There is no such thing as "Past": Infant self soul retrieval

Since I see this human daily life in the same way I view the sleeping dreamtime --it's all a dream-- then it seems quite ironic that the kitten, Sufi, is outside my bedroom door meowing incessantly to get in. 

Practically speaking I know what happens if I let her in, she will climb all over me attempting to chew on my face and clamor all over the laptop keyboard.  I want to get these words down before the wee one arrives.  Irony, irony....

As often happens, I woke from sleep with a very small part of a song in my head, "I surrender".  I recognize the song, as it fades from my memory, but am unable to find the version of it on iTunes.  Anyway, even though when this normally happens I like to find the lyrics and get the 'bigger' meaning from the song, I'll let that little cybersurfing distraction go.

The point is, the song is telling me a part of me is willing to surrender, to surrender something that has been held.  Stay with me, this will all come together.

Yesterday I went for an ayurvedic consultation with Heidi Sherwood at the Sapphire Day Spa (http://www.sapphiredayspa.com).  I don't see myself as a 'day spa' kind of guy, but my partner had seen Heidi and been very impressed by her knowledge so I thought I would give it a try.  It was an excellent experience which I would highly recommend to everyone.  You can check out Sapphire's website for more information about ayurveda, but suffice it to say it is a 5,000 year old body of knowledge that became the basis for both Chinese and Indian medicine/healing practices.

Do I seem to be rambling, distracting...?  Hmmm....

After reading my pulses and looking at my tongue she described what she saw: a groove down the middle of my tongue that is representative of grief.  Intuitively she sensed that this stemmed from the experience of being alone and abandoned as an infant, wondering when is anyone going to come?  I know this to be a real experience for me as a child and it is not a stretch to see how this would have happened as an infant as well.

Heidi's suggestion, which frankly made me smile and squirm a little bit, was to do a meditation where I visit my new born self, hold him, and share my love with him. For those of you who know me and/or the work I do, you will know I do soul retrievals with people quite frequently --reclaiming lost soul essence that became separated from us due to some form of trauma.  My squirming came from my superego's judgment that I "should" have already done this for myself. [Superego: picture a very powerful voice in your head that was fully formed by the time you were 3 years old; where you learned everything it needed to know about good, bad, right and wrong; then like a prison warden it keeps you confined in a tiny ego prison cell-like experience of the role(s) you are supposed to play in this life.]

When I was first training in ancient, universal Shamanic healing practices I experienced a powerful soul retrieval of my 7 year old and 16 year old selves.  The former being the most impactful as I reclaimed his innocent playfulness and took him out of a very painful life experience.

So... the kitten has gone quiet at the door.  Has she given up and wandered off in search of comfort somewhere downstairs, or is she waiting quietly outside the door, waiting for me to let her in?

Waking this morning with "I surrender" repeating in my head I decided to attempt the suggested meditation/soul retrieval of my infant self.  I was shocked at the level of distraction that emerged in my psyche.  I managed to visualize the hospital and the baby care area --the one filled with clear plastic bins, like fridge vegetable drawers, all lined up in rows to be monitored by nurses.  I saw what I perceived to be my infant self, having become untucked from that swaddled, tight roll they put babies in to reduce the frantic shock of being outside the mother's womb in this overwhelmingly expansive world.

As I approached this imagined infant self, I reached out my hands, very much wanting to lift him out of that sterile place and hold him.  But, all I found when I pulled my arms back was a stack of plastic clothes hangers!  I know, weird right?

Upon seeing the hangers I immediately flashed to a drawing I did many years ago of a room filled with those metal rolling coat racks --the kind used by hotel valets to wheel around luggage and hanging clothes.  The drawing depicted a vision I had of all these racks of clothes and spinning balls of light hovering around them.  This was my perception, at the time, of how our souls choose the life we are going to enter in our next incarnation; like choosing a suit to wear, or a role to play as it were.

I can see in this moment how many roles I have played in this life.  From the simple and practical son, friend, boyfriend, student, lover, husband... to the more complicated roles where my identity was more deeply entrenched in ideas, beliefs and stories.  These latter roles are the ones that transcend "male, human, friend" identities by adding in the spices and rotting vegetables of the soup that becomes "me: pitiful, abandoned child who never did it right enough to get the love I deserved" --a story, or one like it, that we all construct, renovate, and defend with our minds.

Clearly there is no such thing as "Past".  As we grow and age we drag along our pains and our joys like family jewels that must be guarded against intruders.  Like those 'crazy' moments of awareness that try to get us to open to the possibility that we can let go of our attachments to historic wounds, heal our separation from our true selves, reclaim lost soul essence, and Be in this moment right now.

I'm going to let the kitten in.  She is never pissed off if she has to wait, but rather always delighted to be let in.

I will definitely revisit, over the next 24 hours, my meditation/soul retrieval with my infant self.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Edward

Inquirers into truth

Yesterday I invested my embodied presence in a kitchen chopping vegetables, doing dishes, serving food, and listening while twenty-nine people inquired into the truth.  Why was I there, at this retreat center?  Quite simply because I was asked to fill in for someone who did not feel well, but what I realized was I had a choice.

I have worked with a teacher, Bhuvaneswari Devi (www.bhuvaneswari.ca), who said, "Need nothing, desire everything, and choose what shows up."  When I first heard this phrase it made no sense and sounded like a bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo to perpetuate, as I judged at the time, an infantile view that everything is perfect exactly as it is.  I'll jump ahead now and say I do see the world this way now -- well, this world and every other one I'm currently experiencing... but that's a story for another tavern as Michael Torresan (www.alinow.com) is want to say.

So yes, I chose to be in that kitchen for all of yesterday and for the breakfast prep and clean up this morning.  I needed nothing to be different than it was.  I desired the fullness of my experience in this life.  And, I chose what showed up... the request to be the chef's helper.  Now, to be clear this little phrase does not mean you stay in an abusive relationship because "that's what showed up", but it does mean by stopping needing that abusive relationship to be different, and desiring to experience the fullness of this precious human experience, you can choose to show up and realize you can make a different choice and get the support needed to leave that relationship.

Chopping, washing, serving, listening, and witnessing... I saw people becoming embodied.  The not so simple task of inquiring into the truth was resulting in people suddenly finding themselves in their bodies, along with the requisite portions of pain and joy that go along with being embodied.  It was beautiful to see and hear.  And I had the privilege of supporting these embodied souls by chopping peppers and making sure they had clean plates each time the eating contemplation gong sounded.  And I had the joy of witnessing their soft faces, confused minds, and open hearts laid bare before me.

If you've ever been on a farm or a wild piece of land very early in the morning, while the mist is still clinging to the ground, with only the sound of your own footsteps you'll have a sense of the stillness we can experience in the middle of absolute beauty.  That's what it was like witnessing the quiet, embodied souls of those twenty-nine inquirers into truth.

Edward

Embodiment and the Crucifixtion

Why did Jesus say, "My God, my God why hast Thou forsaken me?"  Whether one believes the story of Jesus on the cross is true, fabricated, or archetypal, this is a vital moment in the overall story of humanity.  It is also, from my perspective, an underlying truth to understanding how we can experience enlightenment.

I think that moment on the cross was actually the first time Jesus experienced himself as human.  No matter how difficult life might have been for him as he traveled around teaching, healing, learning, and being persecuted, he was still the "Son of God".  Knowing this as he did must have made any hardship seem ridiculously insignificant.

After hours nailed to the cross Jesus says those historic words, "...why hast Thou forsaken me?"  In that instant he became embodied fully, fully knowing how incredibly painful this human experience can be, and he experienced separation from the Divine.

Many religious teachers have written that God did turn his back on Jesus while he was on the cross because Jesus had taken on all of humanity's sins and that God is 'too pure to look upon evil'.  Can the purity of divinity actually see evil?  When we are in a true state of non-judgment and true love there is no evil, only unhealthy actions that reap unhealthy consequences.  So Jesus' separation was a thought, an idea of separation.

As humans we tend to take on one of two ways of being... or perhaps both ways of being, but at different times ...that of experiencing ourselves in horrible pain and completely separate from everything that is not pain, or that of being caught up in the dream of this life, thinking it's all that exists and not really wanting to know anything else.  Metaphorically speaking, we are either Christ on the cross feeling forsaken or we are the town's people who refuse to see the crucified.

Our separation from the Divine goes way beyond any ideas we have of God.  It is the mind's idea of separation that truly disconnects us from All That Is -- the Earth, our fellow human beings, every living thing, and our own essential self.  Oh my God, why have I forsaken the truth of who and what I am?

Just like Jesus we need to embody here in this human life in order to transcend its illusion.  Embodying means fully experiencing every moment of pain-joy; a constant, conscious awareness of all light and shadow around us and within us.

If that doesn't sound easy it's because it is not.  Just like going to a movie theater where we can get lost in a story portrayed in flashing lights on a screen, so is our experience of falling asleep in the dream of being human.  Even when we do have a moment of 'awakening', of seeing through the thin veil of illusion that is wrapped around all of us every day, all it can take is getting cut off in traffic to pop us right back into the dream.

We can, however, begin by being open to the possibility that we are more than our physical bodies, while being present in our physical bodies.  The more I embody the more I see the beauty of this amazing planet and all its astounding creatures and beings.  I no longer desire to leave here as quickly as I can, hating life and its apparent meaninglessness.  Now, I want to breathe in the whole experience.

More on this subject to come, as we explore embodying and waking up together.

Edward