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 made into a regular article in time.
CG JUNG: THE BRIGHTER THE LIGHT
The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.
– CG Jung
What is Jung referring to here? I am not sure, but I can find where the quote seems accurate.
The more I am identified with desirable qualities, and the more I see them as exclusive and not co-existing with their reversals, the more the rest of me will go into the shadow. It’s something I see in others and not (so much) in myself.
There is another dynamic here and I am not sure how to talk about it: The more light, the stronger the shadow. When my system goes “up” it’s followed by going “down”. There is a sense of a lot of light coming into my system, it tends to bring up new layers of what’s unprocessed in me. This can happen, for instance, after focusing on heart-centered practices and so on.
The invitation for me here is to engage in these practices differently, in a way that opens to all of me – what’s desirable and not to my personality, what my culture sees as “light” and “dark”. In a way where there is less identification with the “light” side of me and more of a conscious embrace of all of it, including the “dark” sides.
I am exploring these dynamics right now. After the Amma experience some weeks ago, and after going into heart-centered practices, it was as if new layers of unprocessed material came up quite strongly. It’s clear that the more I wish for the light and try to hold onto it, the more the dark comes up and it feels challenging and unwanted. The more I recognize all of it as expressions of the divine and the mind, and the more I can intentionally embrace it all, the easier it is. That’s when it all can work on me and make me more consciously whole and aligned with reality and what’s already here.
What specifically has been coming up? First, grief and pain from Merlina dying. Then, a lot of anger and I didn’t always deal with that anger gracefully. Likely because I never really learned to deal with and work with anger from my birth family, and because a part of me tells me it’s bad and wrong and my mind still believes it to some extent. In addition to this, just generally feeling uncomfortable, which may be discomfort about underlying anger. The anger is partly from me not taking care of my own needs in my life and also recently.
Right now, how is it to fully embrace the anger that’s here? How is it to embrace the fear behind the anger? How is it to embrace the discomfort? How is it to embrace the messiness? How is it to embrace anything in me reacting to what’s coming up?
You are welcome here. You can stay as long as you want. Thank you for protecting me.
Image by me and Midjourney
FEBRUARY 15, 2024
DREAM: GURU & WEIRD PROJECT
I am with my childhood crush (MM). We haven’t seen each other since then, but have a very good, mature, honest, enjoyable interaction. Seems we have a good connection and may continue a friendship. (There is no romantic connection.)
I am with another school mate from elementary school. (Audun.) In the back of his car, he has some flyers. He sees that I have seen them, and starts talking about a guru he is following. He can apparently get people awake quickly without any meditation or any work on their part. I sense that he is doing something in their brains so they have the experience of it but it’s not the real or full thing.
I am with my wife. (Waking-life wife.) I tell her about a situation I find myself in by accident. It involves a piece of land somewhere and aliens and the government somehow. I know the story is very weird and outlandish and tell her that I wouldn’t believe it if I was her. She doesn’t quite believe it but is curious and open.
These are three parts of the same(ish) dream.
INNER PRESSURE
I am listening to the audiobook version of Patrick Stewart’s autobiography. He followed his passion and apparently took just about every opportunity presented to him and made full use of it.
It brings up my own distress around this. I have had several passions and lots of amazing opportunities in each area, and have not done much with any.
Why? Partly because of trauma from school where the other kids would bully me for my passion and interests.
The other side of this is that I did bring all of it to life. I had started and was passionately involved in all of it in my teens and early twenties. Then, I went against a clear inner guidance on a major life decision and was unable to follow up on any of it. I felt deeply off track and I have not been able to get back on track.
There is still a kind of inner pressure there. When I look into it, I find my inner knowing saying “do it”.
The pressure itself is not from my inner knowing, I assume the pressure is from something in me pushing against it. It comes from my reactions to it and issues around it – fear of bringing it to life, that it won’t be good enough, traumas from childhood, distress about getting off track, and so on.
FEBRUARY 25, 2024
DREAM: LOOKING AT WAR FROM A DISTANCE
I am looking at war from a distance. I see Cardassians (from Star Trek) fighting in a large hall, maybe a kind of cathedral.
This is the last dream image from a much longer dream I don’t remember.
The first that came to me was that this is how my mind learned to survive. This is trauma created in early childhood as a coping strategy. And I can learn to relate to it a little more firmly. I can remind myself more firmly that this is what it is.
MARCH 1, 2024
MAKING AN IDENTITY OUT OF NOT CARING
In elementary and middle school, I was in a class that had a very bad and destructive culture. A few core people bullied and mocked others in the class, and even led a teacher to have a nervous breakdown.
My sense is that these kids had created an identity out of not caring. They took pride in not caring and mocked and despised anyone who did.
I cared a lot. I cared about a lot of different things, so I was one of their targets. (I was also a bit socially awkward which didn’t help, although I suspect that anxiety and awkwardness were at least partially created by having to be in that culture.)
Why did they seemingly take pride in not caring? I suspect as a way to protect themselves. The mind tells itself: If I don’t care, I won’t be hurt. They were likely hurt, so they hurt others.
Hurt people hurt people.
MARCH 3, 2024
BITTERSWEET
Coming into closer alignment with reality is often bittersweet. It can bring up a mix of all sorts of different things.
First, how do we bring our conscious view into closer alignment with reality?
It can happen in a few different ways.
For instance, we can explore our assumptions and stories and find what’s more true for us. Often, this involves finding the validity in reverse and complementary stories and that we cannot know for certain.
We can explore how our perception of something is created. We can notice words and images in the mental field combines with sensations and other senses to create our world. Here, we also see that this is mind-created and doesn’t accurately reflect reality itself.
We can find our more fundamental nature. We can find ourselves as what our field of experience happens within and as. We notice we are not most fundamentally our human self. Here too, we find that our stories, identities, identifications and so on does not reflect any full, final, or absolute truth.
By exploring this, we can also invite our more visceral perception into closer alignment with reality, over time.
This process can be sobering. We realize that what we thought to be true – about ourselves, others, situations, life – isn’t, or at least not the way we thought.
It can bring up a lot of unprocessed material with an invitation for it to be seen, felt, understood (to some extent), and loved.
It can bring up grief and sadness over what’s happening in the world. It’s more unfiltered and our old defence mechanisms may not work as well as they did.
It can bring up awe.
It can bring up gratitude.
It’s humbling. We realize we don’t know anything for certain. Our mental field is only here to help us orient and that’s it, it doesn’t give us any final answers. We realize that the dynamics and characteristics we see in the wider world is also here in us. We realize that the consciousness we are to ourselves forms itself into any and all experience we have.
[…]
MARCH 4, 2024
A man walks up to Tove Janson painting a dramatic nature scene.
What are you painting?
It’s a self-portrait.
I am watching Tove, a movie about Tove Janson, the Finnish artist who is the mother of the Moomins. I love it so far, and especially that scene.
Whatever we create is a self-portrait, even if it’s just walking down the street or drinking a glass of water.
More than that, anything in our world is a self-portrait.
Whatever stories I have about it, I can turn it around to myself and find specific and genuine examples where it fits. I can find any dynamics and characteristics I see in the wider world also in me.
To me, it’s happening within and as what I am. My world is happening within and as the consciousness I am. The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it. In that way too, anything is a self-portrait.
MARCH 5, 2024
INVESTED IN SOMETHING
It’s easy for me to get invested in something.
These days, I notice I get invested in the regeneration project in the Andes mountains.
What does it mean to be invested?
For me and in this context, it means not only investing attention and resources in it. It means to get caught up in it. To invest identity and beliefs into it. I notice that a part of me use it to feel better about my life. It gives my life a sense of meaning and purpose.
That’s not wrong. As so much, it’s natural and ultimately innocent. It even serves some functions.
And yet, it also comes with a cost. It tends to cloud judgment. It brings up hopes and fears. If or when it falls away, something I have used as a crutch to feel better about life and myself falls away. It all gets sticky. It’s a sticky business.
MARCH 6, 2024
HOW THE WORLD SEEMED AFTER THE INITIAL ONENESS SHIFT
This is far enough back that I seem to mostly remember it in a vague and general way, and I’ll talk about each of the two shifts that happened.
During the first shift, when I was fifteen, it was as if the world – including this human self with its emotions, thoughts, sensations, and so on – went very far away. This human self was deeply disturbed by it and something seemed to have gone very wrong. (Later, I realized it was “just” an observer-observed duality, any identification was released out of most of the content of experience and into the observer. The idea and experience of an observer is also, of course, part of the content of experience, which set the stage for the next shift.)
One year later, there was a second shift. This time, into oneness. What any and all content of experience happens within and as noticed itself. Here, there was an even bigger shift in how I experienced the world. This psyche interpreted it as: All is the divine. All is consciousness. All is love. Everything is the divine taking that form, to express, explore, and experience itself as that.
And at a much more human level, it seemed that most humans were crazy. The focus and orientation of many or most people seemed utterly crazy. Of course, this was the divine taking that form too, and the form of this human self responding to it in that way. It was all there at the same time: All is the divine, including humans and this human self as we are, which can seem utterly baffling.
BEST WAY TO PREVENT CONSTIPATION?
This is maybe an unusual topic for this blog, but I’ll mention it anyway:
What’s the best way to avoid constipation?
For me, it seems to be going to the bathroom right away when I notice I need to poo. If I hold it back, even for a few minutes, it tends to lead to (temporary) constipation. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t been much of an issue for me so far in life.
Of course, the other side of this is eating a varied diet low on the food chain.
MARCH 8, 2024
CURRENTLY
I haven’t given a general update for a while, so here is one:
What’s happening these days?
I still notice grief about Merlina dying, and a part of me is baffled by how it happened. (She wandered off very far, which has never happened before.) It feels empty here without her.
My sleep is intermittent most nights. I often wake up with some anxiety. I think this is partly old anxiety coming up to be felt, seen, met with kindness, and loved, and partly anxiety from unquestioned beliefs about the current situation. Some of it is still, after all these years, anxiety and despair from going against clear inner guidance and feeling I am profoundly off track in life almost thirty years ago.
I am profoundly grateful for Finca Milagros, being here, and engaging in the regeneration and food forest projects. I love the sun and wind, the view to the canyon, the forest that’s here, the birds singing.
There is a snake in paradise because of the huge hotel they are building across the road from us and what it may mean for the future. Now and then, this brings up some stress in me.
I am starting my journey to go back to Norway today. I’ll be there on my own, emptying my parents’ house so it is ready for sale. There is stress here too since I have a chronic illness and will do it on my own. Also, there is a big problem with the house. (Several years ago, the municipality went against a written agreement and placed sewage lines 10 meters wide right through the garden. That means the value of the property is significantly less than it normally would be. For years, I have wanted to seek compensation but my family has rejected it.)
I am looking forward to spending time there, going for walks in my childhood forest, walking around in Oslo (the harbor, the parks, the new library), seeing family and friends, and so on.
It’s unfortunate timing, in many ways, since there is so much happening at Finca Milagros these days. There are a lot of decisions to be made about the water systems (rainwater collection, purification), energy (installing solar panels and batteries), planting (beginning food forest), regeneration (planting 1000 native trees in a few weeks), and so on. My (mostly autonomous and unconscious) thoughts about this too bring up some anxiety and stress in me.
A part of me is concerned about the world. We need to make profound changes to our civilization if we are to survive (due to global ecological overshoot), and that’s not happening. With the delayed feedback from our global ecosystems and the narrow focus of most people (which is understandable since most are just trying to survive short-term), we may not be able to change in time.
I am also seeing all the people doing amazing things in the world, which is beautiful. I am visiting regeneration & food forest projects here. I am watching videos on YouTube about regeneration, reforestation, food forests, permaculture, and so on. (This is something I was deeply into in the ’90s but I didn’t have my own place to do the projects on then.)
