It is our conceit as individuals and the delusion we embrace as a nation that we are some how the chosen ones, that leads us to believing that we stand above self-examination.
And to be unable to evaluate ourselves with respect to our maker, our neighbors and our environment, perpetuates a disconnect. It prevents us from seeing how our value of money and personal convenience, rather than the pursuit of harmony or happiness, drives us in a direction that is untenable.
Our most treasured natural resources are the air, the water, the land and the person standing next to us. It is not oil. And to follow an energy policy framed in any other terms is an act of madness.
Or to base, as we have since the end of WWII, our cultural and political identity on the notion that oil is our most valued commodity is to create an economic template that has bankrupted us economically, politically and spiritually.
As individuals we often see the error in our ways, but we accept the notion that we are powerless to do any thing about it and in doing so feel justified in ignoring the consequence of our personal decisions: the decisions that drive the simplest actions of the day from what we eat, to what we drive, to how we discard our trash.
This is not a call for guilting or shaming. It is a call for self-examination. It is a call for you take a moment, go within and ask, Do my daily actions represent me and the things I truly value? or do you rush blindly into tomorrow agreeing and thus behaving as the rhetoric suggest -- that you are unaccountable. Are you silently shaking your head in agreement with the voices implying that you are the victim here, and as such your actions do not count?
Any change in the paradigm, the cultural template, begins, as does an epidemic, with a few. And then quickly spreads through the many. The notion that I am only one is the argument of the so-called helpless when in fact just the opposite is true. The fact that you are an individual is the basis of your power. When you acknowledge that it is not in the heavens that we are all one, but here on earth, then it becomes clear that what you do, does count.
And the epidemic begins.
The statement, "all men are created equal" in the U.S. Constitution is the basis for establishing a relationship between the government and the people as well as between each member of our society. In our countrys history, this founding principle has also been used to guide our relationships with the citizens of other countries and their governments. This principle acknowledges respect for each individual by recognizing we are all playing the same game - the pursuit of happiness. Our constitution goes on to offer details of how to play this game by defining the liberties and rights we each are extended in this pursuit.
Sovereignty of individuals, states and nations are declared. It is a statement of recognizing the autonomy of each - each has its own space.
At some point it seems that our economic model has taken seniority over this founding principle. This model, in simple terms, states that our economy must continually expand. To continually expand we continually consume. We cover up the obvious lie in this notion with the delusion that this is progress. And we protect this lie with the agreement that, "you can not stop progress!"
We have confused progress with change. In our confusion we end up stepping on our founding principle. We are all created equal and we respect your sovereignty but progress marches on. We need your space.
This idea of progress is the most 'marketed item' in our society. We see it daily. In personal terms progress is called self-improvement. And here our confusion continues: we confuse self-improvement with growth.
Maybe we can ask, How does one step out of this game of self-improvement or stop "progress" while continuing to grow?
Perhaps we should consider ourselves, and the space around us, our aura, as an environment. An environment that is both sustainable and ever changing as opposed to one that is continually expanding always in need of improvement.
John Fulton Sebastopol, CA USA
As is Above is Below. Heaven on Earth. As is Within is Without.
A familiar concept regardless of how it is stated. A concept, which we tend to personalize as a guide post on how to live. But for a moment consider these phrases not in personal terms but in mathematical terms. Consider them as equations.
Even the golden rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is an illustration of a mathematical relationship. Alter the statement just a bit and it becomes clearer: Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you. Not just a catchy quote about how things can BE but a statement regarding how things ARE. How things work.
It is a formula. A constant in the universe understood by mystics of old and todays physicist demonstrating cause and effect. Each statement is a formula showing how to turn your energy into an active force or power. The very power or capacity you have through your actions to influence and shape the world around you.
Beginning with your attention at a very early age, you are taught to place your energy outside of yourself. Place you energy into those around you to control or influence how they see you -- make a good impression. Control or place your energy into the environment to make yourself comfortable if not safe.
This approach, placing your energy outside of your body, in an effort to influence others only serves for short periods of time, if at all. And as to making yourself safe by trying to control the environment clearly is not working. By making yourself comfortable and safe through our consumption you in fact are destroying the environment that sustains you. You act contrary to what is known. We place our energy out side of us rather than looking within.
