"On Spiritual Ecology"

Wow, It's been quite a while since I have put a new post up here, but then I guess - time being what it is - it's all NOW anyway, and so this is right on time... I was just reading an article, "On Spiritual Ecology" by L. Vaughan-Lee, that my 10th grade English teacher posted on facebook. (She and I happened into each other at a dream conference about 5+ years ago - what a pleasant surprise!). The article pretty much addresses the reason I created this blog, and comes from a more academic background than mine, obviously. I am inspired by this article in its honesty and clarity, and I hope you will be as well. Here is a short excerpt, and I will paste a link below it for you to click on. Enjoy, and please feel free to share your thoughts and impressions! (Be sure to click on to part 2!)

"...we’ve got to change the story or change the dream. We are completely caught by the dream that corporations have created for us to live in. I call it the nightmare of materialism, the dream that grips humanity and people around the world. You have hundreds of millions of people in China and India now being drawn into this nightmare, consuming more stuff as fast as they can. And the planet doesn’t have enough resources for it to unfold. Somehow we have to change the collective dream that holds humanity...."

"On Spiritual Ecology"

11/11/11 and the 11-Dimensional Universe Numbers, Dimensions, The Universe and the Multiverse

(Image above is one of the cards from John's wonderful Angelynx deck)

Good morning. This post comes from John Sacelli, whom I met a few years back in Chicago, where, among many other things, he facilitates conscious dreaming, soul circles and star logic (astrology). Enjoy!

"What is the meaning of 11/11/11? It is that we, primitive, pugilistic and petty, tiny beings, residing on an insignificant planet of a 3rd class star at the age of a galaxy of no particular import lost among millions of other galaxies in a universe among an infinite number of other universes in a multidimensional multiverse - - -

are being given the opportunity to know the secrets of All Creation. Everywhere. And Everywhen. And Everyone. Now. So let's start with Numbers. The Numbers One through Eleven

One. 1. A slash. Something emerges from Nothing. One. 1. One Alone. All One.
(Note that the glyph for 1 is the same as the glyph for I - I am One.)

Two. 2. Across from One is the Other. Together, they are Two. Polarity. Potential. Balance. The Alternative, The Mating.

Three. 3. When Two mate, they produce Three. Mother-Father-Child. Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis. Three is generation, an arrow, purpose, creation.

Four. 4. Father-Mother-Son-Daughter completes the set. Four is stability. Two Two's crossing. Form vs Field crosses Spiritual (the Idea or Ideal) vs.Physical. Four creates the structure of the universe.

Five. 5. The Venus Star. The cross-section of the apple. Five points of extension, the shape of the Female Body. Five IS the Feminine,

Six. 6. Six is Sex. Turn a 6 on its side and you have the image of the penis. The Creative Force issuing forth from coiled up potential, seeking the Feminine. The sixth point of extension of the male body.

Seven. 7. The One is intercepted by another, but not as balance or crossing (the Two). Rather the 'other' merges at the 'head' of the 1. Seven is the Search for Knowledge. Self querying self - why have I (One) appeared, where have I come from, where am I bound.

Eight. 8. Eight is a Mobius Strip. An infinity symbol turned on its side. Eternity. The 'skin-side inside'. All things turning back on themselves, through themselves. It is thus Prosperity as it contains change (ate), the Past, within the Present. Eight is the Present. It is the gift, the blessing, the answer to 7's quest.

Nine. 9. Nine reverses 6. It is sex undone. Nine completes the cycle by reversing everything and returning it to the One, to the O, to the None. Nine is completion. Like the German 'nein', nine says no to all that has been. It is the universe ending.

Nothing. No-Thing. Zero. O. zzzzzzzzz - the Universe asleep.

But wait . .

10. Ten. From the Z-Row, the 0 or zero. In the face of the Nothng, the No-Thing, the One begins again.

11, El - the 'l' of loop of light, which, on our type-writers becomes identical to the 1 (one) and the I (eye), now regards and meets itself, as an equal (ELEVEN - EL EVEN). Poses the new Creation against the old ELEVEN is the master number of the mystery. ELEVEN - ELEVEN - ELEVEN. Again. Again. Again.

Now, 11 Dimensions. What is a dimension? Has anyone mentioned to you recently that you're going to die? Die-mention. From 'di-' or '-di-vide'. That is, your unity, your 'oneness', is pulled apart. Into 2.

But the first dimension already requires two. Two points. Through which a line is drawn. That line, usually called length, is Dimension One.

A third point is enough to create Dimension Two, the Plane, Length and Width.

Before we go further, let us discuss a general law for dimensions. For any N(number)-dimensional being, Time is the next dimension. Consider the experience of a One-Dimensional being when it encounters a 2nd Dimension. The line, Length, is crossed by Width. But since Length can only experience the point at which it's crossed, the crossing itself will occur in time.

To make this clearer, let's go to the 2nd Dimesnional Plane, and imagine it like a flat sheet of paper. Through the paper, a pencil is pushed. Our 2nd-Dimensional being will first see the pencil as a tiny circle of black (the graphite), which will gradually grow then suddenly turn brown (the wood), then yellow and angular (the painted length), before becoming round and bronze, then pink, and finally abruptly disappearing. In the 2nd Dimension, the 3rd Dimensional pencil is never seen as a whole, but only occurs as a two-dimensional event over a period of time.

When the fullness of the pencil (as breadth added to width and length) is added in, we have our familiar three dimensions of space, plus one dimension of time, making 4-Dimensional Space-Time.

What then happens in the 5th Dimension, when our familiar concept of time also becomes space? An example occurs in one of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, in which his extra-terrestrial characters, called Tralfamadorians, see each other spread out across their entire life-times, 'with baby-feet at one end, and wrinkled old-persons' feet at the other'. Past and future have been condensed into the present. The Tralfamadorians are 5th- dimensional beings.

What then for them can the Time be as a 6th dimension? Remember that for us, time brings us new experience. For the Tralfamadorians, it is the same. Each other Tralfamadorian is equally co-present through it's entire lifeline, which means it's 'body' is wrapped through itself in various twists and turns. But the pattern of every Tralfamadorian is different than every other. Experiencing the uniqueness of another Tralfamadorian is for them an event in time.

So for us, as the 5th Dimension would require us to be co-present with all the past- and future-events of our lives, so the 6th Dimension would require us to be co-present with all the past and future events of everyone (at whatever level of consciousness) we would meet in one life.

Another way to express this is that 5th dimensional consciousness requires us to experience life from the perspective of the Soul, in which 'other lifetimes' becomes our past and future. While 6th dimensional consciousness requires us to experience life from the perspective of the 'Group Soul', as the experience of all souls which we meet.

Surely all of us have flashes of 5th dimensional consciousness. 'Oh, I can remember when I was burnt at the stake', or 'I watched the Christ at Golgotha'. And in the 6th Dimension where 'it was as if I was both the victim being burned and also one of the crowd laughing and taunting'.

But what then can be the experience of Time in the 7th Dimension? Here the quest for experience, for growth, has become the search for the patterns of things. 'I was both the victim and the executioner, and the crowd, but at the same time I was, or am, also the world in which there is no victim or executioner or onlooker, but only understanding and harmony'. In the 7th Dimension, Time is the search for Truth and Love. That experience too, emerges in us.

When Truth and Love is integrated into us, co-present at all times, what then is left for 8th Dimensional Time? Here the search, as the figure 8 represents, is for all the patterns of possibility in which Love and Truth reign to be co-present. All possibilities of the Imagination (I-Magi-Nation) are now fulfilled.

How then can there be a 9th Dimension? What is left to seek or experience? Completion, or the reversal of time to the Beginning, in which there is only not now, but never has been, pain or separation. Here we discover that the pain has been necessary, the 'grain of sand in the oyster of the universe', to produce the pearl of consciousness. But in full compassionate understanding of all the experiences of all the souls that ever have been or could have been, the universe has fulfilled itself, mollified all its impulses of quest and growth. There is nothing left but the One. And the One, paradoxically, is the Zero, the Nothing.

And it is exactly that paradox, and the understanding of it, which is Time in the 10th Dimension. Note that Ten is the bringing together of the One and the No-One, or None. In the 10th Dimension, we both are, and are not, seem and do not seem to be, in all ways, and in none. In the acceptance of this ultimate unity of Reality and Illusion, are we not then finished? Why would we need an 11th Dimension?

Because the One seeks the One. The Other One. The 1 and the I, or the I (eye) and the I (eye), are the 11. The final dimensional consciousness that because there is 'another one', we will always choose to do this again. To voyage back through the 2 through the 9, 11 to 19, 21 through 29, ad infinitum. Or, add infinitum. Our 11-dimensional universe now holds all possibilities in all times. Every higher dimension from 11 drops back into the experience of the One facing the One, the Eleven.

Note that in Physics, the ideas of String Theory have also yielded an 11-Dimensional Universe (or Multiverse), by following out the same logic physically and mathematically which we have followed spiritually, mentally and numerologically. And arrived at the same place. But then, the root idea of the New Physics, that 'everything is made of vibrating strings,' is only what the hippies were saying in the '60's - "it's all vibes, man!"

Before we're done, lets follow one more trail to the same place. Note that each dimension in turn is created by posing a line at 90° angles to the all the preceding dimensions. From a point, width is at 90° to length, and breadth at 90° to both length and width. But when we try to imagine 4-dimensional space, or our familiar 'time-line' from past to future being spatialized at 90° to the rest of 3-dimensional space, our minds go a little nuts. From that point-source (0 dimensions) from which the first 3 dimensions extended, the 4th dimension twists and turns helplessly seeking a place to be at 90° to the preceding lines. In that twisting and turning, that 'seeking to be', it carries our minds back into the point-source. Try this yourself; you'll feel your body twisting and turning as you try to imagine the 4th dimension moving outward somewhere among the previous 3. It cannot, it must go in. And we breathe a sigh of relief when our consciousness goes in - into the point or into the Source to find the higher dimensions.

In short our multi-dimensional universe, whether in the version of the yogi-mystic or that of the hard-headed physicist, is enfolded INSIDE US. We have come back to the wisdom written at the entrance to Dante's Inferno: Our consciousness is able to touch, though not of course fully comprehend, all of the 11 Dimensions. THE WAY IN IS THE WAY OUT (of all our dilemmas). Enjoy 11/11/11, as we meet each other as alternative versions of ourselves."

Something To Chew On - from Laurence Holden

And something to chew on:
"...whatever ideas are put forward, one thorny question remains: How can something as immaterial as consciousness ever arise from something as unconscious as matter?

If the anomaly persists, despite all attempts to explain it, then maybe the fundamental assumptions of the prevailing worldview need to be questioned. This is what Copernicus did when confronted with the perplexing motion of the planets. He challenged the geocentric worldview, showing that if the sun, not the earth, was at the center, then the movements of the planets began to make sense. But people don't easily let go of cherished assumptions. Even when, 70 years later, the discoveries of Galileo and Kepler confirmed Copernicus's proposal, the establishment was loath to accept the new model. Only when Newton formulated his laws of motion, providing a mathematical explanation of the planets' paths, did the new paradigm start gaining wider acceptance.

The continued failure of our attempts to account for consciousness suggests that we too should question our basic assumptions. The current scientific worldview holds that the material world--the world of space, time and matter -- is the primary reality. It is therefore assumed that the internal world of mind must somehow emerge from the world of matter. But if this assumption is getting us nowhere, perhaps we should consider alternatives.

One alternative that is gaining increasing attention is the view that the capacity for experience is not itself a product of the brain. This is not to say that the brain is not responsible for what we experience -- there is ample evidence for a strong correlation between what goes on in the brain and what goes on in the mind -- only that the brain is not responsible for experience itself. Instead, the capacity for consciousness is an inherent quality of life itself.

In this model, consciousness is like the light in a film projector. The film needs the light in order for an image to appear, but it does not create the light. In a similar way, the brain creates the images, thoughts, feelings and other experiences of which we are aware, but awareness itself is already present.

All that we have discovered about the correlations between the brain and experience still holds true. This is usually the case with a paradigm shift; the new includes the old. But it also resolves the anomaly that the old could not explain. In this case, we no longer need scratch our heads wondering how the brain generates the capacity for experience.

This proposal is so contrary to the current paradigm, that die-hard materialists easily ridicule and dismiss it. But we should not forget the bishops of Galileo's time who refused to look through his telescope because they knew his discovery was impossible." - Peter Russell
(http://www.peterrussell.com/SP/huff1brainconsc.php)

Living at the edges of time...

August 8, 2011
Last Spring/Summer, I was getting the feeling that the layers/dimensions of time/s were compressing and I was sensing a bleedthrough happening more and more. Lately, though, I have progressed from my feelings about dimensions/time-space frames bleeding through and compressing, to them approaching integration into only one time-space continuum. This is what the shift is all about. Then end of separate dimensions/layers of time and the beginning of the ONE CONSCIOUSNESS as an integrated whole. I am more and more aware of soul groups gathering in a more organized fashion - I find myself more and more readily with folks I resonate to and so I think about cymatics and how as the Earth’s vibration rises, of course we reorganize into more complex and beautiful arrangements. Of course we find our way to those we’ve shared lifetimes with (or more accurately, are always sharing with them). Perhaps, more realistically, they are actually pieces and parts of US. As the layers converge, we will integrate into our original ONE. One self. And ultimately, perhaps, one consciousness that is comprised by us ALL. Of course then I think it can’t matter that we gravitate toward a select few - for we all still comprise the whole. But then no, I remember we are but parts of the whole, and so of course those of us who are the liver are together, those who are the feet are together and so on. We are still one body. We must still find our design and fit our roles together. Complete the circuit, the circle, repolarize. Only when we are ready to act as one will we complete this unification. What can make us do this? What can make us ready to act as ONE?????

Strange Times

It's been a strange week, what with birds falling from the sky in so many places and dead fishes washing ashore on various continents. We really must become clear about how we and the earth are like mirrors for each other. If we have a high cancer rate, it is reflected in our being a cancer upon the earth.

Something tells me that if we start treating the earth as our bodies - and our bodies as the earth - we can somehow turn it all around. Can we do this? Can we care for ourselves fully? Can we care for our planet fully?

None of this is easy. It's so much easier to go the easy route. But that's actually a lie. It's so much easier to do what's needed. But there's only one way to find out the truth in that statement.

And to find this out, we must find the truth of what's really needed and act upon it.

Sending Forth...

I had a dream yesterday morning - Thanksgiving morning - in which a woman approached me seeking wisdom. Here is what I shared with her. I am happy that I remembered this dream, as it is obviously information that is beneficial to me, and maybe you will find it useful as well. I hope so...

November 25, 2010 Thanksgiving
...I tell her about projecting love forward. That if we project our love out in front of us - forward - that there can be no failure, no disappointment, nothing other than joy or success or satisfaction and connection. No matter what happens, if what we project is love, is our essence, our soul in its divine radiant purity, there is nothing but good that can come from this. There can then be no fear, no scarcity, no lack, no loss. There will always be love, no matter what, because it is what we are putting out in front of ourselves. While I am explaining this, I am seeing a bright white light with indigo edges, projecting forth from my heart, extending several feet in front of me. Sort of like a small lightning burst that is continuous in flow...

Slow down, and take stock...

STOP. STOP THE WORLD FOR A MOMENT, AND TAKE STOCK. ON WHAT ARE YOU PLACING YOUR ATTENTION?

I recently had an idea around attention. I had been thinking on the notion of how powerful our attention is. How our attention is what really enlivens our ideas, our pursuits, the fruits of our labors - and the world in general. I think about what people are paying attention to - on the internet, on television, in movies, in families and friends around us, on politics, on government, on fears, hopes, desires, dreams and on and on.

It occurred to me that it might an interesting exercise for us to stop and take stock of where our attention is placed. Take some time and stop the world, still the mind and then gently ask ourselves where our focus is on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and more importantly, moment to moment basis. One way to start would be to simply make a list of our daily focus of attention, from hour to hour.

Perhaps the moments in between chores, job and home, quiet moments at home or in the car between places are the gems. What are we thinking of when we don’t have to be engaged with an obligation - where are our daydreams taking us? (or are we busy on our blackberries, or compulsively checking our email or facebook as we walk past the computer, just out of habit?)

I am guessing that even just doing this exercise will enhance our conscious presence of mind and awareness of our thoughts in a constructive way. Perhaps we’ll notice the bird singing outside our window, or remember the dream we had last night that got covered over by busy-ness as soon as our feet hit the floor this morning.

I think it’s those thoughts that flit by when we are in between that sometimes have the most to offer. And that it is important to create or allow for these spaces in the between, where we can wake up to our true voice underneath it all. And remind ourselves to come back to center and pay attention. Real attention, with presence.

And in doing this, my guess is that we will notice some areas of focus that we can allow to fall away - that aren't really constructive.

In reading over this post, I am struck by the way we use the term, to "pay attention." Imagine that our attention is actually a currency (current=energy) much like money, but in reality more dear. If we think about our attention as valuable as (really more than) money - how does this affect how we "spend" or "pay" our attention?

What are you paying attention to?

We Are Always Dreaming

A poem by Laurence Holden

WE ARE ALWAYS DREAMING

We are always dreaming,
the good life, the bad life,
the life not lived.

In our ceremonies
we mark our bodies
with the signs of our dreams,
flames and crosses and circles.

Wearing our dream marks
we carry our whole lives
into the country of our days.

We must do this - keep it up,
this dreaming into our waking country,
keep it going, keep it safe,
even into the desert of our selves.

- Laurence Holden, 3/09

New Post from Cyndi Crocket

What keeps me up at night:

I envision a beautiful world, where unconditional love, authenticity, peace, awareness, sharing, caring, creativity, freedom and contribution are pillar values. A world where we truly love ourselves and deeply love one another, thereby fulfilling each other’s inherent need for acceptance and survival. A global society which cherishes our earth mother and reverence for all the life that she sustains.

I envision a gold standard of achievement and success based on what we contribute to the beauty of our world, through our gifts, talents and passions. A simpler life, one of value and contribution in being who we are as children of the Universe living in wonder. A world that thrives synchronistically as a result of living in harmony with natural laws and the core essence of our being through our natural creativity. A culture that reveres natural and physical laws, and serves our brothers and sisters as we are all one. A society that encourages and fosters creativity rather than conformity. A world that we create through giving back more than we take.

I envision an abundant garden of Eden right here, right now. Heaven on earth. Join me in this vision, and let’s co-create a beautiful world. It is simple, really. It all begins with me, you and the awareness of choices we make in each moment to fulfill our purpose for being here on this planet at this particular moment in time; an opportunity to heal our world through our acts of love and contribution. It begins with loving ourselves first and then emanating that love outwards to others. Let us create this wave of love right here, right now.

We are always dreaming...

We are in a time of dreaming now - dreaming the now, dreaming the future, dreaming the past anew. What are you dreaming into being now?

Lately I have been noticing how a lot of dreamers are having more and more similar dreams. Common themes or elements are appearing with more frequency, it seems. I have seen a few bicycle dreams, where there is some kind of struggle happening. I'm feeling like these bicycles have something to do with the place/time where two worlds, or two cycles are coming together, and the struggles we are going through with this transition. And there are several that involve some kind of haze or not being able to see clearly the way ahead, but needing to continue on the path anyway.

These are profound messages, in my experience of them - oh, and a friend told me that in her dream (which I was also in), there were words in the sky, saying "IT'S UP TO YOU" and "YOU CAN DO SOMETHING" (and she said it was the collective "you"). To me, this was a direct message to all of us, so relevant now in terms of consciously manifesting the world before us. My friend even said that she thought this dream was really for me.

Anyway - our dreams are so powerful. Our sleeping dreams come from a place of source or collective, often unimpaired by our conscious involvement, and can tell us so much. That said, our waking dreams have even more power, because our consciousness is added to them - the power of our will goes behind all our thoughts, whether we realize it or not. Makes me want to be so much more careful with my thoughts and words...


"Lake Dreaming" by Honor Woodard Oil on Birch 2006