All of Life happens in this Day. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow and no someday and most definitely no “soon”.  There is only this Day, all else merely excerpts from fractals of memory rinsed in drops of Consciousness giving way to the Truth of Remembering.  And to this Day do we return time and again in the great, swirling feedback loop of Life.

 

 

And as you are responsible for creating the self that lives in the reality of your own creation, are you the chooser of how the Day goes for you. The Narcissist has the hardest time with this, for this condition of mind is ever setting traps to hold others hostage/responsible for their own undesirable choices. This sets a trap for the Narcissist themselves in that they can never be satisfied, never create a life they can call their own because they are too busy with the hostages, as if they had no choice. It is everyone else’s fault they are not happy, but too, collecting hostages brings some kind of satisfaction. There is some satisfaction for the hostages too, as the narcissistic false self can be charming, entertaining. Yet when called out this false self becomes highly volatile, and as there is nothing actually holding them, the hostages (friends, colleagues, therapists) simply leave.

When Narcissism fails as ones primary defence mechanism, there is a devastating collapse, as the Narcissist begins their spiral down the rabbit hole filled with their own delusions, deceptions and lies. They are no longer able to hide their true self, and so all hostages are released, on the grounds that they have somehow betrayed the Narcissist. In the collapse, nothing can fill the void. They can continue running and chasing the Dragon at this point, yet the collapse continues.

Narcissism is a deviation in Personality, commonly termed personality disorder. We speak of this upon this step of Signs, as it appears in many in varying degrees, due to the original wound. It is very common because so few have encountered their true self, which sets up a concrete like barrier of the condition of Separation between who truly you are and who you think you are. Now this sounds like semantics for many, and in some way it is. For the Individual cannot flourish if Individuation is not also there. Individuation stops making a difference between who you are and who you think you are. Who you are is Buddha Nature, a child a God, Creator, Source...And who you think you are, the personality, must fit into that, be a cell in that larger organism and act accordingly. This begins with being responsible for the self living in the creation of your own reality.

Often you will see postings about “making a difference” in the world. In the way of Paradox, coming to the state of Individuation along the Path of Induction, is it. For the Lakota, this was the purpose and responsibility of every Individual in the village.

Narcissism is a recent occurrence, that basically went viral, under the radar. And we speak more of this so you can really see how the split or Schism flourished, rather than the Individual. The roots of narcissistic personality traits may be the same, but how they manifest can be different. Narcissists evolve as a result of an ‘injury’ to their very being, usually in childhood, that comes from not being seen for who they truly are. In order to be seen, heard and acknowledged – and to get the attention they crave – narcissists develop a ‘false self’ that they believe is more acceptable to others. They try to be “a good person”. As they grow up, they become more invested in ensuring that everyone admires this false self, and will take great pains to ensure the ‘real self’ is never seen. This “real self” is the one deeply injured, the mess. The narcissistic have strong empathy, to the point of clairvoyance even, but can only use it for themselves, like a hoover, to further fuel the existence of the false self.

The way out of the patterns of narcissism is a return to original universal patterning, a process we term Interface, which comes one “tile”, one drop or pixel at a time. As spoken by Tyson Yunkaporta of the Apalech clan in Australia: "There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance, to keep the temptations of narcissism in check. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilizing control over what some see as chaos. [...] The war between good and evil is in reality an imposition of stupidity and artificial simplicity over wisdom and complexity."

We speak of good and evil now, which are different. The narcissist is apt to take power from shamanic practices, ceremonies, teachings, and use them solely for the perpetuation of the false self, the ego. This is what is known as Sorcery. In shamanic tradition there is always the warning that any power can be used for good or for evil. And in this does one have Choice.

To be clear, the false self/ego and personality are different. Personality is a reflection of your gift, of your Spirit, that lives in the true Self, and an important part of village life. The ego, which is a part of growing up, must be quelled by the age of 8 or it will develop into a false self, overriding the development of Personality in channelling all sustenance into the false self. Narcissism is the overindulged false self. It is for why the grandfather spoke to the young boy, “which wolf are you feeding?” For both are hungry.

As sustenance for your growing right of Responsibility, a regular dip into the metaphoric process of food and the digestive system is appropriate, that is to say, healthy. Keep in mind that one does not eat and poop at the same time, or at the least the same place - though kitchen and toilet are generally near one another in “civilized” places. It is by no coincidence that so much of our lives revolve around food. Much as a gardener cares for the garden, is it important that you care regardless of what others think. It is also important to know that the garden grows more than gardener sows, and that to feed is to Remember.

Remember too, let none revere you for being on the path of enlightenment, the path of Induction, for that would be like revering a child for being innocent. All are simply another volute flower in the blossoming field of Consciousness. And if they do, move away. For those who would place you in a vase on the table would just as soon have your head as a trophy of Kali Yuga. In the words of Archangel Michael, “As warriors of peace your Light shines brighter out into the world and you must be vigilant so that you will do nothing which will make you a focal point for negative vibrational forces”.

From the beginning people have lamented the sense of isolation that enlightenment can bring - no longer resonating with friends in ways which they used to enjoy and family ties becoming ever harder to maintain. Those who choose the shamanic path of Induction, of moving from one womb to another, lucid while awake, know it's not about being pessimistic or optimistic, but being the mystic who is also realistic, one who can see both ways and who is comfortable with the dynamic tension of being truly Alive, that is to say, living in Truth, alongside many of those same friends and family. Too will you be visited by new friends that are True. What is True? In the words of Black Elk again:

If your medicine doesn’t grow corn, I don’t want to hear about it.

There is nothing elitist about awakening to what is happening on this planet. Though at first being awake may create a sense of separation this eventually brings a more authentic connection to others through an expanded capacity for Compassion as you gain not only extensive knowledge of that which your fellow humans are suffering through, but the deep Understanding that comes of it. Be clear now; knowledge exists only in duality – one cannot have knowledge without being subject to good and evil, right and wrong. In fact knowledge can create a great divide, schism, between the head and body. In 3D, the world of Duality, clarity depends on what you know. In 4D, clarity is based not on what you know, but how your actions act as the clearest reflection of all the insight you’ve come to know, aligning your choices with your highest wisdom, actions that honour what you are for and not reinforcing what you are against. In the sweat lodge we never speak of what we don’t want.

Consciousness, which can be said to really kick in in the 5D, is not subject to knowledge for it operates in non-duality. It does take some getting used to “knowing” without becoming intoxicated with the fruits of knowledge. This knowing comes of having relations in the Spirit World, with beings you cannot actually see, touch or hear with your regular senses. Yet as Psyche is weaned off her addiction/dependency to your senses does your Precious Sensitivity develop, enabling one to come into true (rather than meaningful) relationships with the seen and unseen.

To start, tune into the invisible signs of Nature calling that surround us as Sound; the chirp of a bird, the rustle of leaves in the wind, lapping of waves upon the shore, the call of the rooster’s crow. Though speaking through the material, you can call upon any of these sounds without the 3D actually present, as we will in our Awareness Building Meditation.  These sounds do not take up space in your Consciousness yet fill it and by doing so, your pendulum does not swing so radically from positive to negative and your mental and emotional natures become stabilized and centred, a kind of “stopping to smell the roses” if you will, even in the absence of roses, the absence of your sense of smell even.

Have we been doing this all the time, unconsciously balancing our Conscious Awareness? Yes, but in a distracted or refracted way due to focusing blame upon others for our own lack of attention. And there is nothing wrong with you for doing this. It is simply that you can do better. It is said a disciple on the path of Enlightenment, that runs through the Adult, must strive for heart-centred detachment, wise discernment and due diligence and the guidance in this Course will imbue you these disciplines.

Now this sounds good but how does it really work (for we are no longer interested in what does it really mean)? If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyways. If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyways. The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. I think you get it, without the “point”. And, let us finish it, for in the end it was always between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway. For in the Adult, all forms of Struggle become a thing of the past entirely, as does being a “disciple”.

The over-aged Adolescent largely depends on “signs” to influence what they consider to be choices. Yet signs are practically insignificant to Choice. In fact signs are only significant to the little “me” - the false self getting lost and frustrated, due to its endless gathering and collecting that leads only to Struggle. It is actually Struggle that requires signs. And so, no struggle, no signs. What is left then is diagnostics, which of itself contains the profound roots of dia and gnostic.

Of themselves, Words are frequency signals of Sound, carriers of only that which is True regardless of whether you perceive them as wrong or right, good or bad. The Adult is not concerned with conventional knowledge, meaning, yet the Spirit behind the words, the way of perceiving that enhances how things really work that you may work better with them for the benefit of feeding the wolf that is your True Self. Furthermore, no sign, action, dream, imagination, feeling or thought is True of itself. All that is True is so in relation to what it stands with. All things can be “true”, just as each spoke in a bicycle wheel must be trued in order for the wheel to function at optimum capacity (not maximum).

With each step and stone of this course are you being trued. The thing is, each “spoke” is a composite, a collage or sorts, and so we must visit many things along the way over and again, meeting them with your developing gifts as an Adult of Patience and Purity, as they reveal the parts of themselves that require truing, healing. For this the course is designed, not in a logical, linear way, but in alignment with the net-like workings of the Heart that catches all that you truly are and burns all else away.

Coming to know the True Self may require discipline and effort yet the Self requires no effort. Understanding is highly effervescent and a great help to Effort, yet if Understanding is made into a goal it leads only to searching. In truth, Understanding comes when you take your attention away from ideas, goals and concepts. Let us clearly map out the sequence that comes of goals that Effort might take a long awaited rest under the long leaves of the Tree of Peace.

Goals arise from knowledge and knowledge from searching. But the crazy thing is, to search one must already know what it is they are searching for; be familiar with it. So what is it you are expending such effort searching for? And so it is of no surprise that from this useless effort comes the feeling of being lost, which produces a life of misery. And from this comes struggle and from struggle comes questions and from questions come problems. The only antidote really is to turn to Inquiry, which always comes to its end, asking: Is there anything to be attained?

The knowledge one holds about something is what keeps you from it.

