Four Ways to Survive the Material World by Mary Petiet

In my book Minerva’s Owls, I weave you into a web of yoga, healing, and the Western wisdom traditions as by sifting through mythic and evolutionary history to explore how we got here and how we can continue to be here in any meaningful way. Minerva’s Owls shifts between the realms of the sacred and the profane, always assuming the door to the everyday can be sought through the higher self. Below is an adaptation from Minerva’s Owls including four strategic everyday ways to channel your inner divine feminine to achieve balance and connection in a chaotic world through sacred yoga and the power of your choices.

Good NEWS! Minerva’s Owls is a finalist in the American Book Fest’s Best Book Awards 2017 in two categories, religion and spirituality! Share copies with your favorite people for the holidays – order on Aamazon here!

We inhabit an age of change and our institutions have ceased to serve the majority. They were built for a different time, and however well intentioned at their inception, they have become monolithic structures concerned with the maintenance of their own power at the cost of larger societal good. In the face of this, our choices on an individual level can strengthen the direct link back to inner divinity through the life affirming tenants of the divine feminine even amidst the material. Enough of these choices can enact change from the bottom up, from the self to the larger society.

1. Reconnect through yoga: Ajna is the chakra of light and resides in the pineal gland situated in the brow between the eyes. Ajna is the third eye, the spot where the ancient Egyptian pharaohs chose to wear the snake of wisdom in their crowns, and it is the spot from which insight, intuition and simple knowing originate. Ajna’s light flies at its own incredible speed, illuminating everything from the cosmos to our ideas. Ajna is where we are right now in our species evolution, holding the space as we find our way forward. Increasingly, the brains vast topography is becoming more and more accessible as scientists continue to map it, as we try to capture consciousness in cupped hands instead of letting it slip randomly through our fingers. To that end we have invented our own universal consciousness, the internet, which allows us to communicate at the speed of light. We have the power of choice and we have created the tools we need to progress, assuming we choose wisely and use our tools appropriately.

2. Choose organic: While we can pretty much all agree industrial factory farming is harmful to the planet, the organic food movement brings us back to the very basics. To the soil and what we can grow from it, simplifying our relationship to what nourishes us while providing a choice to support what benefits us all. Food grown cleanly is good for the body and the land; meat raised humanely respects the animal. We sense this individually, but society’s wider policies show disconnect on the federal level with an insistence on producing as much food as cheaply as possible, at any cost to human health, animal health, or the environment. This supports a crumbling edifice. The solution, when and were possible, is to find a balance that feeds all while respecting the environment and the animals, maybe through new technology, maybe with a shift in eating patterns, definitely through legislation. We can choose wisely what we eat, because we are fueling ourselves with the same energy that creates us and connects us. The suffering factory farm animal is not as distant from us as we might like to think.

3. Support Alternative Energy: Big oil continues to push fossil fuels at huge environmental expense, even as climate change wreaks havoc with our weather systems. This shows acute disconnect on the part of policy makers. The connected response would be to consider changing our approach to clean and sustainable energy alternatives. While small choices, such as walking instead of driving, or bringing a bag instead of taking a plastic one from the store might not seem like much, they are a beginning most of us can manage. They declare our truth, and if enough of us live that truth, it can provide the impetus for legislative change, which is what we really need.

4. Turn Off The TV: Part of the clamor in our heads comes from our constant exposure to media endorsed violence, from movies to TV shows to video games institutionalizing a violent culture glorifying an endless number of horrific scenarios. Between that and the constant stream of news media, which also seems to emphasize the darkest aspects of human nature, we are deafened by noise and aggression. This is the unchecked masculine aspect, running unbridled through the modern consciousness, always begetting further violence. The connected approach would be more measured; it would cease operating from a base of fear. It would rediscover the hidden feminine and operate from a base of connection and love.