The Valkyries

#learningIsAGift ?
#rituals of #theBeautifulJourney 

Whenever I go to a National Trust estate, I like buying a book there, with the intent of reading it and then giving it away. This is my ritual.

During/after reading it, I enjoy taking notes, extracting the takeaways from the book, ideas that can be helpful for me in various situations in life. This is my design.

The Valkyries book by Paulo Coelho describes the spiritual journey of Paulo Coelho himself looking to meet his guarding angel. As he is accompanied by his wife, Christina, in this pursuit, we witness her transformation as well.

At the advice of his master, Paulo and Christina go to the Mojave Dessert. There, they meet a group of warrior women travelling and preaching across the dessert. They join them, as the leader of the group, Valhalla, has the final piece of information he needs to find out about how to meet his angel.

The pursuit for meeting his angel started at his master’s recommendation as well, as something that will teach him about love and life and himself.

Bellow I’m summarising my take on some of the ideas about:

• Masters and apprentices
• Self-awareness and ways to get there
• How we kill what we love
• Steps to new, empowering beliefs
• Rules for victory
• Magic and mysticism

1) Masters and the apprentice’s own path

One of the points in the book is about the relationship of masters to apprentices:

• anyone wishing to evolve can benefit from the guidance of a master
• for certain quests, the apprentice must proceed on his/her own (can’t learn just through teachings)
• a master does not teach another master’s apprentice (yet a master could indirectly do that by teaching his/her own apprentice in the presence of someone else’s apprentice)

2) Self-awareness and ways to get there

The Saboteur – The second mind
This second mind brings all the complaining and negative thoughts that do not serve us. Not identifying with one’s mind will make space for creativity and happiness.
Visualise negative thoughts as coming from a second mind, imagine i and choose to not believe it.

The Helper – The sacred space
Create the time and space in your life where you relax, meditate, so you develop and strengthen the inner self that gives you the positive life energy.
e.g.
What’s your favourite place in the house?
How do you make it beautiful and pleasant?
How do you enjoy it?
How much time do you dedicate to yourself, truly, throughout the day?

The Rituals – Walk up straight and look at the world around you
How often do you look as far as the horizon?
If you would think “Everything I see is part of my universe” and you often walk with your head down, looking at the pavement, how would your universe look like?
Look up, observe, invite your universe to expand. See how it feels.

3) Every person kills what they love

“And each man kills the thing he loves,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword.”

This comes about in the context of Paulo’s boredom with his marriage and the realisation of what he calls his curse:

“I have won important things for myself, but I’m going to destroy them, because I tell myself they have lost their meaning. I know that is not true. I know they are important, and that if I destroy them, I’ll be destroying myself, as well.”

I see the poem as a warning about living life unconsciously, unaware of ourselves and others.

What he needs to do to overcome this curse, meet his angel and find meaning again is:

4) Break a pact. Accept forgiveness. Make a bet.

4.1) Break a pact

Find out what limiting belief you have and re-write it.

e.g. from the book:

OLD PACT:  I never allow myself to win.
NEW PACT: I shall never raise my hand against myself.

An example:

Stop bringing yourself down.
When your second mind tells you you’re no good, respond to it by saying you’re doing your best and that’s ok and that life has been and is kind to you in so many ways.
Accept moments of imperfection, look for what you have done well and how you can do better in the future.
Look around you for the people who love you with all your imperfections.
Look around you for the people you love with all their imperfections.
Let yourself guided by life. Life will have its own way of showing you how valuable you are. You don’t need to judge that. Appreciate the fullness of your present moment.

4.1.1) Self-acceptance

To break a pact, you must first accept yourself as you are.

“If what we want to do is heal ourselves first, so that then we can go in search of our dreams, we will never reach paradise. If, on the other hand, we accept all that is wrong about us – and despite it, believe that we are deserving of a happy life – then we will have thrown open an immense window that will allow Love to enter.”

Found to be relevant to this topic – a video by Teal Swan on Self Concept, The Enemy of Awakening (Accept the Badness Within Yourself)

4.2) Accept forgiveness

Forgive yourself and others.
The more we learn, the more we’ll see how we’ve done wrong. We must forgive and don’t blame ourselves in retrospect.
Apply the same mindset when thinking of others.

4.3) Make a bet

Be so decisive and confident with your new belief that you are willing to bet what’s most precious to you on it.

5) Sounds more like war than love. But for an inner battle, this is love.

Rules of victory:

The Morality Rule

• Understand the WHY
• Fight on the side that is in the right

The Space Rule

• Understand the context, the WHAT IS
• A war in the ravine is different from a war in the field.

The Choice Rule

• Understand the WHO
• The warrior knows how to choose who should give advice and who will remain at his side in combat. A chieftain cannot be surrounded by cowards or traitors.

The Strategy Rule

• Understand the HOW
• The way in which the battle is planned.

Rather than thinking of actual wars in the world, I’m seeing this as a recipe for the process of self discovery, acceptance and transformation.

If you desire change:

• You have to commit to working at it. Understanding WHY you want that change will help you commit to it.
• You have to understand what is really happening with you at the moment, what your reactions are, your triggers, your blockers etc. Knowing this space of manifestation of your current struggle will be the stepping stone to identifying what to do about it. Found to be relevant to this topic – a video by Teal Swan on Fragmentation, Self Worth and How to Understand Your Shame.
• Having seen your hell, now choose the persons that might help you. Not everyone or anyone will be able to.
• Have a plan for e.g. dealing with triggers, overcoming blockers, finding time to recharge.

6) Into magic and the mystical 

And now a few ideas on the various entities in the universe that one could use through their journey:

The Elementals

• You can only use them, not learn from them.

The Disembodied Spirits

• They only know what they’ve learned on earth, so you could leave them be and focus on learning yourself through your being on earth.

The Saints

• Invoke them through prayer.
• Look at how they’ve lived their lives.

The Angels

• Love in motion.
• There is no love in peace. Whoever seeks peace is lost.

6.1) The Sacred Theatre

The book also introduces the concept of the Sacred Theatre used in magic related rituals.

“Since a magus is unable to change their rituals, the Tradition decides to change the magus. It’s a kind of Sacred Theatre in which the magus has to play a different character.”

The Sacred Theatre approach made me think of John Fowles book The Magus.
Yet, I’ll stop here and leave the topic of Sacred Theatres and magic for another blog post. 🙂

References:

• image from http://soulsalight.com/angels/