This month's healing song ties directly into the energies of change we are experiencing. Just as we often find comfort in the known, we often project a sense of impending discomfort around the unknown. Certainly we are all traipsing into a new field of consciousness now. Whether it expresses itself as one of politics, health, finances or intimate relationships, our new consciousness is revealing changes in our world.

No matter the area of our life in which issues related to intense change appear, we can make the impending transition smoother and arrive more easily by gracefully relinquishing our conscious (and unconscious) hold on what must now pass away.  Here are some additional insights and a healing song to help you do just that.

A song for dealing with change and making choices
Sacred Passing from the Earth

from Norma's album
Songs of Spirit: live sound healings

For those of you interested in listening to the Meditation I gave on Choices and Change (during the Full Moon/Solstice) it is now online as a free streaming video at the Healing Chants FaceBook page. It includes two spontaneous sound healings and lots of healing energy.

(also published in the Huffington Post and Kindred Spirit (UK)
American politics isn't about American politics. It's about the patterns behind our daily choices, the outdated beliefs we don't realize we still follow, and the shared conscious connections we have with our friends and family. Right now, American politics is putting on display what our culture is ready to look at. It is showing us what Americans need to make a choice about. We may choose to continue certain behaviors, or we may choose to change certain behaviors. But even the choice to continue certain behaviors will be made in a conscious manner because the American candidates and the 'circus of it all' is bringing these choices to our attention. 

We are choosing between two distinct ways of living life. These two choices can be summed up as questions:

     1. Is this what we really want? 

     2. Is this what we are willing to tolerate? 

Our choice may well define American society for the next several decades.  

That old adage of choosing the 'devil you know' rather than the 'devil you don't know' is at play here. What appears to be the 'devil we don't know' only looks devilish because we don't know it. As people living in a quickly changing world, our tendency is to choose the discomfort we know, rather than chance a greater discomfort within the unknown. Of course, this keeps us in a constant state of discomfort!

But with this election we have the ability to make a choice, and to choose something new for ourselves. I think that we keep forgetting that if we choose something new, and it is uncomfortable, we can always make another choice. Restaurants hate it when we send food back, but it happens. We are allowed a do-over in other areas of our lives too.

But we tend to fear trying something new. Our tendency is to assume that if we choose something new, (i.e. the devil we don't know), that it will be worse than our current circumstances (the devil we do know). Our fear of the unknown creates a belief that there will be pain in the unknown. Therefore we will not change. We fear the potential pain that we assume lies within the unknown more than we fear the known pain.

Politics isn't about choosing a candidate. It is about each person making their own internal choice. Do you choose to tolerate the devil you know in your life? Or do you choose to answer the question 'What it is that you really want?' When we each answer that question honestly, I believe that our politicians will have to answer it as well.  

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Norma Gentile, sound shaman, uses music to magnify our innate ability to bring our bodies and lives into balance. Her spoken word meditations for spiritual growth and albums of sacred medieval chant by St. Hildegard of Bingen are available at iTunes and amazon.com. Check her out now at www.HealingChants.com

Dear Friends,

When I first began my spiritual journey, I began with the assumption that my Soul was perfect, and therefore lived outside of my body. It lived in Heaven. Heaven was then still defined in my world as some golden city floating in the clouds…more or less…but something that certainly did not exist or have anything to do with living here on Earth.

Maybe it was just my community that focused on the aspect of wealth in its image of Heaven, but I decided as a young child that if the streets of Heaven were paved in gold, then I didn't want to have anything to do with it. No trees? No grass? No dogs to play with? Clearly, I was not yet indoctrinated into the ways of the suburban upper middle class! But my discomfort with my community's definition of Heaven encouraged me to search for my own definition. For me, Heaven is the expression of Life upon the Earth. From plants and trees and lush green moss to wild lions roaming the plains and tabby cats curled up in the afternoon sun…each is an example of Life, expressing itself as Heaven on Earth.

As soon as I realized that Heaven is a quality of living which we each may create, my spiritual questioning gaze fell upon my concept of Earth. If being in Heaven is so desired that (according to my Christian upbringing) we must die in order to arrive there, what does that say about Earth? Clearly (again, according to my Christian upbringing) Earth is second best. Not that great of a place to be, compared to Heaven.

No wonder I could not conceive of my Soul as having any connection to Earth! My Soul was perfect, and therefore would not deign to reside in the Earth, only in Heaven. And so my belief remained that I had a Heavenly Soul, but not an Earthly Soul.

Until I met my prejudiced belief about Earth head-on.

Was it shattered in one moment? Probably not. Or at least I don't recall it that way. There were a series of small moments over a few years. These took the forms of conversations and overheard comments with shaman friends. There were personal experiences during my meditation time, or while teaching and channeling, or singing. I found myself connecting to Nature energies in many different cities and countries as I welcomed their participation in healing endeavors. No matter where I was, I found myself consciously connecting and conversing with Nature Spirits in every workshop space, church, hotel room and even a few airports.

I found the same loving acceptance of my queries to Nature's Intelligence about the relationship between Heaven and Earth as one might feel from a patient (but sometimes weary) teacher. "Earth is Heaven. Heaven is Earth. You (humans) are separating them into two things. They exist together, not apart. One does not choose between them. Your needing to choose is the illusion you have built. Nature does not live in polarity as humans do. Nature reflects polarity only because Nature expresses the consciousness of humanity. As humanity arrives at a point in consciousness that is outside of polarity, so too will Nature express itself in non-polarized physicality."

Simply put, we create our reality. Nature acts as the translator between ourselves and our physical world. For example, are you thinking about painting a room a new color? You are (consciously or unconsciously) consulting the Nature Spirits and Intelligence of the room for their suggestions. Whether or not you follow their suggestion (that odd color that just caught your eye might be fun) is up to you.

Below is a song (and spoken meditation) from a recent Gathering that focuses on helping you find your own soul's energy deep within the Earth. To say it will help you ground is overly simplistic, but yes, it will help you feel more grounded. In a larger frame of reference the spoken meditation and song assists you in releasing inhibitions and blocks around accessing the power and psychic intelligence that your body is meant to have. When we are connected to our Earth Soul as much as we are connected to our Heavenly Soul something different happens in our lives. Are you ready?
-Norma