Hello to all kindred souls sharing this journey of Life!
Once again, many months have passed since my last blog post. Like so many others I know, these months have been spent with me simply trying to keep my head above water during extremely turbulent times that often have felt like a riptide pulling me away from all known and familiar shores. In short, these have not been easy months for me and I know I have not been alone in being immersed in challenge, loss and change.
My last blog entry back in August was in honor of the first anniversary of my son Tim’s transition from life in his human form back to the mysterious (at least to those of us still here on Earth) world of Spirit. Somehow it feels fitting that my next post coincides with St Patrick’s Day, a day that Tim dearly loved to celebrate. He was proud of his Irish roots and heritage, and this year again on the day dedicated to the “wearin’ o’ the green” I will wear his well worn green t-shirt with the words “Made in Ireland” stamped across the front. I used to kid him when he wore that shirt and always tell him that he was actually "Made in Connecticut." He would just laugh and still good naturedly insist that his roots were Irish at the core.
When I last posted, I was in the midst of another 6 month legally allowed stay in Alberta, Canada with Ziggy, my dear friend and companion in life and expansion of consciousness and the spirit for the last 9 years. Ziggy, who had always been in excellent health and extremely physically fit, had been diagnosed with a spinal tumor just months after Tim’s transition and my own fall on concrete that resulted in 3 broken bones on the day of our Celebration of Life memorial for Tim. To say that 2013 was a challenging year and one for the record books would be quite an understatement. Early in 2014 Ziggy underwent delicate surgery to remove the tumor, only to have his doctors shocked and amazed by the size of it. They couldn’t remove it in just one operation so 2 weeks after the first one, he underwent a second. After it, his surgeons were optimistic that they had removed it all and that his prognosis was good. He underwent weeks of orthopedic rehab to regain his walking and other motor skills that were affected by the tumor and he was doing very well with this when I arrived back in Alberta last Easter Sunday. Unfortunately that didn’t last as had been hoped and by midsummer Ziggy was starting to lose function that he had previously regained after the surgery. By late September it was apparent that the tumor had returned and it eventually was diagnosed as malignant and a very rare form of bone cancer. He faced this valiantly and with a courage and fearlessness that was inspiring to everyone who knew and loved him. He had no fear of death and let everyone know that he would welcome exploring the new realms that came after it, likely as “Commander Z” in his infamous and beloved spaceship that was legendary to all who listened to his dream state/altered state experiences that were as real to him as the sun rising and setting each day. He made his transition on November 29 surrounded physically and energetically by the family who loved him so much.
I’ve spent the winter in the little house in the mountains of New Mexico that Ziggy and I had shared prior to his return to Alberta last year when his tumor was diagnosed. Much of this time for me was spent in snowbound isolation here at 7200’ elevation in the Rocky Mountains of the southwestern United States. Now as Spring finally approaches I feel myself so ready to emerge from this cocoon I’ve been sequestered in, some of it spent virtually in a fetal position crying “Uncle!” to the Universe as far as what I felt capable of handling in this particular go round on Planet Earth.
I’ve cried a lot of tears this winter, still grieving the human loss of Tim and then having to allow myself to grieve Ziggy’s passing and the complete loss of my old life as well, and I felt that I was at my breaking point more than once. Yet I’ve made it through, often with the only company I had being not of this dimension. :-) Ziggy did make contact with me energetically shortly after he made his transition and I know from our communication that he is alive and well in the new dimension/s he’s residing in and eager to share his expanded perceptions of reality as soon as I’m in the space myself to be completely receptive to that. It’s been quite the juggling act for me to allow all of my human feelings and emotions to be acknowledged, felt and expressed without judgement of them while still maintaining my understanding of life being eternal and not ending with death of the human body. I know that when I am in a balanced place in my own dancing with this that eternal love and our ongoing communication ability is ever present.
This week Spring arrives here in the Northern Hemisphere with the Vernal Equinox of Friday March 20 being accompanied by a total solar eclipse on the new moon in Pisces. Eclipses generally come in pairs and this Equinox’s solar eclipse will be complemented by a lunar eclipse on the full moon in Libra of Saturday April 4 (dates and time in my own MDT time zone). Easter is celebrated the following day, Sunday April 5. March 16/17 is the 7th and final Uranus square Pluto aspect since the first in June 2012 and much has been written about the potent effect these particular astrological squares have on humanity and the planet. To say that we are entering a very powerful window of energies now would not be an overstatement. These are unprecedented times on our dear Earth, and while they can be intense and challenging, they also offer incredible opportunities for growth and expansion when that is allowed. How we emerge from this powerful energetic time is entirely up to each of us and dependent on our attitude, perspective and willingness to trust, surrender and allow the process of transformation to unfold.
Yesterday while I was enjoying watching the birds and squirrels and bunnies playing and feeding in my backyard, I saw my first butterfly of the season here in New Mexico. It was flitting about on new wings in what seemed to me to be a dance of wild joy and complete abandonment on a warm sunny almost-Spring day. It brought joy to me to see this harbinger of new life and the rebirth that Earth and the cycles of Nature go through every year when Spring arrives once again, no matter how long, grueling and brutal Winter may have been. It also made me think of a childhood art project that Tim had done at school when he was quite young. I loved it when he brought it home and gifted it to me and I had it hanging on my wall for many years, long past Tim’s comfort zone of me keeping such a childish creation of his on public display in our home. It was what it symbolized that fascinated me, and somehow I think it was one of those timeless gifts that would help to trigger my own knowing that things are not always exactly as they appear to us and this would give me comfort after his early departure from life on Earth.
His art project was a white paper plate divided into 4 sections like pieces of pie. In the 1st section there is a construction paper hand drawn leaf with the word “egg” beneath it. Then comes a pipe cleaner caterpillar followed by a cotton ball “chrysalis.” And finally a tissue paper butterfly. The process of metamorphosis completely illustrated on a paper plate! In a talk I once gave as a guest speaker for a metaphysical group gathering, I used Tim’s paper plate art work as inspiration for my topic.
It’s so much more common to hear the word “cocoon” than “chrysalis” and I was curious about the difference between them.
From Wikipedia: “A chrysalis (Latin chrysallis, from Greek χρυσαλλίς = chrysallís, pl: chrysalides, also known as an aurelia) or nympha is the pupal stage of butterflies. The term is derived from the metallic gold-coloration found in the pupae of many butterflies, referred to by the Greek term χρυσός (chrysós) for gold.”
“A cocoon is a casing spun of silk by many moth caterpillars,[9] and numerous other holometabolous insect larvae as a protective covering for the pupa.”
So moths and other insects emerge from cocoons. Only butterflies emerge from a chrysalis, whose root meaning is gold.
It also struck me as I was preparing for that talk how closely the word chrysalis, with its Greek root of chrysós meaning gold, resembles the root word for Christ, christós, meaning anointed one. Is it any wonder that the time we are said to be entering into with this Shift of the Ages presently taking place on Earth is known as the New Golden Era and is synonymous with Christ Consciousness bringing in a time of peace and prosperity for all mankind? And isn’t this akin to each of our own unique journeys in which, in the spiritual sense, when we emerge from the chrysalis of our “winter” time cocooned within, we will have in essence transformed ourselves from crawling caterpillars to those beautiful winged creatures that fly that we call butterflies?
Easter and the transformation that it represents is approaching, and it feels very appropriate to me that the eclipse cycle now at hand, which represents the darkening or obscuring of the light (the shadow side), will be completing on the day before we celebrate Easter, giving triumphant emphasis to the resurrection and returning of the Light of the Christ (Consciousness) celebrated on it.
But first we have our own "Passion" to embrace during this time leading up to Easter that includes St Patricks’ Day along with the Equinox and eclipses. Beyond the meaning of the Passion of the Christ as “suffering” in traditional Christianity, another meaning of the word passion is “a compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.” Passion allows us to love and to create and to birth the new into manifest form. What is your passion? What is it that you have a compelling enthusiasm and desire to birth into your own life experience? Now is the time to renew your Passion and allow the potent energies being gifted to us at this unprecedented time on Earth to assist you in bringing it to life.
My son Tim had a passion for life and for being Irish, and a passion for celebrating that and celebrating St Patrick’s Day too. My own passion for my Irish roots was slower to evolve in my life than it was in his. For many years I equated being Irish with dysfunctional behavior. In my younger years I blamed a lot of the pain in my life on what I saw as the curse of being Irish and I distanced myself from my heritage as much as I possibly could. However that wasn’t always the easiest thing to do with a name like Maureen Quinn.
It was because of my Irish name that years ago I received my first invitation to speak at the 3M Fellowship, a metaphysical gathering that met locally each Sunday morning and stood for Music, Musings and Meditation. I had been seated across the dinner table from the man who did the speaker scheduling for the 3M Fellowship at the monthly “Abraham potluck” I attended (based on the Abraham-Hicks material) at the time. He had looked at me with a twinkle in his eye when he mentioned that he had an opening for a speaker (who would provide the Musings) for St Patrick’s Day weekend and he thought that anyone named Maureen Quinn would be the perfect person to fill the spot.
While I welcomed the invitation because I enjoy speaking to groups, I inwardly groaned when he let it be known that everyone would be expecting my theme to relate to St Patrick and the Irish. What could I come up with that didn’t have something to do with shamrocks, green beer, parades or religion? I didn’t know then but I was determined to find something else to talk about to this metaphysical crowd.
So I poured myself into research in order to find something that I could talk about that I would be able to flow some passion into for my Musing engagement, and in the process I fell in love with the wisdom of the Druids, ancient Celtic spirituality and the people who had lived in such harmony with Nature and the Turning of the Wheel, and this was long before I ever connected with the energy of Brigid.
There are a lot of myths that have been built up around the personage of St Patrick. One popular one is that he drove all the serpents out of Ireland. What I learned and shared in my talk is that this is an allegory for the Catholic Church eradicating Druidism (represented by the potent and magical snake) and the ancient ways from the land when the Church came into power there and sought control over the Irish people. No offense meant to St Patrick (I named my first son Patrick!), but beyond the real man who lived and breathed and walked the Irish soil, over time he simply became a symbol representing the Catholic Church, much in the same way that the ancient Celtic goddess Brigid was turned into St Brigid by the Church in order to placate the protests of the people who loved her and weren’t willing to give their close connection to her up in order to accept the Catholicism being thrust upon them.
What touched my own soul the most in my uncovering of the wisdom of the ancient Celts was the idea of Wild Goose spirituality. I found many different versions of what the term “Wild Geese,” relating to Ireland, was actually supposed to signify, the main one being those who left the Irish land to fly to many diverse places around the globe, always bringing their Irish roots with them to their new homes. Yet the main theme underlying all definitions was that in ancient Celtic Christianity, the Holy Spirit was not symbolized as the peaceful, meek and mild Dove as in most other cultures. Instead the Celts chose the Wild Goose (An Geadh-Glas) to symbolize how the Divine may enter into our human world, selves and lives, uncontrollable and untameable as it directs us, with that Wild Goose Spirit guiding us with a strong, loud and sometimes challenging honk rather than the soft cooing of the Dove.
Brigid coming through me once talked of “Wild Celtic Mary,” a version of Mary that spoke to my own soul so much more deeply as a strong and beautiful example of the Divine Feminine than the traditional version of Mary as such a mild and quiet feminine presence. The Holy Spirit as symbolized by a Wild Goose does as well. My own feeling is that we’re here on Earth to live lives that are wild, untamed and completely free and the ancient Celts just naturally seemed to understand that, which is why I now feel such an affinity with them and do celebrate my Irish heritage and roots.
In his afterlife experience as related to me in our energetic communication, Tim’s love of Ireland and the Irish continues, so it hasn’t surprised me that he and Brigid seem to be dear old friends and frequently come in to visit me together. This was the case as St Patrick’s Day neared and what inspired me, with their encouragement, to begin sharing on my blog once again. So here are a few of the things that these two recently had to say, compiled from several different energetic conversations I had with them both:
Brigid: "Cead Mile Failte beloved ones! It is I Brigid coming in in this now moment of time that crosses the dimensions through time and space and beyond to shower you with love and to share communication that crosses those veils of dimensional realities.
St Patrick’s Day, the anniversary of my own initial energetic connecting and communicating with and through Maureen, is upon you. And indeed St Patrick’s Day goes far beyond the myth that has become the modern day version of St Patrick. It is not what people imagine it to be, and yet, there’s an energy with it that connects all who feel any draw to the Irish soil and Celtic history and lineages that so many have been a part of, to remember their roots and to bless and honor their Irish connection with respect and joy and laughter and celebration.
In regards to what has been lost of the ancient wisdom and ways, realize that wisdom may go underground, that the people who carry that wisdom may allow it to be dormant within for lifetimes, but it can never be completely lost or eradicated.
I wish to encourage you to look at this year’s St Patrick’s Day as a true renewal in the sense of ancient wisdom being brought into the present to be acknowledged and realized in all new ways so that it is reborn in the now, so that it becomes new again as you move forward from here.
So many are understanding now that celestial events carry great energies and they have immense impacts on the Earth herself as well as those who walk and live and love upon her. The equinox this year that welcomes spring to the north and fall to the south in the hemispheres of this planet is a very potent one. It is not an accident that this powerful eclipse window opens on the day of your equinox. It is not an accident either that the second eclipse in the window occurs on the day before your celebration of Easter. In the realm of bringing Christ Consciousness to the planet, there is a correlation between your Holy Week story, Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, of life, death, and resurrection. But before the resurrection there must be a period of quiet, a period of time in the tomb (or chrysalis). This is mirrored for you in this eclipse window and this year’s Easter will be extremely significant energetically as well as in consciousness. Trust the process and trust the rebirth and the resurrection that are coming with this very potent energetic celestial cycle.
It has been a long winter for so many and in many places on the planet there are ice jams in rivers that have resulted from the frigid winter weather and all the snow and ice that accumulated. And now, many places are dealing with flooding as warmer spring weather begins to arrive and while this is not always welcomed on the human physical level for it is challenging for those who live in these areas, the analogy of it to what is happening on the level of spirit in your own lives, the symbolism, is very apropos for what is happening and about to happen for those of you who have endured and yes survived what has seemed to be such a never ending winter of the spirit in your lives on Earth. So many of you have struggled and been challenged with one difficulty after another, with one loss after another, until seemingly you do stand with empty hands and often feeling empty hearted as well. And yet the message of Spring, the message of Easter, is that the world awakens once again, life is reborn, and indeed resurrection of the spirit takes place in the symbolism of death and rebirth that is known as Easter. Your cups and your hearts are refilled once more.
St Patrick’s Day is a day that is significant for many though they do not necessarily understand what it is that stirs them so about it except that it connects them to Irish roots, and indeed "Everyone is Irish on St Patrick’s Day" whether by blood or by choice. It is the ancient wisdom of the Celts and the Druids and their way of living close to Nature and their way of being guided by the Turning of the Wheel, the celestial seasons of the year, rather than by an artificially manmade calendar and clock that is what so many seek to return to and do not always know how.
So those of you who are the Edgewalkers, those who are the Changemakers who are going first in bridging worlds, bridging realities and the way life is lived here on Earth in this now moment of time, have reached a place of recognizing that living by society’s traditional standards is often too challenging to the heart and soul and kills the spirit rather than nurtures and enlivens it. It is not always easy to be the ones going first who leave the traditional behind when the new has not yet been completely created, led only by the passion to embrace new ways of being that are sustaining and supportive of life rather than diminishing and draining of it. And yet to those of you who have had the courage to seek this, I wish you to know that you are about to experience a major breakthrough in your creation of the new. This is a very potent time energetically, celestially and astronomically, and many of you are aware of this. Allow this doorway that is opening now to be the portal to the new for you. Allow that once through this portal there truly never will be any turning back and that is said to you in the most joyous of ways!
St Patrick’s Day is a holiday of the spirit, a celebration of the heart and soul of what those who have lived this way of life know is the most nurturing and life giving way to live. Celebrate this and as our dear Tim says, in ways that go far beyond green beer and parades…though I encourage you to please do remember to celebrate The Green Man too! Allow your hearts to be opened by your own remembering. Allow your blood to be stirred by the ancient knowledge and wisdom that still flows within your veins where it is encapsulated and encoded within your very DNA. You do remember that there is a better way. You do remember that there is a way to live in greater joy and harmony with the Earth and all who live and dwell upon it. And here we do not speak only of the humans for there are many other forms of life. So many of you are aware that there are elementals, there are faeries and devas, even if catching a glimpse of them is fleeting at best, and yet know that their presence is becoming easier to detect. Some of you are capturing this with your digital cameras. Some of you are aware of orbs and of unexplainable lights. You are opening this portal between dimensions by your belief in the ability to break through these artificially programmed boundaries.
Remember to keep the home fires burning and that as always means to stoke the fires in the hearth of your own hearts. Live in peace! Live in love! Live in joy! And let each day be a celebration! And know always that you are dearly dearly loved!"
Tim: "Transition is the theme playing out on Earth right now. So many people are going through such huge changes in their now, as my Mom herself is acutely aware from personal experience. And it’s appropriate. It’s meant to be this way because of the choices made on the soul level prior to coming to Earth and incarnating in this particular lifetime. And as my Mom also knows better than most others, this lifetime is not like other lifetimes that people have lived previously…and I knew this too before I came in as Tim! We are in the process of Earth moving beyond the linear 3rd dimensional time frame that has been accepted as the truth of the reality on Earth for so long. All who are on Earth are living more than just one experience in the now. Most simply are not aware of it since the Earth reality is accepted as the only reality. As a human, you can’t completely wrap your mind around the expansiveness of a soul’s multi-dimensionality because it isn’t a concept that’s part of mental human awareness for most presently living lives on Earth. It is the essence and reality of the soul though, and the soul is, at least while present in human reality, accessed much more easily through feeling state than through any thought processes you can ever come up with mentally. Brains are a wonderful gift to be able to think with, to be able to process mentally the way that humans can do (which I loved doing myself as Tim!)…really wonderful and yet there is so much beyond that, though that’s what human reality has been based on for eons. Now you’re moving into a new reality where your thinking and your feeling states are able to work together with each other, they’re able to complement each other, and yet what this new reality truly is about is letting feeling state takes precedence over mental state, letting your heart and your feelings guide you and lead you forward rather than just letting your brain do that. The old ways of calculating the best plan and path forward for a life based solely on mental parameters is coming to an end.
The point now is to allow the balancing of the old ways with the new ones in creating lives of happiness and joy. And this leads into the theme of St Patrick’s Day, for the ancient Celts knew that they were connected to the sun and the moon and the stars and the celestial cycles of life here on Earth, and that there’s magic in that. And they gave much more credence to feeling state than to mental thinking. That’s what I loved in my life on Earth as Tim and that I was drawn to in my love for all things Irish. It’s not just about green beer and parades on St Patrick’s Day! It’s about the return to an ancient knowing that can now be brought into present reality and it will guide your lives in a much happier and more joyful way than anything solely of the human mental thinking state ever could do. Know that I will be very close this St Patrick’s Day and my Tim element will be raising a glass in toast for sure! Yet also know that I encourage the remembering of what the ancient Celtic tradition stood for and honoring and celebrating that more than just partying with green beer and shots!
I also want to let my friends and everyone who loved me and knew me as Tim know that I am celebrating St Patrick’s Day with you in the realm that I am in now with great joy, with wild passionate joy, and yet in a new way. So much of the partying and often overindulging that takes place on St Patrick’s Day on Earth is because there is a disconnection from the eternal source of natural living and natural joy and well being that comes with being connected to the land and the cycles of both the Earth and the stars, as the ancient Celts were. This is why when I was on Earth as Tim, we, my friends and I, all loved to camp so much, to go out in Nature, to sit by fire, to laugh together, to soak in the moon and the starlight. It’s magic and in the everyday struggling to make a living and survive according to the standards of mass consciousness human reality, there is a constant disconnection from that. Tell my friends that the best way to celebrate St Patrick’s Day is by reestablishing the connection to the natural realm. Sit by a fire again. Drink in the night sky, the moon and the stars. Celebrate the seasons and the Turning of the Wheel as Brigid calls it. Celebrate yourselves and be free and wild in doing that! Let go of the restrictions that have been placed on humans and society which are completely man made and were put in place by those who sought control and to be in power by having power over others. Choose within your souls to let go of this! And to never kneel before anyone else who walks the Earth as you do, whether through politics, religion or the legalities of state and government and the functioning of society. Be free!
You all know that I was a great music fan during my time on Earth as Tim and one of my first breakthrough moments with my dear Mummy was sharing our mutual love for Bob Marley. Remember that powerful line…”Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind.”
Free your minds, my friends! And when you do that you free your hearts and your spirits as well.
I love you all! I am joyously happy in my experience of the now moment and I encourage you to be joyously happy in your own!
Happy St Patrick’s Day! And Slainte!"
