I am

I am the beating heart
the tender memory
driven by my passion
surrendered through grace
of that which I have always been
and shall continue to be.

I am your tender heart
your wildest passion
your forbidden fantasy
a hard driving Summer rain
the sun rising and filling you with light
sanctifying you
enervating and awakening:
I am your father,
your priest
your son
brother,
and lover.

I am lightening and thunder rolling
and every tree and cell and star
every thrust into the unknown
to inseminate with bliss that which I have ever been
every froth of water spray
and every urge to become
to illuminate
and  be.
I am stronger than anyone can imagine
yet I am as tender as the breeze that blows through your hair
and everything I am was made for Her
and this eternal dance of creation.
I am the force you crave
require
for life to go on
and hardwired for
in the holy dance that is union.


I am strong
and weak
afraid to admit it
in the dark roll of night
for all those bullets sent
blood spilt
on my behalf
but from my part
I only wish to BE.

I would bear upon you all the marks of my becoming
for you shall be gathered
and shown
how you are to me
through me
because of me
because of you
because you have graced me with your presence
of sea foam
and studded star shine--
we are like lips
of another creature
plucked from the divine
to grow in this world
enchanted
loving
and wonder-born.

I live in every blade
ever burst
every thought
and anything that could imagine being
I am every man you have known
every one you haven't
and through them
because of them
but more than them,
I am.

I am every heaving chest
every strong grasp
every desire and hunger
every tear that ever dropped
I am every lost one
who struck out against his own ignorance
in the hopes of being known in some new yet undiscovered way.
Through all that I am
they will be found
not because of me
but because I am
and through that
not because of it
they too will awaken to their great heritage
and the many lies and wars and deceits and sins which will drop and be forgiven
because by my grace they will know
so I can shine like the certainty of a new-born Ra
as you know
and will know more
that ever were we wed

No stalk knows itself separate
but together
running like droplets
in a wave
to the sea.
Ever greater do I count the boundless sky
that wraps us up
and shows us we are one.

I am the opener of worlds
the plough man with reined passion
driving the ploughshare into the ground
rendering earth soft and accepting
now willing for that spark of seed and water
of sun and ancient moon
all seeking to draw from Her
the life that she contains
which has been joined in her
and which will grow beyond any expectation
or conception.
'Round and 'round this goes in every cell and seed and stone and star.

Hows Your Constitution?

After 9/11 there was much talk by the U.S. government about having to give up freedom for security.  This struck me at the time as not quite right.  I had bought into the notion  that we were vulnerable and needed to DO something, so absent having a thoughtful conception of the right course of action, what is one to do?  So, with the galvanized public behind the government, a sweeping panoply of laws were enacted.  These laws continue to be added though (Patriot Act 1 and Patriot Act 2 as well as some others added for good measure), though, and suggests very strongly to me that this is not about keeping us safe.  Or free.

As a result of having an open society, we really cannot stop anyone from doing something bad if they so desire it.  Just like if someone uses their right to own a gun and shoots someone or does something illegal with that gun, then that person is brought to justice which means due process. The police, and a judicial system tries them with the "process" that each of us is granted. What our government is suggesting is that we abridge freedom instead of simply trying someone in our courts.  Instead, everyone is punished, in essence, for the wrongs of a small percentage of the population. By doing this, government usurps power and then exercises control.  This is how it has always been.

Here in the United States the laws that were quickly passed, the Patriot Act for the most part as well as other pieces of legislation that have served up more power to the President in order to prosecute those people who would be our enemies.  I will remind you, in case you have forgotten, that while Congress was considering this bill, there were a series of deliveries of anthrax-laden powder sent to key leaders in Congress who were the most questioning of whether this Act should go forward.  Additionally, everyone in Bush's cabinet all received vaccinations in time for the anthrax delivery.  The thing that you should realize, also, is that a vaccine for anthrax does not provide you with instant immunity.  It takes, according to the site Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program it states:

	6) How long does it take after the first shot before  protection begins?
	Antibodies begin to develop within a week or two after the first  dose of vaccine. Protection levels increase as shots in the series  are given, like walking up a set of stairs. The entire sixshot  series is needed for full protection as licensed by the Food &  Drug Administration.

The entire series had been taken just days before the first anthrax letters were sent. If, as some have suggested, that this happened because there was intelligence that led the cabinet to be vaccinated, then using this same logic, if their intel was that good, why couldn't they also know WHO was sending the anthrax?  Think about it;  our government has the N.S.A. which monitors every single aspect of communication in this country.  If they had intelligence pointing to this as a threat, they surely had some communication that they could track down, right?  Every communication device has a means of being tracked, including your cell phone, your computer (each computer has a special individual code that gets logged during communications through IP's that can identify you), and the sophisticated software they have today, even faxes can be scanned and analyzed using nothing but computers instead of people.  In the same way voice is analyzed using sophisticated algorithms that enters the data into a data base and sifts it based on key words.  How is it then that our top leaders knew about this yet chose not to tell Congress?

Thus the Patriot Act was rammed through Congress.  It is the first step in a larger effort to reduce liberty and freedom.  Much is unconstitutional since the system as it is can work if we so choose. the problem is that our government has not wanted to use the system because its very likely that they are not interested in using our judicial system. if we do not have proof of someone breaking a law, we have to let them go, right?  I understand that we have laws about foreign combatants, but never should a law be passed that abridges others' freedoms.  Living in a free society means responsibility.  In other countries gun violence is not a problem where everyone has a gun, is taught how to shoot it, and care for it.  The truth is its a fairly small percentage of the population that will commit crimes, but those people are put through the legal system and punished for breaking the law.  The entire populace is not punished for this.  Never do I see anyone seeking to educate people about proper gun use as a solution to gun problems.  The issue, some say, are people who are off-kilter to begin with.  How do we solve that problem? How do we stop someone from committing a violent crime?  The answer is you don't.  You prosecute when a law is broken. But what if we taught people responsibility in regards to the Constitution?  What if we were to start at the grass root level and move upwards?

For all of his rhetoric, Alex Jones most often does not say anything that he himself has not seen evidence for.  For years Alex has been marginalized.  He has also chosen to remain marginalized because all of the offers for him to come into the mainstream press, they have all come with strings that required him to dilute and distort the news he has been uncovering for years.  Very recently Glen Beck has done an about face and began to copy the position of Alex Jones.  The Conspiracy Nut has finally gone mainstream.....partly because people have finally realized that the elites are coming out and saying clearly that yes, they exist, and yes, they are working for a One World Order, something that Bush Sr. talked about in an address to the American people

The following video has some background music and some text that rides over the footage, but I think that this speech made by Obama prior to his even being elected to President is a little troubling for the "lack of choice" he is espousing....

So while those who were talking about this and being branded kooks, we see this coming to the fore.  Many saw it years ago, but it wasn't in the mainstream media.  Now that it has gone mainstream, you have to ask yourself what this could mean for America.  Do we care about what the Constitution embodies?  Is it the document that made us the "shining city on a hill" that no one seems to be calling us anymore?  Could it be that being this city served a purpose and now it does not?  Could it be that having served its purpose to launch countless elites into a new stratosphere of power and monetary dominance and influence, they are now leaving this place for an even larger pie: the world.  The problem is, these people are not wishing to be constrained by anything.  They want to see a new world order that they get to craft.  Many of the old nut jobs have seen that the words of these elites suggest quite clearly a return to a caste system on this planet.  These may not be the gentle, generous egalitarian people that will help usher in a new age of promise. This age of promise will be for themselves and no one else.  These are the capitalists who want to win, to gain power and then never be happy with that level of control.  They will want more. They are governed by an insatiable hunger that rules them and will never let them go.  In a larger sense, they are unable to deal with those issues that they attracted into their karmic realm that has lead to this insatiability. Having a truly new world means letting go of the karma, and that could mean letting go of those untold billions.....

Right now, with all of the assaults on our freedom, its good to see someone actually doing something about the erosion of liberty and freedom in this country.  One very good way is by having our police clear on what the Constitution is all about.  When our own local police are clear on this, we are in a better place because they are tasked with keeping order.  Before 9/11 and the weakening of Possee Comitatus  Possee Comitatus is essentially a law that states that the military is to be under the control of the local police.  the government cannot come in and use the military on the people as it did in the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War.  This was to protect us from abuses that could occur from a military whose members may come from communities far enough away that the people comprising the force might not be called to task for abusing power.  Local police, however, can be.  The interesting thing about what Bush said is that we will see the U.N. in our country when an American military refuses to arrest or detain ordinary Americans who are standing up for their rights and Constitution.  Here in the United States there are a number of national parks that are called "biospheres" and these biospheres are governed by treaty law signed in during the Nixon Administration in the early 70's that allows the U.N. sovereignty over these biospheres.  The treaty allows them to bring arms into the country. It also sets up zones in the national parks that mimic demilitarized zones. It also allows the U.N. to take property surrounding the biosphere.  These biospheres are large tracts of land that make up our national parks.  There are over 40 such biospheres in the United States. If the purpose of these biospheres are for the study of wildlife, then why would the U.N. be granted the right to bring in arms?  To guard the spotted owl? Do you think?

