Transmutation News October 2001
As a few weeks have passed our shock has worn off of the great loss of life in New York and Washington. We are left with heavy hearts and many of us are left with questions. Why did such a tragedy occur? Why can’t we live together in peace and harmony? Why were so many people saved miraculously from death at the World Trade Center while so many others died?
The answers to these questions will probably remain a mystery. So the true question becomes can we find peace within ourselves while we live lives so full of mystery?
As we react to the catastrophe that has occurred with a variety of feelings that might include fear and anger we look for where we can feel in control and find safety. The bottom line is that our bodies are always in danger of loss of life. That is the nature of having a body. If we perceive ourselves as just a physical body we will never feel safe no matter how many restrictions are put on our environment. As most of you know we are not just bodies. Our bodies are simply a vehicle for our spirits to move through and to experience life on earth. Our spirit can never be destroyed so on the spiritual level there is no death. As we continue the spiritual practices to have a strong connection with our spirit that is where safety lies. In Medicine for the Earth l wrote about how the only safe place is in us. There is no safety in the material, physical world.
Right now as people are looking for safety and for answers many of us look to others as authorities to what is going on in the world both physically and spiritually. Once again l encourage you to go inside yourself to find the peace and the answers you are seeking.
In my own spiritual practice l have looked at what l can learn from the terrorist attack. Some of what l have learned is new to me while some builds on understandings l have already been working with and writing about.
As our bodies are the vehicle for our spirit, we are also the vehicle for the helping spirits, source, god, the divine, whatever words fit your religious and philosophical beliefs. There is the side of being a vehicle of love and light for the divine. There is also the shadow side of being a vehicle. In the case of the terrorists they acted in one collective conscious in the belief that they were bringing through god’s wishes and that they are waging a holy war.
In this action we see the shadow side of spiritual work. In being a vehicle of spirit and the divine we must also work on our egos. For we often interfere with being a true vehicle when we get caught in the illusion of separation. When we get caught in the illusion that we are separate from each other and the divine we typically end up reacting to life from a place of fear, anger, and self-righteousness.
As we continue our spiritual practices we must continue the work of learning how to identify when our ego and sense of being separate is speaking. We must learn how to identify when our minds are speaking instead of our hearts and when we are coming from a place of desire instead of surrender. We cannot forget this piece. As we have seen throughout the ages people who only focus on what they term is spiritually right and correct usually move into fanaticism.
As a culture in modern history we have been in a process of individuation. This has only strengthened our own egos. The process of individuation has been an important part of our evolution of consciousness and yet at the same time has created quite a shadow. A balance must be achieved. How do we now combine the brilliance and strengths we have developed as individuals to work together in a strong collective consciousness to create peace and harmony? How do we accomplish this while still honoring our own personal destinies? This will be a great challenge of our time.
During the week of the tragedy in New York and Washington many people were wondering how they could help. l was teaching a five-day soul retrieval training during this time. There were 43 of us at the training who wanted to blend our energies and abilities together to help. During our free time we worked together to look at how we could help.
After l journeyed on how l could lead the group to be of help l was asked to spiritually travel with the group to New York to offer assistance to the spirits. We were being asked to be vehicles of the spirits to help those who needed to move on and those who were returning to life. We were asked not to have any desires or attachments to what work we were being asked to do. We were asked to surrender to how the spirits needed help.
This was a great relief for all of us and added to our understanding of spiritual healing. We were to put aside what we felt needed to happen to act as a vehicle for the spirits to work through. We were also asked in the midst of chaos to hold a clear space for the spirits to work. This encompasses the principles of surrender and humility. We had to surrender our desires to a higher power and to realize that it was not our egos involved in the process. We had to move any sense of our egos out of the way to be in service.
This is a wonderful intention to hold during these changing times. How can l be in service to the spirits, the divine, the power of the universe? We need to be flexible to new ways of working that the spirits will show us as we evolve. As we learn to be in true service and work in cooperation with the spirits, the veils between the worlds will continue to open and we will experience a weaving together of the spiritual and material worlds.
In many traditions fire is used as the element to describe spirit. If we feed the fire that burns inside of us with fear, anger, and hate that fire will be a destructive force and will destroy life. If we feed the fire with love, hope, and inspiration then the lire acts as is does in nature of cracking open the seeds of new beautiful life.
A fire burns through many of us now during this time of great change. We must honor our grief and our emotional feelings. And at the same time if we fuel the spiritual fires that live inside of us with love and hope we will see a beautiful rebirth in “the forests and the meadows” of our lives.
Because of my teaching schedule in September l had actually begun writing the October transmutation news in early September. As many of you have shared with me l also had a premonition that something terrible was going to happen. l didn’t get information about this in a journey or a dream. But it was tangible in the air for me. l couldn’t identify what l was experiencing but l kept telling those close to me something terrible was going to happen.
As l began to write my web page for Oct. in early Sept. some of what l wrote was what l needed to remember as l felt such a strong foreboding energy in the air.
In Welcome Home l wrote about a journey l had at the time of the Gulf War. l had asked my helping spirits what l needed to do in my own spiritual practice as it looked like the U.S. was engaging in war. l was told that l needed to keep tending the garden.
This journey really stayed with me. And l realize now that it is time to bring that journey into reality. We need people who are willing to keep tending the garden. We need new dreamers, as the ancient ancestors were dreamers. We need to hold the vision of a healthy earth with beings living in peace and harmony. For any healing work we do to be successful we need to be able to hold a good vision.
l had an interesting revelation in August. l realized that with the Medicine for the Earth work l am not teaching how to heal the earth, l am teaching people how to manifest a new dream for the earth. This realization created a real shift in perception for me.
As the nature of human beings is to project onto other people and onto life circumstances we create our reality through our projections. If we were created in the image of our creator we have the same power as our creator. l wrote about this in chapter one of Medicine for the Earth. l have also written that our perception shapes our reality.
This all means that we have the ability to manifest a new dream and new reality for the planet. As l have written, shamans from other cultures say, “We are dreaming the wrong dream.”
A few months ago l asked you to hold a “visioning party” to start to use your imagination (one of the key elements for the formula for transmutation). One day of visioning is not enough. What is needed right now is for a significant number of people to hold a new dream and vision for our lives and the earth. This vision must encompass a choice to live and create out of love and harmony and a desire to be in partnership, collaboration, and cooperation with all living things. Once again remembering the connection with the great web of life and light.
As a visioner you must be able to use the principles written in the chapter on imagination in Medicine for the Earth. You must be able to incorporate all your senses and be able to feel, taste, smell, bear conversations, and see your vision as if it is happening now. And you must be able to combine putting out a positive vision with surrender and asking for “thy will be done”.
It really will not take that many people to help change the consciousness on the planet. Please join others and myself in holding the vision of harmony, beauty, light, and love. Now more than ever we need everyone who is willing to keep feeding and holding the vision of the human web of light. If you are new to this web page go the section titled “Creating A Human Web of Light”. We will continue the full moon meditations (this month’s full moon is on Oct. 2), but please try to visualize and nurture the web everyday.
We can no longer say that we don’t have time for our spiritual practices and to live our lives in a joyous way. This must become a priority in all of our lives now.
During this month and hopefully forever, imagine and experience your energy shifting from your head to your heart. As much as you can throughout the day experience yourself breathing through your heart and send love and appreciation for your life and life of all beings out into the universe. Breathe in love and light and breathe out love and light. This will make a difference and you can make a difference.
l have posted a full new calendar for 2002 in the Training and Announcement Section of this web site. Please take a look at it for full descriptions of trainings as well as new workshops l am offering. Check it out occasionally as l make additions.
“Alchemy is the art of transmuting bodily consciousness into spirit: body must be made spirit say the alchemists, for spirit to become body” Titus Burckhardt from an article written in the summer 2001 issue of Parabola.
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