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Monday, October 03, 2011
You Are Your Life
There is an ancient Mayan greeting, that roughly translated is, "I am another yourself."
When I first heard that, I kept thinking about it, and what it actually means. And as I continued down that rabbit hole I realized that within that simple statement sits the core of all the forbidden, secret spiritual knowledge. Because, if I am really you, then I know everything about you. If I know all about you, then I know all about your life. If I know all about your life, then that means my experience of life is what I'm creating.
People fight this idea, and god (literally) knows I certainly have. We fight it because we fear ourselves--we fear what we create, and usually with damn good reason. Add up all the pain, suffering, injustice, catastrophe, drama, and tears, and who would want to cop to creating all that?
Well, the good news is that when you finally DO start to cop to it all, it starts to look more and more like a game you can win. But the game is really multi-handed solitaire, with all the players being different versions of yourself. Life really is a game you play with yourself.
Not surprisingly, at the heart of shamanic knowledge is this core Reality that everything you sense (that means everything) is something you have created. During my shaman training, I had to be broken of the habit of rationalization on this point. I'd say, "Well, OK, I can see how I helped to create what I perceive--I can see that as being reasonable." Then the teacher would snap back, "No. The 'others' creating your experience are you, too." So then I'd say, "Well, we share a mutual experience." Then the retort, "No. There is no sharing. This is you." At that point, I'd usually get my mind blown and shut up. But within a few days, I'd re-embrace the societal norm of individualistic separatism, where everyone you come in contact with has their life (that you know little about), and you have your life that they know little about. It's all about feeling safe in the not-knowing of it all.
This thinking is, of course, dis-empowering and completely unacceptable for any kind of shaman certificate you may be studying for. Shamans call it the Art of Impeccability. And this is, for me, the hardest part of accepting my own creation.
Impeccability means being impeccable with your awareness, so that you at every moment are aware of what you are aware of. It's easy to lapse into an illusion of spectator, or victim, and that is the societal norm--or even requirement in some circles. "This was done to me by forces beyond my control." Boy, say that to a shaman and you're likely to get slapped upside the back of the head. There is no such thing as "beyond your control." There metaphysically cannot be, because the basic assumption (when you incarnated) is that you're creating your experience of time, dimension, body, life. The first lie we buy into is that it is a "participatory reality," or a "consensual creation." Nope. It's all you, baby!
But, but, but... I couldn't possibly know what my friend ate for breakfast--I wasn't there. Well, I've got news for you: because you asked the question, you were there, and can answer it accurately, as long as you maintain impeccability long enough to receive those perceptions.
What we as humans are really good at is separating ourselves into "conscious" and "subconscious." The conscious part is what we are aware of, and the subconscious part is what we are not aware of. Therefore, for spiritual progress to happen, the task is to find out what it is that we are unaware of. How do you do that? Well, every technique taught in any spiritual modality will do--they are all just ways of discovering what you are not aware of.
Patterns are an excellent place to start. Who hasn't had an "a-ha" moment when spotting a pattern in their own behavior? In fact, the human mind is all about patterns. Without the ability to render the senses into patterns, nothing would materialize. The mind IS the pattern-making device we use. The reason the "a-ha" happens from noticing a pattern is because a part of yourself was creating that pattern, and now that you recognize it, you reclaim that unconscious part of yourself, so it feels like a revelation. What's great is that revelations feel good, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the saving grace of the human race.
Once you make this pattern search a regular discipline, all sorts of other patterns will emerge that you had no idea had been related. For instance, I noticed a pattern happening around the change in seasons last week where my body started looking for a cold or allergies or something that I usually would experience from summer to fall. I traced this back to my mom telling me to watch out for the autumn cold. It's reinforced by signs in grocery stores hawking "Flu Shots", and every other myself running around looking for the first signs of a cold or flu. It's an unconscious pattern that gets accepted without awareness. That is what is called NOT being impeccable.
Adopting a Sherlock Holmes-ian attitude of exhuberant investigation into anamolous patterns helps to flush some of these buggers out. What is the energy going on around that ache in my leg? Why am I slightly on edge today? Why am I grumpy? Why am I broke? These are valid investigatory lines and will bear fruit as long as you immpeccably proceed without any attachment to what you may or may not discover.
Asking life in general for answers is always a sure-fire method. There are so many participatory layers of awareness available to you, you can literally ask any question and get a meaningful answer--sometimes it takes some time, but I've never seen that fail. I have, however, failed to continue to ask until it is answered, but that is all a part of impeccability.
Another good tool is "Noticing What You Notice." It's a part of the game of being aware of being aware. When you are investigating for patterns, notice where your attention goes and what your mind does while on the investigation. You'll be amazed sometimes at just how much you really can be aware of, and how your mind works to create a recognizable experience for yourself.
