The Blessing of a Soul

Posted on August 15, 2009 by mcallister

A boy is standing in front of an elder. He is being blessed: blessed for stepping into a circle of men, young men, and other boys with courage, honesty, and a sincere desire to find a path to a healthy manhood.

He has spent several days in a space where he is unconditionally accepted for who he is. Accepted as a human being with both gold and shadow. Held in a space where he can begin to release the shadow and lay claim to his gold.

He has shown great courage to dare to open and be himself.

As he looks up at the elder blessing him, his face is open, full of light and wonder. He is being given full permission to be who he deeply is, in his soul. There is no mask, no need for him to hide in any way, and he has responded to that. I am seeing the beauty of his soul directly in his upturned face.

The boy, a journeyman now, turns and is blessed by the whole group, tumultuously and with great joy and love. He is claiming his right to be golden.

The look on the face of this boy is one of the most amazing and inspiring things I have ever seen. And there is more than one boy, there are many.

When I witness this there is no doubt left in my being that we are children of love and light. That our natural inclinations are to shine our light in the world, that this is what we desperately desire and when we are shown a way we will walk through any sort of pain or fear as mighty warriors to claim our souls.

While I have witnessed this with boys and men, it is clearly about all human beings, female as well as male. We need to do this for all our children. And when we do, the world will be changed.

This weekend I have looked at the future and it is glorious.

(© 8/2009)

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Welcome Home

Posted on August 1, 2009 by mcallister

by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys

Earlier this week I was working with a friend to check in and clear some emotions running through my space. At one point I was invited to open up to my essential self which was floating over my head. Given permission I did so, just by setting the intention, and shortly could feel it dropping in. This was confirmed by my friend. It was actually quite simple and easy.

Last week I was going into some fear around an opportunity to step into a bit more leadership, and was inspired to just drop into myself and invite that part of me (aspects of essential self) that already knew the things I was worried about to come into my awareness. Somewhat to my surprise I could quickly feel a sense of depth and calm as my awareness shifted.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been practicing this, when I need to, or when I remember. Remembering is actually the tough part it seems. Remembering that our essential self is always there, and that opening to it, shifting our awareness a little we are there. There isn’t really anything to learn, to discover, to go to. Unless it is learning to relax into this place of openness inside so that our essential self has room to be felt and experienced.

Once you have experienced this a couple times and know that its there, its a matter of remembering and practicing. Building a new muscle.

When I was working with my friend this week, I had the sense of some resistance to connecting to myself. Asking what this was, I got the clear answer that I was scared. Now there are various fears that can come between our experience and our Self, corollaries to what happens if we are large and powerful and bright. How will the world react to us? But this week I felt something else. Part of my lower self was scared of this internal light shining into the dark spaces where I have hidden things I am scared of. The belief seemed to be, that if I turn on the light in these dark “storage rooms” I’ll see nasty things and so I’m afraid of being afraid, and resist connecting to my essential self as a result.

Makes sense. However, it was also quite clear that there was a piece missing. The belief ignores the very fact that this light is coming from my higher self. When this light of my soul enters, it doesn’t just expose the things in the dark corners, but also brings a great healing power to allow them to resolve, dissolve, and complete. I may feel some of the emotional content while this happens, but from a place of safety and strength, connected to my higher, essential self.

From my own experience , and working with clients this lesson has been clear. When we call in the light of our essential selves, allowing it to come to us (allowing as opposed to willing is important), then it will effortlessly heal and resolve those things that need to be healed and resolved. From the level of Self, there is infinite space, compassion, and grace to be with the lower self’s contractions, and allow them to expand and dissipate.

So I can lay to rest these fears that coming home to my Self will only result in more pain, because the very light that reveals my old pains also gives them space to safely be and heal. I am not alone with them anymore, but am fully resourced to allow them to complete.

So I invite you to practice opening to yourself. Recognizing these fears as they arise and knowing that you can safely lay them aside as they are misleading and false, being only a part of the whole. Knowing that the very aspects of Self you are connecting to will hold you and give you the strength and comfort you need to face and release the things that your light reveals to you.

As your Self drops in, you will no longer be at the same level as when you stored these old things, you will have the resources to unpack and resolve them with compassion and love.

Go forward in joy and faith in Yourself, welcoming yourself home without fear.

(© 7/2009)

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Opening the Heart

Posted on July 15, 2009 by mcallister

The joy of a wedding opens the heart to grief.
The grief of a funeral opens the heart to love.
In this way we are beaten and forged, our hearts made pure and free.

When we loose someone close to us we grieve. We can choose to let the tears flow, feel the emotions flow; choose to open our hearts rather than close them. Then we experience again the love that we had for the one we have lost, and know that we can still be in relationship spiritually, if not physically.

Sometimes we do this in real time. Sometimes it is at a later time. Making space in ourselves to experience grief we clear space to experience love. Like the Grinch at that mythical Christmas, our heart grows larger.

I was at a wedding recently that generated a powerful field of love and community, opening the heart and soul, like a bird spreading its wings wide in the joy of flight. It was a transformative experience. In the next few days I had levels of old grief come up. The energy of love had opened my heart wider and there was more space for the love that is grief to come forth and heal me as well.

