Spiritual Guides

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Spiritual guides are sacred companions who assist us in our life journeys. Spiritual guides may come in any form that you feel comfortable with or can easily relate to culturally, emotionally and spiritually. If we choose to recognize them, all of us can have spiritual guides.

Spiritual guides may be real persons, supernatural beings, animals or even symbols. In my case, Gurudevi Ahalya Running Deer Mahakali, is my spiritual guide. I met her in 1998 and almost immediately decided she was going to be my teacher. I regularly keep in touch with her through emails or phone calls whenever she is not here in the Philippines for a visit. I seek her assistance or advice whenever I am faced with challenges in my life or need to make important decisions that I am not sure about.

Spiritual guides for other people may be their guardian angels -- someone you pray to and ask to be with you everyday for protection, guidance and strength. For others, their spiritual guide may be a priest, a minister or a wise man/woman whom they can turn to for solace and comfort whenever they go through emotional pain or difficulties. A person you can be open about your life with, can share your pain with and can find comfort in their wisdom and their concern for you is basically your spiritual guide.

Spiritual guides can also be in the form of animals or symbols. Native American Indians look to nature for guidance and animals symbolize specific representations for them to follow and imbibe so they never forget their purpose in life as well as their specific roles in their tribe. Each member of a tribe makes sure that he or she constantly practices and remains faithful to the characteristics of his or her spiritual guide.

My animal spirit guide, for example, is a white she-wolf. She symbolizes a pure spirit; a protective and nurturing mother; a dependable and responsible member of her pack; and a powerful and formidable force to reckon with if her tribe or children are threatened or endangered. Whenever I feel lost, disempowered and lack faith in myself, I remind myself of my spirit guide, the white wolf, and remember that I have the strength and courage to get through any obstacle that blocks my way.

Spiritual guides are our source of inspiration, comfort and strength . We look to them for compassion and support when times are rough. Even when we have very close and loving relationships with our parents, siblings, friends and relatives, we sometimes still feel the need to seek another person's wise counsel and objectivity to get through our own problems; and this we are always able to find in our spiritual guides.

Healing Words

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Healing words not only assist us gain new insights into our lives, they also can be a source of comfort during rough times. Sometimes we find ourselves unable to express what we are going through and healing words lend us the voice we need to do so.

Healing words became the salve to my wounds when I was undergoing very deep depression because other people, wiser and stronger people, who also have gone through the same experiences I have, managed to put their struggles not only into words, but have produced art because of it. Some healing words are not only knowledgeable and accurate in context, they are also poetic.

In the one year I suffered severe depression and refused to speak to anyone about my condition, I read and collected all the beautiful and healing words that best described my thoughts and feelings; especially the ones I resonated with the most. I would read them religiously everyday like a prayer and reflect on them for long periods of time -- slowly chewing the words like a meal and digesting them deep inside me until I fully understood and grasped the deeper meaning underneath each and every quote.

Healing words are my lifelines -- my source of learning, courage and alliance. I wish I could write them all down in this blog and thank all the artistic, intuitive and clever people whose words helped me through my darkest nights and were my only source of joy and solace. But since that is not possible, I would like to share some of them in here:

“Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”
~ Jalal al-Din Rumi ~

“Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling

with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain.

But you have already borne the pain.

What you have not done is feel all you are beyond the pain.”

~ Saint Batholomew ~

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
~ George Bernard Shaw ~

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens;
but often we look so long at the closed door
that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
~ Helen Keller ~

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
~ Buddha ~
“To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
to leave the world a better place;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

"The most important things in life aren't things."
~ Anthony J. D'Angelo ~

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep,

too grave to laugh,

and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

~ Kahlil Gibran ~

“When you have come to the edge of all light that you know

and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown,

faith is knowing one of two things will happen:

there will be something solid to stand on

or you will be taught to fly”

~ Patrick Overton ~

“The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief -
but the pain of grief is only a shadow
when compared with the pain
of never risking love.”

~ Hilary Stanton Zunin ~