I had a CFS crash in December and haven’t recovered from it. That too brings up some anxiety, now and then. (With less energy, my system has less energy to process thoughts and emotions, which tends to bring up anxiety. Also, unexamined thoughts about not being able to do what I want can bring up some anxiety.)
I am noticing my nature. Or rather, my nature is noticing itself. When anxiety comes up, I notice it is made of my own nature. (Sometimes, I also remind myself it’s a flavor of the divine, and so on.)
As usual, it’s a whole big mix of things, which is also simple in that to me, it all has my nature.
MARCH 12, 2024
“IT’S MORE ABOUT HOW WE RELATE TO A SITUATION THAN THE SITUATION ITSELF”
When I was a teen, I mentioned this to a middle-aged man. His response was: Shut up until you are dry behind the ears.
I did, for the most part. I realized my “wisdom” was annoying and often not welcome.
A part of me also thought that he was probably right. What’s the truth in what he said?
It’s easy for me to find.
It’s good to not share our “wisdom” until we have some maturity and experience, even if the words may not always be that different. (In my case, the essence of how I saw things then is very similar to now.) Of course, if people ask, it’s fine. But unsolicited wisdom is usually annoying.
When I differentiated between relating to a situation and the situation itself, that’s just a convenient shorthand. Reality is not like that. In reality, both are how we relate. Both are created by us. We are the ones interpreting the situation in a certain way, and that largely determines how we relate to it. If we understand the situation differently, we relate to it differently.
It’s easy for me to find the validity in what he said.
What’s the validity of the reverse?
It’s that sometimes, it’s OK to share some of our wisdom and experience. We can share how it is for us, knowing it’s a very limited wisdom, and without expecting anything from the other.
It’s OK to be visible, sometimes. (I tend to try to stay hidden and that has brought up a lot of regret and sometimes resentment in me, which doesn’t help anyone.)
When I decided to follow his advice, it was partly or largely because it fits with hangups and trauma responses in me, wanting to stay hidden for protection and to stay safe. (Which is not safe at all. It creates a lot of regrets and missed opportunities.)
SURPRISED BY THIS HUMAN SELF
In daily life, there is a curiosity about this human self and what he will feel, think, or do next.
It’s unknown in advance. I cannot know what it will be.
He lives his own life, like anything else.
Really, what I am notices it all. It’s all happening within and as the consciousness I am. This human self and the wider world is a field that happens within and as the consciousness I am.
When curiosity and fascination come up, that comes from my human self in response to that.
MARCH 15, 2024
TWO FORMS OF REST & CFS
In the CFS world, some talk about two forms of rest.
The first form of rest is restitution. I spend energy and rest to recover that energy and (in the best case) get back to where I was before that activity.
The second is healing rest. We rest beyond recovery and don’t spend that energy on activities. Here, more energy is accumulated which the body uses for healing.
There are three ways to work with these two forms of rest.
The first is what many do in the beginning of living with CFS. We spend energy as soon as we have it. There is so much we want to do, so when there is metaphorical money in the bank, we spend it. This tends to lead to a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, crashes and recovery. In the worst case, we can crash hard which leads to a worsening of the condition that can last for months or years.
The second is to take time for healing rest. This leads to improvement and we engage in activities at that new level. It’s a more stable phase, although we go back to spending whatever energy is accumulated through rest, so there is not much further improvement.
The third is to schedule healing rest consistently and regularly, ideally daily. In theory, this will lead to continued improvement since the body has the energy to continue healing. It’s a form of extreme rest, and I assume it takes a certain amount of readiness and intention to do it. The readiness likely comes from living with the first two approaches for a while and seeing that they ultimately are not satisfying.
I am very familiar with the first approach. It’s what I did when I initially got CFS in my teens, and also at first when it returned in my 30s.
I am also familiar with the second. It’s what I have been doing over the last several years.
The third is more unfamiliar to me, and something I notice my system craves (I am strongly drawn to be in a quiet place in nature for a long time, resting) and I want to bring it into my life. (I do have some practical things to take care of, with a timeline set by circumstances and others, so it may be that I’ll go between no. 2 and 3 for a while until I am in a situation where I can rest more fully and consistently. Although I know this is ultimately a matter of priorities. What’s most important to me?)
This goes back to the general guideline for CFS: Rest before, during, after, and extra. Resing before and during any activity reduces the impact and may prevent a crash. Resting after allows for recovery. Resting extra allows for healing.
Here is an excellent article on the two types of rest in Norwegian. The website is for the book Aktivitetsapassing which a great book – also in Norwegian – that goes into depth in this and more.
MARCH 16, 2024
FOOD CRAVINGS
Some food cravings seem to be because the body needs certain foods. I crave something, and when I have it, I genuinely feel better. There is often more of a sense of wholeness, groundedness, or aliveness.
Other cravings are more on the mind side.
For instance, I sometimes have sugar cravings. If I eat sugar, the cravings are more present. They get triggered. It also seems that the craving is not so much for the initial taste as for what happens after. It seems that the sensations created in my body from eating sugar (reasonably uncomfortable) distracts from and partly cover up sensations created by stressful and unexamined beliefs held somewhere in my system. It’s as if my mind tells itself: Yes, the sugar sensations are uncomfortable, but it’s better than being with the sensations from unquestioned thoughts.
Of course, even better is to notice all of this, find a way to befriend what’s here including the discomfort, and identify and inquire into the stressful beliefs and find what’s more true for me.
OPEN TO SUFFERING
When I am open to my own suffering, I am open to the suffering of others.
I saw a moth in the snow today. It was barely moving. I took it to a bush to find a bit of shelter.
Afterward, I wondered why it has such an impact on me. Why does the suffering I imagine when I see that moth have such an impact? It’s likely because I am open to my own.
The reverse is also true. If we are closed to our own suffering, we are closed to the suffering of others. I see this in people like Trump and Putin and others, and I see it there because I have that too in myself. I have parts of me closed off to suffering.
Being closed or open to suffering is to be closed or open to far more, including joy, awe, gratitude, and so on. It all seems to go together.
I imagine that’s why some need strong experiences to feel alive. If we are closed, that may be the only way to experience something. That’s when we may feel we need speed, loud music, and so on.
For me, a field, snow, stars, a summer’s night, already have a big impact on me.
MARCH 16, 2024
MORE CONSERVATIVE WITH TIME?
In my teens, I was told my views would become more conservative with time.
That has definitely not happened.
So what has changed? Not much, if I am honest. I have just about the same taste in music (Arvo Pärt is still my favorite composer.) I have the same view of the world. (Nondual for lack of a better word.) I have about the same political orientation. (Still vote for the Green Party when I can, or whoever is the closest.)
When I have looked at journal entries and essays from my teens and early twenties, I see that what I wrote is very similar to how I see things now.
Where did I get this from? I am not sure. In terms of politics, my father and brother are traditionally conservative in their orientation, and my mother too is relatively conservative. My friends growing up were either apolitical or conservative. I am more similar to two or three of my cousins. (I generally side with the underdogs and those without a voice, which may be because I felt like an outsider as a kid.)
In general, I can see some themes from my family in my life. My family has always been interested in nature, art, and music. My parents and their family loved being outdoors in nature, fishing, picking berries, walking up mountains, staying in the cabins, and so on. I was dragged around Europe and art museums as a kid (London, Paris, Barcelona). My parents, and especially my father, loved classic jazz.
I can find these themes in my life, although it sometimes takes other forms. I became passionate about deep ecology, the universe story, and sustainability. I did art for a while (like my father). I love all kinds of music if it’s good, whether it’s modern classical (Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk), baroque or early music, Latin, African, Asian, or whatever it is.
Of course, the oneness shift that happened when I was sixteen had a profound impact on me. It turned everything inside out and upside down. That’s what the nondual views reflect. That’s very likely why I love Arvo Pärt. That’s why I got into art, to try to convey the immense beauty in everything. That’s why I am so passionate about helping us shift into a more ecologically sound civilization.
“I TOLD YOU SO”
I often find myself in an “I told you so” situation. I usually don’t say it, but the thought comes up.
My parents’ house was empty for six months. I asked my brother to keep a close eye on the house to make sure everything was OK. When I returned last week, I immediately found a very obvious leak in the kitchen. Water has been going into the floor for months, at a rate of several deciliters a day, without my brother noticing. I told him to keep a close eye on the house because a lot of things can go wrong in an empty house, and he didn’t.
Several years ago, the municipality made a big mistake and put 10-meter-wide sewage lines directly through the garden of my parents’ house. (They were supposed to put them along the boundary to the neighbor and halfway into their property.) This led to us having to scrap plans to build a second house in the garden. I had a lawyer ready to take the case so my parents could receive compensation for the loss of property value. My father insisted that it wouldn’t reduce the value of the property and rejected any possibility of using a lawyer and taking the first step in talking with the municipality. My father is now in the process of trying to sell the house, and he and my brother seemed convinced that a developer would buy it to build apartments there. I told them that would be extremely unlikely since half of the property is rebuildable because of the mistake of the municipality. That has turned out to be true, and the value of the property has turned out to be significantly less than they thought, just as I told them many years ago.
When we designed and built a house in the Andes, it was with two other people. I told them I would do the design in cooperation with the builder (I have a background in architecture from one of the best programs in the US). They rejected it and wanted to hire inexperienced local architects who didn’t speak English. I had to go along with it. During the design process, I saw several obvious mistakes. When I spoke up about it, the architects just argued against whatever I said. I later said we had to be there during the building process, and that the main mistake people make is to not be there during the building process. The others all said it would be fine if we were not there. Again, what I said turned out to be correct. The design mistakes were big mistakes that will be expensive or impossible to correct. And not being there during the building process allowed huge amounts of mistakes to happen that would otherwise have been corrected.
When I lived in Oregon, my doctor there told me to eat a lot less salt. It made absolutely no sense to me since my blood pressure and all measures were perfectly fine, and I already ate very little salt. I made all my food from scratch, and the little salt I got was the salt I put in my food. Still, I followed her advice and eliminated most of the little salt I had previously put in my food. As we got into the hot season, I had heat exhaustion bordering on heat stroke likely because I didn’t have enough salt in my body.
The list goes on.
The question is: Why does this happen? Why is this a pattern?
It’s probably partly universal. I assume it happens now and then for everyone.
More importantly, it has to do with something in me. I don’t always stand up for my views. I don’t always let people know I have experience with something. (Often, I share something I have decades of experience with, and am treated by others who have far less as if I am a complete novice.) I often don’t make sure the others thoroughly understand what I am saying and why. In some ways, I give up in advance. Already while I speak about it, I expect to later get into an “I told you so” situation.
If I did this differently, and if I really made an effort to be heard and understood, some if not most of these situations would likely have been avoided.
MARCH 20, 2024
HEARING TURNS ON WHILE WAKING UP IN THE MORNING
When I wake up in the morning, I sometimes notice my hearing being turned on.
It’s as if a volume button is turned up from zero to normal volume.
That’s one of the things we may notice when consciousness is aware while the body goes into or out of sleep.
MARCH 24, 2024
AWAKENING DISSOLVES PARADOXES
If we rely on our mental field to give us truths, our world will inevitably appear full of paradoxes. One thing seems true, and also something else, and to the conditioning of our thoughts, they appear contradictory.
When our nature recognizes itself, that shifts. Thoughts are recognized as guides and pointers to help us orient and function in the world. They are practical pointers only, and cannot hold any final, full, or absolute truth. Each thought has some kind of validity in it, and it’s up to us to evaluate what kind of validity that is.
There are no paradoxes since thoughts are recognized as not holding any final truth, and there is some validity to all of them. (Even the more outlandish ones can be seen as holding validity, for instance, as a projection.)
Paradoxes appear when our thoughts operate from duality and from a sense of separation. And they dissolve when thoughts operate within the context of our nature recognizing itself, and we recognize the nature of thoughts.
Of course, at first when our nature recognizes itself, our mental patterns may still operate from duality so there may be an experience of paradoxes. This dissolves as thoughts reorganize and operate within our nature recognizing itself.
