the main event. My bold statement that Love is not enough for a romantic relationship to work. I’m definitely statistically accurate in the United States with marriages currently having a less than 50% success rate. But this is not a podcast about legal trends or even the cause of divorce (but I will note that the #1 reported cause of divorce is infidelity, The Destroyer of Trust, one of the 3 foundations necessary for nourishment to flow to The Relationship). 

Alright so if love, or loving the other person is not enough, what is?  Well that is just it. It is the focus of your attention on the appropriate object, and in the case of Your relationships what is the one common denominator?  You.  You must be committed to knowing yourself,  and creating positive growth of the self so that you are able to capably understand and discern that you are actually in a relationship, and be the person that allows that relationship to grow and sustain. 

Let’s use an overly simplistic thought example.  If you think “this person is harming me.” Then that is your reality. But are they?  Are they stabbing you with a knife? That would be objective harm. Are they saying no to a particular request? Is that NO harm?  Maybe you just do not like the answer and it “hurts” you in that you feel something you do not like.  But what is that actually?  Maybe they are preventing physical harm by saying no?  What is the objective reality of the situation? What if you analyze the inputs from around you, and within you, and acknowledge what is happening? Can you discern reality? Or are you experiencing a fact pattern that the negative ego mind is putting directly into a proof to make the other person wrong for their boundary i.e. saying no and because you don’t like this, you label it bad or harm? 

Now let’s take an example from my life. First I want to be really vulnerable about my life.

If you were to look at my track record of relationships you would see a pattern of me experiencing a pattern of major betrayals of trust.  One partner I have “loved” after another in my life has significantly lied to me, usually around a core issue of fidelity at major points in our relationship, or I have been left suddenly (in most cases because they chose another). I actually, until recently, had a lot of shame around this. I felt like there was something wrong with me. All I’ve ever wanted was a devoted partner to share this life with but all I found was one heartbreak after another. (long sigh)  Boohoo tragic me. That is until I owned the pattern as a reflection of how I treated myself. I was subconsciously setting myself up to fail by choosing relationships that would result in the very outcome my little person and anxious attachment abandoned me was trying to avoid.  It was me who kept leading myself to situations where I was ultimately going to be rejected, lied to, and/or experience infidelity. 

Recently, the universe delivered me the gift of having to start dating again. This time around knowing what I know now about my patterns I went into it promising myself I would not repeat what I did before. I was also going to be very aware of my past hurts and triggers and not project them upon anyone I am dating. Furthermore if I was going to date anyone they had to be on the same page about this and willing to and be able to communicate in the moment about thoughts, feelings and not take the process personally. But instead be willing to come to the table to discuss in the moment what happens between two people when they learn to relate.  Essentially, I was going to follow the formula I am sharing with you. Hours and hours of hermetic and spiritual training have been about overcoming this core issue in my life. I’ve achieved everything else. But this area I keep failing at. So with that lens of seeking someone first who was willing and able to communicate, in the moment, directly, objectively, and with the same desire of truly getting to know the other person for the sake of creating a long term relationship - I find myself practicing just that with someone. And as I continue to get to know him, things have come up that set off my anxiousness, my fear of betrayal, my fears of screwing things up, of being too much, of driving people away.  But the difference this time, when those fears come up, we have together created a safe space to share them, acknowledge what is happening in the moment, and inquire further where they are coming from. 

For example, in my life -  I called my new Significant Other and said I needed to go to Southern Florida to help my father, he mentioned some resources he had in that area, and without clarifying if he was actually offering them to me specifically - I heard it as an offer to help me with my situation. But we made no firm plans, like a date to go and use these resources. And then a week later when I was going to start confirming specifics he tells me he is unavailable as he had some serious health appointments he needed to go to. Two things happen at this moment for me - 1. A part of me was like OMG he made a promise and now he isn’t following through (siren alarm! Red flag! eep!) and 2. Why didn’t he tell me he had this health stuff going on? And then I paused myself from the emotional drama train and asked what actually happened? What objectively occurred? (versus what I thought happened)  What did you actually say in that conversation? Were you clear? Did I ask for assistance directly? Did you make any firm agreement to anything? And then as far as the health stuff, at our stage of relationship most people don’t get out their planner and just start listing off major doctors appointments coming up.  I didn’t tell him about mine, why would he tell me his?  Telling myself the truth, I had to acknowledge that there was very likely a huge gap between what objectively occurred and what I perceived. So instead of turning over the proverbial table in some sort of temper tantrum and playing right into negative emotions from old patterns and self sabotaging -  I chose the opportunity to learn how each one of us works better.  And that is how I presented it when we talked.  I started with telling him that I think I misunderstood something, and I wanted to know where that miscommunication rooted from, so that going forward it didn’t happen again. We came to a very easy and thoughtful place of clarity on what happened with no drama or erosion of trust.  Just the opposite. We now have a reference point for planning things together in the future. Which if applied consistently by each of us will create more trust.

Alright my friends, I hope you are seeing the necessity of self-clarity in your relationships. You can love someone but if there is no trust, no personal responsibility for your thoughts and programming, no commitment to working on yourself for the sake of yourself and the relationship then there is no container for that love to flow into, and the child (the relationship) will starve. Meanwhile, if you do not know yourself, if you do not love yourself, then you will not be able to discern what really is going on in your relationship with yourself, let alone your relationship with others. 

So, my exercise for everyone this month is just this.  You are going to look into the mirror every morning for the next 7 days and say “I Love You”  to yourself. Seriously, look into your own eyes deeply and say it.  I love you. Do it. Then repeat it. I Love You. Allow the words to sink deep into your heart. Then repeat it again. I Love you. Sit with it.  And do this every day for 7 days - in the morning, first thing. And if it is hard - then you know that you have some things to work on in your relationship with yourself. and I can help with that!  Reach out and book a call with me. Let’s get you on the road to being able to say “I love you” with ease and see how that self mastery blossoms into a bouquet of beautiful relationships with others. 

When we are born and take our first breath, our soul enters this physical flesh, and we become animated. We enter this density and forget what it was like to be a spirit. The only thing that keeps us tethered to that experience is our soul - and as we learn things from this physical experience through our five physical and spiritual senses, our experience as spirit gets further and further away. We start building many programs that display our personality and become masks we wear. We project ways of being upon ourselves like a drive-in movie theater screen. For example, if this happens, it means this is about me or another person. I'm not worthy of love because…, we can't have nice things, that way of life is not for me… or in front of my parents, I act this way; when dating, I'm this way; when at work, I am this way. You have so many autonomous programs and various masks. When you are an adult, you forget entirely who you are. You also get super attached to this rental vehicle of physicality (some of us call it a meat suit) we walk around in. We believe this is all there is - perhaps diving into hedonistic pleasures that physicality has to offer us headlong to cope with the sense that this is all there is. Drinking, eating, sexting your way through life, putting more in, in an attempt to fill the void in your heart where a sense of purpose should be. 

Or you may bury yourself under another identity - mom, soldier, project manager, content creator, influencer. I don't know whatever form of busy floats your boat and how you associate every aspect of yourself with that job or role. But you can't be that role, job, or version of yourself forever. The flesh gives out, our beauty fades, we get injured, we get fat, we lose our strength, our hearing, our sigh. Either way, our purpose can never be found simply in the job we do because we are more than this body and this physical experience. 

We are spirit. (Pause)

We have never been born, and we will never die (as spirit). But this physical body will most certainly die and fall away - that is the one certainty of this physical experience we are all having. Death. 

Wow. Angel. What a way to start out a new season of your podcast on a bright note. I am reminding everyone that they die. This is the truth, though. My job as an estate planning attorney is precisely this - I remind people of their mortality and get them to prepare for it so they do not leave their families a big, stinking, expensive mess when the physical inevitability occurs. It is never too early to plan, but it can always be too late. "if you are having trouble with planning, I can help! Feel free to shoot me an email for more information. Stay tuned until the end of the episode for contact info."

