Intentional Insights – Q&A From Within
The Myth of Teen Violence and Spiritual Paths
What does it take to decode teenage America? How can we understand the confluence of factors behind rising crime rates involving our youth, changing sensibilities toward bullying, and violence in our society? Better yet, how do we inform ourselves and support young people in finding the facts? Every day I read articles asking these questions, and a San Francisco woman has devoted the last few years researching their answers.
A passionate supporter of social causes, a civic voice sounding our shifting cultural landscape, a wonderful mother, and a brilliant writer — meet Beth Winegarner. Creator of Backward Messages, a forum openly discussing social elements that feed violence in teen culture, and the media that perpetuates myths around them, Winegarner doesn’t hold back. She takes on sacred cows that have always clouded adult judgment where youth behavior is concerned — heavy metal, video games, the entertainment industry, and the occult. Her work deconstructs every façade that informs our policy, parenting, and perspectives on teens. Not stopping to just debunk socially accepted truths about teens behaving badly, her platform goes on to highlight the real issues creating problems. Among them she cites lack of mental health support, parenting, and in some cases, healthy social communities.
Having interviewed people from all walks of life to understand what creates the cultural myths of violence surrounding teens, a big trend noted in her work is young people turning from organized religion to earth-based belief systems. According to Winegarner, teens by nature “break away, to seek their independence and try on new things, because they’re in the process of learning who they are.” She noted that often those raised with a specific religion may strike out from that religion simply because it’s been a part of their lives and their families for so long. Teens raised without a specific spirituality may seek one out because they want something new.
Her research revealed more specific drives toward open spirituality than just innate rebellion. Drawing from the work of David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in their book unChristian, of the majority religion, Winegarner noted that a lot of teens have “lost respect, because they find [Christianity] anti-homosexual, judgmental, or hypocritical.” However, this transition to a nature-based religion only reinforced a seeming turn to the dark side.
Winegarner cites common fear as the base reason that Nature religions are shunned by the overculture, a ‘what-we-don’t-know-will-hurt-us’ reaction. She also states that the presentation of various pagan faiths as scary or harmful in daily news reports and horror movies contributes to confusion around esoteric beliefs, tenets, disciplines, and rituals. Of them she says, “It can be tough to know what to believe.”
Of course, it’s anyone’s guess as to the intentions of such media influences, though their effects often work as deterrents. “You have religious leaders claiming that the Internet makes kids more prone to demon possession just by dint of the fact that it makes information about non-traditional religions more readily available.” That said, she noted that media such as books, films, or TV shows don’t necessarily change someone’s belief system or spiritual path. Her studies showed that while such may introduce young people to new possibilities, they were already open to change.
“I don’t know that they have much of an influence on shaping most teens’ beliefs, though they can be a catalyst in opening them to different modes of spirituality. A book like The Mists of Avalon or a show like Charmed might introduce someone to Wicca as an alternative path worth exploring.” She goes on to say that media certainly can play a role in spiritual change, and everyone’s got their own opinion whether that’s a good thing or bad thing.
In all, Winegarner is breaking into old territory in a poignantly new way. While she realizes the challenges in conveying her work and research, her commitment to redeeming teens and their unique culture are solid. “I strongly believe that there is good in all these so called ‘negative influences,’ and that the kids who seek them out know that. They know exactly what the benefits are and what they’re getting out of their interaction with these things.”
As a result, her view on these influences is more flexible, and her expectations of the overculture more stringent. “We need to stop trying to limit teens or take away the sources of culture, entertainment, reflection, and solace that hold so much meaning for them. When it comes to teens and violence, we need to stop blaming the wrong causes, because that prevents us from being able to stop teens from harming themselves or others.”
Learn more about Beth Winegarner and her publications at bethwinegarener.com. Arm yourself with information at backwardmessages.wordpress.com.
Weekly Rune – Dagaz
Dagaz – Day – If there is a Rune that encourages us to sing and dance, it’s Dagaz. Second to last in the final aett and symbolic of completion of a goal hard-met, this Rune indicates that we haven’t just gotten through or completed the mundane task. We have integrated its consciousness into our own, internalized its wisdom.
