A Mandala of Grace: The Dasavataras
Geoffrey has written the following on the Dasavataras and how they will help us through the Bodhicitta/Dasavataras meditations offered monthly in 2024
This year we will be establishing and moving through the Dasavatara mandala (10 avatars). It should open up the channels of grace in many areas of your life. There are astrological correspondences for the first 9 avataras and universal astrological karma resolving effects for the other 3.
The Dasavatara mandala also has the very unusual capacity to resolve prenatal karmas. There are many ways of categorizing karmas. One that I find useful is to enumerate the source of various karmas. Here is a list of possible categories:
Past-life karmas - what we carry and have not resolved from our past
Genetic/ancestral karmas - what comes along with acquiring a body
Prenatal karmas - the various difficulties acquired while the body is being formed
Astrological karmas - the timing and unfolding of our karmas as well as the secondary karmas that are created out of resistance to the movement of time
Cultural karmas - the habits of body, speech and mind learned from our early childhood
There are more than just these but this will be a sufficient list for now.
The resolution of prenatal karmas can unwind very, very deep difficulties and open up new possibilities for moving through the world in terms of relationship, home, abundance, creativity and health. As we establish and move through the entirety of this mandala, we are inviting the great beacons of Grace to transform and rebuild us on a very deep level. It is very much like being reborn.
As well as meditating on the various avataras, we will be meditating on their feminine counterparts. All of these counterparts are expressions of Lakshmi, the glory and power of the divine. At any stage of our development or in any way we have trauma or deficiency of any sort, it is these feminine counterparts that can fill us with their Grace and restore wholeness, abundance, fullness and prosperity.
1. January – Narayana/Narayani –
We start off building our mandala of grace by going to the source. Narayana, unlike the others, is not an avatar (a descent of the entirety of the paramatman into flesh). This ancient form of the divine is the cosmic person. To meditate on and with Narayana is to meditate on the source of Grace itself. This leads to purity, fullness, abundance, connection to God and the feeling of being back in your truest home. This also purifies all astrological karmas. In terms of prenatal development, this is the moment of fertilization in the fallopian tube.
2. February – Matsya/Shri Lakshmi –
Matsya is the first of the classical Dasavataras (10 avatars). This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine fish who saves the Vedas and the world during the flood. Meditating on and with Matysa purifies one’s home & environment, improves one’s relationship to home & environment and protects one’s space both internally and externally. It also purifies the mind, allowing one to make better decisions. Astrologically, this is associated with Ketu (the southern lunar node). In terms of prenatal development, this is when the fertilized egg moves out of the fallopian tube.
3. March – Kurma/Sindhusuta –
Kurma is the second of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine turtle who supports the whole of the world. Meditating on and with Kurma grants tremendous stability and grounding of both body and mind. Astrologically, this is associated with Saturn. Developmentally, this is the stage of implantation where the fertilized egg attaches to the lining of the uterus.
4. April – Varaha/Varahi –
Varaha is the third of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine boar who recovers the earth from the bottom of the cosmic sea. Meditating on and with Varaha grants protection, emergent power, removal of obstacles and sexual vitality. Astrologically, this is associated with Rahu (the northern lunar node). In terms of prenatal development, this is the stage of extremely rapid cell division and multiplication and increase of the size of the embryo.
5. May – Narasimha/Narasimhi –
Narasimha is the fourth of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine half-man/half-lion who protects his devotees and annihilates negative influences. Meditating on and with Narasimha grants protection, power, the removal of obstacles and the restoration and protection of family harmony. Astrologically, this is associated with Mars. In terms of prenatal development, this is when the fetus is recapitulating mammalian evolution and has not yet fully become human.
6. June – Vamana/Kamala –
Vamana is the fifth of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine dwarf who grows to cosmic proportions and reclaims the three worlds from a Titan. Meditating on and with Vamana grants victory over opponents, wisdom, relief of heavy karma and grace. Astrologically, this is associated with Jupiter. In terms of prenatal development, this refers to the massive leaps the fetus is now making in brain development to get us to be human.
7. July – Parashurama/Dharani –
Parashurama is the sixth of the classical Dasavataras. This is the first divine incarnation as a human and although he is a Brahmin, he takes up arms to annihilate the many power hungry evil doers in the world. Meditating on and with Parashurama grants spiritual knowledge, power, purity and the transformation of anger into patience. Astrologically, this is associated with Venus. In terms of prenatal development, this is the stage when the human form has been developed but not perfected.
8. August – Rama/Sita –
Rama is the seventh of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of the perfect man, son, king, husband, father who perfectly aligns and enacts his dharma for the well being of the whole of the world. Meditating on and with Rama and Sita grants protection, vitality, healing, and alignment with one’s dharma. Astrologically, this is associated with the Sun. In terms of prenatal development, this is the stage when the form reaches the capacity for enacting dharma.
9. September – Krishna/Radhe –
Krishna is the eighth of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine human whose form contains the whole of creation and is pervaded by Grace. Meditating on and with Krishna grants a portion of the wild mystery of Grace and Love. Astrologically, this is associated with the Moon. In terms of prenatal development, this is the stage of when bhakti and Grace become available.
10. October – Buddha/Sri Lakshmi –
Buddha is the ninth of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the form of a divine sage whose penetrating insight and compassion heals the deepest layers of the mind. Meditating on and with Buddha grants the insights of emptiness and compassion that lead to the cessation of all suffering and the capacity to act as an agent of Compassion for other living beings. Astrologically, this is associated with Mercury. In terms of prenatal development, this is the stage of the final preparation of the mind.
11. November – Kalki/Padmavati –
Kalki is the tenth of the classical Dasavataras. This is the divine incarnate in the future form of a divine warrior who emerges from the sea riding a white horse and wielding a flaming sword who will once again destroy the non-dharmic forces in the world. Meditating on and with Kalki, grants purity, protection and the removal of all obstacles. Astrologically, this can remove any sort of malefic influence. In terms of prenatal development, this is the time of birth.
12. December – Meher Baba/Mehera –
Meher Baba is the most recent incarnation of the whole of the paramatman. Meditating on and with Meher Baba, grants tremendous purity, wisdom, Love and just about anything you can ask for due to his proximity to us in time and space. With this final meditation we will be completing this mandala of avatars and sealing the pathways to their innumerable forms of grace within our beings. Jai Baba!
What I’m going to tell you during an intuitive consultation
I’ve been doing intuitive readings professionally for 13 years after 6 years of practicing in classes and friendly settings. Over the years my readings have changed and shifted into what I hope will be the most beneficial form. I strongly prefer to incorporate some of my healing work into readings because I’m a strong believer in changing and uplifting our trajectory whenever possible. I’ve also had the opportunity to answer the same questions many times and find similar patterns in many clients and other people I work with. I’ve made a list of my consistent answers to many of the questions I receive. I know that even if it’s here on the list, it’s often helpful to be seen as you in your circumstance and to be confirmed in that circumstance. I will always be happy to do that for people, but I hope this is helpful for anyone interested in the most solid and consistent advice I’ve gathered over the years.
