Marketplace
Are You a Member of the Golden Motorcycle Gang?
Book by Jack Canfield
“Meet Up” with Jack Canfield in Hog Heaven
By Linda M. Potter
Picture Jack Canfield, the charismatic co-author of the Chicken Soup For the Soul book series and “America’s #1 Success Coach,” vroom-vrooming through the cosmos on a solid gold Harley… accompanied by a Gang of spiritual soul mates. Then… picture yourself joining the Gang. It’s hard not to smile, or at least raise an eyebrow.
But it’s more than just a whimsical image. It’s the inspiration for Canfield’s new book, a mostly factual, adventure-filled account of his personal spiritual journey and his subsequent awakening to his life’s purpose.
Partnering with fellow Gang members such as William Gladstone and Barbara Marx Hubbard, Canfield uses the book to set the stage for the ride of a lifetime — the one we’re all invited to participate in, the one that ushers in a new age of global consciousness and Universal Humanity.
Your new book, The Golden Motorcycle Gang, is set to release this month. What inspired you to write this book at this time?
When I was in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, we had a guest lecturer who led us through a guided visualization to take us back to when we had chosen to become a teacher. Well, I went back to before I was born which kind of shocked me. And [in the visualization] there were a bunch of us, “souls” I guess, on summer vacation, floating through the universe and having a good time driving down the road on Harley Davidsons. (That’s where the book title comes from.) We looked down on earth and there was a war going on. It was 1944, which is the year I was born, and I just had this sense that I had to go down and help.
So I chose to be born and help out, and that’s been my life’s work.
Afterwards I thought, wow, I’m not just a school teacher; I’m a teacher at a higher level and I have a bigger destiny to fulfill. Then I kind of forgot about it until 10–15 years later when I started meeting people that I had this certain vibrational resonance with. I realized they were doing the same work I was doing; they were here with that same purpose. Maybe they’re part of that “Golden Motorcycle Gang” and we’re reconnecting, I thought.
I was having a beer one night with Bill Gladstone, a literary agent (and the co-author of the book) maybe 10 years ago, and I told that story to him. He said, “That should be a book.” And I said, “That’s ridiculous, no one wants to hear that,” but he kept hounding me. Finally I said, “Bill, I just don’t have time.” “What if I were to interview you two hours every day for a week or two,” he says, “and get all the stories. Then I’ll do the first draft and you can clean it up and make sure it’s accurate, fix the writing, or whatever.”
That’s how the book came into being.
The image of spiritual beings belonging to a motorcycle gang makes me grin a little, but also piques my curiosity. Guides, angels, ascended masters and others are more often portrayed as introspective beings wearing long white robes. Why do you think you’re getting visions of a “hog” Heaven?”
(laughing) I’ve never been drawn to a community where we all wear white and bow down to a certain guru. I’ve studied with many and I’ve sat at the feet of many, but there’s always been this sense of independence in me. When 15 guys on Harleys go by wearing their Hell’s Angels jackets, I admire that sense of “we are who we are and we don’t care what you think about it.” Not that these are guys I’d necessarily want to go have a beer with, because I don’t really know how safe I’d feel! But that’s the kind of feeling I had during that visualization. We were just a bunch of men and women flying through space on motorcycles. They’re golden because it’s spiritual.
In the book, you had more than one encounter with other people who had seen that same image of being in a gang of motorcyclists. Why do you think that same metaphor keeps showing up?
It’s hard to know what gets planted in consciousness. There’s a book by Dick Sutphen called, You Were Born Again to Be Together. In that book, he talks about groups of people who travel through time together like a family — it’s the idea that certain souls agree to go through eternity together and have different experiences. I think people in my “tribe” if you will, saw similar images. But I don’t know why.
It seems like there are many people who have had transformative spiritual experiences of one type or another, but are hesitant to talk about it. Have you noticed this?
I see it all the time. When I do my groups, we talk about these things and people come out of the woodwork. I see bank presidents, corporate leaders, military people and policemen who’ve had near death experiences, visitations from angels, intercessions from higher powers and awakenings. But they’re afraid to talk about it because they don’t want to be seen as “woo woo.”
But someone has to go first. A lot of people don’t know this side of me. I think I’m seen as kind of a famous person because of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Now they can see, here’s this normal guy who’s had these experiences. Maybe it will give them the courage to admit they have too.
You founded the Transformational Leadership Council; its members are listed in the book. What is the purpose of this group and how has it influenced change?
It was founded out of my need to have a support group of people doing similar work. There were different associations, but there was no group for people who own transformational training companies. So I threw a three-day event at my house and for three days we had a discussion about whether or not we wanted to create a support group with each other. Well, 32 people were invited; 30 came; 29 people said yes. Now we’re at about 125 members. It’s morphed into also including transformational coaching company owners, transformational authors that we all read, transformational media people, and so on. The purpose is simply to support each other in becoming more conscious and sharing our techniques with each other.
Did you feel like the 30 people in this original group were part of the Golden Motorcycle Gang?
I would say that 80 percent of them were. Yeah, I could feel that vibration.
How do we know if we belong to The Gang?
If you feel you have a calling, a destiny to contribute to the transformation of the world into a more cooperative, loving, positive, socially just, environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling world, you’re probably part of the Golden Motorcycle Gang. I might have been in one “local chapter,” but it’s clear to me that there’s more members than me and the little group I hang out with. I meet people who are locally well known but not on the national scene and I say, yeah, you’re part of the gang. I think it’s become a metaphor for anyone who wants to become a midwife to the evolution that wants to be occurring right now.
What does this evolution look like to you?
What I get is that there’s something bigger than us that’s evolving. We can tune into it through meditation, visualization, and so on. If you tune into it, you can cooperate with it and you do your part.
I think that so many people who are out there doing counseling, coaching, teaching meditation, doing yoga classes, NLP, EFT… are doing this work. Some people are very conscious about it because they’ve tapped into that calling, that awakening. Other people are more unconsciously doing it, but it’s a quickening I see all over the planet.
In the book, Barbara Marx Hubbard presents you with five questions we can all ask ourselves to determine whether or not we’re part of the Golden Motorcycle Gang. Can you share those with us?
Barbara had an experience [during a full-life regression] of going to the Elysian Fields where in Greek mythology the Gods and demigods hung out. There she found Aristotle and Plato and people like that (probably in white robes!) and was asked these five questions:
What do you know of the original plan?
Are you aware there’s some destiny unfolding that you’re a part of? A lot of people will tell you they are.
Do you have any memory of having volunteered to go to Earth at this particular time?
I volunteered to come down here. I think a lot of people did. I read Life Before Life by Jim B. Tucker where he did 2000 questionnaires and a bunch of interviews with people who had, under hypnosis, direct memory of choosing to be born, what gender to be, what race to be, what kind of parents they wanted to have — coming in with a purpose. They’d met with a board of advisors if you will — guides who helped them clarify that purpose so that when they came down, they could fulfill it.
The third question is, if so, do you remember your contract?
Do you remember what you agreed to do? For example, I agreed to help bring about a world that was more peaceful and harmonious and where people were living their highest vision rather than living their lowest vision out of fear.
What do you do best in the world that only you can do?
What we’re all being called to do right now is authentically be ourselves, not Tony Robbins because he made a lot of money the way he did it, or Barbara Marx Hubbard, or some guru. But to really ask, what is it that I do that’s unique to me?
My wife, for example, I call her a day maker — she makes people’s day. She leaves a message on your cell phone and it makes your day. She walks in to the salon to get her hair done and everybody walks out of there happier because she was there. That’s her purpose.
I have this belief that we’re all like cells in a body. Maybe you’re a brain cell and someone else is a pineal gland cell, and someone else is a liver cell, and someone else is a heart cell, and if we each fully be that, then all the body’s functions will work, and we’ll live. If you try to do something different, you end up being a cancer cell.
What are you supposed to do now, and what tools and resources do you need to do it?
We really have to tune in every day and say, what am I to do now? Today? This period of life? This month? This cycle? This season? And then go and find the tools, the resources and the people to be able to do that work. We should all be supporting each other in that.
Can you talk a little about the Birth 2012 event on Dec. 22 that you’re helping to organize: how you plan to participate, how the rest of us can also take part?
There are a lot of events being created and maybe I’ll be on a stage somewhere, but I will definitely be participating. Through the Transformational Leadership Council, we have a combined mailing list of over 12 million people and we’ll be promoting it, encouraging people to really participate in a day of celebration, a day of intention, a day of how do we want to create this next chapter of our life? That day will be an ongoing day of celebrations and concerts and TV shows and such. Conscious evolution means evolution by choice, not chance.
Do you want to learn more about the Golden Motorcycle Gang or Birth 2012? Check out www.GoldenMotorcycleGang.com and www.Birth2012.com.
Linda M. Potter is a popular speaker, a freelance writer and the author of If Only God Would Give Me a Sign! www.lindampotter.com or at lindampotter@comcast.net.
Wisdom of the Plant Devas by Thea Summer Deer
Wisdom of the Plant Devas
by Thea Summer Deer
Book Excerpt
Self-Heal
Prunella vulgaris
Unconditional Self-Love
The Story
While the name Prunella may elicit the image of a prissy princess or call to mind an Italian folk tale, Prunella vulgaris is a common perennial wildflower. The genus includes seven species that are all known by the common name self-heal. Self-heal has been used medicinally for centuries on practically every continent to treat just about every ailment. Perhaps it is Prunella’s little purple flowers that cause its association with little plums and prunes. The flowers bloom constantly from May to September.
Self-heal is a medicinal plant, or weed as some consider it, which is incredibly abundant, available, and found practically all over the world. It has a long history of folk use, especially in the treatment of wounds. Prior to World War II it was used to staunch bleeding and treat heart disease. Considered one of the fairy herbs in rural Ireland, perhaps because of its wand of delicate purple flowers and ability to heal, it inspired the young English artist Cicely Mary Barker. Cicely Mary Barker’s art elicited a sense of freedom of spirit that charmed a war-weary world in the early twentieth century with a vision of innocence and hope.
The herbal actions of self-heal are so many that it is usually considered to be an herbal panacea. Self-heal is used as an antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant. In addition, self-heal also exhibits the following herbal actions: alterative, antimutagenic, antispasmodic, astringent, carminative, diuretic, febrifuge, hypotensive, immunostimulant, stomachic, styptic, vermifuge, vulnerary, and tonic. It is used to gradually restore health, promote wound healing, stop internal hemorrhaging by contracting blood vessels, reduce fever, cause tissue to contract, relieve symptoms of indigestion such as hyperacidity and gas, strengthen and tone the stomach, treat edema, induce urination, lower blood pressure, and even expel intestinal worms.
Fresh-picked self-heal is used as a fresh herb poultice applied directly to a wound. Although the most common use is topically to treat sores, burns, and bruises, it is also used internally to relieve hemorrhaging, fevers, diarrhea, and swollen glands. In Chinese medicine self-heal is classified as cooling to the liver and used to treat liver and gallbladder inflammation and stagnation. There is also evidence to support the traditional use of self-heal in the treatment of some forms of cancer as well as type 2 diabetes. Its antiviral actions seem to slow cell division, making it a potential aid in the treatment of HIV and herpes simplex virus.
The Divination
Self-heal wants us to heal and has brought herself into close proximity, and relationship, with humans for this reason. She cools our livers, heals our anger, and teaches us how to heal and love ourselves unconditionally. Love is the greatest healer, and this plant loves us so much that she just keeps showing up—practically everywhere! Sometimes, when a person has been badly damaged or wounded through neglect or violence, we have to love them until they are able to love themselves. This is what the devas of the medicine plants are doing—loving us until we learn how to love ourselves. Take a moment to look around. Where is this plant growing near you? How will you honor her medicines? There is no imbalance that she cannot restore. You have only to open your heart and receive.
“Love thy neighbor as thyself,” implies that one must start by learning to love one’s self. If we look around at our neighbors in the world today we can see that we have not done so well with this lesson. Why is it so difficult to truly love our Self? Perhaps it is because of what we were taught about being born. Were we born in blessing, or born in sin? How were we raised? Were we loved and supported and encouraged to carry our gifts or told that we were bad and punished?
When we love ourselves enough to do the inner work of bringing back the lost soul pieces that keep us from being fully present, and we integrate those pieces into our third dimensional physical form, then we free ourselves, and others, to experience new levels of consciousness. We become present in love.
The Deva Speaks
What is this that you call love and to which you aspire with no conditions? The human has only ever known the emotion of love upon which there has always been conditions. Your condition for love is based on the elements for survival. The elements have always been here to serve your evolution, and it is their love alone that is unconditional on this plane.
It is a law in your dimension that there will always be this struggle toward the light of love: a struggle that will continue for as long as you take form in a dimension of duality and separation. For your notion of an unconditional love is actually a field of love emanating from a central sun that you have already begun to perceive. When the need to survive is no longer upon you then you will enter this vibrational field of love. No conditions as you presently know them exist in this field, for love is what is. It is in this field that I have grown my medicines for you, and through this field that we will walk together as I show you the way home.
Deva Premal & Miten: Music in the Key of Love
Deva Premal & Miten: Music in the Key of Love
Mantra Singers Launch US Tour & New Album “PASSWORD”
By Lisa T. Greene
The age of yoga is upon us. With yoga studios opening in every town across the United States, millions of people are enjoying yoga’s stress-reducing and life-enhancing benefits.
In the world of music, many top recording artists are yoga aficionados, including Alanis Morissette, Nora Jones, Sting and Sarah McClachlan, who recently appeared on the cover of Yoga Journal. However it is yoga-based mantra chanting that is changing the way people listen to — and feel — the yogic effects of music.
Deva Premal & Miten have been a central part of the chant-based culture shift. For the past 21 years the two have been merging the ancient mantras with new rhythms and musical beats, creating a sound that is deeply rooted in tradition, but appeals to a modern audience. Deva and Miten’s fans include Anthony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Cher, who featured one of Deva’s most popular chants, the Gayatri Mantra, on her Farewell Concert Tour. Deva and Miten have a new album coming out in October 2011 called PASSWORD since “mantras are passwords that transform the mundane into the sacred”.
“Mantras and Rock n’ Roll – The Mystical and the Mythic”
Miten, a child of the 1960s, grew up in the countercultural environment of England, and recalls that “at that time, England was alive with rock ‘n’ roll music and the sound of The Beatles. Everywhere you went it was on the street. It was a time of innocence, a time when you could sense the possibility that life has no boundaries.” With The Beatles and other cultural icons, such as Allen Ginsberg, discovering the mystical traditions of India, Tibet and Nepal in the late 1960s, new sounds and contemplative practices were being introduced into the Western arts and culture scene.
Miten established a successful career in the 1970s as a singer/songwriter, touring with such stars as Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed and Ry Cooder. During this time he released two well-received albums, one produced by The Kinks, and another by noted Los Angeles producer Bones Howe for Ariola Records. But while this time was thrilling, the rock and roll lifestyle left him unfulfilled: ”I found myself in my 30′s asking questions — I was looking for something more substantial in my life than the usual diet of sex, drugs and rock and roll.”
In his search for answers, Miten left the world of rock behind – even selling his beloved guitars – and entered into a new life of possibilities as a member of a spiritual community, where he discovered an ancient, yet new , approach to music:
“It was an amazing revelation. I wasn’t prepared for the healing power of the music that was happening and it turned my head to what real sacred music was – even though it was western in style, it still had the most uplifting and spiritual nature, especially the ‘Music Groups’ and the Sufi dances. All this music, along with a life of communal integration, healed me from whatever wounds I’d been carrying around from my former life in music, and life in general.”
By 1990, when Miten met Deva Premal, he was leading music groups for thousands of people at the Osho Ashram in Poona, India. Despite difference in age and life history, Deva recalls that, “Although I was 20 years old and he was 42, our hearts immediately connected. I felt good whenever we were together. We laughed a lot… and still do.”
For the past six years, Deva and Miten have had the pleasure of collaborating with Manose, the internationally renowned bansuri (bamboo flute) maestro and one Nepal’s top recording artists. The founder of the rock group AD1974, Manose is part of the world music movement, merging genres, traditions and sounds, while at the same time, introducing traditional Nepalese music to new audiences. For Deva and Miten, working with Manose has been a seamless process: “Manose has a great grasp of Western music,” Miten shares. “When we first started working together, he walked into the studio and I had the track already going. He just picked up the flute and rolled with it.” Manose danced with Deva and Miten’s voices and energy and now they consider him part of their “love bubble.”
”PASSWORD, Deva Premal & Miten’s new album, unlocks our inner technology”
Today, chant and popular culture are joining together more and more, as seen in the growing attendance at music and yoga festivals across the country. In June of 2008, the music industry was star-struck to watch the recording by a group of German monks singing Gregorian chants sky rocket to top the iTunes and Billboard charts.
Deva and Miten love that the music they have been quietly creating for 21 years is reaching wider and wider audiences. They anticipate their new album, Password, will continue to unlock the secret of mantras for an entirely new generation, eager to engage with their ‘inner’ technologies. The new album expands on the chant tradition that couples Miten’s lush arrangements by a group of young jazz artists, with Deva’s rich vocal tones. The jazz players bring a fresh sensibility and interpretation to Deva & Miten’s signature sound.
One thing is certain, Deva Premal & Miten are never ones to sit back on their meditation pillows or rest of their laurels – their new album and 2011 US Tour will continue to stretch the boundaries of the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative – a testament to their artistry and their commitment to the endless beauty of the mantra.
For more information visit www.DevaPremalMiten.com
Click here for a sneak peek at the iTunes release of “Password.”
Living On The Edge: The Deep Truth of Our Destiny and Our Fate – By Gregg Braden – Author of Deep Truth
Living On The Edge: The Deep Truth of Our Destiny and Our Fate
By Gregg Braden
Author of Deep Truth
Introduction
During the last years of the Cold War, I had a front row seat as a senior systems designer in the defense industry to one of the most frightening times in the history of the world, and the thinking that led to it. During the 44 years of the most potentially lethal, yet undeclared, war in human history, the super powers of the United States and the former Soviet Union did something that seems unthinkable to any rationally minded person today. They spent the time, energy, and human resources to develop and stockpile somewhere in the neighborhood of 65,000 nuclear weapons—a combined arsenal with the power to microwave the Earth, and everything on it, many times over.
There is a common thread that links the rationale that led to the cold war and many of the crises that face us today. They all stem from a way of thinking that has dominated much of the modern world since the beginning of the scientific era about 300 years ago. They’re based in the false scientific assumptions that suggest we’re somehow separate from the Earth, separate from one another, and that the nature that gives us life is based upon violent competition and survival of the strongest.
Fortunately, new discoveries have revealed that each of these assumptions is absolutely false.
Unfortunately, however, there is a reluctance to reflect such new discoveries in mainstream science, mainstream media, traditional classrooms and conventional textbooks. In other words, we’re still teaching our young people the false assumptions of an obsolete way of thinking based in struggle, competition, and war.
So while we no longer face the nuclear threat that we did in the 1980s, the thinking that made the wars and suffering of the 20th Century and the crises of the 21st Century possible is still in place. This fact is vital to us all right now for one simple reason: The best minds of today tell us clearly that we’re facing the greatest number and magnitude of crises in recorded history, and that if left unresolved, each crisis threatens our very existence!
Our Clear and Present Danger
The journal Scientific American released a special edition (vol. 293, no. 3, September 2005) to inform the world of the critical situation we find ourselves in today. The title, Crossroads for Planet Earth, says it all. The way we solve the simultaneous crises that include:
- our response to climate change
- the unsustainable and growing levels of extreme poverty
- the emergence of new diseases
- the growing shortages of food and fresh drinking water
- the growing chasm between extreme wealth and extreme poverty
- the unsustainable demand for energy
will chart the greatest destiny, or seal the darkest fate, of our global family that is estimated to reach a staggering 8 billion people by 2025.
For the first time in human history the future of our entire species rests upon the choices of a single generation—us—and the choices are being made within a small window of time—now.
The key is that the way we address the crises of our time is based in the way we think of ourselves and the world. Maybe it’s no coincidence that today, after three centuries of using the scientific method to answer the most basic questions about ourselves, the world has found itself facing the greatest crises of war, suffering, and disease in recorded history! Our old ways of thinking—which include believing in the need for competition, our separation from nature, and the Darwinian tenet “let the strongest live and the weakest die” have brought us to the brink of disaster. Clearly, the thinking that led to the war and suffering of the 20th century, including the Cold War, is not the thinking that we want the delicate choices of our survival based upon!
The Question…
How can we possibly know what to choose—what policies to create, what laws to pass, or how to build sustainable economies and bridge the issues that are tearing at the fabric of our relationships and society—until we’ve answered the single question that lies at the very core of our existence. The question is simply this:
Who are we?
As individuals, as families, as nations, and as a combined human civilization, our answer to this deceptively simple question creates the lens through which we see ourselves, our world, and make the choices of our lives, our future, and our survival. When we embrace the discoveries of modern science—the truths of our past on Earth, our planet’s cycles of change, and the role these play in our lives—then we’ll understand what we’re really up against, what our options are, and what choices are available.
The Hope
In recent years, an explosion of new discoveries throughout the sciences has left little doubt that many long-standing views about life, our world, and our bodies have to change. The reason is simple: The ideas are wrong. In light of the new evidence regarding near–ice age civilizations, the false assumptions of human evolution, the origin and role of war in our past, and the undue emphasis on competition in our lives today, we must rethink the most basic scientific beliefs that lie at the core of the decisions we make and the way we live. This is where the new deep truths of science come in.
Deep Truths
During a conversation with Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize–winning physicist Niels Bohr once shared his insight into our deep and mysterious relationship regarding what we think of as “truth.” In clear and eloquent terms he stated “It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth.”18 In other words it’s what Bohr called the “negation” of old scientific assumptions (meaning discoveries that it no longer make sense in the presence of new evidence) that makes the opposite of those assumptions a deep truth. And this is where the news of recent scientific discoveries becomes a proverbial double-edged sword.
The good news is that the new information gives us an updated and presumably more correct way of thinking about things. The downside is that entire paradigms have already been built upon the false assumptions. Everything from the curricula approved by school boards and taught in our classrooms; to the careers of teachers, authors, and academics whose lives have been devoted to teaching the paradigm—along with the political decisions and policies that have been made into law in the highest courts of the land—is based upon what is accepted as “true” in our culture. We may well discover that our beliefs about global warming, the role of competition in global economies, when we choose to save a life, when we choose to take a life and the reasons for war, for example, fall precisely into this category of deep truth.
As we face the greatest number and magnitude of crises in recorded history, the facts revealed by six areas of discovery radically change the way we’ve been led to think about our world and ourselves in the past. They include:
— Deep Truth 1: Our ability to defuse the crises threatening our lives and our world hinges upon our willingness to accept what science is revealing about our origins and history.
— Deep Truth 2: The reluctance of mainstream educational systems to reflect new discoveries, and explore new theories, keeps us stuck in obsolete beliefs that fail to address the greatest crises of human history.
— Deep Truth 3: New discoveries of advanced civilizations dating to near the end of the last ice age provide insights into solving the crises in our time, that our ancestors also faced in theirs.
— Deep Truth 4: A growing body of scientific data from multiple disciplines, gathered using new technology, provides evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that humankind reflects a design put into place at once, rather than a life-form emerging randomly through an evolutionary process over a long period of time.
— Deep Truth 5: More than 400 peer-reviewed studies have concluded that violent competition and war directly contradict our deepest instincts of cooperation and nurturing. In other words, at the core of our truest nature we simply are not “wired” for war!
— Deep Truth 6: The key to addressing the crises threatening our survival lies in building partnerships based upon mutual aid and cooperation to adapt to the changes, rather than in pointing fingers and assigning blame, which makes such vital alliances difficult.
The best science of our time, when it is married to the wisdom of our past, confirms that we still have the ways and means to shift our time of crises into a time of emergence. We can create a new world based upon actionable and sustainable principles based in the core understanding of our deepest truths. The key is simply this: the better we know ourselves, the clearer the choices in our lives become.
No one knows for certain what the future holds. But no matter which challenges await us or which choices we’ll be faced with, one thing is absolutely certain: Knowing who we are and understanding our relationship to one another, as well as to the world beyond, gives us the evolutionary edge to tip the scales of life and balance in our favor. And it all begins with our awareness of the deepest truths of our existence, and how we rely on those truths each day for every choice in our lives.
*** ***
Bio
Gregg Braden is a New York Times best-selling author, a former Senior Computer Systems Designer for Martin Marietta Aerospace, former Computer Geologist for Phillips Petroleum, and the first Technical Operations Manager for Cisco Systems. His book, Deep Truth, releases October 2011.
For over 25 years he has searched high mountain villages, remote monasteries, and forgotten texts to bridge their life-giving secrets with the best science of today. His work has led to the cutting edge books such as The Divine Matrix, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, Fractal Time, and Deep Truth. Gregg’s work is now published in 17 languages and 33 countries and shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the key to our future lies in the wisdom of our past.
Website: www.greggbraden.com
Chakra Frequencies – by Jonathan and Andi Goldman
Chakra Frequencies – by Jonathan and Andi Goldman
Book Excerpt
Chapter 6
The Sacred Vowels
In the Eastern and the Western Mystery schools, the power and sacredness of vowels have been known for thousands of years. Knowledge of the resonation of sacred vowel sounds with the energy centers of the body is said to date back to ancient Egypt.
Different vowel sounds vibrate specific portions of the body naturally. Different pitches also resonate different parts of the physical body; low sounds vibrate the lower part of the trunk, midrange sounds vibrate the mid and upper trunk, and high sounds resonate the head. If the different parts of the physical body could be resonated through a combination of vowel sounds and pitches, then perhaps the chakras related to specific parts of the body could also be resonated with these pitches. This idea led to the creation of an exercise called “Vowels as Mantras.”
Before we begin, here are a few reminders. It is important when working with self-created sounds to always do them in a comfortable place where you will not be disturbed. Remember to breathe deeply and slowly before, during, and after the sounding. When sounding, make sure you are creating a gentle and comfortable sound and be sure you are not straining your voice.
Vowels as Mantras
First Chakra
Begin with an UH sound (as in “huh”) that is the deepest sound you can make. Focus your attention on the first (root) chakra, located between the genitals and the anus. Close your eyes while you are making this sound. Focus your attention on the lowest part of your trunk and project your intention so that you visualize the sound resonating between the genitals and the anus. Feel the sound vibrating that area and, as it does, become aware that the energy center associated with this area is also resonating and becoming balanced and aligned through your sounds. Make this UH sound seven times.
Second Chakra
Now focus your attention on the second (or sacral) chakra located about three inches below the navel. The vowel sound for this is an OOO sound (as in “you”). Begin to tone an OOO sound, making it a little less deep than the UH, and a slightly higher pitch. Close your eyes and notice where the sound is resonating in your body. Focus your attention on the area of the second chakra and project the sound to this area. As the sound resonates the second chakra, experience this energy center balancing and aligning with the first chakra. Make this OOO sound seven times.
Third Chakra
The third chakra, often called the navel chakra, is located around the navel. The sound for this is OH (as in “o”). Begin to tone a very gentle and soft OH sound in the mid range of your voice. This should be slightly higher in pitch than the sound for the last chakra. Close your eyes and notice where that sound is resonating in your body. Now focus your attention on the navel and project the sound to this area. As the sound resonates this area, experience this energy center balancing and aligning with the other chakras. Make this OH sound seven times.
Fourth Chakra
The vowel sound for the heart (fourth) chakra, located in the middle of the chest, is AH (as in “father”). AH is often a sound we make when we are in love, and indeed the heart chakra is the center associated with love. Begin to tone a soft and gentle midrange AH sound, higher in pitch than for the last chakra. Become aware of where the sound is resonating in your body. Now focus your attention on the heart chakra and project the sound there. As you resonate the heart center with sound, experience this energy center being balanced and aligned with the other chakras. Make this AH sound seven times.
Fifth Chakra
The vowel sound for the throat (fifth) chakra, located at the throat, is EYE (as in “I”). Begin to tone a soft and gentle EYE sound, which is still higher in pitch than the sound for the last chakra. Become aware of where the sound is resonating in your body. Now focus your attention on the throat chakra and project sound there. As the sound resonates the throat chakra, experience this energy center balancing and aligning with the other chakras. Make this EYE sound seven times.
Sixth Chakra
The vowel sound for the third eye (the sixth chakra), located in the forehead between the eyes and slightly above them, is AYE (as in “say”). Begin to tone a soft and gentle AYE sound higher in pitch than the sound for the last chakra. Close your eyes while making this sound and notice where the sound is resonating in your body. Now focus your attention on this chakra and project the sound to the third eye area. As the sound resonates the third eye, experience this energy center aligning and balancing with your other chakras. Make this AYE sound seven times.
Seventh Chakra
The vowel sound for the crown (seventh) chakra, located at the top of the head is the very highest EEE (as in “me”) sound that you can create. Begin to tone the highest EEE sound that is possible for you to make. Close your eyes and notice where that sound is resonating in your body. Now focus your attention on your crown center and project sound to this area. As your sound resonates the crown chakra, experience this energy center being balanced and aligned with the other chakras. Make this EEE sound seven times.
At the completion of this exercise (which takes approximately 20 minutes), remember to maintain a period of silence. You may feel lightheaded, which is to be expected. You have been sounding, resonating, and balancing your chakras. The energy has moved up your spine into your head, and above. Sit in a state of meditation and enjoy this experience. Allow yourself a good 10 to 15 minutes for meditation.
Bios:
Jonathan Goldman is an award-winning musician, composer, writer, teacher, and chant master. An authority on sound healing and a pioneer in the field of harmonics, he is the author of several books and the founder and director of the Sound Healers Association. He has created numerous albums including the first studio recordings of the Dalai Lama’s Gyume Tibetan monks, the first recording featuring dolphin sounds, and the award-winning Chakra Chants. He pioneered many sound therapy techniques now used worldwide, including “Vowels As Mantras” and “Overtoning.” Jonathan leads Healing Sounds Seminars throughout the United States and Europe and lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Andi Goldman, M.A., L.P.C., is a licensed psychotherapist, specializing in holistic counseling and sound therapy, the director of the Healing Sounds Seminars, and co-director of the Sound Healers Association. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
A Map to the Inner World
Book Excerpt
Chapter 4
A Map to the Inner World
Through careful observation, we come to the paradoxical conclusion that “each human being lives two lives simultaneously.” Although this statement initially appears contradictory, a careful observation of human nature shows it to be true. One life is our life as a human being, where energy sings the human song. On delving deeper, we find a completely different world inside which seems to sing the “Other Song,” another melody altogether. This other melody is not innately human but is a reflection of a pattern that we have borrowed from nature–be it from a plant, a mineral, or an animal. Therefore, this energy pattern is appropriate to nature, not to us.
The natural world consists of animal, plant, and mineral kingdoms, and the energy of each of these kingdoms is very different. As humans, we borrow an energy pattern from one of these kingdoms that corresponds to our inner way of perceiving and reacting. Depending on which kingdom is the source of the “Other Song” within, human beings can be mapped into one of the following three kingdoms by the basic issues that they face.
- Plant kingdom people have heightened sensitivity.
- Animal kingdom people deal with survival, competition, and victim/aggressor issues.
- Mineral kingdom people feel deficient in their own makeup or structure, or fear losing a part of their structure.
Recognition of the Mineral Song
The fundamental issue in minerals is the formation, maintenance, and loss of structure.
The central features of the mineral kingdom are its structure and organization. These are the features that help scientists understand this kingdom so well. The structure of minerals is ordered and predictable in many ways, allowing an exact classification of all elements into the periodic table.
In persons whose other song is derived from the mineral kingdom, the issues of capacity, strength, resistance, stability, and solidity–which are the innate features of minerals–are reflected in human form as capability, toughness, performance, and security. The core issue for these people is how to maintain the stability of their structure, be it their health, relationships, family, finances, talents, power, or position in an organization.
All the elements in the first column of the periodic table (vertically on the far left side of the table) contain only one electron in their outer shell. These elements are therefore very unstable and react readily with other elements in order to attain the shared stability of eight electrons in their outer shell.
In contrast, the “noble” gases in the last column of the table (vertically on the far right side of the table) all contain eight electrons in their outer shell and are called “noble” because they are nonreactive and inert chemically. They are already stable, in themselves. Thus–moving from left to right–each row in the periodic table represents and maps a journey toward stability of structure.
The Third Row: Development of Identity
The third row represents the progressive development from dependence to independence in the areas of care, nourishment, and choice. If your inner song comes from the third row of the periodic table, you exist as an entity on your own, but you are apt to be unsure of your identity. The question now is “I am, but who am I?”
The elements on the left of the third row (sodium and magnesium) perceive this lack of identity as “living someone else’s life” and being completely dependent on the choices of others. In effect these people have dissolved their own identity into that of another person. In contrast, elements on the right side (phosphorus, sulfur, and chlorine) have a more developed sense of their identity since the ego and sense of self becomes clearer as we move across the row to the right. They have become free of the need for care and nourishment and have a significant degree of self-sufficiency.
Case Study
A twenty-three-year-old girl came to me with a skin problem called lichen planus. She had dark spots all over her lower limbs with much itching. This condition, which is known to be stress related, is quite difficult to treat. However, what was even more of a problem was the girl’s state of mind. She was unmarried and was staying with her parents, and every day there would be intense quarrels between her and her parents in which the patient would become abusive. She was desperate and sometimes even had suicidal thoughts.
I started by asking for her description of the skin problem. She said there were two types of skin spots, with different characteristics, and both of them coexisted at the same time, in the same place. I was intrigued by this description, and asked her to describe this phenomenon more. She said that they were completely opposite and remotely similar, that they were completely opposite like cheese and chalk. At this point the description of her condition was so strange that it had to come from her other song. I asked for more, and she generalized by saying that it is the same situation where she lives with her parents, where each one is completely different from the other. She felt she had to listen to them because, “I am unable to think for myself.”
The essence of her perception is one of her own nondevelopment. Since her own sense of identity and choice are not clearly established, there is a conflict within her whether she should listen to herself or to others. This conflict is so confusing that she is frustrated enough to want to destroy herself. The issue of nondevelopment of self is a mineral-kingdom issue. In this girl it is particularly manifested in the area of development of her identity, which is an issue of the elements of the third row of the periodic table. Along with her own awareness of her problem, arrived at through the interview process, the homeopathic remedy Alumina–from the third row–healed her both in skin and mind.
About the author:
Dr. Rajan Sankaran is an internationally renowned homeopath who has been in practice since 1981. The creator of the Sensation Method of homeopathy, he gives lectures and seminars throughout the world. The author of several books, including The Spirit of Homeopathy, The Substance of Homeopathy, and The Sensation in Homeopathy, he lives in Mumbai, India.
Primal Body, Primal Mind – Book Excerpt
Chapter 25 - Our Primordial Past
Understanding Mother Nature’s Plan and Where We Fit In
What Do All the Longest-living Individuals Have in Common?
“If there is a known single marker for long life, as found in the centenarian and animal studies, it is low insulin levels.”
–Ron Rosedale, M.D., 1998
Research across the board has shown that long-lived individuals (animals and humans) share the following characteristics:
Low fasting insulin levels
Low fasting glucose
Optimally low leptin
Low triglycerides
Low percentage of visceral body fat
Lower body temperature
One single longevity marker stands out among all long-lived animals and persons above the rest, however, and that’s low insulin levels.
In July of 2009 the eagerly awaited results of a twenty-year study on the effects of caloric restriction on primates were finally published in the journal Science. Two groups of Rhesus monkeys (selected for their strong similarity to us) were studied: one group of monkeys was allowed to eat as much as they wanted, and the other group was given a sufficiently nutrient-dense diet with 30 percent fewer calories than they would normally consume. Twenty years later only 63 percent of the monkeys that ate as much as they wanted were still alive. Thirty-seven percent of them had died due to age-related causes. And the caloric restriction group? Eighty-seven percent were still alive and only 13 percent had died of age-related causes. Throughout their lives the calorically restricted group maintained superior health and aging-related biomarkers in every area: brain health, metabolic health and rate, insulin sensitivity, and cardiovascular vitality. The caloric restriction group enjoyed a threefold reduction in age-related disease! Also, they lost fat weight but maintained healthy levels of lean tissue mass. They also retained greater brain volume, which normally shrinks with age and glycation, but more than that they retained superior cognitive function. The cardiovascular disease rate of the caloric-restricted group was fully half the rate of the control group. Forty percent of the control group developed diabetes (or pre-diabetes). Not ONE single monkey in the calorically restricted group developed either. Remarkable. The available photos from the study showing examples of age-matched individuals from the two groups, which I was not able to include here, are visually striking. Stunning, even. The caloric-restricted monkeys looked almost literally half the age of the controls.
Among the most common misconceptions about monkeys and apes, incidentally, is that they are vegan animals. Though they are better adapted to making use of plant foods in some ways than we are, they also readily eat the same things we eat. ALL monkeys and apes are known to eat meat, and many even hunt for meat. The one notable exception is the mountain gorilla, and even they get some insects in their diet. Monkeys and apes are omnivores and, like us, will eat whatever might be available to them in their environment. Some even catch and eat fish! One of the reasons Rhesus monkeys were selected for this particular study, in fact, is because of their pronounced similarity to us, even in terms of diet.
There are actually several more recent studies showing significant health benefit where caloric restriction in humans is concerned. A newly released study in the Journal of Applied Research, “Clinical Experience of a Diet Designed to Reduce Aging” demonstrated that, in the context of an outpatient medical clinic, a diet high in fat (unlimited quantity), adequate in protein (50-80 grams per day), and very low in carbohydrate, with some added multivitamin and mineral supplementation, led to significant improvement in recognized serum factors related to the aging process. Patients were told to eat when they were hungry. The results also included a significant loss of body weight, a significant reduction in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and a reduction in levels of leptin, insulin, fasting glucose, and free T3. Despite the predominance of fat in the diet, serum triglycerides were also greatly reduced.
Of course, it’s easy to restrict overall calories with lab animals, as they have no choice in the matter. It is quite another matter to try and restrict overall caloric intake when you’re driving past fifteen fast food joints on your way home, are surrounded by constant advertisement, and have a refrigerator and cupboards full of food at your ravenous fingertips. Unless, of course, you apply the caloric restriction model in a way that does not leave you hungry–which is exactly what this book tells you how to do. Just follow the simple, most basic dietary guidelines outlined here to eat optimally well while feeling fully satisfied and living healthier, longer–and even save some real money along the way! Even while buying the best-quality grass-fed meats, produce, and wild-caught fish you can find yourself saving considerable money on groceries. The basic guideline to remember is this: greatly restrict or eliminate sugar and starch (preferably eliminating gluten completely), keep your protein intake adequate amounting to approximately 6-7 ounces of organic grass-fed and/or wild-caught meat or seafood total per day, eat as many fibrous “above ground,” nonstarchy vegetables and greens as you like, and eat as much fat (from fattier cuts of meat or fish, nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut, butter/ghee, olives, olive oil, and the like) as you need to satisfy your appetite. The bottom line here is that natural dietary fat is not at all our enemy and that, in the absence of dietary carbohydrate and with adequate protein, it can result in a far more satisfying, longer, and healthier life overall. Simple, delicious, and satisfying. No hunger or feelings of deprivation needed, and all the benefits of supporting a longer and healthier life while saving you money. It’s better for the planet, too.
Bio:
Nora T. Gedgaudas, CNS, CNT, is a certified nutritional therapist and neurofeedback specialist with a private practice. A member of the Nutritional Therapy Association, the National Association of Nutritional Professionals, the Nutrition and Metabolism Society, and the Weston A. Price Foundation, she lives in Portland, Oregon.
Available at: www.innertraditions.com
Raw Basics- by Jenny Ross
The following excerpt is taken from the book RAW BASICS: Incorporating Raw Living Foods into Your Diet Using Easy and Delicious Recipes by Jenny Ross. It is published by Hay House (July 2011) and is available at all bookstores or online at: www.hayhouse.com.
What Is the Living-Foods Lifestyle?
Living or “raw” foods are those that have not been heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the commonly agreed-upon temperature when plant-based ingredients begin to break down and lose essential vitamin and mineral content, as well as enzymes. Pure and simple, raw foods are natural foods in their natural state. In addition to the breakdown of enzymes and nutrients, many modern-day cooking methods actually create by-products during the heating process that have been found to be toxic.
Raw foods are primarily plant based. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouted grains are the basis of this culinary lifestyle. In addition, living-foods enthusiasts oftentimes make use of high-grade minerals and other superfoods as a way of restoring balance. Juicing is an effective alternative-health remedy and is currently being used in several cancer-treatment centers worldwide, with incredible life-enhancing results. A high-nutrient-density diet goes a long way toward maintaining overall health, and living foods are at the top of the scale in terms of nutrient density and purity.
Living foods are not a new idea; in fact, many would counter that this is the oldest notion of how to eat. The Bible contains several references to living-food preparations; early texts discuss the heating of plant-based ingredients and “cooking” using the energy of the sun. In many ancient cultures where longevity of life was enjoyed, there was also a focus on fresh, living foods.
This style of eating can help you reach and maintain your health goals, for three main reasons:
1. The living-foods lifestyle encourages a very low-toxin diet, with a focus on the function of every food and how it is helping you achieve health. With living foods, there are simply no fillers, preservatives, or unneeded additives that do not benefit your body in some way. As a result, the living-foods diet is largely alkaline forming. Disease cannot live in an alkaline environment; it must have a toxic acidic one to thrive. Picture the pH test strips from your high-school chemistry class. On the pH scale, 14 is totally alkaline, 7 is neutral, and 0–6 is acidic. The body should be anywhere from neutral to moderately alkaline to prevent disease.
2. Raw foods constitute a plant-based diet, which has been proven to maintain strong vital organs and bodily function. Overall health has been shown to drastically improve in direct relationship to how much plant-based eating you’re doing. From providing essential proteins, amino acids, minerals, and vitamins to detoxifying the body where necessary, this eating style serves to keep you in balance.
3. Living foods have the power to heal the body by reintroducing essential vitamins and minerals, as well as enzymes—the catalysts that break down food into a usable state. With a diet rich in enzymes, your body isn’t overwhelmed with the breaking-down process (called assimilation) and has time then to go about the business of maintaining a vital system and promoting health.
Whether you’re looking to move into a more energetic space, restore overall wellness, achieve a vibrant lifestyle, or find alternatives to processed foods and their associated health conditions (ulcers, indigestion, headaches, chronic fatigue, and depression have all been linked to diet), living foods could prove to be a very viable option for you . . . and even serve to heal you completely.
Trying the living-foods lifestyle, even if for only one day or one meal a week, will start to give you an idea of what is possible. Keep in mind that this is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Choosing to add even one more component of living nutrition to your daily eating plan will begin the process. The best choice you can make for the health of your body and mind is to take control of your diet one bite at a time. Go back to the basics of health, and add in more of the good stuff.
What Is the Good Stuff?
No matter what your current diet, it’s easier to add something new—more of the good stuff—instead of being focused on what to take away. Deciding which items are right for your body or are important for nutrition can be a challenge. Here is a list of questions to consider when evaluating whether a food selection really constitutes the “good stuff”:
- Where did this food come from?
- Can it grow from a tree? (Picture a tree full of cheese puffs or Oreo cookies and you’re on the right track.)
- What is the health benefit of eating this?
- How was this food prepared?
The golden rule in choosing good, nourishing food is finding items that are local, fresh, organic (without pesticides), and grown from a healthy vital plant of some sort. In general, this includes all fruits and vegetables in their natural state, nuts and seeds, grains, herbs and spices, superfoods, and products minimally processed from any of the above-listed items. These are all whole foods.
A nice raw nut, for example, makes a fantastic raw butter. But if you roast the nuts, then add iodized salt and some preservatives, you’ve just created a product that could very well be hazardous to your health. The average jar of peanut butter contains unhealthy levels of saturated fats and iodine, along with bleached white salts that are toxic in the bloodstream.
Really, what you have to consider when making choices at the grocery store are the following questions:
1. What is the food product itself? It should be fresh, organic wherever possible, and a whole food from a plant source. Tomatoes and avocados are perfect examples of fresh, whole foods.
2. How has it been treated? If it has been cooked, there could now be many toxins entering into the picture. To make a cooked product shelf stable, a preservative of some sort typically must be added. Preservatives act the same way in the body as they do in the food itself and can be easily stored for years, blocking your absorption of important nutrients, until released during a cleansing process. So although a tomato is a good choice, tomato sauce in a can is probably not. The can contains harmful metals, and the contents have been processed and may include up to 14 different unnatural ingredients just to increase shelf life. Look into the ingredients list, and also the processing. If it’s not very “vibrant,” then it does not equate to vibrant health for you!
3. Where does it come from? Processed crackers, for example, come from a box with a side label that lists 10 to 20 ingredients you may have never heard of before (enriched flours, dioxides, and so on). Bags of potato chips line the shelves, and while it is very tempting to reason that a potato once came from the earth and is therefore “natural,” don’t take the bait. You know that fried oils are not natural; that ground potato flakes, which are the starter for many brands of commercial chips, are treated with chemicals to alter how they look; and that preserving agents are anything but wholesome.
4. What are its health benefits? Food should taste great, but it should also be functional. Ask yourself what you’re getting out of every bite. Food is fuel; you want top-notch ingredients for top-notch performance.
Moon Phase Astrology – The Lunar Key to your Destiny. by Raven Kaldera
Part 4
Moon Phase Astrology
The Lunar Key to your Destiny. by Raven Kaldera
Soul’s Redemption
The Gibbous Moon
After the personal crisis of the Quarter Moon, the soul finds itself in a pit created by its own response to hard choices. On the Gibbous Moon, we tend to the work of personal redemption, doing whatever we have to do to climb out of that pit. The Quarter Moon is the Mess We Make, and the Gibbous Moon is the Price We Pay To Clean It Up. Each archetype will start a role that is both something they have the aptitude for and that is a challenge for them, and in moving through it they will find their way upward; they will work hard to perfect something precious to them. We are still struggling on the Gibbous Moon, but it is a struggle toward a goal and not merely a fight to keep from slipping backward into a pit. It is a time of applied, conscientious effort in the face of obstacles.
There is a focused feeling to the energy of the Gibbous Moon. After all the bad-and-good thrashing about of the Waxing Quarter, the heart begins a slow climb to a calmer and steadier place. Nothing is all-good or all-bad now, it’s just . . . necessary. Doing what is necessary is the hallmark of this phase.
Trickster’s Moon
The Gibbous Moon in Aquarius
In the Gibbous Moon phase, the Aquarius Moon realizes that people respond well to humor and learns the magic of the Trickster. The Trickster is present in all cultures, and he lives in a special, enchanted place. Even in the most repressed and dangerous times, he appears like the court jester who was able to speak hard truths to the king that his courtiers dared not say, so long as he cloaked it in joking around. The Trickster makes people laugh, so he can say hard things and teach them subtle lessons. He also learns not to take himself too seriously and not to be afraid of being seen as a fool. This is where Aquarius, the opposite of image-conscious Leo, is able to let go and be ridiculous if it will get the point across to the masses. The Trickster does street theater rather than revolution and finds that it is just as revolutionary.
The dark side of the Trickster archetype is that sometimes Tricksters are penalized for their words. Sometimes denial is so thick that nothing will be heard, and it falls to the Trickster to be the one to speak the truth even when they know that they will not be heard, that they may well be killed for it. I once read a tale of a Native American tribe on the northwest coast who were being cheated of their furs by white traders who dazzled them with cheap trinkets. The female sacred trickster of the tribe dissuaded them from their greed by setting up a crude stall near the traders, where she loudly hawked dung, rocks, and sticks. The people turned sheepishly from their enthusiastic acquisition of cheap trinkets . . . and the traders killed the trickster. This punishment happens in myths, too. It’s part of the deal: the safety that the Trickster counts on is paid for by being the one to risk it when even he or she will not be safe, but the truth must still be spoken. Why must it be spoken, even if the speaker will be silenced and nothing will change? Because someone in the future might hear the tale passed down, and understand, and make the change. On this Moon, the Aquarius Moon truly learns what it is to sacrifice for the future.
On the Trickster’s Moon, we tell tales of trickery that worked, that brought justice when nothing else would, that got a lesson through a hard head. We do street theater, if that’s in our repertoire. If nothing else, we attack a problem in an unusual way, brainstorming for something that’s never been thought of before.
People born on the Trickster’s Moon want to change the world, but when they try to do it grimly and seriously, they always end up feeling clumsy. They are at their best when they can think up an original and slightly ridiculous way to get it done–the way that nobody expects and that only they can pull off. This is beyond thinking outside the box; it’s thinking in a universe where there are no boxes. There is a faint echo of the Leo Clown’s Moon in Trickster’s Moon people, at least when it comes to being the class clown, but where Leo does it to please the audience and get attention, Aquarius does it for the message . . . or they should. It’s not their cosmic job to do it for applause. They need to risk the truth-telling, or it will all go wrong.
Trickster’s Moon people may be attracted to “crazy wisdom gurus,” and they are at their best when they’re spreading their own whimsical message through venues where it will sink in subtly, without being noticed. They will also be the truthspeakers who sacrifice themselves, pointing out the Emperor’s nudity. If they’re skilled, they’ll manage to do it in a way that skates them by any repercussions . . . but if they can’t skate by, they’ll be driven to do it anyway, for the sake of the Truth.
Raven Kaldera is a Northern Tradition Pagan shaman who has been a practicing astrologer since 1984 and a Pagan since 1986. The author of Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner and MythAstrology and coauthor, with Kenaz Filan, of Drawing Down the Spirits, Kaldera lives in Hubbardston, Massachusetts.
2012: A Clarion Call by Nicolya Christi
2012 book cover
Book Excerpt
Chapter Seven
For the Highest Good of All
As we move forward from the year 2012, the unknown future, our ongoing commitment to an era of peace on Earth is essential to enable the divine blueprint of the New Earth to begin activation. It is vital that you understand what you are here to contribute and how to do this, even if it is impossible for you to grasp the bigger picture in terms of prophecy, quantum physics, astronomical events, or the existence of the limitless multidimensional beings who guide and help us each step of the way. It is not imperative that you understand any of this. What is required is the willingness to open your heart to all sentient beings and forgive those who have trespassed against you.
Activating the Energy of Forgiveness
A beautifully simple technique to help you to work on forgiveness is a modern version of an ancient Hawaiian Huna healing method known as Ho’oponopono. In this practice four short sentences are repeated with feeling: “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I love you. Thank you.” This can be done with specific individuals in mind. Or the phrases can be said without focusing on anyone in particular. This enables the healing of deep unconscious soul wounds that may go back lifetimes.
By being conscious in thoughts, words, and deeds, you will serve the higher good. It does not matter who you have hurt or how you have been hurt. This is a time of redemption. You have an extraordinary opportunity to be free of pain and suffering. Ultimately, the single most important requirement is your willingness to act with love toward everyone and everything. The laws of the universe ensure that your soul will be rewarded in equal measure to your contribution and your ability to remain heart-centered, loving, and kind toward yourself and others. The energy of forgiveness, together with your willingness to raise your consciousness, will bring many unexpected and beautiful gifts into your life.
Acting as If
Acting as if is a powerfully effective practice to foster a new way of expressing yourself. In order to act as if, first think of one person who is an exceptional example of unconditional love and acceptance. This will be someone you experience as an inspiration, a person who conducts himself or herself in an exemplary and refined manner and who is kind and forgiving. You may or may not know this person. It may be a spiritual figure, family or community member, or someone whose life story guides you.
To act as if entails emulating the individual who inspires you in certain situations. At first it may feel uncomfortable, yet it will be of enormous benefit to the world. If practiced over a period of time, acting as if will lead you to your true Self, for what you found so inspirational about your role model was really a reflection of yourself. By aligning your consciousness with the image, conduct, or experience of the person, by asking yourself when challenged by life, “What would this person do in the same situation?” “How would he or she respond?” “What would he or she say?” and then emulating this behavior, you will connect to the wisdom already held within you, as well as help humanity by your willingness to change.
Acting as if re-informs every cell of your body, alters brain chemistry, and reprograms conditioned behavior. Acting as if, in a positive and loving way, closes old negative neural pathways and opens positive new ones. It sends powerful signals and new messages to the unconscious mind. Acting as if is a preliminary to the profoundly transformative lost mode of prayer discussed in chapter 12.
Master in the Heart Reflection/Future Self
This beautifully simple exercise is a profound method of absorbing the vibration of a great master and integrating his or her influence into your way of being.
1. Close your eyes and turn your attention inward. Follow your breath as it leads you to your heart. Allow yourself to rest in the stillness of your heart.
2. Slowly begin to create a picture of a perfect being. This may be someone you aspire to emulate or it could be your future Self. Begin to intensify the image or feeling of that being until you can see or feel him or her as vibrant and alive in your imagination or felt sense.
3. Place the energy and the image of this perfect being in your heart. Deepen your connection by inviting his or her energetic presence into every cell in your body.
4. Set an intention to be guided by the grace of the master’s presence. Ask this being to walk with you as a role model in all endeavors and encounters. Choose to respond emotionally and mentally as you imagine this person would. Love in the way he or she would love. Allow your thoughts to reflect those of the master in your heart.
5. Invite the energy of this beautiful being to envelop your light-body and to permeate your physical body, bringing the gift of self-healing and an enhanced ability to heal others. By inviting the energy of this highly developed being into your heart, you heal your heart, attain a higher vibratory field, and can radiate loving-kindness out to the world.
6. When you are ready, open your eyes.
If you practice this every day, over a period of time you will absorb the vibration of the master in your heart and integrate his or her influence. You will increasingly resemble the being of great wisdom who resides in your heart.
Carry this energy in your heart as if it were a precious jewel. Express gratitude for the gift of something so exquisite and perfect.
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