Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Rx for Spiritual Emergency

Near-death researcher P.M.H. Atwater, herself a 3x near-death experiencer, has created a wealth of information over the past three decades for anyone in the throes of what feels like a near-death experience—which, as I can personally attest, is precisely how the descent to the core of our being often feels!

Since the entire planet is undergoing this sea change in consciousness now, I found many of the tips in her book, Beyond the Light invaluable to share. Wish I'd known this when I was in the midst of my own process in 1993-94; I was scared witless not knowing I was undergoing a Kundalini/Ku awakening. (I've also posted related information in my Zaadz.com pod, Living In Your Light Mind ~ The Remember Room, a cyber sanctuary to support one another's soul growth, and in my upcoming February e-newsletter, What Shines).

This is what Atwater has the say about Kundalini/Ku breakthroughs:

"Kundalini/Ku energies transform the nervous system and the endocrine glands. They promote the rising of the creative life force within the individual. Since physical sensations can sometimes be confusing, here's a list of what is traditional to the experience (so you won't think you're crazy):

• muscles twitching, cramping or spasms
• tremors, shaking, convulsions
• prickly, itching, tingling, or vibrating sensations under the skin
• rhythmic, spasmodic, or graceful involuntary movements
• sensations of intense heat or cold
• blockages in the back, throat, base of skull or head
• surges of tremendous high vibrational energy in the spine or throughout the system.

To slow these energies down so you can assimilate the changes more easily, Atwater suggests the following:

• Either stop meditating for awhile, or redirect your energy after a meditative session to others in the form of a healing prayer;
• Drink plenty of pure water; if possible, carry a water bottle with you;
• Eat meat, grain dishes, solid (e.g., root) vegetables, and dairy products. Avoid salads and incomplete proteins until your enrgies are under control;
• Eat less, but more frequently;
• Stop using sugar. For sweeteners, use limited quantities of honey and fruit;
• Absolutely avoid spices, stimulants, alcohol, tobacco;
• Engage in manual labor and/or exercise programs. Housecleaning, gardening, digging ditches, scrubbing walls, are all wonderful ways to redirect and manage this kind of energy;
• Give yourself ample time to rest and think. Take walks, contemplate, relax;
• Avoid stressful demands and environments for as long as possible;
• Don't resist the changes; flow with them;
• Ask in prayer for positive guidance, knowing that you will receive it (you WILL!);
• Adopt an attitude of gratitude;
• Laugh; humor is an amazing healer and balancer;
• Take up a creative endeavor, craft or hobby ~ and enjoy!"

She also mentions at some length the importance of natural lithium, a cell salt, which helps bond spirit in matter. The easiest way to replenish your store is by using lemons and limes, which are rich sources of this trace mineral. Squeeze fresh lemon into your daily drinking water, and/or use it in food preparation. You can also wear or carry a piece of lepidolite, its counterpart in the gem and mineral kingdom.

Happy transmuting, dear ones!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Musical Food for Thought

Last night I saw Dar Williams in concert here in Petaluma, California. The socially and politically astute folk singer/songwriter was deLightful, and I was as moved by her music as I was by this interview with her I read a few weeks ago, which prompted me to visit her website and discover she was about to perform locally. Given that Dar and I go 'way back, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see her in person—even if we have yet to actually meet!

Here's the backstory:

In 1995, deep into my spiritual emergence, I was preparing to drive from New York State to New Mexico. I happened to read a magazine blurb about a guide to natural food stores and healthy restaurants, Tofu Tollbooth, compiled by Dar and her friends as they toured the U.S., because they refused to eat McDonald's-type fare on the road. At the time, Dar had several albums to her credit, but had not risen to her current musical stature. I was able to reach her by phone, and she generously agreed to ship me the book while my check "crossed" in the mail to her, since I was leaving in just a few days. The book proved invaluable, and I bought the update in 1998 (which served me well when I again drove cross-country, in the summer of 2000).

Though Dar and Co. no longer publish the guide, and of course it's now much easier to find what we need online, a paperback in the car still comes in handy when you're hungry and there's nothing but Arby's or Burger King on the major arteries (another good reason to travel backroads, if you have the time and patience). In 2006 I discovered what Tofu Tollbooth has morphed into: an equally handy guide now known as Healthy Highways. Check it out before you take to the road...

And about Dar's concert: it was as emotionally and spiritually delicious as the healthy eating guides. I quote some of her lyrics in my February e-newsletter, What Shines, due out by the end of the week.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Wisdom from Wealth

There are many ways to be rich...

This anecdote about one of the world's wealthiest men demonstrates how he got that way:

Warren Buffet is known to be a generous man. Recently he announced his plans to make the biggest single contribution to philanthropy ever. But it’s also common knowledge that Buffet is generous in other aspects of life as well.

According to Bill George in Forbes (“The master gives back”), an MBA student from Kazakhstan was the recipient of Buffet’s giving spirit when the student attended a function at which Buffet was present. The student left his camera in the Berkshire Hathaway boardroom. He dearly wanted some pictures of himself with Buffet—and so, true to his folksy form, Buffet offered to give the student a ride back to the office to pick up the camera.

During the drive, Buffet offered some advice to the young man. Do what you love, he told him. He also revealed to the student that his personal goal was not to live like a king, and that he liked living a fairly simple life, eating simple meals and driving a regular car.

It was then that Buffet offered this nugget of wisdom: “Be a nice person.... It’s so simple that it’s almost too obvious to notice. Look around at people you like. Isn't it a logical assumption that if you like traits in other people, then other people would like you if you developed those same traits?”

Monday, January 22, 2007

Putting All the Peaces Together

What's exciting about peace is that it's nonpartisan and pan-generational: a cause that transcends all boundaries and borders and beliefs. It never goes out of fashion; sort of like the word "cool", which has been in vogue since the 1940s.

The campaign to establish a U.S. Department of Peace is gaining momentum. First proposed during the administration of George Washington (yes, the concept of a Peace Department is as old as our country!), the idea has been revived and championed by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who is running for president in 2008.

The first Department of Peace conference took place in Washington, D.C. in September, 2005. The upcoming Conference, scheduled for February 3-5, 2007 (Friday through Sunday) promises to be a blockbuster event, drawing the likes of Deepak Chopra, Kucinich, Marianne Williamson, Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith (founder of Agape International Spiritual Center in L.A.) and Denise Brown (sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, and an ardent crusader to raise awareness of domestic violence).

Equally exciting is the Student Peace Alliance, formed at Brandeis University in March 2006 and now active in 15 schools across the U.S. Their mission is to bring a culture of peace to college and high school campuses nationwide while supporting the U.S. Department of Peace legislation.

In the words of Student Peace Alliance newsletter editors Jennifer and Natalie, "We, as students, have the ability to truly shape the course of modern history. The Student Peace Alliance is the embodiment of youthful strength and dedication to create the world in which we want to live: peaceful, progressive, unified and abundant with opportunities for positive growth. We invite and challenge you to join us and others in creating history."

Because Gandhi's life and work is the key thread on which this and generally all peace initiatives are woven, it's intriguing to me to remember that the day I turned off the TV forever (in April, 1994) I was watching the film "Gandhi." Early on, he is shot. At that moment, I clicked the remote, and that was the last time I watched television. Can't say I miss it.

For further perspectives on peace, inclusive of other voices, please e-mail me and request Issue #63/September 2006 of my e-newsletter, What Shines. This issue is titled, "Pax Gaia: Putting All the Peaces Together."

Blessings...

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Spiritual Collateral

Aluna Joy Yaxk'in really nails it when she describes what's up in 2007 as "spiritual collateral" in her latest Center of the Sun newsletter. Beginning with the final weeks of 2006, with Pluto at the Galactic Center, she recounts what it was like for so many of us:

"Any place within you that was not strong enough to go to the next level was burned away. This has been a painful and sometimes a brutal process. You have experienced massive symptoms in your weakest areas, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Stomach and digestion and sinus areas were hard hit. Many of you have felt completely leveled and were not able to do anything but sit it out. Your nerves are toast . . . like you have post-traumatic stress syndrome, the cosmic type. Motivation, knowing what you want to do, and short-term memory have also been huge issues. Even in this intense testing ground, many of you FLEW HIGH while burning. It was blissfully painful. You vacillated between wild and beautiful dreams with not being able to sleep at all. You have risen. You are now the mythical phoenix rising from the burning ashes.

"You allowed yourself to sit with the burning . . . you felt it . . . and you learned from it. This has been an immense internal earthquake, and you have shifted and transmuted huge amounts of energy. You have aligned yourself to a higher frequency and one step closer to the new indescribable world ahead of you. Within the great depths of your consciousness, you were able to discover and put into action this higher state of awareness, and you have come to know and understand a deeper level of true compassion and unconditional love. You have also realized a deeper awareness of self worth. You will not tolerate being compromised again. You have amassed a great amount of spiritual collateral that you can now put into use.

"Many of you were asked to make HUGE choices in life that called on your deepest integrity and highest awareness. Some of these choices caused you great pain and were a huge turning point that will change your life and personal relationships with family and friends forever. Any personal relationship you had at this time that was not operating with truth and integrity was transmuted, many times by your own painful but right choices. You learned to apply tough love, a.k.a. unconditional love. These choices triggered divorce-like shifts for you. Divorces from family and friends that were feeding off your spiritual collateral.

"Let us explain further. Where you spend your spiritual collateral, your divine God-given energy, is exactly where the universe will give you more of that like energy. {This is the Law of Attraction at work}. If you spend your energy on a lost cause, or toss it into a bottomless pit, the universe will think you choose to waste your energy in this way, and give you more situations to waste your energy. You have learned to clearly see where you are wasting your energy. You have also learned how to stop this self destructive pattern."

The REALLY good news? We are now more conscious than ever before of being one soul family, and the old scripts are ash.

Aluna writes, "The bridge between you, your past and history has been crossed over and joyfully burned. You can now can let go of your painful past and reinvent yourself. You will no longer see the world through your wounds, pain or fears. You have taken another powerful step towards freedom and mastery. The collective balance is being tipped toward a higher vibration because of your commitment to impeccability. The more you act and live from this higher vibration, the quicker the rest of the world will follow suit. It has to. Expect that this is so, and it is. This isn't a miracle. It is simply the result of your hard work to stay positive and act from impeccability."

Thursday, January 18, 2007

How to Create Health, Wealth, and Wisdom: Forgive!

On this New Moon, as Venus, symbolic of the Divine Feminine, conjuncts Neptune, the Dreamweaver, astrologer Tara Greene offers an intriguing interpretation of forgiveness:

"Venus is Love, the Feminine, values; she rules signs Libra (the balance, self and others, relationships, beauty) and Taurus (Earth, tools, the voice, the throat chakra). Neptune is the ruler of sign Pisces (compassion, forgiveness, completion, bliss, karma, endings). New Moons are always new beginnings; this New Moon is at the 29th degree of Capricorn, an earth sign, of building, structure, aspiration."

Tara calls this Forgiveness Day. Why? We have a saying: "Forgive us our sins". She says,

"Sin is from the Latin root Sinister, the left-hand side. Originally this was a patriarchal twisting to deny the Feminine, The Goddess, from whom we all issue; we are all born of Woman.

"I translate it today, the word sin, as denoting 'left out,' separated from God, from the Source.
We sin daily by splitting ourselves off from Spirit.
We sin through omission, and forgetfulness, of our inherent Divinity.

"So today, I call upon the Sacred Marriage of Venus and Neptune
As a sign from the Heavens, from the Cosmos,
That Love and Forgiveness manifest on this beautiful Earth,
that we may walk in Beauty, Love ourselves, all others, and the Earth,
as Beauty.

"Forgive ourselves and forgive those who have 'sinned' against us.

"May this day mark a new Beginning in the Consciousness of all humans.
Let Forgiveness, Peace, Beauty, Harmony, Love, Awareness, reign down upon us
And emit from our Heart Centres these values from this day on.

"So mote it be."

Sunday, January 14, 2007

A Year of Truth: Tara Greene's 2007 Overview

Canadian astrologer and psychic Tara Greene shares an in-depth overview of the year, packing a lot of insight into just 5 minutes! Her Google video discusses the major themes of 2007: Saturn vs. Neptune, Jupiter in Sagittarius, and, of course, Pluto at the Galactic Center. Check out her perspective on this "Galactic-Centered Year," which she describes, in a word, as a year of TRUTH.

Friday, January 12, 2007

We Won't Get Fooled Again!

When I asked my chiropractor what type of air purifier he had in the office, he told me it was an awesome ionizer that never needed to have the filter changed. Sounded almost too good to be true, and was: when he showed me the literature, I immediately recognized it as a well-known brand of ozone machine—useful for clearing a room of toxins, not so good to breathe on a daily basis (although he has the level turned so low that I've never smelled ozone in his office).

He was skeptical of my assertion, and promised to research it.

The following week, when I arrived wearing a heavy Polartec fleece pullover and mentioned how warm it was, although I felt kind of sweaty inside, he said, "That's because those are made of recycled plastic bottles." What!? I'm wearing post-consumer coke bottles, something I'd never even consider drinking?

I was skeptical of his assertion, and promised to research it.

Turns out we were both right. His "ionizer" says "ozone" on the inside plate, but not on the face of it; my cuddly fleece does come from plastic and petrochemicals. Yuck! But nobody would buy "PlasticTec" as a garment—just as few people who know the dangers of breathing concentrated ozone would buy the "ionizer" if it said "ozonator" on the outside.

I said, "We have to cross educate and cross pollinate one another!" Staying informed is a full-time job.

En route to his office, and afterwards, the streets of Petaluma were lined, as were many towns yesterday, with protesters holding placards and chanting. In this case, what I heard was, "Show me what democracy looks like!" "THIS is what democracy looks like!" The time for games and gimmicks is over, and everybody but The Shrub knows it.

You may enjoy an article I wrote about the grander perspective on the Iraq war, published in 2003: Deep "E"-cology

So let's stay warm in natural fibers, breathe pure air, and use our arms for hugging...it's up to each of us to educate our sisters and brothers into awareness. It's the only way we won't get fooled again.

Monday, January 08, 2007

To The Other Side And Back

I've just read one of the most remarkable NDE (near death experience) stories ever—and I've been blessed to have read quite a few, most notably one of the first books on the subject, Return From Tomorrow, by George Ritchie.

This journey comes from Mellen-Thomas Benedict, who went beyond what we know as the Universe and returned to his body retaining his direct perception of Infinite Intelligence.

Looking at his web photo, I could feel the Light emanating from his presence. A true beacon for our times. Savor the story...and let me know what you think.

Friday, January 05, 2007

2007: The Year of Love Made Manifest

As more of us open our hearts wider and more deeply to the absolute truth of our being, the Love that we are fills our sacred vessel and spills over to nurture and nourish all. Archangel Michael through Celia Fenn says 2007 will be "The Year of Love Made Manifest on Earth," and that we'll experience radiance and luminosity in every aspect of our lives.

I know I've been feeling the energy of love and union coming in from all directions. In November I bought a "bind rune" called "To secure a true and lasting love" for a friend who is seeking her soul mate. While I've been calling in my planetary partner since 1998, I haven't really put focused energy into this intent, knowing he'll arrive in the ripe moment.

Yet a week later, when I returned to the same artist to buy a fabulous snake necklace, I found myself purchasing this love rune for myself. Within days, I felt called to enter a shop I've only been in once before, and immediately spied a wooden statue of a couple embracing. A few weeks after this, I found another such statue crafted in soapstone, in a thrift store. Even the postage stamps I just bought have a wedding theme! Clearly, 2007 is the year of LOVE LOVE LOVE on a grand scale, and I'm feeling it on both a personal and collective level.

Michael counsels: "Dearest ones, in this cycle of evolutionary growth, you will begin to truly understand the Great Gift of Love that you have been given in this transformation process. Becoming a Christed being and receiving the Twin Flame love into your Heart is the Miracle of Ascension.

"Beloved Ones - be aware of this wonderful mystery of your new Being as it unfolds. You see, many have had expectations about what your Ascension would be. They expected to become more psychic and more telepathic and better healers, and indeed these are part of the awakening into Light. But we say also, these expectations are based on the gifts already given in the past. All humans already have access to these gifts if they do not repress them or close them off. For the great teacher, Yeshua ben Josef, said that you would so all that he had done - and more! And so, the greatest gift of Ascension is the Twin Flame Love. When you begin to feel the flows of this energy and to understand its power and its gifts, then you will understand Ascension and what you are becoming. You are becoming gifts of Love within yourselves, even now, you are transforming and changing.....

"For, Ascension is about moving from a mind-based reality and ascending into a heart-based reality. Here, in the Temple of the Sacred Heart, you will find Love as you never imagined possible in human form. You will find this love within yourself, as the essence of who you are, and then you will learn to project this love into the exterior world as radiant luminous Love.

"And, when you have achieved that, then you will learn how to enter into radiant and joyous relationships in which that powerful light and love will be transmitted between partners as a way of making Love manifest on the material plane. But, this will not happen until you have learnt to balance and transmit the radiant love of Source first within yourself and through your Heart, and you have fully become "the Light of the World" within yourself. Then you can share that light with another. It is indeed a sacred gift as the two partners join their Sacred Heart temples and become ONE in the Radiance of Source."

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Making Herstory

The Feminine Frequency is accelerating on Earth in all forms! In the U.S., as the Democrats take control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 12 years (one Jupiter cycle...time for jubilation!), Nancy Pelosi (D-California, a 20-year political veteran) becomes the first woman ever elected to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Isn't the symbolism just too deliciously obvious? Women are finally reclaiming our ancient wisdom, and giving voice to our vision of a more compassionate, collaborative, imaginative world!

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Peace and Potential: Kucinich's New Year's Message

If you've been reading the articles posted to my website, or this blog over the past two years, then you know I support Dennis Kucinich as the voice and choice for the people in 2008. He and his new wife Elizabeth have posted an uplifting New Year's message to the Kucinich campaign site. You can read the entire message, here:

Creating a Peaceful New Year

As Dennis is running on a peace platform (he helped launch the Department of Peace initiative, and is the only Presidential candidate who consistently voted against the Iraq war from the very beginning, without wavering on his position), it makes sense that their message is focused on building a peaceful world.

But it's the language Dennis uses that draws me like a moth to flame. Not since Kennedy (and I was too young then to recall his words live; this is my feeling based on what I've read and heard subsequently of JFK's addresses) have we had a president (or candidate) who speaks with an eloquence and energy to ignite our hearts and catalyze our minds to action! When I heard Dennis speak at Agape in 2003 I nearly wept, and I feel pretty much the same even reading his words in print. Here's the conclusion of their letter:

"Let us, in this annual celebration of our humanity, call forth the buoyant, expectant energies of the New Year and harness them to quicken the impulse toward positive change. The economic stability of our communities and the physical and spiritual health of our nation depend upon our commitment to practical paths toward renewal. That is the power which stands behind all New Year's resolutions.

Let us resolve, then, to join in a collective effort to create a new world. The Presidency becomes the catalyst for powerful, transformative change, a new American evolution, spiraling upward along paths of clarity, strength, vision, determination and action.

Let us collectively have a bright encounter with the energies of the New Year and make 2007 the year of which future generations will say: 'That is when the change began. That is when we began to create with courage a new nation and a new world.'"

And I say, AMEN! And A-HO!!