Let’s begin today with the teaching of the sweetgrass.
Sweetgrass grows all over the world and people have harvested and dried it for centuries. Many Native tribes in North America believe that sweetgrass is the hair of the mother earth and consider it a sacred plant. Its beauty is in its simplicity and its abundance to us on earth despite its seemingly ordinary look. Sweetgrass is often used in prayer, smudging or purifying ceremonies, as well as in basket making. Sweetgrass has a rough texture on one side and a smooth shiny one on its other side. The grass itself grows slightly bowed, symbolizing its shiny sunny side towards God or the Creator.
Sweetgrass is usually dried and then three strands of it are woven into a braid, with a patience and kindness of rhythm; and the aroma of it is wonderfully calming, which is why it is believed it purifies thoughts.
The three strands are thought to represent mind, body and soul, or love, kindness and honesty. Each single piece of grass is brittle if you hold it alone in your hands, yet when woven into a braid with the others, it becomes both flexible and unbreakable.
We all have three sources of power – our invisible powers: power of the mind, power of the body and power of our soul. When we weave it together, we can create an unbreakable braid.
Power of the mind
We may often think it is logic or analytics or gathering of information, but the strongest power of our mind is our intention. What’s possible or impossible is not our business – it is up to nature and God; but what is up to us is that we strive for it, focus on it, work towards it, believe in it, keep dreaming it and trusting it, and try our best to move past the limitations and fears of what’s possible or what isn’t. Imagine, believe, trust, and do the best you can. We can often get lost in the what ifs, or no, that’s never going to happen, and then end up not doing anything anyway. Cultivate and stay with a clear focus of mind, on what you want, what is your intention, and try to replace doubts with I can, I will.
Power of our body
We are often led to believe that the greatest power of our body is muscles and diet – and while our physical health is really important, the ancient teachings say that the greatest power of our body is our life force energy, or creative/sexual energy. When we learn to harness it and channel it for our highest benefit it becomes magnificent. We create not only babies, we create ideas, creative projects, meals, books, poems – we create everything. Understanding our creative capacity and how to cultivate this space within us keeps us in a state of vitality and expansion. We need to know how to channel our energy rather than spread it around without intention and towards things that do not matter to us. Choosing our intimate partners with clarity and discernment is of course very important also, and one really needs to educate themselves on sexual energy and how energies merge and are absorbed through intimacy.
Power of our soul
The power of our soul is the power of our heart – and there is nothing more powerful than the purity of our heart and love. And so – the strongest power of our soul and spirit is our emotions. Our emotions that are the vehicle of our soul – and it is our heart that is the initiatory pathway towards all and everything, and towards higher consciousness. We need to learn how to connect to our heart, how to feel our feelings, and what is the language and unique messages of each of our emotions. We need to learn how to use our emotional powers in healthy and balanced ways – and this is how we become absolute creators.
When we weave our heart, mind and body into more love and more intention – we allow emotion and soul to flow and shape through our hands, lips and every day gestures, and we come into more appreciation, trust, purpose, faith, connection and tender devotion.
When we weave purity of heart, clarity of mind, and sincerity in action – it becomes an unbreakable braid, yet we remain flexible and open also.
The power of possibility
Everything that we as human beings have created on this planet we essentially first created in our minds – it all started with an idea, a vision, and the ability to imagine something beyond the borders of the possible or what already exists around us. So learning to create in our minds what we want is the basis of creating that in our world externally also. Clarity of mind, purity of heart and sincerity in action are the three foundations of creation – and these are our greatest powers.
A well established mind, which is a mind in a state of Samyukthi, is referred to as a Kalpavriksha. On the other hand, when our mind isn’t “established” i.e. clear, it is called a monkey mind. The reason it’s called a monkey is because it often has unnecessary movements, and there are imitations in its actions – which is what the unestablished mind is like: unnecessary movements, without thinking, without clarity, without awareness, without learning nor growing nor expanding.
When we organize our mind with clarity and awareness, it in turn organizes our whole internal system, which then reflects in our outer experience also.
Our body, our emotions, our energy, everything gets organized – and this all becomes a synergy towards one direction. And this one directional energy then becomes so powerful that all else aligns beautifully because of the clarity of our focus and intention – clarity of mind, purity of heart and sincerity in action all marry into one.
When we keep this direction unwavered all can be possible. But when we keep changing our minds and focus is all over, attention spans are almost less than five minutes, and we are used to instant gratification otherwise we waver, all wavers and is disorganized within, which then causes us instability.
What’s possible or impossible is not our business – it is up to nature and God. But what is up to us is that we strive for it, focus on it, work towards it, believe in it, and try our best to move past the limitations and fears of what’s possible or what isn’t. Imagine, believe, trust, and do the best you can. We can often get lost in the what ifs, or no, that’s never going to happen, and then end up not doing anything anyway.
And we also attach a lot of expectations to our needs, dreams and desires, and our monkey mind then begins to go so far ahead in the hows that it eventually reaches the “oh, it’s not possible”. Imagine, believe, trust, and do the best you can; whether it is possible or not is not your business.
Ideas stay as only ideas in the sky if we don’t actually do something tangible, even if only a little bit towards it. So on one level we create the desire for something, and then we simultaneously say that we don’t want it because when we think it’s impossible without even trying we limit ourselves in fear, doubts, judgments, expectations, pessimism and conditions. In such internally created conflicts things happen slower externally.
This is why prayer and faith are powerful, and true love is too, because there is surrender of mind and expectations, and negative thoughts have no space there. These open us up beyond the borders and beyond the possible. This is also why saying “I love you” is so powerful also – because there is no fear, no doubt, no judgment within these words if we speak them truly. There is only a deepening, a freedom, an opening of heart and spirit, a possibility.
If you truly want something, do it, follow that love, follow that joy, follow it not just because but because your soul asked you to. Love is a power that one needs to follow, to honour, to trust, no matter where you think it’ll lead you.
Suggested exercises: For every 10 minutes you spend learning and reading on something – spend also 10 minutes in its application in your real every day life. Consciously spend time thinking every day about the thing you desire, and recognize how it is coming together through the subtle ways. Spend time searching for new outlets and channels through which the desires will shape, form and manifest. Perhaps it will not drop in your lap in its entirety – but recognize the ways in which it is coming together, providing you opportunities. And be grateful – because today is a dream you once had of a yesterday. Shift your eyes away from what you don’t have, to all the things you already have and can use towards what you need.
Another exercise is to expand your imagination. In Alice in Wonderland, the Queen punishes Alice for insufficient imagination, and then tells her, “My dear, sometimes I think six impossible thoughts before breakfast.” Try expanding your perception beyond your known boundaries – beyond the boundaries of the mind, to reach something you haven’t reached before. Practice daily imaginations especially imagining things you do not think are possible, and perhaps research impossible things that have actually been proven possible. Get wild with your dreams, get absurdly non-sensical, creative and playful! If you have trouble imagining, try researching unbelievable things that have happened through humanity, or stories or tv series about miracles or the unexplained. The wonder of the world is waiting for you to see it; it desires and is excited to meet you.
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Cover art by Tina Xinia on Unsplash.