At least, that knowledge the person holds so dear must be questioned.  Or it creates an invisible wall of self-doubt. With knowledge so taken care of, the Self has a chance at you, as does Self-love. I asked someone who said they had been in touch with their self, “Who is that Self?” And did he begin his reply with, “it is the person who….” I cut him off right there, for he was going down the wrong road. The following is a passage from a uniquely animated film called Waking Life. In this speaking may come forth a deeper “knowing” of sound, of sign, of language, and perhaps of how the “wrong” and its misunderstandings came about.

“Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. This is where, I think, language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. It had to be easy when it was just simple survival. “Water.” We came up with a sound for that. ‘Sabre-tooth tiger right behind you!’ We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting, I think, is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing. What is “frustration”? Or, what is “anger” or “love”? When I say “love” - the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this byzantine conduit in their brain, through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I'm saying... and they say yes they understand, but how do I know? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead - you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed, it’s unspeakable. And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another and we feel that we have connected - and we think we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion... and that feeling may be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.”

Spiritual Communion is kind of untouchable food for humans. But it is not only souls in the 3D that eat. In the Buddhist texts there is a saying, Eh Ma Ho, all beings eat and are eaten. One must also be aware of beings in the other realms and what they feed on. Already we have spoken of how negative energy, when voluntarily released, sacrificed, can be used to move the Ancestors through hungry ghost infested wormholes. And, this energy can also be hijacked by hungry ghosts too stubborn, too engaged in gluttony, to move on. In the words of Rudolph Steiner, “There are beings in the spiritual realms for whom anxiety and fear emanating from human beings offer welcome food. When humans have no anxiety and fear, then these creatures starve. If fear and anxiety radiate from people and they break out in panic, then these creatures find welcome nutrition, and they become more and more powerful, launching cruel attacks on human beings, while they are being fed.” These “attacks” can come as ideas, concepts and goals that are unsuited to your unique Personality, therefore keeping one in doubt, anxiety and fear.

The words we speak can also be used to keep one unbalanced. It is true in a way, that words are “dead”, that they come from the other side, the beyond, the other realms. So it is that Conscious Word Use, filtering words through the 5D, is a Skill necessary for growing the Heart as the centre of communication, of perception, to which the Sense of Thinking and its key determinant, Discernment, are at the disposal of. Skill, which we also term as “know how”, is required to effortlessly approach the unapproachable. We spoke of the skill of approaching a problem without rupturing its solution, of approaching Difficulty without courting Danger. We will later speak more of the Brave that must touch the “enemy” without being seen. What about the importance of regularly flushing yourself of all old knowledge so as not to become toxic? These are all skills that prevent ideas, goals and concepts from taking over your operating system. For the true Self cannot live and grow on such things, though they can symbiotically grow on you. Even as a parasite, it is all a part of Life growing you.

Working with the unapproachable is not only a skill but imperative for the development of your Heart womb. We say develop rather than maintain, for in many this womb is still under construction. The key contractors of development are Grief and Gratitude, informing this womb of its capacity for Compassion. In the words of Francis Weller, “the work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I only carry grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I only have gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.”

Already we spoke of the tight relationship of death and grief, and the phobias related to both. And in this step, how to approach the unapproachable. Here is an example using Money. I was speaking with a friend the other day about Money and said, “it is the fear of Money that haunts people”. In that moment, I saw Fear pointing to something with its invisible sign language, but I kept looking at Fear for it was becoming quite elaborate and bizarre in its efforts to call my attention to it. Luckily, that is to say, before facing Fear got to the point of anxiety, I looked in the direction fear was directing me to, but could not clearly see what was there for it was unfamiliar. Once Awareness arrived with its pure equanimity, Fear let out a great sigh of relief and left, leaving me in Peace, free of doubt, of suspicion, of hopelessness, to approach the unapproachable. Looking closer still the next day, I saw Money shrouded in 1000 veils. And a narrative came of the middle-eastern dance of 1000 veils where each time a veil is removed, money is placed in the dancer’s belt. And in seeing this through the lucid Awake lens, Understanding, Awareness and Consciousness were not far behind.

Often people will ask a question, which always comes as a symptom of old knowledge wanting to fall away. Yet it only falls when one can let go of the answer. If it is an actual Inquiry into the Self, this is possible. More often it is the problem-seeking person that is not able to let built up, old knowledge go. And questioning a form of sabotage - protection and feeding of the false self. When that person understands how to work with problems, they will simply disengage with the questioning on their own, stop thinking. But if not, is it a signal, a diagnostic or “sign” for short, that a large assumption is backing the deal in which case the inquisitor has been questioning him or herself all along, which perpetuates loneliness.

We touched on the 5th Agreement in Step 3, “question everything”. This does not refer to demanding validation from things yet to instigate the actual process or Skill of Inquiry, of asking, of Permission. You can, for instance question/ask the thing in front of you, seen or unseen, with all the sincerity and respect you can muster “what can I do to get your cooperation?” And if you cooperate directly with its request, not dependent on what you already know, hearsay or even the teachings given here, it may just reveal to you its inner living meaning, the “sap” of its life force, that which connects All. Only in this way can you touch Life yourself, and feel it touch you, take care of you/itself. In the everyday, questions are best applied only to the practical, like how to get to the bus station. Or more aptly as in the Hopi Prophecy: Where is your water? Otherwise knowledge will continuously, paradoxically, produce questions.

Without mincing words let us come to the fact that the true meaning of something is its Spirit, its way of perceiving. Connecting in the way spoken of above, using Cooperation, is excellent in connecting with plants to ascertain their primary healing power for the spirit as well as the chemical compound they contain which can also be helpful in the other aspects of the being. Yet what any plant is good for can change on a dime depending on what you come to it with, the meaning in the disease or illness. And it is this meaning that is then addressed rather person or the disease, which is merely a sign. How the plants determines this state or health of this meaning is through Comparison, which is only to be used by plants. In the hands of uninitiated humans, Comparison can be devastating.

In humans, Comparison is primarily used by Judgement, which has one question things without the sufficient energy to sustain the answer, bringing about an aborted or truncated connection. Judgement actually depletes your capacity to Understand and is a debilitating waste of time for all. If Judgment comes to you, particularly of your self, see it as a sign to rest and digest what you already have, to be silent and meditate even for a minute or two as the storm passes. You can then use your questioning to ask for help with your judgment that it be refined into the higher art of Discernment. Without the ability to ask for help, your dependency on judgment is fortified to the point of rendering one fairly helpless, which denies Spirit, for Spirit lives to help.

When I am questioned by one of my elders rarely do I get an answer because they are only interested to see the affect their question has on my being, which usually causes me to stutter, sputter or otherwise turn to mush, signs that something is up in me, something not clear or hiding. And in this they have their answer and then speak to me (or not) from that place to make any necessary corrections. What is spoken then usually makes no sense to me yet I sit still and listen. I asked a mentor of mine once what it is to “tend to an Elder”, as I had heard him refer to earlier in the day. “You take them where they need to go and translate if necessary”, he said. Well, I didn’t know any native languages and so thought I would be of no use in this. But over the years and in the increased capacity of my Understanding, Wisdom has taught me otherwise as I found myself tending to a Shuswap/Secwépemc Elder for many years. When I am questioned by him, there is absolutely no room for self-validating or self-justification and so one is inclined to simply tell the truth, which feels very good.

Do you recall the 3rd agreement of the Toltec: Don’t make assumptions. And is your awareness of the consequences of doing so growing? It is practically impossible not to make assumptions with the system you are working with for there are many gaps, and assumption are ever ready to fill them. But Nature has no gaps. As you go along this Course, engaging with the Law of the Land, the Laws of the Universe, the well-fit missing pieces start to appear, connections made, always in the non-linear way and supported by your own experiences, and more importantly, learning from those experiences, that the impossible not be unapproachable.

Assumptions are born of those who do not know themselves, rampant in those termed “asleep”. So as Don Miguel is imparting you with the Wisdom of “don’t make assumptions”, what the words point to is know your self so you will make no assumptions. Are you with me so far? (Note here that Wisdom often begins with the word “don’t”, just in case you thought it spoke some other language.)

We have spoken how all things wish to know them selves but if something assumes itself as something other than itself, disorder comes of it, as with the case of the false self and narcissism. Likewise, if you do not know, in that non-intellectual knowing way, who you are, I cannot actually communicate with you, which courts disharmony as does one who confuses the Self with the Person. Intelligence watches how the Person works and based on these observations Intuition guides one to appropriately follow the Self. In this there is no wrong way and so Intuition can be impeccable trusted. It is only the Person that cannot be trusted to follow through. For it is the Person who cannot even trust that they don’t trust and so live in perpetual confusion. As such it is best to alchemically separate off your Intuition from the linear consciousness of Intellect for a deep cleaning for all things must be separate to be whole, to function at their optimum capacity in the Unified Field, which all things must do before they can be, exist, in Harmony.

Trust must also be called in for a good going over in this laundromat for words, known loosely as the Course, as many, many things will be. Trust can be a donation of personal power, a vector of dependency, and a path to unconscious attachment. What if you treat everyone as if you don’t trust them, or everyone as if you do? What if you never give something away that is contingent upon the person you are giving it to protecting you in a way that you can’t protect yourself? This way, we remain centred in our own agency, relating as individuals. A friend had this to say about Trust:

“Years ago I was taught by Native Elders that there are a few people one can trust with their lives but not their money. There are a few people one can trust with their money but not their lives. There are a few one can trust with their hearts and emotional well-being, but not with their intellectual understanding. There are a few one can trust to understand and accept one's intellectual (scientific) understanding, but not your heart. There's hardly anyone one can trust with the whole bundle. It seems to me all of the current controversies demand discernment and a certain amount of detachment. Everyone has fears. Show me someone who hasn't and I'll show you someone who's lying to themselves. Fear creates distrust. Some fears are valid, some are unaddressed leftovers from past traumas. Instead of placing blame on others, I think we'd be far healthier if we examined our own fears and acknowledged them... then we might be able to discern who we can trust with what from a more neutral position.”