But the point of this podcast today is to talk about a smaller kind of death and rebirth. The type of death held and symbolized within the Rider Waite Tarot card (Death), in the Rune stone Eihwaz, and in the cycle of the Phoenix. Renewal through the conscious choice to let go of your shit. Flush it down the toilet and start fresh. Or the willing submission to the holy fire of transformation - by letting go of the old so there is room for the new.  

Let's briefly talk about the Phoenix in case you need to familiarize yourself with this mythological being. Per my Signs & Symbols sourcebook, the bird symbolizes alchemy because it is reborn for its ashes after voluntarily combusting. Keyword here. Voluntarily. There is a whole process - where the Phoenix goes around the world collecting aromatic wood, herbs, and spices so it can build its funeral pyre in a date palm tree. Then it lights itself on fire and is reborn upon the next day's dawn. 

While alive for 500 to 1500 years, the Phoenix persists only on aromatic wood smoke, thus not harming anything to eat. 

Let's focus on the voluntary submission to the purifying flames, thus bringing rebirth as an archetype for us to explore. More importantly, the ritual. The slow, intentional gathering of the right spices, wood, and herbs, building a nest in a particular place, and performing the act in a specific time-space order for the magickal creatures' transformation. What is critical to this ritual is the intention. The willingness to let go of one life/to die because out the other side is more beauty, joy, and freedom. 

Now, not every change/little death in our lives happens this methodically. We may be forced to renew an aspect of ourselves because something is destroyed or stolen or a relationship with a person ends suddenly. Proverbial band-aids are ripped off in our lives all the time. I lost a lot of things this last year - so many that a part of me is tired of being resilient - but I didn't lose myself. I found more of myself than ever in the process of losing. 

This last year, I found myself robbed in a foreign country, far from home. The violation of that theft and losing all my healing tools became a gift. This is how I approached death. Intentionally and purposefully, I released the attachment, giving me the power to be reborn, just like the Phoenix. 

It was late summer; I walked out the door of my hotel in Mississauga, Ontario, at 8 am and looked at the empty parking space where my Luna (my moon rock colored 2023 Toyota 4 runner) was supposed to be and thought, "Where is my car?!" 

Yes, My car was gone, not misplaced nor towed, but STOLEN!  

Can you imagine my heartbreak when I realized I was suddenly being given the spiritual lesson of "examining my relationship with my car." 

It has been said that "to affect reality, you have to acknowledge the actual reality of a situation."  

Interestingly enough, I had spent the previous two days listening to Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon teach on the hermetic of relationships. Therefore, I was in inappropriate headspace to face the immediate reality that my car had disappeared. This isn't any car. This was my 45th birthday present to myself - and it was gone!

Along with a lifetime of collected tools in the lockbox and my suitcase holding all my gear for the "Warriors of Light Martial Arts Retreat" that I was headed to in a few days.  

Surprisingly calm, I returned to the front desk of the hotel, reporting my stolen car. Not being a citizen of Canada, I also realized I needed to learn how to call the police. I sent my friend ahead to class to let them know I'd be delayed due to car theft and set about calling the police, insurance, and Toyota to start the tracking of my vehicle - and then the realization of all the things I had lost began to trickle into my brain. 

A huge part of me just wanted to sit down and cry - but I knew denying the loss and getting angry about it wasn't going to change the fact that my car had been stolen. Based on the security footage shown to me by the hotel manager, the skilled and savvy thieves likely had it on a shipping container to Sudan. 

Losing my car was an extreme violation. Losing my Life Activation Wand was a heartbreaker. Losing my favorite "Trampled by Turtles" sweatshirt, my adored watermelon patterned dress, and my go-to sneakers was a HUGE bummer.

But I immediately and voluntarily surrendered to the things I had an attachment to - it was just that, THINGS. No amount of emotional theatrics and painful gesticulation would bring them back. I could shake my fist at the sky and call in holy hellfire upon the thieves and their descendants, but that just seemed dramatic, and I had things to do, places to be, and a life to live, which would be a major inconvenience.  

And at the end of the day, I was OK. I was OK, mentally and physically; no one had harmed my body or family or dog - it was just stuff. 

My colleagues were surprised at how calm I was. Luckily, for the next 3 days, I was in a class called "Know Thyself," where I got to meditate with Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed and make art. It was the best possible way to recover from this massive violation. 

I share this example from my life as my version of "The Phoenix Story" because although having everything stolen from me was not my choice, my reaction to the theft was my choice. 

And like the Phoenix, I submitted willingly to the transformation. And this is what made the difference, as it allowed me to upgrade everything about my life and healing practice, which was 100% because I intended to release the attachment and will enable the renewal to occur. On a brighter note, I got the red version of the car that I had initially wanted but had to settle for Moonstone gray. 

Change happens in our lives regularly. Deaths happen in our lives as we allow ourselves to evolve. If we get stuck on the old way, the attachment holds us back and causes pain & suffering. If we release the attachment - we can be reborn, fly onto greater heights, and experience joy from the process. 

So here is an exercise for you to embrace change and intentionally allow alchemical renewal into your life.  

First, identify and create a space to sit and meditate. It doesn't have to be perfect, just quiet, clear of clutter and debris, and in view of an altar. 

Second, create an altar if you don't already have one place, two white candles, a rock, a feather, and some incense, or a diffuser with the lovely essential oil you enjoy smelling.  

Third, which is a bonus rather than a necessity - collect some palo santo. You can purchase this at your local spiritual or earth magick supply store/crystal shop or order it from Amazon.

Now, in the intentional environment you have set up for yourself, light the candles, burn the palo santo (just a little bit so the smoke wafts over your face and body), burn the incense, or start your diffuser and sit and meditate to get clarity on the things you want to let go of, on the things you need to release.  

What are you carrying around as baggage weighing you down? Who do you need to forgive? (remember yourself). What past things are you attached to and sad about or experiencing some emotion that you can now do nothing about?

While you meditate, remember to breathe. Take deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. 

Just allow the information to come in however it does, and then after 10 min or so, journal what you have experienced. Write down anything that comes to mind. Allow it to flow from pen to paper so you ground the truth and reality of it for your life. You are taking ideas from thought to reality on paper.

Now, pick one or two of the oversized items and write them out on individual slips of paper.  

Then, identify somewhere safe to burn things. You are going to build yourself a little ritual fire. Take your palo santo, and find some dry cedar if it's available where you are. You could find some excellent wood chips that you'd put in a BBQ or cinnamon sticks and pine needles. Just make sure your little funeral pyre is aromatic and intentional to you.  

Then light it up! And place your phoenix papers into the fire. Use this purposeful ritual to release those things you are attached to so you can truly be renewed and refreshed and start anew.  

Watch everything in the fire burn and hold gratitude as you do. Therein lies your rebirth. 

You can do this exercise for any of the things you experienced in your meditation or for things that come up later. What is most important as a takeaway from this exercise is the choice to intentionally and voluntarily submit to letting go. That voluntary and intentional act is the energy that brings renewal. 

As I started this podcast sharing - yes - everyone dies. This is part of our physical existence. But so is listening to our soul, getting past the autonomous programming to remember who you really are - which is spirit. A divine being who creates their reality with their thoughts and actions.  

If this podcast or anything I've brought up intrigues you - or if you want to learn daily practices that can help you create your life more intentionally, find more joy, or get over your proverbial baggage. I can help with that! Reach out via my website, angellatterell.com, and book a call. Let's talk about the benefits of the Empower Thyself class & initiation and other means of actualizing what lies within you for the best and highest good! 

