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"Be the change you want to be in the world."

Mahatma Gandhi

The Northwest is the place of the patterns of our life experience, karma and dharma, sacred images, and rules and laws. The Law of Cycles and the seasons, Grandmother Earth's patterns of form, sit here as well. In many respects, the Northwest is the most exacting and difficult position to hold on the medicine wheel, because here we must constantly look at ourselves to determine if we are measuring up to the contracts that we have established with Life and Self in our Book of Life. It is important to remember that we each wrote our own Book of Life before we stepped onto the Earth plane in this incarnation, and that we can rewrite it whenever we choose to do so. 

Our Sacred Image is the representation of the fully developed expression of our "true nature spirit personality." It is constantly with us to remind us of who we truly are, urging us to take control of our life and make the ultimate stretch for excellence in this lifetime. When we do so, it is possible for us to bring our sacred dream to fruition by following Sacred Law. There are three aspects of our Sacred Image.

1. The image of the sacredness of our relationship to life itself and to everything within the All.

2. The image of our physical self as a sacred thought of Great Spirit that has been dreamed into a Magnetic Attracting Thought space.

3. The image of our self as an interconnected, interdependent and essential piece of the absolute sacredness of all life.

The rules and laws that we set for ourselves, our families, communities, and governments, begin as individual and collective attempts to keep us in alignment with our Sacred Image, but many of them break down over time as they are increasingly influenced and modified by the image makers. They represent our determination of how things should be based on our perception of morality: right and wrong, good and bad, fair and unfair, etc. 

Rules and laws have limitations and boundaries that we place on self and others in order to govern conduct. Civic, social and religious laws govern the collective. Rules are what we can and cannot do. Laws include what will happen if we do not follow the rules. Rules over a period of time create boundaries, a box around our freedom of expression. Laws increasingly become limitations and restrictions within the box itself. If our personal and collective rules and laws are not in balance and harmony with the Sacred laws, (i.e. Natural Laws, Cosmic Laws, Universal Laws and Magickal Laws), we increasingly find ourselves in violation of Sacred Law and moving away from our Sacred Image.

"The worst disaster that can befall a man or woman is to lose
 or surrender his or her power of free will - whether it be
 through physical or mental enslavement or insanity."     
Richard Kieninger  

Patterns develop from the repetitive experience of following the rules and laws that we set for ourselves, or are set for us by the "image makers" in the collective. After a period of time, these patterns become a "normal" part of our daily lives. When we establish patterns that do not serve us, frequently as an attempt to fit in and conform, we may find ourselves behaving in ways that run counter to our sacred image and Sacred Law. Eventually we become imprisoned by them, thus being at effect rather than at cause in our daily lives.  Once we are trapped, it is extremely difficult to free ourselves - but not impossible!

We "cross our children's fire" and step into the dark mirror of the Northwest when we violate Sacred Law by maintaining these dysfunctional patterns.  This in turn causes stress, anger, and pain in our lives, resulting in Karma. In spite of the pain and terror we are experiencing, we are even more afraid of letting die what must die in order to better our lives, the lives of those around us, and the life of Grandmother Earth. 

"I died a mineral, and became a plant.
I died a plant and rose an animal.
I died an animal and I was man.
Why should I fear?  When was I less by dying?"
Jalal-Uddin Rumi (1207-1273), founder of Mevlevi Sufi

When we finally do awaken to the fact that we are being unmercifully controlled by these restrictive patterns, we may choose to take responsibility for our lives and open ourselves to death, transformation and new life. It is time to let die what needs to die so we may open ourselves to new possibilities.  At this point we must take our power as sacred humans, set our intent, move through the death process, (often quite painful, but necessary) and expand into the light of all possibilities.  The dysfunctional patterns transform into new patterns that are in balance and harmony with our intent and Sacred Law.  We are now in Dharma, at cause, and free to determine for ourselves the actualization of our Sacred Image.  This is the light mirror of the Northwest.

Source of information:

Song of the Deer by Thunder Strikes and Jan Orsi

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Copyright 2022: Lynette Hopkins