Brenda's Bicycles

(As per my post “Finding The Balance”, all of my blog entries up through the end of my Sun Course (Sept 21) will be raw journal entries. I want to continue writing, but will not have the time to do so in my normal polished manner.)

Tuesday, July 20 – 7:00 p.m.

Sunday morning I woke up with a strong message running through my head. I had no memory of any dream-type experience that may or may not have placed the words in my mind, and the words were something I already knew – but I took the message quite seriously just the same. As I came into conscious awareness, I found myself repeating the concept over and over, trying to remind myself to not forget. While I do not remember the exact words, the concept was very clear.

“It is not what I do or accomplish that matters. What matters is the state of consciousness that I maintain as I do the work – the state of connectedness and the higher vibrations that I feel in each moment of the journey.”

To me, these words were a very powerful reminder to focus on being present – to focus on how I feel as I engage in every moment of my daily activities – that raising my level of vibration is far more important than anything else that I can possibly do.

I had an incredible opportunity yesterday afternoon to practice this message, resulting in an experience that I hope to never forget.

*  *  *  *  *

One day during my Moon Course in mid-May, I was eating lunch with Steven at Ganesh – a small restaurant here in San Marcos that is quite popular with many of the foreigners – especially the younger crowd. As I enjoyed my meal, I noticed a very interesting ceremony going on at a small table over in the back corner. Several smiling young women were sitting around the table, holding glasses of what looked like hot chocolate as a fifty-something grey-haired man talked to them about their experience.

My friend Sam (Samantha) was sitting briefly with the group, drinking a little of the chocolate herself – but she did not stay long. Minutes later, she stood up and came over to the table where Steven and I were sitting, engaging in a brief chat before heading back to her home just five minutes up the hill.

Over that few minutes of brief conversation with Sam, I learned that the interesting grey-haired man was lovingly referred to as the “Chocolate Shaman”. He had only recently returned to San Marcos, after some extended travels. Sam explained that he has people drink “Cacao” and then talks to them for several hours, guiding them through an inner journey. Sam told us that it can be quite the amazing experience.

For the remainder of my lunch conversation with Steven, I continued to occasionally glance over at the unusual event going on over in the corner of the restaurant. I felt a certain amount of judgment at the silliness that I seemed to be observing. While I have to admit that I felt a slight curiosity about what was going on, I certainly had no desire whatsoever to pay the $25 (US) fee to have a similar encounter. As is often the case in my past journeys, my mind was quite closed and resistant to an experience regarding which I actually knew next to nothing.

Imagine my surprise this past Saturday when Eric, a former Sun Course graduate who is visiting San Marcos for about a month approached me and asked “Hey Brenda, I have arranged for the Sun Course to have a session tomorrow at noon with the Chocolate Shaman – do you want to participate?”

Eric told me that he had participated in the experience during his own Sun Course, and that it had helped him to access and open up new levels of consciousness.

Totally trusting Eric’s advice, and feeling a desire to engage in a fun bonding experience with my fellow “Sunnies”, I replied in the affirmative, having no clue at the time as to the incredible energizing experience in which I was about to engage.

Sunday, right at mid-day, six of us from our group of eight (two were feeling sick and opted to not participate) gathered in preparation for our as-yet-unknown experience. Ten minutes later, we were seated on Yoga mats in an open-air second-floor studio, just 75 yards from Lake Atitlan. I cannot imagine a more beautiful setting for the adventure on which we were embarking together.

The Chocolate Shaman (his name is Keith) began by telling us a little bit about himself. A few years ago I would have believed his story to be utter nonsense. Now I believe every word. Beginning in the mid 1980’s he was trained for six years by a group of beings who channeled their messages into a meditation group in which Keith participated. Fifteen years after completing this training Keith was guided here to San Marcos at Lake Atitlan, where his spiritual guides taught him how to use raw minimally-processed Cacao in spiritual ceremonies.

