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.)

Saturday, September 18– 4:15 p.m.

I literally feel like it has been forever since I last wrote. I giggle as I realize that I just posted my latest writing yesterday morning. How time flies when you are having fun.

Yesterday afternoon, I felt deeply prompted to study and ponder many more of the Kabalistic and Tarot symbolisms. I felt deep intuitions telling me that the key to deeper understanding and connection was to more fully open the doors to my subconscious channels. I know without any doubt that the numerous internal personality issues that I have been continuously healing during my Sun Course are all an integral part of my process – and that each subconscious dot that I connect – each past pain that I heal – will make my spiritual journey consistently clearer. But I am anxious to move faster, to connect more profoundly to my guides.

Later, as I browsed through my computer files related to Sun Course symbolisms, I stumbled upon some MP3 files that I didn’t know I had – files that play around with audio frequencies and deep meditations – trying to get you to a state of sleep where you can lucid dream. I decided to try the process with eager abandon. Starting around 8:00 p.m., I began to listen to the sleep meditation. I fell asleep before it finished. Then, shortly after 9:30 p.m., I awoke to silence, enabled my IPOD for repeat-song mode, and began to play the final track over and over again. The first fifteen seconds of the final track are gentle reminders that I will wake up in my dream, with a voice asking me if I am dreaming right now. Then the track goes silent for about three minutes. By putting the file in repeat mode, I had a persistent little voice asking me in my ear every three minutes if I was dreaming … and if so, reminding me to wake up.

I really expected that it might help – but what it really did was drive me batty and keep me from fully falling back to sleep. Finally, at 4:30 a.m., I shut off my IPOD, desperately desiring some sleep. I did eventually fall asleep, but was awake shortly after 6:00 a.m. with another dream. I think that tonight I will sleep the old fashioned way – without technology.

*  *  *  *  *

This morning, after a few relaxing periods of just sitting outdoors in the sun, relaxing in the silence of just “being”, I began to ask my heart, “If you could do anything in the world right now, what would it be?”

I was shocked when the answer came eagerly racing back, “Go have a session with Keith (the Chocolate Shaman) … and go this morning.”

Such a session was not even on my radar when I posed the question to my heart. I have been quite determined to sacredly honor my final three days of silence, hoping to take my Kabala journey a little deeper here at the Pyramids – hoping to discover a few more of the mysteries hidden in that silence.

For more than thirty minutes, I double checked my intuition in every way I knew how. I meditated deeply on the decision. The intuition still felt right. I pulled out a little pendulum crystal (just happened to be in my pocket) and asked my pendulum. (The pendulum works much like muscle testing. Our subconscious mind knows the answers and causes our muscles to be strong or weak, to move this way or that way, etc…) Just like meditation, the pendulum told me “Yes, go see Keith this morning.”

I asked my heart again “Are you sure you want to interrupt silence … we only have three more days? We can go see Keith later.” My heart again enthusiastically vibrated YES in no uncertain terms.

Still resisting, wanting to be sure, I decided to do a Tarot reading with an option spread. After shuffling the cards and placing them in front of me, I tried to begin choosing cards – but my intuition stubbornly refused to participate. I felt an intuitive emptiness – no guidance whatsoever – other than a strong feeling telling me “You already know the answer, why are you trying to second guess it? Just go see Keith already.”

Finally, without even pulling a single card, I put the deck away, packed up a notebook, some water, and my umbrella, and began the short ten minute walk to the east edge of town. As I showed Keith my note, requesting another appointment, I was not the least bit surprised when he told me “Now is great.”

What an amazing four-hour session it was. I am too tired to write any more right now, but I have taken notes. I will fill in the amazing details later. For now, I need to rest and let my heart fly in the clouds.

Sunday, September 19 – 6:30 a.m.

Yesterday, As I sat down in a green camp chair on Keith’s porch, I glanced briefly at my watch before setting it aside with my other things; It was precisely 10:30 a.m..

I filled Keith in on my last couple of weeks, sharing freely about the subconscious walls I have worked so hard to tear down, but also expressing my sense of confusion as to why there seems to be a never-ending supply of such walls, one behind the other. I giggled as I told Keith how I even had an imaginary session with him just a few days earlier – and it was amazingly productive.

“Let’s take another look at your wall,” Keith requested, “let’s examine it further. What is it made out of?”

