The universe is alive.

I'm still in the process of writing a post on my experiences with spirituality. In the meantime, I thought it very appropriate to share my new epiphany with all of you.

Yesterday I was talking with my house mates about what 'awareness' is--is a chair aware that it's a chair?, does a spoon carrying information?, do you need a brain to observe?, etc.

I said something near the end of this conversation that surprised me: "The universe is alive."

I had never put it into such exact words before, but I realized this is how I've always felt. It's the only way I can describe God. It's the only thing that allows me to carefully reject nihilism, or the apathy and pessimism I often feel. The universe is alive.

I was thinking about it obsessively at 2am--I referred to the Google search engine to read other people's thoughts and came across the photograph above.

It would take 300 million light years to travel from one end of this photograph/simulation to the other. The man who posted this picture in his blog mentioned it looked like tissue--a network of cells.

It looks like the nervous system, doesn't it?

This may be a stretch, but it got me thinking: the universe is constantly expanding, and as it does dark energy and dark matter fills the void.

Meditation is known to increase the grey matter in our brain...how is the universe any different in this sense?

It makes me feel very small, but it also makes everything feel so meaningful too.

satisfaction

My meditation experience this morning left me so happy. I'd like to share with you what I ecstatically wrote in my journal right after it:

I NEED NOTHING MORE THAN WHAT IS CONTAINED IN THIS MOMENT TO BE SATISFIED. I HAVE MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS IN MY LIFE BUT I NEED NOT COUNT THEM, THIS JOY COMES NOT FROM THEM. I FEEL A PROFOUND AND COMPLETE SATISFACTION WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EXTERNAL - SATISFACTION IS A CHOICE IN ITSELF, A PURELY MENTAL PLACE.

EVERYTHING HAS TURNED INSIDE-OUT, WITH EMPTINESS NOW FEELING LIKE ABUNDANCE, AND ALL THOSE THINGS I ONCE DESIRED SEEMING HOLLOW AND INSUBSTANTIAL. I WAS ALMOST AFRAID TO SAY IT: I NEED... NOTHING... MORE... THAN THIS... NOTHING MORE THAN THIS! THEN I SAID IT OVER AND OVER, JOYOUSLY, RECKLESSLY, LIKE A ROMPING CHILD - I NEED NOTHING MORE! - ALL THE WHILE STOMPING PLAYFULLY ON THOSE OLD DESIRES LIKE THEY WERE CRAWLING BUGS ON THE SIDEWALK.

I don't know why I wrote it in all caps, that's how I did in my journal.

Hey all,

I just want to say thank you for creating such a beautiful, one-ness energy during chanting today. I am really happy that we're all discovering the experience of chanting together, and giving our all. In class I said how comfortable I felt with your voices, but I kind of want to expand on that feeling...

I was getting a lot of imagery. One person mentioned forests, and I totally felt that too. But I also felt this awesome "lifting" feeling whenever we became in unison, as if our voices were pulling us high into this other realm, somewhere great. I kept picturing our voices as these dazzling, yellow zig-zag's beaming from our throats, and creating a giant ball of energy.

I think sitting in a circle made a huge difference. While I had a peaceful, meditative experience at the Siddha center with chanting, I was not influenced as much by everyone else's voices. Something about encircling ourselves, making that everlasting shape, really affected me. I also remember wanting to hold hands, if just to make the experience even more "kumbaya" or powerful.

Anyway, during the chant I told myself that if I get upset, to think about the One voice we can create, and to rest in it. I hope this can be useful to you too! I would also love to hear any further thoughts on chanting :D

Law IV

This is from a sheet handed to me in an esoteric healing class from two years ago. It is "The Fourth Law of Esoteric Healing":

Disease, both physical and psychological, has its roots in the good, the beautiful and the true. It is but a distorted reflection of divine possibilities. The thwarted soul, seeking full expression of some divine characteristic or inner spiritual reality, produces - within the substance of its sheaths - a point of friction. Upon this point the eyes of the personality are focused, and this leads to disease. The art of the healer is concerned with the lifting of the downward focused eyes unto the soul, the true Healer within the form. The spiritual or third eye then directs the healing force, and all is well.

I think it's from Alice Bailey's books on Esoteric Healing.

"has its roots in the good, the beautiful and the true" - I like this view of disease :)

Thoughts on student life

Lately, I’ve been struggling with my personal journey of spiritual growth. It has largely been my belief (at least lately) that one should be able to carry out every act in life in a mindful, meaningful, and loving, manner. In terms of my academics, last semester, this was more effortless. I was passionate about what I was focusing on in each course and I found the learning environments invigorating. This semester, however, I have not had the same luck. It has been difficult for me to make a good portion of my coursework personally meaningful, I’ve struggled with disempowering classroom environments, and some of my grades have been reflecting my consequential attitudes, which only works to exacerbate the problem.

I’ve felt myself bucking against some of my academics, asking myself that if the work is not meaningful or empowering, why should I be spending my energy on it, when I could be doing things that are so much more spiritually rewarding? Why do so many students have the notion drilled into their minds that these four (or more) years of their lives are supposed to be devoted to studying (whether it is meaningful or not) – as if during these four years they should be willing, in essence, to put their lives on hold while they complete this requirement of obtaining a college degree? I know that the implications in these questions are fairly reductive, but I feel that they should be asked nonetheless and know that many would do well to reflect on them. I find myself often asking questions like these after I realize that I’ve gone through a period of time on “autopilot” (if you know what I mean).

What do you think? What does this period of your life mean to you and how do you determine what to invest energy/time in (or how much); or have you simply found that you can go about your life, and complete all of your obligations in a mindful, loving way?

Remind Yourself

Since I have been very sick the past couple of days I have looked for something to remind myself that the illness doesn't have to have a complete hold on me. I have this passage from Dr. Wayne Dyer indefinitely posted above my desk in my apartment, so I thought I might share.

Remind yourself that you don't have to do anything. You don't have to be better than anyone else. You don't have to win. You don't have to be number one or number twenty-seven or any other number.

Give yourself permission to just be. Stop interfering with your unique natural being. Lighten the burden you carry to be productive, wealthy, and successful in the eyes of others and replace it with an inner assertion that allows you to access the Tao.

Affirm: I am centered in the Tao. I trust that I am able to straighten myself out, and so is the world. I retreat into silence knowing all is well.

So I will try to allow myself to just be. Despite the headache and side-effects of antibiotics that make me want to classify a new category of illness. All will be well again, soon enough.

Karen

Precognition Group Research Ideas

Hey Guys,

Last semester with Richard Mann I did some research on anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. During my studies, I came up with a few ideas a long the way for possible future research ideas. I’ve also included some things to keep in mind throughout the process. Below I’ve summarized some of my ideas.

Christen

Goal:

• Explore the possibility that consciousness may not only be limited to perceptible information in the sensory present and memory of the past, but also to that in the future.
• Examine and understand human evolution, the human mind, human perception and behavior, and the nature of our physical reality to a greater degree

What is psi?

• A sensible, normal, extremely efficient, and continuous aspect of the psychological functioning of all organisms
• Intrinsically unconscious, preconscious, devoid of any available sensory information, broadly active and important, and motivated by personal intentions and needs
• Operate outside of the physical body.

Possible Study Ideas:

1. Is there a statistically significant correlation between stimulus seeking and psi performance?
2. Are those who are ranked as high stimulus seekers more likely to attain a high effect size than those who are not?
3. Design an experiment that tested directly for the retroactive induction of boredom on non-arousing neural stimuli.
4. Do extraverts perform better on psi tasks than introverts? How does this relate to the course of evolution?
5. Test an individual’s ability to recall a set of words to determine the role that rehersal plays in the facility of this process
6. By practicing free recall tests of the sets of words shown to them, are participants able to recall more of the to-be-practiced words than the unpracticed words?
7. Explore the influence of unconscious physiological responses to future events through examining psi performance in one person in the same location, but at different times.
8. Is psi space-time equivalent? Does our consciousness have transtemporal aspects?
9. Do “calm” pictures produce little to no response, while a “extreme” picture would result in a rise in skin conductance, a drop in heart rate, and a drop in finger blood volume? Additionally, does the emotional arousal caused by seeing an extreme picture in the future cause an unconscious physiological “pre-action” in the present? Particularly, do the emotional targets show an orienting “pre-ponse” prior to the exposure of the target photos?

