Clean Slate And Fresh Page

New Year’s Resolutions - Beginning Again

Because Lucky Six Farms works so intimately with the forces of cosmic time, we recognize the subtle psychological valence inherent in our Western tradition of new year’s resolutions. Yes, the idea is about as old, tired, hackneyed, and cliche as any such worked-to-death meme can get, but the reason it still sticks to our popular repertoire like glue can be found in its underlying power to effect real, lasting change. Our calendar year is constructed to mimic our own life courses, to pass from uneasy, dim uncertainty to cold, burgeoning darkness after a long interval of maturing bright action. This convenient, “organic” demarcation offers new personal opportunity after the passage of four easy-to-recognize seasons. It allows us sufficient temporal distance to look back and conduct a meaningful evaluation of where we have fallen short. The new year thus creates a portal - artificial and arbitrary as it may now seem - whereby we can directly confront our old defects and determine to rectify them. Whatever our position with regard to this approach, we should understand that the most necessary tool in forging quality new year’s resolutions is a clear, discriminating mind coupled to calm, integrated physical stability.

New Year’s Resolutions - Holding The Line

What meme is as strong as new year’s resolutions? Ironically yet somehow unsurprisingly, the only seasonally associated concept carrying equal weight is the anticipated violation of new year’s resolutions! We have become so accustomed to denigrating our own determination and willpower that we often compete with one another - albeit subconsciously - to see who will cave first to the destructive inertia of old habits. But we need not conform to this pathetic obverse of the new year’s coin. For as long as we can maintain our original clarity of intent, we can perceive the benefits of our resolutions not as weak, distant abstractions but rather as living forces coming to our aid and operating for our immediate benefit. The regular use of our certified organic, purifying White Sage products - smudge sticks, cones, essential oil, hydrosol, and whole leaves - can help immensely in tuning our psyches into this task.

New Year’s Resolutions - Vision And Truth

Hopefully, the idea of new year’s resolutions serves as no more than a mnemonic tool for the job of clear-headed understanding that really faces us at every turn. We trust that our aromatic products, generated, processed, and packaged hand-in-hand with Mother Nature herself, can ease the challenges - periodic and otherwise - our customers face day in and day out.

By Alan Beck

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Reiki’s Perfect Complement

Energy Healing - External Environments

Among Lucky Six Farms’ roster of repeat customers, practitioners of energy healing - and Reiki in particular - rank as some of the most loyal. No deep investigation is required to understand the reason for their amazingly consistent patronage. While Reiki techniques channel wholly benevolent, therapeutic energy and thus demand no specific set of material accoutrements, proponents have learned from long experience that certain environmental settings are much more conducive to the free flow of healing energy than others. Our certified organic White Sage hydrosol, in particular, has proven to be a wonderful tool for preliminary cleansing of ambient conditions, whether encountered in homes, institutional settings, or natural spaces. While the thick, purifying smoke of White Sage smudge sticks might not be suitable in confined areas or where the very young, elderly, or people with auto-immne disorders reside, hydrosol can be employed to quickly rid the air of both negative vibrations and unpleasant odors that interfere with effective energy healing.

Energy Healing - Internal States

Clearly, the internal state of Reiki practitioners is of crucial importance for establishing and maintaining the vital current of life-enhancing energy upon which its techniques so intimately depend. Assuring from the outset that the right channel is accessed and remains open and untainted by disruptive astral impressions must always be of paramount importance for optimum employment of such therapies. Again, our White Sage hydrosol shows itself to be the perfect Reiki complement. A few quick sprays unobtrusively yet efficiently energize the mind, even as they simultaneously work to calm bodily nervous tension. Practitioners have found the combination to be unbeatable for opening and tapping into the full power of the key Reiki healing channel.  

Energy Healing - Our Sacred Aromatics

In truth, not just our special White Sage hydrosol but the full inventory of our certified organic and wildcrafted products exists to accommodate the challenging, multifaceted tasks of healing confronting us in today’s post-modern society. Reiki, in all of its various traditions, and focused energy healing represent only a few ways by which we we can better nurture ourselves, each other, and our sacred Mother, the Earth. Thus, we hope blog readers will spend a few moments perusing our full range of sacred offerings so as to take full advantage of the many avenues for positive change represented therein.

