Celebrating Samhain/Halloween

While most people of the world call tomorrow's holiday Halloween, the Wiccans and Pagans refer to it as Samhain, a day when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Okay, that sounds a little too spooky and ghost and goblins-ish, huh? Let's say then that it's the day when the veil between the world of the physical and the spiritual is as its thinnest. This can be celebrated in many different ways.

Last night, after an extensive discussion with my mother on how we never seen anything on Oprah! that pertains to us, I found myself, naturally, riveted to an episode of Oprah! that dealt with addiction. (Love that Carnie Wilson! I think that bitch takes on addictions just so she can appear once a year on that show.) The show was something I could definitely relate to as an extremist. Though I'm not in need of a 12 step program or gastric bypass surgery like some of their guests, I understand that I have an addict's personality, like my mother before me and her mother before her.

This morning, a package arrived at my door from my mother. It was a journal she had found where my deceased grandmother had chronicled her problems with alcohol. I find this in my lap now, just hours before the veil is at its thinnest. What is she trying to tell me?

The Oprah! episode talked about how addictions are symbolic of the real root of the problem. For instance, a large percentage of gastric bypass patients become alcoholics, drug abusers, etc. because they transfer their addiction to something else. They haven't dealt with the problem, they've just dealt with the physical. They've tried to "bypass" the problem, if you will. Which, of course, never works.

Drinking too much is symbolic of wanting to escape from something. Eating too much is trying to fill a void within you. Having too many one night stands is a cry for attention and low self-esteem. Idol worship is reaching out to those qualities that you need to apply to yourself. Obsession in general is just plain distraction.

But all of these things have one thing in common: They all stem from lack of believing in yourself.

We all say, "When I'm famous..," "When I'm thin...," "When I have money...," I will feel better about myself! Everything will be perfect! All problems will be solved! What an illusion. Only we can solve our own problems and we can only solve them by facing them and dealing with them. Why do we think we need those things to feel better about ourselves? Instead of doing the work to feel better about ourselves now?

These are the things I'm contemplating today as my grandmother visits me on All Hallow's Eve, a holiday, which, come to think of it, I celebrated with her at her house every year. How appropriate.

Invite the spirits of your loved ones in this Samhain/Halloween and see if they speak to you. Listen for their wisdom. This is a time when the spirits are most easily heard so take advantage of it by asking questions, looking for signs, pulling tarot cards, reading runes, etc.

They're a talkative bunch this year! ;-)



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Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
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The Logos
New World Astrology
Kabbalah 4 All
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com

Lessons of the Retrograde

On Friday night around midnight, just minutes after the Mercury Retrograde began, the walls started crumbling down once again. My laptop crashed. My alarm clock no longer worked. I've had problems with my cell phone for weeks. The Mercury Retrograde is all about set backs, especially with anything electronic as a catalyst. It's as though it takes the things we rely on most for security and takes them away from us to ask: "How secure are you really? Better get your shit together."

So here I sit with a crashed laptop just moments after this has begun? Coincidence? Probably not. It was a loaner while my other one is in the shop! As I stared at the laptop, after dousing the desire to slam it against the wall across the room, I thought about shutting down. Getting myself a new inner hard drive, if you know what I mean. Starting fresh with a new system. Will I lose the things that were on the old system? Sure, but something has to die for something new to be born.

Sometimes I think we let the past rule us far too much, just because it's so difficult not to. From the second we're popped out of the womb, we're being conditioned by what we see in society. Told what is normal and what is not. What to feel and what to not. What to say and what to not. What is good and what is evil.

Can you imagine how much faith we might have in ourselves, how much hope we might have in the world, if we didn't use the "past" as a barometer? Subconsciously we're always thinking, "Well that's never stopped you before...," "Well, I AM this -- ," "Well, everytime I've tried this in the past, I've failed...," "No one has ever succeeded at this...," etc. What if we lived so fully in the present that the past was erased? Can you imagine how much we would believe we could achieve individually and as a whole? And if you're like me, you understand that the power of belief is one of the strongest there is. Without believing something can happen with all of your being, that vessel remains empty.

So it's time to reprogram, I suppose. Live more in the present. As far as I'm concerned, from now on, unless it has something positive to contribute to the present, the past is the past.

My advice of the day: Experience life as if it is happening for the first time. The past is only of use if good can be pulled from it.

As my laptop tried to boot over and over, I kept getting the same error message.

"Current profile could not be loaded due to security issues. Contact administrator."

Mmm... I think I'll do just that.



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RELATED SITES:
Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
Exclusively Kabbalah Group
The Logos
New World Astrology
Kabbalah 4 All
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com

Jason Talks Spirituality on YNOT Radio

I appeared on YNOTRadio.com as a guest for Darklady's Sexpose this afternoon and had a lovely hour long chat with the Darklady herself where we talked at length about my involvement in Kabbalah.

ON CHRISTIANITY

Darklady: I don't believe that sexuality and spirituality have to be separated and being an atheist, I have not agreed with a lot of modern day Christianity too, but what I try to do is find a common ground where we I know that we both believe in peace and that violence is not the answer.

Jason Sechrest: Well then, I guess that depends on your definition of violence because for me, some of the most violent acts I've experienced in my life have not been physical, but mental. And when you talk about that separation of sex and spirit and any holiness of the Magdalane being castrated from the text and beating into someone mentally that there is only one path and that any other opinion will make you damned for all time, I consider all of that to be abhorrently violent. There's your bloodshed and that's where it extends physically too and it's been going on since the gnostics were put to death and the Christianty that we know today began. Most Christian churches and their teachings are wading in things like fear and things like power and those are things that I consider to be of Satan. So who is really in rule of the Christian church today? But I also know that's just some people's path and that's fine. I don't believe in extremes like good and bad. I believe that the gray area is where you find holiness; that there is light in all darkness and darkness in all light.

