Being in the Now

I have often used the expression “when you feel pain, at least you know you are alive”. I usually pull it out when a friend is going through some sort of devistating breakup, where she’s trying to balance the alcohol to pill ratio so she can stop feeling but not kill herself. When she’s not wanting to be “Present” for her emotional reality. There’s a lot of talk about being “Now” and “Present” floating around in the ethers at the moment. I think it’s an interesting idea that we are anytime but Now.

I know that in the Past, and in the Present, I have felt like escaping my Now…but that never works. Now is always Now and I am always in it. I can distract myself somewhat by looking ahead or thinking about other things, but Now is always Now and in my face….being Now it would have to be. The nice then about Now is that eventually it becomes Then.  I like Then. The lessons have been learned and you realize just how Present you were Then, even if you looked ahead or day dreamed about your new Now when it was still just a possibility.

This is the other thing I don’t get, how do you manifest when you are in the Now. Manifestation is visualizing the future as if it is the Now, or even the Then. So if you day dream in such a way that your Now becomes what you saw before, is that time travel? Is seeing ahead time travel? So many things to wonder about…so little Now.

I am using this blog right now to escape my Now. It’s not working very well, I am still Now. I am philisophical about it though, at least I know I am alive.

a picture is worth….

sometimes the images we see

are made of the thoughts in our heads

but sometimes they are made of something else entirely…

when people are gods

I remember after having my kundalini awakening experience…over the course of the next six or seven months, things were so intense. Energy was just coursing through my body…I was in a contant state of hyperawareness and “knowing”. It was really awesome. That was a few years ago now, and since then the energy is still always there but I am more accustomed to it..it’s my “normal” now.

Anyway, while I was still getting used to the new and improved me, I had some really extraordinary “phenomena” happen…and I started to wonder if I was “special”….a special person given special powers to do special things. So I went into meditation on that. The answer I got back was “what did you expect when you started to interact with God”. That was a profound revelation for me and it made perfect sense.  I am far less of an ass than I would have been because of it.

Weirdly, I have met two people who never got the memo…and both have come to believe they are gods. The first one thought she was Jesus. She had guru juju…where she could project love….she talked in an airy/trancy sort of voice so everyone would know her message was coming from “a higher place”. She wanted to spread “love”. We were friends for about two months before her “love” became so toxic that she was completely intolerable. God there was a lot of drama…she was all about purging your emotions through communication…talking talking talking…and crying crying crying. Pleh.

She told us that on her 33rd birthday, like Jesus, she would die. She didn’t…so she left town, had a baby and got married. I can’t even tell you what a trip that was. Before she didn’t die I got really mad at her and told her “enlightened is as enlightened does” and spreading love without compassion is just throwing garbage into the garden without letting it compost. I suggested that before she spread anymore love she stop in her tracks, turn around and look at the trail of broken hearts and lives she’s left in her wake.

On her birthday she said she confronted a demon instead of dying and it changed everything for her. I think I know what actually happened. In the course of my meditations I have explored different parts of the brain and how they react to the spinning energy when you focus it in different areas. When you get too close to the bits that control the sympathetic nervous system your “survival” drive kicks into gear and what you get are creatures from the darkest parts of your subconscious…running you off so you don’t inadvertantly stop your heart or something. I think she started fishing around her brainstem and got more than she bargained for.

The other person I know who thinks she is god…wow. She’s a big visionary person…she has prophetic dreams and sees things all the time. She talks a good game…but she’s completely narcissistic. Everything she does…right or wrong is justified because she’s god and has a destiny. OK…right there…how could god have a destiny? Isn’t god all ready everything? She thinks she sees and knows everything. It’s annoying…everytime you have a conversation with her she’s had a dream about it. She works very hard to make sure that everyone knows her dreams so that when they happen she’d validated. Why would god need validation? Her dreams are amazing…and she sees a lot and she’s wrong a lot. I have amazing dreams, I see a lot and am wrong a lot. There are many many people who have amazing visions, premonitions, who respond to cries for help in spirit form, who just know a lot of stuff that shouldn’t be “knowable”. The have amazing visions…they see a lot, and they are wrong a lot.

She also believes her experiences are more profound than other people’s…she had a thing happen where she felt how long the water had been on the planet…from the water in her body to the water hitting her in the shower to the water in the ocean…she could feel it back to the dinosaurs. Which is a pretty rockin experience. I had one where I was the life force in every cell…traveling up the roots of grass and into trees…living photosynthesis…feeling how life “is” in every living thing. Which was also a pretty rockin experience…but she contends her vision is different somehow…more…and if I were her then I would “know”. There are many examples of this kind of nonsense.

