Transformation

My partner Dan had eye surgery this week to correct a cataract. He had his left eye done 2 years ago and this time it was for his right eye. Now Dan is only 38 years old. When we told people that he had to have cataract surgery everyone had the same response. "But he's so young". This made me think back to when I was about 20 years old. Every few months my foot would swell and I couldn't walk on it. It was like I had broken my foot. I would go for x-rays and tests and by the time we had the results the foot was just fine. One day when this happened, I went to a doctor who I still go to today. She took one look at my foot and promptly announced, "You have Gout". Again, being in my very early 20's people said, "That's so strange that it would happen when you're so young". In fact, I believe most of the other doctors missed this diagnosis because of my age. It never even crossed my mind. As I was thinking about these things this week, it suddenly occurred to me that not only were people commenting on how strange it is for young people to be ill, but how normal it is for older people to become sick in some way. You see, as a society we expect that as we grow old we will grow ill. And if we stay healthy, we are simply lucky. But is that really the case, or is it just our expectation? Eli Khamarov said, "The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations." So, when we least expect something is when great things begin to happen. This was proven to me just yesterday. I had done some consulting work a few months ago that was never paid for. I chalked the loss up to "the economy" and had no expectation of getting paid from this client. Now I could have sent letters, made countless phone calls, threatened to sue and so on. But this is someone who has been a very good client and friend in the past and as things "pick up" will likely be a good contact for the future. So, I just forgot about it. I put it out of my mind. Out of the blue, I got a call yesterday asking to make sure my address was the same so he could send a check. It was when my expectation for not getting paid was forgotten that the unexpected happened. Have you ever had this same type of thing happen in your life? I was invited a few weeks ago to watch a movie of the life story of Mother Theresa. It was a wonderful film and incredibly inspiring. One of the scenes showed Mother Theresa giving food to a group of children. She promised them they would have more tomorrow. The Nuns asked her how she could be sure and she said, "God will provide". Sure enough, the next day people were donating food so the children she was helping could eat. What happens in our lives? Do we ever have situations where God, or God and Goddess or Spirit doesn't provide? If so, what are we doing wrong? Well, often we do work in ritual toward a goal. But rather than leaving that goal to the Gods to fulfill, we map out everything that will happen on the way to that goal. So, the first time something doesn't go "as planned" we give up on the entire thing. Our expectation becomes "this won't work." What does all this have to do with transforming our lives through our Wiccan Path? Well, every religion has its ways of learning. For those of the Jewish Faith it's the Old Testament. For Christians it's the New Testament. For Muslims, it's the Koran. For Buddhists it's the Tao. As Wiccans we don't have a book. We may have a teacher, an elder or even a coven. But ultimately they are sharing their own experience. What we have is The Earth. Nature. We learn from the Mother herself about life and all the lessons are there. So, how does transformation happen in nature? There are two ways that this typically happens? It happens through growth and through metamorphosis. Growth is the one we are all familiar with. From the moment we were conceived we have been growing in body. From the moment we were born we have been growing in thoughts and ideas. As a child, before you could even speak, you grew. You had no expectation of growth. You were merely following your nature. When a seed is planted the tree is already the natural outcome. The seed doesn't need to be convinced to grow in to a tree. It only has to follow its nature to do so. We have been hearing a lot about the economy lately. We are bombarded with unemployment data, credit and foreclosure issues and the insecurity of the financial future. We are being convinced to expect lack. But is there less money today than there was 5 years ago? Are there fewer things that can be bought? Or do we just have different expectations? There are no fewer blades of grass this year than last year, or the year before or 5 years ago. There are no fewer leaves on the trees. There are no fewer animals with offspring. So, nature is unaware that there is lack. Nature doesn't get CNN. The Earth hasn't been told "you might want to save some grass for a rainy day." Trees have not been told, "Don't make so many leaves because you never know when you will need them." Animals are unaware to "put off having children until the economy is better." So, why have we been able to convince ourselves to expect what nature isn't even aware of? In simplest terms, words when they fall upon fertile ground become the definition of a spell. What has literally been happening is the casting of spells upon people and people are willing to accept these spells and allow themselves to be effected by them. We are falling away from the harmony we have with nature into the discord of these words. It is changing our thoughts, feelings and actions. This is by definition "black magic". Thomas Troward in his book The Creative Process in the Individual said, "It is necessary for the Universal Spirit to be always harmonious with itself." So, there are truly two states of being in the Universe, that of harmony and that of discord. Spirit is always in harmony with itself, so how do we know if we are in harmony with spirit? Well, we must first understand that we are spirit as much as we are any other element. We are spiritual children of the God and Goddess. We are of the same substance that Universal Spirit is. How do we know this? Well, let's start with an example in music. When we hear 3 people sing in perfect harmony, it makes our body and soul feel good. We enjoy the sound. It can change us even at the emotional level. But when they are off key, or in discord the sound is unpleasant. We have the inherent ability to tell harmony from discord. Here's another example. Have you ever complimented someone and seen them smile? How did it make you feel? Did you stay happy all day? On the other hand have you ever "snapped" at someone? Gotten angry for what later seemed like no reason at all? How did that make you feel? Kindness is in harmony with the Universal Spirit. Anger is in discord. So, we have discussed growth. Now let's talk about metamorphosis. Complete change. The most striking example of this is the butterfly. It starts out a caterpillar and goes through a complete change. Even more dramatic is the tadpole. Through a metamorphosis it becomes a frog. This is more than merely growth. The tadpole grows 4 legs that were not there before, grows lungs that were not there before, it's gills close, its tail shrinks and disappears, it goes from eating vegetation to a carnivorous diet. This is an amazing transformation. This is what we believe took fish hundreds of thousands if not millions of years to accomplish. Now it happens in weeks. It is this transformation, or metamorphosis that lead many people to Wicca. We don't just agree with some ideas or think it would be cool to worship in a nature centered way. We are transformed by the sense of spirituality we discover. We are willing to leave behind our old beliefs and greet new expectations of what it is to be a spiritual being. Marcel Proust said, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. So, how do we begin the transformation of our life? What do we do to start on our new journey? First and foremost we realize that our words matter. Our words are spells. One of the first things to look at is what "fertile ground" these words, or spells fall on. We normally refer to this fertile ground as the subconscious mind. In understanding the subconscious mind, we must understand that the subconscious mind does not realize anyone exists in the world besides you. In his book The Power of your Subconscious Mind, Dr. Joseph Murphy states "Do not think ill of another for to do so is to think ill of yourself." Once we realize that negative thoughts, ideas and words are actually negatives spells we are casting and that our subconscious mind is casting them for ourselves, we realize where many of our struggles that we deal with even today are coming from. By the same token, any positive thoughts, ideas and words we have are also positive spells we cast on our own life. When we understand and live this, we will begin to transform our lives.