Possible Methods:

1. Use the IAPS: a set of 820 digitized photographs that had been rated on 9-point scales for valence and arousal by both male and female raters
2. Stimulus seeking scale: Participants respond to two different pictures on a scale, consisting of the following statements: “I am easily bored” and “I often enjoy seeking movies I’ve seen before” (reverse scored). All responses were then documented on 5-point scales that spanned from “very untrue” to “very true,” and averaged in a single score extending from 1 to 5.
3. Use strongly negative or erotic pictures
4. Use Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale (which contains a subscale of Boredom Susceptibility that is significantly correlated with overall extraversion) to determine a measure for erotic stimulus seeking
5. Record the heart rate, blood volume, and electrodermal activity of each participant before, during, and after presentation of each target photo to see whether the body unconsciously responds differentially to two types of future targets
6. Timing of when target photo is selected: directly prior to being displayed to participants or after.
7. Participants take a personality test prior to the experiment: The sensation seeking facet on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory
8. Use random number generators to limit the influence of the experimenter on the results (i.e. the internal PRNG, Marsaglia’s PRNG, and/or the Araneus Alea I RNG)
9. Administering a measure of creativity prior to the experiment
10. Study psi performance in various situations in which persons are engaging in “normal” activities and not striving to demonstrate a paranormal effect
11. Study psi functioning using implicit or behavioral methods (i.e projective techniques) as opposed to self-report measures (i.e. questionnaires) because the variables affecting it act on unconscious levels
12. Minimizing the role of the experimenter as much as possible, by reducing their interaction to that of greeter and debriefer, and leaving the instructions concerning the experiment and all other interactions with the participant up to the computer program

Things to keep in mind:

1. Statistical procedures that are as simple, transparent, and recognizable as possible (i.e. one sample t-tests
2. Individual difference variables that predict psi performance. Studies on psi have indicated that those who are open to experience, believe in the existence of psi, feel that they have experienced psi in their everyday life, and practice inward, mental discipline in which they develop insight into their own dream life (i.e. meditation, yoga, self-hypnosis, biofeedback, etc.) are more likely to demonstrate a psi performance effect than those who do not. Other beneficially characteristics include those with a stronger tendency toward dissociation and absorption; those who are more socially engaged, adventurous, and less anxious; those with motivations to succeed that are consistent at different levels of awareness and relatively invariant over time; those who have a general tendency to be successful across situations, those who are creative and have a capacity to delay cognitive closure; and those who are highly motivated and successful at performance effectively.
3. What is the emotional state of the individual at the time they encounter the material of the ESP task? Findings by Schmeidler and McConnell (1958) suggest that “the subject’s attitude is most important in determining the quality of his or her (extrasensory) perception.”
4. What are the environmental conditions that encourage and facilitate the performance of psi? Environments in which precognition, retroactive influence, and remote viewing are most likely are to occur include: 1) those in which participants engage in practices using anomalous cognition at least twice a week; 2) those that are peaceful; 3) those that are quiet (nothing on the walls, few pieces of furniture, bland); 4) those that promote the participant to be in a calm/meditative state; 5) those in which the participant has no prior knowledge of the target; and 6) those in which the “correct” target is determined by some external random event that it is not known to judges when they are making their evaluations (Brown, 2006, p. 29-31).
5. Other experimental criteria to keep in mind: 1) the participants should not know anything about the target when they conduct the session; 2) the monitor of the experimental session (if a monitor is used) should not know anything about the target; 3) the analyst of the session should not participate in other aspects of the experiment; 4) the tasker should not participate in the collection of information or any other aspect of the experiment; 5) a monitor (if a monitor is used) should not work with multiple participants within the same context of the same experiment; and 6) the participant must engage in the process alone and in an isolated environment.
6. Various confounding variables that could influence the findings of experiments: 1) the mere exposure effect; 2) liking for stimuli; 3) avoiding habituation; 4) using control sessions.
7. Factors that have been found to enhance the expression of the effect in both parapsychological and “perception without awareness” experiments: drawing responses rather than verbalizing them, sensory attenuation, hypnosis, free association, dream sleeping, relaxed reverie, and a positive, encouraging environment