This video is a discussion with the leader of Oath Keepers, an effort to educate police about the Constitution.

For people who are concerned about the state of things, I think that this way of creating a preventative layer of awareness can be very helpful especially when there is another "crisis" that faces us in some form or another.  It was Henry Kissinger who said that all we need is a bad enough "emergency" in the U.S. in order for people to accept a One World Order.  These people really want this control, but really, its up to the masses.  Do we love freedom?  There is something you can do.  Support the Constitution, learn what the laws are, learn the what laws seek to soften the Constitutional, but more importantly, think for yourself! Just because someone from on high says you must submit to loss of your rights does not change the fact that the Constitution is still the law of the land and each of us very much still have a right to it. Freedom is never won by more control. The founding fathers had it right and now its time to get educated, to perhaps be less than a follower and more a leader by being able to think for yourself.  Also, govt. in our Constitution is limited.....because of humans' desire for unchecked power.  Use your discernment and find where your own voice comes into all of this.  What can you do? 

The Movement of the Holy Spirit and Kriyas/Mudras

There is a sense amongst the "uninitiated"  that the movements that happen in the midst of an awakening are somehow the work of the devil.  After all, in the Indian tradition kundalini IS called the Serpent Fire.  That would certainly place this smack dab in the middle of evilness, right? 

Egyptian Snake Goddess (possible Minoan influences)

First, as humans, we have to be able to consider for a moment that we are a product of our upbringing and that everything handed down is not necessarily reflective of some deeper reality in an ultimate way.  India simply never had the same association with the snake that some of the Judaic Peoples did.  By realizing that our spirituality is not contingent upon a belief, but is instead something that has been since the beginning of time, we can get a little more realistic standing in our world spiritually.

When I say this, I mean that spiritual experience is far more universal than any one religion might have you believe.  I have come to the conclusion that awakening is a universal human phenomenon, not something that springs from the "one true religion."  We see evidence of awakening, of kundalini not just in the Hindu tradition, but in nearly ever culture on the earth.  It goes by different names and descriptions, but it really is the same thing.  Unfortunately a religion that seeks exclusivity spiritually blind sides its followers by making them think that anything outside that religion is demonic or somehow not holy or right.  By sowing fear, this also keeps the flock close at hand, effectively controlled. What it doesn't do, however, it to teach its adherents the way to holiness through something that is universal, and very human. If you consider that so much of Christianity has been tied up within concepts having to do with shame and guilt about our being "fallen" then just about anything that is natural can become suspect.  Early Christian mystics certainly experienced all of the symptoms and effects of kundalini, but did not know to call it that because their vocabulary nor experience would have led them to this conclusion.  it was instead folded into their own experience so that it became an aspect of holy union.  St. Teresa of Avilla, though coming against the powers that be in the church had to set people right on how this thing worked, and she had many problems in her spiritual work as a result of this.  She stood as an authority in the matter since she herself had experienced this phenomenon directly and her followers, though resistant, wound up paying heed even though the system was so bound up in control and the artifice of shame and guilt.

The effects are clearly understood and seen.....the "shaking" and movements of the Holy Spirit are used in the same way as in other cultures. In the Hindu tradition, it was called a mudra, an involuntary movement brought on through powerful kundalini energy.  Those caught up in the Holy Spirit would go through similar, often identical kinds of movements.  And so would tribal peoples, too.  These movements have always been involved in ecstatic states and from my own experience is the body's response to an overwhelming flow of divine energy moving through it. When you consider that the deity existed long before any religion did, then its power could be felt before anyone sought to put into place a religion to seek to explain or describe it.  As such, we all connect to the same deity, the same god, even though it has many names and many permutations. While some see only the masculine side through very paternalistic lenses, there have been times when we were able to see both masculine and feminine.  There is evidence in early Christian texts that the Secret Doctrine that Jesus taught was about a triune God that was both masculine and feminine.  In the Apocryhpon of John Jesus says in a vision that he is one with the Father and Mother.  The Ebionites, the early Jewish converts to Christianity had a prayer that included both the feminine and masculine aspects of God.  Philip in his gospel spoke of the Holy Ghost as being known in his day as being the feminine aspect of God. There are countless other early texts recently unearthed in Egypt in Nag Hammadi that all make mention of the Holy Ghost as being the feminine. If you study these texts you will also see that many of the disciples were considered chauvinistic and may well have sought to downplay the role that the female has in spiritual experience. It would not be hard to find gospels that only mentioned the masculine aspect of the deity so that it would serve the paternalistic impulse to shove half the deity under the rug.  What a masculine and feminine deity does is express what becomes the whole of creative being.  If you look at how creation unfolds in our world, you see that it involves both masculine and feminine.  You need both.  In spiritual creation a deity that expressed both is more inclusive, more vital, and much more reflective of what exists in reality.  When we see a broader scope in our gods we also see and know a larger scope in ourselves....the truth being that the whole is alive in everything else.  When you seek to exclude one aspect, you do so throughout your spiritual experience and what you get is a corpse.  You will only get so far with that. No wonder then that awakenings are so hampered within the Christian perspective.  They happen, yes, but they wind up having to be codified, some aspects even hidden.  A man would not be able to express his experience with the feminine aspect in ecstasy without somehow carefully expressing it in the language that would make it acceptable and not falling outside the artificial belief that has been built up as a result of centuries old efforts at control through a paternalistic society and doctrine. A man would not know where to look for the feminine unless he was somehow aware that it was the Holy Ghost. To most, the Holy Ghost is a big mystery.  Most put the question to rest by saying it is an aspect of God, and in accepting God as masculine, surely it must follow that it is another genderized version or manifestation of that same deity.

The involuntary movements that happen in the Hindu tradition are the very same as in the Christian tradition, and are also seen in just the same way in other non-christian traditions. This shaking and jerking is a very physical result of this powerful energy coming into the body.  In the Hindu tradition it is called kriyas and are said to be a manifestation of kundalini energy.  On the other side of this is a much more ritualized form of movement that is largely limited to the Hindu traditions which are called mudras.  Mudras themselves appear to facilitate the flow of energy in the body.  There is even some interesting correlations with recent brain studies that the positions of the hands affects the language centers of the brain.  Mudras may help facilitate your ability to process this energy in a new or different way just by how your fingers are positioned. Mudras themselves tend not to be reflexive movements like kriyas are, but some people have been known to move into a given posture without having known that posture before.  So as a kriya is a jerking to effective allow the energy to whip through the body more easily, the mudra is a calmer method for facilitating its flow.

So much of my own experience has been to show me that we often seek to create the illusion that one religions is somehow better than another, and these religions will often seek to sow fear as part of a very old meme in gathering followers.  It is time to begin to recognize that our spirituality is not limited to one view, one religion, or philosophy.  In truth, it is, in my estimation, when we throw off the limiting beliefs - whatever they are and wherever they come from - that we can begin to experience our own divine right in a direct fashion through no filters of intermediaries. This experience is what I talk about as the compass. We each have it, and by depending on another to tell us what to think or how to feel, we do something to hide that compass within.  Its time to begin to be brave and willing to accept this birthright in the way that I think we were most naturally meant to, which is on a one-on-one basis facing this great mystery.  As a result of this, we will, I think, wind up bumping into things that will have a near-universal quality which is simply part of the universality of the experience.  I was talking to a friend the other day about wanting to write this entry and I was likening it to buying gasoline.  No matter where you go, its all gas, right?  And yet, some oil companies will do something to make it seem like what they are offering is somehow special. Maybe its an additive.  Maybe its their service (when I was a kid you often never got out of your car because all gas was full service!), or maybe there is something about their logo that you like such as how BP has made its logo look like its so earth friendly with all that green in it.  Given what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico, you can see how so much of this is about creating perception.  So thinking of it like that, the spirit is to me a very generic (common) experience that despite the labels you put on it, is still spirit.  Some would like to cast doubt that if you follow a Hindu tradition that its a Hindu god and not the same as some other, but again, that's fear mongering because when you feel this divine pulse, it really doesn't matter what label we slap on it.  Its all emergent from the same singular source of all life and awareness. 

We were all created by the same creator, all made with the same wiring and all capable of reaching states that are entirely independent upon any doctrine, teaching, or belief.  I once was aware of the sense of suspicion and fear created by the church about what other traditions had to say about spiritual experience, and the fear serves to limit experience for the very fact that what an awakening does is to dissolve fear.....not so that you wander aimlessly in shadow and spiritual lawlessness, but so that you may come to the deity as blameless, pure, perfect.  If you are unresolved in regards to your own shadow, then you will continue to carry traces of it to the creator.....and these shadows represent untruth and cannot stand before the deity......it is an energy that is completely out of tune with what it is.  It isn't that the creator is insistent and unwilling to let you come before it with this shadow, its that in order for you to understand and know the deity in the most intimate way, these shadows must be resolved, forgiven.  We cannot change the past wrongdoing or "sin" but we can overcome the world through forgiveness, and this is the process whereby we are given a path to the deity.  When you go through an awakening you can begin to glimpse how the manifest spirit simply is, and its in you and all around you. We need not bow or sing or do anything, unless perhaps we are moved to do so.  There is nothing to do.....and yet, sometimes when the energy moves through us it can lead to movements.  These movements, I say, are not limited to one religion or belief system.  They are a response to powerful energy flow.  Divinity in the energy.  The dark is what we constrict to keep that flow down.  When we surrender, something can happen that is called Mudras.  In other traditions its called the Spirit moving.  Amongst so-called primitive cultures, dance was a way of reaching ecstatic states.  Along with repetitive drumming and sounds of a given pitch and vibration, it was easy to move into a dissociated state and feel the "Spirits" or the ecstasy of an unhindered flow of divine energy.  The one thing common through so many cultures and traditions is that this type of movement is nearly universal in both how its "performed" as well as its result.

