Ho'oponopono

holding onto old patterns, old ideas ~ stinginess ~ constipation ~ the tree of life ~ and applying ho'oponopono

I thought I'd write about what appears to be minor blips and glitches in life, and how even those can be cleared through Ho'oponopono too. In addition, they are often interrelated to other seemingly bigger issues where innate harmony and well-being are yearning to be restored.

A friend of a friend is staying at the same house I am right now.  I'm still getting to know her,  and today she shared that she's been constipated for at least three days.  She is sensitive and aware of energy (and truthfully, New Orleans can be quite the underworld of subconsciousness--a great place to go to stir all that is hidden), so that could be it. A few months ago,  she experienced a spiritual awakening so I intuited that things would show up more subtly in her system.  Alot of purification (purification--which is not perfection, btw-- is  synonymous with Ho'oponopono) occurs pre- and post-awakening at an accelerated pace (see Jim Tolle's video "Spiritual Awakening and the Purification Process" and his article "Spiritual Awakening and the Purification Process" for extra context). 

The interesting thing is just before she shared this I'd been worrying and re-running all kinds of old ideas and patterns in an endless loop in my head. The essential nutshell of this re-run had to do with fear of not being supported by this exquisite Tree of Life (silly, of course if you think about a branch worrying about the tree not tending to its own complete being). These thoughts and beliefs and worry-mongering bring up tangible, physical symptoms of anxiety (a whole other post, as the other person staying at the house these days also shares my sensations of existential anxiety and cortisol overwhelm--so I'll address anxiety, endocrine system and adrenals in a future post soon). I  even cite recent evidence to back up my claims of "not being supported by Life" which in actually are closer to perceptions and interpretations rather than any type of truth (as there is more than ample evidence that I am).  Yet the throughline nonetheless continues unabated despite intellectually knowing that I'm making and shaping this up as a  particular interpretation of facts and circumstances, and that throughline is essentially that I'm "not supported," "not enough," and a feeling of uncertainty about survival that brain and hormones beat as a thundering drum so loud and insistently that it's hard to hear or pick up signals of anything resembling guidance or grace.

So as my friend was speaking, I was already online and so started to search on the symbolism of constipation in order to understand the root of constipation well enough that I could then begin to apply Ho'oponopono and begin clearing.

With Ho'oponopono (and actually it's also true in my spiritual path which may be, if we need to categorize it, be called nonduality) there is no other person externally or "out there" that I'm treating and healing.  It is more like the entire collective universe is essentially one organism, or one Being, that is being treated.  All the treatment does is remove stuck patterns--it's like gently and lovingly lifting up the needle on a record player that's stuck on a groove in a music album that's now repeating over and over and over  (yep, dating myself on that one).  I may feel my focal point of attention and awareness to emanate as a unique branch within a tree of life.  Note that a branch is also the tree.  As a wave is also the ocean.  In this way, if there appears to be dis-ease (not necessarily in terms of illness always--may show up in terms of discord, confusion, alienation, war, poverty, and other dis-eases of disharmony in communal life) affecting my finger, even though I may see and express myself as a nose in this universal "body," I am keenly aware that I am the finger just as well and it is in the best-interest of the Whole tree to care for the finger rather than ignore  it by insisting "Oh, that's a finger; that's not me. Me, I'm just the nose."

I'm going to continue to use the metaphor or symbol of a tree for the Whole or the Totality or the Infinite (all synonymous for the ineffable which Dr. Hew Len also calls the Infinite or the Divine) and my sense of individuated expression as a branch on that tree throughout this post.

Googling Louise Hay for the handy symbolism she often provides, I found that the essential symbolism is: "Refusing to release old ideas. Stuck in the past. Sometimes stinginess." Also, in her book, You Can Heal Your Life, Hay adds:

"Even if constipated people are not actually stingy, they usually do not trust that there will ever be enough. They hold on to old relationships that give them pain. They are afraid to throw out clothes that have been in the closet for years because they might need them some day. They stay in stifling jobs, or never give themselves pleasure, because they must save for that rainy day. We do not rummage in last night's garbage to find today's meal. Learn to trust the process of life to always bring you what you need." - You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay

This resonates for me. When I find myself with $10 (or less) to my name (and I've no credit cards or other so-called safety nets), it seems logical and sane to assume and agree with this statement, "There is not enough." And view the process of life as NOT bringing me what I require for survival because there's only so much you can buy with ten bucks in the U.S. of A these days.

