As I opened my email this morning, I uncovered a number of Independence Day gifts from the celebrations of real freedom of my friends to a blog entry from Davidya on the Peace Technology that is making a large measureable difference in the world today.

What I love about it all is anyone can participate. It requires no adherence to any particular belief system. And, the icing on the cake is that the life and consciouness in us expressess itself naturally as peace. Together in groups, this peace magnifies supporting a peaceful world.

Check out In Too Deep for the facts, figures and links...

Simply Awesome!

A while back I reported having some awakening experiences. So, here is the open and honest report.

Just to be clear, these were experiences, and like all experiences they came and went. I came back to the way I have always experienced this body\mind only changed... drastically at the core. Certainly this did not happen by my own mind or efforts. o.k. I am being real careful here, because some words trigger conceptual debates between ways of thinking about all this. I want to be plain, real, and human. I want to reach your heart not your thinking processes.

Since then, I can say Yes, there was an awakening and experiences, insights beyond anything I could conjure up on my own. All of it was nothing like what I expected. Some people describe it as walking through a door. I did not have that much control.

Let's just say the undefinable mystery reached out and pulled me across a threshold. To say, I had anything to do with it would be a lie. There were no spiritual practices or trying involved. In fact, I had given them all up completely. I said more or less damn it, if God, Universe, All That Is, Consciousness, or whatever you want to call it is here now then I am going to face it or expire in the process. Pretty serious. I meant it. I am a mean ass, to the death serious, when I put my heart and soul into something. You will laugh at that last sentence if you keep reading.

To say it was grace would be accurate, and not quite the right wording. It will suffice. So, you get the flavor. I was serious. I went through great suffering at throwing all my spiritual props out the window. They were everything I had used to construct my spiritual ego. They did not go easily, kindly, and I suffered the loss of them greatly. Plenty of wavering, but I had to honor my heart and stick with it. I had no choice. Truly.

After somewhere between 6 to 8 months, awareness broke wide open and everything I experienced in my day was like beautiful fireworks as an analogy. Everyone and everything came into this awareness and left. Everything I could expereince through my senses was Beautiful beyond description. Nothing bothered me, worried me, and I couldn't be concerned about one thing whatsoever. Life was arising and drifting away, and whatever was happening the moment was transient, beautiful, and passed away in its amazing impermanence. In this I saw: All Is Given. Every single event, experience, sensation, thought, etc.

That passed after about 2 weeks. I don't know. Measurements of supposed time are fuzzy. Somewhere in there.

Then the scary thing happened. I was sitting in the kitchen talking to my friend, and all of the sudden everything went empty. I don't mean everything disappeared. I mean everything was the same only it was empty. It looked like a movie film on the screen. Still 3 Dimensional only empty. It was holographic. No substance at all. It was like R2D2 projecting the image of Princess Leia talking and moving looking real, but at the same time knowing it was not.

Being an intuitive feeling type, that scared me to death. It was life as one big movie picture show of light and images totally transparent with no real substance including who I thought I was in this body mind. Now that shook me up!!! Excuse me, it was frightening!

What I experience as normal consciousness returned for a "seeming" period of time. Notice the changefulness of all this. Then bam, one Sunday, I am in love with everyone and everything. Out of nowhere Bliss and love dominates everything in experience. Cool? Totally. Temporary? Yes.

Everything settles down again into my usual experience of life until now. Recently, I experience the storm of emotions and grasping. I mean it is ugly. Every part of me that is angry, scared that it won't get what it wants or lose what it has starts surfacing emotionally within me. It is all I can do to not act out on it.

I experience crying jags, the equivalent of inner emotional temper tantrums, and the desire to try to control events in my personal life and at work. Work represents a big area of pride and excellence. Only, I see how I am just like everyone else no better no worse, and on top of that deluded in my self view and identity as circumstances surface to reveal deep flaws in perception. There is tug of war of resting in awareness and identification with who I thought I was as a person. Awareness is losing most days.

So, this morning I sat down after a relatively sleepless night, and looked deeply into each of these thoughts and they boil down to fear, anger, and security of what could happen or what could be lost. I was surprised. I thought I was past all of that stuff. I hadn't had the deep level of emotional turbulence inside for decades.

There were beliefs underlying all this that came to light that are untrue, and old survival behaviors seen, and in truth I see what a thought based illusion they all are even the beautiful ones. I wanted to hate them, but  I couldn't. I loved them not from effort , but from seeing. Compassion arose, and they subsided like all the experiences above.

