Ho'oponopono

familial skeletons ~ generational pain ~ laryngitis ~ ho'oponopono ~ treasures from the deep workshop

I was all ready to listen to my primary spiritual teacher's live webcast tonight. Instead of a live event being streamed, it was a recording of the recent talk he gave in Oakland (and I was there in person for that one). At the last moment, he had laryngitis and could not participate. This one is somewhat surprising since my teacher appears fearless about speaking in public extemporaneously on topics I consider too taboo to even discuss one-on-one behind closed doors with almost anyone.

The energetic pattern that when held too long --and by too long I mean relative to the Absolute which is infinitely in flux and does not fixate into any set pattern-- that indicates the "fear of speaking up" (via Louise Hay's handbook, but this should be obvious) is laryngitis.

I didn't know about my teacher--but that pattern is very familiar to me. You could even say familial as well.

This is deep subject matter and one post won't do it justice.  Here's a start.

I'd been digging into my own family ancestry  and am intrigued about how the southern Spanish were able to live somewhat amiably and peacefully during the Al-Andalus "golden age" about thousand years ago with Jews, Muslims, and Christians.  I started to write a non-linear story about a character based in that timeframe.

Only later, did I start to uncover the shadow side (after that "golden age" of flourishment waned) that began in 1492 when Isabella and Ferninand kicked out all the Muslim rulers and forced people to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain altogether. So many families opted to stay in their homeland by lying and hiding their religious practices (death was often the result of being found out) and pretending in public that they'd converted.  I began to see and receive so many signs about shadow side to my Spanish heritage that it became impossible to ignore.

For instance, one day I felt I might be in a rut by visiting the same few categories of shelves at the local bookstore that  I went to rarely traveled areas and picked out books by unknown (to me) authors simply based on sheer instinct of the cover or the spine 'speaking' to me. One of these books was called "The Forgetting River."  That's all I saw on the spine when I chose it (the subtitle "A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition" was only visible when I sat down at the cafe table and glanced at the cover. Little did I know it was the author's quest to discover her own roots in Spain and how she found that on her journey into Spain that people to this very day are traumatized by the after-effects of the Spanish Inquisition.

This week I also saw that my spiritual teacher talks about "generational suffering" and "generation pain," and how to heal it here in this video (although I know most of his teachings since 2005 this one escaped me until very very very recently):

 

Let me jump to something that appears off-topic initially.  A week or so again, I  saw a fun flyer for a writing class hosted at a local independent pirate supply shop (yes, you heard that right) for 10- to 12-year-olds. It was intriguing and said:

Treasures from the Deep  
Journey along this workshop where your sea legs take you beyond your wildest pirate dreams to long forgotten maps guiding us beneath subterranean twists and turns. Come create a treasure map, then write letters choc-full of clues for the people who seek to uncover that treasure.  

The symbolism spoke to me (so full of clues in only two sentences.) The imagery worked its magic on me and I couldn't stop conjuring up my own class offering inspired by it. I thought of offering a class on appreciating the treasure within and around us that was uplifting, whimsical and based on present experience.  Then, the idea deepened. In Spanish, the word 'deep' means profound, heavy, intense as well as measurement of depth.

“All my offerings of beauty 

are little more than decoration 

If through them 

my demons are not set free.” - Paul Madonna

So, I'm offering a six-week workshop (October 24 - December 5, 2012) that looks at buried treasure from a myriad of angles including angles we shy away from such as healing family skeletons and ancestral pain. With that timing, we'll also latch onto whatever Day of the Dead ancestry emphasis evokes plus the family of origin Thanksiving energy. 

It's in conjunction with the Treasures From The Deep worksho I'm offering on my regular blog, but if you sign up through this site you'll get both 'sides'--the light-hearted and the subterranean. We'll delve much richer soil and leave no tendril or morsel of the Treasure of ourselves buried. Included will be exercises tailored for your life and ancestry that demonstrate the use  of symbolism and of ho'oponopono. The class is all online on a secret blog privy only to these heart-y souls to accompany us on this quest. You'll be able to share via writing or if preferred calling into a private phone number to audio-record your contributions to a small, intimate group. 

This course, specifically dealing with the healing of ancestral pain, will NOT be offered again. The window of opportunity for this in my life is NOW--and once resolved it will not need to be dredged up and revisited over and over (or that'd be another stuck/held energy pattern of looping in analysis paralysis). That's the whole purpose of ho'oponopono--to clear and dissolve held  patterns so as to keep moving with inspiration of the moment as the symphony of life. 

 

body carries messages as symbols ~ ho'oponopono ~ chinese medicine

I have read and re-read Chinese medicine resources as much of it aligns with symbolism and patterns I've witnessed myself. Below is an excerpt from one resource by Lawrence Michail of Compassionate Dragon Healing that speaks to how the body displays its symbolic patterns of  energy that are stuck or disharmonious as disease (often past harmonious patterns can become disharmonious if clinged to as life is dynamic).

What was even more intriguing was he pointed out that healing at an "individual" level may impact the collective, the global. That's essentially what ho'oponopono does--it clears past energetic patterns to allow life to flow without any obstructions or blocks. I just utilize symbolism (often to decipher the symbols,  I use a combination of Louise Hay, Lise Bourbeau, very good dream symbol dictionaries  such as passed down by the Toltecs as well as my own innate ability to perceive symbols) to help me focus on a particular pattern we're dealing with. That is longer story (and possible a future post), yet if you begin to consider  and experiment with the physical (matter) to be constellations and representations of holographic energy it may make more 'sense.' 

You can also do this for yourself. You are your own healer if you are willing to heed all the messages sincerely and with integrity. It wasn't until I lost my health insurance over ten years ago that I was guided to learn these self-healing techniques that ultimately depend on no external healer and simply point you time and again back to the divine wholeness that you are. 

"Realistically, when our body refuses to do what we want it to, metaphysically, it is not actually broken. It is doing its job. One of its functions is to carry messages from the higher energetic planes to us. [For me, I don't think of it as higher or lower--just more subtle dimension of ourselves.] It is then up to us to interpret these messages and take action.

Western medicine takes the position that we feel pain because we can. Western approaches to pain, as the main symptom of any disease, are pretty much limited to drugs and surgery. Treatment consists of numbing or diverting pain receptors in the body or cutting off the offending organ. While this approach does have its place in acute situations, it is at best a temporary and often harmful way to approach pain or other disharmonies we feel in our bodies.

Most often, western medicine has little to offer most of us and incredibly makes us wait until our symptoms become unbearably acute before it can even acknowledge a disharmony. The trend today, as much for economic reasons, as for reasons of spirit and human development is to encourage people to take responsibility for their own lives. This is the approach of ancient wisdom.

We use our bodies to communicate with our selves and with others. We use our bodies to work out emotional, mental and spiritual questions. While we do tend to judge a diseased body negatively, there really is no right or wrong about it. The ancient Taoists theorized that good and bad, right and wrong, yin and yang, were just different points of view that we all adopt at one time or another. Because the earth plane is dualistic in nature we all view, at one time or another from both the Yin and the Yang ends of the telescope. There does not seem to be a point in judging one good and one bad or judging one good and one evil. These just are the symptoms of being human.

Still, there is such a thing as being well, and there is such a thing as being sick. When we get sick we tend to want to do something about it.

Enter the healer.

A healer is trained in the observation and interpretation of signs and symptoms, and in methods for dealing with them. Wholistic Healing of the individual occurs at different energetic levels. These are the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels.

For those on the path, there are a great many more levels and sublevels identified in various cultural, religious and philosophical traditions. But for our purposes we can look at the individual in these four broad realms to at least begin the process of healing. Healing by the way occurs not only at the individual level, but also at the family, community and global level. When one heals 'mindfully', as the Buddhists say, these other aspects of individual healing may become apparent. " - from Compassionate Dragon Healing