THE MIRROR...What do you see? Hope it is all good.

I remember when I was young I was obsessed with looking in the mirror. There was a running discussion at Spelman College, my alma mater, about how much time I stood looking in the mirror.

At the time if they could have heard the dialogue in my head it would have been this:

"I need to make sure that I am perfect. I must stare into this mirror to make sure that I look perfect. I am searching everything about me to make sure that I am perfectly beautiful. I can't leave though I have been standing here for at least 15 minutes. If I stare long enough, maybe I will really believe that I am perfect."

I had a middle school friend call me vanity because I was so consumed by my looks...dag! Me and that darn mirror!

Once I began to study the Ancient Spiritual system called Ifa I learned of the goddess Oshun. She exemplifies BEAUTY! She is beautiful and needs all around her to be beautiful, too.

"Oh yes! That is me! I am so Oshun!" I told myself. What I learned is that a physical object that helps one to connect with the energy of Oshun is the mirror...

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com/the-mirror.html

Looking at the beauty that is YOU,
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

Inspiration: May you be in the flow of being ALIVE!

Enjoy this great video and song. May it connect you with your divine inner presence. *YOU* is YOU in this song!

Self-Love and It's Role in Loving Another Person

Self-Love Is How To Love Another Person

Instead of trying to love them more, love you more!

Sometimes the person we love doesn't need us to love them more. Sometimes that person is calling us to be more of who we are.

There are so many of us who stoop low but love big. We love so much that we put our own spiritual growth and development on hold. All we can see, all that we pay attention to is getting love from another.

But what happens when the other says through word or deed, "I really don't want this kind of love from you." Then what do we do?

Read more here:

http://www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com/self-love-how-to-love-another.html

Love to all of you
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

Martyrdom: What is it really? When is it rather toxic?

Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability. ~George Bernard Shaw

I have always enjoyed watching the last part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's historic last speech. Today as I listened to it I heard:

"He was a true martyr." Then I heard, "True martyrs don't grieve dying for their cause. They have no attachments. This is different from people who live as martyrs for love. Dr. King clearly shows that he knows that he came here to do a specific thing and that his work was done. He was not attached to him ACTUALLY SEEING the end result because he saw it spiritually first."

I will never grieve for true martyrs again. Sometimes we have to die to this physical world for the greater good. I give thanks for the true martyrs of this world.

To all of those who are martyrs with the expectation of sacrificing your dreams, your happiness and peace to get love from others, STOP! You are not doing the world any favors.

Once you see the big picture then you will stand and live. You will give of yourself freely knowing that the ultimate is your fulfilling your destiny within the Greater Divine Plan of Oneness.

Martyrs...yes..I do better understand them today.

~Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

Self-Love: The most important relationship is with your HEAD!

One of the most profound rituals that I learned from my studies of ancient African Traditional Spirituality is the Head Blessing.

First, what is the Head? In Ifa, a spiritual system born out of the Yoruba in Nigeria, the spiritual head of a person is called the Ori. It is the part of us that stays in constant communication with the Higher Universal Divine Wisdom.

Our Ori is considered our own personal deity. It is the part of ourselves that sees the biggest picture of us and of reality.

Ori is that voice inside of us that so many of us say this about, "Something told me to not go down that street. I am glad that I listened because there was bad
news down that street."


As time has passed I have come to understand how other spiritual systems describe Ori. The Christians call it the Holy Spirit. It is Ganesha in the Vedic tradition and Ausar in the spiritual system out of Egypt Kemet. When all else fails just call this part of our selves the Higher Self.


Ifa teaches that it is important to keep our awareness of and line of communication open with our Ori, which has a vested interest in us succeeding.


A way to keep the connection strong between the more limited physical level of our selves and the Ori is to bless it.

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com/self-love-is-most-important-relationship.html


Realizing My Self,
Tirra-Olufemi

Weekly Spiritual Reading: Tap the Power within YOU!

This week is proving to be one where we are to ponder and seek a greater experience with the quality of the Divine called Ominipotence. This very same quality is within you, though it may be latent or underdeveloped.

According to the oracle, this is a week to either connect to your inner power on a deeper level or to operate from a limited amount due to too much buying into the construct of limitation that is pervasive in this physical level of consciousness.

Weekly Spiritual Reading

The Oracle Speaks to the Goddess-Body-Mind-Spirit.com Community

Week of October 11-October 18, 2009Seker+, Sekert-KEYNOTES: Tap the Power Within, Chant, Patience, DIE, Release, Omnipotence

This week is all about you tapping into your spiritual power, the Omnipotence of the Great Mother within you.