SUGAR
I have been a couple of weeks without much refined sugar, and I notice I feel much better. My energy level is more stable, as is my mood.
We evolved to seek sugar since sugar is naturally found in fruits and a few other energy-rich foods. For our ancestors, it was important to seek those out and eat them when they were available.
Today, that evolutionary craving has been hijacked by the food industry, and it’s used to make us eat things we don’t need. Our fruits have also been developed to have a high sugar content, far beyond what natural fruits have and what their ancestors had. (Some zoos don’t even feed certain fruits to their animals anymore because of the high sugar content.)
For me, with hypoglycemia, it’s perhaps especially important to avoid the swings – in blood sugar, energy, and mood – that refined sugars bring.
MARCH 25, 2024
WHERE DO I TAKE REFUGE?
In daily life, where do I take refuge?
Sometimes, it’s in entertainment – movies, YouTube, podcasts, food.
Sometimes, it’s in stories – in stories that either seem comforting or scary, even if I know these are stories and made up by my mind.
Sometimes, it’s in friends.
Sometimes, it’s in being more of a friend to myself and scared parts of my psyche.
Sometimes, and quite often, it’s in my nature. It’s in noticing my nature, and my nature noticing itself. It’s in resting in finding myself as that which my field of experience, including this human self, happens within and as.
In Buddhism, they talk about seeking refuge in the Three Jewels. In friends on the path. In pointers and reminders. In my nature noticing itself. That’s pretty good advice.
FINDING REFUGE OUT THERE SOMEWHERE
I notice a part of me assumes that I will be saved by someone or something “out there”.
It will happen in the future. It will happen when this thing falls into place.
That person or being can do it for me. That person can help me and will make my life complete. God will help me and save me.
It’s good to notice, and it’s good to question it when it comes up.
Is it true? Can I be saved in an imaginary future? Can I be saved by another being? Will I be completed by that person? Is it possible to “arrive”?
How would it be to rely on myself to save me? To complete me?
How would it be for my nature to notice itself, and arrive, and save and complete itself?
WAYS TO LOOK FOR THE SOLUTION OUT THERE
There are several ways to look for the solution “out there”.
We can look in the future or past. We can look somewhere else – in another state or from another being.
We can also look “out there” through entertainment, food, and so on. We distract ourselves from what’s already here.
Of course, all of these are really the same. They are all ways to distract ourselves from what’s already here – the discomfort and the solutions.
MARCH 26, 2024
HOW I FEEL WHEN I HAVE SUGAR
I havent’ had refined sugar for two or three weeks, which has been a blessing. My energy level and mood has been much more stable, and I generally feel much better.
I did have some sugar last night, partly as an experiment so I can notice more clearly what happens when I have it.
So what happened? I had a much more restless night. It feels like a kind of fuzzy “cloud” in my bodymind. I woke up with more anxiety and worry.
WANTING TO STAY HIDDEN
For a few different reasons, my system has a program of wanting to stay hidden. It seems more safe and comfortable to stay hidden.
Is that true? It may have seemed true when the program came into place. For instance, it did help me to avoid unwanted attention in school. (I was bullied and excluded for being visible in the “wrong” way, for instance by knowing the answers to our teacher’s questions and being passionate about learning and exploring.)
In reality, it’s anything but safe and comfortable.
[…]
FLOOD OF INSIGHTS
In the years following the initial oneness shift, there was an ongoing flood of insights. I wrote down pages upon pages in my journal and often woke up in the middle of the night to write down whatever was revealed to me.
The essence of it is what I am still writing about here.
During that time, there was also a flood of inspiration for paintings and music. It would often come fully formed to me, and I tried to get it into life with whatever limited abilities and means I had.
LEARNING TO LIVE WITH
If we have traumas or emotional issues or anything else that our personality is bothered with, we have a couple of options of how to work with it.
We can try to invite healing for it.
We can invite healing for our relationship with it.
These two go hand-in-hand. They are two sides of the same coin.
How that looks – for each of us and here and now – is an ongoing exploration.
Focusing on finding healing for the issue may work. We may find something that works, and we learn something about the issue which can inform us when we explore other issues.
Focusing on finding healing for our relationship with it helps us for as long as it’s here, which may be for the rest of our life for what we know. And this too helps inform how we relate to similar issues and life in general.
Similarly, finding some healing for the issue itself helps us find more peace with it.
Finding more peace with it gives some space for the issue to heal.
SLEEPY WHEN IT’S DARK & RAINY
It’s a dark and rainy day here in Norway, and I notice I am more sleepy than usual.
I think it’s a common response. When it’s dark and rainy and perhaps a little cold, many get a little sleepy.
I assume this may be an evolutionary response. It’s good to sleep when it’s dark, and also when it’s rainy and cold. It helps preserve our energy, and charge the battery for tasks when it’s light and hopefully not raining.
It makes sense in terms of evolution. The ones who got tired in these circumstances and rested may have been able to function better when it’s day and not raining, and that may have slightly improved their ability to survive and have surviving offspring. Perhaps just enough so it was passed on to later generations.
MARCH 27, 2024
SPIRITUALITY AS COMPENSATION
It seems that many who are into spirituality are driven, at least partly, by hangups. They go into spirituality as a distraction or compensation for something unresolved in themselves.
That’s not wrong or bad, but it’s good to notice.
It also means that the solution is often found more in therapy than in spirituality. Although if we take a grounded and pragmatic approach to spirituality, and use approaches like inquiry and heart-centered practices, that can also invite in healing.
MARCH 31, 2024
PICKING UP THE SYMPTOMS OF CLIENTS
When I do healing for individual clients, I often experience their symptoms in my own system. It helps me notice what’s going on.
This morning, I noticed my knees seemed very weak. I couldn’t understand why. A friend of mine (CS) came in the early afternoon for a chat and a session, and one of the first things he mentioned was that he has weak knees. It may be that my body picked up his symptom before he arrived.
APRIL 1, 2024
WANTING TO BE REMEMBERED?
When I was an apprentice of Odd Nerdrum, he once said that he painted so he could be remembered after he was dead.
I thought it was an odd (!) thing to say, for a few different reasons.
He won’t be around to enjoy it.
They will remember an image of him, which will be a simplified caricature and likely far from how he really was. (Just like it is now, although even more so.)
The remembrance of him will be gone at some point, just like him. It will just postpone the inevitable. The remembrance is a blip in time.
So why did he say it? Maybe he gets some satisfaction from assuming he will be remembered, although that seems hollow and wouldn’t survive scrutiny. It would be more direct to find peace with the changing nature of everything. Maybe he tells himself this story to add to his motivation to become a better painter, which he benefits from here and now. That makes sense, and I suspect that may be a reason. Maybe it was an off-hand remark not meant to be taken seriously. Maybe he said it to make an impression and get a reaction from others. For me, this is among the things people say that I don’t really understand and feel a bit baffled about.
APRIL 2, 2024
DREAM: TRAVELING
I am traveling with my waking-life partner. She wants us to stay for free with some others. It turns out it’s more crowded than expected, and we have to share a room with several others. They are all very nice young people, but also very energetic and set on being social more than sleeping. My partner and them all think there will be some special occurance happening that nght, involving nature and animals, and it’s based on a flimsy new age idea not based in anything real. I decide to get a hotel room for myself. This is not worth it.
This dream mirrors some waking life dynamics. She got me into a situation where I didn’t feel comfortable, and she is into astrology and similar things. In waking life, she has gotten me into situations that are very good for me as well, and I know my part in the other situations. I chose it too. In some cases, I didn’t speak up strongly enough.
She is also into astrology and some new-age ideas, which I am not so interested in. I don’t reject it, it’s just that it’s not based in solid science, I can’t easily check it out for myself, and I don’t find it so useful. I have other priorities.
FASCINATED BY HOW OTHERS TALK ABOUT IT
During the initial oneness shift in my teens, what was revealed to me is what mystics and non-dual folks through time and across traditions have described. I didn’t know that at the time since I previously had absolutely no interest in anything spiritual. I also lived in a small town in Norway, and it was before the web, so I couldn’t find anyone who had experience with it. (I did meet two when I was roughly twenty years old: BH and the then-partner of Jes Bertelsen.)
It also took years before I found any books written by people who seemed to write from their own direct experience. After some years, I found Jes Bertelsen and some Tibetan Buddhist writings, which indirectly hinted at it. It took almost twenty years before I found the ones I feel a deep resonance with: Adyashanti, Byron Katie, and Douglas Harding. These clearly had discovered the same.
Until relatively recently, I sought out teachers and writings mainly to see how people talk about it. It was – and still is to some extent – fascinating to see how people put it into words. Often, it can be covered and filtered through tradition and terminology. And sometimes, it’s refreshingly direct and clear, as it is for me with Adya, Katie, and Douglas Harding. Of course, it seems fresh and clear since these people come from more or less the same time and culture as me. Also, two of them didn’t have much of a previous background in anything, like me, and the third (Adya) has shed a lot of the terminology and ideology from his tradition (Zen).
What about other non-dual traditions and teachers? I enjoyed reading some neo-advaita books in my thirties, along with more traditional advait teachings from India. These people also clearly had discovered the same, although I felt their teachings often were filtered through a kind of non-dual ideology.
APRIL 3, 2024
BRAIN FOG AND MY NATURE
I have stronger brain fog right now, likely because of eating bread a bit too frequently. (I usually need a few days between each time.) As the name suggests, it feels like it’s everywhere.
It’s easy for parts of me to struggle with it. To think it will always be like this. To feel self-conscious about it. To worry about being incoherent and appearing weird to others if I talk with them.
That’s when it’s helpful to intentionally notice my nature and rest in and as that. I am more fundamentally what this brain fog, and anything else, happens within and as.
The brain fog is a visitor. It comes and goes. (Even if it’s been here to some extent for a long time.) It’s not inherent in what I am. Even when it comes to this human self, it’s just one of innumerable parts of what this human self is and his life in the world.
That helps me relate to it more lightly.
APRIL 4, 2024
THE INFINITE WORK BEHIND EVERYTHING
I picked up a brochure for the Wednesday afternoon 1/2 price movies at the local movie theater, and I felt moved by the thought that someone had taken time to put it together, print it out, and put it in the holder by the entrance to the movie theater.
Everything has work behind it.
With the products I use and enjoy in my daily life, someone has put time and energy into them so they could be here for me. It has been produced, ordered, transported, put out in a store, and sold. The hands and attention of many people were involved. Not just now, but going back through the generations. The things I use now result from the care and attention of innumerable people going back generations, long before historic times.
Of course, many did it because it was their work, and some may not have enjoyed it, but they still put their life energy into it. They put what’s most precious to all of us into it.
In a more general sense, all is the product of the infinite work of this universe. The air I breathe, the sunshine I enjoy, nature, my body breathing, it’s all the product of the universe forming itself into all of this and millions and billions of years of evolution of this universe.
There is an infinite work behind everything.
The candle on the table was made by several people who each had a role in the process. The wax is likely made from petroleum products, brought up to the surface by people working in the oil industry. The oil is the bodies of innumerable beings living millions of years ago in an ecosystem very different from how it is now. Someone in history discovered how to put a string in oil or wax to make a candle, that knowledge was passed on through generations of people, and several of these refined and found new ways of doing it. The sun has provided the energy for all of this to happen, and the sun is the result of other stars living their lives and then dying in an explosion creating much of what this sun, solar system, and planet is made up of. All of it is the product of the ongoing evolution and unfolding of the universe.
All of it is the universe forming itself into all of it.
All of it is a profound miracle.
All of it is a profound mystery.
How come there is anything at all? How come there is something rather than nothing?
APRIL 5, 2024
LIFE IS DIFFICULT ENOUGH
I mentioned to a friend that I have noticed a pattern in my life since early on in adulthood: Romantic relationships that feel deeply right last a short time, and the ones that are off and troubling and difficult last much longer. In the first, it feels in integrity to stay in it, and I instead find a way for it to end. In the second, being in it is out of integrity and comes from fear (unquestioned fear-inducing beliefs), and I find a way to stay in it. This pattern is very likely related to childhood trauma and the difficult dynamics between my parents.
Her response was: “That’s good. Relationships are for growth, not happiness.”
For me, that’s another trauma response. It’s the traumatized mind coming in to justify and normalize trauma responses.
Life is difficult enough. We don’t need to make it more difficult by staying in a situation that doesn’t feel right. If anything, the healthy response means to leave it. It means acting on what’s in integrity. That’s how we grow.
I understand where the view comes from. When we are in a relationship, it’s good to focus on opportunities for growth, it’s the mature way to approach it. If we see it mainly as a source of happiness, we set ourselves up for disappointment. That doesn’t mean we should seek out and stay in situations that are out of integrity.
APRIL 5, 2024
A COUPLE OF SMALL EVENTS
While I made delicious vegan chili this morning, I needed to go to the corner store for a can opener. I brought a couple of empty bottles to return. In Norway, they have a lottery when you return bottles.
Yesterday, my partner mentioned that she had asked the divine if she would win in a lottery she had bought a ticket for, and the divine said “no”. While I put on my shoes, I asked the divine if I would win in the bottle-return lottery, and the divine said “yes”. I wasn’t sure if it was accurate or just my psyche coming in. After I had returned the bottles and pushed the button for the lottery, I got a piece of paper from the machine that said: “You won!”. It turned out that the money I won was the exact cost of the can opener.
This store has been in that location my whole life, and it’s close to the elementary school I went to. (Hebekk.) My system remembers stressful and traumatic things from that time, so I notice I feel quite self-conscious when I am in this neighborhood and in that store. A lot of anxiety is coming up, and an expectation of not being treated well by others.
When I entered the store, a group of elementary-school-age boys were standing in front of the bottle return machine. I noticed the self-consciousness, anxiety, and expectations come up from when I was that age. I slipped in behind them to return the bottles, and one of the kids smiled and said: “I am sorry, we didn’t mean to block you.” They all gave me space. It was a nice reminder that then is not now. This is another situation. (I could also see his as an image of how things may be changing in me over time, but I am never sure about how things are changing. It may look one way on the surface, and I never know the full picture.) The guy working in the store was also very nice to me, and there was a general feeling of it being a meeting place for the local neighborhood. Several people were chatting with each other in a very friendly way.
WHY I TALK ABOUT AWAKENING BUT WOULDN’T SAY “I AM AWAKE”
I obviously frequently write about awakening here. I also mention some of my own noticing and experiences relating to it1.
At the same time, I would not say “I am awake”. I also wouldn’t think and mean it.
Why? There are a few different reasons.
People have a lot of ideas about it and I prefer to avoid those if possible. I use the word “awake” as a shorthand since most people have a very general idea of what it means, and I also try to avoid it whenever possible or reasonable.
Technically, there is no “I” that’s awake. Awakening means waking up out of the idea of a separate I.
Mainly, for me awakening is mostly about how much awakening there is in a system2. I know very well that although there may be some kind of general and “global” noticing of my nature here, that’s not the whole story. There are many parts of this human self that still operate from and reflect separation consciousness. Whatever may be called awakening is not by any means as clear, thorough, mature or lived as it can be. I am just at the beginning of that exploration and process. This is not false humility but pretty clear.
Awakening is a label that only partially fits so although I can write about awakening in a general sense and my explorations of it, it’s not a label I can put on myself.
(1) For a while, I wrote in a more general way and left out the personal sides of it, and now I try to include that too. After all, that’s where it comes from and where it’s alive.
(2) This is also since I can see the amount (degree) of awakening in a system with my eyes, and also sense into it to a lesser extent. It’s been that way since my mid-teens so it’s natural for me to think of it mostly in terms of degrees rather than just something binary.
APRIL 7, 2024
BONUS LIFE
The summer two years ago, I almost died from septic shock. The only reason I survived was that I was able to get to the emergency room in time, received a correct preliminary diagnosis, and was immediately sent to a very good nearby hospital and received top-notch care.
I was and am very aware that I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for this luck and for modern medicine.
And honestly, every moment since then feels like a bonus. My life now is a bonus life.
WHEN HEALING BRINGS UP STUFF
I have been in Norway for nearly four weeks now, and over that time, I have felt pretty good and enjoyed myself. The only Vortex Healing I have received has been for energization, and I have put myself and situations in the grid (a healing tool) and done pujas (the VH tool).
Friday, I received a final session for my liver. I did the previous one last year and waited with this one since receiving sessions for issues or organs tends to destabilize my system quite a bit.
Yesterday, I was fine during the day, but things started coming up after I went to bed. There was an immense discomfort and some anger coming up in the background. I got up and was up for about three hours before going back to sleep. This morning, I still have this body-mind discomfort along with a sense of hopelessness, fear, and some gloom.
I know what’s very likely going on. This is what typically happens when I receive VH sessions for issues or organs. That means I don’t go into stories too much. I notice that my mind wants to make the fear about my future, and I don’t fuel it. I ride it out. I do things to take care of myself and find comfort. I take a day off.
THE NECESSITY OF DISILLUSION ON A SPIRITUAL PATH
The driver for many on a spiritual path is often based in illusions. They think it will take away their pain. They will find a state of eternal bliss. Their troubles will be gone forever. And so on.
They may also assume that they will keep their identity as this human self, and that this human self can somehow “own” any awakening and use it as an adornment. (In reality, all of that eventually falls or is worn away.)
Some also approach teachers in a similar way. They may assume their teacher is “perfect” according to some idea they have, which is inevitably wrong. Life will show them otherwise.
So when all of this is based on illusion, a certain amount of disillusionment is necessary after a while.
If people are not aware of this, and it’s not talked about, they may react by withdrawing from anything spiritual. They throw the baby out with the bathwater.
That’s why it’s important to talk about these things, the different areas disillusionment may be necessary, and what forms it may take. Forewarned is forearmed, or it can at least contribute to preparedness and resiliency.
HEALING DOESN’T NECESSARILY MEAN IT’S GONE
Finding healing for something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone.
In my experience, it’s often not quite gone.
What changes instead is my relationship to and with it. I find more peace with it. I learn to live with it. I befriend it. I have more wise and kind stories about it. I see some genuine upsides of it, even if I would rather it wasn’t here.
As part of that, it loses some of its charge. It’s still here, just not as strong. I am less identified with it. It’s more neutral. More parts of my system are less caught up in a struggle with it.
I noticed that earlier today. After a three-hour Vortex Healing session for my liver on Friday, a lot was triggered in my system last night and it has been with me today. Some of what came up was hopelessness and fear, which my thoughts made into a fear about the future. I saw it being here and decided to not fuel it with stories. It wasn’t necessary. There was already less identification with it. I know that these things often come up after a VH session and then go away again, like clouds in the sky. It’s a kind of routine by now.
MY WORLD & HO’O
I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.
I love ho’oponopono. It shifts something in me in a beautiful way.
There is no need to ask why or how it works. It’s more about trying it out and seeing what it does.
And yet, sometimes there is some curiosity about it.
So why or how does it work?
The first that comes up for me is that my world is the only world I know. The world to me is created by my own mind. The consciousness I am forms itself into it. It’s happening within and as what I am.
If I create distress about it, I am doing it1. So why not ask for forgiveness? Why not find love for it? Why not thank it?2
It seems the wise, sane, and kind thing to do.
That doesn’t mean I always do it, or that all parts of me do it. That’s why this practice exists. It can help shift us into a different relationship with our world. It highlights the parts of us not on board with it. Over time, it can help deepen the groove of new habits. Mainly, it mimics how a more sane, healed, and kind mind works. It’s training wheels for us to notice just that.
(1) The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it. This is the bigger “I” that doesn’t exist as something in particular within the content of experience.
(2) “It” here is all of it – what triggers the distress, the distress itself, how parts of me relate to the distress, and so on.
APRIL 11, 2024
WHEN OLD EMOTIONS AND IMPULSES COME UP IN HEALING
It’s not uncommon for old emotions, feelings, states, impulses, and so on to come up during and after a healing session, or in life in general.
These are things we tried to not feel when they initially came up. We set them aside, pushed them down, tried to bury them, distracted ourselves from them, and so on.
So how to relate to them now when they surface again?
The guideline is simple: Notice and allow them as they are. Welcome them as a visitor. Be with them and be here for them as you would a scared child or animal.
And that’s not always so easy, but it does become easier with intention, practice, and habit.
APRIL 13, 2024
THANKING MY PAST SELF
I sometimes have regret coming up over bad decisions in the past.
Of course, I can’t know what would have been on other paths. The past only exists in my imagination. And bad and good are not inherent in anything, they are mind-created labels.
Also, I find it helpful to thank my past self. If I regret some things my past self did, why not also thank my past self?
Whenever I am now enjoying something my past self did, and I notice, I thank my past self. It can be small things like cleaning or buying groceries, or larger things.
I also thank my past self when I notice distress, anxiety, trauma, and so on surfacing. I thank my past self for creating this with the aim of protecting me. Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for your love for me. (I also thank myself for noticing the suffering this has created, and seeking healing and a different way.)
HEALING FOR MYSELF
When I use my original way of healing, I connect with someone’s system, receive a message of what needs to change for healing to happen, and intend that healing. It’s often a process that unfolds over some minutes. The messages come through a combination of feeling their symptoms in my system and seeing still or moving images. The way it unfolds seems unique in each case. Often, it involves removing something (energetically) from their system, which is then replaced with light that’s organized in a more healthy way.
When I connect with my own system and intend healing for myself, what comes up is to allow whatever is where as it is, to notice it’s already allowed – by consciousness, capacity, life, existence – as it is and more consciously align with that. That’s basic meditation.
In this case, it’s basic meditation combined with an intention – or request – for healing.
I can feel it’s what my system really needs now. A deepening into consciously and more fully aligning with all as already allowed.
APRIL 14, 2024
DAILY RHYTHMS
I find that my natural rhythm these days, and quite often, is to go to bed early. (Often around 8pm.) Then, one of two things usually happens. I either wake up around 2-3am, get up, get some tasks done, and go back to sleep for a few hours. Or I get up at 4-6am and start the day. Quite often, I get many or most of my tasks done before breakfast. This seems to work quite well for me since I have the most energy in the morning.
I may take a nap in the afternoon. And I usually don’t do too much late afternoon and evening since my energy level goes down then.
I usually have fruits and maybe porridge in the morning. (Oatmeal porridge with seeds, nuts, some fruit, and cinnamon.) The main meal is usually around mid-day or early afternoon. And I’ll have something smaller later in the afternoon. If I can, I try to avoid eating, or at least eating much, in the evening.
I drink a lot of water in the morning, usually in the form of herbal and spice infusions and sometimes hot chocolate. The hot chocolate is usually just raw organic chocolate powder in hot water, perhaps with some cinnamon and/or cardamon and/or ginger powder. I sometimes also have ginger powder in hot water to help with the digestive fires.
This is just what seems to work the best for me now, and quite often, and it can and does change with circumstances and situations.
HEALING INNUMERABLE THINGS VS ONE THING
We can get caught up in trying to find healing for one issue and then another, and then new layers, and related issues creating parts of the same network of issues, and underlying issues, and so on. There is always more. There is likely literally no end.
We can also get caught up in obsessively changing situations and creating some idea or perfect situation for ourselves. It’s not wrong to be engaged and making choices based on what seems the most kind and wise, and what our inner knowing may tell us. And yet, if we are doing it with the aim of arriving somewhere, we are not very aligned with reality.
So what’s the solution?
There is one thing we can change and find healing for which impacts everything else, and that’s how we relate to it all. Can I find healing for that? Can I find more genuine peace with what’s here as it is?