 

S2 Episode 6: Rising Above the Rhythm of the Universe Part One: November 2022 "Are you ok?" my good friend asked me on the phone a couple of days ago, and I couldn't answer him because I was holding back the tears of my grief. My greatest temptation took a huge piece of my heart with it. I didn't want this post about Rhythm to be part two of Angel's traumatic relationship loss story, but I had to let that go because this is the story that happened, and it is a fine example of the pendulum swing in my life. It is also how I used my practice of service to others and meditation to neutralize it. I have been awake but living a nightmare. The nightmare began the day I found out about her. The nightmare most recently came in the form of a social media profile picture. There, my alleged life partner was walking down the aisle in unholy matrimony with her, the other woman, his gut-wrenching secret, only three short months after I found out about her and thus, ended us. This nightmare evokes a soul-crushing "what the fuck?!" That moment, upon seeing the picture,I knew I had dodged a bullet of crazy. That the drama train left the station without me on it, I should be relieved, say good riddance, sayonara – I'm moving on without that weight of irresponsibility strapped to my ankle. But the emotional me, the part that loved and believed in what their best friend shared with them, is crying her eyes out. A wounded and broken child experiencing betrayal of the most profound kind, the knife turning yet again in a deeply broken heart., "I don't want my choices to affect you," he said when I found out about her. I wanted to stab him with my ceremonial Athame. But instead of committing premeditated murder, I told him I would be removing myself from this fucked up "friendship" so I could heal and no longer be subjected to his selfish and hurtful choices. So the Law of Rhythm states, "Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates." -The Kybalion Because I know the hermetic principle, I haven't acted on "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Oh, I want to unblock his wife on Facebook and tell her all the ways he's lied to her, that her marriage is based on falsity, and that I curse them both to a life of unhappiness and complete lack of joy. But that action would result only in a dramatic rhythm swing reaction to the other way, bouncing back at me worse than any fury I can deliver in their direction. Because that is the law – every action has a reaction, the tide goes out and the tide goes in. This is the Way. Humans experience great joy; humans experience great sorrow (that is, if they have the capacity for it). Now I've been grieving this relationship since August despite my best efforts to move on. And why? Because I didn't neutralize, I instead hung on to the attachment. I thought our civility, our friendship, was fulfilling a need of mine – and maybe, because of the continued lies on his part, I had some twisted hope that he'd come back to me after this misguided episode with the psycho bitch he cheated on me with. I just had to bide my time and do my work, and it would all work out. Instead, this was likely an extended denial of my grief at losing my lover and best friend without closure, explanation, or apology. I burned all his gifts to me in the temple at Burning Man, but it didn't cut the cord. And I kept getting pulled back in. So my poor heart was broken multiple times because I was unwilling to cut the cord. Then I think of the joy and elation I experienced in the relationship. Laughter and dancing, sharing of Tarot, and Rune spreads the feeling that someone truly listened and understood me and accepted me no matter what. He was holding me up and supporting me unconditionally. I never had that ever before in a relationship. A person willing to do their work, or so it seemed. Until it got hard, and they started drinking again. Pendulum swing, great joy, great sorrow. And even though I volunteered to give up my a normal life, for one of service and true joy, the ripping away of that, my greatest temptation, took a massive piece of my heart with it. And my grief is as if someone died. Because they did. the man who was my best friend and honorable lover is dead to me. The man that exists is a scared, hurt child, incapable of loving anyone. All he could do was deflect, lie, and deny culpability. Energy not worthy of my time, my effort – we are not in alignment. I have to feel the grief without giving in to the rage and drama monster that wants to come out. And I have to declare boundaries to prevent myself from swimming into the toxic forgiveness pool to stay this man's friend. Part Two: January 2023 Since writing part one, I've learned a couple of things. One "Love Bombing" is what a narcissist does to reel you into their world and enlist you in their menagerie. Narcissists use people, and then they cast them aside when that need is fed, or you are used up, and they can't get what they want from you anymore. My ex love-bombed me. Because he is a narcissist, and I fulfilled a need. He immediately enlisted me in his children's life. After all, he needed someone like me to care for them because he was functionally and emotionally abandoning them. I thought it was because he trusted me that he was so vulnerable, bringing me deep into his life so soon. But, no, I was just an easy target. I gave him the keys to how to manipulate me in our first 24 hours together, and he used them all. Since cutting him off, he's tried to keep the lines of communication open – Communication for a space to vent, someone to loan him money, or a place to run away from his crazy new bride. On New Years, he asked me if he could store all his stuff with me so he could leave his wife, "the past few months have been tough for me," he said like the pathetic man-child he is. I could laugh at his level of ego; if I hadn't moved on, I would have been pulled right back onto his crazy train. But I let his pendulum swing without me in the equation. I told him he'd have to leave his wife without my help and this situation was not for me to be involved in. His lesson is to now manage his karma. Shockingly, I have not heard from him since proving my narcissist theory. I'm discarded now because I offer nothing more to him. I'm not useful to his story of the victim. As I'm now clear of his toxic tentacles, I've mourned the death of the person I was in love with. I'm now free of the swings of emotion, reclaimed my power, and neutralized the Rhythm of this negative vibration in my life. How? prayer, meditation, ritual, truth-telling, patience, energy healing, service, literally moving across the country and starting over. Vitamin D is a cure for a lot of things, and the sunlight, quiet and rest of my new home in Northern Florida have given me perspective. But mostly, it's been the time, honesty, and forgiveness of myself that broke the pattern. So lovely humans, I hope to post another podcase before five months go by again. But in the meantime, please take the principles of Rhythm to heart. We cannot escape the tides of fate, but we can neutralize the drama train, the pendulum swing in our lives, by choosing to be above engagement. It is a ride we can step off. If you would like to learn how – I can help with that! Reach out. I would love to work with you.

THIS summer I got stuck. The stickiness began with a devastating event. An event that first shocked and then struck and then stuck my soul -

Have you ever been caught in some twisted limbo? Stuck ping-ponging between extremes of hot and cold, love and hate, quiet and loud, soft and hard, easy and difficult, fast and slow?

When I started this second season of the Laws of Abundance, I thought it might be easy to use examples from my life about the seven primary Hermetic Principles. AND in some way that’s true, the laws of Hermetics are at work ALL of the time around and within us. But what I found this summer is that I got well -  STUCK. (say with emphasis).

I was stuck traveling between poles, between places of polarity. 

So polarity is the hermetic principle that says two things - like hot and cold are of the same nature, they just vary by degree.  We can see this most easily with hot and cold simply by looking at a thermometer.  Both are temperatures that we experience - it is just the vibration of cold is very different from the vibration of hot - but both are experienced and known as temperature.  Interestingly enough when cold is at an extreme it can burn us, just as hot at an extreme can burn - the only thing different is how it feels when it is happening.  

So let’s extrapolate this to Love and Hate.  Both are emotive forces that cause great passion between two individuals. Love is one extreme with its own flavor and degree of passion associated, and Hate is on the other side of the scale, also resulting in a form of passion, albeit usually with a very different result than love when one gives in to it.  But both (like hot and cold) are the same in nature, they just differ by the degree.

In my life recently I’ve been on a bit of a teeter totter of polarities.  Quiet and Loud as I spent time in the country and the city.  Bright and Dark - the light in the Pacific Northwest versus the light in the South or Middle of the United States.  

Since I talked to you last my life trajectory, my relationships, my physical locations all shifted. I am literally a different person than I was in May. And in the middle of it I’ve been in a state of agitation, rest, trial, accomplishment, transition and love. I’ve experienced some of my greatest fears, greatest challenges, greatest connections, as well as betrayal and now am on a path to my greatest joy through service! (make sure you add feeling here) 

 

 

So what happened? The million dollar question…

Well, I went from my one-year anniversary with a person I thought was my life partner to finding out my other half had made the ultimate betrayal. 

Some time after our last trip together in April he started another relationship with another woman.  For four months he lied to me and kept her hidden. I may have never known if it wasn’t for the other woman reaching out to me in a jealous rage.  Needless to say, our relationship is over, and I am dealing now with the polarities of love and hate. Of truth and lies. Of anger and forgiveness.

Im processing many things on the spectrum of my emotions that occur after being so connected and honest with someone – giving them your heart and then finding it tossed aside in their own self-centered choices. However, I still have my own choices. The choice to be angry, to lash out, or even hate! 

Betrayal is a very rough feeling – especially after being vulnerable and finally willing myself to trust another. Trust does not come easy to me. It is something I really have had to learn and lean into.  

Leaning into the negative vibration now and lashing out because I am wounded however, is not helpful to my life, my purpose, or my mission. Love is the force that, if it flows through me, heals all within me and others. There is a quote about polarity from the Kybalion

 “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.”

Hermetics teaches that things seemingly diametrically opposed to each other is merely a matter of degree.

In other words, opposites are the same in nature, they just differ by degree. AND that degree is created through vibration.

So, in my current situation if I focus on the betrayal, the negative vibration, I bring myself down further. Because victim is not the vibration of love and healing. It is my wounded wailer on repeat – oh woe is me the world is filled with haters and assholes out to harm me.  No bueno. 

 

On the other hand,  I can focus on the positive about this situation. The clarity, the timing, the way this information came in. In my case my relationship ended the moment I came back to the world from my spirit quest, my initiation as a 3rd step Ritual Master in the Lineage of King Salomon. There were no bones about it. When I went to the mountain I was in a relationship with this person – when I came back it was obvious that I could not be, and that the relationship itself was a hindrance to my purpose and path that I had committed my new self fully upon. It still hurt like hell. But it was clear.  

There is the story of the Last Temptation of Christ. And this last temptation for him was one of a Normal Life. Just marrying a lovely girl named Mary and being a carpenter for the rest of his days. Christ chose differently, we all know. He didn’t lead a normal life. He died and left this physical existence and went on to become a Master of Light, teaching us the energy of love and compassion (among other things religions have done in his name but that’s another story).

I am not Jesus (but he did say “everything I can do, you can do and more”)  

In June the opportunity to apply to 3rd Step came up. I had not answered the call with a yes before, as honestly, I was VERY attached to my possibility of a normal life and scared to sever my attachments to it. But as 2022 progressed, I was feeling empty from any regular pursuits and knew that being in service to a greater cause than myself was and is my true source of joy and satisfaction. AND as a result, and my guides literally yelling at me to stop dragging my feet. I quote “Angel, stop fucking around!” were the words that came through from them. So I applied, and sure enough was accepted and in August – despite a lot of inconvenience and looks of “why on earth” and “what are you doing” from normal rational people, I undertook the spirit journey that is the 3rd step initiation and have since entered my new life of full commitment to this path. Holding the light of showing others the way to find their own path, light, and true self.

So, the powers that be in the hierarchy of light are not sentimental beings. They saw my commitment, saw obstacles in my path and removed them. OR, at least, gave me the clarity I needed to get them out of my own way. In this case the big hairy elephant and remaining attachment in my living room was my relationship. An albatross eating my energy as I spent so much time holding space for something that could not be contained.

I’m not going to go into specifics of blame, I actually recognize both sides of the energy that resulted in the effects. His choices. My choices. We all have to do our work on ourselves and make our own choices. And in this work, I’m currently choosing love and forgiveness as the means of moving forward. I hold compassion for the jealous woman who turned her anger and harassment toward an innocent person as she clutched to an unsafe relationship and the person who betrayed both of us. And I hold compassion for the man who must self-sabotage and avoid leaning into joy because of his sincere lack of self-worth and insecurity. 

I do my best to get out of my own way here and recognize it is now my job and my commitment to hold love despite the severing and betrayal  Love flowing through me is the highest vibration I can hold, and living that vibration is the only way to be of service to others. 

Looking back at my summer, I can now see how all the all of the discomfort I felt in Seattle and in my own skin was preparation for this. My own intuition was screaming for me to hear it. In this process and the visit to my family in Michigan this summer I have found ways to rest and take care of myself that I hadn’t before and to know that I am destined other places than the city I currently live in. But my movement to new places is unattached to another – it is only attached to my purpose. I made a commitment to work for humanity and the hierarchy of light, I chose the un-normal life. I am in the world but not of it now.  And because I can recognize the nature of things, I can choose the degree that I experience polarity in all things – even devastating heartbreak. 

If you have difficult things you need to let go of, release or change in your life. Reach out. I can help with that!  

The energetic tools of the lineage of King Salomon work and will  release even the most painful of wounds if you choose a path of healing.  

 

Everything on this earth holds a vibration. We can’t see them but atoms are little solar systems rotating around a sun, just as planets and moons are rotating around their planets and suns, and galaxies. They are all in movement all the time. This movement that has a resulting frequency is Hermetic Principle of Vibration. In some ways it the acceptance and acknowledgment that every THING is always in motion.  And you are now like - Great, right. Thanks, Angel. What does this principle of Hermetics have to do with me and my life? Scientists and physicists yes, but me? Well, if everything is in motion, then we are in motion, if everything has a vibration than we have a vibration, and thus our choices can affect our vibration significantly. Take for example my choosing to drink herbal tea vs. coffee (i.e. caffeine) in the morning – one literally starts my heart palpitating and my skin sweating – the other soothes me into a nice meditative space where I can engage in ritual, meditation, and chanting. Ritual meditation and chanting then have me going to a higher mind state than say, starting my day on social media. And thus when I actually move into my second part of the day, the part where I sit in front of a computer. If I’ve meditated, things flow smooth. If I’ve simply caffeinated and ingested headlines and social feeds I’m already scattered and my vibration is already jumpy. My day is more likely to tilt into reaction and go off course than if I right my sails into the flow of the higher self.  So let me tell you a little story a situation that arose this month.  (It’s so easy now to look back and see how I literally spun myself up)

Mercury retrograde, plus Jupiter in Aries, plus Lunar eclipse in Scorpio. Sitting on the couch crying over things I can’t identify; grief is welling up within me as I let go of old stuff I’m carrying and mourn changes, and also, I’m in a unproductive thought loop about needs and wants in my relationship. I want to talk to my partner on the phone before he’s unreachable, and I’m in Canada and we are on different schedules and, and, and…. The more I think about the distance the bigger it gets and I’m having a full-blown anxious attachment trigger episode with myself. Now, I know this is in my head – my partner has done nothing to deserve some of the frustrated thought loops currently dancing in my mind – it’s my disappointment bear again, it’s my wounded wailer crying over injuries that have not been perpetuated but certainly will be, and before you know it I’m very worked up and now I’m crying about my needs not being met. Even though there is absolutely no external stimulus to create this situation. I’ve done it to myself with my thoughts.  

Yes, I’m in a relationship where distance is a constant, but I generally find that ok because I’ve got so much going on, I need the space for my purpose. And my needs are met. But now that my vibration has shifted, and things feel icky – because my thoughts are worked up, and my vibration is not of the light – it is of complaint and fear. I’ve spiraled myself into a literal emotional tizzy. 

Now here’s the thing. I know how to get out of it – but this particular week I don’t, I give in to the tsunami of emotion and feeling – I journal, I allow it to pass through me – but it doesn’t go. Some fear wants attention, so I take the bait, I text my partner, he doesn’t respond as I wanted in fact, he responds to something from the night before but my spiraled and wound up wounded wailer steps in and freaks the fuck out “WTF! How could he! Never again! doesn’t he know what I’m going through!”  

Bad news bears, dear listeners – so when he finally calls me, I’m an aggravated mess incapable of properly communicating anything. And he is very confused and defensive at me being a crying blob of inarticulate emotional vomit. I don’t blame him – and ironically, I used the very thing I wanted (at the very beginning of this episode) to try and calm me down (his voice) to spin out further.  

Vibration. It’s real. And it can get very real if you don’t manage it and your thoughts. 

So, five hours later after chanting, after ritual, after a good talk with a calm friend who reminded me to mediate before doing anything else – I managed to bring myself back up to a higher frequency. Not say anything more in my moment of weakness – and to calm the fuck down about the literal nothing I had made into something.

Vibration. It’s real. 

Chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō raised my vibration. I read some encouraging quotes about why meditate, I did some rituals and grounded myself, and then and only then did I talk to my partner again. He did not deserve my onslaught of failed self-care when he was just trying to fulfill what I asked of him but I was so jacked up on my inner drama I couldn’t do anything but be reactive (to literally nothing).