One of my spiritual guides, Anttarr, got me going on this particular article after reading his book, "The Forbidden Gift." Anttarr talks about projections, and how humans project out into their creations parts of themselves that have no outlet within their standard inner experience. We might project out our friend being sick, because we already know we are healthy, but something sick inside of us can't express itself, so it projects out into the form of a sick friend. This is at the core of the Hawaiian technique of Ho’oponopono, where the Kahuna searches within herself to find where she is creating this disease or discomfort sitting in front of her in the form of a client.
Anttarr further sums up, "In all circumstances, the self meets self. So one will find exaggerated features of their own psychology represented by all others in their lives."
Focus on all circumstances and all others. We are all mirrors of our total psychology. Anttarr continues, "Again, self meets self at every turn, and there is no escape. Because it is within, wherever you go and whatever you do you will always recreate the experience in one fashion or another..."
So, as I tend to do, the take-away bumper sticker is, "Wherever you go, there you are."
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
The More Things Change...
A Progressive's Lament
by Boyd Martin
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I'm not by nature a political person. The closest I've come to being classified pretty accurately by someone it was by a channeled entity, Anttarr, through the late Levi Longfellow. Anttarr delivered a long diatribe about how I was a "Psycho-Social Naturalist."
I've mulled that over for years, and have finally come to a definition that relaxes me. Although I consider myself pretty much a social hermit, when I am out "in the world," I enjoy just letting people be who and what they are. I've never felt it was my place to judge or want to change someone. I may have a response to a person's behavior, but I would much rather have them continue to be themselves, despite my responses.
It's because of this view, I think some political analyst somewhere would say I was a "progressive"; perhaps interpreting my "liberal social tolerance" as such. Of course, metaphysically speaking, everyone is really a projection of my own mind, so to judge or criticize somebody else, is just me talking to myself. And that is what becomes what I call the Progressive's Lament. Isn't it just human nature to have a helpful, caring, loving society?
I'm a fan of John Perkins, a lecturer and activist shaman, who now and then presents workshops and seminars. His banner is "Shapeshifting Strategies for Positive Change." Anyone familiar with shamanistic practicies is familiar with shapeshifting. It's where you simply change your shape to change the world. This can mean anything from changing a thought form, to literally changing the body's appearance.
One of Perkin's associates is a fellow named David Korten, who has a very interesting take on global politics. His book list reveals some of his ideology: Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and When Corporations Rule the World.
Korten's whole approach is presenting a worldview where shamanic wisdom of ancient cultures is applied to economics. What he comes to is a world where wealth is shared, and where values of increased awareness, shared consciousness, and earth rituals have trumped corporate acquisition and individual power mongering. In a cooperative village setting, no one owns more than anyone else, and everyone's needs are met.
Obviously, this is an old utopian idea shared by such ignominious visionaries as Marx or Mao, and by the way, by most children. It isn't until direct attempts to manifest these high ideals that modern societal programming ultimately leads to utopian failure.
This isn't to say it can't be done, it's just that, as Korten would say, because corporations own most of the humanity's resources (including mass media, the educational system and health care), there can be no such thing as "sharing everything with everybody." And it's why I believe corporations were invented in the first place.
No one human being could betray their own natures as completely as a corporation can. A corporation can only expand, otherwise it ceases to exist since the stockholders would no longer be getting returns on their "investments." Corporations are a way of dodging social responsibility under the "moral" banner of "shared profits" for the stockholders.
And this is where it all goes off track. Sure corporations share, but only amongst their stockholders, which is why governments have to intervene on behalf of the rest of us. Of course, the people in government are stockholders, too, so that neutralizes much of the "push back" from the government.
What Perkins, Korten, and crowds of others are saying, basically, is that because earth is made up of finite resources, there can be no such thing as an "ever-expanding" corporation. And, by allowing human nature to re-express itself without corporations will ultimately lead to a cooperative, sharing society.
In her book, The Bond, Lynne McTaggart proves that "hard-wired" into the DNA of all humans is the impulse to share, the impulse to help (without reward), and the impulse to take turns. These are not learned behaviors. These are behaviors we are born with. Exhaustive studies over many decades have proven this, and disproven the long-held belief that the best life strategy is a self-serving one--that competition is good for society in general, and that progress would never happen otherwise. This sounds like a corporation talking, doesn't it? The truth is, it is diametrically opposed to basic human nature.
This is not only true of humans. Many species from chimpanzees to elephants to birds exhibit similar cooperative social behaviors. I see it in my cat, Ralph, and dog, Wookie. Ralph never eats all his food, because he wants to share it with Wookie. After Wookie eats, Ralph is back at it, schmoozing me for more food for him.
When political Progressives talk about change, what they are basically wanting to change is the fundamental economic basis of society--corporate power. This is a futile exercise, because it doesn't get to the true root of social problems. I would venture to guess that society exists at all only because of caring, helpful people, and despite the greed and inherent corruption of inhuman corporations, or as Korten calls it, The Empire. Because The Empire is not a person, it doesn't care about people, only itself. Sure, people own parts of it, and run most of it, but they are operating on only one premise: monetary profit--a narrow and dangerous premise indeed.
What is it within ourselves that disconnects us from our family, our community, our nation, our world--the earth itself? That disconnected thing within us is what allows all manner of behaviors and outcomes betraying our basic natures. This betrayal is where we lose our faith, where we begin to fear life, harbor suspicions of our fellow humans, and maintain that tried and true cynical "dog-eat-dog" world view.
When in fact, we are hard-wired to be selfless, to share, even to experience others as ourselves. We all fundamentally embrace the Golden Rule, and automatically want to help others. What if The Empire did that? What a different world that would be!
The next time you hear that old cynic's saw, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," just remember to re-connect to your true nature, and through that re-connection, the world can become one again.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Gratitude is the Attitude
I still see that bumper sticker around: "Practice random acts of kindness." And every time I see it, it makes me feel good. Lately scientific research on human behavior has revealed why. Did you know that even simply witnessing and act of kindness creates endorphins in the brain? Biosciences are starting to conclude that humans are hard-wired to experience pleasure from kindness, gratitude and appreciation. So much so, that even the act of watching someone do something nice for someone else is enough to stimulate de-stressing biochemicals in the brain.
In fact, the HeartMath Institute in California has been studying this phenomena for many years, leading to ground-breaking conclusions about the human mind-body predictament we all experience. In reports published by the Institute, they demonstrate how by self-inducing appreciative feelings, such as gratitude, kindness, and compassion, a powerful cascade of brain chemicals is stimulated, leading to increased well-being and creativity.
"Appreciation is one of the most powerful core feelings of all. Applied sincerely and consistently, it quickly performs an attitude adjustment and shift in perceptions, improving your mind, health and quality of life. Appreciation is a liberating energy, magnetizing creative solutions within and around you. You'll learn to realign sentimentality and low-grade-anxiety into a coherent heart state of appreciation; forgive and appreciate yourself; cultivate resilience; and generate appreciation anytime. With your new understanding of appreciation and sincere practice at engaging the power of the heart, you can make great strides toward living a less stressful and more enjoyable life."
After consciously and specifically feeling gratitude and appreciation on a regular basis, I've concluded that this emotional state must be the most basic, natural state of the human experience. The body relaxes, the breath gets deeper, there is a permeating sensation of relief and fulfillment. It starts out very subtley, but with practice and frequency, the body quickly begins to amplify the effect as if to say, "Yes, yes, give me more of that!"
One question that usually comes up is, "What if I don't have anything to be thankful for?" Besides being a victim statement, it's really not the point. In fact, this is not about questions--it's just about feeling. Gratitude is one of the easiest of feelings to create in yourself, and can be done without needing a "reason." If you need a reason in order to feel gratitude, look no further than your beating heart, your breath, your vision, your hearing, your consciousness--all of these can be "reasons" to be grateful.I have Alanis Morrisette's song, "Thank You" in rotation on my IPod. It came up on random shuffle yesterday, and was perfect timing to show me a whole other, deeper application of the skill of gratitude...
How bout how good it feels to finally forgive you
How bout grieving it all one at a time
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you, thank you silence
Although the context in this song is more about grieving the loss of a loved one, it points to the power of gratitude to heal grief. But it also turned me on to a method of honing my gratitude skill: feeling gratefulness during difficult experiences and feelings.
Just as we challenge ourselves in order to improve, the skill of feeling gratitude works the same way. In fact, try this when you're feeling angry, impatient, sad, bored, or grieving. You'll find this skill has a powerful transcending action to it, putting the more "negative" emotions or experiences into the perspective of the Big Picture.
From anger humor returns, from boredom interest returns, and from grieving beautiful poignancy returns. The skill of gratitude returns the True Self to you--it normalizes everything, so you can feel the true reality of what is going on. That's why I've concluded that gratitude and appreciation are fundamental feeling states of the human experience. All other states arise from this one state.
Gratitude is the feeling of coherence, balance, and harmony, and by feeling that feeling, the body responds immediately--balancing hormones, cortisol, blood sugar, blood pressure, immune system functions and even pH (all of these things have been scientifically measured from feeling gratitude).
A Deeper Gratitude Practice
There is a shamanic practice I like to call, "Appreciating My Situation." And it goes like this:
- Breathe deeply.
- Bring attention to your heart.
- Zoom in on the cells of your heart.
- Zoom further in on the atomic structure of those cells.
- Zoom into the vast space between each atom (95% of any object is space).
- Now feel deeply gratitude/appreciation and watch it expand through that space out to the entire Universe.
- Breathe in that gratitude.
- Notice how everything you sense is embued and radiating gratitude.
- Breathe and let go.
My guru once told me, "Gratitude is God feeling expressed." I've always remembered that quote, but only until now do I truly understand it.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
You Are the Healer
by Boyd Martin
I usually get really fired up when the subject of corporate medicine violating personal power comes up. But, I admirably held my tongue the other day, when a musician friend of mine came into a gig all stooped over, in obvious pain, looking pale and weak. From years of abusing his own health, he has ended up at age 52 with degenerated lumbar discs, which cause him so much pain, his doctor has him on a daily regimen of morphine. It had been valium, but after a while that wasn't doing anything for him except making him sicker, so in all medical wisdom his doctor simply prescribed something way stronger.
Well, my friend, being the party-hardy fellow he has always been, ended up abusing this prescription of morphine, so by the end of the prescription period he had already taken all the doses, and now he was without medication, and nearly writhing in pain.
I remember several years ago, my musician friend told me that if he ended up getting lung cancer from smoking too much, liver damage from drinking while on prescription drugs, or incapacitated for any other reason, modern medical science will just fix it, and he'd be fine... presumably to continue smoking, drinking and abusing drugs.
I asked him if his doctors ever recommended he stop smoking and drinking so much. He said his doctor smoked, and no, which was fine by him, because they would just prescribe more drugs.
I personally think my friend should probably sue his doctor for malpractice, but then I realize that he has kept that doctor for a good reason: to get high and have a enabler for all his bad health habits. This really had very little to do with the doctor and everything to do with how my friend was being a doctor to himself.
In another case, I regularly speak with a customer of Subtle Energy Solutions, who has had many health challenges, but has always either self-treated or gone to a Chinese medicine practitioner. One day, because of a requirement by her insurance company, she went to the insurance company's M.D. for a physical. She called me, all shakey, and said that this doctor was very concerned about her health, and that he practically coerced her into getting immediate testing for heart and liver damage. She was devastated, because she had been feeling great, her life was going well, and she was making vacation plans with the family. Now all that was in jeopardy, she thought.
I suggested that she simply go see her naturopath, get blood tests, and calm down, because the fear installed in her by this M.D. was having more effect on her health than anything else going on in her life.
A few weeks later, we spoke again, and I asked what had happened with the scary M.D. She said she'd gone to her naturopath, got some acupuncture for stress, because that's all the naturopath could diagnose from her symptoms. She got the blood tests, which all turned out to be within normal ranges, and she was greatly relieved. And then she got annoyed, and soon angry at the insurance company for using this scary M.D. who was obviously running some kind of fear tactic to get new patients.
That re-reminded me of the glut of scary medical information that gets thrown at the general public through pharmaceutical ads plastered across TVs, magazines, newspapers and the Internet. Much of this "information" is so generalized, that anyone has had this or that symptom at sometime in their life, which is the point. Corporate medicine must make a profit like everyone else, and it doesn't really matter if scaring people works to sell their products.
Yet, there is a much deeper point to these observations, and I keep coming back to this: we are all creating what happens to us. The trap in this, however, is that we have been convinced by Life that we have limited or no effect on what we experience. We are afraid of what we might not know. And this is exactly what "experts" rely on to create fear in potential clients, so these new clients will run to them to resolve their "unknown" crises.
"You may have a more serious condition," "Your financial assets may be in danger," "Your credit card or computer could be hacked," "You may not know the Truth about yourself!" After a while, you come to believe that every moment carries some risk of fatality, or incapacitating injury. The metaphysical point here is that none of it is true until you agree. And that is the real Truth about yourself right there.
In the book, The Bond, by Lynne McTaggert, she makes a great case about the psychological value of belonging to a group trumping the effect of personal lifestyles. One of several examples she cites, was a recent extensive study of Japanese immigrants. The study compared immigrants who maintained the traditional Japanese cultural behaviors within groups or communities doing the same; against those immigrants who eschewed their traditional culture and embraced a new American set of values and behaviors.
After analyzing 35 years of data, the researchers found that the immigrants who maintained their Japanese culture with a group (such as a large family or community) lived significantly longer (Japan has the highest number of centenarians per capita in the world), than those immigrants who abandoned their cultural roots. This was independent of diet and other health behaviors. In fact, many of the centenarians in the traditional group had remained committed smokers from a young age.
Therefore, it was concluded that it was the traditional cultural bond amongst the members of the group that trumped anything else for longevity. The sense of belonging was more important to health than any other factor.
What I took away from this information is that the mind-body connection alone ultimately determines health; and if you feel alienated, out of touch with humanity and Nature, fearful of every moment, without love in your life in some form, that is a blueprint for disease.
In shamanistic healing practices, every uneasiness, discomfort, pain, ailment, disease, or fear is a signal. It is your body telling you something about how you are disconnected from the True Self. The True Self is radiant, vibrant, unconditionally loving, infinitely creative, and unlimited in its power. Therefore, what is not that is The Work. By finding the patterns of belief, justification, and decision that have taken you away from True Self, you are released to be Who You Truly Are.
What a different world this would be if we taught our children this very thing. They are radiant, creative, loving and meaningful--their thoughts and feelings determine their body's responses. Instead, our children are barraged with images of violence, demeaning behaviors, alienation and disempowerment. We all grew up with that, and that is our legacy.
Therefore, bottom, bottom line is that honest, penetrating self-inquiry out of the infinitely deep well of love in our hearts will trump any perceived outward condition, circumstance, or disease. Yes, it is work, but what other kind of work is there? Really.
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I usually get really fired up when the subject of corporate medicine violating personal power comes up. But, I admirably held my tongue the other day, when a musician friend of mine came into a gig all stooped over, in obvious pain, looking pale and weak. From years of abusing his own health, he has ended up at age 52 with degenerated lumbar discs, which cause him so much pain, his doctor has him on a daily regimen of morphine. It had been valium, but after a while that wasn't doing anything for him except making him sicker, so in all medical wisdom his doctor simply prescribed something way stronger.Well, my friend, being the party-hardy fellow he has always been, ended up abusing this prescription of morphine, so by the end of the prescription period he had already taken all the doses, and now he was without medication, and nearly writhing in pain.
I remember several years ago, my musician friend told me that if he ended up getting lung cancer from smoking too much, liver damage from drinking while on prescription drugs, or incapacitated for any other reason, modern medical science will just fix it, and he'd be fine... presumably to continue smoking, drinking and abusing drugs.
I asked him if his doctors ever recommended he stop smoking and drinking so much. He said his doctor smoked, and no, which was fine by him, because they would just prescribe more drugs.
I personally think my friend should probably sue his doctor for malpractice, but then I realize that he has kept that doctor for a good reason: to get high and have a enabler for all his bad health habits. This really had very little to do with the doctor and everything to do with how my friend was being a doctor to himself.
In another case, I regularly speak with a customer of Subtle Energy Solutions, who has had many health challenges, but has always either self-treated or gone to a Chinese medicine practitioner. One day, because of a requirement by her insurance company, she went to the insurance company's M.D. for a physical. She called me, all shakey, and said that this doctor was very concerned about her health, and that he practically coerced her into getting immediate testing for heart and liver damage. She was devastated, because she had been feeling great, her life was going well, and she was making vacation plans with the family. Now all that was in jeopardy, she thought.
I suggested that she simply go see her naturopath, get blood tests, and calm down, because the fear installed in her by this M.D. was having more effect on her health than anything else going on in her life.
A few weeks later, we spoke again, and I asked what had happened with the scary M.D. She said she'd gone to her naturopath, got some acupuncture for stress, because that's all the naturopath could diagnose from her symptoms. She got the blood tests, which all turned out to be within normal ranges, and she was greatly relieved. And then she got annoyed, and soon angry at the insurance company for using this scary M.D. who was obviously running some kind of fear tactic to get new patients.That re-reminded me of the glut of scary medical information that gets thrown at the general public through pharmaceutical ads plastered across TVs, magazines, newspapers and the Internet. Much of this "information" is so generalized, that anyone has had this or that symptom at sometime in their life, which is the point. Corporate medicine must make a profit like everyone else, and it doesn't really matter if scaring people works to sell their products.
Yet, there is a much deeper point to these observations, and I keep coming back to this: we are all creating what happens to us. The trap in this, however, is that we have been convinced by Life that we have limited or no effect on what we experience. We are afraid of what we might not know. And this is exactly what "experts" rely on to create fear in potential clients, so these new clients will run to them to resolve their "unknown" crises.
"You may have a more serious condition," "Your financial assets may be in danger," "Your credit card or computer could be hacked," "You may not know the Truth about yourself!" After a while, you come to believe that every moment carries some risk of fatality, or incapacitating injury. The metaphysical point here is that none of it is true until you agree. And that is the real Truth about yourself right there.
In the book, The Bond, by Lynne McTaggert, she makes a great case about the psychological value of belonging to a group trumping the effect of personal lifestyles. One of several examples she cites, was a recent extensive study of Japanese immigrants. The study compared immigrants who maintained the traditional Japanese cultural behaviors within groups or communities doing the same; against those immigrants who eschewed their traditional culture and embraced a new American set of values and behaviors.
After analyzing 35 years of data, the researchers found that the immigrants who maintained their Japanese culture with a group (such as a large family or community) lived significantly longer (Japan has the highest number of centenarians per capita in the world), than those immigrants who abandoned their cultural roots. This was independent of diet and other health behaviors. In fact, many of the centenarians in the traditional group had remained committed smokers from a young age.
Therefore, it was concluded that it was the traditional cultural bond amongst the members of the group that trumped anything else for longevity. The sense of belonging was more important to health than any other factor.
What I took away from this information is that the mind-body connection alone ultimately determines health; and if you feel alienated, out of touch with humanity and Nature, fearful of every moment, without love in your life in some form, that is a blueprint for disease.In shamanistic healing practices, every uneasiness, discomfort, pain, ailment, disease, or fear is a signal. It is your body telling you something about how you are disconnected from the True Self. The True Self is radiant, vibrant, unconditionally loving, infinitely creative, and unlimited in its power. Therefore, what is not that is The Work. By finding the patterns of belief, justification, and decision that have taken you away from True Self, you are released to be Who You Truly Are.
What a different world this would be if we taught our children this very thing. They are radiant, creative, loving and meaningful--their thoughts and feelings determine their body's responses. Instead, our children are barraged with images of violence, demeaning behaviors, alienation and disempowerment. We all grew up with that, and that is our legacy.
Therefore, bottom, bottom line is that honest, penetrating self-inquiry out of the infinitely deep well of love in our hearts will trump any perceived outward condition, circumstance, or disease. Yes, it is work, but what other kind of work is there? Really.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Earth Wants to Connect, Part 2
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In Part 1 of this article, I asked Earth to show me what to write about as I sat barefoot upon Her. I was somewhat surprised where I went with the article, as it wasn't my initial intention to go there. But, as with most inner explorations I believe Earth directs us to the areas in our psyches where there is the most potential for growth. As a result, it was a cathartic experience, not without its drama and subsequent feedback from readers--not all positive.For me, Earth always tells me to speak from the heart: what is it that inspires me? What is it I feel passionate about? What is it I feel moved to say? I find that when I reveal my bare skin to Earth by standing directly in my experience with Her, there is a reciprocal exchange of vulnerability--a revealing of a Mind and Heart of Earth. There is a lot going on there that us humans have been missing out on since we got all wrapped up in "civilization" with all its attention-grabbing politics, bright, shiny, spinning objects and brain-arresting mass communications. We've come to view this living planet that gives us life as something to protect ourselves from, and then to exploit in order to produce more bright, shiny, spinning objects for our amusement and gratification.
I think those truly connected to Earth automatically speak from the heart, and that is not always what other people not so connected want to hear. That said, I've also been shown that when people connect to Earth as a community, peace reigns, creativity blossoms, physical maladies fade away, and life becomes about experiencing the joy of infinite possibility. And all this from the simple act of removing one's shoes and socks and putting down bare feet on the ground. The coverings, the veils if you will, are removed, and we can hear what Earth is telling us, and begin to have a meaningful relationship with this very conscious, loving, cosmic sphere. She rewards us with better health, elevated emotions and renewed vibrancy.
In the book, Earthing, there are dozens of accounts from people who "ground" themselves every day, and many of them speak about a profound inner calm that develops as a result. This deep peace can be scientifically explained as the change that occurs when an accumulated positive charge in the human body (brain) is discharged. This accumulated charge, if not discharged by grounding, has profound effects on human health. In fact, so many different types of maladies resolve with grounding I'm led to the conclusion that most of the health decline people suffer as they "age," is simply because they have a positive ion buildup due to lack of grounding.The doctors and scientists who have run hundreds of double-blind experiments on this "grounding" phenomenon at the Earthing Institute report that with as little as 20-30 minutes per day of barefoot (or other methods) earth connection over several days, has normalized blood pressure, blood sugar, thyroid and liver function. It's as if the human body goes into defensive mode against all the positive ions, and creates all manner of inflammatory conditions from arthritis to cancer. It's the body's way of telling you to get grounded.
WAYS TO GROUND
Since I've been grounding myself at least 8 hours a day over the past two weeks, I've noticed a marked increase in energy, a calmer outlook on life, and have measured a 10 point drop in blood pressure. I've even lost six pounds, which I attribute to improved thyroid function. Another excellent result has been a lack of morning grogginess that used to grind on until mid-afternoon. I'm waking up refreshed and positive, instead of "making myself" wake up to face another set of stressors.
The overall idea of grounding is that some part of your skin is touching earth directly, or touching something that is conductive that is in contact with the earth. This causes the positive ion discharge, and the beneficial buildup of negative ions. So, here are a few ways you can ground:
- Go barefoot in the grass, on bare earth or concrete (which is conductive, but not asphalt which is not).
- Wade in the surf, swim in the ocean, or other body of water sitting on earth. (Salt water in particular is extremely conductive).
- Touch or hug a tree.
- Do gardening without gloves.
- When tent camping, sleep directly on the ground (cotton, wool and nylon are conductive, especially when damp).
- Use conductive bed sheets that plug into the ground of a 3-prong wall socket, or a wire that runs to any ground connector.
- Use a conductive foot pad and/or mouse pad while sitting at the computer or at the office (see link above).
- Use conductive adhesive patches to wear directly on an inflammation site, plugged in to a ground (see link above).
- Use grounded shoes (see link above).
Such issues as the current climate change and the concomitant rise in natural disasters, I believe, could be diminished by direct human-earth contact. If nothing else, maybe the message Earth is trying to send to us would be truly heard, and human behaviors on a planetary scale would change--behaviors that pollute the Earth's air and water, and destroy the natural balances Earth uses to remain calm.
So, it's time--more than ever--for everyone to go BAREFOOTIN'!
Friday, August 05, 2011
Earth Wants to Connect
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Today it was a warm, luscious morning, so I decided to eat my breakfast outside. I had moved one of the patio chairs yesterday onto the grass to make way for the sprinkler, so I decided breakfast would be nice sitting in that chair.I walked onto the lawn with bare feet. I hadn't been barefoot yet this year because the weather here had been so cool and wet, so the sensation of bare feet on grass was, well, odd. I suddenly felt like I had stepped onto the back of a vast animal--a gigantic living, breathing creature.
I felt my heartbeat slow, my back relax, and I took a big, deep breath. It was the Earth greeting me in all her bioelectric power. As I sat eating with my feet planted in the grass, it felt like I was feeding the world. After all, I had completed the circuit and plugged in my humble feast to everything hungry in the world.
So, I decided to write this article with my feet on grass-laden earth, in hopes that enough of what Mother Earth has to say to me I can hear and put into words.
She immediately reminded me that it was She who healed me from an extremely stressful and soul-numbing encounter with what I have called the "Metaphysical Marines," otherwise known as Scientology. Yes, I was in a cult, but at the time I joined up, I was a tenderfoot 20 year-old, with world-changing visions and a rebel's heart. But after 10 years of power playing in a group where talk of God was literally considered a dramatized implant, I slowly became aware that I was missing something.
Soon my rebel ways were turned back on the group, and I found myself not only out of a job, but out of a place to live, with hundreds of enemies who thought nothing of wishing me dead. At least, that's the way it felt as I pitched my tent in a state park, hiding from larger-than-real adversaries who could at any moment lunge out from behind a tree, eyes red with anger and felonious intent.
I remember how re-assuring it felt to lie down on the earth. There was something telling me everything was going to be okay. I now know it was Mother Earth.
My wife and I moved from park to park, since the time limit was one week; but during that time, and I think mostly unbeknownst to me, I was being repaired--healed of obvious emotional traumas, and those I didn't know I had.
We met up with itinerant cable company workers installing the first cable TV wires along Highway 101 north of L.A. There were big bonfires on the beach at night, rough language, but lots of laughter and open hearts. We all lived with Nature--it was just part of the scene.The time came to follow an opportunity. I heard from one of the campers that there was a great music scene up in Portland, and she even was offering her house up there till we could get on our feet. So, we packed up the rickity old Toyota with a blown head gasket, and made our way slowly to the promised land.
After we arrived, things started to look a whole lot different. The generous "friend" turned out to be a coke head, who was prone to outbursts of rage, and as things proceeded downward in our relationship, it wasn't too long before my wife attempted suicide, and as I returned from the hospital, all our stuff had been strewn about on the front lawn.
As night fell, I stuffed everything back into a bag, set up a tent several hundred yards from the house, near a potato plot, dug up some spuds, cooked them over a small fire, and laid down to sleep in very black darkness. I laid there on Mother Earth, remembering recently read words from James Clavell's Shogun. Something like, "When the Samarai reaches his lowest point, he rejoices--for the only way is up." I knew I was at my lowest point.
The next day, I was strangely energized. I hoisted the stuff over my back and grabbed a bus back to the hospital. I spilled my guts to the social worker there, who performed what I consider magic. Within eight hours, we were in an apartment, had food for a week, and after a call to Kelly Services, I had a job starting the next day.
We eventually got our own cottage up near Mt. Hood in the forest. I got a car and commuted two hours each way to Kelly jobs. Each day, as I drove home and reached the forest line, my body relaxed, I took a deep breath, and gave thanks for Mother Nature--for I was sure if it weren't for Her, my life could have very easily ended badly.
Ever since then, I've made it a point to make Mother a part of my experience. I believe there is a true intelligence and love emanating from Earth, and we all can literally plug in to that love and intelligence by simply taking off our foot coverings, and making contact.
For the book, Earthing by Dr. Stephen Sinatra, there was considerable research done about using physical earth contact as a healing modality. What Sinatra has consistently found is that the simple act of going barefoot on the ground, or lying on the ground:
- Defuses the cause of inflammation and improves or eliminates the symptoms of many inflammation-related disorders.
- Reduces or eliminates chronic pain.
- Improves sleep in most cases.
- Increases energy.
- Lowers stress and promotes calmness in the body by cooling down the nervous system and stress hormones.
- Normalizes the body's biological rhythms.
- Thins blood and improves blood pressure and flow.
- Relieves muscle tension and headaches.
- Lessens hormonal and menstrual symptoms.
- Dramatically speeds healing and helps prevent bedsores.
- Reduces or eliminates jet lag.
- Protects the body against protentially health-disturbing environmental electromagnetic fields (EMF)
- Accelerates recovery from intense athletic activity.
It's time--more than ever--for everyone to go BAREFOOTIN'!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Life Really IS Fair
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Fairness usually comes onto the radar of very young kids, and probably shortly after they know enough language to begin to sort out the family politics. "That's not fair!" was one of the first complaints I remember making. It usually had something to do with comparing what I had with what my sister had, and when there was a difference, feeling slighted. As I grew older, I suspected that the whole fairness game was social programming installed by parents and the behaviors of my young friends, who got it from their parents.Later, as a teenager, I started to see the disparities of opportunity among social groups, some of it racially driven, some of it driven by other factors of physical appearance or behaviors. If I was "too tall" or "too smart" or "not athletic" or some other something that I was or was not, there always seemed to be some reward I was missing because of it. Rarely did I pay much attention to those things I was getting from being who I was and the social strata I lived in. It was always about how I wasn't something, so I couldn't get something.
As a young man working as a salesman, and frequently getting the life stories of my customers thrown at me to explain why they couldn't buy what I was selling, I concluded that life is just really random. If you happened to be in the right place at the right time, wearing the right color of hat, you got your reward. Sure, hard work might be part of getting the things you want, but when there were two people in identical situations, and one of them won the lottery, you start to think of life as a crap shoot.
Later, as I delved deeply into my spiritual training, I became aware of the concept of "karma," and this changed my life. John Lennon was the first person I heard use the term, but I thought it was some form of paranoia (as in Lennon's lyrics, "Karma's gonna get you..."). As my studies revealed, though, there was a lot more to it than that.
In both Western and Eastern religious belief systems, this idea of retribution, or the "wages of sin", runs rampant throughout. If you killed somebody in a past life, it was only a matter of an incarnation or two, and that person would be coming back to kill you, or something else dire was going to happen until the "karmic debt" was paid. And this seemed sensible to me at the time. It explained why on the surface things seemed so unfair sometimes. That young child starving to death in Africa was living out a karmic punishment for having starved someone else in a past life. Or, a man was robbed and mugged because he had done the same to someone else. It so tidily explained life's ups and downs.
Then, quite out of the blue one day, my guru took me aside and stated, "Karma is an illusion. It has nothing to do with your true position in life." That was a stretch for me, especially at the time when I was going through a personal crisis. "You are living in crisis because you believe you have a debt," he declared. And I had to say, yes, that had been going through my head lately.
"Karma dissolves in the face of forgiveness," he whispered to me. "But you have only yourself to forgive." I felt a burden lift slightly, and said, "I forgive people all the time for doing stuff to me," I said without listening.
"Other people are none of your business. Forgive yourself for your unwanted situation, and karma is automatically satisfied." I mulled that over for months after that, and tried to forgive myself on many occasions, but it was hard. There always seemed to be something or someone else that needed forgiving more than me. Then it hit me. I was being a victim.
The victim only looks to blame others for their circumstances, and will only forgive others who have hurt them after the perpetrators have been sufficiently repented. It suddenly looked like some great soap opera to me. Nowhere in the this drama of fairness is anyone forgiving themselves. So, it just keeps on going 'round and 'round. It was the Wheel of Karma!
Later, in my shaman training, I came to realize that what I observe as my experience is being directly created by me. That was another hard concept to grasp, let alone embrace and experience. The reason it's difficult is because the ego measures its own worth based on the circumstances it sees. And, because it is always "right," any unwanted circumstances must be coming from some other source then self.
Thus, I reasoned, the concept of karma, is really only true for those who believe it, and those who are in wretched circumstances apparently beyond their control are there because they are either victims, or believe in karma.
My guru was unimpressed by this reasoning. "What is wretched? Maybe that person is in bliss," he said. "Impossible! He's starving, bitten by flies, has no way to escape, he can't imagine anything else. He's in hell! How could bliss ever enter into it?"
"That's not the point," guru said dryly. "'Wretched' is a value judgment. Whether or not he was in bliss or in hell, is not your business to decide. How about forgiving yourself for the existence of his circumstances? You are seeing 'wretchedness' so aren't you creating it?" Mmmm... I hadn't really looked at it that way.
Soon after this bombshell, I became aware of an ancient Hawaiian healing modality called Ho'oponopono performed by Kahuna priests. It involves forgiving themselves for the diseases and maladies of everyone in contact with them. This was a revered practice because it worked--a sort of extreme form of taking responsibility. From a shamanistic perspective, the priest is actually removing the illusion keeping the lie of the disease in place--the lie being the denial of health. He begins to no longer perceive disease in the subject, and as this awareness manifests in the physical world, so does the healing. Deep in the Hawaiian culture is the belief that emotions and behaviors create disease, as is true in modern mind-body medicine.
So, when I heard, "Life just isn't fair!" from my teenaged niece, I said, "It's as fair as you make it out to be." And when you consider all the factors, and the arbitrariness of such judgments of fairness, you have to conclude that life really IS fair.
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