Halloween Unmasked

I guess this week is supposed to be my Christmas?

As a metaphysical/spiritual/extra-dimensional practicioner, this is the time of year when I feel most like Santa. People kinda want me to put on my turban and eyeliner and dance monkey dance.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it. Everyone seems more game, more eager to have their minds blown or their spine chilled.

There are various explanations for this. The phrase I’ve most often heard bandied about is that “the veil is thinner between the worlds.” The “veil” being that cognitive cushion that is normally in place to prevent us from experiencing the invisible world at all times. The implication is that that cushion is exerting less of a hold than other times of the year. There are various ideas about why this is, but what concerns me more (as usual) is what the heck I’m supposed to do with that implication.

Traditionally the period of Hallowmas includes the time between Oct. 31st and Nov. 2nd. Oct. 31st is associated with the pagan holiday of Samhain, a festival to celebrate the end of the harvest, the pagan new year and the honoring of the ancestors.

Nov. 1st is the Catholic All Saint’s Day, which actually starts with a vigil on the evening of the 31st. Did the Catholics do this to coverup the pagan traditions? Or because they knew there was something to this whole "veil" thing?

The saints honored on the 1st are beings who, while alive on Earth, clearly demonstrated their connection to, and faith in, the unseen world of Spirit. They lived a certain way or performed certain actions (miracles) that belied their awareness of a primary, unseen reality to which consensual, material reality is secondary. The saints are like the rock stars of Spirit.

November 2nd, on the other hand, is all Soul’s day. This includes the saints, but also the sinners, and everyone in between. It’s a day to honor all the dead, and especially all of our ancestors, and is sometimes called the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos. We say “I know you’re there now, but I remember when you were here.” They have demonstrated their connection to the Spiritual plane, not through miracles or sacrifices or faith, but simply because they are no longer physically present on the material plane. They are part of the unseen reality because they are no longer visible in the seen reality.

In my work, everything I do or say in some way relates to these typically unseen realities. I have made it my mission to point out the relative thinness of the veil AT ALL TIMES. Most people, however, need this veil to stay in place so that they can carry on with their daily lives. The power of the unseen reality is too challenging, or disorienting, or threatening to exist alongside consensual material reality. Some say this is why the veil is in place. And yet, many people have a memorable experience of a time when this veil has been pulled aside, or something pokes through, or the whole thing gets torn in half. These experiences can be scary, but only because it implies that this reality is not there, but here, all the time, coexisting; we just can’t or don’t look at it.

What’s unique about Halloween is that we want to be scared. We are looking for a thrill or a spook or a shock. I believe this is because we want the veil to be pierced by force. We’ve spent the rest of the year fully subscribing to consensual reality, material existence, so, by the time Halloween rolls around, the other side of the veil feels worlds away. It seems like we can’t just let it in… we need it to sneak up on us and scare us. But why? Because there is an under-attended part of our self which knows it’s there all the time. Halloween is a great time to be reminded.

There are other times of year when the veil is supposedly also thin (Solstices and equinoxes, new and full moons, and a few other astrological events), but like I said, I think it’s always pretty thin. It’s a veil, yo. Not a throw rug.

My suggestion for maximizing the moments of Hallowmas:

1.     Have fun on Halloween. Raise Hell. Demonstrate your connection to the Other Side by doing something spooky, shape-shifting into a costume, or martyring yourself by being the one who takes the kids trick-or-treating.

2.     On the 1st, do a meditation with a saint. Pick a tradition that you love – and look up some of the holy men and women associated with that tradition. Try to find a list and select one at random, asking “Which of these saints has something to teach me today?” Do a little reading, get an awareness of the saint, and then give yourself a 5-10 minute meditation period. Light a candle and do an invocation. “I ask the energy of ----- to teach me whatever I need to know on this day of All Saints”. No expectations or results necessary, you are calling on the frequency of the saint to align your own frequency with it. Sit until you’re done. Then offer gratitude to the saint and go about your day. You may see reflections of the material you turned up, or the energy that was transmitted by doing the invocation. Offer gratitude when you do.

