Who Is He

My name is Parker Stafford.  I have been a professional artist in a studio practice  since 1997 and I am involved in teaching both through my studio as well as at the university level.  I studied and hold advanced degrees in art, I am also an educator, having taught at the college and university level for several years now. I grew up a seeker and have been working with energy since I was 18.  I am now almost 50. Over years of sensitivity and honing skills, awakening has brought me to a place where I am able to bring my own skills to a new place in helping to refine some of our understandings about the role of energy, consciousness, feeling, emotion, and intuition.  I also maintain a blog about art and design here.

Since awakening I have entered into a different kind of space, and have worked diligently to do assist kundalini in what it has done from day one which has been to cleanse and rewire the subtle and physical bodies.  I live in a broad expanse of being, a presence that I suppose I now take for granted in a way.  After a pretty significant struggle during one phase of awakening, the collapse of ego, I have entered into a much more peaceful territory.  The spiral continues and just when I meet one milestone or major point of expansion and presence, everything is put into a new perspective as the driving force of kundalini stands silently but radiating this awareness within me "okay, that was what seems a really tall mountain you climbed but this is not the tallest....so keep your shirt on and let's keep moving forward."  People I have known who have been living with kundalini for decades experience the same thing.  We may awaken in a flash, and some may want to say "Ah, an enlightened master!" the truth is, we have just climbed a hill and want to make it a great achievement.  Well it is. But there is more.  More for me, more for you, and the experience of those in the past cannot nor will not be our own because I can safely tell you that I have it on good authority that the collective consciousness itself is in a process of evolving.  What we were when Jiddu Krishnamurti was alive and writing is now a very different state of being and presence.  What was difficult for some in the past will be easy now.  Just as one of my guides said to me when I was struggling to me said "What do you think the effect of thousands of years worth of seeking and pilgrimages and meditation and prayer have done to the collective? What do you think the effect of all those countless millions of followers and aspirants has been on the template of the divine human?  All you need do is stop your struggling and realize that it has all been prepared for you.  You need only step into it!" I operate with the sense that was showed to me early on that awakenings would actually ramp up over time, a sense I could not have confirmed in any way at the time, but have seen ample evidence for over the last six years.  I expect it to continue, and as such, allowing it the means to expand as much as it can will have a benefit to humankind at this critical time.  This is a grassroots revolution taking place that is happening person by person, and I cannot think of another time in recent history when we have seen anything like this.  We need to marshal all our resources to make the greatest use of this previous gift that we have blooming before us.  We are gifted with living in interesting times!

So for those of you who know my writing, you will not find someone who is infatuated with traditions.  If you are, this may not be the best place for you.  I will ask you to question things, to never take things on blind faith and to examine, to use all your inner tools and to question whether your beliefs are serving you.  It is true that beliefs form reality, and if you have some beliefs that imprison you rather than free you, you will be in a tight spot until you are ready to make a change.  Even IN awakening.  So yes, I am not afraid to point out the obvious at times and ask why we may think such silly things, but I ask so that our understanding may progress.  As humans, we have this tendency to make things up when we do not have complete knowledge or experience.  That, or it just becomes the will of god.   We tend to make legend and myth of that which is mysterious to us, but we all have the capacity to know what is.  Knowing what is is an important part of moving through awakening since it signals the release of the limiting lenses that govern and even blind, bind, and limit you.  Here, in this century, I am here to do what I have done in the past, which is to help remove the shackles of slavery.  Just now, the slavery we have upon us is the slavery to illusion (along with some issues working out on the world stage in regards to globalist efforts, but that is for another blog). 