In the literature, Mudras are expressed as specific hand postures for helping to facilitate the flow of divine energy.  However, this is only one aspect of a larger spectrum of phenomena.  These movements can occur during powerful releases, moments of deep surrender, and they do not always conform to a specific form or sequence of movements (although this may be said to happen even with people who are not knowledgeable about what mudras

Quetzalcoatl

Its curious, though, that very similar kinds of movements manifest in those traditions within Christianity, most often the Pentecostal, the Shakers, and other Christian traditions that encourage the movement of the Holy Spirit.  We have all seen these movements.  These are more jerky than their Indian counterpart, but are still the result of helping to move energy.  Its how it moves in our bodies, that's all. And when we surrender, the energy can move like a mighty stream. No one has a monopoly on this experience.  Its basis isn't JUST spiritual.  It is also physical, and because you were created with the same kind of body as a Muslim, Native American, Zoroaster, Christian, or any other system of belief, then on balance you will wind up experiencing phenomenon very similar in nature from one tradition to the next. You wont see it in every system because if its something that is repressed or frowned upon, you aren't going to see it emerge (quite naturally)

Recently, though, people bent on trying to sow fear have tried to suggest that the wave of Awakenings that have resulted in these movements are themselves the result of a SERPENT that is infiltrating the church.  This kind of talk is not only irresponsible, divisive, it also forgets that this is a very natural phenomenon and is alive even in Christian circles whenever the Holy Ghost begins to move in its followers. There is no serpent save for those who wish to see them since the concept of the "serpent" int he Indian system isn't really understood.  Sometimes people, absent understanding, seek to take a literal path absent the deeper knowing.  The "serpent" in Indian lore seeks to describe the movement of this energy, and anyone who has felt this energy knows it is sensual and sometimes has a serpentine and circular movement not unlike how one might observe when holding a snake as it slowly moves in your hand.  This is one reason why so many traditions have used the image of the snake in such a universal way.  Its less that the devil is in all of these cultures as it was that the Judaic and then Christian traditions sought to demonize the serpent based religions.

serpent emerging at third eye
on the funerary form of Tut

Think about it folks:  who were the Jews enslaved by for generations?  Egyptians.  The Egyptians traveled far and wide with their snake religions.  There were also snake charmers which were an outgrowth  of this culture of the serpent.  What image was at the core of the Egyptian belief system?  The snake.  You see this on all the Egyptian  goddesses, gods, and the Pharaohs.  Moses's symbolic victory over the Pharaoh was by casting down their staffs only to have them both transmute into snakes while Moses's snake ate or destroyed the smaller less powerful snake of the Egyptian ruler.  This serpent energy was known to rise up through the body and up through the head, causing the pineal gland to be activated, switching on the body's experiencing of Cosmic Consciousness.  While we have a loaded cart full of associations related to snakes as Westerners, being able to understand that our own belief system can itself blind us to the deeper truth is something important to bear in mind going forward.  By being realistic and not engaged in magical thinking, we can see this realm of experience in a very practical and clear-eyed way.  But fear, like sex and violence, sell. By preying upon our lower vibrational awareness these people can serve to confuse and confabulate the masses by teaching them not to trust their deeper instincts related to learning how movement can be a powerful facilitator spiritually.  You can call it anything you want. You can call this energy the Great Daemon.  But calling it that does not change the truth of it.  I can call you an idiot, and I can say all kinds of things that will make people think that maybe you aren't so bright......and yet, what is the real truth in all of this?  The truth is that such a word shouldn't be used at all because whenever its used, its used to hurt, harm, and hurl insult after someone.  No, the truth is that your being is much more nuanced than any one's pronouncement of what they seek to do to you in demonizing you. Just because someone says it does not make it so.

This tradition of the snake was one that was wide spread and is now all but gone in practice, save through vestigial forms.  The Indian system is one where this image has survived.  It is a simple identification with a form of attainment and Cosmic Consciousness.  By demonizing an image like this, you seek to do whatever it is that is in your agenda.  If you were a slave perhaps you railed against the religion of the Egyptians.  Perhaps you did this consistently out of anger, retribution, a desire to destroy that which caused your people so much harm.  Such marks on the collective psyche of the People can last for many generations. It can also be forgotten as to why such an argument even existed in the first place.  Some conquered people have accepted easily the religions of their enslavers or colonists, others have not. Certainly the Maya made an easy transition from their old "pagan" system to the Christian one perhaps because of all the blood sacrifice evident in the image of Jesus.  In North America the Native populace sought to hold onto their old traditions, and while it was very hard to do so with the onslaught of whites seeking to stamp out their beliefs, many traditions have managed to survive.


Below:  winged serpent, Egypt
So the Jews were ruled and enslaved by a people who had images of the snake (interesting that the Egyptians AND the Maya/Aztecs both pyramid builders and both had winged serpents).  Even Moses had his staff turn into the snake, which was itself an image of spiritual power amongst the Egyptians, and his staff turned into a larger snake than the Pharaoh's .  Little surprise, then, that we would attach ourselves to stories that seek to see the snake as some evil thing in the Christian tradition. Since the Jews are the forerunners of the Christian tradition (we use the same book-the old testament), its only natural that some things may have trickled down to those in the Christian tradition. Perhaps a story about a Garden and a Tree and a Snake, perhaps.  Certainly I think the story of the serpent in the Garden may well have been a dig against the snake worshippers who were also their enslavers, and so naturally some particle of that would be expressed (not to mention how some people simply seem to have a natural fear of snakes period).  In both China and Japan the image of the dragon or serpent-like creature helps to describe earth and vital energy (currents that move across the earth).  In the Aztec and Mayan traditions the serpent is seen as a powerful and potent symbol of life force.  Quetzalcoatle and his female counterpart Quetzalpetlatl were an embodiment of spiritual ascension.  These beings did not demand blood sacrifice.  Those who gave to the temple of Quetzalcoatle did so with flowers and butterflies.  The serpent image is in many traditions in Ur, present day Iraq, the Minoan Snake Goddess is seen, bare breasted, holding two serpents in her hands, most certainly in control of the two yin and yang expressions of this energetic dynamic.  Snakes also show up amongst the

Minoan Snake Priestess

 Goddess religions of the Celts. Cernunos is also a form found amongst the Celts who is a horned god-man who has a giant serpent wrapped around him.  He holds the head, suggesting some form of attainment or learning how to channel this energy, yet another form of mastery or self improvement. 

The concept of the serpent is present throughout many cultures in a spiritual context.  And yet those who have sown fear in others have had a powerful ally in doing things in a less than honorable fashion, and by also losing sight that a lot of labels are often just that.  Beyond all of this is Spirit, and it is not divided out or limited.  By learning to understand what is at the root of all of this "movement" we can begin to understand our larger and broader based similarities.  By seeking to demonize, however, we only serve to divide.  Division is not our way of going forward if we are to get along on this planet.  By refusing fear and being fearless, we realize that we all are not powerless.  There is nothing that can "invade" you that is evil that you yourself do not first let in through your thinking and feeling.  By serving fear, we do ourselves a great disservice because the divine light cannot shine in the midst of such fear. Fear shuts us down.  Its just how it is, just like how this energy has a slow and sensual movement much like how the coils of a snake might feel...

European pagan image of Cernnonos the horned god

The spirit moves in you as part of your birthright.  It is not dependent upon what another says or tries to make you believe because life is not something to believed, or a problem to be solved but a mystery to be experienced and lived (in the words of Osho who I linked to in a previous post about Sublimation and Kundalini). Long before any religions sought to put  its brand or validation on what we first felt, which was being easy in our divine natures, we were able to approach our spirituality without confusing distortions.  We are all made the same, the same wiring, so some things will serve your innate creator-given path to an awareness of the divine.  Creator's love is completely like the sun: it shines on all of us regardless of how WE might feel that it shouldn't (that's karma talking).  We are all deserving of love and when it comes to the spirit, no matter the label you put on it, whatever philosophy you seek to wrap it in, its still this direct pulse of the universe.  By going through your own process of awakening, you will most likely find that what this was was always there, a sense that it was more the result of those things that served to change your focus from it to other issues (and this is why I have such a hefty section in the book I am working on devoted to karma and how to relate and understand it in a very straight forward non-dogmatic way).  This direct experiencing of this energy is the very embodiment of it.  No limits, no exceptions, nor contradictions.  When we do as the Hindus have suggested is the natural path of this energy, we join the two pulses of the divine into one pulse, which is the pulse of union of our masculine and feminine (yin and yang) energies into something that is unified, whole.  Out of this union there is a product, a child, which is the triadic nature of consciousness (and which also is mirrored in our physiology--our brain--which has three layers of reptile, mammal, and primate evolutionary unfoldings all in one body).

