Discipline in a dying art in this modern age of distractions and quick fixes. In a time when we need to be more focused than ever, more resourced than ever, and more connected to the well of truth within, our energy is being leaked in a million different directions.

When I look into the gifts of the true masculine, the Divine masculine I see the exalted qualities of responsibility, accountability and discipline as containers that hold that which is sacred. Without creating these containers in our lives, that which is subtle such as truth, beauty, presence and love cannot be fully known. There is a powerful level of integrity that is needed to attain these subtleties of being. All great spiritual paths and traditions hold high levels of discipline at great importance, for if we are not able to discipline ourselves for our higher good, we will not be able to attain that which is worth more than gold. Our minds, our bodies and our souls all require a certain level of discipline in order to be tuned to their highest octave.

In calling upon the structure of the divine masculine in my own life, I am heeding a call towards greater responsibility; response-ability. This is the ability to respond with choice and awareness to my thoughts and emotions, thus taking responsibility for them; the responsibility to hold myself accountable to walk my talk and take the time each day to be in the container of my practices where I seek communion with the eternal; the accountability to my own souls growth and evolution for the sake of all beings, the accountability to dot my I's and cross my T's so that each action is total and in harmony with the whole. In this way I claim my sovereignty, I claim my center and I claim my power.

How do we show up for ourselves? How do we show up for our beloveds? What does it look and feel like to stand for life and love with strength, courage and discipline?

YES, we need the feminine to rise at this time, but we simultaneously need the reclamation of the true and divine masculine within us all that takes a stand for that which is the beauty of the world, the container in which She flowers.

Heiros Gamos within is the gateway at which we stand. The sacred marriage will not be complete until we hold within our own chalice the great alchemical union of the masculine and the feminine, stepping out of victimhood, stepping out of overwhelm and distraction and into the steadfast knowing of our true and divine nature.

In conjunction with my last post on Discipline and the Divine Masculine we now surrender into the feminine flow of devotion, for what drives us to be disciplined but to realize the beauty of existence in devotional merger?

While discipline is the masculine container through which devotion can be held, without the devotion of the heart it is empty. It is in merging our devotion to the eternal with our discipline to strive towards the object of our hearts longing that eventually leads to an embodied experience of union between polarities. Through devotion we come to recognize the Beloved in all of creation and thus become servants of that immense beauty that cracks us open into existential ecstasy.

Discipline is of the higher mind while devotion is of the spiritual heart. Discipline is governed by the intellect while devotion lives in the realm of feeling. If one of these aspects is imbalanced with the other we will lack either the sentiment or the follow-through to achieve our souls dharma of awakening.

Devotion exists in the realm where the personal and transpersonal merge; where what is of the world merges with the mysterious energy that is beyond this world. As existence manifests in countless unique forms, we each have our own devotional path. Devotion needs to be stirred, so it is up to us to find that particular ray that incites our heart to throb.

What is it that inspires your devotional heart? What ignites you to offer yourself in surrender to a greater force? What does that greater force look like or feel like? How can you offer even more of yourself, your longing, your rapture to that which stirs the passion of your heart?

Devotion and discipline are primary ingredients in any spiritual path. When we find a system or a practice that marries our masculine discipline with our feminine devotion, we have found a map toward wholeness through the alchemy of that which is in form and that which is formless.

The worlds women are increasingly arriving at a state of curiosity about our sexuality, our wisdom, our embodiment, and our power as we become more and more aware of the necessity to take exquisite care of our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits in an increasingly complex world. In this process of feminine awakening, many of us are looking to ancient maps of practice, philosophy and embodiment to guide us in our modern journey. The Taoist female sexual energy cultivation practices with the Jade Egg are one of those poignant maps, and as we come to discover the Taoist secrets, it is important that we remain honoring and understanding of the tradition from which they came. It is in this way that we can truly acquire the merit of these practices that have survived millennia.

So what is the history of these profound practices?

The Jade Egg practices originated from a philosophy of harmonious being known as Taoism. Taoism was birthed in ancient China by the revered sage Lao Tzu, the author of the famous Tao Te Ching. Taoism was the foundation of many of China’s healing and self-cultivation practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong. In order to deeply understand the Jade Egg practices, one must have at least a minimal understanding of Taoism and the energies at play within and outside of the human body.

So lets take a deeper look at Taoism. Tao literally translates to “The Way”. It is more a philosophy than a religion. The underlying teachings of Taoism are teachings of presence, simplicity, acceptance, harmony and balance. It is an extremely feminine philosophy in that, unlike modern day life, it teaches us how to flow with the naturally occurring cycles of existence. In our modern world we are caught up in striving, achieving, and bending the world to our will. Taoism is literally a teaching of ease and grace by harmonizing with the forces of nature within and without the body. It teaches us to listen deeply, and to act with an intelligence that is always assessing what is in the interest of balance moment by moment. Within Taoism we work with nature instead of against Her. Taoism is extremely simplistic in it’s nature; it is again, simply “The Way”.

Many of us are familiar with the Taoist symbol of the Yin and Yang. The dark Yin represents the feminine receptive principle, and that stillness which is the base from which creation takes form. The light Yang represents the masculine active principle, and that which is in motion. Within the Yin there is Yang, and within the Yang there is Yin. Ultimately the two are inseparable, constantly spiraling into each other, merging into each other, and becoming one another. Nothing in this holographic realm is fixed, all is in constant flux and flow, and this motion is the dance of Yin and Yang. When we are in a state of peace and balance, we can recognize this blessing as a point of equipoise between the Yin and Yang aspects of our being and life. It is important to familiarize with the concepts of Yin and Yang before practicing with the Jade Egg, as the highest goal of these practices is the alchemy of Yin and Yang within the body, consciousness and spirit.

While the Jade Egg practices were very much inspired and molded by the simplistic Taoist masters who often lived simple lives in the mountains, they were originally utilized by the concubines of ancient China’s courts. The women of the courts used these practices to maintain their youthfulness and vitality, perform exquisite acts of love, and to merge their potent sexual energies into high spiritual pursuits. It was said that they ruled from behind the curtain, meaning that the Kings true power and precision came from the women of the palace. It is interesting to note that in both the Taoist and Tantric systems of practice, women were seen to be the keepers of power. This led male practitioners in both of these systems to worshipping and exalting these women from whom they sought initiation. On the darker side, it also led to extorting and hoarding the women to draw their power from.

While many ancient practices of feminine power were nearly lost as the power of the patriarchy swept across the lands, the Jade Egg practices were preserved by Taoist Priestesses in underground mystery schools. Today they are re-emerging with passion as the rise of the Sacred Feminine ignites, to instill our power unto ourselves yet again.

"Don't accept the notion that our current political crisis is a downward spiral from which we cannot emerge. We will emerge, better than ever"

May 6, 2017
It’s tempting, when confronted by political malfeasance, to become so absorbed with its symptom that we give too little attention to treating its cause. In fact, behind every dangerous political phenomenon lies the ideology that produced it. Everything that happens in the material world is created first on the level of thought.

Political propaganda seeks to affect the way people perceive the world in order to affect the way they behave. Political propaganda is the biggest tool in the extremist’s arsenal. It’s at an all-time high today in terms of sophistication and effectiveness, as Madison Avenue public relations acumen has been insidiously and nefariously applied to the political sphere. Our problem is not just that some politicians flat out lie; our bigger problem is the power of their propaganda to dismantle the ability within many people’s minds to even realize they’re being lied to. People are vulnerable to extremism not because they like extremism, but because in too many cases today extremism is hugely successful at posing as something else.

No external force is as threatening to our democracy today as is the political propaganda war being currently waged against it. Our freedom is being attacked from within, but instead of fighting this tide in many ways our country is flowing with it. Why? In large part, because of the Big Lies that fuel the propaganda machine and generate its power. Identifying the Big Lies of corporate fascism is an essential part of resisting it.

Whether or not a Big Lie has been proven to be false seems to have minimal bearing on whether or not it is believed. It is the conviction and consistency with which the Big Lie is stated, not the proven accuracy or inaccuracy of its claim, that determines its effect on voters’ minds and thus the way that they vote.

The first Big Lie being used against the American people today is the idea that the business sector is our primary “job creator.”

Successful businesses create jobs; that is true. But the notion that if we cut taxes enough for the very rich and for already hugely profitable businesses, then all that money will trickle down to everyone else in the form of job creation is simply false. Yet it is a lie that has been used in the United States for propaganda purposes for decades, despite all economic evidence to the contrary. Tax breaks and other financial breaks that favor the wealthiest among us do not create greater prosperity for all; they simply siphon off more and more money to those who already have it, and more and more money away from those who do not. They do not promote wealth-creation opportunities that benefit all; they simply redistribute wealth from those who do not have to those who already do. If we give a huge amount of money to the rich, we simply don’t have enough money left over to help those who are not.

