(As per my post “Finding The Balance”, all of my blog entries up through the end of my Sun Course (Sept 21) will be raw journal entries. I want to continue writing, but will not have the time to do so in my normal polished manner.)
Sunday, August 22 – 7:00 p.m.
My dreams last night were uneventful, but I have had some great insights today – insights achieved through my own casual form of intuitive meditation. For some reason, I still struggle somewhat with the more structured forms of meditation. Today’s insights are not something that I can really write about – I’m not sure I could find the words to convey the personal experiences – experiences where I was taken much deeper into understanding the nature and creation of the manifested universe. I’m still processing most of what I feel, not even sure what exactly that is. The only thing I know is that I am feeling very energized by the insights that are coming to me, and feel quite anxious to pursue them more in depth.
On a physical note, I woke up this morning with an extremely sore right shoulder. A muscle on the outside edge of the shoulder sends a shooting pain when I lift my arm up over my head in certain positions. I just have to laugh, because I stayed in my room today, for 95% of my time. I only left for restroom breaks, 2 juice breaks, and 1 soup break, and one quick trip into town to buy water. Perhaps if my shoulder had felt better, I would have been more active and would have missed out on my more relaxed state of simply being with myself.
I broke a few more rules today. We are not supposed to read much, if at all, during our 40 days. After my beautiful insights this morning, I was feeling very drawn to glance through a book called “The Qabalistic Tarot” by Robert Wang. I had skimmed through it briefly before, but nothing inside seemed to speak to me, in any way, shape or form.
Today, as I picked it up to read a few paragraphs, I could not put it down, and ended up devouring almost 90 pages. Everything I read was filling me with additional flashes of insight and comprehension. It is amazing what a little intuitive clarification can do to my understanding and interest levels.
It is now 7:15 p.m. on Sunday night. Yes, it is very early, but I am tired, my shoulder hurts as I type, and I feel a strong desire to simply go to bed – perhaps to meditate – perhaps to enter the dream world. We will see where the experiences take me. I am simply along for the ride. I gave up control long ago, and I love being in the passenger seat.
Monday, August 23 – 8:35 a.m.
I just got back from yoga – the first time I went sense Thursday morning. I can really tell the difference after having not stretched in three days. This only makes me more committed to a more consistent and regular yoga program.
I figured out why my right arm is hurting so badly. On Saturday, responding to an internal prompting, I spent at least two hours, possibly more (didn’t look at my watch), doing an aura cleanse on my little pyramid bedroom. First I exposed every square inch of the room with Copal Incense, slowly weaving my way around the entire room, from floor to ceiling, mostly using my right arm to hold the incense outstretched in front of me. Then I repeated the process, holding a heavy candle (8 oz glass filled with wax), also with my right arm. At the time I finished, my right arm was a tiny bit tired, but not especially stressed. But during the night, it apparently froze up from the extra use – thus the reason why I awoke on Sunday with such a painful shoulder. It is also very painful this morning, but I’m going to keep stretching it out, and plow right through the pain – again using it to remind me to ask myself if I am in a dream or in the physical world.
I also remembered a few things that I wanted to mention as to the source of my insights on Sunday morning. I spent considerable time on Saturday studying up and organizing my notes on the Hebrew alphabet. All of the names of the sephiroth (spheres) in the Tree of Life have Hebrew names, and as it turns out, I discovered that the letters with which the names are spelled are quite significant. Unlike our western alphabet, each Hebrew letter has a meaning in and of itself. I discovered some very interesting patterns as I did my “spiritual spinning” analysis – combining spiritual meditation with intellectual prowess.
Another source of my amazing “spinning” (I don’t know what else to call it) yesterday was a beautiful poem written by my dear friend Sandra here in the Sun Course. I won’t share it here because I do not have her permission, but I must say that every word was beautiful and inspiring to me, causing deep spiritual insights to zing around in my soul.
In about ten minutes I get my morning juice. I am doing quite well in my fast. Yesterday I only cheated with one peanut butter sandwich. I still have considerable energy, but am weak enough to be closer to the spiritual energies as well. As soon as I sip each morsel of my juice, I think I might just take my straw mat up atop the nearby hill and enjoy a morning of meditating with an incredible view of Lake Atitlan. Ta-Ta for now.