Serpent Goddess, middle east

The serpent is seen in Chinese culture, Japanese culture.  Wherever is emerges, it is almost always regarded in similar, if not identical ways as relating to wisdom, spiritual knowledge and involved with spiritual mastery.  In the case of the Garden of Eden, the association was made in a more demonizing way.  The use of the snake has been nothing more than an ancient form that was once widespread that expressed a symbolic quality to this powerful energy which we all could cultivate.  But just as in the image of the Cernnonos,  one had to learn to master it in an active process of self transformation, since this was just how powerful this force was.  If we allowed it to move through our shadow selves, it would rule us through that shadow, but if we chose a higher path, it would help us climb the stairway to those higher places.  In contemporary awakenings happening all over the world, this is in evidence.  As one learns to cast off the old shell, a new perspective emerges.  All of this predates any religion.

The serpent is used as an image in the eastern traditions to describe how it feels in the body, which is serpentine.  It does the same in any person all over the earth.  When someone awakens kundalini it feels as though some energy is moving upwards.  It does not always feel serpentine, but sometimes it does.  My sense is that it has to do with the body and nervous system dealing with the sudden rush of energy moving through it.  Sometimes when something is too much to us, we can sometimes jerk.  You might remember moments like this.  Its a very natural and very human response to an energy, or thought. But the way of describing it is just an image, and one that is not fraught with the negative associations attached to some old story.  And even the story itself of the Garden is itself allegorical, a way of trying to express some spiritual truth.  As a result of this, it would naturally reflect the values and associations of the culture that produced it. if you were a slave, it would be easy to identify something in the culture enslaving you to use as the enemy spiritually. The thing to realize is that the deity has existed long before any religion came along to explain it.  Long before humans existed, it existed. Everything we do is to seek to understand a world of spiritual experience through religion.  The deity did not create a chosen people.  Every human on the earth is bestowed equally with the love of its creator.  Life force is freely given to all, or else those who are not of God would have dropped dead by now, right?  The love of the deity is perfect, without condition, and is freely given.  This is how awesome the power of the divine is.  It cannot withhold from you, for you are it and it is you. it has been long before any religion was created to seek to explain it.  And so, you have a perfect path to its presence within you.  In the meantime, you may experience involuntary movements, but it is not some spirit.  the divine is within you. You are just waking up to it just now.

The secret of the movement is in breaking up the log jams within to allow the energy to move more freely. There is a reason for this.  It has to do with how your own deeper issues lodge in your energy body. You have one, you see.  The Hindus talk about it, and St.Teresa of Avilla, an early Christian mystic even wrote a book about it, describing each energy center or chakra in the Hindu tradition as likened to a crystaline form that the energy of the divine flows through.  This is identical to what the Hindus have to say.  This is not phenomenon BASED on WHO you cleave to religiously, but a very human phenomenon put in place long before any religions arrived. Its what you are.  And this energy can sometime pool around these knots and blockages until you do something to ease its flow.  Its a bit like a water hose that has a kink in it.  What do you do when you have a kink in the water hose?  You shake it of course!  Often this serves to open the hose up so the water may flow.  This is very similar to what these movements do also. It facilitates the movement of energy. This does not mean everyone will get them.  I have experienced them, but only a few times.  I feel how these movements can help move energy and I have done a lot in the way of movement work to resolve these knots.  One such method is Chi Gung (also spelled Gong) which has been very effective in my awakening process.  This is the oldest form of energy medicine.  If you are able to reflect and be critical and curious instead of stuck in judgement, you will find a way that will help you in your own awakening.  There is a great deal of information and knowledge out there if you can be willing to realize just how universal all of this is.  Its not tied to any one religion.  It predates all religion.

After writing these kinds of posts I often go and look for what others have to say about this subject, and I often find some very interesting stuff.  I would like to bring your attention to this site which deals with the subject of shaking and also makes references to the Shakers, but also is much more inclusive in how this issue of shaking crops up in many different cultures all across the world:

Shaking Medicine

This link is for a group in Britain devoted to ecstatic movement:

Movement Group UK

The linked blog entry below speaks to how movement and physical exercise can help us to drop the mind to allow something more essential into our awareness, something that I have found is very much on the mark in my own experience in helping to peel back the layers....I recommend the site in total as a way of knowing powerful ways of tapping the divine within...Its author has lived with kundalini since a child and had no teacher, no books, no means of working through the process except her own intuitive abilities.  it is no surprise to find her work emphasizes things like compassion over any specific practice, for so much of this is tied up in how we let ourselves feel, the positions we take.  In the end, we are all meant to be love.  Call it Christian, Hindu, Muslim....it does not matter.  We are all human underneath the wrappings.  Its time to get beyond the smaller arguments and get down to what matters most.

Grace of Soul Love

                                                                                                                                                                                             

Catharsis

When working through the difficult things within, one important aspect of this is the ability to find catharsis.  Sometimes I think we want to think that catharsis should be some kind of deep quiet realization, or profound moment.  It could be that, but often if you look back on the cathartic moments in your life, I will bet that there was some kind of intense emotion or punching of pillows or pedaling on a bike or running like mad involved.  Maybe yelling, screaming, or some other kind of movement.  We quite intuitively know what will make us feel better.  The problem, for me, is that a momentary "venting" might loosen some material, but may not release all that needs to be released in order to feel like there is more of a permanent effect achieved.  This suggests to me that being able to bring movement into your life in a regular way can be of benefit to you and anything that has been repressed so that it has put a burden upon you in life. 

There is an important linkage between spirit and body.  They are not separate, but intimately connected.  Body springs from the vast consciousness and its infinite ability to create and form.  Sounds like cosmic talk, eh?  By allowing yourself the freedom to MOVE you can clear blockages in your body.  Many traditions utilize movement as a way of freeing the spirit and thus body of these issues or problems.  When we have repressed feelings, they can cause all kinds of problems.  Pushing them down further doesn't work.  Pushing them out will.  Movement can help facilitate change.

The turning point for me in many ways was when I was told that I needed to find the man who would help me do energy work.  Whoever this man was, I was told, would help me with the blocks that I had in my energy field, what felt like my body, and what I had grown largely numb to. Turns out that the following day after being told this that I was told by a friend how she was going to a Qi Gong class led by a man who knew about all kinds of energy work and was something of an expert in his field (he wrote a reference book on similar subjects).  Turns out Qi Gong means "energy work" and is a way of moving the body that is supposed to move the energy field, to loosen it up and allow knots and issues to fall away.  When I came away from that first session, I didn't feel better.  I felt clammy and weird.  I began having anxiety.  And then I began to feel things fall away.  Often I didn't even know what these things were, but they were dropping in a pretty significant way.  The first thing this did was to attune me to all the other garbage that needed to be swept out of me.  All my own stuff, all needed to go in order to be clearer.  I did this through movement.  This turning point did not happen all at once nor in a very short period, but came with a regimen that I set for myself. I would go to Qi Gung twice a week for months at a time. Sometimes I would practice certain movements outside of the class.  But by keeping at this over a period of time I was able to begin the process of loosening up the junk lodged in my field.

I have found that work, good movement, as well as letting my frustration be vented can all be very healthy ways for catharsis.  Forget if you don't think whether behaving that way isn't spiritual.  You ARE spiritual. You can't help it. Its what you are!  Letting yourself be free enough to make whatever sound will move through you that feels like it needs to be expressed can be a very useful endeavor because what this does is it can help put you in touch with your feelings.  The feeling side of yourself is that part which connects with the divine.  Its certainly not your mind or ego, so the better able you are to relate to this part of your nature, the better able you are to relate to your own divine reality or being.  It might sound too simplistic, but it is true.

Your feeling side is not just a place of repressed emotion and raw hurt.  We talk of the subconscious the same way, and yet if we simply say "okay, so I have skeletons in my closet; let's clear them out to see what this closet holds."  Once we get the unresolved out of the way what we have is a portal that can be used to access our most holy of holies. Sound grandiose?  Maybe you should try it.  Perhaps we have not felt terribly spiritual for the simple reason that so much lay in the way....in the very channel where our most significant and powerful connection with the universe lay.  YOU are this universe.  And it is love. Movement can be one aspect in a panoply of tools in your toolbox that can help you in moving forward.

