First a few words about journaling. While this is a popular practice, many are intimidated by writing, or journal inconsistently and feel guilty about it.

You don’t have to be Charles Dickens to benefit from journaling! There are no deadlines, you don’t have to be a great writer, or even know grammar particularly well. There are no rejection letters, you don’t need an agent or have to appear on Oprah. The New York Times isn’t going to pan your work, and you don’t have to hole up in the Florida Keys, drunk. So, chill out.

Journaling is about allowing your thoughts, feelings and intuitions to surface on the page. It helps to understand your life, process various things, heal and get clear. It’s also a great way to record your journey and growth. Over a lifetime, significant themes emerge and journaling is a powerful way to use hindsight for future betterment. Your journal is a mirror and container.

It’s also a place where imperfection is allowed. Each entry doesn’t need to be complete everytime you journal. You can revisit and continue exploring. Associative threads emerge, and it’s safe to express yourself in this way.

Chakra prompts

There are many great resources available on the chakras and some basic familiarity will be needed to journal through each one.

Simply put, chakras are nonphysical wheels of energy corresponding to specific locations along the spine and head, which relate to your human experience on earth, and also your spiritual experience as a soul.

Following are one journal prompt for each chakra. Many more and different prompts could be used, and you’ll probably come up with your own. This is to get you started. When you practice personal writing, don’t censor and let it flow.

• Chakra 1, tip of spine, element Earth: Am I rooted and grounded in the earth with a solid foundation to survive and build my home here?
• Chakra 2, genital region, element Water: Do I move well though my emotions and desires, feel pleasure and express my sexuality/sensuality, relating to people, and flowing with my creativity?
• Chakra 3, solar plexus, element Fire: Am I in control of my personal power and will, both retaining authority and avoiding aggression so I can be intact in body and mind?
• Chakra 4, center of chest (heart), element Air: Is there balance between my giving and receiving in the fullness of love and compassion and the openness of my heart space, both for myself and for others?
• Chakra 5, the throat, element Ether: Do I communicate my truth and express my creativity?
• Chakra 6, pituitary gland/point between eyebrows, element Light: Do I honor my intuition?
• Chakra 7, cerebral cortex/crown, element Consciousness: Do I know what and who I am?

As you may notice, the prompts for chakras 5, 6 and 7 are brief but profound. The contemplation for these centers is multifaceted and for 6 and 7, essentially spiritual (and also for the heart chakra). For instance, intuition helps you to know both at a mundane and cosmic level. As for the thousand-petaled lotus that is the crown chakra, this is the transcendent knowing of Self.

When you are going to journal, make sure you can be alone, in a quiet place. This kind of writing is more of a meditation. It comes from inside, not so much from your logical mind. It’s not a diary of the day’s events, but a way to have a deep conversation with all aspects of your being. It’s transformational writing.

If you have any questions or need further guidance please leave a comment. There’s a lot of subtlety involved and I’d be happy to mentor, and provide more information by replying to your comments.

Okay, now go get your journal!

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This truth is often missed. Perhaps your inner work’s momentum hasn’t quite gathered yet. Perhaps your struggles are still in your face. Delight in the fact that still elusive outward changes are a reflection of how you’re changing inside; they just haven’t quite taken form yet. And things may not be all that pretty inside. Instead of being neurotic that change hasn’t manifested, realize it’s in process; you’re working it.

The truth of the matter is that empowerment is ongoing. You have to climb a while before reaching a plateau. And then the path still continues.

Empowerment is personal power. It’s used for routine tasks such as getting up, making breakfast and going to work. It’s also used as self-determination and integrity. Personal power properly claimed and wielded, can bring you emotional freedom and peace of mind. There has to be a modicum of personal power to just survive, let alone thrive. Depending on your ‘story,’ your bio, you may have been raised in an environment that provided this. Then it can be built on. If not, and even if so most of us still need to work on it, personal power is personal: You must dust it off and let it shine. No one else can really do it for you.

Everything that we’ve shoved away, we shoved away with a curse; most of it came from the outside. With a curse comes a hiding, comes a shame. To dare to be seen and to speak from what’s authentic undoes a curse. It’s time to stop hiding behind some fiction of “bad me” and burn through to shining.  — Jeannie Zandi

With personal power comes tremendous trust and energy. You’re able to trust yourself, and life. It energizes your psyche which fuels your imagination, purpose and passions. It lifts you. Personal power can be a diamond in the rough, however. Its best use isn’t for you to impose your will over your circumstances. This can be destructive, short-lived, and in service of the ego.

Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less. — Ken Blanchard

Once personal power is actuated and exercised regularly in a balanced way, it begins to become empowerment. Empowerment is a settled resource, while personal power can fluctuate. Empowerment is lifelong and more of the spirit. Personal power giving way to empowerment is the transition from ego to soul. The soul is truth. When you know your spiritual truth, all other lies fall off. It’s a knowing that can’t become unknown.

This is the pinnacle of empowerment, but it doesn’t have to be fully reached before being radically effective in your life. You need empowerment in your career, for personal growth, to heal, for spiritual development. If you’ve put in the work to find some psychological wholeness, and also reached into your soul and are on a spiritual path, the practices you’re engaged in, the realizations that come, and the way of being that establishes itself in you are all naturally empowering. Over time it becomes firmer and firmer, more and more knowable and reliable. There’s a gentleness to empowerment, a detachment. Even with annoyances or more substantial issues that may still come up, empowerment once accessed filters into your life, and eases your way.

Truth is empowering. Everytime you turn to truth, it empowers you more. Knowing your true nature, and before that growing in understanding it, being it, experiencing life from its perspective is empowering with each encounter. Each moment of spiritual practice polishes your diamond.

Fear does arise on the way to empowerment. Fear is a many-headed beast. Therefore courage is a must. Ironically, you need courage to be empowered, and empowered to show courage. They are inextricably linked. One feeds the other. Courage is a fire that burns away fear. Empowerment keeps the fire going.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. — Ambrose Redmoon

Power is essential to life. Every living thing needs to be powered somehow. Humans are powered by soul consciousness, light, breath, life force, and food and water. Of these, consciousness is the overseer and director, and life force is the ‘electricity’ and subtle hub making each item work with all the parts of a human.

If consciousness and life force are trapped in past hurts, or projected into future worries they aren’t available now where you need them. Their power is diminished greatly, and you’re left powerless in the present. Loss of power is much more than lack of energy. It can lead to depression, confusion, and low vibration choices which exacerbate your situation.

To reclaim and cycle your power in through your present moments is an act of empowerment. Feeding old ghosts or giving juice to future fear dragons is disempowering. Your power is needed now, here with you.

But the greatest power is always love. Power can be used in the service of love, but not vice versa. — Ram Dass

…

Want to stop power leaks? See the simple and affordable 2-month program.

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© Pamir Kiciman 2010

Many aren’t even aware of the option to be healed. The long history of healing is unknown to them, since it doesn’t get much airplay. And if healing is sought, it’s often for mundane reasons, although that’s still valid. Often people come to healing when there’s real trouble and all else has failed.

So, what is it, to heal, to be healed? Is it to feel better? Is it to have no pain? Is it to have a flesh wound close? Is it to end emotional suffering? Does everyone need healing? What if you’re healthy and your life is functional?

The short answer is, yes, everyone wants to be healed, whether that’s known to them consciously or not. The why is what this post is about.

There are some human fundamentals: Everyone wants to be happy, suffer not, be healthy, be provided for, have a place in the world, and have dignity. The way there we’re told is through the usual trajectory of schooling, career, advancement, relationship, a home, family, and the accumulation of stuff.

This isn’t a terrible model. It works in the world. Yet, it’s still a model of survival, with how well depending on the number and quality of creatures comforts you have. It causes a frustrating tug on these things to fulfill you that inherently don’t have that capacity. So you change majors, careers, partners, houses, and the particulars of your retirement account.

This model leaves you hungry, no matter how “full” your life may seem. It’s a cycle of searching. It’s a cycle of needs fulfillment.

Underneath all this searching there’s a seeking. You want to be happy, healthy, safe and loved. The only real way that can happen is if you get to know your true self. You can still have a career, family, and good retirement, but unless your true nature is known to you, fulfillment remains elusive and distant. The really juicy bit here is also that knowledge of your true nature as a foundation, launches the most incredible life in all its worldly permutations.

And that’s why everyone wants to be healed. At a core level everyone wants to become one with themselves, to be in their own fullness, power and beauty. What we’re told is the way there, isn’t the way there. The way there is inward. The way there is healing.

Your overarching purpose is to know your true nature. This unifies and clarifies all time-bound purposes. Knowing your true nature betters your outer world too, because then life is authentic. No matter your biography and resume, you’re here to know your true self. This is the real meaning of healing and it removes pesky pains and dramas too.

There’s alternative and complementary healing, only named such because medicine has become the primary avenue of health, for the resolution of human physical, emotional and mental ailments. There’s also spiritual healing. Both of these have been around for centuries, with storied traditions, which makes the alternative/complementary moniker misleading. In fact there’s only one kind of healing, and that is spiritual healing.

We are soul-infused biology. A healer heals at the soul level which filters to all human parts. Whether the spiritual is acknowledged or not, it’s unavoidable because it’s the very matrix of life, being and living.  All the external ways in which you want to bring yourself happiness, health, safety, success and love are in reality also ways in which you address your spirituality. What you’re searching is your original unity with your body, mind and soul, and the great living universe. This search is often fruitless unless it becomes a seeking.

Your true nature is real. It’s of Light substance, not carbon, unbound by time, Love in form. People work with healers to better their human, only to realize they were Divine all along. The human is Divine. The human is not skin-encased parts. That’s the body. It’s of the earth, it’s a fine vehicle for the sojourn here. The human is Heart and pure Being. It is Soul and Breath. It is Sacred Beauty.

There’s healing to be done in your timeline. Greater spiritual healing is to know your true nature. The physical body slowly breaks down. It needs healing. Your emotions and mental realm are challenged by this proposition of living. They need healing. Healing the dramas and pains of your life is a valid reason to work with a healer. It bears many gifts. There are yet more gifts.

“Who/What am I and what am I doing here?” is answered through healing. Awakening to your abiding self is the healing of illusion. The greatest illusion is that you’re your bank account, the kind of car you drive, your accomplishments and the physical life you lead. These have value. Their value is never quite realized without the missing piece: The conscious quest to know your true nature.

This quest is a healing up. Healing mentally, emotionally and physically is healing down to where you are on the planet at any given moment. Healing up is outside of time. It occurs in the nonphysical. It takes place in essence, not shape. It’s in the causal realm.

The healing of this primary illusion transforms everything. How you live, how you live in relation to the planet, in relation to yourself and other people and species, what you live, how you touch other lives, and what you leave behind from your expression in this specific iteration.

What do you live? Is it your Divinity?

Our true nature is self-authenticating. When we bump into our true nature, it authenticates itself. Something inside us knows. —Adyashanti

(You can work with me if you’re not in the local area. Find out here.)

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The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Me, and Senor Xolotl by Frida Kahlo

This week marks another Earth Day on Friday, April 22. Today it’s been one year since B.P.’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The way we live with our planetary home is a prominent piece of the Earth changes and humanity’s evolution as we’re currently witnessing on the world stage. This evolution isn’t only in the human psyche or society, but is directly in relation to our co-living with the Earth, this great Mother Being.

The repercussions of the oil spill disaster are nowhere near understood or even acknowledged. It’s complex and only a few items will be mentioned. Congress still hasn’t raised the liability cap for companies that cause oil spills. BP has so far paid only $3.8 billion of its $20 billion restitution fund. The human toll continues financially and emotionally. Samantha Joye, a University of Georgia researcher has found oil coating coral ecosystems in the Gulf after five sea floor expeditions since the spill; species like dolphins, turtles and whales are suffering losses that will not manifest for years. 235 miles of coastline are still actively being cleaned. Safety, preparedness, and regulatory failures were exposed and it’s uncertain how another event will be prevented. Drilling permits in even deeper and more dangerous waters are now being issued again, after a short moratorium. You can read in-depth reporting from these sources: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, DiscoveryNews, Huffington Post, BBC News,  Mother Nature Network.

Today, I really want to write about a substantially different point of view, one that continues the new story of the Earth and humanity as I’ve been posting here lately.

Every human being has a unique and mystical relationship to the wild world, and the conscious discovery and cultivation of that relationship is at the core of true adulthood. In contemporary society, we think of maturity simply in terms of hard work and practical responsibilities. I believe, in contrast, that true adulthood is rooted in transpersonal experience—in a mystic affiliation with nature, experienced as a sacred calling—that is then embodied in soul-infused work and mature responsibilities. —Bill Plotkin, PhD

The ancients have known this. There are many who know it today because it’s passed down, and it’s felt. What’s missing is the tipping point number of people who need to know it for there to be a significant cultural shift in the way we live. The way we live with ourselves, each other and this planet of life we cohabit. We humans live here with more than 11 million species, of which we’ve named only about 1.7 million.

By embracing Nature and soul as our wisest and most trustworthy guides, we can raise children, support teenagers, and ripen ourselves in ways that enable us to grow whole and engender a sustainable human culture. We can progress from our current egocentric societies (materialistic, anthropocentric, competition-based, class-stratified, violence-prone and unsustainable) to soulcentric ones (imaginative, ecocentric, co-operation-based, just, compassionate and sustainable). —Bill Plotkin, PhD

The world’s soul and Nature’s soul are rather vocal as we come into another Spring on this planet of about 4.6 billion years. The world and Nature are inseparable. What makes the Earth habitable is her Nature. Mars doesn’t have it, nor any other in our solar system, and beyond (as far as we know today for all practical purposes). Without Nature as foundation and life sustainer, we can’t have any of the human achievements that may swell up our pride.

There’s a life that flows through everything on Earth. This life has a soul. This soul speaks. Much of humanity is alienated to it, but this soul is simply us, and all of everything in creation. When I first started contemplating what’s been going on in the world this year, a phrase came to me spontaneously:

We are in the time of the Circle.

I didn’t use it at then. Now its time is ripe.

All life is a circle. The atom is a circle, orbits are circles, the earth, moon, and sun are circles. The seasons are circles. The cycle of life is a circle: baby, youth, adult, elder. The sun gives life to the earth who feeds life to the trees whose seeds fall to the earth to grow new trees. We need to practice seeing the cycles that the Great Spirit gave us because this will help us more in our understanding of how things operate. We need to respect these cycles and live in harmony with them. —Rolling Thunder, Cherokee

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© Pamir Kiciman 2010

Earth has been framed in many stories since its inception. Broadly, these are early creation myths, agrarian times, Flat Earth and being center of the universe, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, Modernism, and finally the scientific/technological age of globalization. At this very juncture, Earth’s and humanity’s narrative within it is being radically rewritten. It’s an emergent story, one that’s on the edge of the future and so in some ways unknowable. However, there are clear signs and indicators. The first quarter of 2011 has been extremely eventful and what these signs and indicators mean, or how we may utilize them in solution-oriented ways can be confusing.

We must participate in the emergent story of the Earth and humanity without the mistakes and limitations of the old one. In essence, humanity’s trajectory on Earth has been one of increasing ‘separation.’ We began with a healthy respect for Nature and working in harmony with her. The Earth was understood to be sacred. This remained true even as ideas of ‘mine’ and ‘ours’ crept in when everyone wanted to protect their land. We started to feel separate from each other, while still feeling one with Nature. As cities developed, humans spent less time outdoors. With the Industrial Age and its aftermath all the way to the present, our relationship with Nature and the Earth shifted from gratitude for resources to profit from resources.

This shift and science’s ability to measure only matter but not ‘life’ has established the worldview that creation is inert. Only humans are alive, but even then we can only love those who are the same as we are. Trees are alive, but they’re a commodity so clearcutting rainforests is permissible. Animals are alive, but they don’t have our intellect, so we can raise them solely to be slaughtered as food. A seed is full of life, but what it grows into can’t be shipped easily so we’ll modify it genetically. Oil is not alive, so it’s perfectly fine to drill and extract it with no end in sight. If the world around us is inert, if we live in a dead solar system, then a neighbor who’s ‘different,’ the extinction of a species, or the final demise of old growth forests is of little consequence.

Current world events, capped by the earthquake in Japan and military action in Libya are a giant call to awakening. We don’t know what may happen next. What we do know is that when a planet and its life forms become commodities only, stripped of all other intrinsic value, that planet is in dire danger. The New Earth can only emerge from the understanding that creation is in fact not inert, but teeming with sacred life.

This is the choice point we’re facing collectively. There’s a way to heal through our dilemmas. The Earth herself has wounds, as does humanity. Oneness is an ancient truth we must now adopt as our new narrative to heal. Oneness has always been Earth’s and humanity’s narrative. What’s needed now is its embodiment. Our task now is to permeate social, political, economic and scientific systems with it. A united Earth can step into a possible future that’s now emerging.

Oneness includes compassion, not only tolerance. It includes wisdom, not only intelligence. It includes nonmechanical power. It includes abiding inspiration and creativity. We need all of these to usher in the sustainable good of the future.

Although there have been massive undercurrents to what we’re seeing in the world today, events are at the same time spontaneous and self-organizing. This and the severity of upheaval all around the world is a sure sign of much needed global healing. We can make this a teachable moment for humanity. The world’s healing traditions hold the wisdom that change includes cleansing. Cleansing is a process of reconciliation. The unhealed must be processed. This means it’s acknowledged and understood first, which leads to acceptance and insight. Finally, higher functional states open up.

When creation is understood as living, honoring it comes naturally, and our acts become hymns to it instead of dirges. Will you emerge and merge with Earth’s and humanity’s new healing narrative?

© Pamir Kiciman, written March 2011

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Profit patterns with disregard for all other considerations and concerns, and entrenched power loci are having a comeuppance.

The world’s conscience is telling us to implement enlightened systems globally. Polarizing, fear- and greed-based systems are out! — Pamir Kiciman

The noise the world is making is important. It isn’t garbage noise. It’s pointed and urgent. We must listen to it and act, and a lot of action is already self-propelled because we’re at a tipping point. At the same time, when there’s so much upheaval (a sign of mass healing), wisdom and balance need to be kept close and deepened.

We can make this a teachable moment for all of humanity only if we anchor silence within and in the world. In fact, if all along we were being with silence, the kind of riotous and apparently spontaneous ‘eruptions’ may not have been needed. Too late. Now we delve into silence, as often and as deftly as we can, and emerge with some pearls of solution.

Silence lies at the heart of all great spiritual traditions and pilgrimages. It is the vehicle that encourages us to dive beneath words, ideas, chatter and concepts. To discover the unspoken truths and the unfathomable mystery of being. The variety of forms of contemplation, prayer and meditation meet together in their reverence for the act of silence. Through them we learn to still the clamor of our hearts and the competing voices that cascade through our minds and discover a place of profound stillness and receptivity. — Christina Feldman

In the previous post, Unstruck Sound, the power of Aum was explained. Such primordial sounds come out of silence, and take us back into silence. Here’s a simple recording of OM. Listen to it and also follow the journey Yogananda has given below. Chant as long as you want, then go into quietude and bless the world. As you can see, Aum is also a state of Oneness, and it’s Oneness with life, the world and the cosmos that’s going to end unenlightened ways of governing, sourcing energy, consuming and resolving conflict.

AUM Mantra

Tune In with the Cosmic Sound by Paramahansa Yogananda:

Listen to the cosmic sound of Aum, a great hum of countless atoms, in the sensitive right side of your head. This is the voice of God. Feel the sound spreading through the brain. Hear its continuous pounding roar.

Now hear and feel it surging into the spine, bursting open the doors of the heart. Feel it resounding through every tissue, every feeling, every cord of your nerves. Every blood cell, every thought is dancing on the sea of roaring vibration.

Observe the spreading volume of the cosmic sound. It sweeps through the body and mind into the earth and the surrounding atmosphere. You are moving with it, into the airless ether, and into millions of universes of matter.

Meditate on the marching spread of the cosmic sound. It has passed through the physical universes to the subtle shining veins of rays that hold all matter in manifestation.

The cosmic sound is commingling with millions of multicolored rays. The cosmic sound has entered the realm of cosmic rays. Listen to, behold, and feel the embrace of the cosmic sound and the eternal light. The cosmic sound now pierces through the heartfires of cosmic energy and they both melt within the ocean of cosmic consciousness and cosmic joy. The body melts into the universe. The universe melts into the soundless voice. The sound melts into the all-shining light. And the light enters the bosom of infinite joy.

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We’re in an era of global renewal. It’s happening in many locations simultaneously. Renewal creates cleansing which can be painful and messy. The change that’s a afoot can also motivate the old to cling to its position with tenacity. This creates further chaos. The friction of resistance to change is all over the news right now.

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other. —Joanna Macy

Whether it’s social, environmental, humanitarian, political or economic justice, a principle at the heart of Life has been activated and it’s touching all people equally. Our lives interpenetrate. How can we stay open and in balance while witnessing this tide of transformation across the globe?

Suggestions to stay balanced in era of global renewal

• Be in gratitude. David Steindl-Rast says, “We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart.” Peace of heart. Usually the term is “peace of mind.” The mind is often not as stable as the heart. The mind has too many tendrils. It needs the knowing of the heart to stabilize it. The heart is simple and strong. Stay there.
• Know darkness is temporary. Sakyong Mipham says, “One characteristic of this dark age is that we doubt our innate goodness.” Doubt exacerbates the fear we may feel when we watch the news. We doubt that we’ll be safe. We doubt we can take effective action. We doubt we can make a difference. The truth is you are the difference. You’re one good neuron in a neural net. Shine your goodness.
• Healing starts with one person; you. Joanna Macy says, “To heal our society, our psyches must heal as well.” Start with yourself. Take care of your own inner house. Everything you to improve the world begins within you. Attending to your own healing needs also gives you the strength and resourcefulness to change more complex conditions. And when you do, you can come from inner power and peace.
• Deepen your spiritual practices. The I Ching says, “No revolution in outer things is possible without prior revolution in one’s inner way of being. Whatever change you aspire to in your affairs must be preceded by a change in heart, an active deepening and strengthening of your resolve to meet every event with equanimity, detachment, and innocent goodwill. When this spiritual poise is achieved within, magnificent things are possible without.” Enough said.
• You’re not isolated. Joseph Campbell says, “We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us—the labyrinth is thoroughly known.” Earth changes now are unprecedented. At the same time, each change in each era was new to the people living then. Embrace what’s happening in the world. It’s positive, no matter how it looks presently. Know that the conscience of the world is speaking up and you’re honored to be part of it. There’s a purpose for you and a grander purpose too. Step into that.
• Emotions run high; breathe through them. As Miriam Greenspan says, “Emotional mindfulness—the ability to stay fully attentive and befriend unwelcome emotions where they live, in the body—is essential to emotional alchemy, the process by which the lead of our worst feelings can be transmuted to golden spiritual power and wisdom.” The world itself is in an alchemical process, so much so you who are in the world need to be in it too. You’re going to have emotions about global events. Stay open to these emotions and understand them. In understanding your emotions, you understand yourself. You also get to know that while you have emotions, you are not those emotions.

Finally, Ram Dass states: “The question we need to ask ourselves is whether there is any place we can stand in ourselves where we can look at all that’s happening around us without freaking out, where we can be quiet enough to hear our predicament, and where we can begin to find ways of acting that are at least not contributing to further destabilization.”

Yes, of course there is!

These previous posts also deal with this subject:

Overwhelm and the Healer

Shifting the world the healing way

The shifting world

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Healers have been active at least since the beginnings of recorded history. The literature of medical anthropology as well as cross-cultural studies show that virtually all non-Western societies and most of the non-Anglo communities in the United States still use some form of indigenous healing that lies outside the realm of traditional allopathic medicine. The fact that the art of healing has been in existence for so long attests to the underlying belief that healers have special abilities to use their consciousness to help others. —Frank Lawlis, Ph.D.

Fortunately many indigenous systems and others have been studied and documented, honoring and legitimizing the Healers of the world through time. The healing way is living from a healing place inside and being a holder of a healing worldview. Central to the healing way is the Healer. Today, however, the village has become global and the tribe is now nonlocal. What the Healer heals and how has shifted, together with global shifts.

Here are only some of the ways in which the Healer manifests, specifically in relation to world events, rather than personal healing:

• The Healer is calm and even-minded.
• The Healer is nonreactive and grounded.
• The Healer sees below the surface.
• The Healer takes the long view.
• The Healer works with symbols.
• The Healer is a diviner.
• The Healer knows the course of events.
• The Healer never wavers from healing.
• The Healer is constant and patient.
• The Healer is heart oriented.
• The Healer’s Heart territory is expansive.
• The Healer lets all events dissolve in the Heart.

From this dissolution the new emerges.

It can be hard for the human side of the Healer to know and feel that all the spiritual qualities s/he is radiating are making any actual difference. Discouragement and/or burnout can set in if outward evidence of healing isn’t seen. Large scale, rapid change isn’t the way of the world, although that can happen too as evidenced by world news in the last month or so. The Light Healers share definitely adds up, is stored perhaps, or shifts things imperceptibly. A lot of times, it’s not known how and where the healing “work” does good. And then it surfaces all at once, often in multiple places at once.

It has to be realized that these phenomena are happening in epic cycles that the mind can’t truly grasp. The best approach is to simply practice, for the sake of practice. Practice is for practice. It’s not for gain or world transformation. The world changes because we practice, not because we practice to change it.

The demands on the Healer in modern life are different and more strenuous. The world is now complex and intense.

Here are some ways to stave off any overwhelm:

• Treat signals you receive as information only. They are data, that’s it.
• These signals are not entering your mindbody in any way, not becoming part of your subtle body either.
• These signals are merely insights for you to understand and help in a more precise way.
• For it to be true healing, it has to be sourced in universal power and compassion.
• If it sources in your own heart, that’s limited and can be quite frail/fragile.
• Your heart is part of the equation, but not all on its own.
• It relies on what comes THROUGH you.
• If you rely only on what comes FROM you, it spells trouble.
• If you relate while healing from emotion only, transfer is inevitable.
• If you relate while healing from pure feeling, an informational matrix, then Spirit can do its work and you are free.
• The healer has to be a warrior with a strong spiritual backbone.
• The better your conduit, the better you can help.

The essential element in not yielding to overwhelm is to be in Big Heart, come from Big Heart and let Big Heart heal.

For additional thoughts on the Healer, read here and here. Please also share your own thoughts regarding this matter in the comments section.

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Granted, it’s a moving landscape of events, but what’s happening isn’t a mere uprising. It’s a global indicator. One that has been trending for some time, hidden to casual observance. This part of the world is a nexus. Because both Tunisia and Egypt are in North Africa, not only the Middle East is at play. This nexus has three major rivers running through it: the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris. Rivers have always been places where beginnings are generated for human societies and polities.

This area of the world has also been historically and presently intractable in a number of ways. If we look beyond the granular story of current developments, we see an overarching theme, which may have been missed if it had stopped in Tunisia, as it was barely covered in the news. Instead, it mushroomed into Egypt and conquered the world’s attention, because of Egypt’s size and role in the region.

Let’s look at the reasons this event is singular compared to most other similar events in history:

• It’s nonideological
• It’s nonreligious
• It’s nonviolent (at least until there was pushback)
• It’s leaderless or leadership is shared
• Its organization is decentralized
• It’s an outcry of the human will
• It has a domino effect in the region

What are some of the images that have emerged from these events?

• A protesting woman kisses a police officer.
• Christians protecting Muslims during prayer.
• The Egyptian military cordoning off protesters and checking IDs at Tahrir Square so other agitators don’t enter. The military is usually the regime’s enforcer, or the instrument of a coup! As far as I know, only the United Nations uses the military as a peacekeeping force.

These are truly nonordinary occurrences.

The Berlin Wall fell. Apartheid ended. Now there’s a transition in one of the most conflicted areas of our world. The people there are asking for some fundamentals, nothing more. All in a nonsectarian way. It’s an equalizing movement. It’s open source and fluid. It follows the truth that:

Power which no longer serves first becomes entrenched but eventually topples.

The dynamics of the world has a safety principle that corrects its trajectory. The world has a conscience and it speaks through such occurrences. This is coded in. It activates and sets itself into motion. It’s a code we know and recognize, therefore we bring it to  the world. It’s in the DNA of life. This is the future’s voice!

The reality is that we can always be someone and do something to help change the situation. Like us, our political leaders have positive seeds and negative seeds. They may be surrounded by people who don’t water to the good seeds in them. Their advisors continue to water the seeds of fear, craving, anger, and violence in them. We have to find ways to get in touch with our political leaders and help them. Protesting is a kind of help, but it should be done skillfully, so people see it as an act of love and not an attack. —Thich Nhat Hanh

Control is out. Rigid, top-down predatory structures can’t bring us the future. The future, if we would just listen to it, is telling us to embrace this moment. Its time has arrived and sends a clarion call.

Related:
Egypt, Transformation & Signs of a Planetary Culture

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The world’s healing traditions hold the wisdom that change includes cleansing. Cleansing is a process of reconciliation. The path to wholeness passes through all the blocks to wholeness. It can’t be any other way. The unhealed must be processed. This means it’s acknowledged and understood first. This leads to acceptance and insight. Finally, higher functional states open up.

While healing change brings support, relief, resources, possibility, strength and hope with it, it’s not without challenges, upheaval, pain and chaos. Fortunately, the “ugly” side of transformation is on the surface. When it’s seen, we have to bring this knowing to it. Otherwise it’s too confusing, emotions run high and it becomes highly reactive.

And we have to take the long view, realizing that healing and/or transformation is layered, whether it’s personal or societal. It can also be exponential, a true domino effect as seen in Egypt and the region in general. There’s a groundswell and a momentum which is self-powered and directed. It usually can’t be stopped because it has this truth embedded:

What no longer serves cannot remain.

There are many aspects of human civilization in the 21st century that no longer serve. All of them are coming up for review. A main reason these are such intense times is because we didn’t solve challenges when they were still small. Now, we can only respond and ensure the future is different. Sometimes we’re good at that, often not so much.

One thing is certain: Our response is definitely going to suffer and not match up if we’re overwhelmed and off center. Conscious, enlightened solutions can only come from our total being, and not only the rooftop of  intellect. Here’s a practice to address both the overwhelm and to ensure the clearest solutions:

© Pamir Kiciman 2010

You begin to breathe in and out, and you focus your attention on your abdomen. Why your abdomen? When you see a tree in a storm and you focus your attention on the top of the tree, you feel vulnerable. You have the impression that the tree is too fragile to withstand the storm, because the little branches and the leaves on the top of the tree sway violently in the wind. You have the impression that the tree will be blown away. But if you focus your attention on the trunk of the tree, you get a different impression. You can see that the tree is solid and rooted deeply in the soil, so you know the tree will withstand the storm.

You are also a tree, and that strong emotion is the storm that is approaching. If you don’t prepare for it, you may be blown away. To prepare means to begin mindful breathing and to bring your attention down from the level of thinking to the level of the belly, just below the navel. This is called belly breathing. Just focus all your attention on your belly and become aware of the rise and fall of your abdomen, which is the trunk of your tree. Don’t stay on the level of the brain because that is where the storm winds are blowing the hardest. It’s dangerous to stay at the level of your thinking. Go down and embrace the trunk of the tree just below the navel, where you will be safe.

—by Thich Nhat Hanh

To learn more about the importance of the belly, click here.

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From a spiritual wisdom perspective, the case has always been made that change and balance during change source inside an individual. On the other hand, activists of every stripe rely mostly on outer action. A third approach is engaged spirituality which can be defined as tapping spiritual truths while responding to titanic shifts.

The inner and outer worlds aren’t separate. This is the holistic truth. They interpenetrate and influence each other. One can’t get away from the other. We’re living in an age where meditation alone won’t solve our challenges. And outer action alone has never been a complete solution. Blending the two appears to be the skillful means. Humanity has been creating civilizations and building societies for thousands of years. Being active in the world seems to be rather well-known to us, although we’re not always that good at it. What seems to be less well-known and practiced is the inner realm of stillness. So let’s learn about it.

Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation. —Lao Tzu

Worldwide challenges demand our unrelenting will and presence. Corrective, preventive and innovative action must be taken collectively. Where such redeeming ideas originate is the larger question. Lao Tzu offers this (italics are mine):

Humanity grows more and more intelligent, yet there is clearly more trouble and less happiness daily. How can this be so? It is because intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. When a society misuses partial intelligence and ignores holistic wisdom, its people forget the benefits of a plain and natural life. Seduced by their desires, emotions, and egos, they become slaves to bodily demands, to luxuries, to power and unbalanced religion and psychological excuses. Then the reign of calamity and confusion begins. Nonetheless, superior people can awaken during times of turmoil to lead others out of the mire. But how can the one liberate the many? By first liberating his own being. He does this not by elevating himself, but by lowering himself. He lowers himself to that which is simple, modest, true; integrating it into himself, he becomes a master of simplicity, modesty, truth. Completely emancipated from his former false life, he discovers his original pure nature, which is the pure nature of the universe. Freely and spontaneously releasing his divine energy, he constantly transcends complicated situations and draws everything around him back into an integral oneness. Because he is a living divinity, when he acts, the universe acts.

Action is invaluable to change. There is no change without action. At the same time, action by itself is without a living spirit. It falls short and can even reverse progress. The wellspring of ideas behind our actions must also be considered clearly. Action has wise ideas or ignorant ideas behind it. We have to find ways to increase the percentage of the former.

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Sue O’Kieffe is one of these wonderful souls. We’ve stayed in touch consistently online since meeting a year ago, and it’s my great pleasure to introduce her visionary mandala art to you in this interview. When I first saw Sue’s work, I was immediately struck by its beauty. Every piece spoke to me and transported me to a magical world. You’ll get a chance to see for yourself in a sample slideshow below, but make sure you visit her blog and delve into these images. You can find her at Sacred Circle Mandalas.

Sue’s mandala’s are nature-based. She creates her layered artwork from photographs she mostly takes herself. She then listens for the plant’s spiritual story. The end result is richly textured work that draws you into its fine detail and keeps you engaged with a variety of interlocking images that have depth and resonance.

Spiritualizing the causal layer of existence is the most significant world healing work of our time. I wrote briefly about this after the quake in Haiti, and will revisit the subject. And mandalas do just that: Transform at the causal level.

Without further ado, here is my interview with Sue O’Kieffe:

There are many ways to create mandalas. What draws you to Nature as the basis of your mandala art?

I have created hand drawn mandala art, as well as mandala collages, but creating from nature speaks most directly to my spirit. Nature has always been my primal mother. I receive nurture and sustenance from her and have since I was a child. I love the detail of nature, and how much love I feel when I interact with her. My intention with my nature inspired mandalas is to show that love, so that others will feel that love and know how much love is always available to them.

Is Nature a big part of your spirituality?

Yes, of course.

What do you think is the cost of humanity’s departure from Nature and how can we re-engage her?

Nature gives so much and a big portion of humanity just wants to use her. When we figure out that everything is connected, that we do NOT have dominion over the earth, that God speaks to us through nature and is in nature, and that God is part of us, then maybe we will stop destroying a part of ourselves when we destroy the world around us.

What is the relationship between art and spirituality? Is art for art’s sake enough, or do these times demand art with purpose?

Well, I know I could not create art just art’s sake. It’s unfathomable to me. Whether or not people have a spiritual base or acknowledge it in their art making is their path and their choice. I think people are attracted to spiritually based art because their souls cry out for it. We need to be surrounded by visions of something greater than ourselves.

If you’re reading this in email, you may need to click back to the original post to see the slideshow.

Do you personally work with your mandalas after they are completed, or is any spiritual/healing/creative benefit only part of the art-making process?

I benefit on so many levels from art-making; it is a birthing process and an act of healing. Up until this point, I have pretty much created mandalas for those who are attracted to the energy and love that they offer, but I have not personally spent much time working with them after they are done. Recently I completed a mandala that is a representation of my True Self. The story around this mandala is a whole other interview! My intention is to work with my True Self Mandala as soon as it is framed sometime this month, to see what it has to share with me.

I know how much creating mandala art has opened me up to something greater. It is not like I say to myself “I create mandalas so that my consciousness will be expanded.” I create mandala art because it is my calling. A few years ago I realized that I was part of a larger tribe of mandala makers; we are all here to spread light and love and healing. It is such a honor to be part of this greater whole.

What effect do your mandalas have on other people? What feedback have you received?

The consistent feedback that I receive about my mandalas is how good they feel looking at them. They feel love and connection. They are in awe. They feel uplifted and inspired. I have received comments such as “When I’m feeling discouraged, I go look at your mandalas on your blog,” or “I purchased this mandala because it spoke to my connection with my father,” or “I’m recovering for by-pass surgery and I want this mandala near me to remind me to take care of my heart.” I also hear a lot of “wows.”

Do you have any final words about the times we’re living in?

When you get stuck, take a deep breath. Then another. Dance, drum, find something to raise your energy levels. Forgive. Love yourself. Love one another. Express gratitude. Feel joy. Expect magic. Find what brings you meaning. Live with purpose. Serve others. Be happy.

Thank you Sue!

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Friction creates heat.

Heat=Climate change. Here’s the latest in the state of affairs.

After my last post which was somewhat hopeful about climate change, the news has been less so, with a lot of equivocating. Not all is lost, yet, but certainly the big commitments that are needed from governments and businesses aren’t materializing.

The New York Times reported on Oct 20 that, “With the clock running out and deep differences unresolved, it now appears that there is little chance that international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December will produce a comprehensive and binding new treaty on global warming.”

There’s a sense of overwhelm because as usual we started too late in taking measures to mitigate climate change. Vested interests want to only do the minimum, which is how we got here in the first place. According to NPR, “President Barack Obama’s visit to China next month is not likely to yield a separate accord on countering global warming…”

There’s quite a bit of talk about investing in clean energy, its technology and potential for job creation and revenue. Where this talk leads is up in the air. Bloomberg reported recently that, “Billionaire George Soros, looking to address the “political problem” of climate change, said he will invest $1 billion in clean-energy technology and donate $100 million to an environmental advisory group to aid policymakers.”

Developed and developing nations are squabbling over who must pay for measures to mitigate this threat we’re all facing. The New York Times is posting such headlines as Biggest Obstacle to Global Climate Deal May Be How to Pay for It, and NPR reports EU can’t agree on how much climate aid to give.

Fortunately, this isn’t the only news in climate change. Blog Action Day which took place on Oct 15 generated 31,000 trackable blog posts in 155 countries. The Reiki Help Blog was one of 13,000 participating blogs, and news of the event even made CNN.

There’s also similar people-based action on climate change featured below. Why is this important?

Two reasons:

1) There has to be a groundswell of citizen voices, demands and actions, for leaders aren’t stepping up.

2) Behavior, psychology and the mindset can only be changed by massive commitments to mitigating this monster.

A disturbing story on NPR had this to say: “…a new poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press shows a big jump in the number of people who doubt the reality, the cause and the risks of global warming. Last year, for example, 71 percent of those polled believed the Earth was getting warmer, regardless of the cause. This year, 57 percent believe that – still a sizable majority but a 14 percent drop over the course of one year.”

This, despite a recent study linking climate change to worsening of diseases.

Adam Corner has an insightful reason why this is so. In an astute piece he writes, “But until now, a key piece has been missing from the puzzle – psychology. The study of human behaviour has been conspicuous by its absence from the climate change debate.”

Apparently even in the good old United Kingdom people “don’t feel personally threatened by climate change because it is vague, abstract and difficult to visualise.”

That’s why an organization I’m recently enamored of, 350.org, is one with which I strongly encourage you to become involved.

350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis–the solutions that science and justice demand. Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.

Our focus is on the number 350–as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number–it’s a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.

To tackle climate change we need to move quickly, and we need to act in unison—and 2009 will be an absolutely crucial year.  This December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to craft a new global treaty on cutting emissions. The problem is, the treaty currently on the table doesn’t meet the severity of the climate crisis—it doesn’t pass the 350 test.

In order to unite the public, media, and our political leaders behind the 350 goal, we’re harnessing the power of the internet to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009.  We hope to have actions at hundreds of iconic places around the world – from the Taj Mahal to the Great Barrier Reef to your community – and clear message to world leaders: the solutions to climate change must be equitable, they must be grounded in science, and they must meet the scale of the crisis.

If an international grassroots movement holds our leaders accountable to the latest climate science, we can start the global transformation we so desperately need.

Here’s a video of that Oct 24 global event The 350 Movement: October 24, 2009 – The Day the World Came Together (for email subscribers.)

COP15 starts on December 7, 2009. That’s my son’s birthday. He will be eleven.

He has always wanted to be a scientist. Climate change will have to have been long handled by the time he gets to be one, but I know his contributions will be great, wherever they are.

Lately he’s been into mystery novels and told a career person at school he wants to be a PI. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear! Maybe he can out climate-deniers’ real agenda or out dirty energy users (hopefully neither will exist by then).

COP stands for Conference of Parties, and it will be occurring for the 15th time. To put it into context, COP8 took place in Kyoto, Japan in 1992.

COP15 will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s in fact the United Nations Climate Change Conference to renegotiate Kyoto’s replacement, as it expires  in 2012 and has always been too lenient.

Back to my son for a minute. In 2050 he will be 52.

The group [Climate Action Initiative] took the upper-range targets of nearly 200 nations’ climate policies–including U.S. cuts that would reduce domestic emissions 73 percent from 2005 levels by 2050, along with the European Union’s pledge to reduce its emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 — and found that even under that optimistic scenario, the average global temperature is likely to warm by 6.3 degrees. (Washington Post.)

Recently I watched a 60 Minutes piece on the last great migration of large animals, the wildebeest. I don’t know that my son is going to be able to live in a world where he can witness such a natural phenomenon. My first feeling was to put us on plane to Africa to see it for ourselves.

Today, October 15, 2009 is Blog Action Day once again. The Reiki Help Blog is participating for the third year. Previous themes were Poverty and the Environment. This year the focus is Climate Change, a subject that’s very much part of the past content of this blog.

There has never been any really good arguments or evidence disproving global warming which is now already happening and heading toward critical levels.

When the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, the report it issued really silenced all other voices. Well, there are a few still. Leo Hickman of the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper recently reported about a TV ad paid for by an oil industry lobbyist telling Americans “more CO2 results in a greener earth.” Video of ad (for email subscribers).

This kind of unconscionable lobbying is part of the fray, as infuriating and puzzling as it may be. The fact of the matter is, “…recent scientific assessments have outstripped the predictions issued by the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007″ as reported in the Washington Post article linked above.

These figures can be seen on ClimateInteractive.org.

We have yet to appreciably mitigate climate change, but the bogeyman has morphed. What’s different is that it’s now topical in a highlighted, urgent manner, with focused international attention on it. If that will be enough is anyone’s guess. Is it too late to take action? Perhaps. One thing is for sure. We can’t not take action. That would be collective suicide, and we’ll have grossly failed in the substantial stewardship that has been bestowed on us as the most “evolved” species.

In September, secretary general Ban Ki-moon organized the UN climate summit meeting at which Obama spoke clearly and assertively “to make the United States a leader in the global arena on global warming” (New York Times). It’s well worth reading his entire presentation, even just to see how much has happened in the U.S. response to this challenge (finally). There’s movement, much more precise, frequent and targeted movement than before.

Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe. No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Rising sea levels threaten every coastline. More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent. More frequent drought and crop failures breed hunger and conflict in places where hunger and conflict already thrive. On shrinking islands, families are already being forced to flee their homes as climate refugees. The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, our safety – are in jeopardy. And the time we have to reverse this tide is running out. -President Obama, New York, Sept. 22, 2009

And with December’s COP15 summit in Copenhagen occurring around the same time and region as the Dec. 10 Nobel festivities in Oslo, environmentalists have even greater hope: “Now that we know President Obama will be in Scandinavia in December,” says the WWF’s U.S. climate-change director, “expectations are even higher that he will attend the Copenhagen climate summit in person to usher in a fair, ambitious and binding climate agreement.”

Following his speech, Obama also greenlighted the EPA’s “new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities” (New York Times).

September’s New York summit also gave “a strong boost to the negotiations over a major international treaty” (The Guardian). According to The Guardian’s online reporting:

Although the political leaders must devise and implement the right policies to guide national and global emissions trajectories, it is the private sector that will be the main engine in the transition to a low-carbon global economy.

In that respect it was very encouraging that 181 investors, collectively responsible for the management of more than $13 trillion in assets globally, launched a statement in New York last week to support a global agreement on climate change. The Leadership Forum for business leaders, which ran alongside the summit, also highlighted a tremendous variety of innovative ideas from within the private sector for the low-carbon transition.

Also in the private sector, Apple became “the latest company to resign from the United States Chamber of Commerce over climate policy” (New York Times), precisely because the chamber opposes EPA rules above. Encouragingly, three large utilities have also resigned from the chamber — Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources and Exelon.

And one of the most encouraging displays of political will has come from Norway, which “said it may reduce greenhouse- gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, the most ambitious target proposed by a developed nation” according to Bloomberg.

The pledge puts Norway ahead of the 27-nation European Union and Switzerland, which have said they’ll cut emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2020 if a new United Nations treaty to fight global warming is brokered in Copenhagen in December. -Bloomberg

Everything is looking toward Copenhagen in December, which is fraught with considerable challenges. To list all of them would require a scholarly work. Being informed is critical and vital, especially about climate change.

I strongly encourage you to spend concentrated time with the following resources:

1. Keep track of the COP15 treaty at 350.org.
2. Find out who’s representing your country at COP15 and what they think at AdoptANegotiator.org.
3. Petition your representative to support a climate treaty that will reduce carbon emissions at WeCanSolveIt.org.

On the same 60 Minutes broadcast that brought the story of the threatened migration of the wildebeest, another eye-opening story was exposed about coal ash. You probably have never heard of coal ash and may believe electricity is clean. Well, watch the segment.

I physically became depressed after watching those two segments. It was a whole-body sinking. I was depressed for my son, the Earth and humanity.

In matters of such scale we can no longer expect leaders of any stripe to do all the work or even do the right thing. Truth has been concealed, spun and ignored again and again.

We must be personally involved!

In the weeks leading up to December, climate change will be regularly featured on this blog and starting with this post I urge all of you to become engaged in this call to action here with your comments and ideas, in your own lives, and by becoming educated, clicking through to the many resources that will be linked.

If you are new here or haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe via email. You can also friend me on Twitter.

The following came to me around the same time as the message from Bear, previously published.

The Eagle am I soaring the heights. My friend the Mountain also sees what I see. We speak often when I come home after a day’s survey. My survey yields troubling results. I see an erosion of values and priorities. I see humanity dominating but not ruling fairly the family of Life. War and injustice have become the way of humanity, so far have you trodden from the Good Road. You wage war on Nature and your own kind. The being that Great Spirit created with a thumb and ability to reason, has failed its mission and is lost.

I also see that there are wisdom-bearers amongst you. You are a minority but don’t underestimate your influence. You are placed carefully in various spheres of society, bringing the teachings of a higher mind to the affairs of Earth. There are still places where when you look up to the sky it is clear blue and clean. There is, however, a murky layer of misdeeds and suffering that the human eye doesn’t see. It is a collective, unclean energy generated through ages of greed, anger, lust and misuse of power. The wisdom-bearers hold the ballast, the balance and the way out.

Come to my lofty height and take heart, for you are full of courage. This is a time of testing and initiation. The wisdom you hold is to be claimed and your full power returned to you. This is the task of bringing honor back to Life and all its expressions. Those of you who remember honor and share it with yourself and others, it is your time to rise. This you do out of Love.

And The Waters had this to say:

I am the spirit of the Waters of the Earth. Come to me for clarity and for depth. When you are mired in confusion and can’t get below the surface, reach any of my shores. Whether you can get to a lake, ocean, creek or simple canal, visit with me. Gaze at my surface and calm your mind. Watch my sister the Wind dancing across and let me take the troubles out of your heart. I cleanse and renew. I recharge and reestablish flow.

Recently I reviewed an excellent book on Shintoism on this blog. This is a nature-derived teaching and practice. There’s also quite a bit of environmental and ecological content here.

For the first time I also shared a channeled message two postings ago: The Error of Ways for all of humanity.

There it explains that I’ve been a conscious channel for fifteen years. One way that messages come to me is through interspecies communication. A substantial example of this can be found in The Sainthood of Sequoias.

Spread out over several posts, I’ll be sharing messages I’ve received from the Natural world that started coming in around 2002.

THE BEAR

“I am Bear and I hibernate for long periods of time. You call this meditation. I also love honey. You call this bliss or joy. Many have lost the capacity for joy. There are a great many reasons for killjoy. There are a great many reasons for misery and heartache. I used to have stomping grounds without limit, as did my brethren. My numbers thrived and all was good. But I see that humans hurt more. My medicine is introspection in the cave of my being and this you have forgotten. This you must practice in community again. In every community, every day. Gather those who are rushing, destroying, hoarding, blaming, hating and not listening. Gather them in a group embrace of introspection, a timeout to revision what your society could be.

“Humanity is disconnected. Your thinking is askew. Fear is rampant and decisions create hurt, not laughter or prosperity. Decisions at all levels, communally and globally are decisions based on hoarding wrong power to alleviate fear and gratify shallow goals. Bring those who misstep to the energy or mindfield of nourishment from the real Source. Help the disconnected ones hear the wisdom of their inner being.

“There was once a man who sold his wares. He was a decent man and lived simply. Someone took his business away from him by manufacturing more of what he made by hand and selling it for a lower price. He couldn’t eat. Neither could his family. He felt ashamed and angry. They took his land too and his home. This happened to all his neighbors and they rebelled, naturally. His neighbors went underground and waged battle. But this man went to nature and sought solace there. In the cave of his being he saw another way.

“When he came out of hiding, he waged battle too, but with reform and justice, not weapons and bloodshed. He’d discovered the power to change minds and hearts, first in himself through introspection, then in others, even his onetime enemy. In the end everybody won and his neighbors honored him as did his foe.

“Bring your people under one roof and help them collect themselves. Help them pick up the debris of their being and piece it together again. You will find that this is possible and brings peace.”

I spontaneously started channeling fifteen years ago when I first began meditating. It was Kuan Yin who visited, to my great honor. I had a friend living in China at the time who mailed me a white porcelain statue of Kuan Yin after hearing my loving praise of her. This statue is 18 inches tall and fairly substantial. It arrived unannounced one day in my mailbox, together with a giant batik of Kuan Yin. These items still decorate my home.

My friend didn’t tell me she was sending it. The statue was unscathed in its journey from China, and it wasn’t even wrapped that well. That’s what Goddesses do. They show up in your mailbox in all their splendor.

I’m a conscious channel, meaning I hear, know and experience all that is being transmitted at the time, and remember it once it’s finished. I’ve channeled several well known beings, and some that were personally significant to me. For some years now, I haven’t formally channeled.

Before I stopped, it was communicated to me that I’m an integral part of the message, shaping, interpreting, vocalizing and embodying the transmission. And later messages were all from Spirit, not a particular being, as is the one I share here.

I haven’t taken this blog into this arena until now. Since March of this year, I’ve been sharing monthly Reiju / Community Healing / Life Alignment. There are two hundred names on the sign up sheet. Click here to find out more.

The following came through during September’s Reiju which was conducted on 9/9/009. You can search online about the significance of this date. I hope it moves, informs and helps you.

The Error of Ways

There’s greatness in you. A greatness that comes from being here in this time of shifting. The shift is felt in lots of ways, and is often disguised under turbulence. Don’t be fooled by this. This is only the surface effect. What lies underneath is harmony.

A shift in the error of ways is bound to throw up a dust storm, a debris cloud. This error of ways is longstanding, entrenched and deep in the subconscious of humanity.

But deeper still in human memory and DNA lies truth. The truth of egalitarian ways, ways that honor life and others and fellow beings. The tree is your fellow being, the person to your left or right is of the same origin.

The error of ways is a deluded departure from the heart to the brain, from spirit into matter, from unity to strangers. It is the way of ego, of smallness.

This now is a time of Heart. Those with the biggest and strongest Hearts will usher in the shift. Those same don’t fear the turbulence, recognize it as an effect only. This is the greatness you have inside. You don’t buy the temporary. Your greatness comes from an ancient memory of harmony.

You were born for this. It doesn’t matter what your life looks like, your bank account, your health, your relationships. What matters is you’re here and have chosen a peaceful way, a way that recognizes it’s bigger than you. You are not your symptoms, but the light that shines in spite of them.

You are great. This now is the end of greed, of duplicity. This now is the coming forth of supernatural generosity and gifting. The Earth is bestowed with a garland of generosity. You are here to decorate every living thing with it. To give life new fragrance. To dress life with the colors of sublime love, the chromatic splendor of true light.

The shift wouldn’t be a shift if it was business as usual. It’s precisely because there’s chaos and uncertainty that you know there’s change. When a wrecking ball takes down an old building, it’s not pretty. The error of ways has gone so far that only a great crashing, a tumbling of huge magnitude will make an impression, and way for the enlightened.

The enlightened prefers to whisper, gently suggest and let free will and choice pick it up from there. This is the norm and it still operates. When you meditate or heal, the enlightened is in subdued mode, waiting for the guidance to take hold in you.

Many of you have also known that even on an individual basis, the enlightened will pick up a jackhammer to let you know something’s got to give. There’s a major mess in your life, then with your action and cooperation, order returns.

So much so when the error of ways is global and doesn’t only threaten society but the very planet on which societies exist: The inescapable necessity of the shift has to be communicated in stark terms for it to take hold, for society to stop the madness.

Stop the madness of plundering natural resources, abdicating human and animal rights, amassing obscene fortunes, pushing the planet to the brink, allowing hunger and poverty, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, turning your health over to pharmaceuticals, war mongering, genocide, personal and cultural aggrandizement. Stop.

You are great because to a large degree you have stopped. You. There are much bigger forces at play and at times it seems your stopping the error of ways is having little to no impact. Stop this thought too.

You are forerunners. Wayshowers. The ballast. If it weren’t for you, it may already have been too late for this planet. Your power may be unnoticed in the halls of earthly power, but it’s recorded in eternity. And this is eternity delivering a wallop to the power holders and brokers.

If you weren’t a transition-maker, you wouldn’t be here, be in the exact circumstances you’re in. Don’t undervalue your place, don’t get caught up in the symptoms of your life. You’re doing your own work too, and some of it is messy. But greater than any of it is the work of ages being done by you and through you.

The only school for this work is lifetimes. The only degree is evolutionary motive. This is not your first commencement!

–Spirit through Pamir Kiciman 9/9/2009

Today we have ‘gurus’ and ‘pandits’ in every field, especially technology. Karma is mentioned on a popular bumper sticker, and used loosely in everyday conversation. It’s a complicated and complex subject.

I’ve found the following from one of the most respected Buddhist teachers dispensing dharma (look it up!) today, Pema Chödrön, to be very helpful. It avoids some of the more esoteric aspects of this involved teaching and presents a practical approach.

Please let me know how it has put things into perspective for you in comments below. (The bold sections are my highlighting.)

When something happens to us that we find really painful—an insult, a physical ailment, the loss of someone we love dearly—the Buddhist teachings train us to understand that we have just been given an opportunity to repay a karmic debt…The karmic understanding need not be religious nor an occasion for guilt. In fact, it can allow us to act without being guilt-ridden. Anything I cause someone else to feel, either pleasant or unpleasant, resulting from my words, actions, and activities, I myself will feel sooner or later. What goes around comes around. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it comes back in the same form, but somehow anything I’ve caused someone else to feel, I will feel at some point in the future. This system applies to good feelings as well, but my focus here is on the karmic repercussions that cause us to settle the score.

Therefore, when something unpleasant happens to me, I know it is a debt coming back. I have no idea what I did, so it’s not something I have to feel guilty about…I have no need to go into the history of how I got here. I just say, “I am feeling this.” At this point, I have a chance for the buck to stop here. This stimulus does not need to be the cause of evening the score in the usual pain-causing way.

Instead, at this point you can apply a meditation method that would circumvent the habitual score settling. Whatever practice you use, the point is to stay with the underlying uneasiness and lean into it. Connect with the natural openness of your mind. You can feel at this point that “this debt has just been paid.” At that point, there isn’t going to be any further debt to somebody else or to yourself, no further repercussions from this exchange except further awakening, further connecting with the natural openness and intelligence of mind, further connecting with warmth and loving-kindness toward yourself, further connecting with compassion and love for other beings. Those are the kind of results that our uncomfortable situations could give birth to…

Many people have stories like this. They put someone through something and then they experience it themselves, and somehow they know that they are paying back a debt. It has nothing whatsoever to do with punishment. It’s more like a law of physics. There’s no one punishing you. There is no master planner making sure you get it. There is no vengeance. It is just a principle that you sooner or later start to feel in your bones.

This approach to settling the score is that whenever something bad comes your way, it is always an opportunity for further healing. When things happen to you that you don’t like, you can either open the wound further or you can heal the wound. Instead of getting strongly hooked into thoughts like “I don’t like,” “I don’t want,” “It isn’t fair,” “How could they do this to me?,” “I don’t deserve this, or “They should know better,” it’s possible that you could train yourself so that the natural intelligence becomes stronger than your reactivity.

For most of us most of the time, our emotional reactivity obscures our natural intelligence. But if we become motivated to start contemplating the approach of seeing pain and discomfort as opportunities for healing—for becoming “one-with” and bringing people closer rather than splitting—our intelligence actually will get stronger than our emotional reactivity. If we take those opportunities for healing, the momentum of the intelligence will gradually start to outweigh the momentum of the reactivity…We’re not talking getting rid of the experience of getting hooked. We’re talking about when you get hooked, what do you do next? There’s a choice. The Buddha teaches us that we are always at a crossroads, moment by moment. We have the intelligence to make a choice, so let’s educate ourselves about what the implications of our choices are…We could choose to open the wound further, creating more suffering for ourselves and others, or we can choose to heal the wound.

The question we usually ask ourselves at this crossroads is, What will soothe me in this moment? The habitual response is that what will soothe me is to get what I want, to have my needs met, to get even, to straighten this all out so I come out with what I need. But we have seen what this choice leads to. We need to cultivate that other choice.

