God's Firewall

It is not your job to annihilate your mind. Your mind with all its abhorrent thoughts is not your enemy. Your mind is a tool for creation in the physical realm. The purpose of your mind is to produce options for you to accept or reject.

Having an idea you must reject is not a failure, it is how the process works.

The mind presents you an option which arises from the course you are on. If it is not what you want, appreciate it has arisen because you are now alerted to the fact that you have given it sufficient attention to be on the cusp of creation.

This is important information, because now you may choose to accept it, or you may release it and clear it before it manifests. If it does not serve you, if it is not what you want, let it go, and act as if it never was.  Do not try to 'resist' it. Just accept it has arisen and dismiss it. To resist it, fight it, dispair over it, hate it, struggle with it, is to resonate with it, and therefor attract/create/manifest it.

Awareness of what you do not want is not a failure. It is the process working perfectly. Release it back to the devine, into the realm of the unmanifested. Do not give it your attention again, unless it arises in your consciousness again, which is an indication that another aspect of it also needs releasing, least you create it unconsciously.

Be aware of your mind and what it is thinking. Think actively and consciously.

If it arises 1000 times, release it 1000 times. A thought arising is not a problem. Accepting that it is there is not a problem. Accepting that it has arisen is the opposite of resisting that it has risen. Accepting what is, keeps you in a state of non-resistance, which is the 'unattached' creative state of NOW.

Let it come and go, do not make judgments about it (which takes you out of the NOW and attaches you to the dead past) and do not fear it (which takes you into an imagined unwanted future, which is also is outside the NOW.)

NOW is the only place creation happens.

Giving 'what you do not want' your full attention and holding it in your thoughts and rehearsing it in your mind, and acting on it will bring it into form. Learn to discern the difference.

Just thank your mind for pointing it out. Deal with it and move on.

You are a creator. Your purpose here is to learn how to be a conscious creator instead of an unconscious one. This is the task of life.

The illusion of separation from God arises from identifying with your own created persona rather than with your true nature, which is God the Creator.

Your persona is your avatar, it is how you interface with the material/manifested world, and it is also a kind of firewall.

It is a buffer between your unconscious intentions and your conscious creations.

If not for your physical body (your avatar), you would blow up the world with your unconscious creations!

Our avatar is our 'governor', it receives most of our attention, and so suffers most of our unconscious creation. But our avatar is also our greatest teacher: through it we learn the discipline to create with consciousness. As we develop enough consciousness to create without being distracted by our avatar, then we become mature enough to do so.

I believe this is enlightenment and also the beginning of miracles.

Trans-universal pantheistic multi-communal solipsism

I just finished reading Number of the Beast by Robert Heinlein. Again. The first time I read it was in college -- many moons ago. I loved it then. I still love the plot and the philosophy... However. I'm a bit red-cheeked over how this book has shaped my own philosophy. Or maybe it just nudged it. Or revealed it.

I'd be happier to confess only an intellectual interest because the book is one running conversation between four unbearably glib, cheeky, hypersexed and perkily antagonistic individuals which are essentially the same character; soon to be met by other glib, cheeky,  hypersexed and perkily antagonistic folk which Heinlein actually takes the trouble to point out are trans-universal twins.

We know. We know.

And yet, I'm in love with his reality-is-myth premise that all universes are creations of authors and become reality out of shared experiences. Not unlike my own Giant Hamster Ball of Infinite Possibility. Quite like it. Papa Heinlein, the old billy goat, seemed to be writing a farewell tribute to his own characters and books, even though this was not his last, as it turned out. It was in fact written after a major life-threatening surgery. It's the book all of us carry in our head but don't dare to write. Except he did. Full of code and anagrams and self-references. I have to admire that. I do.

He's still the philosopher king in my head.

A philo-solipsically speaking. (sorry)

Which leaves me stuck with 'I am god, and so are you, and what do you wanna do today?' I guess that is trans-universal pantheistic multi-communal solipsism. 

Manifest THIS, Jack.

So why aren't all the gurus of manifesting and spiritual living calling on everyone to unite their efforts and send good vibes to Japan instead of futzing around?

