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

(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.)

Monday, September 13 – 6:30 p.m.

Today has been a mini roller coaster ride in the physical realm – but all is well. I happily ate two full meals – a late breakfast of oatmeal with fruit and honey, and a mid-afternoon lunch of rice and steamed vegetables. Before each meal, I felt emotionally and spiritually energized, and my stomach seemed stable enough. But after each meal I found myself seriously questioning the wisdom of diving back into solid foods so soon. Nevertheless, I do not question the decision because it came from my heart. Perhaps, though, I need to listen to my body and stop eating a little sooner when my body begins to tell me that I have had enough (which it did near the end of each meal).

This evening, I debated whether I was ready to sit through a meditation session in the pyramid temple – but my intuition told me I would be OK and that I would not be sorry.

Something in my heart did not want to miss my last evening meditation session in the temple combined with the Moon Course. Yes, I said “last.” Tomorrow morning we have our final yoga and our final class with Chaty. At the end of that class we begin our final seven days of silence – a week that will be quite unlike any that we have experienced prior to this point.

Chaty has told us that we will not follow any schedule, adhering to no time commitments. During this entire seven days we will simply be by ourselves, with ourselves. Of course we still need to step outside and eat etc…, but we will now be completely on our own time – following our own intuition. If our hearts guide us to sleep during the day and be awake all night long, that will be a choice available to us.

The timing of my recent healing path could not have corresponded more beautifully. I think the Universe is telling me that this week will be my testing ground, my chance to prove to myself just how ready I am to leap forward in my growth, especially during those dark (and soon-to-be moon-lit) nights.

*  *  *  *  *

Tonight’s second-half meditation turned out to be a beautiful past-life regression – my fourth under Chaty’s peaceful guidance. I am still unable to visualize anything more than faint images, but my intuition is gradually improving in its ability to fill in the unseen details.

In tonight’s regression, I found myself living in a monastery in Tibet. It was impossible to visually place anything even close to the calendar year because bald heads and orange robes in such old monasteries never seem to go out of style – but intuition suggested that this scene took place several hundred years ago.

When Chaty asked us to look around to see if we recognized anyone who was with us, I was unable to visually distinguish details of anyone’s face, but I definitely sensed that my dear friend Michelle was there – not as one of my fellow followers, but as the abbot of the monastery. I even walked down a large ornate hallway leading to her chambers where she was a devout monk, sitting in her ceremonial chair – but still, no faces.

I felt the presence of my second to youngest son, and my dear friend Susan, and also intuitively knew that many of my close spiritual friends were also present somewhere in the crowd – but could not decipher any more intuitive details.

Suddenly I intuitively realized that it was during this lifetime when I made my blood oath contract to “work work work” until I achieved enlightenment – no matter how many lifetimes it may take. I intuitively sensed that I was happy, but belonged to a secret order of monks who were a little more intellectual than the others, and we had secretly stumbled onto some powerful magical abilities. I intuitively knew that it was with that group that I made the oath written in my own blood (though I did not actually see this part in my regression).

For some reason, I felt a deep desire to discover if Michelle, or if any of my present-day family or friends had been a part of that secret group. Intuition told me that “No, no-one that I currently know in this lifetime was part of that secret order.”

*  *  *  *  *

As I prepare for yet-another extremely early bedtime, my intestines are churning up a storm. Intuition tells me that my growth lessons related to physical pain are complete, at least for now, so I have decided to allow medical science to intervene on the scene.

With a prayer in my heart, I just slipped an Imodium AD onto my tongue (a wonderful magical pill that I have avoided for some time) and washed it down with a refreshing swig of water. I can only hope that the gurgling will stop soon. Regardless of what occurs during this night-to-come, one thing is certain. I will find peace.

Wednesday, September 15 – 12:30 p.m.

The last 36 hours have been quite unlike anything I would have planned. After going to bed on Monday, I was blessed with another six hours of restless Temperance practice. My tummy finally stopped gurgling shortly after midnight. But physical trauma is not at all what I want to write about. There are other more important things going on in my life.

Quite unexpectedly, as I lay in bed Monday night, wondering if sleep might be in my probable future, a surprise poem began to flow in my mind.

“You should write this down.” the thought flashed through my intuition.

“I don’t want to.” I replied feeling initially annoyed. “I am trying to go to sleep.”

Then I was quite surprised when I realized that I actually wanted to sit up to write the few words that I could still remember.

I will share those “words that flowed” very soon, but first I have to lay a little background.

*  *  *  *  *

I have only written two other poems in my entire life. The first was in elementary school. That was an emotionally destructive experience that stifled my creativity for much of my life. I had slaved for an entire evening creating a beautiful little poem about my pet dog. I thought it was quite good – but a few days later, when my teacher returned the paper to me with comments, I was devastated. I internalized the teacher’s harsh criticism and stuffed my creative instincts into the depths of a dark steel vault. For the vast majority of my life, I have felt sheer terror at the thought of exposing a more creative side.

My second poem completely boggled my mind. It was more than 40 years later, in mid February, 2007, after an amazing spiritual day of enjoying the unbelievable energy of the Salt Flats in Western Utah. During that day I had suddenly received powerful intuitive insights telling me that the next chapter of my life-story book would be titled “The Music Within”. (This is a book that I fully intended to finish writing after I began traveling 15 months ago. But alas, my blog has preempted that effort – perhaps one day I will get back to that book).

Late that evening, as I returned to the privacy of my own home, I was so exhausted that “going-to-bed” was the only rational thought in my mind. But as I prepared to walk to my bedroom, an unexpected intuition quite powerfully instructed me to first turn off the lights and to sit quietly in the dark at my kitchen table.

Almost immediately, I found myself picking up a pen and a piece of paper as I began capturing the un-thought words that began pulsing rapidly through my heart. I did not pause to think as I wrote. I hurried to capture every word that flowed effortlessly through my mind and then my pen. Tears of emotion streamed down my cheeks as I began to realize the meaning of what I found myself writing. It was not long before the magical words stopped, just as suddenly as they had started. It was then that I realized I had channeled a poem. This poem was physically recorded with my 51-year-old hands. However, the words were dictated by a frightened 12-year-old little boy, my frightened and hopeless inner child within.

Today, I feel deeply prompted to share this poem – beautiful intuitive words channeled to me by that child who was so genuinely seeking to find a way to survive the emotional pain.

The Melody’s Strong
by Brenda (and Bobby) Larsen

The melody’s strong
But the words are forbidden
In this song of life that is me.

How can I sing the songs of my heart?
How can my feelings find light amidst dark?
The melody’s strong
But the words are forbidden.

Deep in my soul the words are so clear
But I can’t express them through all of the fear.
To truly be me is all I desire.
The melody’s strong
But the words are forbidden.

To live my life free, how would that be?
Free to be me, the real me?
The melody’s strong,
But the words are forbidden.

The words can’t be sung,
But the songs are still there,
Notes playing, with words that aren’t spoken.
The melody’s strong,
But the words are forbidden,
Only to be heard by me.

*  *  *  *  *

Since that magical evening over three and a half years ago, I have never had even the slightest fantasy of trying to write another poem. But this past Monday night, my intuition seemed to be giving me no choice.

Unlike my “The Melody’s Strong” poem, the words of this new poem did not flow quite as effortlessly. I would intuitively hear them and then they would partially disappear before I could write them. As soon as I did try to write, I felt as if my brain was getting in the way, blocking my channel from flowing completely freely. After about 45 minutes of scribbling down what I had, going back to bed, experiencing another flash of corrective intuition, getting back up and writing some more, etc…, I finally had a finished product.

This poem is nowhere near as magically inspired as my second, but I have to share it anyway. The Universe gave it to me as a very appropriate message that I know is directly applicable in my current journey.

The Towering Tree
By Brenda Larsen

How would it feel to simply be
To be like the heart of a towering tree
Taking no thought, for today or tomorrow
Nor concerning myself, with past pain or sorrow
To flow with tides, and the seasons of time
Accepting life as it comes, with nary a whine

Embracing the stillness, the noise, and the storm
Staying calm through it all, seeing each as the norm
Cut, chopped, or burned; simply saying “Oh well”
“Another lesson to learn, surely time will tell”

How would it be to intuitively know
That giving up ego is the best way to go
How would it feel to simply be
To be as strong, yet innocent, as that towering tree

After writing the above poem, words to another short poem demanded to be released into my notebook. I just laughed as I finished.

Now Is The Time
By Brenda Larsen

Now is time …
To expose a creative side that has never been seen
To shine brilliant lights, once stifled by shame
To trust fully my heart in creative endeavors
To drop fear and doubt from my radar forever

Ignoring the rules, the shoulds, and the musts
Simply opening heart’s love
Without concern for rhyme, cadence, or opinions of others

*  *  *  *  *

I finally got to sleep on Monday night around 12:30 a.m., and felt remarkably energized at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I had intended to skip yoga, but went anyway, feeling a strong desire to attend one last session.

Afterward, Tuesday morning’s final class with Chaty was a beautiful experience – a loving open discussion sharing recent experiences, talking about our upcoming seven days (and beyond), and then engaging in formal ceremonies to officially start the final phase of our retreat.

As expected, Chaty asked us to drop all structure and to immerse ourselves in a timeless flow of present-moment meditative spinning. I was quite surprised to hear her say that we can attend yoga and evening meditation if we like. But my heart just smiled and intuitively told me that I will be flying free on a very different schedule.

Chaty also pointed out that now was the time to begin soups and juices if we had not yet done so – but when I asked about my still weak state after this weekend of stomach unrest, she told me to remain healthy as a first priority. I decided to eat fruit and rice for at least one more day before I shake up my intestinal world-down-under yet again.

Now What?

To my surprise, the first feeling that hit me as I walked out of the small Sun Course temple on Tuesday morning was a feeling of stuck-ness and apathy – a sense of ongoing confusion about whether fully immersing myself into a week-long symbolic quest for the secret keys of the Tree of Life is what my heart really wanted to be doing.

As I grappled with the unsettling dilemma, a strong intuitive feeling told me that what I needed to do before anything else – beginning right now – was to do something Chaty had told us not to do.

I was strongly guided by undeniable intuition instructing me to go back into my blog and read everything that I have written since beginning the Guatemala phase of my Spiritual Journey – starting right back with my “Forget Everything You Know” dream last March. Even though this made absolutely no logical sense, I somehow intuitively knew that engaging in this reading was necessary for me to recharge my heart and soul. The act of reviewing every step of these past six months would reconnect me with my mission – my inspired journey – and would bring me closer to the answers I need.

After grabbing a quick breakfast of fruit and yogurt I soon embraced my inspired quest, stopping my reading only for meals and restroom runs. A few hours later, a power outage struck this section of San Marcos, and I intuitively knew it would be a long one. I had heard power lines arcing wildly about 50 yards away right before the power fizzled. The last time this occurred, nearly 12 hours passed before electricity was restored. I began watching the steady drain of my laptop battery, knowing that all was well. I giggled as I figured out that the Universe had this all planned – that I need not worry about battery life.

Finally, shortly after 7:30 p.m., after having read for seven and a half hours, and having only reached into my early August writings, my battery officially gave out. My room was dark and cold, the dirt paths outside were pitch black, and I was all alone with my candles.

Amazingly, I experienced a feeling of energy and enthusiasm, saying “I am ready for the night, bring it on. Fear no longer exists.”

If the power had not gone out I would most likely have read late into the evening until midnight or later – changing the entire sequence of subsequent events.

Bring It On

Not knowing what to do next, I simply immersed myself in present intuitions. First I meditated. The experience was so-so, as my heart was still not really into it. Then, I decided to see if I could get any energy to move around in my body – again, no doing.

Finally, I just drifted off to sleep, deciding that the Universe would wake me when appropriate – knowing that I would indeed get up without hesitation should that moment arrive.

At ten minutes to midnight I awoke from my first remembered dream – nothing really worth writing about, but I methodically recorded the details in my dream journal – details of a fun and silly dream experience.

As I tried to go back to sleep, and not having any success in the effort, a feeling of intuition told me “Get up now. It is time for something different.”

While sitting on the edge of my bed, meditating, I felt a sense of new-found energy and enthusiasm regarding the symbolism of the Tree of Life. I grabbed my little collection of notes and began devouring tidbits of wisdom about the Sephirah called Netzach – the seventh sphere that represents the creative energy forces in our life. After having just written two quick poems, it only makes sense that my intuitions would bring me to Netzach.

After a while I had a strong desire to study and meditate on a few related tarot cards, so in a matter of seconds my red cloth was spread out on the floor and I found myself sorting through the deck to separate out the 22 Major Arcana.

Soon, the “Chariot” card demanded my attention. The symbolism of the card began to come alive in my heart. I saw several things in the card that had never before been obvious – but now they seemed clear as day.

This little quest for symbolic understanding went on for just over an hour, at which time I simply knew it was time to return to my pillow.

Sleeping remarkably soundly (compared to how I have been sleeping) I only left my bed two more times during the night. During each sleep interruption I recorded the details of my latest remembered dream before scurrying off to a nearby outdoor building. It was on the first such trip that I noticed that the outdoor lights were back on.

I won’t give details of these dreams now – they don’t feel very significant, but nevertheless, I think I will meditate on them after a quick lunch break.

*  *  *  *  *

This morning (Wednesday), I woke up quite early for the second day in a row. Today is Guatemala’s Independence Day and there have been numerous joyful celebrations taking place in the town – beginning as early as 5:00 a.m., and lasting well into the late evening. Most of the festivities are nearly a half mile away, but the volume levels are cranked so loud that the party sounds as if it is unfolding right outside my door. I suspect that tonight’s festivities will be even more elaborate.

Being true to my heart’s prompting, I jumped out of bed at 6:00 a.m. and slipped right back into my marathon reading. As I took a breakfast break at 9:30 I first enjoyed a delightful small town parade. I easily heard the booming and penetrating drums from my room (drums that have been practicing almost daily for a month or two) and I just had to get a peak at a delightful small-town cultural event. My heart guided me to ignore an imagined little voice of Chaty telling that I should not to venture into the city to watch.

As 2:30 p.m. now ticks away on my clock, I am finally caught up with my heart’s promptings. In total, I spent just under 12 hours in reading my blog (wow!) and nearly three hours catching up in my writing. Amazingly, I feel as if my reading efforts have indeed reenergized my soul. It is as if my power cord had been unplugged for a while, and now, during the past 24 hours, my batteries have been fully recharged. Amazing how that works.

Tah-tah for now. It is time to go eat what will probably be my last rice of the Sun Course. Tomorrow I plan on starting juices and blended soups.

Thursday, September 16 – 8:50 a.m.

What a beautiful night. After writing yesterday afternoon, I ate my final plate of rice and returned to my room to ponder and meditate. By 5:00 p.m. I felt physically drained so I told myself “What the heck … I can sleep whenever and be awake any time I want … so why not go to bed now?”

I remember how confused I was when I woke up shortly after 6:30 p.m., having just had a vague dream that I could no longer remember. My still-burning candle gave me the feeling that it must be morning already. When I checked my clock, I began to giggle.

For the next few hours I alternated between relaxation, meditation, yogic breathing, and partial sleep. Finally, I blew out my candles and went to sleep around 9:00 p.m.. The boisterous Independence Day celebration in town continued loudly until shortly after 12:30 a.m.. The only way I know this is because I woke up a couple of times for restroom breaks. The “old me” could never have slept through such loud noisy disturbance as that. I would have been so annoyed and judgmental that my emotions would never have allowed me to relax. The “new me” simply embraced the joyful concert music blasting loudly in my direction. Without even using ear plugs (which wouldn’t have blocked the intense sound anyway), I dozed off comfortably. Perhaps I have changed just a little. (LOL)

At 2:00 a.m. I found myself wide awake. Eagerly I got up and sat on the edge of my bed, wondering what I should do now. By 2:15 I was sitting upright and cross-legged (one foot in front of the other) on my floor, beginning to meditate. To my own amazement, I peacefully meditated in that position for an entire hour, switching leg positions only one time. I felt energized as I stood up at 3:20 a.m., again asking myself “what now?”

During that meditation, a couple of meaningful insights popped into my head. The first had to do with perhaps why I seem to have so much success when meditating with Keith (Chocolate Shaman) versus still tending to struggle with traditional meditation. Out of the blue, the idea popped into my head, reminding me that whenever I sit down with Keith, the first thing I say is “I don’t know why I am here … but I know I want to go deeper.” In other words, with Keith, I have no agenda, no plans, no expectations, and no attachments. However, when I try to engage in traditional meditation, I usually have something I want to achieve – even if the goal is simply a quiet mind.

The second powerful insight came during a moment when my mind seemed to wander. I found myself thinking about a particular young man in the current Moon Course – one perhaps in his low-to-mid twenties – a young man who shows considerable youthful exuberance and enthusiasm, but who also has a tendency to “know everything”. I have never entered a conversation with this beautiful young man – but I have been forced-by- proximity to unwillingly listen in on many of his discussions with others – conversations about politics, and multiple other controversial topics. Invariably, this young man talks with authority, seeming to have all the answers figured out.

At first I felt quite annoyed by Bill’s (not his real name) behavior – that is until I realized that I was projecting my own personality self-judgments outward. One day quite early in the present Moon Course I suddenly figured out that many things about Bill remind me of myself when I was much younger – things which I later rejected and suppressed in myself. Bill’s unbridled enthusiasm and exuberance is occasionally accompanied by careless behavior that oversteps the boundaries of usual social appropriateness. Yet his heart appears to be huge and his behavior filled with genuine intent – both exactly as I was during my younger teen/preteen years.

About a week ago, while wrestling with lack of sleep, a mental letter began to channel itself in my mind. It was an imagined letter from me to Bill – giving him genuine loving advice. First I was telling Bill to never lose his youthful energy, or his zest life – to never let anyone squash his enthusiasm. Second, I was cautioning bill to have a more open mind, to stop thinking he has all of the answers, to be more curious, thinking that just maybe he doesn’t know everything. As I mentally imagined this letter, I saw myself sharing great wisdom that – if accepted – just might help this beautiful young man avoid some of the pitfalls that I have tripped over in my lifetime.

This morning during my early meditation I again imagined myself mentally composing a similar letter. Then, I felt extremely humbled when I suddenly intuitively realized that the letter was really addressed to ME. The imagined words were telling me to never lose my youthful enthusiasm and zest for life – something which I gave up long ago and have still not fully recovered. Most of the time, I still take life far too seriously and cautiously. Even more humbling was to realize that the Universe was telling me – once again – to quit thinking I have all the answers. The words “Forget everything you know” and “Lower your defenses” paraded loudly across my mind.

I realize now that my mind had not been wandering at all – I was simply being guided by spirit – guided to yet another little kick-in-the-pants reminder to be more curious and open.

*  *  *  *  *

After finishing that beautiful meditation at 3:20 a.m., I then switched gears. First, I read a brief excerpt from the Kyballion regarding life’s ever-flowing rhythms. Then I finished off the next hour by mulling over the symbols in every one of the 22 Major Arcana cards of the tarot deck.

Feeling quite proud of myself for spending more than two productive hours being wide awake in the middle of the once-paralyzing night, I finally crawled happily back under the covers around 4:15 a.m., easily falling back to sleep.

I am getting the feeling that maybe I really have successfully shattered that 3:00 a.m. wall. Early evidence seems to hint as much – but long term evidence is what I am seeking.

Later, as first daylight caused me to stir, I was not even tired – not in the least. Now, at 9:00 a.m., I have already done some more meditating/pondering, showered, and caught up on my scribbles. It is time to put on my intuition cap to see where I go from here.

And The Walls Keep Tumbling Down . . . (Thursday, 5:00 p.m. – same day)

Wow! And I thought my 3:00 a.m. wall was my only block to structured meditating. Yes, it was a huge wall, but apparently not my only remaining wall.

This morning, after finishing my writing and going out for a filling fruit smoothie, I felt prompted to immerse myself into an imaginary meditative session with Keith (the Chocolate Shaman). I figured that I could simply pretend that he was there guiding me, and maybe I might just have another cool experience.

After saying “I don’t know why I am here,” imaginary Keith and I jumped into our meditation together. I imagined myself walking over to a wall, opened up a window, and asked my Higher Self for a lesson – one that I was now ready to experience.

I then felt prompted to visualize a basket, trying to see what was inside. As I focused my thoughts, I could feel (not see) a knife, an axe, and a torch. Immediately, I knew these objects were in reference to the words “Cut, chopped, or burned” in my Towering Tree poem – the one I wrote Monday evening. I intuitively knew that I was supposed to see if I could meditate myself into being that towering tree.

As soon as I began trying to imagine what it might feel like being that tree, my mind began to wander. I found myself in major distraction mode – something I have frequently struggled with throughout the last few years of my spiritual journey. For fifteen minutes I repeatedly pulled and tugged my mind back on task, only to have my lazy thoughts wander again, and again, and again. Soon, I felt exhausted and began falling asleep. My mind and body were simply not going to allow me to become that tree. Every possible mental distraction seemed to be racing toward me.

Similar situations from the past flashed into my memory – situations that have been quite common for several years. More often than not, when I try to focus in on a solo meditative task, my mind freezes with distraction, and I run away to a movie, to visit a friend, to read a book, to watch TV etc… I’m not sure if I have ever faced down a situation like this in broad daylight, standing my ground. Memory tells me I have always run away to find yet another distraction when my mind reaches this state.

Suddenly I realized that today’s distraction was an integral part of my imagined process with Keith, and I began to stand my ground, asking myself “Why is this so huge for me? Why am I so unable to concentrate on solo meditation during the daytime? I successfully meditated for two hours early this morning. Why struggle now? Why in broad daylight?”

I pried and excavated in the depths of my mind, knowing that the answer was within me. Intuitions guided me back yet again to childhood pain and fear – the same experiences that terrified me with early morning hopelessness and despair.

Then the answers gradually began to unfold.

In that period of my life, I had tried every “traditional” method of spirituality that I could find – desperately trying to conquer and overcome my evil transgender feelings.  I prayed with all of my heart, I read scriptures with genuine fervor, I begged God for relief, I fasted, I set goals, I religiously attended church meetings, etc…

You name it and I tried it – yet every traditional thing that I tried in the name of spirituality and God did NOT work for me. I felt abandoned, hurt, betrayed by God – a God who (in my belief system) taught that he would help me if I but asked with a sincere heart.

In my late twenties, when my deeply buried personal life was still overwhelmed with agonizing gender struggle, I became angry at traditional Christianity – angry at meaningless prayers, angry at failed goals, angry at worthless scriptures, angry at time wasted in church service. These had all seemed to fail me, and I was at my wits end – still genuinely wanting to cure myself – still desperately wanting to make the evil feelings go away.

Finally, at age 31, I gave up completely on God and religion. “There is no God!” I had told myself in despair as I became a closet atheist. On the outside, while keeping up appearances for family and friends, I continued to pretend to believe in God – but on the inside, I was done with that fantasy. Every form of traditional spirituality was on my blacklist. I mentally rejected them all.

This afternoon, as I continued meditating, I thought of that 12 year old little boy – my genuine young self so very long ago – the one who dictated the poem “The Melody’s Strong.” I re-experienced my helpless and horrified feelings that surfaced after a particularly traumatic and humiliating event in my transgender struggles – an event where I had done some things that later proved to destroy that little boy’s social confidence, driving him even further inward into his ever-thickening protective shell.

In a powerful way, I remembered the pure emotions of that genuine little boy, so desperately wanting to be cured – feeling so deeply confused as to why he could not control the strange perverted desires to explore the feminine gender. I had begged God for help in stopping. I could not seem to stop. I plead with Holy Spirit for guidance. I seemed to receive none. I lived righteously. My behavior was exemplary in every way (except of course my hidden gender struggles). I was genuine and pure in heart, desperately hoping for a cure that never came.

“Why is God abandoning me?” I frequently thought in despair.

Yes, this afternoon, with tears running down my cheeks, I relived a few more sobs of that childhood pain – vicariously re-experiencing deep emotions of anger, confusion, and hopelessness – emotions of loneliness and abandonment by God.

While allowing myself to experience these emotions as if they happened only yesterday, I was at the same time seeing them with my present-day loving spiritual perspective. I am now extremely grateful for everything that took place during those once-agonizing years. I realize that my divine guides had done everything perfectly– every step of the way through my difficult life. They quietly comforted me, but simply could not interfere in a path that I alone needed to follow – a path that needed to unfold exactly the way that it did.

I tried to imagine what I would have done if I were tasked with being one of my Spiritual Guides. It would have been a difficult and thankless job. I verbally thanked my guides – gratefully acknowledging them for the dedicated manner that they guided and protected me while having to watch me blindly flail and suffer, burning up in flames of confusion and hopelessness.

I told them “I don’t think I would have been capable of doing that”, acknowledging how incredibly difficult it must have been to stand by and watch me suffer, even knowing that all was well and that I would eventually be filled with gratitude as I am today.

*  *  *  *  *

Yes, I believe I successfully dynamited yet another invisible wall this morning – this one being a wall of buried subconscious anger aimed at traditional spiritual practices of all types. I honestly cannot remember when I last embraced myself fully into any traditional spiritual ritual. I do not say traditional prayers, I do not attend any organized religious services on a regular basis, I cringe at the thought of reading traditional scriptural texts, and yes, I still struggle with trying to meditate in a traditional way – even though meditation was not a traditional practice of my Mormon roots.

I laugh as I realize that I love non-traditional meditations. My own active style – a style of writing, singing, listening to music, hiking, and talking out loud to Spirit – almost never fails to energize my soul and reconnect me with the divine. And then there is the Chocolate Shaman’s laid back style that literally sends me flying through the skies.

As silly as this may sound, after simply connecting additional “subconscious dots” this morning, I literally feel different. Something inside of my soul shifted, and I’m anxious to find out just what happens next.

*  *  *  *  *

As I reflect back on my Monday evening unexplainable burst of poetic freedom, I am amazed at how that simple little poem about “The Towering Tree” so beautifully shaped my experiences of today. The Universe really is quite the master at synchronous choreography.

Perhaps I am now another step closer to magically becoming the heart of that strong and innocent Towering Tree.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

(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.)

Wednesday, September 8 – 6:30 p.m.

Today has been a beautiful, amazing day. The tears I shed during channeling practice were tears of joy. The realization that there is yet another wall of resistance to transcend merely peaks my curiosity – curiosity that is growing much deeper. Spending a few hours this morning in finishing off that last blog entry was a pure inspiring joy to my soul.

And I have started embracing situations – situations that randomly come up – situations that have frequently annoyed me in the past. Yes, I still get tired, but my heart is filled today with joy. This morning, for yoga, I was the first person in the temple – yet I chose the station that I have secretly hated since my Moon Course. The entrance into the temple is through a small tunnel that opens up into the floor. Once everyone is inside, two folding doors are closed over the horizontal opening in the floor, leaving a spot with a few uneven bumps and a tiny bit of noisy sagginess.

I have avoided this spot from day one, never having sat there even once. The uneven cracks were beneath my dignity, something I did not want to have to tolerate. Today, I intentionally chose that specific seat and loved it.

Then, when I walk into the bathroom (which by the way has no seat – just a cold porcelain rim) I grin as I remember how annoyed I once was when the seat broke and was never replaced – and it doesn’t bother me in the least to “get to” slightly clean up after others who forget to flush, or who dribble on the rim.

Tonight, after an amazing “Om” meditation, I was the last one to step out of the temple. A light drizzle was just beginning to strengthen, and my first reaction was to flip out my trusty umbrella. Almost immediately, I rolled the umbrella back up and put it back in my hand. I walked all the way to my little pyramid bedroom with my face raised eagerly toward the dripping sky, arms outstretched, even as the drops became heavier and more frequent. I felt so rejuvenated, so refreshed.

A childlike exuberance is begging to be released tonight, and I plan on nourishing this beautiful, innocent, playful emotion with love and encouragement – none of that fuddy-duddy old adult stuffiness for me – at least not tonight.