Music and Us

Hey Guys,

In a few of the recent posts, I have been reading how people have had tremendous and extraordinary experiences with music. Specifically Roxanne and Laura talked about their personal experiences of meditation and the presence of music. So I post the question to you all...do you certain songs just hit right note in your soul? Are their songs that are just so meaningful and they make you tingle inside? For me, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. I am like almost in a state of depression due to the genius of a songs of this sort . Here are a few of the examples that really do it for me:

Feel Free to click the links :)

1) Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World
2) Billy Joel - Piano Man
3) Elton John - Tiny Dancer
4) Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
5) Harry Chapin - Cats in the Cradle

So yea, I don't really understand the experience I get when I hear these songs, nor do I understand why large groups of people burst out into song when they hear them in a group presence. However, there is certainly something special about these sorts of songs and their effect on our consciousness.

I know this might be a little late, and perhaps a little out there, but I was thinking about proposing a research project about music, consciousness, and feeling. I have even done a little research and have pulled a few articles on the subject. I have no idea how I would conduct such a project, but I would love to really research this emotion and feeling, and its relation to our consciousness. I will of course bring it up during class tomorrow, so if you have any interest, please definitely come find me. Until then.....

Best,

Ethan Cohen

Radiohead - Nude

Is it just me, or is this song about meditation? It's beautiful. Here are the lyrics and the URL to the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zhUdRr6-Fs

Don't get any big ideas
They're not gonna happen

You paint yourself white
And fill up with noise
But there'll be something missing

Now that you've found it, it's gone
Now that you feel it, you don't
You've gone off the rails

So don't get any big ideas
They're not gonna happen

You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

transport of matter

I mentioned this study in class on Tuesday, and remembered I had done a write-up of it some time last year.  Here is what I have for you.  If you're interested in checking out current and past issues of the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the quarterly publication source for this and other fascinating research, I'd recommend you head over to the Serial/Microform area of the Undergraduate Library.  You can definitely find the journal online via Mirlyn, but it's nice to actually hold it in your hands, and although I don't believe you can take most issues out of the library, there are scanners and copy machines available for your convenience.

Unexpected Behavior of Matter in Conjunction with Human Consciousness (2010) – Dong Shen

This article discusses the experiment in which a small piece of paper was transported out of a plastic vial by the means of human consciousness. The phenomenon of solid matter penetrating solid matter is attributed to a second consciousness state (SCS) that differs from the first, normal consciousness state of everyday thinking. Chinese research has suggested the involvement of a third-eye screen, which is essentially an image of an object created on a virtual “screen” in the middle of the forehead when a practitioner spends about an hour thinking deeply about the object. Psychokinetic (PK) transportation of the paper from the vial requires an image of the paper to be held stably on the screen by the SCS so that the first consciousness state can visualize moving the paper out of the vial; findings suggest that the paper image on the screen is able to receive information from the practitioner.

The methods used in this experiment were derived from Chinese research that began in the 1970s. These early studies were fueled by findings regarding Exceptional Function of the Human Body (EFHB), first seen in a boy who could “read” Chinese characters written on a piece of paper placed next to his ear. Shouliang Chen at Beijing University sought to determine whether or not EFHB was a physiological function of the body, and his studies found numerous other children and adults who were considered to have EHFB. The resulting source of practitioners served to advance research on this topic in a number of other programs.