So, I share this to demonstrate 1) even I turn into a spazzed out mess once in a while (and let me tell you it was exhausting)  2) to give an example of how a human can change vibration based on our thoughts and actions because 3) our thoughts have vibration because 4) everything has a vibration and this is why things like meditation, mantras, activations, energy healings can actually help you in your life. Because they can instantly change your vibration. In my example from my life, I indulged in my drama and where did I get? Tired and upset and regretting that projected it upon my partner – which in hindsight was completely avoidable. 

How could I have avoided it? Changed my vibration before engaging. Using the tools I teach and know. Specifically, meditation. Specifically redirecting my energy. I could have called a colleague and gotten an emergency cord cutting instead of leaning into the emotional rollercoaster. I could have sat down and chanted for my partner’s happiness, held gratitude. I didn’t though, so I let my negative ego win a round. 

As a Hermetic principle, a law of the universe, and thus a law of abundance, understanding vibration is essential. Like attracts like – so positive thoughts gather positive, and negative gather negative – they become clouds that will swirl and rain on your parade. Now in my example – this was just about a single week in my life, because I have tools and practices to change my vibration. 

But what about a person who lives their life like this all of the time? In emotion, in the past, in a state of drama? It’s going to color everything – leading to more drama, more negative vibration, more bad reactions – and eventually maybe the persons life will be sad and lonely as all were persons are driven away. Or they believe the world is just filled with assholes & narcissists. But as I’ve said before, if the world is filled with assholes the most obvious one is yourself. As in likely YOU are the biggest asshole. 

I digress. 

You can oversimplify vibration to a law of attraction. I wouldn’t though, but for the sake of understanding you can go there. As a law of Hermetics – just know that this is how the world works. Our thoughts have vibration, our food, what we choose to engage in, music, rocks, minerals, etc they all have vibration. Matter of all kinds has vibration. Every single thing has a vibration. 

And as a human we can change our vibration in three ways…

1. We can meditate
2. We can change our habits (which include our thought clouds) perhaps that glass of wine ISN’T a coping mechanism. What if you chose rose tea instead and raised your vibration – instead of lowering it with alcohol? Stressed? Go for a run, go work on a project, go do yoga instead of calling your friend for a bitch fest – the complaint picnic will only erase fortune and lower your vibrations. 
3. The Third way - we can go get help. Come get a clearing and a healing from me. It’s what I should have done upon the moment I was spinning. 

And these are all within your control. And honestly, we all need help from time to time. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed, they all had teachers why shouldn’t we? 

And actually, with a teacher and with a practice – (a path, you might call it) you have a way to work towards a better, higher vibration for your day to day. Not just a lurching here or there. But everyday consistently raising your vibration such that someday its so much higher than before – and your new bottom is so much higher than where you were before you started climbing. 

So dear listener, I will end here today with a quote from the Kybalion and a quote from Ipsissiumus Dave Lanyon, a hermeticist extraordinaire .

“Every thought, emotion or mental state has its corresponding rate and mode of vibration. And by effort of the will of the person, or of other persons, these mental states may be reproduced, just as a musical tone may be reproduced by causing an instrument to vibrate at a certain rate. By knowledge of the principle of vibration, one may polarize his mind at any degree he wishes, thus gaining perfect control over his mental states, moods, etc.”

 

Dave Lanyon quote “Hermetics is always absolute. Stop using the mind, use the heart. Will sets mind. Not mind sets will.”

So my dear friends please reach out and ask me about the tools and practices I have to help you raise your vibration. They are very real and can help any human being regardless of circumstance. In the meantime, drop into your heart, start with loving yourself, raising your vibration within yourself, and the rest will follow. 

So, it finally happened to me. COVID. I’ve never been afraid of it, been moving about the country traveling all over the place for the last two-plus years and finally, we came full circle, and the trip we were supposed to take in 2020, we took in 2022 in New Orleans – and COVID shows up to crash the party. Now it’s not a shocker to me that I got sick. I haven’t been sleeping well or resting at all. I’ve been overworked, and stressed about various things with my partner’s kids, with my job being super successful, but me not having the right amount of help or systems in place. I placed all my self-care cards in the proverbial vacation bucket. “I’ll get rest later,” I said. I’ll take a break later. Well, when vacation finally came so did illness, walking right in the wide-open door.  Ok Angel, what does this have to do with a law of abundance or Hermetics? Everything. Because our life is a reflection of the cosmos, and our inner life is reflected in our outer world. Recently my very good friend called me to say “Angel, you look like chaos.” I knew she was right. I was trying to do too much all at once, to be too much for others and not showing up for myself with basic self-care practices. Not setting boundaries with my time. I was not taking time to clear myself or ground in any significant way – and I lost touch with myself briefly. I was tired, irritable, and stressed out, and no wonder most of what I attempted failed. My inner world responded messily.  Now the principle of correspondence, as above so below, so within, so without – as the axiom goes isn’t just this simplistic, yet at the same time, it is. 

What the principle of correspondence means is that ALL the universe – every single thing in it, from the heavens (the stars and planets) to an anthill on earth, or a microbiome inside my gut all follow the same set of rules and none of them deviate. 

Look at how Atoms work. A nucleus that is circled by an electron. A solar system is a sun/star/a nucleus circled by planets (electrons), so the tiniest thing is similar to one of the biggest things I can imagine. 

The law of correspondence tells us that there is a rhythm, an order, and a set of rules, like cause and effect, vibration, polarity that everything follows, nothing escapes this cosmic ordering, nothing is outside of the seven hermetic principles, live them and experience the best alignment in this life with our purpose and oneness with them. 

This is all a true magician or Alchemist does. Align with these principles and rules of the universe and use them to manifest hermetically for the best and highest good. 

The hermetic path is likely never the easy path. It’s the longer, higher road with the rewards that can’t be counted selfishly. But also, it can be the healthy path, the calm path, the path where chaos cannot come spoil your party because those doors are not ever open. 

I do my best. I live mostly in integrity. I live mostly attempting to step forward on a hermetic kabbalistic path in my life. But I am not at all perfect (albeit perfection is simply the act of staying on the path and practicing every day). I get stubborn, I have attachments. I let my fear of mind control decision-making when I get worked up. And then I’ve got to learn things the hard way – with some proverbial beating on the head with a baseball bat to get the message. 

But the beating comes because the laws of the universe dictate it. Cause and effect always happen. Inner worlds reflect on the outside. 

So in my case this time around I got really sick on my vacation and anniversary fun times with my partner in New Orleans. And then I spent six days in quarantine on a calm serene beach in Vero Beach, Florida recovering. Life could be way worse. I’m lucky my partner said book a room here, my intuition said, “be right on the beach!” no compromise. It was just two nights to decompress after New Orleans and to prep to visit my father. And then it became many. And I had nothing to do but spend the time with myself, resting and taking care of myself as I let the ocean waves calm down my being and the vitamin D and sea air clear me. 

I materialized this retreat. My heart’s desire was sun and sand and quiet to hit reset for myself. Get clear for me. Get to spend the conjunction of Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces by the water baptized in the large, dreamy sea of the cosmos. 

It ate all my extra resources for a while. All the extra abundance I made in March working too hard. But that is also completely in alignment because I don’t have the systems yet to grow sustainably and now, I’m back home building those systems while setting boundaries for my time. 

Success is meaningless if I am broken or if I’m sick. If my partner and I cannot spend time together. If I can’t see my family. Over attachment to certain outcomes can also not be a good thing but the most important for me is to hold a vision of being in a flow that allows me to be the one in the best space – me meditating, me clear, me without chaos so that then everything I touch is also clear, is also clean, is also functional, also follows the rules of the universe so it works for the best highest good of the whole. 

I can’t save it all for vacations. I can’t put off living my life for later. Work is necessary to achieve anything but that work also can’t be all-consuming because it’s done without proper order and structure. The universe has a structure. The Hierarchy of light has a structure, so my life needs a structure (NOT rigid control of every detail out of fear) but a structure for my time and energy. My businesses need a structure for their success and sustainability. The cycle of abundance needs to be recognized – as I grow, I share my abundance with those who take on the tasks I need done. I can’t hoard the money because then I’m hoarding the work, and then I’m drowning, and then I’m sick. 