Monday, August 23 – 7:00 p.m.
I spent two hours on the hill this morning; it was nice but not especially eventful. This afternoon, responding to an intuition, I opened up volume 1 of my sacred geometry book – the one that I picked up a few days before silence began, all as a result of a dream that I had. Today I only intended to skim around for a few minutes to see if anything might inspire me for meditation. Instead I ended up devouring almost 60 pages over several hours, in what turned out to be more like meditation than reading. I know we are not supposed to read during our 40 days, but I have to follow my intuition, and I am so grateful that I did. That reading was more powerful for me than any meditation could have been.
Last night, after going to bed so early, I lay in bed for a few hours practicing moving and stimulating energy movements in my body. It was another wonderful experience as I learned to observe how the energy responded to my breath, and I was able to feel some incredible energy opening up in my upper shoulders and chest.
One thing of note is that for several weeks now I have noticed what felt like a pressure in and around my nose whenever I reached a state of deep energy meditation. Last night my intuition told me that this was blocked energy that needed to be moved, but the channel which it needed to follow is blocked. For anyone that knows me, my nose has been a source of self-hatred and struggle throughout much of my life. Intuition now tells me that this “lack of love” caused my energy channels to block up in this area. For the last hour of my meditation last night, before falling asleep, I focused intense effort on pushing that blocked energy (with my will) up toward my third eye chakra. For a while, I actually felt it stop right at the top bridge of my nose. Finally, I felt the energy dissipate.
I feel as if there is still some blockage in this area, so tonight I am going to bed early again so that I can experiment with taking this experience even further. I love how I am beginning to trust my intuition at whole new levels. The “old me” would have been so doubtful about what I am doing, but I have so many confirming experiences and feelings that I no longer doubt any of it. I just want to explore it further to see what else I can do.
It is only 7:15 p.m., and I am going to bed … yippee.
Tuesday, August 24 – 11:00 a.m.
I had three dreams last night. The first was right around 11:30 p.m.. In that dream, I was Superman, working out of a tall office building in an unknown city. I pretended to work at a driving school (my secret front).
In the first part of the dream, I was racing around to avoid being captured by a woman that seemed to be Lois Lane. She had some type of special flying technology attached to her body (not sure if it was her arms, legs, or both), and she was in hot pursuit of me – almost catching me. My memory is quite vague on this – sketchy – filled with random memories but no clear sequence of events. Once I finally escaped by somehow destroying Lois’s special technology, I returned to my humble office in the downtown building where my driving school was located.
Back in street clothes, pretending to be a custodian, I first started to walk out into the hallway of the building to lock the door and to leave – but a sense of intuition told me to go back in and check the outside balcony door. As I did so, I discovered it to be unlocked and a cunning man was on the balcony, insisting that he was there for driving school, but I new he was there in search of me. I told him the school was closed and he needed to leave, but he wouldn’t believe me, and would not leave.
Without resolving that situation, I soon found myself being a “fly on the wall” observing a conversation of three youths in what felt like a subway tunnel. They were plotting and contriving how they were going to infiltrate my driving school to discover my true identity.
At this point in the dream I awoke. I was so tired that I almost just blew it off, refusing to get up to write the dream down. Something inside forced me to get up anyway and to write the details that I was able to still remember.
* * * * *
The second dream happened around 5:00 a.m.. In this dream, I was with a group of four or five boys. I have no idea what my own gender was in the dream. That thought never even crossed my mind – yet I felt as if I were one of the group of boys.
We had heard of a special hot spring and really wanted to go visit it. It was night time, and we had obstacles to overcome on our quest. We walked up to a rock wall with many protruding rocks. Feeling eager, I began to climb first, anxious to reach my destination – but one of the boys scooted ahead of me taking a path slightly to my right. I decided to follow him for the rest of the way up the wall.