I am all about the power. Who doesn't want to be powerful? What is important is for us to realize that we are powerful beings and that what we are called to do is to allow that power to emerge.

No longer should we give up and give away our power....

Read here for the entire explanation of the reading:
http://www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com/weekly-spiritual-reading.html

In Light and Love
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

Life Review and Gratitude

It is so amazing to me how much synchronicity abounds when I walk aware.

A few days ago I heard the recounting of a story of a man who had a near death experience. During a life review he was shown all of his life.

The story teller said that what disturbed this man most was not what he saw but what he realized he missed out on by not appreciating and walking in gratitude for his life.

He missed out on more when he was caught up in self-pity and missed the bigger picture.

So I decided to post what the ArchAngel Jeremi-EL has to say about Life Review:

"Take inventory of your life and resolve to change or heal anything that's unbalanced."

It takes courage to look at your life. Yet, if done with compassion and a sense of humor, you'll grow and learn from a life review.

I'll help you take stock of where you've been. We'll look at what you've learned, and how these lessons are a valuable asset for today and tomorrow.

We'll also notice life patterns that aren't serving your highest good, and we'll take steps to release those patterns."

Maat is the Goddess whose wisdom is speaking to the Goddess-Body-Mind-Spirit.com community this year. She says to look at the big picture to see how all of the pieces
fit together to make the whole.

As I see it self-life review is a way for us to put all of our individual experiences into perspective to see how they lead us to remember our wholeness.

It is really neat that I attended Bible study tonight and this is the very topic that we discussed: the importance of self-examination.

As I listened I realized how this life-review is important to experiencing more gratitude. I see it as I do the process of unraveling a mystery.

Each experience, each belief, each attitude, emotion and vibration is a clue that leads to another clue that leads to another clue.

After connecting the clues the mystery is no longer and is now self-realization.

Life review can be used to experience more gratitude for after a while one can't help but be happy and grateful for their life.

May you realize the beauty of your life and the giftedness that is you as a result of your own life review.

And so it is.
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

Gratitude as a Spiritual Path

I am in a mode of expanding my experience with gratitude. I have heard that gratitude is a powerful spiritual tool that can land a person in a sweet, sweet spot. That is what I need right now...a sweet spot.

I know what it means to be grateful. I have experienced gratitude and it is pretty darn delicious.

However recently I began to ponder it as a spiritual path. I was in a small group discussion with a wise woman and she began to talk about bows of gratitude.

Now let me set this up. Before I began to hear her speak I was in the process of doing bows of gratitude. This is when you literally do one bow after the other offering gratitude with each bow.

I knew full well that I needed to take this process deeper and right at that moment the wise woman began to speak:

"Slow down your bows. FEEEEEEEELLLLLLLL the gratitude with each movement in the bow....Can you do 100 bows of gratitude? What about 1000 bows of gratitude? Are you willing to be grateful until your knees bleed? Can you imagine being so grateful that you do 10,000 bows of gratitude?"

Sheesh! She then went on to tell a story that there are some people in the world who actually commit their life to doing bows of gratitude on behalf of all humanity.

All I could think was that I am so grateful for those souls because I know that I have been ungrateful a time or two.

But this got me to thinking about my gratitude level. Is gratitude a part of my lifestyle? How grateful am I really?

I have taken the last few days to go out of my way to be thankful for all that I can think of in that moment. It is amazing how much I take for granted.

Just writing this I am overcome with a deeply warm fuzzy feeling of gratitude for all of life, my life.

You know...This wise woman asked the following questions: "Can you be grateful for the things in your life that maybe didn't feel so good such as parents who didn't love you but still brought you into the world?

"Can you be grateful for that mate who walked out on you leaving you with a broken heart?

"Can you be grateful all the messes you created in your life that caused you to spiral down into situations that were just plain old bad?

"Can you be grateful for it all? How deep is your gratitude?"

I nearly passed out as I listened to her. When we CHOOSE to be grateful, then it is so. This year the primary energy speaking to the Goddess-Body-Mind-Spirit.com community is Maat.

Maat asks that we SEE THE BIG PICTURE. Gratitude is a way to help us step outward and see more of the big picture.

Ultimately ALL IS ONE. There is only the One Divine Source, The Great Mother/God which is Universal Consciousness. I am suspecting that gratitude is a way to arrive at seeing this Ultimate Truth, this Divine Oneness inherent in all things.

And if nothing else, gratitude is the fuel that keeps us living and allows us to seek more even if we are still figuring out most of reality.

I invite you all to journey with me down this gratitude path to see what we find.

In deep gratitude,
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

Spiritual Immunity: Everyone needs it

I was talking to a friend tonight about the importance of building one's spiritual immunity.