Energy is energy. Energy workers need to draw off the heat from the nuclear reactors, instead of sweating bullets manifesting their dream home or a new car.

C'mon, people!

I know. It makes my previous post trivial in the extreme. However, practice is valuable. Now let's put it to work on something important, yeah?

Pray. Chant. Sing. Whirl your dervish. Drum like a mofo. Trip your light fantastic. Whatever it is you do, do it now.

All in good time

I have this locket, you see. It is nearly 100 years old, is 14k gold and contains a handsome watch which you can only see when you spring open one side of it by depressing the stem. If you are canny enough to find the slight divot in the case, you can spring the other side to reveal this inscription:

To Margaret 

November 10, 1913

from Russell

On the outside of the case is engraved with the letter M, which is convenient for my daughter, because her name is Megan, and one day this locket watch will be hers. The watch was last my grandmother's, who was not Margaret either, but Mary.

We don't know who Margaret and Russell were. 

My grandmother wore it because it was pretty, because she could use the letter M, and because the cryptic inscription seemed so romantic in a way that is only supplied by the imagination, which is a commodity the women of my family have in spades. She did not wear it as a timepiece, because the watch never worked.

When my grandmother passed, and I received this watch, I began wearing it nearly every day because of the connection with her, who was for all practical purposes my mother and my guiding light. I have done this for thirteen years without the watch working, although from time to time I'd fiddle with it just to see.

One afternoon last summer on my lunch hour, I was listening to an audio of Burt Goldman, who along with Uri Geller (The very controversial spoon bending guy) would ask audiences to bring in their broken watches and set them in a pile, and Goldman and Geller would yell WORK! at them, and some did.

I was wearing my locket. I put it in my hands and scrunched up my face and yelled WORK! I gave it all my umph.  I felt ridiculous, and caught myself glancing around in case anyone in the parking lot caught me out. 

It didn't work. 

I forgot all about it, in much the same way I conveniently forget about many of the embarrassing little experiments and failures that litter the path of an interesting life - the ones that never make it into the biographies, and that aren't even confessed to spouses, but which do occasionally find their way into blogs under a pseudonym like this one. But I digress..

On November 11, (11-11), I caught up with internet chatter about those two numbers appearing together, and decided since my locket watch didn't work anyway, I'd at least set it to 11:11 as a personal reminder of the spiritual awakening (which a lot of people think noticing 11:11 is all about.)

When next I looked at it, to show it off to someone who admired it, I saw the hands had moved to a different position. I repositioned them again to 11:11, pushed in the stem and then noticed that the second-hand was moving!

I carefully wound the stem just a few twists, and kept checking it throughout the day. 

It has worked beautifully ever since. 

Chakra archetypes and other bats in my belfry

Personifying my Chakras has given me deep insights as well as providing me with the aligning rituals which stem from the relationships that develop with them.

We all bring back our own boon on our unique hero's journey, as Papa Campbell was wont to say. We make our own myths. Here is mine:

In the belfry where my bats hang out, in the control tower, in the League of Justice Headquarters, in the Secret Garden of my soul... whatever...

It just so happens to appear to me as a golden domed room with an oculus at the crown; similar in architecture to the Pantheon in Rome, with ceiling frescoes as Michelangelo may have sketched in the journal he kept hidden under his mattress where the Pope wouldn't find it: (It is as I first saw it on a guided meditation lead by Slade Roberson's Automatic Intuition course.) Around its gilded walls are pedestals upon which my guides and angels stand during my internal rituals – they don't hang out here. They are too busy. This is just the tableux of the ceremony during those times I am able to deeply meditate and meet with them there.

Some of the pedestals are occupied by shrouded figures, whom I have not yet met. The one to the right of the doorway as you enter is occupied by my Asher: Our relationship is too sacred to speak of here. (Good lord, that sounds pretentious. Just go with it, 'kay?) However, the first time I entered this room, he assumed his position and I realized he was one of many. (Whether they are their own entities or are expressions and aspects of myself is immaterial, as in my theology everything is the one thing.)