To my surprise, the wall seemed to be steeper than it had looked from below, and many of the rocks were loose and slipping under the weight of my hands and feet, falling to the ground below. I persisted without fear, yet being very much aware of the dangers and being quite cautious. As I reached the top, I found myself on what was the roof of a suburb-type home – a home with a long peak parallel to the front of the home, with shingled rooftop sloping off to the front and back. I finished scaling the back of the roof and ran down the front shingles. While doing so, I had the distinct feeling that I definitely should not be here. Suddenly, the front half of the roof turned out to be made of trampoline-like fabric. As I stepped, the roof sagged under my weight and then bounced back as I stepped forward.
The next thing I know, I am on the ground in front of the home, realizing that I have been quite noisy. I run away so as to avoid detection by the home’s residents. As I glance backward over my shoulder, I notice many of the home’s interior lights begin to turn on, and I run even faster, just knowing that they must for sure be calling the Police.
I ran through a large open field. It was a long distance run, with trees and structures of some type shielding my view from the home now far behind me. I realize that the first boy is still in front of me, but I lose track completely of the other two or three boys who had been scaling the wall behind me.
In a minute or so I reach a large fenced-off area, realizing that the boy ahead of me is already there, standing outside the fence. It is a tall chain link fence constructed with black metal – and it is perhaps eight to ten feet high, topped with what “felt like” razor wire. I don’t remember seeing the razor wire for sure, but I definitely felt its presence. The pool inside the fence was surrounded on all sides by about 40 feet of concrete patio. The pool itself seemed to be quite large, rectangular in shape, perhaps as large as an Olympic-size swimming pool. Around the edges of the rectangular shaped pool was a two-foot white cushion-like, rounded-on-top, border. This strange border ran all the way around the perimeter of the pool. Every few feet, a black stripe crossed over the cushion-like mounds, running from the pool outward.
I wanted to go inside, but feared detection – it was night and I felt as if I should not be here. The next thing I know, I am on the inside of the fence, and I momentarily run up to the edge of the water to get a closer look at this interesting hot-spring pool. I had been expecting to find a pool out in nature – not a fenced-off rectangular swimming pool.
Moments later, I run away, finding myself outside, running to the right, 90 degrees from the direction in which I had arrived. It seemed as if I had arrived at the near left corner, with the length of the pool extending to my right, and the width of the rectangular pool being straight ahead. As I ran away, I was on the far side of the pool, running to my right down the length, and then continuing a great distance away from the pool.
I ran because I just knew that the Police, or perhaps other authorities, were going to come and catch me in a place where I should not be.
The next thing I remember, after running some distance away, is that I find a tall structure and begin to climb it. Soon I notice that the structure is constructed with what appears to be small boxes of candy – each box being about eight inches wide, twelve inches long, and a few inches high. As I take one box out to examine it, thinking “Oh, this looks good, I think I’ll keep it”, some other children come running from the shadows and begin talking to me. They call out to me, telling me that it is OK to take the candy – just to be sure to select a box that doesn’t have holes chewed into it (implying that some type of bug or animal has burrowed inside to eat the contents).
I immediately look at the box in my hand, notice that it has a one-half-inch hole chewed in the lower corner, and I think “eeewww” as I put it back. I climb down from the structure and promptly wake up from my dream.
* * * * *
My third dream was quite brief (the part I remember), and ended with a few moments of lucidity. I remember next to nothing except the very end.
I was in a very familiar situation, finding myself reading what seemed like a book for a young person – not for a child, but definitely not at the adult level either. I am reading out loud in my mind – with no feeling of my lips moving, yet actually hearing my voice. Suddenly I become lucid. I am very intrigued that this book seems real, containing real and profound words of wisdom.
I remember reading many such books in dreams before – always waking up realizing that I was reading something quite powerful and true – but never remembering anything. When I had previously asked Chaty about such dreams, she had told me that I was reading some of the Akashic records – and that what I had read was now a part of me, whether I remembered it or not.
At this moment, as I excitedly pondered what was taking place in the now-lucid dream, the next phrase that I read was “Meditate on the Water.”
