Theatre of the Mind Podcast Episodes

Kelly Howell: Hey, everybody. Welcome to Theatre of the Mind. I'm your host, Kelly Howell. Today is my birthday. Do you believe I'm doing a podcast on my birthday? I just love podcasting.


I'm sitting here with Patricia Padilla. We had a lovely lunch. And then we started talking about prayer, and I said: "Hey, let's go back to the studio and do a show." [laughs] Because I didn't have a show for this week anyway. Patricia was here with us a few weeks back. She is an eighth generation Curandera, and we are going to talk about the principles of prayer today.


Welcome back to the show. It's great to have you here.
Patricia Padilla: It's good to be here, Kelly. Happy birthday.
Kelly: Thank you. I can't think of a better subject to discuss on my birthday than prayer.
Patricia: Yes. Verdad.
Kelly: So, I believe we discussed the dynamics of prayer. And the etiquette and what the basic principles of prayer are.
Patricia: Right. I love your word, etiquette. Well, there's a different way of looking at prayer. When we think about prayer, often we're thinking about what we want to petition for, or what we want to ask for from divine goodthose seen and unseen forces in the realm of the divine.


I'd like to offer something different to think about today. That, if you're busy asking for what you think you needor what you do actually needit's to assume that you don't have it. It's to assume that it hasn't been provided for you, when, oftentimes, we do have it. We just stand in our own way, or our vision is clouded, or our understanding is limited. And so, there is a practice in prayer that I've rather enjoyed doing: to give thanks for those things that we normally would ask for.


[Kelly agrees]


For instance, I've battled this horrendous flu for about a month and a half now. It's kind of Spirit's way of saying: "Slow down and listen." But I kept finding myself saying: "Oh, God, take this from me. Just make this better." And, I realized I'd kind of gotten off my own path. I really needed to say thank you for the vibrant health. Thank you for the clarity of thought and vision. Thank you for the ability to speak. Although, my voice is somewhat gravely and not as congested as it was before I got that idea back into motion. But I think it's very, very important. The practice of gratitude is the most powerful way to pray in my experience.
Kelly: Yes. I'm reminded of what Deborah Rozman from the HeartMath Institute saidand they've done all that research on the heart. One of the most powerful frequencies is gratitude.
Patricia: Oh...
Kelly: That that extends the energy from our heart, and creates coherent waves.
Patricia: It's like flipping the light on in a wide, vast stadium. It's that kind of energetic rush, I think. But it is our smallness and our insecurity and our pain of not knowing that keeps us in the position of always wanting to ask for what we think we don't have.


So, when you practice gratitude, it is to take a different stance, to assume a different posture, to walk and act and behave and interact with the world in a different way. Because, we are beings of unlimited potential and power. We are the breath of the divine. We exist in the mind of Creator. And so, when we take on that mantle and behave as such, we become powerful beyond our imagination.


Another thing about prayerand, I love this about doing ceremonyis calling on the six directions. Father Sky, Grandmother Earth, and the four directions: east, west, north and south. And as we call upon those spirit beings from all of those directions, we only call them when we offer candlelight and sage, and cornmeal and tobacco.


It truly is like the rain coming down from the heavens and nourishing the earth; feeding the earth and allowing the plants to absorb the moisture they need. And in turn, they produce leaves and flowers and vegetables and fruits, and then through respiration or resorption, the moisture goes back up into the heavens. So, as we come forward in our petitions, to offer something in return so we can enter that great cyclethat circlein a sacred way. In a good way.
Kelly: I think that's a part that's not taught in a lot of religions. Well, it's taught, but not directly. Part of prayer really requires an offering.
Patricia: It really does. And I often tell people this is my way of doing it. You joke about my little pouch of cornmeal and tobacco and sage, and carrying my abalone shell with meI often tell people that come for specific requests to find that homeless person and give them a buck for a cup of coffee or whatever they want it for, without judging or questioning, because they're part of this grand creation as well.


