Tag: spirituality

Introducing “Essencism”: A New Movement Towards Ourselves

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment

 

glowing-heart

 

By Kathleen Calder

I have begun to consider myself an “Essencist”. I don’t think that term exists yet, but I like it. Why? Because it doesn’t already have a role attached to it, an image of the person who may be involved in it, or even necessarily an existing set of beliefs. Well, I guess in a way it does, since I am coming up with it as someone who embraces SoulFullHeart, a healing and consciousness path where we speak of “essence” quite a bit, and yes, we have some specific beliefs we work with. They are fluid though, as life and the Divine always seem to be arising for us anew, depending on the chapter of our lives we are living out individually and as a community. To be an “Essencist”, to me, means that no matter what changes your life brings you, you believe in the power of your essence and you are also constantly in hot pursuit of what you feel it to be in every single moment, letting it be an unending journey of discovery with relentless curiosity.

I feel like I am diving into a chapter of pursuing what the heck my essence could be. I am experiencing the beginnings of what promises to be a deep journey of self-mating – deep, hot, romantic pursuit of the parts of me who have been neglected or put aside until now, and ultimately of my own heart and soul and what it’s made of. Is it difficult for parts of me to imagine that this phase could last a long time and that could mean not pursuing mateship with a man for a long time? Yes. Of course. And I also feel that I wouldn’t want to offer a future mate anything less than what I am already discovering about myself and my truest heart or my essence, nor do I desire a mate who can’t or won’t offer me the same, coming from an overflow of his own self-mateship.

So here we go, with much strength and motivation…but where is my vulnerability around it? Parts of me don’t feel too good about this idea, while it sounds good. It is different than what most other young women and men my age care about doing. So there is a deep loneliness I can feel inside myself too in this moment. Yet I can feel the possibilities of there being others and the chance for deeper relationships with others my age than I have experienced so far. And how could I draw what I really want in relationship if I am not pursuing it and cultivating it inside myself?

Perhaps the essence of being an “essencist” is actually selfishness, then. I selfishly want to focus on myself so that I can selfishly claim the gifts of that journey and the manifestation of that which I have always wanted in my deepest essence. To be an “essencist” means embracing personal other-ness – the fact that you are as unique as you feel yourself to be, whether you have been born with the sex of a woman or a man, or earned the role of accountant, actor, mother, brother, teacher, or priest.

What I want more than anything, as far as I can feel for what I know of my essence thus far, is to know and be known, but not in a superficial way. I feel encouraged to inhabit a new way of being in life where I pursue myself with so much curiosity that it overflows into a deep curiosity about others and puts me in a position where I love others’ essences so fiercely that I will fight for it the way I am beginning to fight for my own. I have already experienced tastes of my capacity for this as I have felt many moments of my capacity to feel others and how it is deepening with every step I take towards feeling myself first.  I am becoming more and more compassionate towards the false while advocating for the real. In a world that very much still tries to revolve around created personas and smokescreens, this is very challenging. This could be why I like the idea of a movement, if you will, that we could call “Essencism” – encouraging all human beings to get back to themselves in a healthy, authentic way, cultivating a relentless overflow of self-love that spills over into every aspect of their lives.

I feel in my essence a spark that keeps glowing, even when the night is at its darkest and all of life seems to parts of me to be conspiring against my/their happiness or comfort. It is something that I really don’t feel I will ever fully come to know, but that’s not as important as it is to keep discovering and getting closer to that answer, even if all I end up with at the end of each day is more data pointing out what it is not. So for now I will continue to try on each and every day and take it for a spin in my proverbial Cadillac, seeking and finding more answers while feeling myself deeply through every challenge and hard-to-feel feeling inside my parts and my heart.

 

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions

The Fog

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment
dirt-690427_960_720

By Kathleen Calder

I haven’t been to the other side yet.
There’s no knowing
just feeling
just sensing in a moment to a moment, by a notion of a passing moment.
A passion drives on
beneath the waves of the crash
of the bang and the ping and the
                SLAM!
                        …there it is again.

 

And it waits for no one, but it thrashes in spite
wishing to be fought for
and thought of.
Felt
         seen
                   heard.

 

A hand reaches to my heart.
Electro currents of fiery change-waves
upheaving and churning the swell of the currents
the water and air around me
the unexpected gentle and suddenly
being brought back to the reality
            That I am loved…

 

The kicking, the screaming
still inside me
being boiled and bustled by that hand.
Those Divine fingers
playing in the air like a song
of ice, fire and water
changing the state of my outward sustenance
so that I learn to breathe
             new air.

 

I could never have asked for this

 

I would never have asked for this.

 

Not if I didn’t somehow know
somewhere inside the inside
That I was
             born for this
                               borne by this
                                               and reborn
to discover, rediscover, forget and then remember
              maybe somehow
             there is always love.

 

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions.

 

The Cries of the World (a prayer for our times)

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment
Heart-Hands

 

By Kathleen Calder

 

Acid rain tears fall down the cheeks of a thousand broken surfaces
the cracks and voids of where life was
is bringing about its fiery end.

 

The learning curve is steeper now
carved out to be so from our necessary faults.
         How else can we learn?

 

In death we learn to respect life
In hindsight we see what we could have, should have done
               but didn’t.
And perhaps the greatest self-punishment of all
         Is that we are destroying ourselves.

 

Great Mother, your arms offer safety but not from ourselves.
You shelter and harbour the changes to make
in order to not make the same pathway alive again.
To ask for more time, well, that doesn’t seem fair
when for thousands of years, with tears and longing
have you watched us scramble ourselves into a lopsided labrynth
          collectively created
by our authentic lack of authentic selves.

 

In this dimension and all dimensions
may we learn the respect you teach us
the love you hold for us
and the longing you have to be one with us once again
like in times of old, when snakes were once your Druids
and porcelain dolls your Priestesses.

 

How do we bridge All That Is with all that is now?
They connect already, I know.
It’s the acceptance that there is nothing more to do
          and only more to be
that gets hard to be with
and is the toughest mountain to climb in this ever-churning industrial world
soon screeching to a halt.

 

How do your children feel to you now?
Do you feel much hope for more than that we may try again someday?
Could it all be healed in a sudden swoop of an upswing of Divine ecstasy felt in all hearts?

 

I am done with the humanness of humanity to the degree in which most inhabit it.
To the degree in which I have inhabited it.
And I want more
and I feel more
and I will live to be more.
To give more to myself
so I can give more to others
and learn to live in your light, your fire, your passion and your connectedness
to us
and to all things.

 

Amen.

 

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions.

 

Feeling My Spirit/Matter Split (Part One): Life As An Initiate At SoulFullHeart Sanctuary Blog Series

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This is the fourth entry in the Life As An Initiate At SoulFullHeart Sanctuary Blog Series. Go here to read the third one.

recovering faith

 

By Kathleen Calder

The old photographs in front of me in digital form are, for parts of me, evidence of an old life and an old me. An attachment to them lives on inside me though I have looked at them a thousand times, and I feel reactions rise up yet again to my body, my outbound energy, and my self-loathing (that may be too strong of a term to use, but at times it does feel I have harbored that strong of a feeling about myself inside parts of me). Photos of a “me” in university studying Theatre, of a “me” exploring freelance modeling and the sexual messiness that came with that at times, and ultimately a “me” that felt most times worthless, incapable and even, yes, “stupid”, “ugly”, “fat”, etc.

It feels tender to let these feelings rise up again and yet for another part of me it feels useless…why let part of me obsess over the past? What is this part looking for…more suffering? These are unanswered questions in the moment, yet there is something about what I was living through that I feel connects directly to my process today.

I remember well the thought pattern I fell into and couldn’t get out of, starting around age 12. Puberty had begun to set in and my body began to develop the shape that I now have. My social world was getting tougher with hormones arising along with an emerging desire to have a boyfriend, while watching other girls my age draw what seemed to part of me like “all of the attention.” Immediately another part came in with messages of needing to find ways to compete but also with messages of my “incompetence” to do so.

On the other hand, I also remember being a “good Catholic girl”. Part of me leaned into church and the feeling of being with “God”. I realize now that this was my first experience of something bigger than me holding me, even if I wasn’t sure how to picture it exactly. I feel with some tears in the moment that this is what held me more than I realized at the time and kept me going through these tough years where I had parts developing like crazy to cover over my porosity and sensitivity as much as possible, to make life feel doable and less insane-feeling. Yes, it was in a Catholic framework, but the Divine is still the Divine and I have had many lifetimes of leaning into an inexplicable energy that comforts, challenges, and ultimately helps me grow somehow.

To me this all demonstrates the beginnings of what would become my own “Spirit/Matter Split”, which is easily one of the greatest themes at work in my life and perhaps for all of us on a global scale. Only recently have I begun to feel how big of a deal it would be if the biggest thing I do in this life is learn to bridge Spirit and Matter instead of feeling them as separate entities. As I go on I will illuminate what I mean.

What I wrote in the beginning illustrates the deep self-punishment pattern parts of me were in. Aspects of this included an obsession about how I looked and what my body weight was. It also included adopting many different “medications” in an attempt to quell this voice inside me but also to lift me up from the heaviness of what most people call “real life”. I remember there being a dense dreariness in my field about how life was supposed to be and how it would inevitably turn out. At times I still have this and I am now working with it consciously in order to feel and heal the parts that still hold it as Truth. This is a piece of family and cultural legacy. No amount of positive affirmations or reframing of my thinking could penetrate this voice and heal these wounds long-term.

So far, I can feel that…

Matter is the density of the material world, both energetically and physically. It is the churning of machines in our industrial factories. It is the ground on which we walk, run, cycle or drive. It is our physical bodies that we tend to obsess over, hold contempt for, and blame for so much. It is “is-ness”.

Spirit is the abstract. It is our feelings and our intuitions, which both can come with such an intangibility that they either pass through us unnoticed or are deliberately ignored/buried. It is life force itself. It is often an experience and a flow that cannot be put into words, it just IS. In a way it is “is-ness” too, but more so in the sense that it is literally All That Is, all at once.

See? One I can talk about more directly, while one needs to be described poetically in order to do it justice in human/Matter terms. Matter is meant to be temporary, fleeting, in the moment, tangible and dense, while Spirit is meant to be ever-lasting, enduring, unbreakable…and though it is mostly energy, it is what we can count on to always be there and it is what our hearts and souls long for more of, consciously or unconsciously.

There is no good vs. evil here. There is not even a real comparison between the two concepts. They are ultimately One; we have just created a duality perhaps to make parts of us feel better. There is a definite, bittersweet pain that comes with feeling Divine connection while there is still so much life to live, especially during this phase of life on this planet. But what could/would it mean if we integrated our daily life experience and our spiritual experiences and indeed didn’t have to define or compartmentalize either one from the other? What if the whole idea behind Matter is that it is a conduit and holding space for Spirit to play in? And what if we are the ones meant to link the two?

What if I am one of the ones called to be a bridge and lead others in this during my lifetime?

What if you are meant to come with me?

I’m realizing now how little experience I have had with nonduality in this life. I am looking forward to being able to let in some tastes of it as this dualistic experience of life continues to heal inside me. For parts of me, being able to be in a strictly human life with abandon has been comforting for short phases, though it has never really brought me satisfaction or deep joy. Perhaps as my parts begin to realize that they finally will get their deepest needs met while leaning into Spirit and taking practical life steps at the same time, I will become more ready to let the Nondual in and therefore let in my essential essence and more tones of my soul and of the Divine than I have ever let in yet.

Well, if life’s Matter is the playground I’m beginning to feel it is, then what have I got to lose in exploring this theme of bridging Spirit with it, except old patterns of being in life that my parts and I are tired of anyways? What could/would shift in my life if I can integrate the two?

I suspect that I, and my life, will change in more ways than I count.

Sounds pretty good to me!

 

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions.

The Magic Of Your Power Combined With Your Vulnerability: Golden Earth Tales

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

infinitelovegates

(This is Part Eleven of the ongoing blog series: Golden Earth Tales.)

By Raphael Awen

Life is about growth and change. Not even death affords an escape from this reality; for death is not a cessation of being, but only more change.

Our journey into and through a physical life is a great metaphor and reflects this reality. Our soul being accepts the journey of taking on human flesh. This journey into human flesh begins as the microscopic combination of sperm and egg, which gives way to a time of exponential growth and change, becoming comfortable and familiar with a home environment, only to be burped out into a brand new world, and then another. Infancy gives way to toddlerhood, which gives way to childhood, then adolescence, teen years, adulthood, mid-life, and into our fullness of life, and completion of a life.

Our soul chose the change of taking on human flesh, human emotion, human gender, and human experience.

You chose to incarnate.

You chose to change.

You chose to surrender to having needs and desires.

Most of us forget this for much of our lives or even for many entire lifetimes. Most of us become attached to belief systems and ways of life that enable us to maintain this forgetfulness of the power and presence of our choice. We do this at almost any cost.

This is not without good reason. In our power, we chose human life; we chose vulnerability. We are unable to escape human vulnerability with any obtainable thing or relationship. In fact, every desirable thing you obtain only heightens the fear of losing that good thing. Even life itself, we fear losing. Most of us can barely stand to feel the utter susceptibility we find ourselves in. We’d rather effort a myriad of feelings and distractions to not have to feel this vulnerability.

Strangely, we put our power in service of denying our vulnerability. In so doing, we miss out on the magic of both.

You have most likely structured your relationship with life to provide you with a sense that life is happening to you. Like a monk who has chosen life in a monastery, you surrender to an arrangement of what you can expect in return for what you are expected to give. Life is fearfully bigger than you. You make a deal for some predictability, some security, and accept the monotony that comes with that. All of this as an exchange to maintain the sense that life is safely bigger than you.

Now, you get to feel like you are riding the waves of life as best you can with the choices you have. You have outsmarted life. You have surrendered to it. You have made yourself smaller than life. You let life circumstance direct and lead you. Aren’t you spiritual? Aren’t you surrendered? You have given yourself to God (in some form) and God will take care of you.

What if this is only a set up perception of life from this part of you that hasn’t reconciled itself to the vulnerability you find yourself in?

What if life isn’t actually happening to you, but instead, you are happening to life?

You are not the victim of another person, or an illness, God or any devil, a slowing economy, aging or any other of the multitude of things that are felt to occur to us.

What if life is only and ever reflecting back to you the power of your choice?

What if life is in such deep and reverent gratitude to you for the gift of your power filled surrender to human vulnerability that life only wants to reflect back to you your power and greatness?

Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning, shares his experience in the hell hole of a nazi concentration camp where he came to the deep and profound realization that it was he and only he that could interpret and apply meaning to his experience. His captors, he came to realize, had not even the slightest ability to take that power from him unless he gave it to them.

What meanings are you applying to the circumstances you find yourself in? Are the circumstances happening to you or are you responsible for creating and drawing these circumstances to yourself? What is life and its never ending change wanting to awaken you to?

What courageous step is life asking you to take now in this never ending discovery of who and what you are?

What are you done with that’s time to let go of? A relationship? An identity? A habit pattern? A way of life?

What are you ready to embrace and allow entrance into your life?

What courage are you in possession of that can fuel your next step?

Life only and ever wants to take you into more of you. Life understands your fear, for it has felt its own fear of the life that it finds itself in. Life invites you out to play, to discover, to be curious of who and what you will become around the corner of your next choice.

Raphael Awen hails from SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. You can also track him on twitter via @raphaelawen, or on facebook: ­­­­­­­facebook.com/raphaelawen1. Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive your support.

Who You Are And What You Are Is Not A Question: Golden Earth Tales

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

infinitelovegates

(This is Part Ten of the ongoing blog series: Golden Earth Tales.)

By Raphael Awen

Who you are and what you are is not a question. A question is something by definition that you seek an answer for and when that question is answered, the quest is over.

Who you are and what you are is part of the great unknown. Who you are and what you are cannot ever be known.

You are so much more, so vastly much more than you ever dreamed of. In fact, most all of your dreams and imaginings so far have been about trying to manage this ferocity of your being. So too, have been your relationships and occupations.

You have pulled most everything about you into your orbit in hopes of, on one hand, obtaining a clearer picture of who you are and, on the other hand, needing to dim the piercing light of who and what you are.

Your greatness has no measure. You are forever a part of the great unknowable.

What quest remains, it is not the quest to know, but instead the quest to be.

Raphael Awen hails from SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. You can also track him on twitter via @raphaelawen, or on facebook: ­­­­­­­facebook.com/raphaelawen1. Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive some of your money!

Consciousness And ‘Single Personality Disorder’: Golden Earth Tales

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

infinitelovegates

Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive your support!

(This is Part Nine of the ongoing blog series: Golden Earth Tales.)

By Raphael Awen

I hope you’ve been enjoying this series and that it has been tweaking your feelings and your awareness on different levels and in different ways.

We’ve covered together how who and what ‘you’ perceive ‘yourself’ to be is but a fraction of who and what you really are as a human being, as a person, as a self. We looked together at how the self, both in its essence and its expression, is something closer to Infinite Love. We may be limited in our use of linguistics to describe this reality, but our ‘Arising Isness,’ as we called it, is powerfully unlimited.

We stretched our consciousness together in the previous eight blogs to get a feeling tone of what we are speaking about. I encourage you to take in each of those prior blogs with an open and desirous heart before taking in this one, as we are going to take this to a new level today that I hope blows your mind.

But first, a little lead-in…

You are awareness. You are consciousness. You are not your body. You are not your emotions. You are not your mind. You have a mind. You have emotions and you have a body. What holds body, mind and emotion in containment is consciousness.

You may be new to this idea that you are an awake and aware consciousness, and you may not readily see yourself as a consciousness. I would say then that you are less conscious of being a consciousness. Your consciousness is not then a big part of your waking awareness. If this is true, then you have more of a ‘density’ and less of a ‘porosity’ in your aware sense of self. This density then is an energetic block or filter to you having deepening and growing self-awareness.

Everything I’ve said so far today I don’t think would be too different from so many spiritual practices that are out there today. I may be using unfamiliar words, but the energy is the same. Even Christianity, as I practiced it for most of my life, was about expanding my sense and experience of self into a place of being ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ that was meant to color my life. Also imperative in Christianity was holding an identity of ‘who I am in Christ’ as an elevation of consciousness. Daily devotional practice of prayer and meditation in the scripture was intended to induce an inner change of self-awareness.

Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism alike all offer something similar in that they want to raise your consciousness to something they deem as some kind of a higher plane. This blog series is no different in that sense. Soulfullheart is also no different in that sense in that it too seeks to raise consciousness to something different from the more common or status quo.

I’d like to make a grand deviation today from this common denominator of all spiritual practice. I’d like to offer you something truly new and different from every spiritual path that I’m aware of. I believe this has the power to truly rock your world in a profound sense.

That is of course, if you’re up for it. Please open your heart, feel your desire, fasten your seatbelt and come with me for a ride. Come fully and then decide what your truth is. Here’s the ride:

All spiritual practice is greatly limited by a self-perception of oneself being a single personality. Of course the ‘you’ that considers itself a single personality is a single personality, but that is because this is in fact only a single part of you doing your life as you. ‘You’ have in effect been hijacked by a part of you and you don’t even know it.

You are in fact a ‘multiple personality’ within a larger conscious awareness. What you call ‘you’ is in fact a whole family of personalities, sharing a body and a mind. I hope this isn’t such a stretch for you to see, because it really feels like a ‘no, duh’ to me.. ‘how could we have missed this huge piece?’

Like any family, there is inside of you a huge range of being what we call functional or dysfunctional depending on the long list of family dynamics at play. Power plays, shutdowns, pleaser roles, etc., with all of these coming from distinct parts or subpersonalities of yourself, to make up what you have just called ‘you’ up till now.

We’ve been told that being a ‘multiple personality’ is a disorder that one needs to seek therapy for. I’m telling you that the true disorder is rather a perception of being a ‘single personality’. The ‘you’ that leads most people’s lives and does everything from their spiritual seeking to their careers and their relationships is only one part of them, or one part of them in a strategic alliance with another part to give it its functionality or dysfunctionality. This is the part of them that is running their life and doing their life. It is primarily a part of you that is reading this series, evaluating it, and deciding if this new idea I’m offering today is for ‘you’ or not.

A part of you may be having a big reaction to my line of reasoning today. I’m writing provocatively to press this part of you and its distinct reaction into your awareness in an attempt to make my point.

Could this really be? Could it be that you are not anywhere close to the integrated being that you imagined yourself to be? If this is true, it really explains so much. It takes huge pressure off of yourself. It also puts a new and healthy pressure on you to discover who you really are.

Up till now, you see, with this perception of yourself being a single personality, there is only this poorly equipped primary part of you holding your ‘you show.’ You are in fact a whole cast of characters seeking to get their needs met and adapting in a host of ways and means inside of you – all the while only under the care of this primary part of you. It’s like a teenager barely old enough and responsible enough to babysit has been charged with doing life.

What I want to impress upon you today is that a profound change occurs when you let in this self-perception that I am offering you. Then it changes again another huge degree when a new and deeper sense of self can arise as a healthy parent to these parts of you. This is nothing less than a tsunami of change to let into your life, and some careful consideration is called for.

If you wish to go on doing your life as you’ve known and perceived yourself to be as a single and unified self, you of course have most of current consciousness to support you in that choice. I personally would not trade what I have discovered in coming to know myself as a tapestry of parts for anything, especially not for alignment with a deeply suffering and struggling collective consciousness.

In this blog series, we’ve looked at ‘you’ as being an individual or an ‘in-divi-dual.’ In that, we saw that a human being is this paradoxical ‘duality that can’t be divided.’ The duality we are talking about is on one hand a ‘singleness’ of being and on the other hand an ‘allness’ of being that can’t be singled out. This whole range of being is like a cosmic projection of the Infinite Love that is the essence of all life – projecting itself onto a screen where you show up as a you. If any of this sounds confusing, that’s because it is confusing! We don’t at the best of times have much of a clue as to what and who we are. We settle for measly roles and identities to make up for this unbearable wonder of being that we are. This blog series has been an attempt so far to expand out your sense of self into the cosmic realities we’ve dove into together.

Where I want to take you in today’s blog is to feel into that who you feel yourself to be in this cosmic sense is very different from who you feel yourself to be in an everyday sense. Embracing the cosmic Nondual, as it is called, into your waking reality is a challenge that most people seeking it become very focused on and dedicated to. I’m saying that the reasons behind your interest (or disinterest), focus and struggle have to do with this entire undiscovered world of you being a tapestry of parts, rather than the single personality that has been running your you show up till now.

There’s this magical and expanded sense of self that extends into and includes no less than all of life and the universe. Then I am offering that the single you, the you that differs from me, is in fact an entire another wild ride of discovery into yourself as being so much more again than you imagined.

So, how does this ride land in you, or part of you rather? Does part of you feel ready to let go of doing your ‘you show’ the way he or she has? Is part of you ready for a new you to show up that hasn’t been around up till now?

‘Part of me’ so enjoyed sharing its passion with you today. ‘I’ enjoyed feeling this part of me express its passion.

I invite you and your parts to read more about parts of yourself, in an article Jelayan and I wrote in an article here.

Raphael Awen hails from SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. You can also track him on twitter via @raphaelawen, or on facebook: ­­­­­­­facebook.com/raphaelawen1. Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive some of your money!

My Process of Self-Intimacy: Life As An Initiate At SoulFullHeart Sanctuary Blog Series

Published on by Kasha Rosa1 Comment

This is the third entry in the Life As An Initiate At SoulFullHeart Sanctuary Blog Series. Go here to read the second one.

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By Kathleen Calder

As intimate as this blog series is becoming already, I feel like I want to invite you in even more. It occurred to me that maybe the writing we share here, though we intend it to be invitational in tone, may make you readers feel like you are only circling around something and not really in it. Well, in a way that’s true, but in many ways it isn’t.

In many ways, we feel you joining in with us during our Sunday group circles, our shared meals, and our daily activities. We want you to be here. It’s up to you to qualify yourself to at least make contact, let alone take the leap to be here with us physically. I want contact. I want you to be known and I want to be known too. I want to experience you…and of course inside me is the ache to be experienced. This is what I want to animate for you in this writing today. So, with that in mind, I intend to invite you in even deeper to my world and deeper into what I call my ‘process’.

It is no joke to ask someone to leave their world or even their known consciousness behind in order to experience and participate in a new one. I’ve needed this invitation extended to me many times throughout these last four years with SoulFullHeart. I haven’t been an active part of this healing work for the full four years and, in fact, have had to take many so-called ‘breaks’ from it. I put quotations there because if SoulFullHeart is in you, it is you, and there is no real break from it or way of shaking it. Parts of me have tried. I guess that’s how you know your soul-calling: when something is inside you, calling you forward, grabbing your attention, even when you think you’re adequately distracted by other things.

There is nothing more powerful than finding your way to your deepest, most sovereign, and heart-centered choice to be a part of something. Part of me has, for many years, only identified with being a ‘black sheep’. There has been an insistence inside me that there is no way for me to truly belong anywhere or with anyone or any particular group of people. Socially this was a struggle for part of me for many years, until the last one or two years when I started to wake up to my genuine uniqueness based on my unfolding soul journey, which helped to reframe any feelings of ‘not being enough’ for others to accept into their social lives.

I have also found myself thinning out the number of people I would like around me at any one time. It’s not about snobbery or snubbing anyone, but about self-care and self protection. For now my circle is small and intimate and that feels safer as far as holding my need to land in others’ hearts in a deep way and be felt. While sometimes part of me can still find some comfort in hiding the real me in a crowd, most of the time being in a large group feels very vulnerable and uncomfortable for my sensitivity level.

I, Kathleen, want to know and be known more intimately, and I get to live into that every moment that I sovereignly choose to. It is a huge process though, to reconcile the desire to hide and the desire to be seen. I feel this could be true for everyone in the world on some level. Needless to say, at times in my process so far the desire to hide has won out and I have had to back away from being consciously in my process. The thing is, the process doesn’t truly stop, ever. You’re in your own process right now, actually, whether you are trying out any of the journaling we suggest or are just reading our writing. Something, even subconsciously, is bound to go in.

Each time parts of me have tried to abandon our process together, chaos has ensued, moving me away from these three people who I have been so intimate with. It has needed to play out that way and it hasn’t really, either. However, my emotional maturity level simply couldn’t allow it to be any other way. I have been through many shifts and changes in my life and all of the major ones have seemed to come on a tornado of chaos and I have felt like I was literally on fire at times! Change, while difficult for most people, has come easily for parts of me who have been very addicted to it. There has been an ease in running away, and what is ‘running away’ from SoulFullHeart but a ‘running away’ from myself? Running from intimacy is something every human being can share stories of, I’m sure, and self-to-self intimacy is really the true fear, I feel, for most of us – myself included.

The saying: “Wherever you go, there you are,” rings so true for me and is what I experience of life. It is what keeps bringing me back to the support that Jelayan, Raphael, and Sequoia offer me as I keep going into myself with less medicating and without avoiding any aspects of my process that are ripe and ready for me to feel into and heal.

Before I began my process of parts work exploration through SoulFullHeart, I was very social and aiming to become an actress. I had graduated theatre school and actually became certified as an Intuitive Coach as well, since I wanted to not only become a well-known performing artist, but a spiritual leader and author. I wanted to show the world I was a healer and to prove something – rather, parts of me did. The idea of maybe one day becoming too sensitive to party often or have one-night-stands was foreign and undesired in some ways. Part of me wanted to be part of the collective, even though she never felt she truly was and in fact was in denial of how badly she really wanted out. No doubt this was a lot to sort through.

Nowadays, I still want to be seen, but the glamour aspect has been giving way to the idea of just being embraced for who I am at my most vulnerable and authentic core of my being. This would have been so hard to say four years ago. This is why SoulFullHeart offers that people who may be interested in this work take it one step at a time. Parts of us have a lot at stake and a lot they have been working to accomplish in our lives. Deconstructing them needs to be a process for the sake of our own sanity. In some ways, you never truly know when this process begins for you, as it just sort of does, and usually it is on a wave of desire for change and doubts that the life you are leading now is truly enough for you, even if these desires and doubts feel subtle at the time.

It feels good to share a bit more about what my process has been like. In the future my goal is to weave in bits of stories from my process and perhaps some more visceral sharing of what it actually feels like to feel a part of you for the first time. I feel this may help any of you who are inching towards contacting us and taking on that first session, to imagine what that experience could be like for you.

If you are curious to know more about what I have shared today or have any questions for me, my email is kathleen.m.calder@gmail.com. I would be happy to hear from you.

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions.

Realizing Reality Together: Golden Earth Tales

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive some of your money!

(This is Part Seven of the ongoing blog series: Golden Earth Tales.)

By Raphael Awen

Thank you for joining in on this blog series. I’m really glad to have your involvement.

I have this expanding sense humming through me today of what a human being actually is. I could say more accurately is that I really don’t know what a human being is. And as I accept that into my consciousness, I let in arising wonder. This sense of wonder and childlike curiosity extends to me, you, and even to the Christian couple who this past week accused me of being ‘a cult leader who talks to demons’.

Friend, foe, or in between, we are all part of the human cult and we are all in search of something. We affect each other and we are an intertwined part of each other way more than we realize.

I’ve also had a growing sense of some other ‘participants’ in this blog series from another dimension called Golden Earth. It’s actually what got this blog series launched and I wrote about it in part one. I don’t have any five-physical-sense ‘proof’ of its existence, but I have been afforded the self-permission to imagine it being ‘real.’ I ‘see’ and ‘feel’ through my imagination the active interest of a group of students that like hanging out together in the Golden Earth café and are keenly interested in brainstorming together around what I’ve been putting out in this blog series.

Of course, this all sounds like a science fiction story, and I can say that maybe that is in fact what all this imagination is – a story from beyond our normal scope of perception. What’s crazy though for me (in a good kind of crazy way) is that I get this growing sense that what you and I call ‘real’ and verify as everyday normal reality through our five physical sense perception of reality, doesn’t sound that far off from my ‘Golden Earth’ reality. My sense is that the reality that you and I participate in as ‘real’ is only real because you and I have in fact ‘realized’ it together. We made it up. We made it up in our own personal ‘fact-ory’. And then to top it off, we agreed that it was real. What a bunch of conspirators we are! I guess I am a powerful cult leader after all….wow…. and so are you …. like it or not. We make stuff up as we go.

If any of this stuff is a more accurate picture of the underlying reality that undergirds what we call reality, then at the very least, it puts us back in a place of childlike wonder. That childlike wonder opens out all the edges of what I consider real and true. This lens of childlike wonder filters and swirls through my adult mind and leaves me with a, ‘Holy shit, who the hell are we?’ feeling. ‘Holy’ and ‘hell’ are now in the same sentence somehow.

I mentioned the couple who called me ‘a cult leader who listens to demons’ as I’m still digesting this week the energy of our all-too-real confrontation. While my personal boundary is that no one gets to be a part of my life while they want to energize their reality in an intolerant way towards me, there is another way that none of us can escape anyone else. As we’ve been feeling into in this series: we, at a deep and fundamental level of reality, are all One. We cannot even differentiate enough from that Oneness for there to be an ‘other’ to have a difference with, let alone fight with them.

My mind starts to ride out on some of these feeling waves and mind waves, like a great surfboard ride, and it comes up with more and more profound questions. It’s hard staying on one train of thought for very long. It isn’t too far off from getting stoned really. But before you judge that as a bad thing, consider that what you call ‘reality’ may be, in fact, coming from the completely intoxicated and drug-impaired perception of what you and I just made up and declared real. Hell, you’re not the safe designated driver to get me home safely that you imagine yourself to be. Nor is the Christian couple offering me their Jesus picture of deliverance and salvation. I may not even be safe to drive myself home! I just may need to walk, or stumble, or just pass out on the sidewalk and try again tomorrow, thank you very much!

I love this madness!

I can feel the students at the Golden Earth café really rocking about now, so excited to feel us feeling into this together. If we can soften our perception of reality back to a place of childlike wonder, then they and we get to come out and play. I see the universe knocking on the door of my childhood home – “Hello, Mrs. Awen. Can Raphael come out and play today?”

When and how in the heaven and in the hell did we lose our sense of play? When and how did we make spirituality about being right or being saved or delivered?

The good news is that we fell and bumped our head and are suffering a bit of amnesia. We only fell from the grace of knowing who and what we are. We didn’t fall and bump ourselves out of god’s grace, as the Christian narrative goes. That story has held a good many of us (myself deeply included) for a good long time, and it’s running out of gas. New stories are now vying for our attention.

My truth is that you and I don’t have but the tiniest bit of what there is to be had as far as your sense of self extends. You are so much more than you ever dreamed yourself to be. We live in an Infinite-Love reality that is ever expanding, and so everything we come to treasure as meaningful or real only gets its value because it calls us to get comfortable with deepening our picture of reality.

With this blog series, I’m realizing I don’t have anything to sell you on. Well, to be honest, I’ve been putting out there my own ideas of reality and I guess making a case for that. But, in another way, I get to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing or what I’m selling. That, I feel, is what has earned me the title this week of being a powerful cult leader – I am in the great unknown and dangerously having some fun and dangerously enticing others to join me, and what this couple could see and verify for me is that I just might succeed in pulling that off – God forbid, hallelujah and praise Allah!

Reality is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. What do you have to bid for this treasure? What kind of reality do you dream of? What do you want? Deep down in the depths of your being? What makes you tick? What’s your wanter wanting underneath its wants? Are you angry that what you’ve subscribed to hasn’t paid off? I’m glad if you’re pissed. Get pissed at me if you need to. I’ll throw it back in your face and we can be a part of changing consciousness together.

As I said in my last blog, we as a species are at an epochal shift in our consciousness and existence. It is the time of the greatest change we have encountered so far. We go through periods of relative stability (history) that are followed by tumultuous and sudden change (herstory).

You and I get to be in on this, in whatever way we want to be. Once we begin awakening to that, it changes everything, and doesn’t stop.

Raphael Awen hails from SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. You can also track him on twitter via @raphaelawen, or on facebook: ­­­­­­­facebook.com/raphaelawen1. Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive some of your money!

Spiritual La-La Land In A Time Of Impending Collapse: Golden Earth Tales

Published on by Raphael AwenLeave a comment

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Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive some of your money!

(This is Part Six of the ongoing blog series: Golden Earth Tales.)

By Raphael Awen

It’s time in this blog series to pose a very important question.

The question goes something like this: How is seeking the nondual, or any other form of spiritual seeking for that matter, relevant at such a crazy time of global change that we are in the midst of? How is it not just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

We are in the midst of epic changes to our industrial society and its way of life that we are all embedded in. The long and the short of it is that gasoline from a gas station, water from a tap, food from a store, or electricity from a hole in the wall are not likely to persist for much longer. All of the inter-related systems that hold these realities in place are growing more and more vulnerable and tension-filled by the day. I am personally surprised each passing month to see the present order of things stumble against the odds into the next month.

The transition we are facing promises to be difficult almost beyond imagination, chaotic and marked with great loss of life.

My sense is that if you haven’t faced this approaching chaos and come to your own personal grounded choices around it, your spirituality (of any kind) is in la-la land.

Eighteen months ago, my wife and I and two close friends chose to relocate to living off grid two countries south and entered into a crash course of learning to grow our own food. It’s a long story and a great story and you can read it here in our free e-book called Living As If. It’s free monetarily speaking, but reading it will cost you. It will cost you some of your indifference; it will cost you some of your comfort; and it will cost you some of your happiness that’s based in denial. If you’ve been looking to spend those things from your life, the free e-book is a great place to start.

I almost want to apologize for pontificating here. Almost. I just called you indifferent, didn’t I? I am trying to build an audience, not thin one out, but this message cannot be pansied around with. If you haven’t considered the changes that you can feel are coming, you are fucking around with your own life. It’s just that plain and simple. It’s suicide and indifferent to boot. I’d much rather you got offended and left off reading my blogs than using my teaching on the nondual as a way to keep your pile of denial intact. What I’d most rather see, however, is that you could listen to your own heart without needing any prodding from me or anyone else and prepare to ride out the coming storm.

Facing into this with power and choice will feel like nothing short of joining a cult. Your seeking to get others on board in your circle of family and friends will be seen as proselytizing. It will probably add up to being the most difficult thing you have undertaken this life.

When you look at this though through a first-things-first lens, no other approach makes any sense at all. As humans, our needs for survival will always trump our needs for seeking meaning. We embrace spirituality only when our basic needs of food, water, and shelter are met and have a reasonable expectation of continuity.

You may be in a place of what appears to be life-stability at the moment, but I venture to say that you have been sensing the approach of deep structural changes coming to our collective way of life. How could you not? This has left you with an ungrounded feeling. Your ventures into spirituality and meaning are left with one foot outside of the circle. You’re not all here, and rightly so, you shouldn’t be. Maybe ten years ago, maybe even five years ago, this could be a different story, but not now.

As I’ve been writing this series on the nondual, I’ve had a growing sense of disconnect to be offering it into an audience I fear has done little to reconcile with these coming changes. I’m openly asking the question of myself: how does this form of spiritual seeking that I’m advocating for not just another form of a mind-numbing drug?

The shit is about to hit the fan – make no mistake about it.

Like the Captain in the movie Titanic so soberly said just minutes after the iceberg was struck, “This ship will go down.” The Titanic story is a powerful prophetic story for our time. Our collective hubris is only exceeded by our denial, and we are about to be called on it.

Big outbreath….phew. I had to say that… in that way.

My own tendency towards denial is as good as the next person’s; the difference though is that I am aware of mine. That awareness has led and continues to lead to changes – not talk of changes, but balls-to-the-wall grounded change.

So what then is there left to say about the nondual in relation to all this unavoidable change?

My truth is that all the talk in the world of the nondual isn’t worth a fiddler’s fart if you are not in your power facing this approaching storm.

Consciousness itself has prepared this transformation for us, not against us. Consciousness doesn’t see the loss of physical life with the same hysteria as we do. Consciousness sees it as a transformation, not an end in itself. What is at stake is not your consciousness per se, but your physical life and the goals you as a soul associated with this life.

I am convinced that most will not (as they say) know what hit ‘em, as they feel completely victimized and overwhelmed by circumstances outside of their control. Everything in their conditioning will support their chosen view of excusing themselves.

But for those of us who unmistakably sense this coming storm, such luxuries of consciousness don’t add up to much, do they?

The Christians believe strongly in Jesus returning to sweep them away before it gets too unbearable – that at least gives them some form of hope or comfort. Their collective sense of coming chaos is well founded and grounded; it’s just their solution that doesn’t add up. No savior is returning to take care of your business for you. All the universe, God, the Divine, and Jesus himself will be glad to help you – but no one and nothing is going to do this for you. Doing stuff for you is known as infantilizing, and we are moving past that now in our emerging collective consciousness.

You can expect to be infantilized if you must and that will ensure you some comfort in the midst of this great chaos, though it will also pretty much guarantee your early demise. Or you can adult-up and make choices with the power you have and ride out this storm consciously in the deep and personal transformation of yourself and the collective that this will prove to be.

Raphael Awen hails from SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. You can also track him on twitter via @raphaelawen, or on facebook: ­­­­­­­facebook.com/raphaelawen1

Please visit our Patreon Page if you’d like to support SoulFullHeart Sanctuary. We’d love to receive some of your money!