You are special. No matter what you are or what you can do or can’t do, you are special. We live on a planet with more people than have ever lived so it’s hard to remember how rare we are in the universe or what a remarkable miracle it is to be a living autonomous being with a body, mind and soul. In the history of the universe, it is an awesome occurrence. In the context of religion or spirituality, you are a piece or expression of The One and/or of God. Many people who come to me are unique among their peers, have different skill sets or experiences and wonder if I can see it. And my answer is always, yes. You are special, you are unique, you have the opportunity to do something wonderful. Don’t worry too much about what you are and think more about what you’d like to do, what you’d like to overcome, how you want to relate to others and how you’d like to grow. There is space and a need in this world for everyone’s unique work and expression - and no matter what we are, we can always be more.
Your life does not have one purpose. You will play many roles. Some are large, some are small, some may be obviously impactful, some may seem very simple but end up being incredibly impactful. You will be many different versions of yourself and wear many hats in many settings. When people ask me what their purpose is, often part of what they hope is that their purpose will be supported and recognized by the world. This is not always so. Many of the greatest works we can accomplish and give require a huge amount of struggle, determination and consistent effort. Many important things are only appreciated by a few or are only for us to cherish. I’m happy to talk about the wonderful things you could do or will likely do, but know that it’s very rare to have one calling and if that seems to be the case for some, it’s only because that’s the only part of them we can see.
If you are starting a business, sign contracts. Do all the paperwork. Clearly state your role, your expectations, your responsibilities and do the same for everyone involved. Ideally, have a lawyer draft this paperwork. This gives you and your business and your partners worldly protection, but it also creates a very solid energetic foundation. Give yourself, your ideas and your dreams solid footing in the world. I love to talk about business when it comes to the relationships you have with your product or service, customers, co-workers, investors and anyone else involved. But, no matter how likely it looks like your venture will be successful or how amiable the interpersonal relationships are, do the paperwork, give yourself the extra support.
Boundaries are all about you and have little to nothing to do with the people you’re setting boundaries with. What I mean by that is it doesn’t matter who the other person is or what they have or haven’t done, you can make the choices that are best for you. Also, it’s your responsibility to make and uphold the choices. It’s no one else’s job to hold the boundary for you and you bear the additional burden of what your next boundary will be with people who don’t respect your initial boundaries. We can’t cut everyone out or demand to be treated a certain way, so what do we do? Sometimes we have more options about how we can manage interactions and situations, sometimes our boundaries have to be how we strive to react to them. It takes practice and no one does it perfectly, but it is very powerful to shift our expectations from others onto ourselves and to measure our needs not by what others can or will give us but by what we will give ourselves.
Being famous is not going to solve all your problems, I promise. I’ve worked with many famous people. Everyone has challenges and the relationships we have to ourselves and the world carry over into every other situation, accomplishment or attainment in our life. Becoming wealthy, beautiful, loved or admired will only satiate us for a short window of time like all external things. When the initial excitement wanes we are always left with ourselves, our worries, our insecurities etc. I’m not saying that privileges don’t exist and there are many circumstances where stress could be dramatically alleviated by a better job or life situation, but those can come in many forms. Don’t believe the lies of the culture. There is no perfect life. Being famous is a lot of pressure, a lot of work and will not bring happiness to many of the people imagining it as The Answer. Dream of and work for the journey that will make you feel satiated, happy, purposeful and whole and be open to it being something you’d never expect.
If you have a specific romantic relationship that you want to happen or is happening but you’re worried about maintaining it, you should be talking to the other person or people involved, not to me. Too often people want me to give them courage through assurance about a potential romantic relationship, but assurance and intimacy are in conflict with one another. To have a deep romantic connection you have to be vulnerable, honest and respectful. Talking with someone else instead of the person you want this relationship with isn’t any of those things. Feeling like any relationship is guaranteed is not any of those things. If you want to talk about relationship patterns or things to work on that can help with romantic relationships, I’m all in. It’s a rough situation we are in where we don’t have the community structures in place that make us secure as human beings and having romantic intimacy often feels like the closest we can get to it. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on the situation. If that weren’t enough, many of us are also grappling with receiving and expressing love when we weren’t given a solid foundation for that when we were children. Our culture sends us messages that a partner will fill in that unconditional love and validation we missed even though it’s a very different dynamic. It’s a lot and it’s worth working on. Exploring our relationship with intimate relationships can be a very beautiful journey that leads to many avenues of expressing and receiving love. It can all be a very profound and transformational conversation, but it all involves vulnerability, risk and the pursuit of deeper and deeper honesty.
If you took ayahuasca and during the experience were told internally that you need to start facilitating ceremonies and giving people ayahuasca just know that this is more of a recruitment than a calling. Lots of folks have this experience and I believe the plant wants to spread out to help people which can be great. Before diving in, consider the responsibility involved. It is not something you can do without personal change and a lot of internal pressure as well as external expectations. It is something you will have to carry and ideally a choice you make out of love and a desire to bear something that will be of service. Also, somewhat related; if it comes up, do not listen to the voices that tell you to build a pyramid in the Amazon to prepare for the impending apocalypse and yes, it is weird that this has come up more than once.
Winning the lottery. If you’re intuitive and have been told or shown this internally and it seems very real and well meaning, I have also been confused by this. Sometimes people ask about this message, and it does look real. My conclusion is that any internal messages we get comes through our own filter and many of us can’t imagine how we’ll be safe, cared for, abundant etc. without something occuring at the level of a lottery win. The message we get is some approximation of this and this is how we interpret it which might not be incorrect even if it doesn’t look like the lottery in the world. I also think that there are many beings who are much older than us looking at the modern industrialized lifestyle, going “You have won the human lottery. You have clean running water, hot showers, clean clothes, painkiller over the counter that works, the ability to travel great distances impossibly quickly, access to all the information of the world, nacho cheese doritos and many other outrageous flavors our ancestors could not have conceived of. You are it!” I acknowledge that not everyone has these things, not all these things are necessarily uplifting our lives and that even if we hold onto gratitude for all these nearly magical things we get to experience we still need to work for things to be better for ourselves and the collective. But, this is my explanation of this common message. Unless a bunch of you have won the lottery and haven’t told me, let me know so I can redact this last section.
It’s okay to wait. You don’t have to act or make a decision until you’re ready. Unless there’s an outside force giving you a clear deadline. It’s okay to wait if you don’t feel sure of what your next move is or what you really want. Often, if there’s emotional pressure around something we feel like the answer is to rush into taking action or making a decision about it, but these are the exact times where it can be most advantageous to wait and explore our feelings before making a change.
And last, you have too much to worry about as a modern human being and you’re doing incredibly well in the face of these unnatural pressures. It’s too much: all the things we need to think about and consider and the amount of choices we need to make alongside the lack of social support and familiarity and love that are natural to human beings. You’re doing incredibly well.