Business is important, and successful businesses are essential to a healthy economy. But the business sector is no more important or more essential to our economic good than is education, health care or any other avenue by which people are aided in their ability to self-actualize.

Who and what then create jobs, if not the business sector? The answer is often hidden from plain sight for two reasons: one, because so many within its ranks are women, and two, because it doesn’t have the funds to create a huge public relations machinery to lay out its case. Education, not big business, is the biggest job-creating sector. The greatest job-creator in America is not the businessperson but the educator — not simply someone who can give you a job, but someone who can prepare you for a job; someone who can provide you with the internal and external tools to do it well. It is not just overseas outsourcing that has taken our jobs away; it is in equal measure our failure as a society to provide for the preparation of our citizens, from the earliest age, for the challenges of living in the 21st Century.

Tax revenue currently proposed to help the top .001% should be used to create the largest matrix of technical colleges and free institutions of higher learning in the world. The fact that it is not is a travesty of economic justice, and a legacy of ancient serfdom. We have acquiesced to an aristocratic economic system, forced there not by the tyranny of kings but rather lured there by political propaganda designed to convince the abused that the abuser is their friend.

Millions in America today – hard-working people who should have every right to feel securely ensconced in the middle class — are only a few unfortunate steps (a health crisis here, a lay off there) away from the ranks of the poor, and they know it. Their anger and despair are totally valid, yet often they are looking to the actual source of the problem to solve it.

The huge matrix of corporate power in America is not a huge job-creating machine; it is a huge wealth-destroying machine for anyone but itself. Our current economic power structure – led by banks, huge multi-national corporate entities and the politicians they can afford to buy — is a system of economic abuse. It is a system that creates huge amounts of economic stress, and then presents itself as the job-creating machine that will relieve the stress. It’s like a thief who steals from you, then changes clothes and arrives at your door thirty minutes later dressed as Santa Claus.

And when it comes to wealth creation opportunity, the average American isn’t even asking for Santa Claus; he or she is asking for simple fairness and decency and respect. The values of brotherhood and justice that form the framework of any right relationship form the framework of a healthy society. And that applies to the economy too. Treat every person with the respect they deserve as a child of God from the time they’re born, and watch what they will create for themselves.

Every person has within us the deep desire to create the good, the true and the beautiful. Walk into any pre-school or kindergarten and you will see that this is true. If every human being is truly a precious creation of God, then there is no amount of money too much to spend on education, cultural enrichment, and any and all opportunities to provide for their ability to create success for themselves.

Traditionally, America has known this.

After World War II, the United States Congress created the G.I. Bill for our returning veterans. This allowed millions of returning soldiers to attend college and enter the workforce at a higher level than they would have otherwise. A nation devastated by World War II then realized that our biggest opportunity for economic re-greening lay in educating the American population and rebuilding our infrastructure. This civic wisdom led to an explosion of economic prosperity among us and the creation of America’s great middle class.

Abraham Lincoln, who our current president has referred to as “low energy Abe,” in fact released the energy of a thousand suns when he articulated for the ages the highest aspiration of the American people: that ours would be a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” What a travesty we are making of our own national creed, as we acquiesce to the takeover of the United States government by forces who, however much they rant and rave their support for “the American people,” are dedicated to placing the reins of our government in the hands of those with nothing but contempt for the notion of a government “for the people.” These “economic royalists,” as Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to them, have done extraordinary damage to our history and are doing extraordinary damage now. But whenever they appear, they are an aberration and not an inevitability. We have stopped them before and we will stop them again.

The second Big Lie at the heart of the extremist propaganda machine is that the poor are those who simply will not and do not help themselves. The demonizing of America’s poor has been one of the great successes of the corporate extremists, insidiously turning those being systematically pushed into the ranks of the poor into the greatest proponents of the system that is doing the pushing. If I don’t like you, I’m less likely to stand up for you; if I don’t stand up for you, then I’m not going to know to stand up for myself when those same forces are coming after me.

So the strategy of the propaganda war is obvious: stereotype the faceless minions of corporate extremism as your economic savior, even when they’re not; and the most disadvantaged among you as your enemy, even when they’re not. That way you won’t rebel against your abuser, and you won’t side with those held down by the same forces that will get around to you if you allow them to. It’s a brilliant strategy and at the moment it’s working. But it will not work forever, because while the American people can be fooled and fooled too easily, that doesn’t mean that we’re fools. Even the smartest people have been taken in by frauds, whether fraudulent lovers who made us think they cared or salesmen who made us believe in their fraudulent products. It happens to the best of us. But once you know what’s being done to you, something changes. You’re no longer asleep and you will no longer be held down. You are awake to your rights and no longer blinded by those who would deny them.

What we need now is an American Awakening. Political propaganda has no real power in the face of an awakened citizenry. Sometimes Americans are kind of slow to realize what’s going on, but historically we slam it like nobody’s business once we do. And we will have learned from all this. We will have learned the dangers of going to sleep at the wheel of American democracy. We will have learned that democracy cannot be taken for granted. And we will have learned that citizenship is a serious responsibility.

The question isn’t, “But what can we do?” The question is, “What will YOU do?” The midterm elections are November 6, 2018. Write that day in your calendar and etch it on your heart; prepare for that day in every way you can. Do not be distracted and do not lose courage.

It is the day when we can turn all this around.

By Lokita Carter

By
Lokita Carter
Going back to the basics can bear great gifts, especially in love and sex. Let’s remember some of the teachings mom gave us on our way. “Look into people’s eyes as you speak with them”, she said. “Be respectful to others. Listen carefully when someone talks with you”, she insisted. “And never interrupt.” This wisdom turns out to be quite useful, especially in our love relationships.

One of our first tantric practices as a couple was a deceptively simple communication experiment about how we like to be loved – physically, emotionally and spiritually. It goes like this: Steve asks me the question, “How do you like to be loved?” I answer as Steve listens, without commentary. If I don’t answer, he will ask the same question again. After 10 minutes, we switch roles, asking and answering the same question.

Are you willing to invest 10 minutes into your love life?
At first, 10 minutes might seem an awfully long time to talk about how we like to be loved. But let’s face it – those 10 minutes are a great investment into a more pleasurable time with your lover and with yourself! You’d be surprised how time flies when you explore this subject matter whole-heartedly.

The Power of Words
Communication takes place on many levels, especially in the bedroom. Yet not many people actually tell each other how exactly they like to be loved. In the early days of a relationship it is easy to intuit what our partner likes, and to flow together effortlessly. But after the honeymoon is over, many of us have we settled into a satisfactory routine, a habitual way of making love. Verbalizing our wishes and desires makes us more aware of our own desires and those of our partner, and creates more spontaneity.

Can you listen to your partner without an agenda?
Listening is a meditation! Being genuinely interested in what our partner says is one of the keys to a great relationship. Possible agendas might be your mental comments such as, “Oh no, that’s how he likes it. I am such a lousy lover!” or, “Aha! I have all kinds of great ideas how I can embellish her wishes, for example.” Agendas distract us from being able to listen with a beginner’s mind and an open heart.

Do you actually know how you like to be loved?
If I don’t know how I like to be loved, how can I possibly expect my partner to know? Taking responsibility for our pleasure, for our life is a key concept in Tantra that applies in and out of the bedroom. Investigating how we like to be loved emotionally, physically, and spiritually will make it easier for us to ask for what we want, and in turn create more passion, peace and harmony in our whole life.

Can you speak without an agenda?
Telling your partner how you like to be loved can be fun, exciting, sexy and challenging – all at the same time. Can you let the words roll off your tongue easily, without self-judgment? Perhaps you feel shy or nervous to share your most intimate secrets – shame, feelings of unworthiness and guilt raise their heads. Or maybe you say things to lash out indirectly at him/her for not giving you what you really want. Do you hold anything back because you are afraid what your partner might think of you? It is an ongoing and very rewarding exploration!

Infinite Ways to Being Loved
The most wonderful thing about this particular question is that there are infinite ways to answer it. In our 11 years together we have done this practice countless times, and we learn new things about ourselves, and each other every single time. Just as life changes with every breath, the way we like to be loved changes. You never know what you are going to say or hear.

The results of this practice are countless. The best for me is that because I listen attentively to him talk about how he likes to be loved, I can give him what he wants without him having to ask for it directly, and of course, vice versa. We both feel loved and cherished, connected and seen. If we all ask and answer this question time and again, the world will be a better place, and that time investment will be well worth it!

Try it out and let us know about your experience with this practice!

By
Lokita Carter
Tantra has become very popular in the West over the past few years as a method for improving our sex life. What many people don’t know is that Tantra is much more than that.

In Tibetan Buddhism, Tantra and its practices are considered the most accelerated path to spiritual enlightenment. Only the most accomplished students receive the transmission of these powerful and secret tools from their teacher. All of Tantra’s methods are concerned with spiritual advancement, and only a small part of them is devoted to practices involving sexuality. Tantra includes everything – the way you make love, the way you cook your meals, and the way you work becomes a sacred activity. Tantra is and has been a lifestyle as well as a spiritual practice.

So why is there so much emphasis on the sexual aspects of Tantra? Because we all want to be better lovers and have a great sex life. Sexual intimacy is one of the easiest ways to have a spiritual experience, to reach an altered state of consciousness. At the peak moment of sexual union, our minds disappear, we become truly one with each other, and enter into timelessness and divine union. Tantra teaches us how to reach those states again and again, and effortlessly, in our love life and our daily lives.

Tantrikas, those practicing Tantra, know that spirituality resides within the body and that the body’s gifts can be utilized to foster and attain spiritual clarity, ecstasy and fulfillment. Hence tantric wisdom traditionally was passed on from teacher to student, from master to disciple, experientially rather than intellectually, and this still continues to be the preferred and most effective method today.

So where do you start? Many great books and videos provide useful and practical information about Tantra, especially the sexual aspects of it. If you have a partner, tell her or him that you are interested in learning more about Tantra. Watch a video together or commit to practice exercises from a book that you both like. Hands-on practice is the fastest and most reliable way to learn.

Many books on Tantra also include practices which can be done by yourself, so you don’t actually have to have a partner to practice Tantra. In fact even if you have a partner, practicing the solo exercises can open the door to a “new you” and that in turn can be very valuable and enriching for your relationship as well as your lovelife.

By far the best way to deepen your understanding of Tantra and get an immediate “aha” is to participate in a seminar. A seminar is a forum for experiential learning, and the facilitators are there to guide you on this journey. There are also a variety of seminars and events; weekends, week-longs and longer trainings, for beginners and advanced Tantra practitioners, for single and couples.

Aside from experiencing what Tantra is, and practicing tools for your love life and daily life, you are also part of a tantric family during the event, and maybe afterwards, if you so choose. Immersing yourself into the tantric community, the sangha, of the seminar environment accelerates your learning process and deepens your experience. And when you go back home, life will not be the same, it will be even better!

By
Lokita Carter
Does Tantra help to achieve a full body orgasm? Can both men and women enjoy multiple orgasms? Does tantric lovemaking last longer? These questions are asked often by individuals who are starting on the tantric path, and they have as many answers as there are people asking it.

We were born with the gear for making love and pleasuring ourselves, but “having it” doesn’t mean that we know how to use it to its fullest. Hardly anyone was fortunate enough to be taught the art of lovemaking. Luckily it’s never too late to learn and expand… whether you are 19 or 90…

In ordinary lovemaking, the feelings, attention, and energy are focused mainly in one area: the genitals. The sensations in our genitals are delightful, however, by being focused on “down there” there is a goal and when that goal is realized, this particular sexual episode is over.

In tantric lovemaking, movement, breath, sound and presence are the keys to expand our ecstatic energy and spread it throughout the whole body. Using these keys allows the expansion of bliss and ecstasy rather than release of energy. This is what we call “orgasmic bliss”.

The body can actually contain a vast sexual energy, and when this sexual energy is built up and held in the genitals, release is inevitable – the point of no return. Instead, you can consciously decide to distribute your energy throughout the whole body, thus increasing the body’s capacity for more energy and more pleasure.

And why not continue going higher and higher in lovemaking, even to the point where there is so much ecstasy in the whole body that you become bliss and you don’t have to do anything to stay in bliss? This can be a spiritual experience – you become one with God, yourself and your partner.

The One Big O and Many Little o’sOrgasm is defined as “involuntary redistribution of energy”. For example, a sneeze falls into this category. So does the One Big O. And so do the many little o’s that we experience throughout the day. Observe yourself. Do you feel a tremor in your body when you taste chocolate mousse or smell a fragrant, perfect rose? Those are more subtle little o’s and they can be triggered by anything that is pleasurable to you.

Generally, orgasm is associated with genitals, as in “the One Big O”. We all know the delicious feeling when we have a Big O – either through self-pleasuring or lovemaking with our beloved. An incredible release of energy happens, our mind stops, our body contracts and lets go, contracts and lets go, undulating in uncontrollable orgasmic spasms. This orgasmic movement feels good.

And it does not have to be related to the genitals. Perhaps you have experienced the following: after a Big O, you relax deeply, you let go completely. This deep relaxation is a conduit through which your orgasmic energy flows into every cell of your being. The sensations could be shivers, your body shakes a little, and you feel as if streams of electrical currents rush through your body like lightning.

The energy moving from the base of the spine upward is what we call a “little o”. This reflex, or the little o’s can be activated anytime, independently of the genitals; for example by smelling that fragrant rose, or enjoying that chocolate mousse mentioned above, or by sharing an embrace. This experience is healing for mind, body and soul, and by cultivating it, pleasure will be abundant in life.

We are blessed to have this phenomenon built into our body. Unfortunately, Western culture has taught us to repress pleasure and our ecstatic self. Knowing this, we can now consciously begin to enjoy the day’s many little o’s and expand all aspects of our daily life into a truly orgasmic experience. Begin to notice this energy, however subtle it may be, welcome this sensuous part of yourself and validate yourself each time you experience a little o.

Our motto is: forget about the One Big O and enjoy the abundance of the little o’s!

Edith Turner, a Field Associate of the Foundation, is a distinguished anthropologist who teaches at the University of Virginia. She is known for her fieldwork in Africa with her late husband, Victor Turner, and for her more recent work among the north Alaskan Eskimo (the Iñupiat), results of which are to be found in her book, The Hands Feel It: Healing and Spirit Presence among a Northern Alaskan People (Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, Illinois. 1996.)

This article is from the FSS journal, Shamanism, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring-Summer) 1997.

"A keen and sympathetic researcher on indigenous peoples' spiritual and ritual life, she makes a courageous and eloquent stand in this article."
— Michael Harner

In the past in anthropology, if a researcher "went native," it doomed him academically. My husband, Victor Turner, and I had this dictum at the back of our minds when we spent two and a half years among the Ndembu of Zambia in the fifties.

All right, "our" people believed in spirits, but that was a matter of their different world, not ours. Their ideas were strange and a little disturbing. Yet somehow we were on the safe side of the White divide and were free merely to study the beliefs. This is how we thought. Little knowing it, we denied the people's equality with ours, their "coevalness," their common humanity as that humanity extended itself into the spirit world.

Try out that spirit world ourselves? No way!

But at intervals, that world insisted it was really there. For instance, in the Chihamba ritual at the end of a period of ordeal, a strong wave of curative energy hit us. We had been participating as fully as we knew how, thus opening ourselves to whatever entities that were about. In another ritual, for fertility, the delight of dancing in the moonlight hit me vividly, and I began to learn something about the hypnotic effect of singing and hearing the drums.

Much later, Vic and I witnessed a curious event in New York City in 1980, while running a workshop at the New York University Department of Performance Studies, which was attended by performance and anthropology students. With the help of the participants, we were trying out rituals as actual performances with the intention of creating a new educational technique.

...the Africans were right. There is spirit stuff. There is spirit affliction; it is not a matter of metaphor and symbol, or even psychology.

We enacted the Umbanda trance session, which we had observed and studied in one of the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The students duly followed our directions and also accompanied the rites with bongo drumming and songs addressed to the Yoruba gods. During the ritual, a female student actually went into a trance, right there in New York University. We brought her 'round with our African rattle, rather impressed with the way this ritual worked even out of context. The next day, the student told us that she had gone home that night and correctly predicted the score of a crucial football game, impressing us even further.

Since then, I have taken note of the effects of trance and discovered for myself the three now obvious regularities: frequent, nonempirical cures; clairvoyance, which includes finding lost people or objects, divination, prediction, or forms of wisdom speaking; and satisfaction or joy—these three effects repeating, almost like a covenant.

What spirit events took place in my own experience?

One of them happened like this. In 1985, I was due for a visit to Zambia. Before going, I decided to come closer than on previous occasions to the Africans' own experience, whatever that was—I did not know what they experienced. So it eventuated, I did come closer.

My research was developing into the study of a twice-repeated healing ritual. To my surprise, the healing of the second patient culminated in my sighting a spirit form. In a book entitled Experiencing Ritual1, I describe exactly how this curative ritual reached its climax, including how I myself was involved in it; how the traditional doctor bent down amid the singing and drumming to extract the harmful spirit; and how I saw with my own eyes a large, gray blob of something like plasma emerge from the sick woman's back.

Then I knew the Africans were right. There is spirit stuff. There is spirit affliction; it is not a matter of metaphor and symbol, or even psychology. And I began to see how anthropologists have perpetuated an endless series of put-downs about the many spirit events in which they participated—"participated" in a kindly pretense. They might have obtained valuable material, but they have been operating with the wrong paradigm, that of the positivists' denial.

To reach a peak experience in a ritual, sinking oneself fully in it really is necessary. Thus for me, "going native" achieved a breakthrough to an altogether different world view, foreign to academia, by means of which certain material was chronicled that could have been gathered in no other way.

On the subject of radical participation, Dan Rose predicted that:

...students will seek to place themselves in unfolding situations, to live through complex ongoing events...rather than looking alone for the meanings of gestures, the presentations of selves, class relations, the meaning of rituals, or other abstract, analytical category phenomena on which we historically have relied.

Jackson2 helps to make this point: "To break the habit of using a linear communicational model for understanding bodily praxis, it is necessary to adopt a methodological strategy of joining in without ulterior motive and literally putting oneself in the place of other persons: inhabiting their world [what was pejoratively labeled 'going native' in the early days of anthropology]."

Participation thus became an end in itself rather than a means of gathering closely observed data which will be subject to interpretation elsewhere after the event.3

Later, in 1987, when I went to northern Alaska to conduct research on the healing methods of Inupiat Eskimos, I similarly found myself swamped with stories of strange events, miracles, rescues, healings by telephone hundreds of miles away, visions of God, and many other manifestations. It was by these things that the people lived. Their ears were pricked up for them, as it were. I spent a year in the village acting as a kind of pseudo auntie, listening to, and believing, the stories. And naturally, those things happened to me about as frequently as they did to them.

For instance, it happened that in July 1987, before I went to Alaska or knew the ecology at first hand, I attended Michael Harner's shaman workshop in Virginia. He was teaching the workshop participants how to make a shamanic journey while lying down in darkness. We were to visualize a climb upward, up a tree, or mountain, or building, or the like. After a first stage of visualization, the experience itself was liable to take over, and we would meet a "teacher" of some kind.

We lay down and Michael beat his drum steadily. I visualized my ascent and found myself out on a bank of cloud. "How corny," I said. A figure appeared on my left, a monk in a cowl, and I again thought, "How corny, like a cartoon. " I went up a little more and came to an entire wall of electronic appliances, VCRs, CD sets, stereos, radios, and a large TV screen toward the right. Pictured in the screen was something dark red, filling the whole rectangle. It looked like a maze of internal organs sideways-on, elongated, and definitely unlike human internal organs. Why were they there? What was that all about?

But I must not criticize, and when the drumming changed I went down the way I had come and eventually remembered that I was lying on the floor. The other participants were sitting up around me. We told our experiences to Harner; he accepted them but did not analyze them psychologically.

Four months later in November, when I was settled among the Eskimos at Point Hope, Alaska, sitting in Ernest Frankson's house, Ernest pulled into the room the body of a ringed seal. His wife laid the seal on some cardboard and proceeded to take off the skin. She allowed me to help cut off the blubber. Then she made a slit down the stomach and displayed to view the internal organs. Wondering, I contemplated them carefully. It was striking to see the dark red parts, liver, spleen, intestines, lungs, heart, and so on, settled together, sliding together with such orderliness and easy movement.

Two days later I caught on, as my diary records. Those internal organs were the same organs that I had seen on the shaman TV screen in July.

Ernie caught himself a whale the following April. (I use the word "caught" in keeping with Eskimo etiquette toward the whale.) I was working for another whaling crew and was occupied with cooking for the men. We waited on the edge of the ice, but no whales came near. An English BBC man was staying in my house in the village, hoping to film the whale hunt. Ernie said, "The whales don't like filming." But what could I do, turn the BBC man out?

One day, while my crew and I were down on the ice, a dangerous wind came up, and we left in a hurry, observing widening cracks as we made for the beach. After that, no whaling was possible for two weeks. Finally, the BBC man was refused his request to film the whaling and left town. The minute he left, the wind changed back in our favor. All was well, and Ernie caught his whale, with our assistance.

Ernie simply said, "The whale can change the weather." The whole village, including me, understood the matter in the same way.

Ernie often accused me of not believing in these manifestations, but I protested that I did. How could I help it? Ernie usually had a bad time from Whites, who labeled his experiences "magical beliefs." But by then, I myself was within the circle of regular Eskimo society and experienced such events from time to time. I am now learning that studying such a mentality from inside is a legitimate and valuable kind of anthropology that is accessible if the anthropologist takes that "fatal" step toward "going native."

Members of many different societies, even our own, tell us they have had experience of seeing or hearing spirits. Let us recall how anthropology has dealt with the question in the past.

Mainline anthropologists have studiedly ignored the central matter of this kind of information—central in the people's own view—and only used the material as if it were metaphor or symbol, not reality, commenting that such and such "metaphor" is congruent with the function, structure, or psychological mind set of the society. Clearly, this is a laudable endeavor as far as it goes. But the neglect of the central material savors of our old bête noire, intellectual imperialism.

What is pitiful is the tendency of anthropologists from among the native peoples themselves to defer to the Western view and accordingly draw back from claiming the truth of their own religion. The mission of Western anthropologists to explain the system in positivist terms at all costs, which thereby influences a new elite, is oddly similar to the self-imposed task of the more hidebound religious missionaries who are also sworn to eliminate their hosts' religion.4

So one asks, what are the ethics of this kind of analysis, this dissection? May we continue in this age of multi power and multi cultures to enter a foreign society, however politely, measure it up according to our own standards, and then come back home and dissect it in a way entirely estranged from the ethos of the people concerned?

We can see three such methods of dissection.

The first is illustrated by the anthropologist who goes out to examine a certain feature of the society, such as Richard Nelsons did when he studied the hunters of the northern ice at Wainwright, Alaska. He contrived to write an entire book from a positivist, practical standpoint, stating that no mystery cults of occult beliefs existed at the time of writing among these Eskimos. Nevertheless, my friend, Enoch Oktollik from Wainwright, has told me how he, Enoch, resents the imputations of the Whites and the way they have eroded Eskimo culture. His own mother has seen visions and predicted the coming of a whale. Nelson, though, has now changed his tack; he no longer thinks the Natives' tales are magical rubbish.5

Then there are the anthropologists who say, "Wait a bit! We can see interesting structural regularities in this culture." Levi Strauss led this fashion by writing of Aborigine totemism—those traditional ideas involving awe and respect for certain animals: "Totemism pertains to the understanding, and the demands to which it responds and the way in which it tries to meet them are primarily of an intellectual kind.... Its image is projected, not received. "7 But the animal was sacred to the Aborigines, part of their visionary life. The Dreaming dominated their whole life—it was visionary, not intellectual.

The third stage consists of the more respectful anthropologists, who bend over backward to accord their people much fuller sympathy. They follow all the beliefs and see, for instance, how the tapir, among the Wayapi Amazonians, gives central meaning to the lives of the Natives, how the shamanic myth of the "spirit tapir" (meaning something like Joseph Campbell's use of the word "myth") has actual feedback into the social system.8 Now Alan Campbell is getting close to the Wayapi—except that the poor fellow has to cover himself regarding his English colleagues by retreating from the question and labeling the whole shamanic system "metaphoric." Even in spite of protecting himself in that way, he has been attacked by those colleagues for going too far.

Nevertheless, in this paper I really go over the edge. What will the English say to me?

But we eventually have to face the issue head on and ask, "What are spirits?" And I continue with the thorny question, "What of the great diversity of ideas about them throughout the world? How is a student of the anthropology of consciousness, who participates during fieldwork, expected to regard all the conflicting spirit systems in different cultures? Is there not a fatal lack of logic inherent in this diversity?"

The reply: "Is this kind of subject matter logical anyway?" We also need to ask, "Have we the right to force it into logical frameworks?"

Moreover, there is disagreement about terms. "Spirits" are recognized in most cultures. Native Americans refer to something in addition called "power." "Energy," Ki or C'hi, is known in Japan and China, and has been adopted by Western healers.

"Energy" was not the right word for the blob that I saw coming out the back of a Ndembu woman; it was a miserable object, purely bad, without any energy at all, and much more akin to a restless ghost. One thinks of energy as formless, but when I "saw" in the shamanic mode those internal organs, the organs were not "energy." They had form and definition. When I saw the face of my Eskimo friend Tigluk on a mask, as I saw it in a waking dream, and then saw Tigluk himself by luck a few minutes afterward, the mask face was not "energy," laughing there. It was not in the least abstract.

The old-fashioned term, "spirit manifestation," is much closer. These manifestations are the deliberate visitations of discernable forms that have the conscious intent to communicate, to claim importance in our lives. As for "energy" itself, I have indeed sensed something very much like electrical energy when submitting to the healing passes of women adepts in a mass meeting of Spiritists in Brazil.

I would presume that the question of the multiplicity of beliefs would not faze anthropologists, who are accustomed to a relativistic stance. This stance presupposes some distancing, and for this we have the prime example of Clifford Geertz, a relativist who was indeed a participant, a believer in thick description. Yet he claims it is false faith to think we can go the whole way with our field people. He says that we cannot really go native, that it is bad faith to try.9

According to him, the proper stance of anthropologists is to listen, interact, participate, write down what people say (the "text"), but distance themselves. (It is to be remembered that Geertz did not, in fact, distance himself.)

Others would have us remember that if our interlocutors experience trance or possession, it is a reactive unconscious attempt to remedy their subaltern ranking in sexual and social hierarchies. Our analysis must be on this level; if our participation goes too deep, it might be a sign of our own pathology, and furthermore, it will be of no assistance to the oppressed groups concerned. Such is often the teaching of anthropology.

Repeatedly, anthropologists witness spirit rituals, and often, some indigenous exegete tries to explain that the spirits are present and, furthermore, that rituals are the central events of their society. The anthropologist proceeds to interpret them differently.

There seems to be a kind of force field between the anthropologist and her or his subject matter, making it impossible for her or him to come close to it, a kind of religious frigidity.

We anthropologists need training to see what the Natives see. This might best be done by following the method of a luminous, shaman-type lady, Mary Watkins, who in her book, Waking Dreams, leads us through practically all the ways of thinking of the Native religions with unerring skill. 10 The work develops practices that are not particularly doctrinaire because the author possesses a fine-drawn understanding that doctrinaire cults destroy sensitiveness.

Are spirits "out there?" In her book, Mary Watkins does not refer to "spirits," but to "dream figures," "images," or "imaginals." Yet she might as well have been describing spirits. She sees her "imaginals" as conscious beings with self-determination, with autonomy. I quote:

We tell the dream figures we know what they are saying.... We betray them with our sweet understandings.... [However] we could use interpretation almost like amplificatory material, helping us to maintain the imaginal's own directionality (from material to immaterial)....
The poetic image creates perceptions, modalities of perceiving...it is steadily creating the you who is endeavoring. It is drawing you into its landscape and adding not only to your experiences but to your ways of experiencing.... The poem and the dream lead us into the sites of revery....
Images demand that we develop the facility to inhabit new sites.... The different places of the imaginal begin to stand out. The possibility of an archetypal topography begins to emerge.... Each image teaches one to lose the ego fantasy of permanence and continuity.... It pulls things from us that show our participation in it, though often largely unconscious.... We learn...a consciousness with a polymorphous nature.... The past has been created by...the possession of us by various images....
We try to note where and how it lives. How does it spend a day? What is its sense of time? (Some say that the imagination is "timeless".... [Rather] it contains many different senses of time).... The seemingly random nature of images dissolves with time....
The unspoken metaphors are revealed-not for just their material aspect, not just their symbolic, but rather as the co-creation of the physical and imaginal qualities of our lives.11

Watkins recognized the autonomy of something that she defines as deriving from inside a person—"an imaginal."

An almost identical recognition runs through many cultures, but it is of spirits "out there." The initiative is theirs, not ours.

Who is right, the dream analyst or the traditional seer? A symbologist might recognize Watkins's statements as concerned with shamanic awareness. Should we begin quite seriously to experience and recognize this entity—this "X," whether "spirit" or "imaginal?" What Dan Rose12 and Michael Jackson13 are urging on us is to do something very like that, to "literally put ourselves in the place of other persons; inhabiting their world."

By Michael Harner

Dear Friend of Shamanic Healing,
Hope for humanity in the new century was abruptly shaken on September 11, 2001, by the horrific attacks that brought tragedy, pain, and suffering to thousands. With the end to such crimes and their aftermaths not soon in sight, the need for a spirituality focused on healing and free of politics has never been more relevant.

We all have work to do, and I am gratified to report that many persons trained in our programs have been active in working shamanically to alleviate the suffering and pain of those who have been injured emotionally, spiritually, and physically, as well as to help the spirits of victims who have traumatically left this life.

Shamanic healing is not a panacea for the world's ills, but it provides a way of spiritually helping others that was almost eradicated in much of the world. The suppression of shamanism, including by the Inquisition, is only one of many examples through the ages of religious extremists in major civilizations killing innocents on the alleged behalf of their major spiritual deity.

That kind of consciousness, which many of us had hoped was becoming a thing of the past, has intruded again into human life, literally with a vengeance assisted by modern technology. It is a product of faith which is truly blind, for its fanatics depend upon the words of others rather than the sight that could be provided by their own direct spiritual experience. If they had relied upon first-hand knowledge instead of faith, they would have discovered their god's truly compassionate nature, as have all of us who have visited deities in shamanic journeys and successfully enlisted their help in healing.

What then, can we do beyond the healing work in which we are already engaged?

We can help others learn that they do not need to depend upon theocracies of any tradition to give us our spiritual worldviews. Such views cannot really be dispensed wholesale; they must be individually earned. The classic shamanic way is to accept one's own responsibility and potentiality to achieve first-hand knowledge by personally entering the spiritual realms.

This is the spiritual democracy of our ancient ancestors, before state religions arose and attempted to destroy individual spiritual independence. The recent attacks by terrorists have not only been on political democracy, as is often noted, but on spiritual democracy as well, for underlying their ideology is a belief in theological authoritarianism. Their stance is the opposite of that of the shaman.

Helping persons acquire their own spiritual empowerment through shamanic training continues to be a major focus of the Foundation's work worldwide. Increasing numbers of people around the world seek this training, for there is a growing desire for spiritual democracy. Regularly, I receive e-mails from individuals in totalitarian states, both theocratic and secular, who wish more information on the way of the shaman. An evolution of spiritual consciousness is underway. There is a race against time, however, and the Foundation, with your support, is doing its best to hasten this evolution throughout the Planet.

The Foundation's programs are all intended to help return spiritual authority to the individual. As part of this effort, the research programs provide cross-cultural resource material from hundreds of societies for the discovery of underlying shamanic principles and practices which then inspire the origination of exercises in core shamanism. The exercises, in turn, furnish openings for each person to accumulate first-hand experiential evidence of a nonordinary reality that is deeper than any specific culture. Each year the resultant educational programs provide thousands of persons with tools for the revival of shamanism and shamanic healing in the West.

Outside of the West, the Foundation's Urgent Indigenous Assistance and Living Treasures of Shamanism programs help preserve and revive shamanism where it has been threatened, or even virtually eradicated, by political, theological, and other external forces. Our members journal, Shamanism, and its directory of individuals and drumming circles, helps develop a worldwide community for healing and mutual help that can interact democratically without any central authority.

At the Foundation, we want to continue to contribute to the evolution of a democratic spirituality dedicated to healing in alliance with compassionate spirits. I invite you to be part of this effort by joining us or, if you are already part of our circle, by renewing or even upgrading your membership. Donations are also highly important.

With hope for humankind and all our relations,

Sincerely,

Michael Harner

P.S. On behalf of the Foundation, I honor all of you who have been working to help and to heal. Let's see what more we can do!

One of the great surprises that shamanism affords is the joy of the unknown and that the unknown is joyous. There is a sense of wholeness that proceeds from the creativity that is inherent in the shamanic journey. Although shamanism and creativity are not commonly thought of together, a relatively superficial survey of studies of creativity reveals that the shamanic journey speaks to two of the most unknown, mysterious, and abstract elements of the creative process, as frequently defined. Further, recent research focusing on the relationship between structure and creativity1 can be directly applied to the experiences of shamanic journeying. Not only does the shamanic journey have elements of the creative process in it as a creative act, it can also be exercised in the service of productive creativity. Journeying increases access to creativity and stimulates its cultivation. By viewing creativity through the experience of the shamanic journey, we begin to see that creativity is not a special domain limited to the gifted few, nor can it be reduced to a rote algorithm. Instead, dormant potential can be enlivened and unleashed across multiple disciplines.
From a number of perspectives, researchers have attempted to define creativity and describe the creative personality. An early elaboration by Wallas2 defined four stages of the creative process: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Since that time, others have developed schema for understanding the elements of creativity.3 Attempts to examine the creative personality have been remarkably heterogeneous, with no clear findings of both necessary and sufficient qualities of creativity. Some descriptors emerged from research on the thought processes of creative persons. They include flexibility, originality, and fluency.4 Characteristic of exceptionally creative people are a variety of qualities such as persistence, independence, unconventionality, 5 and others which, in themselves, may or may not determine creativity. Much remains to be learned about the process and personality aspects of creative expression.
Fortunately, however, the creative experience does not have to wait for scientific explanation to validate it. We can learn from what we experience and test the hypotheses proposed by scholars in the field. As we learn about the process and from the experience of creativity, we lay the groundwork for consciously cultivating creativity. Examining the shamanic journey experience may help clarify the mechanisms of the creative process.

Although many address creativity with more or fewer than the four stages proposed above, the elements Wallas proposed form a useful framework for considering how the shamanic journey supports creativity and where it may fit into Western psychology's understanding of the creative process. Something is a problem because it cannot be resolved in the usual ways, implying that some active attempt has been unsuccessful, requiring further preparation. The altered state of consciousness in the shamanicjourney provides an opportunity for planned incubation, set apart from a direct attack on the problem. It is common that within the shamanic divination journey, thejourneyer receives a revelation of quite unexpected content-an inspiration. Then, that inspiration must be put into practice and verified, thus completing the process with the creative act. Most recently, research has focused on just this issue of learned creative thinking.6

The shamanic journey itself becomes the active vehicle for two aspects of the process: the incubation by way of the changed state of consciousness and the inspiration by way of the content of the experience. Framing the divinatory question or problem and interpreting the journey are skills which can be learned and enhanced by repeated use of the method and consequent mapping of the individual's cosmology. The integration and application of the inspiration in the material world builds trust in the process as a result of experience. What may have been an act of courage becomes one of deeply mindful integrity. One enters the experience at will and immerses oneself in it while it is happening. Then one translates the experience and applies it in a conscious, reasoned manner, after an ordinary reality evaluation.
The core shamanic journey methods distilled in the 1970s by Michael Harner7 through worldwide cross-cultural study constitute one path by which we can creatively integrate spiritual, cultural, emotional, and physical elements. Although its origins have not been precisely determined, shamanism may be at least as ancient as 30,000 or more years, as evidence from Paleolithic cave paintings indicates.8,9; Moreover, historical and ethnographic evidence reveals its independent practice by indigenous peoples throughout the world, widely separated both geographically and culturally, up to and including the present day. Not unexpectedly, specific cultural practices may differ. The core methods, however, are remarkably similar and suggest repeated discovery of some pan-human, mind-body aspects of spirituality.

The most distinctive characteristic of the shaman is the journey or "soul flight."10 The journey is begun from a place one knows first-hand and is undertaken for a specific purpose to a source of information or healing power. Traditionally, members of the community request help from the shaman for problemsolving, diagnosis and treatment of illness, divination or prophecy, acquisition of power, and psychopomp work. As the journey unfolds, profound experiences, often extending significantly beyond visual imagery, arise spontaneously, and the shaman must remember the details. The return from the journey is accomplished by retracing the sequence of events until arriving where the journey began. Concentration and memory are therefore critical aspects of successful shamanic work. With respect to creativity, it is the problem-solving function which is most pertinent.

The shaman then Interprets the information imparted in the journey. It demands discipline and experience to develop the question and to interpret and integrate the answer. While most people, even today in the United States and Europe, can learn to journey in a few hours, some are more adept than others. Most who learn choose not to pursue it seriously, for it requires discipline and continuous learning. The shaman typically does this work parttime and primarily in service to the community.

Ancient and enduring, yet threatened, shamanism is founded in basic human capabilities and potentialities. It is as relevant in today's world as it has been for millennia. Through research and experience, we are gradually learning how we might benefit from its lessons. Shamanic practice is a creative act which relies on the ability to transcend the bounds of ordinary reality and enter the shaman's world with trust based on direct firsthand experience. In that sense it is thoroughly pragmatic and empirical, not relying on faith. Traditionally, it has been a method for problem-solving. While the specific nature of the problems may have changed over time, the need to solve problems has not.

As a creative psychospiritual process, shamanic journeying is a method known through the ages all over the Planet. By reviving shamanic journeying, contemporary Westerners have adopted a methodology for discovering and rediscovering shamanic experience and content directly, and for tapping into their inherent creative potential. As relevant today as it was in the past, shamanism is our legacy and our responsibility is to pass it on. The knowledge so long acquired, and so generously shared by all our relations, may be spared extinction by our respectful attention.

the more i enter into the dance, the more i begin to see human beings as permeable rivers of flowing malleable energies, carrying the seeds of all potentialities, rather than fixed definable dense objects . . . .
and when i use this word "I", God only knows the depths of what I mean, as i am still questioning the great mystery of what i am; thus, any referral to this " i " is simply utilizing an agreed social creation as a limited function of common language in a failing attempt to be in communion with the whole, by separating apart from it, in order to create a voice behind which to speak through, so as to try and reach you. so excuse me for any confusion here, as i am just as confused and in awe and dumbfounded as anyone who has ever looked up into the infinity of the night's sky and tried to swallow the light of every star and the rippling dark eminence encompassing them, while every synapse of your mind lights up in trillions of question marks, mirroring the truth of Radiance's presence above, shaking and stripping this illusive " i " of all thought. . . . /
and if you are a human being, you will turn your gaze away towards the street of your home where you will close your weary eyes and try to fall back asleep, and if you are an artist or an underdomesticated lunatic, you will fling your arms up into the heavens, like ecstatic omniscient branches asking, "if trees are expressions of the earth's longing, --- then what are we?" and you will run wild after your heart, as it bursts forth from your hollowed chest, a songbird released from a ribcage too small to contain it, and the fulfillment of your existence becomes the delight of chasing after it, like a naked child with a glass mason jar in an enormous field of fireflies.

I would like to endlessly stroke the entire experience of existence
just look at the eminence of your glorious living fingertips
the trace of ancient tree rings sketched subtly across the tender shores of flesh
that have been dipping every day of your life into the honey of an excruciating unspeakable grace that means too much to us to even acknowledge the fully unmasked presence
of what it is to touch and be touched
the taste of every poem kneels here begging, crushed under the magnitude of all it was carrying that i will spend a lifetime failing to bridge with words
but it is cooing inside the pulsing river of your body as you drift into and out of sleep, deliriously searching for that which was always behind you,
above you, and below you, laughing obviously before you, breathing through you
too close to separate from to see clearly
as you sigh in oblivion alongside a weary entrenched humanity
with a blue coal miner’s canary lodged in your throat
bottlenecked by the swallowed scream of ecstasy’s unheard indignation and love’s anguished promise
that birthed you from the crescendo of all voices that ever were and ever will be
this scream that is greater then i
keeps me awake in the night
longing to touch you with my tongue and press this aching hollowed encapsulation up close against the secret holder of the universe
i dance from the depths of an impenetrable solitude
searching for a hidden pathway out
believing the ocean of all phenomena consists of tidal rhythms pushing towards and receding from you
trusting behind every thread of this interwoven lila there streams a syllable from a story tracing around the source of you, composed of your borrowed light
how the languid stirrings of a finger blurring the moon’s reflection upon the earth’s lotus-rimmed mirrors
is instantaneously scattering the fecund sphere of her hallowed face across a thousand rippling wavelets
creating you
we are layers upon layers deep within one light’s proliferating refraction
and when the master descends
before the flower garland of each poignant question, each earnest plea unanswered
strung through your soul
blossoming in echoes across eons of existence’s reverberating amnesia

resurrection from the snares of a lifelong incessant thirst,
from the dark labyrinth of civilization’s blind discontent
that turns the forest and imprint of her memories into concrete deserts strewn with the void pillages of a vulgar boxed-in consolation prize.
all it takes is one sidelong glimpse of the master’s unfolding
like the scent of rose oil rising from the hem of the true dervish
like the breeze from jasmine-drenched branches that comes to serenade the sweat dripping from the crown of a devotional flame,
impregnating her with the will to go on dancing, though her body is being burned alive,
stripped and filleted by an uncompromising demand for the annihilation born of absolute nudity

all it takes is one glimpse of the master’s unfolding
to light up from within a dawning renaissance of all that is being offered through your existence,
incarnate in the exalted perfection asking; Who can hold this? Who can hold this? Who can uphold this?
who can hold this?

emptiness is a doorway
a portal from which to pull through
what is too great to fit inside the aperture of a human
the void that can never be filled by stuffing something from outside over top,
though lifetimes have passed, swallowed in the fruitlessness of such frenetic endeavors,
the void, for which i am merely an adornment, will only be brought to fullness from the inside out
calling to be reached through, the breadth of such unfathomable vastness within
to pull out a piece of the presence from beyond
that fills the hollows and bursts the frame of identity
pushing and pounding up against any before-set boundary
swelling, turning inside out, rupturing you
until you finally see how this emptiness you have been avoiding
has given birth to you and lives you,
waiting, while you run around elaborate labyrinth structures of absurdity
mistaking a series of distractions for your life

meaning is unfurling in silence from the axial center of all centers
while you, in your centrifugal stumbling, demanding answers that cannot come through words,
lay down your questions and petty concerns like arbitrary band aids over the precipice of who you really are
as peeping hidden constellations continue to speak and drip from the mouth of an elephant

there is something surging up through the stretched fingertips of the forest,
snaking through the pulsing rootweb beneath the pores of your encapsulation,
threading moonbeams through rivers that pour reverently upon the crown of the ocean
at whose feet, mulling over the reverberations of ancient whale songs, in the clamped bowels of oysters,
where the last trace of gathered light is rolled and woven into pearls that only reveal their submerged existence
through the infinity of gazing into the mirror of your own eyes held within the luminous prisms of pupils the beloved is dawning,
seeing both out from behind you and looking in through you,
as the ring of interbeing wraps around you, in which each becomes neither and all,
disrobing one another of the bright story of a distinct self
with the same eloquence as voluptuous cinnamon bodies, secreting spiced pheromone-infused ghee,
unwrap childbearing ceramic waterjugs of hips and softened mango breasts
from the bindings of an ancient sari in the lush secrecy of the cumulative sigh of evening
while off in the distance someone is ringing a bell to call their god home
and the muezzin is wailing a canopy of prayer above the rooftops
and street cows graze innocently upon fields of plastic
and an owl oversees the turning of celestial spheres from his seat of majestic stillness upon which he is perched
amid the humidity of dark branches
and the communion of plants’ dreaming
chanting fragrances that unearth seeds from the sealed recesses of my mind
to be planted inside of these premature words
that hold the promise of a long-awaited beauty that’s to come blossoming through us in any unguarded moment
beginning, even now, to stir

Have you ever wanted to heal one of your relationships, and you didn’t know how or where to start? I’ve experienced some tumultuous upsets in some of my relationships at various times in my life, and wanted to find a way to heal the issue within myself before approaching the person involved. I turned my attention to two powerful tools, and combined them for an effective process for healing relationships with others without needing to interact with them.

The first tool is the ancient Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono (make things right). I begin by gently holding the person in my mind, and repeating, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.” I say this internally or out loud whenever I think of it. The second tool is my imagination, in a process called inner journey work. In a quiet location, I close my eyes with an intention to resolve the relationship, and simply allow whatever images appear to unfold in my imagination. I don’t try to guide or change them, I simply stayed tuned in, no matter how strange or silly they might appear.

I have found that my subconscious mind will use symbols and imagery to guide me through the resolution. In one case, a couple I wanted to heal my relationship with appeared in my imagination as a pair of tame rabbits. As I began to speak the words of Ho’oponopono to them, the rabbits held an ornate golden oval mirror up for me to look into while I spoke. I grinned with the understanding that I was really saying the words to myself.

I walked away from that inner journey session with the understanding that healing our relationships with others is [I]always[I] an inside job. It’s so easy to blame others for the difficulties, and, being human, I often do. More and more, however, I understand the value of doing the inner work first. By doing so, I give myself an opportunity to take responsibility for my own contributions to the difficulties in the relationship. When I’m willing to look that deeply inside myself and listen for my inner guidance and authority, I often discover that the qualities I’m blaming someone else for are really things I’m not willing to see in myself

There’s a word for such qualities that we don’t see in ourselves, and it’s called “shadow.” There’s a human tendency to cast or project our shadows onto other people rather than see them in ourselves. Starting to recognize and integrate our own shadows is deep and intensive work. For those who are willing, it’s very rewarding and brings one closer to a state of wholeness and inner peace.

The art of right relationship begins within. When we are in true integrity with who we are, taking responsibility for our shadows and projections, we are practicing Ho’oponopono with ourselves. From that foundation, we cannot help but draw to us people with similar values. Even so, there will always be misunderstandings and difficulties in relationships. Now, when I find myself wanting to blame someone else for my bad feelings, I simply look in the mirror and say “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.”

Creative. Passionate. Receptive. Focused. Pulsating with power.
Glowing with good health. Radiant with self-confidence.

Venus transited the sun in June 2012, signifying the rise of a new feminine archetype: the Solar Feminine.

In recent history, the feminine has been associated with the moon, that heavenly body which does not shine its own light, but reflects the light of the sun (associated with the masculine). This is an interesting analogy of the role that women have played for the past couple thousand years… that of being the reflectors of the shining solar masculine; sometimes in their shadow, but not emitting their own light. With the rise of the solar feminine, the masculine and feminine are coming into a time of harmony and balance. Equality isn’t even really the right concept, because there are different but complementary gifts that each bring to the mix.

The lovely paradox here is that as women step into empowerment, we must learn to embody the power of our YIN: the ability to receive; to ask for what we want; to understand our innate power to magnetize all that we desire without needing to chase, quest, and conquer. We get to learn how to recline on the velvet chaise to balance out those power meetings with our teams and hours of intense output. It doesn’t matter if it’s taking care of the house and kids, hours on the phone with clients, planted at the computer desk, or bending over a massage table. Whatever form the giving of our gifts to the world takes must be offset with rest, recreation, fun, and play.

I’ve been on a parallel path with the emergence of the Solar Feminine. Her life story and mine are intertwined. What it has taken for me to learn how to recline on the velvet chaise has been no small feat… and I’m still learning. For me, and in the feminine collective, it’s been a journey of intense internal shadow excavation, leaving behind the old programs of care-taking, control-freaking, shutting up, and all manner of unhealed, compounded wounding we’ve carried through untold generations. I often feel my ancestresses cheering from beyond the veil as I ride the leading edge on the back of a tiger, slashing with my sword through old paradigms of feminine victim-hood, martyrdom, and sexual abuse and repression.

As women, we get to be change agents, catalysts, cauldron stirrers, and crucibles. And we get to be all of that from a soft, feminine place, living in harmony with the masculine. We get to embody wholeness and be living examples of what’s possible when a woman is willing to face her demons and then hug them and welcome them home. We get to weave our lives and work and play and relationships together into a rich, gorgeous, colorful, beautiful tapestry that depicts harmonious scenes of a well-lived life. And, as a beautiful bonus, we have the incredible privilege of being able to share this path to wholeness with those who are seeing us and saying, “I’ll have what she’s having!”

The Solar Feminine is rising in the East, the direction of new beginnings, of sunrise, of Spring, of youth, of playfulness, and the color of orange. She is ready to meet the shining masculine in all his powerful glory, bringing a spirit of collaboration, compassion, and creativity. Can I hear a hallelujah?

MY STORY: The Queen of the Forest and the Wish-fulfilling Jewel Flower 

"Rei Jagube e Mamae Rainha - From the Forest across to the Sea.

I am the Flower of the Waters and all wishes fulfilled through me."

I have never been to Brazil or Peru, yet I first did Ayahuasca 23 years ago. Back then, people only whispered about it and it was not commonly known about as it is today. Generally then it was said that once you had heard about it three times, she was calling you. I hadn’t been “called” to do it the first few times I had heard of it. It wasn’t until I had a serious ‘health opportunity’ that I said yes and took the dive.

In this first medicine  journey, I was taken up to higher vibrational realms, up to the Fountains of Bliss & the Flood of Ineffable Light. I found the Source Creation Light that I had been in Soul Communion with several years before in my NDE. Except this time, instead of being fully immersed into the full body orgasmic(x1000 voltage) heavenly light from crown to toe, blinded and bathing in pure light, this time I could open my eyes into the light and see into the most wondrous visions that I had ever hoped to behold.

I gasped. I shook. I wept tears of great joy as I communed with the Light once again. I was shown indescribable beauty and color. I longed to stay in this place and never leave. I would then be suddenly brought back to the place where I began, the human perception plane that I had come to know, and it seemed a shadow realm by comparison.

I would plead to be brought back “up”, and I was told that I must imitate the ecstatic energies, the breath and sound that had ripped through me to bring me up before. I was told I must vibrate “like a Hummingbird”.

So I did. I gasped, energetically convulsed by body in wave-like motions, heaving my chest upwards, breathing a very particular way and imitating the strange soul language that had come thru me before…and I ascended back to that plane. This happened again and again and again.

So I continued down the path of Ayahuasca, hand-in-hand with the Queen of the Forest the medicine’s Queen Teacher, for many years and over a hundred journeys. She was in me. She is in me. She is a part of my deepest Soul. She is encoded in my cellular DNA.  She is the true “Mother/Mama” in me.

As I have many Soul parts, it was she who I had needed back in place in my field, that I may truly live and feel alive and in joy. Truly now, “I am at play in the fields of the Lord.”

She taught me Yoga, pranayama, mudras, Soul Language, healing modalities, deep prayer and patience.

She offered me visions and transmissions as she brought me to the Holy Love Source again and again.

When embarking upon my first Yoga Teacher Training in 2003, I realized, “Oh, you call this that I am doing ‘pranayama’ or ‘this is what you call mudras’ and ‘this is what you call kundalini yoga’ and so on. The outside world already had names for that which she had imparted upon me.

Of-course I learned that makes perfect sense because at the base of the Tree of Yoga, where all schools of yoga and their modern day branches emerged from is Stone-age Shamanism.

That means, once upon a time, people just like us, ate & drank the plant medicines and their eyes were opened, their souls revealed. They also had their deep Tantric and Yogic transmissions showing them the ancient ascension ways to reach the stars and heavenly realms. These Stone-Age Shaman & Shamana transmissions would be passed on orally and then written down into Sutras and so on. All fruit of the Tree is for our timely understanding.

It is she who transformed my life in to a Shamanic Temple Tarot Ballad. And it is She, wise beautiful timeless crone within, whose healing rivers pulse through my veins as the Vine of my Soul speaks:

From the dark night of the Soul carried out of the abyss,
I surrender to thee in the Temple of Bliss!
From the deep Emerald Forest out to the vast Celestial Sea,
I follow the chorus to live Holy Love’s Great Mystery.

Here am I, muse, I’ve forgotten so long

singing thy will in poetic-verse-song to thee in the Mansions

and Mirrors of radiant light,

romancing thy power, thy glory, thy essence, thy might.

I’ve remembered my Beloved’s sweet place,

Beheld thy Beloved’s timeless dear face-

Embraced the flowers in the garden divine,

Reveling delight in thou mine and I thine.

Dear Grandmother, give me Strength to say what is right

Of truth, honor, passion and thou holy sight.

Allow me moral courage and Force of Will

To perceive Supreme energy and thy essence fulfill:

As Goddess Artemis, Durga, tamer of the Lion-

We’ll journey together to the Temples of Zion

And receive Holy Baptism from the Eternal Well

To believe and to see both Heaven and Hell.

For THIS I remember of my tender heart’s swoon,

The blast of light and the hummingbird’s tune.

My path half bound with shade and struggling free,

While my Love singing by an azure Sea!

Brought to the heavens in a Lightning Rod.

Brought to the foot of thee who is God.

Remembering my steps, remembering my place,

Accepting the gifts of this holy space.

This I remember of the golden stairs;

The dissolving world of woes and cares,

The evolving world of Faith and Love

Unfolding and blossoming to the Light above.

Sweet nectar flowing in a Fountain Divine,

The buzzing of Angels to bring thee to thine.

Quivering and Trembling, ecstatic and free,

Blissfully aware of the powers that Be.

Bathed in Remembrance

while clothed in a raiment of Light,

Then sent back to earth to speak Truth

of God’s Might.

Here are my words,

herein lies my Story,

I pray it befitting to thy Eminent Glory!

 ~ * ~

We all have the keys. The weight of each person’s talent is upon them.

The Universe is my Temple and the whole of existence, my church. In each breath I give thanks and with every beat of my heart I am driven by Truth. In fear and with desire, in agony and in ecstasy, I am inspired by the magnificent brilliance of Being.

I honor my body as a vessel for Cosmic Christ communion, experiencing my sacred reality granted me as a gift. Bit by bit, I clean and shine the many facets of my diamond, that I may radiate and sparkle in divine perfection.

I choose for Existence to use me in whatever ways serve my highest alignment. I am available. I am here to learn. With humbleness I pray to be of purpose, to live a life that is justified.

I pray to illuminate and create through me pure love, that I may be worthy to sit at thy lotus feet of the Mother, to drink the nectar of her compassion and be immersed in the well of living waters.

I free myself of my past that I may press “pause” and slip out of time awareness into the larger vastness of divine truth, into the majestic oneness of all that is eternal.

I surrender up myself to this Light which burns a holy fire in my heart: guiding me toward divine union, Holy Love. I am a star in my own reality and while “All the world’s a stage”, the Diamond essence within reveals that God is the only audience to perform for...

I give credit to the Father of Creation, to the “Pa”, I honor him.

Grandmother I drink your medicine, the vines with the tender grape, and I heal myself. I reclaim my innocence. I reclaim my inner sense. I accept myself as pure and whole forever. I embrace Bodhichitta, the excellence of the awakened heart.

The time of the singing of birds is come. We, children of the divine tree, children of the Sun and of the stars, are converging to call together our tribe under the Universal umbrella of Holy Love. We are all Love recreating itself.

I listen to all the members of my family tree.

The answers will come. I must not rush. We are here, after-all, in Eden. The petals of the flower open slowly. Fragrant, full of mystery from the dark depths of which that flower was seeded. All people have divine beauty seeded in their flower. I must be a good gardener.

In the infinity of space where the presence of God vibrates on Hummingbird wings, the divine beings illustrate through the visions as I am shown to live in the heart, not mind. I am shown to look both ways.

I am a part of the infinite I am. I create my fate through the irresistible power of divine magnetism. With the silent vibrations of my mind, I invite the Master Light Current to carry me in a Holy Ark toward the manifestation of my highest dreams.

Let whatever needs to come come, give and be given, take and be taken, that I may realize my existence.

Rei Jagube e Mamae Rainha - From the Forest across the Sea.

I am the Flower of the Waters and all wishes fulfilled through me.

Written By Sharene Shamana Ma

Artwork by Mariela de la Paz

Christ and Krishna Connection

Despite their differences, Hinduism and Christianity have great similarities. And this is particularly prominent in the case of the life and teachings of the two central figures of these world religions, Christ and Krishna.

Similarities in just the names of 'Christ' and 'Krishna' have enough fuel for the curious mind to prod into the proposition that they were indeed one and the same person. Although there is little historical evidence, it is hard to ignore a host of likenesses between Jesus Christ and Lord Krishna. Analyze this:

(01)  Both are believed to be sons of God, since they were divinely conceived.
(02)  The birth of both Jesus of Nazareth and Krishna of Dwarka and their God designed missions were foretold.
(03)  Both were born at unusual places, Christ in a lowly manger and Krishna in a prison cell.
(04)  Both were divinely saved from death pronouncements.
(05)  Evil forces pursued both Christ and Krishna in vain.
(06)  Christ is often depicted as a shepherd; Krishna was a cowherd.
(07)  Both appeared at a critical time when their respective countries were in a torpid state.
(08)  Both died of wounds caused by sharp weapons — Christ by nails and Krishna by an arrow.
(09)  The teachings of both are very similar, both emphasize love and peace.
(10)  Krishna was often shown as having a dark blue complexion, a colour close to that of Christ Consciousness.

Similarity in Names:

Christ comes from the Greek word 'Christos', which means "the anointed one". Again, the word 'Krishna' in Greek is the same as 'Christos'. A colloquial Bengali rendering of Krishna is 'Kristo', which is the same as the Spanish for Christ — 'Cristo'.

The father of the Krishna Consciousness Movement AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada once remarked: "When an Indian person calls on Krishna, he often says, Krsta. Krsta is a Sanskrit word meaning attraction. So when we address God as Christ, Krsta, or Krishna we indicate the same all-attractive Supreme Personality of Godhead. When Jesus said, 'Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be Thy name', the name of God was Krsta or Krishna."

Prabhupada further says: "'Christ' is another way of saying Krsta and Krsta is another way of pronouncing Krishna, the name of God…the general name of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whose specific name is Krishna. Therefore whether you call God 'Christ', 'Krsta', or 'Krishna', ultimately you are addressing the same Supreme Personality of Godhead…Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu said: namnam akari bahu-dha nija-sarva-saktis. (God has millions of names, and because there is no difference between God's name and Himself, each one of these names has the same potency as God.)"

God or Man?

According to Hindu mythology, Krishna was born on earth so that the balance of good in the world could be restored. But, there are many conflicting theories regarding his Godhood. Although, Krishna's story depicts him as the ultimate Lord of the Universe, whether Krishna himself is God or man is still a contentious matter in Hinduism.

Hindus believe that Jesus, like Lord Krishna, is just another avatar of the Divine, who came down to show humanity in the righteous way of life. This is another point where Krishna resembles Christ, a figure who is both "fully human and fully divine."

Krishna and Jesus were both saviours of mankind and avatars of God who have returned to earth at an especially critical time in the lives of their people. They were the incarnates of the Divine Being Himself in human form to teach human beings divine love, divine power, divine wisdom, and lead the benighted world towards the light of God.

Similarity in Teachings

These two most admired of religious icons also claim to hold the completeness of their religions by themselves. It's interesting to note how alike each one spoke in the Bhagavad Gita and the Holy Bible about the righteous way of life.

Lord Krishna says in the Gita: "Whenever, O Arjuna, righteousness declines and unrighteousness prevails, my body assumes human form and lives as a human being." He also says, "In order to protect the righteousness and also to punish the wicked, I incarnate myself on this earth from time to time." Similarly, Jesus said: "If God were your Father, ye would love me; for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of Myself but He sent me."

At many places in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna said about His oneness with God: "I am the way, come to Me…Neither the multitude of gods, nor great sages know my origin, for I am the source of all the gods and great sages." In the Holy Bible, Jesus also utters the same in his Gospels: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well"

Krishna advises all men to continue working for the welfare of the state all through the life: "That man attains peace who lives devoid of longing, free from all desires and without the feeling of 'I' and 'mine'. This is the Brahman state…" Jesus too ensures man, "Him that overcometh 'I' will make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out."

Lord Krishna urged his disciples to follow the art of scientific control of the senses. An expert yogi can withdraw his mind from old temptations of the material world and can unite his mental energy with the joy of inner ecstasy or samadhi. "When the yogi like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs, can fully retire its senses from the objects of perception, his wisdom manifests steadiness". Christ too delivered a similar directive: "But though, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thy shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

Krishna stressed the idea of the grace of God in the Gita, "I am the origin of everything, and everything arises out of Me". Similarly, Jesus said: "I am the bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth in me shall never thirst."

- this essay was found online and we are looking for the author