I experienced the beginnings of awakening in 2006 when I felt moved to clear up some overhanging issues that I felt were unresolved about an experience I had had back in 1984, and while the experience itself bore upon awakening in an unexpected way, it was the ability to release years worth of pent up frustration an guilt that I had about not doing what I thought was enough to honor a very old vision that had visited me for reasons I was not completely clear on.   The ironic result was that in releasing myself from the bonds of this sense of responsibility, or of not having done enough, a crack emerged where an entirely new experience emerged.  The crack was the first of many that were nothing short of an edifice that had been holding back years of blocked soul energy from entering into my life.  Certainly, I feel, this is the case with those who are not yet awakened, for we are all holding something back or at bay without realizing it.  Over the course of six months, a range of phenomenon emerged in a trickle that finally culminated in the stereotypical "rising" of the energy some call kundalini.  My life from that point on was changed, and continued to change in a rapid and sometimes drastic way.  Some changes which felt big were much smaller once they were in the rear view mirror, and some small lessons have proven to be landmarks in my awakening experience. 

I do not propose to suggest that I am a teacher, or guru or guide.  I see myself as I am, just like yourself.  What I seek to do is what all authentic seekers come to at some point, which is to point out that the only authority that exists is within you.  When we look outside of ourselves, we are looking into the world of maya or what some call illusion, our still-remaining karmic strands serving to create parts of our experience even as we seek to dissolve those strands so that what we wish for ourselves become real instead of the karma that remains unresolved, getting in on the act. No one else will be able to do this except you, and if anything, we all can act as points of inspiration for each other.

When I was young, I was an ardent seeker.  From a pretty early age.  When I read accounts or stories of experiences with this other world of human experience, I read them as one who is fascinated with the range of experience possible for people.  I did not assume even then that my experience would be the same as anyone else's, but I very much enjoyed turning the accounts over in my mind to see what I found relevant or true for me at the time.  Great works often tend to change and remain relevant for us as we move along within ourselves for the reason that many times we are not always ready for some words while we are ready for others.  Gopi Krishna's book, which I bought at age fifteen, I realize now really went over my head in many ways, just as a colleagues own kundalini awakening went over my head even once I awoke.  Some books have fallen by the wayside, gone from my bookshelves, while others remain and still others enter as suggestions to me for new perspectives, or new ways to see things that I had not entertained before.  Some things reemerge and are seen in a new light, brought back into a new vivid light for the moment that they can offer up such insight to my mind or heart.

We are each like a facet on a giant mirror and we can each observe other facets that can sometimes lead to our own learning, discoveries, or insights.  Some sources simply fall away while others remain relevant.  the difference, though, is that we sift and find what we find as true.  Buddha said that his students should never simply accept what another says as the truth, but only after making sure that it holds water for them.  So what I do is simply present my perspective, and this perspective is certainly changing as I continue to grow and emerge out of the mist of lifetimes worth of karma and illusion.  We are all here perhaps doing some of this, and your great gift is your own freewill.  Take responsibility for that!  It is a wonderful gift, but it can also be the worst weapon when we cannot or will not accept our own place in the cosmic order.  Certainly we have had enough of that throughout our long history on this planet!  the curios thing is that when we DO take responsibility for our free will, we also enter into a deeper relationship with the divine, a spirit or presence, an intelligence that pervades everything, looks out through all life, is a part of all life, and cherishes it, yet allows us the room to make up our own minds and to craft our souls as we see fit. 

I did not awaken using methods.  I did not sit upright nor did I breathe.  I was a seeker from age nine, and I know that my own awakening had little to do with methods but in reaching a place of surrender.  In surrendering an old angst within me that served to divide me, I brought the two forces of the cosmic into close proximity, close enough for them to begin to resonate and vibrate within my awareness.  I was bringing the fabled Shakti and Shiva into my own awareness.  I was encountering the Gnostic Bridal Chamber.  I was merely a bud opening to a world that had always existed and that exists for you, too, but perhaps cannot be fully appreciated until that moment of awareness begins to flood into you because of some small straw that served to break the dam holding back the floodgates of your own soul energy.  You need only open, surrender, cease the tight grasp on intellect and rational reasoning, and continue living your life ready for anything to happen.....because surely anything is possible.   This is in many ways a shift from left brain to right brain thinking, and once that is done, it is learning how to strike a balance between the two so that the power of awakening can proceed smoothly.  Because we each come to this in our own way, there are many factors that make each persons opening different.  So I say we each share and offer our perspectives at a time when the energy here on earth is changing.  It has to, I think, if we are to survive.  It is a natural result of our own evolutionary spiral.  This is encouraging! My feeling is that the more voices we have in o this, the better.  This is a rare moment in the history of the earth.  We are entering just now a cosmic Spring which will bring with it the herald of a new age: the emergence of the Feminine principle both in nature, in human awareness, and the species as a whole.  I know that sounds lofty, but this is what we have on offer, and if we can grasp what this means in all its nuance and potential, the better we will be for it!