It has taken me a while to come into a limited understanding of evil and dark forces. I have often been described as idealistic, a polly anna sort. So my view primarily focuses on the light and love that is God/The Great Mother.

Dark and evil forces: WHAT?! I have simply had a problem believing that they could exist in the midst of all of the good and the light of the Divine.

BUT my new understanding is that The Divine is Omnipresent. That is truth. HOWEVER, our perception of God often times is no where near as expansive as its ominpresence.

As a matter of fact we can get so limited in our perception of God/The Great Mother that we don't even believe the Divine exists. A dark or evil spirit is one that has such a limited sight of the Divine Being that it seems as if there is no light of God at all in them.

It is these dark forces that can attach to us in an unhealthy symbiotic relationship. Their attachment usually occurs when our spiritual immunity is low.

I wrote about the importance of spiritual exercise a few days ago. It is our spiritual practices and disciplines that keep our spiritual immunity high.

In the public health field we would call it prevention using vaccinations. The use of the MMR vaccination may be a little questionable to me but studying spiritual works and praying and journaling and giving thanks and LIVING TRUTH is a sure fire way to confer immunity to these evil and dark forces.

Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com

The Beginning of the End: When Your Inner Dialogue is Taking You SOUTH!

The beginning of the end starts with this type of self-dialogue:

"This morning I am too busy to pray so I will skip doing so and get busy doing all that I need to get done on my full plate today."

"I will skip going to church/mosque/temple/egbe this time. I go every week so one week of not going won't hurt. I am too tired from all of the other stuff that I have been doing."

"Shoots, I know it has been two weeks since I last read my spiritual book. I just feel so down that I can't do anything but sleep right now."

"I need to relax. I will go watch TV/surf the net/talk on the phone/play video games."

I am one who believes that one's spiritual practices are where our peace is recognized, love expands and our spiritual power unfolds.

For my entire life I have been one who is inclined to do spiritual things. But oh my, this physical realm of consciousness has been so enticing and fun and engaging that I have had my times when I thought, "Spiritual what?"

In the earlier part of this phase of my spiritual journey, I would be hot and cold with respect to having daily spiritual practices. There were times when I was so on doing my spiritual work that I would be soaring.

Then I would begin to feel "okay" and would think, "I am fine now." Slowly but surely my daily spiritual work would fall by the way side and I would be steeped in watching America's Next Top Model Marathons ALLLLLLLL day long. WHAT!?

Finally, I would DRRRRAAAAAGGGG myself back to my sacred space, blow the dust off all of my spiritual books and start my spiritual exercises from scratch always landing back in a place of spiritual fitness.

I repeated this cycle for years. Then one day I decided that I would not make any more come backs. I decided that I was committed to doing my spiritual work DAILY. Come hell or high water this sister would not compromise on getting my spirituality on.

Here lately I have found myself in a busy and active state. I feel like I am constantly working on this project, writing that piece or divining for a truth seeker. Not to mention I homeschool my children, teach fitness classes and have responsibilities around my home.

One night on my way to Bible study, I thought, "I am so tired. I really don't want to go. I just want to go home and rest."

Immediately I thought, "Uh-Oh! That is the beginning of the end. Skipping out on regular spiritual practices is the first step into a descent of living hell."

I put my car on the straight and narrow to that church and had some of the most poignant revelations while there.

Just yesterday I awoke needing to complete writing a spiritual reading for a client. Now this weekend I was engaged in very sacred and spiritual work helping four awesome women complete their initiation into the Sacred Feminine Mysteries.

If that ain't spiritual work I don't know what is. I am a little depleted in some way so doing my own personal work is important. I felt so pressed to get that reading done because I had to teach a fitness class that I almost skipped reading and journaling as I do every morning.

Again I said, "The beginning of the end is not nurturing self with your spiritual exercise."

As much as it pained me I sat and did what I was supposed to do. I felt refreshed, revived and was able to hear even the more what I was to write in that reading.

As busy as I am I am not crumbling. I feel good in general and all that I need to get done is getting done in a way at which I am amazed.

I encourage all who need this message to just go ahead and take the plunge into your spiritual practices. Stop making come backs. Ease your way by just doing it. Turn off the TV, the radio, the news, the internet and any other distracting activities. Step away from distracting relationships.


Set up a spiritual space and do SOMETHING to exercise your spiritual muscles. Say a prayer of thanks. Write in your journal daily. Meditate. Sing. Dance. Give praises.

It is not my job to tell you what to do but I do encourage you to make it do what it do! Your spiritual practice is your spiritual power!!!!

In love and power
Tirra-Olufemi
www.goddess-body-mind-spirit.com