That’s of course the essence of Buddhism and many other approaches. We find healing for one thing – our relationship with everything – instead of trying to change everything “out there” whether it’s our own issues, situations, others, or something else.
APRIL 18, 2024
ASK MORE INTENTLY
As I woke up this morning, I was in a state between sleep and awake and heard a voice saying: Ask more strongly. It was Amma who said it, the divine.
Ask more intently. Whatever you wish for, ask more intently.
OUR HUMAN SELF BEFORE AND AFTER
One of the misconceptions about awakening is that it will completely transform our human self. That can happen, but it doesn’ necessarily happen. More often, there are some changes and also many patterns that are still there and continue as before.
If we are grumpy before awakening, we may be grumpy after.
We can invite our human self to reorganize and realign within the new context of awakening, and that transformation and realignment is ongoing. There is no finishing line. (At least not within this short life.)
BASIC MEDITATION IN DAILY LIFE
Basic mediation means to notice and allow what’s here. And not even that, but to notice it’s all already noticed (since it’s happening within our sense fields) and it’s all already allowed (by space, mind, life, existence). We consciously align with what’s already here.
A meditation session is like a laboratory. We get to explore something in depth without too many distractions. (Apart from the inevitable ones our mind creates for itself, and that’s itself part of the exploration.)
Over time, it becomes a new habit, it becomes familiar, it becomes something that it’s easier to bring into daily life. We may walk down the street and find ourselves noticing that it’s all noticed and allowed. We may sit on the train. We may be in a conversation. We may watch a movie. We may do just about any activity, and find ourselves noticing that it’s all noticed and allowed.
Basic meditation becomes a part of our life. It becomes a new habit.
APRIL 26, 2024
WHAT DID I DO WHEN I RECOVERED THE FIRST TIME?
I got Chronic Fatigue Syndroms (CFS) after an Epstein-Barr infection (mono) when I was fifteen. It was quite strong through high school, and then got quite a bit better after high school and in the following years.
Maybe that would have happened anyway, but it is interesting to look at what happened in my life, and what I did, that possibly supported the healing.
I left high school and started art school, which in itself made a big difference in my life. I did what I loved and was passionate about, and met likeminded people and closer friends.
I did a lot of tai chi, chigong, inner yoga (Mantak Chia), heart prayer, Christ meditation, and so on.
I was excited about life and my current and imagined future projects. (I did rely on ideas about the future for excitement, to some extent.)
I suspect my breath was more free because of the tai chi and chigong. These days, I notice it’s more tight (again), likely from all the trauma that’s been coming up in my system for a little over a decade.
I am back in Norway these days and just started a chigong class with my old tai chi/chigog teacher.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI: WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE
We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
– Charles Bukowski
Not only will I die and everyone I know. There will be a time when nobody is here to remember me or anyone I know, or anything I know. Everyone and everything will die. Humanity will be gone. Earth will be gone. This universe, as we know it, will be gone.
To me, the quote is the first half of the equation.
The second half is for me to make use of it. How can I use it to find even more appreciation for what’s here? To find compassion for myself and others? To live a life that’s a little better for me and others?
Also, if all within my field of experience is change, can I be any of it? Can I most fundamentally be this me or I? When I explore this, I find I more fundamentally am something else. I am what it all happens within and as. I am this awake space it all happens within and as, and that forms itself into all of it.
APRIL 27, 2024
CFS AND MOVING SLOWLY
I find that one key to reduce or avoid Post-Exertion Malaise (PEM) is to physically move slowly. When I walk around the house, take a shower, make food, move slowly. The more slow, the easier it is and the less I notice PEM.
UNCERTAINTY AND FINDING REFUGE
When life pulls the rug out from under me, as has often happened, where do I seek refuge?
Sometimes, it’s in friends and nature. Sometimes, it’s in food and other distractions.
And sometimes, it’s deeper into meditation and prayer.
APRIL 28, 2024
DIVINE WILL INCLUDES US
If what’s happening is divine will, why would I try to change it? Why would I pray for change?
Someone asked that question in a social media group for the healing modality I am involved in.
As so often, the question has its own answer. If what’s happening is divine will, then us trying to change something is also par of that divine will.
It’s all happening within and as the divine – the situation, us, whatever we do or don’t do.
In that case, we are the divine changing something within itself.
For me, this language is a bit awkward in two ways. First, it makes a little more sense to me to say it’s all happening within and as the divine, it’s all the divine taking all these forms. (Divine “will” makes it a bit stronger, which is good for emphasis, but it can also make it sound as if there is a kind of separation there.) Also, this is all language from the big understanding of awakening, and I am a little more comfortable with the small understanding.
For me, this is easier to talk about if I bring it back to my immediate experience.
This field of experience happens within and as what I am.
The wider world, situations, this human self, anything connected with this human self – it all happens within and as what I am.
It’s all happening within and as the consciousness I am. It’s the consciousness I am forming itself into all of it. It all lives its own life.
Whatever this human self does is not more or less happening within and as what I am than anything else.
NOTICING THE NATURE OF WHAT’S HERE
In daily life these days, I notice I tend to…
Consciously notice what I am. I am what this field of experience – everything including anything labeled me and I – happens within and as. It all happens within and as what I am. It’s all awake space taking all these forms. What I am forms itself into all of it. It’s all dreamlike. There is no inherent center anywhere.
Notice anything that feels more dense, any contractions, any old trauma surfacing, and explore that in a similar way. What is the nature of this contraction? What is it made of? How is it to notice it as awake space like anything else? How is it to rest in and as that noticing?
Sometimes, I also use elements of the befriend and awaken approach: Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for your love for me. What do you need? What would bring you peace? What is your nature? What is your essence?
WHAT’S BEYOND?
I can find myself as what this field of experience happens within and as.
I can even find myself as capacity for all of it.
Early on in the process, in my teens and early twenties, my mind sometimes wondered if the essence was somewhere else. This seems too immediate, familiar, and obvious, so there has to be something else.
If you asked me now, I would say that it is that simple, and there is more. There is always further to go in clarifying, maturing, healing, learning to live from and as it, and so on. And there is no goal or finishing line anywhere.
SUGAR NUMBS
I have explored not having refined sugar for a few weeks at a time, and then briefly some sugar to notice the effect.
To me, it seems that sugar numbs. It distracts attention from any (other) discomfort that’s here.
It’s not surprising, and it’s obviously not the whole picture. But it is likely an important part of why it tends to be so addictive for some of us.
FOOD INTOLERANCES
It wouldn’t be surprising if many food intolerances come about from a combination of (a) eating a certain food too frequently, (b) eating refined foods, (c) the body-mind viscerally associating certain foods with unpleasant experiences (i.e. while eating), and (d) the body not having enough energy and resources to deal with food and digestion well.
In my birth family, we had dinners together and I often didn’t feel comfortable due to the dynamics between my mother and father. I wonder if that’s why I have had quite a lot of food intolerances at different times. (It’s much better when my body-mind is doing better in general.)
That’s why I try to eat more varied and with the seasons (how successful I am depends to some extent on where I am and what’s available), eat lower on the food chain, and also be in a peaceful state of mind while eating. I may also try to help my body associate certain foods with peace through dialog with my body and maybe using the inner smile (Mantak Chia, Taoist practice).
APRIL 29, 2024
A MESSAGE FROM BETWEEN SLEEP AND AWAKE
I have received a few messages lately in the state between sleep and awake. Right now, I could see that if I act in integrity with some consistently over some time, it will help my system have more strength. (Which will support my health.) That makes sense. Being out of integrity weakens, and acting in integrity and authenticity brings a sense of solidity and strength.
IT’S NOT EASY TO BE NATURAL
I have started with Qigong again after many years away from it, and I notice that it requires intention to do the movements with simplicity and ease. (For instance, when I fold my hands together and rise my arms over my head, I find it takes intention for me to relax my shoulders.)
It’s not easy being natural, especially when we are so caught up in our mental representations and we live in a culture where so much is distorted for that reason.
MAY 1, 2024
DREAM
I am with three or four new friends. We are in a car, and one of the women reaches out to hold my hand. Later, we sit on a sofa, close to each other, and touching each other. It feels good.
This dream had an innocent quality, like something from childhood. I don’t know any of the people in the dream from waking life. I liked the woman who reached out to me, and it felt like it could be something more than friendship – maybe naturally unfolding in time without any need to push it.
For me, this dream is a reminder that I can find a more intimate and nourishing relationship with my feminine side.
STOP WHILE I STILL WANT TO DO MORE
I have started with some of the Taoist inner yoga practices again.
Since I enjoy it, there is a part of me that wants to do it a lot.
Still, I hold back a bit. I want to keep the “want to do more” impulse in me for tomorrow and the next day and the next. It’s good to stop while that impulse is still alive and engaged.
MAY 2, 2024
INTEGRATE AWAKENING?
When I was with the spiritual group in Oregon (CSS), I remember the main teacher saying a few times that “awakening is not something to integrate”. That’s one of many things that baffles me a bit but it also makes sense in the context.
For me, a big part of the awakening process is for my human self to reorganize within the context of my nature recognizing itself. That’s an ongoing process. And that is, in a real sense, integration. My human self and psyche – much of which was formed within and operates from separation consciousness – is slowly, gradually, and imperfectly catching up to the oneness.
Why does it make sense that he said it? Because they seem to focus a lot on the initial moment of realization, and not on the decades of alignment and reorganization that follows. They don’t talk much about the integration phase. (At least, they didn’t when I was there.)
DREAM: VISITING A FRIEND
I am visiting a friend from long ago (EM) and her family. They live in a charming big apartment in Oslo (Grünerløkka). The sunlight is filtered by the leaves of a birch tree and comes into the apartment. It’s all charming, cozy, and alive. A group of their friends come over and we have brunch in the garden.
This is what I miss in my life, have wanted my whole life, and have only experienced in short glimpses. The two times I was in a relationship that felt deeply right and had this feeling for me, the relationships ended. In both cases, after we had talked about it and both wanted to get married. (Both times, it seems it fell apart because of timing. In the first case, I felt I was too young and wanted to wait, which didn’t work for the other. In the second, I was in a transition in a couple of major areas of life, and it wasn’t resolved in time. I also realize that if I had done things just a little differently, mainly in expressing what I wanted and suggesting a way to do it, it could and likely would have happened.)
This dream brings up grief and sadness in me. I have had so many opportunities to do and experience exactly what feels deeply right (in relationships, career, location), and it has just about all fallen apart – either just before or just after it happens. I wonder if something in me wants it too much, so it feels like too much when it’s about to happen, and something in me sets it up – often in indirect and subtle ways – so it falls apart.
AI THERAPY
I am watching episode six in season five of Star Trek: Discovery, and they are developing a kind of holographic AI therapy program. Hugh Culber, the physician and counselor, talks with a holographic representation of his grandmother, which helps him with his grief.
I can see many uses for something similar. Already now, we can create AI avatars that are trained on the appearance, voice, personality, and worldview of a particular person, and we can interact with that AI representation.
Interacting with that virtual representation can help in several ways. We may be able to say things that we wanted to say but were not able to. We can even program the avatar to be a kind, wise, and mature version of the person so there is more of a sense of a satisfying resolution.
Of course, we know it’s not the actual person, and it won’t feel quite as satisfying and complete as if it were, but it can still be healing.
I have done this through visualization and imagined dialog. I visualize someone in front of me, in their most wise and kind version, and then have a dialog. I have the dialog and interaction I feel I need for resolution. And it does help. It does give me insights. It does bring a kind of resolution.
Some approaches also do this with a stand-in. Someone takes on the role of someone from your life, and you talk and interact with them as that person.
DARK NIGHT
I have written about this before but thought I would revisit it.
There are some common phases in the awakening process, and the sequence seems to sometimes be mixed up a bit and more than one may happen at once.
First, there was an interest in parapsychology, systems views, and similar, within an atheist worldview.
Then, a year with an observer-observed duality where there was an release of identification with all content of experience except the mental imagination of an observer.