What I consider myself is something of a reporter.  I observe and I do feel I may have some interesting perspective to share, but in so reading that perspective, consider your own.  If anything, I hope that my words serve as encouragement to you along your own path, your own way.  I am human and I may have very strong opinions about things.  Sometimes these opinions change.  I am not perfect, I am like everyone else.  I am waiting for the next new fold to drop to reveal a still larger piece of the cosmic fabric even as I expound on what I think is so or true and.....oh look!  A new discovery has unfolded!  Let's check it out!  Oh wait.....I guess that new wrinkle will mean I have some revising to do.  Yes, yes, but isn't this new thing amazing?  So you see, when we give ourselves the room to grow and to be, we naturally bring compassion into the moment. 



The blog began as a very private way for me to plumb my experience and my own being.  I was letting go of some ancient barriers within that had me blocked.  I continue to tear down those walls, sometimes weakly, sometimes powerfully.  there may be a hint of this in the writing on this blog, and it has certainly evolved over time.  the blog also served as a way to incubate ideas as a manuscript seemed to emerge from notebooks first and then on the computer.  I was merely seeking to keep a record of all the changes taking place.  I wasn't sure why, perhaps as a way to understand the rapid changes taking place.  Once the manuscript reached 200 pages, I thought perhaps it could be turned into a book.  This has ballooned to 750 pages, close to 1400 pages if put into a "cut book" ready for publishing.  Since reaching that volume of writing, I have been involved in editing, sometimes simply taking what I had written and rewriting it.  A book of this magnitude has been simply an incredible challenge.  I still do not know when or how it will be published, or if.  the publishing world is a fickle and odd business.  But whatever does happen, I will have worked through many experiences for myself, and in the end, I think this is why I came here.  Perhaps my earlier urgency for serving the world was in truth an urgency for serving myself.  Not to be self serving, but to honor the light within before seeking to do anything beyond that.  When we learn self love, not selfish love, we become like fountains that are full, not empty, not seeking some new thing to make us less aware of what we lack.  When se cease feeling lack and feel he abundance of our own souls, I think that we are in a better place to be of service.  Here, instead of working from an agenda of lack, we work from an agenda of abundance.  The world needs this, I think, which is itself a reversal of the roles we have played for so long where we look outside for the answers when they lay quietly within us all along. 

In the meantime, we each serve as reminders to each other of who and what we are deeper down.  What I convey is not anything you don't know.  We each may have forgotten something, but it is most often like waking up from a deep sleep.  I am whispering to you that the sovereignty lies within you, you are the voice, you ARE.  As we each realize, we do what so many have said is the goal of waking up; we merely realize what the self IS.  It sounds so simple, and it really is.  We merely have to learn how to get out of our own way.  So to that end, I offer you all the most encouragement in doing so. Awakening is not an easy business, but it can result in some incredible insights and moments of fulfillment.  Isn't that why we are here?

I hope that you can bring something of value from my ramblings.  The truth is, I never really know what I am going to write until it is out there.  Some of it, I feel funny about sometimes.....I am a visual artist, and had trouble speaking as a child it seems.  Maybe I just didn't have much to say.  Perhaps I am now making up for that.  But if it helps one person, then in the words of a writer who encouraged me early on, it will have been worth every second.  

Blessings,

Parker