Ho'oponopono

ho'oponopono, primal flight-or-fight response, survival instinct and the expedition of the Divine

I didn't connect an out-of-state friend's email subject line:

row row row your boat gently down the stream

to the U-Haul truck art I saw on my walk this evening--at least, immediately. I was spending more time processing the intense energy I was feeling nonstop all day. In essence, it felt like flight-or-fight hormones in overdrive (whether they be cortisol or adrenaline or both or more) coursing wildly through my body. 

I'm sort of adept of being able to witness intense emotion at the same time as they are blaring through without getting too caught up in them, although this flight-or-fight sensation (sort of feels like fear, but that's a label I'm not sure about, as this feels so automatic and primal). 

If there was a thought behind it, it was "don't go! stay safe and warm inside at home, no need to go cliff-diving or whatever that silly thing is you're about to do that's not known" (I'm preparing to return to the Bay Area tomorrow on a scouting mission to try a new venture.... on a shoestring--sort of the 'on a wing and a prayer' motif). 

But as I thought about it all, I realized there were deeper implications that were relevant to Ho'oponopono and well any kind of 'light-work' or healing work or spiritual work or whatever we call it. The main premise behind Ho'oponopono is we are clearing all old patterns (in other traditions this might be known as karma or conditioning, but Dr. Len also just calls it memory) because we rely on divine inspiration readily available in the present moment that needs no reference point to a past known. 

 This sounds all fine and dandy on paper: yes, to live by divine inspiration and plunge into the Unknown...

When the rubber meets the road, and in actuality, when I find myself in a new, unknown situation (or wish to create a new situation rather than repeat something expired), I often feel this tempest of stress hormones that seem habitual in nature, and the body physiology seems to be quite familiar with this groove--and this appears to effectively block the expression of Infinite Inspiration.  The truth is I know that every situation is potentially fresh and unknown and its only my mind that deems it must know and comprehend "where is this going? how shall it unfold? tell me." But just because I know that intellectually, and have even known it more experientially to be true, the stress hormones react to something. I'm thinking aloud here, but I wonder if over time, the body can be addicted to that fight-or-flight response and its release of hormones?

I'd been visiting friends for about seven weeks (from mid-March through April), and didn't want to write to much here in order to protect their privacy (yes, there were many Ho'oponopono opportunities), however there is one thing that happened directly to me I'll share as it relates to this theme of flight-or-fight and the survival instinct.

One morning, I awoke with an insect bite on my right cheek (lower and level with the mouth, but still on cheek) which became redder and itchier as time wore on. In fact, that same morning I saw a spider scurrying across the floor (although the night before, I did see something more like a gnat).

Face: Represents what we show the world

Affirmation: I am safe to be me. I express who I am.

 There's quite a few symbols in there (spider, itching, insect bite, etc.) but I'll focus on the face (cheek isn't specified in Louise Hay's Heal Your Body, Heal Your Life and its symbolism).

That affirmation really hit home for me. Fundamentally, I don't feel safe to express, even if it is actually the Infinite expressing through what appears to be an individual. (There is some thought that separates out --apparently--and views Life as separate from 'me' and therefore potentially hostile. And maybe that is what triggers the bodily response to DANGER! Of course this isn't true, and that's what the whole spiritual path aims to show first-hand.)

I don't have any answers (per se) in this post, just expressing how perhaps our buried conditioning that Life is separate from the 'me' leads to a visceral and vividly intense sensation of profound unsafety. And how that undermines Life expressing itself (without friction that is) in its full glory and fluidity (which is the intent of Ho'oponopono, after all). Of course, I can do Ho'oponopono on that feeling of unsafety and acknowledge it presence and soothe it through the mantra.

Well, this all circles back to the first thing I shared. The U-Haul truck art in general is a series of explorers and adventurers, and this one looked like this:

 

I memorized the line "last great unknown" and Wyoming and resolved to look up the website when I came back home from my walk. As I saunter, I mulled over that "last great unknown" phrase.  (I actually know a lot about John Wesley Powell as my ex-husband used to be a co-owner of an outfit--acquired, so it doesn't exist in this form--called Adventure River Expeditions in southern Utah. I've run the Green and Colorado through Lodore Canyon, Westwater Canyon, Desolation Canyon, Green River Daily, Cataract Canyon. But I wasn't the first descent.)

There is no last great unknown. It's just the next great unknown, and the next.

It's pretty much one unknown after another when Life lives you (in my experience, when I allow it). I do not think Humanity has even touched the surface of what is possible when we don't hold back, when we don't hole up in cozy lakes but allow the current of the mighty river its due. When I realize that 'the Unknown' is also Evelyn (and also You and That and This), it's not really so scary; it's the times the imaginary self grips on and tells another story of separation or division that it feels so daunting.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share a little from the U-Haul Venture Across America website on this particular river expedition, as I thought it spoke in everyday language to FACING the unknown, and embracing its call. 

"Hello, my name is John Wesley Powell. It is the 24th of May 1869, and the good people of Green River City have turned out to see us start. Today we begin our expedition into the last great unknown within the continental United States. I am proud to say that I am a self-driven, self-taught man of action, and am determined to conquer these unmapped, uncharted rivers and canyons, knowing that if I should fail, sure death awaits me and my crew. The nine men making the expedition along with me are prepared to embark on what I believe will be a10-month journey throughout lands into which no one has ventured. It is my future goal to ultimately be able to guide Americans safely into the West. I seek knowledge of, and want to explore, what many believe cannot be done. Native Americans have told me that to enter the canyon is to disobey the gods and should not be done.

I have chosen a different path than that of my father, but believe that my calling lies in the depths of the canyon walls, or perhaps rushes through the rivers’ water. I see many people here today at Expedition Island in Wyoming that I shall later invite to join me on this adventurous expedition through writings I intend to note in my journal. As our expedition into the American West is about to begin, and final preparation is quickly coming to an end, I would like to take a moment to write down how I came to be here today."

I also found it also inspiring that Powell feels as if he is following a 'calling' or nudge that's bigger than his societal or parental conditioning or sense of self-preservation, and he is going to follow it--come what may. 

Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily life is but a dream. 

ho'oponopono and what is cleaning? ~ miracle in the mirror ~ myelitis ~ spine, paralysis, inflammation

I haven't read Miracle in the Mirror in two years. I just picked it up to write a post on another blog. It's the true story of young college student Nita Edwards descent into a debilitating illness. Flipping through it, I was surprised to see how much Nita's prayer resembled ho'oponopono in intent. 

I found the book through serendipity during a dark time in my life. As I was reading it I focused more on her finding a cure and being healed. However, I did underline the passage where she starts to asking to know her purpose in life rather than to be saved. Re-reading that page today, it talks about the more she delved into that style of prayer the more she was clearing herself to be a direct spiritual pipeline so she would know the answer and live it.

The word 'cleaning' is the #1 word Dr. Len uses to describe ho'oponopono. If you clean (or clear) whatever is obscuring direct divine inspiration (he calls it inspiration, and other times zero point or zero state). I call it inspiration as well, not intuition (there's often a sense of "checking in" with intuition whereas inspiration is immediate and spontaneous and without  a second thought.) Basically, in the present moment, if one was not obscured by relying on, grasping to and repeating past memories and patterns, it's clear what to do (or not do) in divine harmony (usually in a fresh, fluid way).