By Alan Beck

 

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Lesson Of The Three Wise Men

Spiritual Gifts - Past

In the depths of Winter, one of Christianity’s holiest festivals takes special note of the spiritual gifts brought by Three Wise Men. Unsurprisingly, Lucky Six Farms has always found this element of the Nativity to be of particular importance. The presents - gold, frankincense, and myrrh - clearly reflect Divine qualities meriting unsurpassed honor, especially as these were viewed in the Old World of Near Eastern culture. Today, we have little problem understanding the first gift, as gold has lost none of its luster or value across wide oceans and intervening centuries. But many have missed or dismissed the significance of the remaining two offerings. Why did Wise Men bring such substances?Frankincense and myrrh were the principal sacred aromatics of that time. When burned together, the pair were held to open mundane consciousness to the transcendent Supreme. In fact, numerous places of worship still look to the practical lesson of these spiritual gifts, employing them in the same fashion.

Spiritual Gifts - Present

The idea of sacred aromatics has never been confined to just one region or era. In fact, it is well-nigh universal, encountered wherever and whenever humanity wishes to bring the highest and best closer. Thus in the New World of what is now called the Americas, indigenous peoples called upon a similarly limited roster of plant products to purify both minds and environments prior to important events. Probably the single most widely respected substance of this kind was - and still is - White Sage (Salvia apiana). Smoldering traditional White Sage smudge bundles, often designated as sticks or wands, remain vital accompaniments to virtually every significant Native American rite. By dispelling negative psychic residua while energizing and clarifying insight, the smoke insures that participants fully resonate with a ritual’s intent and receive its undiluted wisdom and power.

Spiritual Gifts - Future

Alternative spiritual paths - including unique, highly individualistic approaches - have successfully adopted the notion of sacred aromatics. This is simply because these substances work and work well. No doubt, as new ways are forged to the Infinite Divine, White Sage and its sister plants will see expanding employment. We are privileged to remain one of the wold’s primary sources for many of these products, including organic smudge bundles of White Sage, Cedar, and Yerba Santa. May they open our hearts to the wondrous blessings bestowed from on high!

By Alan Beck

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Contemplating Bolon Yokte’ K’uh

Cycles Of History - Unraveling Time’s Thread

For as long as humanity has rendered ordered accounts of key events, putative cycles of history have garnered close attention from scholars and mystics alike. The Maya were only one of many civilizations who conceptualized time as Ouroboros, a symbolic serpent consuming its tail, a temporal round whose end forges a new beginning in its own likeness. Thus, time’s mysterious thread was seen knotted into a ring; dynamics of the past were, when viewed judiciously, held to foreshadow affairs to come. Among Near Eastern peoples, Ibn Khaldun proclaimed the same doctrine in aristocratic courts of 14th Century Egypt, just as the venerable Oswald Spengler explicated it in fine detail to masses of literate Westerners as the last century opened. Many of us at Lucky Six Farms believe cycles of history can either clarify or obfuscate the times we live in, depending upon whether their templates are employed with insight or ignorance.

Cycles Of History - Baktun Endings And Beginnings

Because of the considerable accomplishments of Maya society, especially in the areas of mathematical notation and astronomy, our popular media have focused unusual attention on the publication date of today’s blog: December 21, 2012. For on this day, the circa 5125-year Baktun 13 concludes, drawing the preceding Fourth World to a close with the investiture of Bolon Yokte’ K’uh, God of Nine Strides. He is a deity closely associated with conflict, monopolistic trade, and the ancient Central American Underworld, an astral realm peopled with every species of demonic spirit imaginable. Clearly, both those who see this date as an apocalyptic end of the world and those viewing it as simply a listless, mechanical turnover of an arbitrarily protracted calendar labor in equal error. Neither the Maya of old nor any intelligent person living today would share such extreme and ludicrously unrealistic perspectives. What, then, is the authentic significance of today’s great cyclic transition?

