Saying Grace

Posted on May 4, 2015 by mcallister
grace for food

When I was young I occasionally said a grace before eating, especially in gatherings, though not often by myself. When I thought about my food and all the people and other beings involved in producing it, getting it to my kitchen and table, I was appreciative, but it was not a habit.

As I learned about energy and blessings over the years I set intentions of gratitude and blessing for my food more regularly. More on the blessing side, setting a good energy for myself, than specifically gratitude, though both are properly involved. It still wasn’t really a habit and I can’t say I felt or noticed much, as I did it.

A decade ago I had a spontaneous experience which opened my heart and gifted me with an afternoon of bliss. I thought at the time it was strange that it occurred in my kitchen, though I never really put it together with what came next. The following day as I sat down to eat I called in a blessing for my food and to my surprise I felt energy passing through the space between my hands and landing on the plate in front of me.

After that day I began to really make a habit of blessing my food. Sometimes I would say something special, but mostly just invite Spirit to set the vibration in a good way for me, sometimes noticing what showed up. That I could do this was becoming real for me, and becoming real I paid more attention to it.

In gatherings I would speak from my heart gratitude for the fellowship, but gratitude for the food itself was still mostly conceptual.

This year my partner has been encouraging me to feel into my body as I eat. I feel my body’s desire for food, though sometimes is not really about food, but simply emotional energy that is calling for attention. As I eat I feel into how my body responds, coming to know the feeling of satisfaction, gratitude on a physical and emotional level.

Now gratitude is also becoming real for me. Not just a concept that makes sense, or a feeling that is pleasurable when something good happens, but a state of being that is alive in me and intimately related to being able to receive what life has to offer me.

Recently this came around again. As my partner was encouraging me to pay attention more deeply, I felt the openness of my body as it received food and drink, felt the warmth of nourishment spreading through my belly. I realized how many layers there are to my unconsciousness. Its not enough to think about gratitude a little at the beginning of a meal, but there is a great power in following that awareness through the whole meal.

Feeling your body respond to what its eating, feeling desire relaxing into satisfaction and gratitude, is a model for how we receive from the universe in general. Paying attention we can cultivate a grateful state of being. Deepening into a new level of understanding, we can apply this state to life, finding the inner emotional stance that welcomes all things that nurture us, saying yes to what is possible rather than taking it for granted.

So now I say grace for all my meals, combining gratitude with a blessing. Setting the vibration of the food and feeling into open receptivity, being aware of how the universe is supporting me in this way, inviting all forms of nourishment into my life. What a wonderful chance to deepen into Spirit every day.

(© 5/2015)

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Lessons in Awareness

Posted on April 17, 2015 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

surface of awareness

After the hernia surgery everything in my belly is tender and frozen. It is not so much being in pain – the medication helps with that – as a deep sense of fragility and protectiveness oriented to potential pain. New pain that would signal that something is wrong, has been strained or aggravated. This focus is encouraged by ongoing aches that filter lightly through the medication. While focused on sensation I do reiki on myself around the clock. Healing things inside as fast as possible.

The doctor says I can’t hurt myself, but my body/mind worries that things could be stressed or come loose in unpleasant ways. This is mostly subconscious. The result is that my awareness is focused inwards in detail, listening for signals from parts of me I usually ignore. Am I feeling things move in my intestines, the ache of bruises healing, or protests from muscles that indicate I’ve tried to move in ways they are not ready for. Even if I can’t hurt myself, the instinctual minimizing of pain seems a good goal. Besides not wanting to be in pain, the less new stress the faster I can heal.

These are signals from my body that I am learning to read so I can hold in it compassionate care. I’m not used to feeling my belly in such detail, so I have to sort things through and learn what it all means. I’m paying much more attention to how I move, to relaxing where things through out my abdomen and to using my legs and arms for even simple things like rolling over. I live briefly in a world that has shrunk to my own body, something like having the flue. It is defined by internal sensation and to listening for potential new sensation, creating space to feel.

With this expanded internal orientation I have less awareness to give to the external world and to other people. It’s out there, but relegated to a secondary importance. I am immensely grateful that I have loved ones caring for me so I can let outer things go. How I roll over, finding comfortable positions to sleep, waiting for my digestion and other basic body functions to come back on line, take up most of my attention. All through the haze of the pain medications, which cycle in effect, making it unclear when there is more sensation or simply a reduction of the masking of what is already there.

Sometimes I can feel people or things out in my life pulling on me a bit. I respond as I can, but often have to let them go. Its hard to explain the shift in awareness; that even though I’m not really in pain, pain has become my focal point, listening for it, avoiding it, adjusting myself to relieve it. Pain is an insistent master. This inwardness is not personal, but I have really little choice right now. I will soon emerge and be present for them again, but for the moment I have to be present for completly myself.

Slowly the pain recedes, the meds are reduced and then not necessary. Other things begin to come back into awareness. With the physically healing there are related energetic pieces that come up powerfully for clearing. Deep old fears from the body/being that are kicked loose and I have to breath through to find myself again. I am healing more than my hernias here. More gratitude for the powerful assistance of my loved ones, who hold me through this phase as well.

I notice that there is a soft compassionate place I have found for myself, a place of stillness and relaxation inside, that allows the healing to take place. I have little choice about giving it priority right now, my body demands to be cared for and healed. The physical fragility demands protection and attention in a unique way. There is a protective fierceness that arises around it. Being in this new relationship with my body I can sense that a similar dynamic is true for emotional or other wounds and how they demand and engage our attention, although we have a harder time giving others permission to attend to them.

When I start to go out into the world I find I am more aware than usual, of everything. The internal compassionate space is still there, but now it also forms a foundation for being aware of the world around me. Without the inward spaciousness my heightened outer awareness might be too much. I can notice it swirling around me, all the pretty colors, but my internal foundation is still present and I can watch it roll over me and let it go. Rather than letting the world rush in on me I can watch it go by on the surface of my being and choice to watch or engage as necessary. I don’t have to choose between myself and the world, but owning myself I can let the world be itself and selectively dance with it. Keeping my compassion for myself I can come more softly into the world as well.

Taking care of myself I heal and release my own pain, and this allows it to disengage from the world around me. I come back to the world more secure in myself and less afraid that it will hurt me because I’m no longer allowing it to. I’m more relaxed in myself, physically and mentally, and thus meet the world more neutrally, rather than jumping into it, or allowing it to invade me. Something has come clear in a new way, the balance of awareness inside as well as outside, not in opposition, but in a complementary way.

The patching of my umbilical hernia has allowed me to become less enmeshed, to have a cleaner boundary. I am better able to have a soft compassionate stance with myself, to listen to what I need first, and then engage others. Surely Grace and Hope have come more into my life, not just as my nurses for the operation, but as spiritual forces walking with me as I heal.

(© 4/2015)

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Duality of Form

Posted on March 30, 2015 by mcallister
eclipse: ego and form

The sun in the constellation of Virgo shone on the nearly full moon which, sailing through the constellation of Pisces. The creativity and water energy of Pisces pouring into the structured earth energy of Virgo, with human Earth dancing balanced in the middle. This time the Earth gets in the way there is a total lunar eclipse at the moment of fullness.

Creativity moves from Spirit as inspiration, imagination, and insight, but to become more than dreaming it has to be received into physical form. As with all the dualities in the physical world there is a tension and yet they must weave together to produce a final manifested result.

Working to connect with Spirit, in spiritual practices, forms are a helpful guide when you are starting out. When we want to experience Spirit as our higher Selves, forms and structures, in fact all mental constructs, must be gradually released and transcended or they tend to become a hinderance tying us into the mental world of concept and form.

The mind being attached to its role in creating them, hangs on in ways that limit our ability to relax into Spirit, which is at Source formless. The closer we come to Source the simpler and more formless our being and experience becomes. The highest levels of Samadhi are without form, without attribute. The mind must be left behind if we are to play in those fields of being.

As we return from the ocean of consciousness to inhabit this physical universe, coming back to our human body and mind, we are tracing the pathways of all manifestation from Spirit, landing back into form and structure. To be human, to touch a tree, to watch an eagle soar, we need the structure of our body, our physical senses. To hold an idea or have a conversation we need the structure of language and mind.

All creations in the physical world have a form to embody their Spiritual essence. This is the province of the artist, the poet, the inventor, to create the proper form to embody the inspirations emerging in their mind and brain, pouring them into words, into color, into plans and finally metal, wood, and stone. Once they have experienced their Essential Self, he spiritual practitioner similarly uses the forms the body and mind to receive it, so their Soul can participate and share in this human world.

What may be a distraction on the path into Spirit, something that however useful must be transcended and released, becomes an essential tool when we are returning to our human life. To come to the heart of our Selves we must let go and transcend, but then to return with the fruits of our journey we must pick up some of that which we let go of, using it to serve the expression of what we are in Spirit.

The dance and balance is knowing when we are doing each, when to let go and when to create. When the ego of the mind shadows the flow of light from Pisces towards Virgo, Source light is blocked from the temple of the body and we have an eclipse of Spirit in physical form. Then the moon moves on, out of shadow, shining out brightly in the sky again. With awareness and grace we also release ourselves from egoic attachments to form and come back into the light of Spirit, connecting to Self and Soul.

(© 4/2015)

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Dreaming in the Fields of the Heart

Posted on March 30, 2015 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys
published in Shakti Yogi Journal

fields of the mind

Spring is a good time to open your heart and let new things bloom in your life. Seeds that have been underground through the winter push upwards into the air, reaching for the sun. They contain the patterning for growth that leads to new blossoms rich in beauty; plants and trees rich with vegetables and fruit. This patterning expresses a Life force which is fluid and flexible, adapting to specific conditions, so each seed becomes its own unique plant.

In the fields of the mind the seeds of creative thoughts float in as inspiration, the breath of Spirit whispering. The intuitive mind receives creativity first; in dreams, imaginings, or active meditations. Laced with feeling and nurtured by the energies of the heart, these impulses are rich with life and possibility. Thought forms arise later in the analytic mind giving expression and adding structure as creative inspiration manifests into the world.

In the eastern cultures the mind was always centered in the heart and thoughts and feelings are not separated out as being different. Western biology has recently shown that the chemistry of thought and feeling is similar 1, and that all thoughts have an emotional component 2. This relationship is seen in the Japanese character for thoughts 思 which is comprised of a rice field over a heart.

The image of the field with regular boundaries symbolizes the structured aspect of analytic thought. Looking at a winter field, it is dry form only; until it is watered, then new seeds sprout in spring, and it lives again. Its form lasts from year to year but it is loose enough to serve each new crop of seeds. Living thought, like the sprouts in the field, is fluid and constantly changing. There must be room for them to breathe, an open heart to nurture them and receptivity to ongoing inspiration to guide their growth.

If thoughts are too structured, the boundaries and forms too tight, they bury creativity in fixity and old patterns. Then there is no breath, no life, neither the heart nor its flowers can open. The mental forms that we are given in school are simply a starting place, like the grammar of a language or the drills you do when you first learn an instrument or a new sport. The master of an art or sport learns to adjust and mold these initial forms to the flow of the moment, to express what intuition and awareness are showing him now. Structured thoughts must be malleable or we kill the life and power of the inspiration we are trying to birth.

The structured aspects of thought must serve the essential inspiration. Spiritual creativity is the true source. Over time the core of creative inspiration and insight is often lost. Words passed down tend to loose their essence and cease to live when taken literally 3. The old masters whose words have become the source of today’s formal thought, had open hearts and fluid minds in their own day. They breathed in essence and inspiration, just as you do; creating and speaking from their hearts. When only the form remains, it becomes dogma; there is no room for life left, for new wisdom or present time inspiration. Even the best of the old forms can be too tight, when the essence has been lost. Believing that the forms are the knowledge and the wisdom (which is generally how they are presented) we will miss the Essence that was present when those ideas were first birthed.

Old forms can lead us back to Spirit, their source, and inspire us to find new words for a living Truth that wants to be reborn today, tomorrow, each day going forward. However, when we try to jam a new dream into them rather than letting them adjust to express it, the new inspiration will not thrive, no matter how beautiful the old form is.