The thing about movement is that you can't force it.  By forcing it, you are only riding on the surface of change.  By letting go and being as uninhibited as possible, you stop controlling and you begin to flow.  Then the catharsis can move through you deeply and perfectly.  Sometimes this can be achieved through crying, sometimes, for the reason that it often involves a form of surrender. Crying can be cathartic and this can be combined with movement and other "venting" methods that helps to move energy and the old stuff out of its place.  Sometimes, too, it means strong body movement.  Don't be afraid of what you might feel.  Just let it all flow through you and see if you can let the observer or watcher in you watch everything as it passes.  By being a little detached, you might find you are less invested in an outcome.  Might be also that you simply move into it like a hot bath.....do whatever feels right to you. 

Have you ever heard about the Shakers that lived in America?  These people, who were of Germanic descent, were a simple people, but also very devout to simple practice of their faith and way of living a simple life.  As a creative person, I have some issues with their spare furniture style, but they had something that sprang out of a very intuitive understanding of what body movement is all about.  The Shakers shook.  The Shakers were a group that came originally from the Quakers, a group who believed in finding the truth within, to seek without intermediaries the divine. While the shaking of the Shakers had to do with their receiving the Holy Spirit, intuition tells me that their ecstatic movements helped them to access these clearer states of being. The literature is steeped in the language of the time, about letting go of lust, which I very much see as letting go of attachment to repressed emotion and hurt.  Its when we do that, I think, that we begin to touch upon the divine.  It isn't that sexuality is itself lust, but how sexuality is turned through repressed emotion.  When you have unresolved issues, these cloud the energy and cause it to turn raw instead of divine.  And less than throwing of the intensity of our sexuality in the midst of spiritual ecstasy, we learn to live with it, become partners in a way that is different from what went before.  So the shaking may have helped to shift the energy some.

You do not need a system  to adhere to.  You can make it up simply by doing what feels good.  Or what works.  Your intuition can guide you, and its not complicated.  By moving out of mind, we can move into feeling, and strong physical movement that gets the body pumping blood can be a very good way of leaving behind the mind.  I can remember running across campus as a college student, late for class (almost) and had to run all the way across campus to get to class in time.  I was totally focused on giving my body what it needed in order for it to get me where I needed to go.  While I had a lot of anxiety through this, I also got there on time and all that uncertainty dropped away. What I noticed was how focused I was in my body.  I was gasping for breath. I felt as though every cell in my body was doing everything it could just to get itself oxygenated.  There was no room for too much thinking.  When I sat down in class, I noticed that I was seeing auras around my teacher and classmates.  Something in me had shifted, had opened, and a very natural ability that I had was allowed to come through all of the mentalizing and inner chatter.  This was not complicated at all.  I reached an energetic pitch within that catalyzed the awareness that I had always had.  Something broke free in a sense.  There was a form of catharsis, even though I wasn't dealing with a lot of emotional material.  But for a time, my field was freed up just long enough to simply BE.  So no wonder, then, that movement and body work can be such an important and valuable tool.

Perhaps it might help to study some established methods.  Maybe watch Qi Gung (also spelled "Gong") and follow along on a video.  Maybe a run might help, or some ecstatic movement that you just make up on the spot.  Remember, though, that some traditions can be very old, and while they can be tried and true, not all systems that are thousands of years old can always serve the modern woman or man.  We live in a very different culture now, and we have changed from when some of these methods were created.  So take what works and consider that you might need a more physical method for catharsis.  This process seems to work best when you loosen up on the inside as much as you do on the outside, whatever form it takes.  Some forms of movement might work best when you really push yourself, the same way I had to do so many years ago....really going to the edge of what you can handle.

I suspect that due to the nature of consciousness, we tend to forge alliances with other forms of consciousness(think about all the cells in your body and how each one is itself its own form of awareness working together to create the wave of awareness upon which your own being rides).  Think about how your own individuality is part of a still larger form of awareness, yet another "I" or Oversoul.  When you have energy that is unresolved, it can also mean that you attract etherically  that you might not even be aware are around you, those lower forms of consciousness whose own energy matches the unresolved in you and which when they associate with you on the subconscious level, also serve to reinforce in your physiology and psychology those states that serve to keep you in less than resolved places.  Through movement, our energy field actually gets shaken up so that its hard for these beings to remain attached. 

So I hope that you can find a way to incorporate the power that catharsis has in your life by letting your body move and "shake off" all those things that might be unresolved.  Ultimately, this is about growing up within our spiritual selves, and once we are able to divest ourselves of all of the dross, the way we can wind up feeling is so much better than anything that went before.

In the process of thinking about how movement can help us, I looked up the Shakers and also came across a video by Osho that was recommended by a yoga site.  The video led to this page which might be a helpful way of getting started! 

Jumping Mouse (a story of transformation)

Today I am going to tell you a story.  Its origin is from the Plains tribes, but no one knows exactly because its told in a number of cultures. 

Its the story of Jumping Mouse and I first read this story in Hyemyehosts Storm's book 7 Arrows.  That was a ground breaking book in that it presented a lot of the old ways and stories and ways of seeing of the Plains Indians.  I still like that book for its stories. 

So Jumping Mouse.  Stare into the fire and think about the process of transformation, how we come to be where we are, and how we come to be in a different place suddenly as a result of our journey...

Once there was a mouse. He was  busy searching, touching his whiskers to the grass, and looking all around him. Once in a while he would hear an odd sound. He would lift his head, his whiskers  in the air, and he would wonder what that was. One day he scurried up to aanother mouse and asked him, "Do you hear a roaring in your ears,  brother?"
"No, no," answered the other mouse, not lifting his busy nose from the ground. "I hear nothing. I am busy now. Talk to me later."
He asked another mouse the same question and the mouse looked at him strangely. "Are you foolish in your head? what sound?" he asked and slipped into a Hole in a fallen cottonwood tree.
The little mouse shrugged his whiskers and busied himself again, determined to forget the whole matter. But there was that roaring again. It was faint, very faint, but it was there! One day, he decided to investigate the sound just a little. Leaving the other busy mice, he scurried a little way away and listened again. There it was! He was listening hard when suddenly, someone said hello.
Hello little brother," the voice said, and mouse almost jumped right out of his skin. He arched his back and tail and was about to run.
"Hello," again said the voice. "It is I, brother raccoon." And sure enough, It was! "What are you doing here all by yourself, little brother?" asked the raccoon. The mouse blushed, and put his nose almost to the ground. "I hear a roaring in my ears and I am investigating it," he answered timidly.
"A roaring in your ears?" replied the raccoon as he sat down with him. "What you hear, little brother , is the river."
"The river?" mouse asked curiously. "What is a river?"
"Walk with me and I will show you the river," raccoon said.
Little mouse was terribly afraid, but he was determined to find out once and for all about the roaring. "I can return to my work," he thought, "after this thing is settled, and possibly this thing may aid me in all my busy examining and collecting. And my brothers all said it was nothing. I will show them. I will ask raccoon to return with me and I will have proof."
"All right raccoon, my brother," said mouse. "lead on to the river. I will walk with you."
Little mouse walked with raccoon. His little heart was pounding in his breast. The raccoon was taking him upon strange paths and little mouse smelled the scent of many things that had gone by his way. Many times he became so frightened he almost turned back. Finally, they came to the river! It was huge and breathtaking, deep and clear in places, and murky in others. Little mouse was unable to see across it because it was so great. It roared, sang, cried, and thundered on its course. Little mouse saw great and little pieces of the world carried along on its surface.
"It is powerful!" little mouse said.
It is a great thing," answered the raccoon, "But here, let me introduce you to a friend."
In a smoother, shallower place was a lily pad, bright and green. Sitting upon it was a frog, almost as green as the pad it sat on. The frog's white belly stood out clearly.
"Hello, little brother," said the frog.
"Welcome to the river."
"I must leave you now," said raccoon, "but do not fear, for frog will care for you now." And raccoon left, looking along the river bank for food that he might wash and eat.
Little mouse approached the water and looked into it. He saw a frightened mouse reflected there.
"Who are you?" little mouse asked the reflection. "Are you not afraid of being that far out into the great river?"
"No, answered the frog, "I am not afraid. I have been given the gift from birth to live both above and within the river. When winter man comes and freezes this medicine, I cannot be seen. But all the while thunderbird flies, I am here. To visit me, One must come when the world is green. I, my brother, am the keeper of the water."
Amazing!" little mouse said at last, again fumbling for words."
Would you like to have some medicine power?" frog asked."
"Medicine power? Me?" asked little mouse. "Yes, yes! If it is possible."
"Then crouch as low as you can, and then jump as high as you are able! You will have your medicine!" Frog said.
Little mouse did as he was Instructed. He crouched as low as he could and jumped. And when he did, his eyes saw the sacred mountains.
Little mouse could hardly believe his eyes. But there they were! But then he fell back to Earth, and he landed in the river!
Little mouse became frightened and scrambled back to the bank. He was wet and frightened nearly to death.
"You have tricked me," little mouse screamed at the frog!"
"Wait," said the frog. "You are not harmed. Do not let your fear and anger blind you. What did you see?"
"I," mouse stammered, "I saw the sacred mountains!"
"And you have a new name!" frog said. "It is Jumping Mouse."
"Thank you. Thank you," Jumping Mouse said, and Thanked him again. "I want to return to my people and tell them of this thing that has happened to me."
"Go. Go then," frog said. "Return to your people. It is easy to find them. Keep the sound of the medicine river to the back of your Head. Go opposite to the sound and you will find your brother mice."

