#circlesanctuary

Yule celebration at the Circle Sanctuary in Wisconsin.

Finished for now. I'll add pressed flowers later this year! The info is from @selenafox and her workshop last summer at #circlesanctuary 😁 #gardenwitch #greenwitch #watercolor #watercololrground #grimoire #artgrimoire #witchesofinstagram #witchcraft #witchy #witch #hedgewitch

Circle Sanctuary Oct 1999 Archived Web Page 🧩

All the office work is complete. The out of office replies have been set. Packing is done, coolers loaded. Just a few minutes for a shower and then Im off. PSG (Pagan Spirit Gathering) here I come. Building with Our Hands. #pagan #pagansofinstagram #pagansoninstagram #witchesofinstagram #obod #paganspiritgathering #circlesanctuary #summersolstice #litha #longestday #artofinstagram #artistoninstagram #artist #artistsoninstagram #artistsofinstagram

Harvest Moon Ritual 2014. Afterwards, a few of our members went over to Alpha Epsilon Pi for their Sukkah building event.

What is a difference between a Dream, or a Vision? In my practice I define a vision as an experience that you can distinctly relate to something in the present in the physical material plane or later on affect you in the future, while a dream is often defined as an experience that reflects the past or what is currently happening with our current emotional or mental state. These terms and concept sometimes can be interchangeable for example: a dream can later be realized as a vision when we connect the data and information together with something tangible in our waking life. What I have also realized is that our mind and psyche plays a big role in creating our reality and recreating our experience in our dreams through different interpretations, emphasizing the points that we sometimes miss or choose to ignore in our conscious life. To quote Ian Xel Lungold, author of The Mayan Sacred Count of Days, “What you pay attention to, you become more aware of”. The moment I started paying attention to my dreams, random thoughts, coincidences, started connecting and welcoming the possibilities, I woke up from having dreams and began my understanding of what having Visions really meant. Like newly discovered legs, I walk in stride of this awareness, flexing this muscle to bring more experience that will connect me deeper with the divine. Inviting Visions through Meditation There are many ways a vision can come through, but most often it occurs when we are most relaxed and receptive. Meditation is a very good practice because it quiets the cluttered mind and allows our deeper thoughts that need sorting out to surface. This is also why it is good to walk away from stressful or volatile situations in order to collect one’s thoughts and come up with a good solution to the issue. Exhaustion can be another way of inducing a trance or experiencing an ecstatic state of heightened emotion. Another way is through losing one’s attention by doing something easy and monotonous that the brain functions in auto mode, for example driving back and to from work. Furthermore, the use of drums and shakers by shamans, healers, medicine men or women in countless regions of indigenous cultures throughout the world have been linked to ceremonies dedicated to facilitating a vision. The idea of intuitions and visions are so caricaturized in modern pop culture media that the meaning gets thrown out of the door as fantasy, or worse, insanity. What we need to understand is the whole process is about having a conversation with our higher selves, the spirit within, our divine connection. This is something that has always been with us and is a part of us, though some may find it easier than others. We all have the potential to tap into this part of ourselves, we just have to be open to the idea, make an attempt to develop a connection, and allow it to manifest. Try This: 1. Find a quiet place to sit down and not be disturbed for at least 15 minutes. 2. Sit or lie down and relax. The point is to clear your mind, so if thoughts come in just let it play out and try to put it in a box (in your mind) and move on to the next thought, until you can maintain stillness. 3. If the thought is not going away, and is something of importance. Then perhaps this is the time for you to imagine the possibilities. Try to think of different scenarios, until you can reach what you think is the best possible outcome. Then try to sit in peace. If you find yourself nodding off, listen to monotonous drumming. You can youtube “Shamanic drumming," the sound of the drums, will keep you awake, but still lets you be in that space in your mind. If you find yourself not being able to sit still to focus on “nothing”, perhaps you should try ecstatic dance, yoga, exercise, walking, running, or drumming. Once your body has had its fill of movement, try to lay down and meditate again, or perhaps you may have come to an epiphany during the kinesthetic practice you just did. Try this for 11 to 15 minutes, it is good to keep it short the first few times around, so you can retain your memory, and build the neural pathways in your brain. Living with Visions Visions can vary in many different forms. They can be as simple as seeing in your head the solutions to an issue or challenges you may be having. Some may experience seeing an image, hearing ideas or music, feeling new and sudden emotions, magnetic field sensations from the skin, or smell things that are not present. Others experience seeing repeating