To close this out, I’d like to say a few things about what makes us unique and what makes us the same. The parts of ourselves that are most visible and most interactive in the world are often the things we wish made us unique, but are often the things that are the most relatable and common. This is because our interactions and experiences are all happening in a shared world. What is deeper within us is what makes us the most unique and it’s always exciting when there’s opportunities for these deep things to spring up into the shared world, but its visibility or lack thereof doesn’t determine its presence. Everyone has an incredible and rich depth of being that many of us long for because we know it’s there and sometimes can only see glimpses of it. I am very fortunate to be able to see and experience much of this depth and this is the level I often work with in my healing work because it’s where unconscious beliefs, traumas and great potentials are stored. I love people from their deepest depths up to the most surface shallows. I find each person exciting, fascinating and invaluable. I am grateful that I get to work in a capacity that allows me to help others see and experience these things in themselves.
My booking site is https://theresajulfa.as.me/schedule.php and I’m always happy to answer questions during any of the open meditations/healing work found at www.InnerCurrents.com
How We Have Stayed Happy Through Samadhi
Intro
This essay is inspired and intended for folks I’ve been working with for a number of years now, but could be very helpful to read if you’re considering jumping into intensive spiritual or healing practices. Not everyone who works with us will go into samadhi states, but it’s common enough that I’d like to offer as much information that might help with it as possible.
This is a challenging topic for me because I don’t feel qualified to speak on mental health in the same way a therapist or psychotherapist is. This is simply an offering of what has worked for me and Geoffrey to help us with the additional emotional strain of the spiritual work, being psychically open, working at high emotionally pressured jobs, loss and all the other stressors of life. Please know that this is not a criticism of anyone or meant to imply that I’m not wanting to engage with you all directly even on your worst days. My role is to be supportive through this and I’m genuinely happy I can do so. I’m not expecting this to be all new for any of you and I know a lot of you are already engaged in this work.
Are we happy all the time? No, we still have bad days and sad days and days of discouragement but they don’t tend to bleed into the following days or even last a full day. Generally, we are happy and easily come back to happiness after windows of unhappiness.
The spiritual work I’ve done has made “bad” emotions very fluid and fast kind of like a brief shower rather than a soaking tub of feelings which is what all the spiritual work we’re offering ultimately leads to - but the way it gets there is by removing all the other bad feeling stuff and potential for bad feeling stuff we have within us - which feels super bad at the time. While that process is happening it’s ideal to adopt other tools, support systems and mindsets to feel good or okay.
We have a quick fix cultural mentality combined with a desire to reach an ultimate pinnacle of bestness. Often, we find one thing and immediately feel that this is THE thing. We get excited about it and our excitement alone distracts us from the original issue, then we don’t totally apply it, then when it’s not exciting anymore we forget and search for the next thing. Avoid this cycle by applying what you have in the moment. Know that it might or might not work again and that we might need to discard or add in tools as we change, but use it while it’s working. On any healing or spiritual path be wary of elated states/feelings. They’re often interpreted as insight or real change or real healing, sometimes personal authority or enlightenment, but they’re often just a temporary physiological chemical state. You found a hammer exactly when you needed a hammer for this project. It is exciting! But you’ll never complete the project if you fixate on a hammer. A good sign that you’re fixating on a tool or insight more than applying it is the desire to tell a lot of other people about it without their prompting.
There is a profound amount of mental and emotional suffering that has led to an ocean of techniques, tools, practitioners, medicines, books, ideas, movements, podcasts etc. I am including what we’ve found and work for us, but don’t limit yourself to our experience. And also try not to get too lost in the seeking and make sure to try and apply what sounds like it could work for you before moving on. There is not enough time to learn about them all, pray for help finding the ones that are the best fit for you and search slowly and with care.
If you find something you love and works really well, you might modify it over time or have windows where you use it often and then let it go for a while. Different things will work best at different times and while your mind is changing due to samadhi transitions, the best tools might be even more in flux so really consider what is working. Try to think of it like a video game where you’re a character on a big quest who can only carry so many things. You might need different things for different stages of the quest and constantly be checking in to see what you have, what you’re using, what you need right now and what you might need later.
Finally, here are the best tools Geoffrey and I have collected:
Section 1: Why do we not use the tools we already have?
Before looking for new tools that will help us, first explore why we might not want or take help. I learned this concept/exercise from Dr. Nicki Monti, to acknowledge our attachments to our patterns in our life, mind and emotions that we think we don’t want. Her phrasing: “How does this serve?”
I believe there are a series of intelligences that live within us. It could be past versions of ourselves and the developments of our overall personality, past life inclinations, parental messages, cultural messages, the messages of our ancestors who live within our DNA, the subtle pushes and pulls of the microorganisms that live in our body, our bodily intelligence, ourself as the atman, the universal intelligences beyond the atman etc. You don’t need to agree with this particular explanation, simply be open to the idea that we have many complex parts and some of them are in conflict. There are parts of us that will be self destructive in the spirit of self preservation and validation. There are ideas and beliefs we hold that are not congruent with our purposes and destinies. But, they are all ours in the sense that they are our responsibility and within our capacity to address.
A much simpler explanation and application of this concept is to inquire to ourselves what we get out of all the things in our life and within ourselves we think we don’t want. How do I benefit when I do not take the steps to change the things I don’t like or what benefit is it to choose things I know aren’t a good fit for me? Also, because choice is a harder word to apply here: what do I get out of the feelings and frustrations that I find unpleasant or unwanted? Turning this into a writing exercise is best, especially at the beginning because you’ll be able to go deeper into each thing the more specificity you can bring to it. Start with a list of everything you wish wasn’t so in your life, mind and feelings. Then write about how having each thing serves you and your beliefs.
This is the important first step because most of us already have helpful tools that we don’t use and there is a pull in most of us to lean into self destructive patterns. We know from Ayurvedic medicine, that if a person has constitutional imbalances they enjoy and seek out the things that exacerbate that imbalance. I don’t know exactly why or how this came to be as a universal experience, but acknowledge it within yourself without beating yourself up. It simply is. If you can’t acknowledge inner difficulties without beating yourself up, start by writing about how beating yourself up serves you or serves a belief you have about yourself or the world.
Just to be clear, I do not believe we are creating material reality with our conscious minds. All occurrences are a result of a confluence of other occurrences some of which could be influenced by our conscious mind. This isn’t “why did I create this?” This is “how does this serve different parts of myself?”
I’ll offer a personal example around being sick or ill which was the biggest struggle I’ve faced over the last few years:
When I’m sick I get to rest and feel like it’s okay and good to rest. I can also feel guilt for my inability to be as productive as I wish which validates old messaging that I’m not good enough. In my family you were given space, gentleness and care when you were sick in ways you weren’t given when you were well, even if I don’t receive that at the time I might be searching for this benefit. When I’m sick and some people don’t show up for me the way I wish they would (even if I don’t ask or even tell them I’m sick), my sense of being inconsequential is validated. I can let go of many of my responsibilities both real and perceived without guilt when I am sick. When I’m sick I can blame the sickness for my natural symptoms of aging and mortality. When I’m sick I can lean into unhelpful relationship dynamics without making the effort to change them because I don’t have the energy. When I’m sick I’m less critical of myself in general. When I’m sick I don’t push myself harder than I should (which I do when I’m healthy). My father was sick frequently and for a long time when I was young, being sick as an adult and a parent reflects a potential belief or worldview I developed about adults, parents and people being regularly sick. When I’m sick I spend more time doing easy, pleasurable things like watching shows and movies. When I’m sick I can’t eat and no longer have to perform the labor of preparing food. When I’m sick I don’t have to make as many decisions about what I’m going to eat or do in a day. When I’m in any kind of survival mode situation, all the other worries I have are clouded and diminished. When I’m sick all my feelings are clouded and diminished.
