Alan's Blog

Any amount welcome.

From time to time I'll post shorter writings, bits of poetry, or other things of interest, that are not full articles. Come by and check it out.

Trading Responsibility for Joy (© 10/08)

On the rare occasions that I host a party or a dinner I have noticed myself entering a state that I think of as "host" energy. It is a somewhat timeless place due to the focus and presence in the moment as I work to ensure that things are done, people taken care of, that everyone has a good time. One task or conversation follows another and before I know it the evening is over and I come back to myself and the lower energy levels I usually function at.

Even if it was a good event, I usually feel a bit drained and wonder where all the time went. Perhaps I also feel some relief.

Its a different energy from attending someone else's party, though that may also be a busy time full of a series of conversations and other events that are not very dissimilar. The difference is that I am not the "host" I don't walk in with a sense of responsibility for anyone else, just for myself.

Recently I have been noticing parallels with other situations. Take parenting. Now that I am stepping out of that, I notice the relief of not being in host mode for my children, even though years of experience had dulled the edge a bit. As they have grown up I am glad to acknowledge that they can take on more responsibility for their own lives. I try to trust them as capable human beings to do so.

But what about other guests, or even more balanced relationships? How about a new roommate, a new romantic interest, or a new co-worker? Do you go into "host mode"? or perhaps you might experience it as "wanting to make a good impression"? Some elements of "caretaking" might even slip in. Its probably not conscious, so check twice. To what extent do you "take responsibility" for others when it might be reasonable to let them take it for themselves?

There's no correct answer here, just something to consider.

In some cases it is reasonable. If you have a guest from far away who doesn't know their way around town, they may need some help getting around, but are you also responsible for them enjoying their trip? or are they? If so to what extent? Are you creating their experience? or are you co-creating with them?

Back at the party: we are all adults, isn't it appropriate that I trust my guests to have a good time, or to ask if they need something? What happens if I let go of the weight of being responsible for everyone and just show up in joy and enthusiasm? Wow. A bit better for me! perhaps even better for them?

Not that I don't still do all the appropriate things as host, but the energy is very different. Instead of being in accelerated attention mode (read anxiety), I can just be present in joy and expectation that something great will unfold. I have more space to consider what is appropriate, and what may not be. In taking care of myself and creating space for others to take care of themselves, trusting that they can, do we not take steps towards true co-creation?

In trusting yourself, trusting others, you can ease the anxiety and burden of "responsibility" and open a whole different space. Perhaps you have already discovered this. Wonderful! Perhaps there are still situations or relationships where you can give yourself more permission to let go and make the switch. Let's start practicing.

Just think of a world full of joy and enthusiasm. What a great thing to create together!

Holding the Center (© 9/08)

As in the old Chinese curse it seems we are living in interesting times. Whether they are driven by the forces of galactic evolution, or the mass psychology of the human species, or both, or something else, we have everything from global warming to the potential meltdown of western capitalism unfolding before us.

Perhaps it is strange, but I find myself joyful and excited. I'm surprised myself. I've worried about these things most of my life. So why this amazing sense of joy and possibility?

Because you are waking up. Individually and collectively we are growing, healing, and waking up. There is a common intention to create community with a new purpose, or a renewed purpose, to serve spirit and the common good, to weave the sacred into daily life, to bring joy and love into our lives and our relationships.

This time the process is from the inside out. We are learning to face our shadows, to embrace our fears, to dive deep - where the still dark we discover is the foundation of possibility and creativity, out of which we can make new choices.

When we are not yet rooted in our central spiritual core, and the outer layers of the personality or the world around us (the manifest aspects of spirit and energy) dissolve, crumble, and transform, we are left lost in the darkness, afraid.

But when we have learned to reach inside, going deep, or high, or however you experience it, and have begun to connect with your high self, your soul, your source, then when the outer layers tremble and loose their structure, it is not I that is gone. There is a still quiet knowingness that spirit is deeper than the outer layers, and it is from this deeper place that you are strong, creative, and everything is possible.

From this place we can live in love and hope and joy, even amid flow and transformation.

The surprise today is to feel this welling up, when I wasn't sure yet that it was really there. I can feel that my brothers and sisters are also holding this space also, that around the world many of us have the intention to hold this center so that transformation can take place. Personally, for another, or in communities.

Feel for it, ask for it, intend it, and allow your self to be drawn to it. It is there for you, and it is surfacing. Remember this is really who you are, always there when we let go of fear and the need to hold the outside together. In the spaces the center emerges, we remember the sacred, the essential self, and in joy and love we can create a new world.

Riding "Alone" (© 9/08)

I recently watched a wonderful movie about a healing journey taken by a Japanese man to a remote area of China. It illustrated how each healing journey is a personal process that we do by, for, and from, ourself. We can only go on it when we are ready and willing to show up for it.

The gentleman in the movie is, after many years, wanting to heal his relationship with his son, who is now very ill. He goes on a trip that is in many ways a pilgrimage determined by his son's own efforts to understand related wounds and heal himself. So from the beginning there is a link, between the father, the son, and their relationship. All three are being healed.

Throughout the journey various other people are also woven into this web of healing. Some of them come forward to assist, moved by the power of the father's sincere search for redemption and connection with, and love for, his son. Others are themselves healed in parallel processes instigated by the father as he begins to realize the greater symbolic nature of his trip.

The story shows the power of the healing process, the spiritual quest, as each of us strives to heal our own wounds, reclaim our souls and our place in the web of love and life. When we are ready to own our life, our wounds, and our healing; we are never really alone, when we sincerely ask we receive. If we hold fast improbable assistance shows up.

It is said: God helps those who help themselves.

It is also important that we be ready to understand that healing may take other forms than we had envisioned. It may involve helping others to heal similar wounds, or our journey may inspire others to have the courage to begin a parallel process. We must be willing to follow the flow of the process wherever it leads us.

In the end we are responsible for our healing, our journey to wholeness, and our commitment to this in the face of obstacles is important. No one can do it for us, and we have to do it for and from ourselves. But we are less alone than we sometimes feel, spirit is always ready to help us. And as we heal it often affects others in deep ways, seen and unseen.

Life is a web, of which we are all parts. Each of our wounds is reflected throughout this web, and each healing journey is as well. So thank you all for the courage and determination to walk your own path. It lightens my world as well as yours.

Into the Gap Between by Ursula K. LeGuin Always Coming Home (1985)

What do they do,
the singers, tale-writers, dancers, painters, shapers, makers?
They go there with empty hands,
into the gap between.
They come back with things in their hands.
They go silent and come back with words, with tunes.
They go into confusion and come back with patterns.
They go limping and weeping, ugly and frightened,
and come back with the wings of the redtail hawk,
the eyes of the mountain lion.


That is where they live,
where they get their breath:
there, in the gap between,
the empty place.


Where do the mysterious artists live?
There, in the gap between.
Their hands are the hinge.
No one else can breathe there.
They are beyond praise.


The ordinary artists
use patience, passion, skill, work
and returning to work, judgment,
proportion, intellect, purpose,
indifference, obstinacy, delight in tools,
delight, and with these as their way
they approach the gap, the hub,
approaching in circles, in gyres,
like the buzzard, looking down, watching,
like the coyote, watching.


They look to the center,
they turn on the center,
they describe the center,
though they cannot live there.
They deserve praise.


There are people who call themselves artists
who compete with each other for praise.
They think the center
is a stuffed gut,
and that shitting is working.
They are what the buzzard and the coyote
ate for breakfast yesterday.

One Step at a Time (© 8/08)

I was up in the early morning headed for the airport at the start of a trip to the east coast. A cool summer night, a quarter moon rising, and my son excited about starting his new adventure in college.

Riding the shuttle on the first leg of a typical airline trip, which takes twelve hours to complete a four hour flight, I notice that part of me is worrying. Not about the next step in the process, check in; but about returning the rental car on the return trip five days later.

This part of my mind wants to review the whole trip over and over, trying to make sure that it will all go as planned. I have to laugh. Calling myself back to present time, the sweet, cool, night on the Colorado plains, I ask simply, "Is this step going well? Yes. Is there anything I need to prepare for the next one? No.

OK, let's relax, trust myself and spirit.

A great opportunity to practice being present, knowing what the long range plan is, but allowing it to unfold one step at a time. This let events flow, and allowed me to feel good about the trip all the way until I got home again. Even in the traffic jams, both on the roads and at the airport.

Arriving home on another wonderful Colorado night, I find my grass is green and growing. It was never about me doing it all. The rains two weeks ago and cooler days have changed a yellow yard into green that needs to be mowed again. All while I was off doing other things. I am not alone.

Ahh, but now I am home. There is a new space in my life. I can consider what I want to fill it with. I find that it is a good step to know the plan and allow myself to trust it, but the mind really rebels when there is "no plan". Can I relax and trust the next step when I'm not sure what that is? Can I still remember that spirit has my back, that the tapestry of life has many weavers, seen and unseen?

Same lesson, next octave.

My mind doesn't have to fill this new space months and years ahead. In fact, I know I will have a great deal of help creatively filling it, especially if I am open to it being there. When I can relax my being, show up, be present, be appreciative and joyful, give my fears space, but let them go, then the creativity of spirit, my higher self and all the other levels, has space to gift me.

If I am too busy worrying about next month or next year, how can I notice what the next step is that's appearing right in front of me? or arising from inside me? Have patience and it will become clear. Allow the space to be present and open so that it may fill creatively. Let go of the "responsibility" to do it all, which is overwhelming. Settle into that deep place of connection and knowing, not of what next week brings, but of spirit and self, of trust and faith, of what is already present right here, today. Then next week will begin to spin itself.

Send a comment or question to Alan

Change and Possibility (© 7/08)

There is change in the air this summer. The finishing of old cycles, completion and transition.

Among other things in my life, my son, and youngest child, will fly east in a month to start his college education. For him this is a big change and the beginning of many new aspects of his life, some anticipated, and some unknown, not even dreamed of yet. It would be reasonable that he might be nervous, but my hope is that he can view this as a space of possibilities and adventure.

For me it is also the ending of a long period of daily parenting, a role that has been a source of many things in my life, including much pride and joy. It has often been the one consistent thread when everything else has been in flux. A part of me has been morning the transitioning of this role, more than I would have expected, and this is good.

Another part of me is feeling into the space and openness that will be in my life, room to focus on other things, other relationships, room perhaps for unanticipated surprises, and this feels great. I can feel the sadness, that wants to morn an emptiness, and also the joy that there will be room for new fullness.

As I help my son prepare for his new life, I notice a tendency to go into that famous parental worry place. It has been a great gift to sit back and ask, is this really an expression of my love for him, or is it perhaps a marvelous space in which I project my own doubts and fears. Are these mental constructions more about the past, reflecting my own struggles and experiences, than they are about his future? I suspect they are.

If he is a bit unconcerned with these preparations, what does it serve to fill him with an urgency and anxiety that is really my own? Pretty easy to answer that one! Rather it is a wonderful time to release my old fears and worries, to trust his ability to navigate his own life, or to learn how, and expect that he will open to all the wonderful possibilities that are there for him.

An old friend recently sent me the link to a wonderful video which presents many aspects of life simply and eloquently. Among these is the suggestion that when change comes along, we look for the opportunities, the possibilities, for wonderful things to happen. When we can do this life opens to us and we begin to find the wonderful and beautiful in the world around us.

In my own journey this year, spirit has several times shown how it is from the spaces in between what we think exists that possibilities arise. In between the atoms lies the energy of life and the fields of what is possible, waiting for us to relax enough, to let the structures open enough, to create all the things we can imagine and more.

So as my son prepares to leave home, I take this opportunity to recognize more of my own limiting fears and release them for us both. I breath into the openness of new possibility in gratitude for another gift that he has given me. I set him free to fly without my fears weighted around his feet. Joyously grieving the change and transition I wait in wonder for the possible to enter in.

May you find your dreams in the spaces that open through changes in your life.

Video: Celebrating What's Right With the World - Dewitt Jones

A wonderful video that simply and eloquently presents insights into "what it's all about" based on personal experience. The best sort of wisdom. Very inspirational.
Click here for the video.

Being Best (© 7/08)

How often have we heard these words, directly spoken or indirectly heard in movies, read in books, sung in songs? We are urged to compete, with others, with ourselves, with nature, but to be the best in any of many senses, from an Olympic athlete to a loyal friend. All worthy goals.

We may have been told to get the best grades, swim the fastest race, be the nicest person, to be better than someone, or everyone, or just to better ourselves. Excellence is defined in many ways, but we all want to excel, it is natural and part of us as human beings.

Recently a question floated through. How often do we think of being best as something out there? as opposed to in here? or to put it another way: Do we look around and select something that is already defined and work to be best at it? or do we take the time to go inside and ask what are we best suited for in life? Where will we naturally excel? What gifts to we bring to the world?

This may seem like a slight distinction, and like many things in life we may be working with both sides of this question at the same time; but are we living our life to be the best version of us? or are we living it to achieve the positive regard of others? Take a moment to settle into the question, the answer is for you, not for me. There is no wrong answer, just information and choices.

Do we ask what does the world expect us to be, or want us to be? or do we ask who am I? It is usually easier to answer the former question, but surely it is ultimately more satisfying to take the time to pursue the latter.

No one can be better at being you than you are. When you find your heart and it's bliss they will lead you to what you can uniquely offer to the world. You, at least, will be satisfied, but I expect "the world" will notice as well.

Let Nature Feed Your Soul (© 7/08)

I recently spent several wonderful days in the mountains of northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Leaving schedules and cell phone behind, I moved into a space more of being than of doing.

I found myself wanting to simply sit on a high rock overlooking a green valley, or by the stream rushing through the valley. Feeling into the earth, the water, the sky at night full of stars. Letting nature's rhythms flow through me, opening to them intentionally. Staring at the flames of the fire, or feeling the energy and grace of the horses in the pasture, relaxing into a beingness that is full of life and movement.

Nature blends its doing and being. She is coherent and flowing in a way that I don't often feel in my daily human life.

I let my mind go, floating away like the clouds, releasing the things that need to be done, that I shouldn't forget, that hover like mosquitos that refuse to let me relax. I find a new mind, soaring like a redtail, riding the flows of wind and water, opening awareness to the trees, plants, and animals. There goes a yellow swallowtail, or three, playfully dancing through the sunlight.

I feel this mind in my being, feeding it with the breath of awareness. Coming back to my essential self, the soul that remembers it is connected, and that in that connection it knows without having to figure and think. It drinks in the experience of the natural world, flowing and expanding with joy and gratitude.

Today I am back in Boulder, but I am not quite the same. I have brought home with me some of the web of life from the mountains, and permission to breath into it and remember. My mind is not so busy yet, my beingness is still palpable, the natural rhythm is here also, underneath in the still and quite, even in the city. I can carry it with me, nourishing it through out the day, through giving it space, or taking a walk outdoors.

Find a tree blowing in the wind, or a flowing stream, animals in pasture, birds or butterflies, or the clouds up high. Allow your being to feel the natural rhythms that it remembers when you let it. Know that your soul is being fed just being with them and intending the resonance. Nothing more required.

Rejoice in your own natural being.

The Smell of a Summer Rose (© 6/08)

Summertime and the roses are blooming.

Find some and take time to smell them.
Be fully present, smelling them.
Let their smell fill your awareness.
Not a sniff, or two.
Breath them in, over and over.
Stretch into the experience, reach for it from your heart.
Notice what comes forward and what fades away.
Let go of the thinking, focus on the feeling, the being of this.
Imagine this smell flowing through your whole body, how
does you experience roses as a state of being?
Breathing life through the rose.


Let memories of roses come and float away.
Stay with this rose for long enough to know this smell unfiltered,
right here and now.


When you have been present with this rose, allowed your being
to reflect and communicate with it, slowly come back into the world,
and notice where you have been.
Notice the "waking", the mind coming back on line.
If you are fortunate it may take a while.
Notice the "dying", which aspects are going off line.
Is this not like waking from a dream?


Over the minutes and hours return to your experience,
call up the smell of the rose.
How does your being react?
How much of the full experience returns?
Does the mind slow and stop?
What parts come alive?
Practice this.


When we have intense experiences, intimate experiences, meditations,
or dreams, are they not all alike?
We shift our awareness to other levels of being, we are "transported".
Take this chance to notice where you go and how you "return".
How much do you retain?
or is the mind in a hurry to "wake up", to "get on", to "be real"?


These transported states are quite real, just different.
Carry the smell of the rose with you, in your being.
Allow yourself that state, the awareness of smelling the rose,
filtering into the rest of your life.


Is it not wonderful to live your life through the smell of a rose?

Send a comment or question to Alan

Video: Connecting a Million Hearts - from Hearthmath

A beautiful video about the healing power of the heart and positive emotions. Well worth a couple of minutes.
Click here for the video.

Sunny Skies and Dark Thoughts (© 4/08)

This afternoon the sky is clear and blue as only Colorado and other high dessert skies are blue. The sun is warm, if not hot. Fruit trees are beginning to bloom, as are the little spring flowers in the grass and along the trails. The air smells fresh and clean as the snow on the high mountains. Its about as beautiful a day as you can imagine.

My emotional body responds to this beauty, relaxes, opens, feels happy. Its an easy day to drop into my heart and breath and be grateful to be alive.

Then I notice my mind doing some strange things. It's actually trying to talk me out of the way I'm feeling! It skips right by the fact that it may snow tomorrow (this is Colorado after all) to the fact that its tax day, that a client postponed, that various other things are not perfect in the accounting department. One after another it's tossing these dark thoughts at me, challenging my right to feel happy and enjoy the day.

None of these things affects the present moment, like tomorrow's weather. None of these is cast in stone either, and in fact they may well turn out to be opportunities in disguise. Like tomorrow's weather everything may be different by the time it shows up.

So I ask my mind what the deal is? Well, you can't just feel good for no reason can you? comes the answer. To which I say why not? You've talked me into feeling bad many times for no real reason, haven't you? say I. No reply to that one. Why should it be that we need a reason to feel good? or to feel anything for that matter?

We feel what we feel when we feel it. If we can let ourselves have this then the feelings come and go and we move on. If the mind gets ahold of them and sticks them in a story, or connects them with various memories (in order to explain or justify them) then we start looping. Feelings to memories/story to feelings to.. over and over.

So today I simply choose to connect to the day around me and feel good, be happy, use this as another lesson in what living with an open heart feels like. It may not change tomorrow's weather, any more than my mind can change today's, but I can enjoy today, and perhaps enjoy the snow tomorrow as well.

And perhaps, a little voice says, if you allow the emotional body to cultivate feeling good, in spite of the mental programs, we can learn to feel good most of the time, even when challenging things come.

Choose love not fear, and have a wonderful day.

Video: My Stroke of Insight: Jill Bolte Taylor.

A wonderful and moving first person description of left-brain and right-brain consciousnesses, as experienced during the aftermath of a stoke as her left brain shuts down. Posing the central question of "How do you want to show up in the world?"
Click here for the video.

An End to Haunting One's Self(© 3/08)

Feeling into the emotional space inside myself, scared to find the fear/pain that was always there I gingerly turn on the light and slowly realize that there the space is empty, the fear is gone. It is gone and I am free, free to relax the vigilance, that always guarded against the threat that this pain or fear would be stimulated, would awaken to haunt me

This fear I put there to protect me from harm, if I am fearful enough inside somehow I will avoid fearful things outside. What strange logic? How true to say "All we need fear is fear itself." How much we suffer from trying not to suffer, doing unto ourselves before someone else does unto us. We create more of what we seek to avoid, carrying fear around all the time so as not to have anything fearful happen to us, some time. And finally being fearful we create events, or draw in people that will confirm this to us so and we can say: see we were right to be afraid.

Setting aside the fear of fear, relaxing into our core we trust ourselves to walk peacefully in the world Even if we don't eliminate all possible events we are only afraid when we need to be not of our own depths so we can't sleep well at night. Most of the time we can know peace and joy the door is open to happiness, feeling safe in our own being, we connect freely to life and love.

Blessed be.

Cycles and Seasons(© 2/08)

Today it is warm and sunny, looking forward to the coming seasons, the world thaws, smells blossom and we remember freedom and relaxation. Tonight it may snow again, yet we know that soon it will be warm again. Do we contract again, or stay open and receptive?

Through the seasons life changes but we can choose to be the same, or to be affected by those we like or dislike. Inner life also has its seasons and changes, but there as well we can come to a being that flows through the emotional patterns, or be blown this way and that.

Finding the core of who we are, nourishing the relationship to ourself, to Spirit, we can enjoy the snow or the sun, be with the joy or the sorrow. Seeking that which is constant, which remains through all the seasons we come closer to ourselves.

Falling Snow, Torness and Wholeness Meditation (© 2/08)

Like many things in life the snow simply is, but what it means to us is really something we bring to the table. Is it a beautiful piece of natural performance art? an obstacle to trafiic? a symbol of the flow of abundance and grace that always flows over us? or another chore that we have to do at the end of a long day? It may be something completely unique to you this day only.

Notice if it is some or all of these things. We are complex beings and are capable of holding many different images at the same time. Some of these may blend gracefully and others may clash.

I attended a great workshop this weekend and we were reminded of the quality of "tornness" ( Jorge Rubio Voller) in which we may want several things, or want to do something and to not do something at the same time. We may wish to help a friend, but be too tired and need to take care of ourselves, or need to cook diner for our children.

More and more it seems we live in a world that encourages us to be so busy that we are often torn in this way. So perhaps you can take some time to stand in the falling snow (or rain, or sunshine, or starlight) and allow your being to connect to the flow off all those flakes. Not choosing one over the other, allowing yourself to "have" all of them. And while you are doing this let go, for now, of all the other things that are tearing at you. Feel your feet on the ground, your connection to the sky, and the inner center that is you.

Being you... feel the flow of energy flowing through you, as the snow flakes fall, collect all the parts together in yourself and your awareness of self. Be conscious of your unity, and your ability to relate to the falling snow from a place of wholeness rather than tornness. Celebrate in great joy, just now, just here, and then carry this feeling with back into the world that pulls in so many directions.

Send a comment or question to Alan

Poems of Transformation (© 1/08)

Being with emotion
giving it space,
anger becomes power,
grief finds its joy,
and fear melts into life force.
May you find the space to breath
and know the light that
you already are.


We are all floating in the sea of consciousness,
thinking that we are alone and thirsty.
When we rise to the top of the waves and look around
we see all our friends nearby and realize that by relaxing in
this sea we will have everything we need.
Dive deep and remember.


The golden infant floats in space
Radiating love and a sense of peace
Is this myself, before incarnation?
or an image of the divine?
I take it into my heart and it really
doesn't matter, does it?
Waking up to ourselves as divine light
in whatever form, we move towards global
transformation and rebirth..

NEW OFFICE

I've had the opportunity to move into a great new office which fits my practice better and which allows me to offer expanded office hours. My new space is
1800 30th St. Suite 307, Boulder CO.

This is behind Jiffy Lube and Sussex One on the east side of 30th St. between Arapohoe and Walnut. Hope to see you there sometime soon. I will be doing sessions here, as well as classes and meditations. Call or email for more detailed directions.

On Nonaction and Peace by Ajhan Chah

Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.


When you sit, let it be.
What you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.

Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache:
You won't be able to find it.
But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise
or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you will have a
little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if
you let go completely you will have complete peace.

Everything is Sound - David Icke

This is a great video showing the ability of waves (sound) to guide the form and pattern of matter. This is one of the key elements about how our how our bodies/beings are formed. cf Rupert Sheldrake and morphogenic fields etc.

Enjoy, Alan



"This is a clip from a David Icke Documentary called "Freedom Road". This video is PUBLIC DOMAIN. Share it freely. Tiny particles of sand are strewn on a smooth disk and subjected to vibrations being passed into the surface, they immediately begin to take form and arrange into a multitude of geometrically perfect designs. Some variations of these vibrations create known geometric patterns such as hexagons (honeycombs), pentagrams, crosses, spirals, and many other infinite combinations. The amazing patterns found on animals and insect wings are easily explained in this simple experiment. Sound and vibration give birth to form. In one particular vibratory sequence, opposite oscillations were resonated though the disk - the sand particles then condensed upon other, rolling into spheres, and then the smaller of the spheres began to revolve around the larger spheres. This is the portrait of our universe. Zoom into our cellular and atomic structure and it is found there as well. Interesting........... This is a small clip from David Icke's Freedom Road. Download the complete video at www.theinfovault.net"

"Realize That You Are Fully Response-Able" by B M Hubbard

Affirm that, as the Beloved, you are not needy, afraid, or lonely. You are attracting every resonance and person you need. You are entering the finest time of your life. You are ready to come into new form, informed by the process of creation itself. [from "Emergence" 2001]

SPIRITUAL FLAMES AND THE SOUL'S AWAKENING. (© 1/08)

Some art is really meant to be felt. It carries an energy that speaks to our being beyond words, beside the mind, through the emotions and the heart. Sometimes it can produce a whole visionary experience, in which we see or feel a process or events that are associated with the picture.

I recently had such an experience with two of Michelle Soule's pieces about the transformational power of flame and fire. While you might well have a different experience (or none at all) in "viewing" these paintings, the messages I got seem to be more than personal. These are energies that we can all tap into in our own way, and are very much in play for many of us in these times of accelerated growth and emergence as spiritual beings on planet Earth.

The Violet Flame

"The Violet Flame"

The first painting, "The Violet Flame", felt to me like an invocation, where the figure is calling in this energy and offering it too us. When I closed my eyes I felt myself in the flame, a sheet of violet flame, saw myself stepping through it, but my shadow self held back, afraid. I called and beckoned and after hesitating it stepped through the flame after me. As it did those parts that were not really me, things I carried for others, or limitations and programs that had come from society were burned away, and what joined me was a smaller figure, but one made now of gold.

This is the alchemy of transformation that is open to us when we are willing to turn inside and delve into the "dark" places of our soul. It is still our soul, and part of Soul. When we remove the judgments and fears we are gifted with valuable aspects of ourselves that have been "hiding". This violet flame helps us in this process, purifying us as we step forward to claim our full spiritual essence. It says to me that in the "dark night" of our souls we are not alone, and spirit will aid us when we summon the courage to step forward through our fears and resistances.

Risen

"Risen"

The second painting, "Risen" is about another aspect of this birthing process we go through as we wake up to the reality of our spiritual selves. In this painting the figure is evoking the energies of the new born star behind it. Rather than holding the energy for us, it is calling forth the new solar wind, the energy is rushing out of the painting at us. With perhaps more urgency than in the Violet Flame, as we stand facing it, our being is blown open and the cloudy and retarding energies we carry are separated and carried off. We are being forced to wake up, to come back from dream (the figure lying behind in shadow, perhaps in the "field of ideas") and step forward brightly in this world.

When a new star is born from a cloud of collapsing gas in the depths of space, it becomes so hot and pressured in its core that the fusion of atoms starts to occur. Pairs of hydrogen atoms combine into Helium and a great light and energy is released. This rushes outward through the star, until coming to the surface it forms a solar wind. The pressure of this light will blow all the remaining gas and dust out away from the star, leaving only a few planets that have solidified in orbit circling this new born being in the heavens, and first light rushes outwards to announce a new member in the community of stars.

We are at this place of igniting our souls, going deep into the pressure and heat of our being, owning our spiritual essence, lighting our being and throwing off the limitations, the shadowing energies that hide our true brilliance. We are needed in the world in all our power and glory. This new wind is clearing our being, challenging us to wake up and step forward.

What has been a quiet invitation is becoming a commanding roar. We can allow ourselves to be birthed in this wind, or continue to let our souls sleep in another world. We are all needed here in this one, to help birth the new realities that are coming through not just for us as individual beings, but collectively and planetarily.

If these paintings speak to you, or you know these energies from other sources, invite these flames to help you in your journey, and know that you have powerful assistance when you need it. Be reassured that once this light has been lit, even a little and deep inside, it will grow until it fills you, and you have come fully alive. This is not about doing something, but allowing yourself to be in the way you are meant to BE.

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Many Blessings as the Year Turns

It seems that I am being reminded in many ways this year that this is actually the time of the year when we are best able to turn inward and seek the wisdom and blessings in the unlighted parts of our soul. It is also a time to slow and relax and enjoy what we have accomplished during the brighter times of the year.

It seems ironic that as a society we have gone to such efforts to be busy and "bright" and avoid this valuable spiritual opportunity. Almost a sense of desperation. No wonder we feel so stressed, to be so busy when our bodies want to rest and turn inside rather than running around outside.

I had the opportunity to experience a painting of the "violet flame" last week in a very interesting way. I felt myself in the flame, and closing my eyes saw myself stepping through it, but my shadow self held back, afraid. I called and beckoned and after hesitating it stepped through the flame after me. As it did those parts that were not really me, things I carried for others, or limitations and programs that had come from society were burned away, and what joined me was a smaller figure, but one made now of gold.

This is the alchemy of transformation that is open to us when we are willing to turn inside and delve into the "dark" places of our soul. It is still our soul, and part of Soul. When we remove the judgements and fears we are gifted with valuable aspects of ourselves that have been "hiding".

So this year, celebrate the shadow as well as the light and find your own presents, your own gold there.

In Each Other - Rumi

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

Out Beyond Ideas - Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other"
Doesn't make any sense.


Some Fill with Each Good Rain - Hafiz

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.


In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.


Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.


There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.

Video Link: Drunvlo Malchizedek on the Higher Self

There is a lot of interesting information here. Note particularly the last 5 minutes on the use of hypnotherpeutic techniques for clearing the subconscious so that we can connect to our lower and higher selves.



THE FLOW OF ABUNDANCE (© 12/07)

Last year, about this time, I co-hosted a showing of the movie "The Secret". It was something that happened a number of times as viewing it with a group always seemed like a powerful and fun way to appreciate the movie, and was a great way to spend an evening. This particular evening after everyone had left I went upstairs to my office and looked out the window. The streetlight in front of the house was illuminating a thick steady snow fall, sparkling flakes driven down by the wind.

I had the clear sense that this was a picture of the universe's constant shower of love, energy and gifts, that is always available when we learn to be open to it. It was especially clear when I let my mind go and just felt the flow and pattern. This was an image of the flow of energy from the universe. What a great lesson. I find that having such a concrete experience is easier to call up when I need to remember the feeling of love, gratitude, and abundance. Perhaps you have a special experience that embodies this for you. If not call one in, and be alert for it. Then experience it deeply in your being and use it to nurture that state in yourself, in which you are relaxed and blessed even if the external forms are a bit crazy.

Recently, a little over a year later, many things have changed, and I have been thinking about that night and trying to remember that feeling. Perhaps the unusual absence of snow so far this year, or the changed life situations this year have made it more challenging than it was then. Until tonight.

I am helping to hold space for a powerful group of women doing ceremony. They are inside. Around them, outside in the mountains on a cold winter night stand a ring of men. Part way through the ceremony it starts to snow, and I feel again that sense of blessing, of being showered with the flow of universal energy that is always there if we can allow it, open to it, and let it flow rather than try to trap it and contain it. I felt doubly blessed that the universe is reminding me: see I have not gone anywhere. I am still flowing with abundance and blessing for you. In fact now you are feeling it on your face, not just watching through a window! Experience this with your whole being and remember!

I am now warm in the cold night, my heart opening to receive this blessing as the snow falls softly on my cheeks. I am full of gratitude, love, and joy, standing in the flow of the universe.

DANCING WITH THE GODDESS (© 11/07)

Engrossed in preparing dinner in the kitchen I feel her come up behind me and put her arms around me. My heart opens to her presence, coming to me through the memory of a loved one who is no longer here. I feel into this embrace, full of love and joy, softly powerful she invites me to dance with her in the echoes of my mind. Embracing her, or being embraced, we dance across the space that is both here and then.

Even then it was the Goddess in the form of my beloved, who I played and danced with in joy and amusement. It all comes clear, that even though this beloved has moved on, the Goddess is still here dancing with me as she did then. I realize she is always there for me, and am deeply grateful to my beloved for having opened the windows that She moves through now. Gone is the sadness and grief at "losing" what came before, in an instant opening to gratitude, love, and joy, that have always been there.

Opening further I feel my own feminine coming alive in the dance. The Goddess shines through me and illumines my own manifestation of her energies. There is the girl, the young woman, the powerful mother, the wise woman, all the aspects alive in this dance. Inviting the divine masculine to come through my "other side" I am the boy, the young man, the father and the wise man. The kitchen is becoming full. Full of love and the dance of energies embracing, supporting, nurturing, protecting.

We are all, all of these if we open to let the God and Goddess shine through us. We are one perfect manifestation of their light, unique in beauty and in shadow. But this dance is large enough to embrace it all, to nurture and comfort the shadows, encouraging gentle expansion, the light dancing with the dark, the male and the female. Spilling out into the living room we whirl across the floor, in and out of each other, as my beloved and I once danced physically and energetically, ecstatically, playfully.

Am I making love, creating love, my beloved, a new love, the Goddess and God, or with myself? The energy is all the same, layered thinly and mixing space and time, in the openness of my heart, my being. I breath into myself and nestle into the intimate embrace of the dance, and the kitchen glows with a warmth that it has not known since she went away.

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Last amended October 15, 2008. © Alan McAllister.