Sunrise from Crown Point in the Columbia Gorge. Just a touch of light making its way through to reflect on the Columbia River below.

Life is not always what I expect.  Sometimes that is a great relief, sometimes a frustration, and sometimes pure joy.  Since I returned from my trip to Japan in April, life has been rich, full, frustrating, and mostly unexpected.

The first unexpected moment unfolded as I was getting off the plane and finally taking in what a physical challenge being in Japan had been.  Totally unrelated to any bigger events, it was a challenge that was personal and entirely physical.  Coming to terms with the reality that I wasn’t healed from the car wreck back in September, I was finally facing the utter fear surfacing that I might not be able to return to the physical activity I was used to.  I realized I was really afraid.  And angry.  And quickly moving towards a despondent response.  The solution?  Lots of physical therapy, warm water exercise, and easing off myself.  Which meant devoting time and attention in a direction that I hadn’t expected in that moment.  But the payoff for several months of hard work has been worth it.  I am walking without pain for several miles rather than just several minutes.  I don’t feel so weak and I feel my body settling into a point of balance that is both familiar and new.  Most importantly, I am finally back to dancing lessons with my husband.  We have been doing a foxtrot class this month and though there are still some concerns, I am getting through the hour and enjoying the experience as the hard work that I invested over a year ago seems to be returning in my body’s memory of slow, quick, quick.

Horse Thief Butte, Washington: This butte is a wonderful place for hiking both around and to the top. I just wish the name were different.

The next moment was my daughter’s graduation from high school.  Not that this was unexpected.  No, but it was the kind of moment that we all dream of for ourselves and our loved ones.  A milestone.  A claiming.  A turning point.  It’s also one of those moments that tend to have lots of planning proceeding, so much hoopla, so much anticipation, that it is hard to be in the moment.  But as my daughter walked across the stage with her head held high, walking in the most amazing red high heels, I saw who she had been in the years proceeding.  I saw all of who she had become from newborn baby to toddler to teenager to young woman.  I saw a radiating being of light claiming for herself her path, her future, her finish and her new beginning.  To be so lifted in that moment unexpectedly took my breath away.  You go girl, you go!

June also saw me taking a new step in the way I teach in the Akashic Records.  It has always been a dream of mine to take the learning process into the world around us.  That’s exactly what we did.  One day a new group of students learned how to open the Akashic Records for Other.  The next day we turned this process towards specific locations in the Columbia Gorge and particular experiences of the Gorge such as earth, wind, and water.  The last day we all got up before the crack of dawn to witness the sunrise from a high point within the Gorge, then spent the rest of the day visiting various places in the Gorge, both in Oregon and Washington.  A powerful journey as participants matched the previous day’s experience in the Records with the actual place.  The entire experience was wonderful and so successful that I’ve decided to do it again next year — read below for details.  And pictures here in this post are from some of the places we visited.

On top of the butte, looking east up the Columbia River.

The last moment that I’ll mention comes from thinking about my trip to Japan for the last couple of months.  In particular, I have been thinking about what makes it easier or more difficult to develop a strong connection with the Akashic Records.  While I think that the single most difficult issue is trust, I think that what is called point of view or frame of reference and how tightly one holds her frame is the biggest obstacle.  I’d never taught in Japan and while I had no reason not to believe that I would be able to help students in Japan learn how to open the Akashic Records, there are just things you don’t know for sure until you have had the experience of them.  And not surprisingly, students there had the same issues as US students.

When you hold on to what you think is true so tightly that you can’t allow yourself to include a new idea or possibility into your point of view, you limit your experience, not only in life, but also in your experience with the Akashic Records.  When we think we know what we will see, that’s what we see.  But when we begin working in the Akashic Records, the opportunity and the challenge is to receive the flow of energy that you do not know.  It’s a paradox for sure.  You want to know, and to know, you need to find a way to see what you don’t know.  If your frame is rigid, solid, and clutched tightly, nothing you don’t know will make it through.  But if you can allow in flexibility and permeability, then the unknown flow has a way of making its way to you and you have a way to receive and stand witness to that which you don’t know.