Yet, in the last week, these friends that moved in temporarily (the one reflecting the symbolism of constipation and the one reflecting anxiety and adrenal issues above) have brought with them an abundance of fresh, healthy food that filled the fridge and kitchen to the brim. They share everything they prepare with me. Another day, another friend with no electricity (yeah, it's a little like a frontier here at times) came by with a ton of produce and asked me to make  some warm soup (for all of us, too). This past Saturday, I was blithely returning home from an artists' roundtable discussion on digital art (and in the soaring mood that can burst forth into jubilant skipping and humming) when I serendipitiously happened upon the grand opening of a community acupuncture clinic--they had the most beautiful, homemade, sensuous banquet artfully arranged with fresh, colorful, bright foods including edible flowers in the salad, tropical fruits like papaya, banana, pineapple and a rose-hibiscus-nettles herbal tea. Then, that same evening, I went to an art installation literally called "Banquet," that featured an endless cornucopia of food where the artist fed you (and it was amazing interactive social experiment as well between the artist and the "audience" since only one person at a time sat at the table as others watched). (Serendipitiously, learning more about the "Banquet" artist, I find she hosts visiting artists in an informal artist-in-residence program that opens her home to guests.  And it actually all connects to this particular post, as you'll see.)

Earlier in the week, go figure,  I had "logically" entertained the fear of starvation. This fear you'd think would utterly dissolve in the face of grace and evidence to the contrary--and yet, there is the thought that arises unbidden fixated on imaginary futures--"And what of tomorrow? What if there is no food tomorrow? What then? What then? What's next?" And it all feels  like habit, not truth. Reeks of the way habits become addictive behavior, become karmic even. A stuck pattern; a rote defense. It is in moments that are re-runs of memory that is the space to invite Ho'oponopono.

Usually before I apply Ho'oponopono I try to understand the habitual pattern deeper. It's easy to pull weeds out if you just clasp them by their top, and it may even  appear temporarily nice to have a smooth garden free of those straggly unwanted weeds, yet if their roots are still underground it's only a matter of time before they pop back through the ground into the light of day. My intention is to get to the root, or heart, of the matter, not just treat surface symptoms.

I happened to find a used copy of a book last week at Maple Leaf Books (yes, there are times when spending $5 even when you're down to $20 and no inkling of where future cash flow may happen as your leads aren't turning up any potential gigs is absolutely the thing to do that moment anyhow). This book was vital and instrumental to me years ago when I was trying to reconcile the business world I was in with the spiritual path (at that time, I leaned Buddhist).  It's called The Diamond Cutter, by Geshe Michael Roach. I often wish I had a copy with me--and now I do. It has some very insightful things to say about "stinginess" too:

"Stop being such a cheapskate in your business dealings and your personal life. Give, give, give to others; make sure deals are win-win for both sides. Again, it's not the amount of money involved, it's maintaining--all day long--a truly generous, creative, flowing state of mind that wants to see everybody prosper. Ben Franklin was perhaps the greatest statesman, scientist, and businessperson in America's history--and his response to competition was to invite all his competitors to join a new society called a Chamber of Commerce, dedicated to finding ways to work together to expand markets, and make everybody involved richer."

To be continued in Part 2.

Art credits: Tree of Life, by  earth/body artist Ana Mendieta;  unknown photographer via Tree of Life Celebration Facebook page. 

ho'oponopono ~ youth voices ~ page loses voices ~ laryngitis ~ fear of speaking

I have been paying attention to the symbols, situations and such around my current surroundings while I re-visit the Bay Area, a former home I left in January 2008.  Among the recurring themes are folks undergoing lawsuits,  handling responsibilities of being caregivers of dementia patients (either as their profession or it is their own parents), and several people with newly diagnosed blood disorders.  I also keep finding jewelry, especially rings. But I'll skip some of that, and head straight to "losing voice."

I'd spent a lot of time working on a proposal for an organization whose mission is "empowering youth to find their voice and become agents of social change," and it has the title "Youth Voices Academy" as part of their moniker.  The backing foundation also wishes to "seed creativity" and "providing underserved youth with the tools and skills for creative self-expression." We ended up working together to come up with the final proposal for a festival.  I was a bit surprised to learn we ended up losing that grant to no one else--the funding organization that was going to bestow a grant pulled out because (they said) wanted something geared for broader age groups.  Upon critically re-reading my final written proposal, I saw that I  held back and did not voice my highest, idealized vision; I diluted it to a more feasible, yet ultimately mediocre route in hopes that that might secure the grant.