For this particular experiment, practitioners were recruited from the Fudan University workforce. Individuals were selected to voluntarily undergo ESP and PK training without compensation and were generally 16-22 years old with little education. Results showed that success was often predicted by individuals’ level of mental flexibility and lack of preconception; approximately 60% of participants were successfully trained in ESP, with lower rates for PK success.

In this study, the canister was a standard-sized, opaque black plastic, 35-mm film cartridge container with its cap. A slip of paper 65mm by 90mm had a number written on it before being placed inside the canister. Although the practitioner, a 17-year old male, had no ability to achieve SCS initially, after six months of psychokinetic training, the experiment began. After the practitioner spent two days preparing, the experimenter wrote the number 830 on the paper, folded it four times, then passed it to a second experimenter who placed it inside the canister. The practitioner was seated one meter away from the table and told the paper was inside but not what was written on it.

Approximately forty minutes passed in silence as the practitioner stared intently at the canister. Moments later, the practitioner stated not only that the paper had moved to the floor near the wall, but also that it had the number 830 written on it in blue ink. None of the experimenters described seeing the paper leaving the container or flying across the room, but upon further inspection, there was in fact the very same paper on the ground near the wall, still folded.

The researcher provided the manner in which the practitioner described his experiment as follows, “during the experiment he concentrated on the black catridge container and got it deep in his consciousness while entering into the SCS. Then an image of the container appeared on the third-eye screen located in front of his forehead. He saw the image of the paper in the same way. At the very beginning, the paper image was not stable and not clear. After he focused on the image for a while, it became stable and clear on the screen. The number on the paper could then be easily read, that is, 830 written in blue, even though the paper was folded inside the capped container. When the image of the paper was clear on the screen, he started to use his mind to move the paper out of the container. At a certain point, he “saw” in his mind that the container was empty and saw in the room that the paper was on the floor near the wall.”

This research found that second consciousness state images on the third-eye screen have a number of remarkable qualities. When the practitioner is in the SCS, he can see the folded paper on his third-eye screen, and even has the capability to mentally examine it to determine its parts and characteristics, which was the number 830 in blue ink. Studies have also shown that an individual can focus on a given page of a closed book and read it while the book remains closed. This is possible because the image of the object on the third-eye screen is actively connected with the actual object; merely reading the third-eye screen is simply ESP. Psychokinesis results from the SCS focusing on the image and working with the normal, first consciousness state, which can then instruct the object to move.

According to the author, there are three requirements for psychokinetic activities. The first is that the image of the object actually appears on the third-eye screen. Second, the image on the screen must be stable to ensure it is intimately connected with the real object such as that between an object and its reflection in a mirror. This is achieved by maintaining concentration on the object. Finally, the image receives its “instruction” from the normal, first state of consciousness. When the position of the image on the screen changes, the real object will follow the position change simultaneously, similar to a tunneling process associated with a quantum mechanical wave function. These traits can be trained, with children 8-12 years old and young adults 15-22 years old with limited education showing best results.

Brene Brown's Ted Talk

I don't know about you guys, but I love Ted Talks. The link below is to one a friend sent me, and it literally made my day. I think part of the draw was that this woman (Brene Brown) is a self-described researcher/storyteller. One the one hand, this pleases the side of me that has been rigorously trained to reject anything that does not have firm grounding in research... and on the other, it satisfies the side of me that just wants to hear an authentic story. Enjoy!

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Addiction

My class was cancelled this morning so I decided to meditate in the diag. I took off my coat and set it on the little cement wall, took off my boots and sat in lotus, soaking up the sunlight and trying not to think about how cold my hands and neck were. Eventually I was able to enter the deep vastness and pretty much ignore the cold gusts. Suddenly the sunlight intensified, and the pleasure of subtle warm relief took me immediately out of meditation. My eyes snapped open as I realized that physical pleasure can be as much of a distraction and a hindrance to centeredness as pain is.