Friday, September 10 – 6:45 p.m.

Today has been another beautiful day. There is so much to say, and so little time to say it. I am exhausted and want to go to bed. I didn’t feel at all like writing last night, and went to bed at 7:00 p.m., and I think I will literally do the same this evening. I have jotted down a few notes, and very soon (perhaps tomorrow), I will catch up on yesterday’s and today’s growth-filled events – some of which are still in progress anyway.

What I will say is that I had a great energy-moving afternoon today. For what feels like at least a week to ten days, I have not even tried to do any energy path-work on my body. I feel as if I had reached a dead end where nothing that I tried to do seemed to work anymore. I had gotten stuck at the point of trying to move energy up into the neck and beyond, and felt as if I had lost my desire to even try any further. I had simply lost interest.

But after having completed last week’s powerful healing journey, deepening my understanding of Temperance, I decided today that perhaps now was the time to try again. As I stretched out on my bed early this afternoon, I had a very difficult time getting started, but finally, after about twenty minutes, I felt a few energy tingles begin to work their way up my abdomen and chest. The going intensified, and was quite easy to control until I reached my upper shoulders near the base of my neck, at which point I felt as if I hit an open abyss across which no energy could cross.

For much of the next hour I breathed slowly and deeply, often holding my breath while I concentrated intensely on guiding the energy up my shoulders and into my neck. Finally I felt the tingles moving up the back of my neck and I eventually coaxed the tingling to go right up into the middle of the back of my head.

But try as I might, I struggled to get any energy to move up the sides or front of my neck. Finally, with intense effort I was able to use my will to gradually encourage tiny waves of tingles up my throat, over my chin, and up my cheeks. It was actually quite amazing and enjoyable. Once the energy reached the area of my eyes, I felt as if I hit another brick wall – but I was able to move a tiny bit of energy up into my eye brows and forehead. I wished I had more time, but my alarm went off telling me it was time for evening meditation. I had been at it for almost two and a half hours. The whole process was exhausting, but I feel as if I opened some powerful energy channels (at least began the process of opening them).

As I walked outside, my neck, the back of my head, and my face were tingling and dancing with energizing, joyful vibrations. I literally felt ten years younger as I walked down the path to the pyramid temple.

Now that evening meditation is over, I am simply exhausted from all the effort that I expended this afternoon. Perhaps I will try some more tonight, but first I am slipping into my pajamas and going to bed.

Saturday, September 11 – 12:40 p.m.

My little spider friend is back. I have not seen him since the evening of September 6 when I finished my all-afternoon writing marathon where I wrote about “Loving the Ending.” That evening I made a truce with the little arachnid. Perhaps I should not call him little, since he is probably at least three inches across in his leg span. I promised my little magical spiritual guide that he could live here in my room under the condition that he never set foot on my skin, especially during the night. Shortly after I finished writing, he disappeared and has not reappeared until this morning. He is in a different spot, right up near the glass windows at the peak of my pyramid, directly overhead from where I sit to write. I do believe he is standing guard over my writing process – reminding me that it is now time to write with intensity – time to express my feelings – time to solidify my growth process by finding healing and intuitive words to describe it.

But in order to finish my writing for this week, it is necessary to regress all the way back to Wednesday. As you may recall, I had a very powerful experience in our channeling class – an experience where I realized that I was dealing with varied amounts of fear, pride, stubbornness, and ego – a mysterious and hidden wall that I needed to identify, understand, and then transcend. After publishing my “A Hidden Wall” writing, discussing that beautiful experience in detail, I exchanged written notes with Sandra. She pointed out something else about my wall – something very true – something that had not even crossed my mind.

I was quite pleased with myself when I found the courage and strength to publish a powerful statement a couple of months ago – a blog entry titled “Speaking My Truth” in which I once and for all exposed my belief system to the world. I honestly believe that one of the purposes of my inspired travels has been to get me to the point of internal confidence where I could indeed speak my truth without fear of ridicule or judgment.

Sandra, in her beautiful note, gave me something new to think about when she pointed out to me that I had an incredible gift for writing from the heart, but that “the spoken word and expression holds entirely different challenges.” Yes, I had learned to speak my truth in writing, but what about during impromptu, unrehearsed conversation – especially if what I needed to say involves unpleasant or embarrassing emotions?

Why was I finding myself so terrified to speak up in a channeling class, surrounded by people I love? Why was I having such a difficult time approaching Chaty to tell her about my resistance and my frustrations?

Those two questions had me stuck, and I made up my mind with firm determination that I will no longer be a timid wallflower when it comes to speaking my feelings and my expressing my needs.

A New Start

Thursday morning, during a class discussion about the feelings and experiences that we had during our Wednesday channeling session, I forced myself to open up my genuine heart and to put my struggles out on the table. I explained how I have been feeling quite stuck and abandoned, both by Chaty and by my Spiritual guides. Then I acknowledged openly that I have felt too proud and stubborn to ask for help. I then talked about how, at the start of Wednesday’s channeling session, I had reached out in frustration, begging my guides to please connect with me – to help me in my process. Finally, I briefly shared the beautiful experience that unfolded – the one where my guides gave me some great insight and then continued to communicate with me via the spoken words of Marcel and Sandra.

As I finished my comments, I made loving eye contact with Chaty, again stating publicly that I would love some individual help and attention.

As I finished speaking, I was nearly in tears. It would not have mattered in the least if I had burst out in sobs – but my ego somehow managed to keep the tears under wraps, stuffing the little sprinklers back down for later release.

I actually do not even know if Chaty understood my final words – she often has difficulty comprehending spoken English. But I do know that my classmates heard my emotional truth. I took off my mask and became a little more genuine. I felt such a sense of gratitude that I had found the courage to speak so honestly about my struggles.

I no longer feel a need to approach Chaty to ask for that individual one-on-one chat. I realize that my sense of isolation and frustration have all been part of a well-orchestrated setup by the Universe – a plot to bring me to a point of new growth and learning.

In a second round of discussion during Thursday’s class, Chaty asked us to describe our most recent dream. I told her about my dream with the “Pyramids/Titanic movie poster” – the one with artwork that I was supposed to complete – the one with a white home on a hill, and a lake surrounded by mountains – the dream with Chaty playing with a non-existent granddaughter – the dream where everyone was late for meditation.

I found it quite interesting as Chaty told me that she is building a new spiritual center here in a different part of Lake Atitlan – and that she has named the location “The Ark” (a very big boat). She then told me that they are building a white house for her up on top of a hill – and that everything is indeed very much behind schedule. Hmmm … quite the interesting coincidences … I wonder? As I think more about that dream, the second photo of a lake surrounded by mountains did indeed resemble Lake Atitlan.

Early Morning Panic

My new focus on dreaming seems to be paying off. Excluding Wednesday evening, I have been remembering portions of around three dreams every night. None of those dreams have been lucid, but they are getting closer to that state, and I do believe I am learning about myself through this exercise.

Friday morning at 2:00 a.m., as I woke up from my second dream of the evening, I hurried to scribble what few details I could remember. After a quick restroom break and lying back in bed for thirty minutes, I began to feel quite frustrated that I was unable to go back to sleep (even though I had gone to bed shortly after 7:00 p.m.).

As 3:00 a.m. came and went, I remembered that another one of my primary goals for my spiritual travels has been to break my stalemate with the early morning hours – to make an effort to actually get up when I am woken up – to actually try to connect with my spiritual guides during these prime quiet hours.

I have been quite aware for a couple of years now that my spiritual guides are often waking me up early in the morning – wanting me to make an effort to meditate and to connect with them. For those same two years I have consistently refused to get up nearly 99% of the time. Instead, I fight my way back to sleep.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I as usual made up a lame rationalization and tried to go back to sleep. Finally, still being wide awake shortly after 4:00 a.m., I decided that now was the time to confront my resistance regarding this issue. What happened next caught me completely off guard.

As I sat up on the side of my bed in my cold, dark room, I began to wrestle with a deep sensation of panic. I felt disconnected, separated from spirit, incapable of attempting to connect with my guides. The last thing I wanted to do was to be spiritual. I felt like a complete fraud. My entire journey has been dedicated to deepening my spiritual connections to my guides – yet the thought of doing so during a cold dark morning – even after having received seven full hours of sleep – was terrifying to me. I felt like Jonas in the Bible, wishing I could simply run away from my fears – from the responsibility and expectations that came with that responsibility. I imagined myself inside the dark belly of a cold moist whale.

Such a visualization was actually quite easy to make, given the fact that I was sitting in a cold, moist, and dark room.

Repeatedly, I began to cower in fear, trying to convince myself to lie back down and hide under my covers. Courageously, I forced myself to continue sitting on the side of my bed.

“What if I’m wrong?” thoughts began to flood my mind. “What if I can’t do this, and I am a failure? I have felt so safe while in pursuit of such connections, but when faced with the possibility of actually solidifying such a connection I seem to freeze up with fear and panic.”

At 4:15 a.m., I finally grabbed my notebook and forced myself to begin speed-writing – nothing planned – nothing channeled – just allowing my mind to flow unobstructed. Through written words, I began to analyze my life-long struggle with the early morning hours – my literal hatred (and fear) of getting up too early.

Following are a couple of the passages that I wrote:

“I don’t know how to walk the walk. I am terrified to be found out as a fraud. I have all this amazing spiritual intuition and guidance, but when I hit the 3:00 a.m. wall, it is like I am the Jeffrey Dahmer of spirituality – the serial killer of my soul. I avoid facing these frightening hours because I know that these hours are the do-or-die hours. I don’t feel capable of connecting during the morning hours. I am terrified at the thought of failure, of coming up empty. What will I do if I actually do what I know I must – and if I fail? I will hit rock bottom – I will be the joke of all jokes – the failure of all failures – the fraud of frauds.”

After analyzing my fears and life-long habits of procrastination, I desperately wrote the following:

“Why are these fears so great – so intense? It is as if someone has a gun to my head, threatening me – laughing at me. I don’t think I can face these fears – my worst nightmares.”

 “Is this my wall??? Is 3:00 a.m. my real wall? Is this the demon that I need to overcome? My Achilles heel? “

 “Even as I write, I want to turn off the lights, crawl back in bed, and hide from what I am doing. It feels so incredibly uncomfortable … three o’clock in the morning is terrifying. It laughs at me, taunts me, and calls me a fraud and a failure.”

 “I feel as if someone locked me in a room with a deadly snake – a snake that is invisible, hiding, just waiting for the right moment to strike.”

As I finished writing and finally went back to bed, I realized that I had indeed found my “real” wall – the actual source of my stuck-ness and inability to move forward.

But I still had no idea as to the depth or thickness of the wall, and had no idea how to transcend it. I knew I needed to write about it, but the whole experience was simply too new – too raw – too tender. I needed to first get some rest and search for more clarity.

Channeling For Answers

Friday’s channeling class was amazing. Chaty asked us to each bring a clear glass of water, which she then instructed us to place in front of us during our session. We did not find out until later what the water was for.

During this session, others were simultaneously talking and or singing, creating convenient background distraction, giving me the courage to speak my truth and to talk out loud as well. Throughout the session, I still fought mild fear and resistance. I focused my entire effort on attempting to hear my Higher Self as I asked with all of my heart for help in tearing down this huge wall of morning fear that I had faced in my dark room barely four hours earlier.

The session was amazing. Afterward, I sat on my stool and wrote the following:

I am the stillness … I am the emptiness … I am the tree … I am the flower … I am the water … I am the air … I am the fire.

I had a breakthrough today after my morning silence nightmare – my refusal to face the emptiness. Sitting up at 4:15 a.m. and writing was terrifying – being alone with myself – something I thought that I was an expert at doing. But in reality, being alone with myself is my wall – my deepest fear. That is why I have such a hard time connecting to my guides, and with connecting to structured meditation.

When I connect with Spirit, I do so actively – my mountain time is filled with journal writing, singing, listening to music, hiking, reading, etc… Yet every time I reach a point of “nothingness” I run away – and I now realize that I run away in fear.

I AM NOTHINGNESS.

This is a terrifying thought to Ego. As I tried to channel today, I realized that I am afraid of me – the emptiness of just me. Yes, I said emptiness – the stillness, quietness, complete absence of doing, the complete absence of needing outside stimulation or confirmation. For as long as I can remember I have been emotionally terrified of nothingness, of simply being.

I don’t think I ever realized before today that my beautiful goal of “simply being” is the very same thing as my worst nightmare – “the thought of nothingness”.

Simply being actually is the same as nothingness – yet it is also “all-ness” at the very same time.

I realized that I AM that quiet, still, firmly rooted tree that simply sits there. I AM the flower simply growing and blooming, not depending on any outside confirmation of my beauty. I AM the swallow. I AM the bee. I AM the rock that just sits there – simply being.

Do not fear the being. Embrace it. It will not harm me, for it is my core essence – that which I truly am.

As class ended, Chaty instructed us to drink the water that had been sitting in front of us. As I slowly sipped every precious drop of my water, it felt like pure life energy flowing across my lips and down my throat. In many ways, I felt as if I were drinking myself, pure spirit – the essence of everything we see in this holodeck universe.

After class on Friday, I spent the majority of my remaining day simply watching my breath, imagining myself as a tree, or a flower etc – embracing fully my desire to learn to meditate in the quiet stillness of an empty mind.

That Terrorizing Wall

This afternoon, as I have attempted to adequately “capture into words” yesterday morning’s experience with the terrifying emptiness, I had new insights flood through my soul.

I began to remember many petrifying sleepless mornings, lying helplessly-awake in bed, struggling with mind-boggling fears and terrors – fears caused by confusing and intense transgender struggles. These sleepless mornings began as early as around age ten or eleven, and had persisted well into my older adult life. Even after finally discovering the internal courage to begin making incredibly difficult life changes, my fears continued on, simply shifting form, morphing into new insurmountable obstacles.

These horrible-feeling sleepless mornings were invariably joined by unexplainable emptiness, never-ending nothingness, intense loneliness, terrifying self-hatred, deep hopelessness, and un-resolvable despair. But they were also filled with a pure, genuine, innocent and profound longing for the freedom to simply be loved and accepted – accepted as me, the beautiful person that I really was – that I still am. But the thought of acceptance and peace was fleeting – an impossible fantasy that I dared not to dream.

Even today, while trying to write about these terrorizing early morning encounters with hopelessness, the pressure valve of deeply buried emotion has burst open in my soul, sending huge tears down my now-wet cheeks. I had no idea that these tears still remained inside of me. I had the mistaken belief that all such past trauma was resolved. I now stand corrected.

So there you have it. I believe I have finally excavated the underlying truth – the real gut issue behind my wall – the powerful reason why I continue to consistently refuse to get up during the early morning hours, to more meaningfully connect with my divine guides. With all of my heart, I now believe that this huge intimidating wall is based on a subconscious association with unhealed and unreleased past emotional fear and terror – feelings of hopelessness that nearly destroyed me – paralyzing fear that held me fast in its clutches.

*  *  *  *  *

I am starving and the afternoon is late. I think I will go grab a couple of yummy vegetarian burritos.

I feel so relieved to have finally uncovered what my heart confirms is the real underlying cause of my current spiritual roadblock. This is bound to be a tear-jerker as I dig into the pain and emotion – but nonetheless, I cannot wait to begin.

But first I must eat.

Saturday – same day – 6:30 p.m.

I had every intention of finishing my writing after my 3:00 p.m. late-lunch break – but I can only presume that the powers-that-be have different plans for my evening.

As I returned to my room shortly after 4:00 p.m., my stomach felt deeply bloated and uncomfortable so I took a rest. I had planned to skip meditation tonight and just plow right through my healing followed by more writing – but since I did not feel capable of either, I decided to go meditate instead – not especially a good idea either. While I found spiritual peace during the long meditation session, my body was physically rebelling through what felt like a quiet eternity.

As I now sit back at my laptop keyboard, I feel as if the wheels of the Universe may be working on a new secret plan. I’m going to bed right now. I must give my body a rest – sufficient time to heal. I have no idea what will happen tonight, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be awake and processing intense emotional baggage during the early morning hours – and I may indeed be purging emotion in more ways than flowing alligator tears and jaw-shaking physical release. (LOL)

I am ready, willing, and able to tackle whatever comes up (or out) – and I am anxious to have this unexpected emotional processing behind me (no pun intended). I am so grateful that I have learned such powerful techniques for releasing buried emotions.

Bring on the rain – and I probably won’t even use an umbrella.

Monday, September 13 – 7:00 a.m.

I’m skipping yoga this morning – I still don’t feel quite up to moving and stretching.

Wow, what an intense 36 hours this has been. After going to bed at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night, my body was in full rebellion mode. The nausea was mild but threatening – quite enough to get my attention. The bloating and cramping were intense from the start. The diarrhea increased progressively throughout the night, and I also experienced fever with cold chills all night long. Oh, and then there was the severe headache right smack dab in the middle of my forehead.

Ego wanted me to feel miserable, to wallow in my pain and suffering, to place the back of my right hand against my forehead and to cry out in despair: “woe is me.”

But two very powerful memories again guided my long night to a very peaceful outcome. The first memory was of my Olmec Shaman friend, Jose Manuel, when he uttered those now-engrained-in-my-soul words “Brenda, there is a big difference between pain and suffering.”

Immediately upon remembering those words, I decided that “yes, my body is indeed experiencing a great amount of pain and discomfort, but no, I do not need to suffer. No, I will not suffer.”

The second memory was more recent. It was words that Keith (the Chocolate Shaman) had uttered during our first encounter – my group session with the rest of my Sun Course. He told one of my fellow “Sunnies” something like “The door is wide open. You don’t need to live in these lower energies until you have them all cleaned up. You are free to leave anytime – to walk out of that doorway – to move to a higher-energy living space where you can then process your emotions with more love and clarity.”

Yes, my body was completely miserable and in full rebellion, but I decided right then and there that my Mind and Spirit were going to remain calm, loving, and peaceful – regardless of whatever might unfold in my upcoming nighttime experience.

By 8:30 p.m., a flash of insight hit me in a powerful way. “Brenda, you are very severely dehydrated, and your body is filled with toxins. DRINK LOTS OF WATER … AND DRINK IT NOW.”

As I pondered on the issue of dehydration, I realized that I had indeed only drunk perhaps one glass of water and 16 ounces of lemonade – this was my entire consumption of fluids all day long. I also realized that I have been feeling quite sluggish in yoga for about two days – two days in which I have really been pushing myself with hip opener exercises – desperately stretching the limits of my hip muscles while trying to further increase my flexibility.

Yes, my body was filled with toxins from stretching locked-up muscles. But why was the sudden physical rebellion happening now? Then I remembered the emotion that I uncovered right before going to my late lunch – that powerful burst of tears accompanied by incredibly intuitive insights telling me that my intense fear of the early morning – a fear that has lasted for perhaps 45 years – was based on childhood terrors of the loneliness, the emptiness, the nothingness, the hopelessness of sleepless nights – nights where panic and fear ruled my feelings of emotional helplessness.

Then I thought of my dear spider visitor and realized that perhaps he has been reminding me that my morning panics began right around the same time that the spiders first visited the basement bedroom of a confused, tired, and scared ten-year-old little boy – so very long ago.

Even after years of powerful healing of intense emotional issues, my fear and discomfort with being awake during the dark morning hours has continued to inexplicably plague me.

It was only on Saturday afternoon when the light bulb had finally flashed brilliantly – when the final subconscious link was connected – when I realized that my inability to tolerate the dark moonlight hours was based on a lifetime of hopeless-feeling nights.

While the tears I had shed on Saturday afternoon were not long-lasting, I believe that the powerful subconscious realization – the realization of from whence my morning fears originate – had indeed released heaping boatloads of toxins into my body. They were more than enough toxins to push me over the hump into experiencing flu-like symptoms.

Immediately, I began gulping down water as fast as my dehydrated body could tolerate. I drank an entire liter in less than an hour. For the remainder of the night I was up making restroom runs, often as frequently as two or three times each hour.

As midnight approached, I told myself that if I was still awake at 3:00 a.m., that I would indeed get up and begin some serious emotional processing in an attempt to uncover whatever else might be buried deep inside. But for the time being, I was just too exhausted to even think about it.

Even at 2:30, my commitment to this plan was still intact – but I was drained from a complete absence of any sleep, none whatsoever. Even so, I remained calm and submissively peaceful.

Amazingly, the time between 2:30 and 4:15 a.m. disappeared into nothingness. Perhaps I actually fell asleep, perhaps I was just in such a deep meditation that it didn’t matter – but when I realized that I had missed the magical 3:00 a.m. hour I felt a slight sense of relief. “Perhaps the Universe is giving me permission to simply rest” I told myself as I continued to lie quite uncomfortably in my hard bed.

When daylight finally lit up the interior of my little bedroom, I felt physically drained, utterly exhausted – but remarkably peaceful. As I lay there meditating, I was intuitively reminded of a faint image that seemed to have been with me throughout much of the night. Something told me that the image was important – that I needed to remember. As I pondered more deeply on the blurry photo in my mind, a sense of intuitive clarity finally settled in, resonating powerfully.

During my more meditative pauses of that long difficult night, I had been visited by a mental image of the “Temperance Angel”. What was engrained in the lens of my subconscious mind was the spitting image of the angel portrayed on the Temperance Card of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. Again, Temperance means the ability to find peace and love in any situation.

Monday, Same Day – 11:45 a.m.

My memories of Sunday are simply a peaceful, headache-filled blur. Aside from necessary restroom runs, I only left my room a few times – purchasing much needed water – dropping off laundry and later picking it up – two small bowls of rice at a nearby restaurant – and a short sit in the sun.

I had hoped to have more strength, but continued instead to focus on “loving what is” – reminding myself to have Temperance. My body simply cried out for bed rest, and that is exactly what I gave it. I even skipped evening meditation without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt.

Throughout most of Sunday, my Spider visitor again took up post at the very top of the small glass windows of my pyramid room. Saturday, while eating my veggie burrito lunch, the little eight-legged spiritual guide had quietly retired to his hiding place. But on Sunday, he reappeared to watch over me during what turned out to be a very long day of peaceful loving rest.

Listening to Chaty’s advice – advice that was well engrained in the back of my mind – I ignored my desire to flip out my IPOD as a mental distraction for the seemingly never-ending day. Not once during this experience have I done anything except to be present – to be a tall silent tree – to be me, being with myself, with no outside distraction.

My stomach remained very weak and my forehead still felt as if something were firmly pressing against every sensitive nerve – but I remained in peaceful Temperance.

Finally, by Sunday evening, I mustered enough physical strength to try something – hoping that just maybe it might relieve the intense feeling of painful pressure in my forehead. I was intuitively reminded of my discovery several years ago that my headaches seem to originate with the muscles of my neck. Not believing that such an intense ache could be coming from so far away, I resisted the intuition – but finally I moved my fingers to the tight muscles on the right side of my lower neck.

Digging deeply with my still-weak finger, while turning my head just so, I managed to barely slip my right thumb tips between the muscle and the bone. As I began to gently press and massage, the pain in my forehead suddenly increased ten fold, sending a lightning bolt of pain throughout my forehead. Realizing that I had hit on the mother-lode of buried tension, I continued to work the muscle while ignoring the ever increasing, almost unbearable pain in my forehead. Soon my forehead felt relaxed and free. The debilitating pain was gone, and a feeling of hope returned to my weary body – hope that I might actually get some sleep – hope that I might have turned the corner in my physical healing.

Amazingly, I was able to acquire considerable rest through most of the much-shorter darkness last night. When I awoke for the final time this morning, I felt completely rested and alert with absolutely no headache – none whatsoever. Yes, my stomach is still constantly reminding me that it is still on the mend – and it presently questioning whether I really should have eaten that oatmeal with fruit just a little while ago – but my emotional and physical energy seems to back at 100%. I know that the physical will follow.

*  *  *  *  *

Throughout this long process of healing and self-discovery, I have often been intuitively reminded of a phrase spoken by Ronald Reagan during the 1980’s when he uttered those famous words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.” As I imagine these words, I have simultaneously felt my Higher Self intuitively speaking to me, saying, “Brenda Larsen, tear down that wall.”

In the process of these past several days, I have found and destroyed a couple of spiritual walls. The first had to do with “Speaking my truth” during face-to-face, in-person encounters while plowing through fears, pride, stubbornness, and Ego. The second wall blindsided me out of nowhere – somehow having managed to remain completely invisible – transparently hidden from my conscious awareness.

I cannot honestly say whether my “3:00 a.m.” wall is destroyed or not. Only time will reveal that answer. What I can say is that I feel like a totally different person. I no longer feel panic at the thought of getting up during the early morning hours. I no longer experience unexplainable resistance to the idea of meditating or writing while the moon still shines.

As it turns out, I don’t think I needed to dredge up any still-suppressed tear-jerking emotions in order to blast this wall to smithereens. Those emotions seem to have already been taken care of. All I needed to do was to complete the subconscious dots – to shine a bright light on my crazy fear – to realize that it was based on nothing at all – nothingness. It was all simply a lingering subconscious association with pain already resolved and dealt with.

Channeling For Peace

This morning we had our final channeling practice. As Chaty announced what we would be doing, my heart froze with momentary panic. She told us that we would be taking turns speaking whatever comes to us – one person at a time.

“I cannot do this.” I told myself with panic.

“Yes I can and I will.” I responded with confidence.

Within a minute or so, I decided that not only would I do it, but I would go first. As it turns out, someone else beat me to the starting gates, but I took second position. I found myself completely connecting with feelings and then expressing them – the same thing I do everyday while engaged in inspired conversation or while writing. For my first round, I didn’t have a lot to say – but I said something that was deeply connected to my present journey – something that had simply come to me earlier during meditation.

“When we shine a light on our deepest fears,” I began, “we discover that they are merely butterflies waiting to show us the way that we can fly home.”

I was done. One by one, everyone else began to speak similar truths – some quite short – and a few more lengthy. Having broken through my unreasonable fear, I quietly waited for the next words of wisdom to flash into my mind. Then, when no one else was talking I took another turn. I must have done this at least ten times, with no feeling of fear – none whatsoever. The process felt so incredibly peaceful – so natural.

It is amazing how simply shining a bright light on my fears this week has indeed shown me that those fears were indeed simply butterflies, guiding me on my amazing path of growth, showing me the way to heal so that I can fly ever so much closer to my divine home.

What is even more amazing is that “I AM that butterfly” guiding myself home.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

(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.)

Monday, September 6 – 6:45 p.m.

During the first half of meditation tonight, I reached a state of depth and peace that more than equals anything I have ever achieved in cross-legged traditional style meditation. I focused on doing it “my way” with presence and emotion, while at the same time sitting in the traditional position. I let go of every ounce of resistance and melted into the energy of my hands and my breath. An inspiration hit me this afternoon that I need to focus constantly on my hands. Not only will this help me stay present, helping me to feel the energy of that present moment – but I believe it will also help me as I make one more effort to practice lucid dreaming.

It only seems logical that if I constantly focus on my hands while awake – then while dreaming I will have a tendency to do the same. As I focus on my hands in a dream, I will most definitely recognize that my hands are different – astral hands are energetically different than physical hands. When I notice this difference, I hope to awaken to a lucid state.

But tonight’s most meaningful experience came during the second half of meditation. Chaty guided us through a forgiveness visualization exercise. As I visualized my father, mother, siblings, children, etc…, I felt absolutely no emotional charge whatsoever. I have felt pure love and clarity in these relationships for some time. What shocked me is when Chaty asked us to switch our focus onto a past friendship – one which was very close and which later fell apart. I have two such friendships – one was with a former business partner in a failed beauty salon venture about ten years ago. The other was a dear close friendship that blew apart in nuclear ways – perhaps six years ago.