Cycles Of History - The God Of Nine Strides

We do not have to look far to see the frightening manifestations of Bolon Yokte’ K’uh: turn on any televised news report or read an Internet journal documenting current events worldwide. Neither esoteric ceremony nor vision quest is needed to contemplate his terrifying countenance. Indeed, his investiture is unprecedentedly grand; never before have such sophisticated instruments of exploitation, surveillance, and coercion been coordinated and fine-tuned to cover the entire populated globe. But, as the Maya well understood, the human spirit remains ever independent and unconquerable. Though the Underworld’s minions may reign among us for a time, their tenure is as surprisingly brief as it is stark. Such is the Way of Nature and the spiritual Path of humankind. That it is always darkest before the dawn is the primary message of cyclic history. We hope our organic products may provide a little light against the suffocating embrace of Bolon Yokte’ K’uh’s stygian night, bringing sources of blessed illumination that, although humble, will serve those whose faith, compassion, and energy are bound to carry us through this long, challenging sunrise.

By Alan Beck

 

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Your Day In Court

Litigation Illumination - Casus Belli

Although litigation is rarely a desirable or pleasant affair, it is nevertheless so common a feature of our post-modern life that few individuals manage to attain middle age without entering a courtroom as petitioner, plaintiff, or defendant. In addition, our legal system has grown important and complex enough to host an immense variety of careers, including but certainly not limited to attorneys, expert witnesses, clerks, and judges. At first glance, nothing would seem as far afield from this vast arena as Lucky Six Farms’ traditional, organic White Sage aromatics. However, this is not the case! The decision to take a particular matter into court necessarily requires both clear headedness and sound rationale. Such prerequisites are uniquely the psychic province of our primary product line. In fact, Salvia apiana’s powerfully purifying and energizing effects were a closely-guarded secret behind much successful litigation in past eras and remain so to this very day!

Litigation Illumination - Preparation And Strategy

One of my prior blogs noted the role played by White Sage in laying the groundwork for effective real estate transactions. Much the same factors come into play when prospective legal matters are at issue. Today’s courtrooms are notorious for their emphasis on thorough case preparation and rigorously rehearsed strategies. Quite a few highly-regarded lawyers - who are also loyal customers - invariably utilize White Sage smudge or hydrosol prior to laying out a roster of key documents and before planning their systematic approach to a difficult case. These products unobtrusively serve to open a lucid psychic space where untoward legal developments and objections can be anticipated, fairly evaluated and countered. In a similar vein, evidence for and against specific courses of action may be carefully weighed before they are actually encountered during the heat of a trial.

Litigation Illumination - Before The Bench

Like seasoned actors waiting in the wings for the curtain to rise, even the most experienced and savvy attorneys inevitably experience anxiety and nervous tension before presenting their cases for official judgement and record. The situation creates another opportunity for our White Sage essential oil or hydrosol to manifest its traditional virtue. Just a drop on a pulse point or diffused into the air will calm the physical body while strongly energizing the intellect and its capacity for abstract thought. For centuries, lawyers - taking their cue from brethren in the commercial sector - have availed themselves of this simple, economical, yet remarkably efficient solution for pre-trial jitters and mental blocks. Obviously, claimants can put our products to similarly practical use: we often receive glowing testimonials to this ostensibly unconventional approach to legal triumph!  

By Alan Beck

 

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Benevolent Intent

Power Of Prayer - Cultivation

Lucky Six Farms is - and always has been - a firm believer in the power of prayer. And by prayer we do not mean only a benevolent wish expressed openly and verbally to the Divine but also a fervent, consistent intent to create and distribute products which will always manifest the best humanity presently has to offer and promises for the future. Our prayers begin when seeds and cuttings are first gifted to their vegetative womb that is the incomparably rich soil of Mother Earth. Often, these delicate seedlings and initial runners must be started in cloistered, climate-controlled chambers specially protected from the ravages of wind and poring rain so common in the high deserts of our American Southwest. We never treat these embryonic sacred herbs as fungible commodities but rather as new living representatives of potent spirit helpers, traditional intermediaries between ourselves and the ineffable, ultimate Creator of All. We thus bring the power of prayer into the fundamental mystery of their germination, their manifestation to us here and now.

Power Of Prayer - Harvest

We understand that harvest implies both life and death and necessarily involves us in the alpha and omega of our conditional existence itself. Miracles begin and end us, surrounding us at every step of our journey, no matter how protracted or brief. At harvest time, many of the Lucky Six Farms staff accompanied by monks from Madre Grande monastery attend unique services to honor the many sacrifices of our herbal allies. During this critical period, when these entities are purposefully transitioned from field to ceremonial form, from sun, moon, and star-lit outdoors to closely illumined interiors, from natural growth to human service, we monitor all our words and deeds with great care. On several occasions, when this proved insufficient and inadvertent dissent or conflict marred the process, we put quantities of material aside to be recycled rather than sold, because we believe that prayer is incomplete if not firmly supported by intent. We will not promulgate products that do not actually reflect purity, compassion, and helpful sincerity at every stage of their preparation. The power of prayer means our business morale is real and substantial rather than meretriciously superficial and mechanical.

Power Of Prayer - Processing, Packaging, And Distribution

Each and every item we offer is processed, packed, and distributed with love. We intend that each, without exception, be used for spiritual elevation and purification. This is our pledge to you, our customers, and to ourselves as proactive proponents of the power of prayer. Thus, our prices are made, not to bloat profits for a select few, but to be as reasonable and economical as possible, so the incredible benefits of these sacred aromatics may be enjoyed by as many sincere seekers as possible. Happy experience and the many testimonials we receive daily testify to the power of our prayers and those of our clients as well. May we use these amazing gifts of Nature to better work together and uplift the world.

By Alan Beck

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Works Of Ceremonial Magick

Spiritual Health And Hermetic Tradition

As has been previously emphasized many times in this Lucky Six Farms blog, there are probably as many authentic dimensions to spiritual health as there are seekers. Some of the most intriguing and thoroughly documented avenues to metaphysical wholeness can be found in practices of European ceremonial magick and its associated Hermetic doctrines. Founded upon the notion that deficient astral forces of whatever kind may be significantly augmented via appropriate ritual, the conceptual basis of ceremonial magick is rooted in the value of transcendent balance. Thus, the practitioner sought to be fully comfortable and function productively both in his/her skin and external environment. Spiritual health was viewed in much the same fashion as physical wellness: a state of perfect integration with the universe at large, of microcosm with macrocosm.

Spiritual Health - Invocation

One aspect of achieving this ultimate balance was effected via ceremonial invocation of highly benevolent cosmic intelligences. Because these were usually classified as intrinsically angelic and therefore wholly benevolent in character, they were encouraged to merge into the body/mind complex of the magician, who conducted the rite within a focusing boundary Circle. Needless to say, such entities were much more inclined to integrate into pure human abodes than polluted ones, so profound prayer combined with classic banishing rituals like those of the Pentagram and Hexagram were employed prior to any direct appeal to a prospective indwelling spirit. Nor could purely external aids be neglected, so the burning of traditionally purifying herbal agents like White Sage became an absolutely integral component of all such rites.

Spiritual Health - Evocation

Since it has long been recognized in esoteric circles that humans may approach perfection but, like terms in an infinite series, never actually attain it, ceremonialists sought to come to grips with curiously potent yet intrinsically unbalanced aspects of reality. In conventional perspectives and marked contrast to the entities noted above, such intelligences were generally classed as demonic. In order to better emphasize the psychic separation ideally existing between the Hermetic magician and such spirits, these entities were asked - or even ordered! - to manifest strictly as external agents who would only be welcomed outside a clearly delimiting Circle of Art. (We should not be surprised to learn that this insulating procedure was often frustrated.) Nevertheless, as all grimoires note, even the most radically deviant intelligence is invariably repelled by pollutions and ritual impurities. So the judicious use of purifying aromatics like White Sage was also mandated in these contexts. Lucky Six Farms is proud to note that all their certified organic White Sage products are as efficacious in today’s Hermetic rituals, whatever the orientation or Path, as they have been in prior eras.

By Alan Beck

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