A man walked up to me in the middle of this thought. He had been driving the little snowplow around the sidewalks. He told me he was a brain cancer survivor and that he respects someone with a devotion to inner focus. We talked briefly about meditation, and he mentioned that he was struggling to lose the weight he'd put on recently. I said, well, you know meditation can free you from addictions and food is certainly addictive.

The insight that converged as I walked home was that truly, addiction, or attachment, is suffering. It seems we live in a society of addicts, of insatiable need, and this is why we are never at peace for very long. Now I look at my own addictions: I have been addicted to food, to intimacy, to talking and thinking, addicted to getting attention in a group of people, addicted to achievement, addicted to my own appearance in the mirror. I have also been addicted to worry, about my health, my future career, my acne.

I wish to be free of these things, and I ask you, Universe, Self, to help me through it!

I wish to identify not with my body, my name, my words, my achievements, but with the immortal Awareness that I share with all of you.

You know what I mean. Anyway, to get back to pleasure and pain, it seems we are addicted to both of them. There is an anxious pull toward pleasure, called desire, and an anxious avoidance of pain, called fear. I think it's not really pleasure or pain that causes suffering, but this obsessive anxiety about them which creates turbulence in my contentment, my stillness.

What I want to know from you is, Do you think freedom from attachments is the way to happiness? Or is my aloofness somehow bad? I feel that some people would criticize me for having no material goals. Please help me validate how I feel!

Peace of heart to all of you.

Laura

Research Ideas

Below are some of the ideas for future research we discussed in class. Although we have 3 new groups growing, I hope that we can continue to expand on some of the the following ideas!

1. Precognition
2. Personality and psi ability
3. Intention
4. Quantum Physics (Tiller)
5. Energy Healing/Qigong (e.g. rats and cancer)
6. Interaction of consciousness and the material world/ the Relationship between the mental and physical world
   
7. Remote viewing
8. Remote healing
9. Retroactive influence
10. Analyzing introspective reports of individuals who have experienced and/or demonstrated psi ability
11. Dream analysis; lucid dream experience
12. Anomalous knowing
13. Compassion
14. Poltergeist phenomenon

What else should we add to the list?

Also, how can we go about dividing some of these ideas into the three groups? Any ideas?

3 Groups

Unique Names

Intention:
1. kmmuir
2. lauramic
3. jphenno
4. maurerm
5. judlygil

Remote Viewing
1. abgalla
2. ejcohen
3. evelass
4. rockwood

Precognition
1. cdcarp
2. lauramic
3. rjdough
4. jdaws

Meditation through Flow: Is it Possible?

In her book, Meditation for the Love of It, Sally Kempton describes meditation, its qualities, teachings, and benefits. She discusses how through meditation, one is able to develop awareness of the universe and one's placement in it through drawing within oneself, settling the mind, and understanding oneself from the ground up. Meditation allows one to expand on their consciousness through shifting away from viewing oneself as a physical person defined by external factors (i.e. history, appearance, intelligence, opinions, emotions, etc.), and moving towards seeing oneself in a subtler, purer form.

Kempton describes meditative states in some of the following ways:

• spontaneous
  
• natural
• immune to manifestation by force, yet unable to be approached passively
• matter of atonement and awareness
• gradual
• affected by attitude
• not just an act or a process, but a relationship; a relationship with oneself and one's consciousness
• power to enable us to become whole
• power to clear the mind
  

In my studies in positive psychology, I have learned about "flow." Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined this term, describing it as a mental state of operation in which a person fully immersed in single-minded, focused motivation. It entails a sense of effortless action, which can be referred to as "being in the zone." It is through "flow activities" that an individual is able to increase the complexities of their mind, and develop and grow on a "stream" or unity of ongoing flow of consciousness.

Csikszentmihalyi identifies the following nine factors as present during one's experience of flow:

1. Definite goals: challenge and skill level must both be high
2. Concentration: single-minded focus on a specific field of attention
3. Loss of feeling of self-consciousness: action and awareness merge into one
4. Distorted sense of time: one's subjective sense of time is altered
5. Feedback: success and failures in one's engagement with this activity are direct and immediate
6. Balance between ability level and challenge: the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult
7. Control: a sense of personal authority over the situation or activity
8. Reward: the activity is intrinsically rewarding; entails an effortlessness of action
9. Lack of awareness of bodily needs: one can reach a point of real hunger or thirst without realizing it
   

It is clear that there are commonalities in experience between both meditation and "flow activities."

My question: Can the inner world of the self, awareness, and consciousness be achieved in ways other than still, quiet meditation as suggested by Kempton? I know there is no "wrong" way to meditate, and that every individual's has a meditation practice that is unique to him or her self, but I am curious to know whether or not it is possible to "enter the field of consciousness" that Kempton describes through engaging in some form of physical activity? Is that possible, or do you think that the experiences differ between the two? Is "flow" more limited in capacity than the form of meditation she describes?

Intro & love

Hey guys! I'd like to do an introduction of some sort as well. You could consider this an abridged introduction to Mandie's spirituality ;)

I'll begin by saying that "spirituality" was never a term that I felt personally resonated with me for the entirety of my life until about this past summer. I was raised Roman Catholic, but the faith or practice was never taken seriously in the environment in which I was raised. Consequently, I stopped practicing the religion when I came to college and did embark on a period of exploration, though it was largely in vain. It was basically the quest for the "answer" to the question "Does it make sense to believe?" which I'm sure many of you can relate to having inquired in your past. In speaking with many people from a range of different faiths as they attempted to convey the meaning that their practice and beliefs infused into their lives, I slowly gathered the impression that this was not something that I could reason myself into or out of (Yes, I am very fond of reason. Too fond of reason.) I came to resign to the attitude that spirituality was not something that I could find unless it found me.

Now I attribute the beginnings of my spiritual awakening to my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia this past summer. To give you the gist of it, I gradually realized that the cultures that I was immersed in viewed the world, people, and their lives in fundamentally different ways than I had ever been exposed to previously. The differences that I was most focused on were the almost complete disregard for material wealth and a much higher importance of relationships and meaning in life (life that is now, not 10 yrs, 5 yrs, or even 1 yr, from now). Experiencing this reality resulted in a deep awakening and desire inside of me. I didn't exactly know what it was, but this yearning and simultaneous serenity that I felt had a distinctly different quality and color to it that was foreign to anything I'd ever felt before.

Fast-forward to my current state of being: I've explored various spiritual practices over the last semester and have found some hardly meaningful, while others much more so. I definitely live my life in a state of more complete awareness. Whereas before this last summer, I would live my life half-asleep, half-aware, half-present; now I am much closer to truly living. For instance, the other day I was musing about the way in which I remember my life. There’s a difference now between the memories of passing days – each day is distinct for its meaningful experiences, while before, days were all methodical, habitual accomplishments. They all blended together in my memory like a homogenized blur. Now they are discreet. Luminous, glittering, vibrant Sundays, Wednesdays, Late-Thursdays-That-Carry-Into-Fridays.

And lastly, I believe that over these last few months I've truly learned what it means to love. If you were to ask me what "spirituality" means to me in the present moment, "love" would be my reply, for I've come to realize the sweetness in giving it to and receiving it from others (I mean anyone). For me, experiencing another person, receiving a glimpse of their humanity - the essence of their being - is loving, and every interaction with another being can be an experience of love. This is something that I now try to focus on as steadfastedly as possible, for when I do, I am always spiritually blessed.

I apologize for the slightly erratic and stream-of-consciousness nature of this response, but I hope that some of you can connect with these feelings or experiences or will maybe feel the desire to offer your own thoughts! Thank you for taking the time to read it!

I am a Sacred Sanctuary

I want to write about my experience at the doctor’s the other day. I don’t know if it’s the stuff for this blog, but I would like to write about it. And I would also like to know if we’d like to discuss things of a different nature here.

