Trust the Alchemist Within

Notice the alchemist within knows the moment arises when nothing and everything happens. Without effort we never get here. Yet, with effort, nobody ever reaches it. As we reach the peak of our effort, it dawns our effort is futile. Suddenly, all that we can do is done, and no need exists to do anything else.

This said, nobody can drop "it all" part way. Wisdom arises within like energetic activations based on experience. The hero's journey must come full circle- quest must be undertaken to completion for the fruit to emerge energetically. So, go to the extreme. Put everything, total heart and soul, into it, until it dawns effort is not going anywhere. Effort is itself a teacher. Only then, it drops on its own accord. Meditation happens, not as the result of efforts, but as a happening. As efforts drop, suddenly meditation is. This is not a state we enter into but radiance surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and sky. True meditation cannot be created by limited human effort. The truth is infinite. It cannot be manipulated. It happens only in full surrender. Without surrender, true meditation cannot happen. That is, its about no-self — no desire, not going anywhere — when you are just here-now, not doing anything in particular, just being present, it happens.

Dream Analysis of the Week- Butterfly League

Dream:

A man was seated at a round table in a club.  Each had different deep-coloured table cloths that hung to the floor.  Seated strangers talked in hushed voices. He waved for a standing lady to come over. She smiled, wrote something on a sheet of paper and handed it to him scrunched up like a boquet as she walked away. The writing said she was " out of his league." He set the paper down under a transparent glass butterfly paperweight.  The paper rolled itself up, covering the paperweight. Then it turned into a butterfly and flew away.  Suddenly, the man was alone. everythign else vanished. He became half man, half woman, drinking from a golden cup.

Insight:

On the surface, it may seem someone or something is rejecting or not validating you, but deep down, you can only ever reject or validate yourself. Every character (man, woman, strangers) and objects are a version of you inviting you to explore shadow fears.  The matter of opposites and the failure to recognise and integrate the shadow (all that is within us that we do not know about) are responsible for all out percived problems. 

Something or someone has had longstanding appeal and has also has been enriching your life experience.  Yet, as energy and priorities shift, what once held your undivided attention can lose/ has lost power and influence. Like a paperweight, it may now feel like its holding you down (or back) from your soul destiny. You are like the restless paper, ready to spread wings, fly into new freedom. This may be a turning point for letting go of attachments, emotions, karmic loops, situations that have had you feeling powerless until you awaken to truth. 

Round tables highlight decisions on the horizon which can bring or maintain inner peace and harmony.   Reason to feel imbalance tends to call for reinforcement.  As a metaphor, the Knights of the Round Table were a order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom, and were entrusted with mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Grail echoes, the hero's journey, the true spirit of Western man. It is the myth of Western civilisation. 

Contemplation and silence enable the individual to allow the best of his or her own inner life to emerge. For the undisciplined person, however, ego can redirect attention into disorientation and misery, if his own defects and negative thoughts maintain control. Until we have conquered our own hidden shadows, no rest is truly given. The disciplined person relaxes and is quiet. He is in peace with life and himself, for he knows the inevitable challenges we all must face in order to grow. He gets that his greatest enemy has always been himself, and until he conquers that he can go no further. Until he does so, he will see himself as a victim of the trials and tribulations of life, which adds to the burden of his own unconscious.

On another level, the Holy Grail is a symbol of the Self, the psychic totality and ultimate wholeness of the human being. It is the vital force that drives us toward balance, the process of bringing unconscious mind into consciousness. If we are not trying to become whole, we are cut off from the true source of our being, and we feel empty. Encountering the Grail does not impart direct knowledge, but rather gives us an emotional readiness to receive a numinous experience of our inner centre. The Grail story is itself a projection of the Self as an inner centre, unrealised and inaccessible to most. It is the inner guide (God’s voice), the hidden disposition to wholeness which exists in the unconscious of each of us until awakened.

League refers to depth (i.e. 20,0000 Leagues of the Sea) as well as in distance one is willing to go to achieve a goal, solve a mystery, get to the truth, complete. a journey.  To interpret dreams, we must be willing to accept a soul's-eye view of our life. Ego goals focus on fear-based needs for food and shelter, survival for the body, food for thought, and the soul guides us to deeper spiritual sustenance. 

Butterflies are insect totems and symbols of transformation. They are also short-lived like windows of opportunity to make key decisions in your life.  Just as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, you, too, can transform and grow spiritually. Turning into a butterfly involves more than just a physical transformation.

We offer Dream Consultations which explore single and multiple dream patterns, components, categories and energies. We also offer an Astral, Lucid and Dream Yoga Course. 

Grow into a wounded healer

Notice the shaman in pop culture images is widely portrayed as a tribal witch doctor, wearing exotic masks, using rattles, magic or nature spirits to heal others. True shamans beyond media may be misunderstood. Each is a wounded healer; having suffered through adversity and confronted inner demons. Shamans make the unconscious conscious to access innersights and act as an authentic guide for others so they light the way through their own darkness.

In essence, the shaman is a multidimensional seer, traveller, communicator. This being has ability to connect with spirits, animal guides, does things often forgotten by those disconnected from nature. Shamans assist others to release themselves from their own pain. In some ways, a shaman is a soul healer, not a body healer. Yet all division is illusion as body-mind-spirit are already unified.

So, to truly understand suffering, one must also have suffered, know what it feels like. Through trials and tribulation, each being is invited grow, learn, teach. The shaman is divinely guided to share personal lessons with those s/he works with to facilitate healing and vibrational shifts. Integration is journey back to wholeness.

On the path of knowledge, the shaman confronts layers of ego and undergoes ego deaths. It is ego that keeps us wanting more material things, that fuels jealousy, harms our self esteem by making us compare ourselves to others. Many equate ego with identity. By losing sense of self, we see the much bigger picture.

The key is expansion of consciousness. To allow this requires letting go of beliefs we are separate entities and recognizing we all echo one energy source. In this unity, we are much more aware of others feelings, interconnected experiences. By breaking down the ego, the shaman within each of us is able to put to rest selfish desires and focus energies on service. In doing so, the shaman within must die to self, be reborn multiple times. A series of literal and figurative deaths and rebirths shapes the shamanic path.

Decode physical injury

Notice every moment, infinite opportunities exist to ground the soul in this world, to make the unconscious, conscious, reinforce confidence in our abilities. At times, we get bruises from little bumps in life, to our ego/ pride or physical body. Each is a subtle reminder of any lingering self-punishment we are ready to let go.  Recently injured my big toe. Love tuning into intuitive messages.

Almost everyone can relate to unconscious injuries as we cannot consciously self-harm. In life, our feet are on the front line. Sometimes it feels we take two steps forward, three steps back. The spiritual vibe of foot issues refers to current life situation or direction, its like soul reflecting on the nature of the 'right' path.

In the wider world, feet literally carry us through. They support our weight, guide us to find balance, and are the means to ground our soul growth. Physical pain can echo growing pain or resistance to soul growth. If you have ever broken or stubbed toes, twisted an ankle, ripped a ligament, it dawns the physical issue and forced pause is a gift pointing to something else. Level of consciousness echoes what is most relevant to each of us.. There are no accidents, only synchronicities.

As mysterious pain arises, body parts are speaking to us. Our feet allow us to get around. Put one foot in front of the other, and we get somewhere. Physical injury stops us in our tracks, forces us to slow down. If not feet, could be hands, fingers, or another body area. Sometimes we resist changes soul knows are best for us that don’t feel good to ego. Whatever prompts change is a gift. We are invited to savour the blessings in our midst. We may be processing feelings like grief or anger around unwanted change. Maybe you fear not being supported ? Ultimately what matters is trusting, supporting ourselves in our own surrender.

You may wonder if you are asking too much of yourself or pushing self forward when you do not feel ready for something. To question whether we may take on too much responsibility, it may be that we are are ready to redefine responsibility. Such questions we can only answer for ourselves.

Recall the idea that "God never puts us in a situation he doesn't think we cannot handle, though sometimes we wish he didn't trust us so much." The soul and ego are at odds only until it dawns they are both on the path to realize the same thing.

Turns out paradise is not found by resisting discomfort or rejecting unwanted parts of self. We are in process of rewriting eons of false narratives we created and embedded in our bones, muscles, fascia, connective tissue, ligaments, cells. With perfect timing, what are initially viewed as injuries or negative events suddenly echo a healthy energetic recalibration process, so we evolve or rebuild from the inside out, and finally see boundaries and problems only exist in mind.

Decoding trauma leads us to truth

Notice that Truth emerges out of trauma, even layers and layers of trauma as one finds unimaginable courage to to sift through it. This process is about exploring taboos and caverns within us that the mind has us believe are out of bounds, covered with no trespassing signs. Yet, being undeterred from what mind scares us into believing is "mischief" , non-conformity, even instills fear of death or God, is the yellow brick road in disguise, the ultimate path into the unknown that allows the wizard behind the curtain to reveal itself.

Turns out, truth is the unbearable knowledge we are taught to fear and avoid, what ego develops around to hide deeper realities. Truth leaves ego speechless, utterly crippled, unable to know how to relieve its agony as its very existence is threatened. It avoids "Truth" entirely by developing the imaginary level of consciousness. This is where we create an idea of false self that is tolerable and can allow ego to manage the unbearable reality it has to face. It also creates familliar physical senses to ensure the real does not erupt in the face. So, unbearble familliar knowledge becomes repressed, forgotten. Amnesia hits. One becomes clueless, deliberately throwing away the key to knowing itself.

As a strategy, ego creates a symbology, a logical or rational way of seeing and analysing things to ensure the mind stays trapped in the imaginary world. That level of the the symbolic only affirms the imaginary. It simply creates more karma and confusion. True symbology enables us to see through the illusions of imaginary reality that the conscious ego exists in. That conscious level of ego existence is no more than a prison or hell room, (some call it a red room and have fun here for a time). Yet the growing agony of limitations that the imaginary register create difficulty, forces one to play a character that one knows is not one real Self. One feels its an inauthentic being . This cripples the possibility of any lasting happiness and lasting relationships.

To know true happiness, the ego must be released to rediscover what is truly real. This differs from what has been accepted as real, conceptualized as such and then repressed. The act of meditation begins by dropping all concepts to offer a glimpse of truth. At first, this is dropping of imaginary concepts, then the eruptions of the real must be felt and dropped. This brings on the dark night of the soul. Then as all unconscious is recognized as unreal, and the shock of reality may feel like hitting rockbottom.

Despite this, the ultimate trauma for ego is real love. The love ego seeks is the love that reinforces its own illusory existence, that is, conditional love. The ego cannot become vulnerable enough to love deeply or know true intimacy. Ego can only express love as insatiable desire. The desire to be desired is simply the desire to be seen as an object, a body lusted after, used, possessed, defiled by the other. That kind of love is sought as a way to deal with other unbearable trauma. Of course, the awake being knows this is not real love. For it simply leads to more desire for illusory love to fill an emptiness that cannot be filled.

The only way to be free of this is to discover what true love is for oneself. Only through direct experience then does it dawn that you are more than a body. more than a mind, more than emotion. The love that comes from one's own heart is something the ego can never reach. The ego is too repressed to allow itself to be open. To find courage to enter the heart and rediscover love, we rediscover chakra 5, the ability to refute or dismantle the fantasies that have been destroying one's life and crippling one's capacities to manifest one's potential. Yet, once one has access to real love, the ego and power it exerts over consciousness, is dissolved. This fabrication was only meant to enable a helpless child to survive, not to be in charge of the adult body.

One continues to run from oneself, continues to fall into repressed infantile states, until one is ready to grow up, let go of dependency. This is about taking responsibility. We each have ability to self sabotage . As we recognize the ego's folly, nothing to fear. Demons are mental delusions, memory traces. Monsters we project are inviting us to lturn within, see the source of fear. So long as we choose to live in the past, we do not value or fully embody the real truth. Real Love leads one to the real Self.