I’ve also paid attention differently this week to when I’m grounded, when I’m not and when I let grounding go by choice. Suprise…sometimes being grounded gets in the way.

Being grounded, i.e. fully in my physical body and present to what’s going on in the world around me, seems to be most useful when I’m engaged in external activities….particularly if those activities are left-brained. When I’m trying to balance my checkbook, in the grocery store or engaged in problem solving, being grounded helps me stay more centered, focused in a linear way and on track with what I’m doing. Those are linear, rational activities.

Grounding also helps me be more present and capable when it comes to things that engage my right and left brain. These are the times I need to flow between logic, intuition, linear and random. This comes up for me when I’m working on a clients healing plan or listening to someone talk and I want to both hear the words and feel what’s under them.

I need the ability to ground. It helps me get things done, but honestly I don’t like how constricting it feels at times. It’s weighty, has edges and feels like a box. I feel the pull of what’s soupy, unbounded and unformed. I need to float around in watery Piscean energy, in the nothing that’s pregnant with unformed possibility.

I write poetry and I draw…and guess what? I don’t do either of those things well when I’m grounded. So that right brained, creative, random part of me is happier when I’m not grounded.

The startling discovery this week was realizing that grounding isn’t black and white. I’m not either grounded and ungrounded. I’m usually straddling the two. Something about that between place makes it easier for me to flow between the two states and make choices that work in the moment.

Occasionally the person who the choir is asked to sing for, does die before the choir is able to sing for them. Yesterday Pam commented that in the last five requests the choir has received, all the people have passed before the choir was able to sing for them.

I found this particularly curious. Personally I’ve noticed that more and more people seen to be deciding to leave the planet. Honestly I can’t say I blame them. There is SO much upheaval going on in on the personal, transpersonal and planetary levels. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think getting the heck out of the way didn’t sound appealing at times too!

However, as more and more people are choosing to get off the planet….less and less of them seem to be making a complete exit. One of the things I’ve noticed in the last few months is the increase in the number of disembodied spirits who seem to be just hanging around on the physical plane…as if they’ve been stranded “between”. They are no longer able to interact with the physical plane, but they haven’t entirely left it either. Every time there is a large “natural disaster”, like the recent events in Japan, the number of disembodied spirits increases temporarily. Exiting the physical plane in a violent, unexpected manner or as part of large group event, seems to create a situation where the newly freed souls need time to integrate their new status.

The increase I’ve noticed began before the tsunami in Japan. Disembodied spirits are collecting in small groups in odd places…like the grocery store, post office and the field next to my house. They don’t seem to want anything. They aren’t agitated. They’re just hanging out. The vast majority of the disembodied spirits I’ve encountered previously are either stuck in some sense or have a definite purpose for hanging out on the physical plane.

Yesterday when Pam mentioned her recent experiences with people requesting a sing from the threshold choir and dying before the choir gets to them, it struck me that more people seem to be leaving…but only making half an exit.

So what is up with that?

Pam and I had dinner last night to celebrate Pryanta Healing’s seven year anniversary. At dinner, our conversation turned to Bin Landen’s death. For over a decade Bin Laden has been an embodiment of “evil” for our country and perhaps others. Bin Laden has been the bad guy. He’s been the ultimate “the ends justify the means” rationalization for belief systems, choices, and actions for the US and for many people on a personal level.

Personally I find myself saddened that we, as human beings, still have the need to make a person into the symbol of “evil”. It’s such a dualistic perspective; one that allows us to not to look at ourselves by perpetuating the illusion that all the “evil” is out there attached to some other person-country-belief system and has nothing to do with us.

Our world is so fractured, so plagued by the “us and them”, either/or mentality. When we make a person into the symbol of “evil” for the world, we continue to perpetuate that mentality. I see so much of this either/or duality in the world. On a personal level, the tough part is that the either/or mentality in the world is a mirror for the pieces of that same belief system that I hold. The call to consciousness is in looking at where I still hold that in myself and how can I shift that in me. This is something I’ve been working on for years. I’m sure I’ll still be working on it the day I keel over.

Watching the Bin Laden death celebrations, I’m also reminded of how I felt when others express a wish that someone would get rid of George W. Bush. My immediate response was “Yes, can we please make him go away”. But under that was an awareness that what we have in our world is what human consciousness supports. Osama Bin Laden was in the position he was in for years because that’s what human consciousness supported. In a sense, he was a figurehead for the beliefs, fears, prejudice and anger held in human consciousness.

In a bigger picture, I don’t believe Bin Laden’s death really changes anything. No, he is no longer a living symbol of “evil” for us. But all the distorted beliefs, fears, prejudice and anger that pushed us to need a living symbol for “evil” are still intact. Bin Landen’s death didn’t change the aspects of human consciousness that supported his existence.

We have to shift that ourselves. Bin Laden’s death does give us an opportunity to chose something different and not create another living symbol for “evil.” We, as individuals, can’t change the world. The world is too big. We can only change ourselves. On a personal level, Bin Laden’s death is an opportunity to look at the “us and them”, either/or in ourselves. Maybe it’s time to take inventory. See what’s there and ask ourselves some questions. Does this serve me? How much of either/or is simply a reflection of fear that I want to shy away from? Do I want to continue to hold this duality or step into something bigger?

I actually read something recently about time speeding up. I can’t seem to find the article again or I’d post a link to it. The article was talking about Earth’s rotation rate, etc. Honestly a lot of the scientific bits I didn’t entirely understand, but the gist of the article was that yes, time is speeding up. Albert Einstein postulated that this was possible when he realized that time was relative…..that time can speed up or slow down depending on how fast one thing is moving in relation to another.

If I’m experiencing time speeding up, I’m not aware of it. What I am aware of is time jumping and being more erratic. I’ve heard from a couple other people who are having similar experiences since the Winter Solstice. Several times I’ve been at the computer working on something for what felt like an hour or so. When I look up at the clock, 2-3 hours have gone by. I’ve also experienced working on something for what felt like a long time, only to look at the clock and only 15 minutes have gone by.

I’m sure some of that is a shift in my perception of time, but that’s not all of it. When I’ve felt like I’d been working on something for long time, even though the clock doesn’t agree, what I’ve gotten done matches my experience of how much time has passed and not what the clock says. If I could figure out how to create more of that I probably would!

I work with time anyway. For the past few years I’ve experienced spurts of losing my “when”. It’s usually a few minutes or seconds when my consciousness seems to jump to a different “when”. It’s not a precognitive, jump ahead a couple minutes into the future experience. I seem to jump way ahead or step temporarily into a possible timeline that my choices didn’t create as part of my experience. We’re all multi-dimensional beings. These experiences feel to me like flashes of actually experiencing myself as multi-dimensional rather than just knowing that I am.

Since the winter solstice I’ve experienced more of those moments. That, coupled with the fact that I don’t seem to be the only one experiencing this, makes me wonder what happened in the intense solstice and lunar eclipse energy that relates to time.

We’re also teaching a new workshop, Learning To Surf In An Energetic Storm, on Saturday January 29 and Sunday January 30. So many of us are feeling a bit overwhelmed right now by the amount of old wounding that’s coming back up….and not in a gentle or subtle way. I’m experiencing this myself. This workshop is focused on taking a look at the bigger picture, at why so many of us are getting pushed right now, and look at how we can move with what’s happening rather than resisting. If you’re interested in downloading a flier/registration form, it’s available here.

Saturday, January 29 from 7-9 we’ll be doing a free intro to our work. If you’re interested in the event flier, it’s available here.

This is my favorite winter holiday. I’m feeling even more drawn to this holiday than usual. Solstice feels like a perfect time for a full lunar eclipse.

For me it’s  a time to acknowledge and celebrate the vital relationship between darkness and light. With all that’s going on in our world, I hear more and more people talking about “bringing in more light”, needing “more light”, etc. I don’t disagree. However, I do see how this emphasis on light easily contributes to a belief that “light” is the answer to all that we feel despairing of in our world. This seems further push us into dualistic thinking: light which is good vs. dark which is bad.

If you think about it the adjective most often used to describe bright light is “blinding”. The same goes for pure darkness. Both darkness and light alone create blindness, not illumination. Even our physical eyes require both dark and light to see anything. The same came be said of any kind of vision: spiritual, internal, energetic or physical. We need to the interplay of darkness and light to see. Darkness and light serve each other. Balance, in our world and in ourselves, comes from giving each of these things an equal place.

Solstice is a great time to honor the place both darkness and light have in our lives. It’s a time for gratitude at what is balanced in our lives and taking stock of where we are out of balance. It’s also an ideal time to reflect on our relationship with both darkness/shadow and light in ourselves.

Solstice blessings to all. May your day be filled with a beautifully woven balance of darkness and light.

So what is non-ordinary reality? The first two places I ran into that term were: a book by Stanislav Grof (a psychiatrist who created holotropic breathwork) and an article by Michael Harner (founder of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies).  Michael Harner used the term non-ordinary reality to describe what a shaman can interact with and perceive in a shifted state of consciousness. If I’m remembering correctly, Stanislav Grof also used non-ordinary reality to refer to what can be perceived and interacted with in an altered state of consciousness, but didn’t directly tie it to shamanism.

For myself I find both of these “definitions” to be too confining. They both imply that ordinary reality and non-ordinary reality are two opposing experiences or modes of perception that can’t exist simultaneously. From my own experience I’ve found that being completely immersed in ordinary or non-ordinary reality does make it difficult to perceive things from a different point of view. However it is possible to experience ordinary and non-ordinary reality as interwoven.

I define ordinary reality as consensual physical reality (CPR). Being human means experiencing life in a physical vehicle, a human body. Part of the larger container our physical bodies operate in includes the agreement that physical objects and other physical beings are part of our shared experience. This shared experience also includes what we perceive with our physical senses. This is all part of the consensual physical reality that human beings share.

If two people walk into a room with a red chair in the middle of it, they might not agree on what shade of red the chair is, but most likely they’ll agree there is a chair. If some argument ensues later about what hue of red the chair was, they can walk back into the room and take another look at the chair. Seeing the chair is part of CPR and comes with an external reference point. The chair is something that both people can see, touch and interact with.

Non-ordinary reality or nonphysical reality (NR), isn’t consensual. It doesn’t come with an external reference point. Even if two people do holotropic breathwork together, their journey’s won’t be the same. There’s no external thing to point to and say “See, there it is and that’s what I experienced”.

Without consensus or an external reference point, it’s easy to write NR experiences off as “not real” or something imagined. Most of us have been taught that CPR is reality.

All of us have some experience with NR when we dream. Other common experiences with NR can include meditation, holotropic breathwork and other types of journeying. Basically anything that creates an altered consciousness state opens the door for an experience with NR.

My experience has been that this isn’t an either/or. Once the door to NR was opened and I didn’t slam it shut again out of fear, that door was always there and open a crack. (At this point the door seems to be perpetually open a good few inches….but that’s another post.) My first experience with NR came when I was too young to have a concept of NR and CPR being different things. I was five, hospitalized with a head injury, and saw ghosts in the hospital. I named them “the invisible people”, because they were slightly transparent. I wasn’t afraid of them at all. I’d ask the nurses to leave my door open at night so I could watch them walk up and down the halls. Sometimes they’d stop in my doorway and smile at me. I knew that the grownups couldn’t see them. I remember feeling special, like the Universe had let me in on a big secret.

One of the things I’ve learned over the past 6+ years of working with Pam is not to dismiss something I pick up because it belongs in my “that’s not real!” category. Most of us are raised with a very narrow conception of “real”, which is limited to perceptions that can be confirmed by the other 12 people closest to me. I think it was the “What The Bleep Do We Know?” film that contains the sequence where the natives don’t see the ships coming because their consensual reality doesn’t include that possibility of huge ships sailing up to their island. Makes me wonder how often that happens.

Yep, being in Port Townsend over Halloween was my first experience with eing near an ocean during Halloween…and I got to see my first sea monster. Working with Pam over the past 6 years has made me aware that many of the monsters, faeries, elves, and other fantastic creatures that we humans have supposedly made up are really something that we all have a common, ancient memory of. We didn’t make them up, we pulled them from the recesses of our shared unconscious. After numerous experiences with seeing dragons, elves and other beasties, I seriously question whether anything is “not real”.

I’m also aware of how much I missed for years by having a “that’s not real” box in my thinking. While a world that didn’t include sea monsters seemed a bit less chaotic because I could talk myself into believing that I knew where the edges were, I missed alot. I missed the opportunity to live with BIGGER. BIGGER for me is constant reminder of my right size in relation to the rest of the Universe…..good balance for my ego that periodically wants to puff up like an overinflated toad.

So I’m thinking we could start a new international holiday….burn your mental box day. Watcha think?!

Port Townsend, Washington….beautiful place, enjoy the beach pic!