It’s stupid. Attaining great levels of awareness doesn’t seem to change a person at their core the way one would think it might. This is why I am down on gurus. I have attained very high levels of consciousness but it doesn’t prevent me from doing dumb stuff. It just give me perspective on the relative smallness of the things we hold so dear. Knowing the dumb things are small ripples in a very big ocean.

So, here is my advice: if you run across someone who claims to be god, make them turn water into wine….and if they can, then start a winery and put them to work, because if god is here in form he/she’s going to have to make a living like they rest of us or they’ll end up sleeping on your sofa. And there is no greater pain in the ass than god on your sofa.

standing in emotion

An interesting thing is going on for me right now. I am experiencing a sense of loss when the reality is I am gaining something. I am blessed to have two friends who know me so well I can be myself completely with them. They know and have seen my work with energy and intuition…the joy and the pain of it. We have all been there for one another in different ways over many years. These two people though, have only just met in person recently.

They are both gifted in ways that I am and through a series of life events they have become roommates. I feel like it pushes me aside…like I am left out some how. I am not going to be there for the late night chats and spontaneous inspirations. I won’t be the first person they talk to when some big energy event happens, or an amazing dream or vision occurs. I’ll get to hear about it later…probably often through a second hand account.

It’s part of my struggle. I was thinking this morning I want to just forget about all the energy stuff, the visions…be present, live and deal with what’s in front of me. Then I think about my two friends becoming better friends and I want to be there, in the midst…all visiony and energy…just like they will be.

The reality is I am gaining…my friends both need each other and they will become more whole through their new arrangement. Which, of course, is exactly what I want for both of them. Also, having this pair together and me with full access….but not having to live with them myself…is a little slice of heaven. On the higher levels, the three of us are extremely dynamic and the kind of energy we produce when we are in alignment is the sort of thing that could change the world. Their getting to be friends is only going to make that happen more deeply, and here I am, jealous. 

I wish I understood what to do with emotions….it’s the most difficult thing for me to fathom about this experience. Over the course of my “journey” (honestly that’s such an overused word) I have had a chance to communicate with people who have crossed over. I am lucky in that I usually see the ones who have made it all the way over, rather than those that are hanging out here. But in both cases, when they communicate with people here, it’s done through emotions. When people talk about God, they talk about Love…emotion. When people talk about enlightenment they speak about controlling emotions. Emotions play a different roll in our experience as beings than we recognize. 

I am feeling a complicated blend of emotions…savvory and sweet, bitter and hot. How is it my self can know what it is I want to feel and my emotions can be acting some other way? Do I accept that I am feeling something I don’t want to feel? Do I try to fix or change how I feel? Do I have a temper tantrum?

I know I am not the only person who is dealing with this dilemma. Brilliant people let emotions sideline them and do things that can only seem insane. Take that astronaught who drove 600 miles wearing a diaper in a jealous rage. Or Bill Clinton, allowing lust to compromise his position as the most powerful man in the world. Our passions lead us into battle, into divorce, into stupidstupid relationships, into bankrupcy, into the darkest part of ourselves. Our “ups and downs” are all waves of emotion. An earthbound spirit is one who’s emotions are so prfoundly linked to this form experience that they cannot let it go. A crossed over spirit is one who has allowed love to shine far enough through the veil of the form that they can remove themselves from this experience long enough regroup and have a do-over.

I have actually given myself a lot to meditate on just by writing this so I am going to spend some time with that. I can see what we transcend when we raise our vibration and strive to keep it elevated. I am sure I’ll have more to say on this subject in the future.

hi-ho hi-ho…

I am going back to work today after taking a week off. There’s a lot I want to say about that. This where it gets hard for me, I half own this business and to say that keeping going has been a challenge is an understatement. I co-own the business with a good friend who is very type-A and a narcissist. When I tell him I think that he’s wrong it actually makes him stammer in disbelief. He makes some very poor decisions both for the business and personally for himself.

When I met him I owned a little shop where I did readings for people and sold pretty things. I had a big online shop and that was his line of business…websites. I loved owning the shop but the readings were harder. It’s a big responsibility to hold information for people and when people think you have the answers they want to follow you, which made me very uncomfortable. I am one of those people who this stuff just happened to, rather than the ones who train their minds for it from early on. It never seemed “special” to me, I screw up like everyone else…the notion of follwers…ack! I have always felt like everyone has this same ability (in one form or another) that I do, but they are unaware of it. You have to look within, not outside for the answers though..and the insight.

Anyway, I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the burden of reading, when along comes this very bright young man with big ideas…a plan. He told me about a vision that had been “downloaded” from on high to him some years ago to create a business infrastructure that would support the mutual interest of individual businesses and then be designed to support the larger community as well. It was powerful juju.

When he explained the whole vision to me the energy in the room was amazing. It was true tantra, but without the sexual connection. The energy of the vision and the optimism and the potential at that moment created an energy in that space unlike anything I had experienced prior. It was like a plasma of intention which we were both projecting culminated in the room we were in while we made our plan for our business. It made every hair on my body stand up. Part of it was just timing…I was actually in the process of a kundalini awakening…didn’t even know what that was at the time…so my energy was quite high. He’s no slouch in the energy department either and it made for quite a thing. Even typing about it now is making things shift in the room I am in.

So many lessons, so little time. What I didn’t understand…and in some ways still don’t…is that a person can be given a vision of this magnatude and then lack some of the very basic skills required to make it come together. We both have discovered, over the course of three years, that manifesting a reality is a lot of hard work. It can also be very painful. So many ups and downs, missed chances, so so so much to learn. For both of us.

So when it all began, it was on a very spiritual high. I actually held onto that energy for a long time…a lot of let go let god kind of thing. I have lost that in a way now…I am in faith all the time but not so much at the will of the creator anymore…now I have to be present and in my mind a lot of the time. It’s hard not to get caught up in the burdens of the physical experience. It’s all very real, even it is temporary.

I can say that over the course of the last three years, my busness partner and I have learned a lot about ourselves and each other. I think we both discovered a grit within that we didn’t know existed. I have had to let go of a lot of notions about people and have learned how significant a force money is for people, including myself. My business partner is learning to share the load and confront his limitations, and also the power of networking. We went into the partnership as friends and we still are…but it’s different now…like people who have been in battle for a long time. We share a common experience that very few other people can relate to. So far we have not changed the world but it’s certainly changed our worlds…and in the end I suppose that’s the best place to start.

final thought

I am sorry you spent so much time on second life, it seems to me to be easy to do…chasing something that seems fun but is pointless. I have done that more than once.

It brings me back to the idea that second life is a metaphore for our existance though. You are both the observer and the conscience of a nearly pretend being of your own design. The thing that’s different is the level of conscious choice you excercise to behave a certain way. You actively choose to be “good” or ‘bad”…whatever that means to you. 

It’s kind of like therapy puppets…less about subconscious tendancies and more about letting our suppressed selves out. It’s hard to type that because what that means is that what we suppress is really so basal and animalistic, we really aren’t any different than any other animal. Except, that we are able to take our instincts and shape them into both beauty and deformity. All of it obsessing with form…whether it’s pretending to mean when we are usually nice, humliating ourselves because we see ourselves as unworthy, adorning ourselves to get any attention we can, harming ourselves and others because of the pain we feel inside. In a “safe” environment…that is no actual harm is done…kinda. In the end Simms are unfulfilling because, ultimately, it’s not real. All of it is pretend.

I wonder how much life is like that? We remain unfulfilled because we are pretending to be what we are not…or more literally, less than we are. However difficult it gets, never ever forget that each and every person regardless of their journey is a being of light…fundamentally the force of creation that shapes all life. We are made of nothing but the most miraculous inventions of nature. Each of us is endowed with the tools and gifts that we need…both for giving and receiving…regardless of what we believe is true. Each human being is a miracle of creation…and we are gifts for one another.  

talking to myself

Since this blog isn’t getting read it’s going to be a sort of online journal for me. I have had a week off and it’s been really nice. Relaxing, I got to do things like start this blog and create an avatar at second life. Holy Guac, is second life a trip. It’s completely interactive simms. People, I am sure, let second life take over first life…making skins and homes and building islands. Many first life businesses have storefronts in second life. There’s an economy in second life. It’s like giving dimension to your fantasies. It has a lot of appeal…you can change your appearance on a whim, hide your name and be who or whatever you want to be. I think that can be very liberating. It’s a good example of how unreal this world is…it’s also a good example of what happens when people are left to their own devices…unchecked by consequences. Anything goes…you can indulge every fantasy. I wonder if that’s a good or bad thing over time.

I know from my own experience in trying to attain heightened spiritual awareness the thing that’s been the most troublesome is the mind. In two ways…I have always had a code of conduct for myself. It’s not that my parents were particularly strict but that I had an internal drive to be good and right. I made a lot of rules for myself…standards to live by…but then as the spiritual questions kept coming up over and over again, I was challenged on what I “believed” to be true. Sometimes those beliefs were so firmly in place I would feel a physical pop in some part of my body as I confronted and released them.

The problem with letting go of that kind of thing is what to do next. How do you act, what is ok and what isn’t ok. It’s more complicated than it sounds. In a lot of ways the simms world is accurate…there’s no guilt..we are as permanent as simms. On the other side of that, we have souls where simms are only simms.

This navigation between truly letting go and then coming back into my ever questioning mind has been the biggest struggle for me. Causes me the most suffering. It’s kind of amazing what I have been able to let go of, but I do struggle with this. I know this isn’t a read blog, but if someone should stumble upon it and has some insight to offer about this topic, I would certainly like to hear it.

Cheers

fighting girls

In my last post I was saying how I don’t watch the news much anymore, but today seems to be an exception. I decided to tune into CNN today, just to get current. There’s a story about how a group of cheerleaders attacked a girl in her home in Florida, beat the crap out of her leaving her unconscious with vision and hearing loss. The girls videotaped it and then they put it on YouTube. They got arrested and now a few are lamenting their Spring Break is ruined because they might not get to go to the beach. It reminded me of a show on Spike the other day showing people, young men and women, just brawling…usually drunk and being stupid.

It all got me thinking. Some time ago I read one of Aleister Crowley’s books, I can’t remember which one but I think it was 777, and in the early 20th century he was talking about this time we are in now…what was then up and coming to him. Do what thou wilt, is what he said….and a lot more. What I got out of it was that this is the age, due to last another 400 years, that people will be given the opportunity to express their free will in a way that hasn’t been seen before. The external contraints and social pressures that hold us to standards of behavior are loosend if not thrown off all together. It then falls on us and us alone to decide what kind of world we want to live in.

It’s like our society has just arrived at a new all you can eat buffet…everything is brimming over with food. Some of it is healthy and some of it is not so healthy. The question is, what are you going to eat? The internet and television combine to indulge any interest you have….any. Should we collectively give into every craving we have? If we do, what are we creating as a whole for ourselves, our society and our kids?

There was a History Channel show on Angels in which some professor described Angels as beings who keep us from indulging our animal tendancies. Humans have understood their tendancies for thousands of years. We all know the Seven Deadly Sins: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. The Vatican amended the sins, but really if you avoid the seven biggies you’re probably doing fine. In our humanness we are weak…we have to choose to be better than we are. Invoking our ability to think things though, reason and act in a way that is best overall. If we don’t do that then really the only thing that seperates us from the rest of the animals is hyperconsumerism and indoor plumbing.

I am actually not a big fan of organized religion. I think that every person has within themselves the ablity and the need to know God on a deeply personal and profound level that cannot be brought to you by any other means that your own journey. That being said, most people are unwilling to really undertake that journey…it’s hard to do. So religion is a way to make a connection and enforce social constructs that mediate between our higher awareness and our baser instincts. Coruption of that institution…the hypocracy of spiritual leaders who cheat and lie and steal…and much worse…have eroded the hold that religion once held in our society. We are no longer asking the angels to dance us away from our darker compulsions.

Instead we indulge ourselves. Plugging into our vices…embracing our weaknesses…each individual making a choice. Those choices add up and then we find ourselves wondering how we got here…a place we don’t really want to be. With unsafe streets, people harming and killing one another with little or no remorse, news that is so depressing it makes a person want to escape to their vices.

This is within our control though…take the high road, do the right thing, teach your kids the difference between right and wrong. Even if they redefine it later, if they have something to push against, a foundation. People can be so amazing, creative and compassionate, but we have to choose to do it.

in the news

I don’t generally watch the news anymore. I used to…a lot…I think after 9-11, the shock and the ensuing news overdose I decided there wasn’t much I can control in the world so why tune into the noise. Actually not watching the news allows a person to be more hopeful I think. News is by it’s very nature is bad. No one is out talking about the good things people do…that isn’t newsworthy. It seems we use news to define place in the world in a lot of ways. What are you for, what are you against…who is good and who is bad…what the economy is doing and if I should buy stuff now or wait…

Every story has two sides although finding out what they both are can be a challenge. I think there was a time when getting the “real” story was paramount to reporters. Bound by obligation to inform in an unbiased manner. Those days seem to be long gone though. News is filtered through a corperate lens which has specific interests and holdings, not to mention stock holders to worry about. Many news organizations have political interests and leanings. So what is the point of tuning in when you aren’t going to get the whole story?

I have been mulling that one over now for a couple of days. Engaging without attaching. It’s really hard to do…most people don’t even recognize their information is filtered and biased. I was talking to someone about world events and while I am trying to look at what is going on with a critical eye, I was accused of being treasonous.

It’s interesting that the world is all up in arms about Tibet…and certainly there’s reason to be, but there again there are two sides. I saw video of the “peaceful” protesters running amuck in downtown Lhasa, burning down shops and destroying everything in their wake. The Chinese Gov. had to respond. It’s not that the Tibetans don’t have reason to riot, but that there’s more to the story than peaceful monks minding their own business and being killed. The truth actually exists beyond what is seen through the camera lens.

You can’t talk about stuff like that though, or that the protracted occupation of Iraq wasn’t just forseeable but inevitable, or that the terrorists we are “fighting” weren’t in Iraq until we ripped the lid off there, or that now that Cheveron is able to build their pipeline in Afghanistan, the Taliban are simply resuming power there. I can’t say these things…even if they are true…because passions dictate the minds of most people. No reasoning, no logic, no critical anaylsis…just attitude, ego and the eternal desire to be correct.

People get upset about China a lot actually…how the media is so controlled and censored. We self censor here…we use terms like patriotism to close down discussions that are too complicated to encapsulate in a soundbite. People say silly things like the “Africa Issue”. Africa is huge…huge! There’s not one “issue”. There are some lovely places in Africa with growing economies and people that get along just fine. There are areas where chaos reigns and it’s tragic. It’s not one thing though…it’s many things.

Race is another issue we can’t talk about. I think the fact that Obama is doing so well speaks volumes about the reality of race relations in America. Things are improving….it’s far from perfect and racism isn’t dead…but it’s not just whites not liking other races. Humans are simply obsessed with skin color and racism is found in every culture. I think people should look at who benefits from keeping the racial divide alive and well. Follow the money…politicians and pundits don’t come out on top if people start to actually get along.

I just don’t know how people are going to manage to survive themselves.

Add to this the reality that the energies in the world are in fact changing…there’s a shift going on and it’s profound and intense. It’s an energy that forces truth to the surface whether we like it or not. The deeper the denial about the truth the greater the friction as it’s exposed. People are in deep denial and the road is going to get very rocky.

We do live in interesting times. I wonder how long it can continue to be that way though.

how to meditate

I have been meditating for a long time. I actually started at the age of 11 or 12. I had a lot of “information” coming at me all the time and I was very young and I had no one to talk to about stuff like that. Most people wouldn’t have been able to fathom it in the first place. So I had to figure out how to tell what info I was getting was true and what wasn’t, and get some control. I had stuff coming in from all over and it was overwhelming.

So, I learned to meditate. I got my hands on some little book and it gave a really nice 101 on what to do to meditate and I’ll share that information now. First off, get yourself into a comfortable position. I always lie down when I meditate, or I take a bath. I know a lot of people say you have to do a specific pose, and those poses do serve a purpose and are very effective. But if you are just learning to meditate then don’t worry about that…trust that you’ll be drawn to what’s most effective for your jouney.

OK…now that you are comfy, there’s a full body relaxation technique you can use to shift your state of being without trying to be quiet. You start out by tightening and relaxing every part of your body. Start with the toes and then the calves, the thighs and butt, back and abdomen, arms, hands and neck and then the face. Tighten each area of the body and then release…when you let go inhale deeply, on the exhale, say to yourself the word relax. Once you have done all of the major areas of the body then tense the entire body and then let go…exhaling to the word Relax. Now just breath…deeply into your abdomen…all the way down to your belly button and exhale repeating the word relax as you do. After the fifth exhale, so saying relax and just breath deeply and become aware of your breath. Feel the life it brings into your body and the cleansing sensation of inhaling and exhaling. Enjoy breathing and the deepening sense of calm and peace that are washing over your body as you breath.

If your mind begins to chatter at this time…just let it…let your thoughts rise and fall like waves…or like a waterfall. Watch your thoughts as they rush through your mind. Eventually the mind will get still. In that space you can just be…quiet and breathing. Hang in that space for a while…until the stillness feels complete. The whole thing ususally takes about an hour.

Don’t worry about it if it doesn’t work “right” the first few times. It’s something you have to learn to do. You are asking your mind to act differently and it’s got to be taught to do it…your mind isn’t your adversary in the process, it’s just a novice.

Once you get the mind calm you’ll face other challenges to keeping still…and they are more irritating than random thoughts…so be patient with yourself as you learn this very valuable skill.