This neutral position tends to arise from exposure to Paradox, such as, the seeker is that which is seeking. And this is so for in the feedback loop of Nature one cannot come to Unity any other way than how it is. And so it is that Inquiry always comes to its own end - for it is all Good in the end. Only thing is, one must know when they've come to an end in the tangled threads of a conditioned mind. And there will be no peace and rest until the entanglements are unwound to the Source. This process is demonstrated in the video Dream Weaver, if you care to observe it.

Along the way one is enabled to differentiate Challenge from problem, risk, threat or attack, though in many traditions there are no such thing as challenges for the wayfarer on the sacred path, the path of Induction that moves through one womb and another and another...only a devastating willingness to learn and grow, which calls out Vulnerability. Helpful spirits lean into your vulnerability, at whatever stage it is at, for as long and hard as it takes for you to no longer feel the need for protection from Vulnerability - that keen and strong predator of outdated beliefs that works on behalf of the Self. Simply ask yourself, “what am I feeling vulnerable to?” And like an unhooded Hawk, Vulnerability will go out and get it and bring it right back to your cloaked arm. Yet what is returned to you may not be to your liking at first for Vulnerability ultimately uncloaks the perceived threat of giving up the false self; who you think you are, the Identity you use as an invisibility cloak.

Yet and still, the sole aim of the union of the dynamic duo of Challenge and Vulnerability is a body cleared of brittle beliefs, which is soft, more receptive and therefore a stronger signal of the unidentifiable Self, the beholder of your true Gift that is Spirit. So many are asking about their “gift”, how to “share their gift”, as if it were some material action. And it is. The Self/Spirit is the flame and the flame and the sun (God) are one and the same. So it is said, we are all One. And so Surrender sounds out:

The Self is the Gift! Call off the search!!

A pretty clear sign, is it not? One that rather puts you on the spot with nothing to hide behind, nothing to blame, nothing to rebel against, like standing in the prairie on a blue sky day. Being so “set up”, called out or put on the spot is not an enviable position yet medicine for the pandemic of Envy which poisons Pity. As Gandhi has said, “do not pity the beggar, for you do him great harm.” This is not due to Pity itself, but that Pity has been defiled to the point it no longer knows itself and so wanders our “home” thinking it is something other than it is, which in the case of the Western Mind often shows up as “not good enough”. And strange as it may sound, this deranged Pity is often collaged into entitlement as for one to think they are better than the rest of Creation. As the most pitiful creatures of all creation, we regularly ask for pity from Creator in the lodge. For only Creator can have pure Pity upon us. And of this comes Mercy.

Maybe you can appreciate here the great surgical skill necessary to mercifully alchemize a room full of people who, when put on the spot, would rather be anesthetized, that is to say, feel nothing, rather than Surrender to the Love that surrounds us. For Love is ruthlessly kind, with little or no tolerance for things being anything other than they are. So as the old ones wondered how people could forget what a thing is, does Wisdom translate it as, how could people live without Love?

Intention has been a popular word of late yet like any word can easily be worn out, turned from its tonic state to toxic if overused. Yet and still as with Eckhart Tolle corralling ego, and Gabor Mate calling Trauma to the shore, so they can be more clearly seen, the wide use of Intention has done the same to bring it in for a good cleaning. When one looks up the meaning of intention in the dictionary they are directed to the word purpose, which directs one to the word intention. The singular word that bridges the gap between them is aim. Earlier a pointer came that, one can think, yet not have thoughts as your aim. This applies well to rehabilitating Intention.

Intention is a sign to the Universe that you are not seeking your purpose but aiming for it, the one Destiny put inside your feet. Intention alone cannot set you straight yet give appropriate tension for the Purpose of Life to meet its mark in you, for you to be Life itself, a part of Life that you can call your “own”, yet that part inextricably taken care of by Life. Once you are in right relation with Life, Intention and Purpose can fall away. Along the way, be prepared for the unexpected and irrevocable that may come of it; you may enter flailing periods of Doubt, deep questioning and experience more of what you perceive as failure. Yet flailing is not failing. The flailing of Doubt may come to those who hide in/behind ceremony as to prevent it from making a wreck of you, which any good “ordeal” often does. The common saying that applies here is sometimes things have to get worse before they get better, just as the union, marriage into Life itself follows the credo of “for better or for worse”.

In Council and Ceremony, there is no hiding from the flame that burns all that is not you away and so Doubt launches furious attempts to distract you. And in doing so, teaches you to teach yourself the experience of Right Relation between Doubt and Inquiry. From this place, when you notice the swirl of "should I stay or should I go" come into your being you will learn to use the dynamic tension between them rightly to fuel your ever-growing ability to make a difference in a world that comes of the Same (Life) yet feeds Diversity (your part in it). This dynamic tension is what gets us through the Ordeal. You will face the medicine of the Ordeal when we reach the South and go through the womb of shamanic death, picking up the childhood myth you left there. But first there is more preparation necessary.

Recall now that the heart is ever open, but cannot speak through a closed mind. There is a story from the Wizards of the Upper Amazon that “our ancestors heard wrong when First Father spoke, because of the Thunder and the Wind, the storms of Mind. Out of his love for the people, First Father commanded, ‘change, change your skins’. But because of the Thunder and the Wind they heard ‘stay, stay the same.’” So it is that the most simplistic teachings can easily get lost in the closet of complication the linear (closed) mind holds you in. Yet nothing can be lost on you where there is Love. And the medicine in this story is that it refers to a time when the storm of Mind overcame the people. The story goes on to say that before that time, “we did not die like the ticks, trees and locusts.”

In one steeped in the complicated mind, signs can block out the scenery and clutter your Mind. Note here, and again, that there is differentiation between mind and Mind, just as there is self and Self. Mind is one of the three power centres in humans, and must be in good order to cooperate with the Heart and Gut. In the climate of Love, the natural Complexity of Mind slows the mind down for here one is entrained to Coherence and Connection as for seemingly irrelevant information to burst forth, meaning encoded within patterns and symbols that only Cognition can perceive. Consider now viewing one of those Magic 3D books where you must patiently unfocus your eyes as to see the 3D image arise from within random shapes on a 2D page. And once you have become cognizant of this something else arising within the repeated patterning, Understanding flashes into Awareness. In Right Order, Understanding always comes before Awareness, a process that begins with Cognition and develops into Respect. For Respect is being in a state of Awareness.

One must learn to look this way, not at but into the World, to strengthen the Heart as your primary organ of perception. The Heart as an organ of perception works not with meaning, but Relevance. Note that if you remain focused on a sign, the perceptory function of the Heart weakens, and so the Relevance of the World. You must not even remain focused on what is perceived at any stage yet keep moving deeper inside of it, through it. And if you get distracted, confused, you must start the process over, from the point of first contact. Here is a visual aid to kickstart your Understanding of this process.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/46756847/Tube

Things in the ordinary world seem to shrink once you have viewed this video, but this is an illusion, something that exists only in the mind of the psychological construct that is the Person. Real meaningful change does not happen in the Ordinary World, only appearances change there. Real Change occurs in the Spirit or Special (non-traditional term) World that all be in accordance with the Law of Nature that states you must be the change you wish to see which infers a kind of Transcendence, the union of opposites. The ultimate union of the Special into the Ordinary, which you will undergo at the stage of Resurrection, comes of returning from your “ordeal” with the Elixir, to the ordinary world; be a spirit alive in the material world, a fish out of water, so to speak to feed the people. This is for why Jesus was called a fisherman, though he started out a carpenter. Union is not simply to bring two things together but through as One into Love. And as with any birth, any awakening, there may be complications, a death even.

Wisdom, the source of true nourishment for the awakened being, lives in the Centre of the Wheel of Mistakes, where one learns to learn without making mistakes for only Wisdom knows the difference between what you can and cannot change. Indeed Wisdom comes of the mastery of the Art of Differentiation that inevitably leads one to Nirvana, though you may be the last to know. I have heard people say it is impossible to learn without making mistakes, yet nonetheless do 6 impossible things before breakfast.

The Reality of anything is something which cannot be experienced by anybody.

The unknown takes more energy (the sum of your values) than the known, yet less effort. When ones energy is low, values deficient, unattended to, the ego, which has a strong preference for the known, comes forth as a self-preservation measure. The key word in the Mistakes Wheel, which we will come to in a week or so, is not mistakes but Learning, which requires more concerted energy from Vulnerability and Courage than knowing does, which in turn gives your values power. Knowledge actually takes up much of your power. As does Confusion, which is basically not following things to their depths, which actually takes more energy than doing so does. All of these things come clear in the Actualization phase, which costs everything your know. Only then can Real Learning begin.

Actualization is initiated in the teaching of the Black Kahuna that one must regularly dump their load of knowledge or be poisoned by it. Unimpeded by the weight of knowledge in your bones, filled rather with the buoyancy of Wisdom and lightness of Spirit come of knowing you know nothing, does one become the “hollow bone” of Wisdom. Only then can one fly like an eagle, one who never takes its eyes off the Earth. But this must come its own good time, and again, you will be the last to know that you don’t know. For if you attempt to claim it too soon, this good Socratic medicine is easily taken in by Ignorance, the self-reference library of the false self. Zeus, god of the fire that both burns and warms spoke: knowledge and wisdom will be the guides of thy times, in that order. First comes knowledge, its worldly nutrients come of the Tree absorbed, metabolized and pooped out, as for the energy of Wisdom to fuel the being.  If one does not allow Knowledge to so pass through, it becomes toxic, intoxicating.

Though the Universe sends many “signs”, they can only truly be perceived in Silence, also known loosely as the pause for the cause or still point. If one fills the pause with more thoughts or other advances or distractions, all the work by the Universe must be repeated. Within this Silence is Sonar, the guiding force of Sound which utilizes all things at their highest function. Through Sonar one “knows” something only for a split second, just long enough for Cognition to get the process of perceiving with the Heart started. Where the Heart is concerned, the sound of the rain needs no translation. What is Alive in sound gives rise to chemical responses in the brain essential for real communication, which differs greatly from the chemicals related to reaction. The process described here is the basis of Heart Centred Communication, direct access to true Diagnosis. When things, signs are perceived by the mind first, there is no real communication yet knee-jerk reactions and assumption. As such it is good medicine to sit still and be quiet, even if for a split second, to make contact with Silence, before responding to anything.

