Being on Your Path

Posted on July 17, 2012 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

When you travel, how do you come to decisions about where to go, the route you will take, or things to do along the way? Do you have a goal that you are moving towards, a destination with a time frame? Have you ever stood at the side of the road with no particular destination, waiting to see where Spirit moves you? There are so many levels between “”scripted and planned and “open to anything”. How can we navigate this spectrum with as much magic and from as deep a place in our spirit as possible?

On this trip I know that I have a place to be, a direction which Spirit called me to go in, and a loose timeframe. I hope that I can find a groove that will allow me to let go of figuring and planning and find a flow that will allow the magic to carry me to where ever and what ever Spirit has called me. I start slow, with a night camped along the Colorado headwaters on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. The elk wander through the camp and give my car a blessing by licking the tires. Strange, but I’ll take it that way. Headed west the next day inspired by the beauty of the upper Colorado, listening to kirtan, I flow along the river and over the mountain passes. I turn north into Wyoming, where the afternoon thunder storms raise the scent of fresh sage from the vast empty plains. As evening comes on I am more aware of the heat of the day, the need for a place to clean off and lay down for the night. After a long hot day in the desert its harder to listen to the little voices, to trust yourself to try something that feels expansive. Always there are choices. This night, after buying a map, I choose a place on a lake, so I can wash off the heat of the day, rather than heading further up the mountain where it will be cooler.

How do I listen to my heart? how do I find that flow that takes me to a magical place? When do I use the maps and plan ahead? Somewhere there is a balance which mixes both to create the magic. Along the way there are lessons and insights, which I try to notice and apply.

Several days later riding up a long flat valley in eastern Idaho, it comes to me that even though I’m practicing listening to my heart, making choices from the feeling of my body, who is setting the options? well the map, the mind, so there is still a ways to go. I wonder what its like to let the possibilities arise from the heart and soul as well? does the compass of the heart need options before it indicates the next direction, or can you simply feel into yourself and find the next step, and the next?

Some days are loose and free to work this way, to play with a new way of being. One morning in the Bitteroots, leaving a beautiful campsite among tall cedars, next to the rushing waters of the upper Clearwater, I feel seriously uncomfortable, as if I’ve left something important behind. I turn around and go back to the camp. Following a level of pure intuition I stand in front of a tree stump “alter” lit by the climbing sun. Facing back to the east I feel into the gateway formed by the two trees that guarded my tent the night before just in time for the sun to clear the smaller trees behind them and shine through to bath me and my chakras in a morning blessing. I stand and give each chakra some attention, letting go any tensions there, opening to life and love. It’s a wonderful ritual that I never planned, but flowed from listening to the feelings of the my being. Effortless flow from being present and paying attention. When I head back on the road the uneasy feeling is gone.

Its great to practice in little things, letting your attention wander over the details of a scene in front of you, play which leads to a magic of its own.

Even after a magical start this was another long hot day. From the Bitteroots to the Cascades, across the low rolling desert of western Washington, in sweltering summer heat. Turning onto the interstate to chew the miles and conserve the hours, a part of me needed to scream. At the end of the day, back in the mountains, the first campsite of the first campground. A sentry tree and a stream, so not bad, but feeling tired and “off path”. The choice now is to focus on the expense of this place, the mosquitos following me around, my abandonment of my heart. Or to notice all this, wash in the stream, find the local map showing other camps, decide to take one night instead of two and roll into bed.

In the morning I wake early, thanking my tree, piling everything in the car and decamping to another camp ground, which the local map has shown me. This one looks across a lake at snow capped mountains in the wilderness of the central Cascades. I get there as some folks are leaving, opening up various places. Going along the shore I’m looking for water access and large trees. I see one place that looks great, but as I stop a woman comes up the bank. She’s moving her tent here from another spot. So I keep looking, finding a nice site with some big trees. The tent space is a little small and not quite flat, but over all pretty nice. As I’m starting to set up though I notice that the people next door are now packing up, which I confirm. They had the best site in the whole camp, lots of space, big trees, a great front on the lake and stunning view of the mountains. It has all worked out for me to have this amazing location, one I could not have had the night before, or an hour earlier, or an hour later. I reflect on how being able to be present with the times I felt “off path” have actually set up my being in this magical place. Gratitude and appreciation.

