Induction

You don't always get what you see.

Sight is a combination of many senses.  Our senses, said to be some 265 variations, all come together in The Moment.  Zen Master Dogen stated that there are 6,400,099,980 Moments in every day.  Just snapping our fingers takes up about 65 Moments. The Moment is where everything is One.  Living in the Present Moment is impossible for there are no perceived time and space barrier.  But when we are Present to our actions, like snapping a finger or abstaining or partaking, craving or averting, the fullness of all your senses working together in those Moments brightens ones Awareness, wakes it.  Awareness is more and more conscious as the senses come back into circulation, helping us to "see" our world and ourselves less myopically. Yet and still this process can feel like slugs with bells on.

It can be like this when we walk with the Unknown, the slowness be unsettling for some and so this Ritual Education offers you the attentiveness within which the budding practical mystic observes the subtlest dimensions of existence, those realms imperceptible to the eye, the ones that overwhelm the ordinary mind into a stunned silence, which is very uncomfortable for most people.  Here we offer guidance, medicine, from Seneca Elder Twylah Nitsch:

I taste the Silence.
I smell the Silence.
I see the Silence.
I hear the Silence.
I embrace the Silence.

Myth is a powerful structure that lives between the seen and the unseen, navigated by Joseph Campbell as the Mythical Hero’s Journey.

The mythically proportioned Hero’s Journey begins with a sudden or unexpected call to embark on a quest to the hereunto unknown. Most often it comes when a person is quite comfortable in their ordinary life, for the appearance of comfort, the dim light of the West you are still immersed in, is a good place from which to launch the unexpected.

This model emulates a "myth" that pits forces intent on enslaving the human spirit.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Hollywood has adopted this model as the blueprint for every mainstream movie you have ever seen.  However, addicted to it efficacy, movie makers have actually distorted the entire basis of Campbell's work, which is to step out of the repetitive state of Samsara, not step into it over and over and track it around, for this creates more and more Samsara.  The basis of Campbell's model is that the Hero is a myth.  And the Journey, traditionally a Vision Fast, what brings one out of it; the Journey is meant to "unplug" the Hero.

A root or rather, logjam, of Samsara lodged in the psychological is the Childhood Myth, which arises as the result of our first attempt to apply meaning to an event or situation in childhood that we could not fathom and in doing so, we gave birth to the hero, particularly the one who believes they have to do everything themselves, which feeds Separation.  This further leads to an addiction to making meaning as comforting.  This greatly limits Meaning in its task to bring forth Truth, which is more connected to Reasons that cannot always be explained.  The rather stubborn childhood myth becomes the driving force of Samsara in us, fuelling our looping psychological enslavement.  And so it is necessary to "bust" this psychological myth, a key part of this Ritual Education.  And while we're at it, bust yourself out of your self-imposed psychological enslavement. And eventually Samsara.

Plant medicines, akin to the Journey, have the potential to take one through the psychological landscape, a tour of our personal limitations, our distorted thoughts, behaviours and beliefs and offer alternative views AND, to transcend it.  Otherworldly spirits, both beneficial are mischievous, attend ceremonies.  The mischievous have learned to use our psychological entrapment to feed on our spirit and soul, particularly where ones Spirit is not well-developed, having little immunity.  One can be possessed by such spirits which further block us from transcending our addiction to the psychological, for they don't want to give up this readily available, easy to access (these days) source of energy. Where the plants and fungi have long been used by indigenous cultures, those indigenous cultures already had spirit strengthening Rites and teachings in place, not so vulnerable. For it is the Rites and Ritual Education that strengthen and wisen the spirit.  Nor were these cultures entrapped in the psychological Adolescence as western culture is, though it is spreading.

Plant medicines were generally used by a "shaman" or curandera, ones with a strong Spirit who know how to come and go in the spiritual realm without taking medicines.  Indeed, it is said, if you need to take something to get into the spirit world, you got no business being there. Plant medicines are a short-cut, a door directly to the Spirit World.  But one must also come back.  If a shaman or participant relies solely on the medicine to get them to the spirit world they could easily get trapped there if the medicine wanes before ones spirit makes it back through the door, and it closes. Then their body would be a vacant rental for whatever spirit wanted to inhabit it, a kind of flop-house for spirits of the dead, hungry ghosts etc.  And then the way back can excruciating, manifest as serious mental illness and take many medicine people much time and energy to resolve.  Even close calls can distort ones energy centres, cause them to be out of alignment or leak, as does Trauma.  In these cases one becomes an energy vampire, an insatiable knowledge seeker, sexually insatiable, relentlessly restless, generally unsatisfied, obsessed with their tendencies and syndromes, to name some variants.

