The Divine Mother - by Dennis Engleman

In the silent, hopeful moments before dawn an image sometimes presents itself of a mankind preparing to live angelically in this world rather than as the devil’s henchmen.

I see people for whom truth is the only frame of reference. People whose personal darkness of despairing demons has been reconciled and saved, ending the curse of eternal damnation; people who have chosen consciously to serve the sacred in order to extend compassion into a wounded populace.

As the First Day of the Universal Underworld draws to a close, I lend my prayer to those of many others:

May this planet no longer be called “a man’s world,” but rather honored as the abode and manifestation of the Divine Mother. I pray that this material maternal being which has nurtured every living creature be respected and acknowledged, and her forceful movements seen for what they are.

In this way earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and erupting volcanoes may be understood not merely as physical seismic events, nor even as irruptions of mankind’s collective unconscious into manifest reality,

But as expressions of a powerful living Presence

Whose voice needs to be heard.

Flight of the Eagle ~ A Dreamer’s Journey through the Heart of Consciousness

Deep asleep, the curtains of the dreamscape opened. There I am walking and talking with my friend Dawn, along a shore-side park by an expansive lake in a mountainous setting. Devyn, Dawn’s teenage daughter, was with us too, playing in her own imaginative wonderland. Her laughter echoed our way, reeling in our awareness. Devyn was now not playing alone, but was accompanied by an enormous Bald Eagle. The Eagle joined Devyn’s playful energy, poking about and hoping up and down around her. Whoa...

The Eagle and Devyn shared an infectious comfort-ability. Engaged in a strange game of tag, they pursued each other. The Eagle would gently peck Devyn and comically flap its wings to create a big breeze, almost blowing her over. This went on for sometime as Dawn and I watched in amazement.

A stillness set in between them and the Eagle approached. The majestic bird bowed its head, and Devyn responded by mounting the back of the Eagle and embracing it in a Loving hug. Then, right before our wide-eyes, they took flight over the lake. Excited cheers cascaded from the sky, raining down the feeling of liberation onto us. The epic Eagle swooped down, skimmed the water’s surface and blasted into the sky, through the clouds and into the rays of the Sun.

As a new set of clouds moved in, the Eagle safely returned with Devyn. Devyn hugged the Eagle once more, dismounting and spinning in circles with glee. The Eagle watched Devyn and immediately peered directly into our hearts, silently assuring us that the path to flight is through the heart of a child. The infinite potential of innocence made manifest as gentle adventurousness, delicate strength and alert appreciation. The dancing balance of masculine and feminine forces, playing with one another in complete honesty. In that moment, I opened my heart to feel this truth, the Single Truth. In this space an earnest child-like thought took form, humbly stating... “Hey, I want to fly on the Eagle.”

In a quantum-leap, the dream shifted and I found myself seated securely on the back of the Eagle, soaring in the sky. I looked down below, taking in a deep breath and letting go of the illusion of limitation. We flew as One into the heights, climbing altitude into wispy levels of atmosphere. In these upper levels, from this perspective, bliss is allowed to express itself. Here, freedom is the domain of the free. Funny, I look back now, how our atmosphere relates to where we are at-most-fear.

Feelings of nervousness and uneasiness at times arose in these heights, but were quickly dissolved by the liberation and confidence I felt. For, I had full confidence in the Eagle, made certain by the Eagle’s confidence in itself. A wave of energy swept over us, now reversing direction into a rapid decent towards the Earth. We dove fast, strong, poised. As we got closer to the Earth, I felt pressure building within myself, but the Eagle, steadfast and determined, flew straight down unflinching. The ground approacheth, closer and closer, and at a single centimeter before impact....whoosh, a perfect size portal opened up for us to comfortably continue our descent.

At first I was surrounded by just rock, dense layers of sediment, but soon, as we continued on, a new vision arose. I began to see an immense landscape, which I could only relate to as the Lower-Self, the realms of the unconscious. Shifty magma, streams of plasma and liquid metal merged, collided and exploded in fractal-archetype soup. The seemingly viscous chaos molded into expression-filled faces, skeletal systems, modern buildings and highways of prayers, fantasies and fears. Collective consciousness in constant flux, awaiting further recognition of itself. A massive mandala made up of a disarray of organically-organized in-genuity, all pulsating around a center point, which was our direct destination. During this descent through the underworld the Eagle’s focus held unwaveringly towards the center, and unlike myself, distracted not by the busy surroundings. Here, we approached another seeming breaking point, now moving further into the darkness of the center ...

Entrenched in utter darkness my faith began to shake, the foundation, though, holding stable by the Eagle’s persistence. And then, without fail, we approached the Light. This time, passing through a veil of shimmery Light Substance, we entered what seemed to be the palaces of inner Earth, the depths of our wildest imagination. Here we were surrounded by grand kingdoms and crystalline cities woven of Light-grid tapestries, inhabited by millions of beings who appeared to be diligently celebrating, working and creating. I saw galactic gardening, synchronicity sharing systems and elemental education exchange. I felt an incredible sensation of Love sweep through me, feeling deeply connected to this place, its inhabitants and its sense of eternal joyous service.

Still, though, we flew ceaselessly to the center of this crystal kingdom. It appeared as though we were approaching the power Source of this miraculous mystery, a conscious-breathing spherical Love-Hub of Limitless Light. The Eagle and I began to journey through this blindingly bright Star-like space into its own central core, a central-point paradoxically dark. It was then, as the Eagle and I began to pierce the membrane of this veil, the event horizon where the Light met the Dark, the very place where Thing holds No-thing in an eternal-kiss of rapture, that I completely surrendered and let go...

And in this moment, I was now alone. The Eagle having completed its mission, disappeared as so too did the memory of it all. I was now pure consciousness floating in endless space. I was it, it was me....and in the very moment I realized I am I, another quantum-leap brought me elsewhere. This time it was all very bright, it was morning time and I was awake lying in bed. A being buffet of inexplicable feelings still fresh, my reflections marinated in the bands of light making their way through the blinds, merging me back with myself for the dawn of a new day.

By Brendan

Psychic Heliocentrism - by Dennis Engleman

Four hundred fifty years ago the typical European believed the Sun and all other planets, indeed the entire universe, revolved around the earth. Copernicus set this false concept on its ear by looking into his telescope and noticing that the facts were otherwise.

And while a corrected reorientation of cosmology ultimately formed in the intellectual framework of general mankind, this shift has yet to occur within his deeper psyche.

If we posit the Sun as symbolic of God and the earth as symbolic of personhood, an emanation of spiritual reality into manifestation, it is clear that mankind as a collective has continued to believe the entire cosmos revolves around himself.

The “me” dominated (and denominated) mentality so prevalent everywhere is behind all expressions of control, manipulation and domination of others. In the scientific, political, economic and even religious realms, the concept of ME trumps all other considerations.

This “me” may be expanded to include a community, a tribe, a business, a state, or a nation – but the principle remains the same. ME must be defended at all costs. ME must succeed, ME must overcome, ME must live and not die!

At this point it must be acknowledged that such an attitude of virulent self-preservation is destructive and reflects psychic immaturity and ignorance – much like the geocentrism of the 1600’s.

Wisdom is recognizing that what one had imagined “special” about oneself is both ordinary and expendable, and only the divine within is precious.

Psychic heliocentrism comes about through a shift of focus to the heart-space, in which the ego is relegated to its proper role as an orbiting functionality around the divine Self, eternally intimate with God.

This transition of consciousness, one must hope, is accelerating throughout the world. But it does not come about through reliance on ideation.

Political parties, for example, are by definition and default separating entities that depend on the egos of their members for cohesion, and whose underlying goal is to subsume all opponents. The same can be said for nation-states. We will not help the world by taking sides on issues, but rather by becoming “side-less” within ourselves.

By reorienting from a perspective in which the center is “me,” to one where the center is the true Source and Foundation of “me,” we begin to live out a new paradigm.

The wisdom that comes from this will reveal how we can most effectively serve the global transformation.

A Celebration of Crisis - By Dennis Engleman

“Consciousness is a continuous process of unfolding,” writes Thom Cavalli, “punctuated by dislocations and reunions.” These dislocations are necessary so that opposite polarities of consciousness, which are incomplete in themselves, can view each other clearly and make the adjustments necessary to come into synthesis and reunion again.

Such dislocations may come in the form of crisis, an abrupt intrusion of imbalanced energy into what had seemed a stable field. Under the influence of this intrusion hitherto hidden psychic factors make their unexpected appearance.

Crisis serves to expose polarities that have been suppressed by the prevailing order. Polarization manifests the Yin/Yang in its more extreme states – a turbulence we interpret as chaos and experience as disorientation and distress. And yet such chaos can be a necessary prelude for those opposing polarities to be reconciled.

In the realm of self-awareness, the Yin/Yang polarities are represented by consciousness and unconsciousness. Within a person's unconscious are repressed patterns (called shadows) that reflect our disenfranchised self – ways we have been, things we have experienced, that we intensely dislike and so push out of awareness. Being unconscious, they can irrupt into waking life without our quite realizing what is happening or the part we are playing in it.

To bring one of these patterns into consciousness requires dreaming it awake – luring it into objective view where it can be witnessed in all its luridness. Such a dreaming awake usually produces an uncomfortable situation thoroughly infused with the wounded qualities of our suppressed psyche, a drama in which antagonist and victim seem indisputably identified.

Once such a psychic polarization has occurred, an opportunity for resolving that irrupted pattern is at hand. The shadow cannot be effectively confronted until it has manifested consciously, therefore bringing it out - through dreaming it awake - is a necessary (though extremely difficult) part of the healing process.

When the urge becomes overpowering to assume some past role, along with the familiar (though usually unpleasant) emotions that role dictates, this is a signal the shadow has emerged from unconsciousness and is parasitically living through us. We, as host of this unintegrated manifestation, assume its unconscious state and therefore offer no resistance to its imbalanced energies.

In fact, the natural propensity is to identify with superficial characterizations (victim, perpetrator, etc.) and fully accept the shame these roles prescribe. Nourished by this, the shadow drinks from the intensity of our involvement in the drama it has unleashed. After filling up at the pump of our darker emotions it can slink back unnoticed into the unconscious until hungry once more.

In that moment when the shadow seems most powerful – in its outward manifestation – it is paradoxically also most vulnerable. Here is the point of intentionally “dreaming it awake,” for in bringing unconscious content into view we have the chance to sooth and balance disturbed and distorted portions of our psyche that are usually beyond reach.

Taking advantage of this weakness is challenging however. To begin with, we must recognize that the conflict is not really between, or about, external parties. Anyone involved in facilitating this process is a friend, provided our overreaching intent is to be healed. Nevertheless it is we ourselves who must do what seems impossible when the shadow is ravenously stalking – namely, not feed it.

“Not feeding it” means not allowing the shadow (which will feel like us) to embody whatever emotions (self-justification, self-vindication, blame, etc.) the situation seems to bring up and entitle us to. Nor can we simply numb out. Rather, we need to be consciously present with the intensity of the uncomfortable feelings that arise - while doing nothing to either express or expiate them.

If we can sit in this nerve-jangling state, giving all those wild and wounded emotions our fullest compassionate attention - while simultaneously denying them their usual destructive discharge routes - we will be performing a microcosmic salvific act. The energy that would have continued to feed our sense of disempowerment, as personified by the shadow, will be retained for consciousness and fuel our own awakening.

By surrendering to what had seemed like death – and not dying – we will experience a resurrection that institutes a new and true awareness of personal empowerment.

And what had seemed a hopeless crisis will transform into joyful celebration.

Knock Knock Jokes - Extra Special Bitter

! ATTNTN ! JUPITER IS PRESENT ! ATTNTN !

Last night I gathered with the Portland Evolver Spore crew at the Borthwick house and hosted a discussion on Musical Tarot. My friend Rachel (female virgo) joined me (male pisces) in a cooperative discussion on the relationship between tarot cards and vocal exercises.

A few days prior to the event, Rachel and I had met together for the first time to talk about what we would be presenting. Many of the ideas that arose during our first brainstorming session became the material for that night's event.

The first pair of cards we looked at were FOOL (Aleph) and THE MAGICIAN (Beth). Rachel and I related these cards to the idea of the fool's element attribution of AIR (breath) and the magician's role as a physical CONDUIT (energy mediums). During the first exercises, Rachel encouraged us to stretch, bending at the hips and taking deep breaths.

After a minute or so, our bodies were loosened up and we did some singing. Breathing deep into the diaphragm really helps to project the voice with more power and direction.

During our presentation, I spontaneously recalled a silly joke we had come up during our brainstorming session around these two cards. So as we were in the middle of group singing exercises, realizing its anecdotal potential, I asked her whether she recalled the joke. She apparently couldn't recall the joke, because when I brought it up, she wondered out loud if it had been a knock knock joke.

After the event, a guy in the field named Luke asked me what the knock knock joke was. I told him that there was no knock knock joke, and that rachel had been mistaken. The joke had only been a pun on Aleph-Beth spelling out "AB" and the fact that many of use were getting an abdominal workout. Noticing a faint trace of disappointment in his eyes, I swiftly corrected myself and posed the question:

knock. knock.
(who's there?)
Nobody


*     *     *     *     *

Later that evening I met up with Lavendar, the female friend who visited me at the goat farm in California and helped pick some Jasmine Flowers. It was late when I got to her house and I ended up staying the night. Early that morning we heard a knock knock at the front door. Lavendar went to see who was there.

NoBody

She came back to the room and we fell asleep again. Around noon, as we were headed out the door to sieze the day, she noticed something resting at her doorstep. One of her friends (named Christopher) had left a small painting: A 14" x 20" portrait of Portland's skyline.

The apparent "Nobody" had become Somebody with no-body .

I am reminded of Dennis's article on UNITY CONSCIOUSNESS as the solution to psychic fragmentation. My joke about soul-loss had been answered within 24 hours (via narrative synchronicity) by the presence of Christ's knock knock joke. An in-visibile spirit had knocked at the door and left an offering, as evidence of his presence. Christ as messenger of the presence of Unity Consciousness in the Field.

Lavendar and I spent the day together playing mandolin and doing some research at the book store. Met a guy who captures cicadas, dries them in the sun, and frames them in ornamental boxes, the way you might see a wedding ring presented. As the night drew closer, La' got on the bus to go home. I decided to give KBOO a visit.



A bunch of friends showed up and we played music all through the night. For the first hour or so we played George Harrison songs, in tribute to his birthday of February 26th.

Tonight (February 26) was my 24th birthday (Jupiter returns!), so there was a definite air of festivity around the studio. Guitars, banjos, flutes, juggling pins, and voices a'plenty.

One guy in particular had a guitar made by a company called Jasmine. It had a good tone, but he couldn't stop breaking strings. I think he broke three in the course of less than two hours. An odd coincidence, from the dreaming perspective.

He remained calm and jovial despite multiple accounts of his instrument malfunctioning. Was this the spirit of Jasmine speaking through him, as an avatar for her will? 

 A nurturing presence in the midst of strings that snap. Jasmine is often associated with the planet Jupiter and with Cancer/The Moon.

Walking our own path - Colin Bondi

As I sit here beginning a week long retreat I embrace the unknown within before I step deeper into the unknown on an outer level. I'm struck by how much there is to let go of in order to truly walk the path of freedom. As human beings we're conditioned to engage life by holding onto or clinging to 'things' (things being anything that can be conceptualized such as relationship, career, money, beliefs, opinions, validation from others, places, community, material things). There is a great cosmic joke in this however since life is a constantly changing flow with nothing to hold onto. Thus you have the suffering of the human condition. Most people who engage some form of spiritual path are familiar with the act of letting go and have probably even put it into practice to some degree. However to walk in freedom requires a complete letting go or the act of letting go in every moment of every concept. Letting go becomes way of directly engaging existence itself and restores life to its natural flow but only when it becomes our primary focus.

The conditioning of clinging runs very deep and can be so subtle that when we think we've let go we are actually just clinging to something more subtle. There is nothing wrong with this, its part of the path, as long as we continue to illuminate the deepening levels of our conditioning. Awakening is referred to as a path that one walks for a reason, it requires constant motion, we must keep moving because as soon as we linger we cling. The primary obstacle to practicing letting go consistently is fear. The more we let go of the closer we are to our true state of being, we are confronted with infinity which is experienced by the mind as terror. Letting go in this context does not mean not having things in our lives, it means not holding onto them, we see them clearly as temporary changing and as reflections of our creative process. This changes the relationship to our world, we see the world as literally being a dream rather than something solid.

Walking the path of freedom means walking our own unique path rather than someone else's path even if that someone else is a great spiritual teacher. The challenge here for many spiritual warriors is letting go of their spiritual beliefs which of course are just concepts no matter how beautiful they may be. They may have been useful for a time but if they are not eventually let go of they become the newest object of attachment and the very thing that traps us instead of freeing us. So what are we left with if we let go of our spiritual beliefs? We're left with our own path and the full responsibility for our own awakening as we realize no one is going to save us or do it for us. We create the space needed to hear the subtle voice of our own hearts and intuition which is all the guidance we will ever need not to mention to the only real source of true guidance. For me this is why the path of freedom is a warriors path because it requires endless courage to face the totality of ourselves, infinity. It requires great discipline to never stop letting go no matter how much fear and terror we may experience in the process.

On one level this path is one of intentional madness because what we normally think of as sanity is also let go of. Sanity means normality and is characterized by thinking, speaking, feeling and behaving within a set spectrum. This set spectrum is that of consensus reality and is also known as the prison or matrix which separates us from freedom. The path of the spiritual warrior is all about dissolving this limited dream we call reality. We still relate to consensus reality but we no longer mistake it for reality which means we can no longer obtain security from it. So there is a very real fear of going mad that everyone on the path of freedom must face. However this type of madness is not what we see in mental hospitals even though it can appear to be on the surface. What differentiates it is intention and personal power. Warriors are doing what they are doing with awareness, intention and power whereas the average person suffering from mental illness does not possess these qualities at least not in a developed form.

As we walk our path we will learn many things and probably have many teachers but it is the degree to which we integrate these teachings and practices that makes the difference followed by letting the conceptual aspect of them go. One of the hardest things to let go of is the need for validation from others, for encouragement and understanding because there comes a time when we must walk the path alone. If we're able to embrace that aloneness we recognize that it is the key to a deep interconnectedness with every facet of the universe. That very aloneness also opens the door to true relationship where we're able to see others clearly without the veil of what we need from them. A true deep heart connection becomes possible.

I breath in receiving the flow of life which I am
I breath out releasing the flow of life which I am
I lack nothing because in being I am everything
Through intent I channel the flow of life with creativity into form
Creating and destroying worlds in every moment
Life and death, one.

awakeninthenow.com

A Vision of Unity Consciousness - by Dennis Engleman

Unity Consciousness infiltrates the planetary field, gently enfolding the globe. The effect is subtle at first, similar to gradually decreasing the density of earth’s atmosphere. All life is affected; every organism throughout the plant and animal kingdom is elevated in awareness to some degree, though local variations occur.

This change in the field of consciousness is experienced as either mild or severe depending on the emotional integrity and mental cohesion of the person affected. Those unprepared for the shift feel discomfort and disorientation, resulting in a broad spectrum of reactions ranging from irritability to intense acting-out of unresolved processes.

On the other hand, people in a state of anticipatory acceptance experience the shift more purposefully and intentionally. Inner attention moves toward the heart region of the central corpus, and mental “noise” begins to clear. Thought ebbs out of the foreground of awareness, becoming less distracting and interruptive.

Such individuals feel a sensation of upward mobility characterized as “letting go.” This is a voluntary relinquishing of attachments to personal identity with their attendant implications - an act that is self-reinforcing since the more whole-heartedly and single-mindedly it is done, the greater the resulting satisfaction and consequent desire to repeat the process.

Some people, due to their prior work with radical self-inquiry and spiritual healing, find themselves comparatively comfortable within the changing field of consciousness. These serve a vital role in helping others navigate the transformational flux, a prospect that is extremely demanding for most – especially those with strong habits of emotional suppression and hardened conceptual viewpoints.

As enlightened beings have always stood out from the crowd, this distinction is likely to be more, rather than less, pervasive at the End of the Age. During previous eras the average person was so far removed from an enlightened state that saints and bodhisattvas were regarded as somewhat distorted replicas of the norm – deformed individuals in whom something called “holiness” resulted from important human components being missing. Such sanctity was often considered not merely impossible for ordinary men, but undesirable.



But in the Last Days unity consciousness will extend beyond a few historical anomalies into the furthest reaches of incarnate awareness. As this gradual but inexorable process unfolds, those able to bear Christ’s divine Light will be detectable through their self-composure, grace and good-humor, being at peace even in the midst of a society in shock. Having become grounded in Truth, they will have nothing to fear – and know it.

This knowledge will effectively make them kings among men in terms of spiritual riches. Yet such royalty will be borne humbly while they busy themselves assisting those struggling to navigate the seas of cosmic awareness. As learning to swim in ordinary water requires overcoming one’s natural fear of drowning through mastering a complex set of non-intuitive skills, so navigating the Deep of unity consciousness will necessitate the development of abilities which - for many people – are at this time still far from functional.