ON SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION

Darklady: You and I have that in common. We de-mystify, if you will, the porn star.

Jason Sechrest: I think we all fall guilty, but especially men, of objectifying people sexually. One night stands will do that to you. You get so used to making someone out to be whatever you want them to be in your head that you forget how to have sex with a human being and really connect to them. Someone wrote about my site that I deobjectify porn stars by showing who they are behind the scenes and I became very proud of that. I think people can come to my web site and if they have a favorite porn star, find out who they are as a person, and then with the sex shows we have on that porn star, still find themselves getting off to them. Hopefully it plants a seed or makes them think.

ON KABBALAH STUDY

Darklady: I've seen your web site, KabbalahCurious.com. Are you Jewish?

Jason Sechrest: I'm a little bit of everything. I had this conversation with someone recently who was under the impression that the Kabbalah Centre is Kabbalah which is very far from the truth. The Centre is run by Rabbis, so naturally it is looked up as a Jewish thing, but I know Christian Kabbalists and Wiccan Kabbalists and Buddhist Kabbalists. You can apply the study to any religion. I have heard stories about the Bergs and their greediness and the energy drinks and what not and I get asked about that all of the time. I don't know because I never studied there. I just bought their books when I was 18. And I applaud the Centre for taking something that is very complicated and dumbing it down to its most common denominator so that it can be understood by children even and open a spiritual vessel within them. But personally, I found, in the past few years, that with their books I was reading the same thing over and over again. I started wondering if there was more out there. I started looking online for other study groups and found that what the Centre is teaching is probably only 5% of what Kabbalah entails. There are so many more pieces of the ancient text, so many more books, so many more branches, the meditational and magical for starters, that they're not teaching. I'm at the point now where I'm starting to teach myself Hebrew so I've really gone to another level with my studies here than I think a lot of people are aware.


* Listen to the full rebroadcast in the archives at YNOTradio.com.

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JasonCurious.com
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RELATED SITES:
Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
Exclusively Kabbalah Group
The Logos
New World Astrology
Kabbalah 4 All
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com

Travels in Scorpio

TRAVELS IN SCORPIO

Got me some cruise control.
Taking over your wheel.
I know what you want and I know what you need.
I know these roads better than you do it seems.

Got me some cruise control.
Taking over your wheel.
To spell on your weakness
To taste of that blood.
To revel in hierarchies and dance with the righteous.

Taking over your wheel.
So who's steering mine?

Termination in progress.

This is not the same alpha.
Not the same conclusion.

Barbed wire round the pike.
We share the dirt
But not the road.

Cross these lines along the way
And on that ground, there is love.
Duck under, we will find us there.
This is our playing field.

But I will not veer from my aisle.
Nor longer take you by the hand.
These lanes are too narrow.
I can't stand your landscape
And you never could keep my pace.
This is how love turns to hate.

Just give it an hour, a day or a week
And somewhere again, we meet.
These roads cross so often
They can't be ignored.
And it's lonely out there in the heat.

So I turn off the cruise control,
Take over my wheel.

Termination in progress.

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RELATED SITES:
Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
Exclusively Kabbalah Group
The Logos
New World Astrology
Kabbalah 4 All
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com

Beginning The Bahir Study

So I have begun studying a new book of Kabbalistic wisdom calling The Bahir. (Yes, I'm still studying the Sefer Yetzirah and The Zohar too -- I swear, I might as well just learn Hebrew!) I've joined in a group study at the Exclusively Kabbalah Yahoo! Group to tackle the project with a good handful of very diverse people in religion, belief, career, etc. and so far it's been fascinating. The scripture is really moving too, so from time to time I'll be posting my own interpretations here as well as others possibly.

For instance, The Bahir begins with the following:

1. Rabbi Nehuniah ben HaKana said: One verse (Job 37:21) states, "And now they do not see light, it is brilliant (Bahir) in the skies…[round about God in terrible majesty]." Another verse, however, (Psalm 18:12), states, "He made darkness His hiding place." It is also written (Psalm 97:2), "Cloud and gloom surround Him." This is an apparent contradiction. A third verse comes and reconciles the two. It is written (Psalm 139:12), "Even darkness is not dark to You. Night shines like day -- light and darkness are the same."

I found it so fitting we started this on the Equinox, during the time of Malkuth's balance between night and day, light and dark, good and evil. One of the guy's in the group explained that when all is balanced, there is no good and evil, light and dark; all things become simply "correct."

"He made darkness his hiding place. ... Cloud and gloom surround him."

"Hiding place" is what jumps off the pages at me here. To me, it's about that which we perceive to be "darkness, cloud and gloom" actually being our greatest connection to the "light" of His Brilliance. It's hard for us mortals to remember when we've fallen into the black cloud that it has its silver. We forget that He resides in the darkest moments of that journey, in that fall. Perhaps there is no falling from grace, only falling into grace. We can run from darkness all we'd like, but when you run from something, it doesn't ever go away, does it? Turn around or return to that same spot and it's still right where you left it. So maybe the strongest way to connect to the light is through facing that darkness.


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"Jason's News Desk" (Adult Entertainment News & Gossip)
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JASON'S OTHER SITES:
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RELATED SITES:
Kabbalah.com
72.com - Technology for the Soul
The Zohar - Weekly Studies
Weekly Kabbalah Wisdom
Weekly Kabbalah Astrology
Exclusively Kabbalah Group
The Logos
New World Astrology
Kabbalah 4 All
SpiritualityforKids.com


Have questions? Need advice? Want to share? EMAIL Jason at jason@jasonsechrest.com