Sometimes it's the easiest offering to make, because it can light up someone's existence momentarily in a way that you couldn't have foreseen. And it doesn't have to be that. It may be to pick up trash along the side of the highway, or to plant a tree somewhere where it's barren.
Kelly: Do you remember when we were trying to sell our other house?
Patricia: Oh, yeah.
Kelly: And I so wanted to move. I wanted to move so badly. You came out, and we did a ceremony at the house, and after that, I went down to St. Elizabeth's Shelter, and I made a big donation. They were just thrilled.
Patricia: Thrilled.
Kelly: And we sold our house not long after that.
Patricia: Not even solicited you made that donation. How beautiful.
Kelly: It's part of the prayer. We can't keep asking for something without giving.
Patricia: We've become a very passive society. Rather than sitting around at a dinner table having a meal and discussing the events of the day we go and grab something out of the freezer and stick it in the microwave and go and sit in front of the TV.


So we've come to this place of thinking that whatever is going to happen is going to be done for you or to you, or by something or somebody else and in that we abdicate all of our power, all of our creativity. And so I think it's also a good reminder to become participants in prayer by making offerings that it is that way throughout all of life that you get out of life what you put in to it. It's not as instant as instant entertainment or a pill that does something immediately where really a lifestyle change is needed.


So you know through all of the modern conveniences and technology we've become nonparticipants in our own life. So like you were out in your garden today and planting your flowers that putting your hands in the dirt, that acknowledging the Grandmother Earth that participating in the blooming of the formation of beauty is so healing and so validating.
Kelly: Offerings can be really, really simple, like planting flowers.
Patricia: It's an attitude, really. It is how can I participate. Who was it in Kennedy's administration, was it Pierre Salenger that wrote if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem? I always loved that because it reminded me about prayer. Acting as though you've received what you've needed and walking with a gait of gratitude and thanksgiving. It's the only way to really be able to receive it. Because if we're lost in our wanting, we can't recognize the gift right before us.
Kelly: I remember we've talked about this quite a bit, having an altar, and the howto's of creating an altar, which I think everyone should have in their home somewhere.
Patricia: Well, we actually see altars in about every home that we walk into.
Kelly: In Santa Fe.
Patricia: No, it's the American religion of television sets and stereos and computers and answering machines and cell phones. We set those places up with such reverence and care and thought. It's about where we put our attention. Where do we put our energy?


Yes, we should have different kinds of altars, not just to technology. An altar is a focused intention. It is a place where your eyes rest and your heart stills and you stop the world to remind yourself of what is of importance to you.


So yeah, I think altars are extremely important. It can't just be technology. It can't just be the World Wide Web or the telephone or the news on TV. We need that stillness to listen to the voice of Creator. To listen to own inner voice of wisdom that is informed by creator. I talk a lot about altars and I certainly have them all over my house.
Kelly: You certainly do, with lots of colored paper flowers and Christmas lights, and saints.
Patricia: Oh yeah, the plug in lights. My fave. But it's in whatever form it takes, whether it's Tibetan prayer flags or an African drum or a Native American abalone shell with sage or Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. It is to remind ourselves that we are part of something so much bigger and grander then we can conceive of. It is to remind ourselves that we are wrapped and bathed and swathed in divinity at all times. I think particularly in these times we need those reminders. We're in very unstable times, confusing times, there are many changes going on. Those are the constants, those are the bridges between physicality and non physicality that give us a footing in what is real and what is not.
Kelly: In your healing art, is there such a thing as a penance, like there is in Catholicism?
Patricia: That's a great question, Kelly. There really isn't and idea of penance because penance is punitive and my belief is the Catholic Church really brought that forward because it was a way to subjugate people just like indulgences, selling indulgences was a way to subjugate people. It is a way to make someone the authority and you dependent on that authority.


So in my worldview, no. I don't think in terms of penance. I think in terms of right action. I think in terms of balance. I think in terms of good creative participation. But penance implies guilt. I don't think that guilt serves anyone.
Kelly: But people feel guilty. So if someone feels guilty, they've done something they feel is wrong.
Patricia: And you know what? There is a term: narcissism, which is this selfabsorption. Oh, I need to look a certain way. People have to see me a certain way, I want to be perceived a certain way. I, I, I, I, I!


Guilt is the other side of that coin. I need to flail myself, oh, I feel so bad about myself. It's myself, myself, myself. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes. Guilt is a waste of time. Learn from the mistakes. Do it better because of that mistake. There was a...
Kelly: You just say move on basically? Move forward?
Patricia: Well I say that it's being no less selfabsorbed to talk about your guilt and shame than to talk about your grandeur. We are not the totality of the universe; we're just a very small, small part of it. Our mistakes are our greatest teachers. And to belabor them and get lost in them and roll in the dirt and beat ourselves up about it is a waste of time. There's a lot to do that kind of selfabsorption I think is really the clearest definition of hell that I know of. It's true.


There was a man who spoke at my daughter's graduation over a decade ago. He was a black man; he looked a lot like Sammy Davis Jr. He was about 4'8" and had one glass eye, no kidding, and blue black and he talked to the kids and said, "Oh, you guys seem to feel really proud of yourselves today, I can tell you're feeling pretty accomplished and like you've done something. Well let me tell you something. The only person that you really should be proud of is your mom and dad. Because they got you out of bed every morning, they fought with you about going to school. They made sure that you got there. They gave you the way to get there."


[dogs barking]
Kelly: Hey! That's Anna! What is going on?
Voice: Sorry.
Kelly: That's Ok.
Patricia: Gus, you are smartest boy. He was saying hey. Come here, Gus.


"The only time you can really congratulate yourself is if you've survived failure." He said, "I've been in prison twice. I've married four times. I've been addicted to heroin; I've been addicted to crack. I've been on the street. I've been a journalist. I've been a broadcaster." He said, "And now, coming out of the streets again I have columns in 147 papers across the planet. I want to tell you it was because of those failures that I had to get up and do it right. It was because I dared to fail that I could succeed."


So I tell this story because when we get mired down and enmeshed in our own sense of shame about failure, it's because we misunderstand who we are from the beginning. We are here to learn. We are not God and we are not perfect. Some would argue that we certainly are God, well that's an ideological difference. I believe that I'm part of a greater good that I'm expression of divine mind but I am not the divine.


So my failure isn't the end all and be all of anything. It is but a small part of the construct of who I am. It is a steppingstone to greater understanding. So how do I dance with failure? How do I relate to it? My altars are part of that. I look at those and I pay attention to those little visual cues to remain humble, to know that I am part of a greater good. To know that I am surrounded by compassion, love and creativity.


There are many levels to this existence. Many levels of thought, of being. So it is my desire, my heartfelt desire to stay in sync with that grand intelligence that does hold the stars and the planets in place in the heavens. I want to be in balance with that.


Am I able to do that all the time? Not hardly. But it is my intention to strive for that. Prayer is a very large part of that. Not asking for something that I don't have, but reminding myself to be thankful for the ability to do the things that I can do, to see, to hear to walk, to relate, to reach out to community, to think. Since my vocation is to deal with illness, it is a daily constant reminder of what I do have, how fortunate I am, how able I am. Every soul that comes to my door gives me another reason to be deeply grateful.
Kelly: You use the word petition. What do you mean by that?
Patricia: Well, petitioning, what is a petition? You take a lot of signatures to the legislature to ask for a change of something. So it's a request. Boy this just really gets me off in a tear in a way, because we're always thinking about what we can ask for, instead of what we can give.


Will it take the gas prices going to six or seven dollars a gallon to realize how much we do have? Will it take that kind of discomfort and reorganization of our life style to appreciate being able to get in the car and drive to your favorite restaurant? We have so much here. We're always kind of being encouraged to ask for more by the marketing firms of Wall Street, or what's the name of that street in New York City? I don't know.
Kelly: Madison Avenue.
Patricia: Madison Avenue, yeah.
Kelly: Advertising, yeah.
Patricia: It's like we have been victims to Madison Avenue.
Kelly: Yeah, we're the culture of desire.
Patricia: Yeah, in my heart of hearts I think I'm as much Buddhist as anything because I do believe that desire is the biggest burden of all. It takes us from what we have, who we are, where we are.
Kelly: Well there's different kinds of desire. There's desires that are greedy and selfish, where to fulfill one's desire occurs at the expense of another. We see this going on in the government and our politics today.


But then there are desires that stem from the heart that are a real core need on the part of any human being. I believe those desires are valid, that it's important for us to follow that thread of desire in our hearts. So the desire, for example, to know one's path, where to find a work or a way of living that is deeply fulfilling and satisfying. That is a valid desire, it's a natural human need.


This question of desire comes up so often because I have an audio program called Fulfill Your Heart's Desire and people get a little confused sometimes I think with the whole notion of desire, there's a lot of stigma around it, that it's bad, that it leads to suffering, that it can cause a great deal of pain.


And it can, it can, however if you listen to your desire and you go deeply into it, and imagine yourself having that desire fulfilled, and being in that fullness, and being in that state, you can't help but feel gratitude.
Patricia: It's true, I always love talking to you, Kelly, because you always bring up such wonderful ideas and questions. And you had something to say, about gratitude. Would you mind sharing with me again what you learned about that?
Kelly: I spoke about this in an earlier podcast and then I had Deborah Rozman on the show, and she talked about coherent and incoherent heart waves, which is similar to coherent and incoherent brainwaves.


A coherent wave is a clear and pure signal, kind of like a laser beam, and an incoherent wave is like static fuzz. If you saw it on a screen, it's very jagged and ragged, whereas a coherent wave is very smooth. When you're feeling gratitude and appreciation, you generate coherent waves. When you're feeling gratitude, while you're praying, you are emanating a very high frequency, you're sending out a coherent wave that's carrying a lot more information; it travels further, and it will maintain its integrity, so it's like a pure thought.
Patricia: And it is measurable.
Kelly: It is measurable.
Patricia: And so if I had gotten up this morning and I said, "Oh Dear Sweet Spirit, please would you help Kelly be this, and would you give her that, and could you do this for her..."
Kelly: That's an incoherent wave.
Patricia: There you go. What a wonderful way to explain prayer.
Kelly: Yeah.
Patricia: Kind of.
Kelly: I never thought of it that way, but it's true. And it's true, the way to have a very powerful prayer is to be in that state of gratitude or appreciation, and your entire aura changes, because heart waves extend and are measurable ten feet from the body. Well, that's with our own measuring equipment, that's what we can measure now. But prayers travel across the globe, across the universe.
Patricia: It affects physicality across the globe. There's always something interesting with my animals as well. Prayer, I think, also transcends time and physical incidents, and my animals always remind me of that.


If I'm getting ready to go to Los Angeles to see my daughter, a week before I go, they know I'm gone. They feel the flight of my spirit. When I'm there, there's one of my animals, who's a hybrid mix, will come to me visually and he'll know when I'm coming home because he'll literally send me the thoughtform of his face, panting with excitement.
Kelly: [laughs]
Patricia: Does this make any sense to you?
Kelly: I've read Rupert Sheldrake's work, and he's written a book on this.
Patricia: I want to read the book.
Kelly: Animals will know when you're coming home. They've done studies on this.
Patricia: And they know when you're leaving. A week before I know I'm leaving, they know I'm leaving, and I know I'll get a call to go somewhere, by their behavior. They're teaching me; they're raising me every day.


It's that intention, it's that knowing, it's that living so fully, acknowledging the grandeur of all that we are and all that we experience. How can we not be grateful? How can we not be always in Prayer?
Kelly: Could you do a prayer for us? One of your blessings?
Patricia: It would be such a pleasure to do it on your birthday.


Great spirit, Holy Father, blessed Mother, Queen of the universe, all of those hierarchies of angels and saints, the seen and unseen help that surrounds us, we call upon you to celebrate you, to thank you, for all that we are, for all that we have been, and all that we are to be.


We thank you for Kelly Howell, for her work, we thank you for allowing us to share her journey with her. We ask for special blessings upon all the participants of her programming, the people that are searching. We give great thanks that you can see that open doorway and go through that portalway to reunite with those that seek you, who long for you.


We give thanks for all the wondrous things that we experience each and every day and ask for the eyes and heart and the ears and the awareness to celebrate all of the wondrous things that we participate in each and every day. We ask for healing for Grandmother Earth and we give thanks for her that she sustains us and surrounds us with beauty, and we give great thanks for allowing us to be here today. Gracias a Dios.
Female voice: That was Patricia Padilla, 8th generation Curandera; she can be reached by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thank you for listening, and many blessings to you.


[Music]
Male voice: You have been listening to "Theatre of the Mind" Podcast, accelerating the evolution of human consciousness. You can visit Theatre of the Mind online at www.kellyhowell.com, and leave comments, questions, and feedback and join the conversation about consciousness. We want to know what you're thinking.


Or you can call Kelly; the phone number is (206) 3398686.


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