It's interesting (that is all in the past for both Nita and myself) to note the symbolism of Nita's disease as it applies to what was going on in my life during a dark time two years ago.  (I wasn't combining Louise Hay's symbolism and ho'oponopono then, I think.)

Spine: Flexible support in life.

Affirmation: I am supported by life.

Paralysis:  Fear, terror. Escaping situation or person. Resistance.

Affirmation: I am one with all life, I am safe and totally adequate for all situations.

Inflammation, -itis:  Fear. Seeing red. Inflated thinking.

Affirmation: My thinking is peaceful, calm and centered.

There's not a direct entry for myelitis, so I'm using the primary symptoms and body areas of the disease below. For instance, Spine: At the time I did not feel supported by life (but if truth be told it was because I wanted my mind/brain to figure out and wrestle down the answer, or in other words, I was being a control-freak and not allowing life to unfold in a graceful way).  Paralysis: The worse the hardship was the more I resisted and felt intense fear around sheer survival.

I included the affirmations not because I use affirmations as is but because they sort of point to an antidote, or a hint. Surrendering to Life to support me one moment to the next through its guidance and inspiration and grace would have done wonders for me at that time (still does).

Inflammation: I was frustrated and angry that compromising my work (to be palatable to masses or in other words, publishers) had resulted in financial hardship, and I probably blamed a whole host of people who didn't seem to be helping the situation.

Again, the most important point for me in flipping through the book tonight was not the curing of the disease but that clearing of herself to be open to divine guidance and inspiration. The Divine (inclusive of you, I'm not referring to an exterior being but all Being) is already well-being itself, so all that's necessary is to clear away blocks.

A few excerpts from the book, Miracle in the Mirror:

"She lay sulking in the bed, a bag of bones, praying, "Why me, God?" and angrily holding back the tears, when the husband of another relative walked in with Colton Wickramaratne. For a long time, he had wanted Colton, his pastor, to pray for Nita.

Nita made every effort to be pleasant, as always, as they were introduced, but she was not disposed toward socializing at the moment. She was still mad at God. She answered the preacher's questions, smiled sweetly, and closed her eyes as he prayed. As he left she said, "Thank you for coming," but she really meant, "Thank you for going."

[In this excerpt, the pastor Colton revisits her and reveals a vision he had. . . . ]

"She was dying of myelitis, a creeping paralysis that was destroying her limbs and vital organs, and, apart from that, she had always been cynical about visions and dreams and voices. The story Colton told her really bore no relevance to her.

"God is going to heal you," Colton insisted. "You're going to have an impact on all of Asia."

"You can't be sure of that," Nita replied coolly. "I come from a family of medical people. I know full well that my disease will eventually reach my heart and lungs, and I will die. But you're good to try and encourage me."

"I would never give you false hopes," Colton answered. "But I saw your face in the vision. You are going to live."

Nita shrugged. The preacher could believe whatever he liked. She couldn't stop him.

[Days later . . . . ]

"Oh, Colton," Nita sobbed, "why don't you just stop praying for me?"

"No," he replied, adamant. "I'm not going to let go until God tells you what He intends to do with your life."

A subtle change occurred to Nita that day. Her prayer life experienced a fundamental change.

"I'm not asking for healing any more," she told the Lord each day. "I'm not asking to be taken home to heaven. Just tell me what you created me for, and do anything you like with me."

She doggedly repeated the prayer, day after day, night after night.

"If your plan is to let me die, that's fine," she often added, her fear of death completely gone.

"If your plan is to let me lie here like a vegetable for thirty years, that's O.K. I don't like it, but I'll live for you right in this bed. Just tell me what you want me to do, why you created me, what purpose you intended when you formed me in the womb. What is your plan for me?"

. . . When she felt herself doubting that God would ever answer her, she repeated the last verse of Isaiah 40 as a counter-argument:

"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

And for Nita, that promise--mounting up, running, and walking--made it worth the wait, even if it would only be a figure of speech.

It was a strange change, after so many months of demanding a miracle of healing. Colton and Suzanne, her mother, and hundreds of Christians all over the world, were demanding her healing, and in the swirling midst of all this, she was asking only for a word --not action.

And daily, Nita's spiritual pipeline was being cleared. The earthly longings she had felt for so long were being swept away. The obsessions of her teen years, the self-indulgent prayers, the earmarks of immaturity began to be dissolved within her by a divine touch. Every day, she could sense in her spirit that her spiritual pipeline was coming close to a total cleansing--a little closer to the day when it could freely transport God's answer to her heart.

. . . The advance of death indeed appeared to continue in Nita's body."

Nita got her answer. And it wasn't the healing--that was the echo of the song. The answer was the clearing itself. A purely physical healing would have been much, much less than what she asked for.

It's hard to believe that the paralysis caused by myelitis, the whole disease itself, and visible scars from surgery vanished completely for Nita but she testifies (and others) that they did and knowing and seeing some of this type of miracle first-hand, it did so because any disharmony is an overlay (and even dare I say an illusory one). Once the overlay is cleared, metaphorically, what's always been real (well-being) is simply there. Just like clouds don't remove or replace the sun, yet can they obstruct it.

Your own healing is all that is required to heal the world of all its suffering.

I might have not found out about Ho'oponopono if not for A Course in Miracles.  They both appeared in my life about the same time.

A Course in Miracles was my introduction to non-duality (okay, I tried to read the Tao Te Ching yet back then I couldn't make heads nor tails of it).

The more I learn about Dr. Hew Len and how he applies Ho'oponopono, the more I notice he knows Oneness. He repeats and insists that there is no Other -- no Otherness. There's nothing outside of your Self that is being cleared. Also he speaks of Ho'oponopono as simply clearing memory and conditioning/programming so we not resusitating and propping up a dead image or self-concept, but rather living vitally from the "zero state" of Divinity.

I happened to read a blog post today that also spoke to the unbelieavable idea that clearing or healing oneself, heals All. That's why I speak of clearing our shared patterns, but even I am at times too timid to just call it what it is, a singular pattern of conditioned thought/feeling--as in Truth, there is not really a concept of sharing when all is One Being.

("All" is only unbelievable from the standpoint of a separate self, however.) In the post, the author reminds: "Beingness is all-inclusive." And thus, why this powerful statement rings true: "Your own healing is all that is required to heal the world of all its suffering."

Here's a few other reminders:

"Attempts to heal others are avoidance strategies. By focusing on others we escape the only healing there can be – our own. “Others,”  or better, the idea of otherness, exists only in the unhealed mind. When it is healed there are no “others”. Beingness is all-inclusive. There is no specialness in being, therefore the ego hates it." - "What is Healing?," A Guided Journey Through A Course in Miracles blog

"It is much like when you have a dream at night and are identified with some character and think you are different from all the others. When you wake up from your dream in the morning, you realize that you are not the character in the dream. You are the dreamer. Everything in the dream came from you. This is a metaphor for spiritual awakening, because when you wake up spiritually, you realize you are not the body-mind.

. . . Look at the implications of the awareness that there is no other. When you wake up, you wake up out of this "me and you." If you realize what that means, it just takes your breath away.

. . . Many people ask, "How do I integrate my spirituality into everyday life?" You don't. You can't.  How could you integrate it? You can't stuff the infinite into your limited life. Instead, you give your life to the divine impulse. There is no integration. There's only realization, and that realization is a;ways a perfect destroyer. It is a destroyer of all sense of separateness, a destroyer of that which is not true. Throw your life into Truth. Don't try to stuff Truth into your life.

. . . In order to do this, you have to open to the possibility that all you have learned is wrong.  Otherwise, how can you discover what actually is? When you become completely open, the Truth becomes the most apparent thing. Spiritual people always think the Truth is hidden from them. It is not hidden. What gets in the way is the idea of what it is going to be. Find that place of what actually is. There is only the One manifesting as everything. Ponder and meditate on this until you realize it for yourself through and through. Wake up to what you are." - Adyashanti, Emptiness Dancing

ho'oponopono on pride/shame failure/success and other polar opposites that can knot your insides & solar plexus chakra

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?" is as good or bad a question as "What would you attempt if you knew you would succeed?" These sound like great questions don't they?

Yet it all hinges on whether you are a loser, or not. A failure or not.

Labels such as winner and loser, loyal or traitor, success or failure, honorable or dishonorable, worthy/unworthy, redeemed and unredeemable are on the seesaw spectrum of pride/shame I spoke about yesterday, and also deal with the solar plexus chakra and all its associated organs.

If a plant doesn't fit into a pot anymore, has it failed? Perhaps from the pot's perspective. It's just growth from another perspective.

Success/failure is based on judgment and interpretation. It's a polarity of opposites, just like pride/shame.

Accept and allow yourself, others, and that life is unfolding in surprising ways (that don't fit neatly into polar interpretations).

It's taken me my entire existence until rather recently* to recognize that failure and success are cultural notions (often based on control), and are woefully subjective. Really, I didn't see that failure and success were perceptions; I'd gone along with the program and believed like most people that they had held some objective truth.

When ten years ago I could not afford health insurance, I became a loser as a health insurance consumer. Plus, an utter failure at the yuppie identity that I had groomed ;) Yet little did I know it would pave the way to learn healing on my own and techniques shared on this blog, so even when I could afford it again, 'insurance' made no sense to me.  Another example is when my car failed, I was a loser who couldn't afford a working vehicle. I had to walk or bus everywhere in suburban San Jose. That's how I learned I had neighbors and hosted a tea party for all of us on Sept 11, 2007, that magnolias bloomed on my block, that serene parks and tall sequoias welcomed my footfall, that street art flourished best for pedestrians. It was from that time on when I started valuing walkable neighborhoods, community placemaking and public space. In some strange way, it is as if I were guided to abandon routes that I'd been accustomed to--which definitely looks like "failure" since it doesn't meet any cultural norms--and get mighty curious.

When you see the word "failure" or "success" bandied about (and it happens often in USA), either directed at you or to a project at work, or to someone else in your circle, or even to an authority figure, that would be an opportune time for Ho'oponopono and seeing the pattern of believing in that dichotomy that we all may yet share. They are both sides to the same coin, which is easy to flip. Look within where you feel reactive around the words and the emotional tone behind them. Look within where you feel any kinship with the person's or situation's pattern. Then, silently or aloud to yourself: "I love you, please forgive me, I'm sorry, I love you, thank you."

A better question might be along the lines, "What would you attempt to do if you knew you did not fear the unknown?"

Or poet Pablo Neruda's questions:

How much does a man live, after all?
Does he live a thousand days, or one only?
For a week, or for several centuries?
How long does a man spend dying?
What does it mean to say 'for ever'?

* Here's when I opened my eyes about concept of failure and success being trained into us, and not true.  I read about these research studies by Carol Dweck and others that compared children who were praised (or upbraided) for being smart and capable with children that were praised for moving forward, growing, learning and stumbling along the way regardless.  Over time, the praiseworthy "capable child" will give up in the face of failure and avoid unknowns to retain their honor, whereas the other children praised for trying are motivated by the chance to explore. See article: "The Effort Effect. According to a Stanford psychologist, you’ll reach new heights if you learn to embrace the occasional tumble," Stanford Magazine, March/April 2007

ho'oponopono and solar plexus chakra -- upper abdomen, stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, intestine and spleen - pride & glory / shame is dual seesaw of fire chakra - acceptance and bet on yourself

"You must gain balance within yourself before you bring balance to the world." - Guru to Avatar, in the animated TV series, Avatar: The Last Airbender

Recently, the brother-in-law of an online acquaintance died of stomach cancer; he was in his early 30's and fit.  His cancer was diagnosed rather late, just like my father's stomach cancer.  Both fathers died within a couple of months of the diagnosis. 

I did do Ho'oponopono and another healing technique as soon as I learned about the illness--apparently to no avail (however, it's hard to judge since healing isn't necessarily curing, and the scope of healing is beyond my finite mind comprehension).

All the organs around and associated with the solar plexus chakra including upper abdomen, stomach, liver, gall bladder, pancreas, intestine and spleen--are precisely the areas where I have not had much success in ailing. (well, except perhaps the liver).  So, that's why I am going to focus on these dis-eases and imbalances for a little bit on this blog.

This is only an kick-off post. I'll be talking about the Fire Chakra for a little while, at least until I get it. I thought this private journaling session I wrote a week ago (me to me) might be a useful start. I edited or deleted (irrelevant to anyone else) slightly to make sense to others, too.

Below is the video clip where the Guru explains the chakras to Aang, the Avatar (don't get caught up in the "Avatar State"--that's just part of the cosmology of that world and not relevant; and obviously, no one needs to clear all chakras in one sitting). It does a great  job of explaining the first 5 chakras quite simply. (I've my own understanding of the third eye and crown chakras.)

 

I watched the part where the Guru explains the chakras to Aang and explains how "emotional muck" blocks up the flow. Which certainly is how I felt--unbalanced, blocked, etc. Especially started to think that root chakra (they called it Earth chakra) is more about physical survival; and what blocks it is fear... and thought that money worries maybe culprit, but....

This morning went for walk as soon as I got up (mostly as felt awful still from previous night of turmoil).

While walking realized that my little list of things I could do that would make money is part of the problem, not a solution.

Anyhow, there really isn't a direct correlation between money and physical survival anyhow. Evidenced by I have managed to be alive in one piece without it for quite some time. I even survived homelessness. It's not like water (which can also be done without, but not in any kind of overnight thing, at least for me yet). All Aang's root/Earth chakra memories and flashbacks had to do with some heavy-duty near-death experiences of the warring kind--unexpected, life-and-death immediate experiences. More on the level of  joining the Marines. I'm not even afraid of going into "wrong side of tracks" or "dangerous" country as long as I'm not in a separatist perspective.

Anyhow, these  money issues feel more related to Fire Chakra. Willpower is blocked by shame, says the cartoon guru.

Yes, that feels true. I could have resources if I wasn't stopping my will. Shame/pride are two sides of the same coin.

I can feel shame around what comes natural to me since it doesn't fit the paradigm. [Yes, including ho'oponono and healing internally to heal externally. I write about it here as someone would have to be seeking these search terms actively, and I never speak of it in my own social circles.]

