This is one in a series of posts with brief notes on healing, awakening, and personal things. These are more spontaneous and less comprehensive than the regular articles. Some may be a little on the rant side. And some may be made into a regular article in time.
SPOCK: WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE NO LONGER EXISTS
What happened before no longer exists. What will happen next has not yet been written. We have only now. That is our greatest advantage. What we do now, here, in this moment has the power to determine the future.
– Spock in Star Trek: Discovery, S2:E11 Perpetual Infinity
This is undeniably true, even from a mainstream view. And, to the extent we take it in and allow it to inform our life, it’s profoundly liberating.
This is an example of how we know what’s real. Most of us know that the past and future doesn’t exist and that our ideas about it are our ideas. And yet, we often perceive and live as if the past and future exist. We mistake our ideas about the past and future as an actual past or future.
Not only does the past and future not exist outside of our ideas about it, these ideas are often biased and inaccurate. Taking this in and allowing it to inform us is one of the most healing things we can do. It can help us heal our past. It can help us be more flexible in how we approach the future. And it can help us see that our ideas about the present are also our ideas and not the present itself.
It’s also very good to see this in mainstream TV series and movies. It can serve as a reminder, plant a seed, or ignite curiosity about how our mind creates its own experience of the past, future, and even present.
Click READ MORE for more of these brief notes.
EPIC OF EVOLUTION & BIG MIND
In one of the spiritual groups (CSS) I have been part of, I mentioned how the epic of evolution relates to awakening and suggested it could be included – at least in the library but perhaps also in the explorations the group did. I assumed they would be receptive since they draw on all the main spiritual traditions and also science. But it turned out they were not interested since the epic of evolution didn’t have an “exit door” – meaning into awakening or Big Mind.
I understand what they meant but see it differently. To me, the epic of evolution brings us right up to Big Mind, and if an extra nudge or exit door is needed, why not include it?
Through the epic of evolution, we find how we are existence itself. All is one seamless whole and we – as this human self – are an expression of this whole. To me, that brings us right up to the doorstep of Big Mind if not into Big Mind itself.
[…]
DREAM: TRAVELLING
I am a kind of noble man traveling in a foreign land. I make friends with a group of people at an inn where we are all staying for a while. There are two groups of people, and it’s brewing up to conflict or even war. As I am traveling again, some from the other group want to make friends with me and play a game. They plan on robbing and perhaps killing me. I go along for a while since I know it will distract them from the brewing war and give my group more time to prepare. I gather several from my group as witnesses before I reveal that I know what they are trying to do, and because of the many witnesses (some are a group of noble men and women), they give me back my weapons. I pick up the lightest weapons and my two young weapon-bearers take the rest. I travel home which takes some weeks or months. Later, I return to visit the ones I made friends with. I visit a lady who has an interest in astronomy as I do. She has a beautiful house in a lush valley, and she has devised a way to use her instruments to look at the reflections of the stars and other heavenly objects in a long, still pool. She says it compensates for atmospheric distortion of the images.
This is set in another world. The technology is perhaps at the level of the 1700s or early 1800s. My group are more human like. The other group is a different species.
In the dream, everything is normal and familiar to me. It wasn’t until after waking up I realized how unusual the setting was. In the dream, I am self-assured and confident and able to turn the situation with the other group to my advantage without any violence. As far as I remember, the beginning of the dream may be more similar to the 1950s or 1960s in England, and then it gradually shifts to the other world although still – somehow – set in England. The weapons are at a medieval level and mostly swordlike. (One looks like a Klingon bathlet!) When I see them returned to me, I realize how many there are and I am glad I have two weapon bearers.
It’s one of those dreams where I was someone unfamiliar to me in my waking life and the setting was equally unfamiliar, although in the dream it as all normal and familiar.
I am not sure what this dream reflects in me. The simplest answer is that it reminds me of the near universal duality as it also is in myself – being identified with what’s desirable and noble and disidentified with the rest.
Also, it may be that the dream wanted me to experience myself as a self-assured and confident noble man and get in touch with that side of me, and the easiest way to do that fully was to present me as a different person in a different world. (I haven’t been in touch with these sides of me much in my waking life recently, mostly because of my health challenges.)
JULY 19, 2020
IDENTIFICATIONS, BELIEFS, EMOTIONAL ISSUES, TRAUMA ETC.
Identifications, beliefs, emotional issues, and trauma are all variations on the same theme. It all comes out of and creates or reinforces separation consciousness.
Identification means identifying with the viewpoint of a thought – a mental image or story. A belief means to hold a thought as true and this comes from and reinforces identification with that thought. Emotional issues come from stressful beliefs and identifications and from two or more of them clashing. In a sense, any emotional issue is a trauma, and conventional trauma is particularly strong emotional issues.