In my rune readings recently, Sowelo keeps appearing. This is the rune of the sun. Victory. It looks like an S roughly. In Ralph H. Blum, The Book of Runes, he speaks of this rune as wholeness and offers the Gayatri prayer. 

You who are the source of all power, whose rays illuminate the world, illuminate also my heart so that I can do your work. 

This corresponds to the saying “I will thy will.” In that, I will the highest purpose for my life to flow through me. 

I am willing to get out of my own way and become a conduit of the laws of the universe, let the laws flow through me. As Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing.” Meaning by our own self we truly do nothing; things flow through us if we allow them. 

Thank you for joining me on this exploration of the principle of correspondence in my life. I hope it awakens something in you to dig deeper into these principles, these laws, and where they are at work within you. And for the dear listener who loves to control, especially when life gets out of control, I challenge you to find FLOW within your structure (don’t clamp down, release and let the wind blow through the scaffolding you have built so deftly, see what happens!! maybe you can even jump out of your Tower and fly)  And for the listener who neglects all structure, or who even blames structures outside themselves for all the things - can you start telling yourself the truth? start taking some responsibility for the things you are setting in motion? Can you be more intentional with what you are setting in motion? How might you allow structure into your flow?

As always, need a little push - I can help with that! 

Until next time, live well. 

Transmute = “to change from one nature, form, or substance, into another, to transition.”            -Webster’s Dictionary  Thus, Mental Transmutation = the art of changing mental state, forms and conditions into other state.

 Hermetic Principle #1 Principle of Mentalism Axiom “All is mind; the universe is mental.” Meaning the underlying reality of everything is mind. Descartes said “I think, therefore I AM.” In Hermetics this means the universe itself is mental – existing in the mind of The All. 

But let’s carry this to a logical next step, if the universe is mental and all is mind and mental transmutation is changing mental state – then the art of changing your mental state is the art of changing your reality. Everything starts with your mental state. Change your mind, change your reality.

 And this is principle #1of hermetics, so in order to become a master of reality, one must become a master of awareness such that they can master their mind not have their mind be a master of them.

Ok Angel – now you are being a hermetical bumper sticker. To this I say yes I am. “Change your mind. Change your reality.” Is a bumper sticker but it is also a hermetic principle because all is mind. Literally the world we see in “objective reality” is a reflection of what is going on in your mind. So if your mind is a cluttered mess of thoughts and negative self-talk, I bet your work space, room, or home is also a bit cluttered.

All that physical clutter represents what is going on inside all the unconscious, subconscious attachments to other people’s opinions about what you should be doing or saying.

What do you want to be doing with your life? Have you thought about that recently? Are you living the life you want to live? If the answer is no – what is stopping you?

Pause this podcast right now and write down your reasons. Just take five minutes. What is stopping you from living the life that you want to live?

Ok – welcome back. Look at your reasons, how many of them could you change if you changed your mind about them being a reason that they are stopping you?

For example - Recently I have been busy with marketing my law office. So busy however,  that I’ve barely had time to eat, exercise or take care of myself. This has had me stressed out and aggravated some health problems. This is not the life I want to live In a physical state with a swollen ankle and a limp. I want to be able to hike through the jungle to waterfalls in Hawaii and beaches in Brazil. What is the answer? Instead of being a victim to my calendar I purposefully decide that I have time. Time for self-care, time to block my tasks, time for boundaries for my volunteer work, time to hire a law clerk and an apprentice. 

I change my mind and my thought process around time, I implement boundaries and I bring in help – I stop looking at this as temporary.

My business is growing because I’m investing in it. But there is no reason to have a successful business if I can’t enjoy my life.

Recently, my friend lost everything. 

Or so she thought - emphasis on thought. 

“I have been bad-mouthed by a community I love and am strongly attached to,” my friend said.  

Her hurt and confusion was palpable 

My question?

What have you lost? 

My friend quipped, “my community.”

Interesting I said, I don’t THINK so.

“I’m still here. Your other friends who care about and support you are still here,”

My friend agreed. I could tell her energy had began to increase. 

So, I asked, 

“Have you lost your community? The answer is no.”

All she had lost were strangers and/or acquaintances who lack discernment and good judement as they had chose to believe someone with no facts or reason. 

So, old thought – “I lost everything” – which will surely increase more lack and loss belief 

New thought – “How blessed am I to have the incredible close friends that see my truth, support me and know when others are lying.”

Even as I am telling this story, you can feel the shift.

In my case, I’m putting up the time blocks I need to do things I enjoy and that take care of me, so I don’t burn out as I experience a successful busines. 

 How did I almost get to burn out? My underlying belief that I have to do it all. This is habit pattern and from an old worn-out belief that I am not good enough that has me taking on things and sacrificing my own wellbeing in the process. 

So, I’m letting go of my volunteer work right now, and putting up boundaries and then holding them. This is done in my mind and thoughts first. If I just keep believing that there is not enough time – then there will never be enough time. But if I say this time here is sacred for this – and I honor that the work will get done – AND so will the self-care.  They can coexist – and some things will get let go of. AND I’m ok with that. Others might not be but they are going to have to figure that out – its not my job to carry their load.

Which brings me to part two of this discussion: that all is mind. If all is mind, what thoughts are causing you not to be able to live the life of your dreams? 

• Do you actually know what life, your ideal life looks like?
• If all conditions were perfect – what would your life look like? 
• What would you be doing? 
• Who would you surround yourself with? 
• How would you live your daily life?
• Can you articulate this? 
• Can you focus on holding the vision of the joyful life you want to be living? 

If you can’t then THAT is a place to start spending your time figuring out.

Because all is mind. So first, get clear what you want in order to make it happen. 

All those reasons on your paper are excuses for you to live a life you DON’T WANT. 

This is not to diminish any challenge you are facing. This to re-focus your energy. Are you facing the right challenge? Or wasting your time?

If you are not clear where you are going, then maybe this bridge that is blocked is not the right one to rebuild. Like my friend and their “lost community”. Yes, it hurts to be rejected. But does it actually matter in the bigger picture of your life’s hopes and dreams? 

Nope.

It’s a distraction from living your purpose. If all is mind – you can change your mind about that challenge and make it opportunity.

Accepting hermetical principle #1 All is Mind requires one more ingredient. That crucial season to the sauce? Personal responsibility. Because if it all starts with me and my mind, my holding a vision for myself, my thoughts, then who is responsible for those thoughts? For creating that vision? I am. 

I am responsible for all of it. I am not a victim of my circumstance. I am creating it with my mind. I am creating my perspective. I am creating my reality. I am creating my reaction to my reality. It is all my personal responsibility. Stop giving the secret of your sauce away. Stop giving the keys to your future to another person or circumstance. Take back your power, and start to create the reality you desire. Your change starts now and it starts with you. Not your community, not your mother, not your boss, not your spouse, not the annoying construction that causes you to be late, or the cup of coffee you spilled on your shirt. You control your reactions to the uncontrollable AND as all is mind. Everything else is just stuff you are letting stop you. 

So, what is one thing that is stopping you today from living your life and where can you take your power back?! 

Welcome to season 2 of Laws of Abundance!

I cannot wait to kick off this second season with you – This season, in part, is season 2 because this is the year of 2s, 2022, which seems appropriate to keep the angelic numerology going. So with Season 2 in 2022, we have 4 twos, 2222 (an Angelic number of balance) construction and harmony.  It speaks of new experience awaiting through bravery and positive thinking resulting in you building your dreams - in short be confident in your abilities, trust your instincts, take a leap out of your comfort zone and build the future you truly desire using the laws of the universe.  So this season of 2, I am going to do just that by showing you the hermetic principles, the laws of the universe that we can use to build our desires into reality, as they are at work in my own life.  Season 1 was a seed, my practice round, where I shared at random as things came up for me.  I hope season 2 will be more structured, yet more vulnerable, so you can see HOW Hermetics are organic laws at work in life, and how when used and observed intentionally, you can use them to bring abundance, light, and joy.   