I can feel I am "supposed" (They say) to keep it to myself.

I can remember last week feeling my body tense up and seize up (and almost cease up as in energy didn't flow) when I was seated around table with some small business owners and conversation turned to health insurance. Gasp. I felt that I had to remain silent at all costs. But why?

So realized the idiocy of believing I need to make something happen. There's no way I would consider <X> if I wasn't getting paid, so why consider it at all?....

Then I got to thinking more along the lines of SuperBetter. Treat shame/pride polarity as an imbalance, as an illness. [Note to reader: Using Avatar: The Last Airbender as the 'epic story' in similar fashion as Jane used Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you're not familiar with the Avatar premise, their world is comprised of four nations, Earth, Water, Fire and Air. The Fire Nation is overactive in their imbalance, and going around conquering the other nations. The Fire Nation represents fire element out of balance; thus, power/will out of balance.] That sort of thing. Perhaps, a really light narrative to hang the challenges, missions upon.

Heard Jonathan Mead tonight on his Trailblazer webinar say (these are notes, not transcription):

"Bet on yourself.

As children, we live without inhibition, regret or compromise. We act on our instincts and what feels natural. As we grow up, we hear that parents and teachers tell us we need to BECOME something, and then we judge ourselves that we aren't enough. That we need to BECOME something to be happy. They may not say it outright, but we feel that on an unconscious level. We become domesticated, and we begin betting against ourselves. It starts by elementary school.

All the while, we think success or freedom is on its way, or around corner. Eventually we realize it is a hoax. The point is to enjoy life NOW, as we don't need to become anything.

We believe we have to earn our freedom, we have to earn our joy. You can't sacrifice yourself into happiness.

Whatever your genius is, you second-guess it because it's so integrated and you don't notice it as it's second nature (as it is your nature)."

ho'oponopono ~ busting loose from the money game ~ When you get the Infinite thing, you can relax because everything you could ever want or be, you already have and are ~ i love huckabees

Apologies for being offline since October. It costs $180 per year to keep this blog up and going, and things have been pretty tight financially--so what happens is the software provider locks me out of the the website entirely so no updates are possible until I've paid up.

So I thought I would use this opportunity to talk about financial discord, and how Ho'oponopono can be of benefit.

Also, since this discord is a fixated pattern in the holographic universe, or you can say a pattern in collective unconsciousness applying Ho'oponopono has effects well beyond the individual (well, there isn't actually an  individual separate from collective consciousness; it's all a singular consciousness in flux).  The global economy today also attests to this pattern.

Getting back into the website today I had to go clear out months and months worth of spam comments. As you might already know, spammers use real words in their gibberish to make it past the software filters. One spam gibberish comment began with the words:

"The harmony is a bank account. . ."

Which is intriguing because I consider ho'oponopono to be about harmony.

First, I'd like to say that I wholeheartedly recommend a book that isn't your typical financial advice. It fits very neatly with Ho'oponopono. The title is Busting  Loose From the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld.

The book is significantly contrarian (to what we've been educated, conditioned, and domesticated to believe) that I couldn't possible distill it here since I don't have a common context or framework to rely on--another book would be necessary! Why Busting Loose From the Money Game ties into Ho'oponopono is the main technique used to reclaim and acknowledge we are infinite beings in Infinity has to do with looking at where we feel discomfort (comes in many guises--stress, anxiety, and other uncomfortable feelings of pressure, conflict, restraint, stuckness, etc.) As Dr. Len has said, he looked at his own REACTIONS in regard to each patient and their case history in the criminally insane ward of the hospital. He didn't treat them with talk therapy, he cleared his own discomfort and discord.

This is possibly the one area I may have neglected to be clear on using Ho'oponopono.

It's very important to look at if and where we feel discomfort or discord. We are looking at our reactions to external situations, more so than judging whether external situations are good or bad or should or shouldn't exist in the world.

For instance, if you read in the paper about homelessness and foreclosures rising in your state, if you feel neutral reading that, there is no need to apply Ho'oponopono, because you are not sharing the pattern. (Different events may be more your trigger points.)  However, if this causes you anguish or fear or sorrow--in other words, feelings of discomfort as author Robert Schienfeld calls it (or stressful thoughts as Byron Katie names it) then ho'oponopono can be useful to clear all held patterns you may have around that.

The way Schienfeld would possibly word it, we have given power and energy to these situations, events, people, institutions in Phase 1 of the Human Game that are now showing up again so that we can acknowledge that they do not any independent authority and in fact are forms arising from and within the infinite Consciousness we ourselves actually are.  In Phase 2 of the Human Game, we are realizing that infinite means infinite, and all that that implies. (Yes, it also implies you never need to hustle nor worry for money; I know I myself allowed money to have power and energy OVER me, and that doesn't reconcile with infinite totality. Although U.S.A. bills are printed with "In God We Trust," that's not typically lived out.)

Until we truly grok at every level of being that I are infinite, I will experience discomfort at the edges we have imagined out of boundless spaciousness, and experience the discordant affects of clinging to fixed conclusions of reality based on my imbalanced perceptions.

However, those areas of discomfort are precisely the clues that will free me/we! That's where we can apply ho'oponopono (and/or Scheinfeld's process and/or Byron Katie's The Work).

To give you a flavor of the book, here's an excerpt from the Q&A section. Note Scheinfeld uses "hologram" to denote the holographic nature of form/matter, and Expanded Self, to denote Infinite Consciousness flowing through an individuated expression of 'you':

Question: You said that my Expanded Self takes great care of me, supports me perfectly as I play The Human Game in Phase 1 and 2. However, based on the painful experiences you described as being part of your Phase 2 journey and the stories you shared about the painful experiences of others, it looks like many of the things that may happen to me aren't what would be called favorable. Is that right?

Answer: "Not favorable is a made-up Phase 1 concept and judgment. Everything that gets popped into your hologram is favorable, no matter how you choose to judge it, or it wouldn't be there. There aren't any accidents. Nothing is random. If it's happening, there's a pattern in The Field that your Expanded Self put there for a reason, with intelligence, and then popped into your hologram. We all make up stories about what it means and whether it's good or bad... We judge everything, sometimes negative and sometimes positive. In Phase 1, its slightly different, but in Phase 2, everything you call unfavorable is the exact opposite because it gives you the opportunity to reclaim huge amounts of power that translates into huge amounts of freedom and joy!" - Busting Loose from the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld

Bonus: I watched the movie, I Love Huckabees yesterday, and it was very funny and also gave a few hints around "infinite is infinite." Plenty of people have heard of this philosophy of nonduality and may hold it as a mental construct, but living It is another thing. I thought the movie did a decent job (for Hollywood) of showing how life will provide the clues (often in the form of discomfort or as my spiritual mentor says, "fierce grace") to liberation. The movie is much more experiential, less didactic, than this video clip shows:

 

In the first clip, the blanket scene, Dustin Hoffman is using the blanket to symbolize the Infinite. I'll share the rest of that scene's dialogue below:

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do I need to see the blanket truth in the everyday stuff?"

"You wouldn't want to miss out on the big picture, would ya?"

"Uh-uh."