Excitement at being lucid caused me to act quickly, not wanting to miss anything. In my excitement, I looked at the whole page, trying to read more, to remember more. I noticed that the top third of the page was some type of illustrative drawing, with a few children in it – but as I struggled to maintain concentration – to stay in the dream – the dream disappeared to blackness and I found myself lying in my bed, with the phrase “Meditate on the water” very strongly imprinted on my mind.
As I lay there thinking about it, intuition told me that this message was referring to my previous dream of searching for the Hot Springs, then running away.
* * * * *
After morning yoga followed by a quick pineapple and banana smoothie, I immersed myself into thought and meditation about my second and third dreams. As I came to analyze each part, I felt quite amazed at how my intuitions made everything so clear without me having to search for deeper meaning. Following are my meditation insights:
1. The hot springs were beautiful, smooth, and calm – like glass. They represented a smooth, pure, relaxed emotional state – one that I still desired to fully achieve.
2. Water is a symbol, not only of emotion, but also of the Astral realms – a place that for me has been very inviting – calling to me – yet being very elusive. I get frequent glimpses of other-worldly wonders and then the walls appear, telling me that I have growth to pass through before I can proceed.
3. I approached the whole experience in this dream at night time, under cover of darkness, feeling somewhat as if what I was doing was forbidden, perhaps wrong, maybe even against the law – and that I would be captured and punished if I pursued getting to that hot spring.
4. First, I had to climb a precipitous rock wall, with rocks falling under my weight. I had no fear whatsoever, yet recognized that what I was doing was dangerous. As I compare this to the Astral realms, I feel that I have no fear about visiting those realms – but realize very clearly that there are obstacles and dangers involved. The Astral realm is not heaven as we might perceive it. It is indeed the next dimension above our physical world, vibrating at a higher energetic level, but very much not heaven. All sorts of beings reside in the lower dimensions of the Astral realms. Some are loving and filled with light – others are not. It is a place where souls go between physical lifetimes – and all souls there are in a state of awareness quite like where their level of development was when they were in a physical body. Many are quite lost and asleep.
The Astral realm is a place from which all physical manifestation comes forth. The beliefs – both collective beliefs of mankind and of individuals – begin to take form in the Astral realm before they reach physical manifestation.
Yes, there are deceptions in the Astral world. One can be deceived by “beings who are not awake” – who might believe they know truth, but who do not. This is the source of the confusing religious beliefs of our physical world – whatever we believe with all of our heart and emotion can be proven and validated in the lower Astral realms.
So yes, the water (hot springs in my dream) has its obstacles, but it also has huge blessings for those who swim in it with careful awareness that Astral is still part of the illusionary realms.
But there are higher realms than the lower Astral ones – also reachable in dreams and Astral travel – in those realms, the beings are increasingly in more enlightened states. At the higher realms, we can receive incredible spiritual guidance from those who have gone on before us.
How do I know all of this? Much of it comes from what Chaty has taught regarding her own personal experiences in the Astral realms – much comes from my reading – but literally ALL of it comes from strong internal intuition and energetic guidance telling me that these things are true.
5. As I reached the top of the wall and found myself on a trampoline-like roof, I switched from mere awareness of dangers while having no fear, into a mode of feeling a strong fear that I would be caught, discovered, and arrested.
As I meditate on real life, I realize that perhaps one reason that Astral travel and lucid dreams are still evading me is that I feel hidden conflict with my childhood teachings and my “A Course In Miracles” beliefs. In both cases, there are people in my life (perhaps including me) who might judge or condemn my efforts to reach the beautiful hot springs of calm waters. I fear that I might get caught-up in that judgment – getting put in jail by that judgment. There is no doubt that a full immersion into the lucid world of Astral will literally change my life and perceptions of reality as I know it.
Perhaps I still need to honor my March dream that told me to “Forget everything I know” and to “Lower my defenses.”
Do I still worry about what others may think? Do I worry about how this might shake up my own internal belief systems?
Yes, at some level, I believe I do.
As I ponder about this, I am reminded of my list of disowned personality traits. I have processed many of them, but one name that still sits very conspicuously unprocessed is a trait that I named “Spiritual Doreen” – a huge fear that I have not yet embraced.
