Results of a Holistic Approach

A great day!  I did not go into town.  Most of the day was spent doing some sort of exercise, interspersed with relaxation, talking with Maria, computer work and contemplation.  The day began at 2:00 A.M., with several hours of prayer and meditation.  I began my exercising at around 6:30 and finished around 3:30, a combination of free weights, calisthenics and exercise machines.  I have been pushing pretty hard to increase my exercising and stamina.  Not bad considering where I started.  Admittedly, it has been twenty-four years of slow progress and determination.  I recall in P.T. in ‘88, I was learning to crawl and tried to get on a stair-stepper but just crumpled to the floor, unable to hold myself up or perform the necessary movements.  I started my exercise program with 0.3 miles on an exercise bike, with no resistance.  I also recall the dr. warning me, very seriously, that my ability to exercise would be limited by atrophied muscles.

Gratitude

Today I have a renewed awareness of the delicate balance I maintain between acknowledging and accepting the negative aspects of my life versus being grateful for the positive things.  This balance is something I have been aware of many times in the past.  It is easy for me to fall into feeling negative about the events in my life.  The fact is, feeling negative is neither pleasant nor particularly realistic.  Gratitude feels much better and there are always numerous things to be grateful for.  For example, I have had several people ask today about my shoulder pain, which is fairly minor at this point but still present.  They asked me to explain it, which I did in fair detail.  As a result, I ended up being more aware of the pain than I usually am and I began feeling negative.  The fact is my pain or discomfort now can be largely taken care of with ibuprofen and was quite a bit worse even a few short weeks ago.  Additionally, there are other aspects of my life that are just wonderful and some are very unusual within the human experience.  Like I said, it feels better to be grateful!

Going With the Flow

A pleasant day with an overriding feeling of things coming to a close or changing.  I feel some discomfort because of things changing, together with a desire to be present and go with the flow.  The day began with a series of staff and clinical meetings at the treatment center where I get many of my referrals.  Following that, I had lunch with a friend and he drove me down to Oak Creek Village and a visit with the healer I have been going to.  As usual, it was a two hour session, and, on this occasion, I found it invigorating and energizing (sometimes I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck).  My friend and I had good conversation and a good connection on the way down and back.  Nothing particularly earthshaking.
I was with the treatment center a little more than two years ago, when it first began.  It keeps changing and growing and I try to be alert to the changes and to then change with it.  Recently another clinician came on board and he has some ideas about firming up the role of clinicians at the treatment center. He is questioning our procedures and recommending some changes.  There are also three clinicians now, instead of just me.  I need to step aside a bit, become part of a group and allow the flow of change.
The healer that I have been going to commented that he has now done just about all he can do, so that will come to a close soon.  I have been doing my own healing work and plan to continue.  The two of us, together, have made a lot of progress, but I am not done with my part.  The brain is slow to respond, but continues, just not as fast as I would like.

Processing Fear

I spent a good deal of the day processing fear.  Unfortunately, if I do not stay in touch with my feelings, my body does not perform well.  What generally happens is that I get aches and pains that do not go away like they normally would, if I don’t acknowledge my feelings.  Many healing practitioners would say that my “chi” gets blocked, preventing the flow of energy and healing.  In this case, today, it is my shoulder that continues to bother me and the associated feeling is fear.
I am not sure what I am afraid of other than it is possible future events and my fear is that I will not cope with it well.  This is a very good example of “false evidence appearing real” since there is nothing really there to fear, it is all projection at this point.  However, the feeling is very real and calls out to be acknowledged.  In addition to acknowledging the feeling, I needed to acknowledge that I would do the best I could, ask for guidance, do the next right thing and continue to put myself out for the welfare of others (act out of love, not fear).

The Absolute

When I use the word “absolute” to refer to a reality other than the relativistic reality I was raised in, I am referring to a reality I was introduced to during a “near death experience” several years ago, a reality I usually just call the “God place”.  I have learned that the God place is the “other side”.  I understand that it is where a person goes when they die.  A place of expanded consciousness and pure love.  I use the word absolute partly because that is how I have heard it called by others and partly because it is just that, absolute, there is no relativity.  There is no love and fear, there is only love.  That sounds wonderful but the fact is, without at least the memory of fear, there is only “isness” within an energetically intense reality.
More recently, I would return to the God place during my meditation and then, typically, after meditation, return to this relativistic reality.  Then one time, I returned and carried the feeling of the God place with me, I could not return completely.  I then asked “how am I going to deal with this feeling of pure love” within my walking around reality.  I was told quite simply “you will get used to it”.  I have and I miss it when it is gone, which I was shown once, for a short time.  Additionally, that feeling changes the way I look at the world fairly dramatically.
Personally, at this point in my life, when I experience fear or terror, I am also always aware of the God place.  Conversely, much of the time I am experiencing the feeling of the God place, with a memory of fear.  It is my hope and belief that others can share in this knowing.

Relative versus Absolute

Tonight I used the word “envy” to describe how the spirits feel about our physical life on this planet.  Maria pointed out that envy usually indicates a desire to go through the same thing being described, meaning that the spirits want to participate in physical life.  I did not mean that at all.  Perhaps I should have used the word “admired”.  It is my sense, through my connection, that the spirits, who inhabit an absolute reality, admire our relativistic existence.  The relativistic nature of our existence (good versus bad, pleasure versus pain, love versus fear), accentuates each pole.  That is, because of the duality, I tend to feel each pole more acutely.  Taking a lesson from the “other side”, I find it more fulfilling to appreciate both sides of the various polarities.  For example, the value of love seems greater when there is also an awareness of fear.  I find it best to cherish all of life, and the spirits certainly admire and encourage that.

Change is slow

Today was Thanksgiving.  I spent the morning doing my various exercises, and in the afternoon we went over to a friend’s house for a meal and social gathering.  The gathering was all people that I know pretty well, from either the sweat lodge or the recovery community that I am part of.  The two things that struck me most were how similar to other people I am and also how different.  We are very similar in that we are all floating through various life situations, trying to do the next right thing and make some sense of things.  Different in that they talked of sports, jobs, politics, movies and TV, things in the created order that I have no interest in.  For the most part, I consider those things as distractions with little or no meaning.
They also talked of the new movie “Cloud Atlas” and the novelty and importance of the ideas expressed im that movie.  Things like connectedness, karma and reincarnation.  On the one hand I was glad to hear them talk about those things.  On the other hand, my thought was “it’s about time!” since various mystics, healers, supposedly primitive people and spiritual leaders have been talking about those things for hundreds of years.  I think I will stick with being grateful, that feels better.

Trudge Time

November 20, 2012
Today life feels like a lot of work, it just feels hard.  Lots of dysfunction, pain and fear with many people.  Fortunately Maria and I only have the pain and fear part.  We are trying to be examples of peace, love and compassion, accepting what is and working with it.  Several of my friends are struggling to overcome personal difficulties.  Some have physical pain.  The pinched nerve in my shoulder has not healed completely, so I still have a small amount of pain.  On days like this, I just try to be aware of my feelings, and, taking a lesson from my Buddhist teachers, neither push the feelings away or attach to them.  I just consider a day like this to be “trudge time” and let it pass.
Today contrasts markedly with the way I felt yesterday, and nothing has changed other than my attitude!

November 21, 2012
This was a neutral day.  Fortunately, trudge time has passed, as it always does.  The sweat lodge tonight was canceled, giving me some extra time, so I made a large batch of soup and relaxed more.
I spent the morning in various staff meetings, and was struck by the fact that other people conduct themselves largely based on fears of things like liability, judgment and responsibility.  I do take steps such as knowing the laws and documenting my activities, in order to address the liability issue, but I also have the basic knowing that everything will be fine and that if I follow my guidance, I have nothing to fear.  I follow the course of love and service and just figure that I will be taken care of.

An Impact of Love

Today a friend commented that there is a “strange sort of magnetism” associated with our home.  This comment was made because birds and other animals tend to hang out around our house.  Many people have made similar comments and many animals, especially young ones, do  tend to stay here.  As I say in my website “The source power/love/God is in all things and all people, not just humans, Christians, Muslims or Pantheists. A person can sense it in all things and they can sense it in you. I have had a family of rabbits play at my feet, been wrapped in feelings of love and scent from trees and had various children and adults react strongly to the presence of that force.”  More recently, when I go out to put food out for the birds or other animals, they just don’t go away.  They look up, see me coming and go back to eating, as if to say “it’s only Charlie”.  I then ask them to move and they do,  just not far.  This spring we also had a family of young ravens come to visit us each morning, peering in windows, walking on the roof and communicating with each other.  They were a delight.  As I also comment in my website “ A truly magical experience in each case.  I could sense the God/source/power in them, and they could sense it in me, an incredible experience.”  The feeling of love/God that I walk around with has an impact on everything around me, even machinery and “inanimate” things.

Love Versus Superiority & Judgement

Maria and I just attended the movie “Lincoln”, starring Daniel Day Lewis, about the end of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, ending slavery and changing the Constitution.  What stood out to me was man’s inhumanity to man.  One of the main themes in the movie was the use of harsh judgement, exclusion, superiority and criticism of one white male toward another, toward people of color and women of any color.  The movie portrayed this theme within politics at that time.  The use of judgement, superiority and exclusion has also been part of virtually every religion and the general world culture throughout recorded history.  This attitude has been part of humanity and does not come from God or fit within love.  We are one with God and each other.  Each of us is connected to everything and everyone.
In reflecting on this theme or human tendency, I think of the behavior of children or puppies.  I don’t get angry at children or puppies when they do silly things.  I find it difficult to get more than momentarily angry at a puppy for making a mess or chewing the leg of some valued antique.  They don’t know any better and I am the one being silly if I judge them for their behavior, or place value where it does not belong.  It’s the same with human beings.  Whether we talk about white males, Muslims, Palestinians or Christians, they just do not realize their interconnectedness, if they did, they would behave differently.