I’m happy to answer questions about this process and provide specific examples for things like anger, sadness, anxiety, aggression etc, but I hope what I’ve written above is a good jumping off point. Some things are contradictory to one another, much of it is about how I felt and believed about myself in childhood and things I believe to be true or important in general (which may or may not actually be true). And - I was actually sick from something outside myself, it wasn’t simply manifestations of internal states. It’s important to claim the things that happen to us as ours in order to give the power to change things back to ourselves. It would be easy to say this isn’t part of my process because it’s something that happened to me, not a result of choices I made and I deserve to feel bad or am entitled to help and sympathy without doing anything else because my sickness was valid. This is not untrue, but the bigger conversation isn’t about what happens, it’s about our relationship with our own power and how we interact with and react to what happens.
It can be hard to trust that our reactions to the world aren’t naturally bound to the happenings of the world. Remember that these are two separate processes: what occurs and how we react to what occurs. Think of times good things were happening and we still felt badly. Think of how much emotion we feel about things that simply might occur! We can’t always change happenings and occurrences but shifting our reactions and how we feel and relate to them is very real and possible.
Again, the purpose of this exercise isn’t to feel bad about feeling bad. It is to begin to change our perspective on feeling bad. More common examples: Anger can make us feel powerful and justified and alleviates anxiety, anxiety immobilizes us which liberates us from making decisions and drowns out sadness, sadness can make us feel deserving and victimized, being a victim often makes us feel we are not at fault or don't need to take responsibility, etc. Use this exercise to motivate yourself to break out of these patterns, to understand your inclination to hold onto these patterns and resistance to letting them go (which will hopefully aid in breaking out of them). Oftentimes we’ll interpret that resistance or fear as intuition or find legitimate sounding reasons not to make changes or pursue changes or to hold onto our feelings. Discovering our patterns of resistance will help us distinguish between intuition and self destructive pulls.
A common joke I make about my work is that everyone wants things to be better but no one wants to change. Getting better is change! But I know how hard and scary it is and how many voices inside of us will resist it and tell us it’s doom, this is a practice that takes time and courage. Train yourself to face the fear and resistance first so that you can step into the positive changes fully as the opportunities arise.
Dr. Nicki Monti is still practicing in Los Angeles and has written several books that I recommend, ‘Stuck in the Story no More’ and ‘Stuck No More Workbook!: The Defense Busters’. I’ll put a reading list and summary of this whole essay at the bottom for easy reference.
Section 2: Know Thyself
My next foundational tool suggestion is learning more about the patterns of our self. We can do this by reflecting on the recurring things that have happened in our life. Work circumstances, relationships, feelings of betrayal, dissatisfaction, insecurity, frustration and the things we believe about our self or others that we can back up by events in our life. Many things in this world naturally move in loops which can feel inescapable, but it can also help us draw the map needed to break the cycles.
Exploring where we fall in common groupings is another way to examine our self. Astrology is a good and popular example; I was born with these planetary things that explain these things about myself and my life. There are many examples of groupings and people regularly come up with new ones. We love drawing imaginary lines around what we are and what we are not. During this exploration, don’t think ‘this is what I am’, think ‘these are the obstacles or tendencies I have that help me better map out how to get where I’m going and make the journey as comfortable as possible’.
Another good example is Ayurvedic groupings. If you know you have a “pitta imbalance” you then know that anger management could be important for you. It can help you find out what foods are going to make samadhi symptoms worse. Homeopathic psychology can help you determine the tendencies of your mind that could lead to difficulty and offers direct remedies. There’s also Jungian Psychology, Meyers Briggs, Neurotypes, Enneagram Types etc.
No one is 100% anything and some of these will be more useful than others, but we’re not looking to be defined, we’re looking for patterns within ourselves. Once we know these patterns it gets a lot easier to track remedies, solutions and the things that push us beyond our comfort levels. While learning all these different patterns remember to apply them to yourself rather than project them onto others. It’s very common in the spiritual/pop psychology community to learn about patterns then focus only on fixing them in other people. This is selling yourself short in the realms of your own power, capacity for intimacy, humility and compassion.
Even though I don’t recommend applying these concepts to help or fix others, one of the most important things I drew from this exploration is that people are different. We are experiencing the world and ourselves differently. We have different values, dreams and desires. The things that work for one person might not work at all for another. There is no one size fits all anything. This means that the opinions others have about me cannot be personal for me because they’re personal for them and our “personals” operate completely differently. Also, my expectations of others are probably largely ridiculous because we aren’t living in the same reality. If nothing else you can feel even more confident in your world being yours and other people’s being theirs. This calls again to the idea that everything that happens to you, whether or not catalyzed by your choices or actions, is yours.
Section 3: Let Go of Expectations
Alongside discovering our patterns, explore your unconscious expectations of others and the world. These are unlikely to be met in exactly the way we’d prefer them to be and can be a source of much unhappiness. How do I feel hard done by? What do I feel I deserve that I’m not getting? Who or what do I feel let down by? How do I think the world should be different? What do I think people should or shouldn’t say? How does that reflect things that my parents told me or showed me in my childhood? It’s not bad to pursue the things you need and want, but unconsciously expecting or being let down by an absence of them isn’t pursuit.
I believe that feeling happy and satiated requires honesty and the courage to look at the hard parts of life and the hard parts within ourselves. We must not simply pursue happiness, we must confront all the parts of ourselves that are preventing and holding our happiness back. Expectations and attachments are all flowing against our stream of happiness, fulfillment and satiation.
(A note on this section; this essay is inspired by specific individuals engaged in spiritually transformative work that dredges up all the unconscious material within us whether we’re ready for it or not. I know these individuals are otherwise very stable in themselves and their life circumstances. If you are in a circumstance that is causing you harm or the threat of harm is very present or you’re experiencing scarcity of your basic needs or in a place of present trauma, these are all things to take the time to focus on before digging into oneself or expecting a mindstate to fix. These are all external things that create disharmony in our life and to say that you can simply work on yourself to remedy them is a small part of the picture. I believe you can be happy and fulfilled in difficult places, but I think that must be a personal choice, not something I’d tell someone they should do.)
Section 4: Types of Tools/Remedies
As we gain a clearer picture of the challenges within ourselves and the reasons we resist remedying them, we can begin to focus on finding and applying remedies.
Just a brief overview before getting into the ones that work for us; some remedies are short term remedies, some remedies are long term remedies and some remedies are habitual.