I have since come to know some of them as Chakra guides. I first saw them in the state to which they had fallen through my neglect. I am now going through a process of reinstating them or reimagining them, if you will, or realigning..

I do this by meditating, and ask my Asher to make the introductions, and he has. Sometimes the guide is established, and I just meet them (like my third Chakra, the dark horse). In the case of my root Chakra, I kept getting a sense of him which was disconcerting. He was mishapen and unpleasent; unwholesome. I knew this to be an aspect which he had taken to demonstrate to me my current state of mind. It was my job to recast him.

In my mind's eye a thousand characters flickered past like so many frames of film haphazardly spliced. It was up to me to choose. And it was also a guided choice. 

In meditation, when something presents itself, you go with it. That's where the insights are. Otherwise you are just daydreaming.

I chose a bull. (Or the bull chose me?) He became the half-man Minotaur, emerging from his underground labyrinth; a cleft in the rocks among the roots of immense trees into a meadow I am familiar with in my spirit journeys. There is a spring there. The mouth of all rivers, which supplies my second Chakra – the Indian Guide who incidentally is named River. 

(You don't have to be Dan Brown or Carl Jung to notice what's going on here.)

Yeah. It all connects, you see. The second guide rides the third; the black horse...

But back to the Minotaur. He rises from the ground. Rampant, as they say. The root of my being.

But this is my ritual.

The sacraments of the alignment of my lower Chakras are physical to varying degrees. Allow me to delicately draw your attention away from the scene in the meadow to the domain of my third Chakra that we may discuss this with a minimum of blushing: The black horse is all instinct. Body language, gut feelings, heart-strings. Presence.

If you are lucky enough to be a horseman, you know how it feels with an animal moving beneath you, like being astride a great ball of awareness. If you are an intuitive horseman,  you resonate with every vibe and nuanced tension that flows through him. I align with my third Chakra by riding him. Analogize the others as you will. 

My heart Chakra is a child. The one who tames the horse which River rides. The one the sometimes gentle, sometimes brassy lady (my throat Chakra) sings lullibyes to when she is not on stage belting out the triumphant aria of my truth, or cackling at me when I assume a false voice. She in turn hangs out with Chris in the control room. They are a couple, you see. She likes him to read to her and they discuss philosophy -- sitting on pillows on the floor and sipping wine. He likes to hear her sing, which she does... when she's not hooting with bawdy laughter. 

Singing is sacred to the alignment of my higher Chakras. Laughter clears out the cobwebs as does a good scrubbing. So does having a good cry.

But this is my ritual.

Each Chakra is connected to the next one. Some of their responsibilities overlap. As I journey upward from the root to the crown I connect with each, commune and groove with each, understand how each are a part and expression of my whole self.

It works out a whole lot nicer than wearing the right colored scarf or affixing magnets to my zones or buying jewelry with the designated gemstone. There's no merchandising involved and the meditations are delicious.

But this is me.

The man behind the curtain

I'm going to take a deep breath here and just blurt it out: My third-eye chakra persona is Chris Stevens. Not the actor John Corbett, but the character Chris Stevens from the early 90's TV show, Northern Exposure. You know, that soft-spoken, dreamy  DJ philosopher that was the show's moral center and nudging conscience. He's the one who summed it up and laid it out in the gentlest terms possible. 'Chris in the morning.'

That guy.

And by the way, when I said dreamy, I meant that in a metaphysical altered consciousness dream-state way: it was not a high-school-girl's sigh of 'he's dreeeeamy!'. (Although... seriously. John if you are out there reading this... 'sigh'. That was for you.)

So why would I dare admit to something likely to cause profound and acute embarrassment should anyone I know actually read this blog?

Had I not met him in a dream, and had my filters been switched on, I'd have given this a big fat PSSSSHT!

But when all defenses are down in dreaming, you just go with it.

"What is the third eye chakra all about?" I asked him.