Here is some guidance from Seneca Elder Twylah Nitsch to do so:

I listen and hear the silence.
I listen and see silence.
I listen and taste the silence
I listen and smell the silence.
I listen and embrace the silence.

The human capacity to speak can occur simultaneously with Silence for Silence is a state of the mind. Silence can function along side Sound where there is no looking for approval, avoiding pain, being needy, trying to be clever, questioning or assuming; only direct, appropriate responses. Silence requires the mind to be silent, not the car, birdsong, wind in the trees or even the neighbour’s lawnmower. One can even be in Silence while speaking. The Sound of Silence is living, noises, calls even signs are dead, in that they exist and pass away. Silence, which is also in all things, is eternal.

There have been many losses yet no loser. People have experienced a loss of nature and loss of culture, but they don’t remember it. And they struggle to find their way back to Mother Earth. But for the initiate Adult, there will be no more struggle, for growing out of the right of struggle is a rite of Adolescence. Independence is also as right/rite of passage for the Adolescent. At first struggle assists with independence, working hand in hand so to speak. Then struggle lets go and Independence emerges as being self-sufficient in your solitude, at ease with yourself and your lot in life. For the Adult the rights/rites are Understanding and Responsibility. These two work together with the gifts to the Adult of Patience and Purity for the skills and learning that come naturally with the alchemy of continuing initiation. For in Truth, there are no losses in the Universe, only alchemy. This is a good place to come back to Silence. For in the Silence you may hear the voice of your Indigenous Soul, that which is Aware:

I hear you. I see your anguish. "I've lost my lineage, my culture!" You cry. "What does it mean to be indigenous to Mother Earth?"

Father Sky is the Creator. Mother Earth is the Sustainer. Your Ancestors wisdom and wounds live in your DNA. You are Stardust, composed of the Sacred Elements of Earth's minerals, the Sun's fire, the Winds of the Universe, and the Waters of Life.

Star Beings watch over you. The Flying ones, from the tiny nuthatch to the soaring eagle see and hear you. They sing their Sacred Songs for you.

The Swimming Ones, from the smallest minnow to the great blue whale, cleanse your pains in the oceans of Life.
The Four Leggeds, from mouse to moose, kangaroo to giraffe, know and respect your presence.
The Plant nations all over the world feed and heal you.
The Subterraneans, from the ants to the mycelium, know your pathways.
Even the Stone People record your history.
You are recognized as indigenous by All Our Relatives.

Spend a few moments connecting with Mother Earth. If you can, lay down, feel her soft, welcoming warmth. Give her a kiss of gratitude. Stand up. Open your arms to all of Creation, and sing. You don't need words. Sing the sounds of your heart.

Make a small offering... could be a lock of hair, a candy bar, fruit even half eaten.

Be present to the voices of your Ancestors, murmuring in your blood. Allow your heritage to express itself through you. Your culture lives within you. Listen for its ways. You ARE indigenous!

On the human path of Induction, Indigenous is the state of being Aware.  This is also what Respect is, being in the state of Awareness.  And these things all swirl together, begin to dissolve your ideas of "otherness".   Awareness is essential to the Art of Remembering, an Art that supports the continued dissolving of "other".  In Awareness, Silence reverberates deep in our bones to read the pain of the loss of our origins and the rites of passage with which our Ancestors renewed their wounded souls, the destruction of the storm of mind. Yet once passed through the pain, the Art of Remembering can track us all the way to origin, connect hundreds of thousands of years back to the Wisdom keepers and how they worked with knowledge, and its roots of duality. A thorough understanding of Knowledge and its roots of Duality is necessary for one to come to Choice, the only Choice humans have to make. This comes of acknowledging that humans are powerful, and that this power can be used for good or for evil. That is the only Choice. So our Choice relies on having tangible ritual dialogue with our origins. No one needs to do a DNA test for this. The Art of Remembering covers all.

Many ask for a sign or perceive one but are not abled to communicate with it, very much like asking a question yet not having the energy to care for the answer it is impregnated with. Communication with the Diagnostic is most available in the frequency of the Healer, who can feel no fear. Fear is still there but the healer cannot feel it. It is essential that one not enter the Spirit World with fear, for you can easily feed the noisy, hungry ghosts with it, and they will get in your way. So it is said, one must get out of ones own way in order to Heal. In fact, the best state/sense to heal in is Alone. This does not require isolation yet settled in still and clear state of mind, no longer troubled, making problems of obsessive thoughts, conflicting emotions, the pressure of opinion or knowledge we pretend to have of things. Well settled in Aloneness, Emptiness may arise - the absence of compulsive reactivity.

With the Sense of Aloneness engaged, one that can see that asking for a sign can be a diagnostic of a “noisy” inner child, one that is in fact feeling fear. To attempt to quiet the child does nothing to alleviate that fear but rather increases it for now they fear they will never truly be heard. Yet one cannot come to Healing with fear. And to speak of this to the child would only confuse them. To care for the child that has stepped out of bounds with fear, simply Love them. To quell the noise, do not put the slightest trust in your sensations nor your opinions. For these are scattered when fear is the village and so not reliable at all. Cutting the noise-making needy inner child off from the sensations and opinion will actually have any feelings of neglect cut off at the pass. We will touch on many forms of relating with the inner child throughout this course, for it is a step towards contacting Origin.

It is said that if one comes enough times to the purification/sweat lodge, you will remember who you are and where you came from and so be endowed with your inheritance of how to live a good life. Origin is not only from which all things come but the original, ancient guide to the precious “gift” of your Self, that which all most deeply want for without realization of the Self there can be no Nirvana. As said earlier, moving through a Rite requires a guide, and the guides of that guide, all the way to Origin.

It is of utmost importance to Origin that you know what you want, for yourself and those that will come after you, and that you Ask for it. The easiest way for the initiate to determine this is remembering that if you bump into something and it “hurts”, confuses you, unbalances you, it is not what you want. But more important than the thing, the thought that led you to it is not what you want to pursue. We have said that in the lodge we don’t pray for what we don’t want. This is true. As is the teaching that Wisdom often begins with don’t. When something hurts I recommend you say Ouch, which immediately addresses that hurt just as the application of Arnica has immediate affect on Trauma if used directly after impact. In this place it is important to remember that pain is not the same thing as hurt, and to be offended doesn’t mean you will wake up the next day with leprosy. Being offended, feelings of betrayal, actually aid one to beget their sense of entitlement to struggle.

If you find yourself repeatedly running into negative feelings, things that hurt, it is a sign there is a bug in your system that is preventing it from getting on-line with the Network, just as a sneeze is a symptom of a cold. When you notice this pattern, it is a diagnostic marker for the bug to take a time out, having realized or “seen” by itself and so ready to be let go of lest it fester into Stress and its constant companion Anxiety which greatly derail Understanding. Many come to ceremony “ready” to let go of things but the process may be futile if the flush, or wreck, is not successful. The flushing of negativity can be subtle or gross. In the purification lodge ceremony we sweat out negativity and the songs pass it along to the Ancestors for they are served in their Journey through the stars by released negative energy harvested by two-leggeds on the surface. Ways of moving negative are belching, vomiting or other physical or psychic miscarriage as to clear what you think you know, which magnetizes negative energy. Here the warrior of Peace must dip into Vigilance to guard their own Peace from the disruption. One can also apply regular maintenance by employing the sounds Ha (fire) and Chu (water), which incidentally sound much like a sneeze, to dislodge and expel negative feelings/energies as to be of service to the Ancestors.

Holding onto negative energy can bring about “bad feelings” about something or someone that can have us sacrifice our loved ones, those that love us. The most common of bad feelings is that they will have you step on the toes of a brother or sister, which indicates that the portion of forgiveness each was given upon birth is getting low. It has been said by the elders that, even before this, he/she/they/you were forgiven. Like the chi in your spirit bowl, forgiveness can also be depleted, exhausted even. And so you find yourself stepping on others toes so you can ask them for forgiveness, which can make you look like a jerk. This constant stepping on toes is a diagnostic that your ability to apply some of that forgiveness to yourself is compromised.

In Reality, Forgiveness is none other than the disintegration of everything you think you know and believe, an excellent purgative and laxative for accumulated, aggregate knowledge that has henceforth nourished the false self yet constipated your growth in doing so. I find a good means of replenishing our given Forgiveness is Qi Gong or some good quality body work/massage. Much of our quota of forgiveness was used up abusing our own body with unconscious thoughts, action and words. For these always comes back to you.

Sometimes words come harshly or sharply, yet do not actually hurt you. Sometimes things just have to be spoken a certain way to find their home, as Elders well know. Understanding this will take some time, but these days the concentrated power of Time is what we have most of, grains of sand smoothing our rough edges. All we really have to do is stay focused on the diamond, the glowing star, those particles are not the fire yet reflect it for all to see. For each word is a story of itself, and the stories behind each word must be told so there can be no mistake in what has been said.

Just because you speak English doesn’t mean you have to sound like everyone else. In fact, the more each comes to know thy Self, the more diversified our patterns of speech become; a concert of sound rather than white-noise drone. And like each instrument in a symphony, might one be so highly attuned to the sound of your own words and understand what you are saying in concert with the whole. This can be experienced in Kirtan - sometimes you can hear you own voice and sometimes your own voice is the whole. When you are aware of this, your voice is recognizable as a unique “time signature”, an otherwise invisible pattern of the Universal “sign” language that has Time end as we have known it. In the new Time, miracles abound. The greatest miracle is the unique oddity of who you are.

If your eyes are tiring, perhaps it is time to listen for a spell without them.  Here is an enhanced audio recording of the next part of this step.  Follow along loosely with your eyes, while listening, up to the yellow highlighted paragraph further down:

      Step 4 Audio Accompaniment        https://youtu.be/is4fcqgMMeE

Much of what your eyes have been uncovering in these readings may not make sense to you. Well, Adulting is not about making sense. Recall too that as you read, the spirit behind the words is getting a good look at you, a Miracle.

Another Miracle under way is the unique “oddity” of your Truing Self, the coming to your formless presence, the invisible spiritual mate of your physical essence coming into your Awareness, the Bride as it is referred to in Hebrew teachings, that becomes a growing concern in the Integration stage. Of course, this mate can’t just drop in, or the false self, the Individual, would freak out. There are the normal discomforts of getting to know oneanother. And so it is best that there be a courting, a truing process. Yet and still, there is no Coherence without Contact. Signs, diagnostics, are signals about you from you to you; Self coming through, a form of Contact with the True in you, that part which belongs to something greater than itself, your little plotted garden that cannot be separate from the earthly landscape of growing things.

Cognitive Dissonance is the inability to hold the tension between growing awareness and the ability to respond to that new level of awareness. For most, Cognitive Dissonance takes the form of confusion. When courageously explored, Confusion can be fertile ground for growing Awareness. But let us start small. Start to be aware that songs speak differently than words, and teachings differently than conversation. Though it may sound like reading and talking, the writings and on-line meetings of this course convey the Teachings in a holistic manner, drawing upon the patience and love necessary to build and strengthen your connectivity Network. This may seem tedious at times but necessary for all that has been said before, by the likes of Christ and Buddha, to flow in a spiral pattern as to flush your familiar, automated thinking towards direct connections with who you are and where you come from. Visualize the spider’s web now: its linear “holding” lines and spiral “cohesion” lines and consider how a spider builds its web using only touch, for despite having many eyes, it is severely far-sighted, so far as to be Sacred. The dimensions of the Sacred will become meaningful in your life when you stop considering only the visible as real. The invisible, that which is actually closest to you, for it lives INSIDE you, is what Sacred refers to. Not some regalia, ritual or guru visible to the eye, though all of these call forth the Sacred, just as a Teacher or Teaching brings forth. And is it the Heart that responds, that negotiates the meeting of mates. So it is that Cognition, and even Contact, relies on the invisible.

Words are the masculine energy force of the Sacred that compartmentalize and give structure, which are connected to the vast possibilities of the spontaneous experiential sequences of the spiralling feminine. The two forms of emotion, Fear and Love, convey signals of movement. Fear may be expressed as push me emotion, based in reduction theory, also known as homeostasis (waiting/anxiety), whereas Love is a pull me emotion, based in incentive theory, or reinforcement (calling/excitement). Both evoke motivation, the root of the word emotion, toward the Sacred. Love and Fear are not opposites, simply variations in movement.

When one is Aware of how these basic emotions work, one can respond with a new energy, one of not being “pushed and pulled”, step out of that victimizing place and get to the enterprising business of using them to channel your sacred feelings to Spirit that it may send you exactly what you need to prepare your “guest house” for its coming. One of the best ways to access your sacred, invisible, internal feelings is through the use of Intent and the Dream Time, which we will tap into in the flow of this Course.

The Dream Time is both guide and healer for the Adult. Though you are addicted to making choices about where you should live or work or what to do next, these “choices” are erroneous as you adapt to your place as an Adult. Here the only Choice is to stay on the path of the Sacred, the Red Road, or not. The Red Road is not necessarily based upon the teachings of those with red skin; it is based in the understanding that ALL of US have red blood.

It is also no coincidence that Dr. Doolittle presented the “push-me-pull-you” as a singular two-headed Llama, just as Buddhist teachers of the Dharma are called Lamas, skilled in the Alchemy of blending give and take as a non-dualistic approach, known in the spirit world as Cooperation.

Here is another example of Cooperation from Osho:

Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height.
Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches.
Happiness is like a tree going into the sky,
and sadness is like the roots going into the womb of the earth.
Both are needed.
The higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously.

As said, you can be happy and sad at the same time. You can even be dying and healing at the same time. Likewise, just because I trust myself doesn't mean I'm not shaking as I enter new territory. Do you remember the double-headed President of the Heart of Gold intergalactic ship in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? This is sometimes how you might feel, torn as to know which way to go by your twin premonitions. Sometimes it is your very heart that says you must and your very heart that you cannot. And sometimes thinking you have to make a decision can make you feel crazy. In fact, during the courting processes, thinking will make you crazy. What is particularly crazy making is that you are not happy because you think everything you do is for the self, and there isn’t one. A starting point out of this Insanity is to return to your inner garden, your very own paradise in the making, that supports your “field”, your little plot to create, grow and learn you as the Self, which it does via the birthing and dying cycles of Life. This is actually the responsibility of each Adult.

The analogy that Life is like an onion is significant yet still a linear concept. I consider Life an onion because it can make you cry. Which is fine, for water is necessary for your inner garden, your inner guidance system that is in tune with the invisible power of Love that carries an intrinsic intelligence of how to best serve and govern Life. When one accesses the garden within them, they may indeed feel sad, for Love will show you where you have made mistakes that you have not yet learned from, where your seeds has been stunted. This too is a sign that you are getting to the bottom of things, that depth of the Well that is Love which inevitably brings happiness rather than suffering. Recall that suffering is attached to thinking. Whereas Learning does not require much thinking. Yet the garden must be tended to. And for this there is your Precious Sensitivity, that is just now being called to Duty.

For many, these writings may seem intellectual, yet it is the deeper, Heart-field of Intelligence in which these words are planted. Learning to Love is one of the toughest parts of being human, like teasing rain from the desert for some. But then, there is such a thing as a Rain Dance, believe it or not. My Rain Dance came with the inner realization that I did not love my children the way they deserved to be loved, that is, to the capacity in which Love possessed them. Now, no one told me this is what happened. For Realization, an awareness rather than thought, can arise only from your internal soil. As it was, I provided everything for their physical survival, taught them about death and attempted to prepare them for life as best I knew how, but in Truth, I did not Love them, could not touch into the fresh Love they still possessed because I didn’t know, had forgotten, my own Love wilted, nearly dead itself from living not as a human. And so, at best, I taught them how not to love. And the depth of this sadness brings tears to my eyes, decades later, which is a good thing because Regret, a direct descendent of Blame, has very limited access to Love where Sadness, its most intimate of partners, can always reach that spot in Love. And it is my deepest and sincere wish that such signs posted in your Awareness reach out to you like the limbs of the tree, unraveling you as they have me, that you find your way to truly Loving your loved ones. It is also for this that we spend much time upon this Course on “parenting”, which begins with the release from ones own parental constructs, known as the childhood myth, the seemingly unapproachable ringleader, the Child Controller, currently in charge of the invisible world, the enemy within that has one resist all external “parential” structures, as if they weren’t created by you, controlled by you, like a puppet on strings.

It is important to note that to force oneself to believe and to accept a thing without Understanding is a political move. So it is this Course is designed to build your Understanding. The best application of Understanding at this stage is to observe your emotional body as it aches and longs for emotional connection but bumps into old programs and conditioning blocking the exchange, the Sacrifice necessary for making Change, small as it may be. This is due to your emotional field being marked off with “do not cross” tape, by the policing Controller, the uninitiated Child. It should also be clearly understood here that Consciousness does not recognize an object or word, only the living meaning/frequency within it, and can starve without direct access. Understanding has only a sort of blurry awareness of the presence of an object, word or colour even, without ability to name it. At the point of Individuation, there is no other, only everything As It Is, the highest level of Understanding known as Human Consciousness. But just as many of our cells come of the mineral, plant and animal worlds, there are more levels, seeds of Consciousness a “human” has access to.

The commonality of human and plant consciousness lies in the mutual capacity to play more than one role. Indeed, every thing has the ability to be read more than one way, which is due to the influence of Great Mystery, keeper of the Unknown. Yet to keep things comprehensive, so to speak, just as each sign of the zodiac has multiple aspects do they also rely on one another for their mutual significance. All are a part of the Great, and is this part best described in the word As, the temperament or “shape” of Soul. Where Great Mystery and Great Spirit, our most ancient mother and father, are It Is. Consider again now the phrase AS IT IS, the Great Trinity.

True Empathy comes of our ancient lineage and is common amongst all life forms, though humans are the least experienced with it. As told in the Course of Miracles, True Empathy is to see or “hold” a person in the highest version of themselves, even if they cannot see or hold it for themselves. Caring for others is highly complex, what with the yarns of stories that connect this to that emitting from the Childhood Myth, the Controllers controlling mechanism. Yet as the Medicine Wheel works with the Circle of Life, breaking it down into more digestible parts, Complexity can be experienced with simplicity. The best way is to paint your eyes with an explanation of how to work with Complexity: picture yourself inside a 3D celtic knot in constant motion. This is not actually a knot, for its weave is never ending. Now feel this. For without feeling one cannot understand Complexity as the closest thing to being in the Mystery, in our Mother. Sitting with Silence in Complexity one might also hear its constant motion as “out with the old, in with the new”, taken care of by the Lymphatic system.

 

The best physical stance to take when in Complexity to keep the Fluid flowing is living in/as the image of the Individuated, pictured here as the Vitruvius Man. Note however that the foot is turned as if walking or about to. For to walk is to stay with Progress, and to progress is to grow, and to grow is to love and to love is to live, which occur simultaneously with that first step.  And it this first step that gets the ball, or stone, rolling, so to speak.  Sometimes this topsy turvy step will take one onto the Black Road, where it is difficult to get through to you. One is truly “on their own” on the Black Road, and so, as the term implies, Voluntary Simplicity must come from within.

The Black Road is where people stuck in Addiction may find themselves. The most common Addiction is to the Childhood Myth, created and held by the Inner Child, the Child that refuses to grow and learn.  To them the Black Road is a mere see-saw, yet it teeters between the collective unconscious and conditioning. This see-saw is also at the whim of the Ancestors who push and pull us like a good wind in order to communicate with us. For most it is a maelstrom, overwhelming.Yet and still, the see-saw is our playground, and we must stop making war on the playground.