Later this morning my body shook, trembled and was out of control. It was like a great release of trapped energy was rising, releasing, rising, releasing. I drank clean water as fast as I could before it all settled down. I don't know why or if that really helped. I sensed it did.

During all this, I was able to both observe what was happening and also I was dragged like a rag doll around emotionally until I rested in awareness or as some would say consciousness. The changeless experience of the every present now. My mind couldn't experience it. My senses couldn't grasp it. There was notihing I could do. I was without all tries. What I am is not anything I perceive, experience, or can think yet alone describe. I am included in a present consciousness that I couldn't control with the mightest effort. What lives me, looks through my eyes, types this entry, is the truth, and all the changefulness above comes and goes.

This is not enlightement I am told. It is the process of embodiment. Clearing seems to happen, and what is so helpful and reassuring is that this soft ever so tender transparent awareness or consciousness, if you prefer, is always here in this moment and it never leaves. It is effortless. I dare you, try not to be conscious. It can't be done. Consciousness emobodies us.

I write this openly, honestly, not as a seeker or someone aspriring to be a sage. I write this as there are many others going through something very similar only individual, and I say stay with what never changes. That is who we all are as one. I will be glad to send you to those who understand this if you want help or feel it is more than you can handle alone. Please do not misintepret spiritual dryness or vacillating experience as anything other than a process and give whatever you think you are to it. And in dong so, we hold hands knowing that the greatest gift of all gifts foretold is now coming to pass for all of us. Use any words or constructs you wish to describe it.

Whatever the experience are.

You are not alone.

I don't know how to say this, so I will just be blunt about it. I have been having some really intense awakening experiences recently. I didn't know that is what they were, because they were totally unexpected in how they occurred and the content.

At first, I just thought I was going insane... literally. That is why I haven't been writing much lately. My gray matter has been sand blasted and I am short on words and descriptions these days.

Thankfully, I have encountered some people who could help me to understand what was going on. They were brought into my life as if by magic and they each had a piece of the puzzle.

I am better now. I should say I am back to some semblance of normal life.  After all, experiences come and go. They rise and fall. This isn't about experiences. My humanness is very much in tact. In fact, I would say it is glaringly in tact.

Tne thing I can say is that I am feeling a lot of passion for the coolest albeit strangest things. Davidya (his handle) shared a blog post "Messages From Passion" that is very good read. David is one of the people that has been helping me understand what has been happening. They seem to be appearing just when I need them.

There is a link in his post to a blog from Spiritual Cowgirl. Love that handle! One of her posts runs her list of New Year's Resolutions. I resonated deeply with many of them (not all). Here is a few...

To do something each week that makes absolutely no sense, but reawakens every one of my senses

To laugh as much as possible at impossibility

To claim ecstasy as my birthright

To soak my ego in Love’s drool

To spread eagle my convictions

To claim my wants, needs, desires, shadows, issues, quirks, fears, freckles as Holy

To completely redvolutionize my sexuality

To speak my truth, even when it feels like a lie

To let the divine undress every inch of me before a roaring fire

To turn On as many people as possible (we have way too many “spiritual” things turning us off)

To allow abundance to attack my life

To have a tawdry, passionate, intensely authentic threesome with Me, My Self, and I

To play play play play play play play play play play play play

To let Love show me what I’m truly made of… again and again and again

Here are the rest... This woman is on FIRE and I adore it, and grateful for her sharings at this time in my life. It helped A LOT. More than the list I resonated with the fire of her passion, and that is the biggest gift in all this.

Prague or as the Czeh's call it,  Praha is an intensely beautiful city.  If you like Architecture like I do, then this city is sensory overloadl.

I do not have an arbitrary love and smile index for Prague as I was there for 8 hours. That is not enough time to really feel a city. It is 3 hours driving time from Vienna so 8 hours in Praha makes for a long day. It is totally worth it!!! You can see the best of my Prague pictures here.

The landscape of eastern Austria is beautiful farm and wine country. Really. My Dad has a friend who owns a vineyard there and to this day he says the beauty and peace of it are unequaled. My Dad is biased towards Austria. I ended up in Austria by accident... sort of.

Crossing into the Czech Republic it is still visible that this was a Communist Country even if as late as 1989. The landscape from eastern Austria doesn't change but the housing very much does. The Czech Republic joined the EU in 2004 so the major roads or interstates are not built from Vienna\Europe.... yet.

As we traveled to Prague and past the intial rural districts, the Bavarian forest showed up. How Beautiful dark, rich, deep, and green!