Around the same time, I've been re-reading The Cluetrain Manifesto (also online for free), where they treat 'voice' as a craft. This 1999 book had been very influential for a while among business and marketing folks in the early stages of social media as a way to have a human and humane person-to-person exchanges rather than the distant, couched, and often automated robotic drone taught as business "communications." That lasted for maybe a few years on the Internet before it was drowned out by schools of broadcast media (which just happened to coincide when I left marketing altogether as a field).

Then, I read recently that Google co-founder and current CEO has "lost his voice." 

"Google Inc. CEO Larry Page had to miss Thursday’s annual shareholders meeting because he has lost his voice. He will also skip upcoming public appearances — a conference on Google’s Android mobile software next week and a call on its earnings report next month. "

At this point, seeing the headline splashed in bold letters "Google CEO Larry Page Loses Voice" startled me.  (It made news here since it will affect him for weeks, and thus people are speculating it may indicate something more serious.) Page is only 39 years old (I tend to pay a bit more attention to the more out of the ordinary clues, than say friends' parents in their 80s with dementia--although it was so frequently brought up, I did look it up too and apply Ho'oponopono).  

It's also telling that one can read the headline as "Page Loses Voice." In other words, I've not wanted to share any pages of my writing for a long, long time without highly censoring it first. 

A common (although it's typically days, not weeks) "lost voice" dis-ease is laryngitis. Louise Hay's book,  Heal Your Body, Heal Your Life, shows this symbolism (and it's pretty obvious one).

LARYNGITIS: Fear of speaking up.

I've felt a fairly constant contraction and constriction around chest/heart, and also up through to my throat since I've been in the Silicon Valley part of Bay Area.  Some of it feels like it stems from a warped belief that  I must hold myself in check here, as it's a very rationally-minded, cerebral, analytical, science-only (or you're deemed stupidly dangerous) worldview sort of place. The feeling of suffocation is simply me stifling me out of habit of (seeming) self-preservation.

For me, 'voice' means more than simply 'speaking up,' as voice can be expressed through art, music, dance, or any expressive actitivity or state of being as well. In fact, when I consider the phrase "speak out" if feels less like Life expressing through me and more like justification and defense which isn't the point, either. The lost "youth voices" grant possibly points to the fact that I have been postponing another creative project because it's scary to put new and novel things that don't fit the status quo out; thus, circling back to Louise Hay's root "fear of speaking out".  (Typically children and youth are symbolic of new creations and new growth, as well.)

I don't have any fix it, change it, make/force something happen type solutions in this post. It's ultimately the awareness and acceptance and allowance of that which appears to be someone seemingly separate out there--Larry Page--isn't separate. That the Whole of Who We Are is 100%.  We are the  same and if some recurring discord (such as dis-ease) shows up in our perception it reveals a fixated, recurring pattern, in this case, that of 'fearing of speaking out' (or any outward innovative, creative expression as underscored by the youth component; not to mention Page is young as far as CEOs of large public companies go).  Once that pattern is acknowledged through Ho'oponopono (or really, lately I'm feeling simply any type of energetic embrace and exposure to Reality or Awareness) it begins to yield its fixation to fluidity of the ongoing symphony of life, or what Dr. Len (popularized Ho'oponopono) might call inspiration, zero point, or the Divine. 

Update, and beautiful bonus: 

Excerpt from a voice coach's article, "No one else can sing your song" that I just happened to come across today:

"When people walk into my studio, before they even open their mouths, it is an act of emancipation. [In the USA, it's Independence Day.] They come to this work to be “unsilenced.” To reclaim some aspect of their full humanness. To share their most secret and sacred wishes. To open their mouths and – bravely, beautifully, tremblingly – sing their song."

ART CREDITS:  Photo by Buskaid.org; Young Flute Player by Judith Leyster. 

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 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 ~ 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

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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

I alone create joy and sweetness in my life. - Louise Hay

I heard Steve Jobs died today. 

Yesterday, I posted on G+ (unedited, just as it is on Google+):

Time and patience turn the mulberry leaf to silk. - Serbian proverb

Two stories on weaving the threads of inspiration with patience I read today:

Ralph Steinman co-discovered the role of dendretic cells on immunity in 1973. "For at least a decade, his findings were brushed aside, as he struggled to attract funding and failed to get his papers into top-flight journals."

In 2011, three days after his death he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine. (via WSJ, October 4, 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204612504576608370043268348.html)

Steve Jobs paid $10 million for Pixar in 1986. He sold it to Disney for $7.4B twenty years later, and....

"When Jobs opened Apple's first store in Tyson's Corner, Va., the company's foray into retailing was met with skepticism and even scorn."

Five years later, revenue per square foot was $4032 for Apple stores. The second best retailer that year, Tiffany & Co founded in 1837, came in at $2666 per square foot. (via Fortune, September 2011, http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/08/steve-jobs-real-legacy-apple-inc/)

I don't tend to get affected differently over the death of a celebrity or icon any more or less than any other person. To me, the hundreds of thousands of lesser-known people dying I never met on December 24, 2004, affected me so deeply I've never been the same again. And not because of masses (even one person is a treasure). It was because I literally felt something I'd never felt before in my heart. I think it's what a blogging buddy, Wayne, calls transpersonal emotion. In fact, in Buddhist philosophy it cannot even be said that you own any emotion... it's not exactly yours. If there were to be any sense of ownership it'd be All's.

Yet I must admit I am feeling a great deal more grief than I would feel towards another icon I don't personally know. Perhaps sometimes there is some kind of communion with souls that transcends having met them on a physical plane. I do not know. I just know it feels as if I knew Steve.

Ralph Steinman died on September 30th and Steve Jobs on October 5th.

Both men had pancreatic cancer.

I didn't even notice the connection when I wrote the post yesterday on G+.

So did Ho'oponopon fail? Supposedly, I applied Ho'oponopono on Jobs a while back.

That is a question for another post, and it is a very good one. In fact, it'll be the next post.

Two quick things though. First, you cannot heal another person.  In fact, the second you think another person exists as a separate entity, you're insisting on an illusion that isn't there, adding upon the illusion of the dis-ease or other imbalance. This isn't about finding a nicer, better illusion--it's about the end of illusion. That's why the terms cleaning or clearing are often used in Ho'oponopono. Perfection underlies illusion. So clearing reveals its infinite presence.

Ho'oponopono if it "works" works because I acknowledge oneness. "There is no one out there," is one of the other most repeated refrains from Dr. Len. Second, I'm noticing more 'failure' with Ho'oponopono and again I'll go deeper into that next post, but one theory I have is clearing has to go deep. You can't just yank out weeds without grabbing the root in entirety or they simply grow. The longer you've practiced Ho'oponopono the more you will see that the toughest weeds for you are the last you perceive. It was easier when I began (circa 2003) since perhaps I was less invested in keeping those particular weeds (unconscious patterns, conditioning, tendencies, memory, karma, programming--goes by so many names). 

Also, it always comes back to you. You in this case is myself. It's not for Steve Jobs or for Ralph Steinman to get it. It's not that they are sick. I cannot attach to any outcomes or agendas of being a savior/healer, however noble. There's a pattern that we share, a precise frequency pattern that the senses interpret as occuring in the organ of the pancreas because of its resonance. (Again, next post and go deeper on that.) Dissolve the pattern in Mind, and its vibratory effects are gone. (One Mind.... and it's within.)

From the last post on ho'oponopono and pancreas, pancreatic cancer, diabetes and my increasing synchronicities with Steve Jobs:

Louise Hay simple message for pancreas problems is, "Not being able to enjoy the sweetness in life."

Lawrence Michail at the Compassionate Dragon Healing site on Chinese medicine adds that pancreas issue (especially diabetes) may indicate:

"One may be bitter at the world. Things are not the way they should be."

 The truth is this pattern is still there. I've acknowledged its presence and done the Ho'oponopono mantra, and that's obviously not enough. I know this not because of the external deaths, I can feel the dying within.

It may seem trivial to enjoy life, and to perceive the sweetness in life. Doesn't it? I mean look around you. All these people dying and suffering, then I should too. That's the empathetic thing to do. (Or is it?). That may be the extreme end of it, yet there are subtleties that carry the same tone, just muffled down a notch. It is a rather sticky piece of programming that one. I grapple with it. 

I don't often do the affirmations piece of Louise Hay's work, as it doesn't necessarily tie into Ho'oponopono or at least my work. The affirmation listed for issues of the pancreas is:

I love and approve of myself and I alone create joy and sweetness in my life.

Now, as a lived testament that would be very vital, very powerful. A wee step in that direction each day.** (And here I'm speaking out loud to myself.)

Again, my own theory right now is that Ho'oponopono is losing its efficacy if it just comes down to repeating mantras. It reveals illusions (past patterns), and it requires surrendering those illusions. 

** I can make excuses why it's not practical. For instance, I only have $1.38 in the bank, and no credit. How shall I do anything sweet with that, blah blah blah. That is the death dirge, do not listen or be swayed by it. There is another stiller voice to listen for.

ho'oponopono and leukemia ~ brutally killing inspiration ~ post-traumatic stress disorder (or rather what about post-traumatic GROWTH?) ~ expressive writing ~ shadow side of Artist

A friend of a friend of a friend is in the hospital. He's quite young, early 30s. The symbolism in the message of this dis-ease (via Louise Hay) is:

Leukemia: Brutally killing inspiration.

The whole point of Ho'oponopono is to reveal our innate origin which itself is Pure Inspiration moment to moment.

(By the way, it's not anything to become some day or get back to...  it's more like clouds obscuring the sun, yet the sun isn't missing in action, only our awareness of Awareness may be.)

If you've read A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe, you already know the answer to everything is 42. So let's take a look at #42 in these notes from an interview with Ho'oponopono pioneer, Dr. Hew Len (I'm joking slightly about the 42--taking all this with a heavy heart doesn't heal, and you'll never be able to continue to clear.) Anyhow, #42 is:

"42. Ho’oponopono is a process of only looking at myself and working on the garbage (memories) in me (my subconscious mind), because once I get myself in rhythm with The Divinity, everybody else gets into rhythm too; But if I am out of rhythm, so too will be everybody else." - notes by Saul Maraney of watching an interview with Dr. Len

In note #86 of Dr. Len's talk: "By now saying to that memory “I Love You”, Divinity transmutes that memory, and takes me back to my original state of Void and Infinite, and inspiration can then come through."

Coincidentally, I also reading this post yesterday on shadow side of artists (recommended reading). It's very telling, yet still leaves a lot out. In my experience (yes, much of it is anecdotal, but I know a lot of creatives), many have suffered from trauma, and addiction (of all kinds, not just stigma type) is a way to blot out pain. Often it actually appears to 'work' for a while.

I have my own experience with acute stress disorder. If I recall correctly, this is the term for symptoms of PTSD, although occuring immediately after a trauma it is common... it becomes an issue if these syptoms persist and thus acute turns chronic and long-lasting. A person close to me whom is a university professor of psychology told me about studies in "post-traumatic growth," and that (and applying it) has all the difference in the world.

What I found with emotions like grief, anguish, despair, etc. is that ofen they bring up earlier, unresolved emotions. In my case, it brought up my dad's rather sudden death (only a few months he declined steeply) when I was 17 years old, mostly. But it brings up everything.

Actually, so does being an artist... the creative process itself. It brings up everything, bidden or unbidden, it has no compunction about it. But that's a big topic and too much for one post.

(Just in case you're wondering how I'm tying these seemingly disparate ideas together... I'm not doing it. These were presented to me within the last 24 hours. Notice patterns. There is an Intelligence there. And there's always this reminder:)

"Your medicine is whatever appears now." - Byron Katie

Today, flipping through a random magazine lying on a coffee shop table, I pick up and read (these are a few highlights):

"A lot of times when people develop PTS [post traumatic stress] symptoms, it's because the traumatic event is linking to earlier memories that have not been processed," says Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., one of the world's leading PTSD experts. Memories, she says, often of vulnerability and powerlessness.

One study showed that women were 33 percent more likely to suffer PTS symptoms after 9/11 if they had an earlier experience with unwanted sexual contact. Such findings challenge the assumption that PTSD is confined to a single event. "We're the product of our memory networks," says Shapiro. "How we feel and how we perceive the world is based on the past experiences we've had."

"Sometimes even the direst traumas can lead to positive outcomes. In the case of 9/11, several studies found that many people had an increased appreciation of life, altered priorities, and a new understanding of personal strength afterward. Some of these effects faded after six months. Others, however—like increased kindness, spirituality, and teamwork—did not." -- "How to Manage Post-Traumatic Stress," Women's Health, September 2011

This is just the start of a series I'd like start on these 'shadow' topics that are RARELY broached in polite domesticated society. It's not a great idea to keep this all bottled inside, and I believe that expressive creation is one modality (combined with ho'oponopono it'd be so powerful!) that can allow for fluid living that is not resurrecting old memories (as emotions are often recycled, and not truly a response to current life) but living in the Here and Now in inspiration.

BONUS: One way to support this work and go deeper into the depths is through a $12/month newsletter with interactivity (optional)--Psychopomp. (Unsub at any time, although I recommend a two-month commitment to feel it out.)

p.s. For folks that come from other 'schools' for instance nonduality, Buddhism, Advaita etc., I think of memory as conditioning. From a Toltec shaman perspective, reacting from memory/conditioning is referred to as the Parasite.

p.p.s. The What is Ho'oponopono site is very informative. All the information and notes from Saul Maraney above are copyright © Saul Maraney - 2008.

Art Credits: Photo via DesignJulia.com.