Saturday, March 31, 2007

I’ve been reading a book by a Cherokee woman that’s quite different from the other Native American books I’ve read. It was written in the 1980’s and has a kind of a New Age flavor to it, which is kind of disconcerting and kind of good at the same time. A lot of what she’s saying connects with what I’ve been experiencing lately, especially about the land and energy.

Last night I kept dreaming on and on about how the position of my body during sleep affects the quality and nature of the dreams I have. This is something I’ve recognized for years, even back when I was a teenager. But I kept dreaming it. There was far more to it than I’m remembering now. I vaguely recall being delighted that these teachers were teaching me this now (what teachers?) and there was some instruction on the chanting of sacred vowels, something I’ve been practicing since reading another Native American book, Touch the Earth, in February. Mostly I chant “O”. That’s the most powerful for me, especially I think because of my mystical experience with it when Di was in labor. Powerful stuff, these sound vibrations!

I first encountered the concept of sacred sound back in 1991, while reading some arcane little book whose title eludes me. It felt so intuitively right, everything the author said about sound, and I knew he was on to something important. When I chant “O” it’s such a pure sound, that even in my deepest voice there’s also a higher tone present, like the sound of someone running their fingers over the edge of a wine glass. Often the human in me is lost. It all becomes pure vibration.

I don’t know what the teachers were teaching me in my dream. I wish I could remember. Lately I’ve had very vague recollections of receiving many teachings during the night, but I can never remember them by day. I guess it doesn’t matter. My dreaming self is likely the most receptive part of me anyway, so I suppose the teachings are being assimilated.
 
I’ve been feeling for years that I’m not meant to have any human teachers in this lifetime, yet I still have teachers. Isn’t that incredible! Clearly were not alone here. Clearly there is a whole universe filled with sentience.

I just had another vague recollection from another recent night of dreaming. Something about or related to that quantum physics reality of two particles staying in sync with each other even on other sides of the universe. There is no separation, I understand that, but there’s more here I can’t put my finger on.

Generally in my life I’ve been feeling a greater sense of oneness lately. There seems to be little separation between the cats, these wonderful marvels, and me. We’re emanations of energy from the same field or ground. We don’t really start or end as individuals because where we merge with the ground there is no separation.

And back to the sleep-position issue. If subtle changes in our position while we sleep have profound effects on us, then location is far more powerful than I ever imagined. Imagine what is happening in our waking day, when we’re not just turning from our left side to our right, or moving an inch or two here and there. We’re moving profound distances, feet and yards and even miles. And re-orienting our bodies, north, south, east, and west countless times.

And when I get in my car and drive all the way up to Boulder County, and two days later drive back, maybe that’s so disorienting to me because it requires too massive and quick a response to changing energies. There’s probably a possibility of deep teachings here, I’m sure. Hard as this back-and-forth lifestyle has been on me, maybe it’s teaching me about energy. I’m learning to feel the subtle differences from place to place. I think I need to make a practice of grounding myself in the energy of each new place as I arrive. It’s so disorienting as it is. I need to make sure I’m connecting.

Our human potential is astounding. The person we can become in response to the energy of just one spot is vastly different than the person we can become just two inches over. I’m sure of that. Place holds potential.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

There’s something elusive hiding out on the fringes of my awareness. Not the big insight I’m waiting for, something smaller, but maybe related.

Something about this experience with simplicity. It’s changing me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. Or, if I can describe it, it would sound so clichéd, because these metaphors have been so overused. Yes, there is a new clarity that simplicity is bringing to my life. But can I describe what I mean by clarity? It goes beyond, way beyond, clear thinking. It’s not a product of the rational brain; rather it’s a spiritual form of sight. It’s a different lens placed over reality, revealing a richness that’s impossible to see in a hectic life. And it’s not that hectic people are just too busy to see with this clarity. It’s not that they could see this way if they took a few weeks off and did nothing. It’s a total paradigm shift that I don’t think is possible without a radical, permanent acceptance of simplicity.

What did anything in that last paragraph just mean? Why does language fail around the most important things? What is it that modern life cuts you off from? What is it that is gained by slowing down and simplifying? Maybe it will be easier to express once I’ve been here longer. I don’t think I’ve fully made the change yet.

There’s some kind of ease I seem to be developing in shifting awareness. To what--how do I describe that? Expanding my awareness, just another overused phrase! Yes, expanding my awareness with just the subtlest little shift. How do I do that and why am I only able to do it now? I couldn’t possibly know how to explain any of it, yet it’s the simplest little thing. I think of all I’ve done is reconnected with the earth and with the sacred. To use yet more clichés, I’ve connected with my sense of kinship with all things. Is there any point in me trying to describe this? The words that are coming out bare no resemblance to what I’m trying to say. Yet it’s so darned simple! I’ve expanded my awareness. OK, we’ll have to leave it at that for now.

I was sitting in a parking lot one day recently when I was in Boulder County. It was around lunchtime and there was traffic zip-zip-zipping by incessantly. I wondered what our ancestors would think if they were with me in the car. All of this frantic rushing about. They would have to think people are going to something very important. Maybe the funeral of a highly revered member of the community. Or an important speech on something vital to the well being of the people. But no, all the rushing about was just to grab a burger or a taco. All of this madness and this ridiculous waste of fossil fuels just to deal with a mid-day meal. And most people alone in their cars, no connection with others, except the transaction at the drive-through window. Meal time reduced from an act of communion to this crazy detached madness!

And I’m always taken aback every time I go up there with the franticness of everyone in their cars. Why are they in such a hurry? Clearly it would be difficult to stay present when you are constantly rushing to the next point. Where is your mind? Not there in the car. Not there in the moment, I’ll tell you that.

That’s why I love the fact that people out here wave to one another when they’re driving. You have to stay present in order to be able to look at and acknowledge the other drivers. You can’t be lost in your own world or mentally rushing ahead to your next destination. Enough sense of community still exists here that we acknowledge each other, genuinely. We see individuals and families passing by us on the roads, not lifeless hunks of metal and rubber.

Friday, March 23, 2007

I’m getting the urge to maybe start writing. I don’t know exactly what, but something having to do with simplicity and my spiritual ideas. I don’t know who I would write for, am I thinking magazine articles, a book, or just more entries in my blog, which no one reads? Or newspaper articles, or other people’s websites? It’s not clear yet, so I’ll just wait and let the urge deepen if it wants to, until it can tell me what I'm meant to do.

I continue to inhabit twin realities these days. They run side by side crisscrossing and intermingling. I’m starting to think I’m haunted, or crazy, or both. Last Saturday it got so intense for a while that I truly began to question my sanity. I kept seeing things that aren’t there. Native American things. Even the letters on the pages of the books I read morph into Native American imagery. Images get layered over even the words in this book.
 
I know how crazy this sounds. Yet, I’m fairly certain I’m not crazy. And in the past week or so, in some of the books I’ve been reading, there have been statements that kind of lead me to believe that I actually might be haunted. Not in a spooky, scary, negative way. Just in a persistent way, to get my attention. By the spirits of Native Americans who died because of the white invasion. I think they think there’s something I can do to raise consciousness among us white folks. I think that’s where this urge to write is coming from.

In one of the books, and I’ll quote it when I find it, the author spoke about how Chief Seattle said hosts of Native American spirits would haunt the streets of the future city (Seattle I guess) trying to trigger maybe a remembrance and a return to balance. And then in another part of the same book, I think (I’ve been reading too many books lately) the author spoke about a prison guard who had witnessed a pipe ceremony. There were two guards, one who did and one who didn’t look at the pipe once it was assembled. Since the pipe is one of their holiest objects, it’s inappropriate for non-natives to look at it. The author spoke of his wish that the man who looked would be haunted from that moment on, not in a malicious way, but just that he would be gripped by a need to learn more, to see the reality of the native experience.

So, somehow I think I’ve got myself haunted. And that’s OK, as long as it doesn’t overwhelm me and send me into true madness. For now, I guess I’ll just wait and see how this develops and what it leads me to do.


Writing would be a good vocation for me. I’m just not very confident in my skills as a writer. Or in the self discipline that would be required. But I do think I have things to say that are worth sharing. So maybe…who knows?

Friday, March 9, 2007

Wish I knew what to write about tonight. I’ve been dying to get a chance to write, not because I have something specific to say, but because I still feel so maddeningly close to a breakthrough of some sort in my thinking. I guess I’m just hoping that the act of writing might help me along somehow.
 
For the past few weeks I’ve kind of felt like I’ve been living in two separate worlds. I keep shifting back and forth. I can’t really explain it, and if I attempt to, I’ll probably just sound psychotic. It’s just these tiny shifts during my day to day activities. Little visionary moments where I see another layer of reality. Everything is subtly morphing and I’m sensing just a deeper, richer, infinitely more complex reality. There’s so much more here, right under our noses than I ever imagined! I wish I could give an example. I will when I catch hold of one well enough to describe it. It all largely has a Native American flavor to it, but as I said in my last entry I believe the Native American spirit is an embodiment of what it is to be human. So maybe what I’m reaching is a deeper more complete embodiment of my human-ness.

Who am I becoming, and what do I do with it? I feel like I need to be doing something, but what? Will the answer ever com?

Hm. I just had a thought. It’s not anything new but it feels maybe a bit more profound tonight because I’m coming to it now just a bit more evolved than I have been before. It’s about changing the world by changing myself. I’ve heard countless New Age people suggest that since the world’s problems are too overwhelming to take on as an individual, that our task is simply to work on our own spiritual development. By doing so we can help to harmonize the world. It has always seemed important to work on the self, but seemed a little absurd to think that my own spiritual evolution could have any significant effect on world issues.
 
But, I’m thinking tonight about what I’ve learned about energy. I think a task for me now is to experiment with energy. I need to learn to resonate with bigger and bigger energy, or higher and higher, really. Right now, I’m humming with the Native American energy held here within the essence of this land. But next, I need to get humming with the land itself, eventually feeling my way into the vibration not merely of Colorado or this region, but finding the frequency of the whole earth and humming with that. That would take deep hard work, but if I can, then I’d become Planet Earth and I assume from the wisdom of that place I may find global answers and be able to influence the global consciousness.
 
Maybe you think I’ve lost my marbles. I suppose this all sounds like some magnificent delusions of grandeur. But I made the vow when I was fifteen that this life be a quest for wisdom, and I know I am firmly on that path!

I need to work with energy, way more deeply than I have ever done.