I closed my eyes, expecting to see the old rock walls that I have most often visualized in the past – a wall with big rocks filled in with concrete mortar. But as I began to visualize (yes, I was seeing faint images) my mind was immediately whisked away to a dream I had just a couple of weeks ago – a dream where I found a black chain-link fence with razor wire at the top, surrounding my coveted hot-springs pool.

Intuition told me to briefly share the details of that dream with Keith. Then, as I finished, I felt another strong intuitive nudge to share about a briefly-lucid dream where I woke up reading a book, remembering only the Spanish word “encadena”, which is a conjugation of a verb meaning to chain or to shackle.

I felt deeply surprised when these two dreams had popped into my right-brain memory. I had not thought about either for what feels like a couple of weeks. Suddenly both dreams resurrected themselves and seemed to take on a whole new life during my session with Keith,

The image was dim, but I could clearly see the black chain-link fence in my mind – almost as clearly as if I were back in the original dream.

“What is the fence made out of?” Keith asked me again.

The question seemed strange because I had just told Keith that it was a black chain link fence.

“Reach out and grab it with your fingers and tell me what you feel … tell me what it is made of.” Keith persisted.

I visualized myself reaching reach out with my hands. The image of the fence in my mind still glowed clearly, and I fully expected that when my visualized fingers interacted with the chain link – that I would feel the solidness of the cold metal in my fingers.

But as I stuck my fingers through the fence and closed my knuckles around the hard black wires – there was absolutely nothing there. My fingers passed right through, unobstructed. Intuitively, I just knew that my imagined fingers should feel the imagined hardness of visualized fencing – yet this fence was a phantom – an illusion of absolutely nothing.

“That is how I passed through it so easily in my dream when I found myself momentarily inside, running up to check out the forbidden pool” I excitedly told Keith. “It is because the wall was not real”

“Yet I did not stay inside. I had quickly run back outside,” I continued. “I had felt scared. It was the middle of the night. I was in forbidden territory and did not want to get caught and sent off to jail.”

“Or to Hell.” Keith added, pointing out that the imagined police in my dream were most likely based on my religious guilt.

Keith then went on to explain that his guides would refer to this type of fence as a “silly-putty fence” – one that is very real in our mind – a fence that does indeed exist in that realm – but a fence that is flexible and fluid. We are free to pass through it at any time when we discover its true nature.

Keith paused for a moment, asked me to again close my eyes, and then continued with his guidance.

“I want you to stand up in front of the fence and then walk slowly – either to the left or to the right – until you come to one of the major support poles holding the fence up.” Keith instructed me.

I imagined myself moving slowly to the right until I could see a tall black metal pole directly in front of me.

“Now look down at the ground.” Keith continued. “Tell me what forms the foundation of the pole. What is supporting it and holding it in place so that it doesn’t fall over?”

As I looked at the ground, I did not see a thing, but my intuitive feelings took over in a strong and powerful way.

“It is just thick, soft, watery mud.” I answered Keith confidently. This fact was quite clear as the subconscious truths bubbled closer to the surface of my intuitive knowing.

“It is just made of dirty emotions.” I added, as I intuitively recognized what the symbolism meant to me.

“Kind of like quicksand.” Keith added for emphasis. “And your not-so-solid fence is simply floating on it all.”

“Examine the foundation more closely.” Keith asked. “Think about what it means and what you need to do to deal with this foundation.”

I stared at that visualized image in my mind. I faintly saw that the fence was now gone and standing in it’s place was a small narrow moat of this smelly, yucky, watery mud – a protective moat that ran all the way around my large hot-springs pool.

I felt a feeling of repulsion as fear and anxiety began to surface in my abdomen. I wanted to run away – to escape the unpleasant and all-too-familiar feeling as I considered confronting those emotions.

“These are no longer my emotions. I processed them long ago. I healed those emotions, and have moved on. I just want them destroyed.” I silently pondered. “I don’t want them following me around anymore.”

“I am thinking that I want to dump gasoline on the dirty watery mud.” I verbally responded to Keith. “Then I want to throw a match out onto the gasoline and just obliterate that stuff once and for all.” (I was remembering how I had dropped dense thoughts out of an airplane – exploding them like bombs – something I had done in a previous visualization with Keith)

A minute or so later, Keith responded to my statement with a deeply inspired counter-suggestion – a beautiful one that was totally unexpected.

