We are now in the final stretch of 2021 and so it is time to tap into the New Year energy!  We will host our annual New Year's Intention setting on New Year's Day at 11AM CST.  Stay posted for more information.  

It is incredible what we can accomplish in a year.  Life is filled with so many opportunities.  We tend to get bogged down in the mundane and lose sight of what our soul is really calling us to do.  Make this year the one where you finally step outside of your routine to move purposely onto your heart-centered path.

Following our intentions setting on New Year's Day, we will host a summary of our upcoming course.  If you are interested in living a more heart-centered life, please come join us for the second run of our course "Strengthening Your Spiritual Core".

This is work of the heart.  Learning to love the self.  Learning to connect to the Higher Self when making choices in life.  There is only one person who truly knows what it is you are meant to do, that is you.

We falsely identify our self with what I call our "ego interfacing personality".  That is the part of us that has been shaped through our experiences in the world.  The true Self is not the personality, or the product of our life experiences, it is the eternal Self.  The spiritual Self that has incarnated onto this planet in order to fulfill your divine purpose.

Those of us who have lost touch with that authentic Self have difficulties making decisions, knowing which way to go in our lives, feeling lost and a lack of meaning and connection.  When we tune back into who we truly are, that expansive loving awareness flows through us, and we are able to live a life filled with peace, serenity and endless amounts of unconditional love.

This year we will continue the hybrid format, and host our bi-weekly event in the Yoga space at the Community House.  Please check out more about the course and find the course schedule here, and please be sure to register if you are interested in participating.

My first stint in graduate school was at the Institute of Animal Behavior, a now defunct department at Rutgers that focused on Ethology.  Ethology is a powerful field of studying behavior and resulting phenomenon and using the scientific method to evaluate theories on the purpose of these.  So my training was in classical scientific method.   As a scientist, when doing an experiment, you start with a theory.  Our theory is that energy healing is an effective tool for physical and emotional dis-ease.

Let's just say, even if we are uncertain of the mechanism of how something works, the evidence that it does work warrants further exploration.  Furthermore, it is always mind-blowing when it does since it questions our materialistic view of the world.  

Last night at our healing circle, we had the opportunity to see this mind-blowing power at work.  We started our session with the prayer of St. Francis, or rather the Twin Hearts meditation as it was developed by GMCKS, founder of Pranic Healing.   We all felt the energy flow through our hearts to our hands.  I have done this mediation hundreds of times, and it was pretty powerful even with just the three of us.  

We followed the meditation with a brief intro into how Pranic Healing works.  Even though my formal training is in classical neuroscience, I spent over a decade training in bioenergy healing, working with Master Co, the primary disciple of GMCKS.  I have treated my own training more like an academic or scientific journey, and less like a healer or practitioner.  But, I have been feeling called to start using these tools as I am seeing the need for healing in our community.

The system calls for cleansing and then energizing the energy field (or aura and chakras).  There are specific patterns for various diseased states, but a general approach is a direct one.  That is, if it hurts, clean it with white or green prana and then energize it with white, or violet.  *there are specifics about color, but these color choices are a safe bet.  

One of the ladies had a tooth abscess, so we  swept the area with clean prana, and then briefly energized it to support the healing.  We ended the session with a prayer of thanks.  It was probably about an hour later that she called me, so excited to tell me the news.  The abscess was gone!  It had burst when she got home, and drained on its own.  I was so excited.  Like I said, I have always observed these things as a scientist--holding no expectation, just performing the experiment and recording the results.  To have another positive example, makes me laugh in my heart.  This stuff is so freaking cool!

This is not pretend-land, but founded in the powerful facts of the workings of consciousness and the magnetic fields (or morphic fields--or consciousness fields) of our bodies.   The how of it all is still a matter left to those who are leading the way in our advancing understanding of the multi-dimensional reality.  But why should we wait to understand quantum mechanics of energy healing, when we have a powerful healing tool at our fingertips (quite literally)?!

Consciousness Explorations has a curriculum of online courses.  Most of these are in development, however, we successfully ran the course designed to help strengthen your connection to your higher self, through developing greater self-awareness and fostering self-love.  This is our first offering of the New Year 2022 and will run from January until March.

​Strengthening Your Spiritual Core is a journey of discovering and connecting to our Self with a capital S.  We will meet twice a month on the new and full moons to set intentions to connect to and work with our highest aspects of self.  

From the course description:

Each of us has a divine path.  It is through our connection to our higher self, the part of us that knows and remembers, who we truly are that we find our way to this path.  What causes us to forget?  What causes us to stray and become aimless?  How can I step back onto my path and come to realize my divine purpose in the world?

The course was a powerful experience for me, as I found I was able to transform old beliefs about my abilities in music, and to embrace the creative act of singing, which I now do fearlessly every day!

We will be sending invitations all this month to participate so if you are interested in learning more, please contact us. 

I once had an idea come to me about the task of harnessing creativity.  I looked it up and someone had already taken the title so I let it go.  It makes me laugh now because I am pretty sure more than one person can comment meaningfully on such a powerful topic.

Nevertheless, the challenge of moving ideas from the imagination into action is one that I feel drawn to in many domains.  In fact one of our core courses developed in our Consciousness Explorations curriculum is called Inspired Action.  Just in case you are worried you missed it, we are still in the phase of development.

I personally don't mind being messy in the way I grab something from the ethers and plop it down into 3D.  I feel like so many ideas are lost because of the fear of the chaotic messy phase.  Oh no, what will they think of this blob of unformed imagination.  Certainly it does not have the polish and shine we normally see on a finished product.

I am playing around these days with continual evolution.  It is a hard concept for most of us to accept because our minds love powerful endings!  The never-ending game has some appeal, but eventually we get sick of it.  The project that seems to go on forever goes from fun to futile.  But life is so much more of a process.  Even in death our active ideas will continue to be reformed.

I love to share the process of forming and reforming my ideas.  It takes a different attitude when you participate in life this way.  There is much more uncertainty and change.  But this same constant movement leads to a powerful experience of spontaneity, responsiveness and inspiration.  This leads us to be fully present, rather than enacting a script of plan, we allow each event to unfold in front of us with the greatest amount of flexible awareness.

What would your life be like if you allowed yourself to go deeply into each moment, and viewed everything as an important part of the process of creating the life of your desires.

It is the Autumnal Equinox, officially at 1:20 CST today.  

This is a time of balance.  It is also a time of letting go as we move from the warm activity of the summer into the period of hibernation of winter.  Our spirit which has been out in the ethers and astral realm, will now begin to recede, to come back into itself.  It will bring with it all it has learned, and perhaps more than you desire it to bring.  

Don't worry, now is the time to let go of all that is not serving you anymore.  I have been working the program of codependency for almost 6 years now, and as it states in the promises, I have seen a miraculous change in my life and my relationship.  However, there are some old behaviors I still seem to repeat, almost without knowing.  I seek validation from others, especially my partner, when truly it is un-necessary.  So I made the decision not to do it any more.   How freeing.
  
Besides being the Fall Equinox, it is also a full moon.  So set your intention today to let go of something you no longer need.  Let it fall away from you like the leaves falling from the tree.  You no longer need it, and as you let go of the old, know that you are making space for something new and wonderful to enter.  

 We are supposed to be exploring the Astral realm together this month, but somehow that aspect of our Consciousness Explorations programming got lost in the ethers.  That seems to happen often with creative ideas if they don't have the right attention.

I have many creative friends and I have shared with them the struggle of getting things done and out into the world.  Creativity is such an expansive and elusive thing.  Creative ideas come so quickly, like a flash of inspiration, and then can leave us just as quickly if we don't take the effort to anchor them into existence.  This is where Inspired Action is so important.

I have had over the past month, dozens of ideas for posts on the website, and yet I have only posted about 5 times.  Some of those were just necessary or practical posts, designed to get information out.  Maybe 3 of them, including this one, have been more inspired by the realm of ideas.  

Having been sick with a nasty cold the past week, I have been isolating at home, and after getting bored with Lifetime movies, I have done a bit of creating.  This act of moving an idea from the space of pure consciousness into a physical manifestation or representation of the idea is a powerful process.  It feels to me much like the process of channeling, getting out of the way, or "moving aside", as in the way Lee Carroll describes as his process for communicating with Kryon. 

What allows us to be able to stand in that space of inspiration, and not just receive these beautiful ideas, but to let them come through us onto the page, or canvas, or out into the world.  How can we anchor all of this incredible insight, and learn how to become channels for our highest ideals as they express themselves first in that space of pure potential, in that collective consciousness, in the creative idea space.

So our course Aligning with Your Divine Blueprint has not been such a great success, it has faded off like so many good ideas.  The truth is, the idea is still there, it is moving it into action that has faltered.  Why did it falter?  It didn't have participants to give it energy.  

A lot of artists like to say they are just doing their art for themselves, but creativity is more than simple self-expression.  Creativity lies in all that we do.  We create our lives and the world around us through creativity.  I can't imagine something more important in the world than to try to understand the process of creativity and to apply it to our lives and our world to create the world we want to see.

Come and join us on Saturday September 11th, where we can meet this day of destruction with an act of creativity.  Come sing with us from 1 to 3PM at the Community House, 2223 N. Sheridan Rd. 

Also I will share one of the songs I wrote while sick.  It came out whole and complete on the first try, with only one line being altered.  Sure it is short and simple, but sometimes those are the best ones.  
So here you go!

If I can sing in my cold voice so can you!!!  Don't be scared, just sing!
https://youtu.be/LM1Ome31Cio

Also just for  some context, it has been just over a year I have picked up ukulele, before that I had never touched a ukulele or guitar.  Here is a song written about a year ago when I had one month of practice on the Ukulele.
Use this as a reference.  See Old Dogs can learn New Tricks.  Woof Woof.
You can start to sing and be creative at any age.
https://youtu.be/KDODwFDU7bs

We have been listening to the Power of Now during our meditations this past week, and it has created a great sense of stillness in the practice.  Probably, Eckhart Tolle's voice has something to do with it, but the reminder of the power of presence and stillness awakens that state within.

I encourage you to listen and begin your own practice.  Or come and join us Monday, Tuesday or Thursday at 11:11 AM.  
youtu.be/LfoLGwMhg4Q

It particularly interested me the section he shared about creativity, as it aligns with my own views and personal experience.  

45:00 - starts this thread of thought...

"Thinking and consciousness are not synonymous. Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness.  Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought. "
46:00
"Enlightenment means rising above thought, not dropping below thought at the level of an animal or plant.  In the enlightened state you still use your thinking mind when needed, but in a more focused form..."

" When you do use your mind, particularly when a creative solution is needed, you oscillate every few moments between thought and stillness, between mind and no mind."

"No mind is consciousness without thought.  Only in that way is it possible to think creatively, because only in that way does thought have any real power."

"Thought alone, when it is no longer connected with the vast realm of consciousness, becomes barren, insane, destructive..."

"The mind is not at all creative.  All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from the place of No Mind, from inner stillness."

"The mind gives form to the creative impulse or insight."

"Even the great scientists have reported that their creative break-throughs came at a time of mental quietude.  A surprising result of a nationwide enquiry among America's most imminent mathematicians,  including Einstein, to find out their working methods, was that thinking only plays subordinate part in the brief decisive phase of the creative act itself.  So I would say that the simple reason that the majority of scientists aren't creative is not because they don't know how to think, but that they don't know how to stop thinking."

If you enjoy creating, or want to engage in creative play, please join us as we create music together the Second Saturday's 1:00 to 3:00PM.

We are starting into exploring the etheric body.  This recognizes the energy flow within and around me.  However, I am struggling with some physical aspects of my being that are demanding my attention.  I have held a great deal of tension in my right shoulder, and in starting to work with my physical body with more awareness, it has now become awakened.  No amount of massage ever was able to awaken this frozen position of tension.  No forcing of the muscle would work.  Rather what did cause it to awaken was the work of Thomas Hannah's Somatics practitioners.  This simple practice of noticing the connection between the spine and the shoulder girdle has brought to my attention all of the frozen positioning.   You can check out the class here.

It makes me think a bit of Wilhelm Reich and his concept of body armour or character armour.  i do feel that this frozen tension reflects some emotional defenses.  Look for his definition  of this concept here.  Maybe, this reflect a type of trapped emotion (as detailed by Bradley Nelson)  Reich was a contemporary of Freud, and why Freud received so much more attention than the brilliant insights of Reich is beyond me.  His conecpt of body armour draws us into such an important awareness between the body and emotions.  Now we have ample research in this area from people like Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps The Score), or Peter Levine (Healing Trauma: Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body).  There is so much to be understood in mind-body research.  And exploring this in our own selves can lead to incredible insights and healing experiences.

In these days of being in our mind, and almost disconnected to our physical being, and in some cases physical world as we spend more and more time in virtual reality, I wonder if we wouldn't benefit as a whole spending an entire year learning to be more present in our body and the physical world.

Nonetheless, I do see a connection between this stuck energy in my physical body and the energetic nature of the etheric.  I think I just need to go out and lie in the grass for a while.

As I follow the step by step journey of coming back into connection with my body, both physical and energetic, I connect more deeply with something more true.  I develop a greater our awareness of myself and of my true nature.

T

It is August and we are starting the journey into the awareness of the etheric plane.  Of the subtle energy bodies, the etheric is closest to the physical.  We can feel this as the aura of others, and it is a dominant part of plant energy.  Many of us are unaware of the etheric plane.  Even if we are unaware consciously, it is affecting us.  To become intentionally aware of our energy at the etheric level is the goal of this months practices.

I have some favorites when it comes to becoming aware of the etheric body, or what I would call the invisible physical, or energy body.  Awareness Through the Body, is one, and Eurhythmy is another.  Both of these practices have exercises to draw our awareness to the way in which our energy extends beyond the body, and to begin to notice that energy.

We are swimming in a soup of energy, and our energy body is participating in and responding to this soup.  To become aware of this can have profound effects on our lives.  When I am aware of how my energy is responding to different situations, I can use that information to help me make sound decisions on what I need to do next.  If I am feeling drained, it is probably not the time to make life-altering decisions.  Likewise, when I am feeling energized, I can notice the surroundings.  Perhaps there is something or someone I am with that resonates with my higher self.

One exercise that I found particularly interesting, was given to me by an energy healer, Mark Earlix.  The practice was simple.  I was to go about the house, or outdoors, or in public, sensing the energy of the objects all around me.  I had some interesting results in doing this.  Notice the boundaries of where you sense energy in both living and non-living things.  Test out handles, rails, or special and sacred objects.  What about spaces?  Do you notice different energies in different spaces?

To get this month started, why not give it a try?  Be sure to bring a journal with to write down any noticings.  Indeed, some of the insights were invaluable.

During our embodied awareness sessions at the Community House we start and end with a breathing exercise.  Lately we have been using the 11 minute Wim Hoff technique.

He is a fascinating guy.  He speaks clearly to this importance of embodied awareness, or presence here. youtu.be/fC5vyMERa94

He suggests that most of us live our lives being entirely in our thoughts.  Hence, we disconnect to those parts of our being and even our brain that are related to emotions and embodied experiences.  His realization came after swimming in a frozen pond, and feeling more alive and present than ever before.  He went on to repeat the experience and found himself further filled with life energy.

His basic premise fits nicely with what I understand about the brain from my own studies in neuroscience.  I had studied the attention systems in the brain, and studied both schizophrenia and attention deficit "disorder".  Both of these psychological states of being have terrible issues with focused attention.  My research was focused on the biochemistry, and how we can bring people into a focused state through the use of drugs.  

In the work in schizophrenia, I looked at the effects of nicotine.  My belief is that nicotine actually increases the sensory drive.  If you look at the brain, it has multiple states of being.  In one state we are dreamy and creative.  In another state we are focused on what is right in front of us.  In that part of the brain responsible for bringing the sensory input into the conscious part of awareness, there are also different states.  One that lets the internal imagination rule, and another that more systematically represents the external world.  So nicotine acts to increase the power of the external input. 

For those smokers out there, you may have the feeling that nicotine is "grounding".

Wim Hoff talks about the power of his techniques to bring people back into their body, and how this can eliminate depression and help people with trauma.  This makes perfect sense.  For people who have experienced trauma, there is often the experience of disassociation.  The person had developed the ability to disconnect from their physical situation in order to escape into their mind.  Autism may be an extreme form of this escape, and schizophrenics are definitely trapped in their own imaginary world.  

Breathing or intense sensory experiences help bring the person back in touch with their embodied selves.  Notice how autistic children love spicy food, super sour pickles, or strong sensory experiences.  I believe they are having difficulty incarnating.

So the importance of connecting to the physical is not really about having a nice body, or even a clean bill of health, these are of course by-products.  Rather, connecting to our physical being we enter more deeply into who we are.  We activate those deep brain regions and begin to thrive.  Our experience of life becomes more powerful, and our will to live a full life grows with each embodied breath.

So give it a try for a week.  Start your day out with some Wim Hoff breathing.

Here is the three cycles we have been using.  Enjoy!

WIM HOFF BREATHING