012215 Journal

January 22, 1015  journal entry one.

Thursday night, almost midnight:  I leave on Sunday for the Casa, and have wanted to start this year's journal for several days and not had time, so I'm sitting here late to write just a few paragraphs.

I've been counseling people about Casa intentions and need to practice what I'm preaching. I've done a lot of reflecting this month on my intentions for this trip  but not written anything out.  Part is service, to be a guide and help others enjoy this powerful experience. What is it I seek for myself?

Let's start with the body. Bodies age! This body is 71. There is a lot of body pain these days and I hope for healing: shoulder, knee, back... all very real conditions that need support to heal. There is severe osteoarthritis in my left shoulder and left knee; the shoulder also has severe tendonitis; the knee has a not fully healed ligament tear. The doctors here feel only joint replacement surgery will end the pain and give renewed use. Those are 2 major surgeries. I believe those joints can heal without such surgery, because there is also no cartilage in the right shoulder and knee, yet those joints are useable and relatively pain free. The back: spinal stenosis that showed itself after the brown recluse spider bite in summer 2013 destroyed much muscle, makes walking any distance very painful. The Entities have been helping; I do believe this too, can heal without the traditional back surgery for stenosis that has been recommended here.

People ask about my hearing and eyes. I can live with these; I have for years. I can't live with constant pain and not able to walk! (well, I can; I don't choose to do so!) But I want to also ask for continued help with the ears and eye. I tell people, "ask for everything!" So how to go down there without a "laundry list,"  fix this, fix that, but knowing the ability of the body to heal, trusting that, and asking support for that which is already healing.

On the plus side, I know they are already helping me; I AM walking. Eighteen months ago, just after the bite and its toxins' extensive damage, my legs were collapsing, just losing strength and buckling under me at times. My photo was brought in to the Entity. He said he would come to me that night. He did. I felt the surgery in my back; pressure and high energy during the night. Within a few days, and since, no more collapse. Last year Dr Augusto said to me, "Without us you would not be walking; be patient."  So there is a balance; one asks,and one is patient. "Trust God and tie your camel."

My most recent eye exam last month showed corrected vision in the good eye is 20/20! That's way up from the 20/50 in that eye a year ago! This follows cataract surgery last spring but I know the entities are helping here too. The other eye is 20/100. Up from 20/200 of a year ago.

I continue to hear more; tones especially.

A heart of what I teach is the simultaneity of relative and ultimate. On the relative level, there is a painful shoulder with tendonitis and no cartilage. On the ultimate level the perfect shoulder is there and I KNOW it is there. What supports it to further express itself? What supports healing on the relative plane of the real damage in the joint?

I have been breathing deeply into the body these past weeks. I see how pain leads me to contract, not so much emotionally anymore, but literally on a cellular level the body contracts out of old habit. Breathing in deeply opens the space, reminds the cells not to contract in old, karmic response. I have been visualizing shoulder, knee and back flooded with light, then inviting these body areas to remain fully energized.

In the fall of 2013, soon after the spider bite and leg collapse, I began personal Feldenkrais sessions with Dale Jensen, a local Feldenkrais teacher (teacher is too weak a word; we are blessed with his expertise).  This work has also been enormously helpful. Two things seem to be happening. 1) With Dale's guidance, the body is remembering how it used to move 45 years ago, before the reactions to deafness and lack of inner ear balance that led me to tense up to try to stay upright, working against myself.  Gradually, a better balance returns. 2) some of the sessions with Dale  go deep into energy distortions of the body and for, me lead sometimes to past life memories, seeing deeply some of the origins of the karma and distortion and allowing release. Sometimes there is no conscious memory and the cells just release on their own, triggered by the energy shifts.

Let me give an example. Yesterday, as Dale worked with energy and gentle movement of the limbs, I had a strong image of a lifetime in which I was child, falling (or pushed?) somehow off a bridge onto ice and through it, into freezing water. There were no details: what led him there, who, when or where he was. Just the memory of the terror of falling, the strong pain as the shoulder hit the ice and fractured or dislocated, back hit also, then falling through to the freezing water where he drowned. At first I was not sure if I was the falling child or someone on the bridge, then realized I was both. Consciousness withdrew from the body as it fell, and watched the fall. So  the first need was to reintegrate; bringing loving consciousness back to the body. I could feel where the energy was cut off around the solar plexus, blocking the flow of energy from leg to back, shoulder and neck.

As Dale continued to work,  I lay on the table doing forgiveness meditation. This practice often allows me to reconnect deeper back into the body as the heart opens and the 'disconnect' resolves. I start very simply;  "Whoever has harmed me, I offer forgiveness. Whoever I have harmed, I ask forgiveness."  The practice allows me to touch the places where there is hardening and disconnection. Forgiveness heals karma too, both consciously and unconsciously.

Then I saw the same pattern with the wave accident, again consciousness deserting the body. More forgiveness, here to the elements that knocked me unconscious to the ocean floor.

Today I have been breathing deep, keenly aware of the flow or lack of flow of energy. I invite the body to stay open. As this pattern replaces the old contractions, and I am at the Casa, the Entities will be more able to invite healing of the damaged joints and spine. What is needed to support maintenance of that healing is in place.

Thursday Jan 23 now. So that is dharma based in the body. There are other intentions. I seek support for clarity about my present work in the world. "Do what you are passionate about." I'm passionate about sharing dharma; I'm passionate about co-creating with spirit; I'm passionate about doing both of these toward the needing of suffering on this planer and throughout the universe, toward our opening in to a higher non-dual consciousness. I can teach; I can serve a s a medium; I can write...but as this body becomes older, I cannot do it all at once!

Last year I asked for guidance and was supported to see the very clear layout for a book I have started and would love to write. It is a book I truly believe will benefit others. And it can be written at home. Traveling to teach exhausts me, increasingly. But I do love to teach too, to interact with others and see their faces when they "get it."

I love pure Buddha dharma. I cherish these teachings so much. And I have been graced with the gift to have spirit work through this body.  I can't say I 'enjoy" that as I am not there when spirit is incorporated, but I am happy for the results. When I read it, it's very powerful. And I do learn a lot as I review the transcripts and talk with spirit. People seem to derive great benefit. What balance serves best, for myself (this ageing body) and for all? How does it all come together?

I'd also like more time for my own meditation practice.  Again, I need to understand balance.  It's interesting that balance is key in both the body aspects of healing and the spiritual side. This summer, after three summers of plans gone awry, (shingles summer 2012; spider bite summer 2013; mom's death last summer) I yearn for a quiet summer at the lake, time to meditate and just be in the woods, sit by the lake shore and watch sunrises and sunsets, to walk, swim and sail; to write; to rest. I want to go deeper with the Circle of the Sun material and practice too, and spend a lot of time studying with Aaron.

Alongside of that are the calls from people (and from myself, honestly) to do more teaching, more workshops, private meetings, etc.  All year I have been saying no to most private meetings, lacking the energy to do it all. It's not that it seems selfish to spend a quiet several months or even a year.  And one path is not 'better' than another. It's not what I do but how I do it. What draws it to me. Is there any tension in any of this? Any escape? Is there doing and fixing? So a key casa intention is to understand this with more clarity.

There seems to be a strong call from the Remembering Wholeness volunteers and others to better understand mediumship and especially, how to work lovingly and skillfully with negativity in oneself and the world. Vipassana is a core of understanding that. I find myself in a unique position to bring these practices together. I'm also aware I cannot yet articulate how it is done. I know I don't have to; Aaron will teach it, and other Entities. They say they will be happy to do so. Is this where I need to give my focus now? It feels just a bit beyond conscious grasp but I've learned that when that happens and I trust and move ahead, there is much learning for me and for others. It also demands a lot of time and energy. Maybe this is the core of the issue, just that I am tired?

So these are the questions I bring to the Casa.

End of entry one.