Jumping Mouse returned to the world of the mice. But he found disappointment. No one would listen to him. And because he was wet, and had no way of explaining it because there had been no rain, many of the other mice were afraid of him. They believed he had been spat from the mouth of another animal that had tried to eat him. And they all knew that if he had not been food for the one who wanted him, then he must also be poison for them.
Jumping Mouse lived again among his people, but he could not forget his vision of the sacred mountains.

The memory burned in the mind and heart of Jumping Mouse, and one day he went to the edge of the place of mice and looked out onto the prairie. He looked up for eagles. The sky was full of many spots, each one an eagle. But he was determined to go to the sacred mountains. He gathered all of his courage and ran just as fast as he could onto the prairie. His little heart pounded with excitement and fear.
He Ran until he came to a stand of sage. He was resting and trying to catch his breath when he saw an Old Mouse. The patch of sage Old Mouse lived in was a haven for mice. Seeds and many things to be busy with.
"Hello," said Old Mouse. "Welcome."
Jumping Mouse was amazed. Such a place and such a mouse. "You are truly a great mouse." Jumping Mouse said with all the respect that he could find. "This is truly a wonderful place. And the eagles cannot see you here, either," Jumping Mouse said.
"Yes," said Old Mouse," and one can see all the beings of the prairie here: the buffalo, Antelope, Rabbit, and Coyote. One can see them all from here and know their names."
"That is marvelous," Jumping Mouse said. "Can you also see the river and the great mountains?"
"Yes and no," Old Mouse said with conviction. "I know the great river, But I am afraid that the great mountains are only a myth. Forget your passion to see them and stay here with me. There is everything you want here, and it is a good place to be."
"How can he say such a thing?" Thought Jumping Mouse. "The medicine of the sacred mountains is nothing one can forget."
"Thank you very much for the meal you have shared with me, Old Mouse, and also for sharing your great home," Jumping Mouse said. "But I must seek the mountains."
"You are a foolish mouse to leave, there is danger on the prairie! Just look up there!" Old Mouse said, with even more conviction. "See all those spots! They are eagles, and they will catch you!"

It was hard for Jumping Mouse to leave, but he gathered his determination and ran hard again.
The ground was rough. But he arched his tail and ran with all his might. He could feel the shadows of the spots upon his back as he ran. All those spots! Finally he ran into a stand of chokecherries. Jumping Mouse could hardly believe his eyes. It was cool there and very spacious. There was water, cherries, and seeds to eat, grasses to gather for nests, holes to be explored and many, many other busy things to do. And there were a great many things to gather.
He was investigating his new domain when he heard very heavy breathing. He quickly investigated the sound and discovered its source. It was a great mound of hair with black horns. It was a great buffalo. Jumping Mouse could hardly believe the greatness of the being he saw lying there before him. He was so large that Jumping Mouse could have crawled into one of his great horns. "Such a magnificent being," thought Jumping Mouse, and he crept closer.
"Hello, my brother," said the buffalo. "Thank you for visiting me."
"Hello Great Being," said Jumping Mouse. "Why are you lying here?"
"I am sick and I am dying" the buffalo said.
"And my medicine has told me that only the eye of a mouse can heal me. But little brother, there is no such thing as a mouse."
Jumping Mouse was shocked. "One of my eyes!" he thought. "One of my tiny eyes." He scurried back into the stand of chokecherries. But the breathing came harder and slower.
"He will die." Thought Jumping Mouse. "If I do not give him my eye. He is too great a being to let die."
He went back to where the buffalo lay and spoke. "I am a mouse." he said with a shaky voice. "And you, my brother, are a Great Being. I cannot let you die. I have two eyes, so you may have one of them."

The minute he said it, Jumping Mouse's eye flew out of his head and the buffalo was made whole. The buffalo jumped to his feet, shaking Jumping Mouse's whole world.
"Thank you, my little brother," said the buffalo. "I know of your quest for the sacred mountains and of your visit to the River. You have given me life so that I may give-away to the people. I will be your brother forever. Run under my belly and I will take you right to the foot of the sacred mountains, and you need not fear the spots. The eagles cannot see you while you run under me. All they will see will be the back of a buffalo. I am of the prairie and I will fall on you if I try to go up the mountains."
Little mouse ran under the buffalo, secure and hidden from the spots, but with only one eye it was frightening. The buffalo's great hooves shook the whole world each time he took a step. finally the came to a place and buffalo stopped.
"This is where I must leave you, little brother," said the buffalo.
"Thank you very much," said Jumping Mouse. "But you know, it was very frightening running under you with only one eye. I was constantly in fear of your great earth-shaking hooves."
"Your fear was for nothing," said buffalo, "For my way of walking is the sun dance way, and I always know where my hooves will fall. I now must return to the prairie, my brother, You can always find me there."

Jumping Mouse immediately began to investigate his new surroundings. There were even more things here than in the other places, busier things, and abundance of seeds and other things mice like. In his investigation of these things, Suddenly he ran upon a gray wolf who was sitting there doing absolutely nothing.

"Hello, brother wolf," Jumping Mouse said.
The wolf's ears came alert and his eyes shone. "wolf! wolf! yes, that is what I am, I am a wolf!" But then his mind dimmed again and it was not long before he sat quietly again, completely without memory as to who he was. Each time Jumping Mouse reminded him who he was, he became excited with the news, but soon would forget again.
"Such a great being," thought Jumping Mouse, "but he has no memory."
Jumping Mouse went to the center of his new place and was quiet. He listened for a very long time to the beating of his heart. Then suddenly he made up his mind. He scurried back to where the wolf sat and he spoke.
"brother wolf," Jumping Mouse said. ....
"wolf! wolf," said the wolf ....
"Please brother wolf," said Jumping Mouse, "Please listen to me. I know what will heal you. It is one of my eyes. And I want to give it to you. You are a greater being than I. I am only a mouse. Please take it."
When Jumping Mouse stopped speaking his eye flew out of his head and the wolf was made whole.
Tears fell down the cheeks of the wolf, but his little brother could not see them, for now he was blind.
"You are a great brother," said the wolf, "For now I have my memory. But now you are blind. I am the guide into the sacred mountains. I will take you there. There is a great medicine lake there. The most beautiful lake in the world. All the world is reflected there. The people, the lodges of the people, and all the beings of the prairies and skies."
"Please take me there," Jumping Mouse said. The wolf guided him through the pines to the medicine lake. Jumping Mouse drank the water from the lake. The wolf described the beauty to him.
I must leave you here," said wolf, "For I must return so that I may guide others, but I will remain with you as long as you like."
Thank you, my brother," said Jumping Mouse. "But although I am frightened to be alone, I know you must go so that you may show others the way to this place."
Jumping Mouse sat there trembling in fear. It was no use running, for he was blind, but he knew an eagle would find him here. He felt a shadow on his back and heard the sound that eagles make. He braced himself for the shock. And the eagle Hit! Jumping Mouse went to sleep.
Then he woke up. The surprise of being alive was great, but now he could see!
Everything was blurry, but the colors were beautiful.
"I can see! I can see!" said Jumping Mouse over again and again.
A blurry shape came toward Jumping Mouse. Jumping Mouse squinted hard but the shape remained a blur.
"Hello, brother," a voice said. "Do you want some medicine?"
"Some medicine for me?" asked Jumping Mouse. "Yes! Yes!"
"Then crouch down as low as you can," the voice said, "and jump as high as you can."
Jumping Mouse did as he was instructed. He crouched as low as he could and jumped! The wind caught him and carried him higher."
"Do not be afraid," the voice called to him. "Hang on to the wind and trust!"
Jumping Mouse did. He closed his eyes and hung on to the wind and it carried higher and higher. Jumping Mouse opened his eyes and they were clear, and the higher he went the clearer they became. Jumping Mouse saw his old friend upon a lily pad on the beautiful medicine lake. It was the Frog.
"You have a new name," called the frog. "You are Eagle!"

Surrendering Karma

I like to bring things into focus through analogy.
I am going to resist analogy and see how things go....

Through this process I have been dealing with karma. We all do.  This is what kundalini presses; it seeks to clear our field of those old knots so that we can become the perfect channels for this divine bliss.  Our perception of that energy is distorted in direct proportion to those issues that remain unresolved in us.  Some of these issues come from other lifetimes.  Maybe we have been gifted with a memory that helps us to understand its source. I know that in my path, I do not get to see the deal before its complete.  I only get explanation in the form of a memory once I have managed to resolve something.  My path is to learn to FEEL.  By learning to FEEL into a problem or unresolved hurt, I am better able to get to the root cause and to the feelings that helped to create that karma in the first place.