Anyways, disclaimer, on the surface it’s about “women’s issues”. I’d felt a lump in my breast that I wanted to get checked. My doctor said it seemed fine, but my mother wanted a second opinion. The ending of the story is that my breasts are happy and healthy. But during the process of having other people find that out, I felt so emotionally raw, for whatever reason. I believe we all have our lessons to learn in this life.

I was in the arboretum when I agreed to get a second opinion. There were so many nurturing trees around me, so many layers and levels to the landscape. I felt like everything in the snow globe I was standing in was my teacher, and I felt a surprising, eager perspective to go ahead and ask the doctors to guide me in forming a friendship with my breasts. I was ready to approach that hitching of my heart feeling, and the I’m looking for a “problem” feeling I get when I, as a woman, am told to do my monthly breast exam. Too bad my appointment was at the cancer center and too bad I was seeing a breast surgeon. Five people and two machines gave so much lovin’ to my breasts. They systematically mauled me as if they were kneading through dough to find and pull out a ring they had accidentally dropped in there. Their eyes looked persistently worried and determined, their voices unnaturally loud as if to blanket my mirrored worry, and I imagined the disappointment of the surgeon when I told her to let her biopsy scalpel be, that I was willing to risk her uncertainty. The whole time I was practicing relaxation exercises. They’d touch me and my whole body would clench. I’d notice my deep stomach muscles shiver, and my legs and forehead tense, and I closed my eyes and breathed and worked on letting go. I took the time that I spent alone on the bed to breathe warm, loving light within and around me. Going from appointment to ultrasound to appointment to mammogram, feelings gathered within me. With each interaction with the doctors, I felt misunderstood. Not only did I feel angry and think “no way am I sitting in the cancer center, no way is this happening to me this young”, and feel fear of losing myself in a rush of this new river of hospital/chemical experiences that would just rush me along towards a different than what I intended future, but I felt misunderstood. Although the doctors were well-intentioned, I felt minimized. Hello, I’m a boob and a lump.

I remember the first time I felt the dense tissue in my breast I had my mom, a gynecologist, examine it. Not a great idea. I felt so incredibly vulnerable and intensely protective of being violated. I ran away and surprised myself with an impressive, frothy, slamming wave of tears. I curled up in child’s pose and let myself cry in my cave, and slowly images came to my mind. I saw a steel, sterile, deceptively reflective hospital operation room, but I had become the table of stainless steel. I had an image of a factory line, and I was one object among many on the moving band. Simultaneously, I had also become a thin, hard sheet of stainless steel. The thin slices of breast they were going to take of me, I had suddenly become. I had become their sharp knives and their thin ham-sliced creation. And then I got an image of me whole, warmed by the gentle, constant warm heart within me-pulsing, and surrounded with light, in my room at night, and the light was filled with hovering, violet butterflies. And the man I cared for was with me. He was loving my breasts with butterfly kisses, and in his gesture he was paying homage to me, bowing down to me. My breasts now signified a whole me, validation in another person’s loving and apprehension of all of me. And so my tears grieved him too and also accepted the gift of his presence in my life.

Now I’ve learned how not to orient myself to people. In whatever profession, (healing, caring, etc.), I will focus on the spirit of the person before me while juggling the paradox of our transient, short life with all of its remarkable, playful boundaries. How wonderful to focus our loving work on researching and developing healing that takes the whole person into account. So that one day, instead of being told that the radiation from the mammogram I’m about to receive is my yearly dose of Nagasaki, I will lie on a bed in a room filled with plants and potted violets and have my friend, my teacher, my doctor, my co-journeyer pay respect to my spirit and speak a more subtle language of energy and loving healing. Bless me for apprehending our greatness in those grace-filled moments. This insight is now a part of my integrity and my conviction to live this reverence and center on it. My friend, Henryk Skolimowski (read The Participatory Mind), says that we are not machines but sacred sanctuaries. Thankyou, universe, Self, for the moments that I have lived the perspective of this new metaphor.