On the Washington side of the Columbia River, looking north towards Mount Adams. It was a stop on our journey we called the NoName Place.

This isn’t a new understanding for me, but it is something that I have been pondering the last couple of months.   Lots of people think they need all kinds of spiritual experience to be able to learn to work in the Akashic Records.  While experience can be helpful, sometimes it can make your frame too rigid.  What’s needed is the flexibility of Beginner’s Mind where you approach with the attitude of I Learn, rather than the defensive reflex of I Know!  No matter your native language or the ambiance of your culture and society, it’s about your point of view, your frame of reference and whether or not you are open to learn.

Finally — in several senses of that word!  I have actually found the time to work on my next book.  I put it away after September’s wreck and just retrieved it in May.  I am really excited at how it is coming together.  All about the spiritual journey and spiritual practice, both in general and within the Akashic Records.  It’s also morphing beyond my expectations as a living, breathing flow of energy.  Just like the last book, I have these moments where I read what I wrote the day before and wonder, “Where did that come from?”  Which brings me (once again) to my final epiphanette: when you get out of your own way, the unexpected joyfully, wonderfully, magically happens!

In Joy!
Cheryl

Announcements:

1.         Sage Path Level II in the Columbia Gorge, April 20-22, 2012.  Learn how to open the Akashic Records for Other.  Prerequisite:  Sage Path Level I, Opening Your Own Akashic Records.  For more details, give me a call or send me some email.  Detailed information will be available in September.

2.         Sage Path Level III and Higher:  Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, May 17-22, 2012.  This is an advanced experience for those who can sleep under the stars literally for two nights — no showers except maybe the meteor kind.  Detailed information will be coming out in September.

3.         July Reading Week:  Now through Saturday.  A few appointments times are available.  Make your appointment or give me a holler.

4.         August will not find me in my office except for a sporadic check of email and voice mail.  Got a daughter to send off to college.

5.         September Reading Week:  September 12-17.  Make your appointment or give me a holler.

6.         October:  Japan.  Here’s the Japanese version.  Check out the videos.  Or wait, maybe not.  Cheryl as video star was never a possibility that I contemplated.

7.         January: Los Angeles.  An emerging possibility.  Details available when the creative motion has fully bloomed.

Part of the group standing at the Stonehenge replica situated just at the edge of the Columbia Gorge.

This year two of eighteen books on the short list were distinguished with this honor!

The New Akashic Records is now an award-winning book!

It is absolutely wonderful to have my literary effort recognized as a book which  is thought-provoking as well as one which illuminates and re-directs thought.  To be associated with the amazing minds of Eric Hoffer and Michel de Montaigne, pretty well leaves me speechless.

In Joy!

Cheryl

The Eric Hoffer Foundation holds a book award program each year for books that are published by small and independent presses.  As a book is being evaluated for an Eric Hoffer Award, a judge may also recommend a book for consideration in the more select program, the Montaigne Medal.  The list of recommended books is whittled down to a Finalist List or Short List.  I entered my book in the Eric Hoffer Award program and it has now been chosen as one of the finalists for this Medal.  Books considered for the Montaigne Medal “are books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought.”  Winners of the Montaigne Medal as well as the Eric Hoffer Award are announced later in April.  If you would like to read more, here are a few links:

• About the Montaigne Medal: http://www.hofferaward.com/HAMontaigne.html
• The 2010 Montaigne Medal Short List: http://www.hofferaward.com/HAmontaigneshortlist.html
• The Eric Hoffer Award: http://www.hofferaward.com/home.html

To celebrate this accolade, I would like to donate a copy of my book to your local library.  Libraries have always been an amazing part of my life.  The support that my local library gave me in writing my book was invaluable — I literally could not have done without all their services, especially the InterLibrary Loan program.  This is how my Library Support Program works:

1. Send me email (info@trine.com) and let me know the name and address of your local library.  If you have the name of the Director or web address, please include this as well.
2. I will send a copy of my book as a gift of support.
3. When the book package is sent, I will let you know in case you want to follow-up.

I will offer 20 copies to begin with and will increase if there is interest.  Also I will include public libraries any where — the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Japan — any where!  I will also be posting a list of the libraries on my websites.

On a personal note, that I have made it this far within this book award program from the Eric Hoffer Foundation means so very much to me.  When I was in high school, I use to frequent the 50 cent book bins at my local bookstore.  One day I found a copy of The True Believer by Eric Hoffer which discusses the psychology and motivations of mass movements.  I took it home, read it cover to cover in one sitting, and had my world completely rocked.  Growing up in Oklahoma, I always thought that there might seriously be something wrong with me because I did not automatically buy in to the institutions of conservative religious beliefs that seemed to surround me.  It wasn’t so much a disagreement with the concepts (though I did have disagreements), it was more about the blind belief and the willingness of many around me to take unquestioned direction from religious authority.  In very concise and powerful prose, Mr. Hoffer illuminated an alternative path and assured me that I was not alone.  That I, Cheryl Trine, was most certainly not destined, willingly or unwillingly, to be come a true believer.  Of all the books that have passed through my hands since high school, my battered copy of The True Believer is one of the only books I still have from that time.  The True Believer is securely on my bookshelf and Mr. Hoffer is held with great reverence in my heart.  To have my writing in some way associated with this amazing writer and human being has to be one of the true honors of my life.  Even now, teardrops of joy are running down my face and cleaning my keyboard!

You may extend even more honor if you would allow me the privilege to commerate this personal event with public action on your behalf.  Thank you!!

In Joy!
Cheryl

Here is one of my definitions of the Akashic Records:

The Akashic Records are:

an energetic bridge between spiritual and physical,

a dynamic archive of past, present and future,

an infinite flow of eternal knowing.

an eternal source of healing balance, and

a spiritual practice available to everyone.

The question for you:

Is Now the time to understand your soul’s journey?

In Joy!

Cheryl

Much of the information about the Akashic Records is based on sterile stereotypes which have lost their connection to the central foundation that informs and forms the Akashic Records themselves. The knowing, healing, and spiritual practice of the Akashic Records has so much more to offer than the static ideas of cosmic memory and heavenly library. Repeating these worn-out half-truths limits our perceptions and our experiences, separating us from the flow of truth and knowing that is both essential to and the primary experience of the Akashic Records.

However, to go beyond and step into new understanding requires that you accept this challenge:

To come to your soul’s truth,
Are you ready to step beyond what you think you know?

If you are ready, then now is the time to read
The New Akashic Records.

In this book, I present a fundamentally new and different view of the Akashic Records. A view from the soul which begins by understanding the intrinsic nature of energy and its flow within the infinite and eternal nature of All That Is. When we dare to think outside our boxes, we take ourselves past what we think we know into the infinite possibilities of the unknown. Only by opening to the unknown may we shift our perspectives and engage the deepest part of ourselves in our journey to understand with awe the powerful creative experience of becoming physical and spiritual beings. Are you willing to stand witness and let the unknown past your barriers?

I know that this is not everyone’s path. It takes courage to shift perceptions, especially when the shift can force us to confront our integrity or possible lack thereof. But that’s why I wrote this book. Neither you or I are alone in our journeys. We have the loving support and the attentive presence of All That Is to assist and guide us in this amazing experience we call life. Together we can find the courage to take up this challenge, stepping into the unknown like the proverbial foot off the cliff. And I think you will be surprised. You will not fall. Instead, you will find support as you learn a stronger way of finding truth and living life. In the end, I trust that you will know when you are ready.

What is your truth today?

In Joy!

Cheryl Trine
Author of The New Akashic Records

Purchase the Book

You may either buy your signed and numbered copy directly from Cheryl or you can purchase at these online and retail booksellers(this link moves you to my book’s website, NewAkashicRecords.com. Available for purchase now.