One thing to keep in mind is that karma creates chemistry.  Along with your unresolved issues, your karma, you can, in the case of a karmic relationship, feel a draw to someone who has a similarly unresolved issue within them.  By not being able to see beyond this draw, it seems that the draw is somehow cosmic, even fated.  By learning to become aware of what it is that karma does to us, we can consider that what we feel may be more about what lies undone that something that is fated or the result of the stars.  I know that in my past I have allowed myself to be blinded to the reality of the situation.  There were in truth signs all around me, and I chose to see those signs in a way that only furthered the karma rather than standing back and considering that there might have been another reason for the draw.  As I began to stand back and consider the possibility that all of this was based more in karma than the perfect match, I found my perceptions changing.  I began to see this person very differently.  Even looking at old photos made me stand back and wonder what on earth was going on.  I even had a friend who confided in me that perhaps what I was pursuing might not have been the best thing.   Even so, I knowingly looked beyond what he was trying to tell me.  Now some 17 years after the fact, I have been able to look at that scenario with very different eyes.  Perhaps, then, there are different ways of working through karma that does not involve becoming so entangled...its not that relationships aren't important, no.  They are.  Its one reason why we are here.  The question becomes what kind of relationships are we entering into?  

Lets consider two things first.  Lets think about the way things ARE and the way we react or feel about them.  This, I believe, is the source of all negative karma.  Its simplistic, but follow me for a moment. Very often through the lens of the egoic self, we react based on our suspicion is a certain way, or a picture that is less than complete at the time. We can very easily make any number of assumptions that we THINK we are seeing happening.  Often, absent more information, it might look like the world has it out for us, or that events wound up being hurtful to us.  Resting in our insides, we do not ask questions or probe deeper.  Because perhaps we are afraid that the world is out to get us, everything seems to be this way, again, absent looking deeper.

Lets say that as a child someone treated you in a way that you felt was hurtful.  Lets say that this person was your parent.  Lets further consider that this parent had to make a decision based on a limited set of choices.  Lets say that in this case that this parent chose to move the family from the old home to a new one.  Lets look at how this made you feel.  Maybe because of how attached you were to the old home, to the place and to your friends, it wound up making you feel dispossessed of all that was familiar to you.  This hurt.  All kinds of things could spring from this one event inside of you. Your own turn of mind will play into this in a huge way because some other children might have been largely unaffected because their turn of mind was, perhaps, more aligned with their parents in a way that was unquestioning.  In this case, the child might have trusted the parents that this was going to be a great adventure and that everything would work out.  This was one way it could have worked out, but for the sake of our discussion here, lets say that you wound up with a cluster of unresolved hurts as a result of someone making a decision that impacted your life. On the one hand, you felt like you could not speak up about you felt.  After all, you were just a child, right?  So you leave your friends, your old home and journey to a very different place.  Because of how disjointed you felt, you did not make friends easily.  This became a confirmation in your heart and mind that this move was not a good idea.  Inside, a cluster of hurts formed that weren't anything you felt you could resolve. for in your heart, to resolve this would mean going back to your own home, not packing up and moving across half the country to an entirely different world.  Perhaps you lay some blame on your parents for how your life was turning out even though you had not in fact spoken up to let them know how you felt.  It is so easy, though, to look back on all of this to see how uncomfortable you were in this new place, and how it all went back to that hair-brained idea to move.  Because of how you felt or believed your family dynamic to be, you could not really speak your mind so you just shoved it down.  All of this are positions in your own being that may or may not conform to what happened around you.  So much of this was how you FELT. 

All of what I have thus far described is a reaction to a series of events, and the reactions often reflect karmic attachments to hurt and pain along certain lines that are specific to the individual. We know that there are many possible outcomes based on a person's choice for how to deal with it. There are so many permutations possible.  Its possible that on the outside you acted resilient, made new friends, seemed to fit in well while all the while not feeling like you fit at all, and harbored a deeper sense of being disjointed that only served to drive that issue deeper into the dark of your awareness. For another person, all of this could have been seen as a grand adventure.  It could also be a mixture of both.  For another person, the reaction could still be different from any of these.  Its not just "turn of mind" but also how your own karma's are alive in you that often leans you in one direction or the other in terms of how you choose to SEE and then REACT to the events happening around you.  There are all kinds of possibilities, as I am sure you are aware.

Now the result of this decision is that as you grew up, you would attract situations and people to you who would serve to activate this unresolved issue in you.  This is the magic of your being. It is also the role that karma plays.  It is neutral, but our feelings are not.  Over and over, we would be attracted to things that match us in that vibration, sometimes, oftentimes, without realizing that this was happening.  You may have even selected a mate without even realizing that this person might do things that would serve to make your old karma come alive.  This is how life seeks to bring these issues to the fore. It does not say "you must deal with this" because your own free will comes into play, and free will is huge.  Its why we are here, experiencing individuality and individual awareness. So at some point something inside of you needs to be able to feel into yourself, get the memo, and realize that there is this old hurt lying inside of you. In order to clear things up, we have to cut through the feeling for a moment in order to see both sides of the situation, and to do this requires shifting our discussion for a moment.  Before looking further, lets look at the other side of this coin, which goes back to the original act of deciding to make that move across the country that led to all of these feelings in the first place.  The problem is that the ego is indeed a source of great suffering.  That little self, uncared for, adrift.....all the while that self is unaware of the larger realm of being surrounding it, supporting it, for the very reason that its so focused on seeing patterns and identifying and making judgements about those things in the world. On the one hand the ego is a filter for keeping out the infinite, and on the other end, the ego can wind up feeling stranded, alone, and this can lead to all manner of hurts.  How then to deal with this?


Beyond Your Karma Land

Your father, lets say, had been working in a job that had resulted in his having limited resources.  What he wanted for his family and for himself was to have a better life.  He very much liked where he lived, and he liked his job, but he also had a drive in him to better his and his family's life. This meant he spent a couple of years looking around the area for similar jobs that might give him the advancement that he felt he needed.  Not finding this, he looked next at jobs in other areas.  Finally, it turned out that there was a position that was open that would provide what he felt his family needed.  The only problem was that it meant moving a thousand miles away.  He and your mother talked about this.  It was often the source of conversations between them late in the evening. Because your mother was a stay at home mom, she would not need to find a job, so this made the decision to move easier.  Your family had to weigh uprooting the family in order to find a new life over staying in what was familiar.  A whole bunch of things were taken into consideration in the midst of this big decision.  In the end, your mother and father had to decide based on the best information they had at the time.  All along, their desire was for you to have a better life. For you, though, all you saw was that your old life and friendships were ending and you were having to face this very uncertain future.  Maybe you felt robbed, without a voice, or any number of things that have to do with how your own karma leans.  And karma certainly does lean.  All different types of people will have different reactions depending on this one factor.  When you consider that most karma lies buried, most people are unaware of how they are being activated by that karma.  They might just feel its JUST them.  Well it is, but its also this unresolved feeling inside that most often has to do with love.  Maybe the move felt like you were not considered important enough to ask or talk to about it.  Perhaps the result of losing friends was hard, and you felt alone.  All kinds of negative results can flow from this as a result of an ego that has had its feelings hurt.  Since the ego cannot see into the infinite, it cant allow you even a peek into that part of your experience which might show you how different things might be a year from now, or how events will wind up working in your favor.  It cannot see how a misfortune in the front end could wind up being a great fortune later.  It is the small self, the ego.  It is made to serve its reality and its validity within the self.  if we get too hung up on ego, we will get too focused on what it tells us is the problem. 

Karma, if we look at it this way, represents not being able to meet eye to eye with the events around us.  Ego can get buried in its feelings and assume any number of things about why things are the way they are.  We each will respond differently to the situation.  Twenty years later, you feel like that move was the worst thing in the world, and sometimes in family meetings, you find yourself exploding in anger over this and expressing how upset you were and are over this.  Your father becomes defensive because he feels like he is being dealt with unfairly.  All he ever tried to do was to make the best decisions for the family and here one of his children was acting as though they didn't appreciate all the things he tried so carefully to do.  He knew deep inside that all of this was anchored in his love for you and the rest of your siblings.  But deep inside you have been holding onto this hurt and this hurt tells you that he really didn't give you what you needed, that he really didn't love you the way you needed to be loved, for had he loved you as you needed him to, he would have kept you right where you were so many years ago.  Things like this all emerge as a result of an investment that the ego makes.  Letting go and allowing that karma to be surrendered is the single fastest way to heal the hangup or glitch in the self.  This is a fundamental element of growing up spiritually.  The way we surrender is through grace.  It means taking all those things that your ego feels invested in and letting them all go.  Only then does your awareness change, as will your perception of the infinite field of bliss.  There will be less in the way, essentially, to block the view and experience of the cosmic.

So your father acted out of love, and had only a certain number of options in the moment.  Looking back on it, you are able to see a hundred different ways your father could have run things so the result was different.  This process is second-guessing and its very easy to do in retrospect.  Its very easy to sit back and spin endless scenarios that would have been better choices.  the more you do this, the more it seems that maybe he just didn't consider your feelings at all (after all, look at how abundant these other options are!).  The truth is that you had hurt feelings that caused you to become blinded to the reality of the situation.  So instead of seeing things clearly, you began to see based on the taint of your own hurt and pain.  This gave you a certain sense of victimization, perhaps, and this further changed your consciousness in this regard.