3.     On Nov. 2nd, make an altar to one or all of your dead relatives. Super simple: If you don’t have an altar, just set aside a space (a table, a window sill, or shelf) that won’t be used for another purpose during this time. Wipe it clean and put down a cloth or covering of some sort to designate the sacred space. A candle at the center, maybe a few more around it. Pictures of your relatives or items that belonged to them; accoutrements that make you know it’s for your family. I like to leave offerings of food for my ancestors. Maybe you buy or make something you know they loved, or if you didn’t know them, maybe a dish that is native to your ancestry or country of origin (You can leave them overnight and eat them on the 3rd). Flowers, incense, crystals, decorations, whatever you need to make the altar pleasing to yourself and your loved ones in Spirit. Once you have it set up, either alone or with your loved ones and family members (the alive ones, guys) do a similar invocation/meditation to the Saint’s day. Deep breaths, connecting to the energy of your loved ones in Spirit, say “I ask that my Ancestors give me their strength, power and protection on this day of All Souls.” Pause and receive their energy and love for 5-10 minutes and see if you have any memories, visions, thoughts or experiences that reveal the presence of your deceased loved ones within you and around you. No expectations, this is not as much about your experience as it is about honoring them, but usually, when you reach out with your love, they reach out with theirs. As always, say thank you.

Undying love and spooooooky light to all of you,
Mikey D.
EdibleSpirit

Top 3 Relationship Reminders

I cut my metaphysical teeth on a psychic phone line. Spending 40+hours per week reading rapid fire for an international network exposed me to a vast spectrum of people and problems.  While developing my personal style of soul-based reading and healing I fielded questions about anything and everything. “The line,” however, grouped inquiries under a few broad areas – Work/Money, Life/Destiny, Love/Relationships, even Pets/Animals and Lost Objects/People. You could then pick a psychic who specialized in a specific area of inquiry.

Even though my forte was in long-term, big-picture, existential readings about Past Lives, Purpose, Karma and Life Paths, the majority of my clients on “the line” would ask about love and relationships. After working at it for a few years I started wondering… aren’t all questions about love and relationships? Isn’t EVERYTHING about love and relationships?

Just in case it is, I’m taking the opportunity during this New Moon in Libra to offer you my Top 3 Relationship Reminders. I have more to say on dating, sex, marriage, and soul-mates… but these tips are most useful when conflict arises. May they bring you balance and love in all your complicated connections.

Blessings,
MD

Reminder #1- Back the f—k up.

Assess your level of commitment to the relationship. It seems like a given, but it isn’t. Ask yourself a very blunt question, “Do I want this relationship to work out or not?” Am I invested in sustaining this relationship or do I want to destroy it? Do I want to grow and change, or do I want to win?

Backing up is a great way to know where you stand. It’s a momentary disengagement in which you learn how much or how hard you’re willing to fight, and what you’re fighting on behalf of when you dive in. Once you know what your priority is, you know how much you’re willing to bend… or even surrender. Furthermore, backing up and getting real is a great way to intercept patterns of reactivity, in which you might be spazzing out and reenacting an old, learned behavior. What the dynamic is or where the behavior comes from might be useful to understand down the line, but asking yourself “Do I want to sustain this relationship or destroy it?” is useful in the moment as it stimulates a “get-real” evaluation. This trumps any learned behavior because it brings you into the present and aligns you with your highest intention. Then, you’re either a part of the problem or a part of the solution.

Reminder #2 - Don’t Get It Twisted

There are 3 sides to every story, and two of them are incomplete. When you care enough to go to battle, a line gets drawn. You believe you are justified on your side, even if it’s at the expense of your beloved. Your beloved is 100% certain of the validity of their side, even if it contradicts your own. The 3rd side is the truest side, because it is able to contain the partial truths of both parties, at the exclusion of neither. Furthermore, the 3rd side adds up to a truth that is greater than the sum of its parts, the living breathing experience that is THE RELATIONSHIP between two beings. It contains you, the other, and the shared EXPERIENCE which connects you both. Access this remembrance by affirming, “This is happening to both of us. We are both right about something.” Then, there is no separation side. You are in it together and are both aligned with the 3rd side, the shared space of the relationship which makes it possible for both of you to see the other’s perspective without needing either one to be wholly right.

Reminder #3 - Own Your Shade

Notice when you get bitchy. Notice when you’re feeling staunch, adamant, willful. Notice when you go out of your way to make your point 17 times, and that point is NOT about you, but the person with whom you’re in conflict–what they are doing, what they’re not doing, or what you think they should be doing.

This storm of shade can be your best ally in a relationship. When you feel it building up inside (or even spilling over) it’s usually because your shadow material is being triggered. This is the stuff about yourself that you don’t like or don’t want to look at. If left unexamined it builds up until it boils over. When someone’s behavior is bothering you enough for you to go out of your way and tell them so, it’s probably because that behavior is illuminating some of the stuff that bothers you about yourself.

So, if you find yourself pointing a finger at your beloved, go ahead and turn that finger around and point it at yourself. If you feel the need to shove someone’s face in their shit… it’s probably just your own shit.

This doesn’t mean that it’s always your fault. It just means that when it is, you need to take responsibility for it right quick. To tie it to the first two reminders – Once you are resolved to make a relationship work, use the security that comes from knowing you’re in it together to be brave enough to own your shade and use it to help you do you. A useful affirmation: “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work on myself.”

If you get through these 3 steps and find your conflict resolved, throw in a generous “I love you,” and please, celebrate. If the relationship has survived it will probably thrive. If it’s time to move on, “I love you,” is just as good a finish as any.

The Invocation of Kali

Working on a post about why the moon is not boring almost put me to sleep.

Following the moon and her cycles is one of the easiest ways of staying in tune with your cosmic consciousness. Still, there is a mass of information, both astronomical and astrological, scientific and metaphysic, which can eclipse the simplicity of moon tracking. This info is ALL OVER THE INTERNET RIGHT NOW, and frankly, I’m exhausted. My intention in writing about the moon was to show that you don’t need to understand all the little details of a metaphysical practice in order to use it… and then I got overwhelmed by all the little details.

I will finish that piece, with just the right amount of detail, and post it when it’s time. For now, I’m taking a cosmic cue to keep it simple by sharing this post about cutting the shit.

One of my favorite God forms is Kali, an aspect of Durga, from the Hindu pantheon. She represents a dark maternal force: in her most impersonal form she is the blackness of the void, the cosmic womb in which all of the universes were born; at her most immanent she is the terrible mother aspect… And I’m not just talking about a mean mama bear who will do what she has to when provoked. Kali will do what she has to by any means necessary WITHOUT provocation whether you like it or not and even if it kills you, everyone you know and the entire universe… She is just that devoted and focused. Kind of like an extra-dimensional Serial Mom.

The point is that she requires annihilation in order facilitate creation. Because baby, it’s creation. She knows what goes into it (blood, skulls, and attachment), far better than we mortals, and she flawlessly embodies this knowledge.

In response to the chicken and the egg riddle she might take the egg, break it, make an omelette, then take the chicken and snap its neck, then eat the omelette, the shell, the chickens and the hen house.

You might protest at first, or ask her to explain herself, but she wouldn’t because she doesn’t have to answer. She knows her mission. Her focus and intention are shockingly refined if completely unknowable. All she’d do is pick her teeth with her ancient manicure. Only then, wringing your hands, would you notice that she’d already given birth to 14 new chickens, 3 dozen eggs and a few incubators, along with a forest, a Sawzall and a hammer and nails. All while you were complaining that she wasn’t doing it right.

My point is this. Whatever you may be working with, struggling with, or succeeding in right now, it is always a good idea to lighten your load and trim away the non-essentials.  Trouble is we get obsessed with the minutiae and don’t know what to let go of or how.

If you’re on a trip to find the Holy Grail, and you figure out it’s in New Haven, you could totally stop at the Outlet Mall on the way. I love outlet malls. I can always think of a good reason to go to an outlet mall and I would therefore be justified…  I just wouldn’t be very effective in my Grail-Seeking.

The amazing part about Kali is that she knows it’s all about the Holy Grail, whatever yours may be. She keeps us connected to our goals and destinations, she just couldn’t give a fuuuuuuuuck about the details or detours on the way. She empowers our creative potential, but she’s not a helicopter mom adoring every little thing. She’s kind of intolerant. She does what she does whether we like it or not because she knows what’s most important and will do anything to see it manifest. She makes our dreams come true by brutally eradicating all non-essentials. She encourages alignment and integrity by unapologetically destroying all that is not aligned. She encourages life by facilitating death.

When you call on Kali you are not necessarily asking to be overtaken by her. You are welcoming her force to align with yours. This aspect of the mother is not always appropriate. The fall equinox, however, is arguably the most appropriate time to call this force into your sphere and then exercise it.

The Fall Equinox is one of two moments in the year when day and night are equal lengths. In the Northern Hemisphere night is about to get longer. The ripe, black potency of night is analogous to Kali, and in the solar calendar, the fall equinox is when that powerful darkness begins to dominate our experience. The darkness outside encourages us to connect with the light inside. She’s ready. Chomping at the bit, hungry for heads, and so relieved that now is her time.

