The Spiral Practice & Japan
I like spirals. My favorite hanging flower vase is crafted from a piece of copper pipe shaped as a three-dimensional spiral holding a clear glass vase. One of the prettiest shells I have ever seen has a soft, swooping spiral ridge in white, plaster-looking material. (Apparently these come from sea snails in the Pacific Ocean making them not seashells in the strict sense.) In the logo that represents me to the world, I included a spiral embedded in the light of the sun.
The image of the spiral resonates within something deep inside us all: the ebb and flow of the lines, the giving and receiving of the image as it makes its path, the possibility of continuity and continuous participation. Within the path of the spiral, the journey can be literally up the mountain or around the four corners of the earth. Spiritually, the spiral journey can also be within the gentle motion of your heart or around the arduous mountain of challenge in understanding self. We go and come, circling back and up and beyond to return home once again.
I mention the spiral for several reasons. Over the last six months, I have often felt the presence of the spiral. In some instances, I felt myself spiraling out of control. In others, I felt myself barely making the next turn, the next step. In contrast I can look back now and know that I have come a long way, and though this journey is not done in so many ways, I feel myself growing daily more excited about the journey.
I am getting back into my writing world and when I was trying to decided what to share today, I came across the following. This was the newsletter copy I had prepared to send out the day of my car wreck back in September and had put it off and then forgotten its existence. So it seems appropriate to share now as the flow returns and my journey begins a new turn. More on that below.
The Spiral Practice
(AKA: Spiritual Practice Into Real Awareness Lovingly)
The following spiritual practice started out as a marketing exercise. I asked a few folks to give me feedback and they found this really effective in helping to focus and clarify possible blocks or sources for feeling stuck. Here’s how it works:
1. The following list contains some possible problems or challenges that someone who is serious about spiritual growth and study might encounter.
2. Take a look at this list, and choose the three to five points that fit you best right now. You may either choose based on where you sense yourself generally or you may focus your choices toward a particular issue that you are wanting some clarity with. You may also write your own points.
3. Rank each of your choices using a weighted system with 20 points. For example, if all the issues are equal for you give them equal ranking of 4. If one seems more assign it a bigger portion, like a 8 and the others get 3 points. The total must equal 20 whether you have 3, 4, or 5 choices.
4. Now answer this question: If you had to pick only one as the most frequent or most troubling, which one would you pick?
Here’s the Spiral List:
Never getting anywhere, feeling stuck
Not feeling good about myself
Trouble applying new ideas to everyday life
Trouble understanding physical and spiritual
Dealing with ambiguity
Dealing with complexity
Needing immediate assistance to see and understand what can’t be seen alone
Finding reliable/trustworthy guidance
Releasing blocks
Quieting my inner critic
Finding relief from inner trouble (anxiety, depression)
Support for spiritual growth
Trusting guidance from self
Feeling alone and lost
Trusting guidance from others
Balancing traditional religious beliefs with spiritual beliefs
Living without fear, judgment or blame
Integrating new learning
Finding balance/harmony
Trusting or feeling connection with the divine/God/Spirit
Feeling Like I Know, but Can’t Remember Who I Really Am
Living without fear, judgment, or blame especially of self
Identifying personal truth
I’d love to hear how this goes for you. Please share your responses!
My next step:
Next Tuesday, March 29, I am traveling to Japan for three weeks. This is a trip that has been in the works for almost 6 months. Under the awesome sponsorship of Voice Workshops, Inc., I am going to be teaching about the Akashic Records and doing individual sessions. Here are more detail.
I will have my own apartment in the central area of Tokyo — an area not subject to revolving blackouts because of the essential nature of the many businesses in this area. I will be meeting new people and seeing old friends. I know I will be busy, but I am hoping to get out a bit and look around Tokyo. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve visited and 30 since I lived there. I am excited to see the changes and witness the motion of this historic moment.
As my schedule allows, I hope to be posting pictures and writing about my experience — check this blog (http://www.trine.com/blog/) beginning March 31. I will be back in my office Monday, April 25.
Mata aimashoo! Literally: Let’s meet again later!
In Joy!
Cheryl
Life Purpose Right Before Your Eyes
Your journey of a lifetime begins not with a step but with the willingness to consider a new possibility, a new perspective, a new personal truth.
Allowing the new allows your next step to adventure into new territory, into new possibilities.
Your willingness to consider is the break with a past which no longer serves, creating in this moment your soul’s life journey.
Your life purpose doesn’t exist in some magical world accessible only by the elite and the gifted. Your life purpose unfolds right before you each time you consider new possibilities and feel within the truth of your next step.
Know Thyself is an active process of self-discovery, not a process of pre-ordained, imposed steps to the easy life. Your life purpose is thus not a stagnant thing, pre-determined and beyond your control.
Your life purpose is the unfolding happening within that you create and that you claim and that you follow because you feel the truth and know it to be your life’s journey, your life’s purpose.
The Challenges of Change and Finding Healing Balance
In this world of ours, there is now much needless shifting worry and anxiety about the state of affairs to come. If you stop and listen to the deepest parts of yourself, you will first see that the anxiety stems first from the ego, inflexible within the change occuring within you.
When change happens, and it always is, change is always without fail an inner experience. What you see around you is both an indication of others changing and a reflection of your change. Because humans like to think that their hard inner work brings them to a perfected state where deep inner work is no longer required, you tend to think that it is now someone else’s turn to grow up and change. However, change is always interactive, meaning your shift ignites shift elsewhere which in turn re-ignites more shift in you.
Also then, change is dynamic, a never-ending dance with the energetic flow of All That Is. You feel anxiety when you do not feel in balance with your inner shifts or when your inner situation feels out of balance with the outside world. The question is not about how someone else can be more enlightened, the question is: “How does this person with whom I do not agree or feel balance with help me reflect on or uncover that which is out of balance within me?”
Most often external conflict is about identifying within that which no longer serves you and is ready to be released. Conflict seen in this light can be embraced as a powerful avenue for change and seeking balance, actually two sides of the same coin of the inner healing balance.
Healing balance is the point within, existing always, between the experience of our spiritual-physical being and the clear view of our soul within All That Is. When we feel joy, peace, and love, we are experiencing our healing balance. When we feel fear, judgment, and anger, we are in the process of releasing whatever blocks us from embracing this moment’s healing balance.
We live in a world of dynamic flow which requests our full awareness in this a unique moment in the flow of this infinite time and this eternal space as emanations of the knowable and unknowable divine All That Is. Thus when someone, something, or some event tweaks your patience, take the opportunity to look inside for your lesson which, if attended to, will guide you to the ability to release what no longer serves and to embrace your most powerful self in the bliss and peace of your healing balance.
What are the Akashic Records?
“I am a Spiritual Guide in the Akashic Records,” I replied to my new friend when she asked me about my occupation. “The ACK-what?” came her response — one I hear frequently. So I began.
Everything is energy. We all have this energetic spark within that is eternal, it never dies. As our spark lives in and moves through the Universe, like all energy, our spark creates a vibrational record. This vibrational record is stored in that immense, nearly indescribable place where our souls (those eternal energetic sparks within) begin. The vibrational record of our soul/spark is our Akashic Record.
“Oh,” she thought. “Then you can tell me about my past lives.” “Yes, I can – that and much more.” The Akashic Records contain the past, present and future of your soul. The information contained in one person’s Akashic Record is at least as large as the Library of Congress. When someone opens your Akashic Record, you have access to this information. You don’t get it all in one large dump truck full. Instead what comes is always in response to your asking, to your intent. And you only receive what you can handle in the moment. The people I do Record readings for find that the broad perspective of the Akashic Records gives them options when there didn’t seem to be any before. And though the broadness can seem intimidating, you feel comforted and supported and able to look at your fears and blocks and release them.
“Mmmm…” my friend thought. “But where are these records located and how do you open them?” The Akashic Records are located in that part of the Universe where there is no physical form, no matter, only pure energy. There is no linear time, no resistance, only divine, sacred energy. Many call this space God. To enter the Akashic Records, I use a simple process of visualization and a blessing. In this process I open a conduit or channel between myself and the origin point of my soul where my Akashic Records are contained. Through this channel I send my conscious intent and I am able to talk and interact with the guides of my records. The information comes in many forms but most often like a conversation with a friend complete with words, feelings, pictures and sounds.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “Is it scary?” When I first learned, it was sometimes confusing. I was not sure if I could trust myself or even the wonderful information I was receiving. Who am I to think that this is real? I’m not a psychic, I am not anybody special. As I thought about it and finally quit analyzing it, I realized that somehow by accessing the Akashic Records, I was opening a clearer channel to hearing the truth in my heart. The pure energy of the Akashic Records was helping me to raise myself to a new vantage point for self discovery and understanding. I was releasing crippling old fears and finding new ways to overcome obstacles. I was finding new peace within, new ways to be present with myself, and new ideas for addressing my shadow self. Finally, I found that I did trust the Akashic Records and my ability to open them. In my quest to make the Records prove themselves to me, I found my path and realized that the truth and trust had always rested within me.
“Amazing!” my friend breathed. “Is it something I can learn?” “Yes, of course,” I responded. All you need is the belief that you can try to learn. The Akashic Records are accessible to all of us — not as a fancy parlor trick but as a powerful road to self discovery.
“I’m ready for my reading,” she said. And so we began.
The Akashic Records & Spiritual Practice
Lecture Open to the Public
Tuesday, September 23, 2008, 7:30pm – 9:00 pm
By Donation*
Multnomah Curves, 3839 SW Multnomah Bvld., Portland, OR
What does it mean to live a spiritual life? How can you make the spiritual part of your everyday life? Learn how the focus on the energetic, inner journey allows for new perspectives on understanding the components of spiritual parctice in general and the Akashic Records in specific. We will also consider the five steps of the spiritual journey and how to use all these ideas to empower your life.
* By Donation, whatever you feel is right. Suggested: $10. Any donation can be converted to a gift certificate to be used towards an Akashic Record Reading or Workshop with Cheryl.