"That's partly why you're here, right? I'm talking about it right now. It'll take you a while to get it, you know. But it'll help you."

"How?"

"When you get the blanket thing, you can relax because everything you  could ever want or be, you already have and are.   That sound pretty good?"

 ART CREDITS: Freedom sculpture by Zenos Frudakis

ho'oponopono ~ money woes ~ homelessness, foreclosure and eviction ~ busting loose from the money game

Yesterday, I read this letter on a website:

"Pat,
I have tried for so long and I think it is safe to say I give up. I have tried to stay as positive as I can and nothing has worked unless I am blind to things happening. In June 2011 I lost my job and I have gone on so many interviews that I cannot understand why, I wake up at 5 every morning and live as though I am going to work actually get on my computer and do work. I have tried to manifest the things I need for my children but I nothing has worked. God knows I need a miracle, tomorrow at 1:30 I go to court to be evicted out of my home because I have not had money to pay the rent since August (I managed June and July). Today I sit here on my computer with a smile on my face because I know if I let go of this smile I will cry unstoppable. I have tried all that I am aware of and nothing has worked."

I was homeless for 18 days in 2010. And I'm not talking about couch-surfing at a friend's and not paying rent--been there, done that too. It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.

In some ways, it is sort of surreal as eleven years ago, I was making $88,000 a year and my ex-husband was probably earning something close to equivalent (I don't recall his income, he was consulting at energy companies part-time and day-trading Internet stocks). I never balanced a checkbook back then as there was always enough for whatever I dreamed up. I traveled all over the world. However, I'd not traded places for those times. I lived in a rather narrow, secular world that only consisted of what I knew through my five senses and cognition.

"Most people cannot conceive of any meaning when their life, their world, is being demolished." - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

*****

Ever since I hear that Obama read ten letters addressed to him each evening at the White House from citizens all over the USA, I've decided to read the individual, personal stories on WeAreThe99Percent site, and do ho'oponopono on them. A little each day. There are many people struggling right now. It's a big topic for one shot, yet it all fits the theme of power/powerless imbalance that already started a few posts ago.

Symbolically, which means unconsciously, the message in homelessness is not inhabiting your Self. It is a disconnect with your own Self. This abandonment of your Self happens long before the exterior home is lost; that's just the last straw. This is usually also the case in a foreclosure as well, losing touching with expressions of your Self. Most people are taking their mind-made little self as their Self... at some point, something internal/external appears to revolt at that confinement. Or maybe it is consciousness that asserts itself, I'm not sure what is the instigator as at the level of language it's all paradox.

It's the self coming home to itself I guess, no matter what.

*****

Why Bodhidharma Went to Motel 6

"Where is your home?” the interviewer asked him.

“Here.”

“No, no,” the interviewer said, thinking it a problem of translation,
“when you are where you actually live?”

Now it was his turn to think,  Perhaps the translation?

-- by Jane Hirschfield, After

*****

The origin of the word dwell means "to dig deep." I already know what happens when I stay on the surface of things. I already know what happnes when I avoid, or try to follow the cues of the culture. None of that digs very deep.

I see in that letter above my own little self scrambling to strategize and scheme up ways to stay afloat--all using what Dr. Len would deem memory. That worked in 2008, maybe I can do that. That worked for X, maybe I can do that. Scrambling.

Inspiration requires a bit of stillness and a bit of surrender to the moment without a reference point. The word surrender can be scary, I mean here surrender to the Infinite, not a capitulation to your self-pity, or a resignation to playing small. I see myself in that letter even though I'm not freaking out (now, I have). I can see how the letter brings up my own self-pity, the feeling of lack of options closing in on me, constriction, and clinging to old societal and 'safe' solutions as salvation. So I clear on that. I thank the letter-writer for reminding me how I can worry and try to solve my problems from an unconscious fear-driven place. I love you. I thank you. Forgive me. I'm sorry. I love you. 

Q: I imagine that the sapling that pushes its way through the soil can't be in total harmony with the present moment either because it has a goal. It wants to become a big tree. Maybe once it has reached maturity it will live in harmony with the present moment.

A: "The sapling doesn't want anything because it is at one with the totality, and the totality acts through it. "Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow," said Jesus, "they toil not, neither do they spin. Yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." We could say that the totality--Life--wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling doesn't see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what Life wants. That's why it isn't worried or stressed. And if it has to die permanently, it dies with ease. It is as surrendered in death as it is in life. It senses, no matter how obscurely, its rootedness in Being, the formless and eternal one Life." -- Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to your Life's Purpose

*****

Early this week, I also read the below (so true). And laughed. It's hard. It's fierce grace. Yet as with 'health' I shall learn that 'wealth' doesn't depend on externalities. That will be a real liberation when flow and grace aren't about watching a bank account like a hawk, whether there is 24 cents there or $24 million. Most of the difficulty I experience is fundamentally resistance (i.e. not surrendering to the Infinite).

"In life, purifying experiences often move us into extreme places emotionally, so that we will release control, become vulnerable so as to be open, and allow our heart to rise above our head in surrender. On a 3D level, this can suck and be dramatic, but one eventually learns about grace (always an experience). On a 5D level, this becomes alchemical, and while discomfort likely remains a bit, there is also the “magic” of witnessing synchronicity and the universe/god meeting you just as you break through the veil of fear." - Britt Martin, October 17 2011

*****

I am reading a rather unconventional book called Busting Loose from the Money Game, by Robert Scheinfeld. Typically, I'd never read a book with a title like that. 

Yet these are not typical times. What felt like dire financial straits has me asking more open-ended questions about what I don't know that I don't know. And thus I stumbled into this book. It's very riveting in that it is not like any book on money I've ever read. It's about not allowing money to enthrall you into believing that power is contained in it. It's about know that power is in the Infinite and you are being guided to reclaim power, and once you know that (it's a very application focused book, not just to read, but to do) than money ceases to be a concern at all. I believe it has a lot of parallels to Ho'oponopono as the idea is to not see 'power' as external, to clear up any emotional reactions, and to trust Divine inspiration. Before I grok that, however, all the old beliefs--including work hard, keep your nose to grindstone, stay positive, worry, get more proactive and make things happens--get nearly violently challenged. The fiercer I hold onto old beliefs (memory, or programming as Dr. Len would name them), the harder I make it on myself.

"I explained that in Phase 2 all your core beliefs will be challenged and then dynamited to support you in opening up to The Truth and your natural state of Infinite Abundance." - Robert Scheinfeld, Busting Loose from the Money Game

*****

And finally, I had to love this story, that I also stumbled into two days ago.

"We had very little money and no foreseeable prospects. One evening after we had splurged on dinner and a movie, we walked back to our car to discover a $25 parking ticket. I just turned inside out with despair, but Steve did not seem to care. He had a deep well of patience when it came to discouragements. We drove to the ocean near Crissy Field in San Francisco and walked out onto the beach to see the sunset, where I began talking about money worries. He gave me a long, exasperated look, reached into his pockets and took the few last coins and dollars we had and threw them into the ocean. All of them."

Did you recognize who the characters in this true life story are? It's about Steve Jobs.  In an essay written by his first serious girlfriend Chrisann Brennan about when they were young (I didn't catch exact ages, maybe 18-21?). It's nearly unnatural for me to admit this, but I am clearly being supported in being shown patterns, seeing reactions clearly, and getting a chance to clear them once and for all.

Perhaps then I shall not put power into things, even things like coins and paper bills. 

There is one power and it flows through everything.

*****

I recently finished all the pages to scribble in a bland gray colored journal (yeah, and gray tends to reflect symbolically a confused/doubtful pattern of thought). The last notes in there are about the solar plexus chakra around power and my thoughts (references this list of chakras).

My mom gave me a new journal (and she's not particularly religious, btw, which made it all the more serendipitious). On the front cover are joyful teal and green colored birds flitting and alighting on tree limbs, and it reads:

Look at the birds of the air;

they do not sow or reap

or store away in barns,

and yet your heavenly

Father feeds them.

- Matthew 6:26 NIV

p.s. If you wish to donate... I also derive a great deal of benefit from feedback and exchange,  in comments or via email. Thanks.

ho'oponopono ~ mr. obama pained he cannot do more to help ~ how to help other people ~ power / powerless seesaw

I was reading about the El Hierro evacuation* this weekend, when my eye caught the headline, "Making Obama Feel Powerless."

I clicked over since the powerful/powerless pendulum of polarity was showing up powerfully and repeatedly for me in terms of Ho'oponopono clearing work.

And, in all honesty, when I have 24 cents as my total net worth, the whole world seems to collude in telling me I'm worth less and powerless. (Yes, a lie yet a powerful cultural meme. It's part of the shame/pride pendulum of polarity... which beyond that lies just simply growth that's not black-and-white failure/success.)

So as far as Ho'oponopono, I look at my own reactions. I must admit that Mr. Obama is coming across as tepid, unsure and powerless to me. This may reveal some recurring patterns that I also hold about myself. This isn't about fixing Mr. Obama, it's about what is within me that judges him--usually reflecting some conditioning, held memory, programming, shared pattern of perception, shadow stuff, etc. that relates to myself.

I read the story, which ends up being much more moving than the catchy blurb "Making Obama Feel Powerless" would lead me to believe. It's about how the president selects ten letters each day to read from the sackful of mail addressed to him personally. My first thought, truly, was whoa! that's a lot of ho'oponopono clearing to do... ten per day  (typically there'd be various number of issues in each). Although, I suspect Mr. Obama doesn't know about ho'oponopono.

"“Some of these letters you read and you say, ‘Gosh, I really want to help this person, and I may not have the tools to help them right now,’ ” the president said. “And then you start thinking about the fact that for every one person that wrote describing their story, there might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. So there are times when I’m reading the letters and I feel pained that I can’t do more, faster, to make a difference in their lives.”

For the past year, I had been reading Obama’s mail and traveling across the country to spend time with some of the letter-writers. I had learned firsthand that people tended to write to the president when their circumstances turned dire, sealing a prayer into an envelope as a matter of last resort." -- "The letters that make Obama long for his community-organizing days," Washington Post, October 14, 2011

There might be another hundred thousand going through the same thing. That's often very true as many patterns are shared collectively, and dragged over and over again from the past into the present. 

I thought it was interesting that Obama used the word 'pained.' I admit to that reaction sometimes when confronted with some situations in the world today. A part of me was pained that there wasn't more I could have done to prevent Steve Job's death. It seemed so preventable to me. (More on that in future posts.) 

However, that is a dangerous role to play. That one of savior, helper, etc. That's not how Ho'oponopono operates. Speaking of power and powerlessness seesaw, it's a view that puts the 'other' in the role of being powerless. As well, it sets up a sort of dependency (quite distinct from interdependence). Someone on G+ pointed us to a Machiavellian list of ways to have power over other people. Rule number 11 was: "Learn to Keep People Dependent on You To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted.  The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have.  Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear.  Never teach them enough so that they can do without you." The role of Ho'oponopono isn't to create dependency. Everyone is divine with exactly the same resource, Source.

"Dr Hew Len then learned that his job is to help himself by letting go of how he perceived handicapped children. Dr Hew Len learned that as he changed the way that he perceived handicapped children (quite like how he changed the way he perceived the mentally criminally insane at the Hawaii State Hospital in the late 80’s) they change.

Dr Hew Len points out that is most important to look at our own world first, and if we are willing to do that, our impact on the whole Cosmos will be enormous.

Dr Hew Len went on to stress that most people think they are here to help other people [and he was trained to do so] and bring peace to the world, but we are only here to bring peace to ourselves, because by bringing peace to ourselves, we bring peace to the world (and not the other way round).

Dr Hew Len says that the only thing that works is if we look within ourselves and clear up the “stuff” in us. He points out that as he does this, he notices that people get well and are able to start taking responsibility for themselves.

Dr Hew Len points out that we never experience things correctly, but we always experience our reaction of them. Dr Hew Len knows that when he meets people, he does not experience them the way The Divine created them, so he continuously cleans by saying to The Divine “I am sorry for what ever is going on in me that I do not experience people the way you created them. - What is Ho'oponopono? by Saul Maraney

 I'm not sure if that is clear to you. What it means in my application is I do not clear on Mr. Obama, nor do I clear on his reactions to his letters, nor do I clear on the letter-writers problems. I look within myself and see what does all this bring up for me? Reactions? Mirroring? Anything that I feel is relevant. And that's what I clear on. My own perceptions that are based on memory, rather than the Now.

So I perceive Mr. Obama as powerless. Fair enough. But that's not about him, I often judge myself as powerless. I can feel the imbalance, and I can feel how I give away power and energy too easily. Often in the form of being worried, concerned, pained about others (and trust me, that doesn't do them any good as then I am actually seeing them as incompetent and incapable rather than their true essence which is immaculate and whole as the Divine).

BONUS: I know it can be difficult to believe that the best thing you can offer another person that appears to be going through a difficult time is to clear yourself. Here is another perspective from Abraham-Hicks. (Note her use of "Vortex" here means when you are in a lucid spaciousness of being and operating from Inspiration rather than memory.)

When you expect another to succeed without your help, you see them as their Source sees them. When you believe another needs your help and you sure up their weakness with your strength, you help them not.

When you are in your Vortex and in alignment with your Broader Perspective, and are focused upon other humans, your attention to them is helpful. When you are aligned with the powerful Energy of your Source, anything you focus upon receives the benefit of your gaze.

When you are in your Vortex, and in alignment with your Inner Being, you are then tuned to seeing only success in the other humans you are observing. Whenever you are aware of the problems of others, it always means that you are not in your Vortex and you are not in alignment with the way the Source within you is viewing them.

When you are feeling the discomfort from seeing other people in a lackful or needy situation, and you decide to help them from your place of discomfort, no lasting value ever occurs, for two important reasons: first, you are not in alignment with the Energy of your Source, and so you have no real value to give; and second, your attention to their need only amplifies their need.

Of course, it is a wonderful thing to help others, but you must do it from your position of strength and alignment, which means you must be in alignment with their success as you offer assistance, and not in alignment with their problem.

It is easy to know if your offer is coming from a place of alignment or resistance because you can always tell by the way you are feeling. When your awareness of their situation makes you uncomfortable and you offer help to make them feel better and to make yourself feel better, you are not in the Vortex and you are not helping. When you feel an inspired eagerness to offer something because you want to participate in their happy, successful process, your attention to their success harmonizes with the point of view of your Source, and the infinite resources of the Universe are at your disposal. And that does help." - Getting Into The Vortex Guided Meditations, Abraham-Hicks

If you wish to donate to in-person workshops on How to Thrive Without Health Insurance, and other upcoming projects. This website's blog fees are $15/month, for instance-- it is all appreciated. I also derive a great deal of benefit from feedback and exchange,  in comments or via email. Thanks.

ho'oponopono ~ sing your inspiration ~ acute myeloid leukemia ~ lupus ~ speaking truth (you are power) during salem witch trials

Acute myeloid leukemia continues to come up as a signal, and a symbol in the collective. Also I read this story today in a local paper about a singer who was brutally assaulted by a priest in January 2007. She now is in the midst of treating her leukemial.

From the last post recently on leukemia, the message underlying is: Brutally killing inspiration.

"If someone wishes for good health, one must first ask oneself if he is ready to do away with the reasons for his illness. Only then is it possible to help him."- Hippocrates

In the strange way that everything is One, and thus more than just interconnected, this all is coalescing into a singular larger message that relates to the recent spate of posts on pancreas, Occupy Wall Street, Steve Jobs, and becoming our own authority/expert.

I won't get to tie all the puzzle pieces together in this one post. As a catalyst, consider the feeling (not the meanings) of power/energy/will and the solar plexus chakra. Keep that feeling "in mind" for the next several posts.

In my own life, I tend to "kill inspiration," when I conjecture that the status quo power structure would mock my ideas--or, gulp, worse, and thus I self-police myself.

An intense self-preservation reaction takes me over as a force that I hardly understood until I read two books recently.

I received more insight into that self-censoring impulse (and truthfully it was just two chapters within each book that together were the huge Aha!). The nutshell is that cultural memes that progragate the easiest are the ones that stifle innovation, and serve to keep the status quo in place (see The Beginning of Infinity, by David Deutsch--particularly chapters The Evolution of Culture, and The Evolution of Creativity). It's not me, it's not you. It's the memetic milieu you're born into. This is often done through the use of pyschological pressure of shame and praise and through the labeling of taboo. 

More than anything, it's failure and success, that are shamed and praised (see Little Bets by Peter Sims). Thus, cultural indocrination (inherited generation to generation) instead of viewing failure as being a valid, natural part of the journey towards new inventions (and heck, adventures), paint obstacles as evidence that we are worth less as valued members of society. "They might not think I'm smart, so let me avoid that challenge since it may not pan out and make me out to be the fool."

"A functioning police state needs no police” - William S. Burroughs -- think that one over

Do you self-police your self expression? Do you censor vibrant inspiration since it doesn't fit the message and memes of yesteryear's society? As far as I'm concerned, it's all yesteryear's ideas since same old, same old memes and memories have been recycling in a loop-de-loop for a while. Dynamic civilizations ability to grow, progress, and evolve depend on knowing and allowing that failures aren't personal shortcomings. They're part of the process of progress.

Several research studies, including those by Carole Dweck at Stanford University, show that children praised for process and effort take on new challenges more readily than children praised for intelligence. The latter seek external pats on the back to keep up their self-image, and thus adopt a "fixed mindset" that pretty colludes with static societies. The former adapt to a "growth mindset."

If truth be told, I was a child praised for intelligence. Straight A's, yada yada.

The last few years I've lived a fairly unconventional life--probably classifying me as a 'loser' in the black-and-white failure-or-success culture of USA. I would keep feeling these strong, nearly debilitating sense of shame that was unsettling, and I didn't know why. Now I know why, and that knowledge that it isn't personal--but embedded into the cultural--has broken its hold over me (very, very recently).

Isn't that Dr. Len's point? That these patterns aren't personal to you or I. They're programming (and, memes serve that function). They're collective. That may explain why it feels like a force field when you begin to make some head-way and bump against their boundary... there's generations of cultural energy charging the battery up.

Enough was enough. No cultural censors--no priestly classes or doctor classes or police classes or what not authority figures weild power over me such that they will silence me.

I shall speak and express freely.

Power and energy are forces of life and existence itself, and thus are available to all.

Shortly after reading the article about the singer who is healing from leukemia, in the same coffee shop, I picked out a book from their shelf on New England Legends and Folklore. And lo and behold, I find a story about the Salem witch trials. (Remember static tactics are taboo... shame and praise... "You're a witch!" is a shaming tactic. Or, "You're a heretic!") Back then, shame went a bit further than just mere psychological abuse, it was literally killing inspiration.

In those days, traits of a witch included singing, writing, storytelling, reading, and spending  time alone.

Even though I've been to Salem, Mass., myself, I don't recall this story at all. To summarize.... at that time the Mather family was quite powerful. (There's that word again.) And Cotton Mather was "the foremost clergyman of that dark day." Church and state were much less separate in that time as well, btw.

Reading this chapter I got the impression that everyone was cowed into obeying external authority of the day, especially if they claimed direct access to Divinity (as if you don't?). It's quite possible everyone believed the truths of the day unquestioned. Or, even if they did not, who wants to be the minority outspoken one who is made an example of ("off with her head"? Oh, at this point I should point out I have an unhealthy fear of being burned at the stake. Yeah, it makes no sense but maybe it does.

Except not everyone was intimidated. A clothier named Robert Calef spoke up.

"The sickening reflection that the judges had decreed the death of a score of innocent persons upon a mistake paralyzed men's tongues, unless, like Calef, they spoke in obedience to the command of conscience." - New England Legends and Folklore, by Samuel Adams Drake

Calef bundled together his thoughts in writing to rebuke Reverend Mather's teachings.

"No printer could be found in Boston or in the Colony willing to undertake the publication or expose it for sale. "

Fine, then, all the powers that be in the Colony may have the ability to intimidate the printers, but that didn't deter him. Calef printed his words against phony witch trials in London.

"It was publicly burned in the College-yard at Cambridge by order of the president, whom its exposures reached through his near relative."

The near relative was the father of Cotton Mather, a puritan Minister whom was President at Harvard. Fine then, the power plays escalate. The Mathers print a denounciation of Calef's work in his printing a response, Some Few Remarks upon a Scandalous Book. (That label scandalous is to make sure that the pious adherents to memes understand that it is taboo, just in case):

"To break its force, a vindication was prepared and printed;. . . ."

However, borrowing William Burroughs again, “Writers are very powerful,” Burrough tells us; they can write, and “unwrite,” the "script for the reality film." Calef used his own energy rather than bowing to others' perceived power, and in so doing, balanced the imbalance of power:

". . . but there were no more denunciations made for witchcraft, or courts assembled to hang innocent people. Calef indeed felt the resentment of the Mathers, but he had saved the cause."

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem in Calef's honor called, Calef in Boston. Here's one verse (the full poem here) that I'd have to say pretty much could be a poem in honor of Ho'oponopono--cleaning away the old to allow the fresh, moment-by-moment inspiration:

"Falsehoods which we spurn to-day
Were the truths of long ago;
Let the dead boughs fall away,
Fresher shall the living grow."