These Rites and Ritual Education have you come to see your own limitations without giving away parts of your soul and spirit or distorting energy centres. A meditation practice is good accompaniment. Though meditation cannot retrieve fragmented, chewed up bits of soul and spirit, it can help us not be so obsessed with our tendencies and syndromes.

As you have had enough exposure by now to the films of Hollywood, and perhaps plant medicines, set your sights now to the Induction Wheel, designed for "safe" passage from the West to the North, that is to say, without dipping into the 2x4 fallout of Trauma that is divorce, abuse, premature death and other heartbreakers that take the Innocent as hostage.

Click on the link below and open a new window for it
for a clear view of the Territory

that you can refer to while you read.

Induction Wheel

Let us now have a look at the lay of this Ritual Territory.  To make a map of the entire Territory would indeed be contrary to its own mysterious nature. As such, I can only paint your eyes with an explanation lest you get dumped in the linear goo of the moat of Complexity one can so easily fall into without running Understanding at full capacity.

Let us begin with the red dot signifying “you are here”, which comes of heads banging against the Calcified Western Front, the psychological wall between the West and North, over and again. Because you have not yet learned how to walk through walls, there is nowhere to go from here but South, the gate through which Medicine Wheels are typically entered.  And so we begin in going down, down, down - adding to the featherbed that awaits you.  Or is it tar?  We'll see when we get there!

The dotted line that moves from West to East designates the threshold between the ordinary and spirit worlds during initiation. These are not always so clear cut in day to day life.  This temporary division heightens their properties for the purpose of initiation. The invisible line that runs South to North is the Red Road, the way of Help and Health which, for the wandering, intoxicated Adolescent, is difficult to stay on yet of itself, not difficult.  The horizontal line is also part of the Black Road, which runs across the Red Road like railroad ties, tempting one with Difficulty every step you take.  Buffalo told Jumping Mouse, "I always know where my feet will land",  conveying the teaching that Buffalo is always on the Red Road.   Yet and Still, Buffalo was not immune to Difficulty.

This Ritual Education, like a Rite, has three stages or Acts.

Act 1. Severance - entry to the underworld
Act 2. Integration - immersion into the special world or “Shamanic Death” of the winter
Act 3. Return - resurrection as spirit learning to be a human being.

Be clear, Integration is often the "middle" of a Rite, not something that happen after.  For it is too easy to misplace the teachings once back in the ordinary world if not integrated first. Furthermore, true learning, which is not information and knowledge based, can only occur once Spirit is your default, not ego, not person, not physical comfort nor sensory fascinations.

As you are still reading indicates you are already on the brink of Stage One, standing in the sidelines so to speak awaiting the curtain call. And even if you may not feel particularly motivated to change your way of life, and try as you may, you attempt to refuse the call but find it echoes off the wall, a ringing in your ears you cannot shake. And you heed to it.  For something ancient in you knows that when you cross the threshold, whether you have come with your knees shaking or armour up, the “threshing” of the wheels begins, separating the chaff from the seed.

Once you have committed to this Ritual Education, the human mentor, together with their guides, walk you through many Wheels, and even overlapping them at times, not unlike the symbols of the seed and flower of life.  One of the first we encounter is the Mistakes Wheel.  Each wheel, or threshing, prepares and equips you for the tests, trials and tribulations of Stage Two, mainly by taking childish things away, to which your child will rebel. There is no failure upon this stage, only the gauging of the capacity of your powers by the spirits as to discern the best means to grow them.  As we make our way further South, your unconscious archetypes are gently nudged into the vision of Consciousness and your resistance, your "buts" flourish, are easily seen, and so easier to dismantle.  The shamanic death is complete in the accounting of the childhood myth that has weighed you down, which also lightens your load for the journey to come Northward.

Guidance is one of the greatest from of Protection, particularly in the Underworld.  The test is that it is in the Underworld that one most often doubts the value of the guidance, perceiving it as ridiculous or even dangerous.  All stories of the Underworld tell of the initiate being given random objects with random instructions and doubting their efficacy until finally they must put them to the test to make their way out again.  This is the nature of the "tests and trials" you will undergo, for these develop not only Discipline but Faith, which are closely related, overlapping even.