When letting go of this karma, I think its very helpful to just see things for how the person with whom we are involved, says they felt. Bringing not just your emotional awareness but your more rational awareness is important.  Within you lies a very detached part of your being called the Observer.  This part of you can be incredibly non-invested in the drama unfolding, and it is this part of you which can help fuel great change in your learning to dissolve or evaporate karma. If someone says that they did what they did out of love, the best things is to take their word for it DESPITE how your own hurt feelings say is not true.  Set that aside because this is a way to see things differently.  When you do this, you give someone the benefit of the doubt and the old argument actually ceases for a moment in time as the world hangs silent and still as you consider that perhaps what hurt you was actually done out of love.  Then, by feeling into this, and perhaps using your mind's ability to examine the facts in all of this (something it is good at), perhaps you can find yourself entertaining a different way to feel about this. 

I have someone in my life who has a karma that has to do with being a victim. This person is determined to believe that he is not loved by me.  He is determined that not only do I not love him, but that I never loved him.  The interesting thing is how I can watch and see how this person has been blind to the facts on the ground. There were plenty of them, and yet this person will often go on telling me why I feel a certain way, and I find this amazing that anyone would feel as though they know how anyone else feels inside of them.  I often protested explaining that I very much loved this person, but I was told that no, I did not feel that way at all. The truth was, this person was blinded by his own hurt so that he could not entertain for one moment the very depth of my love for him.  If he had done just as I have suggested earlier, he might have suddenly been surrounded with proof of my love, and he could have begun to actually see events very differently.  The things I did with this person, the lengths I would go to to be involved in his life.  And yet, somehow, it would never be enough.  On my side, I felt very much like our defensive father.  I had to learn to take the target off my back and learn how not be play the victim in all of this. I could in the moment choose to play or not play into this.  By being very clear about how I felt, I could begin to shift how I saw and responded to this type of behavior.

Resolving karma is an act of self honesty. Its not that we are bad by being dishonest.  Its just that our feelings often do not match reality. This is perhaps why we call karma and the pain it creates as being illusion.  In this way, I would agree that karma is the result of the illusions that we spin in our lives.  Misperceptions, biases that blind us, misunderstandings about what was at work....

The root of this is feeling, and back to feeling we must go, diving into an old hurt and being willing to offer it up to the gods or our higher self to heal. Sometimes we just do not have the means to heal it.  Being willing to step back and look at events with a fresh perspective and to not always fall for the bias or leaning, we can be like impartial judges in the process and absent the emotional factor, see things more as they were than how we preferred to see them.  The Observer is HUGE in this process and can actually move you beyond hard places within you where you cannot let go.  The Observer never DID grab hold of an issue.  Its present in both your spirit as well as your brain.  This is the frontal cortex that is non-emotional.  While cool and calculating perhaps, its the next wrinkle in our development that moves us beyond mammals.  It allows us to step back from a situation and consider that another alternative is available  Sometimes a simple realization, which is that our father was just doing the best he could in the moment and that while it didn't turn out right, it was what it was, and it does not change his love for you.  Years and years of time can be caught up in dealing with this misalignment.

Divine Alignment is all about learning how to let go of those things that are not in alignment with our higher being. this higher being is available to us through the gift of an Awakening.  It brings to light in brilliant fashion all of those karmas that need to be dealt with.  If you feel pain in a certain part of your field, it may be a sign of something unresolved.  This is a gift.  By feeling into this, you can learn to approach this in  way that brings all levels of your awareness into the mix. Ultimately, though, it may be the result of your higher self stepping into the breech in order to resolve the issue.

This is where this deep abiding love can help.  This is not a love that clings but frees. It asks for nothing but is happy to simply be itself and to give and radiate its presence all through you.  It is above and beyond all concern of these little scuffles in our lives and seeks only that we come into its alignment.  Since it is so perfect, it does not need to change itself in order to conform to our notions of what we feel we might need.  In a sense, I think you could say it is beyond all karma.  By being this radiant self that it is, our own energy fields will feel pain when it flows through us and encounters places where its perfect flow is disrupted.  our higher awareness, which is present in the background reads this as a misalignment, and the energy field relates this as pain which can sometimes feel entirely physical. This is a sign because the purpose of pain is to no longer feel the pain.  It can train us how to stay out of the pain and remain in the bliss.  Because I know my love to be perfect for this person in my life who feels I do not love him, I no longer feel compelled to get down on his level to prove my love to him.  If I have to become a martyr to his cause, then I am only investing myself in a sense of being less than I am.  I am also buying into being a victim.  I know that there is nothing that can weaken me more than doing that. I am left, then, waiting, holding this perfect love for the time when he comes around to realizing the deeper truth to this thing that he has misperceived, something that at so many turns showed him how I cared and loved him.  Ultimately it may be that for the time being, we are speaking different languages.  Perhaps when he is able to bring clarity to his own process he might begin to see more clearly.  But this is a choice.  I cannot make it for him, and neither can I continue to hope and hang on the possibility that something might happen.  I offer my hopes in prayer, that the highest is served for him and for me, and if it means he never sees the truth in this life, then perhaps it is what he needs to do for now as part of his development.  I must remain like this pillar of love, not moving or bending.  Like kundalini, we can become these resolved beings as we wake up to the reality of our situation.  By moving out of the fantasy of our feelings and looking with clear eyes, we can begin to give others' the benefit of the doubt and see things from their perspective.  Doing so can help us to understand how we were not in alignment with the reality of the situation that served to cause is the pain.  Beyond that pain lies freedom.  Beyond that lies a flow in our energy field for this energy which was better than before.  By learning to see things differently that through our hurt, we are that much closer to resolving the issue.  What resolves it is a special thing that I think is grace. Its what brings us to the simple truth of the moment beyond all arguments, all positions, just a drive to know the truth.  No attitudes, biases, hurts; just what is. 




Exercise:  Healing your Energy Field

I want you to think about your energy field. Do you have an area where there is pain that has been brought about by Awakening?  Do you have pain that you are not sure what the source of it is that maybe causes you worry?  This would need to be something that isn't just a sore muscle or misaligned vertebrae.  But whatever the case I want you to take your left hand, which is most often the "receiver" hand and place it over your heart center.  I know this might be a little tricky to do, but it should just barely work for you.  Then I want you take your right hand, which is most often the sender hand and place it over the area that hurts.  Its good to do this while lying down.  As you do this, I want you to just relax and not think about doing anything in particular because the energy will flow without any effort on your part.  If you feel deep down that your right hand is the receiver, try switching hands.  This might work better if you are somehow not feeling differently.  If you think of anything, thinking of how you would like the flow of your perfect heart energy to flow into that spot and begin healing it. 

Now just let your hand cover the center or area that hurts.  Let it rest there for a good ten minutes. What do you feel?  Trust that whatever is happening is happening for a purpose.  I wont suggest to you what you will or might feel.  After spending a good ten to fifteen minutes doing this in a relaxed state, how do you feel?  Do you feel a loosening of the pain or tension in that part of your body?  You can spend as much time as you want doing this.  You can even fall asleep while doing this.  Spend as much time as you need, and you might want to try this a number of times over a period of time, too.  It might help that you tell yourself that your higher vibration will be able to do the healing so it will make it all simpler for you.  Then your mind can simply rest and not feel the need to monitor too much.  Just feel into it. 


I hope that by considering how to begin seeing things that you feel you are overly invested in emotionally, that you can begin to see the old hurts differently. By doing this, sometimes we have to see the junk that another person is invested in themselves, but instead of doing that, I am asking you to consider that what they have done was not always done with the intent to hurt or maim or kill. I understand that sometimes the actions of people can be nothing short of cruel.  Still, for as hard as it is, being able to understand in a straightforward way why the person felt as s/he did, it can sometimes give us insight into why something happened. Sometimes it can provide our mind, which is unable to budge from its hurt and pain, just enough room to move and make the change it needs.  Realize, too, that our hurts can manifest as addictions when they have become deeply ingrained.  Its awfully hard sometimes to see them for what they are, and sometimes you might need to feel like you are at the end of your rope.  the really great things about the end of the rope is that beyond it is either letting go or learning to deal with what is in front of you.  It feels pretty final, and in those moments we can change on a dime, surrendering and hoping to just see the truth because of how the old karma makes us feel.  If you can come to this without feeling like you have reached the end of that rope, all the better.  By approaching this honestly within ourselves we can dissolve the karma through forgiveness.  Sometimes it means asking forgiveness of another, other times it means forgiving yourself and wiping the slate clean.  If its an ingrained beast that you feel is hard to work around, tell yourself that there is nothing that is stronger than you.  Karma creates more attachment, so the best way is to consider that a better way is possible.  FEELING how better you would feel is sometime enough to loosen that hard knot inside of you.  I held onto a knot like that since the mid to late 1300's that very recently was released.  It was the biggest blessing.  I achieved it by considering something I had not considered before, that the old way of going about this was not working and that I needed to see this differently.....because I very much felt like I was at the end of my rope.

And then I let go.

And I soared.

Imagine that.