A few years ago, I went with several friends to a large multi-day spiritual convention in Las Vegas. A well-known woman named Doreen Virtue was one of the main speakers on the final day, and I was totally turned-off by her flamboyant and extravagant presentation. I have to admit that I have felt considerable judgment about her ever since. I judged her as being extremely flighty, both in the way she dressed and in the way she talked about angels and archangels – things that I did not believe in at the time. I now recognize and embrace them as belief-created symbols of actual spiritual energies. While such beings are still part of the illusion, they are very much a part of our perceived physical reality.
I need to apologize to Doreen Virtue. One of my biggest fears as I have pursued my own spiritual path has been that I would become like her, or at least that others may perceive me as being like her. This fear surfaced quite strongly when I began to study here at Las Piramides in Guatemala, as I began to study and embrace many of the things that had turned me off about her. I am sure that if I actually got to know Doreen, I would absolutely love and adore her – and even as I write about her, I am dropping my resistance and judgment, beginning to feel that love.
Much of my present path has been drawing me closer and closer to Doreen’s world – and I am loving it. But my fears of “becoming a public display of such flamboyance” continue to create great internal resistance in me. I recognize that now, perhaps this afternoon, is the time for me to take my un-owned personality trait of “Spiritual Doreen” out for a meditative walk – to make my peace with her.
6. As I finally arrived at the pool, I found it heavily fenced with black chain links. I again butted up against my beliefs that “This is forbidden. I should not be here. I am not allowed here.”
Then, for a moment, I found myself inside the fence, getting a quick look, only to be back outside again – kind of the story of my last several months of riding the waves – riding the incredible highs and glimpses, as the waves crested, only to recede to the absence of those wonderful highs.
As I raced away in my dream – out of fear of being found out – I again affirmed my hesitancy to fully embrace these hidden waters of the Astral world.
7. I find it quite interesting that after I ran away from an experience in deeper understanding, I ended up at a tower built from candy – one filled with decaying holes of whatever creature might chew its way inside.
This to me seems like taking refuge in the sweet tower of this illusionary world of birth and death, where worldly desires and possessions are sugar coated, but where nothing physical is lasting or permanent. Everything here always decays and dies, taking us right back to the Astral world. Yes, the Astral world is illusion too, but it is one step close to the divine oneness reality that is us. Astral experiences can be used to connect with higher truths that will help us in the awakening process.
8. As I meditate further on this dream about the waters, I am ever more determined to tear down the decaying sweet towers of false earthly beliefs in my own life – and to tear down the final fences and obstacles that keep me from fully immersing myself into my present journey.
I fully realize and believe that I am on the edge of a dimensional shift in understanding – but I still only get glimpses of what is inside the fence before returning to the outside of that restrictive chain-link wall. I am determined to get back inside and to swim in that warm pool of soothing growth and insights.
* * * * *
As far as my Superman dream, I have not yet given it much thought, but at first glance it seems to be quite obvious, and even related to the other dreams. In the Superman dream, I was being pursued by cunning and creative people who were trying to find out, to discover, and to reveal my secret identity as a Super-Being. I was doing everything I could to keep that identity concealed and secret from the world.
In reality, I believe that we are all Supermen. We are all divine beings hidden by the disguise of an ordinary physical body, having forgotten the incredible powers that we all have. Perhaps it is time for me to fully embrace those powers, to quit concealing them, and to expose them, first to myself, and then to the world.
* * * * *
I did take “Spiritual Doreen” out for a meditative walk this afternoon, and she and I had a great understanding. I realized that I am already very much like her – I simply don’t dress in her flamboyant colorful chiffon dresses with long flowing trains. Doreen teaches me to be my true self without worrying about what others might think about me. Becoming like her has been one of my main goals during my last year of travels – learning to have the courage to speak my truth, to proudly be who I am in all aspects.
Thank you Doreen! Thank you for teaching me to be unique and confident.
Thursday, August 26 – 6:30 a.m.
Yippee, my shoulder pain is completely gone – kaput, finito – and through it all, I kept my peace and never suffered.
