Category: Awareness

2018: The Year of Illumination

As I said in a previous post, Numbers are a shorthand code. As we live in a universe of vibrational energy, numbers are significant.

The year 2018 is broken down as:
2 + 0 + 1 + 8 = 11

 

Here is what Joanne Walmsley wrote about it on her Angel Numbers blog:

Number 2018 is a combination of the energies and influences of number 2 and number 0, and the attributes and vibrations of number 1 and number 8.  Number 2 relates to service and duty, balance and harmony, adaptability, diplomacy and co-operation, consideration and receptivity, fulfilment and happiness, and your Divine life purpose and soul mission. Number 0 resonates with developing one’s spiritual aspects and represents the beginning of a spiritual journey and suggests that you listen to your intuition and higher-self. Number 0 also amplifies the energies of the numbers it appears with, and relates to eternity, infinity, oneness, wholeness, continuing cycles and flow, potential and/or choice, and the beginning point.  Number 1 resonates with initiative, instinct and intuition, self-leadership and assertiveness, new beginnings and a fresh approach, motivation, tenacity, striving forward and progress, and also reminds us that we create our own realities by our thoughts, beliefs and actions.  Number 8 brings personal power and authority, inner-wisdom, truth and integrity, dependability and self-reliance, good judgement,manifesting abundance and prosperity, the concept of karma and the Universal Spiritual Law of Karma.

Since Eleven is a repetition of the number one, it doubles the energy, making it a pattern. Repeated numbers like 11, 22, 33 and 44 are master numbers. When the numbers within a year are reduced to a master number, it is a powerful year.

Here is information from Angel Numbers blog about the Number 11:

The karmic Master Number 11 symbolizes the principles of spiritual awakening and enlightenment, high energy, idealism, inspiration and intuition, illumination, visionary, enthusiasm, creative/creativity, self-expression and sensitivity, and mysticism. Number 11 tells us that to connect with our higher-selves is to know and live our soul mission and life purpose. Master Number 11 is usually called ‘the Illuminator’, ‘the Messenger’ or ‘the Teacher’ and relates to those who are here to be inspirational guiding lights, and their mission is to bring illumination to others and to help raise spiritual awareness.

Angel Number 11 brings a message from your angels to pay special attention to your thoughts and ideas as these are revealing the answers to your prayers. Your positive affirmations and optimistic attitude will manifest your desires and help you to achieve your goals and aspirations. They will also assist you upon your spiritual life purpose and soul mission.

Angel Number 11 encourages you to contribute your unique perspective and philosophy to instigate a new consciousness. Seek out some form of outlet where there can be active participation, whether it be through one’s own profession or some charitable organization. Working with others gives the opportunity to be the inspirational leader, setting an example for others to learn from.

Angel Number 11 encourages you to assist and inspire the human race via your natural abilities, relying upon your inner-wisdom and intuition to guide you.

Angel Number 11 encourages you to be an inspirational guiding light to bring illumination to others and help raise spiritual awareness.

There’s that magical word for this year:
i l l u m i n a t i o n

 

We are here to shine our Light this year in whatever way best expresses our soul, using our own unique talents and abilities., otherwise known as our gifts.

One of my traditional New Years rituals is listening to New Year’s Day by U2.

Here are the lyrics that have a special meaning for us now:

Under a blood-red sky
A crowd has gathered in black and white
Arms entwined, the chosen few
The newspapers says, says
Say it’s true, it’s true…
And we can break through
Though torn in two
We can be one

It’s so relevant that lyrics were written by an Irish band in the early 80s about the Polish Solidarity movement for an album entitled “War” could hold so much meaning in 2018. Especially here in the USA where “fake news” and politics have divided a nation.

I believe that there are enough of us who can stand together and break through this separation that we have been in way too long.

I feel it is time to light up the world with our joy. Time for new insights. Time to listen to our intuition if we haven’t been before. Time to be inspired and follow our inspiration to create new ways of interacting with each other. Time to imagine the endless possibilities…

It’s time for Illumination. Time to shine brightly this year!

Always,
Alice Always

All the World’s Indeed a Stage and We are Merely Players

All the world’s indeed a stage
And we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each another’s audience
Outside the gilded cage

Those are lyrics from the song “Limelight” by the Canadian rock band, Rush. This adaptation of Shakespeare was written by drummer Neil Peart and sung by bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Geddy Lee.

The origin of the song is a speech from William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It. Act II, Scene VII, features one of Shakespeare’s most famous monologues which begins:

All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts …

Though I love many of Shakespeare’s monologues, this one is best depicted as a song running through my head throughout my life since I first heard it on the Rush Moving Pictures album in 1981 when I was a teenage fan.

Theater as a metaphor for life is a concept I entertained when I was still in the single digits of life. I was one of those philosophical, geeky, 4-eyed kids who just couldn’t get into sports because my hands, eyes, arms, and legs didn’t know how to work in conjunction. I couldn’t do cartwheels, skip rope with others holding the end of the jump rope, or run at the pace of others.  I barely scraped by in gym class.

I couldn’t sing on-key but that never stopped me from singing to myself. It still doesn’t.

I found myself on a stage in Theatre class in college where we did a session on Improv acting. A student director approached me afterward and told me I had a stage presence. He asked me to be in his play but I was too nervous to say yes.

I was afraid of making a mistake in delivering scripted lines. Imagine what might have become if I had gone beyond my fear.

I may have ended up on the right path a lot sooner.

I had jobs at the local Renaissance Faire where I could create a character and play act but that ended a while back. The last dozen or so years I’ve portrayed other facets of myself: a pirate chic named Red-Handed Ginny and a faerie queen called Queen Goo.

I’m a silly person who enjoys playing different roles with friends. I often play Mario to my best friend’s Luigi where-a I talk with-a lousy Italian accent. In real life, I have a distinctive Sout’side (the “h” is silent) Chicago dialect no one else in my family seems to have. It’s all part of the character I play in my imagination.

We all play various characters in the theatre of life: child, sibling, friend, parent, lover, student, teacher, employee, coworker, boss or fill-in-the-blank.

A lot of times we juggle roles.

In the 1965 animated Peanuts Christmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Linus,  with his blue security blanket and profound philosophical nature, gives a narrative of the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke which ends with:

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.

Linus is playing the narrator in that play.

In the theatre of life, there are times when we are in the spotlight of center stage, on the side, backstage or in the audience.

There are people who always want to be the center of attention and demand that we give our attention to them. In our society, we make celebrities out of them, obsessing to no end about what they did or what they said. Some of them can be so ego-driven that they upstage everyone in their lives and may attack those who have a different perspective.

We call them drama queens in everyday life and tyrants in positions of power. They care more about themselves and their own interests than everyone else. In their world, everyone is the audience praising them or antagonists who vilify them. Their reality is warped because their ego is out of control.

We get sucked into their world. When we give them our attention, it feeds their egos. When we give them our attention, it takes away from us doing something wonderful for ourselves.

Getting hooked on their little reality show often makes us forget that we have the right to be center stage as well.

All of us have the right to tell our version of the story, to think for ourselves. We don’t have to believe what another says just because they said it.

When Linus got onstage, he spoke words of love, to which I say:

The ability to shine in the light
is available to all.
Spreading a message of peace
and goodwill uplifts everyone.

Imagine the world if we all actually lived the lessons of kindergarten: sharing, caring, kindness and respect.

Imagine the world if we all gave attention to our joy instead of our misery. Imagine if we stopped attacking those who are different from us. Imagine if our choices were made from a warm loving heart instead of a reactive hot head. Imagine if we listened more than we talked.

Do you ever wonder how our world change if we changed the play?

Always,
Alice Always

What Awareness Can Do For You

In a previous blog post, I wrote about my personal experience with pain. After I published it, I asked myself, now why did I do that?

My original intention for this blog was to be something l fun, light-hearted and inspiring. But writing that post, I went down a rabbit hole that I didn’t expect.

Given what is happening currently worldwide, I think a lot of people feel that they also went down an unexpected rabbit hole also.

I said that there are no accidents. only lack of awareness of what is happening. In questioning my action, I began to see more clearly.

The pain I felt within my body had slowed me down to the point to see the gift, which was to see the beauty of my own pain.

I realized what is truly important, just being in the moment. When you don’t rush yourself, you realize that you are exactly where you need to be.

You begin to see that your life is unfolding perfectly and always has been.

You begin to see the purpose behind everything that has happened in your life, the truth of who you are.

The veil of forgetfulness that is placed upon you when you are born begins to lift.

You begin to fully awake.

Always,
Alice Always

The 1111 Gateway of 2017 and What It Means for Us

Today is 11/11/17 and as it is the same number repeated twice, it is amplifying the vibration of the numbers 1 and 11.

Do you see 11:11 all the time? It is a sign that the Universe is telling you to be present with your thoughts.

Author Doreen Virtue says of multiples of the number one:
“If you continually see the numbers 11, 111, or 1111, there’s a reason. The most common way that angels communicate with humans is through the universal languages of numbers and music.

The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras was the first to establish that numbers hold vibrational properties. He taught that the entire universe is mathematically precise.

When you see repetitive number sequences, this is a message from your angels, or if you prefer, spirit guides, the Universe, God, your Higher Self, the Big Kahuna, Bob, or whatever. It doesn’t matter how you define where a message comes from because when you truly understand, you will see that everything is One.

For the sake of this post, I am calling the messengers angels, as I originally found the information from Doreen Virtue who called them angel numbers because of her personal interactions with the illuminated beings.

The word Angel comes from the Greek word Angelos meaning messenger. Calling them angel numbers makes sense as they are messages.

You can ask your angels what they are trying to tell you, and if you listen in stillness, you will hear their answers clearly. Sometimes, though, if you are stressed or in a hurry, it is not as easy to hear your angels and you may miss a message that was sent to you.

You may even disregard the idea that numbers hold meaning and vibration because it sounds ridiculous to you and doesn’t go along with the belief system that you were raised in. When you close yourself off to things that you never thought of before, you close yourself off to insights that might have otherwise been gleaned.

Numbers are a shorthand code. In the case of multiple number ones, they represent an energy gateway. The more number ones you see, the stronger the energy is contained.

In practical terms, this means that your thoughts are going through a cycle where they are manifesting instantly into form. You think it, and boom! It happens. When these cycles occur, it’s extra important to keep your thoughts focused on your desires, and to stay positive. Otherwise, your fears may manifest instantly. You can ask Heaven to uplift you so that your thoughts are focused on the highest possibilities.

1, 11, 111, and 1111 in Angel Numbers all mean: “Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts are manifesting instantly into form. Focus only upon your desires and not upon your fears.”

Double digit days are gateway days when we are able to receive energy of increased magnitude.

At 11:11 am today, I was visiting the cemetery where my parents are buried. I had not planned this, but that is how it worked out. At 1:11 pm, I was meditating and had a vision. Two rows of columns like the number one spread out and I walked between them, remembering a poem that I wrote in 1991. I’ll write more about my poetry another time.

The vision I had was of the cosmic gateway of 1111, which was at its strongest at 11:11 on 11/11/11. At 11:11 am that morning, I wrote a poem as the energies were inspiring me to do so. Over the years I kept telling myself that I would publish it as a book because it is rather lengthy. I never got around to it but I am feeling that it is something I need to do now as we are in a very unusual time.

This particular year is a one year because the numbers add up to one. 2017 breaks down to 2+0+1+7=10. Then break the number ten down 1+0=1. One is about new beginnings. In the breakdown of the year numbers, the energy of one is amplified yet again.

You can go deeper into each number for each has its unique vibration. Every moment has a particular energy because of the influences of the planets, moon and stars and their positions to each other and us.

Planetarily, we have been going through a time of chaos and this is all part a shift in consciousness as old systems are beginning to fall away.

Divisions have been sown to keep us divided and stuck in fear-based mindsets. This is being played out in the USA in the political spectrum. There is so much talk of “fake news” right now that it can be difficult to see what is real and what is not.

We are all conditioned based on our beliefs and we will side with whatever side supports our personal belief system.

Read the comments below any political news article on Facebook and you will see people attacking each other. That is what needs to stop. We all need to look beyond our differences and stand together united or we will lose what we worked so hard to attain.

The best you can do is to live from your heart. Keep focused on love and only love.

Always,
Alice Always

The Present of Being Present: Awareness

I started writing this post exactly 4 months ago today. At that time, I was working at a job that was wreaking havoc on my health. It’s rather curious that I would return to this post on the exact same day (on the 23rd of all days – more about that another time). It’s also rather curious that my mind would be concerned with being present. My present (yes, pun intended) circumstances lend a lot to what is happening.

I will say this now and probably will say it again and again:

There are no accidents,
only lack of awareness of what is happening.

Here is what I wrote on June 23, 2017:

The word for today is present. Every single day, not just this one, that is, if we are truly present.

I’m in a very difficult situation. I work at a back-breaking job and I’m reaching my personal breaking point as Humpty Dumpty in regards to my joints.

I have arthritis in my fingers, wrists, neck, back, hips and now possibly in the knee. Pain is par for the course.

I just came back from the doctor. I wanted relief. He said I’ll just have to live with it.

I refuse to accept pain as a way of life.

Today, October 23, 2017, I am experiencing severe pain in my joints throughout my body. There is a low-pressure front and it is causing swelling.  On days like today, the stiffness makes me move extremely slow like an Ent.

I’m not complaining about this. I am trying to illustrate what it feels like to have widespread arthritis with a bit of humor. I’ve been doing a mental exercise to alleviate the pain by just observing it. In time I hope to be in a pain-free life, but that is not today.

This morning when I woke up an old poem I wrote years ago came to my head:

After we see
the beauty
of our own pain
then we begin

The image of a painting I did that was based on that poem also flashed through my mind. Here it is:

“Beauty of Pain” by Ginny Gaura

I created this mixed-media piece about 15 years ago when the arthritis was localized to my lower back. I didn’t create this painting because of physical pain. I was experiencing emotional pain back then.

But pain is pain whether it is emotional or physical. It is not pleasant.

Back in the early 2000s my fingers were just beginning to develop osteophytes, bone spurs that disfigure my joints. Back then, I didn’t have pain in my hands, I just had a few swollen joints. Now the hand pain is sometimes so severe that daily activities such as typing can cause pain. Also, my fingers are crooked on my right, which is the dominant hand.

I am only 55. My mom developed bone spurs in her hands later in life. When she passed at 77, her joints were not as disfigured as mine are now.

I have had back issues since I was a teenager and was diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the spine with bone spurs in my thirties, so the illness has had a long time to progress.

Someone in the public eye claimed that his bone spurs got better. At least from my experience, bone spurs only get worse with time.

Sometimes there is a gift within the pain if we allow ourselves to see it. For me, it is awareness. I am aware of what is hurting but I am not letting it overpower my life. I am listening to my body, moving it slowly and treating it with care. What is happening is allowing me to open more fully in awareness, to see things in a more intense light, to be more present in the moment.

What new awareness have you had recently?

Always,
Alice Always

 

Self-Love: The Most Important Gift that We Give to Ourselves

In my last post, I talked about gifts that we give can share with others, the things that make us unique. Today I’m talking about something that many of us have difficulty with: self-love.

There is a saying that you cannot love another person without loving yourself first. But I am capable of loving others, I know that. I have wonderful loving relationships with relatives and friends. And I genuinely feel a deep love for my boyfriend.

When it comes to loving myself, that is another story. Right now, I am constantly criticizing myself for what I consider my faults: indecisiveness, procrastination, making choices and later regretting them, and battling bouts of severe depression and anxiety which prevent me from doing so many things.

My thinking patterns have been chaotic of late and trying to move ahead with this blog has been rough. I have fears of rejection and fears of success created by issues of low self-esteem from childhood that I am still working through. As a result, I have been writing posts but not sharing them. Well, more like not finishing them because I get distracted so often.

I have had things happen in the last year that has set me back further than I ever expected. I thought by now I would be making progress but I feel like a turtle in a world of rapidly moving digitally-oriented people who thrive on the constant changes of the age.

I grew up in an age prior to the World Wide Web, though I have been using Macs as a graphic designer since the early days of Apple and Photoshop. Back then, when I made a change in Photoshop, I would have to wait a while for it to finish processing on the screen. I could go get a coffee and when I came back, the spinning ball of death had stopped.  Or at least I hoped. Boredom drove me crazy back them.

Now everything is instantaneous. There is no time for boredom. It’s nice but it reminds me of how fast time goes by and how much I still have to do.

Our lives are to teach us how to love. We create stories and judgments in our heads of how we think life should be and that does not serve us at all.

I am doing my best to let go of my self-criticisms and it is an ongoing process.

We can be so hard on ourselves, yet we can be more accepting when we see the same behaviors in others.

I have to comfort my little inner child many times a day that everything is alright. I often put my hands on my heart and tell that little one inside who is scared and frightened that she is safe and loved.

If you are going through a rough patch now and dealing with issues of self-love, you are not alone.

Place your hands over your heart and feel it beating. Breathe deeply and picture a golden light within your heart. Continue breathing deeply and feel the light expand outward. Feel its warmth.

That feeling is the love that is you.

Always,
Alice Always