numbers or certain figures in their sleep, meditation, or in real life. Those who have deep connection see a form of divinity that is most familiar to them or one that represents a significant meaning that the individual need to learn from. We must learn to discern all these different information, and not let it inflate the ego, or we can end up with delusions of grandeur. When we call upon the spirit to give us a vision, we invoke this energy to come to us into our body, and into our mind. This can be confusing sometimes to people who reach it and are not trained, unprepared, and may be mentally, emotionally, or spiritually unbalanced. This is why it is important to ground yourself, and bring your awareness back down to earth. Sometimes Visions can be so awe-inspiring and life changing that is very hard to communicate all thoughts and ideas in spoken language without sounding crazy. It is also a good practice to keep these divine conversations to yourself, as to minimize the leak of energy of that sacred moment. We must not boast about our spiritual gifts of connection, but only share the stories as a means to inspire and pass down the knowledge and wisdom bestowed upon us by spirit. Seeking Signs from the Divine The most profound visions I believe we can experience is the evoking of signs and manifestation of divine spirit in our waking life. This is when we call out to the universe for a sign, and we actually get it. This happens a lot to many people, but often gets tossed aside as coincidences or ignored deliberately due to hard headedness, fear, or not having enough confidence to take action. A simple sincere prayer is all you need to try. A very good friend of mine told me that “when you’re down on your luck and you are confused. Pray out loud to Spirit, and Spirit will listen and answer.” When you are seriously needing of guidance to or having a hard time coming up with the next step or direction to follow, try this: 1. Find a place to quiet your mind. 2. Acknowledge spirit, by calling out and speaking to your divine, deity or to the universe. 3. State your issue or problem. If you are asking for help or assistance, explain why you need it and how the world will be a better place when you get help. Articulate how by helping you, it will affect others, and ultimately make a big ripple of change and will make the world a better place. 4. Ask for a sign, or a direction to follow. 5. Allow it to happen, by moving on to doing something else to get your mind off your intention. In many practices of magic and manifestation, I’ve found that there are 2 parts. First part is to set the intention, and the second is the let go. We must let the prayer go into our subconscious by letting it go in our mind. Do something else that will completely take your mind off what you just did. Be prepared to face some things you or your ego may not want to do, face, or deal with. Sometimes the answer IS really in front of you or may come in the most mundane or most unexpected way. How will you know? It happens when something unexpected suddenly changes your perspective about the situation you are having an issue with. Simple solution may come to you, or you may get an unexpected help. You might literally see a sign, picture, item, figure, meet someone, hear something, anything that invokes a shift of consciousness. Only you will know, because spirit is specifically talking to you. Most of the time, this happens when we are alone. What you see or perceive may or may not hold the same meaning to someone that you may try to tell it to. Don’t worry if people don’t get it or believe you, but the meaning should make sense to you in the highest form. Above all take everything with a grain of salt, and try to keep a level headedness about your newfound awareness. As I said it is something that we all can tap into and have the ability to improve upon. Have fun and be humble with respect to the spirit you are connecting to as well as other people’s experiences. Interpreting our Visions Keep in mind that what we see and experience is being filtered through our mind, emotions, experiences, and our memories. A good shaman never devalues or negates other people’s visions, but try to find an understanding on how it is interpreted by the person experiencing it. No Vision can be wrong, only interpreted incorrectly. For this we must be careful, and this is why it is very important to always work out our issues, cleanse regularly, and take care of our health. A healthy body paves way to a healthy mental state. A balanced earthly vessel without emotional baggage, can translate etheric and spiritual information much more effectively with a clear mind. Celebrate your connection and success. Honor the spirit by making an altar, keeping a vision or dream journal, or create writings, poems or artwork inspired by your experiences. Share the meaning and lessons you have learned from your experiences and teach others by allowing them to have their own visions and interpretations of our shared reality. Everything in the physical plane was first conceived as a thought, as a stream of data of every conceivable possibilities, or as a dream of infinite potentiality. Once we understand this, we can then step into our visions, and dream a better future. Through this understanding we can reach a new level of life experience. By becoming aware, we become active in our life of conscious co-creation. Simon Cervania www.shamanjay.com