Like Rumi I welcomed this unexpected guest, knowing that the cycle moves back and forth, that experiencing this grief, even though I wasn’t even sure what it was about, would in turn open my heart for love even further.

The more we dare to feel, the clearer we become and the more we can feel those things we seek. When we allow ourselves to expand at either end of the spectrum, we expand the whole spectrum, and in time we are freer and freer to choose which end we call home.

Grief is not the enemy of love, but a brother with a different name. If we welcome both as aspects of our ability to live and feel deeply we enlarge our hearts spiritually and there is more space for Spirit to enter in, more space to be alive and present, more space to give and to receive, more space for the energies that are joy and love.

As your heart opens you can “feel” into life more strongly, in yourself, in nature, in others. I invite you to practice this; just intend to open your heart, let your awareness drop into your chest and invite the experience what is already there, gently give it space to be. Or open outward to the trees, the flowers, all of nature is waiting to heal you. We are shifting how we experience this world, and it can help us if we create space to notice our relationship to it.

May you find the joy you seek, remembering that all roads lead to life and love when we walk them with open hearts.

(© 7/2009)

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Amusement and Soul

Posted on July 1, 2009 by mcallister

I’d like to invite you to remember something amusing. Perhaps something you saw, or did, or heard. Now deepen that feeling, set your intention for a fuller experience of amusement, and let go. Distill it down. Notice the images or words and let them fall like leaves in the autumn. Notice the feelings of amusement, the emotional aspects, releasing any other feelings and flowing to something beyond words.

Feel the laughter, in your throat, in your belly, in your heart. If anything limits your laughter, intend to release it. Stay with the physical experience of amusement, and keep distilling. Let yourself be led into the vibration of amusement that bubbles up out of your very cells. Full of play and joy.

Let that feeling expand in you. Dive deep. Through this portal of amusement you are opening into life force itself. Amusement is the tip of the iceberg of love.

Remember a sight in nature that caused you to be so alive that you laughed out loud; a child playing, something a friend said. You couldn’t even say why you laughed, and you knew that it didn’t matter why, just that you felt alive and joyful and the laughter was how it expressed through you.

Let yourself expand, feeling the bubbling of amusement, the deep power of love welling up in your every cell, filling the space between the cells. Relax into this and breath it deeply. Release any limitations. Allow yourself to feel alive in all your being.

True amusement is a state of being that is expansive, it creates space and allows spirit to enter in. It helps us to heal by helping us to let go, to find a little distance from things that are challenging. It is not about making lite of something serious, but it reminds us that we can always invite life in, even when we are dying.

We need no reason to laugh, to love , to feel alive. It is a portal to your essence. Carry it with you and practice it often.

(© 7/2009)

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Grounding and Freedom

Posted on June 15, 2009 by mcallister

I’ve just returned from my daughter’s college graduation. It was a time of joy and celebration, but also of completion for her. Nothing is left behind unfinished. Library fines are paid, parking dues cleared, all papers are finished, classes passed. Perhaps she could advance from one year to the next with some outstanding business, but not for this graduation. Her freedom today is based on having shown up and worked through all these things.

We all have an urge to be free, to be able to fly, metaphorically or literally; to be able to be who we feel we are, to travel, to let go of rules that limit us in different ways. In spite of many efforts we often still feel that in some way we were not as free as we can be, and that being in the human world is a source of this lack of freedom. We came here, acted, reacted and created karma that ties us to coming back here.

Fueled by memories of birth; the shift from a sense of self as a vast spiritual being to a limited human infant we have an urge to be free beyond the earthly freedoms found even in flight, to graduate back to spirit in a way that we do not have to return unless we want to. So we strive upwards even in the body, flee ourselves until perhaps we don’t even feel all of our body.

The catch is that “karma”, our unfinished energetic business is something we carry with us. Its not external judgments, even by Spirit, but patterns we carry that need to unwind and complete. Until we do this we can’t fully graduate, we must return, because this is the only place we can complete them.

So we must learn to be present, on Earth and in the body, because, perhaps ironically, doing this consciously is the only way to release ourselves to go elsewhere. So even when our urge is to flee, grounding into the Earth and into our bodies is not a trap, but the best way to gain the freedom we seek.

Grounding consciously into the Earth, helps us to be more fully present in the body, and helps us to do this safely by giving our energy bodies more form, and better boundaries. Grounding into the Earth helps us to release, update and transform those energies we are carrying that are not in harmony with our souls, to complete the incompletes that tie us here.

By acknowledging the energetic connections to the Earth, as well as the Cosmic we find our own space, give space to the internal traumas and fears so that we can perform the alchemies that set us free karmically and energetically.

Perhaps, like me, a practice of feeling into your legs, your feet, and then down into the ground, until you can feel the earth supporting you, will be useful.

May you find the grace and courage to ground into the earth and be fully present so that you can finish all your outstanding business and graduate into fuller spiritual freedom.

(© 6/2009)

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