So when we talk about one of these, we are really – directly or indirectly – talking about all of them.
ESCAPE?
Some people in Vortex Healing seem eager to be done with the reincarnation cycle and earth life. I understand they want to escape suffering, but that’s not the way to do it.
Any “escape” comes through the relief from finding healing from our emotional issues and traumas. It also comes through finding what we are – capacity for the world as it appears to us, and any experience as what we are and happening within and as what we are.
It comes through befriending our experience as it is, get to know it, listen to what it has to say to us, find love for it. And it comes through being released from being caught in wanting to escape our experience.
It comes through realizing we cannot escape our experience as it is here and now. That trying to escape it only adds suffering to the discomfort. That what’s here is already allowed as it is – by mind, consciousness, life, existence. And that aligning more consciously with this allowing is what gives relief.
What we wish to escape is all expressions of the creativity of the mind and consciousness. It’s all already who and what we are. So what is there to escape? Also, if all is the divine, what is there really to escape?
What we wish to escape is our own suffering, and there are more practical and direct ways of finding relief from suffering than trying to escape the reincarnation cycle. Do we even know there is a reincarnation cycle? Do we really know it can be escaped? Do we really know how to escape it?
It seems much more practical to work on our own suffering here and now.
DIFFERENTIATING SOURCES OF INFORMATION AND WHAT WE KNOW
I have noticed that some in the Vortex Healing community seem to take what the founder says as truth and reality.
For me, it makes more sense to test out for myself what I can test out, and leave the rest aside as a maybe. Maybe what he says is accurate and maybe not. I don’t know, and I don’t really need to know. (I don’t doubt he is sincere, it’s just that some things – like what happens after we die – is beyond what any one of us can say anything about for certain.)
All I need to know is the pragmatic aspects of Vortex Healing, and I can test those out for myself. I can see the effects of the different VH tools on myself and others. And that’s enough.
JULY 20, 2020
A WAY TO AVOID SUFFERING THAT CREATES SUFFERING
We do many things to avoid suffering. We take care of our life in the world as best as we can and removing possible triggers of suffering. We may try to get rid of or avoid our suffering in different ways. And we can also welcome and get to know our suffering and see what’s really going on.
Avoiding our suffering can work for a while. It can be helpful since we may not have the capacity or skills to meet it in the moment.
And yet, it doesn’t really work. It’s still here. It still colors our perception and behavior. And it can also add suffering to the suffering. The way we try to deal with our suffering can create more suffering.
Here are some examples:
[…]
EXPLORING MY FASCINATIONS
I find it helpful to explore my fascinations and where my attention is drawn.
For instance, there was a recent news story about a young and successful Japanese actor who committed suicide, and I noticed something in me was drawn to know more about it.
Why this (slight) fascination? At one level, I can find a lot of empathy for him and myself and other humans and beings who struggle and suffer. But I could sense there was more to my interest.
I mentioned the story to my partner and that he outwardly seemed to have everything in place and yet must have suffered a lot. She said “are you sure he had everything?”.
It helped me see that my mild fascination with this story is about myself. I have some left of an issue around having lost a lot in my life and not having the outward life that I thought I would have. (I did for a while but not for the last few years.)
In a nutshell, something in me tells me that if my outward life was how I wanted and thought it would be, I would be safe, comfortable, content, and even happy. And yet, this young Japanese actor shows me that’s not the case. His story is, in a sense, medicine for my issue.
When I explore my fascinations, I find there is medicine for me in them. And by bringing it more into awareness, I can more fully take in that medicine.
MAGIC TRICKS AND AWAKENING
Since I am interested in magic tricks and awakening, it’s natural that I look at simularities between both.
[…]
JULY 25, 2020
POWER-OVER VS POWER-WITH IN MTYHS AND FAIRY TALES
We have lived in a power-over culture since the beginning of agriculture, so it’s natural that our mythology and fairy tales reflect a power-over orientation. They often deal with kings and slaying dragons and other monsters and subduing nature and a generally masculine and human-centered life. And some address and question this and show the inherent dangers in this orientation.
This is not a new insight and many have written stories and modern fairy tales – especially in science fiction and fantasy – that reflect more of a power-with orientation and balances the feminine and masculine more and is also less human-centered. I assume we’ll see a continued reworking of these themes in the years and decades ahead, and new myths and fairy tales that reflect more a power-with orientation.