Let us begin:

“A rosebud opens into a rose, an acorn grows into an oak, and a caterpillar emerges as a butterfly from its cocoon - that we, too, unfold according to an inner plan?” - Howard Sasportas, The 12 Houses

This week on Monday using my Writual planning journal and my new set of oracle cards given to me by my partner for my birthday - I pulled The Fool, the rune Perthu and The Emerald Tablet Activation card from my new light activation oracle deck. Clearly the universe was sending me a message to radically trust, let go, to be an open container of the divine plan, according to the rules of Hermetics. To allow for manifestation around me with my effort only being the holding of the desire - not the manipulation of the elements. 

I’m writing this right now on an airplane flying to Kuau’i, Hawaii - sitting in first class, enjoying the first blanket and pillow I’ve seen on an airplane since January of 2020 and so much leg room. Now I’m rambling and you are likely wondering what does this have to do with anything Angel? What is the Emerald Tablet?t, what are Hermetics?, and good for you going to Hawaii flying first class in January. 

So this year and my second Season of Laws of Abundance I am going to dedicate to studying the Hermetic Principles as they appear in my life.  Using real examples as I have leaned into them, or struggled against them to no avail - because Law of Abundance #1 is that the rules of Hermetics are inescapable laws. It doesn’t matter if you know them, believe in them, they still apply to you. But if you live by them, if you actually use them they are keys to the creation of abundant and joyful life. 

First I am going to say and admit that I am still an apprentice in this area.  A padawan. I am no Obi Wan or  Yoda when it comes to these laws. I’m at best a young and whining Luke Skywalker.  I am still studying the force, so I will share my experience and not be arrogant enough to claim anything close to mastery.  And unlike Star Wars - there really isn’t power in the dark side here on this plane.  The dark side is negative ego - FEAR, STUCK, NON-MOVING crunchy garbage living in a cage of a matrix dream world where you go nowhere.  We all start there. As a little battery pod in the matrix doing nothing but feeding the machine, not aware of our purpose. It is our default. We have to choose and work hard at unplugging every single day. This is not a one-and-done red pill like Neo in the Warner Brothers story.  It's more like the daily blue pill Niel Patrick Harris prescribes him, we have to remind ourselves every single day through gratitude, ritual, prayer, and meditation, to stay on the path to knowing our higher self and not ending up back asleep in our little comfortable matrix prison. 

So let me tell you a little story about my journey with the Hermetic Principles.  Stardate 2016/2017 just prior to the total solar eclipse, I’ve tried to drink and eat my way out of the dark hole of codependency.  I’ve joined the mile-high club adventuring with strangers I met in first-class seats on airplanes, drank my way across Scotland, ate at the best and most expensive restaurants in the world. After none of that works - I find myself with a set of Runes in my hands at a Celtic Fair in Mount Vernon, Washington sitting in the sunshine with two lovely ladies talking about the Ritual Master path. I start doing rune readings for people - and I start feeling magick in my life.  I encounter some interesting phenomena and decide to step onto the path of a ritual master in the lineage of King Salomon.  Why not try a path of self-discipline and self-discovery instead of hedonism? Hedonism was starting to hurt my hip, my heart, my bank account, my stomach, and no fine scotch or fully loaded bloody mary was going to bring me to a place of better. 

Now, this path as an RM or a ritual master was where I was first introduced to the laws of Hermetics formally. The lineage of King Salomon is a hermetic order. This was told to me years prior but I didn’t know what it meant, nor, honestly, did I really care. Doing light work felt good so I kept doing it, not because of any philosophical choice. Moreover my Buddhist practice followed certain principles (like cause and effect) and Kabbalah had helped me know my self worth a little better, but all I really knew about Hermetics was the phrase “hermetically sealed” and that there was some guy named Hermes Trisma something or other (Hermes Trismegistus) and he wrote a book called the Hermetica.  

I understood through Buddhism the concept of Oneness of Self and Environment but as I started down the RM path I began to learn

1. All is Mind - if we think it so then it becomes so

2. As above, so below - as within, so without - everything has a structure, and as we see ourselves within so it is reflected without in our environment (much like oneness of self and environment…interestingly enough)

3. Vibration - everything is in motion and holds a frequency if we engage, ingest, align with it we can raise or lower our frequency. Higher vibration equals positive results and abundance.

4. Polarity - everything has a polarity or pole and an opposite. But opposites are the same just different by degree

5. Rhythm - everything flows in and out, rises and falls, if you push something away it will swing back like a pendulum and smack you harder.

6. Cause and effect - everything happens according to the laws of the universe, so every cause has an effect. There are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes this law.

7. Gender - everything in the universe is binary, there are masculine and feminine principles and energies everywhere. And this duality manifests on all planes of existence and their balance and interaction are necessary for creation here in the physical world. 

 

The more I study Hermetics the more I’m sure that Nichiren Diashonin, the well studied monk who started the sect of Buddhism I have ascribed to since I was 18 also studied Hermetics as the principles are all in his writings, just in different words than as they appear in the Kybalion or other cliff note versions of the Hermetica. 

So how did I start applying these esoteric principles to my life? In some ways, this is the grand experiment. This is the great work of becoming a disciplined magician creating your life. The work of knowing oneself.  It is tuning in to these principles always in life.  But honestly, I started with the ones I knew well and tried on those I didn’t. And when I say “Try on” I meant in some cases “ignore” and then feel the consequences of that ignorance. I started looking at the world through the lens of these principles. And my negative ego actually stopped winning the daily battle, not without a fight, however (but the daily practices, rituals, meditations that I engaged in helped) and I also gradually started making better choices at the moment, I started living in the moment, letting go of fear and old crap, I started clearing old stuff out of my way, and speaking and being my truth of the now instead of the shoulds of others. 

So 2018 saw me surprise people in my corporate job as I started prioritizing myself and speaking my mind.  I also started my side businesses for real, focusing on life-activating people and learning additional skills as a healer, going out to fairs to performing readings, and giving up alcohol and excessive eating of my feelings. 2019 I pushed myself further on my path through more Kabbalah and chose to stand up and become a guide for others within the Modern Mystery School International. I choose to work on my physical wellness, to add beauty and self-care to my regimen. I started to stand up straight and live royally and not take others' assertions upon myself. 

This resulted in my corporate job pushing back at me - telling me I was getting too uppity. Although it was extremely uncomfortable at the time, looking back this was a natural reaction by those still stuck in the matrix reacting to me.  Also, my contract with God and my purpose in this world does not have me beholden as a wage slave to another but asks me to be my own master working for myself.  But I still needed a strong and obvious message to finally push me out of the cocoon, however, and that was delivered in December of 2019 when my boss told me that I did not appear committed to my job and would not be receiving the promotion that had been promised to me over the past year. Her judgment had nothing to do with what I was actually doing at the job, but it was definitely the sign I needed to withdraw myself from the circle where I had no input, no ability to influence the outcome, essentially to clearly identify that my corporate job was a waste of my time and talents.  So I left and started my own business 2 months later just as the pandemic started in March of 2020 and the world shut down.  I could have panicked. But instead, I held gratitude - as the shutdown was the best possible thing that could have happened. It gave me the ability to ingather, recover and focus my efforts on being an entrepreneur. And for the first time in years, I could just work on myself. And start to study the hermetic principles at work in my life and the world with perspective - birthing this podcast and the host of things you see under my law office and light center brand.  

I share this maybe somewhat not so exciting trajectory and gradual progression story to illustrate that the laws of abundance/hermetic principles in one's life are not necessarily a quick, obvious, or straightforward line. But being on the path and staying on the path is key. 

So this season in the year 2022 I will be exploring as best I can with life experience the laws of abundance as expressed in the 7 hermetic principles. You will see my messy process from worm, to crystallise, to butterfly just like the quote I started this post with. 

