Awakening

I am awakening. I am not awoken nor am I awake. I have moments, days, slivers of an awaken awareness.

I started the Pruning Shears of Revision as a way to document a dawning awareness of something more. Something more than who I was, had been + hoped to be. A statement of purpose that documented my embracement of the bright, white light. 

This seemed possible because I belived that I could be happy. I was trying to take control by believing in the belief of the power of positivity + the promise of the bright white light.  I felt I could really understand happiness + a possible path to it had awoken within me. Awoken from the peace that mediation had brought me. Awoken from the power + belief in the metaphysical experiences I was having. Awoken from the power of positive thoughts. Awoken from the shear acknowledgment of the necessity of it. 

I realize now that the power of positive thinking "a la the secret" is like putting whip cream on pile of garbage if you don't have the proper tools to deal with it. Inside I have so much to work on, deal with, admit + repair. I can do it + have to but the state of transascendsal awareness + the power of the bright white light won't quite work, not really truly till I deal with things. 

I cut myself at work picking up a broken piece of glass. LIt bled + I shoved a band aid on it + kept on keeping on. It 

hurt for a few days + began to  heal. A week later I peeled the scar off fast, frustrated by its hindrance to use my hand freely. Now my fingertip is numb. Yet in this state of strange numbness I am feeling like I am feeling my hand for the first time. I have an awareness. The awareness is numbness but it is an awareness. 

I feel this same awareness emotionally, physically + intuitively. I have began therapy again. 

I am really trying to be real + here. In the moment. Make the moment better. To keep on keeping on + not give up on something when it doesn't go right right away. 

I have to lean towards the light + look away from the dark. When I turn my eyes toward the bright, white, warm light I see the power of possibility. When I dwell in the dark I see, feel + experience the darkness. I am a magnet for it- the dank energy of universe, the people with erratic energy, the darkness of the beyond. This is on so on all levels of being- emotionally, spiritually + physically.

I spent an easy breezy few months mediating. Basking in the post mediation euphoria. Grounded good by grounding excercises. Putting positive thoughts out into the universe + feeling them come back to me. But when the going got tough I backed away. Sporadically indulging when I knew it would be easy instead of went I really needed it. 

I slipped back into a state of bring where I am the lesser version of my higher self. I am aware of this. I have awoken to the realization that the power of positive thoughts, mediation + a good grounding won't solve everything. I am aware of a multifaceted approach + viewpoint, a spot where mind, body + spirit join as one. 

I am aware.This awareness istate of awakening. 

Awake vs Awoken

Today I had a very lovely 3rd eye mediation which has left me feeling energized and activated. 

The sounds and the visions and the thoughts evoked a very primordial state of being. Bells rang and gongs vibrated. Horses hooves pounded against the earth. Wagon wheels rolled across the plains. The sun hung heavy in the western sky. A whale sang a song in the ocean. A ship blew its horn. Words echoed into a chant. I felt the profound power of the mystical mantra of om. I was left waiting outide a wall with a gate. I wasn't sure if I was waiting to get in or out.

This experience feels to have transcended experience and began to touch on memory. They seem to be memories that I am experiencing though not memories that belong to me. They feel like they belong to another. This other feels like it could be me before I was me, in another life time. I also feel that I may have picked up on the energy of those in my life. Some things feel like they connected to my husband. Another to a friend. Some belonged to me alone. Even as these thoughts, impressions, memories are not mine, they where comfortable to receive. 

The breath shifted to the space in between my eyes. I am awake. I have awoken. I am awake not because I have been awoken but rather I am awake with the possibility of awareness. I have transcended how to be by looking at how to see. I have traveled but haven't moved a muscle. I am active in stillness. I am within the world when I look within. 

This is truth, a version of it. I am one within. I am beginning to learn something, truely see something. Knowledge lays within not without. There is a Jean Paul Sartre quote that resonated with me in my late teens that I thought I understand then, that has stuck with me for over a decade. One of those thoughts, ideas, mantra's, suggestive suggestions you keep returning to that seem to offer something more than you have. The quote is "To think new thoughts you must break the bones in your head." I always saw the this as a form of action, a call to set energy in motion. To do, to experience, to destroy. I see it differently now but just as profoundly- bones are broken not by going without but within. Bones are broken by stillness of the body and expansion of the brain and activation of the 3rd eye. 

This experience speaks to me about how I receive information. I see things visually and know things intuitively. Sounds can serve as a gateway for me. Listening to chanting and bells is always a powerful experience for me. It connects me to something more than myself and stirs a recognition of the primordial. Sound as a intuitive tool seems especially fitting for me given the hearing loss I suffer. One sense is dulled to heighten the other. I have always believed in a basic rule of nature and the universe- to get you must give. I think seeing and understanding my hearing loss in this way is how I begin to make peace with it. I lost one sense and picked up another. Today the intuition and the paranormal experiences feels like a gift. Part of a larger path and profound experience. Today I am thankful. Today I feel alive and present in possibility. Today I have no fear. Today I am receptive and giving. 

Symptoms

Symptoms-

Footsteps coming down the stairs but no one is there.

Shadows figures there one moment + gone the next.

Flickering lights. 

Knowing I am not alone at times I am alone.

Cold spots. Hot flashes. Flashes of white, color, black blurs. 

Tingling on my arms. Yes's resonating in my gut. The heavy pulling feeling on the back of my head. 

Being touched on my arm, back, side, leg. Feeling my hair stroked. Hearing my name + hellos. 

Dreams of apparitions in places where I have sensed them. Dreams of things that have happened + of things that have yet to happen. 

Deja vu over + over again + again. Knowingly random, strange things. 

I have this strange fascination with visiting old historical sights( mansions, homes, working farms, battle fields, places where George Washington slept). There is something about the energy, the built up passing of time, the accumulation of things that have happened that makes things happen. Or maybe I am just allowing myself to open up. I grew up in a very old house + it was there I had my first experiences. Things went bump in the night + walked freely around the that house. 

Across the street from that house was a cemetery. I used to feel I knew that I could see dead people coming + going. I used to stand on a mound of dirt in the playground next to the cemetery + look in. There was a grave with my name on it. One day, I mustered up the courage to go into the cemetery + check out the grave. As I entered the cemetery, I was acutely aware I wasn't alone. I felt a strange tingling sensation building up at the back of my head. I heavy feeling forming in my gut that told me I was not alone. I could feel people behind me but when I turned around no one was there. I reached the gravestone + realized that the name on the gravestone was my name but not for me. Rather it was the families that it belonged to last name. I was relieved but as I walked back out I was very aware of the collective presence of people all around me but I was yet alone. This was the first time I felt the symptoms strongly. 

This is where my tendencies towards dark things began. This is when I began to connect the symptoms with a connection between this world with the next. I was seven or eight. I learned early on that other people do not have these experiences or suffer from these symptoms. I learned to suffer in silence and to power of denial. 

My whole life I have had strange experiences. Some build up after being or living in a place for a while. Others are instant- like a punch in the gut or a pulling on the back of my neck. My skin prickles with goosebumps. My ears ring + buzz. The buzz becomes something more. I feel a pressure in my head. I know this pressure is sign of a presence. For me the paranormal is physical. Sometimes I clam up + hurry on. Sometimes I open up. Either way I cannot control it. I cannot make things happen but I have learned how to block them. I have learned how to shut it off + swallow it back. But still I cannot separate experiences from the physical symptoms. 

Physical symptoms run in the family. My grandmother was born with a caul over her face. According to folklore this was a mark of the psychic gift. I am not sure it is a gift but it was definitely a symptom. A physical manifestations of something more than meets the eye.  My grandmother always said she just knew things + she did. She also had a propensity towards dark things + negative thinking. She was a fearful woman who you would find sitting, smoking + staring off into the distant surrounded by a ring of billowing smoke. Somehow I always knew she saw things in the swirling clouds of smoke. I knew it was best to leave her be when she was in this state. She would emerge from this state + announce so-and-so would call or state that someone was pregnant or that something would happen. She was always right.

My mother had little patience for her in these states. She would state my grandmother had an over active imagination. But yet my mother also has a touch of the mystical. My mother would often dream of dead people visting her at night. She would see + hear things lurking around the house.  I saw things too but never understand the where the same things until later. When I was older + we had moved away from the house, my mother began to talk about the things she experienced.

As I got older, it seemed to me we moved from one place to the next with spirits lurking about. I now realize it wasn't so much the houses we lived in but rather me. By then, I had discovered ways to keep the symptoms at bay. Alcohol numbed them + drugs shadowed them. Even after getting cleaned up-I discovered another way to keep things at bay- never being alone. I feel in love for real, true, forever love + I wasn't alone. Things began to fade + the symptoms didn't induce so much fear. The symptoms retreated significantly. Then I returned to them on my own through the tarot + a curiosity to understand + open up. 

There wasn't- and isn't- a place to go or a way to turn off the symptoms. They occur at home, at work, on the subway, in restaurants, museums, public restrooms. I cannot turn them on or off. It isn't constant + it isn't sporadic. I am fascinated + fearful. The most I have learned to do is to block them as the occur. I have discovered some tools that help. Mediation + grounding. I have grown to believe in the power of the bright, white all powerful light- my way of saying god or the goddess, the ever present being of life + love. It is this belief that makes it possible to began to face the paranormal +deal with the symptoms. 

a long time in the making- part 2

In your brain, behind your eyes is that spot where the conscious meets the subconscious, where true sight is seen, where eternity begins + time can stand still.

2 things have happened in the last 2 days that I need to shift through. But first somethings to clarify- I gave been feeling clear, direct, positive, articulate + just truly good. I have crossed that metaphorical line, scaled the immense mountain + jumped off the bridge. I have began now to learn how to forget to fear fear.

But before more clarification things 1 + 2...

Thing 1
I crossed the street on my way home. In the middle of the street was a dirty, soggy aquamarine bra. It had been in the street that morning on my way to work as well + gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Again it did the same when I walked past it. A hard, hollow almost painful feeling hit me in my gut. I saw without seeing a van then inside the van. I felt the bra was tossed out. I was acutely, sharply, suddenly aware that a woman had been raped. I physically felt altered for a few moments. My lower body ached. Something primal, horrific + violating resonated within me. There was an intense wash of emotions wash over me- fear, panic, pain, anger + an out of body experience. I saw but yet didn't see a young Hispanic female. I felt the lingering, oppressive, heavy extremely male energy lingering around, in + on top of her.

I have had this sort of extremely unpleasant imagery overcome me in the past. However, this time I checked it + did not stick with me. I experienced it + let it go. I was like watching a movie or seeing a play, being extremely emotionally affected by it but being able to leave the theatre + leave it behind.

Thing 2
I was in a very long, slow moving line at the drugstore purchasing some staples during the midst of a Valentine's buying frenzy. I was watching the busy New York City street foot traffic while I waited. Time seemed to be frozen on the slow moving line in the store but was briskly moving outside on the street.

A man in a long black coat, black boots + long stringy hair walked by outside. He hesitated, pausing just past the door + we made eye contact. I looked right into his dark black eyes + saw a void there. It was dark, dank + a wave of rotten energy washed over me. He turned away + continued to walk down the street. A minute later he returned + walked into the store. He entered the store + I could see their was translucent simmer to his rough, tough pockmarked skin. Again we made eye contact + he turned away. Instead of walking out the door he walked through the door + disappeared out of sight. The door was a glass automatic opening door. It did not open when when he walked through it. He did not appear on the other side to walk past the store. The entire front of the drugstore was glass + I would have been able to see either way he walked.

I was left with a lingering feeling of confusion, uncertainty, hesitation, heaviness + a strong metallic taste in my mouth. This feeling lifted when I exited the drugstore.

A little Perspective Here
On the other side of the line the old me would have had to check myself hard. Chalked it up to deranged imagination. The new me realizes sometimes these things happen. It's not mystical or magical. It is energy at work here. Vibrations, impressions, a flash of something I have picked up on.

The question is what to do with this information? Is it merely enough to know it? I am on a journey to learn how to channel, harness + learn do something more for the universe.

a long time in the making

My boat stuck something deep. Nothing happened. Sound, silence, waves. Nothing happened, or perhaps everything happened, and I'm in the middle of my new life.
-Juan Ramon Jimeniz

I did brainwave mediation today. Afterwards I did my new daily chakra exercise. When I placed both hands over my third eye, my eye lids fluttered + I saw a rapid flash of images. They where fast and looked like the a strip of 8mm film. I could not make out what I saw but I left with a feeling of having seen something. I am left with the feeling of having learned something. I am aware, open + ready to receive. I am peaceful + alert. I have the soft, luminous edge that mediation can bring. I am aware of things around me that exist on the level beyond our limited five senses.

This experience reminds me of an experience that I had a child. An experience, or to be more accurate a series of experiences, that have stayed with me for years + that I have often thought about. I was about 9 or 10 + I was playing by myself in the playground behind my house. At the time I lived in a blue Victorian house. The house dated back to the mid 1800's + I could see the roof + one of the attic windows from the playground. I was swinging on the swings + suddenly was overcome with the consuming realization that I was in a movie. I was being watched + I was in a movie + I wasn't alone. I saw a rapid series of images  in my head. I saw things + went somewhere else but yet I never left the playground. I sat on the swing for a while- fascinated + kind of terrified too. I sat there + I knew I wasn't alone. That day I realized that I wasn't alone + that I was being followed around by someone with a camera filming me.

I realize now that this was my first awareness of a guardian spirit. I realize now this is how I see things.  How I know things. I realize that I am awakening again. I realize that this is just part of a much larger whole. Part of a much more authentic life that I am meant to be living.

That time in my life was terrifying for me because I was having experiences that I couldn't articulate. Experiences that I couldn't make sense of. I was in part the house I was living in but it was also me. The house was haunted- of this I am now sure. I used to wake up at night knowing I wasn't alone. I used to see things floating outside my window, at the foot of my bed. I would hear things in the attic.  I wasn't alone + I knew it. My mother used to wake up in the middle of the night hearing people talking, laughing, whispering in the night- this I learned many years later.

I have had other experiences not just in that house but in many other places over the years. I have spent years being terrified but in the last year or so something has happened. The fear has fallen away. I am beginning to let my guard down, I am allowing myself to acknowledge + admit the experiences are real. They are not figments of my imagination. They are not fearful fantasy. They are real + they have happened. They will continue to happen. They are meant to happen. It is my job to be open + receptive.

Inner Energy- part 2

What is energy?

Energy is an indirectly observed quantity which comes in many forms. It is kinetic + potential.
Thermal + chemical.
Electric + radiant.
Nuclear + magnetic.
Sound + mechanical.
Elastic + luminous.
Mass (E=MC2)

Energy is subject to the law of conservation of energy. According to this law, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed. Energy can also be spiritual + everlasting. We all come from stardust.

How do we connect to this energy?

I have began to mediate daily. Some days come easy and some days come hard. Sometimes I just fall asleep. Sometimes I feel the presence of something outside of myself + my focus is lost.  But when the energy does flow, it flows + burns white hot and I feel I know something about the true nature of energy.  I feel bright + full of white light.

Objects, people, places around me have a soft, gentle, murky almost magical luster after mediation. I feel the energy of something more than who I am + it feels positive + good. I feel vibrations of a higher love + the radiance of the universe. This is where the body + mind unify. This is where psychic energy unfolds. The is is where I connect with the universal life force. The bright, white life force that runs within, between + through all things.

Mediation is one way. But there are many others.
Reiki + kundalini.
Spiritualism + parapsychology.
Qi + shiatsu.
Dowsing + channeling.
Shamanism + wicca.
Using tarot cards + crystals.

I know that this greater esoteric spiritual energy isn't an image or idea or intellectual concept to be understood, consumed + digested back. Rather it is a mirror into cosmic energy and our inner self.  There are no short cuts to understanding, experiencing, feeling + living in the bright, white life force. While in mediation we connect to the abundant energy of the cosmos . We travel from body to mind to through our heart into the 6th sense and beyond. The first immediate goal of mediation for me is to slow down + concentrate my energy in order to renew, regenerate + meet my most intimate, true, higher self.

How to get ready to mediate
(or some random things that resonate with me)
just do it. let go. don't think of it as mediation just let go.

Sit in an posture. It must be comfortable. Mediate on the floor, in a chair, in a bed. Cross your legs + clasp your fingers. Close your eyes. Eyes are doors to the mind. Real seeing doesn't happen with the eyes along. The mind is a jumble of thoughts, ideas, questions. The Goal is to transcend the mind.

The breath is a way to transcend the mind. Don't be conscious of breathing. Just breathe. In, out. Normal + natural. In, out. In, out. In, out. One, two, three, four...

Focus on your body awareness. Or awareness of the body. Let the body + your chakras fill with energy. Bright, light white energy. Bright, white, warming light. Bright, white, protective light.

Play with the energy. Play with the bright, white all encompassing life-force. Feel how it feels. It hums, radiates, warms. It is calming + charged with electricity at the same time.

Expand your aura. Bright, white radiating energy. Bright, white radiating, circulating, pulsating energy. This is the realization of yourself in relation to something much more than who you are.

Breath in and smile. Smile inside. Bring up gratitude. Be thankful for the things you have in your life. Be thankful for the energy life force. Smile into your eyes. Smile past your eyes. Smile into your jaw. Smile into your skull. Smile into your shoulders. Smile + move. Twist your back. Move before you drop into mediation. Feel your heart + your blood circulating through out your body carrying the bright, white light through your body. Through your stomach, intestines, down your legs + into your toes. Breath into your vertebrates. Smile with your mouth, your eyes, your heart to all of your body. Twist + turn. Feel your body.  Feel the bright, white leave your body through the bottom of your feet + flow up your aura into your crown chakra.

Smile into your crown chakra. Let the bright, white light flow down through your chakras from the crown chakra into your 3rd eye, through your throat into your heart past your solar plexus through the sacral into your base chakra. The white light flows back your body. Scan your body. Feel what it feels. Aches, pains, emotions. Remove the toxicity- back pain, headaches, trouble at work, issues with parents, etc. Scoop out bad energy + dump it away from your body. Scoop once, twice, tree times, whatever feels right. Physical actions help solidify release. Cut it out like a knife. Toss it out + imagine it falling away to the ground, through the pavement into the earth all the way to the molten lava center of the inner earth. It then returns to you as white, bright, life force energy. Bright, white light purifies.

Breathe. In, out. In, out. Feel your energy centers open. Feel your body recharged + relaxed. Feel connected to your inner energy + grounded.

Feel the balance.
Ying + yang.
Breathe. In, out....
One, two, three...
Mother, father, child.
Light, dark, shades of grey.....energy flows through it all.

Thoughts are energy. Energy can neither be created or destroyed. Bridge the gap between imagination + reality. Feel the cosmic energy of creation. We all came from the cosmic residue of stardust. We live + love. Work + play. Build + destroy. Reconstruct. Know that you are born but you never really die.

What is to give light must endure the burning. In this whole creation we are just small specks but yet we share a bond with everything. We are the space between thoughts + words.

Shine on....

into the wild unknown with some strength

To me, wholeness is the key to aliveness. It is more than just physical vitality, it is radiance, coming from being at one with yourself and flows through you and radiates from you.
-Richard Moss, How Shall I Live

In the last several months I have began to regularly interact with tarot cards. I have been using an amazing, intuitive, whimsical, very natural deck called The Wild Unknown Tarot.

I did a daily spread last week. One of the cards drawn was Strength.

From the Wild Unknown Handbook-
Strength
Mastery of Emotions
Its common to think of this card as the roaring, devouring side of the lion. But look again...the "strength" this card suggests is a much deeper force that's found within. The lion represents our most patient, composed self. He's a master of focus, compassion and self control. When this card comes up you're in need of harnessing this power for yourself. All the courage you need can be found in the muscle known as the heart. 

Okay- another reference to the heart chakra. Hear that loud and clear. Mediated to open up my heart chakra. Ordered a book for further reading. Received a rose in mediation from a spirit guide. Smelt roses while mediating. But the universe wants more!

So I left the card face up on top of the stack on the coffee table and went about my week. I felt very connected with the card but was unsure why at the moment. I felt like there was more than I could see and feel at the moment.

That week I also had a tarot reading while out to dinner. This is the first reading by another that I have had in some time. I felt very disconnected from the reading even while the cards revealed in the reading resonated. I felt like cards used where very limiting and the interpret restrictive and flat. I had a nagging sensation the cards where trying to talk to me but couldn't find it in the reading I had gotten.

But as the week went on, I daily looked at the Strength card face up- from quick glances, to quick meditative moments. The card even caught the interest of my husband- who I found looking through the cards and commenting on their beauty! I don't ever leave cards out like this but didn't want to put it away.

So I decided to do my own larger reading. I choose the favorite reading the Whole Person Spread, aka the Celtic Cross Spread, instead of the usual 3 card reading. But first I decided to take a look at my growth card for the current year- which I haven't done in several years. Low and behold it was the the Strength Card. Oh you tricky, slutty universe!

From The Tarot Handbook: Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols
Strength as  Growth Symbol
During your Strength year, you may find yourself taming and reigning old beasts within. (The year started out with doubt. Hello and good-bye my old friend!) It is a year of renewed passion for all things in life, including the physical. You recapture and regain that sense of wonder and awe about life, and feel that you have overcome old fears tied with the past. It is a year where the creative arts or performing arts maybe of interest to you. 
Your Strength year is a year where you tap unlimited resources of strength within your own nature. (Roar!) It is a year where you experience being even more of who you are. 

Some other repetitive, challenging and delightfully messages from the universe. 
A time to reveal rather than conceal.
Start of journey to authentic self. 
Self-empowerment. 
Time for action, action, action baby!
See self as a wildcat! Double roar!!
Embrace speed, grace and abilities Core competencies!
Don't be afraid to to begin. Just do it!
Use the 4 elements. Earth, air, water, fire baby!
Lose the secrets. Time to let lose!
Insightful and psychic. 
A gentle, tranquil woman but can be aggressive and defensive when pushed. Don't see yourself as the victim! Express feelings honestly and responsibility. 
Strong will and triumph can by yours. Stay calm and focus the mind. 
Expansion, inspiration, growth all around. The universe is abundant!
Strength, stamina, confidence. Keep on keeping on!
Free yourself of addiction, negativity and bad people/situations. 
Maintain humor and don't be thrown off balance. 
Drawn to creative people going forward. Trust in it!
Ready to eliminate negative thinking. Don't fear the sorrow of the past- transcend it!
Be objective and realistic of heart. But also be open to the magic and mystery of the universe. 

Time for some affirmations. 
I am believe in the abundance of the universe. I am whole, happy, healthy and harmonious. I am positive, productive and passionate. I enjoy expressing my energy, vitality and enthusiasm in all that I experience. I am an individual of character and strength. I have unlimited creative resources from which to tap and express. Time to ground myself in my own strength and then I will shine. Into the wild unknown I go with some strength. 

Shine on...