As Consciousness comes into direct conflict with your Subconscious programming, the result  is struggle. As Consciousness overrides the programming one realizes they are not the lab rat having something being done to them, they are the experiment and understanding the parameters or “reason” for the experiment eventually puts you on the road to Resurrection.  Where there is not understanding of the Reason behind things, mainly due to grasping on to meaning to find comfort, one returns empty handed, which is most often the case in the majority of “psychedelic” experiences.  When one emerges through the Clearing into the True North, your mind is set as the bubble in the compass, well guided.  The bubble contents are referred to as the Elixir.

But we have gotten ahead ourselves here. Long before the Return, the second stage has a way of increasing the intensity of personal problems.  Again, meditation is useful here. There will be challenges, a sure fire sign you are on the right path, the one difficult to stay on rather than the one immersed in Difficulty. This is the time where one’s looming negative aspects are teased and pulled out with the fine-toothed comb of the Spirit World. This can come with the heaviness of regret, resentment or anger - a poke at your conscience, arising to be acknowledged as to proceed with the process of Real Progress. Indeed, the first step of relieving addiction is to acknowledge there is this in me.

As we go along, your own life will provide ample opportunities for you to digest what is revealed, what comes up, and assimilate this with the teachings.

Upon this second stage of Ritual Education you increasingly see spirits or feel the presence of the otherworldly guides and allies interested in you.  These guides come to lend you their powers to mature your own Gifts, that you may continue to the third stage. This is somewhat different from "possession", in which you become a possession to a spirit, which just like humans have a hard time giving up their possessions.  And also similar. Your guides are dedicated, assigned to you. You may simply feel like you are being watched for your guides are not shy in provoking your conscience;  all the lies we've told ourselves, the rhetorical confessions, the "buts"...

Here one must work appropriately and in obedience with Guidance, for your guide will not lend you their powers if you, the student, are not ready and willing to wake up and discover what you are doing.  Furthermore, Obedience is highly adaptive, skilled in integrating failed communications (misunderstandings) into your very next instructions aimed at expanding your Understanding.

Along the way to your Enlightened Adulthood we will engage your dormant senses of Understanding and Balance, ignite missing senses such as Death, also referred to as the sense of Nothingness and refresh the overworked senses of  Thinking, Imagination and the rather dulled sense of Intuition. The  building blocks of your unique Values will also be revealed to you, which support the maturation of your senses.  Upon this Course you will also encounter the Art of Differentiation, the Art of Longing and Belonging, the Art of Integration and understand the Dark Art of Overthinking and the Lord of its court, Confusion. In fact, you will leave the course with an alternative masters degree in the Arts, enabled to bridge the invisible and visible, an artistry as applicable to paint and music as the boardroom, politics and parenting.  As with all knowledge, what you do with it is completely up to you and, you will stick to the Plan of the Higher Good for you will have nibbled enough of the Noble Truth, the Eight-fold path and boiled and toiled your way through Alchemy and ingested the Medicine Wheel teachings sufficiently to apply your increasing intelligence to spread your enlightenment like pollen as you tumble into that which comes of it.

Indeed we will encounter many wondrous things upon this journey yet it is in Wonderland where  the novelty of being a part of the local phenomena (i.e., situations, persons and places) at the same time as one who transcends time and space (i.e., your multidimensional reality) peaks. In this place one is prone to recover their sense of Humour, so necessary to carry on. This is also where you receive your “specs” that enable you to see both ways, read the map of the linear while at the same time experiencing the randomness of the Territory as to be in simultaneous existence. Even as you emerge into Adulthood this way of Seeing will continue to be your work, for it does not come all at once.

By Act Three you have integrated the powers of your guides and achieve life-changing breakthroughs which come not of external influence but your Way of Life. These can come through a continuum of Aha and Hmm moments or more obvious physical changes and emergences, pleasant and unpleasant. Nonetheless, having been “initiated” by these powers, one emerges from this stage with greater skills and profound knowledge of how to use them. This is also the stage where you must return to the people and function as one who has become that which is above and that which is below with the uncanny ability to look both ways as to close the gaping gap between the mind and heart and come into your Precious Sensitivity.

Maybe this Induction has made things clear as mud so let us get down to the nitty-gritty. Your part on this course is to keep up with the information you receive in your inbox each week, to which you must dedicate 8-10 hours per week and appear for weekly online council meetings. You are also responsible for monitoring your own condition as you come to your Understanding and to openly bring your progress to our Council sessions to enable us to see clearly into the Well. Where we find large boulders you will have a one-to-one shamanic clearing session. Here, with direct help from the Spirit World, things get done 6X faster. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a Day. But Egypt was.

 

Original content under common copyright Neith Arrow/Changing Mind 2023

neith@changingmind.co               www.changingmind.co

 

 

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The meaning of enlightenment is in the middle.