magic on the path

Its not really about being on path, or off path. Its about being present, or not. Being present even when you feel off, you can find the magic again, or let it find you. In the end there is not a single right path. When you are present and connected then you are on a path, perhaps different from yesterday, but one that will unfold in spirit going forward. Unless you get caught up in worrying about being off path, into resistance and looking for the right path again, in which case it may take a while to find. Especially since the one you strayed off of is gone now. I am being shown that your state of being is much more important than your location, or exact circumstances. With a heart connected to Self and Spirit you are open to guidance and magic, a good path is always at your feet.

(© 7/2012)

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Walking as Spirit

Posted on June 30, 2012 by mcallister

Consider communicating with Divinity.

Notice what comes up for you when you read these words. In particular is your divinity external or internal? Is it purely spiritual, or does it include the manifest world?

You have probably heard the story of the man on his roof in the flood waiting for God to save him. He winds up dying because he has expectations of how God will show up for him, and passes up several mundane manifestations of boats and helicopters.

The programing and beliefs that we are separate from Spirit run so very deep. There is the body. Then there is Spirit; which exists elsewhere and may become present under the right conditions. These vary widely depending on circumstance and teaching, but there are usually conditions. Which are supported by the mind and its tendency to believe that it can or should do it all itself. It makes so much noise that “hearing Spirit” may become hard, even without limiting expectations.

How often do we find ourselves playing out the scenario where the personality comes to exhaustion, collapse, before we are lifted off the roof and supported by Spirit? Is this really different from those who pray for assistance from the start, expecting it all to come directly out of Spirit for them. In both cases it is an external form of Divinity that aids us.

If you have had an experience where you where cracked open and Spirit arose from within yourself, that is a different matter. That is where we are headed.

Spirit is always present – in everything – period. God is not a Descartean watchmaker. The unmanifest underlies and continually generates the manifest. This is quantum mechanics. As Spirit is in everything so it is in us. We are spiritual beings, not in some distant abstract sense, but right here and now, very literally. You do not have to wait for conditions to be fulfilled in order to walk as Spirit. You do it every day. Being conscious about it is the trick.

Humans are both body and soul, and we are being called to consciously integrate these so that we can walk our lives in a different way. There is physical action, but spirit inspires it. Why should you have to exhaust your body before you engage your spirit? Do you run on your right leg until it collapses before using your left?

Walking with masters, angels or other aspects of Spirit is powerful, but they are trying to teach us that we already walk with Self/Spirit inside us. Spirit is in every cell of your body and all levels of your being, speaking through your heart and knowing, reflecting back from the world around you. The path of walking as Spirit is becoming aware of this, letting your Self work through you.

All traditions teach ways to calm the egoic mind and fearful emotions so that we can experience the spiritual levels of Self. Spirit assists us from outside as well. We are only part of the weave. But if we open the temple of our manifest being for our own spiritual aspects to flow through into the world, we are no longer separate little beings calling on external Spirit. We are living the core truth of all mantras: I AM THAT.

Allowing yourself to become aware of what already is, you come to consciously walk as Spirit, not only around you, but inside your every fiber. Know that this is true and open to your experience of it, now.

(© 7/2012)

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When Spirit Calls

Posted on June 17, 2012 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Have you ever had your soul or Spirit suggest a course of action to you? Spirit may speak to you in many ways, but the message is usually repeated two, three, or more times, often in different forms. If there is doubt, feel into how your heart and soul react. Allow yourself to imagine that it is possible (no matter how improbable). You know it’s your soul by the feeling; an expansive, joyous enthusiasm that is the mark of who you deeply are.

The mind, however, often balks. The suggestion doesn’t make sense, or you don’t know how to do it, or what the process will look like, or it’s just plain overwhelmed and scared at the idea. This can happen for things that may in fact be scary, but it also happens for things that are just “larger” than you are used to living. So perhaps you wind up admiring the inspiration, but packing it away for “later”.

One thing I’ve learned doing readings is that the stranger an image is the more likely it is to mean something powerful for the person I’m reading for, even if I haven’t a clue as to what it means. While I have learned to trust what I am given and speak it so my client can connect to it, I realize that I’m pretty bad about doing this for myself. Would you expect messages from Spirit or your higher self to be business as usual? if they are to change your life they are more likely to seem odd or different or even “impossible”.

