Finding Clarity in 2010

Opening to Clarity- 2010

Sometimes, we just feel lost, in a fog, fatigued by the choices we’ve made or the lack there of, we feel as though we’ve fallen off our own proverbial bandwagon, we long to see the light through the trees of our confusion. We want to call in a new vision for this new dawn. We have been at a loss to comprehend where we are and where we go from here, to define our next step, to realize our desired outcomes, to find our “joy body”, discover our true path, seek out our own way, and ultimately define what we are here for.
This desire for clarity does not seem to be about materializing a long list of stuff: houses, cars, money, boys/girls etc… which is more about manifesting from ego, which just feels empty.. No this is about a deeper longing , a desire to discover our true purpose, our “sacred” dream. We come in as babies with one foot here in the material world and the other still in the ethereal world of all possibility. We come here from that place of pure love, the pregnant void, and we try hard as we may to rekindle that feeling in our lives, that pure love that holds us no matter what, forgives us all trespasses and allows us to develop an awareness that is then reflected back into our human existence.
So what we are seeking is not so much something from out there but rather from in here, from that quiet still place, that part of ourselves that we knew so well and then lost as life hit us with “reality” and we grew smaller. We relinquished our sacred dream, the true meaning in life and learned to adapt to this reality that diminishes us as we “learn” to live here on the planet as it teaches us to forget our own true essence.
The important element remains our sacred dream, the knowledge of what we needed and wanted when we first came onto this planet. It is our spiritual longing, our connection to the divine if we are ever to feel once again connected to all life.
When I was young, I would lie in the long marsh grasses by the ocean and look up at the immensity of blue sky feeling the warm earth beneath me. I felt connected, to both earth and sky, as if I was the conduit, the essential go-between. I would dream into the clouds and feel into the earth and immerse my feet into that beautiful connective tissue of dirt and all that grows there. As I lay there I felt a connection to all of that, one with all life and then the cord was abruptly cut. I was sent away to a Catholic boarding school where there was no nature, only gray cement and religious icons of bleeding emaciated Christ figures everywhere, and this was called a spiritual place! Living there created a deep disconnect with the ability I had always had to feel the divine in nature and in the life all around me. This reality was dark, mean, loathsome and I lost the connection with all that I had known to be true, no earth, no freedom to wander the dunes, no joy and all that people were telling me was/had been/ became a lie. How could this bleeding statue hanging in the sanctuary be a representation of what I had come to know as the divine, how could this place of torture be in any way connected to the prophet of love?
I as so many of us have learned to do without, to compensate, to attach to things, we became angry and frustrated, allowing pain and fear to take over, and the “ pain-body” to take hold.
As young children we are not yet completely of this created reality, we can still see and feel the difference between the two but little by little we lose that ability. Make- believe is a strong part of our worldview and all of our beautiful imaginative games feed our soul. But as we grow older we lose all of that, we lose our dream of oneness, we take on the values of our cultural community and we are left with a deep longing for the spirit that imbues place.
Today we call this state, lack of clarity, and we are now feeling the call to resurrect this aspect of being that will allow us to re-member and bring the pieces of our sacred dream back together. We are calling for a clear mind and a clear heart.
So many teachers have appeared on the planet attempting to point the way and break us out of our collective nightmare. Joseph Campbell told us to “Follow our Bliss” Angie Arrien told us to follow what has heart and meaning and Gungaji, along with her teacher PapaJi, speak of simply stopping the search.
The only truth we can begin to trust is our body-mind system and its language. How can we learn this new language of the body-mind-soul? One way is a methodology that comes from ancient shamanic roots called Cellular Memory Release that focuses on the sensations of our own body and through deep focusing begins to give us clues about what is missing in our lives, where we lost soul, where we lost our way.
Don Ruiz of the 4 Agreements of the Toltec, AH Almass’s group, DiamondHeart and Gendlin’s Focusing all speak to methodologies that point to purity of vision that comes from allowing the body to focus on what is truly happening through visioning, sensing and ultimately having a body-felt sensation, like an” AHA” moment of pure clarity of mind.
It can also help to look at synchronicities and pay close attention to clues as we go through our day. It’s good to know we have begun to discover ways to uncover this sacred dream and the ways to begin to unravel the trappings of our cultural overlay.
So let’s look now look at a few concrete steps we can take to begin to dispel the fog of our ego and our cultural desires.
One way is to try to look at what we gift ourselves with, regardless of what we are doing in our lives.
For me it seems to be the gift of water, wherever I go I first look for pools in the area, so that I can lose myself through swimming in the water,
Secondly it is the importance of stories, whether in book form, or film, the stories of lives, the meta-stories beneath these stories that have mythic underpinning that feed our soul.
So make a list of things you actually do for yourself, regardless of time or cost:
Do you go out in nature, do you go dancing, I dance at least once a week or more, do you paint, do you love food, do you love to run, play music, garden, make jewelry? Do you meditate? Notice what feeds your soul? Despite everything else that is going on in your life notice what you make time for. These activities are gems, these are pointers along the way back to the reality of what feeds your soul. I hum all day long and stay in tune with the Universe ( the “one song”) through this vibration.
This is not about making lists, ever more lists and plans and then feeling guilty about what we are not doing for ourselves. If it begins to feel like just another exercise, stop immediately…
So take a piece of paper and on one side write down all of the elements that feed you, on the other side of the paper we’ll put our blocks, perceived or real, lack of time, lack of resources etc.. although we seem to find these when we really want to do these particular things.
There may actually be physical limitations as we age, skiing down the Mt Blanc, jumping out of airplanes may no longer be appropriate choices. Obstacles are often put in our way to actually help us accomplish our path.
First we just need to observe what we do for ourselves and what the blocks are that we put in our path. We are often our own worst enemy.
PLUS MINUS
Nature ( walks) ( not enough time)
Water (swim) ( not enough money)
Music ( dance) (growing old- who am I kidding?)
I haven’t yet mentioned the people in our lives because they too can be relationships that drive us forward or hold us back, you decide. Who do you make time for in your life no matter what and how does it make you feel?
Back to Clarity:
So I’ve learned from my earliest experiences I have a bent towards ANIMISTIC experiencing, feeling the oneness of all things, the sacredness of all life and wanting to be a conduit between the as above so below,
In later life and now I give my body movement as a choice and feel impeded by work that has me sitting down most of the day. This is irreconcilable and non-sustainable, either I need to bring movement into my work or I will blow, up, get sick, die of tedium.
Now with this bit of information I can begin to make choices and look for what has heart and meaning in these arenas.
Connection with all things- Movement
Connecting sacred feminine –Earth and masculine – sky
Moving energy, no separation, no as above so below, finding the connectors that allow us to breathe as individuals and as couples.
YES, this would be fascinating work for me, so I need to focus on developing skills that would allow me to work within this context.
Now comes the research phase and of course staying with the initial impulse to clarify my desires, my sacred dream.
What is yours? See if this line of questioning can help you and let me know!
Pamela Astarte 1/6/2009 The Epiphany