One example of a modern story with a different take on a traditional theme is Michael Ende’s Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver. Here, the main characters – instead of slaying the dangerous dragon – capture it, contain its wrath, and it is transformed into a golden wisdom dragon. I loved this when I first read it and was happy to see a modern story where they deal with monsters in a more updated way. (Of course, going one step further would be to see the story from the perspective of the dragon and understand why it behaved as it did.)
JULY 25, 2020
MYTHS AND INNER WORK
Mythology and stories in general reflect how we relate to life and ourselves. And the ones we live with and learn from our culture also become a kind of template for how we relate to life and ourselves. Stories matter.
When it comes to how we relate to ourselves, much of it has traditionally come out of and reflected the general power-over orientation of our culture. So it’s no wonder there is a growing interest among many in exploring how to have more of a power-with relationship with ourselves and parts of ourselves.
SPARROW HAWK SYNCHRONICITY
I am listening to the first part of the Earthsea Trilogy (A Wizard of Earthsea) by Ursula Le Guin where the main character is called Sparrowhawk. When I just now was sitting outside of the cabin channeling for a group and enjoying the sunset, a sparrow hawk came flying in and landed on a branch right in front of me. It satt there for a couple of minutes, and then flew back in the direction it came from.
Yesterday, there was another small animal synchronicity. I read an short article about a lizard that plays a role in a TV series, and at that same moment a lizard ran up on the stone stairs in front of me.
JULY 27, 2020
SPARROWHAWK AND THE SHADOW
The first part of Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy (A Wizard of Earthsea) is about Sparrowhawk’s early years and maturation as a wizard. A big part of his journey is a variation of the hero’s journey where he is young and promising, his arrogance and pride becomes his temporary downfall, he is chased by and wrestles with his shadow (similar to the Jungian shadow), and then chases his shadow into unknown territory and eventually become one with his shadow and more whole.
This is similar to our own journey if we mature and if we work on our shadow – whether intentionally or through wrestling with ourselves and life challenges. Yes, pride and arrogance can be our downfall in smaller and bigger ways, in different areas of life, and it often happens more than once. And we can be chased by something in our shadow, then chase it, and then get to know it and find more of a wholeness, and that too happens more than once. Both are an ongoing process.
I should also say that the shadow can be a slightly misleading term. It makes it sound like one thing and it isn’t. It refers to any characteristic or dynamic in us that doesn’t fit our desired or familiar identity. When one comes up, it may seem scary and we may feel chased by it. And when we get to know it and include it more in our conscious identity, we find more wholeness.
LIFE SITUATIONS & NAIVE VS REALISTIC MINDSET
I have had some years where much has repeatedly collapsed in different areas of life – health, money, belongings, friendships, relationships and so on. And this is still, to some extent, happening.
There are many ways to naively interpret this. I won’t go into these too much, although they can include assuming that I want this to happen, that even what’s outside of my control – like pandemics, government processes etc. – is happening because of emotional issues, and so on. These views seem too literal and heavy handed to me and not very helpful.
And there are some ways to look at it that, to me, seem more realistic and helpful.
For instance, what issues does this bring up in me? What stressful beliefs? Identities? Emotional issues? Trauma? How can I invite in healing for these? How can I shift how I relate to these?
How can I relate to the triggering situations in a more helpful way?
How would love respond?
If there is an invitation in these situations, what would it be? Is there an invitation to heal, mature, awaken? To find and use new sides of myself?
Is there an invitation to stand up for myself? Be on my own side? Be a better steward of my own life?
For me, these type of questions are more helpful. They help me have a lighter touch and make use of the situations and what they bring up in me in a way that enriches my life.
VORTEX HEALING AND NOT TAKING THINGS LITERALLY
In Vortex Healing, the main teacher says a wide range of things spanning from what we – to some extent – can check for ourselves to what most of us not so easily can. I notice that many take what he says literally and at face value. For instance, that at a certain level of classes, we won’t anymore reincarnate.
For me, I stay with what I can check out for myself. I can invite certain energies to run for something and see what happens. I may seem to sense something and can check it with the person or another Vortex healer’s sensing. I can check what happens.
And I know that whatever stories I have about it are stories, they are interpretations. When I talk with others in Vortex Healing, I may chose to use the VH terminology just to ease communication. And yet, I know that these are stories. They are not reality or any final or absolute truth.
Similarly, when the teacher talks about things I cannot so easily check for myself, I put it in the “maybe” category. Maybe it’s like that, and maybe not. It doesn’t really matter.
NOTICE & ALLOW FIRST
When we are with someone who are in distress and has challenging emotions come up, we can relate to it in a few different ways.
One is to immediately analyze the triggering situation and what comes up, which is often not very helpful. It can just make things worse.