This was one thing I felt pretty good about. My third eye has been wide open for some time. Even before I had the remotest inkling that there were other energy centers in the body, I'd put myself to sleep at night rolling up my eyes and opening the window in my forehead and step through to those airless places where light comes from everywhere and there are no shadows, and if you are able to hang on to that in-between tethered state before drifting into sleep, things got really interesting.

I could hear music with my physical ears. Or vaguely tune in radio stations. Or listen to an orchestra tune up. Occasionally voices, but I could never make out what they were saying. Just sudden startling exclamations, or murmured conversations, or commercial break announcements (you should understand I live out in the boonies and this occurred when there was literally no one else for acres around. This was not a neighbor's TV vibing against an apartment wall.).

Once a spirit-cat crawled under the covers at the foot of my bed and sat purring on my chest and we floated together out the window. Not literally, you understand, but with all my senses focused and engaged and experiencing it as though it were. Once I reached down through the floor and drew in the sawdust of the sub-floor. Another time I shot out of the roof of my house and looked out across the hills and saw a house in the woods I didn't know was there (it was) and when I felt the acuteness of all my senses and the warm humid summer-time air in my lungs and had the thought 'this is real!' I returned, sucking in air as though to swallow back my wondering soul.

All that is great fun, but nothing more than fooling around. Practice, maybe, for what would come later. (Like visiting the spiritual healers in the Kiva.) None of it was disturbing. All of it profoundly peaceful. Until afterwards when I 'wake up'. In retrospect it's pretty damned exciting.

Maybe this is crown chakra business, but according to Chris, in his capacity, I was to think of him as technical support.

Yeah.

So I have a DJ in my head spinning dials, adjusting the screen resolution and tuning in the channels. And when it's all set up, he kicks back, takes the microphone in hand and goes on the air. He is the voice in my head. The one that isn't me. Or more likely, the one that IS me, but that I tend to ignore unless he ups the amp and turns on the juice.

But why, for godsakes, a TV character? (blush)

Because he's an archetype. One I'm familiar with, one where the analogies fit like a glove. I 'get' this guy. It gives context to our interactions. So, why not?

Symbols are just symbols. I write a lot about metaphor. About our personal mythology. I get itchy when someone tries to slap their mythology on me. I spent years trying to fit into other people's spirit-world view. It always went wrong. Always. I was ever the acolyte. Always asking, the perpetual graduate student of arcane mysteries. But you can never be master of another person's destiny.

To be a spiritual adult you have to stop being a student and start being the teacher. Realize everything you are looking for is in your own backyard and click your ruby slippers together and get back to Kansas, where you belong. And then you realize everyone you were seeking in Oz was here all along. You don't need Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer technocolor special effects. Or magic mushrooms, for that matter. You just need the courage to be true to your own weirdness.

--That last paragraph sounded like Chris talking somewhere in the dark. Thanks, Chris.

Chiropractic for the soul

The more I learn about chakras -- and I'm learning more daily, and nightly and in my wildest dreams -- the more they seem to correspond to what my chiropractor claims is the essential purpose of his work. Namely, making adjustments to realign energy, to get the flow back on.

I'm going about discovering my own truth about chakras the way I have the meaning of Tarot or the interpretation of dreams: I dip lightly into the general knowledge, just enough to get the lay of the land, and then I go exploring on my own. Without guide books -- but oh, with Guides.

Using the word guides with an 's', is new for me. I was pretty cranky with the assertion that I should or probably did have many. My one companion seemed pretty alright by me. I saw no benefit in having a spiritual house party. And then one more slipped in, and that was amazingly great, but that was enough, already.

So it was to my chagrin that with each new reveal of the user-manual for each new chakra, they've manifested for me as guides. And it turns out to be a really handy metaphor, because I can relate to them and discuss what's what.

And as I practice daily meditation, instead of just 'counting backwards from 10' to get in that tethered state, I now first glide up my spine, visit each chakra, and where anything feels amiss, the chakra guide comes forward, in a kind of laying on of hands, or chiropractic adjustment of the soul, if you will, and fusses over me, and gives me a nice chakra massage, which really is the most pleasant way to get a lecture about how you should be doing things differently.

 I wish my chiropractor would read this.