Recently I felt a bout of hopelessness, helplessness. Many times have I come to this place. Maybe it's time to step away from this work...do something that appears in the moment to be easier, simpler; surrender to “What Is”, as I perceive it upon the see-saw.  But then Surrender grabs my shoulders and says, "this is where you are". And plants me on my two feet, turning me to look back to the people. And from there is a tidal wave coming, a wind storm. And Surrender says, to this you must surrender, while standing your ground. In the words of Bayo Akamolafe, “I reckon we are learning a way of staying with the trouble when escape isn’t an option; I imagine we are cultivating ways of tilling the soil of hopelessness and generating new senses while in ‘Egypt’ (or, as the Jews call it, “Mitzrayim”, meaning “a tight place”).

Being in a tight place, on the spot, The Black Road even, is a diagnostic that you are moving from one “womb” to another, one cycle of the infinite cycles of Life to another, so entirely on ones own as that may feel. Instead of digging in ones heels to prevent the movement, one can dig deep into our lineage, into Healing, all the way to the common Home from which all originate. The route back may include a visit with one of our eldest Ancestors, the virus. For beyond this is the Home (Heaven on Mother Earth) where there is no such thing as Other, which is basically a disconnect from Mother. Yet very, very few can actually remember, or connect with. And so it is to Re-member that you are here, and this Course the initiating sequences to bring you all the way through Induction, which may take years.

Fortunately we have been given Conviction, which basically works with three simple words Yes And No. If you have broken a law, you may have to pay some penance to your Honour. Yes? But it does not negate your original essence of Innocence. No. So it is that Yes works WITH No, in the cooperative And. Furthermore, the same sign can communicate Yes to one person and No to the one standing next to them. And from this comes the teaching: “You don’t have to see what I see to get it Right.” You see the dirt on the floor, he sees the film on the window and she sees the cobwebs in the rafters. And together, we get it done. Taking this into full consideration will undoubtedly alleviate the stress of perceiving someone having a different experience of the same thing, as a threat. Perhaps even an opportunity for True Empathy to come through, rather than the kind that simply sucks.

It is said, “be not afraid of the stranger kissing you.” There are certainly some strange angels about. Let them show you a thing or two about getting over the teeter-totter. In fact, getting over being the bully or “owner” of the see-saw. The view from the high end of the teeter-totter is greater that the low end, but of course, each must have its turn. To move on to the more stable higher realms of emotional intelligence and maturity of Humility, there are the 7 Lakota Virtues, regarded as the essential ingredients for learning with all of our senses. We can only listen and pay true attention to something when we let go of our preconceptions/knowledge. Here we cannot feel any arrogance over nature and it's creatures; we cannot assume we already know the answers or that we are better or higher than another. Humility is not about humiliation, self-abasement, penitence for sin. It is a freedom from pride and arrogance that recognizes equity and equality. Humility requires us to get over the hill, the upper edge. It is not enough to have seen the higher view, we must go into it. Consider this now:

At a certain age it is said that you are “over the hill”.

One who is mature has gone to the hill of Ignorance, climbed it to see farther across the vast prairie, and come back to the people to tell what they have seen. To initiate Adulthood is to grow your ability to See, which strangely enough comes with the ability to Feel, not in the way of the five senses, but in the entire cooperation of your Precious Sensitivity. The Rite of the Brave is pivotal in enacting the vastness of ones Precious Sensitivity, in which there can be no “other”. This Rite is centered on Risk, which we have begun to uncover, disentangle from Fear and Trouble in Step 3. And with this comes Willingness, a lightening up and not taking one’s self, nor the actions of others quite so seriously yet paying careful attention to the living Meaning and Wisdom they impart via the Diagnostic skill of the Practical Mystic. Do you recall how we said earlier that Wisdom often begins with “don’t”. Here is good dose from Tilopa to see us through. Tilopa was said to receive the way to enlightenment in a vision, published as the Mahamudra Teachings.

Six Words [Nails] of Advice/Tips from Tilopa:

1 Don’t recall. | Let go of what has passed.
2 Don’t imagine. | Let go of what may come.
3 Don’t think. | Let go of what is happening now.
4 Don’t examine. | Don’t try to figure anything out.
5 Don’t control. | Don’t try to make anything happen.
6 Rest. | Relax, right now, and rest.

For now, it would be wise to take linear thinking out for spin as to think not it knows where it is going. You see, the best cure for brain-washing is more brain-washing. This is not to engage with your automated thinking, but to question it. Remember that the Art of Overthinking is one of the dark arts, capable of creating problems that aren’t or weren’t even there and so calling forth Doubt and its cohort Mischief. Fortunately we also have the capacity for Critical thinking, which can be summed up in one line: “If I were you…which I am not”. End of Story. No projector and no screen. Take your thoughts and actions to hand, but for God’s sake don’t point those things at anyone until Awareness steeps you with the Wisdom that you no longer have to believe every thought that comes into your head. That said, when you point a finger at someone, you too are sure to get your own. You see, it is just as important to stop projecting as it is to stop being the screen, so as to watch and allow the flame to keep moving, sure only as the flame can be, that it will go out, and rise again.

Phonics, from the Phoenicians, that you were taught in school is one of the primary culprits of misunderstanding, corralling our natural dyslexic abilities into the linear. In the video duck duck goose we review this route of the infernal circle that enforces making sense, based on the childhood myth. It is good for you to know of these things and also that Sonar is underway with the task of alleviating automated thinking, which requires from you a broader Understanding of things and to stop making sense yet mature those you have been given.

If there is one way to define enlightenment it might be the capacity to feel profound joy, compassion and loving kindness for all beings. It is the acceptance of all things in all beings, their wholeness, and so your own for you are a part of Wholeness. Likewise, love all your feelings as if they are The Divine, the portal in which the drops of Consciousness may come to you, yet be not greedy, be not drowned by them. If tears come, let them come and let them go. Whereas tears are a sign for Spirit to come, so is their cessation a sign it has arrived at your beckoning call. Indeed, a single tear acts faster upon the spirits than whining and complaining ever could. That said, where Grieving is in order, cry your eyes out. It is true, there is nothing like the presence of tears to open the hearts of others. And too, you can do nothing against the will of another. If the strange angel of Grief unrealized that is Anger visits, set a place for it at your table and let it cleanse you to the depths of your Heart yet feed it not to other people or animals. Nor let your tears betray your anger or your anger betray your grief.

Enlightenment finds a cozy, self-sufficient tiny home in the heart. Do you remember it was said that enlightenment is the state of an open heart? How does one open something that is already open, already pumping and circulating all the time? The trick is to be sure your mind is also open, or things will get stuck in you. When Enlightenment flows through all of you, so does Temperance become your temperament, aligned in the understanding that the Mind is the Lord and when the Lord is happy, the kingdom is happy. When the Lord is angry, the kingdom is angry; just as the mood of the queen ant dictates the entire hill. The Heart, is God.

As there is too much to teach and too much to learn so you must learn to teach yourself to simply connect the dots as they come to you, no matter how random those connections may seem for the unfolding of Cooperation, that which seamlessly weaves complexity in voluntary simplicity. The best way to connect the dots is to follow instructions, protocols, which are designed for you to connect with your enemies and allies alike, the guides or signalling forces of your Spirit. Many “spirit guides” do not possess what we would call morals yet an integral code of Right Ethic and most certainly a good dash of Aethos. There is no duality in the spirit world. If you are pissed off at someone your spirit guides will take that as a sign to attack that person on some level, just as a cell attacks harmful or hurtful infections. So is it of utmost importance that one acknowledges their power lest the cells start eating one another in the being of the One, commonly known as Cancer though may act upon themselves in many other subtle forms of cannibalism. And be clear now, spirit guides are not your own yet here to guide and protect all that is, just as the elementals guide and protect Nature, which they will do at all cost. Animals and Plants possess their own kind or “strain” of Consciousness. Humans too. Our particular strain positions us as both a miniscule aspect of nature and all that is, for everything in Nature depends on your perceiving of it through our strain of Consciousness. Each consciousness can enact what Consciousness itself alone cannot. And then there is Truth, which goes Well with Everything. And Everything takes care of Everything in Cooperation.

Cooperation itself is governed by the Laws of Nature, necessary for spirits to be incarnated, which is influenced by Human Nature, and so of utmost importance that each one comes to know their true Nature. And as a participant in this process I have been taught in Shamanism that one must master the spirits or be mastered by them.

Spirits respect one who has mastered their own mind,
and only by this one, will they allow themselves to be mastered.

Spirits are repelled by Dependency. The mastery that produces the illuminated one takes Dedication and Devotion, as will getting through this reading, which again, requires no effort yet Diligence and Discipline. You may wonder, why so much writing? Why so many words? Because this is how much misunderstanding there is. But really we are just getting started, sorting through the laundry basket so to speak before you enter the first wash cycle in the Spirit World after crossing the Threshold.

Though you came an orphaned human, you are not alone here yet your actions your own and it is you, not the spirits, who will be held accountable. To say “my spirits guided me” is a faux pas to the spirit world, just as one must never perform a miracle in public and a shaman would not call his or herself a shaman. It doesn’t mean these things aren’t true or real, it is just not something to be spoken or displayed publicly. In fact it makes the spirits cringe and not want to come out to play, and the absence of your spirit and their guides will often present as a problem. Guides can also read your mind and if they find your Conviction faltering, despite pretty words and flowery offerings, they will not come. The spirits must be sincerely invited, through ceremony and prayer. One must never assume their guides are with them if they have not actually asked for help, that is to say, made appropriate means/offerings for spirits to get to you and keep them well fed and cared for as part of your family, your loved ones. Sacrifice, in the way of fasting, is another form of offering to/caring for the Spirits. In the words of the prophet Muhammad: Prayer gets us ½ way to heaven; fasting takes us all the way. Furthermore, in Ecclesiastes 1:8: “Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.” And as said, when you take one step, the Universe makes 1000.