Even doing spiritual practices or working creatively, which are activities inherently alive, we can still get caught up in the forms of outer manifestation and lose track of the inner inspiration and spiritual energies that are their core. The practice of working in form and mental structure easily sucks us into a place of analytic thought where we loose touch with the essence of what we are creating the form to express.

It is important to periodically take time in the midst of creating a workshop, writing an article, or building a practice to feed and nurture the wellspring of what you are birthing into the world. Simply remember to pause, center, and reach inside to feel the inspiration, the Essence, of what you are creating. Breathe into that space, relaxing, opening to spaciousness and for a few minutes let go of the mental engagement with the formal task at hand.

Expression and form can serve spirit and inspiration, the genius that is your Soul. Life is not a paint by numbers set. The rainbow, the rose, the sunset are always a variation on the theme, birthing fresh and alive each time they form, each time they are witnessed. Each year’s rice field is planted with fresh sprouts, which grow as a new and unique expression of ancient processes and cycles.

Learning from what has gone before, doesn’t have to strangle what is coming through from Spirit today, if the old is given new life in the present. Staying aware of the essence of life, fresh flowers will bloom from new seeds. The heart will sing a new song this spring, rather than trying to vainly recreate last spring’s song and blossoms.

[1] Pert C., Molecules of Emotion, New York: Touchstone, 1997.
[2] Bohm, D., Thought as a System, New York: Routledge, 1992.
[3] Brown, T. jr., The Quest, New York: Berkley Books, 1991. p 106

(© 2/2015)

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Channeling Spirit

Posted on March 18, 2015 by mcallister
horse

There is a horse that I have been learning to ride. She is much larger and stronger than I am and although she lets me lead her when I’m riding, I know that if she really wants to take charge there’s not a lot I can do about it. Last week on a nice day, after weeks of snow and cold, she was wanting to move faster than I felt comfortable with. Its been a while and I hesitated to let her go, not trusting what might happen. Although I’m still learning to ride her, she is unlikely to do anything that would hurt herself or me. Not out of pure high spirits.

Later I realized that life feels a bit like this right now. Spirit seems ready to move through me more intensely. Creative energies, healing energies, life force and love, all wanting to channel into the world.

I’ve been asking for this, courting Spirit more consciously; the white light of Truth; the power of Love; the healing energies that come through my hands when I work. And yet unless I trust my higher aspects, my guides and Source, my mind will try to hold on, to control the flow.

My human aspects believe they have to do something with these increased energies. Perhaps its the usual program that they are supposed to be in charge, that they have to figure things out or design the new forms. Perhaps its due to fear of the power and a need to control it, slow it down.

So rather than having Spiritual energies flow gracefully through me, aspects of resistance bottle them up, slow them down, creating friction and heat. Wanting to consciously create the new forms reigns it in until I can figure out the design. It all shows a lack of trust in Spirit and my higher Self, those very beings that I have been asking to help me, to teach me.

Resistance generates physical heat in my body, especially at places that the energy is constricted or held back, like the ankles and wrists. The sense of holding on – holding on to reigns, or to control, to what is known and therefore safe, even when I really want that something new – shows up as tension and stiffness in my arms.

These energies are not going away. Spirit has a lot of work for us to do in the world these days and I have said yes to that. I set intention to open myself and let them flow through; to release the need to know what the creative energies will do, or where they will lead me. When they channel smoothly there is less resistance and less heat; less tension and less soreness.

Sometimes these energies will take specific forms. Other times they just need a channel into the world. It feels as if Spirit is wanting to manifest more strongly into Life, for all of us, not for me in particular. More Love, more creativity, more healing.

When my ego tries to take over there is effort, and it is hard on the body. This ride with Spirit may be as scary at times as any horse, and yet I remember that I have invoked it and that Spirit is more conscious than I am. So I cultivate relaxation and letting go of a tight grip, while staying present and aware.

When you’ve called and Spirit wants to move through, ask for grace and trust it. Open to wonder and possibility and surrender the reigns to the Divine.

©(3/2015)

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