I had immersed myself fully into the two relationships, and had then felt deeply betrayed by each. For a couple of years after each, I could not access any type of meaningful forgiveness. Then, I gradually let go of all of my pain and judgment, recognizing the incredible blessings and growth that had arisen from each experience. In the past few years, I have believed myself to have almost-completely forgiven each former friend. However, without fail, each time I have imagined myself bumping into either of these former friends in a social situation, I have felt great hesitancy and awkwardness in my heart. I definitely could never have visualized myself walking up to either of these friends to actually give them a genuine loving hug.

What literally blew me away tonight is that, as I envisioned both friendships, I actually saw myself walking right up to them in public, giving each a huge genuine hug – a bear hug filled with loving emotions. Then I actually imagined myself genuinely looking at them, with tears in my own eyes, and asking them for their forgiveness for the way I had abandoned the friendship – for the way I had run away with such hurt and angry feelings.

Whatever internal healing that I did during this past week has worked miracles in my inner soul. I feel as if I have let go of all judgment – all projection of blame and guilt onto others. I feel so free.

How I pray that this amazing sense of love and freedom persists.

*  *  *  *  *

Today has been every bit as wonderful as was tonight’s meditation. I have accessed a new sense of simply being present – not being concerned with the past or the future – simply trusting. I also feel a strong renewed interest in the Kabala Tree of Life and in my spiritual quest her at the Pyramids. During last week’s struggles, I grew quite apathetic about the Kabala, Tarot, and other things that I have been studying. I love the fact that my enthusiasm for my 40 days has now returned.

This afternoon, I also doubled my efforts in focusing on my dreaming skills. I feel like a whole new person – reborn in some way.

What is wonderful is that I am not on top of some spiritual high, riding the heights of a big wave. I feel as if I am sitting in a relaxing pond with a mirror-like surface, simply watching the ripples go by. In fact, during meditation tonight, I envisioned myself sitting in a beautiful “Cenote” (underground pool in the Yucatan). Specifically, I felt myself sitting in one of the two famous ones near Valladolid – the one with the tiny little fish that will come up and chew on your dead skin if you sit very still. For much of meditation, I visualized myself sitting in the calm glassy water of that cenote, with tiny little fish energetically munching away on my past emotional baggage.

*  *  *  *  *

Just prior to meditation tonight, I decided to do a quick Tarot reading on myself to see where the cards might say that I am at in my development process. As you may recall from my previous writings, there are 78 cards in a Tarot deck, with 22 of them being classified as “Major Arcana” cards. These Major Arcana cards represent various states of growth and development on our spiritual path in returning to our divine source. Just 28% of the deck is in this category. In addition to their normal meaning, selecting a large concentration of these cards indicates a great deal of spiritual support on one’s journey.

I took extra effort to offer up a genuine sincere prayer before shuffling the cards. Then, while selecting them, I focused with great intuitive effort, double checking my intuition several times before locking in on any particular card. I used a combination of spiritual intuition and energy fluctuations in my palms as I selected each card.

I chose a simple spread – selecting three cards to represent my path of the previous week, three more cards to represent my path of this immediate week, and a final three cards to symbolize my path of next week.

When I turned my chosen cards face up, shivers ran up and down my spine.

Every one of the first six cards were all Major Arcana, along with one more of the final three. In a deck with only 28% Major Arcana, I had selected 78% of my cards from that category. Random odds are quite against this happening. But it was not just the fact that the cards were Major Arcana cards that sent vibrations through my soul – it was the exact choices of those cards that delighted my energy channels.

As anyone who read my last blog entry knows, I spent most of this last week struggling with deep issues of confusing judgment, negative feelings, and trying to find Temperance (the ability to be peaceful no matter what goes on around you). Silly little present day events were causing me to subconsciously dredge up buried emotional pain from the past and to project it outward onto people whom I love in the present.

To represent last week’s path, the three cards that I pulled were the Wheel of Fortune card, the Temperance card, and the Tower card. The first represents beginnings of powerful movement and growth. The second is obvious – I was working on Temperance lessons and I pulled the Temperance card. But the third card literally sealed the deal. The Tower card symbolizes destruction of all that is “of this physical world” that no longer serves you – including letting go of negativity and ego. Those three cards were absolutely perfect in describing last week.

To represent this week’s path, I pulled the Star card, the World (Universe) card, and the Magician card. Again, these three cards deeply inspire me. The Star card represents the return to a more divine understanding of Temperance after having gone through a difficult test to show that one truly is able to find peace in difficult circumstances. The World card represents completion of a great step in one’s spiritual path. It is the last of the Major Arcana. Then, the Magician card (card number one) represents a new beginning in my spiritual journey – a young magician just starting out on his journey of growth, discovery, and transformation as he seeks to return to his divine roots. Again, each of these cards feels perfect. I am primed and ready to take Temperance to an entirely new level of divine connection, and I truly feel that the healing I passed through last week was indeed a completion of a major step in my growth path. I am anxious to jump back into the role of that young magician and to start yet another cycle of deep and meaningful transformation and growth.

The three future cards leave me guessing a little bit. The first was the Knight of Pentacles, representing new growth and changes in my physical reality. The second was the Heirophant card, a Major Arcana card that represents spirituality – but this particular card also represents the secret keys of the Tree of Life. My final card was the King of swords – representing deep clarity and dominion over the realm of the mind. I am anxious to see where this all takes me, but for now, I will focus on the present, merely using today’s tarot reading as a powerful barometer to remind me that I do have a great deal of spiritual support, and that this support system is indeed helping me to grow – one precious moment at a time.

My promptings are quite clear right now – stay out of the future, leave the past behind me, and live in every moment – watching my breathing, my vibration levels, and simply “being”. I cannot wait to see what tonight and tomorrow bring.

Wednesday, September 8 – 10:30 a.m.

During the last couple of moon cycles, I have noticed that I have almost no memorable dreams during the two weeks that wrap around the new moon. Most of my dreams have been coming during the latter part of the week before a full moon, and then continuing through the subsequent week.

As I mentioned earlier, I am feeling a profound sense of urgency to redouble my dreaming efforts. Much of the focus of the Sun Course is on discovering the hidden mystical secrets of the Kabala Tree of Life – and in then using those hidden secrets to access personal mystical experiences that will literally change how we see life. Using the subconscious knowledge that we acquire from lucid dreams and astral travel is a very valuable tool in finding these hidden secrets – the dilemma being that I have been coming up quite empty in those areas. When I hear of other’s incredible lucid dreams, etc…, I tend to begin feeling as if I should be in the resource or remedial class for less gifted students.

While I recognize that all of my up and down growth experiences have been very timely, extremely valuable, and at times quite profound, I still feel as if I am lacking in the area of accessing and using those hidden secrets. Perhaps I have already found the secrets but just do not recognize them yet because I am blind and they are right in front of my face. Perhaps I am on a completely different page of reality and will never discover those secrets.

I have found myself lately wondering if such secrets even exist – kind of labeling them as sour grapes, not really something I care about anyway. But something inside tells me that those grapes must be real, and they are indeed the most scrumptious grapes that anyone has ever tasted.

I walk a fine line. On one side of the line is my strong belief that I simply need to be present in each moment, trusting the universe to show me things when I am ready – trusting that everything is exactly as it should be. On the other side of that line, I am panicking, thinking – “oh no, I only have 12 days left, and I feel as if I have squandered the first 28 days of my silence. I need to focus, work, do, perform, meditate, cram, push until I meet the goal … There must be something I am not doing – or perhaps doing wrong.

Beginning on Monday, I have been making a valiant effort to manifest and to create more powerful dreams – even though I am smack dab in the middle of the New Moon cycle. I decided that moon cycles do not matter, and that I will dream – and I will learn from those dreams.

Monday night I again came up empty, but last night was a completely different story. I had a quite powerful dream – two of them in fact. The details on the first one are sketchy, but I remember enough to find deep meaning. The second dream, at 5:00 a.m., seemed so profound and obvious that I believed I had already written it down previously. When I returned from the restroom, I could not – and still cannot – remember even the tiniest details of that second astral encounter.

Fleeting Deadlines

In the first dream I was in some type of present-day setting connected to the pyramids. Before me on the floor were preliminary designs for a poster that needed to be drawn up – a poster that I had committed to create. I was feeling quite rushed as I realized that I have less than two weeks to go in order to finish the artwork. Someone had given me some sketchy drawings – a smaller drawing of a white home sitting up on top of a small hill – and a larger drawing of a lake surrounded by mountains. Intuitively, I knew that I was supposed to combine these two drawings in a meaningful way, but I had procrastinated.

There is a fellow Sun Course member with me – I never saw her presence, but I intuitively felt her, and I believe it was Sandra. Soon, Chaty walks up to me in her flowing white robes and her beautiful black braids partially covered with a little white cap.

She looks at the preliminary sketches and reminds me that I agreed to do this work and we are now in crunch mode. She told me that this is a poster for a version of the movie “The Titanic” that we are making here at the pyramids. Such statements seemed perfectly normal while in the dream.

Soon, I realized that we were all late for meditation. I jumped onto my bicycle and told Sandra I would meet her at the temple. I noticed that Chaty was playing with a beautiful young girl – also dressed in white. As I approached her, I had the impression that this was Chaty’s granddaughter, even though I have no idea if Chaty has any grandchildren. But as I got near her to remind her that it was time for meditation, I noticed that the woman was not Chaty at all. This woman was much younger, and had shorter blonde hair.

I again returned to my bicycle and began riding – feeling as if my time was running out.

As I awoke and meditated on this dream, the meaning was obvious. There are creative right-brained projects that I subconsciously agreed to do while here in the Sun Course, and I am now running out of time. I need to honor my commitments to my self.

Asking For Help

As I sat in meditation this morning, I pondered deeply on the dream and what it might be telling me. I was quite confused because I have felt quite deeply for some time that what I need is to immerse myself into the moment and to simply flow with present promptings – yet this dream seemed to be telling me that I am missing out – slacking a wee bit.

After weighing the two confusing messages, I felt strong guidance telling me that “Yes, you need to be fully present and flow with your promptings – but you also need to open your mind and heart with a deeper curiosity.

It hit me quite profoundly that I still tend to think that I know the answers and that there is nothing “out there” to look for. True, it is indeed all an “inside job” – but there is still a great deal of work to be done in completing that inside job. One of the biggest spiritual traps that I continue to repeatedly fall into is in thinking that I have arrived – or that perhaps I am close to arriving.

Curiosity – curiosity – burning curiosity. That is what I am missing. I have still not fully learned the lesson of my dream that profoundly told me “Forget everything you know” and “Lower your defenses.”

Another insight that came up for me in meditation is that I continue to stubbornly refuse to ask for help. As I pondered this issue, I was reminded of a psychological exercise that we did in one of my classes while working on my Masters degree. In that exercise, we were blindfolded and guided to a small rope. Our guide instructed us to grab onto the rope, and to follow the rope wherever it leads until we find the end. When we find the end of the rope, we can let go.

I was quite the clever one, and was going to figure this out all by myself. It soon became quite obvious that the rope was a large circular loop – running from this tree to that pole over there, and then back to this tree over here, and then back to the starting point. I must have looped around that continuous rope at least fifteen or twenty times, stubbornly searching for the clue to what I now figured must be some type of riddle. Little by little I realized that my other classmates had left the continuous loop (something we could only do when we found the end).

Eventually, I realized that I was the only one still stubbornly searching – the only one still groping around in my dark blindfold. Finally, in complete frustration and near desperation, I asked one of the guides nearby “Can you please help? Can you please help me find the end?”

Immediately, the guide told me that I could let go, that I was now done.

I was actually quite annoyed to learn that the entire exercise was merely to teach the lesson that it is important to ask for help when you need it. Perhaps I was a little embarrassed too as I realized that I was the last one in my class to realize that I did not have the answer within me – the last one to finally ask for help.

(Please remember as you read this that I absolutely LOVE Chaty).

As I meditated, I realized that I have had a small chip on my shoulder throughout the Sun Course – a chip that started during my Moon Course. I have repeatedly mentioned that Chaty has a very hands-off approach – but she is definitely quite approachable. I have seen a few of my classmates approach her and get personal attention. But for some reason, I have consistently refused to do so.

“She should know that I need help.” I would frequently think to myself with a frustrated attitude. “I should not have to approach her to ask for help or feedback … she should simply offer it.”

How silly is that?

I actually felt quite stupid when I realized how prideful and stubborn I have been – refusing to ask for help or guidance because “I shouldn’t have to ask.”

Channeling Miracles

Monday morning, we continued with our channeling practice. Unlike our Saturday session where we wrote down the messages that came to us, Chaty had asked us to speak Monday’s messages out loud. Even though I had a beautiful experience on Saturday, I found myself again immersed in deep resistance – not wanting to speak my personal messages aloud for others to hear (even though I do it all the time here in my writing).

Finally, being one of the last to speak up, I began to talk very quietly. The words that were coming to me were things like “Why are you so afraid? Why are you resisting so much? Trust us. Open your heart. Open your mind. Don’t be afraid. …” etc…

For about ten minutes, I struggled with saying much more than this. Then I noticed that Sandra, sitting right next to me, began to channel exactly what I needed to hear, taking my “don’t be afraid” and “quit resisting” messages considerably deeper. For the remainder of class time, tears were flowing down my cheeks as I listened to Sandra’s beautiful words while still barely whispering my own words in a weakly-audible tone. There was no doubt in my heart that Sandra was channeling for my benefit. I gave her a huge hug after class, whispering “Thank you” quietly in her ear.

In Tuesday’s class, we had an impromptu discussion with Chaty, talking about our experiences during our previous two classes. I told Chaty of my deep resistance and how angry I had felt on Friday. Then I mentioned how my resistance had literally melted away as the messages began to flow through my pen on Saturday. Then I again talked about how difficult it was for me to channel out loud. Finally, I mentioned my awareness that Sandra seemed to be channeling my guides for me – speaking the words that I needed to hear.

Sandra then spoke up and acknowledged that she felt that this is exactly what she was doing – not just for me but for everyone else in the room. It was quite the amazing confirmation for me.

Today (Wednesday), I was quite surprised in class when Chaty told us that we were going to do some more channeling practice – but quite pleased when she told us that we could write or speak – whatever our heart wanted to do. I immediately grabbed my notebook – knowing that my preferred medium was writing.

As soon as we finished the preparatory steps – opening of channels, prayer, connecting with our guides, etc – I began to scribble away. I began much the same as on Saturday – first writing from my perspective of resistance. But almost immediately, the words hit my paper as if they were being given to me.

Following is what I wrote. Again, like the words in my last blog posting, this is word for word what went to my paper, with only punctuation changes.

*  *  *  *  *

I feel so lost, so alone, so helpless. I need guidance. Please guide me.

Your pride is a big block in your learning and progress. Apathy developed over 55 years is also an issue. You have lost much of your desire of curiosity and your quest for knowledge.

You need to balance between experience and searching. Yes, you need do nothing and can simply experience, but yes, you must also search with curiosity. You must want to learn something. You cannot just sit back and wait for us to bring something to you. You must bring questions to us. Even if you do not have any questions, then ask us what questions you should have. You have less than two weeks to go and you have not yet drawn the creative artwork that you agreed to draw – the lessons in creativity and learning that you still resist. (Referring to this morning’s dream.)

Why do you resist? Because of pride and thinking you already know. Because you think Chaty or we should come to you – catering to you. Yes, we have come to you and given you many powerful jump starts through dreams and intuition, but you need to be proactive and search these experiences out rather than simply waiting for us.

You have done perfectly so far, in spite of your resistance. You have learned and processed many powerful lessons, but it is time to drop your fear and your pride and to embrace “not knowing” with burning curiosity.

You need to seek out growth like never before. You need to be an active sponge, looking for information to absorb. Yes, we said “information” – you need the intellect – you can do absolutely nothing without it – but you need to seek that information, integrate that information, with an air of joyful curiosity and love.

Yes, you have the keys, but you are stuck in an ego battle and refusing to seek additional help. You cannot do this alone, and we are waiting patiently for you to involve us in the process – not the other way around.

What are you so afraid of? Why do you resist so? You know we are all here cheering you on. You know this with every fiber of your soul – yet you push us away because you are bored or tired. Yes, you have grown as fast as you could – and it has been perfect.

Raise your vibrations, ask questions, listen for the answers, act on those answers. Do this in each moment as your heart directs.

You are but an infant, with so much growth to go. Never believe that you have arrived.

*  *  *  *  *

I put my notebook down as I realized that my words had dried up. Almost immediately, I began to notice the spoken words of Marcel on my left. His words seemed to be directed straight toward me. After a few sentences streamed beautifully by, I realized that I needed to write down what he was saying. Then, amazingly, whenever Marcel paused, Sandra jumped in from my right side and said a few deeply profound statements.

It was as if I had my guides speaking to me in a very personal way, coming at me from both sides, in an out-loud voice. My pen was scribbling nonstop. I captured all of what Sandra spoke, but was unable to record every word that came from Marcel’s tongue.

I apologize to both Sandra and Marcel for publishing their private words here in my journal – but I literally feel as if those words were indeed meant for my ears, and I hope my dear friends will understand.

Following is the remainder of my channeling scribbles – again, this is word for word with what ended up on my paper:

*  *  *  *  *

Marcel: The Sun is your father. The Moon is your mother, and the earth is your nursemaid. Your family exists within the tree. Transcend the personality …

Sandra: Be not afraid. Rejoice and live from your heart.

Marcel: The Sun is your father. The moon is your mother and the earth is your nursemaid.

Sandra: Let out pure love which is in your heart. Be not afraid to express your heart.

Marcel: The spiritual family exists within the tree. You are in the tree and the tree is in you. It is who you are. Love and harmony surround you.

Sandra: Let the bird fly free. Let it soar through the sky.
Marcel: Listen to how creation expresses itself, moment by moment. There are no mistakes. Only love exists, for love is the essence that permeates our life. Anything else is false, an illusion. Let the Sun shine forth, let the swallows dance in the air as they carry the childhood message.

Sandra: Never forget your inner child – to dance, to laugh, and to play. Let her be free.

Marcel: Open to the healing energies, those of the group. Smell the roses. Let the emanations of Venus shine forth. Breathe into the sounds of the light.

Sandra: Sing your songs. The spirit of the Lord is with you.

These words flowed through me: This is your private dream. Everyone around you is part of your dream, your growth path – all actors on the stage – your supporting cast.

Sandra: Hear the Spirit of the Lord in your voice.

Me: Everything is here for you – you – yes you – but you have to open your eyes to it – your soul – your curiosity – your very being and essence. Trust the words and messages.

Sandra: Be not afraid to open your heart and express all that needs to be expressed. The spirit is with you.

*  *  *  *  *

Tears had been flowing down my cheeks through this whole process. I was still crying as class ended. I simply sat there and let the tears flow. Sandra walked over and gave me a hug, then returned to her little stool and began writing. I looked up and noticed that two of my other classmates were also still sitting in the room.

Feeling overwhelmed with what had just taken place, definitely knowing that all the words that I heard around me were aimed at me, I continued to cry while I wrote the following:

“Wow – what a powerful experience with Sandra and Marcel channeling such beautiful things on both sides of me – I truly feel like they were channeling my guides to me – for me – responding to my plea for help. Why do I resist so?”

As I sat pondering my words, Sandra stood up again, holding the piece of paper she had been scribbling on. It was a beautiful note for me – a beautiful, powerful note just for me. It read:

“A message for you:  I can feel your energy next to me and how you are fighting yourself. There is a big wall you need to break down to be able to just let go and RELEASE. A lot of what I was saying felt like it was for you … I was trying to guide you with my song to just let go.  I Love You.”

I giggled and showed her what I had just written.

My heart simply melted.

That Silly Wall

So exactly what is it that I am fighting?

I wish I could clearly answer this question – but the answers are still fuzzy. I do know that every time I feel like I am approaching some type of huge spiritual breakthrough that my two old friends, Fear and Ego, both make a noticeable entry into my awareness.

Their entry is no longer grand and pompous – it is often so subtle that I barely notice – if at all. Yet they are there just the same. I am reminded of Mary Ann Williamson’s famous quote – powerful words that state “It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” Yes, I do believe that I am still afraid of my light. I am deeply and genuinely obsessed with discovering that light – yet something about actually reaching the light is still very intimidating – especially to Ego. “What will happen? How will that change my life? etc…”

I often struggle, even with my writing. I have full spiritual confirmation that writing is what I need to be doing – that writing is absolutely what I HAVE TO BE doing. I don’t think I could sleep at night if I were not following my promptings to write.

Yet, writing a blog for the world to read is a double-edged sword. The very act of writing about my most intimate thoughts, glorious experiences, and deepest emotional struggles – yes, the very act of writing causes me to subtly change the way I live. I often find myself approaching a situation in such a way that I can write about it later. This faintly hampers the spontaneity, and causes me to do things ever so slightly differently. The very act of exposing myself publicly exposes me to Ego thoughts of trying to “dress it up in pretty presentation.” Ego just has to make sure that everything that I write passes her “that is OK to say” filter.

Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% genuine and sincere in my writing – but if I am honest with myself, Ego is indeed present as a constant filter, even when dumping my deepest of emotional struggles.

So, between pride, stubbornness, fear, and Ego, I think we have the “wall” that Sandra was referring to.

I genuinely and desperately want to find my light – but fear continues to throw up roadblocks. Then pride tells me that I should be able to do it on my own, and stubbornness jumps in to tell me that I should definitely not need to ask for help.

How do I transcend this wall?

That is yet to be seen, but I know the journey will be filled with growth. As I face this wall, I am once again beginning my journey at the beginning. I am that innocent little “Magician” card, determined to find my way back home.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

 (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 4 – 7:30 p.m.

This week has been quite the emotional roller coaster ride – a journey to the stars and back again. The ride was complete with steep drop-offs, violent emotional curves, slow climbs back to the top, and wonderful results. But that is a very long story, and I am tired tonight I’ll write about it tomorrow when I have the whole day to catch up a little.

The weather has been the other big story for the past few days. Beginning Thursday afternoon, thick heavy clouds began to dump on us. The skies poured buckets pretty much nonstop until earlier this morning (Saturday). Today we have had scattered showers that finally fizzled during the afternoon. Now all is calm, but quite cold.

A check of the weather maps shows that we picked up the lower edge of a large unnamed almost-tropical storm that is now making its way up the coast of Mexico. The long continuous pounding we received reminded me very much of Tropical Storm Agatha, just over three months ago. I do not know details, but as I understand it, many local roads are again covered with mud slides, making travel quite difficult, if not impossible. The infrastructure here is extremely fragile.

I spent an hour this afternoon surveying the damage here in town. There were no visible signs of severe flooding, but I was quite surprised to see that another huge section of the river channel’s wall (about twelve feet tall and nearly 50 yards long) has caved in. This is a man-made channel constructed with huge bundles of loose rock, held together by chain link fencing material.

It appears that the flash-flood-like rush of water undermined the stability of the huge wall, causing it to topple. The river went around the back side of the collapsed wall, and carved away about ten more feet of the hillside below a series of humble homes. If any more heavy rains come crashing down this channel, this area will probably clog up and cause much more flooding in the center of town.

Out of curiosity, I walked back down to the lake to take another visual on the water level. It appears that the surface of Lake Atitlan is at least a foot higher than it was on Thursday when I last checked. It amazes me how so much water can come down in such a short time. Just Thursday morning, many local workers proudly finished off a new temporary dock (on top of the now-submersed old one) that was about three feet above the water’s surface. Now the new dock is less than two feet above the waves. With the way Lake Atitlan continues to swell, I am guessing this new boat dock will be under water in a couple of weeks …

Sunday, September 5 – 2:15 p.m.

Wow – and I thought the emotional roller coaster ride was over. Yesterday, I was lulled into a feeling of security by a joyful, peaceful section of the up-and-down ride of life, but this morning, just after 7:00 a.m,, my little wild ride climbed up another hill and was back off to the races.

But I suppose I should start at the beginning.

PLEASE – IF YOU READ ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS WRITING, PLEASE READ THESE NEXT THREE PARAGRAPHS FIRST. DON’T SKIP THEM.

I want to preface everything I say here with the fact that I love my experiences here at the Pyramids, I love Chaty, and I love the staff members – every single one of them. As you read, please remember that I am discussing a personal emotional journey that nearly caused my roller coaster car to crash. As much as I have wanted to point fingers this week, I have always continued to know that I was creating the issues inside of me – projecting my beliefs outward, trying to place blame onto others.

I write what I write here to record and to illustrate my growth process. The negative emotions and judgments that I express in this writing are the feelings that I experienced during this process – but those feelings are now resolved in a beautiful and peaceful way. Everything was inside of me – no one outside of me did anything wrong.

I still believe that the world is a stage, and that everyone is playing their part. I fully recognize that in the events of this past week, everyone around me has been brilliantly “in character” – playing their roles perfectly.

When all of the dust finally clears, I fully expect to be grateful for everything that has taken place – everyone around me has helped to create a situation that would cause me to face more internal demons – to go through more healing and refinement – to have my own Ego slap me right across the face.

Monday morning, I made an innocent request – at least I thought it was innocent. Chaty was out of town for a few days, and one of our beautiful staff members was filling in. As class was winding down, I spoke up (yes we can talk in class) to ask about the possibility of having our exterior gates opened a little earlier in the morning. For security reasons the gates are locked at night, and have not been opened lately until right around 7:00 a.m.. It only seems reasonable that we should be free to be move about after the sun rises. Logically, no one is going to walk in and rob the place in broad daylight when people are beginning to stir.

Our teacher’s first response was “why don’t you talk to the staff in the office?” I smiled and replied “because I can’t talk.” She just smiled and said, “Oh Yeah. I forgot. I’ll talk to the staff about it and get back to you.”

Earlier that very morning, at 6:00 a.m., I had felt a deep desire to walk down to the lake to watch the sunrise – probably the first time that I have wanted to do so since starting the Sun Course. As I stopped at the gate, I was slightly frustrated that I was unable to get out. I stuffed down my frustration, accepted that I could not leave, and instead enjoyed a beautiful hour sitting on a chair under a tree. Nature was beautiful, the morning extremely refreshing.

As Tuesday morning rolled around, I again felt a strong desire to walk down to the lake at 6:00 a.m., but as usual, the gate was locked. Since Chaty was still out of town, I asked another beautiful substitute teacher about the same issue.

She was very loving and kind in her response, but one thing she said caught me off guard. As she indicated that the staff was still discussing what to do, she mentioned that the office staff told her that I have already been given keys to the gates. (It is a very long story, but the office is very protective about giving out keys, because the lock on the gate is welded to the gate itself, and is impossible to change without great expense. If keys are lost and get into the wrong hands, the staff will have to spend lots of money to resolve the issue).

Immediately upon hearing the staff’s subtle accusation that I already have a key, my hair bristled on the back of my neck, and I told our teacher firmly but lovingly (with a smile on my face) that the staff is mistaken – that I have never been given any gate keys. I acknowledged that we had talked about it once when the gate was first installed, and the staff agreed that it would be a good idea for me to have keys since my room is right by the gate – but that short discussion was the last I ever heard about the situation.

Our teacher seemed to believe me that I have no key – that none of us in the Sun Course have a key – and calmly said to not worry about it. She would report back to the staff and they would figure out what to do to resolve the issue.

My heart was fully satisfied, but as I sat in my room after class, my Ego began to chatter away – demanding that I defend my honor – demanding that I prove that I am innocent and that the staff is to blame, blame, blame. (Ego was quite agitated.)

Today, as I look back at last Tuesday, I now believe that this situation triggered many buried emotions from my past – emotions from situations where I had felt wrongly misjudged and unable to defend my character. I was totally shocked by how strongly these present-day emotions surged in my abdomen, but I managed to keep them fully in check, never once expressing them outwardly.

In my heart, there was absolutely no doubt that the situation would all work itself out, and that I need not get upset, so I calmly pushed the feelings back down – stuffing them in a corner, refusing to give them air to breathe.

