Continue the good work on the self, seeking balance, moderation, and the kind of awareness that only comes from getting to know the self on the deepest level. Ask the self often: What is right to do today? Am I furthering myself in a good way? Seek adventure and experience that is nurturing for the whole self, offering a good balance of spiritual pleasure as well as physical, for you are more than just a physical being, you are an infinite being as well.
The appearance of a penny on the street in a dream is a healing trail marker. Follow that coin! A four-sided rectangle, a box, or simply the number four showing up in waking life, or dream, may be another communication from our High Soul that we are involved with something that furthers our intrinsic unfolding of Self.
The circle and the square, separate or in combination, form a mandala, the archetype of wholeness. Our individual mandala blueprint, at the core of our Soul, attracts to us the raw material circumstances and relationships needed to fully realize our wholeness in this life. The mandala archetype is the central organizing archetype for all life.
Jung pointed out that the primary atom for all organic life is carbon, whose outermost ring has a valence of four electrons that form the chemical bonds to create the basic building materials of life. Thus, at the material level of existence, the mandala is the central organizing blue print for physical life.
Our inner mandala, operating at the spiritual dimension of our life, accentuates activities we are engaged in, with synchronicities or images of mandalas, as suggested in the dream images mentioned above, when we are heading in the right direction or when we need a course correction in our decisions and behaviors.
Sometimes a broken, messy, round public toilet of a mandala appears in a dream. In this case, we are shown that our path to wholeness requires that we face that which we seek to flush away and be rid of. Our mandala of wholeness forces us to face that which humiliates us, as it refuses to allow us the release of repression. The mandala will insist that we claim and own all of our wholeness, regardless of how bad it smells!
The precursor to the number four, on the number line, is three, which, as a geometric image, forms a triangle. A triangle has integrity but is a volatile energetic force of change, like the Bermuda Triangle.
In the shamanic lineage of Carlos Castaneda, the leader, or Nagual, was always a human being with four energetic compartments, until Carlos came along. Though he was pointed out as the next Nagual, he had only three energetic compartments, foreshadowing the coming of great change for his shamanic line.
In fact, Carlos ended his shamanic line’s traditional transmission of knowledge to simply a new generation of selected leaders and apprentices. Instead, he unwrapped the secret, sacred technologies of his lineage and freely offered them to anyone interested in learning them. In Carlos’ new world, everyone needs to become their own personal shaman, taking the soul retrieval journey of their lifetime.
Carlos correctly read the energy of the need for total transparency as our evolutionary destiny. The days of the witch hunt and the need to hide shamanic knowledge from the Conquistadores has ended. The modern era needs all the sacred knowledge of yesteryear to correctly navigate the profound changes of our time.
Carlos’ decision allowed me access to the practice of recapitulation, with its ancient shamanic roots, as a complement to the use of EMDR in modern psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD. Carlos, with his energetic configuration of three, freed ancient shamanic wisdom, allowing it to find new manifestations in the healing of our world.
The number three seeks its mandalic completion. The Christian male God triangle of Father, Son and Holy Spirit points to the need for Mary, as Goddess, to square its mandala. The struggle to achieve this configuration, in many spheres, is the story of our time.
The Catholic Feast of the Assumption never granted Mary true Godly status. The best it could do was offer Mary continued existence in physical form in heaven. The masculine gods of our time continue to devalue, control and exploit the feminine.
The feminine, in the energetic manifestation of the energies of Kali and Isis, are agents of change, using nature and climate change to point humanity toward squaring the mandala, with the inclusion of the feminine principles of relatedness and interconnectedness, to restore order and balance to the world.
Masculine and feminine energies are present in all life. Jung called the feminine energetic compartment in men the anima and the masculine energetic compartment in women, the animus . As individuals, we are all tasked with squaring the mandalas within ourselves by integrating these primal masculine and feminine energies within our own psyches into fruitful evolution.
Women can be animus dominated and as devaluing of the feminine as abusive, controlling men. Men can be anima dominated, overwhelmed by moods and resentments that dominate impulsive decisions.
All people are charged to follow the way of the mandala now, as it seeks resolution, inwardly and outwardly, in true integrated wholeness.
Find solace in knowing that just as nature finds its way to new life each spring, changing and evolving out of the dead of winter, so too will you change. Plant the seeds of spring now within the self, the hopes, dreams, and intentions for change and new life, and tend to them so that all is prepared for their fruition. Hold yourself responsible for nurturing and supporting yourself through whatever matter arises that needs attention. If you remain steadfast upon a path of change that is loving, compassionate, kind and honest, your intentions will flourish.
The term holotropic was coined by Stan Grof to depict the energetic movement toward wholeness, which is active at the transpersonal dimension of the human psyche.
Stan and Christina Grof chose the term Spiritual Emergency to describe the impact of those holotropic energies upon our lives when we are in deep personal crisis. Emergence and emergency share the same Latin root, emergere, meaning bring to light, the cornerstone of healing.
Planet Earth’s present crises are, at their core, manifestations of holotropic emergence. Confusing are the primordial mother goddess Kali’s destructive winds and fits of irrational tantrums as agents of healing, but the illusions that have governed us inwardly and outwardly must be brought to light before the seeds of truth and needed change can be planted and bear fruit.
Inwardly, we must contend with the governance of ego soul, which is shaped by the values of materialistic achievement, dominance, and world view. Reason and powerful defense are its primary preoccupations.
The truths of ego soul’s disavowed wholeness, housed in the depths of the transpersonal unconscious and physical body, generate disease and chaos to shatter the repressive grip of misaligned ego soul. This is Spiritual Emergency breaking down ego soul’s delusions.
How often our dominating materialistic perspective finds us in the emergency room or under the psychiatrist’s medicating wand, as we misread the symptoms of true emergence, asking to bring truths into the light. Of course, we must always address impacts made upon the physical body and material reality, but all crises should also be considered to be the action of holotropic emergence, replete with its healing intent.
Outwardly we are dancing with apocalypse, truly playing Russian Roulette. The thrill of this vicarious brush with absolute power is both addictive and fated to be lived out. Ego soul must test its limits. Inflatedly delusional leaders, who entrance us with their dares, are the actors chosen for this ultimate showdown.
However, we must all assume responsibility as energetic players in this collective drama. We must own the authoritarian dominance of the ego soul, to the detriment of discovering and living our wholeness, as well as our materialistic bias that justifies and maintains the mismanagement of our bodies and the Earth. Through owning and reconciling with our blind spots and disavowed shadows, we are freed to open up to real love.
Reaching the place of real love is the true intent of Earth’s current spiritual emergence. However, to arrive at love, we must experience its fatal blows, as it prepares us to receive it. Mother Nature is rapidly destroying the bounty of her food and shelter. She triggers our reaction of denial and greed, which she meets with even greater conflagration.
Her true motive is to provide us the sobering experience we need to humble our inflated ego souls and align with the greater truth of our interdependent oneness. We must freely choose to come together, and not destroy ourselves. Guides, helpers and saviors cannot rescue us; ego must truly grow up to the truth. Love is a verb that requires maturity to become active.
From the true home of our holographic oneness every individual impacts and is a voting member of our world drama. Every decision and action in our individual lives, particularly the owning and reckoning with our personal shadow selves, is a vote for real love, the next stage of Earth’s spiritual emergence.
May we reach the critical mass needed to advance to love, as we journey through nature’s pitiless onslaughts, plowing the fields for love’s planting and bearing of fruit.
Remain positive in the knowing that meeting one’s own spiritual emergence with open arms advances our continued collective dream of life on Mother Earth.
Tune into your body’s messages. What is it telling you? How does it try to get your attention? Avoid stresses. Learn relaxation skills. Your body is your spirit’s clothing, what it has chosen to wear during the lifetime you are in. It is not simply an independent entity with a brain but a complex structure that houses more than you know or can imagine. Keep it in prime condition by tuning into it as only you and your spirit can, asking what it needs each day in order to function in an optimal manner. You might be surprised by what it tells you in its own way!