As I finish writing this episode one, I am home from my trip to Kauai, Hawaii where I learned even more about myself by hiking thru the jungle, sitting on the beach, and meditating - I allowed myself to unwind - I learned that for me I need to find play within my work for joy to continue and to pervade my service to others.  Much like the saying (or possibly a Stephen king quote)

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” 

For me, Angel, I have to ask myself for what purpose do I work so hard? This is not service to self and others if I just work to work, or work to avoid living my life and loving. I have to allow others to help me carry things forward and sometimes to set everything down so that I can take time to dance, move my body and allow the waves of passion to flow thru just for the sake of enjoyment or moving my physical body & igniting the flames within so I can hear and listen as the hierarchy of light and my higher self guide me along my path.  The 6 days in Hawaii were the first time that I pushed myself like that on a jungle hiking trail, the first time I stayed comfortably with a large group of strangers, that I just did for the sake of doing and moved to treat my body in over 10 years. I let my mind go completely and stayed in the flow and relaxed and loved.  I came home whole, awake, alive and clear, refreshed and completely unafraid - whatever is coming in my life I shall create with my heart, my imagination, and gradual consistent effort forward. Less attached to doing and more focused on simply holding the vision allowing the gifts of abundance the universe provides to support me.  

Alright my listeners I am excited for what is to reveal itself in 2022 as I move forward in this place of vulnerability in all aspects of my life, sharing how these laws of abundance are at work in my life so you may be inspired to do the same yours.  

And also I want to hear from you!  If you have read the Kybalion, the Hermetica, or anything about hermetic - do you have questions? Stories to share?  I’d love to move forward in conversation and address your questions, tell your stories, or even figure out how to have guests on this show so we can learn more, together, this is the year of 2s after all. 

I can help with that! Visit https://latterelllaw.com or follow me on your favorite social media platform. 

Listeners, I would like to give you the gift of actual MAGICK this New Year. MAGICK to help bring your New Year goals into fruition - MAGICK to resolve and live the life of your dreams in 2022 and beyond. Magick doesn't involve childhood fairy tales or Walt Disney fantasy but aligns with the scientific laws of abundance and the logical flow of the universe around you.  So, what is this “magick?”  Why do I spell it with a K? What does a magickal life entail and how does this relate to laws of the universe and abundance? Once upon a time, I believed with enough hard work you could control all outcomes in life. I fastidiously controlled what went into my body and who I was physically around. I had to because I had such sensitivity to other people (I didn’t know I was empathic) and had hidden panic attacks and anxiety. Spontaneity was only for moments of self-medicated freedom - yet even those were still carefully controlled and curated within containers to ensure bad decision-making didn’t leak out and spoil my future. I had no one to rely on but myself, so I couldn’t fuck anything up. This is why I had to control everything, be perfect at everything, manage everything. Thus the hamster wheel continued to spin, but I was a high functioning achievement-oriented person who looked “successful” on the outside.  Then I met these lovely women who told me to chant nam myo renge kyo - I had nothing to lose so I did. I had no idea what the words mean but the vibration, the ritual, the time spent in meditation began to relax something within me.  I felt better, alchemically without any processing. Something was altering my physical body and my mind - thoughts cleared, heart rate lowered, muscles relaxed all with the repetitive rhythm and vibrational frequency of a mantra repeated over and over again. And after a month or so of chanting this every day I began to realize I had been living my life in a self-imposed prison.  It was a prison of unworthiness and of omniscient controllers.  Like a scared beast, I had to stay in my cage because everything outside the prison was unknown and uncontrollable. And little ole me could not dare to ask anything of the universe, I could not request to have my needs met or be noticed. In fact hiding was the preferred method of life because if I was seen it could invite attack. 

I, through a practice of daily meditation and chanting a high vibration mantra transformed myself from a body of fear to a body of creative expression.  I began to put myself out there, to perform poetry and help others do the same.  I started to ask for things from the universe. I articulated my needs and wants and toyed with the concept of being worthy to receive these gifts. 

So back to magick. The definition of magic is the process of creating something from nothing or changing something into something else. Examples of this - to draw letters on a blank piece of paper. Where there was open space there is now a message, a poem, or a song.  To create music, both thru dictating notes on paper using the language of scales and notes or to strum the melody on a guitar or piano. First, there is nothing, then there is something. Or magick is to make a lasagna.  Last night I took noodles, ground sausage, tomato sauce, herbs, and cheese, and with a bit of love, I placed them together in a specific order and thus created a new thing - something from something else. In this case, a lasagna is appropriate for a Garfield the Cat meme. 

So magick in the personal alchemical means the same. In my story, my 18-year-old self took the mantra nam myoho renge kyo and I repeated it, and it changed me from something to something else. It changed my vibration over time from fear to courage and it transformed my life, and awakened me to my true abilities as a creative individual capable of her own acts of magick. 

The Tarot card The Magician (in the traditional Rider Waite illustrations), one hand points up, and one hand points down - signifying “as above, so below, as within, so without”.  On his table sit the 4 elements represented by the Sword/Air, Pentacle/Earth, a chalice i.e. cups/water, and a wand which represents fire. The two major principles of magick - being in balance with the 4 elements in order to manifest, and using the 4 elements to make something from nothing or something into something else.  And principle two- the power of the magician is based on the power of his or her imagination. So as WiTHIN the mind of the magician so shall be WITHOUT as the magician creates it in her physical world. 

So if you can think it, you can create it. In fact to think a thought is to create! Then to use the elements to manifest it into form in the physical world - whether as a result in our life, our body or our environment. 

So, what is the Law of Abundance I am talking about here? Recognition that we all have the power to be The Magician, manifesting magnificent results for ourselves in our lives.  If we can just recognize that the power lies within our life itself. Once you recognize that you are always creating (consciously or subconsciously) you can harness the power to use it consciously and it is only inhabited by our ability to imagine. This is why they are called “self-limiting beliefs.”  The belief (i.e. our lacking of imagining differently) limits us. 

So our job for this law of abundance is twofold.  First clarity of thought - recognition that self equals environment, as within, so without - and engaging in practices that balance clear, and nourish so our within isn’t a cluttered hoarder's house of crap and negative self-talk.  And then two - how do we feed our imagination such that we can envision the things we truly desire and thus physically manifest them or call them into us using the 4 elements of our physical and internal environments. 

So hold the vision - be the container for the creation of the thing or result. Idea (vision), thought (holding the vision), plan (breaking down the steps and using the structure of the universe and its rules), action (doing something in the flow of the universe) = Manifestation i.e Magick! Creating something from nothing, or turning something into something else all sealed with gratitude for the bounty received to reinforce the positive thought loop and create the fertile ground for abundance.  As we reach the end of this year 2021 I bring this season of Laws of Abundance to a close by reviewing these principles of creation that I started with, because these are our building blocks.  Call them magick, call them alchemy, chemistry, science, logic, intuition, hermetics - they are laws of abundance and they affect us regardless if we choose to believe in them.  Just like gravity is real - we stick to the earth and have weight even if we don’t believe it's round and spins in the cosmos.  Just the same you are creating your reality even if you choose to deny this fact.  

These laws are reflected in sacred geometry building blocks around us, in the Fibonacci sequences of stock markets and cryptocurrency, in the light of the sun and moon, the ebb and flow of water in lakes, rivers, and oceans and in your body, and from the body micro and macrocosm of your physical body systems, your aura, and spirit. On this planet we were once nothing but a gleam of passion in two persons' eyes, the magick happens, an egg and sperm meet in a container known as the womb and something happens based on a structure of sacred geometry.  Our DNA literally builds a little human and that physical being is released into the world taking its first breath so it too can become a creator of things in this physical world.  Including the creation of other humans.  But all humans are granted the power of thought, word and act, and imagination to see beyond what is physically in front of them. 

The power to do magick.  The power to create. The power to live a life of abundance in a story of their making. 

This is not about toxic positivity or magical/wishful thinking. This is about looking at the patterns and how things actually work in the universe. And the WORK it takes as a human to figure it out with experience.  

I hope my experiences this year, or those I’ve shared from my life so far have helped you. And I look forward to continuing to learn with you here in this public space in 2022.  And from that place of vulnerability be an example of these laws in my own life.  In the meantime dear listeners - take stock.  You are all magicians creating and manifesting your worlds.  Choose wisely that which you make a reality.