The choice I have been talking about doesn’t preclude resolving conflicts where parties have been in the wrong…Unfortunately when we see all this suffering we want fast results. Once again we might act on impulse and out of emotional reactivity, but if we look at the many examples of people trying to heal and settle the score in the intelligent way, we see that it takes time. The results are slow in coming, but from the larger perspective of natural intelligence and openness and warmth, the process is as important as the result. You are creating the future of the planet by how you work with injustice. You may not see it before your eyes immediately, but you are repaying a karmic debt…All you need to know is that the future is wide open and you are about to create it by what you do…

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Welcome to the 177th Carnival of Healing. This is the first time I’m hosting it and have enjoyed collecting the multimedia content presented.

To make the Carnival really fun and valuable, go ahead and visit each of the links, comment on those blogs to join the conversation, and also comment here.

One aspect of blogs that’s missed often is that real value is found in the comments that are sparked by the post itself.

Some of the content is actually in this post, while most of it links out to other blogs.

Make sure you spend time a little further down in this post with David’s The Blessed Discontent and Melanie’s healing energy charged art.

Your comments here would be appreciated in general, but you can also let me know what kind of content you most need, enjoy and would like to see more.

And in true carnival spirit, put on music you like best, make your favorite drink, settle and dive in.

Another way you can deepen this experience is to go back to the content you resonated with most and put it into practice, meditate on it and journal about it.

My collecting, reviewing and presenting of the material here was a considerable amount of work, so I hope it’s rewarding to you and I’d greatly appreciate your feedback.

Thanks also to all who submitted content.

Health tips

Maria Mora gives us detailed information about the many properties of the Helichrysum Species, which range from being antifungal, wound healing, good for muscle spasms and irritable bowel syndrome, to being used for colds, inflammation and allergies.

Edward Sanderson brings us ways to Wave goodbye to frozen shoulder which in Chinese Medicine is called 50 year shoulder because people tend to get it at middle age. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had shoulder pain since my twenties which healed greatly when I started meditating. Ed lists good solutions and links to some others as well.

Brad presents Cold Showers – Whew! including some studies that have been done regarding its benefits.

Julian Pollock presents Why Practise Qigong – for Health, Wellness, and Inner Balance in a simple, accessible piece.

Ross presents Health Benefits of Liquid Chlorophyll, a thorough look with a lot of support.

Healing / Transformation

And now on to some musical musings…musical and transformational. ggw_bach, yes that’s the name, is Bach in sunglasses! He composes classical music for today. You can listen to each piece at the end of posts, like the one he submitted for the Carnival: Step 19 – Regenerating the Core. After you appreciate it, go ahead and browse all the steps.

Here’s a quiet piece that packs a powerful message by Tim Rowe: On Healing. Tim’s post is full of golden nuggets about healing, the path and our place therein. Healers emerge from wounds; their own. He offers much including the basics of A Course in Miracles, synchronicity and projection.

Gina Loree’ Marks has “a strong belief in ‘messengers’.” There’s a quality of self-reflection in her posts that we could all adopt. In Discomfort Creates Awareness, she uses her interaction with a client to create clearer self-awareness and ask probing questions about how we hide from insights discomfort can provide.

Donald presents 10 Essential Tips to Change Your Life, a straightforward look at some cornerstones of change.

Lisis Blackston presents Finding Fulfillment. It’s a unique look at turning Maslow’s pyramid on its head.

Communication / Listening

Those of you who’ve studied Reiki with me, will be familiar with the next entry. Davina’s excellent post uses the simple quality of curiosity to lead to a richer experience and how it can become intuition. How Curious Moments Add Value breaks down ‘active,’ deep listening into three steps and what happens beyond…

Seth Simonds brings us More Than Listening: Being Present. In it he talks about the quality of being present that’s so lacking in many of our interactions: Truly caring about answers to questions you ask, feeling the subtext, and empathy.

Nonviolence

The Laughing Yogini, yes that’s how she is known, brings us Yoga Ethics #1: Ahimsa. This word literally means: a ‘non’ + himsa ‘injury.’ This precept isn’t only for the student of yoga, but for all of us. It’s quite the thorny one to practice and live, and Laughing Yogini provides much food for thought.

Miruh Sanderson comes to nonviolence from a different angle in Peaceful Thoughts. As I said, nonviolence is a thorny subject. I had blogged my thoughts about it back in Nov 08 in this post.

Healing Energy charged art

Moving Through Blocks

Melanie A. Stinson has a gift! “In Moving Through Blocks, the intention was to help individuals move through feeling “stuck” or blocked creatively and in any way in which the word applies.”

“The way to use the images is simply to gaze at them and breathe deep and slow as though you are breathing in liquid color and desire to “taste” the image with every fiber of your being. The colors and shapes invite the viewer to participate with the image, and, as in color therapy, the colors also serve to heal, transform, empower, bless, inspire and bring joy.”

Vortex of Creativity

“Vortex of Creativity, inspired by the Harry Potter books, holds an intention for creativity that I hoped would be as powerful as JK Rowlings’ books have been for readers all over the world.”

And last but not least by any means, please take time to read David Wodtke’s piece below. David is a soul brother of mine, who I’ve met only on webcam, over the phone and via email. That’s the beauty of souls and technology!

He’s also known as Pine Tree and publishes an excellent ezine of archetypal messages from animal spirits, to which you can subscribe at Earth Service.

The Blessed Discontent

by David Wodtke

“Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.”
–Tennessee Williams

Part of me feels very sorry. Sorry for myself and sorry for all of the sad people for being born into this miserable life of pain and disappointment. Failure and regret can eat away at your core until you collapse in a heap from exhaustion. But lately I’ve begun to feel oddly thankful for my discontent and to view it as one of life’s greatest blessings. It has been my teacher when I rejected all other guidance. Lately I’ve become grateful for my suffering which leads me in the direction I need to go. I’ve begun to feel a new source of strength and peace.

Of course, I want to be happy as much as you do. I’ve tried many ways to become happier and more peaceful. But all of the temporary pleasures of the world lead sooner or later to disappointment. This is most obvious with drugs and alcohol which seem to dull the pain for a time, but meanwhile weaken the body and will. That counterfeit peace soon causes even greater anxiety mixed with guilt. Other more benign pleasures can leave us feeling empty as well. Seeking happiness in romance, work, or even family can be disheartening. The lover leaves or dies. Work and family life go flat without a sense of inner peace and purpose. Everything in the world betrays us in the end. So what is behind this illusion? Where is the satisfaction that we all seek?

Do you remember a time beyond time when you lost all thoughts to the wonder and beauty around you? As a child I remember many times of great joy with no thought for the past or future. Music and writing take me close to that feeling of nowness. In fact, any time the mind is fully concentrated on one thing all worries vanish and a secret joy bubbles out from the core of being. Each moment is vibrating with sacred promise which can be felt in calmness. It’s only when the mind is scattered with thoughts of something more that worry and restlessness creep in. Where are the bursting joys and dire disappointments of yesterday? And where is tomorrow’s hope and fear of the unknown? All is happening now, the rest is imagined. I take comfort in the fact that the source of eternal love is always with me. I just need to relax and look inside myself to feel the blessing.

Meditation is a source of great peace and joy when the mind is calm. Creation and communion with the inner creator add satisfaction to everyday life by unlocking the heart’s natural love. When you least expect it, the gift comes, slipping in the back door on stocking feet. So when I feel sad or anxious lately I think to myself that it is a blessed discontent calling my mind back to the source of all happiness. Let that fear, worry, sorrow, or even mild apprehension be the trumpet call announcing the presence of the creator, locked in a dream tower of doubt and distraction. The worst mistakes and failures of the past are your greatest blessings. Give thanks for them and the prince charming of inner peace will come with the ladder of forgiveness to release you. Trials are not meant to destroy us, but to awaken us to the inner source of strength and beauty.

Carnival of Healing home
Previous carnival edition
Next week’s carnival host’s blog

The upcoming schedule is:

• #174 – Jan 31 2009: hosted by Nina Dixon, On the Path
• #175 – Feb 07 2009: hosted by Joe Lasiter, Massage 101
• #176 – Feb 14 2009: hosted by Clara Myers, Mind Mart
• #177 – Feb 21 2009: hosted by Pamir Kiciman, Reiki Help Blog
• #178 – Feb 28 2009: hosted by Margarat Nee, La Vida Fresca
• #179 – Mar 07 2009: hosted by Cari Campbell, Your Joyous Life

To participate and be featured, go through some of your best writing that is about:

• healing
• personal growth & empowerment
• meditation
• wellness
• spirituality
• peace
• holistic health

And then use this handy form to submit your particulars. All submissions will be reviewed and considered.

You may also submit audiovisual media such as videos, photos, art, guided meditations and the like.

Submission deadline is February 7, 2009.