Long term remedies are the ones that will bring about the most profound transformation, but require the most time and input. Sadhana and deep healing work are often long term remedies with short term less fun consequences. These are the ones we recommend taking care not to bite off more than you can chew because it can be easier to initiate change than it can be to process it. If you’re working with a therapist with the intention to work on a long term pattern, let them know you’d like their help gauging how deep to go with them and how to pace it out. Plant medicines are extremely hard to moderate, especially empowered plants like ayahuasca have their own agenda and will DIG, especially if you take them regularly. I’m a big fan of powerful healing tools, but always know that power often means speed and force that we can not prevent from experiencing. The best we can do if we engage with powerful tools is work on emotional regulation while the work of the tools spools out. Certain sadhanas directed at healing can also be very powerful and because they’re usually done over a period of time, build as we do them.
Short term remedies can be anything that decreases stress in our body, mind or life in the moment. We don’t want to gain dependency on these things but they are necessary in the modern world. We need help managing the loads we bear.
Habitual remedies are the things we integrate into our active lifestyle and mind. Things that are good for your body, your schedule, your workload, your mental load. These things are often harder in the beginning because they take more effort than they yield, but start simply and small. Don’t overhaul your life. Remove one activity or commute, adopt one physically healthy habit that doesn’t require too much effort, make the choice to stop believing the disharmonious thoughts that arise and forgive yourself as we fail to do any of this 100% of the time. Habits that stick are done consistently, imperfectly and over long windows of time. Again, don’t overhaul your life. Do what you are able to do consistently, not what you are able to do perfectly.
It’s ideal to incorporate all three types of remedies into your toolbox. My explanations for everything moving forward are going to be a lot briefer, please feel free to ask questions about any of them generally or specific to you.
Section 5: Geoffrey’s Remedies
I’m going to switch over to Geoffrey’s orientation towards feeling better, good and okay. His primary interest is in “tech” that alleviates karma and in alleviating the physical body of its propensities towards suffering. He doesn’t have the same degree of access to his inner world that I do and so has employed tools that work for him without the need to directly engage with the material he’s moving through.
When we met I had been deeply entrenched in my own very direct inner work and could not imagine how any of his ideas or techniques made any sense, but quickly changed my mind after my own exposure to his work. He often says, “You don’t have to go through the trash before you take it out.” And I agree as long as you’re actually taking it out and are not simply convincing yourself you’re taking it out.
He also believes in acting/behaving with integrity which I think is very important if you find that self reflection, employing witness consciousness and using tools that don’t require a clear internal process are the best fit for you. When you find yourself behaving in ways that are harmful to yourself and others these are external indications of internal obstacles, that if addressed will lead to more happiness and peace.
Geoffrey’s first line of emotional defense is to generally take care of your body. This doesn’t need to be adopting a dogma about what foods are good/bad/restricted/acceptable or what your body should look like or be able to do. If something you eat or drink makes you feel bad later, maybe try less of that. If you know there’s a healthy food or drink that could be beneficial to add into your diet, add it in.
Most people know what is good or bad for them but that conversation tends to get clouded in a larger cultural orientation we have towards weight loss, control and fear of mortality.
Eat and drink to make your body happy. Walk outside in some sunshine when you can. Sleep as much as your body needs to and your lifestyle will allow. Try to avoid unnecessary things that hurt your body. Bathe regularly and use lotions or oils that make your skin feel comfortable. Move your body in the ways that make your body feel best.
Another Geoffrey saying that I love is “What’s the healthiest vegetable? The one you’ll actually eat.” This idea can be applied to a lot of things we can do to make things easier on ourselves. Do the things you know are good for you in the ways that are as practical as possible for you. Don’t try to completely change who you are and what your life is. Most lives are not conducive to being all about physical wellness, fitness, aesthetic etc. and there is nothing wrong with that. Ideally, the body is quiet and calm and not fighting a chemical battle with itself to be quiet and calm.
Geoffrey is also a big fan of Chinese herbs, not surprising with his background as a Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor and the fact that when applied well, they can seem like sources of absolute magic. There is no herb or supplement that is good for everyone in any dose all the time despite what the natural food and wellness industry will tell you. It’s ideal to have someone well trained to help you find what is going to work for you or to do as much reading and experimenting for yourself as you can.
To our group we recommend Xiao Yao because most people seriously engaging in our work are going to have internal heat and fast movement as a piece of their puzzle. Xiao Yao can cool you down, can bring down anger and anxiety. We also like reishi (ganoderma lingzhi) extracts for this same reason. I also drink chamomile and lavender tea and take magnesium regularly to help support my body. We are fortunate to have several professional herbalists and herbal extractors in our group who can help navigate the best personal options. Again, this essay is for a group of people I know, always consult with a health professional before taking herbs and supplements, especially if you are taking medication or under the care of a healthcare professional.
As many of you know, Geoffrey is also a fan of puja performed by Vedic pandits. We have a friend who runs an organization that coordinates with Vedic pandits in India that you can easily sponsor and be included in. It is one of the easiest ways to lift the heaviness of our life, has an immediate positive effect and little to no internal disruptions that we need to integrate over time (unless you were to sponsor your own puja for a very wrathful or disruptive deity).
Chö is similar in this regard. It alleviates burdens and integration is included in the practice. We are lucky to have Paige with us who offers Chö regularly and can answer any additional questions.
Section 6: Theresa’s Remedies
I’ve explained these as briefly as I can, but remember all good things take time and work. These are each regular practices that sink in deeper and deeper over time. I don’t feel like a master of any, but I’ve built habit patterns that bring me back to this work again and again. Lean into what works best for you.
~Prayer I’ve described as being very different from “manifesting”. Prayer is an opening to something larger than ourselves in a place of as much vulnerability and honesty as we can muster in the moment. Trying to manifest is an assertion of will through the mind and the benefit is only if and when the thing is given to us. Prayer has many values because it is a conversation with ourselves, the world and God that reflects how small we are and yet also how much intimacy we are capable of. Pray for everything, all the time, to generally God or a specific divine personality. Pray for things to be as they should be according to the higher power, not as we think they should be. Pray for help overcoming attachments and resistance. Pray for support to take action and have clarity about when and how to do so. Yell at God when you’re angry, express when you are sad. Pray in thanks and in grief. Pray when you feel connected and disconnected. Practice opening yourself up to further depths of yourself through these conversations and inviting the divine into them.
~Gratitude I always have a conflict within myself about the benefit of forced gratitude because it was a big part of my upbringing. This has made me shy away from recommending it even though I do, perhaps ironically, feel very grateful to be strongly oriented towards gratitude. I believe that even though we aren’t creating all of reality with our thoughts, we are being impacted by them and our perspectives. Shifting our focus to the good things in our life is an easy way to feel good as a course of habit. There are going to be other problems that need to be addressed and gratitude doesn’t need to be a reason we shouldn’t experience sadness or anger. It’s more of a remedy for dissatisfaction, annoyance, boredom and longing that can culminate into anxieties and insecurities. Write down, pray about or simply think about the things in your life that you are thankful to have and/or have had. From the luxurious things down to the simple opportunity to experience existence. If you feel too sad or angry to feel sincere gratitude about anything else, attempt to say thank you for your ability to have feelings and all the reasons you have to work through them. There is no objective reality and we do get to participate in shaping ours. Train your mind to see life as one full of big and small gifts.
~Compassion is the most challenging orientation because I believe it’s a complicated experience beyond simply thought and feeling. It requires emotional maturation, honesty, respect for others and deep feeling for others without getting lost in our own feelings, projections and beliefs. The folks I’m writing this for have all been pursuing Bodhicitta for years now and I believe if you pray to be compassionate and have the sincere desire for it, it will develop. Other options are to start with the ways you are challenged with respecting others, trusting yourself and the world, your perspectives on punishment and forgiveness and where you insert your beliefs about what should or shouldn’t happen to people. Then consider that there are no shoulds and each individual experience and expression has value that we cannot conceive of but that we can feel love and respect for and a desire to assist if we are able. Then consider that we are all one in many different regards and treat and think of others with the generosity and respect we hold for those we consider in the highest esteem. Apply this to yourself as well.
~Don’t compare yourself to others. Where it was illogical and unhelpful before samadhi, it’s totally absurd after samadhi. You are off roading on the timeline now, your life will not look the same as anyone else, not even earlier versions of yourself and that’s okay. Remember back to everyone having their own unique experience of the world that we can never fully know? Think of that when you have the impulse to compare yourself to anyone. Their life is not as we imagine it, our comparison is manufactured within our own perspective on ourselves, beliefs, expectations and attachments. Comparison is a symptom of all that we don’t want to let go of and a source of unnecessary suffering. If you must compare, compare yourself to your future enlightened self. Are they worried about what you’ve done or what you have?
~If you don’t have the energy to take action to feel better, that’s okay but also don’t expend energy to feel worse. I believe that feeling bad is inevitable and unavoidable and that there are times where we can go after it, resolve, remediate, work with and through it and other times where we are simply going to sit in it. As much as you can, don’t work to make it worse by attaching ideas and potentials to the bad feelings. This takes as much energy as it would to work to make them feel better. It’s okay to choose to be in the feelings and hold them as long as you need to, but try not to anchor them in other things that will make them harder to resolve later. Especially during samadhi transitions, much of what is coming up is already moving towards resolution and we can make it much harder by trying to find reasons for those feelings in the world and anchoring them to our present rather than allowing them to move through us. This is hard because most of us accustomed to doing the opposite and it takes practice to not find reasons for our feelings. Try to remember it’s okay to simply feel for a million reasons and no reason at all.
~Don’t take yourself too seriously. We are not static beings, we are in a constant movement and change cycle and trying to make any part of that process big or in focus or important is a resistance to that cycle. Our feelings, our achievements, our experiences, our work, our bodies are each on their way to an end which is good and okay. They don’t need to be more than they are, their value simply is. There is nothing that makes us any more than we already are. If it’s hard to see yourself this way, practice with others and pray to experience them as valuable simply for being.
~Cultivate a sense of safety and trust. Again, this concept originates from Dr. Nicki Monti and is about safety and trust. This idea is that there are no safe places in the world, only safety inside yourself through the trust of knowing you have the capacity to be in difficult circumstances, work with them, process them and maybe even thrive or benefit from them.
This can take time to know or think of yourself in that way. We have all been through difficulty that we can look back on and know we survived and thrived after which is a helpful place to begin. It can be hard not to wish we had done things differently, but instead of imagining past difficulties as future fears, work towards becoming the kind of person who has greater capacity to act the ways you think is ideal. Pray for trust in yourself and trust in change and trust in the potential to heal and transform.
If you can’t trust yourself yet and it’s easier you can trust me because I know you’re all very hard working, determined, intelligent and engaged people who have and will overcome everything life could hand to you. Or trust in impermanence and the ever changing nature of all things. Trust in God is what I strive for.
I like Mrityunjaya and Yamaraj practices and Chö to help us overcome our fears that keep us from trust. Tools to increase Shraddha can help too.
Try not to imagine safety or satiation as a circumstance you aren’t in, imagine it as an experience you can carry with you through the world. Work on forgiving yourself and the imperfect nature of our reality and anything else we perceive as “wrong”. Pray for help with each part of it.
~Work to stop believing that your thoughts are true or real. If you don’t experience thinking or hear your thoughts, write. Reflect on the thoughts that came out of you. Most of us believe that what we think is right and true and real. But, most of it is opinions, justifications for those opinions, imaginary answers for who or what to blame for our feelings, reflections of the words of others that may or may not be true, varied constructs of our fears and assessments of the future that have not happened yet. None of this is real or true - and that doesn’t make them bad, things don’t need to be real or true to have value.
Think of your thoughts like any form of media. Some of it is informative, some of it is misinformative, some of it is entertaining, creative, funny, designed to promote fear, designed to validate, but most of it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Being gripped in our thoughts is disruptive so if we can build a habit of responding to them with, ‘okay, maybe’ you can derail runaway anxieties that might otherwise ruin your day. We don’t know what’s going to happen. There will be joy and difficulty ahead, both of which we will miss if we are locked in a place of experiencing our thoughts more than any other part of ourselves or the world. Make them quieter by taking power away from them. Maybe. Okay, maybe. Maybe that’s true, maybe that could happen, maybe that is happening. Maybe.
Go back to the beginning and reflect on what about you and your life could be driving these thoughts. Create more space between you and them until it’s easier to watch them go by without engaging.
Section 7: Short term remedies
Again, short term remedies are going to be whatever makes you feel better in the moment and this is going to be unique to you. Write down all the things that make you feel happy and peaceful, then circle the ones you can do.
The short term remedies we like are:
Take a walk
Take a nap
Do something uncomplicated and creative
Talk to a trusted friend
Hug or snuggle a loved one
Watch comedy in bed
CBD or calming herbs
Forage for wild plants,
Clean or organize something small and uncomplicated
Eat a favorite meal
Listen to calming or happy music
Deep and slow breathing
Sunbathe
Exercise
Watch birds
Go out with friends
Anything you find fun or pleasurable that doesn’t cause later discomfort, disregulation or harm.
Section 8: Outsourcing
While going through these strange internal states it can feel like reaching out for professional help isn’t an option, but you can simply explain your fears and emotional difficulties without trying to explain what you think are the causes.
Childhood trauma and patterns are a good place to start on healing paths because it is like a concentration of the difficult patterns of our lives in nearly all cases. It doesn’t end in childhood and from many viewpoints doesn’t even begin in childhood, but that is our road map to the way we relate and interact with ourselves, others, God and the world. Traditional therapy is often a powerful tool in this exploration and remediation.
Different kinds of mental health care therapies can offer long term, short term and habitual remedies. I like EMDR and therapies that move beyond the confines of conversation. I recommend finding someone who you like and trust and you feel understands your goals. I know it can feel impossible to talk to “normal” people when you’re having big internal experiences but again, you don’t have to tell a therapist why you think you’re having a hard time. Just tell them what the hard time is like, what your fears and concerns are. They have very good tools for coping, reorienting and regulating. I especially like that there is a professional support person to lean on while we move through dysregulation material.
Acupuncture, massage and PT are all wonderful support options if they are accessible. Taking pressure off the body and receiving support from another person can go a long way.
Energy healers can also help take pressure off and provide support, but I always recommend someone you feel very safe with and intuitively sure of since the profession is common and the bar to entry is very low.
Closing
This is a lot and there is a lot of material out there on everything I’ve mentioned here. I recommend reading this multiple times and forage for things that stand out to you each time.
If there’s any one message I have here it’s that it’s okay to want to feel okay and it’s okay to do things just for that reason.
An old yogic tool that was paramount to their work and very difficult to employ in modern life was routine and simplicity. If and when this is all overwhelming, go back to basics. Wash dishes, get your oil changed, prepare simple meals, spend time with loved ones, sleep. Lean into what seems the most mundane. It is the foundation of the life that allows you to do all other work. Honor its value and importance.
Of these and all tools out there, don’t expect any one thing, no matter how helpful, to remedy or take care of everything. We are dealing with variety and complexity that are best met with varied and complex tools. This is a common disappointment on the spiritual path that spiritual work will not remedy it all quickly or easily. It has to potential to remedy it eventually by pushing us through all of our obstacles. This is not for the faint of heart and I always view you all as extremely courageous people for pursuing this.
As always we’re happy to elaborate, clarify and answer as many questions as we can.
With so much love,
Theresa
Reading & Resources
Dr. Nicki Monti, www.stucknomore.com
Therapeutic Workshops, one on one therapy, books and other resources
Paige Hetherington, www.gracfulldying.com
Chö & Herbal Recommendations
Ben Collins, www.puja.net
Pujas & Astrological information to specify remedial pujas
Christina Funkhouser, www.skiesofgrace.com
Astrological information, sadhanas and one on one readings
Sharon Leopardi, viinecreations.square.site @viinecreations
Herbal oils, salves and tinctures
Traditional Chinese herbal tinctures and extracts
Intro to Healing Work
As we embark on this healing course, I wanted to share some thoughts and personal opinions I have about the role of being a healer. We talk a lot about the challenges of living in a world where we have to define ourselves without the support of a culture or a community. Learning healing tools is a new part of ourselves to navigate within the world and can be especially challenging if you plan to expand your work beyond your family and friends. I believe compassion and making a conscious effort to act ethically is what gives us the roadmap to do this as advantageously as possible.
Becoming a healer is a process of stepping into power and authority. We need to be aware of this power and conscious of its use. To abuse this power and authority is specifically antithetical to healing work. As a part of this process there must be an effort to practice ethical behavior and to develop a compassionate mindset in our healing work in order to adequately serve others.
This is emotionally challenging work and many people who are seeking healing/healers have histories of harmful patterns with authority figures as well as difficulty setting and respecting boundaries. People who are drawn to become healers often have a heightened ability to empathize, sympathize and understand the perspectives of others making it difficult to set and respect boundaries. These patterns might be true of nearly all modern people because our culture offers little in what healthy and respectful boundaries look like, but boundary issues are noticeably prevalent in spiritual and healing circles. This means that learning to create and hold boundaries is an important part of this work. These are standards you hold yourself to as well as others. You cannot control what another person does, only how you react to it. Boundaries are intentional actions and reactions on our part, not expectations and punishments of others. To set up a good foundation for boundaries, adopt a conscious interpretation of your role in this work, your limitations, what you can and cannot promise, what you can and cannot accommodate. Practice expressing and holding to this role with kindness and honesty. None of us are ever going to be perfect, what we’re hoping for is progression and consistently holding onto the ethics we strive to embody.
What weaves healing, service and boundaries together seamlessly is compassion. Compassion is a complex feeling of love for others that can deepen and develop the more we seek to be compassionate. Respect is, I believe, the most important piece of developing compassion because from respect we can appreciate another individual’s experience without the need to control, pity or judge it bringing us into deep intimacy with others as they are as opposed to how we would like them to be or have the capacity to imagine them to be. A real gift is given without attachment to how it is received, interpreted or used. Respect in healing work allows us to give freely, without expectation.
Coming from a place of respect also means that if we as a practitioners need to set boundaries with others, we must trust their ability to process and react to that boundary. It should also implore us to set boundaries in a kind and respectful way. Respect allows us to sink into love for others without attachments, crossing boundaries or allowing boundaries to be crossed. Love isn’t justification for actions or expectations, it simply is. Respect is the way we can actively treat others with love, kindness and clarity.
Another important aspect of compassion is understanding. The understanding that acknowledges our inability to ever truly know what it’s like to be anyone else and that our reactions to their experiences or similar experiences we’ve had are not the same as their experiences. It’s the understanding that we don’t have to fully understand another experience to respect it. Again, coming from this place of presence without trying to build an interpretation of what we’re being present with brings us into intimacy. All of our judgements and stories and reactions and ideas about others build barriers between us, even if meant to be helpful and positive. I do think there are times and places for analysis and working with our own reactions and exploring our similarities and differences, but in the context of healing work, these are protective or self-indulgent distractions that draw us away from our work.
The final piece in my interpretation of compassion is humility. Humility is a wide open door that prevents us from barricading in our illusions and delusions about ourselves and the world. Humility acknowledges shortcomings without shame. Humility invites us to do our work, and strive towards greater work without the heavy standard of perfection weighing down on us. Humility leaves ample space to learn and grow.
The first person we get to practice all of this on is ourself. In viewing ourselves we often default to the same patterns of analysis, judgment, lack of compassion, distancing from intimacy and attachment to ideas that we are conditioned to apply to our understanding of others. This gives us the opportunity to familiarize and shed these patterns in ourselves before they become obstacles in our healing work for others. For this and so many other reasons it’s important to work on ourselves first. The more we heal ourselves, the more healing work we can bring to bear for others.The more we face our own terror, the more compassionate we can be with others moving through theirs. The more we move through windows of hard healing reactions, the more confidently we can assure others that they are temporary. The more we work on our own judgements and reactions, the easier it is not to bring judgment and reactivity into healing work. The more we learn to accept ourselves, our shame and shortcomings, the easier it is to accept others.
My last and very important note about stepping into this role is to remember that being a healer does not negate or compensate for harmful behavior in the world. We can help ourselves, our loved ones, and many others if we choose to do so through our healing practice. The way that we treat our loved ones, coworkers, acquaintances, ourselves and everyone we interact with in the physical world is even more important. Striving to be kind and honest, especially towards those closest to us is imperative to our healing work and spiritual work. Once again, when stepping into a position of authority, especially spiritual or healing authority, the responsibility we bear to others increases and it’s important to strive to direct our actions towards kindness, patience, helpfulness and humility. Because this is a hard culture and time to live in I’ll remind everyone again that boundaries can be set and held with kindness, patience, helpfulness and humility. Boundaries won’t necessarily be received that way and we will make mistakes, but striving to be the best versions of ourselves is what will make us great in a healing role and every other role we step into.