The ritual I’m about to offer will give you a way to invoke Kali and harmonize your frequency with hers. IT IS A VERY POWERFUL EXERCISE, so I would recommend only doing it once. Although its inspiration comes from the Equinox, it is a practice that should support any Full Harvest/Vine/Blood Super Moon Eclipse in Aries practices you might be working or wondering about. I think it might even help with the cluster-buggery of Mercury Retrograde.

Most importantly it makes some space for you to pause, open up, and empower that which is aligned with your truth, while a big, loving, nasty, beastly, unrelenting Super Mom comes in and cleans up your psychic room for you. Don’t tell her how to clean it, because she knows. She will not do your laundry. She will burn your unnecessary clothing, and maybe your room, but only if you didn’t need them anyway.

Offered in Service,

Mikey D.

Kali Invocation

1.     Find a picture of Kali that fascinates you.

2.     Make some quiet space and time for yourself. 10-20 minutes is plenty.

3.     Do some sort of practice that brings you into a sacred space; whatever works for you. At the very least, light a candle and take 3 deep, grounding, centering breaths. Imagine a solid, 3 dimensional shape of white light around yourself, and affirm 3 times that you are protected and safe.

4.     Close your eyes and actively summon up all the stuff that’s annoying you: people places and things; beliefs, behaviors and ideas; goals, dreams and disappointments. Really drum them up, call them into your conscious mind, and give them a lot of space in your awareness. Do this for 2-5 minutes.

5.     Open your eyes and bring your attention fully to your picture of Kali. Take the whole thing in, then notice any individual details. Say what you see either out loud or in your mind. Keep noticing details, calling them out as your eye is drawn to them. After 2 or 3 minutes of this, back up and take in the whole picture again. Let your awareness be saturated with Kali. You can even start repeating her name, chanting it to yourself. Do this gentle, saturated gaze with or without chant, for another 2-3 minutes.

6.     Close your eyes again and formally invoke Kali. Ask the frequency of her energy to move through you, to permeate your being and experience, and to remove any and all non-essential aspects of your existence. In quote form it could be as simple as this: “I invoke you, Kali Ma. I call upon you to trim away all that is not essential to the highest expression of myself at this time.”

7.     Take a little time to sit with Kali as she harmonizes her frequency with yours. I'd give this a full 5 minutes, at least. When you are ready, pause, offer her thanks, offer yourself thanks, and offer thanks to the whole universe for this gift of empowered alignment. Affirm that you are protected and safe, then slowly open your eyes.

The only thing I have to mention, by way of caution, is that you should never think about anything bad happening to anyone. Especially not in a ritual. That’s why this is split up so that you summon up all the annoying people places and things, then you call on Kali and ask her to guide you towards your own brightest light by removing all that is not aligned from your path. At no point are you asking Kali to remove anything or anyone specific. You are focusing on the less than desirable in order to give it its due diligence, so that once Kali starts doing her thing you don't have any second thoughts. You do your thing (clocking your undesirables) so she can do hers (steering you toward the desirable by clearing your path).

Sensitivity, Service, and Some Psychic Stuff

When I meet someone, their soul is all I see.

More specifically, their soul is all I feel.

This used to be a problem. I would sense a random person’s truth, their nature, their essence, whether I wanted to or not. It was palpable, although indescribable; I would only know that I knew them because I would start to feel like them. I’d absorb their truth like a sponge until I started feeling like it was my own.

This was my gift, although it felt like anything but. It felt more like hypersensitivity, poor boundaries, or straight-up, cray-cray, get-outta-my-mind/body/spirit-complex-why-do-I-want-to-die insanity.

This dynamic ran through my childhood and adolescence, through my university studies, my therapeutic process, and my post collegiate maturation, and it is still with me today, albeit in a very different form.

I didn’t understand my sensitivity, though, until I started studying healing and the psychic arts. I learned that I was a feeler. A hugger. A sensor. By nature. It was challenging to deal with this vulnerable part of myself; so much so that it felt like a weakness.

It was only a weakness because I was not looking at it. It was only a weakness so that I would be compelled to look at it.

There’s a damn good Rumi quote: The wound is the place where the light enters you.

Your weakness is there to become your strength. It is the place that requires the most attention because it is the place where there is the most potential for growth. I don’t even really like the word weakness. A weakness is only a weakness when you refuse to look at it. If you use your perceived weakness as a kind of homing signal, a beacon, a lighthouse, guiding your awareness boat to shore, it is no longer a weakness. It’s a lighthouse.

I think the way I would add to the Rumi quote, (Lawd, I can’t believe I just said that) is to say: When you bring the light of awareness to your weakness it becomes your strength. When your strength is activated by sustained attention and adoration it becomes empowered. When your empowered strength is harnessed and refined, it is able to be used in service.

Then you have a choice… how to use your strength? You can use it to make your life better, and that’s a great start. Use your empowered strength to make your life better, of course. But there’s a funny thing that happens when you use your power for yourself over and over. You become very powerful, but you can also become kind of a dick.

The trick is to use it for yourself, then others, then yourself again, then others. It's a natural cycle, to discover your gift, use it for yourself, just don't forget to use it for others. Otherwise you create an imbalance and minimize the potential of your power.

It’s like obsessively building one muscle group. Let’s say it’s your arms. Fine. Focus on your arms and you will eventually have really amazing arms. Who can blame you for wanting to look at them all the time? They’re so amazing! So you check them out in the mirror and you keep building them. And dude, they’re even more amazing. You want to show them to other people because they’re so amazing! Then one day a little old lady falls and you have to help her up. You bend over to help her up. She weighs, like, 90 pounds. As you lift her up, POP! You throw your back out cuz bro, your legs are like toothpicks.

I did this with my clairsentience, my empowered sense of psychic feeling. I worked diligently to bring awareness to my perceived weakness, my sensitivity, until it became my greatest strength. Then I kept working, studying, developing, practicing, and loving my sensitivity until it became a powerful tool. I then knew that I had to do readings and healings for others. Problem was, after a little while, I got kind of braggy and annoying about it. I wanted to do readings even if people didn't necessarily want one. I thought everyone needed a healing. I was flexing my sensitivity in the mirror. I worked and worked, and eventually, total psychic slipped disc. I had to take a year off and recover.

That was really hard for me. I was embarassed that I had burnt out. My strength had become a weakness... or so I thought. My perceived weakness was really just another homing signal, guiding me towards a greater refinement of strength and empowerment.

Once I took the time to re-attend to my supposed weakness, I adored it anew until it became a strength again. The meta-moment was when I realized I was using my sensitivity to attend to my sensitivity. The missing ingredient? I had to share the benefits of my service to self by turning again to service to others. I went back to work.

You really don’t have to be a professional psychic, or a healer. That just happens to shore to which my weakness/strength lighthouse guided me. You can use your gift, your exquisitely calibrated weakness that is there to guide you to your equally unique and magnificent strength, in any way that serves you. Just don’t forget to serve others with it also.

Said another way, use your weaknesses to empower yourself, but know that that power is like an Inspector Gadget style self destructing message. Attend to your weakness until you understand it, and it will become a strength. Adore your strength until it becomes a tool. But know that that tool is ultimately made to explode beyond its initial function and into the world around you as empowered service to others.

That act of moving beyond yourself (with sooooo much love) expands your sphere of potential and actually makes it possible to discover and develop new powers you didn’t even know you couldbegin to have. You might feel like they’re weaknesses at first. But give them some light, some attention, some love, and they have the power to change the world.

And all of a sudden your overdeveloped arms don’t look so weird because you are standing strongly on your thoroughly impressive, eminently grounded legs.

With love, and light.
Mikey D.
EdibleSpirit

Some Interviews

I am proud to know these people who are putting the pieces together in their own ways, lucky that they asked to interview me.

First are the soul-full queens - Stephanie Simbari and Elizabeth Kott, presiding over their new, noteworthy, #1 podcast "That's So Retrograde." They are so dang hilarious and are doing amazing work that is right in line with the EdibleSpirit ethos - showing us how to integrate the most out-there, spiritual, now-age stuff into our everyday lives through interviews with unique and amazing people. Forgive my over-communication and enjoy their whip-smart open-hearted infinite-seeking selves.

Next is a thoughtful, sensitive, gracious, and incisive writer named Robert Kuang. He's done some work with me as a healer but we also run in the same artistic circles in NYC. He interviewed me for his website selfcarewithwriters.com. Again, Mikey with the over-communication, but Robert has gorgeously organized our conversation into two parts. The first deals more with how my origins as a restaurant brat have collided with my life as a writer and healer. The second turns toward a discussion on mental illness and spiritual healing, as well as writers block, empowered truth and alignment with yourself. I think it's pretty badass.

Listen to Steph and Elizabeth interviewing me on Soundcloud HERE.
Subscribe to the That's So Retrograde podcast HERE.
Follow them on instagram and twitter @soretrograde.

Part I of the interview with Robert Kuang HERE
Part II of the interview HERE