* * * * *
Tuesday evening, was my third full moon ceremony of the Sun Course. The first happened on day five. The ceremony was beautiful, filled with chanting “Aum” while Chaty and others gave me and the other Sun Course members “spiritual initiations” for Tarot and for Shaluha Ka.
I never got to know anyone in the first Moon Course – we were all in silence together for five days and then they left. I grew to love many of the second Moon Course, and will be happy to see a few of them return in September. Just like the first, I barely got to know the third Moon Course. When they began, I was nearing my silence, and I was buried in my studies. But I grew tremendously from that third Sun Course. It was many of them that became my “personality mirrors”, showing me parts about myself that I still did not love and embrace. For that, I thank them with gratitude from the bottom of my heart.
I cannot believe that I only have four weeks left before it is all over. It seems like I just barely began, and I want it to go on for longer – perhaps forever.
* * * * *
Wednesday just kind of disappeared. During morning meditation, I began to finally get the swing of the breathing techniques. I felt as if I might finally be close to activating my pineal gland in the center of the brain – and then our meditation was over.
I had great intentions to practice monitoring my breathing throughout the day, but as soon as breakfast was over, I followed another prompting to resume reading a little bit in my Sacred Geometry book. To make a long story short, I ended up reading yesterday for more than eight hours. Every single minute of the reading was like meditation, sending energy and insight throughout my body. I could not put the book down. I had to literally force myself to stop for a lunch break and then to run out to pick up my laundry. Then I resumed again till almost 9:00 p.m. last night, when I finally finished reading Volume 1.
I had to laugh when I was picking up my laundry. When I got there, there was no one around, and I needed my clothes. I peaked in the dryer and found that my clothes were all done – just not folded and put back into my plastic bag. So I proceeded to do it myself, knowing that I had already paid and that there would not be a problem.
As I was half done folding my laundry, a young couple came to pick up their own laundry and began to ask me questions as if I were an employee there. I felt so silly as I tried to use hand signals to indicate that I am in silence, and that I don’t work here – I am just folding my own clothes so I can take them home. I don’t quite know what the couple thought. I had no pen or paper on which to write a note – and neither did the couple. I just giggled as I walked back to my room to resume reading.
I had every intention of meditating for several hours last night, but my body had different thoughts about the matter. I first came down with intense intestinal cramping and fowl-smelling and embarrassing gas … and then my internal world sort of washed away from there. My gurgling intestines would not let me get much rest as I repeatedly ran to and from the outdoor restroom till nearly midnight. This morning, I am considerably better, but quite weak. I still plan on going to yoga though. Today is the first yoga class of the new Moon Course, and I love learning and practicing the basic breathing techniques that will be taught today. Perhaps I will get them right this time.
I’m happy, excited, and eager to take on a new day – and am wondering what the treasure of last nights outdoor races in the mud will be. Yes, I know a treasure will surface – one always does.
11:00 a.m.
During 8:30 a.m. meditation, I again practiced my breathing techniques, not only trying to use structure and intellect to do it right, but also involving a deep loving and joyful feeling, all the while, sending as much of the breath energy as possible into the middle of my head, behind the third eye – where the pineal gland resides. I felt as if I were closer to a great experience, and felt considerable Kundalini energy trying to emerge – but I never quite got there.
As I sat there in meditation, I completely ignored my right hip which was screaming at me, begging for relief. I just smiled and focused on the difference between pain and suffering, all the while acknowledging to the muscles that I had heard their cry, but I was not going to let them make me suffer. I smiled joyfully through it all – but was quite pleased when Chaty finally rang a tiny bell indicating that our 30 minutes was over.
As I meditated through the pain, simply ignoring it, I realized that this is also what I did last night with my intestinal problems (which are much better now). I acknowledged the intestinal discomfort, but through it all (no pun intended) I never once allowed myself to suffer or to be upset in the slightest about what was happening to my body. Yes, I found peace through the whole experience, recognizing that whatever happens is what I need in order to learn temperance, to learn to love in all circumstances.
As I grabbed a quick breakfast of granola and fruit this morning, I had fun watching worms, bees, and water puddles drying in the incredibly soothing warm sun. What a beautiful day. I am excited to go out (or stay in) and to be present.
Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved