Bringing It Home

Posted on June 15, 2010 by mcallister

When I was growing up there had been a developing sense among younger people that the established western social/economic system was not working very well for the people living in/by/under it. The response was a rejection of “the system”, a “dropping out” in some form. Perhaps a trip to India, or work in a developing country, living on a communal farm, substances, meditation, or music.

Over time much was learned in this way, and some of it was brought back to the larger society. Some of it has been incubated in communities, or in the heart. In spite of what people sometimes think, many things have changed. Perhaps not as dramatically as had been envisioned, but slowly and subtly. A conversation that takes place on a topic that would not have happened before, a possibility that is present for young people that wasn’t before, a sense of Spirit at large in the world that is taken as given.

My yoga teacher used to say that its great to go find God in a cave in the mountains, but the real challenge is to hold onto Spirit in the middle of the market place. Much of the searching was spiritual, some of this was brought back, but there has still been a feeling that people needed to separate to find it, to get “off the grid” in one way or another. If you came back to the system, you would loose it or “sell out”.

These days there is a whole new generation coming of age. A generation that has had the chance to grow up with ideas that were revolutionary “back in the day”. More importantly a generation which seems to have a different frame of mind. They are finding Spirit, or it is finding them. They don’t worry as much about “inside” and “ouside”; they simply go where they need to be. More and more they are finding their calling inside “the system”, and are committed to bringing Spirit “inside”. Bringing an ongoing awareness of Spirit into not only the healing arts, but computer programming; not just in teaching our children, but in managing the board room.

Have you ever received an email from a loved one, and felt that love. Energy and Spirit can move through technology along with the electrons. It is all Spirit, there is no division unless we choose to think it.

How do we weave the spiritual into the system and transform it from the inside out? This is already being done, one step at a time, one person at a time. By bringing your full awareness of Spirit and your spiritual self with you in all areas of your life. Many of us have been “in the wilderness”, others are finding a more direct path. We are all “bringing it back home”, to where we live everyday, weaving it into how we work together, how we use technology, how we do business. Spirit is everywhere, all we need to do is recognize that, every day, all the time. Search it out, bring it into your awareness, out of the background. Recognizing it and appreciating it, especially in each other takes us all “out of the box”, creates space for the form to more fully reflect the underlying reality.

Notice how you are carrying your understanding of spirit, of yourself as a spiritual being into your life. Perhaps your light is carried under a basket, perhaps you don’t always speak to it in others, or perhaps it is out and shining, reflecting off those around you. Just don’t hide it in a closet, or leave it in the wilderness. Create the space to carry it with you, always, and things are changing. Time to find your brothers and sisters and begin the weave.

(© 6/2010)

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Starting Point

Posted on June 1, 2010 by mcallister

We are all familiar with the metaphor of water finding the easiest way downhill. It always seeks the lowest level, flowing naturally to find the fastest route to the sea. When it meets a boulder this means going around it, until through time it wears it away or undermines it until the boulder falls out of the way. It is the nature of our minds, however, to focus on boulders, to be concerned with the things that don’t work, that are hard or painful in our lives.

While some of the water in a stream continues wash against the boulder, most of it goes around, where the path is easier, clearing the pebbles and stones on either side. More importantly it maintains its own nature, the flow and play of being water. Where it all to pile up behind the boulder as behind a damn it would become angry and frustrated, or still and depressed. It would be unhealthy and untrue to its nature.

Perhaps its a stretch to think of the emotional tone of water, but emotional tone is important for human beings. The emotional tone we bring to things is a powerful piece of the end result as well as the process. Faced with “problems” we tend to be in turbulent or depressed emotional states. Some amount of this is natural and we can roll with it, but when the focus is constant and not balanced with flow and play, this emotional tone spills over into more and more of our lives.

It is common that some area of our lives is lacking in a quality that we would like to have there. It might be playfulness, at work or love in relationship. It might be a level of confidence, or self-ownership in some area of your life. If we focus on this lack we are like the water pounding on the boulder, we give it attention and loose sigh of the places in our lives where we do have this quality.

Most of us have what we are looking for, but discount it because its not where we want it. We are playful, but not at work. We are confident in one area, but not another. We can open to nature, but not to our partner. If you know how to play with a child or a pet, you know what it is to play. If you can open to a beautiful sunset in the mountains, or at the beach, you know openness and love. If you are confident in any area of your life, you know confidence.

There are areas of life and then there is the emotional state that we experience in those areas. What state are you in when you appreciate a beautiful flower? Bookmark that state, that feeling, and bring it with you into other places where appreciation is more of a challenge. Start where its easy and anchor that resource, then use it where it has been more of a challenge. This is like the water flowing around the boulder, until eventually the boulder also moves, or wears away.

The practical mind may say what is the point of smelling the flowers? The point is that you are in a certain state of happiness, appreciation or joy and if you are really present you can learn to take it with you; into your relationship, into your job, into all the other areas of life. What part of your life won’t flow better – be better – with happiness, appreciation and joy?

When you are wanting more of a positive quality in an area of your life, remember places where you have it already. Go there and cultivate it, practice it. Then return with it to the other places you need it. Let all your life have the tone of smelling a rose.

(© 6/2010)

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Navigation

Posted on May 15, 2010 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

This spring I took a long cross-country trip with my daughter, which introduced me to the joys of GPS navigation. I’ve always been a map person, give me a destination and a decent road atlas and I enjoy plotting a route. It might be the fastest, or the most scenic, or a mix. When I plunge into a city’s freeway system I like to look it over beforehand, so I’m not figuring out which lane to be in, half a mile before an interchange, in heavy traffic. I like to know where I’m headed, where I am now, and what the alternate routes are, so if something comes up I have a context in which to make informed choices.

Driving with GPS was a new experience. Punch in the destination, and it decides how to get there. It also only shows the road you’re on and how far to the next intersection/turn/interchange. So driving in places I’d never been before, we might know where our destination was, and in a sense where we were, but not the relationship between the two. There was no way to know if the GPS really had an optimal route, or what, if any, alternate choices might be available. I found this really bothered me, brought up old helpless, lost feelings. My daughter, however, seemed fine with the process. She was OK knowing that she was on course, even is she didn’t know what state we were in at the moment.

What it came to was that she trusts her GPS and I want the option of double checking it. I figure its only as good as the software and who knows what bugs there are there? Perhaps I’ve done too much programming myself. So I got to practice some letting go, and in spite of a few minor glitches, and some bad temper, the GPS did guide us home safe and sound.

Scroll forward a couple of weeks. I’m doing readings at a fair. When I read I have what I think of as a need to know agreement with spirit. If you need to know it, I’ll receive the information. So there are times when I look at something and I get a blank. I once had a reading with a river journey motif and my client wanted to know what was around the next bend. I looked, but got nothing. Spirit was saying, don’t worry about it, focus on where you’re at now. So at this fair I had several readings that where a variation on this. I could see/feel clearly where the client was being guided to go next (either externally or internally), and that they would have clarity when they got there, but not any details of what the content of that clarity was.

Thinking about this I realized there are times when life is like a treasure hunt. You are guided in a certain direction, or to a place, or person. When you get there you find the next clue, which points you to a new destination. Sometimes if you know where you are going three steps out, you might skip one, to save time, or to avoid something challenging. But then when you get those three steps out, you won’t be the same, you will have missed something (possibly important) along the way. Often times it is the process of getting to where you are going that gives you the answer. This is especially true of internal journeys. Going into fear, grief, or anger almost always yields a benefit or lesson. Only by going there do you uncover it experientially, so you have the full knowing of it, not just the idea. That process is critical for your journey.

So often Spirit says: be here now, pay attention to the process, trust me and I’ll show you the way as you go along. Something like a GPS eh? Unlike the GPS I’m at least trying to trust Spirit, though its not always easy. Often I do want a map, the bigger picture, knowledge of where I’m going long term. I believe that Spirit knows all the options and context, but the mind that had such an issue with the GPS is still learning to trust this: still learning to listen to my heart, my spiritual GPS.

This is so important, because unlike a physical GPS where we punch in our destination, spiritually we don’t really know it ahead of time. Often we only know when we’ve gotten to where we are going because we feel it. I can read a general direction for you, but only in the moment, feeling into it with your own heart will you know when you are really on track, and when you have arrived. So spiritually we have to learn to navigate with the GPS of our heart, and to do that we often have to let go of the mind’s discomfort with partial information. We slowly learn that we will know what we need to know, when we need to know it, not in mind, but in the heart.

Driving home after this fair I experienced being present with my driving, but loosing the mental map completely. On roads I have driven many times, deep in conversation, completely conscious of the immediate road conditions, I realized that I had no idea where we were along that road. I had surrendered my larger context thinking, and was following the road home.

I’m probably not going to run out and buy a new GPS for my car, but I am going to practice using my spiritual GPS, trusting Spirit to keep it properly updated, and learning how to tell when I’m on track or have arrived at a point on the treasure map. And we do that by practicing, taking time to ask our heart how it feels and listen to what is there.

with gratitude to my daughter for a useful, if frustrating lesson 🙂

(© 5/2010)

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Embodying Soul

Posted on May 1, 2010 by mcallister

It used to be that I might occasionally visit my higher Self, or it might drop round for tea. These days my higher self is knocking at the door, and wants to move in. Perhaps you’ve noticed this as well, it seems to be a general phenomenon.

There have been times when I wanted to “beam up” to some other place or planet; when I felt disconnected and alone, a “stranger in a strange land”, out of sync with the world around me. You probably know what I mean. These days, however, I am focused more deeply on making space for Spirit to land.

We are connected spiritual beings, existing at once on all levels between our body and Source. We have all spent time practicing raising our consciousness or awareness to go visiting with “higher” levels of our self. But then we come home again. In Mary Poppins, when they start laughing and float up to the ceiling for a tea party, only to eventually come back to Earth when serious things return, is like this. But that movie is about the ability to bring that good stuff back down with you, into everyday life, even into that most serious of places, a British bank.

Yes we can go visit, but we can also invite our higher aspects to come into the body. This is embodiment, sacred union, heaven on earth. When we have cleaned the temple sufficiently, these “higher” levels will show up. They are really always here, but we are too busy and the static is too loud. Thus many forms of mediation and other practices have developed to quite the noise on the “lower levels”, so we can perceive the “higher”.

Being always connected, and always present, it is not so much a matter of going or coming, but allowing, listening, integrating. We can raise our consciousness, or expand it. The former implies taking an elevator up; the later is more about becoming aware of more floors at the same time. This is a time of expansion.

It used to be your higher self knocked gently and if you were busy went away again, to wait and come back later. But something is shifting. The knocks are louder and with an insistence. The time is now, your higher self is not really taking no for an answer any more. How many people do you know that are getting the wake up call in some form?

The good news is that its easier than ever to come into a place of expanded awareness, to experience both spirit and body at the same time. We do this not by figuring it out, but by allowing it to happen. The challenges are that this may be a bit disorienting (even if you have been practicing) or that the process often kicks up a bit of dust, but this will pass. And while we may have less choice we are also not as alone.

I have been seeing more people in the last couple months who are really stepping up to integrating their higher Selves into the body. Others are actively exploring how to bring their spiritual awareness into their jobs, and their lives. It is really very exciting! It seems a broad thing, involving all of us, those of us who have been “on a path” for years, and those who are just starting out. We are moving into a time when you won’t have to go to a metaphysical fair to connect with other people who are consciously living from spirit, we are everywhere. And I’m talking about Colorado Springs as well as Boulder.

We are learning to relax the analytic mind, so that our souls can connect to our hearts. Asking the mind to open up to translating from the geometry and music of Spirit, to the emotions of the heart. Unlike our conscious minds, our hearts are big enough to embody our souls. It is a beautiful thing when this connection is made and you really come home to yourself. And it is happening for all of us, right now. Whatever the reasons, it is in the air. Karpe Diem, there are more of us than we think, and Spirit has your back.

(© 5/2010)

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Feed the Body by Feeding the Soul

Posted on April 15, 2010 by mcallister

In Europe in the Middle Ages, or India still today there are people who follow the calling of the Spiritual life, who are supported by their community. Their focus on the Spiritual is considered a service to the community and those that lead worldly lives support this with contributions.

Like many who feel called to the healing or spiritual arts, I have at times felt torn between wanting to do the work I feel called to, and making a living. In spite of what I have heard and “know” about following my bliss, there is this idea in the back of my mind that they are not something that I can hope to do together. There is a mythology of starving artists and rich business people who have lost their souls and in the mythology you have to choose.

Personally I find that there are times when things seem to flow, when I am surrendered and clients come and I am relaxed and happy (more or less). As long as the flow happens I’m OK. But when it slows or falters, or when I feel I have to pay attention to the financial side for other reasons, the part of me that does that, my inner accountant, seems to always operate from a place of fear and anxiety. He is always saying that if I have X number of clients then he will relax and we can have fun again. However, it is clear on several levels that trying to create and manifest from fear is counter-productive.

Earlier this year it came to me. I love what I do, that’s not the problem, when I am working I’m happy, I’m in touch with myself and with others, I come alive. This is where the Love is. And I need clients to be in this place. So I can follow my bliss and call in my clients without engaging the analytic, fearful, financial piece, by focusing on the feeling of the work, the joy of it, the service of it.

If I have enough clients to have a satisfying practice, then I will be “taken care of”, not magically, but as a side effect. So in this way I can let go of the part that is concerned with money, not as an act of pure faith, but knowing that by focusing on how I love my work, I will have clients and they will compensate me.

This may seem like a mental distinction, but it is subtly important for me, and perhaps for you. By returning to my heart and the joy of working with others I am in a place of Love, I am connecting to my Self and to Source, and can create from there. I can even do the promotional tasks I sometimes resist from the joy of finding the next partners in the healing dance. I can let go of the (for me) fearful side of counting clients and doing sums, knowing that it won’t help me to be in the fear that inevitably comes with it.

You can work to have an abundance of work, not because you “need” work, but because you “love” your work. The tricky part is fully releasing the fear, not just in the mind, but in the heart, so that you are truly full of joy, not simply talking yourself out of fear. Then no shadow comes into the intention and you are really walking towards your passion, focusing so powerfully on the joy that there is no room for the fear, you are pulled into the work.

Finding the bliss, the joy, is finding yourself, is being connected to your soul. This is the place of creative power. Feeding your Soul will feed your body also, but it has to come first and be the focus of your attention. Live in joy to work from joy, let go of working from fear as then you will live in fear.

(© 4/10)

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