Gregg Braden on Consciousness

Heart Chakra

diagram from www.americanspiritualhealing.com

I've been thinking about my heart chakra this week.  Probably because I've been in a state of bliss.  My heart has been enjoying that hum of satisfaction that contentment brings.  Almost feels like it's beating just a little outside of my chest and has this magical ability to bring the world around me into harmony.

This is such a lovely place to be.  When I'm here, there is a security that everything will take care of itself!  There is no worry or anxiety ~ just presence.  When I'm in, it feels like nothing can upset the equilibrium.  When I'm out, I can feel myself resisting, wondering how it is you get back in.  As though I must go through an invisible veil.  Truth is you get here through a quantum leap, you don't actually travel through space but suddenly find yourself in a new spiritual location.

The heart chakra is the mid-point.  Our spiritual fulcrum.  The chakras below represent survival. The chakras above embody our spiritual quests.  It is the heart chakra that creates balance between our physical self (need for survival) and our gateway to living higher universal truths.

The forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was reported to have the inscription Know Thyself carved into the stone.   All understanding must begin with the heart.  If the heart is not in harmony with all other aspects of life, there can be no fluidity, no forgiveness, no daring adventures to set sail upon.  It is the brain that acquiesces to the heart, not the other way around.  When the heart is congruently aligned with love, the brain will interpret the world from a vantage of courage and be undaunted by the ebbs and flow of life.  It is in this space that one can begin to know thyself.

The Power is in the Mind

Your Avatar and Spiritual Self

So my question today is... Who is controlling you?

We all go about our lives doing more or less the same kind of activities ~ we all have bodily functions that require attending (eat, sleep), we all need to work (create a means to provide for ourselves), we are all looking for love and friendship.  And within each of these bounds range the extremes ~ those who have everything and those who have nothing.

Lack in any of these areas is a form of dis-ease.  When our bodies don't perform properly we have compromised health.  When our work is disrupted or cut off, our families fall into poverty and disharmony.  Without love and friendship, life loses its meaning and we become depressed.  It is easy to feel like we must protect and cling on to any provisions we've been able to secure.  Our mentality starts to whisper over and over that once we attain it, then we fear we will lose it.

Far too many people are living from this place of fear.  Why?  Because they see themselves as the only one in control.  They take on personal responsibility for securing all areas of their well-being.  They keep too many balls in the air, and suffocate themselves under the weight of their own self-imposed responsibility.

So how do you free yourself and live fear-less-ly?

First of all, recognize that everything in your life flows from your spiritual self.  Even if you don't define yourself as a spiritual person, your ability to give and receive and interact with others in the world comes from a spiritual/universal place.  How these qualities manifest in your physical life determines how your life unfolds.

Think of your physical self as your avatar.  Now realize that it is yours spiritual self that drives this avatar.  Your physical self is merely performing the duties of your own mind, which if you dig a little deeper you'll soon realize is a local connection to the cosmos that births us all.  We have this false sense of independence.

Once we acknowledge that we are a local incarnation of the universal mind, we can accept the presence and peace of being cared for.  This should give us courage.  This should strengthen our spiritual self.  This should open us up to knowing that everything we need is already before us.  We may have to fine tune our receptive frequency to attain it, but it is there.

So, to the question... Who is controlling you?  Only you can answer that.  But remember, your physical self is motivated from your spiritual self.  Once you start getting a handle on that, all things become possible.

Why I Remember

Years ago I attended a Remembrance Day ceremony with my grandfather.  He, like the other Veterans, was dressed most distinguishable.  I had never seen him in uniform before.


I remember being startled by how quickly he seemed to be transformed.  The man who had so often picked me up from school and took pleasure in teaching me to play cards every time my mother got out of ear shot, had somehow slid into the shadows.  Overtaken by a life that taken place decades ago.


I couldn't take my eyes off of him throughout the ceremony.  He stood tall and regal.  Calm and still, but only on the outside.  I swear I could taste the sadness on that November day, which couldn't decide if it wanted to rain or just saturate the air with heaviness.


An inkling of just how terrible those war years must have been, caught me up like a blanket you get tangled in and struggle to get out of.  My heart knew that unspeakable things must have been witnessed.  I could never quite take the man out of the uniform from that day on.


So on November 11, I remember.

New

Come on over to SHE SAID.  Read War God.

See Beyond

Sometimes life is about hurting other people.  Not that we do this with malice.  In fact, we often defer our own happiness because we want so badly to keep the waters calm.  When below the exterior, we are wrought with undercurrents and distress from putting others in front of ourselves.

Lately I've been meeting myself in mirrors and dreams.   And we keep circling around how the future is going to look and feel.  How it has already changed and begun.  How the course is set.  I'm not fearful of it.  In fact, I welcome it.  I smile and breath it in, knowing that it's all going to be fine.  Better.  Even if it takes me a bit of time to find my sea legs once I leave the shore.

There will be collateral damage.  People that will endure a certain amount of bruising and battering.   Whose beliefs will be tested, challenged.  And part of me finds that a daunting burden, the responsibility of it.  Part of me doesn't want to upset the apple cart.  Would rather pretend that these philosophies can be lived with, endured, perpetuated.

But the me that is being called forward, the me that is not afraid and seeks the truth... Knows that our thorns also bear us the most beautiful of flowers.  And that life without provocation stagnates and diminishes.

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”  Ben Okri

Astrological Puzzle Pieces

On the day I was born the sun was in Taurus so in my life I need to keep things simple and calm.  The sun was bathing Saturn in the Eleventh House so I ask questions like "What do you want out of life?  What are your priorities?  How do you create a future according to your deepest interests and values?"

My moon was in the Third House.  In evolutionary terms I'm always asking myself "Can I keep a radically open mind?  Can I discern what is before my eyes?"  According to Steven Forrest this makes for an imaginative, uniquely personal set of views and opinions.

The Crab or Cancer is my Ascending birth sign.  The Ascendant represents your style or the mask you wear in life.  The evolutionary aims of the Crab are to open the inner eye, map the topography of consciousness and express compassion.   My Ascendant sign increases the role of the healer as a natural outflow of my life.