Dagaz is about transcendence. Take heart that for this joyful time, the everyday is holy. Bliss is ingrained in everything we do, and we are aware of that fact. Remember the passion of this week. Write about it. Draw, paint, sing it. Make some kind of record indicating the cycle of growth and struggle into blossoming awareness of these last few months, and how they culminated in now, in this feeling of thorough empowerment, release.
Know that at this time we are protected, not just by ever present divinity, but through the complete awareness of our own worth. With the satisfaction of such completion, we feel strong and powerful, actively part of All Things. When we feel connected to the Divine, all fear releases.
Some Rune scholars argue that Dagaz is actually the last Rune, rather than Othala. With that the closure of the day in mind, remember the perfect ending this last note brings, and find a way to sing it every day.
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.
Had a great Mother’s Day weekend.
Sustained my workout schedule this week, making me three-fer.
Reached the half-way point on a huge day job task.
Figured out how to make excellent gluten-free onion rings.
Made acupuncture a priority, despite having a crazy week.
Great quality time with the kids this week, and a great date with my love!
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?
This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.
Weekly Rune – Uruz
Uruz - Auroch - This second Rune of the First aett hasn’t come up in a long time. In the story of the Runes, Uruz is the first point that we become aware of our ability to shape the Universe. We become aware of Nature’s Mysteries, specifically, that we are one of them. How, then, does Uruz shed light on our ability to shape ourselves?
This week look to the story we tell about ourselves. Uruz begins a deep transformation in how we manifest ourselves. How we manifest ourselves depends on the inner story we tell. Is the one we’re actually telling in sync with the one we want to tell? If not, now is the time to change it. The magick of Uruz lies in the ability to realize that we are the only ones who can control both the story and its delivery. Responsibility, then, is a key component, as is the realization that we can’t control how our story is accepted. This understanding creates a recursive wisdom pointing back to ourselves as the shapers of our destiny.
The ability to change our inner story relies on our ability to see its value. In order to see its value we have to take time to understand what we’re telling at present, and know how we want to write it differently. Take some time this week to investigate where the story needs to change, and write that revision. Literally, sit down and write it out. We overlook such simple acts of manifestation as expressing the inner story into art. When we breathe our story into art, we give it life. We honor it. We make it real.
Uruz indicates a rite of passage into awakened personhood. This week we stand on the verge of intense self-empowerment. The elements support it, so go ahead. Jump off. Because we are so active in our stories, we’ll be there to catch ourselves.
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.
Created a wonderful landscape with my family this week, which included weeding enormous flower beds and tucking in lots of wonderful plant spirits.
Sustained my work out schedule this week, making me two-fer.
Had two magazine interviews. Not sure when they will come out.
Completed a cover story of a friend’s fabulous work. Again, no idea…
Great sessions with clients.
Had an article featured on The Wakeup.
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?
This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.
Weekly Rune – Sowilo
Sowilo - Sun - Ah, the rising sun! After a steady pattern of stop, go, duck, who doesn’t welcome a sunrise? Take it as a brilliant nod from Source that All is in accordance, that the job has been well done.
I imagine that we, too, are all about well done at this point. The last few months have been action-packed and consciousness-shifting.
The presence of Sowilo (or Sowilu) at this time means we have persevered through hardship, and truly mastered the work. Whatever has been pressing, its breakthrough and recently revealed wisdom are lasting. This final Rune of the second aett tells us we can accept this eureka! moment as real, and enjoy the reprieve that follows.
The thing about sunrise is it indicates time to get up, to become active again. Rest is done, and it’s time to get on with the day.
Take the time to celebrate your current victory, to revel in the moments of quiet time. Be fully present in looking back over the last few months, owning the process that brought you to this point, and carrying the insight of that experience into what comes next. Enjoy, though don’t lose yourself in that revelry. We rest to honor and heal from what we have come, so that we can be ready to move forward implementing that wisdom.
The sun rises to provide us energy, to illuminate clarity. Sit with the revelation this dawn has to offer, bless it, then proceed, knowing you can now see it in a completely different light.
