Mysticism: Aligning with the Divine

I grew up Catholic but never understood how some put blind faith in the church.

“Whatever the church says, goes.”

I don’t subscribe to that school of thought and prefer a healthy bit of skepticism from time to time. I mean, thank god for separation of church and state. Remember Martin Luther and his 95 theses?

To me, mysticism represents a personal connection to the divine; having the ability to manifest our desires, and living our most authentic life.

A connection with the divine doesn’t have to include a religious group or church affiliation, but it does entail the acknowledgement of a higher power. We can decide to keep things simple by choosing to pray to figures we all know and love. With the existence of thousands, if not millions of deities, gods, and spiritual figures with roots from all over the world, the possibilities are endless. Like mentioned in one of our recent podcast episodes with our very own Love Yourself Foundation teammate Juan Quetzal, cultural appropriation in the spiritual community is real. An effective guideline when choosing deities to work with is choosing those from our own heritage and background.

Through thoughts and prayer we can connect with spirit. It’s the easiest and the best way to get the ball rolling. Prayer can be our entire spiritual practice or we can add additional tools as our connection grows and gets stronger. We can start to add special dates, holidays, traditions, whenever you feel called to do so.

Having a firm belief and stance on a higher power is the first step to living in alignment with the divine. After setting a firm foundation with a spiritual practice in place, the fun begins.

It’s time to create the life of our dreams.

Manifestation tools:

Astrology

Your birth chart is essentially a map of the sky at your exact moment of birth. Never seen your birth chart? No problem. Astro.com is a widely used website for populating your chart. On your birth chart, there will be several little glyphs and numbers. These symbols represent the planets and the degrees these planets are stationed in your chart. Somewhat overwhelming at first, there are many resources to learn what these symbols all mean.

Astrology is a great tool to use when manifesting for timing purposes. Some days are better than others for certain things. Furthermore, at any given time the planets are moving across the sky in their natural orbit through the different zodiac signs. These planets influence us by transiting or making a passage through our birth chart. For example, Mercury will be going retrograde on May 29, 2021 in the sign of Gemini. My first house is in the zodiac sign of Libra, making me a Libra Ascendant native, which means my 9th house is in the sign of Gemini. When Mercury goes retrograde, it will be moving through the 9th house in my birth chart. The 9th house represents learning, higher education, religion and long distance travel. This transit may influence me to rethink my plans regarding the topics ruled by the 9th house, however, it may not be the best time to initiate any new plans or take new actions due to Mercury being retrograde. A planet in retrograde is interpreted as having a somewhat negative influence. During this time I would not want to begin any new goals or manifestations concerning the 9th house. This is just one example of how we can use astrology to decide the timing of new goals, projects, and manifestations.

Knowing how to read your birth chart and understanding what current transits symbolize, can tell you what areas of life are currently active for you, what cycle(s) of life you are currently in, and therefore give a rough guideline of what you can and should be manifesting in your life.

Law of Attraction Knowledge: The Secret

The Secret is a documentary about the Law of Attraction produced by Rhonda Byrne. The Law of Attraction is the theory that our thoughts and emotions create our reality. The documentary also explains how this theory is a well

known idea in affluent communities but is kept a secret from the rest of society. At the time of writing, The Secret is available for streaming on Netflix. The Secret is also available in paperback format.

Dream boards, scripting, intense visualization

The secret ingredient to manifestation is emotions. When you’re making a dream board, tap into how happy you’ll feel when you’re actually living in the apartment of your dreams, working at your dream job, surrounded by all the things you love.

Use scripting to write out the life of your dreams. Use intense visualization to see yourself living out your dream reality. Feel all the feels.

Creative activities

Another method for manifestation is using creativity. The word creativity comes from the Latin word “creare” which means to create, to make. When we express our creativity we are in a special zone connected with ultimate reality. We