“What if you were to place a small vial in your heart and extract some of that gasoline – or whatever it is – and then throw that substance out onto the muddy water?” Keith asked innocently.

The hidden message of his suggestion was intuitively obvious to my heart – requiring no further explanation.

“Of course.” I responded. “There is only love – love is all there is – I must respond to these cast-off, discarded emotions with pure unconditional love. The answer is not to burn them or to blow them up. I need to embrace them. I need to heal and transform them. I need to somehow re-integrate their rejected essence back into my soul.”

Keith turned me loose in meditation. He wasn’t going to tell me how to accomplish my new goal.

As I approached the yuck, I found myself revisiting many of the emotions of my teen years. I felt as if I were intuitively digging through an old forgotten septic tank, turning over and exposing old rotting emotional waste. With each emotion that I could identify and remember, I embraced it with love and healing. I actually visualized myself magically transforming the smelly unpleasant emotion into sweet and sugary lemonade, and then drinking it with a straw – bringing it back into my body to nourish and reintegrate with my soul.

After about ten minutes, I found my focus shifting from teen years into agonizingly difficult adult years – my late twenties and early thirties. As I began to do the same thing with those emotions, Keith did something he rarely does.

“Brenda,” Keith interrupted uncharacteristically, “I’m being guided to tell you that you need to more fully embrace these emotions. You need to take the process to a deeper level – to the point of actually re-experiencing the pain of those emotions. When you do so, your spiritual guides that are gathered to help can then assist in transmuting the energy of those emotions, helping you to reintegrate the energy back into your soul.”

Trusting Keith implicitly, I started over with my early-adult emotions, focusing on the swirling depths of my past – intensely focusing on those discarded fears and anxieties. Almost immediately, I felt the deep tears begin to run down my cheeks. I made no effort to stop or to suppress those trickling streams of purified emotions. Instead, I simply concentrated fully on the task at hand.

I have no idea how long I stayed in this process. It may have been only twenty minutes. Perhaps it was an hour or more. I only know that I did not stop or open my eyes until an inner clarity and peace told me that I had done enough for today. Deep peace filled my heart as I again made eye contact with Keith. I intuitively knew that the black chain link fence was gone. I also knew that the muddy, smelly, watery, quicksand soil that had once formed its foundation was clean, dry, and hard. As I visualized my pool, I could see no evidence that such a barrier ever existed around its perimeter.

The process had been quite uncomfortable and frightening at first. But the fears and anxiety soon left as I simply allowed myself to deeply feel every emotion that took turns parading into my awareness. I had continued using the mental imagery of imagining the old emotional waste transmuting into lemonade as I eagerly consumed it through a straw.

After finishing the above amazing processing, my heart was filled with newfound understanding. No part of me can remain rejected, or un-owned. No emotional healing is complete by simply expressing and then walking away from the rejected and discarded pain. Everything needs to be loved, to be transformed, to be brought home to my heart – not just some of it – not just most of it – but all of it – every last drop of my essence needs to be embraced and brought home.

*  *  *  *  *

Keith and I sat and chatted for a while before he told me to again close my eyes. He felt inspired to guide me into visualizing my “safe place.”

Several times, while in deep meditation in the pyramid temple, I have attempted to visualize my “inner temple”. Even with intense effort and desire, I had never gotten very far in that visualization process. During those meditations, I had been meditating for thirty minutes in silence, then gone through ever deepening yogic breathing, etc… Even so, I always ended up feeling frustrated and somewhat disappointed with lackluster results.

Then, sitting with Keith on Saturday, in an ordinary camping chair, slightly slouched over, with no deep breathing and simply closing my eyes, I began to visualize a beautiful place that far surpassed anything I had ever been capable of visualizing before. Among other things, my beautiful safe place had a hot springs, a small pyramid, a beautiful garden, photos of my family and friends, relaxing chairs, a meditation alter, and a wonderful hammock.

I definitely want to go back for an extended visit.

*  *  *  *  *

I honestly cannot remember how the subject came up, but somehow, in the midst of visiting between meditations, I mentioned “guilt” regarding my relationship with my children back home. Keith and I talked in depth about my relationship with my children, and the threads of guilt which still seem to follow me around. I explained that so much of that guilt has dissipated since I came to the spiritual realization that my children had chosen me as a parent, fully knowing the path that I needed to follow, eagerly looking forward to the growth that would occur in their own lives as a result of my own path.