Prague was Amazing!!! It was a total sensory overload near Prague Castle and Olde Towne. Prague and the Czech Republic deserves to be done in a trip by itself.

The best I can say what little food I had was good although I was starving. The courtryside was rolling hills and farm lands. There were rural sections and parts of the city that looked like barracks and very unattractive. The Olde Town and Prague Castle were magnigicent. The outlying areas west of the city were modern and fantastic areas corporate centers of commerce.

I recommend a visit for myself (in depth) and you.. Prague is very affordable and what you buy there is easy on the wallet compared to other Eurpopean cities.

Actually the answer that came out of me on Centria's blog entry bubbling up with her response  to the queston " What can you do right now to make a positive difference?"

It works here as well.....

Honoring the resonance of the moment by following it not knowing where it will lead knowing it is totally safe, totally beyond a “me”, no controlling myself, no controlling life or apparent others, being moved by the resonance and in that spaciousness seeing, the bubbling up expression of life constantly changing and how the teacher appears in each moment without even trying to see it as so.  Often from the most mundane, benign, and sometimes unspiritual directions. The dots connecting themselves, flashes of insight spontaneously, followed by none. All appearing and disappearing in the openness. That openness I am. Even I am is saying too much.

Allowing questions without the need to answer. Allowing life to answer them whenever, however, and build on it when it will or destroy them if it must. No timeline. Nothing to do. Totally trusting beyond even trying to trust. No more trying. That free! Manifestation manifesting and noticing what is there through all of it and trusting in that knowingness that knows nothing at all and because of that and despite it as well welcomes and recognizes everything in that changeless undercurrent of being. We are that beyond comment, hold my hand.

All is given perfectly even when it doesn't feel so, seem so and welcoming that even through the tears and shaking fist if needed. Why not? Why not. There is nothing to lose, life to gain as it is following the resonance authentically without judgment no matter where it leads so it is seen who I am we are truly is life, knowingness, love beyond evaluation.

Whoa!

I've got this weird thing I do when I visit a European city. I start constructing my own more or less arbitrary love and romance index. Along with taking in the sites, I look for lovers young, middle age, and senior kissing, resting in each other's arms in the park, walking arm in arm down the street and other forms of kindly and loving affection. Just a weird thing I do.

Honestly, I didn't expect much out of Vienna. I don't know why. I just didn't. After all, Paris is in Europe right? And, I saw mucho amor in Madrid. Much to my surprise, I saw quite a bit of the romatical loving actions described above. Woo Hoo! I am thinking well now if this city is as hot as Madrid, this is going to be some kind of fun!

Well, truth is, Vienna was beautiful, fun, and the people were very pleasant is the word I will use. On my arbitrary smile index it did pretty good. Sorry folks, I am still looking for a city outside the U.S. to exceed the bright and shiny smiles of America. I know its out there, just haven't been there yet. Of course, I haven't been to Paris either so the Love and Romance Index could hit a new high on that "some day" trip.

Anyway, back to Vienna. I am saying that Vienna is very cultured and on weekends it is way laid back. On Sunday, pretty much everything shuts down with few exceptions. Roll up the sidewalks! Everyone seems so well manner and quiet. Even the dogs and kids are well mannered for goodness sake. The Opera and music of Mozart and Strauss are huge. They take their music and opera seriously in this town. I passed on Opera. I just haven't acquired the taste for it... yet.

Vienna reminded me of Madrid in another way in the sense that the historical buildings and architecture are not limited to one or two parts of town. They are interspearsed among the normanl city commerce very much like Madrid and to a certain extent Brussels.

The pace struck me as even and relaxed, and the food I had was good to excellent. Pork and veal based dishes are big, but you can find good Italian as well. I stuck with traditional Austrian fare, and I was not disappointed by the food and pastries.  To my surprise Austrian wine was mighty fine. I had no idea the wine industry was so big in Austria. The vineyards I saw riding through eastern Austria on a day trip to Prague were simply beautiful. It was rolling green lush wine and farm country right up to the Czech Republic border.

I like beer so I drink plenty of it. Austrian beer is smoooooootttttthhhhh! If you are looking for a hoppy brew or a brew with a kick, this isn't the place from my experience. If you like a smooth wheat beer, this is your town.

I could go on, but I won't about the touring aspect. You can check out the better pictures I took here and read the comments for a few fun and interesting things you can do here.

Next stop Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. Actung!

For Nicole...

A good friend who stands by me sent this along so I just had to share it and dedicate it to Nicole. Talent is everywhere along with Nicole's sweet embrace.... Click on link below the photo.





http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741%3E