Another is to listen, be with the person, and invite the person to notice what’s coming up – and especially the sensations – and allow it all to be there as it is. As things calm down, we can then talk about it and the situation if that seems appropriate.
To me, the is often much more helpful.
The first is a head approach and one many are trained to use in our society. The second is more of a heart, body, and presence approach and something many of us need to learn and do intentionally before it becomes second nature.
OVER-EMPHASIZING THE LITTLE WE KNOW
It’s natural for us humans to want to over-emphasize the little we know and forget or overlook how little it is.
There are innumerable causes to anything that happens. What happens locally is an expression of the history of the universe and movements within the universe as a whole.
Sometimes, there is a(n apparently) relatively simple causality. Vaccines protect against certain infections. Stubbing my toe against a stone is painful. A simple equation gives us the acceleration of a falling object.
Life is also far more complex. Even if we think we know something about something, and there may be some data to support it, it’s a tiny part of the bigger picture. What we don’t know is an ocean to the drop we think we know.
Reminding ourselves about this can be good medicine in our personal life, in our view on the world, and also in our collective science and worldviews.
Over-emphasizing the little we know can take any number of forms. It can be someone obsessing about a particular nutritional supplement. Or a particular cause or tool for addressing an emotional issue. Assuming that an approach to anything – healing, awakening, religion – is what everybody needs. Assuming we understand or know ourselves or someone else. Assuming we understand why someone did or said what they did. Assuming our memory of something is correct. Thinking that our underlying assumptions about ourselves and the world are just how it is. Seeing our worldview as just how it is. And so on.
LYME, VORTEX HEALING, AND HERX
My lyme infection seems to often activate mid-summer, for whatever reason. It did again this summer, and it seems that a few shorter Vortex Healing sessions was enough to remove the active infection (and probably some or most of the dormant). A day or two after these sessions, I had the typical Herxheimer reaction. It’s interesting that it usually takes several days before I realize the Lyme has returned. And I also tend to forget the herx reaction which comes from the Lyme spirochetes dying off. It’s not a very comfortable experience – for me, it involves stronger fatigue and brain fog, numbness in arms and legs and sometimes the whole body, and mood swings – but it does help to know what’s going on, whether it’s active Lyme or herx.
RESPONSIBILITY AND EXPLANATIONS
We are always responsible for our own behavior and how we relate to what comes up in us.
At the same time, there are explanations. If we act from reactivity, it’s often because of beliefs, identifications, emotional issues, trauma and so on. And these have a history which goes back to our previous experiences, often our childhood family, our culture, and back through generations.
I was reminded of this over the last few days. My Lyme returned over the last two or three weeks, I and my partner worked on it last week with Vortex Healing, and the die-off of the Lyme spirochetes tends to amplify the usual Lyme symptoms (Herxheimer reaction). In my case, it brings up anger and despair, and my behavior and words were sometimes colored by these emotions (including being extra quiet in some situations since I didn’t want to speak from it).
I am 100% responsible for my own behavior. I can always learn to relate to what comes up in me in a better way. As Wayne Dyer says, when we are squeezed, what’s inside comes out.
And at the same time, it helps to have an explanation for it. After a while, I remembered that this has happened before during Lyme die-offs in my system. And this helps having some space around it and some more kindness and understanding for myself and what comes up in me.
JULY 29, 2020
DREAM: STOPPING A TERRORIST
I am in a public building and see a young angry man with an automatic gun wanting to kill as many as possible. I tackle him and the police comes and takes care of him. After, I am with my partner and notice I have been shot through the thigh but it doesn’t seem serious and I don’t feel any pain.
In this dream, I was calm and decisive and did what was needed. It didn’t feel very heroic since I realized I had a good chance to tackle him before he shot me, and if I did nothing I would probably be among the first shot anyway.
At the same time, I am this young angry man. It’s perhaps no coincidence that I have this dream after a few days with Herxheimer reaction and anger coming up. (I felt clear and the anger was gone when I woke up yesterday so the herxing may be over.)
Although I can attribute the anger to the herx reaction, it’s also something that’s in me. The Lyme die-off may just bring to the surface something that’s already here.
When the anger came up, I did take the role I did in the dream and (mostly) avoided it coming out and creating damage. Perhaps the dream wanted to remind me of this since it’s not something I paid too much attention to.
BAD KARMA?
When something apparently unfortunate happens, some say “bad karma”. Often, it’s just a joke. But it’s a reminder to look at our thoughts about these type of situations and how we can relate to it in a more fruitful way.
For me, as I often write about, these situations are an invitation for me to see whatever stressful beliefs and identities I have about it and question these.