Then, a shift into oneness. All woke up to itself. All is the divine without exception.
This was followed by a honeymoon phase that lasted a little over ten years. During this time, there was an amazing sense of flow, things fell into place, an amazing productivity, and so on.
I then left my guidance on a major life decisions (marriage and moving), and that was the start of the dark night.
Seven or eight years into this, I got back into meditation and there was a six month period where the no-self aspect was very strongly in the foreground.
This was followed by a darker dark night phase. This human self got very sick with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. (Likely triggered by a severe long-lasting pneumonia my doctor didn’t to treat, mold, cold and wet winter in Oregon, and stress because I felt trapped in my life and marriage.)
Some years after, as I started to feel a little better, I asked the divine to “show me what’s left”. That led to an profound and intense survival fear coming to the surface. It was almost unbearably strong for a little less than a year and then very gradually subsided over the next several year.
This was also the beginning of many false starts and projects and situations falling apart. I lost everything in a divorce. I tried to start a PhD in San Francisco (CIIS), but all sorts of things went wrong over several years so it never happened. (They lost accreditation so the Norwegian government wouldn’t fund it, I applied to a similar program but my university in Norway sent the wrong transcripts and nobody told me, and so on.) I had a relationship start that seemed like all I wanted, which then fell apart. I started a job which was perfect for me, except the business was mismanaged and they committed insurance fraud. As I again stared to have better health, I got Lyme disease and my health took a severe nosedive. And so on. The list is very long and it’s still ongoing. (Of course, I can turn these around: I got to experience an amazing relationship even if it was short. I got to live different places. I got to end a job where the circumstances didn’t feel right. The CFS helps me to rest. And so on.)
In general, a huge amount of old trauma seems to keep coming to the surface, and I haven’t always delt with it in a graceful way. This has made my inner and outer life feel unstable and somewhat chaotic.
In daily life, it’s often OK, but the rug keeps being pulled out from under my feet which brings up more.
Why has it been so challenging for me? A big reason is that I have gone against a clear inner guidance on several things in my life. Also, I suspect I have quite a bit more trauma in my system than average.
As Evelyn Underhill says about the dark night of the soul (paraphrased): It’s a messy, thoroughly humbling, and deeply human process.
MAY 6, 2024
DREAM
I am with an aquainance (SL). She leads me up some ladders. It’s steep, I am concerned I’ll have a lot of fear come up, but it’s OK. She takes my hand, and it feels good. It gives me the warm fullness of a new connection that feels good and I don’t know where will go. We end up at a large new loft space in an old building. There is a café there, artist space, and a friend of mine (BB) lives there too.
NECTAR / AMBROSIA / AMRITA
My partner told me that during and after the most recent Vortex Healing class, she is experiencing a wonderful sweet taste and smell, and others notice it as well.
I suspect this may be similar to what I experienced some years ago, and what some call amrita, nectar, or ambrosia.
SPACE TO WHAT SEEMS MOST “ME”
When I do headless experiments, or just notice my nature, I find it interesting and helpful to explore whatever is here that seems the most “me”.
There is an orange blob where others see my nose. There are sensations where other see my head. There are thoughts. Feelings. Identities.
All of those are objects coming and going. They are objects in space. They are just like the chair there, or the rug, or the tree, or the sound of the birds, or these hands, or the computer.
It’s all happening within and as what I am.
MAY 8, 2024
A FLOOD OF INSIGHTS
For the first decade or so after the oneness shift, there was a huge and near-constant flood of insights. First, very strong, and then slowing down in intensity. I would try to imperfectly find words for it and write it down, just as I do now. (What I write now is mostly just a rediscovery of what I discovered then and have kept on discovering. It’s all new. The previous discoveries are only found in the imagination a thought may call memory.)
It seems that this mind recreated a lot of what others have found, including Advaita folks and mystics through time and across cultures and traditions.
I was in a situation where I didn’t know, and didn’t have access to, what others had said about it for a few years, so I got to explore it for myself. (It seemed unfortunate at the time, but now, looking back, I see the gifts in it.)
When I did find people talking about it, I was more curious about how they talked about it. How do they express it? What language and pointers do they use?
And when I discovered the Heart Sutra, Ramana Maharshi, Byron Katie, Adyashanti, Douglas Harding, and some others, I could see that these were talking from the same place. (Of course, most of these are much more clear than me on much of it, and their human self is likely far more transformed within it.)
A VERY SIMPLE INTUITIVE APPROACH
Immediately after the initial oneness shift, I had an immediate, simple, and effective way to help my human self to reorganize within oneness.
Later, I found several far more complex approaches and I got the impression that it had to be complex.
And now, I feel I am finding back to the simplicity of the initial innocent approach. (In terms of time, I have returned to it many times, and it’s always a little different.)
MAY 9, 2024
WHERE DO WE SEEK REFUGE?
When we get in a squeeze, where do we seek refuge?
Most of us tend to seek refuge in our familiar coping strategies, until these don’t work anymore.
I can see that these days with someone in my family. She goes into and amplifies less-than-optimal coping strategies, which likely feels familiar and safe, but only gives an illusion of safety and creates suffering for herself and those around her.
Of course, I do the same. My coping strategies involve distractions, writing here, and the different things I write about in other articles.
ASKING THE DIVINE FOR ASSISTANCE / GIVING IT OVER TO THE DIVINE
In our culture, it seems that many feel they should only ask the divine for help when it’s really needed, when they cannot do it themselves. They don’t want to bother God with small things.
To me, this seems like imagining God as a busy parent who has more important things to do than helping you, unless it’s really important. It seems to reflect a theistic, dualistic, an individualistic worldview, and an idea that there are finite asks.
To me, it seems different. For me, asking the divine for assistance helps me deepen my connection with the divine. (Even if all is the divine anyway.) Also, it’s a reminder that it’s the divine here (in the form of this human self) asking the divine there (the rest of existence) for assistance. It’s all movements within the divine. There is no limit, there is no end.
Of course, asking for help doesn’t mean I can sit back and do nothing. I still need to be engaged. I still need to be a good steward of my life. I still need to take opportunities when they come and make the best out of them. I can still imagine and visualize a desired situation. And so on.
Often, what I ask for is for shifts or transformation of myself.
It’s a kind of dialogue between the divine in the form of this human self (the divine in a more retarded form as my wife calls it) and the divine as existence as a whole.
MAY 10, 2024
TRAUMA BEHAVIOR = COPING STRATEGIES
What we think of as trauma behavior is really a coping strategy. It’s the way we deal with the trauma. It’s the way we have learned to cope with the pain and survive.
On the imaginary scale of how healthy our coping strategies are, it may not be all the way to the most healthy. But it is the best we can do at the moment, and it can – and often will – change.
SUPPRESSING ALL SORTS OF THINGS
In my birth family, a lot of things didn’t feel safe – emotions, behaviors, wishes, and so on.
Over the last several years, these suppressed things have surfaced, including anxiety, anger, and sadness. And I also know I have suppressed a lot of my gifts. That’s part of it too.
PRACTICES THAT REQUIRE MENTAL GYMNASTICS
I have explored a wide range of practices (meditation, yoga, healing, etc.) over the years, and I noticed early on that there are two general types of practices.
One works and makes sense before and within awakening. (Almost all if not all of the practices I write about here fall into that category.) And the other assumes duality and works only if there is a general “global” duality there.
If I try the second kind of practices, I’ll have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to even get to the start point. I can see that those practices can serve as a stepping stone, but for me, it makes more sense to use and get familiar with practices that go to and work within oneness.
ONE CHALLENGE WITH CFS: MOST PEOPLE ONLY SEE YOU ON GOOD DAYS
One of the classic challenges with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is that most people only see you on good days.
On the rare occasions I set up an appointment with someone, even if it’s something very simple, I typically need to rest several days before and after. The effort itself may lead to a CFS crash, and worsen my condition significantly for days or even weeks.
During the meeting or event, I am often able to mobilize enough so I seem relatively normal, at least if the meeting is not too long. So naturally, to others, it seems I am relatively OK and they may generalize what they see to the rest of my life.
That’s obviously not accurate at all. If they saw me over time, they would get a very different impression.
MAY 11, 2024
THANK YOU TO THE CFS
I find myself saying “thank you” to chronic fatigue (CFS).
Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for your love for me. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your gifts.
Can I find genuine gratitude for CFS?
Yes. I can find it in my body doing its best for me. I can find it in what it has given me. I can find it in it being an amazing teacher for me – about life, myself, being a creature.
MAY 14, 2024
FIRM & GENTLE IN THE AWAKENING PROCESS
For just about anything in life, we need a combination of firm & gentle, and so also for exploring our own nature.
I have had both in my exploration. And I realize that when it comes to more intentionally inviting in shifts, I can bring in more firmness and commitment.
For instance…
A stressful thought comes up. I can go with it, or just notice how my personality responds to it. Or I can take a more firm approach and remind myself it’s not true. This thought is unexamined, it comes from an unloved part of me.
Something uncomfortable comes up. I may notice it and how my psyche responds to it. Or I may take a more firm approach and intentionally welcome it, and notice it’s nature and rest in that noticing.
When I look at this now, I see that I have often taken both a gentle and firm approach, it’s just that it can be more firm and thorough. There can be more commitment to invite certain old patterns in me to shift.
My language is a hint here too. I often talk about exploration, and I see my own conscious process largely as exploration. If I talk about intending for old patterns to shift, I usually talk about invitations. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s just that the medicine now may be to bring in more firmness, thoroughness, and commitment for patterns to shift.
MAY 15, 2024
DIVINE NECTAR SYNCHRONICITY
My wife has had the divine nectar (ambrosia) experience for some days now and we have talked about it occasionally, most recently last night. I have also reread my entries from when I experienced it.
This morning, when I checked my website, I saw that the top random article was “Dr. Wolff on ambrosia”. Out of ten thousand articles, the random generator chose that one.
MAY 16, 2024
THE LIGHT METAPHOR
Many cultures seem to associate light with clarity, the divine, life, and so on. And we tend to associate darkness with either rest or something undesirable.
I wonder if this has mostly to do with our biology. We are day animals. We rely on sight to navigate, stay safe, and find food and each other. The plants we live on rely on light and grow better when there is more daylight. For us, darkness is for rest, and it’s unsafe.
How would it be if we had a different biology? If we had evolved to seek darkness and shun the light? We would see darkness as our home, as safe, where we belong, as what gives us life. And light may be seen as dangerous and unsafe. If we had religion or spirituality, it may revolve around darkness and the nourishing, safe, and life-giving qualities of darkness.
There is another aspect of this I am curious about.
When I look at the energies around someone or things, more light usually suggests more awareness, although the more our nature is conscious of itself, the more it just becomes fine and clear without obvious light. It’s as if the obvious light is a middle phase and it goes towards something that’s night light or dark.
MAY 17, 2024
BE IT AND NOTICE MY NATURE
This is an exploration I have been drawn to for a while, and I assume it works best when our nature is familiar with noticing itself.
I find myself as this field of experience and what it all happens within and as.
At the same time, my human self and psyche has old patterns and habits. It likes some things and don’t like other things. It sees some things as I, me, or me and other things as other and them. It embraces some things, and wants to avoid or get rid of other things.
That’s completely natural. That’s how this human self functions. It comes from evolution and has helped us to survive. There is nothing wrong with it, but it can be uncomfortable to the extent we still get caught in it, consciously or outside of what we are consciously aware of.
What I am drawn to is to move against my habitual patterns in two ways. I intentionally go upstream.
First, I notice that my personality sees something as other or undesirable, and I remind myself that I already am it. I notice it’s already happening within the field of experience, within the oneness I am. What I am, which can be called consciousness, forms itself into it. I emphasize to myself that I already am in, and I rest in that noticing.
Then, I ask myself what I am made of. As this that my personality may not like so much, what am I? Here, I find myself as awake space. I find that I – as discomfort, sadness, anxiety, anger, cravings, or whatever it may be – am awake space. I am what everything else is, to me. Here too, I rest in and as this noticing.
This helps get more parts of me and my psyche on board with oneness.
MAY 18, 2024
A VARIETY OF COPING STRATEGIES
We all use coping strategies to deal with our pain and discomfort, and there is a wide range of different coping strategies we can use.
A few came to mind this morning.
We can use knowledge as a kind of shield. Someone I know, who I like a lot, seems to do that. He can talk for hours about interesting things about the world and nature and it’s difficult to get a word in edgewise. My guess is that appearing knowledgeable is one strategy, and not giving much space for others to talk is another. When I talk with him about related topics, he often doesn’t know about it. He keeps the ball on his half of the field, as we say in Norway. For me, it’s interesting to listen to, and I like him, but it feels a bit sad and disappointing to talk about impersonal topics and that he doesn’t allow me much space to talk and share. (Which is fine, it’s just good to notice how others may respond to it.)
We can also just use the talk-a-lot strategy which doesn’t allow the others to say much. I assume it’s a way of controlling the situation and feeling safe. Someone in my family does this, and he told me he does it because he has fatigue because of a health condition, and it’s tiring for him to listen to others and take in information. It’s easier for him to talk. For me, this is actually tiring. I get tired from listening so much and not easily being able to respond.
In the community in the Andes, I know people who seem to go into idealism as a coping strategy. They seem to rely on idealism as if life dependent on it. It means that others often disappoint them, and they get angry at people for not living up to how they “should” behave. For me, this is something I try to stay away from. I prefer more ordinary, grounded, and well-rounded people. (Our food forest and regeneration project may seem idealistic to some. For me, it’s just something I love and have loved since childhood, and it feels deeply meaningful. I have a variety of reactions when I see the destruction of nature in the world – from sadness to anger and anxiety, but I don’t expect people to behave a certain way.)
Of course, I have these in me too. They mirror something in me, and it’s good to notice. When do I seek refuge in knowledge? In talking? In idealism?
Also, which strategies do I seem to typically use in my life?
I often stay silent in social settings, if I am with more than one or two people. I prefer to stay on the anonymous and hidden side, and listen instead of talking. In that way, I don’t risk whatever I risk by being more visible.
I tell myself that whatever I have – insights, knowledge, skills – is banal, ordinary, and not important. I put it down and minimize it. I assume this is so I can stay hidden.
I predictably also do the opposite, a part of me secretly tells myself I am better than others. This is so I can feel better about myself and compensate for feeling less than others.
Of course, by using any strategy to try to find safety and avoid certain risks, we risk something else. These strategies often take the form of a compulsion or addiction, and just like any addiction, the drawbacks are often worse than what we try to avoid by engaging in it.
By hiding behind knowledge, we may miss out on learning. By hiding behind talking, we miss out on more balanced interactions and deeper connections. By seeking refuge in idealism, we miss out on a more grounded and rich way of relating with life and people, and on relating with life and people more as it and they are. (We also get disappointed, and people may avoid us.) By staying silent, and minimizing and belittling myself, I don’t share my gifts with the world which is a loss for myself and perhaps even the world. By telling myself I am better than others, I miss out on a deeper sense of fellowship and connections.
MAY 18, 2024
NEED REST & CAN DO MORE
I notice something these days: I need rest, and when I check in my system wants rest more than anything. At the same time, if I need to do something, I can do it. I have the resources and am able to mobilize. (I am careful to limit activity, and rest before, during, after, and extra.)
I assume boh are true. My system needs deep rest to heal and recover. And I am able to mobilize if that’s required.
MAY 21, 2024
SLEEP HYGIENE
I notice some seem concerned about screen time before sleeping, but often overlook other things that impact sleep as much or more. For instance, if they are concerned about the light from screens, why not be equally concerned with light in general? For me, being in a bright room before sleep impacts my sleepiness far more than screens.
I like to keep the light dim for a couple of hours before sleep. It seems to help me a lot.
I also avoid anything potentially stressful for a couple of hours before sleep, including movies.
If I look at a screen, I keep the light level down as far as possible. (I generally do that.)
I rarely drink or eat anything with caffeine. If I do, I try to limit it to the morning or early afternoon.
I typically don’t eat in the evening or late afternoon, and I reduce how much I drink so I won’t need to get up at night.
I seek out bright light in the morning. It seems to help set my circadian rhythms which helps with sleepiness at night.
I try to take the “sleep train” when it comes at night. I often go to bed relatively early. That way, there is also less of a “should” around falling asleep soon.
I generally follow the sun and get up at sunrise and to bed at sunset. This obviously doesn’t work at all latitudes and at all times of year.
MAY 22, 2023
HENRI ROUSSEAU: WHAT WISDOM CAN YOU FIND WHAT’S GREATER THAN KINDNESS?
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
– Henri Rousseau
Kindness is, in many ways, the greatest wisdom. It’s an expression of the deepest and most valuable wisdom.
BREAKDOWN
Since the darkest phase of the dark night started some years ago, I have had hours or days where I kind of collapse or have a breakdown.
In one sense, it’s not quite as dramatic as it sounds. What’s happening is that I temporarily suspend intentionally meeting my experiences with kindness, do inquiry, eat healthy food, and so on. I allow myself to be in the parts of me that feels overwhelmed, hopeless, anxious, or whatever it may be. I rest a lot. Intentionally don’t think about the future or past. (In the sense of fueling those stories.) I may eat foods I usually don’t. And so on. It’s more a giving up of trying to change anything or trying to relate to it all in a mature way. (Althogh giving up on that is a kind of maturity in itself.)
It seems to often be triggered by fatigue, eating foods my system have a reaction to, and so on.
I suspect it’s my system’s way of maintaining a kind of balance. I may try to change things a little too much, and then go into not trying to change anything for a little while.
The lesson may be – and part of the lesson certainly is – to do whatever I am doing, including healing work and spiritual explorations, in a more relaxed, grounded, and sober way. If I notice any tendency to go into the future, or if I seem invested in a particular shift or outcome, notice, relax, and open up for what’s bigger.
WHAT IF THIS WILL NEVER CHANGE?
I had a CFS-crash in December and haven’t recovered. I am not able to do very much apart from the very basics, and the brain fog is unusually strong. In addition, there is a lot happening in my life these days that’s challenging. I also suspect that doing a little bit of healing for myself using Vortex Healing a few days ago brought up a lot in my system and it feels disorganized.
I noice parts of me doesn’t like it. It wants things to be different. I should have the energy I have when I feel better. I should have a more clear mind. My life should be different.
As I noticed this parts in me after waking up, something else came up as well:
What if this will ever change?
Asking myself this, and being with it, shifts something in me.
What if it will always be this way? How would I like to relate to it? How would I like to live with it? How would I like to live my life?
This helps me shift out of the parts of me that want’s it to change, that looks at different alternatives and futures, that is not at peace with what is. These are here too, just not where attention goes.
I gives me a taste of more fully allowing and embracing what’s here now. That’s really the only option anyway, since it already is here. It’s my world. It’s what I am. Even ideas about alernatives and different futures is my world and what I am.
Inevitably, my world is what I am, and it includes any ideas I have about past, present, and future. It’s all I have and it’s all I am. For me, it already will “always” be what I am since there is nothing else.
CONNECTED WITH THE COSMOS
I have started doing more intentional Taoist practices again. Today, during Qigong class, my connection with the cosmos – which we all have since we are the local expressions of it – came strongly to the foreground. I want to open myself up for receiving energy from the cosmos as the whole. It seems airy-fairy, but it is one of the things I did when I got much better from the initial CFS in my teens.
The universe has infinite energy (for all practical purposes), the connection is there, so why not open myself up to receiving that energy and allow it to energize and heal this system?
It may literally happen that way, in a conventional sense.
It definitely happens that way in the sense that the world and the universe, to me, is within and as what I am.
And it may happen in any number of more metaphorical or psychological ways.
MAY 26, 2024
DROWNING MY SORROWS IN THE FOOD FOREST
Someone helping us with the food forest and regeneration project said: Thank you for your dedication.
My response was to look at my motivation, and seeing that I am drowning my sorrows in the food forest. My life is full of projects that barely got started and felt like my dream and then, for one reason or another, collapsed. This has happened in all areas of life. (Education, work, careers, relationships, homes.) It feels like right now, what’s left – the last straw I am holding onto – is the food forest.
Of course, that’s not so good. I want to do it out of love and enjoyment, and that’s there too. But there is definitely an element of using the project to feel that I am doing something useful with my life.
It’s good to notice. It helps me hold it a little more lightly.
I am also aware that this pattern very likely reflects my trauma and how I deal with my trauma. It’s a trauma pattern played out in life. My pattern is to give up easily, usually just before or as I get to enjoy the fruits of a lot of work. Also, to not feel I am good enough, that I don’t deserve it, and so on.
MAY 27, 2024
CHANGES IN THE HEALING
I keep noticing changes in how the healing happens these days, when I do it for someone.
It viscerally comes from the void and recognizing all as the void AKA Spirit. It comes from the nothing everything comes from.
I often viscerally become the other person. I see and sense the energetics of the other person and viscerally become it from and as void. “I” am gone, either just about completely or with just a couple of percent left.
It feels like being taken by a river or sucked into something. “I” am not doing or intending it, apart from intending the healing and connecting with the other person.
It also feels very strong.
It’s a bit scary to this personality since it is so strong, but it’s OK. It does seem to fry my own system quite a bit right now, so I am not doing it very often or very much. But I will continue exploring it and see how it keeps unfolding and opening up.
These changes have happened more viscerally and profoundly after the Amma experience last fall.
MAY 28, 2024
FINDING MYSELF AS CONSCIOUSNESS
For me, finding myself as consciousness seems a kind of default.
As a child, I remembered the time between lives. I was consciousness, everything was consciousness. All was light. There was a sense of being profoundly at home. At a visceral level, it was and is home.
Later in childhood, I had moments of oneness with the universe. I experienced myself as the universe, locally expressed as this boy. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, along with being out in nature and seeing the stars, were part of triggering it.
Then, there was the shift into kind of finding myself as consciousness. The world, including anything that had to do with this human self, seemed very distant and far away. This happened for a year when I was fifteen.
And then, there was the shift into oneness. Into all as the divine, or as I would say now, all as consciousness. My world is consciousness. The consciousness I am forms itself into all of it.
Of course, there are still parts of this psyche that were formed within separation consciousness. The consciousness I am mimicked what it saw other humans do, and created these patterns and dynamics in this human self. These parts of me inevitably color my perception, choices, and life. And sometimes, I – as a whole – even get caught up in them and take myself to be these parts of me, forgetting all the rest of the infinite richness and what it all happens within and as.
All of that is OK. It’s natural and even innocent. Even the occasional struggle with it is natural, OK, and ultimately innocent. (Even if the consequences can be painful.)
SPACE IN ALL DIRECTIONS
A part of my experience is of space in all directions. There are sensations, and these too happen within and as space. This human self is sitting here, and below the feet is space, behind is space, it’s all happening within and as awake space.
It’s not exactly the same as physical space. It’s what’s space for the experience of physical space and everything else.
I assume this is one of the common experiences when our nature notices itself.
Another is the experience of the world moving through me, when this human self moves in the world.
That there is no distance. Mentally, I know there is a distance in a conventional sense, and in immediacy, there is no distance.
JUNE 2, 2024
ASKING THE DIVINE
I talked with someone recently who said he only asks the divine for help if he can’t do it himself.
I understand where it comes from, it assumes separation and makes sense in that context, if you see the divine as a kind of parent you don’t want to bother and it’s better to do it for yourself.
For me, it’s different. I like to ask the divine for help and guidance as much as possible, in daily life with life situations and in transforming this human self. It’s opens me to be more receptive and more connected with the divine as everything.
THE DISCOMFORT IS ALREADY HERE SO I MAY AS WELL FACE IT
I notice a part of me wants to avoid discomfort. It’s natural, understandable, and innocent. It even has an evolutionary function. Generally wanting to avoid discomfort helps us survive and thrive.
When it comes to a more chronic discomfort from trauma, painful beliefs, and so on, it can also be helpful to avoid it – in some circumstances, in some ways, and for a while. And yet, it doesn’t make the discomfort go away. So after a while, we may realize that it’s easier to meet it.
How do we do that? It helps to meet the reaction to it first, the parts of us what wants to get away or for the discomfort to go away. Then, its easier to meet the discomfort itself.
JUNE 4, 2024
CATS AND ENERGIES
When I was sixteen and the oneness shift happened, it was accompanied with huge energies going through my system. This lasted for years.
I remember sitting up and reading in bed in my room in the basement of my parents’ house, and our cat looking fascinated at something above my head. This happened several times. I imagine she saw the energies moving and working there.
I was reminded of this over the last couple of days. I am back in the same house, this to get it ready for sale. A neighbor cat has been coming to visit every day, usually two or three or more times. Sunday, I did a distance Vortex Healing class, and it was the first day he didn’t come to visit. The following day (yesterday), he came very tentatively and looking around the living room as if everything was new and different. I am wondering if the energies of the class and the healings that occurred felt unfamiliar and strange to him, and he preferred to take a break from visiting. When he showed up, it was as if everything was new to him, which it may be in an energetic sense.
HEALING FROM EMPTINESS
When I do healing these days, it’s a healing from emptiness.
I find myself and my world as emptiness, as awake space, as consciousness, as capacity taking the form of all the appearances, infinite and awake in all directions, with the focal point for the healing happening in the middle as awake space, and I find myself as that too, and the healing happens there.
The world and the healing is half emptiness and half form. The divine “there” is doing close to all of the work, and the divine “here” is not aware of exactly what is happening, it/I just stay present as it unfolds.
My sensing is not as good as it used to be because as awake emptiness, and with awake emptiness in the foreground, there isn’t much to sense. I assume the sensing will come back in a different form.
It’s difficult to put this into words. Of course, it’s difficult to put anything into words. We rely on others having a similar experience for it to make sense to them. That’s why it’s difficult for me to put this into words. I know that not too many are familiar with this terrain, although I do fortunately know several among those few. It’s easier for me if I imagine writing to them.
JUNE 12, 2024
THIS HUMAN IS LIVING HIS OWN LIFE
Sometimes, the “everything is living its own life” is more strongly in the foreground. The world is living its own life. This human self is living his own life.
It’s always like that, of course, He lives his own life whether there is identification there or not. Whether the “living his own life” is in the foreground of noticing or not.
And sometimes, even if this has been a familiar noticing since the teens of this human self, he will have a response to it. The fear of what may happen if there is not identification comes up. It’s a kind of startle response. It happens, is recognized for what it is, and it relaxes again.
JUNE 12, 2024
A CURRENT SYNCHRONICITY
I am in Norway now, and have a thermometer on the piano next to an image of Amma. It seems that often, when I glance at it, it says “22.2”. Yesterday, I did an online TRE class for a couple of an awakening path, and the temperature was 22.2 and the humidity 44.
Of course, I may forget or not pay much attention if I glance at it and it’s not 22.2, and 22.2 degrees is a relatively normal indoor temperature here in the summer. And yet, it does seem to happen quite a bit more frequently than expected by chance.
That’s not really what’s important. What’s important is that it’s a coincidence and it’s meaningful. It’s a reminder.
JUNE 15, 2024
AI TROUBLESHOOTING
I have used ChatGPT 4o to design a web interface for a plant database I am developing. It works surprisingly well, although I notice I need to be quite pedagogical, methodical, and systematic with it to get the best results.
I also notice that its troubleshooting is often single-tracked. It tends to do some slight variations of the same over and over, even if it’s not working. I have to step in and help it look at other possibilities for where the problem may be. (For instance, there may be variations of the same function in two or more separate files, or it’s trying to pass info through the URL while it should use a hidden field.)
I have noticed that we humans are often similar when it comes to our own healing. We tend to get stuck in one track and try similar things over and over. We may try similar approaches, similar kinds of modalities, work on similar issues, and so on.
And sometimes, the answer is in a very different place. The answer may be something that’s in our blind spot. That’s why can be helpful to receive guidance either from the most professional experts in the field (if we haven’t already), or someone who can look at the bigger picture and aim in on areas we may not have explored yet.
JUNE 16, 2024
THE SELF IS AN ILLUSION?
Some like to say that the self is an illusion.
Is it true? As usual, I would say yes, no, and it depends.
Our experience of self – this human self, a me, an I, being an observer or doer – is created by our mind, like anything else. It’s a construct. If we take that construct to be reality in itself, then we live in an illusion we created for ourselves.
Also, if we assume that any of these selves – the ones that happen within the content of experience and come and go as any content of experience – is what we fundamentally are in our own first-person experience, that too is an illusion. It’s out of alignment with reality.
The self is also not an illusion in that it makes sense to assume there is this human self here in the world, and other selves in the world. For practical purposes, that assumption is helpful. (I can’t know if it’s true or not, of course.)
I don’t find the “illusion” terminology very helpful.
I find it more helpful to see our experience of anything within the content of experience as a construct, as it is, and explore how it’s created by our mind. For instance how the sense fields combine to create an experience, how the mental field creates an overlay that makes sense of it all, and how the mind sometimes associates certain mental representations with certain physical sensations to create a sense of it being substantial, real, and true.
I also find it more helpful to explore what I fundamentally am in my own first-person experience. There is a human self here, and a wider world, and states, and maybe even a sense of doer or observer. All of that is content of experience. All of it comes and goes. It’s not what I more fundamental am. I find I more fundamentally am what it all happens within and as, what forms itself into all of it. I am this awake space taking all of these forms.
GUARDIAN ANGEL
I don’t speak or write about it very much, but my connection with angels has been an important part of my process. (I am very happy to talk about it if others bring the topic up and have their own connection with angels.)
Today, my wife told me that the guardian angel of one of her clients comes up at the beginning of the sessions, very clearly and strongly, asking my wife to tell her client to ask her guardian angel for help more often. He is bored and would like to do more, but she needs to ask.
I asked my guardian angel to come more into my life – to help with healing of body and mind, relationships, situations, and so on. I could feel my guardian angle come into and fill up my bodymind and life, slowly, gradually, more and more. It’s beautiful.
My wife also experienced this for her, and her guardian angel is taking a much more feminine form. (We both sensed it clearly.)
Update the following day: When I walked outside, one of the first things I saw was a mostly black feather sticking up fro the ground like a flag. I sense my guardian angel as masculine and dark, like a beast. That’s likely the expression I most need right now.
JUNE 17, 2024
HOW DOES QIGONG WORK?
I did delve quite deep into tai chi and qigong in my late teens and early twenties, and didn’t continue because I moved and couldn’t find a good teacher. I am now back to doing qigong.
I am not by any means qualified to say much about how it works, although I can share my impressions:
It’s mindful movement, which in itself can be very helpful. It helps train a more stable attention, and it brings attention to the body (here and now) and out of thoughts.
It helps gently move the body, including loosening the spine, improving balance, stretching the muscles, and so on.
It helps with the posture – pelvis forward, top of head pulled up by a string, chin in. Lower half sinking into the ground, upper half stretching gently towards the sky.
It helps me connect with my energy system and sense the energies. I experience the energy aspect of myself and it comes to the foreground of attention.
It likely helps move energies in my energy system.
ARE THOUGHTS IN THE PAST OR FUTURE?
Thoughts are always here, like anything else. Nothing of who and what I am can not be here and now.
The content of thoughts can certainly be about the past or future. Even thoughts about the present are about what just passed.
When attention is caught up in thoughts, it can seem as if I am in the past or future. I may be lost in ideas about past or future.
And when I notice that these are thoughts, I am not lost in them anymore. I notice them as thoughts that are here and now, just likely everything of who and what I am is here and now.
JUNE 21, 2024
DREAM: TEACHING QIGONG
I teach qigong and I love it. It feels deeply right.
This is just a dream fragment and all I remember from this dream, although it may be the essence.
I love qigong and just restarted it with my old teacher. If I had stayed in Oslo in my twenties, I would very likely have continued and I may also eventually have started teaching. A part of me feels sad I didn’t continue.
The dream may also point to an inner push-and-pull in me. A part of me wants to stay invisible. It’s scared to be seen and attacked. (As I was so often in childhood and teens.) Another part would love to teach qigong and similar things, mostly so I can do it more and benefit from it myself. The best way to continue to learn is to teach.
JUNE 26, 2024
MIDSUMMER MEDICAL SYNCHRONICITIES
For the last three midsummers, I have been in Norway and have had medical situations with similar themes.
Two years ago, I broke a tooth on midsummer night. It led to an infection on that side of my face which antibiotics did nothing for, and eventually septic shock and being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
Last year, someone wanted to use a mechanical massager on my shoulders. I told her to be very careful and avoid the neck since I know how sensitive it is. She did it anyway. Over the next few hours, I got very sick and it felt very similar to the septic shock. Again, I was sent to a hospital in an ambulance. It turned out to be the nerves in my neck pinched by swollen muscles from the massager.
Yesterday, a few days after midsummer, I got stung by a wasp while doing some garden work in my parents’ garden. (Reluctantly since they want a manicured garden and I much prefer a natural one.) Today, half of my face is swollen similar to what happened two years ago.
When I had lyme disease some years ago, I got the symptoms in the summer, and it would get much worse in the summer in the following years.
EVERYTHING IN MODERATION?
I just saw someone talking about how he used to practice something 16 hours a day in the beginning, and now recommend that people do it in moderation.
Yes, of course, moderation is not a bad idea. And yet, there is something slightly off when you have done something and benefited and learned from it, and then advice others to not do it.
I see overdoing it as valuable when it happens. It’s a way to deeply delve into something. You can learn a lot from it. And one of the things you eventually learn is moderation. You learn from experience.
Of course, it depends on what it is.
JULY 2, 2024
DREAM: COMPLIMENTS
I receive genuine compliments from several people independently.
This is a dream fragment from a much larger dream I don’t remember. For whatever reason, this is the one part of the dream that stayed with me into waking life.
Parts of me believe there is something wrong with me, nobody likes me, I am unlovable, I don’t have any to contribute, and so on.
I feel this dream is an invitation to notice and take in the reversals as well.
JULY 17, 2024
PERMANENT AWAKENING?
I sometimes hear people talk about permanent awakening, or even full or complete awakening.
To me, that seems like the human being – the psyche – responding to the awakening. It seems that it’s the psyche attempting to find a sense of safety by pretending it’s permanent, full, complete, and so on. It seems like an attempt to fix (in the sense of making permanent) something that’s inherently fluid.
How can you know it’s permanent, or full or complete?
Isn’t it much better to align with the always-changing nature of everything, including this?
The reality is, this psyche doesn’t know. It cannot know. And there is an immense beauty there.
To me, that seems less stressful.
AUGUST 29, 2024
IF WE ADOPT THE RELIGION OF OUR CULTURE, HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND IT?
GIVING ADVICE VS ENCOURAGE TO FOLLOW OWN GUIDANCE AND KNOWING
THE BANALITY OF AWAKENING
HOW I EXPERIENCE MY ENERGY SYSTEM
GOING DEEPER IN WHAT FEELS DEEPLY RIGHT
THE METAPHORICAL INSIDE AND OUTSIDE
- inside and outside
- all part of same field
- have info about inside that others don’t, a special connection to this human self
- see the outside of others and know the inside of ourselves, so it’s easy to think that the lives of others is easier, better, and so on
…..
I find myself as emptiness and the world, to me, as emptiness.
I notice that the consciousness I am – and that forms itself into my word – is and comes from emptiness. My nature is capacity for all of it, and that capacity is part of all.