Simple Pleasures

They're here!!!!

Of all the harbingers of Spring - robins, daffodils, clearing rains washing into crystal skies - my personal favorite is the blossom of the Dogwood tree. And lucky, lucky me, I've got two beautiful trees - one pink and one white - in my front yard.

Ahhh, and this morning after a drenching rain followed by the emergence of the sun, the buds burst into blooms!!!

I have no real idea why this particular form of Nature's beauty touches me so and it probably doesn't really matter. I could spin a story, look up the mystic correspondences, energies and properties that the Dogwood embodies but I'm not gonna do it! Instead, I'm just going to love 'em and revel in the simple pleasure and wild and dangerous beauty that Nature weaves in every moment. Knowing that my nature is part of this tapestry too.

Frequency Adjustments

Boy is it frequency adjustment time for me. And, no, I don't just mean adding more punches on my coffee loyalty card, though that is happening too.

What I'm talking about are the "frequency adjustments" that happen when I'm going through a personal shift and/or when the environment around me is shifting and I need to adjust. What's happening for me in the moment is a potent brew of personal inner movement, Nature's seasonal shifts and the dominant character of the collective environmental field. Sometimes it feels like I'm in a cauldron.

This happens to everyone by the way, nothing special over here, except maybe an increasing awareness that it is happening and finding a way to make room for it. But you too have probably noticed something like:

• the environment at your workplace changes when a new company with a very different portfolio or business philosophy comes in and suddenly you don't feel like you "belong" there anymore.
• someone in your family - perhaps an influential elder - is experiencing a change in their health and suddenly issues around health, well-being or death come popping out everywhere in the family. By the way, this often comes emerges through the youngest or more sensitive family members or through your own body symptoms.
• suddenly it seems like you want to "fight" with everyone. The stupid driver in front of you sets you off, your partner is once again a clueless dolt, or you notice your least favorite political figure in everyone you meet.

So what can you do so you don't go crazy with nasty body symptoms (for me it has always been headaches), a sense of hopelessness or the feeling that some maniacal dream figure is stirring the pot too fast?

First, take a breath - or take a sniff as my Uncle used to say but maybe he was talking about something else. Just stop. Breathe. Come back into the present moment. You don't have to have a formal meditation or movement practice to do this but if you have some experience with one of those, dip back into it.

Second, reinforce your sense of presence. Continue your breathing practice or connect with a source of unconditional acceptance, like maybe your pet. My cat joined me in meditating outside today and it was awesome. But you can also take a sniff of a beloved fragrance, look at and get lost in the vision of something beautiful, or revel in the touch of someone you love or a texture that relaxes and refreshes you.

Third (sorry for being so linear!): once you're reconnected with yourself and feel more embodied, explore the deeper layers of the energies. Bring to mind the sense of what's bothering you about the "other one" or the environment.

That energy of the new company or the political figure for instance. How does it look to you? How does it move?, If it could make a sound what would it be? Become that energy so that you can experience it from the inside out. In Shamanic terms this is called "shapeshifting" or seeing with your peripheral vision or "soft eyes" because you can sense more that way.

Spend some time with this "other" and ascertain its essential nature. This will be a feeling of something non-dualistic that contains no judgement. Sometimes it will be beyond words. If so, bring the movement, vision, sound or feeling tone back with you from your inner imaginarium.

Maybe you need some of this energy to complete your frequency adjustment or just be with change. But it could also be something that you are evolving away from and are ready to let go of. And, this is what is going on with me...

I'm letting go of putting limits on myself, of being under the radar so I won't be noticed... and it's SCARY!!!! But so is keeping myself in the same old box because I'm starting to suffocate. So, when I explore the headache energy and allow it to try and push me back into my own head, there is a very strong "NO!" and a sense of wanting to push back against it.

Inside my imaginarium I'm saying "Nooooooo!!! I'm ready to "go big" even if "you" out there (or a part of me in here!) don't share my point of view. No more pushing me down because when I'm in tune with my own evolving frequency, resonating with my own experience, that feels right and I want to keep going."

It felt good to write this down and share it. To speak out if you will. Oh, and my headache is gone. But maybe that was just the coffee...or maybe not only! 

Are We the World?

For the past three weeks to prepare for my research trip to Greece and hone my subtle activism skills, I've been leading group meditations. These gatherings were designed to unite those present, include the energies of Nature's subtle realms, and mix in archetypal and ancestral emanations. Once these forces were brought together, attention was placed on ripening certain seed qualities (we worked with clarity, courage and strength), deepening them and sharing this potent and vital force with the entire planet through the quantum field.

If and how we are all connected through what some call the quantum, dreaming or Akashic field is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. That's partially because of my Master's thesis and also the reason I'm going to Greece. To roll out that pilot study from my thesis to incorporate a larger audience.

It's also why I took a course in "subtle activism" last summer. I think of myself as a shy activist. With a recent exception to participate in the Women's March on Washington in January, I'm not generally someone who takes to the streets even though my convictions are very strong. My contributions have always been more subtle such as energy work at a distance through the quantum dreaming field. And that's what subtle activism is. Joining a group together in a real or virtual sense, creating a strong sense of coherence within the group and connecting with the larger global and even cosmic field.

And while there are theories about how we are connected, how it all might work, there is quite a bit of evidence that the connection is real and measurable. Check out the Global Consciousness Project for some fascinating reading. 

I wanted to test my equipment and the coherence of these group meditations so I took some measurements with my trusty random number generator (RNG) to check it out. Very simplistically, the RNG algorithmically spits out numbers with no discernible pattern which replicate the natural chaos of the quantum field. If something occurs in the area of the RNG which leads to a coherent pattern beyond 2 standard deviations, it is considered to have effected or structured the field in a statistically significant manner.

So what happened in the meditations? Increasing coherence! The graphs below show the pattern of whether or not accumulated deviation demonstrated a structuring effect during any particular meditation. Randomness, the natural state of the field, is shown by the squiggly line. As this line approaches or touches into either the upper or lower parabolic line showing 2 standard deviations from expected measurements, something coherent is happening to the field.

Perhaps we are structuring the field with our intention. Or maybe a resonance is happening between all the quantum energy being generated and information is being transmitted from the meditation space into the field. I believe that there is indeed a cascade effect where individuals make internal shifts and change the field which in turn acts on the individuals within it and changes them. 

The personal is the planetary and even the more, the cosmos lives within us as the ancient story of Indra's Net as translated by Sir Charles Eliot (1935) proposes: 

In the Heaven of Indra, there is said to be a network of pearls, so arranged that if you look at one you see all the others reflected in it. In the same way each object in the world is not merely itself but involves every other object and in fact IS everything else. In every particle of dust, there are present Buddhas without number.  

As Mr. Spock would say: fascinating!

Clearing the Air

My colleague and friend Valerie makes custom essential oil sprays designed to support whatever changes you are going through. Today I ordered one (talk about good service - Valerie made and delivered it the same day) and I'm so glad that I did!

I've been circling the cusp of a big change for a few weeks now and feeling a little stuck. Since moving things along quickly is part of my primary identity, I've been practicing being "not me" which translates into taking a break from self criticism, taking things a little slower and being kinder to myself. 

And while I can feel things are getting ready to change for the better, today I had a tough early morning meeting. As the newest member of an established international research group, I'm trying to find my spot in the group by not rocking the boat too much but also standing for my point of view. During our discussion one of the  members was being very pointed and "strict" about boundaries around her project and not wanting my study to interfere with hers. She also wanted me to adopt certain conventions that I didn't feel applied to my work. I understood but I was also getting pissed off and feeling marginalized.

So I picked up I felt was the essence of her strictness and applied this seed of clarity to further discussions and decisions needing to be made. That helped me listen to the group's helpful suggestions with an open mind and still retain the integrity of my work. But my sense of marginalization lingered.

Considering the situation with an open mind and a kind heart, I was able to connect the feelings I experienced during the meeting to the bigger changes that are happening to me internally. Then I wrote to Valerie, gave her an overview of my process and ordered the spray. This custom elixir combines Helichrysum, Myrrh, Roman Chamomile and Rose Absolute in an mixture intuitively designed just for me. It also came with a personal message from the deep wisdom field.

After picking it up I went up to my office, got comfortable, sprayed the elixir into my energy field and dropped into meditation. Right away, I could feel my luminous field begin to clear and shift. Then I fell asleep. When I awoke about an hour later, I felt renewed, almost as if layers of old scar tissue had healed all at once. 

Now that's magic!