BONUS: A related video that I found really helpful is below. Almine uses Ho'oponopono principles to heal herself, even though it appears that a student is asking her for a healing because he'd completely lost his singing voice.

Particularly note the symbolism of singing voice, the singer in the Las Vegas Sun article, voice, inspiration, expression:

 

 "My own life needed to sing more... even if it meant simplifying a great deal." - Almine

p.s. If you want to do some homework in anticipation of future posts, take a peek at the Third / Solar Plexus Chakra attributes in this chart/list.

p.p.s. I'm also finding that lupus seems to also have a similar message. This post may be useful to delve into that too. The message in lupus is that one is feeling, "A giving up. Better to die than stand up for one's self." Again, it seems very related to power, 3rd chakra, and cultural meme of fitting in to rest of the tribe (by psychological pressure). For instance, a friend comes from a strict Asian family, and they don't like that she "defies" their cultural mores to go to school to be a modern dancer. So, yeah, you guessed it, she is diagnosed with lupus. It's almost as if this massive collective conflict between meme-memory and the flow of future is playing out inside us...  Thankfully, life itself has no opposition.

ART CREDITS:  Jazz Singer, by Erica Laszlo, www.ericalaszlo.com.

ho'oponopono ~ THINK DIFFERENT ~ steve jobs ~ true innovation in health ~ personal health and self-healing

Henry Miller said he didn’t approve of memorials.

Memorials, he said, "defeated the purpose of a man’s life. Only by living your own life to the full can you honour the memory of someone."

Perhaps the only way I could truly honor the memory of Steve Jobs is to step up another octave and live mine to the fullest.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." --  original Apple "Think Different" advertisement (long version)

These same words narrated by Steve Jobs in this video of a never aired TV commercial:  

I'm surprised how much Steve Jobs' death has shaken me up. It may be a couple of days of processing and writing to get through all I'd like to express, and it may be a little jumbled, and not necessarily in any order.

I'm writing this post today because someone in my Google+ stream wrote yesterday: "I want to thank Steve Jobs for the way he lived with vigor in the face of cancer. My Mom did that, too. My heart goes out to his family and other loved ones. Losing brilliant people to cancer is so very painful. I hope someone who lives by "Think Different" finds a cure!" (For the record, my dad died of stomach cancer when I was a teenager.)

I'm not sure how many people know the history of computer technology (I do since my university degree is in computer engineering). To put it in a nutshell, originally computers were huge mammoth machines that took a huge room to house and due to lack of reasonable user interface (not that learning assembly language is rocket science, trust me, but it's not very facile either) where mainly accessible to scientists and other highly qualified experts in white lab coats. (I jest about the lab coats, sweaters would be better since it was freezing in those rooms.) The machines to the left in the photo above weighed in at 30 tons.

"This was the whole point of the 1984 commercial. That if IBM ruled the world, it would be boring, totalitarian, George Orwellian--just an ugly society of mediocrity and conformity and thought control. And Apple was going to send the proverbial act into the image of big brother. It was religious fervor in the sense that we were fighting a mighty opposite. Which was IBM, the totalitarian mainframe company.

. . . . What we did is we worked very, very hard because we truly thought we were on a mission to improve people's creativity and productivity and prevent totalitarianism, primarily of IBM." - Guy Kawasaki, early Apple Inc. employee, impromptu October 5, 2011 talk on the day Steve died

Apple's original vision was to end that 'only for experts' preciousness. Hey let's make the power in those computing machines available to be harnessed by individuals too. Allow people without reams of science credentials and computer degrees to be expressive and creative on that platform. Thus, adding to the option of computers built and designed for a team of scientists and engineers solely, the world would also have  personal computer for any and all.

“I used to think, ‘He’s a doctor. Who am I to ask a question?’ ” Bill Lee, a Baltimore man who has suffered 10 heart attacks, says in a video on the agency’s Web site urging people to speak up. 

. . .

“The unsettling reality,” they write, “is that much of medicine still exists in a gray zone, where there is no black or white answer about when to treat or how to treat.” -- - Maureen Dowd, Decoding the God Complex, September 27, 2011

The analogy between personal computing and personal health may not be immediately obvious.

It is obvious to me. It's been nearly a decade since I had any health insurance.

It wasn't something I deliberately chose--at first. I couldn't afford insurance (and a lot of other luxuries) as I was unemployed and as soon as the divorce was final, that was the end of the insurance too. It took a couple of years to learn self-healing. Only in retrospect, am I grateful for the impetus of lack to push me to look for a solution didn't require external experts. I'm not entirely sure I'd have enough guts to forego conventional thought without that nudge of "fierce grace."

"Dr. Hartzband and Dr. Groopman [authors of "Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What Is Right for You"] warn against excessive reliance on overreaching so-called experts and nebulous metrics and statistics.

“The answer often lies not with the experts but within you,” they write... " -- Maureen Dowd, Decoding the God Complex, New York Times op-ed, September 27, 2011

Bingo.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.

 "If we just scrapped our system and adopted any other wealthy country's system, at a minimum we would have a trillion dollars more a year for pay raises, for investment in new technology, to create new jobs, or whatever." - Former President Bill Clinton, comparing the United States, which spends 17.2 percent of gross domestic product on health care each year, to Germany and France, which spend 10 percent and are considered to have the most effective health care systems in the world. - Yes! magazine, Fall 2011 issue

And they have no respect for the status quo.

A small step, nice. However that is not much of a vision. It's an assumption that ill health is a given (it's possible to clear this kind of indoctrination from birth), and maybe we can just make ill health far more cost effective. What?!  How about zero percent of GDP because everyone is healthy? All those people in pain and/or degrading in full use of their functionality are not simply profit centers... they'd rather be living productive lives with an able body, mind and spirit. (If GDP is so important to you, contributing direct to the GDP through their creative gifts and talents rather than by buying pills, surgery, health insurance policies, etc.)

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.

All healers ought be working themselves completely out of a job/role in terms of healing ailments...  (and I'm in that boat--even though I do this all pro bono, my vision is that this is a very, very temporary position on the way to... )... and I'll let you connect the dots of what's next when everyone's healthy.

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." - Voltaire

p.s. And you are nature.

p.p.s. If you're looking for more information on pancreatic cancer and self-healing through Ho'oponopono, etc., also check out this fine post by Misa Hopkins (the pancreas organ is involved with diabetes too, focus on the 'sweetness of life' aspect she speaks to here: http://self-healingsecrets.com/965/diabetes-and-self-healing/

Her philosophy and her practical application (philosophy itself isn't sufficient to heal) is cut from same cloth:

"You are not broken and you do not need to be fixed.  Your body and your emotions are inviting you to become aware of beliefs, feelings, or needs that are keeping you trapped in suffering. They can be changed, opening you to true self-healing and even more importantly, to a greater awareness of your Divine self. This web-site and what is offered to you is an invitation for you to create your healing miracles from the inside out." - Misa Hopkins

BONUS: Educating, hands-on application and spreading the word ideas I had kicking around around self-healing.

Photo credits: IBM System 360 Model 40 in 1970; ENIAC and IBM mainframes photo from IDG News Service; child using Apple iPad via jorymon.com