*This article is part of a six month long healer course offered in our membership section
The Power of Understanding Our Limitations
Recently my husband and I hosted a workshop on nourishment. I expected it to center around food, the Mother archetype, processing information and anything else we need to take in from outside of us. What came up for me unexpectedly during the inner work was limitations. Interestingly, it fell on the evening of a new moon, a time of quiet, inward attention. My first thought was that a full moon would be more appropriate for a nourishment workshop. I imagined nourishment like bathing in the clear, abundant illumination of the moon, a glowing circle with no beginning and no end to its definition. But as we sat together under the cool dark of the new moon, I realized true nourishment isn’t about external excess. Nourishment is the inner process of parsing what can be held. It’s all the little metabolic systems breaking things down and distributing them in the dark. Sometimes it’s the integration of healing or insight that trickles slowly into the newly open spaces. It’s not access to exorbitance. It’s the allotment of time for each step of a process, the amount that can be extracted from the present material and moved into the places it’s best used and the energy it takes for that to happen. True nourishment is a process of ideal selection and usage based on the limitations at play.
Spirituality is always informed by the culture it was born of, despite how many schools of divine thought present themselves as universal truth. After its birth the divinity of the time and the ideals of the culture reinforce one another in decided loops. The New Age beginnings can be credited back to the early 1800s with the New Thought movement. It didn’t become visible to the mainstream until the 1960s when Eastern teachers and philosophies were spotlighted in pop culture by many famous musicians - and quickly westernized to fit the cultural framing and mindset of the Americans and Europeans digesting it. At the same time the United States was still soaring economically in the post war boom and a significant chunk of the post war generation was challenging cultural barriers of many kinds. I imagine, for some, there must have been a sense of limitlessness or that the only restrictions in the world were the ones imposed by the cultures of old. Wealth and social power have been associated with spiritual power in many spiritual traditions in written history. The New Age movement easily adopted this principle. It became a central focus of the New Age to believe in “manifesting” material goods and that there was infinite abundance available to those spiritually adept enough to will it into their lives or one could be rewarded by a divine source that found favor with them. These beliefs have been repackaged and remarketed repeatedly up until the present day. For many people it has been accepted as universal truth because it was or was close to the lived or perceived experience for so many, especially Americans, over the second half of the 20th century. Disincarnate beings joined in on the party, happy to receive the attention garnered when they and their channels told us “You are God, You are everything, You are infinite, Abundance is infinite, Limitations are only in your mind”.
Maybe the focus on our individual divinity, unbridled material potential and general boundlessness is all true or mostly true or true enough in a moment of time, in a specific location and for a specific group of people within that location. There’s value to the relative, fluid truth of times and places. It helps motivate us to change and especially when widespread change is necessary, it motivates groups to change. We love the idea of Truth, that there’s something that will always be correct, will always be the answer, like the secret information from which we will be able to transcend any situation. But most truths are relative to their context and like all attachments we form, eventually they find themselves out of context and can stunt, stop, or poison our spiritual development and our lives.
In the same conversation about the new moon on our nourishment day, a present astrologer mentioned that Kali is also considered to be the new moon. At that moment I saw Kali’s lightning in the darkness and remembered the power in the hidden processes: power in waiting, power in resting, power in turning inward without clarity, power in invisibility, power within lacking and power within limitation. So many modern people were stripped of this power by being made to think that there are infinite choices, infinite opportunities and infinite time. Anything short of this can appear to be personal failure. This has never been true, but easier for certain populations to believe at different times. We’re entering a time where more limitations are visible, more patience is required, more skillful assessment of our and our community’s resources are needed for our survival. Our energy and attention is in high demand by media outlets, advertisers, political groups, ideological groups as well as our loved ones, personal passions and responsibilities. Choosing the parts of this world we’d like to illuminate, knowing that there is a finite amount that we can do, is an act of power. Choosing to explore what’s most important to us so we know the direction we’d like our attention to take is an act of power. Choosing to say no either outloud or in action to the things we cannot comfortably fit on our plate is an act of power. Seeing our plate, infinite in shape but limited in surface area and deciding what we want to strive to put on it is an act of power. Sharing with intent to those who can take and use what we’re offering is an act of power.
For the generations that preceded the newest ones, finding power through freedom and openness and a sense of potential yielded many gifts we currently enjoy. Now we need to begin finding power in other places as we enter a world that’s changed and changing rapidly. The ideology of infinite growth has failed us. We’re experiencing the consequences of pollution and destruction of the natural environment. There is no more mainstream culture to relate to or draw from. The internet has allowed us more information and opportunities but with them has come increasing demands and social navigations. People are emotionally burdened and empowered by ideological groups to express their burden as unkindness. The world has always been complex, but we’re carrying far too much of that complexity as individuals now. It’s time to look at the excess on our plates and acknowledge that even if a bigger part of us is infinite, our lives are not. We can’t have it all, and we don’t actually want to have it all. The emerging power in this realization isn’t the ability to gain, but the ability to choose.
Now and in all transitional, difficult or demanding times we can still retreat into the small things that are sacred to us. We can still enjoy the blooming of flower fields, the ripening fruit of old citrus trees and the full moon time while addressing what’s going on beneath the earth in its quiet and distinctive magnificence. We can enjoy our bright seasons, prepare for our cold ones and accept the unexpected storms in joy and clarity. For those of us who punish ourselves for not doing enough, being enough and having enough, it’s time to retrain our thinking.
May we all learn to celebrate doing within our boundaries, being what we are and feeling satiated with what we have. May we have the courage to make choices that might be wrong and the trust in ourselves that we can move through our mistakes. May we grow at our own pace, comfortably and patiently. May we shed the truths that don’t nourish us, our lives or our communities. I look forward to the peaceful freedom and the tranquil power in this stream.
*I wrote this before the war against Ukraine began. First I’d like to mention that this advice isn’t for those having their lives actively stripped from them. I strongly believe it’s never for anyone else to decide how to deal with their personal hardships or encourage positivity in survival situations. Survive however you must, coping with immediate trauma is a natural or previously learned reaction that doesn’t need direction.
Second, I’d like to share a thought I’ve had for a long time about the generation of people currently affected or considering the potential effects of this war. I’ve thought for a long time that if the world war generation could really see us, not through the eyes of their children and the media intentionally dividing us, but really see their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, that they would be proud. I know many people who have cultivated practical skills; gardening, foraging, making medicinals, cooking from scratch, preserving food, making clothing, making tools, making art, cultivating emotional stability, empathy and spirituality, navigating ways to use modern tech to assist others while working extremely hard to care for themselves and their families and communities. Whatever the future holds in the short or long term I find it extremely hopeful looking at those around me. If anyone is expecting us to be rattled they haven’t been paying attention. And last -unrelated but worth mentioning in all these conversations - is to remember those who have suffered through unjust wars that have not received the support, media coverage, visibility, well wishes and empathy present in the conversations about Ukraine. May it serve as an example of how we can react to conflict in the future.