When doing soul healing work, even if we created things at the ego level – actually most of what is hanging around is there because we couldn’t handle it at the ego level – it is important to remember that we don’t have to work it from that level. The fact that your ego is nervous is simply a sign that we need to work it from the soul level, with our essential self, golden child, guides and Spirit walking through it with us. Some times we have already developed the resources to do our healing with these internal and spiritual supports. On other occasions you may be ready to work something but would or you may benefit working with someone who can create a safe space, connect you with your support team and literally help you take it to the next level to process and complete.

When we have been called to some action, new step, opening or adventure, by Spirit we need to remember that Spirit will not call us out and then abandon us. The ego will see the task and assume that it has to “do” it, even though it is a Spiritual task, a Spiritual call. When Spirit calls to us and we step forward, Spirit will walk with us, “yea through the shadow of the valley..”. There will be steps to develop the spiritual and internal resources necessary before you come to the main event (if it is that sort of quest). When it is more of a search, there will be other signs. At the beginning they say “step out here”. Later on the next steps will also be indicated or intuited along the way. Remember we are all developing new tools these days. So the process will unfold, you will grow, and your higher aspects, guides and Spirit will walk with you, not simply pitch you off a cliff. That is the ego’s fear.

The ego doesn’t know all this. It assumes (has been taught) that it has to walk alone, and naturally feels overwhelmed, anxious. Then we go into more fear over this projected fear of how hard something will be, when the truth is we simply need to answer the call and continue to follow Spirit through the task or along the journey. When we are called by Spirit a different part of us is being called to show up to answer that call; something more than the ego, more than who you are used to thinking of yourself as. When we consciously connect to Spirit and our Self we are held and guided and don’t have to do a lot of figuring, solving, or effort of the usual sort.

So when your Soul or Spirit calls to you, allow your essential Self to answer. Note the ego, sit with its’ fear, and invite it to take a vacation, reminding it that ego is not being asked to answer, just to allow the adventure to unfold. It is the joyous, enthusiastic, expansive part that is being called forth, and can answer this call. Hold fast to the knowing that you are never alone on a Spiritual journey. Open to the support and ongoing communication from inside and out. Stepping through the fears you have carried in your mind you will find that they evaporate in the light of an open heart in touch with its Source.

(© 6/2012)

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Healing Perfection

Posted on June 2, 2012 by mcallister

Give yourself a deep breath. Let your awareness follow the breath inward, into your lungs, down into your belly, relaxing and opening your pelvis, settling into the base of your spine. Release this breath and let go. Give yourself another breath and while receiving it deep into your body as before, allow your awareness to focus around your heart. Notice what is there? Catch any reflex reactions, resistance, or judgments and release them. Another breath, opening the body and belly and noticing your heart, giving it space to be.

Perhaps its feeling open and joyous, or perhaps nervous and tight. Keeping breathing gently with the awareness that whatever is in your heart, you are larger than that. Come into relationship with your heart. Hold it with gentle firmness, like an infant, or a child, or your best beloved. Whatever is in that space, embrace it unconditional compassionate love. Feel your heart reaching out to itself. All the longing of wanting to connect, to love and be loved you have ever felt is blossoming in this infinite circular embrace of you and your heart. Embrace that ache and let it lead you home.

Allow the joy and bliss of love and union to unfold and expand into your body, your self, your whole experience. With a small part of you, notice that whatever hardness or pain might have been in your heart before is beginning to yield, to melt, as a child relaxes in its parents arms. Fall into the layers of you and yourself. Your heart and soul, your emotions and your body all coming into alignment and oneness.

As with a child, all rational discussion is useless, simply embrace your heart with compassion and the knowing that everything unpleasant dissipates when held with love. Mentally engaging a “problem” is like Brer Rabbit and the tar baby, we match the energy of the problem and get more and more stuck in it. Release the urges to figure and fix, to be clever and logical, they only arise from the self judgement that something is “wrong”. Wrapping the sense of wrongness in the swaddling of compassion and self-acceptance, all the other bits can sort themselves out.