(I know, I know – I have said it a thousand times. Never push your emotions down and bury them – they will always rise up to bite you – or they will poison you with future stress and dysfunction.)

For the most part I was just fine – trusting that all was OK – that there was no reason whatsoever to feel as if I needed to defend myself.

But later that afternoon, I opened another can of worms. I was walking near the office and saw our beautiful teacher from Monday’s class, sitting with the staff member in charge of the office. I walked over with a smile, whipped out my notebook, and asked (in writing) if they knew anything more about the gate key situation.

I was told that they were still working on what to do. Then the staff member filled me in with a few details, telling me that she had left keys with my name on them at the front desk, and that the ladies at the desk had assured her that I had come in to get the keys.

I again scribbled a note that the staff are mistaken, that I was never given any keys, and that I never picked them up.

Then I put my arms out with a question on my face, miming the question of “what I can do?”

The head staff member replied (in Spanish) “Look for the keys” (implying that I did indeed receive them, but just lost them, and was not taking responsibility.)

Again, stuffing my frustration, I lovingly wrote one last note, saying “I cannot look for that which I never had.”

Feeling extremely frustrated and miss-accused, I just smiled as a good little girl learning spiritual temperance would do. I rolled my eyes, dropped the issue, turned around, and walked back to my room.

But even still, I was feeling quite peaceful with those emotions being all pushed down and buried. I was going to take the high ground and just trust Spirit to resolve the whole situation in a very loving way.

Wednesday was my incredible, amazing experience with the Chocolate Shaman – an experience that dominated every moment of the day. No other feelings or emotions were even on the radar when I left Keith’s home on Wednesday evening. Likewise, I spent most of Thursday passionately writing about my amazing experience with Keith. I was on top of the world, loving the emotional high that I was experiencing.

But Thursday evening, after having finished posting my blog entry, and as I prepared to go to bed, Ego raced back up to the front of the line, started jumping vigorously up and down, and screamed in my face. “What about your honor. Those lying staff members are smearing your good name while they are covering up their own mistake.”

Again, being in a very spiritual place, and feeling exhausted from several sleep-deprived nights, I pushed the feelings aside, assuring myself that there was absolutely nothing to feel. Everything was just fine and would resolve itself.

Friday morning at 3:00 a.m., still feeling quite exhausted, I awoke early again to find Ego literally demanding my attention regarding this issue of my honor – with me needing to prove that I am right and that the staff is wrong.

Again, the insane strength of this gut-wrenching anger and feeling of victimization literally blindsided me. These feelings were not welcome. I did not relate to them. I did not want them in bed with me, and I again fought to push them out of the way – to bury them in a dark cave where they belonged.

But this time, the feelings would not go away – they festered, rotted, stunk, churned, boiled, and thrashed – refusing to leave me alone until I did something about them.

At my wits end, I finally got out of bed at 4:00 a.m. and wrote a beautiful loving two-page letter to the lady who had taught our Tuesday class – letting her know that for some strange reason, I am really emotionally struggling with the issue, and that I wanted to simply explain myself to her. I apologized to her for involving her in the issue, explaining that I didn’t know what else to do. I thanked her for the beautiful loving influence here at the Pyramids, and told her that I trusted that she would use my words in whatever way she felt prompted – but this would be the last time I ever mentioned the issues of gate keys.

As it turns out, Friday was the day we had buckets of rain pouring down for 24 hours, almost nonstop. I never once saw that teacher to give her my loving note. I felt much better after simply having written the note, and began to feel convinced that all would be well. I ended up deciding to simply slip the note into my small money purse – where it still sits undelivered, even now.

But something else happened on Friday. Chaty had been back for a few days, and was getting ready to teach us how to do channeling in the way she does it. As much as I love Chaty, I have never enjoyed being around the way that she channels. When Chaty channels the message of a being from the other side, she does it with force, speaking in a different language, often flipping her fingers up and down to move energy. It is amazing when she does it, and I can easily see that she is genuine and sincere – and that she is indeed passing along loving messages from the other side (she sometimes translates). But nevertheless, I always feel a little uneasy when she channels. Her style and my style are quite different. When I think of channeling, I think of the quiet spirit that flows through my right brain, passing through my fingers and onto my keyboard, or I think of conversations with friends where I have been deeply prompted to say something, or I think of the loving peaceful words of my dear friend Trish as she speaks in a normal conversational tone during a beautiful channeling session.

I didn’t want to learn Chaty’s way – and of course I was doing the Sun Course with an attitude – and just 36 hours earlier I had established a new and powerful “Declaration of Independence” during a session with the Chocolate Shaman – empowering myself to follow only my own heart, regardless of what some other respected teacher might say.

During the first 30 minutes of silent meditation in our Friday class, I began to feel angry. Emotions began to surge within me – emotions of rebellion – emotions of judgment – emotions of refusal – emotions of defensiveness and of standing my own ground.

Then I suddenly began to feel deep resentment toward Chaty. I started to silently judge her in many ugly critical ways – judging her teaching style, and her hands-off-and-minimal-feedback manner of leaving us on our own to figure out our own paths.

“I wonder if she even knows my name?” I silently felt victimized as I realized that I am not sure if I have ever heard her call me by name. We really do not have any interaction with Chaty outside of class, and while in class she rarely uses a name when talking to anyone.

During the last few minutes of meditation, I had worked myself into an intense feeling of resentment and victimization, nearly reaching the point of rage. Tears began to flow down my cheeks – but they were not the loving joyful tears that I am so used to shedding. Instead, these were tears of deep emotional pain.

Luckily, during this particular class, Chaty only asked us to go through all of the “Channeling steps” so that we could feel the energy build up. Then she instructed us to simply silently observe the feelings and thoughts that come to us.

I pretended to do as she told us, going through the motions, but continuing to hang onto my anger. It is well-known in my awareness that emotion is what brings power to the ritual activities in which we engage (prayer, mantras, etc…). I kept secretly hoping that nothing would materialize from the channeling world, because my angry emotions were intense, and I did not want to connect with any angry beings from the astral realms.

After class, I went straight to my room, fully realizing that something had to be done about these emotions. I knew without a doubt that now was the time to quit stuffing these poisonous feelings that continued to ferment within my soul. It was time to release them, to process them, to figure them out, and to then kiss them goodbye.

Even though I desperately wanted to point fingers at everyone else, I knew without any doubts that this is all an inside job. I simply felt helpless to pull myself out of the pain. I began to feel like an absolute fraud – a hypocrite – for not being able to live and follow my own guiding words – words which I write about so frequently. After all, my present issues seemed so silly and simple compared to the mountains of emotions that I have excavated during my lifetime.

Even though I knew the emotions were all based on silly beliefs and projections, the projector was stuck in the on position and just like Wednesday night, I could not find the off switch.

After a good venting of my emotions, I felt considerably better. The pressure buildup was released. I easily recognized that there was nothing to be upset about. Everything going on around me was oblivious to my pain – it was all simply in my own perceptions and belief systems. Friday was a great day. Peace was again restored.

Beautiful Channeling

Saturday morning, we had another channeling class. In this class, Chaty asked us to actually write down the things that come to us, telling us that in our next class she will want us to speak them out loud.

Having had a great morning meditation, but still feeling quite resistant to channeling, I began to go through the motions – right into the part where we were supposed to start receiving.

“I don’t want to do it this way.” I kept repeating over and over in my head. “This manner of channeling does not connect with me. I refuse to do it this way.”

Finally, I grabbed my notebook and began to write every word that flowed through me. At first, I felt as if the words were just me expressing my frustration. Quite soon, however, I realized that the words were flowing through me, not coming from me. I simply wrote fluidly as fast as I could write.

I suddenly figured out that the preparatory steps that Chaty had us do were simply to help us focus, to connect with our guides, and to breathe in such a way as to connect with our inner temple. From that point, I was free to express the messages that may or may not come using my own personality.

Here are those words that flowed through my soul. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I wrote many of these words. This is exactly what flowed through me. I only made a few minor punctuation changes.

*  *  *  *  *

I only “think” it does not work for me, but that is because I am extremely resistant. I don’t want to do this. It feels weird. It is real connection – but not in a way that resonates with my soul.

My way is different. My way is peaceful, quiet, relaxed, joyful, listening to ripples on the pond – not energy buildups and finger flipping.

Forget everything you know. Lower your defenses. Stop thinking you know this is wrong. Stop fighting, We can’t talk to you when you are fighting, resisting, refusing to embrace new methods with a loving heart.

Trust, try, bring love and pure intention to this method. If you don’t like it, that is OK, but you at least need to try it – to taste it with a joyful, open, attitude. Forget appearances, forget what others might think. Listen to truth, not fear of opinions or judgment.

We love you. We are here holding your hand. We are cheering for you. We are guiding you in every step. Yes, you have your own unique and beautiful way of connecting with Spirit, and you should never, never give it up, but you also need to open your mind. Try new things. Don’t worry about opinions of others. Stop resisting. Stop fighting. NOW is the time to embrace everything that occurs around you with pure love, pure peace, pure acceptance, pure gratitude – to wash your clothes of all that old resistance, that old judgment.

Free yourself of the chains that have been around you for lifetimes. Be yourself, be free. Now is the time. We love you. We have always been here for you and always will be. You have an incredibly huge support system in reaching the point to fulfill your mission, and it only gets stronger from here. You cannot fail – you will not fail. Failure is impossible. Failure is not in your vocabulary and there literally is no such thing.

You have amazing and beautiful things ahead of you – things which you could never possibly imagine with your current myopic viewpoints. You are perfect in your journey. Just keep blindly trusting your promptings, raising your vibrations, and living in each moment.

You need not concern yourself with the future – only the present. Keys and Angular Stones are all the future – fine and dandy to have them, but they are not the beautiful magical present. Live in the present – present – present – period; one moment – one precious moment at a time.

We will take care of the rest. We will arrange the synchronous details. You already know we have been doing this – but you don’t yet realize how much we do. Your awareness will continue to sharpen and you will gradually recognize that everything that happens around you is planned – not by chance.

Yes, your skirmish this week with Ego was our doing – an opportunity to look in the mirror at your huge Ego that still dominates certain areas of your growth – blocking you from further growth. The more you remove this Ego – the more you look into the mirror as if it is a treasure hunt rather than digging through shit, the more rapidly you will grow and develop your deep and rich intuitive abilities. You have great things ahead of you. Trust us – simply process the present moment with love and awakeness and you need do nothing more.

*  *  *  *  *

After writing the above, I felt as if I were done and returned back into meditation for about one minute. Then, this final little bit came flowing out before Chaty rang our closing bell – signaling that the time was up.

*  *  *  *  *

Are you ready for some more? You will be staying in San Marcos for some time, studying with Keith, honing your energy intuitions, learning to trust your instincts at an ever deepening level. You will develop very deep relationships with yourself and those around you. These relationships will add to your powers and abilities – wherever two or three are gathered is a powerful concept. The growth is even more intense when shared with others.

*  *  *  *  *

The rest of Saturday was a wonderful, peaceful, energy filled day. I felt joy in my heart as I practiced more internal energy work and simply allowed myself to be.

But then, this morning rolled around (Sunday morning). Again being wide awake at 6:00 a.m., I stepped outside thinking it would be wonderful to take a walk down to the lake.

Noticing that the gate was still locked, I thought to myself, “That is fine, I’ll just sit here till 7:00 a.m., and then I will go for a walk.

While sitting, I inhaled the beautiful present moment – watching a spider spin part of a beautiful spiral web, observing a furry black caterpillar walking up and down a tree trunk, listening to birds, watching butterflies, feeling the cool crisp morning air. It was all divine.

The best part is that a beautiful grey cat – a cat that has never given me the time of day – suddenly became my best friend. She jumped up on my lap and purred away like a little motor boat, sending peaceful vibrations throughout my tummy.

But as 7:30 a.m. rolled around, and the gate was still not open, that little Ego voice inside of me had begun getting quite noisy.

“Don’t they consider our feelings as we are locked in here?” Ego clamored for attention. “Doesn’t anyone around here care that I feel like a prisoner in my own home?”

I tried to peacefully ignore the voices, shocked that they were still around and kicking – having believed that they were resolved. Finally, at 7:40 a.m., as if to make a point, I grabbed my things and a small notebook and peacefully walked over to the house of the beautiful teacher from Monday’s class. Knocking quietly, I waited till she came to the door, still in her bathrobe.

I smiled and showed her a note that read: “I feel like a prisoner. Can someone please open the gates? Thanks.”

My words were written in loving phrases – but the emotion behind them reeked of frustration and building resentment.

As soon as I found a beautiful spot near the lake, I placed my mat on the ground, grabbed my notebook, and began to scribble away. I was angry at myself for not letting go of this issue – for repeatedly dredging it up almost every day. This morning, I was determined to get to the bottom of my emotions. I knew that there must be something much deeper that was being suppressed – something that needed to be opened up and examined.

Following is some of what I wrote in this deeply-probing self-analysis:

*  *  *  *  *

Why am I so obsessed with this issue? Why does my blood boil so hotly over the fact that the gates are locked? This morning I was so peaceful sitting in the garden until 7:30 a.m. when the gate was still locked.

“This is not right!!!” my Ego screamed. We are prisoners. Someone in charge needs to do their job!

Why is my wrath raised by this? I know it really doesn’t matter. I have an assumption that the gate should be open at 6:00 a.m. – Who made that rule? I think I did. I have an assumption that I should not have to ask someone to let me out. Who made that rule? I guess I did.

I have been quite passive – trying to have temperance, all the while silently judging how stupid this is – how insensitive everyone is to leave us locked in so late in the morning.

This issue has been a non-issue for a long time now. Why is it suddenly surfacing now? Who is my anger really aimed at? Perhaps at myself.

My honesty and integrity are being smeared by the staff. Or are they? I don’t know that. I only know what little snippets I have been told.

I do know that this is a beautiful opportunity to prove my God-like love – my temperance. “All the world is a stage” and everyone is playing their roles perfectly – driving me insane with their seeming indifference – causing me to feel even more angry.

How can anyone cause me to do anything ?… to feel anything?

They cannot. That is silly. That is not in their power. It is me – 100 % me – who has the power over my emotional feelings – period.

Why do I want to be right?  … Why do I believe that everyone should be seeing things my way? Why do I have such an attachment to this issue? … to being right? … to making others wrong?

Is there any doubt that everything will work out in the end? NO. Is there any doubt that this whole situation is a setup (by the Universe)? NO. Is there any doubt that once I finish my healing that I will laugh at this situation and feel grateful? NO.

My anger is not at anyone else – it is ugly judgment and victimization – pure and simple – my own crap projected outward.

So how do I resolve this? What would I tell someone else?

First, scream and/or express all of the emotion in some safe, non-damaging way. Second, re-center myself spiritually, reconnecting with my divine self. Finally, re-write the perceptions of the situation. It is all in my perception – 100 % of it – so re-write those perceptions.

So what is stopping me from doing this? I think it is because I am in Ego right now, and Ego wants to be right. Ego does not want to give up control. Ego does not want to be rendered useless and wrong – and that is exactly what I want to do to it.

*  *  *  *  *

As I finally returned to my room, I promptly accessed my pent-up emotion and expressed it through sobs and pillow-punches.

Then, still feeling quite numb, I decided it was time to reconnect with Spirit so that I could have the inspiration to rewrite my perceptions. My heart said music was the answer, so I accessed my favorite healing music – a collection of songs from the healing workshops that changed my life beginning seven years ago.

After about an hour of singing along numbly to songs that always inspire me, I stumbled upon one that I had forgotten about – one that I first discovered last October while riding my bicycle around Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. It is a song titled “Close Your Eyes” performed by Michael and Jeff McLean. If you want to access the entire words to the song, you can check out my October 18, 2009 posting titled “Close Your Eyes.”

Today, the song brought deep tears to my eyes – grounding me back to my spiritual roots in a very powerful way. I listened to it over and over again – at least ten times. The words which healed me so deeply were:

Close your eyes
This part is scary
Take my hand
It won’t last long
You will love the ending I promise
When this part of the story is gone

Yes, I did find my emotions very scary. It frightened me that I could still be sucked so deeply into such emotions of victimization and despair. The beautiful song reminded me once again that this is all part of my growth process – that I can take God’s hand, and that it will all be over soon – and that I will definitely love the ending.

Finally, I reached a point where I absolutely had to make a dash out to the restroom. As my ears hit the fresh outdoor air, I heard the faint harmonious hum of a nearby hand-pumped organ – the same small portable instrument that last Monday’s teacher loves to play occasionally. She was doing something she loves to do – playing Hindu Kirtan chants while singing along. I noticed she was alone, but knowing that she loves people to join her, I quickly grabbed my mat and headed out to the garden, eager to further ground myself in my newfound spiritual healing.

Almost immediately upon sitting down to enjoy the incredible music, tears started forming in my eyes. Singing before me was this amazing spiritual woman whom I admired. I was deeply ashamed at myself for having felt judgmental thoughts toward her earlier in the week (because she was not championing my desire to be freed from suspicion – because she seemed to be removing herself from my plight of irrational victimization).

As soon as the tears started streaming down my cheeks, I lowered my head, picked up my little notebook, and began writing a heartfelt letter of deep apology and love to this amazing woman. When I finished writing, my heart felt as if it were 100 pounds lighter, and the tears were gone. Ten minutes later, as she continued to play yet another beautiful chant, I walked over, placed the note on her keyboard, gave her a loving smile, and walked away.

Wrapping It Up

As I look back on this insane emotional meltdown – trying to figure out all of the contributing threads, I realize that I have experienced a lifelong feeling of victimization that I probably have never fully exposed and/or dealt with. That victimization has to do with feeling unjustly judged by others and being helpless to do anything about it. In some cases, I have tried to convince others to not judge me; in others I have had no alternative but to humbly ignore the judgment and to live a life filled with unconditional love. I had believed these issues to be fully healed – but apparently they were not.

In most all cases, that judgment has indeed disappeared, or at least greatly diminished. The only area where I continue to feel somewhat misunderstood is by extended family – but I know that too will heal with time. The only thing I need do is live my life in a loving and honorable manner. There are no words that could ever convince anyone to stop judging – only actions of living a life of love might do that.

As I write these words tonight a large spider decided to join me, sitting about three feet away on my wall, above and to my left. My first reaction was to think about bug spray. My second reaction was to thank the spider and to send it love and gratitude for keeping the smaller insects at bay. Perhaps he is here to watch me type – to make sure I get this emotional healing stuff right.

This weeks silly situation of being incorrectly accused of something I didn’t do, and then not being able to talk about it, triggered me to unknowingly revisit all of my unhealed junkyard of past emotions of helplessness when being judged by others. Now that I understand that this is still an open wound, I plan to dig even deeper. But I do believe that the issue over gate keys has finally lost all of its power in my life.

The other issue that came up for me was in meditation on Friday, when I suddenly became so intensely angry, with most of that anger being directed toward Chaty. I believe that anger and emotion has to do with my sense of having sacrificed myself – my true feelings – throughout most of my life. For most of my life I have had an entrenched pattern of trying to please my parents, my religious leaders, my teachers, my bosses – pretty much honoring the methods of any and every adult in any position of authority over me, while simultaneously ignoring my own heart.

As I had just gone through my “Declaration of Independence” with Keith, and as I was steeped in victimized emotion from the gate-key incidents, this other related emotion came gushing to the surface as well.

It is now so obvious to me that my entire emotional roller coaster ride this week has indeed been a beautiful setup – given to me by my spiritual guides as a blessing to show me a few more unhealed areas in my life – areas that I can now examine a bit more deeply.

I just smile inside when I realize how everything that has happened in my life this week seems to have been related to this powerful lesson. The urge to go to the lake, the resulting and frustrating discussions, my amazing visit with Keith, the downpour of torrential rains on Friday, and my resistance to channeling – all of it has been intertwined and orchestrated in a powerful way.

I am pleased to report that I made it through the pain. Yes, it was often quite scary as I faced unexplainable and intense emotions – but yes, I do believe that I will love the ending. I’m still not sure if I am quite there yet, but if I am not, I do know that I am very close, and am anxious to finish healing another major source of buried emotion in my life.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

(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.)

Thursday, September 2 – 1:15 p.m.

Wow, where do I begin?

Yesterday morning (Wednesday) I felt an internal urge telling me that now was the right time to go make another appointment with Keith (The Chocolate Shaman). I waffled back and forth about whether I should do it again during my silence versus waiting until the Sun Course is over. That little “maybe you need to follow the rules more closely” voice was poking me in the ribs, and I wasn’t sure whether or not I should listen to my heart or to that rule voice.

But my heart won the debate, and right before noon I made the ten minute stroll out to the edge of San Marcos.

As I engaged in writing notes to Keith – notes regarding my desires for another appointment – he brought out a comfy camping chair and said “Now is as good a time as any.” So, I broke my silence and we were off and running.

As usual, I made it clear that I had absolutely no idea why I was sitting there in front of him, other than that my heart wants to go still deeper. I began by telling Keith about my private energy journeys of the past two weeks – small miniscule things like opening new energy channels, and communicating with the millions of cells in my abdomen.

Then I expressed my observation that those things worked great for a few days, and then all of a sudden I could no longer recreate the same experience any more. Keith just smiled and reminded me of something I already know – there are no formulas for making this work. The second that we think we have it figured out, the rules all change. This is because when we figure it out, it becomes a routine mental process. Spiritual and energy work is all about the connection of the heart – not the mind.

I made a random comment about how I still struggle with traditional meditation techniques (even though I know that the reason is that I have tried to make them a routine mental process). I mentioned to Keith, in a way that was more like a question, that when I am with him, my intuitive energies seem to flow unobstructed, and that I also have many deep intuitions when by myself – intuitions that bless me when I connect with Spirit in my own ways. But when I try to sit with my legs crossed, watching my breathing, I usually feel empty, sterile, and disconnected.

To my surprise, this random, unplanned thread of comments became the theme for our session together. It never ceases to amaze me how Spirit communicates so clearly, yet so obscurely. A random little thought that just popped out of my head was exactly what I needed to focus on – what I needed to heal. And the healing journey was amazing.

Chocolate To The Rescue

After Keith meditated for a few minutes to connect with my energy, he informed me that he was being guided that for today’s session we should use chocolate – specifically using about 60% of what he normally uses during chocolate ceremonies. Before running into his kitchen to crank up the blender, Keith first asked if I was OK with using chocolate today. For me, the answer was a no brainer. I have learned to implicitly trust Keith’s intuitions. He has never given me any guidance that did not feel 100 percent in alignment with my own heart.

Soon, I was drinking my glass of quite bitter “love-grade” pure ground Mayan cacao mixed with a heavy dose of cayenne pepper and something from India that Keith called Mucana Puriens. Keith indicated that the extra supplement helped the body to more easily absorb the chocolate’s functional ingredients. Whatever the Mucana Puriens is, it definitely seemed to have strong diuretic properties. I must have had to run into the nearby restroom at least six or eight times during what turned out to be an amazing four hour (plus) session.

Before we went deep into our session, Keith reminded me of a simple metaphor that he had previously mentioned to me – one about throwing a small pebble into rough ocean surf. Of course, if you do this, you will most likely not see any ripples in the ocean waves, and you would probably not even see where the pebble actually entered the water. But, if you throw the same small pebble into a smooth pool with a mirror-like calm surface, the ripples that flow through the entire pool are quite obvious, being easily seen.

Keith reminded me that the spiritual promptings that we are seeking are like the tiny ripples generated by the pebble. Their energies are always there, but they are so easy to tune out, and are utterly invisible when our mind is filled with rough, incessant mental chatter.

I asked Keith why it is so easy to feel the energy ripples when I am around him, but I find it considerably more difficult in my own private space. He just smiled as he told me that he has learned to ground his own energy space, projecting it out so that it helps other people to be more in tune to their own ripples. Keith used the symbol of a tuning fork to clarify what he meant. When you bang a metal tuning fork on a hard surface, it begins to melodiously vibrate at a set frequency, and it literally affects the vibrations of other objects around it. He further pointed out that if you bring another tuning fork up next to the vibrating one, then the new one will begin to vibrate at the same frequency.

“I just start my own tuning fork.” Keith smiled as he answered my original question one more time, this time using the tuning fork metaphor that made the concept so easily understandable.

My Way Versus The “Right” Way

Keith asked me to close my eyes and meditate. Almost immediately, I felt immersed into a deep loving energy – an energy that warmly embraced me from all sides. As I continued basking in this incredible feeling, I heard Keith comment something like “Wow, this is beautiful. The powerful loving energy that you are radiating is making me tear up with emotion.” I simply smiled, keeping my eyes closed, focusing on enjoying the amazing feeling.

After about twenty minutes of simply quietly vibrating in this beautiful loving space, I opened my eyes and resumed a short conversation with Keith. Breaking from his usual hands off approach, Keith began to tell me exactly what I needed to hear. I love it when he does that. He probably realized that I already knew exactly what he was going to tell me, but that I actually needed to hear it verbally from someone else that I have learned to trust.

As Keith talked, my heart vibrated with pure resonating agreement – confirming that his words, which I did indeed already know, are true.

Keith reminded me that throughout my life I have constantly found the courage to follow my heart, to trust my own feelings – even when following my heart went against everything that I had ever been taught by well-meaning people. He reminded me that my heart has always been 100% right, and that my journey has been beautiful.

Tears began to stream down my cheeks as I realized intuitively where Keith was going with his words. I thought of the countless times in my life where I faced excruciatingly difficult decisions – knowing that being true to myself would wreak havoc in the lives of those I loved – yet also knowing that if I did not follow my heart, there would be no point to living at all.

These tears of joyful recognition became a frequent and welcome visitor throughout the remainder of our amazing flow of words and explorations.

Briefly, I opened my eyes, sharing a few details of past agonizing struggles where I had somehow found the courage to keep following my heart. I acknowledged that without exception, following my heart has always brought me incredible growth and beautiful rewards.

I then explained many of my recent struggles with following my heart – specifically about how my had heart demanded that I participate in the Sun Course, but that I needed to do it “with an attitude” – meaning that I needed to do it in my own way, while always listening to my personal internal guidance rather than just blindly following outside guidance and expectations.

Then I smiled a wrinkled smile as I acknowledged to Keith that recently I have been frequently pushing my heart out of the way as I try to comply – trying to do things the way Chaty wants us to do them. I keep allowing a nagging left-brained voice to whine in my ear – a voice telling me: “You will get better results if you do it the RIGHT way – that being Chaty’s way. She knows more than you. If you follow her lead, you will reap great blessings and treasures.”

“Yes, yes, yes.“ The whining voices incessantly remind me. ” Meditation and spiritual growth have been achieved in this way for thousands of years. There is great wisdom in this fact. You have to do it this way – the right way. You must abandon your own method, learning to use the tried-and-proven ways – the ways that work for others. Surely this will give you even more powerful guidance.”

I slightly giggled out loud as I pondered the absurdity of these little intellectual voices.

Keith continued his beautiful words, reminding me that my own personal connection to Holy Spirit – which is actually my Higher Self – is ALL that I need, all that I should ever trust.

I am the first one to expound here in my blog about how everything is an “Inside Job” – yet here I find myself, somewhat looking for someone outside of me (Chaty) to validate my spiritual path.

Yes, that is exactly what I have been doing – surrendering a certain amount of personal control – expecting Chaty to teach me a more enlightened way of doing things.

Yes, I absolutely love Chaty’s guidance and teachings – she has so much incredible experience and spiritual wisdom. She lives what she teaches, and it is beautiful and powerful for her, and for many others. She always teaches with love, never makes demands, and simply gives us assignments (and techniques) for meditation.

But no, I cannot and will not blindly follow her instructions if my heart tells me to follow a slightly varying path. I must always put priority on the promptings from within.

Wow! As I internalized these thoughts, a feeling of deep empowerment raged forth within my soul. I later realized that this same newfound “Declaration of Independence” also pertains to my “A Course In Miracles (ACIM)” beliefs. I absolutely love my ACIM beliefs and I practically worship many of the amazing ACIM teachers – but I cannot, and will never again, blindly listen to another teacher of any belief system – no matter what it might be.

From today forward, the absolute authority in my life – in all matters – is the quiet whisperings of my own heart. Through my heart’s intuitions, I trust my Higher Self to provide me with all of the guidance that is needed in my own unique journey. The paths of others will be quite different than mine, as they are guided via their own hearts.

Yes, for certain, I will continue to seek out teachers like Chaty, Keith, and many others. I will absolutely bask in the light of their wisdom. Very often, such external teachers have been a powerful way to jumpstart my personal learning processes. But from today forward, my heart will be the only filter of what becomes the truth by which I live my life.

Anyway, I am diverging slightly.

A New Perspective

As Keith asked me to re-immerse myself in meditation, a welcome interruption appeared on the porch. Keith’s young helper – Isaias – a handsome and wise-beyond-his-years young man of Mayan descent walked in.

“Isaias will be joining us.” Keith told me before asking for my blessing. The focus soon shifted away from me as Keith told me that Isaias is facing many of the same issues that I have plowed through in my own life. My ears perked up as Keith told me that Isaias is grappling with decisions about following his heart, even if it means that others in his culture and his life might not agree or understand his path.

I went deeper into meditation and just listened as the other two discussed things that Isaias was visualizing. I soon realized that this young man has some deep spiritual gifts.

After about ten minutes of listening while slipping deeper into silent meditation, I suddenly felt the boundaries of duality and separation beginning to melt. At a very intuitive level, I began to deeply realize that I am those ancient Mayan Elders of which the beautiful young man was talking. I also felt quite clearly that I am also Isaias himself.

Actually, what I realized is that at the highest level we all share a common Higher Self – the ultimate Holy Spirit. It is literally as if each one of us is a conscious cell helping to compose the body of a larger living intelligence. That larger entity has a living consciousness, accessible by all who belong to it. Taking this one step further, that entity is also a cell in yet another even larger living entity. I then turned this analogy around as I thought of the millions of conscious living cells that make up my own physical body – the same ones with whom I communicated just last week.

“For each of these cells,” new insights flooded my mind, “I am literally their Higher Self.”

The whole concept made so much sense as I continued to meditate still deeper. Suddenly I decided to visualize myself successively connecting with the consciousness of each of these Higher Selves. I went up several amazing levels when I finally realized that myself, Keith, Isaias, and Isaias’s ancestors are all part of the same living entity – a wondrous conscious being with the wisdom and intelligence to guide those of us below who are searching for understanding.

I began to feel a deeper sense of identity and unity, one that sent deep energy vibrating through my soul.

At this point in my meditation, after being on my own for over fifteen minutes while Keith was talking to Isaias, Keith suddenly returned focus to me, saying something like, “Wow, Brenda, now you are making incredible progress.”

It amazed me that Keith was still right there with me, fully aware of the major breakthrough that was, at that very moment, taking place in my consciousness.

As I continued to ponder, my heart reminded me that Planet Earth is itself a living, conscious being – and I suddenly realized that this living planet is literally one of my direct ancestors. In a very literal sense, I am a child of this planet, and this planet’s consciousness is high up in my chain of Higher Selves. It all fits in so beautifully with the symbolic teachings of the Tree of Life.

Again, as I continued to lose myself in this maze of wondrous contemplation, the tears began to stream down my cheeks. I suddenly understood in a very powerful way that the wisdom of the ages – absolutely everything I need to know and understand as I spiritually find my way home, is indeed the birthright of this conscious living Higher Self of which I am a contributor. At this higher level, every single human on this earth shares the same consciousness. All we need to do is to raise our vibrations and access this deeper connection that is us – all of us.

No, I will no longer depend on outside feedback from a spiritual teacher or anyone else outside of myself to tell me if I am doing something correctly. I feel so empowered and free – free to connect directly with the divine – the divinity that is my literal birthright.

Our deepest growth comes from our own internal source. It is critical that we be true to our own inspiration. Each one of us has our own unique way of accessing these channels of intuition. The trick is in learning to recognize our particular channel, and in then learning to gradually trust the messages we receive from those gently rippling waters.

Pillars Of Light

As Keith return to work with Isaias, I could not help but listen in a little closer. At one point, Isaias mentioned his hesitancy to connect with the energy rising from the earth. He only wanted to allow energy to enter his awareness from above. Having recently resolved this resistance in myself, I opened my eyes and volunteered an insight that had really helped me.

“It is just like an electrical circuit.” I piped in. “There needs to be two wires, or the current cannot flow. We need to ground ourselves to the physical earth in order for the Spiritual energy to flow freely within us.”

As Keith reentered the conversation to validate what I had just said, I felt a strong desire to put my words into practice. I immediately closed my eyes once again, relaxing my arms with my open hands stretched out in front of me, imagining the energy flowing through me, with my body being the center of a circuit that joined the energies together.

As I began to sunbathe bask in the incredible peaceful flow of energy that started almost immediately, Keith stopped what he was saying to Isaias, switched back to me, and commented on the incredible energy that was now moving in my body. He then asked Isaias to try to connect with my energy, and to then describe what he could see.

Isaias amazed me once again, when within less than a minute he began to speak, saying something like, “I am seeing a beautiful column of brilliant white light, beginning at the core of the earth, rising up, passing right through her body which is surrounded by a ball of light, and then continuing straight up into the Universe.”

This beautiful poetic description of what I was experiencing caused my vibrating energy to nearly double in strength. An amazing feeling of connectedness permeated my soul, giving me a profound feeling of warm peaceful presence of which I was an integral part.

For another twenty to thirty minutes I simply inhaled the amazing energy. Little by little, additional intuitions began to flow into my awareness. Then an unexpected insight flooded into my consciousness. My focused attention seemed to be magically drawn to my precious spiritual medallion – the one that Trish gave to me two years ago in a channeling session – the one that my guides asked her to give to me – the small round metal circle with six silver spokes dividing the circle into six pie-like shapes – the one with a single green emerald in the middle and six rubies around the outside circumference.

Something intuitively whispered a message that now felt so obvious. The medallion was never meant to represent a vertical circle that stands upright like a tiny Ferris wheel. Instead, the medallion represents the horizontal slice of a vertical column of light energy, with the green emerald being me, the color of the heart chakra, standing right in the middle of that divine column. The medallion was meant to represent the experience that I was having at that very minute.

Shivers rushed through my spine and tears returned to my cheeks as I spoke up and emotionally summarized a brief history of my necklace to Keith and Isaias.

Minutes later, Keith again interrupted the silence to tell me that some energetic changes were now beginning in my root and second chakras. As these words left his mouth, I was already beginning to feel little twinges of energy bouncing around in these areas. I asked him later if he could clarify what changes the energy might have made, and he said that he did not know – but that whatever it was it would help take me to the next level.

The energy just did not stop. At one point, Keith got up from his chair, leaned down directly in front of me, reached out with his right fingers, and promptly taped me quite forcefully – first doing it several times on my heart chakra, and then repeating his actions on my third eye. I forgot to ask him later what he was doing, but I definitely felt the results. As he tapped, and after he finished, I felt a definite increase in the flow of energy through my body. It was as if he had been helping to free up some clogged energy to help to open my flow to a new level.

After what felt like forever (and an amazing forever it was), Keith then suggested that he and I each use our consciousness to expand our own columns of light (I guess he was experiencing one of his own) such that our columns would surround Isaias. Soon Isaias developed his own powerful column. Then Keith guided us once again into expanding our energy, first to the point that the three of us were a single united column, then to the point that the column engulfed the entire village of San Marcos. Soon our column was the size of Guatemala, and finally, we visualized our column of light filling the entire planet.

It was quite the rush – a powerful visualization experience (when I say visualization here, I did not see anything – but felt it quite powerfully in my mind). Just minutes after visualizing our expansive combined energy, the three of us returned to silent meditation, with each of us just quietly and reverently returning to immerse ourselves into individual experience. I discovered that no matter what I did, whether it was occasionally talking, opening my eyes, running to the restroom, or simply sitting quietly in meditation – the energy remained with me. If I became momentarily distracted, all I had to do to return to the energy was to remember that it was there and I would again feel its powerful flow.

For the last hour or so, the three of us simply sat around and visited. I did not want the experience to end, and I certainly was not going to be the one bring up the topic that it was probably getting quite late. Even when we engaged in active conversation, I continued to feel the energy in a powerful way.

The Teacher Will Appear

Quite early in our session, while waiting for the effects of our recently-consumed chocolate to sink in, Keith had casually mentioned the fact that for nearly two months he has been thinking that he would be doing some traveling, perhaps another international tour – but for some reason or other, he was still here in San Marcos – the travel has not materialized.

“You know why you are still here don’t you?” I jokingly commented. “It is because I needed you here. I needed these amazing internal growth experiences.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Keith responded teasingly, “because there really is only one of us here, and it is you.”

We had never discussed this topic before, but we were both playing around with one of my favorite paradoxes in the Course In Miracles. The belief is that there really is only one of us here on this earth, and the rest of everyone else is our own mental projection – part of our own private dream – as if everything centers around us for our own growth and development. Of course that one person is me since I am the dreamer … or am I?

From someone else’s perspective, I am merely a character in their dream, put there by their subconscious mind to help them grow in some way.

I still cannot fully wrap my arms around this paradox, but I do strongly believe that in each of our realities, the world does indeed cater in wonderful ways to our actual needs (yes I said needs, not wants).

At least this has been my own personal experience. Whatever I need always seems to show up at precisely the right time, whenever or wherever I may need it. It is that old adage “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear … and when the teacher is ready, the student will appear.”

So when I was joking with Keith about him still being in San Marcos because I needed him, I was actually quite serious. With all of my heart, I believe that whatever I need to encounter in my spiritual path will be provided for me, exactly when I am ready for it. My travels of the past 15 months have repeatedly been filled with such amazing synchronicities.

What Keith told me next made my head spin with the possibilities. He explained that he has a little piece of property just below and across the street from his home, right down by the lake. He said that he is feeling prompted to make a few changes to the property, adding water, electricity, and a toilet with sink – and is then thinking that he will begin teaching daily classes, using that property as a beautiful outdoor classroom. Keith’s imagined timeframe for all of this to happen would be in mid-to-late November, with classes being offered up into the April timeframe.

My heart lit up with excitement as I told Keith that I am not in a position to make commitments or plans, but that my initial gut feeling is that “I am all in.” I cannot imagine anything that I would rather do than to spend four or five hours every day over an extended period of time, learning from this incredible man, deepening my own personal connection to the divine, hoping that just maybe some of his magic might rub off on me. I feel so inadequate as I ponder doing what Keith does – but something inside of me tells me that this is one more case of “the student being ready and the teacher appearing.”

An Inspired Style

As we sat enjoying the energy during our final hour of chatting, we again talked extensively about Keith’s intention to begin teaching classes. The more we discussed the possibilities, the more my energy vibrated a confirmation that I will definitely be taking advantage of this amazing opportunity to learn and grow.

But we did not spent the entire hour talking about the future. I had other curiosities to be explored. I began to query Keith about how he does his magic, telling him that I never cease to be amazed at how he seems to know everything that is going on, and seems to be able to inspire someone to find their own answers from within.

Keith explained that his spiritual guides taught him to work in such as way that he never uses his own opinions or feelings to lead a client. Instead he always follows the client’s own energy, going wherever that energy takes him. Keith told me that everyone has their own unique learning style – their own unique way of connecting with and feeling Spiritual promptings. He connects with their uniqueness, and then follows his own spiritual promptings in helping to guide them to the point of discovering their own internal answers and connections.

I immediately understood why I have such an amazing connection with the way Keith works. I thrive on this style – it is my own style – a style where I seek not to teach or to change others. Instead, I seek to inspire others, through my own life examples, to find the courage and/or the ability to establish their own personal connection with the divine – their own inspired inner music.

When working with Keith, I have always felt as if he is completely inside my head and my heart, seeing things through my personal filtered lenses, my emotions, my viewpoints. Invariably, everything he has ever done with me has gently guided me into discovering what is already within me. He does not teach me or show me the answer. He follows me, dropping clues as needed, guiding me on the treasure hunt with just enough energy to keep me motivated in my search. And the amazing thing is that I get immediate feedback that inspires me to trust and to believe my own feelings.

Where’s the Off Switch?

As stood up to give Keith a goodbye hug, I first glanced over at my watch. I was shocked to see that it was already after 4:00 p.m. – just over four hours had zoomed by in a flash. The column of energy was still flowing through my body.

As I thought about what was happening to me, I was intuitively drawn to another visual – a mental image of a transporter on the starship Enterprise – you know the one where one moment you are standing there saying the words “beam me up Scotty” and in the next moment your body is a vibrating mass of molecular movement being beamed off through space.

Well, as I began to move, I felt as if my body were literally inside of that transporter beam. After reaching a standing position, I was at first quite dizzy and weak. I momentarily wondered whether I even had the strength to make the ten minute walk back to the center of San Marcos.

Keith jumped up and told Isaias that he was going to walk out to the street with me, and to perhaps show me the property where we would be holding the classes. I secretly wonder if Keith was just concerned to make sure I had the strength to walk, and he wanted to be sure to be there to catch me if I were to collapse. Gradually my strength began to increase as we walked down the hill toward the lake. Upon seeing the beautiful setting, I became even more excited about the possibilities of spending several months here as an avid student of my inner energies.

As I slowly inched my way back to the center of San Marcos, I was starving and weak. I stopped at one of my favorite spots for dinner – devouring a large plate of rice with steamed vegetables while enjoying a lovely glowing fireplace that radiated heat into the now quite-cool evening. At this point, I was not at all concerned with the fact that eating would cause me to miss evening meditation in the pyramid temple. I absolutely had to eat, and I was anxious to get started on my writing.

But as I finally arrived back in my room, I felt utterly exhausted from all of the energetic work that I had experienced during the afternoon. Determined to not forget a single thing, I forced myself to briefly sit at my keyboard, typing in a quick list of experiences and insights that I simply had to record in my journal.

By 7:00 p.m. I was in my pajamas and in bed, expecting to sleep like an exhausted baby – but that darned (did I say it was wonderful? LOL) energy would not stop flowing. I searched everywhere in my subconscious to find the illusive “off” switch, but it was nowhere to be found. I desperately wanted my body to stop vibrating. I was so incredibly tired and so desirous to rest – yet my head, arms, legs, and especially abdomen were all still abuzz with constant movement.

Finally, as I realized that my body was not going to shut down, I reminded myself that there is a huge difference between pain and suffering – between a body that will not stop vibrating and a body that is home to a miserable exhausted person who is a victim of not being able to sleep. I immediately made the choice to be a tired-but-happy person living in a vibrating body. Grabbing my IPOD, I cranked up the volume with the likes of John Denver, Collin Raye, and Josh Groban (even though technically we are only supposed to listen to meditation type music – if any music all – because music can distract us from the purpose of our silence).

“I am doing the ‘Sun Course with an Attitude’”, I reminded myself. “If my heart wants to listen to this music, then I am going to do it.”

I finally noticed that my body began to relax around midnight. At 12:30 a.m. I turned off the IPOD, rolled over, and dozed off. But after waking this morning (Thursday) at 5:00 a.m., I was right back searching for the energy’s “off switch” all over again.

Being unable to return to the world of sleep, I again made the choice to be happy. At 6:00 a.m. I grabbed my IPOD and stepped out into a beautiful morning filled with crisp fresh air. “Happy” felt so much better than being an exhausted victim of very little sleep.

This afternoon at 1:15 p.m., as I finally found the energy to attempt some writing, I did not see how I could possibly keep it up for very long. But the more I wrote, the more my energy picked up. I became determined to not stop until I finished. Now, as I near completion, it is 9:10 p.m. Other than a one hour dinner break and a 90 minute evening meditation, I have been writing nonstop all afternoon. It never ceases to amaze me how writing about spiritual growth is exactly what I need to reenergize my soul. Not only did I successfully record another amazing growth adventure with Keith, but I filled myself with rejuvenating light and energy at the same time.

Now I hope to translate that rejuvenating light energy into the soul of a happy-but-sleeping Brenda, drifting off into dreamland.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

 
(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.)

Monday, August 30 – 6:45 p.m.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a beautiful day of basking in spiritual experience. I literally loved my four hours of writing in the morning. Then, after running to the local internet café to post that blog entry, I joyfully immersed myself in another four hours of further energy explorations in my room.

For the first time in my life, I felt the energy chakras open up in the bottoms of my feet. It was actually quite amazing. I have felt the energy in my hands for quite some time now. It was quite weak at first, but has gradually increased in intensity. I have long known that such chakras also existed in the feet, but had never even given them a second thought until yesterday. In addition to feeling the energy portals begin to open in my feet, I was also thrilled to experience what felt like a new energy channel beginning to clear around my spine.

My entire four hours was filled with great energy. The experience was well worth the effort, and yes, it does take a great deal of effort to focus and concentrate for four hours, watching my breathing throughout the process.

*  *  *  *  *

Early this morning (Monday) I had a series of three different and seemingly unrelated dreams. I won’t go into the details here because none of them stand out as being especially significant – other than the fact that I actually remembered most of them. As you may recall, for several days now, I have been struggling to remember any dreams at all.

The third dream was significant in one tiny area. At the very end of a very confusing dream, I found my consciousness drifting off. Then I suddenly realized that I was reading some type of advertising flyer. As I was about half way down the page, I became momentarily lucid as I read the word “encardena”. As soon as I realized that I was lucid, I tried desperately to remain in the dream to do some more reading, but left the dream almost immediately, forgetting everything that I had read except this one word.

As I pondered the dream, I was convinced that I was reading in English. I had never heard of this word before, but was absolutely sure it must be a real word. I believed that if I looked it up in a dictionary that I would find a meaning – perhaps a message. Not having an English dictionary, I grabbed my Spanish to English (and vice versa) dictionary. The word was definitely not in the English section, but a little hunch encouraged me to check for the word in Spanish section.

Sure enough, I found the word “encardenar” which is a verb meaning “to chain or to shackle.” The word “encardena” would be the third person singular conjugation, meaning “he/she/you/it chains or shackles.”

So far, I have not attached much personal meaning to this word, other than to find it fascinating that this previously unknown collection of letters actually is a word. I wonder if perhaps the dream is trying to tell me that I still have some symbolic form of chains or shackles holding me back from my growth. As I passed through today, it sure felt as if there were shackles preventing me from progressing.

*  *  *  *  *

Today I found the bottom of the next ocean wave. I had been joyously surfing right up on top of the big waves yesterday, but no matter what I tried today, I seemed to be paddling along in the low trough between waves. The big ones seemed to be breaking and crashing down right on top of me.

Don’t get me wrong – it was not a bad day – just a very flat ho-hum disconnected one. As I tried to do more energy meditations, I simply felt stuck and tired. I switched and attempted to do some sitting up meditation, but felt deeply distracted and uninterested. I crawled in bed to take a nap, hoping to have another dream. But I had no success in this area either.

Throughout the day, it seemed that no matter what I tried, a huge brick wall (perhaps a wall of chains) was erected in front of me – taunting me, laughing at me, telling me that what I have done before will no longer work – telling me that I am going to have to figure out the rules all over again.

I am tired. The energy work that I have done for much of this week has been amazing, but exhausting, and I simply need a change of pace.

Tonight during meditation, as I grappled with my feelings of inadequacy and emptiness, the realization suddenly hit me. I have been the proverbial square peg that is trying to force itself into a round hole. Once again, I have forgotten the roots that have guided me to this point in my spiritual path. I have forgotten to do my own personal meditation style – the kind where I simply lose myself in nature, sing songs, listen to music, repeat my mission statement, fill my heart with gratitude, ponder my many blessings, talk out loud to spirit, write in my journal, and just watch the bugs and the bees, etc…

Beginning tonight, I plan to shake things up a little bit, returning to a few tried-and-proven techniques that almost always help me reconnect with spirit – my own little form of Superman magic pills.

But I don’t plan to completely abandon my mostly-futile attempts at traditional meditation styles just yet – I will continue to focus on them in a balanced way. Something inside of me tells me that there must be some treasure at the end of that rainbow too if I can just discipline myself enough to find it. And of course, I know I will soon return to my amazing energy experiences.

But my heart right now is begging me to take a temporary detour, to go smell some flowers and sing songs to the lake. I think that tomorrow morning after class, I will follow my heart wherever it leads.

Tonight I am extremely tired. Even though it is only 7:30 p.m., I am going to hop into my pajamas and plug in my IPOD. It is time to cheer up this weary mind with inspiration of a different venue.

Tuesday, August 31 – 6:00 a.m.

I give up – attempting to sleep is futile. I have been awake now since 2:45 a.m., at which time I finally gave in to an intense dream process that had been going on for at least an hour or two prior to that early hour. In the dream, I was literally half awake, and half asleep. My mind was racing, churning, seemingly focused on solving the mysteries of the Universe.

Finally, at 2:45, realizing that if I didn’t at least write something down, that I would most likely not even remember the experience at all by morning, I sat up, pulled out my little reading light and my dream journal, and began to scribble. This is what I wrote:

“Tree of Life – six aspects centered around light and love – in constant flux, struggling to maintain balance.”

This was about all I could remember – at least what came to consciousness as I attempted to remember. Then I continued by writing the following:

“I have been in an ‘awareness’ state for what feels like hours, knowing that some deep stuff is being grappled about in my subconscious mind. Each time I try to remember something about that which I am dreaming – trying to make sense of it – it all goes blank. Then, I immerse myself back into the exhausting fray of the dream. As a flash of insight reaches my conscious mind, I again try to grab onto it, only to go blank again. This is quite the paradox.”

Having written what little I could, I again crawled back under the covers, determined to go back to sleep. Five minutes later, I was up again. I didn’t remember any more about the seemingly incessant dream – but I felt prompted to write down my feelings about the symbolism of the “six aspects centered around light and love” that I had written about earlier. I repeatedly wrote a tiny bit, went back to bed, sat back up and wrote some more, went back to bed, and sat up again. This process went on repeating itself till 4:00 a.m., at which time I felt as if I had satisfied my need to write.

Then the floodgates opened with full force as ideas began to flood my mind with things that I wanted to write about. All the while, I refused to get up to turn on my computer. After all it was 4:00 a.m., and I was very stubborn, insisting that I wanted my sleep. Nevertheless, I continued to process these thoughts until finally, here I am, right now at 6:20 a.m., surrendering and beginning the writing process.

Before I write about my further scribbling from last night, however, I need to first lay a lot of background.

Symbols, Symbols, and More Symbols

I have written about this before, but now the lesson is ever so more powerfully engrained in my mind, and I need to revisit the topic.

Pretty much everything that we use to communicate in this world consists of symbols – whether those symbols are language, mathematics, photos, colors, images, or even parables and metaphorical stories. In every case of communication, mutually agreed upon (and mutually experienced) symbols are crucial if the message is to be successfully conveyed.

Let’s suppose that I want to share a message with my dear friend Michelle. In my mind I put together a collection of symbols that mean something in my own personal experience, and I then share those symbols with Michelle, hoping that she understands what I want to convey. But suppose I choose to use the symbols of the Spanish Language. Since Michelle has never internalized Spanish symbols in her own experience, she will not understand anything that I tell her.

Likewise, if I try to share a mathematical formula with someone who has never studied math, my message will meet a blankly staring face.

The real pitfall of communication occurs when two people erroneously think that they understand the same symbols. Let’s say that I am eating breakfast with a young girl in Great Britain. If I ask her to pass me a napkin, she is most likely going to be very puzzled. Even though we speak the same language, when I ask her for a napkin she is probably picturing in her mind what I symbolically label with the word diaper. Unless she has been exposed to US English, she will think I am bonkers.

On an even more subtle note, communication totally depends on having a shared experience. For example, supposed that my friend Jeanette grew up her believing that sugar was salt, and that salt was sugar. If I tell Jeanette that my food tastes salty, the symbolism of salt will cause Jeanette to imagine that my food is very sweet – because “sweet” would be her own personal experience of the word salt.

Language is a tricky thing. We think we are communicating accurately and objectively, but in reality, the whole process is extremely subjective. If I describe a very powerful spiritual experience here in the words of my blog, then every person out there will likely interpret my words differently – interpreting them based on their own personal experiences regarding what a spiritual experience is like for them. It is impossible to do otherwise.

The Kabala is literally overflowing with symbolism. One of the reasons that we in the Sun Course spend our first 50 days filling our heads with intellectual knowledge is that we are trying to associate mystical symbols with some type of shared meaning. Yet, until we have a personal experience of that “shared meaning”, the symbols really mean absolutely nothing – they are merely a collection of intellectual words or shapes.

The final 40 days of our silence is all about attempting to get that “personal experience” in such a way that the symbols will come alive in our subconscious – helping us to understand in a very personal way how the whole model of creation fits together. Until we get that genuine “personal experience” there is no real understanding – just intellectual words and abstract symbols.

*  *  *  *  *  7:30 a.m.

I just returned from a thirty minute stroll down to the lake. I fully intended to sit by the water, to enjoy nature, and to perhaps write in my notebook. But as I sat there on a cold hard rock just a few feet above the beautiful calm waters of Lake Atitlan, my restless mind incessantly demanded that I return to my computer – that I continue this writing. I have a hunch that I will be writing pretty much non-stop today until I finish pouring out whatever it is that my heart desires to express – and I have no idea how much that is – I guess I will find out when I am done.

I want to emphasize that I am writing these things for my own healing and comprehension – to help me clarify where I am at in my own process of understanding the symbolisms – to help me satisfy this deep internal longing to write it all down – to organize it – to simplify it – to clarify it for me so that I can perhaps begin to spiral down another level deeper.

It is my sincere desire that my words will also help anyone else who may feel a desire to read them – but rest assured, I am not attempting to preach or to teach. Instead, I am attempting to understand by explaining it all to myself.

The Illusionary Universe

One of the hardest concepts for me to originally swallow about “A Course In Miracles” was the teaching that this entire Universe is an illusion, very much like a nighttime dream. None of it is real in the eternal sense – zilch, nada.

Now, today, as I study the teachings of Hermes, and how they all relate to Kabalistic beliefs, one of the things that I literally love is that one of Hermes’s seven founding principles states that everything is mental – a mental projection from the mind of God – that the entire Universe (but only all of it) is contained and projected in the mind.

I need to momentarily regress again. I should point out that I am studying the “Mystical or Hermetic Kabala – a group of teachings based on the ancient wisdom of Hermes – teachings integrated with the ancient and rich spiritual symbolism of Tarot, Astrology, Numerology, The Emerald Tablet, The Kyballion, and Alchemy. While the Tree of Life is the same as that in the traditional Jewish Kabala, and while many of the teachings and concepts fully overlap, I need to emphasize that what we are learning is not the pure Hebrew viewpoints. The wisdom I am learning has its roots deep in the traditions of Atlantis, and even earlier. Yet, it is true that much of what I am learning is indeed based on the Hebrew roots – the language, the words, etc…

The Holodeck

One of the most powerful symbols that I have picked up in my life-long love of science fiction is the concept of the “holodeck” originally based on the television series: Star Trek – The Next Generation.

For anyone not familiar with the holodeck, it is a computer-generated pseudo reality – fully programmed using holographic imagery and artificial intelligence. A “real” human being can enter such a fantasy world and gain valuable training and experience. The same artificial world can also be used purely for entertainment and play. But the underlying thread is that when one is actually interacting on the holodeck, it looks, feels, smells, tastes, and sounds every bit as real as the outside physical world.

One main safety feature of the holodeck is that a human being can engage in dangerous and life-threatening activities without actually facing any real harm – because no real harm can occur in that computer projected realm – unless of course the “safety feature” is turned off. If that is the case, a human can indeed die while in the pseudo holodeck reality.

Yes, the concept of a “holodeck” is indeed a powerful symbol. For anyone who has experienced a holodeck in the fantasy world of movies or television, the word “holodeck” brings up real mental images, real memories of fictional stories, real understanding of an actual fantasy immersion – one that can be discussed and easily related to by others who also love Star Trek.

I find that the symbol of a holodeck is a powerful way for me to describe this “seemingly” real world in which we now exist. In reality, this entire Universe is one massive holodeck somehow created in the mind of God. (Whether it is a dream or some other type of mental projection does not matter.) From a mortal and human perspective, everything seems absolutely real, and it indeed feels as if the “safety feature” of our reality is definitely turned off. Our bodies can get hurt. We suffer pain. We can seem to die even horrible deaths.

But in reality, the safety features are fully intact. Our eternal divine soul is the one ultimately experiencing this playground called planet earth. Death in this physical realm means absolutely nothing in the eternities. It is merely a transitional state back to next higher illusory plane – the Astral realm. None of it is real, and nothing can really happen to us. Our only task while in this projected reality is to learn to be God-like – to love, to not judge, to not be attached to things, to remember the truth of who we really are. The closer we get to this understanding, the less the circumstances of the world around us matter. Until we fully achieve this divine “state of being,” our soul will continue to return to another physical body for more practice life experience.

The Tree Of Life

So when I think of the Kabala’s Tree of Life, I actually think of the holodeck symbolism. The Tree of Life is an archetypal map of how this holographic-projected Universe was originally created, and how it continues to shift, to grow, and to evolve dynamically.

The Tree of life consists of ten spheres or “sephiroth”, each of which symbolically represents one energetic aspect of creation. The highest and most abstract sphere represents a state of pure being, pure potential. The next two lower spheres represent the first spark of unbridled masculine energy, balanced by the first concept of providing conceptual form to that energy, being the feminine that brings such form.

The next six spheres successively build on these concepts, becoming increasingly more concrete. The first of these spheres brings in the concept of God-like benevolence and brotherly love, which are then balanced by the energies of the next sphere – form-giving (and destroying) energies that provide energy, will, determination, and courage to make life’s difficult choices. After these two are perfectly harmonized in a third sphere that represents the mediating energy of Christ-like consciousness, the tree again branches out with an unbridled creative, loving, artistic, mother-nature-like energy which is then subsequently balanced by the stability of intellectual form – given some type of archetypal structure in which to create. Finally, the sixth sphere in the group represents the full balance of emotion and intellect, creativity and knowledge, merged with the subconscious awareness of our true divine identity.

Another invisible entity living somewhere in the Tree of Life represents our divine consciousness, our awareness as being our own higher self.

It is these six middle spheres that then manifest (become the parent of) the final sphere which symbolically represents the actual created entity within whatever realm we are dealing.

In fact, the Tree of Life represents many realms. The highest is the realm of the symbolism of the Gods, a realm where spiritual bodies are ultimately created. The second realm is that symbolized by Archangels, where our divine mental body/consciousness is formed. The third realm is that of the symbolic angelic energies – a realm where our astral body is developed. The fourth is symbolized by the astrological energies of the planets and the zodiac, being that of the physical realm where the actual Universe and our physical bodies are manifest in form.

But the kicker here is that within each and every sphere of the tree, there exists inside yet another entire Tree of Life; and every Tree of Life can be ultimately represented as a single sphere within a larger Tree of Life. The possibilities are endless and mind boggling – completely intellectual to someone who does not have a personal experience with meditating on the deep symbolism.

But, then again, we need to remember that all of this is nothing but a huge massive holodeck, created in the mind of God. The only absolute reality is the timeless, eternal being-ness that is the source of this entire creative cycle.

So this is my quest – to immerse myself in this symbolic world of creation – to meditate on the symbols, to understand in a very personal way just what each of the symbols mean to me – what they can teach me – what they can help me understand about the Universe I presently find myself living in – and to help me discover the truth about my divine roots.

The Quest For The Keys

Another thing that I have never previously mentioned is that the Tree of Life can be a powerful meditative tool for helping a genuine soul-searcher to approach the mysteries of enlightenment. Chaty explains it to us somewhat like this:

Buried within all of the symbolism of the many combined systems of Kabala, Tarot, and Astrology, etc… are clues that will point one to a key hidden within the tree – in fact two hidden keys – which when discovered and properly utilized can open doors to mystical experiences that bring amazing new insights and understanding regarding creation. Also hidden within the symbolic mysteries of the tree – but likewise requiring experiences that only come from personal revelation – are insights regarding many other mystical treasures.

Chaty first discovered the keys herself prior to establishing the first Sun Course – many, many years ago. But it was not until about three years ago that one of her students first found and experienced the keys for herself. Since that time, I believe that a grand total of only four or five students have found and experienced the fruits of these keys.

So when people begin the Sun Course, the idea of “finding the keys” is the first and foremost thing on many peoples’ minds. It becomes some type of intellectual treasure hunt followed by a spiritual treasure hunt.

When I first surrendered to my promptings to participate in the Sun Course, I had absolutely no interest in intellectual exercises, or in finding any keys of a silly Tree of Life. I was totally in the game because my heart demanded that I be here – telling me that there is great personal growth in store – growth that would help me grow closer to the Astral realms and to my quest for enlightenment.

But as soon as I began studying, I have to admit that I began to wonder “Will I find the keys?” “What could they possibly be?” “What difference will the keys make in my life? etc…

Then I had to ask myself, “Why would I want to find the keys?” and “Wouldn’t such a quest be based on Ego?”

A part of me whispered from my shoulder, “It would be really awesome to say that I am one of a very small and elite group of people that has found them.”

Of course my answer was “No, I really don’t care about finding keys. That is not why I am doing this course.”

I simply trusted that I would be guided to find and to discover whatever spiritual treasures that I need as I progress down my present path – trusting that Spirit will guide me to find exactly what I need, at exactly the precise moment when I need it. So far, this seems to have been the case with all of my past dreams and other intuitive guidance, and I see no reason to doubt that future experience will be any different.

But then, as our 40 days progresses, and as Chaty occasionally asks us about our current experiences and insights, I begin to feel internal pressure that perhaps “I need to focus harder. Perhaps I need to force myself to more aggressively seek the inspiration and intuition that will guide me to find the key. I must … I should … I have to … I am destined to … blah blah blah.”

Such feelings really feed into my Ego – becoming a trap that I believe has me stuck at this very moment. As of two hours ago, I am exactly 20 days into my silence – precisely half way through the 40 days. I cannot believe it has gone so fast. I feel as if I just started, wondering where all the time has gone. I feel a sense of self-imposed pressure to make more progress, and to make it even faster.

As I write, intuition tells me that the brick wall (or the chains from my dream) that I am hitting has everything to do with this pressure – this lack of trust – this sense of needing to push harder.

I should know better. I do know better. But it is so incredibly easy to get caught up in such a quest for buried treasure.

Beginning in this very moment, I commit to myself that I will strive to be present in each moment – doing only what my current promptings guide me to do. I will stop worrying about future outcomes, future tasks, future meditations, or about future lessons slipping away. I know that whatever I am ready for will indeed happen as long as I remain present.

I can simply melt back into this peaceful present moment awareness and return to trusting Spirit. Just maybe, just maybe, just maybe, Spirit might actually know what it is doing. I certainly do not know the answers nor do I know the precise path – but Spirit for sure does know.

Another thing that I find a little challenging is the inspired manner in which Chaty works her magic. She does it brilliantly. I believe she has given us everything we need in our journey, but she has done so in such a way as to make it not at all obvious, burying the details in a maze of intellectual information. Then she has basically turned us loose to struggle on our own, reminding us that everything we encounter during our journey – every situation, every emotion, literally everything that comes up – is part of our process.

Chaty has told us to expect our growth, inspiration, and insights to be based on our current level of spiritual development. She has told us to expect to bump into walls and veils through which we must progress via personal growth. She has told us literally everything we need to know – but absolutely nothing at the same time.

When I work with Keith (the Chocolate Shaman) I love the one-on-one attention where he knows exactly what I am experiencing. He follows my journey and gives me just enough clues to keep me interested, to keep me focused on doing it myself. Then he confirms my intermediate steps, giving me intuitive feedback that helps me to know that I am headed in the right direction. But Keith invariably makes me find the solution on my own.

Chaty takes a much more hands-off approach. She gave us everything up front and has basically turned us loose, leaving us on our own to seek our own internal answers. I love Chaty’s approach – but I long for Keith’s gentle step-by-step feedback. Ultimately, if I do gain great spiritual insights here at the Sun Course, it will most likely be because Chaty does make me do it all by myself – giving me the confidence that I CAN, and I DID.

Is That EGO?

Last night, in meditation, we did some more partner meditation/discussions. As before, I was paired up with beautiful N’himsa. The questions we discussed were things like “What are you searching for in life?” “What do you hope to gain from this course?” etc…

Of course, my answers were all “Enlightenment.”

I genuinely, with all of my heart, am devoted to this goal – no longer in a “work, work, work, or do, do, do” manner – but in a pure, deeply rooted genuine longing of the soul.

But as N’himsa and I discussed Ego, and I momentarily questioned my motives as to why I want Enlightenment, a huge burst of Ego briefly flashed into my mind.

I envisioned writing powerful spiritual books, being a best-selling author, and going on speaking tours, etc…

“Woah!” I thought to myself as I saw Ego written all over my thoughts. “Where did that come from?”

Yes, I do see myself publishing books, and yes, I do see myself as giving speeches, etc… – but no, such desires are not based on desires for fame or fortune – they are merely promptings of what I believe may be coming down the road. With every genuine fiber of my soul, I know that I will be thrilled and lead an extremely satisfying life whether or not I ever do any of those things – even if I end up living in a cave somewhere in Tibet. Enlightenment is my genuine goal, and whatever else happens, simply happens. I will embrace whatever that is, wherever that is – but my only genuine desire is to more fully connect with the divine.

Astrology – Crazy-Schmologyy

Throughout my life, I have considered astrology to be utter mundane silliness associated with the meaningless daily horoscopes that find their way into our lives via nearly every form of published media. I never understood any of it, and never had a desire to open my mind, even in the slightest.

I now realize that Astrology is filled with creational symbolism – symbolism that remarkably brings great insight into other spiritual systems. I recognize that it is almost all symbolic – including the relationships of the mythological Gods, and their powers. But the more I understand that symbolism, the more amazed I become at the ancient wisdom that has existed on our planet for eons of time.

Every one of the planets and their corresponding mythology corresponds, in amazing ways, with the creation energies of the spheres in the Tree of Life. Likewise, the astrological signs of the zodiac, as well as seven of the planetary bodies, are used to provide symbolic meaning to nineteen of the twenty-two paths that join the ten spheres of the tree together. (The other three are the symbolic elements of fire, air, and water.)

Even though I have long since moved away from being locked into the beliefs of my Mormon roots, I never cease to be amazed at how much wisdom Joseph Smith had in the early days of the church. In his deep wisdom, the founder of Mormonism taught that the planet earth has a living spirit – a soul with feelings and consciousness. I always found this hard to swallow – but now I embrace the concept with all my heart. Not only do I believe that this planet is a living being, but I also believe that the Sun, Moon, and other planets are also living beings.

I actually believe that our solar system is a living entity, as are all of the other solar systems in our galaxy. Likewise, I believe that our galaxy is a living being, as is the entire Universe itself.

I, in my tiny insignificance, am merely a simply cell in this massive web of existence – but wait. I am made up of millions and millions of cells, and I believe that each of them is also a conscious entity. Could all of this be true? I believe it is.

Early Morning Insights

So there you have it. Everything to this point has been my sharing of sharing the “lot of background information” framework that I needed to put out before I could discuss the simple insights that flashed through my mind early this morning.

I began to think in astrological symbolism regarding the spheres in the Tree of Life – specifically in the level of the tree that represents creation of the physical realms.

One by one, a planet came to me, along with new insights regarding its symbolism. I would reluctantly get out of bed and write down the insight. Then I would go back to bed, trying to sleep, only to get up again with more insights about the next planet.  Following are those insights.

Saturn

Saturn is a planet that is very closely related to the creation of time, as well as slow, but powerful learning. It is associated with the third Sphere, the one that begins the creation of restrictive forms – the sphere responsible for the concept of birth and death. In fact, Saturn represents a mythological God who was said to devour his own offspring – symbolic of the fact that what is born must die – nothing in form is eternal.

Time is the concept of measured impermanence, symbolic of birth and death. Without birth and death, the concept of time is nonsensical, it has no purpose, because eternity is forever, it has no beginning, no ending, nothing by which to measure time. It is simply the present moment enjoyed forever.

As I ponder my own learning style, I wonder if perhaps I have some Saturn in my astrological charts. I often struggle to gain real and permanent learning, requiring slow hands-on experience to get it. But when I do learn in such a way, the learning is powerful.

Jupiter

Jupiter is associated with the fourth sphere, in the area of the forces of benevolence. The concept of too much benevolence is like a disease. Nothing would get done. Everyone would sit around and hug and smile, gushing forth compliments to each other, but nothing would get done. Jupiter is the symbol of these beautiful loving traits of stability and loving perfection – but such traits and energy forces need a healthy framework of form in which to function. Otherwise their excess leads to very unbalanced and unproductive life. A beautiful energetic concept of benevolence, by itself, can do nothing. It needs courage, determination, will power, desires, etc…

Mars

Mars is associated with the fifth sphere. The energies of Mars have long been given a very bad name. Yes, Mars represents the warrior planet, and used out of balance its energies can lead to cruelty and destruction. But in proper balance, Mars is also the creator of form that brings love to life and action. Mars energy is the source of courage, determination, and will power that combined give productive focus to the energies of benevolence. A properly balanced Mars is the “engine” for the “gasoline” of love. Mars helps us to make the tough, often unpleasant, decisions in our life that must be made in order to move forward with our growth.

Venus

Venus is associated with the seventh sphere. Beautiful Venus – such a dazzling creative force – Mother Nature perfected – bringing ideas, joyful artistic forces, creation energy untamed – wild desires of fancy and playfulness. But unfocused, unstructured, and unbalanced in the world of form, these forces can by themselves accomplish nothing.

Mercury

Mercury is associated with the eighth sphere. Mercury’s symbol is the same as that of Venus, but with the added horns of a bull. Mercury is the intellectual planet of Hermes. Structure and intellect sound so utterly sterile and boring – and they are indeed sterile and boring when not powered by the focus of Venus. To be productive, Venus’s forces need the structure and stability, the restricting form of Mercury – but Mercury’s endless organizing and structure is meaningless when simply focused on learning. Mercury is a huge gift to creativity – not its nemesis. Mercury brings with it the sensibility to use that creative Venus energy in a meaningful way.

Moon

The Moon is associated with the ninth sphere. Mysterious moon, fountain of femininity, subconscious knowledge, and endless pulsing cycles. Moon provides a very interesting backdrop of ebb and flow, flux and reflux – a playground where we get to practice finding our balance between Venus and Mercury, between Jupiter and Mars – a playground where we can connect directly to higher self’s warehouse of hidden knowledge.

Sun

The Sun is associated with the sixth sphere. It sits right in the middle of the tree, centered in balance between all the other planets. The Sun needs no balance. It is the center of life energies as we know them. Sun is the radiator of that precious warm force of love that fuels everything. When Sun is hidden, that is darkness in every way. Light is love, the energy of creation, the energy of mediation, holding all other forces together in a way that can be amazingly balanced and productive.

Consciousness

There is one more entity in the tree that I believe is also a part of Sun’s balance. This is our divine consciousness – the awareness that is separate from our physical brain. Without this awareness, all of the world would be a mute point. Awareness itself is the creator of life. Without living intelligence, life would be unperceived. This is like the “tree falling in the forest, would it make a sound” question of philosophy.

The Universe is one huge holodeck which we repeatedly enter with each successive lifetime. (Actually we never leave it.) With every entry and exit to/from earth, our conscious memories are wiped clean, but our subconscious remains intact. The only way to leave the holodeck permanently is when we return back to the reality of the oneness that is our divine birthright.

The entire Universe is all mental, and will all eventually be withdrawn back into that state of pure oneness.

The Tree of life is an Archetypal map of the holodeck – a Universal map that is manifest from the highest spiritual realm (just below oneness) all the way down to the physical realm.

Oak Trees and Acorns

The above section is all based on my notes written between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. this morning. I touched a few things up and added a few details for readability, but this is essentially the things I wanted to record in my journal – that I wanted to analyze for further understanding.

As I sat in meditation class this morning, I was exhausted, mentally hammered. I could hardly focus as my mind raced on at 100 miles per hour, constantly thinking about everything that I still wanted to write today. Stopping the chatter seemed as daunting as trying to stop a moving freight train with my bare hands. I finally gave up and just let the energy flow unobstructed. I felt as if the incessant chatter might soon drive me insane, and it was exhausting me.

Then, suddenly, about three minutes before our time expired, I found myself intuitively connecting with my heart. My energy suddenly returned to a calm resonating, peaceful vibration and my exhaustion simply disappeared to nothingness.

This flash of insight brought me one last item for today’s writing – the analogy of an Oak Tree and an Acorn.

The Tree of life is easily comparable to both the huge mature Oak tree and to its small nut-like seed. The tree of life shows that everything in life is a hologram – a part of the whole.

The whole tree if fully contained in the genetic information of each tiny cell. Within that miniscule acorn is a huge mature Oak Tree, just waiting to grow. Everything potential about that Oak Tree is present in that acorn; everything that is except its growth and nourishment. But given enough time and patience, a tiny acorn can and will indeed become a huge towering Oak.

Each one of us is like the acorn. The archetypal map of the Universe is buried in every one of our cells. We are literally descendants of the living stars – the stars being our ancestors up the chain of creation. Within each one of us is the destiny to become as the stars.

But, then of course, all of this is just a mental projection anyway, so anything and everything is possible.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

 
(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.)

Friday, August 27 – 7:00 p.m.

After enjoying every bite of my oatmeal with fresh pineapple and bananas, I took a short little walk down to the waterfront this morning. I was just curious to see where all of the recent rains have ended up. To my surprise, I discovered that that beautiful covered boat dock here in San Marcos is now completely under water. A new makeshift one has been built about three feet higher, right on top of the same posts. The main covered waiting area – an area that I estimate used to be at least eight feet above water level when I arrived in April – is now only a few inches above water level, and even the smallest of waves wash over its surface. The rains just keep coming, and we are still just barely over half-way through rainy season.

*  *  *  *  *

Today has been one of intense meditation. Even the yoga this morning was very meditative. We are in the first few days of a new Moon Course – a time when our yoga teachers focus a great deal on slow breathing techniques. Except for two meal breaks and my short walk, I have been pretty much meditating all day long.

Between oatmeal and burritos, I spent about three hours lying flat on my bed, focused intently on very deep breathing, while simultaneously practicing energy work on my body. It still never ceases to amaze me – or to puzzle me – how every time that I do this I discover that I have to do it differently if I want to get anything to work for me. After considerable concentrated effort, I finally managed to get a mild relaxing energy envelope vibrating throughout my body all the way up to my neck. As I focused intensely on trying to move the energy further up my neck I noticed that the energy instead began to follow the path of my tight hard neck muscles right back down into my upper shoulders.

It was amazing as I followed and partially guided the energy into areas of my denser muscles which have been tight and stiff. I literally felt as if the energy pulses were going in with gentle little waves as they began pushing their way through my denser tissues. It was quite the awesome feeling to sense little streams of the energy working their way around the insides of my shoulders and lower neck muscles.

Then, rather than returning focus back to my neck and above, an intuition guided me to return my focus back to my lower abdomen – the areas of my second and third chakras – the source of so many anxiety and/or panic attacks throughout my lifetime. What happened next totally surprised me.

Using the will of my conscious mind, I became a cheerleader and conductor as I asked the cells in my abdomen to begin the same process that I had just experienced in my shoulders. I gently coaxed and prodded (mentally) my abdomen, urging it to let go of its years of stored up emotional energy, to begin allowing the light (energy) in – to allow and to trust these energies to detoxify and to cleanse the old energy.

With deep love in my heart I focused my concentration on my tummy. Finally, after about ten minutes, I felt an initial sharp little twinge on the left side.

“That’s it.” I spoke to my tummy. “That is a good start. Now keep at it … trust me … we can do this … it will be safe to unlock the toxins of all of these old buried emotions … we don’t need the old stuffed-away energy any more.”

To make a long story short, within another fifteen minutes or so, the energy gradually intensified and began working its way outward, beginning at a point in the middle of my lower abdomen (below my belly button) and gradually spreading out in an ever expanding three-dimensional sphere. It was quite amazing to feel sensations inside of my body in areas where I have felt nothing for as long as I can remember – that is nothing except anxiety and panic when intense fears once gripped my soul.

The more the energy spread, the more I consciously cheered it on, congratulating my cells as if they were each individual consciousnesses – and as if I were their elected leader.

Finally, after about 45 minutes, I felt intuitively as if I were nearing the final bursts of energy clearing of these old buried, stored emotions. The energy had not only cleaned out below my belly button, but had worked its way all the way up through my solar plexus as well, right up to the borders of my rib cage. As the final bursts of energy tingled away, I imagined my struggling emotions as a ten year old, then as an eight year old, and as a five year old, and then even as a three year old. I felt quite emotionally tender as I imagined these final buried emotions being liberated and evaporated.

As my intuition told me that the final energy had at last been cleared, I felt a wave of warm, gently vibrating, peaceful energy throughout my abdominal area. I began to silently shout congratulatory messages to the hundreds of thousands of cells that had participated in allowing this healing energy to spread throughout the area – in allowing and supporting this joint effort. I literally knew that each cell had united together in a group effort, each doing its part.

To test my theory, I asked all of the cells to cheer and applaud together, in celebration of what they had just done. I simply giggled as I immediately felt waves of peaceful, high level vibrating energy roll around in my abdomen with every request to cheer some more.

As I thought that I was totally done, I was quite surprised to feel some more energy twinges right at the top of my solar plexus, attempting to move up the front of my rib cage.

“What the heck,” I told myself, “let’s go for it.” After about 30 seconds of focused concentration, I was quite surprised by what happened next.

Many times in my life, I have felt sick to my stomach during various science fiction movies when the villains put some kind of living creature inside the body of their victim. Invariably, the creature begins to crawl around inside the body, pushing its way along, right under the surface of the skin.

What I sensed just under the skin of my chest felt exactly like something crawling around inside of me – only the sensation was very peaceful and pleasant. Throughout the whole experience, I was blessed with a strong intuitive reassurance that this was some type of cleansing energy that was opening up energy channels – a type of roto-rooter so to say. The energy began its journey from the top of my solar plexus, at the very bottom of my front rib cage. It slowly and methodically inched its way up the front of my chest in what felt like a two or three inch wide swath. The energy continued right up the middle until it reached a point about an inch or two higher than my heart, where it seemed to stop – as if it had gotten stuck.

After a few minutes of being stuck, I realized that my metal necklace medallion was right on top of where the energy was situated. Instinctively, I removed the medallion and quite soon I felt the energy resume its upward journey, right up into my neck, where it again stopped right at the edge of my jaw line. As it stopped, the thick energy envelope was wrapped around my entire neck.

The feeling was quite amazing – as if I was wearing a warm cushioned turtle-necked sweater that was hugging my entire neck. Using my will power and imagination, I mentally coaxed and prodded the energy, sending it imagined love, trying to get it to continue up into my head. But the energy seemed completely stuck right at the base of my skull – not budging at all – not even another millimeter.

After a while, my intuition told me to return my focus to my shoulders and hips. As I did so, I began to feel some mild energy work going on deep inside each of those joints. I did not get very far in this latter process, as my body told me it was time to head off for a lunch of delicious vegetarian burritos.

The previous three hours of intense mental and breathing focus left me feeling both exhausted and exhilarated. In many ways, what I did reminded me exactly of the work that I had done with Keith (the Chocolate Shaman) just last Friday – work where I had connected with a part of myself in a parallel dimension and had helped to offload some of its pain. Only this time, today, I was connecting with the thousands of such beings (cells) in my abdomen, doing the exact same thing. I actually came away from the experience feeling as if each cell was indeed a separate (but united) conscious entity, willingly participating in the process. In many ways, I believe that this is exactly what they are.

*  *  *  *  *

When I returned from lunch, I only had a little over an hour remaining before evening meditation. I decided to continue meditating, but taking a different focus. I again reclined flat on my back, but this time I tried to get myself into a deeply relaxed state in which I might be able to dream, or perhaps even Astral travel. I never reached any of those states, remaining fully conscious throughout the process – but I did have a great relaxing meditation just the same.

Now that I have caught up on my writing, I think I will go to bed (8:15) and see what else my higher self can teach me to do. I am tired, but very eager to find out.

Sunday, August 29 – 6:00 a.m.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a less-than-spectacular ho-hum day. From start to finish, I went through all the “proper” motions, doing what my heart told me to do, but I never quite seemed to connect with the rich energy that I so long to have as an integral full-time part of my life.

To add insult to injury, I have had no noteworthy dreams for quite some time – still not connecting with the Astral realms in any memorable way, shape, or form. I am not even remembering basic dreams. Chaty continues to emphasize the importance of developing our dream skills, and I recognize that around the full moon is a prime time to do so – but I continue to come up empty.

Each time that I begin to feel as if I am a failure, I remind myself of all the incredible guiding dreams with which I have indeed been blessed – and I gently reassure myself that every one of those dreams happened at exactly the perfect times. I have never had control of my dreams – but even so, they always have ideal timing, happening exactly when they need to.

“Things always happen exactly as they are supposed to happen – but only 100% of the time.” I repeatedly reassured myself.

I still love to repeat my favorite bathroom-door poetry – the one that begins like this: “Whatever occurs, whatever it may be, that itself is the key.” Invariably, this simple phrase grounds me in reality – filling me with the deep peace and trust of present-moment focus – reminding me to not worry about anything other than my reaction to this very present moment – a moment that is indeed perfect.

Magic Pills

As I lay in bed quite early this morning, I was reminded of an email I received last Thursday from a very dear friend. I wish I had a copy of her email with me, but I have not been on the internet since my last blog posting on Thursday, and I will have to wing it from memory.

I will not identify my beautiful friend by name or location. She knows exactly who she is. For all practical purposes, she is me – and she is you. She could easily be each and every one of us. My response to her email is indeed for all of us.

In her beautiful email, my dear friend expressed deep internal frustration and confusion as she allowed herself to freely vent her emotions. She mentioned that she had not written to me sooner because she wanted to honor my silence, but for some reason she wanted to communicate her internal unrest now. She acknowledged that she did not know if she would receive a response – even though she would be secretly hoping for one.

My initial thought was to say “No, I cannot respond to her. I am in silence. She will understand.”

That very evening, deeply desiring to send love to my friend, I connected with her energetically. I engaged in a loving exchange of energy, sending pure love in her direction. I have no idea if she felt that connection; I would love to find out. Whether she felt it or not, for me it was real, and the love and comfort were indeed sent.

In her beautiful letter, my dear friend expressed anger, jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, and thoughts of being trapped in an ordinary world, facing ordinary challenges, while I am off having an amazing life-changing adventure. I did not feel as if my friend’s anger was directed at me. On the contrary, I felt as if her anger was directed at herself, as if to say that she was a failure for not doing more exotic things in her own life – wishing she had the freedom to so something like I am doing.

As I rested in bed early this morning, trying to go back to sleep, my mind became more and more active as I realized that I would indeed be replying to my dear friend’s email – but not through normal channels.

Instead, I would be replying via my journal – via my blog. As I began to formulate words in my mind, a little urge just kicked me out of bed, telling me that “rather than think about what you want to write, just get up and write.”

So here I am.

*  *  *  *  *

For many years before I began my own “exotic” spiritual journey, I too felt trapped, and extremely frustrated. I was working as a computer software engineer in a career that increasingly felt like a “life sentence to left-brained Hell”. I felt as if my employer was a Federal Penitentiary, complete with high walls and razor wire – and I longed to be free of the perceived chains of this unwanted prison cell.

But a nagging little feeling inside kept reassuring me, telling me: “Not yet … trust me … be patient … stay where you are … you need to be here a little longer … you still have lessons to learn before you can move on.”

I hated going to work every day. I longed to be free to follow my heart in a new direction, but I blindly trusted the quiet inner voice telling me to stay where I was. That period of my life was very challenging, but through it all I passed through the heart of many incredible growth opportunities – learning to find love and peace in a situation that I was mentally rejecting. In fact, it was only after I fully immersed myself into that padded prison cell, doing so with love and surrender, that I was blessed with a layoff that included an incredible severance package – one which launched me forward – eventually permitting my present amazing journey.

*  *  *  *  *

As I sit here typing, early in the morning in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala, it may appear that I am living in some luxurious, exotic spiritual resort – surrounded on all sides by exciting and amazing things. In reality, I am sitting on a four-legged wooden chair, in front of a small unpainted four-legged wooden table in a cold, dimly lit, moldy room. The room is cramped, with straw mats for a floor, and I share it with lots of creepy-crawlies who also call this room their own home.

My surroundings are anything but luxurious or peaceful. Even as I write, a loudspeaker, perhaps a half mile away (but sounding as if it were next door), is blaring out services from a local church (yes, at 6:45 in the morning). The surroundings here can, at times, be quite noisy. But it is not just the churches trying to spread their message of enlightenment that brings in the noise. In the evenings, especially on weekends, the noise from local night spots can be quite penetrating.

Then there are the bottle rockets. You know the kind – the ones during a firework show that shoot up into the sky and then simply explode in a tiny white ball, giving off a loud and penetrating booming bomb-like sound.

The locals in Guatemala seem to have an affinity for using such bottle rockets for celebrating – and they love to celebrate at the craziest of times. Several of these booming bottle rockets were launched off by someone just this morning at around 5:00 a.m.. I hardly even hear the noises anymore. I have learned to simply acknowledge them and to accept them as “what is”. In fact, all this noise has greatly helped me to learn temperance – at least in the area where my ear drums are involved.

And of course, how could I forget the parasites. They are everywhere – in the water, on the vegetables, o the fruits, and even on the wet dishes. I am happy to report that I finally took my follow-up parasite test yesterday. I picked up the results just last night and, “Yippee, I am parasite free (at least for now LOL)”.

And then there are the sanitary conditions. The paths around town are mostly dirt, quite frequently mud. Great numbers of dogs roam freely throughout the town, casually strolling and lounging pretty much anywhere they like – including inside most restaurants. They can be so puppy-dog cute as they sit there staring at you with loving eyes, silently begging for food – but they are also quite dirty. Most are quite well fed, so when they wander by, I just send them a loving smile, making eye contact, and telling them energetically, “Sorry, no food today.”

These large dogs, many of them being quite beautiful, also leave their mark in the area of bodily waste. It is not uncommon to have to walk around chunks of dog poop as I walk from here to there. In fact, I quickly learned to never walk along without constantly looking down at the ground in front of me.

Then, when the frequent rains come, we have no village drainage system. Everything drains above ground. Large runoff streams form throughout the pathways all over town. I quickly learned to never wear shoes on a cloudy day – only flip flops. When it rains (which is very often), it is impossible to walk around without getting my feet drenched. And then, with every step in the streams or puddles, I always wonder how much of that flowing water might be saturated with dissolving dog poop.

Even right here in the pyramids, I often have to walk through a little stream of runoff water just to get to my outdoor bathroom at night during a thunderstorm. This stream is frequently several inches deep.

Oh, and did I mention that we don’t have a toilet seat, and that all of the smelly toilet paper needs to be lovingly placed in a basket beside the commode?

No, this is no luxury resort by any worldly standards … but I love it just the same.

*  *  *  *  *

But my intent here is not to write about rustic living conditions. My intent is merely to point out that “Wherever you are, there you are.” Yes, I love living in these rustic conditions, interacting with different cultures. But NO, living here does not make me any different, nor does it give me any special spiritual-growth advantage over someone living in a beautiful home in the suburbs of some clean, quiet, and comfortable neighborhood with green lawns back home.

My real growth does not come from being in unusual surroundings. Instead, my real growth comes from constantly questioning my internal beliefs about those surroundings, whatever or wherever they may be. With what I now know, I believe that I could experience the same growth while living literally anywhere in the world. The growth is not at all about an external journey; it is fully 100% an internal journey.

“Whatever occurs, whatever it may be, that itself is the key.”

Daily life happens around us wherever we are. Our growth is a result of learning to love whatever happens, whatever it may be, and to find peace with these daily life lessons – whether they take place in San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala, or in Rapid City, South Dakota – whether they take place in a three month spiritual retreat, or in a chaotic office building in Manhattan.

Our spiritual growth does not in any way shape or form depend on our surroundings. Our truly valuable growth is an inside job, and takes place anywhere and everywhere – wherever we find ourselves. The important thing is not our physical location, but our state of mind – how we approach each moment.

Do we face each moment with love or with fear? Do we face it with judgment or peaceful acceptance?

“Whatever occurs, whatever it may be, that itself is the key.”

Yes, I am here at an exotic-sounding three month spiritual retreat in Guatemala, participating in forty days of silence. It sounds so exciting – so spiritual – so wonderful. Yes, I am having incredible experiences and am going though powerful intuitive growth – but the experiences are fleeting, and the growth ever so teasing. One day I have an incredible experience with the Chocolate Shaman, and the next I am wondering who yanked the carpet out from under me, trying to figure out how to once again reconnect with Spirit.

Every experience teaches me something amazing about myself, but as the next moment arrives, that old lesson no longer applies. I have a new present moment to face, a new treasure hunt in which to engage; and new resources must be mustered to face the new search.

In the midst of all the experiences about which I continue to write, I am finding that my real growth comes from facing my own internal personality issues. Yes, “Las Piramides Del Ka” gives me a serene backdrop and a beautiful temple in which to face these issues, but I now realize that if I were to discipline myself, I could face these personality issues anywhere in the world.

The same goes with the energy experiences. I have most of these growth experiences in the privacy of my own room – a room that could be anywhere in the Universe.

No, my current location does not give me any special advantage in the area of personal growth. It is my commitment to that growth that gives me the results – and that commitment can be made while living in Central America, or while living in downtown Seattle, Washington.

But what strikes me most powerfully is that each and every morning I must get up, run to the bathroom, put on my jeans (one leg at a time), brush my teeth, eat food, interact with others, and observe my reactions to situations. It is the latter that is the key – observing my own reactions to situations. That is where my real growth occurs. If I feel judgment, I no longer blame others for my experience. Instead, I look inside myself to discover what un-owned or unhealed personality trait is causing me to project my anger/ pain/ judgment/ fear/ etc, outward. If I feel love, I simply bask in the experience, inhaling more of that amazing energy.

“Whatever occurs, whatever it may be, that itself is the key.”

No matter how exotic my experiences may sound in writing (and yes they have been powerful and amazing), these experiences are not some magical events turning me into a Superman. Yes, I would like to feel as if I am somehow elevating my consciousness to a higher level, but invariably, every single morning, I wake up feeling feel quite human, quite vulnerable, and quite puzzled about why I seem to have to start all over again.

There is no magic pill which somehow transforms me into a Superhero.

Or is there?

What is amazing, however, is that each experience does build on the other. As I stare in a mirror (I do occasionally get to see a mirror), I am gradually developing a deeper and more profound love – not just for what I see staring back at me, but for the entire world, including everyone and everything around me.

I am learning to recognize that, hidden under my skin, and under the skin of everyone around me, is indeed a full-fledged – but secret and well-hidden – Superman suit. Yes, we are all Superheroes. It is in our birthright. It is in our genes. We are all divine, and we all have access to discover and to develop the divine powers, intuitions, and energy gifts that we each inherit from our not-of-this-world heritage.

Each time that we begin to feel merely-normal, trapped by life, discouraged, depressed, angry, jealous, inadequate, or heavily burdened, there actually is a magic pill that we can take.

The “magic pill” is to focus on remembering who we really are.

The amazing thing is that we can access this memory from anywhere in the universe. It can be accessed while participating in a three-month retreat in Guatemala, or it can be accessed while searching for a job in Phoenix, Arizona.

In order to swallow this “magic pill” we simply need to go inside, to meditate, to quiet our minds of all the unnecessary chatter, and to connect with our higher self. The very moment that we reconnect with our higher awareness, we discover a beautiful and amazing divinity – a divinity that lives inside each one of us – a divinity that energizes a magical Superman suit that is built right into our skin – a divinity that IS us.

This Super-Human Divinity is our birthright; it is our heritage; it is our very being.

*  *  *  *  *

There is an amazing worldwide shift in consciousness taking place all around us. Even more incredible is that this shift is gaining powerful momentum from within our younger ranks – from the Indigo and Crystal Children who have been born in the last 25 years or so. One huge blessing from my travels is in having frequently connected with many members of an unbelievable class of young people (but very old and wise spirits) from all corners of the world – powerful souls who will help to usher in this planetary shift in consciousness in which we are all presently engaged – one which cannot and will not fail.

Each one of us can and will be a part of this energetic awakening, no matter where on the planet we live, no matter what we do for a living. It matters not whether we are a suburban mother with young dependent children, or if we are the CEO of a prestigious worldwide company. The important thing is to “know thyself” – to focus on the daily moment-by-moment details that we experience inside of our own individual experience.

We can each swallow that amazing “Superman” pill – each and every day – by simply reconnecting with the divinity that is all around us, that is indeed us. And yes, we need to ingest that magic pill quite frequently, because everyday life has a way of quickly hypnotizing us into forgetting our secret identity.

Did I say yet that it is all an inside job?

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

 
(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.)

Sunday, August 22 – 7:00 p.m.

My dreams last night were uneventful, but I have had some great insights today – insights achieved through my own casual form of intuitive meditation. For some reason, I still struggle somewhat with the more structured forms of meditation. Today’s insights are not something that I can really write about – I’m not sure I could find the words to convey the personal experiences – experiences where I was taken much deeper into understanding the nature and creation of the manifested universe. I’m still processing most of what I feel, not even sure what exactly that is. The only thing I know is that I am feeling very energized by the insights that are coming to me, and feel quite anxious to pursue them more in depth.

On a physical note, I woke up this morning with an extremely sore right shoulder. A muscle on the outside edge of the shoulder sends a shooting pain when I lift my arm up over my head in certain positions. I just have to laugh, because I stayed in my room today, for 95% of my time. I only left for restroom breaks, 2 juice breaks, and 1 soup break, and one quick trip into town to buy water. Perhaps if my shoulder had felt better, I would have been more active and would have missed out on my more relaxed state of simply being with myself.

I broke a few more rules today. We are not supposed to read much, if at all, during our 40 days. After my beautiful insights this morning, I was feeling very drawn to glance through a book called “The Qabalistic Tarot” by Robert Wang. I had skimmed through it briefly before, but nothing inside seemed to speak to me, in any way, shape or form.

Today, as I picked it up to read a few paragraphs, I could not put it down, and ended up devouring almost 90 pages. Everything I read was filling me with additional flashes of insight and comprehension. It is amazing what a little intuitive clarification can do to my understanding and interest levels.

It is now 7:15 p.m. on Sunday night. Yes, it is very early, but I am tired, my shoulder hurts as I type, and I feel a strong desire to simply go to bed – perhaps to meditate – perhaps to enter the dream world. We will see where the experiences take me. I am simply along for the ride. I gave up control long ago, and I love being in the passenger seat.

Monday, August 23 – 8:35 a.m.

I just got back from yoga – the first time I went sense Thursday morning. I can really tell the difference after having not stretched in three days. This only makes me more committed to a more consistent and regular yoga program.

I figured out why my right arm is hurting so badly. On Saturday, responding to an internal prompting, I spent at least two hours, possibly more (didn’t look at my watch), doing an aura cleanse on my little pyramid bedroom. First I exposed every square inch of the room with Copal Incense, slowly weaving my way around the entire room, from floor to ceiling, mostly using my right arm to hold the incense outstretched in front of me. Then I repeated the process, holding a heavy candle (8 oz glass filled with wax), also with my right arm. At the time I finished, my right arm was a tiny bit tired, but not especially stressed. But during the night, it apparently froze up from the extra use – thus the reason why I awoke on Sunday with such a painful shoulder. It is also very painful this morning, but I’m going to keep stretching it out, and plow right through the pain – again using it to remind me to ask myself if I am in a dream or in the physical world.

I also remembered a few things that I wanted to mention as to the source of my insights on Sunday morning. I spent considerable time on Saturday studying up and organizing my notes on the Hebrew alphabet. All of the names of the sephiroth (spheres) in the Tree of Life have Hebrew names, and as it turns out, I discovered that the letters with which the names are spelled are quite significant. Unlike our western alphabet, each Hebrew letter has a meaning in and of itself. I discovered some very interesting patterns as I did my “spiritual spinning” analysis – combining spiritual meditation with intellectual prowess.

Another source of my amazing “spinning” (I don’t know what else to call it) yesterday was a beautiful poem written by my dear friend Sandra here in the Sun Course. I won’t share it here because I do not have her permission, but I must say that every word was beautiful and inspiring to me, causing deep spiritual insights to zing around in my soul.

In about ten minutes I get my morning juice. I am doing quite well in my fast. Yesterday I only cheated with one peanut butter sandwich. I still have considerable energy, but am weak enough to be closer to the spiritual energies as well. As soon as I sip each morsel of my juice, I think I might just take my straw mat up atop the nearby hill and enjoy a morning of meditating with an incredible view of Lake Atitlan. Ta-Ta for now.

Monday, August 23 – 7:00 p.m.

I spent two hours on the hill this morning; it was nice but not especially eventful. This afternoon, responding to an intuition, I opened up volume 1 of my sacred geometry book – the one that I picked up a few days before silence began, all as a result of a dream that I had. Today I only intended to skim around for a few minutes to see if anything might inspire me for meditation. Instead I ended up devouring almost 60 pages over several hours, in what turned out to be more like meditation than reading. I know we are not supposed to read during our 40 days, but I have to follow my intuition, and I am so grateful that I did. That reading was more powerful for me than any meditation could have been.

Last night, after going to bed so early, I lay in bed for a few hours practicing moving and stimulating energy movements in my body. It was another wonderful experience as I learned to observe how the energy responded to my breath, and I was able to feel some incredible energy opening up in my upper shoulders and chest.

One thing of note is that for several weeks now I have noticed what felt like a pressure in and around my nose whenever I reached a state of deep energy meditation. Last night my intuition told me that this was blocked energy that needed to be moved, but the channel which it needed to follow is blocked. For anyone that knows me, my nose has been a source of self-hatred and struggle throughout much of my life. Intuition now tells me that this “lack of love” caused my energy channels to block up in this area. For the last hour of my meditation last night, before falling asleep, I focused intense effort on pushing that blocked energy (with my will) up toward my third eye chakra. For a while, I actually felt it stop right at the top bridge of my nose. Finally, I felt the energy dissipate.

I feel as if there is still some blockage in this area, so tonight I am going to bed early again so that I can experiment with taking this experience even further. I love how I am beginning to trust my intuition at whole new levels. The “old me” would have been so doubtful about what I am doing, but I have so many confirming experiences and feelings that I no longer doubt any of it. I just want to explore it further to see what else I can do.

It is only 7:15 p.m., and I am going to bed … yippee.

Tuesday, August 24 – 11:00 a.m.

I had three dreams last night. The first was right around 11:30 p.m.. In that dream, I was Superman, working out of a tall office building in an unknown city. I pretended to work at a driving school (my secret front).

In the first part of the dream, I was racing around to avoid being captured by a woman that seemed to be Lois Lane. She had some type of special flying technology attached to her body (not sure if it was her arms, legs, or both), and she was in hot pursuit of me – almost catching me. My memory is quite vague on this – sketchy – filled with random memories but no clear sequence of events. Once I finally escaped by somehow destroying Lois’s special technology, I returned to my humble office in the downtown building where my driving school was located.

Back in street clothes, pretending to be a custodian, I first started to walk out into the hallway of the building to lock the door and to leave – but a sense of intuition told me to go back in and check the outside balcony door. As I did so, I discovered it to be unlocked and a cunning man was on the balcony, insisting that he was there for driving school, but I new he was there in search of me. I told him the school was closed and he needed to leave, but he wouldn’t believe me, and would not leave.

Without resolving that situation, I soon found myself being a “fly on the wall” observing a conversation of three youths in what felt like a subway tunnel. They were plotting and contriving how they were going to infiltrate my driving school to discover my true identity.

At this point in the dream I awoke. I was so tired that I almost just blew it off, refusing to get up to write the dream down. Something inside forced me to get up anyway and to write the details that I was able to still remember.

*  *  *  *  *

The second dream happened around 5:00 a.m.. In this dream, I was with a group of four or five boys. I have no idea what my own gender was in the dream. That thought never even crossed my mind – yet I felt as if I were one of the group of boys.

We had heard of a special hot spring and really wanted to go visit it. It was night time, and we had obstacles to overcome on our quest. We walked up to a rock wall with many protruding rocks. Feeling eager, I began to climb first, anxious to reach my destination – but one of the boys scooted ahead of me taking a path slightly to my right. I decided to follow him for the rest of the way up the wall.

To my surprise, the wall seemed to be steeper than it had looked from below, and many of the rocks were loose and slipping under the weight of my hands and feet, falling to the ground below. I persisted without fear, yet being very much aware of the dangers and being quite cautious. As I reached the top, I found myself on what was the roof of a suburb-type home – a home with a long peak parallel to the front of the home, with shingled rooftop sloping off to the front and back. I finished scaling the back of the roof and ran down the front shingles. While doing so, I had the distinct feeling that I definitely should not be here. Suddenly, the front half of the roof turned out to be made of trampoline-like fabric. As I stepped, the roof sagged under my weight and then bounced back as I stepped forward.

The next thing I know, I am on the ground in front of the home, realizing that I have been quite noisy. I run away so as to avoid detection by the home’s residents. As I glance backward over my shoulder, I notice many of the home’s interior lights begin to turn on, and I run even faster, just knowing that they must for sure be calling the Police.

I ran through a large open field. It was a long distance run, with trees and structures of some type shielding my view from the home now far behind me. I realize that the first boy is still in front of me, but I lose track completely of the other two or three boys who had been scaling the wall behind me.

In a minute or so I reach a large fenced-off area, realizing that the boy ahead of me is already there, standing outside the fence. It is a tall chain link fence constructed with black metal – and it is perhaps eight to ten feet high, topped with what “felt like” razor wire. I don’t remember seeing the razor wire for sure, but I definitely felt its presence. The pool inside the fence was surrounded on all sides by about 40 feet of concrete patio. The pool itself seemed to be quite large, rectangular in shape, perhaps as large as an Olympic-size swimming pool. Around the edges of the rectangular shaped pool was a two-foot white cushion-like, rounded-on-top, border. This strange border ran all the way around the perimeter of the pool. Every few feet, a black stripe crossed over the cushion-like mounds, running from the pool outward.

I wanted to go inside, but feared detection – it was night and I felt as if I should not be here. The next thing I know, I am on the inside of the fence, and I momentarily run up to the edge of the water to get a closer look at this interesting hot-spring pool. I had been expecting to find a pool out in nature – not a fenced-off rectangular swimming pool.

Moments later, I run away, finding myself outside, running to the right, 90 degrees from the direction in which I had arrived. It seemed as if I had arrived at the near left corner, with the length of the pool extending to my right, and the width of the rectangular pool being straight ahead. As I ran away, I was on the far side of the pool, running to my right down the length, and then continuing a great distance away from the pool.

I ran because I just knew that the Police, or perhaps other authorities, were going to come and catch me in a place where I should not be.

The next thing I remember, after running some distance away, is that I find a tall structure and begin to climb it. Soon I notice that the structure is constructed with what appears to be small boxes of candy – each box being about eight inches wide, twelve inches long, and a few inches high. As I take one box out to examine it, thinking “Oh, this looks good, I think I’ll keep it”, some other children come running from the shadows and begin talking to me. They call out to me, telling me that it is OK to take the candy – just to be sure to select a box that doesn’t have holes chewed into it (implying that some type of bug or animal has burrowed inside to eat the contents).

I immediately look at the box in my hand, notice that it has a one-half-inch hole chewed in the lower corner, and I think “eeewww” as I put it back. I climb down from the structure and promptly wake up from my dream.

*  *  *  *  *

My third dream was quite brief (the part I remember), and ended with a few moments of lucidity. I remember next to nothing except the very end.

I was in a very familiar situation, finding myself reading what seemed like a book for a young person – not for a child, but definitely not at the adult level either. I am reading out loud in my mind – with no feeling of my lips moving, yet actually hearing my voice. Suddenly I become lucid. I am very intrigued that this book seems real, containing real and profound words of wisdom.

I remember reading many such books in dreams before – always waking up realizing that I was reading something quite powerful and true – but never remembering anything. When I had previously asked Chaty about such dreams, she had told me that I was reading some of the Akashic records – and that what I had read was now a part of me, whether I remembered it or not.

At this moment, as I excitedly pondered what was taking place in the now-lucid dream, the next phrase that I read was “Meditate on the Water.”

Excitement at being lucid caused me to act quickly, not wanting to miss anything. In my excitement, I looked at the whole page, trying to read more, to remember more. I noticed that the top third of the page was some type of illustrative drawing, with a few children in it – but as I struggled to maintain concentration – to stay in the dream – the dream disappeared to blackness and I found myself lying in my bed, with the phrase “Meditate on the water” very strongly imprinted on my mind.

As I lay there thinking about it, intuition told me that this message was referring to my previous dream of searching for the Hot Springs, then running away.

*  *  *  *  *

After morning yoga followed by a quick pineapple and banana smoothie, I immersed myself into thought and meditation about my second and third dreams. As I came to analyze each part, I felt quite amazed at how my intuitions made everything so clear without me having to search for deeper meaning. Following are my meditation insights:

1. The hot springs were beautiful, smooth, and calm – like glass. They represented a smooth, pure, relaxed emotional state – one that I still desired to fully achieve.

2. Water is a symbol, not only of emotion, but also of the Astral realms – a place that for me has been very inviting – calling to me – yet being very elusive. I get frequent glimpses of other-worldly wonders and then the walls appear, telling me that I have growth to pass through before I can proceed.

3. I approached the whole experience in this dream at night time, under cover of darkness, feeling somewhat as if what I was doing was forbidden, perhaps wrong, maybe even against the law – and that I would be captured and punished if I pursued getting to that hot spring.

4. First, I had to climb a precipitous rock wall, with rocks falling under my weight. I had no fear whatsoever, yet recognized that what I was doing was dangerous. As I compare this to the Astral realms, I feel that I have no fear about visiting those realms – but realize very clearly that there are obstacles and dangers involved. The Astral realm is not heaven as we might perceive it. It is indeed the next dimension above our physical world, vibrating at a higher energetic level, but very much not heaven. All sorts of beings reside in the lower dimensions of the Astral realms. Some are loving and filled with light – others are not. It is a place where souls go between physical lifetimes – and all souls there are in a state of awareness quite like where their level of development was when they were in a physical body. Many are quite lost and asleep.

The Astral realm is a place from which all physical manifestation comes forth. The beliefs – both collective beliefs of mankind and of individuals – begin to take form in the Astral realm before they reach physical manifestation.

Yes, there are deceptions in the Astral world. One can be deceived by “beings who are not awake” – who might believe they know truth, but who do not. This is the source of the confusing religious beliefs of our physical world – whatever we believe with all of our heart and emotion can be proven and validated in the lower Astral realms.

So yes, the water (hot springs in my dream) has its obstacles, but it also has huge blessings for those who swim in it with careful awareness that Astral is still part of the illusionary realms.

But there are higher realms than the lower Astral ones – also reachable in dreams and Astral travel – in those realms, the beings are increasingly in more enlightened states. At the higher realms, we can receive incredible spiritual guidance from those who have gone on before us.

How do I know all of this? Much of it comes from what Chaty has taught regarding her own personal experiences in the Astral realms – much comes from my reading – but literally ALL of it comes from strong internal intuition and energetic guidance telling me that these things are true.

5. As I reached the top of the wall and found myself on a trampoline-like roof, I switched from mere awareness of dangers while having no fear, into a mode of feeling a strong fear that I would be caught, discovered, and arrested.

As I meditate on real life, I realize that perhaps one reason that Astral travel and lucid dreams are still evading me is that I feel hidden conflict with my childhood teachings and my “A Course In Miracles” beliefs. In both cases, there are people in my life (perhaps including me) who might judge or condemn my efforts to reach the beautiful hot springs of calm waters. I fear that I might get caught-up in that judgment – getting put in jail by that judgment. There is no doubt that a full immersion into the lucid world of Astral will literally change my life and perceptions of reality as I know it.

Perhaps I still need to honor my March dream that told me to “Forget everything I know” and to “Lower my defenses.”

Do I still worry about what others may think? Do I worry about how this might shake up my own internal belief systems?

Yes, at some level, I believe I do.

As I ponder about this, I am reminded of my list of disowned personality traits. I have processed many of them, but one name that still sits very conspicuously unprocessed is a trait that I named “Spiritual Doreen” – a huge fear that I have not yet embraced.

A few years ago, I went with several friends to a large multi-day spiritual convention in Las Vegas. A well-known woman named Doreen Virtue was one of the main speakers on the final day, and I was totally turned-off by her flamboyant and extravagant presentation. I have to admit that I have felt considerable judgment about her ever since. I judged her as being extremely flighty, both in the way she dressed and in the way she talked about angels and archangels – things that I did not believe in at the time. I now recognize and embrace them as belief-created symbols of actual spiritual energies. While such beings are still part of the illusion, they are very much a part of our perceived physical reality.

I need to apologize to Doreen Virtue. One of my biggest fears as I have pursued my own spiritual path has been that I would become like her, or at least that others may perceive me as being like her. This fear surfaced quite strongly when I began to study here at Las Piramides in Guatemala, as I began to study and embrace many of the things that had turned me off about her. I am sure that if I actually got to know Doreen, I would absolutely love and adore her – and even as I write about her, I am dropping my resistance and judgment, beginning to feel that love.

Much of my present path has been drawing me closer and closer to Doreen’s world – and I am loving it. But my fears of “becoming a public display of such flamboyance” continue to create great internal resistance in me. I recognize that now, perhaps this afternoon, is the time for me to take my un-owned personality trait of “Spiritual Doreen” out for a meditative walk – to make my peace with her.

6. As I finally arrived at the pool, I found it heavily fenced with black chain links. I again butted up against my beliefs that “This is forbidden. I should not be here. I am not allowed here.”

Then, for a moment, I found myself inside the fence, getting a quick look, only to be back outside again – kind of the story of my last several months of riding the waves – riding the incredible highs and glimpses, as the waves crested, only to recede to the absence of those wonderful highs.

As I raced away in my dream – out of fear of being found out – I again affirmed my hesitancy to fully embrace these hidden waters of the Astral world.

7. I find it quite interesting that after I ran away from an experience in deeper understanding, I ended up at a tower built from candy – one filled with decaying holes of whatever creature might chew its way inside.

This to me seems like taking refuge in the sweet tower of this illusionary world of birth and death, where worldly desires and possessions are sugar coated, but where nothing physical is lasting or permanent. Everything here always decays and dies, taking us right back to the Astral world. Yes, the Astral world is illusion too, but it is one step close to the divine oneness reality that is us. Astral experiences can be used to connect with higher truths that will help us in the awakening process.

8. As I meditate further on this dream about the waters, I am ever more determined to tear down the decaying sweet towers of false earthly beliefs in my own life – and to tear down the final fences and obstacles that keep me from fully immersing myself into my present journey.

I fully realize and believe that I am on the edge of a dimensional shift in understanding – but I still only get glimpses of what is inside the fence before returning to the outside of that restrictive chain-link wall. I am determined to get back inside and to swim in that warm pool of soothing growth and insights.

*  *  *  *  *

As far as my Superman dream, I have not yet given it much thought, but at first glance it seems to be quite obvious, and even related to the other dreams. In the Superman dream, I was being pursued by cunning and creative people who were trying to find out, to discover, and to reveal my secret identity as a Super-Being. I was doing everything I could to keep that identity concealed and secret from the world.

In reality, I believe that we are all Supermen. We are all divine beings hidden by the disguise of an ordinary physical body, having forgotten the incredible powers that we all have. Perhaps it is time for me to fully embrace those powers, to quit concealing them, and to expose them, first to myself, and then to the world.

*  *  *  *  *

I did take “Spiritual Doreen” out for a meditative walk this afternoon, and she and I had a great understanding. I realized that I am already very much like her – I simply don’t dress in her flamboyant colorful chiffon dresses with long flowing trains. Doreen teaches me to be my true self without worrying about what others might think about me. Becoming like her has been one of my main goals during my last year of travels – learning to have the courage to speak my truth, to proudly be who I am in all aspects.

Thank you Doreen! Thank you for teaching me to be unique and confident.

Thursday, August 26 – 6:30 a.m.

Yippee, my shoulder pain is completely gone – kaput, finito – and through it all, I kept my peace and never suffered.

*  *  *  *  *

Tuesday evening, was my third full moon ceremony of the Sun Course. The first happened on day five. The ceremony was beautiful, filled with chanting “Aum” while Chaty and others gave me and the other Sun Course members “spiritual initiations” for Tarot and for Shaluha Ka.

I never got to know anyone in the first Moon Course – we were all in silence together for five days and then they left. I grew to love many of the second Moon Course, and will be happy to see a few of them return in September. Just like the first, I barely got to know the third Moon Course. When they began, I was nearing my silence, and I was buried in my studies. But I grew tremendously from that third Sun Course. It was many of them that became my “personality mirrors”, showing me parts about myself that I still did not love and embrace. For that, I thank them with gratitude from the bottom of my heart.

I cannot believe that I only have four weeks left before it is all over. It seems like I just barely began, and I want it to go on for longer – perhaps forever.

*  *  *  *  *

Wednesday just kind of disappeared. During morning meditation, I began to finally get the swing of the breathing techniques. I felt as if I might finally be close to activating my pineal gland in the center of the brain – and then our meditation was over.

I had great intentions to practice monitoring my breathing throughout the day, but as soon as breakfast was over, I followed another prompting to resume reading a little bit in my Sacred Geometry book. To make a long story short, I ended up reading yesterday for more than eight hours. Every single minute of the reading was like meditation, sending energy and insight throughout my body. I could not put the book down. I had to literally force myself to stop for a lunch break and then to run out to pick up my laundry. Then I resumed again till almost 9:00 p.m. last night, when I finally finished reading Volume 1.

I had to laugh when I was picking up my laundry. When I got there, there was no one around, and I needed my clothes. I peaked in the dryer and found that my clothes were all done – just not folded and put back into my plastic bag. So I proceeded to do it myself, knowing that I had already paid and that there would not be a problem.

As I was half done folding my laundry, a young couple came to pick up their own laundry and began to ask me questions as if I were an employee there. I felt so silly as I tried to use hand signals to indicate that I am in silence, and that I don’t work here – I am just folding my own clothes so I can take them home. I don’t quite know what the couple thought. I had no pen or paper on which to write a note – and neither did the couple. I just giggled as I walked back to my room to resume reading.

I had every intention of meditating for several hours last night, but my body had different thoughts about the matter. I first came down with intense intestinal cramping and fowl-smelling and embarrassing gas … and then my internal world sort of washed away from there. My gurgling intestines would not let me get much rest as I repeatedly ran to and from the outdoor restroom till nearly midnight. This morning, I am considerably better, but quite weak. I still plan on going to yoga though. Today is the first yoga class of the new Moon Course, and I love learning and practicing the basic breathing techniques that will be taught today. Perhaps I will get them right this time.

I’m happy, excited, and eager to take on a new day – and am wondering what the treasure of last nights outdoor races in the mud will be. Yes, I know a treasure will surface – one always does.

11:00 a.m.

During 8:30 a.m. meditation, I again practiced my breathing techniques, not only trying to use structure and intellect to do it right, but also involving a deep loving and joyful feeling, all the while, sending as much of the breath energy as possible into the middle of my head, behind the third eye – where the pineal gland resides. I felt as if I were closer to a great experience, and felt considerable Kundalini energy trying to emerge – but I never quite got there.

As I sat there in meditation, I completely ignored my right hip which was screaming at me, begging for relief. I just smiled and focused on the difference between pain and suffering, all the while acknowledging to the muscles that I had heard their cry, but I was not going to let them make me suffer. I smiled joyfully through it all – but was quite pleased when Chaty finally rang a tiny bell indicating that our 30 minutes was over.

As I meditated through the pain, simply ignoring it, I realized that this is also what I did last night with my intestinal problems (which are much better now). I acknowledged the intestinal discomfort, but through it all (no pun intended) I never once allowed myself to suffer or to be upset in the slightest about what was happening to my body. Yes, I found peace through the whole experience, recognizing that whatever happens is what I need in order to learn temperance, to learn to love in all circumstances.

As I grabbed a quick breakfast of granola and fruit this morning, I had fun watching worms, bees, and water puddles drying in the incredibly soothing warm sun. What a beautiful day. I am excited to go out (or stay in) and to be present.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved

(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.)

Friday, August 20 – 7:00 p.m.

Yesterday was quite the bizarre day. After Yoga and a beautiful class discussion with Chaty, I gobbled down a bowl of oatmeal and followed a spur-of-the-moment prompting telling me that “Now is the time to go schedule a return appointment with Keith, my favorite Chocolate Shaman.” I was delighted to get a next morning (Today) appointment at 10:00 a.m..

After I returned back to my room, I discovered another couple of itchy spider bites on my body. Giving in to a feeling of frustration, I took a pill that a pharmacist in Panajachel sold to me as being an antihistamine (even though it was labeled as a sleep aide). I ran out of my Brand-name anti-histamines almost a month ago, and had recently visited a pharmacy to buy some more, just in case I might need them.

After swallowing the little white pill, I decided to read the packaging, expecting to find the word “antihistamine.” I was quite confused by the Spanish labeling, but nowhere did it say anything about allergies or itch-relief – simply a bunch of warning labels plus instructions to take before bedtime to help with sleep.

Immediately after washing the pill down with a swig of water, I began to sense slight numbness on my tongue where the pill had momentarily rested. “What did I just take?” I asked myself as I began to feel slight panic – wondering if I had taken some kind of strong anti-anxiety pill or strong sleeping pill. Thirty minutes later I ran off to the local internet café in search of answers.

To my relief, I discovered that the pill’s ingredient, Difenhidramine HCL, is indeed the exact same ingredient that is in Benadryl – but to my dismay, my research also told me that it definitely has strong sedative properties and can even cause temporary amnesia. Conspicuously absent on the pill’s packaging was any indication of its strength. I had no idea how much I had just taken. All I know is that I felt drowsy and had a nervous headache all afternoon.

I gave up on trying to study or meditate, and attempted to sleep, hoping to catch a dream or two, preferably one that might be lucid – but to my dismay, my brain was nervously “wired” to the point that I could not sleep, nor could I function in an awake state.

Last night was the opening ceremony for the current Moon Course’s final five days of silence and fasting. The ceremony was beautiful – but I really could not tell you much about it. I only remember that I could not focus on the meditation, and was quite anxious to go back to my room to simply crash – letting the effects of the strange pill just wear off with time.

I think I learned my lesson about taking poorly-labeled generic medications in foreign countries.

*  *  *  *  *

Early this morning (Friday), I awoke immediately after listening to myself give some wonderful advice to another person in my dream. I won’t fill in the details of the dream here, suffice it to say that the person I was talking to was in some type of athletic club, yet he was asking me about his retreat experience here at the pyramids. He was worried about his progress in the retreat, concerned that he wasn’t going to get much out of the experience.

Almost instantly, the wise words came flowing out of my mouth: “If you put your heart into it, you will have incredible growth. It may not necessarily be fun growth, but it will be exactly what you need.”

At that instant I awoke from my dream with the strong feeling that the advice I had spoken in the dream was really for me.

I pondered for more than an hour – even skipping yoga to give me more time. The dream was filled with great symbolism, my favorite symbol of which was a bicycle with the left handlebar bent down, and a large iron chain hanging from the seat down into the gears on the rear wheel. In the dream I quickly fixed the handlebar and removed the iron chain. I figured out that both the handlebar and the chain were related to the left-brain (left-handlebar and right side of lower body). I take this part of the dream as a confirmation that my intellect has been hampered as of late, and that choosing to remove the chains from the intellect, and to lift the left handlebar back into place was related to my “Intellectual Al” healing from a few days ago. I find it interesting that this symbolism was also related to a bicycle – one of my favorite “freedom to explore” symbols.

*  *  *  *  *

Since we are in a five day retreat with the Moon Course, I am also back on a very restricted diet for five days – morning juice, early afternoon runny soup, late afternoon juice, and my evening cheat of a small peanut butter and honey sandwich. With thirty days still to go in my own silence, I don’t want to get too weak before our final ten days.

After my morning juice, I was eagerly awaiting the time to leave for my appointment with Keith.

*  *  *  *  *

I never know quite what to expect with Keith (Chocolate Shaman), because I have never gone with any type of specific agenda. But just like my other visits with this amazingly intuitive man, I did not come away disappointed. This morning’s session brought amazing growth and provided me with much needed additional confidence in my own right-brained intuitive connections.

I started out by telling Keith about my amazing roller coaster ride of the last two weeks with experimenting with energy vibrations and intuitive awareness all on my own. I then expressed a little frustration about my continued wave-riding – involving incredible energizing experiences followed by in-between lows.

After meditating on it for a minute, Keith accurately pointed out that my lows were not really lows at all – they are merely absence of the highs. I just laughed as I told him that he was right on – but that this realization did not make the “absences” any easier to deal with.

Keith then told me something that was already on the tip of my tongue, as he reiterated that the lows were actually gifts, bearing great treasures, being opportunities for even more growth. I just giggled again as I acknowledged that most of my spiritual highs come from working through and healing such “low” obstacles in my path.

I am not one to quote poetry found on bathroom walls, but this morning I made an exception. Two days ago, a small poem showed up on the door of my favorite outdoor restroom. Just this morning, I had written it down in my notebook, and had barely finished memorizing it on my way to see Keith.

Recognizing that the poem says exactly what we had just said to each other, but in a very beautiful and poetic way, I quickly blurted out the words to Keith

For some who read these words, they may seem like gibberish. For me, just a few years ago, the words would most likely been sheer nonsense. But today, these beautiful words are pure divine music to my soul, reminding me to love every experience without any judgment or attachment, no matter how bad (or how good) it may seem at the time.

Excerpt From: The Precious Treasury of the Natural State
By Longchenpa

Whatever occurs, whatever it may be,
That itself is the key,
And without stopping it, or nourishing it,
In an even flow, freely resting,
Surrendering to Ultimate Contemplation,
In Naked Pristine Purity,
We reach Consumation.
Ah!

In the midst of our discussion about “loving the lows”, Keith mentioned something about past lives and parallel lives. I immediately interrupted and queried about what he means by parallel lives – specifically asking him about my grandmother. He indicated that it is definitely possible for the same soul to exist in the same dimension in more than one body at the same time, but that he was primarily referring to parts of our self that are simultaneously occupying bodies in parallel dimensions – going through their own growth experiences at the same time.

He explained that it is quite common for our soul to seek growth experience in multiple dimensions at the same time – and that we all benefit from each others’ growth and healing – and that sometimes we even feel the confusing struggles going on in the other dimension.

After pausing for a brief meditation, Keith asked me to close my eyes, indicating that he felt prompted that I need to have an experience to illustrate this. He told me that one of my parallel lives in another dimension was stuck in a severe mental/intellectual struggle, quite similar to many that I have experienced myself in this lifetime – but that this being’s pain was even deeper and more entrenched than I have ever experienced.

“You are going to connect with this other being and help to offload some of its pain.” Keith informed me matter-of-factly. “The dense energy will pass through you on its way out, but it will not stay with you. You are perfectly safe.”

Keith went on to tell me that doing such parallel-life assisting is quite common for people whose spiritual path and connections are more advanced than mine, and that one day, when my skills are more developed, that I could do the same on my own. Keith reassured me that he would guide me through this, and that I would be OK – again emphasizing that it would be a great learning experience for me.

Keith then set me loose, telling me to connect with this other being and to see what I could feel. For the first few minutes I felt absolutely nothing – nothing except quite distracted that is. I had a hard time focusing on much of anything. I felt as if mosquitoes were biting me. Then Keith’s cat jumped up on my lap and started nudging me, demanding my attention. I felt no connection to the other being, whatsoever.

“I feel a slight twinge in my lower abdomen,” I finally volunteered to Keith. “This slightly reminds me of the beginnings of a panic attack. Is this what you are looking for?”

Keith congratulated me, indicating that I was getting closer – but then he surprised me when he told me that my sense of distraction was also coming from the other being. I hadn’t even thought about that until he said so. All I knew is that suddenly I had felt as if my mind was wandering and I could not reach any spiritual depth.

To make the story short, Keith patiently kept coaching me into the experience – one which turned out to be very unpleasant. I began to feel the symptoms of a full-fledged panic attack in my lower abdomen, and I felt even more despair and confusion – feelings with which I have been quite familiar in my own lifetime.

At this point, Keith just turned me loose and told me to do my thing. He then went almost completely silent for the next 30 minutes – leaving me totally on my own.

I kept being deeply tempted to open my eyes in frustration, asking Keith to help me make this stop – it was very unnerving to feel the growing panic and confusion – as if it were my own, but knowing that it was not. I did not want to keep going with this exercise.

Gradually, I developed a sense of deep empathy for the other person, but at the same time felt deep resentment at him or her for giving me so much discomfort. Over time, I began to get the hang of what I needed to do. Little by little, the discomfort increased, but at the same time I learned (on my own) how to deal with it. I reminded myself that my spiritual power is literally fueled by love, and I focused every ounce of my effort onto feeling loving feelings for this other being. I began to send loving feelings and messages of counsel – the same type of things I would tell to my friends, or to myself – reminding this being that the only way to solve his/her dilemma is to reconnect with their higher self – to re-center in divine love.

Then I began to realize that maybe I could help in the process. I remembered how Keith had coached me in a similar (but very different) exercise almost exactly a month ago. I began to visualize this other being’s dense energy passing through my brain and then passing out of my body. I actually felt as if the very uncomfortable energy were entering on the right side of my abdomen (and head), passing through me, and then exiting on the left side.

What confused me was that the energy continuously kept coming, and didn’t seem to be feeling any lighter. By now, I was quite uncomfortable and concerned that the energy might not leave me.

Keeping my eyes closed, I spoke for the first time in fifteen minutes, asking Keith if he was following me in my journey, and wondering if he could give me any advice on what to do.

Keith just laughed, telling me that he was tracking me quite carefully, and that I seemed to be doing a great job on my own. The only thing he advised me to do was to connect with my higher self and to ask for advice and help. Then Keith promptly left me on my own again.

“Duh” I thought to myself as I imagined myself walking over to my visualized wall, opening a window in the wall, letting the bright light in, and then talking to my higher self.

For the final fifteen minutes I focused with ever increasing concentration. In many ways, the experience reminded me of my process in breaking my past-life contract just two weeks ago. My effort was every bit as intense, but the emotion was quite different (feeling the anxiety of the other being versus the intense tear-causing emotion from two weeks ago).

Finally, after extended effort and focus, I reached a point where I felt the energy flowing through me lighten to a sense of peace and relief. I felt that the other being had at last reached a state of spiritual centeredness. But then I began to feel the doubts surface again. The patterns were quite similar to many of my own past struggles, with feelings such as “I’m feeling loving and connected … but … but … but I still don’t know what to do” type of panic.

I began to feel frustrated again as I sensed that I had done all that I could do, and that this other being was again losing their state of centering. I opened my eyes and asked Keith what to do. He told me that he believed that I was right, that I had indeed done all that I could do at this time – that I cannot take this other beings pain away; I can only help – and that I had given all the help he/she was able to receive at this time.

Keith then told me to break the connection. When I did so, my lower abdomen still felt quite anxious and twitchy. I asked Keith what was going on, reminding him that he had reassured me that none of the other being’s energy would stay with me.

“I suspect that this is your own energy that was jarred free by the experience – not energy from the other being.” Keith pointed out, before then instructing me to connect again with my higher self and ask for help in clearing the energy.

Five minutes later, after meditating with my higher-self connection, asking for help in moving this unpleasant energy up and out, I felt a deep feeling of peacefulness completely consume my abdomen. I was done and I knew it.

I opened my eyes with a huge smile, discussing my experience with Keith. I was then quite surprised when Keith asked me to reconnect with the other being one more time to see where they were at. Reluctantly, I followed his guidance and immediately felt a connection filled with joy, relief, gratitude, and peace.

“You really had an impact on that other parallel-life being.” Keith told me. He then pointed out that in that being’s perception, I was his/her higher self, providing much needed assistance. Keith then told me that often when I connect with my own higher self it very well might be another more-advanced being from a parallel dimension doing the same thing for me that I just did for someone else.

“Cool”, I thought to myself, wondering if I could do this now, on my own, without Keith’s help.

After asking Keith for his opinion on this question, he felt that based on how I handled the journey, that I probably could handle this on my own. I’m not sure I will seek this out immediately, because the experience was quite challenging and in some ways scary – but the end result was very satisfying.

After a pleasant discussion regarding everything that happened, I jokingly asked Keith “So, can you tell me just how I can get the same training that you received so that I can do what you are doing?”

“You are already getting it.” Keith replied with a grin.

“Yes, but how do I know when I am getting it?” I asked with frustration. “When I am with you, I have learned to trust my instincts, because you are there to help me interpret them, but when I am out there on my own, I don’t always have the confidence to trust.”

Keith just smiled and replied that the only difference is that he knows that he can, and I believe that I can’t – implying that I can, but I just don’t believe it yet.

“Close your eyes again.” Keith told me. “Let’s do something else.”

He then told me to go back into meditation and to ask my higher self to give me another lesson that I am ready for.

I did what Keith asked, but did not feel much of anything for a several minute period. Finally I got the courage to speak what was coming up for me, telling Keith that I didn’t feel any strong promptings, but for some reason I was having the subject of spiders brought to the forefront of my mind.

I need to interject in a few additional details here. As I have mentioned before, I have had an ongoing tug-of-war with spider bites here at Las Piramides del Ka. The issue was mostly resolved about two weeks ago when I reached a solid state of temperance regarding my “free allergy shots” – but lately I have begun getting occasional bites again. I have remained peaceful, but slightly concerned nonetheless.

Also, right in the middle of today’s session with Keith (while my eyes were closed), Keith interrupted once to tell me with amazement that a large spider somewhere up above had just finished shedding its skin, and that the empty shell of legs and body had just fallen onto a bench just a few feet away from me.  I found his description fascinating, but never even opened my eyes to look. I was deep in meditation and soon forgot about the spider incident.

Also, right before the start of today’s session, I had noticed a very large ugly spider on the wall of Keith’s bathroom when I had asked permission to use it before our extended session began.

But during our session, when I blurted out to Keith that I was getting a message popping into my head regarding spiders, none of these other spider incidents were even in my radar – I had forgotten them all – the spider feeling came from deep in my right brain intuition.

“Let’s explore this.” Keith told me, as he asked me to again close my eyes and go back to my earliest memories about spiders.

“That is easy.” I told him. “I was a 10 to 11 year old boy, sleeping in a dark basement of a cinder-block home in central Washington State. It was the exact same period in my life as when I began to seriously struggle with my gender confusions. One night I woke up with a body covered in spider bites – bites that itched horribly. For a period of time (I don’t remember how long or how often) the bites continued. That is when I first began to struggle with the issue.”

Keith then amazed me with his insights – insights that now seem so obvious. It surprised me how Keith didn’t make me solve this puzzle on my own, he just spoon fed me with what was being channeled through him – and it was brilliant.

Tears began to flow down my cheeks as he told me that those spiders had been a huge gift to me – that in many ways they had saved my life – at least my spiritual life. He pointed out how I was young, confused, scared, and had new hormones beginning to rage through my body – and that I had no one with whom I could talk about my raging gender struggles. He told me that the spiders were sent to me as a gift to distract me, to give me an outlet for expressing all of my pent up anxiety and emotional energy.

Keith said that without those spiders to help me bring up-and-out my intense internal anxiety, I most likely would have stuffed my gender anxiety energies very deeply into the bottom of my soul – and that if I had stuffed and buried that intense emotion, it probably would have had much more severe impact on the rest of my life – creating major dysfunctions from which I might not have been able to recover.

As Keith talked, tears began to stream even more strongly when I realized that the emotion from this spider insight was every bit as intense as what I experienced during “meditative discussions” with my disowned personality traits earlier this week – especially the ones with “Loud Lucy” and “Intellectual Al”.

I cannot explain what happened, but in today’s short fifteen minute meditation about spiders and in our subsequent discussion, a world of pain and fear was lifted from my shoulders. I instantaneously developed a great love for spiders and how they may have saved my emotional life – literally making it possible for me to be on the spiritual path that I am on today.

Keith walked over to the bench a few feet away from me and picked up the large spider skin – the soft featherweight shell of legs and body still completely intact and looking as ugly as ever. He handed the spider to me, placing it in the palm of my left hand. I stared at it for quite some time before actually bending over and gently kissing one of the gross ugly legs.

“Did you know that spiders are considered a very powerful totem animal in some spiritual traditions?” Keith asked.

“Do you think that the spider might be my totem animal?” I asked inquisitively.

Keith told me that he did not know the answer to that question, indicating that I would need to meditate on that one myself. But soon, he disappeared into his home and returned with a book called “Animal Speak” written by a man named Ted Andrews. He opened the book to a several-page section all about spiders. Keith handed the book to me, asking me to skim through it to see what I thought – to see what jumped out at me.

I wish I had a copy of what I read. I was literally blown away with the insights that flashed into my consciousness with almost every paragraph – insights about how spiders help to balance masculine and feminine energy, and help to stimulate creativity. Talking about the spiritual significance of their beautiful spiraling webs, and how they are both strong and fragile, etc… How I wish my memory was better. The things I read touched me deeply.

By the time I finished reading, I began to seriously believe that spiders and I may indeed have a very deep spiritual connection. I actually began to wonder if the spiders here at Las Piramides have been trying to get my attention – pushing me to develop my deeper connections and spiritual awareness – pushing me to this very discussion with Keith.

Keith promised to scan the book’s section about spiders onto his computer, telling me that I can come back later to put the images on a thumb drive so that I can have my own copy of the description. I cannot wait to get the words so that I can meditate more deeply on the insights.

As I finally left Keith’s presence, over two hours and forty-five minutes after arriving, I felt as if I were floating in the clouds. My spiritual energy was through the roof, and I felt as if I might actually be able to walk in the clouds (figuratively speaking).

Before I skipped joyfully away, I thanked Keith from the bottom of my heart for the incredible spider healing insights – and for the new intuitive tools in my spiritual backpack. Then I commented with a grin, “I think I’ll be back again in a week or two.”

*  *  *  *  *

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. The ugly-but-beautiful spider skin is now sitting proudly on my little alter here in my room – right next to my candle, my incense burner, and my crystals.

Saturday, August 21 – 12:30 p.m.

After turning off my computer last night I remembered a few more things I wanted to say about Friday’s visit with Keith. Yes, I broke my silence for the duration of our session, but resumed immediately thereafter. My intuition tells me that this was the proper and right thing for me to do … and I have no regrets. I take my silence very seriously, but I also will never sacrifice an opportunity for incredible spiritual growth just to follow a rule. It is hard to believe that I have already into my eleventh day of silence.

In my discussions with Keith, I also gained some great insights into balance. Prior to yesterday, I had seen it as an issue that needed to be under control of the rational mind … making sure that I have the right amount of intellect to properly balance just the right amount of emotional and creative energies, etc…  This whole concept of control by the rational mind now seems so silly and bizarre as I think about it.

In discussing balance, we talked about how if you allow both sides to flow naturally then it is quite easy to make course corrections that will keep us going in the right direction. I jumped in and likened the example of balance to driving a powerboat or to flying an airplane – how if we determine that we are off course, we simply make a slight adjustment with a new heading, and we eventually get where we want to go just fine. The further off course we find ourselves, the bigger our correction needs to be, but that is all it is, a simple course correction – not some big sin.

Keith countered back with an example that I loved even more – one involving my favorite symbol of bicycles. He explained that when riding a bicycle, we don’t consciously think about how to maintain balance. In fact, if we think about it, the task becomes more difficult. Once we learn, it becomes a natural instinct, and balance is maintained subconsciously, nearly automatically. If we begin to lean in one direction or the other, we simply steer into that direction and balance is resumed. Likewise, in life, if we begin to get too much “right energy” pushing us to the left, we simply steer into the “left energy” to re-achieve balance – and it can all be on autopilot when we connect with our hearts and intuition, letting them be our guides.

The subject of balance is quite important to me right now, as I am attempting to learn how to balance all areas of my life in relation to the Tree of Life. My discussion with Keith took the “head game” out of the equation and made me realize that the balance is a natural rhythm that will occur when I open all of my aspects and then simply focus on where I want to go – focusing on to where I desire to move.

*  *  *  *  *

This morning, I paid Keith a quick visit to pick up scans of my “Spider pages” from his Animal Speak book. I love having the inspiring words on which to meditate. Some of the things I find fascinating are the following.

Spiders have a two part body, somewhat resembling a figure eight, or the infinity symbol. The number of legs, eight, is also the same spiritual number. In India, spiders are the weavers of illusion (Maya). In Greek mythology, spiders symbolize weaving, measuring, and cutting the threads of life. In some Native American traditions, spider is grandmother, the link to the past and the future.

Spiders teach us to maintain balance – between past and future, physical and spiritual, masculinity and femininity. Spiders awaken the energy of creativity and creation, keeping the feminine energies of creation alive and strong – teaching that creativity is stimulated through polarity and balance.

Spiders are the guardians of ancient languages and alphabets. The “Animal Speak book indicates that those who weave magic with the written word probably have a spider totem.

Spiders are also a symbol of death and rebirth, and are linked as a lunar symbol, with ties to the phases of the moon.

Spiders are usually very delicate, being both a combination of gentleness and strength. They walk the threads of life, maintaining balance on tiny silken threads.

As I ponder on many of these words, I recognize that the spider has indeed been a very important guide in my life, constantly pushing me along my spiritual path. I cannot wait to meditate more on these new insights – and I will for sure be spending more time staring at the magnificent spiral spider webs that are quite common here in the gardens.

*  *  *  *  *

This morning I had three memorable dreams. I won’t go into details here, as they were not especially significant, and the details are in my dream journal. One thing I do want to mention here is that one of the dreams involved five of ten seconds of lucidity before I actually found myself leaving the dream. I didn’t have time in the Lucid dream to do much of anything, but it was great to finally have another Lucid dream just to let me know that maybe I still might achieve my goals in the area of dreaming. I have had a couple of weeks with very minimal remembered dreams, but now that the full moon is approaching I seem to be remembering quite a lot. Stay tuned … for more dream reports.

Right now I am starved and it is time for my runny blended carrot soup, and then I want to go meditate.

Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved