The Sacred Masculine

Life is a flow of energy: Yin and Yang. Yin moves inward, Yang – outward. Yin introverts; Yang extroverts. The crocus corm dormant and buried beneath the earth comes out of winter hibernation by sending its shoots upward and outward toward the the warming rays of the spring sun. Then, its life cycle complete, it draws its energy back into the earth to await its rebirth the following year. Dissolution and Rebirth. Yin and Yang. Two primary frequencies of existence essential to all life and essential to wholeness.

Unfortunately, the message we get while growing up tells us as that we must choose.

Polarity Processing

This is a world seemingly divided into two. We have positive and negative, yin and yang, masculine and feminine. Good and bad! It is a world of opposites, of duality or Polarity. Life lived in polarity is a never-ending teeter-totter of emotions because in polarity we cannot have one side without the other. When we identify with one side of any polarity held in the mind we are bound to experience its opposite side at some point, as spiritual laws says “everything in time will turn into its opposite”. The opposite side is always present, but it lies in the unconscious. If we become ecstatic about landing that new job or winning the lottery, will that ecstasy last? Have we really found true happiness? Despite the relative improvements to our life, we will inevitably become disappointed at some point and the negative emotions we thought we had finally overcome will resurface. We just can’t have the ‘good’ without the ‘bad’. Or high without low!

Is there anything we can do?

Mother Africa

I’m back from South Africa and a beautiful journey near the mouth of the gorgeous and dramatic Blyde River Canyon in the northeast corner of the country. The new header for my blog is a picture I took at dusk near the rim of the canyon on March 13. Africa – so far away, yet something familiar in me was awakened. My original incarnation in this current cycle of existence, perhaps? Merging with the vast savannah in the silence of nearby Kruger Park I came to know intimately what my teacher calls ‘African Dream Time’. Time stops and one knows implicitly – there is no time, just vast eternal Oneness. The area where I stayed at a botanical reserve at the foot of the sacred mountain of Modimolle, which means ‘place where God resides’, has a very special transcendental energy, allowing the mind to dissolve and one to float blissfully in a sea of expanded consciousness and timeless existence. The Mountain has a powerful way of calling me to attention by instantly aligning my awareness in the vertical axis of the core-light within, and I find that I am in It and It is in me! 

Giving

Image by ~Aphrodite via Flickr

What’s so wonderful about the Christmas season, despite the commercialism, is that our hearts open. During the ‘season of giving’, our generosity opens our hearts. There is a palpable shift in our individual energy and in the energy of the collective field. We more easily feel our connection to others – we feel the love.

Seeing Through ‘Worthlessness’

I received an e-mail from someone recently who is beginning a new career that requires “clear thinking and efficient decision making”, but is feeling stymied by her continual self judgement: “the self critic (is) always on my shoulder, a constant turbulence beneath the surface… if I don’t have success over this, I will not be able to continue this job.”

Here is my response:

The inner critic that haunts you at work is an internalized parental authority figure. And this ghostly persona is tapping into a program of ‘worthlessness’ that was instituted over time throughout your childhood years.

Creating Balance

A student wrote this to me the other day:

“I am looking at my patterning around ‘subservient woman’ and losing my power, playing small etc., as opposed to my fear of the powerful male…. It is as if the egoic patterning brings confusion to what is real, especially around male and female balance. I don’t even know what a balanced male and female is… I would like some clarity around this as it feels like it is holding me back.”

Here is my reply and a bit more:

The polarity of Dominance and Subservience you describe is huge in this world. In fact, ‘power over’ has been business as usual for the last 5,000 years! Polarities held in the mind and emotions are imbalances, and they are an inseparable pair. They are part of the dual nature of this world, and we can’t have one without the other. When we identify with one side, in your case, the subservient woman, the dominant side is still present but it lies unseen in the unconscious mind. What resides in the unconscious is projected out and will be mirrored to us by someone who will act out that unowned energy for us. Men as dominating authority figures show up in your life because you have denied that this energy exists in you.

Quiet Mind

In a conversation last week during our Wednesday night meditation/support circle someone expressed her frustration with her meditation practice because sometimes an issue from her day pops into her awareness and her mind begins processing it. She asked, “Isn’t there a value to meditating “on” an issue that surfaces in the mind?”

I shared that there is an important distinction to be drawn between meditating into the silence by intentionally quieting the mind, and meditating “on” a problem seeking a resolution, which more accurately could be called contemplation. The best approach is to allow space for both, as they both have value, but to maintain them as distinct activities. Quieting the mind in silent meditation is the more powerful use of your time, as the Unified Field of Pure Awareness that we connect with can provide us with the answers we seek spontaneously – in or out of meditation. Universal Intelligence knows exactly how to “speak” to us to provide us with the answers we seek.

Word Power

I had a phone call with someone recently who shared this:

“Staff meetings at work have been tense lately with management pitted against employees around just compensation. I always have something to say, especially when my buttons get pushed, but I feel no one listens to me and I feel dismissed – I’m afraid they see me as weak and ineffectual. Then, later, I feel frustrated because I realize I didn’t say what I really wanted to say. What’s going on here? How can I change people’s perception of me?”

Here is how I responded:

The real power of our words comes from a place of neutrality and our commitment to speaking absolute truth. From this place there is no agenda and no investment in making someone right or wrong, or good or bad. This kind of egoic positioning actually blocks access to our intuition and higher intelligence and to our highest expression.

The Lake of Beauty

The astrological winds are blowing and I’m being called inward  -  since June’s full moon lunar eclipse and Grand Cross on the 26th, in fact. Potent astrological alignments like this are invitations to go within, availing ourselves of rare super-charged transformational energies. They offer us the possibility of making a leap in consciousness. Personally, I feel like a veil has been lifted. Consciousness has shifted and I am different – oh so subtley, but palpably, the out-picturing of this yet unfolding.

Taking time for meditation each day is in no small way making a bid for spiritual power. In meditation we prepare to meet the Divine, accessing our conscious awareness, and our lives change in profound ways. At the very least, we ride the inevitable waves of change with more ease, grace, and equanimity. If we also incorporate a process of self-inquiry with the intention of processing and clearing our limited personality patterns, we find ourselves accessing greater and greater levels of transcendental light. We grow and change, moving steadily towards Absolute Truth and the experience of what is real beyond the personality.

There are many beautiful writings by sages and mystics who, across time, have written about the benefits of quieting the mind. The Lake of Beauty is a favorite poem of mine by a more contemporary mystic – Edward Carpenter. Can you feel the power of this poem as it calls you home to the truth of your nature – to Self?

The Lake of Beauty

Let your mind be quiet, realizing the beauty of the world,

and the immense, the boundless treasures that it holds in store.

All that you have within you, all that your heart desires,

all that your Nature so specially fits you for — that or the

counterpart of it waits embeded in the great Whole, for you.

It will surely come to you.

————————————-

Yet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time

will it come. All your crying and fever and reaching out of

hands will make no difference.

Therefore do not begin that game at all.

Do not recklessly spill the waters of your mind

in this direction and in that,

lest you become like a spring lost and

dissipated in the desert.

————————————-

But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them

still, so still;

And let them become clear, so clear — so limpid, so mirror-like;

at last the mountains and sky shall glass themselves in peaceful beauty,

and the antelope shall descend to drink and to gaze at his

reflected image, and the lion to quench his thirst,

and Love himself shall come and bend over and catch his

own likeness in you.

Anger Passing Through

Someone asked me recently: “When I get angry should I express it? Sometimes it makes a situation worse and we just get in a fight.”

When you feel anger rising in you it is best not to act from this anger. But, do pay attention to it as a vibratory field of energy. Some people are in the habit of suppressing anger and it gets tamped down into the cells of the body adding to a reservoir of suppressed anger that is dormant, but toxic. Eventually, it will get triggered by some external event and burst forth in an emotional explosion that will drain you and leave you feeling bad.

So, we witness that anger is present, and without engaging it with our minds, we simply allow it to be. Consciously we detach from any thoughts our mind wants to generate about it – that we have been wronged in some way – that we don’t deserve to be treated this way – that we will get our revenge etc. Any story we begin to tell about our anger only serves to justify the anger in our minds, which allows the anger to build. Then it become us. Then we become identified with the anger and it overtakes us, causing us to become reactive and say or do something that we will later regret. Anger, like any emotion, is just a frequency or vibration of energy in motion, and we have the power to allow it to pass through our awareness field. We bring the power of our Presence to bear witness to this wave of energy passing through, and we ride it out. In this way it will leave harmlessly.

In a situation with someone when your buttons get pushed and you feel anger come up, before you begin to identify with it, take some deep breathes and just allow the anger to be. Be completely present with it while detaching from your thoughts. Give yourself permission to excuse yourself from the situation momentarily if necessary. Then, when the anger has dissipated though the power of your witnessing presence, you can collect your thoughts and have your say from a more grounded and non-reactive place.

For a person with a reservoir of stored anger it is beneficial to release it in a therapeutic way. One exercise that does this very effectively without attracting a lot of negative attention (like screaming at the top of your lungs!) comes from Polarity Yoga developed by Dr. Randolph Stone, the creator of Polarity Therapy. Called the ‘Woodchopper’, it ignites the fire principle in the body, facilitating the venting of stored anger out of the cells. It is important not to create an object for your suppressed anger, but rather to maintain your neutral witnessing presence while doing this exercise. An explanation of how to do the Woodchopper is at the end of this post.

Remember, we are Pure Awareness. When you can allow the frequencies of existence, whether positive or negative, to pass through you, without pulling them towards you or pushing them away, you are free. Then you are completely available to enjoy the wonder and diversity of life, and, as my teacher says, “all that heavenly glory”.

Woodchopper

Note: The Woodchopper should not be attempted if you have back problems.

Stand with your feet shoulder width apart, keeping your knees soft. Clasp your hands above your head. Take a deep breath in through your nose arching your body backwards, and on your exhale, bring your hands down between your legs, hinging from the hips and dropping your head as if chopping wood. Let out a loud explosive “Ha” sound at the end of the stroke. Inhale and come up slowly and repeat as many times as necessary until the anger has cleared. The movement should be rhythmic and flowing. You may need to take a break and repeat the process before you feel complete. Please follow your own guidance on this and be careful not to strain or go too fast, as this can lead to dizziness.