You are an immortal soul that is rooted in the divine. Cultivate this in your own ways. You are also a human being perfect in your imperfections. Accept this without judgement or defensiveness. The acorn somehow holds the knowledge of the giant oak that it will become. The child is perfectly a child, but also learning and growing into a wiser adult. As embodied beings in this dual world we hold that contradiction of opposites. We are, in part, perfect souls, and we are also imperfect, often wounded, human beings; learning, healing, growing. Like the infinity sign we loop back and forth.

You are already the larger, wiser Self, that can hold all your imperfections in compassion and acceptance, knowing that they are both “OK” and capable of transformation or healing. Consciously connecting to your inner wholeness let it help you to embrace and heal the outer separations. With your inner heart embrace your outer heart, or visa verse, and accepting who you are you begin to transform and transmute, working the alchemy of love and growth, you evolve, you become whole.

(© 6/2012)

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Your Next Step

Posted on May 16, 2012 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Clouds rise up to Heaven/The image of Waiting
Thus the superior person eats and drinks/ Is joyous and of good cheer
(The I Ching, 5. Waiting)

Do you know what your next step is? Or more commonly: What are you going to do now?

I’ve just returned from my son’s college graduation, at which this seemed to be the reflex question that he and his classmates were being asked all weekend. Life has its cycles and all things have endings. Some mark accomplishment of goals as in the earning of a degree. Others might involve loss, as in the end of a job or a relationship. In all cases there is both a letting go of what has been and an opening to what will come next. There is a natural pause in the rush of life which it seems we are uncomfortable with. Celebration or grief, or both are to be gotten through as fast as possible as we move on to the next phase, next position, next relationship. It is as if some part of us, innate or learned from the society around us, is uneasy with the space of pausing, or waiting. In modern American society where we are often defined by our jobs, family roles, relationships, others may be uncomfortable with a lack of definition. They don’t know what to do with us, how to treat us. Are we down for the count, or moving on to a spectacular new success? And why should that make a difference in how they treat us? Unless it reflects how they treat themselves?

So graduation is a strange time. We gather and cheer loudly as they receive their degree, a brief celebration of a life time of effort and learning, and then ask what next? Where are you off to? Some have an answer, they have a plan. Others don’t really know yet. They are catching their breath, sorting options, perhaps wanting to relax in a sense of well being and accomplishment. The I Ching says that waiting is a time of refreshing, getting ready. But we are a doing society, not usually a being society, and so we ask a doing question and are disappointed, or uncomfortable with a being answer. This is not your problem, give yourself time to wait.

Is your next step really yours? This weekend I wonder how many of the bright young people who have an answer have gotten it from inside themselves? Who has defined their next step? Family, friends, society? Even if they have a personal answer to the new job, or advanced study, or travel abroad questions; who defined the questions and the parameters of the answers? Is that next step really theirs or a predefined blank that they have written something in?

As someone who has rarely felt I really knew what I was doing with my life, or what my next step was going to be, until it happened, or showed up, I have often thought that I should sit down with myself and meditate on who I am and what I really want to do. Then I think I would have a proper answer, instead of just filling in the blanks, taking care of business, passing through the days. This sitting and listening to Self, waiting with Spirit seems hard to do. However, it is from those who have done this that the creative comes. Those who strip back the layers of what is expected or customary, come up with new answers and new possibilities. These are the people who have really owned their next steps, and are able to follow their feet and their noses in a way that is true to their hearts.

In life it is important to allow ourselves to appreciate the pauses, the in-between spaces, comfortable, or not, as this is where spirit, creativity and life force dwell. It is there in the stillness that we can hear our own inner voices and come up with answers and next steps that are truly our own, rather than someone else’s. So in this season of graduation, at the end of Spring and moving into Summer, take some time to sit under a tree, next to a stream. Be someplace still and quite where you can let the voices fade and commune with your heart. As you stride forward into summer put your energy into your own dreams, your own next steps, and weave a life that is an answer to your own questions. And if for a while you can’t answer the “what’s next” question, give yourself some time to wait. Find spaciousness and freedom in waiting and trust that your answers will come. Not knowing has to come before knowing. Waiting with Self is where you can learn what your next step will be.

(© 5/2012)

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