Reducing Resistance: Following the Wild Geese

Posted on July 2, 2016 by mcallister

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

Wild Geese Flying

Flying geese, a long V in the sky over head, winging north in the renewal of spring. Long distance flyers whose main ally is the air beneath their wings, but whose main obstacle is the resistance of that same air through which they must fly. They fly in a V like the wake of a sail boat, the lead goose parting the air in front, reducing resistance for the others flying through that hole as it spreads out behind, each keeping it open for the next goose in line. The lead changes out at regular intervals, a fresh goose moving forward replacing the tired lead goose which cycles to the rear and an easier position deep in the wake. Collaborating, resistance is minimized, the effort for each goose is reduced and the collective can even soar across the Himalayas.

On the ground humans pushing their way through deep snow work together as well. Each person in turn tramps the snow deeper, reducing resistance for the next. They also rotate the lead like cyclists in the tour de France. The advantages of co-operation; reduction of resistance, conservation of energy, and efficiency of action, are easy to see in extreme situations or special circumstances. These principles are equally applicable in most aspects of everyday life.

Basic principles of the natural world such as those found in physics or biology, are pervasive. Efficiency is found everywhere one looks. Water runs down-hill, taking a course of least resistance, reducing its potential energy and powering mills and turbines along the way (“Potential Energy”). Runs become streams; creeks become rivers as water gathers together on its way to the sea, following the easiest paths year after year.

The goal in T’ai Chi is to relax, to move effortlessly. Holding postures, I feel into the body, listening to the force of gravity. It flows effortlessly through me when my body is in proper posture. It will pull and tug on me when I am tense and resisting it. Over time gravity points out all the places I am holding on, resisting, fearful of falling or letting go. With practice I learn that I can relax, let go, and not fall down. Releasing effort down into the ground, I become solid and light, free and effortless. As in all human endeavors, there is a direct correlation between fear, resistance, and effort. Releasing internal resistance, the individual parts of the body/being become an efficient, collective: whole. By listening to gravity with your body, you can learn how to do anything in the most efficient way; you can conserve energy by allowing your body to be as graceful and effortless as possible.

Group Tai Chi

The practice of yoga is likewise a space to learn, to listen to the body, to feel into gravity, find tensions, relax and release; to become whole. Breathing in and breathing out you can practice effortlessness and connecting to your Self (McAllister “Clearing Stones”), cultivating inner harmony and coherence.

Entering a dark room you flip a switch, a circuit is closed and electrons flowing along wires in the wall move forward to the light bulbs that bring light into the room (“Electric Light Bulb”). The copper atoms in the wires are aligned in regular crystal patterns, allowing the electrons to flow easily from one to the next. At room temperatures there are imperfections in the crystals as well as misalignments between crystals so that as the electrons move they bump and shove occasionally, encounter resistance like the lead goose pushing through un-parted air (“Electrical Resistance”). This is electrical resistance and it produces heat. In the light bulb a change in materials purposely uses resistance to produce light from the force, pushing the electrons from their source through the circuit. Heat is wasted energy in the wires, or, at extremes, even dangerous.

The problem of resistance and heat is ongoing in the engineering of modern electronics. As circuits become smaller and denser, how do you release the heat as electricity flows through processors, or vast arrays of memory chips (“Computer Cooling”)? The easiest way is to reduce its production to begin with; to use fewer and fewer electrons to accomplish the same tasks. Conservation and efficiency. Engineers can also reduce resistance by creating special conductor materials. Increasing efficiency, reducing resistance, conserving energy: the production of unwanted heat is minimized.

In your own body remember the feeling of fear. Fear is the essence of emotional resistance and manifests as tension, even heat. Fear consumes energy. When you can tune in, release the fear, relaxing the resistance, then life force flows more freely through you. In the classic movie Pat and Mike (1952), Katherine Hepburn’s character (an athlete) talks about how you should never focus on your opposition, but only on yourself. She comes into her own when she believes in herself and reclaims her power, taking it back from others whom she has allowed to keep her in fear. It is our own internal fear and the emotional resistance it generates that hinders us most in accomplishing the things we dream of.

Throughout the physical world, and in most living systems, reduced energy use, efficiency, is a foundation principle guiding form and design. One aspect of this is to reduce internal or external resistances, allowing actions to be maximally efficient (“Biomimicry”). This is found on all scales, from the molecular, to the personal, to the collective. Only modern humans allow resistances, fears, even resistances to fears, to define us, constrain us, and lead us to inefficient behavior that ultimately does us a great disservice.

You may be familiar with the personal journey out of the third chakra fear state of “not enough”. This state takes many different forms, but arises from our human individuality and the sense of limitation and separation that comes from not remembering that we are also human Spirits, connected and part of Divinity, and are “inherently enough”. It is extremely common in our modern culture, and common in many, but not all cultures (Lawlor 37). We journey towards a state of connection. This is a fourth chakra experience, of love for ourselves, of being loved by the Self and the universe (McAllister “Silence”). In this state we remember we are sufficient, we are connected, nourished, and life flows effortlessly through us. Resistance is reduced. We still carry water and chop wood, but remembering the Spiritual nature of our being, we are in internal alignment with ourselves, emotional resistance and fear are transmuted, and we experience life in a very different way. Knowing we are enough and trusting Spirit and the flow of energy in the universe, we are resourced, sufficient in our Selves and come cleanly into connection/community with others. We are doing T’ai Chi, at peace with gravity. We are the geese flying, in collective harmony, both inside and out.

Windmills in CO

This personal journey has a corresponding collective transformation. One way that we react to the “not enough” state is to consume, to fill up our emptiness, to cover up our fear. This takes an infinite number of personal forms, varying widely in intensity and functionality. It is to this aspect of self that the advertising industry makes its pitch. It is around us in our general culture, like turbulent air around a goose. The collective form is the idea that we should measure the health of an economy by its size. This means that the more we collectively mine, manufacture and consume, then the better off we are. So we are prompted to consume more and more, without end. Unfortunately ever increasing consumption does not reduce the deep personal fears, or the collective ones. It is very far from the minimizing of resistance, the conservation of energy, and the collectivity of our friends the geese.

Maximizing consumption is only sustainable if resources are infinite. Otherwise, as the economic system keeps growing, eventually the resources supporting it will be exhausted and the system will collapse. This is inevitable. Examples in nature of species exhausting their supplies, can be found (Diamond). The species collapses, or even becomes extinct. There are examples of civilizations exhausting their resources, or their resources drying up (Janssen “Overexploitation”). They have also collapsed. Collapse does not serve a species or a civilization, but others can arise, or they may migrate and start over.

Today we live in a global culture, inhabiting an increasingly finite home. We have moved well past the point where humanity, collectively, is pushing against the limits of resources on planet Earth. Due to both increasing population and the ongoing evolution of that population to a high resource lifestyle, resource usage levels are well above longer term sustainability. We are now looking at the exhaustion of the whole planet, and that is not recoverable (Yeo “Humanity”).

The current situation regarding oil in the United States illustrates the almost addictive nature of the process. Both the US and the world are producing so much oil, above the ability of the general economy to use it, that not only have prices fallen 70% in the last year and a half, but we are awash in stored oil. In the US, stored stocks of unused oil are higher than they have been in 85 years since the beginning of the Great Depression (Dom; Kennedy; Kraus).Oil is still being produced even as the price per barrel continues to plummet money-loosing levels. We are using more and more resources, generating more and more electricity, and at some point the growth will inevitably max out. Some people say we are already approaching this point for some key resources (Goodchild “Depletion”).

Meanwhile there is a more immediate concern: the waste that is co-produced with the energy that runs our economic engines. Resistance produces heat in electrical wires. Producing global electricity, we create CO2; which similarly results in the heat of global warming (Shaftel & Tenenbaum). We are in danger of not only exhausting our planet’s resources, but also of cooking ourselves like a frog in a pot (Boiling). We are heating the planet until it transitions to states that will not support human life, at least not as we know it (Hulac, Holthaus); and will not support much of the rest of the species and ecosystems on which we ultimately depend. It is madness to continue this path.

Solar Field

In our personal journeys we work to shift the emphasis from our adrenals to our hearts, from fear (resistance) to love (spaciousness), from tension to relaxation, quantity to quality of consumption, community and relationship rather than everyman/woman for her/himself. Globally, we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift, a rethinking of our guiding principles, and a re-visioning of our collective future, from a maximize consumption paradigm to a minimize energy philosophy. This returns us to alignment with the way the rest of the universe works. We are being invited to return to the way the geese fly, to learn environmental T’ai Chi, to remember efficiency and cooperation.

This is happening, and we must still make our individual choices. All the personal journeys to become whole, free from fear, to find Love and create community, are part of this global change. Our journeys are what feed the change and sustain it.

Even in the economic sphere, that most materialistic arena, there is a sea change in how we produce our electricity (“Factboot”, Randall). We are at the point where (worldwide) more investment is going into renewable energy than into traditional fossil fuels, and this is expected to accelerate. It is happening in spite of the drastic recent drop in the cost of hydrocarbons (McDonald “Clean Energy”), in part because the pricing for solar and wind energy is also dropping, especially solar (Richard “This Striking Chart”). It is important that extraction of fossils fuels only gets more expensive over time, but the prices of the technologies that produce solar and wind will continue to drop. Even the International Energy Association, a fairly conservative trade group, recognizes these trends (IAE “Energy Outlook”). In fact, while low prices make oil and gas more affordable, they make it less economically profitable to produce. On the other hand, the cheaper solar cells get, the more they are used and the cheaper they become.

The change in energy generation is happening because humanity collectively is choosing to release its fear, to avoid being cooked in the pot, to pursue choices based on basic physics, which are also the choices of the heart and the soul. By doing this “within”, we reduce our internal and external resistance, reconnect to Source and come together in community to create a beautiful world for all peoples. Collectively we remember to embrace conservation and efficiency in our use of resources, choosing long term sustainability over short term gain. Coming into alignment with our true Selves, we are guided and supported by the fundamental principles of the physical universe and biological systems that we are surrounded by.

It is happening. The resistance of outdated thinking and economics is being reduced, all because of your personal and collective choices. We are the change, and what we do both personally and collectively, matters.

Releasing Resistance…

There are many ways to practice this. Validate places where you already are. Pick a few of these to deepen into, or a few new ones that you can begin to explore. Relax and find flow in your life, not more “should’s” and “ought to’s”.

Personal

1) Relaxing and Releasing Fear: Working with a mindfulness or other meditative practice can help clear your internal resistances, creating spaciousness and smoother flow of life force. [for example, meditations in the two SYJ references above]

2) Reducing Stress: Notice where stress enters your life. Some stress will point to internal tensions you can release. Once released inside they pass on by outside. Others stresses do not serve at all and are best eliminated over time.

3) Reducing Effort, Cultivating Efficiency. Whatever you are doing, physically, emotionally, or mentally, cultivate an attitude of relaxing into it. Find things to appreciate. Make a game of how to be most efficient and effortless. Listen to your being and let it guide you.

Collective

4) Choose Nourishing Food: notice what you consume, on all levels. Begin to let go of things that cause tension or unease. Find balance in what does serve you. Reduce the recycling of negative words, thoughts, emotions.

5) Relationship: we are parts of the whole. Meditation on coming into right relationship with the people in your life, with work, with nature. Consider which relationships nourish you and which do not. Explore ways of improving these, creating healthy community.

6) Reuse, Recycle, Reduce: be curious about where your consumables come from. How are they produced, how far are they transported? Use your creativity to reduce consumption volume and planetary footprint, while increasing the quality of your consumption, your satisfaction.

7) Renewables: cultivate awareness around supporting the global transition to renewable energy. In many places now there are options to source your energy consumption from exclusively renewables.

Love yourself, kiss your beloved, change the planet. Personal cultivation of Love radiates into the global energy fields. Every choice of Love over Fear, small or large, contributes to the whole.

References

“Biomimicry”, Biomimicry Institute, 2015. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://biomimicry.org/biomimicry-examples/#.Vru8UlI7oeU

“Boiling Frog”, Wikipedia, 24 January 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

“Computer Cooling”. Wikipedia 18 February 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cooling

“Consequences of Depletion of Natural Resources”, The World Counts. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/consequences_of_depletion_of_natural_resource
“The Electric Light Bulb”, Cyberphysics. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.cyberphysics.co.uk/topics/electricity/home/light_bulb.htm

Diamond, Jared. Collapse. Penguin Group, 2005.

Domm, Patti. “This is why oil glut not going away soon”, CNBC, Market Insider, 27 Jan 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/27/this-is-why-oil-glut-not-going-away-soon.html
“Electrical Resistance”, Wikipedia, 20 February 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_resistance_and_conductance

“Factbook: A Landmark Year for US Energy Evolution”, Bloomberg, Feb 4 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://about.bnef.com/press-releases/factbook-a-landmark-year-for-us-energy-evolution/
Goodchild, Peter. “Depletion of Key Resources: Facts at Your Fingertips”, Culture Change, 27 January 2010. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/597/1/

Holthaus, Eric. “The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here”, RollingStone, Aug 5 2015. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-point-of-no-return-climate-change-nightmares-are-already-here-20150805

Hulac, Benjamin. “Global Warming”, ClimateWire, reprinted in Scientific American, January 15, 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/top-economic-risk-of-2016-is-global-warming/

“IEA 2015 Energy Outlook”, International Energy Agency, Nov 2015. Print & Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/WEO2015SUM.pdf

Janssen, Marco A. ; Scheffer, Marten, “Overexploitation of Renewable Resources by Ancient Societies and the Role of Sunk-Cost Effects”, Ecology and Society vol 9 2004. Print & Web 25 Feb 2016. https://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handle/10535/2617

Kennedy, Charles. “Glut Worsens as U.S. Oil Storage Levels Rise Again” 24 feb 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Glut-Worsens-as-US-Oil-Storage-Levels-Rise-Again.html

Krauss, Clifford. “Oil Prices: What’s Behind the Drop? Simple Economics”, NY Times, February 16, 2016. Print & Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/business/energy-environment/oil-prices.html
Lawlor, Robert, Voices of the First Day, Inner Traditions International, Rochester VT, 1991. Print.

McAllister, Alan. “Clearing Stones”. Shakti Yogi Journal, Winter 2016. Web & Print 25 Feb 2016. https://www.shaktiyogijournal.com/clearing-stones/

McAllister, Alan. “Listening to Stillness”. Shakti Yogi Journal, Winter 2015. Web & Print. 25 Feb 2016. https://www.shaktiyogijournal.com/listen-to-stillness/

MacDonald, Jennifer. “Clean energy defies fossil fuel price crash to attract record $329bn global investment in 2015”, Bloomberg, 14 January 2016. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://about.bnef.com/press-releases/clean-energy-defies-fossil-fuel-price-crash-to-attract-record-329bn-global-investment-in-2015/

“Pat & Mike” (1952), IMDB. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045012/reference

“Potential Energy”, The Physics Classroom, Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/energy/u5l1b.cfm

Randall, Tom. “Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables: This is the beginning of the end.” Bloomberg. Apr 14. 2015. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-14/fossil-fuels-just-lost-the-race-against-renewables

Richard, Michael Graham. “This striking chart shows why solar power will take over the world”, Tree Hugger, April 15, 2015. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/striking-chart-showing-solar-power-will-take-over-world.html

Shaftel, Holly; Tenenbaum, Laura. “Global Climate Change”, NASA. Web 28 Feb 2016. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

Walter, Michel. “Dates of exhaustion of our planet’s economically exploitable resources, at current rates of consumption” for Terre Sacrée (Sacred Earth), 20th July 2008. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.terresacree.org/ressourcesanglais.htm

Yeo, Sophie. “Humanity Has Exhausted The Earth’s Natural Resources”, Counter Currents, 21 August 2013. Web 25 Feb 2016. https://www.countercurrents.org/yeo210813.htm

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Body and Soul

Posted on June 11, 2016 by mcallister

Alex Grey Body and Spirit

Two weeks ago I developed appendicitis, which led eventually to the emergency room. After a long three days in hospital I came home and have been recovering nicely.

Lying in bed after awakening from the procedure my attention was drawn into my body. There was not a lot of pain, but various discomforts that were often hard to alleviate. Heightened awareness of stresses in my abdomen, on the surface and throughout my intestines. A level of mindfulness enforced by trying to lie comfortably and sleep, in spite of tubes, leg massagers, and around the clock interruptions from hospital staff.

My attention dialed inwards, I practiced being present and aware, breathing. I set Reiki symbols into my hands and lay them over my abdomen, like a mantra, over and over. I talked a bit with my guides, asking their help, both with the healing and with relaxing my mind. The mind is very creative and was trying desperately to do something, figure something out, because this is what it does. From a single thought or two, suddenly it would be giving a speech, crafting a movie, or starting off on an epic dream. It was not actually helpful, but it was unusually easy to notice, appreciate and release.

What was harder, was to let go of my body’s fear. It knew that it had danced with death. It had experienced pain, had been knocked out, invaded by an internal wound and then several external interventions. It was presently trying to fight infections, heal several incisions, reestablish a disrupted digestive system and somehow rest. I found I could be present with all this, but not really surrender into it. Some deep level of me wanted to live, wanted to heal, to be through the journey and out of the hospital.

I had amazing support, from my beloved, from the great hospital staff, from my guides and angels. Awareness is the first step in any process of healing or change. I had that. But the ability to have faith down into my cells, to relax into my support, in the face of physical challenge and threat was not there. I was mindful getting in and out of bed, walking slowly through the hallways. Back at rest however I could feel the deep hum of fear in my body.

I am grateful to this deep physical level of my being. It navigated me through an extreme situation. I am grateful that I live in a time and place where there are people who helped me navigate it safely. I am grateful to my spiritual resources and guides, who were with me even when I was distracted. I am even grateful to be aware of the fear, so that I can walk with it and perhaps one day release it as well.

Returning home some of my fear relaxed. I have found it easier to surrender into the process as I am more certain of a positive outcome. And the deep fear is still moving through and out of my body. I practice sitting with it as it comes up, coming back to breath and center, and letting it boil off. It is a deep level of learning to be OK, here and now, in spite of whatever is going on, letting go of the voices that say “I’ll be OK when..”, to stay present with my body, but let go of its fear. I also continue to practice a deeper body mindfulness throughout the day.

As human beings we are body, mind and spirit. Learning to be all these at the same time, to integrate and weave them together, so that we can marry Heaven and Earth, live from our Soul while in the body, is an amazing challenge. We can listen to our body’s wisdom, our heart’s loving, and our Spirit’s knowing as a balanced chorus, coming closer to being both present and surrendering.

(© 6/2016)

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Spiritual States

Posted on May 4, 2016 by mcallister

Sunlit Grass

The first time my heart blew open I was in the Austin DMV. In this utilitarian and emotionally stale place, I was suddenly in Love, in touch with a different experience of the world around me, one that scintillated with Light and vibrated with Joy. It seemed an odd place to have a transcendent experience, but there it was, a gift from Spirit, a taste of another way of being.

The body that experienced that afternoon is the same one that at other times experiences hunger, pain, or the soothing touch of my beloved. It is the same body that experiences fear, anger and sadness and all the other emotions. As humans we experience a great deal through our body, but not all of these experiences are on the same level.

Our body/being is comprised of physical, emotional and mental aspects. These are integrated layers. The bio-chemistry of emotions and thoughts is similar and intertwined. The pain of physical injury is magnified by our emotional and mental reactions. Thoughts stimulate emotions, and the other way around. The body not only experiences, but also stores and associates the different levels.

This same instrument also expresses and experiences our spiritual Self, the transcendent states of Joy, Love, Spaciousness, Deep ease, Connection and more. Learning to be aware of the body is necessary to being aware of spiritual states of being. However when our body is full of pain, grief, or other old patterns, these color or even overwhelm new experience, especially the subtler vibrations of our Spirit.

In order to live from our Spiritual self we must learn to distinguish the states of being that are the Soul from the physical and emotional sensations of the body. Just as we may confuse the experience of hunger with the experience of emotions felt in our belly, we can confuse excitement and Joy. The former is an emotion related to fear, the later is a expression of our Soul.

It is hard to feel strong emotion and be aware of a spiritual state at the same time. The more we get to know our emotions and come into a positive relationship with them, the less we identify with them, the less we are caught up in reacting to them. There begins to be space for us to experience the spiritual states of our Being. Experiencing these states we can cultivate them, tune to and embody them more consistently. This is part of awakening, learning to discriminate how the various levels of our whole being manifest in and through the body. Knowing these differences we can choose which to give our attention to, and therefore which ones we are mostly experiencing.

Our body/being can create new habits experiencing and expressing the Love and Joy that we are. Knowing these states and focusing on them, the physical and emotional sensations and feelings become less insistent, less engaging and distracting. Letting human emotions flow like the weather in the background, our main awareness remains centered in the spacious peace and deep certainty of our Spiritual Being.

With practice we can experience the opening of the heart in Joy and Love more often and more consciously, cultivating a new way of Being in the world, a new way of experiencing our Self and our Life.

(© 5/2016)

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Spiritual Leverage

Posted on April 4, 2016 by mcallister
Moving the World

I stub my toe and it hurts. I see a rattle snake and I am afraid. Someone in my family transitions through death and I grieve. I encounter a new idea and am eager to explore it. All these reactions are part of being human; physical feelings, emotional states, mental pictures and beliefs. When the engagement is deep, the emotional charge lingers in memory and colors the way we perceive our world. Molding our personality, making up what we usually think of as who we are.

As embodied beings we are constructed to pay attention to these experiences.Those that have the largest charges are the ones that seem closest to our awareness and loom largest in shaping our lives. Evolution has built this into us for purposes of survival, but often these old imprints out live their usefulness, distorting our experiences in unhelpful ways. In the present they keep our attention on things that do not serve our well being.

Archimedes said “if you give me a lever and a place to stand I can move the world”. It is hard to move/change the world when you are caught up in the experience of it. But when you step outside of it, rise above it, connect to the Light and Love that is your essential being, then you have leverage over the everyday things. In that place you are larger and you have a place to stand from which you can transform your experiences of living in the physical world.

From the spiritual perspective physical experiences recede. The physical levels of being are farthest from Source, farthest from the core of our Spiritual being. In Spirit what is closest to us are the consistent experiences of Love, of Peace, of the Quiet Strength that is who we are as Spiritual beings. Part of us always exists there.

We are the physical manifestation of spiritual energetic emanations from the Divine. As is the rest of the universe. From thoughts in the Cosmic mind, the patterning of form passes through all the levels of existence until it embodies in the physical. This projection is not a single creative event, the Soul entering the body and then being cut loose to fend for itself. Though it often feels like that to our human consciousness. Cosmic projection is ongoing, supporting the physical form as long as it exists.

Our human attention is caught and focused on what is close to us, making it seem important and large. When we begin to walk our spiritual path, we begin to become aware that there are other levels that exist. As we open to them they allow us to shift perspective, to choose more broadly what is near and what is far, to give our attention to the Spiritual properties and aspects that have always been there. With spiritual awareness, we can step back from experiences and memories that do not serve us, gaining leverage over them. With perspective on what is truly large and what is small, we can rearrange the pieces in our world, bringing close that which serves us and letting recede that which doesn’t.

Remembering that we are the children of the Divine, projections from Source, we can free ourselves to engage this embodied world in a powerfully different way. We can bring Light and Love to all that we are and all that we experience, increasing Joy and Abundance for all.
(© 4/2016)

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Celebrate Life

Posted on March 1, 2016 by mcallister
Celebrate Life

Celebration is the action of recognizing and marking the pleasurable nature of some important event or accomplishment. One might also say that it is a state of being, validating that in this moment it is good to be alive, feeling joy and appreciation and expressing that in action.

Many years ago I was in graduate school, studying for my PhD. After taking a set of basic classes I had to give a presentation followed by questions from a panel of faculty members. This panel would then give a thumbs up or down on whether I could continue in the program, researching and writing a thesis, and finally receiving my degree. I was nervous about this presentation, and even more so about potential questions afterwards, as these could be about anything in physics. Even though I had done well in my courses, and was prepared on my topic, the prospect of answering open field questions was intimidating.

On the day, my presentation went well. One of the first questioners, a brilliant professor in different field, asked a question which I answered in a way he wasn’t expecting. The other faculty assured him that I was in fact correct. After that he sat back and the rest focused on topics I knew.

When it was over I felt relieved. I certainly had cause to celebrate. Rather than being present in the moment and allowing myself to enjoy a sense of accomplishment, my mind was telling me that I was lucky to scrape through. As if I had fooled them somehow.

I had performed well in the actual circumstances. There was reason to believe that I would continue to perform well in the future, going on to earn my degree. Which was how it played out. But this was somehow not good enough. Perhaps part of me thought it was dangerous to feel too good, that I would be inviting something bad. Perhaps my internal critique was keeping me under its thumb.

I don’t remember now if I did anything to celebrate, or just went home and got on with things. I do remember my inability to celebrate myself.

Many years later it is clear that it is always good to celebrate accomplishments or happy events. It is moreover important to celebrate simply being alive in this human body. Important to feel joy and validation through all of the events of the day. This is our spiritual nature, who we are. Like many other qualities of spirit we can choose to cultivate them all the time, rather than waiting for some particular set of circumstances.

My guides recently suggested writing out a list celebratory activities, to feel into what I can do by myself, with my beloved, with friends or family to celebrate something. The feeling state of celebrate is more important than the specific acts, though they should be acts that feed the soul, and nurture the body.

My guides then pointed out that once I had the list, why wait!? Go ahead and regularly, or spontaneously, do things on it. Celebrate all the time. Celebrate being alive and connected to spirit. Celebrate anything and everything. Practice bringing joy, validation, and enthusiasm into the present moment of your life.

I suspect that the more I cultivate celebration, the more things I will find to celebrate 🙂 I expect this is true for you too. And if some voice in your head questions this, joyously give it permission to go swimming in a lake.

(© 3/2016)

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