Participants in the process drink about two ounces of raw cacao dissolved in about eight ounces of water. Without adding sugar, the chocolate is actually quite bitter tasting. Interestingly, within about ten to twenty minutes after drinking the mixture, the chocolate helps to facilitate a very strong sensation of spiritual connectedness. Keith jokingly refers to his Guatemalan-made chocolate as “Love-grade” chocolate, explaining that it helps to open the heart. He told us that the processing done by literally all of the large chocolate companies around the world removes the vast majority of the substances in the chocolate that bring this sense of heart-space well-being.

But it is not the chocolate that made Keith’s ceremony special. Yes, I did feel a very mild buzz of spiritual energy, but it was Keith himself that brought the real healing to our group. About twenty minutes after drinking our chocolate he began guiding us in meditations. The first one involved simply smiling.

Minutes after we lost ourselves in our peaceful smiles, Keith began making rounds, one-by-one seating himself right in front of each of us, talking to us, bringing a great deal of clarity and understanding to what people were feeling. It seemed that he had a powerful connection to our internal energy states. Amazingly, when someone experienced an internal shift in consciousness of some type, he could immediately feel it and comment on it, even before the person said something out loud.

With me, he recognized a deep peaceful state, congratulated me on my self-love. Then, without telling me what or why, he asked his friend Barbara to do some energy work on me. As Barbara did some type of Reiki-like energy manipulations, I could feel big shifts happening in my consciousness.

These shifts happened as I continued listening to the many things that Keith was telling to others. Most of his words resonated extremely powerfully with me. Perhaps the most meaningful was something that Keith said to one of the women in our group while Barbara was still working on me. He told her that she does not need to continue living in and among the dense energies. He told her that she has the mistaken impression that she needs to stay down in the “muck” in order to work through her issues before she will give herself permission to rise to the higher vibrations.

“The door is open right here, right now.” He told her. “You don’t need to live here in this heavy energy. You can walk out of that door any time that you choose. You don’t need to clean out all of the closets and corners in your old dwelling first. It is much easier to clean out your energy when you move to a new home filled with loving higher vibrations.”

As I listened to these words, I felt a huge shift take place in my mind. I realized that over the last few days I had begun to live in the mucky dense emotions, decorating my surroundings with the imagined painful anxiety and feelings that my ex-spouse and possibly my children might now be feeling regarding my recent prompted actions.

Somehow, in the process of trying to be “Loving” I had convinced myself that to be considered to be a good caring parent that I needed to feel bad – to internalize this sadness and worry. I had to carry the burden and feel a little guilty. It was almost as if I was telling myself that if I don’t hurt about what I have done then I am not being loving.

As Barbara continued to do energy work on my back I internalized Keith’s wisdom-filled words, I suddenly felt myself moving to a higher-vibration abode. I realized how incredibly silly it was for me to be living in that depressing dense energy. My soul suddenly felt amazing freedom as I left the negative energy behind, imagining myself walking out of the mental prison cell, and setting up my presence in a place of freedom. In my new energetic abode, the love for my family was stronger than ever, and it was love without the guilt, without the sense of “I need to suffer”. I was free. I was happy. I was flying with inner joy.

Interestingly enough, as I was talking to Barbara four hours later, thanking her for the amazing work that she did on me, she told me that as she moved the energy around, she felt as if energetic wings suddenly formed on my back and spread out with stability and confidence.

Another of Keith’s messages that resonated quite deeply with me was one that he delivered to one of the guys in our group. He told him that it was time to stop taking his spiritual path so seriously, to stop trying so hard. Again, as I listened to Keith’s continued wise words about enjoying our journey, I felt as if the words were my own intuition, speaking ever-so-clearly to me. I have felt for a long time that I need to smile much more in my journey – it is so easy to get caught up in the trap of being “seriously spiritual.”

Throughout the 4.5 hours of our amazing ceremony, my heart and soul seemed to vibrate with clarity and energetic power. Keith guided us in several other meditations – love meditations, truth meditations, meditations with our third-eye, meditations with our future self, and others. Every one of them connected powerfully with my energy, and throughout the all-too-short time, Keith continued to blow me away with the way he seemed to know what was going on inside someone’s private energy – the amazing way that he counseled others and zeroed right in on their issues.

After the first 45 minutes, I was just glowing with energy, in many ways feeling more emotional and spiritual clarity than I have felt in my entire life. The six of us from the Sun Course shared an incredibly bonding journey together – a journey that ended in yet another bonding experience – a delightful dinner and follow-up conversation at the local Japanese restaurant.

As I retired on Sunday evening, my heart was full with resonating joy.

*  *  *  *  *

Lately I have been struggling to find time to write in my journal. It seems that social activities have become the norm, and my afternoons and evenings have been filling up with wonderful, but time-consuming, events.

I have done very little intensive studying over the past several days. On Monday I squeezed a few short study sessions in between two long practice Tarot readings that I facilitated. Both were delightful and just as helpful for me as they were for the people whose cards I read. The first was a long reading in the afternoon for my friend Christina from the Blue Lily. The other was after evening meditation for my Moon Course friend Shannon. We had so much fun talking in that final reading that we did not end till nearly 10:00 p.m..

But speaking of that Monday evening meditation, another very special thing happened. It so happened that we had a very small group in attendance. All but two of the present Moon Course had decided to participate in a Monday afternoon session with the Chocolate Shaman. With a group of only ten of us in meditation, Chaty felt inspired to do something much more personal. After our thirty minutes of silent meditation, Chaty came around to each of our individual meditation mats and channeled a message for us regarding a wooden magical emblem that we needed to make or to have made – one that we would energize, and which would help us to fulfill our spiritual missions.

I was filled with interest as she channeled instructions to the others in the room, most of them involving round wooden discs with embedded symbols, six pointed stars, lotus flowers, Hebrew letters, and the like. When she came to my position and channeled my magical emblem, she told me that I was to build a small three sided pyramid out of three different kinds of woods. There were no circles, no embedded symbols – nothing complex like the others – just a small pyramid with three sides, three woods, and no bottom.

I was blown away as I immediately recognized the synchronous significance of my symbol. I have a consortium of three guides, the chief one of which is Pythagoras. How appropriate for me to have three triangles – three woods – forming a small simple three-sided pyramid. There was no doubt in my mind that this whole situation was set up by the Universe to once again add more powerful confirmation to the guidance that I continue to receive, on a sporadic but powerful-when-it-happens basis.

*  *  *  *  *

As I retired late last night (Monday), I was very tired, but felt inspired to get out and do a little “Reiki energy clearing” on a few of my crystals in preparation for bed. As I mulled over the decision of “which ones”, I felt deeply drawn to a small four-inch-diameter black obsidian sphere. There is a little history to this crystal – a crystal regarding which I have never spoken publicly.

The week before I began my Journey in June of 2009, I participated in a channeling session with my friend Trish back home in Salt Lake. After the session I asked her about a small obsidian sphere that she had in her meditation room. I have since learned that many people who engage in channeling have a similar black obsidian sphere (including Rafael’s teacher, Maestro Hercules, back in Cancun).

To make a long story very short, I felt deeply drawn to purchase my own obsidian globe and to bring it with me on my travels. Last November, as I packed my bags in Cozumel in preparation to begin backpacking around the Yucatan, I made the difficult decision to leave my beautiful obsidian crystal behind; I had never really connected with it, and it was simply too big and too heavy to carry around with me. To this day that crystal sits in a suitcase in Cozumel.

As I finished my Moon Course and prepared to enter the Sun Course, I felt a deep longing to reconnect with my obsidian sphere – I felt a strong inner pull telling me that I needed to have my obsidian sphere during the Sun Course. I actually thought about going all the way back to Cozumel during my short ten days of free time, but felt guided instead to travel to San Cristobal de Las Casas (in Chiapas, Mexico), resting and taking several tourist day trips. On one of those long day trips – the one where I spent the entire day traveling to and from the Mayan ruins of Palenque, our tour group made an hour-long stop at a place with beautiful cascading waterfalls – a place called Agua Azul.

As I walked around Agua Azul, I felt a strong hunch that I needed to look for a new obsidian sphere. As I walked past row after row of local vendors and artisans, I stumbled upon a small booth selling a few crystals, including a beautiful four-inch diameter obsidian sphere – the only one I have seen anywhere in my travels since leaving Teotihuacan near Mexico City last October. Needless to say, I followed my deep promptings, bought the obsidian sphere, and brought it back to Guatemala with me.

Last night, as I finished clearing the energy on my crystals, I followed a hunch and took my obsidian sphere to bed with me. I immediately felt a powerful flow of energy streaming from the crystal through my left hand and arm, and then out my body. I enjoyed meditating with that flowing energy until I finally fell asleep. I cannot say that I had any channeling or clarity type of experience, but the flowing energy was amazing.

This morning (Tuesday) as I awoke to use the restroom during the wee morning hours, I noticed that the energy was still flowing through my body. When I got up around 5:30 a.m. the energy continued – just like the energizer bunny. By 5:45 a.m., I sat up in bed, engaged in upright meditation, and enjoyed another hour of deep energetic peace and inspiring spiritual feelings – all the while the energy continued to flow. If it had not been for yoga, I probably would have continued my meditation for even longer.

*  *  *  *  *

It is difficult to believe, but today (Tuesday) officially ended the first month of our three-month Sun Course retreat. This evening during 5:00 meditation, my Sun Course group began our second five days of silence. The current Moon Course will be graduating during a full moon ceremony on Sunday evening. I cannot believe how fast everything is moving. I continue to love the process of cramming my head with information, but am greatly looking forward to these next five days of going inside, focusing more on the meditation side of things.

I was quite surprised to learn this morning that the Sun Course is expected to fast during the Moon Course silence. I was thinking that I would slightly cut back on my eating – but after class I headed over to the reception office and signed up to purchase two daily juices and one bland runny soup.

My resistance is gone and I am “all in”. As I prepare for bed on this, my first evening of silence, I am excited to see where this quiet, reflective, minimal-diet time takes me. I have many memories of powerful meditations that took place during my Moon course fasting, and am curious to see if any such experiences come knocking on my door again.

Wednesday, July 21 – 6:30 p.m.

Wow, where do I begin?

When I had my “Chocolate Shaman” experience on Sunday, I was peaked with deep interest as I heard Keith mention to the group that he does private consultations. Something in my heart jumped up and down very excitedly when I contemplated the idea of yet another possible session with Keith.

“If I can go this deep in one session,” I thought to myself, “I wonder how deep I could go in yet another, especially if it is focused fully on my own experience.”

I had absolutely no idea of what I would hope to accomplish in such a session, but my spirit was definitely urging me blindly forward, telling me to “just do it already”.

Monday, as Keith was preparing to perform his magic with the Moon Course, I pulled him aside and asked about his private sessions. He gave me directions to find his home, and told me to just stop by – that I would not need an appointment.

This morning, on the first full day of our current five days of silence, I waffled in and out of the question “Do I go see Keith today, or do I wait till later in the week … or possibly wait until our silence is over?” There was no doubt in my heart that visiting with Keith would be an appropriate reason to temporarily break silence.

Shortly after 9:00 a.m., after paying very close attention to my feelings, I found myself beginning the fifteen minute walk towards Keith’s home. Something inside made it quite clear that today was the day. I walked the entire distance with presence, being more in tune with the moment than I have been in quite some time.

As Keith came to his door, he asked if I could come back in the afternoon, telling me that 2:30 p.m. would be a great time for him. I was thrilled to have an appointment, and quite unattached to the fact that I would most likely miss evening meditation and an already-paid-for fruit smoothie. My heart told me that all was perfect.

As Keith and I began talking on his porch at 2:30 p.m., I indicated that I had absolutely no idea why I was there – telling him only that I felt a strong internal prompting that I needed to return and to go deeper into my meditative journey. As I looked around, I was quite surprised by the absence of chocolate. Keith started the session without pouring a single drop of the brown heart liquid.

Before I knew what was happening, Keith asked me to close my eyes – and we had begun my journey. Keith asked if I could feel the energy in my body. I answered honestly, indicating that I really couldn’t feel much, just a tiny bit of tingling in my spine.

“Just follow the energy” he told me. “See where it goes.”

It took several minutes but I finally started to reach a meditative state where I felt a heavy denser energy in the back of my head.

“Ah-hah” Keith told me at almost the very instant that I recognized the energy in my head. I had not said a word out loud to tip him off. This was only the beginning of a two and a half hour journey where Keith seemed to know exactly what I was silently experiencing, even before I was fully aware of it myself.

Keith explained to me that there was an energy – a part of my higher self – that was grouping in front of my heart, wanting permission to join with me. As I deepened in meditation, I could begin to feel the energy – but only barely.

Throughout our session, Keith would occasionally speak, giving me a play-by-play announcement of pretty much everything I was feeling and experiencing. Sometimes he would tell me what was about to be happening, but mostly he just interpreted my internal sensations for me in a way that gave me incredible clarity and insights. Without his guidance, I would have dismissed 99% of what I was feeling as being mere imagination and utter silliness. My huge clarity and growth came from the fact that Keith was feeling my inner journey and interpreting it for me. Much of what he told me helped to deeply fine-tune my energy sensitivities.

Early on, Keith pointed out that I was facing fears and a feeling of conflict between mind and heart. He told me that the energy would not merge without my blessing and permission – telling me that spiritual energies will not do anything to me unless I invite them. I experienced a feeling of hesitance and resistance – wondering just what this energy might really be – just what it might bring with it if I were to invite it in. Keith’s intuitive description of what I was experiencing was uncanny.

As I debated with my resistance, my heart took me to memories of my March 23^rd dream and the messages of “Forget everything you know” and “Lower your defenses”. I pictured my resistance as a scared puppy hiding under a sofa, and I gradually began to talk myself through my fears, reminding myself that I was deeply prompted to come for a visit with Keith – that every time I have lowered my defenses I have been thrilled with the results.

Finally I felt my resistance melt, being replaced instead by a loving feeling of deep peace. Right on cue, Keith pointed out to me that my resistance was now gone and that I was allowing the energy to begin merging with my soul.

I could not possibly detail the whole experience here in my journal, but suffice it to say that the inner journey was amazing. Keith explained that the energy was doing things to me that my head would not be able to understand, and that I simply needed to trust and allow. I continued to go deeper into meditation, frequently reminding myself to “Forget everything I know” and to “Lower my defenses.”

As Keith explained that the energy was helping me to remove denser energies that no longer served me in order to make room for newer higher-vibration energies, I could feel denser energies symbolically come up into my awareness and then drain away from my consciousness through what felt like the left side of my jaw. Keith explained that many past parts of my self – parts of my discarded or suppressed personality from my younger years – wanted to rejoin with me, to reintegrate with me. Among other things, Keith told me that these were parts of me that were spontaneous and joyful. My mind flashed to memories of how I had buried those creative and spontaneous parts of my personality beginning at around age eleven or twelve.

Later in the process, Keith explained that I would now be experiencing denser energies from my own past/parallel lives – that I was in a place where I was capable of allowing that unwanted energy to pass through me on its way out – that the energy would pass through me but it would not remain with me. He explained that by doing this, I would be helping my own self in many dimensions. For what must have been thirty minutes or more, I smiled inside as I visualized all kinds of this dense energy coming into my awareness, and passing through my head. In this deep meditative state, I had great fun in my imagination as I found creative ways to dispose of the just-passing-through energy. My favorite was to drop it out of an open door in the bottom of an airplane, feeling it explode on its way to the distant ground below.

As with the rest of the session, Keith frequently jumped in with a commentary about what I was feeling – and he was always right on, often telling me things which I had not even quite recognized as of yet.

Toward the end of the session, Keith explained that what I was experiencing during our session was just the beginning of my new growth. He told me that, with my permission, my Higher Self will be making many more changes and doing a considerable amount of processing within me over the next ten days to two weeks. He indicated that much of this growth would occur in my sleep, but other shifting would take place during my meditations and other waking experiences.

I wish I could remember everything. Suffice it to say that the experience was extremely powerful for me. I was deep in a very high vibration state of meditation, and it was all done without the aid of any heart-altering chocolate, none whatsoever.

As I walked home this evening, having missed the beginning of even meditation at the pyramid temple by about thirty minutes, I felt as if I were floating on a cloud.

Did I say yet that I am loving my experiences at Las Piramides Del Ka?

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved