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. 

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 

ho'oponopono ~ financial hardship ~ everything is sacred, there are no ordinary moments ~ slicing potatoes and Sufi mystic Rabia of Basra

A spiritual mentor of mine mentioned a friend (or student) of hers that was experiencing a lot of financial hardship. Her friend was in jeopardy of losing her home (and she had kids to provide for too). She and several others helped to bail her out, but the dire situations just kept recurring over and over.

The mentor said this woman was seeking to find fulfilling spiritual work that was important to the world, while missing completely that each and every moment and every activity is already sacred. Paraphrased she said, "When you stop searching for power, there's power there. The power comes when there are no ordinary moments--even peeling potatoes [is important]."

This insight was very relevant for me as I've experienced a vicious cycle of poverty in the last few years--including homelessless.  Although things are slightly better, they don't feel quite right (right as in a natural grace rather than a stressful hustling, scrambling sensation.) I too felt that I dividing everything into those bins, "This is God, this isn't. This is Life, this isn't. This is holy, this isn't.  This is me, that is not me."

There is an inclusiveness that's nondual and nondivisive when you really grok Ho'oponopono at the level of your Being. And that's how it seemingly 'works.'

I felt with all the economic woes in the world at this time it was also a potent time to apply Ho'oponopono and share that here.  The crucial step (I believe) in Ho'oponopono is to acknowledge that the energetic pattern isn't out there, in that poor suffering person and surely not I.  And neither is it strictly personal. It's a holding pattern of energy that became cyclical and stuck (in comparison to fluidity of a current), somewhat like an eddy in a river. You're just helping to release it into fluid movement again through the embrace of acknowledgement:  I'm sorry, please forgive me (for previously ignoring or excluding, consciously or unconsciously),  I love you, thank you.

A day or two after hearing the "peeling potatoes" story I shared above, I opened a beautiful book called, "Love Poems from God," edited by Daniel Ladinsky straight to this page:

It helps,
putting my hands on a pot, on a broom,
in a wash
pail.

I 
tried painting,
but it was easier to fly slicing
potatoes.

I looked up who wrote the poem. It is a female Sufi mystic and poet from the eighth century, Rabia of Basra.  Rabia's profile in the book also shared this hint and poem that speaks to healing and Ho'oponopono:

When God said,  "My hands are yours,"
I saw that I could heal any creature in this world;

I saw that the divine beauty in each heart
is the root of all time
and space.

Art credits: Young Girl Peeling Potatoes, by Samuel Albert Anker

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 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 ~ 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