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I’d like to thank everyone for your wonderful support of the Weekly Rune column. Because of its wonderful reception, the Huffington Post has picked it up as a feature. Just short of its first birthday, this is great news!
Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude
For 9 years, I’ve been very careful to keep my blog focused on animistic and shamanistic content, and within those parameters what inspires, what sustains, what empowers. With that in mind, I’ve decided to participate in a weekly ritual with others, to celebrate otherwise small unsung accomplishments in my life.
I’m not very good at priding myself on anything, a trait upon which I’d like to improve. I’m also not as good about ceremony. I tend to keep things low key. With that in mind, every Friday myself and the other participants in this contagion of victory will spread the message of small successes. I hope that by undertaking this public personal endeavor you will learn more about me, and also be moved to realize the victories in your life, particularly the small ones that you would usually overlook.
This week has been a doozy, though I suppose they all are in some way. My small victories this week are getting caught up on articles that needed to be written for others, having an article troubleshooting modern shamanic journeying come out in Circle Magazine (Issue 113), getting —->this close <— to finishing the first draft of my current manuscript, got a request for an interview. A wild and unexpected development is that the Weekly Rune column was picked up by the Huffington Post. Also, I started working out regularly this week. Finally, opening this blog to be more personal. Good things, all around.
What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?
This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday. Easiest blog hop ever!
Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.
Weekly Rune – Nauthiz
Nauthiz - Need - Have you noticed that the last time Nauthiz was the Weekly Rune, Mannaz came the week prior, as is the case this time? It’s not a coincidence, and I swear I have more than two Runes in my bag!
By now we know that Mannaz is about learning to call on support and finding mind/body/soul balance, and that Nauthiz encourages us to slow down and be sure of our process. What does it mean that at this time we are being repeatedly called to be certain of our personal cosmology? That the way we order ourselves and observe how our order is supported by, supports, reflects, and fosters our authenticity? It’s a big question to ask.
So often we turn ourselves inside out to get into a routine that provides spiritual discipline, mental focus, physical strength, and emotional nourishment. Specifically, most of us don’t find that clarity without baptism by fire, without deep crisis prompting life change. We wouldn’t even look at ourselves at that level without deep personal emergency. Taking the step to take charge of our core wellbeing is perhaps the most important one we take in our whole lives. So then, how do we respond when the Universe asks us to change that routine, or to question its current relevance? We are used to questioning whether we’re in balance, not the method by which we sustain it. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, yes? The very idea that what works needs to change can generate crisis all its own.
This week gently consider where soul sustenance has become rote. This is a bold undertaking from inside the comfort zone. We may gaze upon the scape of our spiritual discipline and see that it works fine, all is well, stability abides. Bless it, thank it, then look again. The message of repeated Mannaz then Nauthiz is that something somewhere in our personal spiritual path isn’t as it seems, even if that thing is reluctance to change the spiritual path. Recall, that which nourishes and guides us to expand our consciousness isn’t meant to be comfortable. It’s not meant for escapism. It’s meant to grow.
As you examine your personal spiritual path and find so much as a crack, address it now. This is your furlough of the soul. This is your opportunity to step back and find the glinting threads that bind your passion to your footsteps again, and find the way that meets your current needs in carrying it through everything you do.
This Runic duo heartily encourages us to use the resources at our disposal, to make the changes needed in our lives, however very personal and sacred. This combination is saying that we can either make that change of our own volition–initiate controlled crisis–or the Universe will initiate one for us.
Domestic Violence and Soul Release
![Woman Smoke by Graham Crumb, Imagicity.com [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.soulintentarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Woman_Smoke_Imagicity_717.jpg)
Kelley, I survived domestic violence, leaving a marriage 4 years ago (the divorce was 3 years ago). The marriage lasted 14 years. I’m so much happier now, like night and day, but feel stuck in several areas of my life. It feels like the former marriage hangs over me like a gray cloud. What’s going on? Negative thought patterns? Evil spirits? How can I break free of this? Thanks, P.