Karma or whatever other ideas we may have about what’s happening doesn’t really matter.
WHOLEHEARTED
I felt exhausted, saw an announcement of a course with “wholehearted” in the title, and noticed that I didn’t feel very wholehearted at that moment. The thought that came that I am too tired to be wholehearted.
So I asked myself, how can I be wholehearted even if I am very tired? That question was enough to shift me into being more wholehearted, and I noticed it has to do with embracing – noticing and allowing – whatever is here and finding my wholeness as what’s here.
Being tired is no obstacle to being wholehearted.
JULY 30, 2020
STONE CIRCLE SYNCHRONICITY
I don’t usually do this, but I wrote a post to a social media group for Vortex Healing practitioners asking if anyone could sense some special energetics related to an ancient stone circle in Africa. As I was about to post it, the lyrics of the song I was listening to – which was new to me – said: Here, under these stones, I revisit the Earth. (Soel, The Earth Mother.) And then a little later: I will find the center of the circle… my soul wants to live in.
NOT GOOD ENOUGH / BETTER THAN
When we find one identity in ourselves, it’s a good bet that the reverse also is here. They need each other to exist within us.
So if we wish to resolve one, we’ll need to address both and the polarity as a whole. We need to find ourselves as one and find some healing and resolution for that, and the same for the other, and for the dynamic as a whole.
An important part of this is to find specific examples of how we live out respectively one and the other within ourselves, and in our life in relationship to others, ourselves, and life.
For me, a recurrent theme is the not good enough/better than dynamic. When they come up, I tend to notice both at once. One part of me feels not good enough – for whatever and in comparison with others, and another better than others – often in some specific area.
It all hinges on comparisons, and it all comes out of an emotional issue, belief, and identification, and how we respond to it.
–––– ? ? ––– DRAFTS ––– ? ? ––––
SPOCK: WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE NO LONGER EXISTS
What happened before no longer exists. What will happen next has not yet been written. We have only now. That is our greatest advantage. What we do now, here, in this moment has the power to determine the future.
– Spock in Star Trek: Discovery, S2:E11 Perpetual Infinity
This is undeniably true, even from a mainstream view. And, to the extent we take it in and allow it to inform our life, it’s profoundly liberating.
This is an example of how we, most of us, know what’s real. And yet, we often perceive and live as if the past and future exist. Taking this in and allowing it to inform us is one of the most healing things we can do.
It’s also very good to see this in mainstream TV series and movies. It can serve as a reminder, or it can plant a seed.
….
This is undeniably true, even from a mainstream view. And, to the extent we take it in and allow it to inform our life, it’s profoundly liberating.
This is an example of how we, most of us, know what’s real. And yet, we often perceive and live as if the past and future exist. We mistake our ideas about the past and future as the actual past or future.
The past and future doesn’t exist outside of our ideas about it. Taking this in and allowing it to inform us is one of the most healing things we can do. It can help us heal our past. And it can help us be more flexible in how we approach the future.
It’s also very good to see this in mainstream TV series and movies. It can serve as a reminder, or it can plant a seed.
….
This is undeniably true, even from a mainstream view. And, to the extent we take it in and allow it to inform our life, it’s profoundly liberating.
This is an example of how we know what’s real. And yet, we often perceive and live as if the past and future exist. We mistake our ideas about the past and future as an actual past or future.
The past and future doesn’t exist outside of our ideas about it, and these ideas are often biased and inaccurate. Taking this in and allowing it to inform us is one of the most healing things we can do. It can help us heal our past. It can help us be more flexible in how we approach the future. And it can help us see that our ideas about the present are also our ideas and not the present itself.
It’s also very good to see this in mainstream TV series and movies. It can serve as a reminder, plant a seed, or ignite curiosity about how our mind creates its own experience of the past, future, and even present.
….
There is no need to escape from the reincarnation cycle since what we wish to escape is suffering and there are better ways to find relief from our suffering. , especially since we – or at least I – don’t even know for certain what will happen after death and if there is some kind of reincarnation or not. (We may have memories, there is some research, and there are plenty of people appearing to think they know, but all I know I don’t know for certain. These are all guesses, some more educated than other.)
…..
What are some of the ways we avoid suffering?
Some are the typical pragmatic strategies we use in our life in the world – having a place to live, income, communicating our needs and so on. This obviously makes sense and is good.
Another category is behavior
….
We have lived with a culture with a general power-over orientation for millenia and although there are upsides, this has also created a certain kind of damage to us as a culture and individuals and to nature and non-human beings. So it’s no wonder many explore more of a power-with orientation