The same goes for the Grandmothers and Grandfathers, which differ from Ancestors and appropriate offerings must be made to all. The Grandmothers and Grandfathers are spirits that actively tend the Heart-field, without lifting a finger! The Ancestors work farther out. An elder once told me, “the ancestors sit around drinking coffee and smoking unfiltered camels until someone asks for help.”

When faced with what appears to be a troubling visitation address the trouble immediately which may be done with prayer or ceremony, a tobacco or hair offering which communicates directly to the spirit world what is in your heart in order to allow and assist it to blossom as an experience, which feeds our Understanding, which feeds the Soul the world-feeding inner life of the flame in a relatively effortless way. Furthermore, when we refuse, deny or fail to follow the instructions and protocols, the Unified Field is endangered, and the milk of the Kachina tainted, the essential essence of the Milky Way that naturally cleanses the 4th Dimension that the higher frequencies of this, the 5th World, may go viral to invade our being.

Human beings are a manifestation of and handy container for the force of all Life, the non-dualistic, non-gendered living essence also known as energy, medicine, mana, prana or chi, which differs from power. We are made of this force and it fills us yet Adult men and women have specific roles. Woman, because she was made first from the earth, nourishes and protects the Earth, greens it. Man nourishes and protects the Universe and the Universe nourishes and protects the Earth, by sending rain. In the Adult, both give Life and the roles distinct yet always complementary and cooperative, that is to say, in Union, functioning like the concentric circles cast by a pebble in a pond. As a whole, the Adult, Child, Adolescent and Elder too have specific roles, independent of gender, as part of the full circle vision inherent in Cooperation.

Your Higher Self knows nothing but Cooperation, which can also seed Conflict in one who treasures the outdated version of Autonomy that clings upon one in the Spirit World like saran wrap.  A sign that a distorted or outdated version of Autonomy is running you is that you are eeking out a meager existence, filling the fridge to feed yourself and perhaps your family, and in doing so also force-feeding them to eat of the left-over scraps of Independence as we have known it. Is it no wonder that so many come to Depression for relief, which is the lack of desire to feed yourself, bath and go amongst the people or be with your family. We will speak more on the good work Depression can do in letting go of outdated versions of Autonomy, yet how only that which has been “disabled” can be let go. Depression is a disease that came out of nowhere, as most modern diseases have, and so we treat it in this Nowhere, in the Unified Field, for there are fewer risks there. As we are seeing, there is no appropriate treatment for Depression in the ordinary world, no matter how hard one works at it. Only Living Meaning can treat its unruly chemical responses, and this Meaning must be met in the Unified Field, accessed via the Way.

If you are in alignment, straight and true with the Way, Ceremony will assist in keeping you that way. If you are not, she will masticate you. It is said by the old ones that the sign of a good ceremony is that one is a wreck afterwards. As with these Terence McKenna words, this is True for those stuck in the West, those who have wandered from the Sacred Path. And so this “wreck” a signal that things are not yet in alignment. And here upon the Sacred Path, there is no one to finger, no one to Blame, for it is the path upon which all are borne Innocent. As said, Regret is a direct descendent of Blame whereas Feeling begins with Respect, the first protocol of Ceremony and the state of being Aware. And at the end of this cycle, the “funhouse” we have been in, the only way to Reality now is to Feel.

Yet even in one with balanced chemical response, reasonable alignment and the capacity to Feel, the Spirit of Love can equally propel you onto the battlefield as bring you to a place of refuge, send you to jail as grant you freedom, all of which can occur simultaneously.

When Krishna ordered Arjuna to go into battle against his own Grandfather, Arjuna refused for on either side were his family and he did not want to fight those who were relative to him. Yet Grandfather persisted in his pursuit of War and Krishna enforced in Arjuna that he must go to battle in order to remove the cause of Fear that dwelt in his Grandfather’s army. Krishna did this by opening his mouth in which Arjuna saw the entire Universe as being relative. Consider now this cause of fear the same as the vile substance trapped inside a problem – Thinking. Fear is not the problem. Fear is a great ally. It is the cause of fear that must be delicately and skillfully alleviated like disabling a time bomb. As such Arjuna, one of the greatest warriors of his time, went to war, albeit against his will, which is to say, his heart told him so. And in doing so, such a long time ago, did he eliminate the cause of fear that Fear may simply be what it is, just as Chaos can only be Chaos. It is only your automated thinking that makes anything other than It Is. As such, automated thinking, habituated thinking, keeps one the state of “otherness”.

Now, the thing is, the war is over. And the Warrior, the embodied Soul, lives AS, and so is Peaceful. It is only the lost, loyal soldiers hiding within your perception that you are an island that have not gotten the memo. Yet to surround one who is frightened in Love can bring about fear and anger in them, for it is unfamiliar landscape, and they will feel lost again. Eventually they (referring to your subconscious personalities here) will also get the memo that in Truth, nothing can be lost so long as Love is there. It may just take some time for them to actually read it, and more to “get” it. But the turn-around is quickening as we all get the hang of doing better. When the windy wolf blew the little pigs’ house down, the pigs then took it upon them selves to rebuild a better and better house until they achieved a result that had no cause for Fear.

To the seeker of Truth it is immaterial from where an idea comes. Yet and still, without Understanding, the seeker of Truth can easily be swayed into a seeker of Knowledge, which includes duality. Holding an idea in polarity/duality will stunt the growth of the idea. The very idea of cause and effect is beginning to fall in upon itself in the vat of Paradox, fading into the realization that you are cause and you are effect, simultaneously, in Mutuality. And in this realization Suffering is given notice to pack her things as Struggle floats downstream to the Ocean of Compassion. For many, living in a world without struggle or suffering may come as a shock. How could it be so? For it has been said that a great life is filled with Suffering. Yes, and so filled this great life is then taken in by the Good Life, which empties into the limitless belly of Harmony. The Four Noble Truths tell it this way in four relatively easy steps:

  1.  There is suffering
                                            2.  The cause of suffering is attachment to desire
                                            3.  Suffering will be alleviated
                                            4.  Suffering has been alleviated.

Suffering has been given a bad wrap due to misunderstanding, as many things have. Yet unraveled by Understanding, one can see there are three kinds of Suffering, or Dukkha, that fill a great life. There is the loss of feelings of enjoyment and happiness, the feelings of disappointment and despair and thirdly, the freedom from both pleasant and unpleasant sensations, all of which occur in a continuous cycle, known as Samsara. You may wonder, how is there suffering in freedom from sensation? It is due to the fact that you are not familiar with it, that you are dependent on the 5 “aggregate” senses that deem what is pleasant or unpleasant, addicted. So at first, the cessation of feeling is uncomfortable. Indeed, all suffering comes of your discomfort with Change, the gaps between the movements, the space in which letting go/little deaths happens. The first and most crucial step in letting go, the dying aspect of living, is to Allow. If we continue applying the Art of Differentiation we began in Step 2 we can consider the following words as two independent yet related actions: 1. Let. 2. Go. Once you allow something to be, it can go or it can stay, the choice is yours. And the choice is not a “decision”, but based on your actions, your behaviour. It is most helpful here to remember that one must have created something in order to know it.

For the Ultimate Reality embedded in the Noble Truths to arise, any word could be substituted for suffering, for the entire teaching is based in impermanence; things come when they come and go when they go. For now your understanding of the First Noble Truth can be reduced to there is, as to see things As Is, which can be translated as Reality. How we see is highly individuated, as is the gait or quality of your walk. Recall too, that the medicinal qualities of a single plant can be deemed by a dozen vegetalistas twelve different ways. And you don’t have to see what I see to get it right. The meaning or consciousness in something will speak to each in unique ways. When one taps into the meaning of an illness or disease, the plant will respond to that meaning, which has as many variations as there are seers. But this Complexity is natural and of not much matter. What is important is that a Connection is made with that Complexity. And in a big sigh from Cognition, melancholy and fear disappear, and one can see things as they are, understand how they arise and are terminated and then to work with them undistracted with patience, intelligence, determination and energy to stay on the path of Help and Health, the Red Road.

Let us now give attention to the hungry ghosts, or “wanna-be’s”, the aimless thoughts and feelings disengaged from the 4th dimension (Collective) but not yet connected via Feeling to the 5D Warrior because the controlling Child is holding onto to those parts of the Shadow saying “mine”! These hungry ghosts then hunt for habitat in the 3D like a hawk, and seeking shelter after a hard day of gathering aimless thoughts and disembodied feelings, may inhabit your guesthouse. These inhabitations or visitations generally show up in you as a Habit, which disables Clarity for Clarity, not without her own limitations, does not function well in the habitat of habits.

What we are saying here is that the realm of Hungry Ghosts, as delineated by the Buddhist tradition, and highly attracted to the Black Road, is a holding tank for all the bachelor thoughts never married to feeling. Hungry Ghosts are beings with bottomless pit stomachs. What is little understood is that Awareness also lives in the realm of the Hungry Ghosts as the granddaddy of them all, with the greatest appetite for it has no stomach. As you cultivate your Awareness, it is enabled to swallow the Hungry Ghosts whole and send them back to their own habitations. These ghosts do not wish to harm us, only be returned to their habitations in Peace. Yah Whey.

Remember what we said about Enlightenment – the Refuge is inside of you and the spirits and hungry ghosts know you as a route of “purification”, that which sends things back to their own habitation as for all to be in Right Place. When your heart is filled with Enlightenment many things will clamour to stay a spell in your guesthouse as they make their way home. Being “inhabited” is a good sign that Enlightenment, the refuge, is within you; and Awareness the best housekeeper there is.

Purity, one of the gifts of the North, is the compaction and concentration of power. In an Enlightened being, all things pass through you because your heart AND mind are open. And in doing so they are kept purified for Life is Movement.

All spirits readily sniff out a ceremony for there is a good chance at a warm, hospitable place filled with the openness of Enlightenment there. Yet is also in ceremony that mischievous things can hide. As such, you may leave a ceremony with more than you came in with, or at the least, it was like a clothing exchange, that which has been disabled exchanged, or Sacrificed, for that which is ready to be enabled in you. And this may feel awkward, present as a problem. A word most intoxicating to any spirit is Help. In fact, Help sounds like Play to the spirits, for they do things a little backwards.