Thanks for your note, P. Wow, your ex was a piece of work! When I ask to see the source of the cloud you feel, I’m shown a manifestation of your former spouse. In the distance I see a younger manifestation of you, though I can’t get to you because your ex stands between us. The spouse’s manifestation is a feminine elemental covered in writhing green vines, and the field around her swirls with daggers and blades that slice anything that nears her. She’s cloudy and dark, and her skin is sallow. Her teeth are elongated and sharp, and she lunges at me. My sense is that this manifestation is a component of your spouse that is stuck in your field, though it is more than that. The hold your ex has maintained since your departure has become its own life force–this seething green elemental.
I ask her simply if this is her life’s destiny, to torment you, even after parting. She stops gnashing at me and stares blankly. I ask her again if this is what she wants to do with her consciousness forever, and she drops to the ground, sobbing. She tells me that it isn’t what she wants, though her life force says otherwise. I suspect she is telling me what I want to hear, and after a few seconds she attacks me again.
I hold up my hand and tell her this kind of interaction is not an option. She can go up for healing willingly, or my guides and hers can take her there. Either way, this stops here. For a few more seconds nothing changes, and I place my hand in her etheric field. When I do I see blood and a gaping wound at her root chakra, and overall she’s generally hurt. She becomes a twenty-something woman then, who is exhausted and in a lot of pain. At this point she goes up for healing to the soulbody workers, and she moves on to her destiny. My guides clean up the scene where she had camped for so long, which also ripples healing out to others she harmed along her path. Finally I am able to reach the manifestation of you that is there.
You, likewise, are war torn and hurt, also very eager for healing. When I bring you up, you replenish quickly, and this manifestation of you is released. As well, the area in which you were held is healed, and my feeling is this clearing of your former spouse from your field is what has been needed. She is now free to address her pain and reasons for being abusive in a way that doesn’t harm you or anyone else. Likewise, you are in a place where you can choose more freely how to move forward without her influence.
This feeling of a cloud over you has been one long, draining spiritual emergency, PTSD of the soul. With it now cleared, take care to shore up your protection for a few weeks. Often after releasing energy that has weighed us down for years, when free of it we are vulnerable. Any sore sports, memories, feelings that come up from your time with her, bless them as merely passengers moving through on the way to their destinies. You can just hold the door and let them go. New irritations and sensitivities that arise over the next few days are just your etheric field remapping, raw nerves finding new pathways. Try not to get too into the feelings of things, and let them pass through as well, just observing, feeling.
You are wise to realize what a good place you are in now, P. I hope that you can stand more clearly and firmly in that strength as you shift more into yourself. If I can help you further, I’m happy to.
Weekly Rune – Mannaz
Mannaz - human- This week Mannaz fosters our fullest potential. Relationships are key, and whatever is on the agenda can only be accomplished when we make use of our collected resources. Rest assured, though, all signs point to success in your work, when you can create outer and inner balance.
I call Mannaz the animistic Rune, though that could likely be said about all of them. I say it regarding Mannaz because it looks like Wunjo facing a mirror image of itself. Wunjo is the Rune of joy or delight, which is often characterized as the Law of Attraction–the point at which we’ve figured out that how we hold ourselves determines our lot in life. Joy beholding itself. By finding joy where we are, joy finds us everywhere. The effect of Mannaz, in that case, would be, how we hold ourselves affects us all.
From a shamanic standpoint, in cosmologies Mannaz represents the strata where humans are most directly empowered, or what some might call the Middle World. It’s the place of Earth spirituality, the fae, Nature Spirits, and the pool of our formed wisdom and compassion. If you’re struggling with how to best tap into the power of this Rune, look no further than your imagination. Imagine what you want. Sense it, see it, taste it, listen to it, feel it. So it is. Such power of manifestation is the gift of the Middle World, the act of Mannaz.
Just as Mannaz indicates humans interconnected and drawing on the spiritual resources in their home domain, it also illuminates the human in balance with itself. Take time this week to address Mind/Body/Soul/Emotional needs. Just as you draw on the support of those around you, truly, deeply support yourself. This act of self love is your calling, your gift, and your greatest secret potential.