Keith guided me through another visualization where he asked me to imagine all of the threads of my guilt spread out before me. He then told me to stand aside and to simply be the observer while allowing my heart to resolve the issue right there in front of me. I watched with fascination as I visually imagined my heart attaching itself to a large rope created from thousands of small strands of individual guilt. My heart then proceeded to do what I had witnessed a spider do just last week when building an intricate spiral web. My heart began to suck the web-like strands of guilt back inside – just as a spider sometimes reabsorbs strands of its own web. Rather than trying to undo or destroy the guilt, my heart simply transmuted that guilt back into its own pure essence – the essence of pure unconditional love.

Because the issue deals with family, I will not go into more details here in public. I do want to say that in one very powerful process, Keith had me visualize one of my grandchildren standing beside me, telling me what she wanted from me.

My heart simply melted with love as I intuitively realized that now is the time to begin taking increased steps to reach out to family – no longer doing so with even the tiniest bit of motivation based on “guilt” or “I should” or “I must” – instead doing so with dancing music in my loving soul.

*  *  *  *  *

I find it nearly impossible to believe that my Sun Course ends in less than two days. As the final hours rapidly tick away in the hourglass of my heart, I continue to listen to a barrage of little ideas competing for my attention.

About six weeks ago, I mentioned that Chaty was receiving deep inspiration for a period of few weeks while she rested from severe back problems. During the course of her spiritual “spinning”, Chaty received strong spiritual guidance to begin a new additional program of 40 day retreats at a beautiful little property at the top of the hill to our west – the same hill where I often go to be alone. As it turns out, the property belongs to Chaty’s brother, and as of last week is now fully in Chaty’s possession. These retreats will happen four times a year, and the first one will begin just 12 days from today.

When I first heard about this new 40 day retreat, something in my heart said “Yes, you will be staying longer in San Marcos. You need to seriously consider doing this new retreat … taking your process even deeper.”

Then, just last week, I found out that Chaty has a brother who has gone through the same spiritual trainings as herself – and that this brother often works with one or two people at a time through another retreat process. As I learned of this possibility, my heart again called out – “Oh, maybe you should consider doing this more intimate retreat instead – perhaps you might get more personal attention and individual guidance.”

When Keith told me several weeks ago that he will begin teaching classes in November, there was no doubt in my mind that my heart was wildly telling me “please, study with Keith – please, please, please – you will not regret it.”

The timing of starting around Thanksgiving time left a perfect window to also do one of these other 40 day retreats should I opt to do so.

But my heart has been very restless as of late.

Something inside of me is whispering me that I don’t really want to spend another 40 days in silence focused only on the Kabala Tree of Life. Yes, I have grown tremendously, and my heart desperately sings for me to continue that growth – but inner resistance has been forming just the same.

With deep comfort, I have been quite peaceful, knowing that all would unfold exactly as needed – that I need not concern myself with such long term decisions quite yet – after all, I still have a week to decide LOL.

As I walked away from Keith’s home yesterday at 2:30 p.m. – after four amazing hours that seemed to have evaporated ever so quickly – a new sense of clarity permeated my soul.

Yes, I absolutely will be studying with Keith for an undetermined amount of time beginning in Mid to late November. I am fully committed to continue those studies for as long as my heart tells me – and for as long as Keith continues to teach.

Yes, I do want to spend the next 40 days or so in spiritual retreat, simply focusing on me, my needs, my heart, my soul, my continued growth.

But as my heart danced and sang, a sense of clarity proclaimed that I want to spend those 40 days on my own. I want to spend some in silence, and others in blissful conversation. I want to read, I want to meditate, I want to do yoga, I want to do it all – BUT – But I do not want to be looking outside of myself for guidance during this process – not to Chaty, not to her brother, not to Keith, not to another physical being – this process needs to be between me and my higher self.

But hey, there are still two days of my Sun Course left before I need to begin deciding anything at all. Why the rush? Lots of things will most likely still happen between now and the time that any type of decision needs to be made.

It is time to simply melt back into the final two days of my silent process – right here, right now. The future is still that – the future.

I love how Spirit works.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved