Tending the Sacred Fire

This episode came from an impromptu conversation with one of my dearest friends, Lilla. Besides being one of the founding members of The Oshun Collective, Lilla also operates a Virtual Assistant business, focusing primarily on growing social media accounts for her clients. She reached out for some spiritual guidance around her business, her desire to be a digital nomad, and the travel she completed earlier this year. Part way in the conversation, Lilla asked if it would be possible to record our session so she could go back and reference it in the future, which I of course agreed to right away. When we were done recording, I asked if I could share a portion of the conversation as a podcast episode, and this is what you will find here. We talk about being a spiritual entrepreneur, how to find a business that is aligned with your passion and purpose, and how to tap into the everyday synchronicities that have been happening in your life since you were very young, as a way of better understanding what it is you were born into this life to create. We speak briefly on the concept of Akashic Records, what the Akash is, and how understanding the Akash can be of benefit in determining the pattern of not only this life, but every life you have lived in the past, and every life you are still meant to live. We also tie in how the concept of Karma relates to the Akash, and how to use Karma as a way to help determine if you're on the right path.

I am joined for this episode, which is Season One, Episode Eleven (1.11) by my dearest friend and spiritual guide, Michelle Badagliacca. Michelle is a Reiki Master and Instructor, hosts her own podcast (Soul Over Matter), runs a monthly Women's Circle titled SiSTARhood, and is by far one of my favorite people. She can be found on Instagram as @michelle.the.mystic and I highly recommend you take the time to follow her. Our conversation today revolves around healing, specifically spiritual healing. We will touch on what spiritual healing is, how we can identify spiritual wounds we may carry, and how we may be able to tell when healing of these invisible wounds is actually taking place. Understanding how to heal our spiritual energies is one of the most important skills we can learn, especially in a highly divisive environment like we are seeing in the world today.

Today my guest is my good friend, Stephanie, who I've known for about two years now. Stephanie is a licensed yoga instructor and spiritual guide who can be found on Instagram as @divine.cosmic.empress. She also has a YouTube channel and her own podcast (Divine Cosmic Journey) which can be found on Spotify as well as most of the common podcast platforms.  In this episode, we discuss the concept of Self-Worth: what it is, how we define it, and also how to remove the layers of conditioning placed upon us by our family and society that might keep us from not only discovering our self-worth, but also engaging with our own sense of value in a way that enables creativity and passion to be fully expressed.

I am joined by two fabulous women for whom I have the utmost admiration and respect for this episode. The first is Bekah Komar (Instagram: @bekahkomar), founder and CEO of The Oshun Collective (http://www.oshuncollective.com) and the second is Dr. Marissa Castello (Instagram: @the.spirited.doctor), who is a naturopathic doctor and the author of Sauced: 21 Irresistible Plant-Based Sauce Recipes to Make Eating Healthy More Pleasurable. Our conversation today is around attachments, what they are, where they come from, and if there is anything we can be attached to that is positive in nature, or if all attachments carry some form of negative impact for us either in the short term or further down in our lives. We also discuss ways that we can learn to identify and move through attachments, including everything from our daily habits to the attachment we may carry around the subject of mortality and death. This is a fantastic episode filled with some great questions, amazing suggestions and response, and plenty of humor and laughter throughout. 

My guest for this episode is Aluna Lua, an entheogen guide and spiritual teacher with a deep history in and knowledge of plant and animal medicine and their uses. She has a wonderful message to share about not only the importance of integration when using these medicines, but also the care and concern we should all embrace as we approach sacred traditions such as these. Lua can be found on her website at http://www.alunalua.com, or on Instagram under @AlunaLua7. She is the founder and guide of a six-month prayer and integration program called the Ascension Academy, which is designed for people who are ready to go deeper into their experience with plant medicine, whether that might be sacred tobacco, cannabis, Kambo, Ayahuasca, or any of the other sacred medicines. Her knowledge and commitment to being a pure container for the expansion of entheogens within the larger spiritual community is admirable and so needed in the community. 

My guest for this episode is Sarah Bofinger, someone I've known and worked with for nearly a year now. Sarah has an amazing story to share about her journey towards being a swimmer in the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games. She shares how she used the power of surrender to create and manifest to her even more than she had dreamed was possible, and it all happened the moment she began to follow the precepts of the quote that I discussed in Episode Two, "Until One is Committed". Come join Sarah and I for a fun-filled conversation about how to not only trust that the Universe always has our backs, but also how to embrace the aspect of play as we go about our days manifesting our desires. Sarah is one of the partners of The Oshun Collective (http://www.oshuncollective.com) where she participates in delivering coaching and self-development services through various courses and other resources designed specifically for spiritual entrepreneurs, coaches and lightworkers to expand their impact and consciousness. She can be reached through Instagram (@mergoddess11) or through her blog (https://mergoddess.wordpress.com). 

This episode is my most vulnerable one yet. I will be speaking in more detail about some of the trauma that I experienced as a youth, so there may be parts of this that might trigger some people. I am also speaking about how I've been incorporating plant medicine as a way of healing from these traumas, and the insights that I had during my last plant medicine ceremony, which was an online cannabis medicine retreat that my friend Lua (@alunalua7) was hosting.  As always, if you would like to talk about any of the subjects that I speak about, or if you just want to send a message and tell me what you think of this podcast, feel free to connect on Instagram (@sacredfirepodcast) or email me at [email protected]. Jai Guru!

If the concept of Spiritual Freedom means we are learning to trust and depend on an unseen force that is larger than what we see as our 'self' in this physical plane of existence, then the opposite of that would be Spiritual Entanglement, where our energies become entangled in the energies of the world. How we recognize when this happens and how we disentangle ourselves from these lower vibrational fields is why we have Spiritual Freedom to begin with. Our initial awakening is typically not created from our own volition, however, using the concept of Spiritual Freedom (trusting Source/God/Higher Self/Universe/Etc to take care of our needs) we can create situations where each new level of awakening is completely in our control. Doing so disentangles us from any 'negative' or lower vibrational energies that are holding us in bondage to the current belief systems of the world.

What is Spiritual Freedom and how do we engage with this to propel our spiritual growth to the highest level? This podcast dives into the understanding of freedom, especially as it relates to spirituality, and looks at how free we really are to live the life we want to live. I take a look at how our karmic imprint (akashic records, past life experiences, etc) play a roll in everything from the family we are born into, to the type of life we are meant to have, to the level at which we will awaken, and what that awakening will mean.

Understanding the Law of Gender, which is one of the Twelve Universal Spiritual Laws, enables us to better understand the way in which the Divine Cosmic energies operate, why we are able to manifest and create at greater speeds some times, and how to better align our energies with the universal flow that has been in operation since the Big Bang first went boom. This is not a conversation about sexuality, gender identity or anything related to those topics. It is an understanding of the fundamental principles that are present in every segment of reality, and an understanding of how to best utilize these energies to promote the life we are meant to live.