How do you live in a way that sustain the environment that sustains you? We all want to save the environment. But the dismal state of the environment is not just a statement of what is going on around us. It is a statement of what is going on inside of us. Look at our formula.
And how do you change this? Do you continue to place your energy outside of yourself to change the environment?
Or do you begin to live, as the adages state, by placing your energy within? Consider a single simple cell within your body. Consider it as a unique environment. What energy are you placing into that cell? Are you creating a sustainable environment within your body on a cellular level? Look at the impact of the decisions you make that affect the air, the water, and the food all the things you place into that cell.
When you make decisions that sustain that cell and the environment will follow suit.
Myths serve as illustrations of our cultural agreements.
Cultural agreements set the angle from which we all agree to view the day. These agreements bring all of us into a match. They function, as did those school cliques: unspoken but a very specific dictation as to how act and think. These agreements shape
the very image we have of ourselves.
At the center of the western culture is the myth of the Garden of Eden. A place where there was no need to work, we were pain free, and there was no consequence to any decision (bar one), and we lived eternally. A story describing how good things were before we committed the one and only sin available to us. And just as our grade school agreements worked, this story sets the tone for our relationships with all those around us, our environment, and our relationship with ourselves.
The highlight, or tone setter of our myth is original sin. Original sin, simply put, is that the child suffers the consequence of the parents misdeeds. We, as the product of our parents, are forever damaged just as our parents are forever guilty -- we all suffer. Either as guilty or as damaged goods we accept this suffering. Punishment becomes part of our view of the day.
Hence we are now cursed with these four consequences of our parents actions: work, pain, decisions, and death.
In the next four issues we will take a closer look at each of the consequences and consider: is our human nature a curse or a blessing.
Just as we form cliques in high school, we as adults continue to make group agreements. They play out on a large stage; one we call life. These cliques or cultural agreements define for us who we are by giving us a story. A myth which explains our history how we place ourselves in the world today. It describes how we are to view things.
The Garden of Eden and Original Sin is one such myth. With our agreement to this story in place a filter or moral charge is draped over the day. A formula is in place that dictates how we are to view things. Things like work, decisions, pain and death.
Work becomes a necessary evil rather than a step towards self-respect; pain becomes punishment rather than a door to self-awareness; decisions are a burden rather than an expression of our free will and then there is death.
Death in the garden is like a death on the plains of Africa; it happens. But through our looking glass it has become more than another natural event; there are the overtones of a failing. It is a shame, becomes our mantra. With this judgment, this agreement in place we cover death with a lie we pretend that it does not exist. We go around thinking and acting as though we will live forever. We have all the time in the world. And as with all things we have in abundance, we waste.
Death is the acknowledgment of time as finite. Death brings urgency to the moment. And with this urgency there is depth. Each and every moment has value. Recognizing the value of the moment consider your work, how you respond to pain, and how you approach your daily decisions.
Original Sin when taken to the extreme removes amusement from the day. When we have agreed to become nothing more than the expression of this myth we end up attacking with our morals (myth/filter) those around us who are in amusement. (not part of the cultural agreement- clique)?
Anxious, nervous, cannot get settled; things seem to be coming undone this is not an uncommon experience. We all have these moments and as long as they remain just moments, we tend to get by. But there are also times when our anxiety occupies not just a moment, but our day and beyond.
What is happening? What to do?
Consider the body as a recording device. It records the entirety of each moment. Our experience, as information, is stored and then used as reference material. As long as this natural process goes uncensored, we grow. We feel peace and harmony. We get smarter -- ideally.
We mostly work under the notion that it is bad experiences that bring on the anxiety, and the unsettled feelings that grow to occupy our day. Consider that we are, by design, able to handle our experiences, to grow, to move on. It is only when the natural process of recording and storing information is disrupted that things begin to fall apart.
So what disrupts this process? Fear. Fear is what we experience spiritually, as opposed to fright, which is experienced physically. When we as a spiritual being go into fear, we freeze, and this static or non-moving state is what disrupts the body from doing what it is designed to do.
How do we come out of fear? How do we begin to create movement?
Get comfortable and with your eyes closed imagine a movement within the body. There is one there. All you have to do is find it. It will at first appear as a light sensation. Bring more of your awareness onto this movement. Encourage the movement to grow to a point where your entire body is involved in this experience.
Take a moment each day to sit with your eyes closed and imagine movement -- a light sensation of movement within the body.
By way of Hollywood, the impression has been created that the fortune-telling gypsies were relegated to living next to the swamp outside of town because the townspeople didnt want them any closer. But perhaps there was another reason.
Sensitive individuals throughout the ages, regardless of culture, have chosen to isolate themselves from the group. Sages in India have long lived in a cave or on a mountaintop, while monks isolated themselves behind the high walls of a monastery.
Yes, I know we have been taught that we are not telepathic, but there is no way around this one -- you are. You may not acknowledge the event of picking up on the thoughts or the psychic noise around you, but you can acknowledge the effect of doing it.
From what clothes to wear in the morning to lifes larger questions, there are times in which it is a struggle to find an answer, to make up your mind. And this is contrasted against moments in which you experience making a decision with little or no deliberation at all. You simply act. In one experience you are clear and in the next you are paralyzed. Psychic noise -- this is what drives the gypsy to the swamp, the guru to the cave and the monk to the monastery. There they find emptiness no psychic noise.
How do you calm things down inside? How do you clear that ongoing inner dialog that, more often than not, is an obstacle rather than an encouragement?
At Aesclepion it is called finding your space and you can learn to find your space without living next to the swamp.
You are walking down a path and here in front of you is a fork in the road. Both directions look appealing. Nothing down either fork suggests that one direction has an advantage over the other. You pick one and continue your journey. A bit later you wonder, Would the other path have been better? And as you go around the curve you find boulders, not quite blocking, but lying in the path enough that you have to maneuver your way around them. It takes effort. You get past the boulders and after a moment of pride in your accomplishment you again question your original decision, Maybe I should have , and sure enough -- as you round the next corner a more difficult obstacle lies in your path.
The pattern continues until you declare, I wish I had taken the other path! And around the very next bend you find justification of your wish difficulties laden with pit falls. Your wish is now validated your path is blocked.
You could call this a meditation on positive thinking but let us look more at the other side of the coin: self-doubt. What do we do with self-doubt? We all have it. It is in the air and we seem to attract more than our share when we go to make a decision. And the greater the decision, seemingly the greater the doubt.
But let us look closer; does the doubt come before or after the bump in the road? Is your doubt shaping your path? Could it be that what is happening inside your head is playing out in front of you? Are your daily challenges the product of your self-doubt?
Of course, it is easier to say No and learn to point the finger, which many do. But if you look at self-doubt as the space from which you act against yourself, and then consider that doubt turned inward is a shaping force in your path, you now have an answer and a place to start.
The opposite of self-doubt is certainty personal certainty. How do I walk my path in certainty? And which comes first: a positive experience or me in certainty?
Grounding, as both a concept and technique, is central to each of the curriculums taught in the Aesclepion Intuitive Training Programs. We all ground, or attach ourselves to someone or something that reassures us during times of survival or trauma. In daily events it is that friend who sits there patiently as we review our troubles.
The technique
(Read this section and then try it for yourself)
Get comfortable where you sit and with your eyes closed notice your breathing. Imagine an image of a rose. See the stem, the leaves, the flower. Underneath the chair imagine a long, very long rope with an anchor attached to one end. Attach the open end of the rope to the base of your spine. And drop the anchor. Let it fall toward the center of the Earth. Watch it fall. See the rope unravel, being pulled by the anchor. See it falling and now hitting the center of the planet. Take up any slack in the rope making it nice and snug. Notice if your body responds to this.
The concept Grounding is to your body as a lightening rod is to a building. Any excess energy that is thrown or that hits the building is grounded into the earth with no harm to the structure. If a building does not have a lightening rod attached, and its hit, there is damage.
You live in an environment of charges, both negatively and positively charged energy. Imagine each person as a ball of energy. Sometimes there will be an arch of energy from one person thrown into the next. Your grounding acts like the building's lightening rod. Any excess energy that is thrown or picked up by you, but does not belong in your space, is immediately discharged down your grounding cord with no harm done. If you are not grounded, you go home and kick the dog, so to speak. Or call that friend and discharge the energy into their space.
Concerning Pain If we are the friend who is called, it is not uncommon to experience, after we hang up the phone, a headache or some other discomfort. This is the energy that was discharged during the conversation from our friends space into ours. Remember we are all grounded into something or someone.
Ground yourself and then imagine breathing into the pain. If the pain is not yours, it will leave down the grounding. If it remains then it is your pain. Remember that grounding only removes what does not belong in your space. If the pain is yours, it will remain and this calls for the next technique. (Next month well take a look at this.)
Would you put up two roses? Lets have the one on the left represent how much you ground to money and the one on the right represent how much you ground to the center of the planet. Let me say this another way. When your money supply or source is riddled with questions, do you get anxious? And does having lots of money relax you? Then you are grounded to your bank account.
No, there is nothing wrong with this other than when your money is threatened you will feel threatened. You will tend to go into what a clairvoyant calls, survival. If this is how you were taught then in your first aura layer you will have this concept, or the energy, that your survival depends on money. For some, this is why they have trouble managing money and for others it is why they become obsessed with money.
Money is not a survival concept. If your bank account goes to 0 you will not die. Money is an issue of mobility. Or what a clairvoyant calls the third chakra.
In a meditation, imagine taking all of the information you have about money out of your first layer and moving it into your third layer. See if this has any effect on your body. Are you more comfortable?
Now once you have redefined what money is to you, ask this question: Do I need money to do things and to be active, or do I just do things and the money takes care of itself? Ask it another way: Does my money serve me or govern me?
P.S. Given the current rise of fuel prices, many are wandering around is a state of semi-shock. One of our staff did some figuring and it turns out that in a round trip of 60 miles total, as in coming to Aesclepion, the cost is 2 dollars more than your cost of one year ago. And that if you car-pool you have it down to $1.
Our Federal Government is a regional government and just as a citys governing body does not have the capacity to address statewide issues; neither does any one national government have the capacity to address global challenges.
This of course was not an issue when populations or cultures were relatively isolated: we did not see our neighbors problems as having anything to do with us. But today this has changed. It is now clear that one culture and their practices, their way of living, have if not an immediate, then a longer term impact on their neighbors. Problems of water and air quality; food and health issues can no longer be filed under the heading of thats their problem".
Our question then has become one of how do we acknowledge that cultures do weave together and go about addressing the larger issues? Or, more directly, is government and the leaders of these institutions the answer?
No, this is not a call for a change in our system of governing. Besides when did in any time in history, did a government actually solve an issue? Or more accurately when any governing body does act, from where does it get, not just the vision but also, the inspiration to act?
All histories give us the same answer. It is always and only when the individual balancing conventional wisdom with their personal dreams, does any culture or the greater human experiment take a step. It is then easy to imagine that any balanced collective, one that grows, is the reflection of the balanced individual. And in very simple terms, the balanced individual, always dreams.
- John Fulton
Footnote Clairvoyance is not something just for the trained. It sits at the center of your capacity to dream. And, this capacity can be brought into sharpness.
During a visit to the museum find a large painting and as you stand there gazing, choose a color. For instance red and think this color; all while looking at the painting. Hold that for a moment and then change the color. What you will find is that as you think red, all of the red in the painting will jump out at you. And yes, when you change the color you are thinking of, then this color will become the predominate color you see. A simple game that illustrates that what you see is not always what is in front of you, but rather what you are holding inside your head. Now add the other four senses to this notion. And you can begin to see that how you go through a day, and how you experience a day is in many ways determined not by what is outside of you, but rather what you are holding within. If you are walking around holding a thought against yourself, then daily events that validate this consideration will jump out at you. This negative is what you will see. The question then becomes, what is determining what you are thinking. Is it you or not? What is determining what you are holding within? Consider meditation and clairvoyance as tools; tools that when layered together are very simply your ability to see yourself, and maybe ask, Where did this thought come from? Have you ever gotten inside your own head and taken a look around? Be amused if all you find there, is not yours. - John Fulton
We tend to think in terms of big decisions and small decisions. The big decisions have more weigh - or we see the outcome, the repercussion as having more impact on our lives. What job to take, what kind of car to drive, are major and as such we are taught to give them more consideration or take more time in making them.
Small decisions on the other hand, are seemingly insignificant and are made quickly and easily, as the repercussions are less - or so we are taught. A lesser decision might be what to have for breakfast; whom you want to spend your time with today or do you go out for a walk rather than take a nap. It really doesnt matter! becomes the tone.
Let us change this picture: Consider that any opportunity to make a decision (large or small), is an opportunity to act on your own behalf. See it as an opportunity to act on your truth - to be your own advocate.
When you look at the act of making a decision as a spiritual act - then all decisions have an impact. Each so-called small decision is in fact preparation to make the larger decisions. It is you learning to use your intuition, to act from your own truth, to act on your own behalf. To do this you have to be in touch with yourself. Each time you act as such, in communication with the body or in touch with yourself, the decision making process - large or small - becomes smoother.
Look at the phrase faced with a big decision; the phrase implies a confrontational situation. You are faced with a decision that is requiring you to look within yourself for an answer; to act on your own behalf. If you have not taught yourself how to go within, to find your answer, the tendency is to look outside of yourself. Asking someone else to act.
If you consider the small decisions as practice as an opportunity for you to clear the tall grass from your path, then your path becomes clearer and the decisions, all decisions become an act of expressing your truth; you acting in your own best interest.
If you find yourself in a moment looking at a small decision and think, It doesnt matter! raise the red flag. What you are saying is I dont matter! Consider: each decision does matter; acting on your truth, being your own advocate is big each and every time.
...that you radiate; you have a presence or what at times can be described as charisma. Or imagine charisma is a ‘thing’ that occupies the area around you. And yes, there are times that you ‘shine’ while in others you are not so shiny; you are ‘dull’ (And for the record, there is nothing wrong with being dull in my book.).
Yes, there are a host of ‘things’ that can occupy this space around you. Consider that what occupies this space not only determines how we are perceived, but more significantly, how we feel about ourselves. And if this is so, then a good question to ask is to what degree do you determine what is happening in this space.
Sit for a moment and with your eyes closed, get a sense of, or visualize your aura. Now slowly and playfully expand it, in all directions -- Notice how your body feels. Now bring your aura in closer to the body, again taking a read from your body as to its comfort. Find just the right distance from the body, understanding that in different situations this distance or comfort zone may change.
Now for the fun part. Go through your morning as usual, but add to it this game of watching the edge of you aura. Does it change around different people and/or different situations? And as it changes, do you remain comfortable or do you grow uncomfortable. (“I can’t wait to get our of here!”) If you find yourself in a situation that is growing increasingly uncomfortable take control of your aura and set the edge where you want it, as opposed to letting your environment place it for you. What happens?
Recall a time you got something stuck in your head; a song, something someone said, an event from earlier in the day that you replayed, over and over and over. No matter what, it fills your head. This dialogue, song or replay of an event has found a life of it’s own. And the off switch is nowhere in sight. Your thoughts are on steroids.
Not an uncommon or unusual experience for many of us. Possible solutions range from drugs (prescribed or otherwise) or two culturally popular non-intoxication approaches: louder music and/or late night television. Each a solution, but each coming with its own consequence.
The next time you find yourself in this situation try this simple meditation.
Imagine the place in your head that houses your thoughts – and let us call it the analyzer. Now with your eyes closed, imagine the distance between you and the base of your spine; see the distance between you and your forehead; look at the distance between you and your thoughts. Take a minute with each of these steps. And with the last step, sit and watch the thoughts run. Let them run. Just watch. All the while, noticing and emphasizing the distance between you and the thought.
Consider that it may not be the thought that is the problem but the fuel that is perpetuating it. Yes, the event may have passed but you cannot get it out of your head because even ‘now’ it is continuing to be overly fueled and hence re-activated.
So, the question becomes, how do you turn off the fuel?
If the thought is emotional in nature we will work with a point just below the navel. If the thought carries a lot of adrenal then work this next step in the solar plexus.
Imagine a vortex of energy in the area you choose to work. Notice how open the large end of this vortex is and close it down to about 10 percent. Now with your hands together, sit there and hold the image. What happens?