We have spoken at length about asking for help. The spirits help us take more personal responsibility for our own wellbeing and moods for acknowledging ones own personal power is a prerequisite for consideration for advancement to Nirvana, the Universal Creative Power. So set a place for each guest, make them welcome at your table yet be clear you will not tolerate foolery (which most often will be acted out by you). But hey, you might be saying, the guests are munching away on my Enlightenment! Yes, you are feeding them at your table; just as Envy, Greed, Lust and Resentment got their fill of Truth in the video “I'd Rather Be”.  https://youtu.be/Xy53xdUsCG4

As with the spirits, these guests, these hungry ghosts are also our relatives, and you must tend to them, help them return to their place by setting clear boundaries and calling it like it is, as for Order to meet Chaos in complementary fashion, in Ordered Complexity, the basis of Life. This is done by observing and watching your thoughts as best you can. Once you observe the impersonal thought, which can be a symptom of the dis-ease or defilement, you can watch it change, or better yet, evaporate into the Hydrological as healed. So too are there times when you must refuse to feed something, to entertain it, for it has overstayed its welcome in your misunderstanding. And in this is Kindness, allowing all to return to their own kind.

Though the order of some things may not be the same for all, there is an order and each step must be completed as per instructions to evacuate your misunderstandings that the bandwidth of Understanding may grow. It is rather good that your misunderstandings have been vast, made space for Understanding to move into and stretch out. Again, many will take only a part of the instruction, the part that suits their fancy. Many are familiar with the phrase, dance like no one is watching. However this is a small part of the whole prescription. One must also love like you’ve never been hurt, sing like no one is listening and live like it is heaven on earth. What is the outcome of these directions? That is not the point. Or perhaps, if there is a point, it is the point where the yin flows into the yang, or uang into the yin. For the most part, the point is directed, like an arrow, at Movement. Just as all words are pointing to Truth.

The spirits respect your ability to put things in order that they be connected with Right Order. Putting your personal past in order as that which is behind you, not in front of you, is the first step towards nailing Liberation, the Buddhist term for Individuation. The process is described by Carl Jung as:

“...attaining liberation by one’s own efforts and finding the courage to be oneself.”

Individuation is the Autonomy valued by the Lakota and differs from Individuality, which is rather a wrench in the System. For though we speak of a Network and a System, they are not opposed. Of course not. They function in Mutuality. When not in Mutuality, in Duality, neither function very well. To be in Mutuality, you need not lose the lessons you’ve gained, or the parts of your persona you’ve worked so hard to polish right away, but it is a limited construct and you are an infinite being. It is said, All things shall be revealed. There can be no other way. And the liberation of all things is forthcoming including emancipation from mental slavery, which this course will see you through in its own loopy way. Indeed you may be feeling topsy-turvy right about now. For to walk away from your own constructs can feel abnormal or suspicious even, relative to how long you have been enslaved in them.

A woman from Mauritius recently wrote: “I became a slave at age 5. Every day I looked after the herd. Every night raped by my master. I always thought, without understanding, that this was normal. When they came to take me away, at first I completely refused. I couldn’t imagine a life away from my masters, a life where you worked no matter what, even if pregnant or giving birth. This was the only life I had ever known.”

Be not fooled by geography, society and the tempest of circumstance. In some form this experience has come for all of us, and the only master the Childhood Myth, which one makes their own master around the age of 6. Mastery is the process of Liberation, not some other kind of power-over. Now, without loosing site of your Compassion, bring your Awareness to the “key” in the above story, the way out, which is “without understanding”. As such, a slave is one without Understanding, and so hooped in misunderstanding, the storehouse of Trauma.

Understanding rattles the chains of the mental realm, and then it is up to you to respond appropriately. Also note the importance of regularly dumping what you know. And always remember, as when you set an intention, you never know what will come of it in the “all beings eat and are eaten” Continuum. This Ritual Education will help you understand that you are a form of energy technology, a resource of the Earth that serves as a sensory instrument for the Divine through your very presence alone, also known as being hollow; a step up indeed from being shallow. With the depths of Presence and the pivotal skills you acquire here, your “gift” for serving your life purpose (the one inside your feet) as a flicker of the Divine comes naturally in everything you do.

Perhaps you are feeling “on the spot”, and indeed, you are spot on! When the details get stuck inside you, “backed up”, it slows the process down so as not to harm your electrical circuitry, so important in developing your precious sensitivity. Let me say this once again, your heart is already open. It is the mind that is closed, and so things get backed up. Where you struggle is where there is a sign hanging upon your mind saying "closed". Your response to the sign may be a feeling of build up, emotional overload or physical pain. At such times it is recommended to karate kick a tree or have a good wail at the ocean to shake things up. One might say that the trees and waters are immune to thoughts and emotions but this is not quite right. It is more that they are Masters at connecting Feelings to Spirit to keep the Divine updated on closures. The Wisdom of Feelings is that firstly, they indicate something in the invisible has been “touched” and secondly, act as differentiating environmental checkpoints, signs how the climate change from Greed to Love is going.

Furthermore, when something someone says or does presents difficulty for you, or a pestering thought in your head, just hear or see it out, bear it and then if it does nothing for you, put it on your bullshit pile and let it do what it does. If it doesn’t stay there, something is still alive and kicking in you to be integrated. As said, there is no getting rid of for the initiate and so we move from here into the Art of Integration, of taking it in. In letting what was previously neglected meet you, those unwanted “guests”, perhaps even despised, you can then go about integrating them into Consciousness. Do not attempt to integrate these things into your Person for it will only become another projection, but into Consciousness itself, the habitless habitat from which they came. And in doing so, your shadow "heels" at your feet. This is the hard work spoken of earlier, yet not necessarily difficult. You see, there is difficulty but nothing is difficult, just as eventually one can find no sufferer yet there is suffering.

It is said that a good Shaman is slow-cooked, not seared. In each one is the Shaman, the archetypal healer called when one is facing an unresolved parallel reality, a schism, that tend to keep one from knowing Thy Self. In a melting-pot culture, some will be “ready” sooner than others, just as meat takes longer to cook than kale. My favourite analogy is popcorn. First just one or two go off, then quicker and quicker the many proceed until done. And always there are some that didn’t pop.

I understand that all this “sounds” like a lot of work. But as the search has been called off, bring your guards close in that all may rest in Peace. In this moment, attune to your hearing. What do you hear around you? What sounds are nearby? Which are far? Give your full attention to all the sounds coming to you from each direction, including up and down. It is precisely in this space of hearing that healing occurs instantaneously. And you needn’t give it another thought. Particularly if you are feeling “attacked”, make space to simply listen to all the directions, just for a few seconds, and note there are no threats, no “bears in the woods”, other than pestering thoughts. Repeat as necessary. And Rest.

Necessary knows when something is ready (done) by signaling boredom, a craving or a specific physical pain to come aboard. When you feel a sudden bout of these, take this Rest. When the Rest itself results in a pain or boredom, you are done resting, and so ready to move on. Pain can also be a sign, a diagnostic that an old belief, Cause, is giving way to something new.

The refusal to give way to new energies coming in is a sign to Struggle, Strife and even Suffering to come to you. Here you are beginning to see that you are actually giving off more signs or signals to the spirits than they give to you. In fact the traffic going that way is so great at times, there can be nothing coming back to you. Working with the Spirits, with Plants, with all Life, to relate “meaningfully”, there must be an open road, an open mind.

In the meantime, energy can be nourished and replenished with Qi Gong, a means of Cultivating Awareness. When the Spirit Bowl, the space in your pelvic girdle which also houses the Hara, the basement apartment in which the little ego dwells is full of Qi/Chi the little ego is more inclined to slip through the keyhole, its excesses washed out.

Your spirit’s favourite break-fast is prana, the breath of Creator, from which it extracts chi (qi) or Life energy. When you accept your Spirit, the invisible Bride in your bed when you wake up, to be your Beloved, and let it go on its “fast” as you sleep, you are less likely to be bothered by any overstaying guests. So respected, your spirit will help you out in your tasks as an inn-keeper. Keep your Spirit Bowl full and bless the little children, be the Servant Master to the homeless spirits rather than be mastered by them. They will love, cherish and respect you for it, for they have not the skill for being masters, they have no mind. And besides, Peace begins at Home.

In the end, (and remember, it is all Good in the end) one who possesses Spirit eventually comes to possess the Spirit-Mind (also termed No-Mind), that which minds Life spiritually, concerned more with group than the individual, and in doing so the individual is less likely to be possessed by anything other than a devastating willingness to Learn. But connection with Spirit must come before the group. In this way you will come to be in Right Mind and apply that Mind to your responsibility to understand how to be a Human Being, spirit living in the physical where Self watches over, cares for, the person. In the meantime, whenever you cultivate your Awareness, you also fill the world-feeding bowl.

A memory comes to me now of the young Oliver Twist holding his empty bowl up to a higher authority asking, “please sir, can I have some more?”

If you do not yet have your copy of An Inklings Weave, please contact me for a copy or order it on the website. The Shaman’ca Loop is an audio download also on the site under the directions to get started. These two resources will continue to guide you in the territory of the Adult, which you may live in for another 20 years or so once you “move in” through this Course. I look forward with Joy to seeing you in our first Council session. If you have not already done so, you can

Come to the Call Here 

Resources:

Do good anyway – Mother Teresa
Wizards of the Upper Amazon – Cesar Calvos
Consciousness – What the Buddha Taught, Walpola Rahula
Guesthouse - Rumi  http://www.gratefulness.org/poetry/guest_house.htm
Teachings – Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko
Eightfold Path – See under “R” for Right in An Inkings Weave
Sundance Prayer –  Mary E. Loomis

Original content under common copyright Neith Arrow/Changing Mind 2021
neith@changingmind.co       http://www.changingmind.co