Tag Archives: Unity Consciousness

Staying Afloat with Duck as an Emotional Guide

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Whatever our circumstances might look like in this lifetime, our human brethren are emotional creatures that feel a strong yearning to belong and be included in fraternal sisterhood. Some of us, try as we might appear hellbent on avoiding and killing that aspect of ourselves. Living authentically however, is sobering us up to our need to regulate our emotional plight. Sure, we have plenty of things to distract us from our emotional bodies, like “work to do and bills to pay”. But those distractions only make it conveniently inconvenient to suppress and repress our emotional tides that inundate. During this powerful eclipse season and Full Moon coming soon to a theater of life near you, our emotional realities are intensifying. Between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, the masculine energetic light of day is rising, as are our spirits. Meditation on Duck is a free guide to tune in to. Its energies want to share its spiritual wisdom with you. When we allow Duck’s Chi to paddle into our souls, we are given emotional comfort and protection. We are in our element with water and given assistance while floating in the astral and emotional realms. Duck helps us drink in the waters of life and swim effectively and stay afloat in our emotional waters. Duck is a powerful spirit guide to maintain our Earthbound connection and let things roll off our backs when things get heated. If only our CEO-Government friends running the business of our military-industrial-complex would marinate on consuming Duck’s free-spirited teachings.

As the world burns, soapy pundits on the tele remain engaged and driven to distraction vis-a-vis the pontificating of ego-centered debates. Admittedly, fascism has its romantic undertones, but we need not choose to buy it. Words are used as weapons of mass distraction, but we have weapons of mass destruction that we need to clear. The time is now to shift our focus away from looking at our Mother Earth as a finite resource to deplete, to a living Being that gives us sustainable life. The engrained business as usual model that has been indoctrinated into our brains needs a new cognitive map. When we are identified with our minds, an endless sea of mental concepts and incessant accompanying emotional reactions are typically dominated by unrealized anxiety. And this hypnotic trance has a tendency to propagate a sleep walk through life. But in every breath we take, we have an opportunity to wake up. Rather than check out, we all have our part to do. For some it’s putting down the 40 ounces to slavery. For others, it might mean seeing through the veil that capitalism and socialism are really just opposite sides of the same coin. Instead of concretely looking at one another as separate and disconnected, one religion being right and the others wrong, qualifying the winners and losers mantra–we become in touch with our strong impulse to shift toward unity in our consciousness. We are leaving behind a bi-polar world of angels and demons, while co-authoring a New Chapter that includes a pluralistic and multi-polar New Earth script.

Ducks are sound creatures of habit and are good reminders to return to safe and comfortable aspects of ourselves when we need to feel safe within our Being. Their energies help us cope with our emotions gracefully. Meditation on Duck helps us acquire and access strategies in the areas of balance, emotional comfort, adaptability and adventure. Life is a journey, not without its labor pains. We all feel that right now, especially during these changing times of transition. The old world is burning, while stoking the embers of the Phoenix Rising. Do you need to establish balance, increase or pay more attention to your emotions and close relationships? Meditation on Duck is ready to help you receive consultation to those questions without charging a bill.

See you further on down the trails,

Ari

Eye of the Tiger

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Pouncing down the trails head, we look forward to a New Moon this week on May 10th and a Full Moon leaping down the month on May 25th. Also, we celebrated the Beltane last week, otherwise known as May Day. This ancient sacred tradition “honors and celebrates the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine, yin and yang” and the “inner union with the Beloved.” It marks the mid-point between the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice and fertilizes harmony between our spiritual and material growth or walking in alignment with “one foot in spirit, one foot in ground.” Tiger synchronizes with the New and Full Moon cycles as its energetic power time. Consuming Tiger’s spirited medicine helps us develop our passion, power, devotion and sensuality. Meditation on Tiger will wake up your sensitivity to touch. Tiger’s are skilled swimmers, so their energy reflects connection to the elemental forces of water. They are colorful and unpredictable, reflecting the world we live in and the changing times we are swimming in on Mother Earth today. In Chinese Astrology, their sign is seen as adventurous, powerful and passionate and symbolize the dark night of the New Moon and the sunlight of the Full Moon. Given that “traditions are time-tested proof that things work”, meditation on Tiger, in conjunction with a fire ritual facilitates burning away Winter, while shifting our gears full-throttle by igniting Spring.

Something is changing in the sea of consciousness on our Planet today. Although it is a process, it is becoming more difficult for folks to ignore. The garden variety of band-aids used to quell the symptoms that are roaring out to us are less effective in covering up the spirited energies streaming in now. Whether the arrival of symptomatic reactions manifests as distorted visions, racing thoughts, chronic headaches, lethargy, terrorism, mania in the global Stock Exchange–the intensity is rising and the times, they are a changin’. The perception of polarity, duality or “us and them” needs to be released from and healed in our consciousness. Living authentically and respectfully in a global village requires us to sit with the tension of opposites that exists within our individual and collective souls. Every man has a woman inside of his Being, just as every woman has a man within hers. When meditation is embraced as a popular way to consume a spiritual diet, we will see the proliferation of this understanding reflecting in our outer world for everyone to notice as obvious. Right now, you really have to take a close look for the evidence and hold that focus, given the reality of the dark and stormy weather patterns. The smoke and mirrors of our World are an illusion that carry a reality to that perception. In the realm of Infinity, the possibilities of blazing New Trail into a New Frontier are there for us to clear, if only we allow for it. But it is a process that we all have to step-up to on a case by case basis. The Golden Age is not a fixed ideal, where we find ourselves living in after a long, strange trip. Rather, when we change the way we look at the world, the world we look at changes. In this way, we become the change we want to see in the world. We are co-creating novel neuronal pathways inside our brains, signaling our conscious evolutionary next step in our program development.

We all have a basic need to feel safe and secure. However, looking to our outer world to provide that meal for us to eat is frequently met with a receipt for poor digestion. At the end of the day, we all need to access and acquire our internal power for a sense of safety and security. Our spirited animal friends are here to help reflect that back to humanity. True, it is a jungle out there. But have you ever watched animals frolic and play, even among predators and prey? They are good reminders for that. We are shifting from a divisive, compartmentalized view of the World that looks either matriarchal or patriarchical in our shared history, toward Unity Consciousness. In the words of Mr. Miyagi from the film The Karate Kid, we are “different, but same.”

See you further on down the trails,

Ari

Grooving on a rhythmic drumming Circle with Woodpecker

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Woodpecker’s drumming conjures up images and visions of our Mother’s changing heartbeat, energetic pulsing and weather forecast. Moreover, their spirited teachings aid us in loosening up our souls for exploration in other realms, dimensions, new vistas and novel experiences. Consuming a spiritual diet of Woodpecker reminds us to “march to the beat of your own drum”. When stillness speaks, we experience an internal rapture that resonates within our souls that sparks a fire in our right brains that lights up an awakening in our consciousness. Staying in the flow of expecting synchronicity, stepping into, accepting the present moment as it is and embracing the unfolding mystery is good medicine for that. This is easier when we feel secure and at peace on the inside or if our surroundings reinforce a sense of comfort. It is more difficult to sustain that place when the outer world looks anything but. The trick in this true wizardry is to sustain this state of consciousness, especially when fear and terror kick in. Woodpecker reminds us that we influence one another’s energy fields with relation to what is going on in the inside of our Being.

Spending time out in Nature and getting in alignment with Nature’s rhythm sometimes feels like an inconvenient truth. What happened to that clear blue sky? Is it too cold, hot or wet? Has globalization, dying trees, poor air quality index or stock market got your hue feeling manic and blue? Of course, it is always most difficult to stay in alignment in a domestic partnership, particularly when we are oriented very differently or coming from different planets. I remember walking on the trails with a student some years ago and he was afraid of venturing further down the trail because he was deathly afraid of ticks. In a space of trust, we empathized with his fear and then recognized that it was actually scarier to avoid our fears than actually face them head on.

In that light, folks in our neck of the woods have felt the experience of terror in Boston hit close to home. It is challenging to remember that terrorism seeks to disrupt the status quo and instill fear and panic in the masses, like the boy’s fear of ticks blocked him from staying connected. Yes, we feel rage and a deep hurt in our soul wherever tyranny exists. But Woodpecker reminds us that even in the wild, there is a drumming that lifts our spirits. Rather than consuming the terror within the terrorists, we need to heed the drum beat that reminds us there are no enemies. Rather than reacting to the spirited energies pouring in right now, may we consciously move with these energies to wake up and know inner peace. In this powerful forthcoming Wesak Full Moon, may we allow ourselves to wake up to the Love and Light that Buddha and Christ illuminate for us to see.

When enough of us sustain this internal martial arts practice, we shall overcome and see the New World being revealed, so within as without. The old world and old ways are hanging by a thread. For many, that reality is alarming. Who will keep us safe and protected? It is becoming clearer we all must stand in our own personal authority by being secure within our own Being and summoning protection accordingly. In the spirit of that, may the energy of Woodpecker offer you powerful protection and guidance as you embark on drumming up a new dream for yourself. There is so much help from the spirit realm waiting for us, if only we allow ourselves to receive. Perhaps it might feel uncomfortable creating space out in Nature. But in that place, we afford ourselves the opportunity to know ourselves on a deeper level by letting the distractions gently pass us by with care.

See you further on down on the trails,

Ari

Feasting With Turkey, We Give Thanks For Our Shared Blessings

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I remember hearing stories about turkey leading the flock by harmonically harvesting balance, here on the ground of Classroom Mothership Earth.  For example, turkey notoriously drives squirrels nuts when She levels the playing field by taking back squirrel’s stockpiled hoard.  Whether a nervous woodland creature’s modern-day version of Robin Hood, or a Shaman from the Americas, turkey is good medicine for warding off evil spirits.  Have you ever noticed a room lighten up-almost immediately after someone new enters a shared space, where the air just felt heavy with an attached negative vibe?  If so, you might have been the free recipient of some turkey’s shared blessing.  Turkey’s strength lies in their numbers.  When consuming their energy, turkey has the potential to awaken inner vision, feminine energies and infinite possibilities.  In our modern world of 10, 000 things and bling-bling, the more humanity consciously consumes turkey’s positive spirited energy, the more we co-create a more equitable and sustainable New Earth.  Isn’t this just another utopia (or dystopia), ego-centered labeling mechanism describing a totalitarian new world order, communism, socialism and/or devilishly fixed idea of Heaven?  No.  What we are talking about right here, right now is a perceptual shift in consciousness, starting at the intrinsic, individual state of consciousness and reflecting back that picture of the world around us.  From the perspective of Great Spirit, turkey reflects win-win scenarios where abundance is available for all of us to share.  We become the change we want to see in the world. 

Have folks caught wind of the forecast that Wal-Mart workers will strike on Black Friday?  Don’t we already have way too much stuff?  How much money do the heirs to the Wal-Mart empire really need anyway?  Is it really too much to ask that the working folks of Wal-Mart earn a livable wage, with access to the same health care as Wal-Mart’s top dawgs enjoy?  Cheap for me to say, I’ve hardly shopped at Wal-Mart since it came on the scene.  However, when I pass one of their stores, I imagine the building running on renewable energy, with a greenhouse-like park atop its structure and a garden-like oasis that families and children can safely enjoy.  Maybe a sweet penthouse nestles there, like an oversized wolf den, where the landlords and groundskeepers live like Hobbits, boroughed within the structure.  But I digress.  We have much suffering, polarity and disparity on Earth today.  Climate Change is forecasting stormy weather that is affecting the way we live.  Are we going to allow ourselves to get in alignment with Nature, or are we going to resist the changes in weather so within and as reflected in our outer world?  To date, we humans have been so outer directed in our program development.  And yet, we are pre-wired to evolve into our Higher Selves, where the cosmetic and insatiable old world of the dying ego is losing its grip on our plight.  Great Spirit resides within all of us, just waiting to awaken to flow like a fountain of youth that gives freely and replenishing itself endlessly.  When we enough of us awaken within ourselves by welcoming turkey’s shared blessings, we simultaneously co-create an egalitarian human family of politicians, business folk, movers and shakers and salt of the Earth folks that intuitively know reciprocity and egoless harmonic giving and receiving.  At this moment in time, we will see turkey’s meditations reflected more clearly in our internal experience with external reality, with an unfolding convergence.

Being present is not always easy.  In fact, it is easier to be distracted from the present moment, hypnotically lost in the robotic doings, than to merge with it.  Yes, there is an endless commentary from the voice in the head that feeds off incessant, predominately unconscious and mostly repetitively negative thoughts and the accompanying choir of emotional reactions.  When we become aware that we are aware, we create space around our thoughts and attached emotional reactions.  The more frequently we become a passive observer, the more we are equipped to watch this drama unfold like a movie before our eyes, without reacting to it.  When this becomes an integral part of our daily walking meditation, we start replacing those pesky soap operas, by consciously choosing to co-direct a solution focused script.  Perhaps the ring tone of this melody sounds like a John Lennon earworm singing, I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.  In dreaming a new dream, solutions are our focus, rather than creating problems that the ego insatiably feeds on.  The most important prayer, if you will, is to carry an attitude of gratitude with what is happening right now in this present moment.  Find a way to say thank you to whatever the situation might bring.  Like a vampire bite, dark emotions carry venom.  Bloody serious.  Why not sink your teeth into turkey to ward off foul food for thought?  In spirit of birds of a feather flocking together, use this energy to drink in the turkey medicine in you, pass it on and be pleasantly full. 

Stay True,

Ari

Porcupine Medicine

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I remember hearing stories of some Native American tribes using porcupine needles for acupuncture.  While most of us think about acupuncture, yoga and other meditations as arriving to us as gifts from the East, a closer look points us to these same treasures being available right here in the Americas.  Perhaps the Fountain of Youth, in much the same way as the Holy Grail was the relentless pursuit for what is already available to all of us, if only we allow for it.  While hiking in the woods yesterday, I exchanged pleasantries with a nice couple along the path.  Moments thereafter, I heard a rustling in the leaves and noticed a young porcupine schlepping along as only our prickly rodent friends can.  I called out to my hiking friends and we all enjoyed watching porcupine with a renewed sense of wonder and childhood curiosity and innocence.  Had I been too distracted by taking in the radiant falling leaves or been too invested in fantastic imaginative realms, I would have missed the opportunity to indulge in the encounter with porcupine and share it with a larger participatory audience in the theater of life.

Did anyone out there see the recent presidential debate between the typically cool President Obama and mild-mannered challenger Mitt Romney?  I only made it through about a third of the event, when I started fighting off demons.  Was it just me, or did Obama’s energy radiate flat Chi?  I tried to imagine how I would have felt, or my wife for that matter, if our anniversary was celebrated by a big money corporate event, like a professional sports playoff game.  In our developmentally delayed culture in the USA, we thrive on winners and losers and spend relentlessly on winning a desired outcome.  In professional football, bounties are offered as incentive to exploit an edge and it’s the same way in with respect to the top dawgs in politics.  For example, in the ego-centered debate, our two-headed, one-party system is censored by a Corporate mob that will cut to a commercial if real issues are discussed in a truthful light.  If votes really didn’t count, then big money would not try to block certain populations from voting.  What are they afraid of?  Here in America, we have been so indoctrinated by Corporate propaganda to believe that democracy, capitalism and a free market are the same thing.  I still believe in a free for service economy that looks more like a philosophical free market based on bartering.  However, a more immediate and pragmatic solution is to infuse spiritual values into capitalism, where cooperation and competition are balanced and a round-table approach where circles are valued, rather than the dying linear, top-down and hierarchical approach that mirrors what we see on the tele.  By focusing on our inner spiritual development, seeing the silver lining and making only positive interpretations will take us to the Promised Land so within, as without.  Rather than worrying about whether right-winger Mitt Romney wins the election or not, focus on porcupines medicine to release our judgments, perceive beyond the veil of separation and experience Unity with Creator and All That Is.

Many of us on the spiritual path become too serious and forget the innocence and humility of what the energy of porcupine has to offer us, by remembering playfulness and curiosity as a way of life.  Many adults get too bogged down in trying to be too intellectual or trapped in the vicious cycle of greed and fear.  However, Great Spirit has a Divine Plan and we all have the freedom to get into alignment with that.  There is a much bigger picture going on than political victories.  If we have faith in Divine Intervention and we become the change we want to see in the world, by letting go of outcome, then we know that the Kingdom of Heaven is everywhere, provided we stay awake with an open heart.  Porcupine helps our energy flow in a healthy direction toward healing, rather than becoming stuck in victim consciousness with whatever shame and guilt we might feel.  These negative energies of our lower chakras are meant to serve and inform us about ourselves.  Once we understand and accept their messages, typically vis-a-vis bodily signals, then we are equipped to release their dysfunctional stories and co-create something new.  Porcupine is merely one point that works to stimulate energetic alignment in climbing onward in our journey together–especially as we leave behind a dying world and move closer to fine in a whole New World.

Stay True,

Ari

Falling Back, Bees Are Leaving Us Behind

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I remember taking in a sweet breath of life recently and couldn’t help but notice a bee entangled in a spider web.  Some moments later, I felt tangled up in blue as I observed the spider drinking in life by draining the bee’s righteous Chi.  Perhaps some folks would judge the spider as a killer and sentence him to a death sentence as well.  But Nature has Her own way and in this case and as I look back, this experience past was the death of all of us.  In fact, Autumn has arrived here in the Northern Hemisphere and the leaves greenery are waning, while the vibrant colors are waxing.  Masculine summer’s light is also waning, as we are naturally slowing down and welcoming the darkness of night rising.  Light and dark are in equal alignment with one another, reminding us that balancing our energies is natural, if not normal.  We all have masculine and feminine energies waxing and waning within our Beings, always in flux, whether realized or not.  Nothing against cosmetic surgery and performance enhancement drugs, but I wonder how costly these enterprises would be if human beings were supported and encouraged to naturally find comfort in our own skins?  Would it be so challenging to find that deep place of self-esteem that says to thyself, I’m OK.  Although watching a bee get whacked was unsettling in the sense that the bee was part of me, at the same time, I thanked the bee for bringing balance to the Force by offering itself to spider and sharing its consciousness with the rest of us.  Perhaps we won’t see any bees for a while, but we are still capable of ingesting their medicine by meditating on the sweetness of life.  Maybe burning a candle made of beeswax will rekindle their power and facilitate the cross-pollination process in raising the consciousness of the planet as we approach the Winter Solstice in December, the darkest day of the year.  What will happen at this significant time on Nature’s cycle? 

Does anyone in the participatory audience remember when Beatles founding father John Lennon sang the anthem Give Peace A Chance?  Well, as I reflect on the Autumn Equinox and Peace on Earth, let it begin with me.  And if you are reading, let it begin with you.  My soulful wife once gave me a card that reminded me that peace does not come from being in an environment of comfortable bliss surrounding me like a security blanket.  Rather, peace is found in the depths of a calm heart, even when chaos abounds.  For the record, I know some of you appreciate and enjoy the way this blog playfully weaves the spirited animal energy into the material realm, while conjuring up positive vibes that feel good.  If that is the case, then perhaps it conjures up empathy for the drug addict that tries to stay high all the time in the ether because hitting the ground is too painful and suffering, though inevitable, is avoided at all costs.  But a key dynamic in the spiritual path is that meditation shows us inconvenient truths about ourselves in that quiet space.  We have the potential to get to know ourselves on a deeper level and make friends with that.  However, I also recognize and appreciate that some readers, like the drug addict, do not like the smack down that they feel when this blog explores the harsh realities that are happening on our planet today.  While I appreciate this position, the mystic swims in the waters the addict drowns in.  This blog will continue to explore healing the polarity consciousness that currently divides us on Mother Earth and co-facilitate the transition into a New Age and Paradigm, where we celebrate the good times of Diversity within Unity.  Instead of God Bless America, we say God Bless The Planet and Universe throughout.  When I gaze on the lyrics of Genesis, it’s almost as if I can hear Peter Gabriel singing let us create humankind in our image.  Now I realize that everything should be taken with a grain of salt.  Moreover, a conservative interpretation of these lyrics, for those who like to take things literally, could be that we were genetically engineered by advanced beings from another planet.  Perhaps a more liberal perspective might view God as a transcendent Collective Energy that allows for the evolution of His-Her co-creation that illuminates as we wake up from our slumber, here on Mothership Earth.  Yes, there is a concrete sense of security in a dogmatic fixed idea of believing in a white man sitting up on a hierarchical throne with a gavel deciding who is permitted to join the Country Club and whom will be punished in a slow roast.  But Heaven and Hell are subjective inner states of consciousness that are reflected in our outer reality.  All we really have is right now, this precious moment that is always eternal.

As humans, when we get stuck in our fixed ideas and box ourselves in the ghettos of the mind with intellectual concepts and emotional reactions thereof, we tend to experience security in our consciousness that tastes like comfort food.  However, as we move onward in our collective assent, we expand and open up to the increasing spirited energies that are streaming in our planet right Tao.  Some folks will react to these energies unconsciously and that is their right.  Yes, there are more natural disasters, wars, poverty, famines and disconnection among the human factor with relation to Nature, though paradoxically more technologically connected.  But there is security in knowing that there is predictability in unpredictability.  If one way doesn’t work, another way will.  Together, we climb onward in surface and depth, one breath, one moment, one step at a time. 

Stay True,

Ari

If It Quacks Like A Duck

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I remember hearing about stories from the porch when Great Grandfather and other relatives drank home-made vino, played cards, sang “these songs of freedom” and laughed a lot, despite their poverty and otherwise very depressing circumstances.  In the backdrop of the USA, it was the era known as “The Great Depression”.  Although they lived in St. Louis, the word out on the street here in Maine is that most folks were poor back then as many still are today, so who knew the difference?  Although the “times they are a changin'”, the top dawgs are still sitting atop the pyramid and our “friends in Congress” are even more out of touch on channel Tao than they were back Zen.  President Gas officially came out of the closet this week saying that he officially supports marriage for all human beings, regardless of how they are oriented.  But the burning question that I still have for the fossils that fuel the American political scene and beyond is this:  is Coke or Pepsi democrat or republican?  What would happen if the powers that were and the masses of us tapped into the free healthcare of duck medicine?  I wonder what would happen if we all meditated on duck’s spirited energy of balance, emotional comfort, adaptability and sense of adventure?  Would our one human family co-create a more equitable and sustainable planet, where birds of a feather flock together and we feather one another’s ripple in Unity Consciousness, even while celebrating the good times of our diversity? 

As we swim on the surface of Classroom Mothership Earth, the dinosaurs refuse to scale back the liberal excesses of the corporate mafia that bribe the government.  The protection of the current status quo-business as usual-bottom line-ends justifying the means mentality is toxic and poisonous to our public and private interests.  This developmentally delayed perspective is especially revealed vis-a-vis corporate propaganda and its tentacles that keeps us programmed in reptilian boxes that make it difficult to see beyond the illusion that bullies us into thinking that we are separate and disconnected.  In much the same way as a paternalistic slave master, our own governor here in Maine reminds us of the old saying that “appetite comes with eating.”  Yes, it is a win-win when “able-bodied” folks “get of the couch and get a job”.  But, excuse me mister governor, but “who payin’ you?”  When our own Constitution systemically fails to honor promoting the “general welfare” of our citizenry, then “able-bodied” folks with anxiety, depression and a myriad of other unaddressed and often undiagnosed mental health and health needs are making self-defeating choices as small businesses sail away on your clock.  In a truly intellectually free thinking society, even every third grader understands that when you slash programs that provide a safety net and encourage what social scientists call resiliency to the masses, then predictably we see and digest the bitter reality of homelessness, emergency room costs, arrests, hospitalizations and incarcerations wax just like the waning Full Moon.  On a global scale, Wal-Mart keeps slashing wages as rebellion erupted this past week somewhere in Asia and I am being bloody serious when I report that the proliferation of genetically engineered foods and Wi-Fi are feeding off our energy fields like a bunch of invisible vampires.  The dying gods of the old world are terrified to unplug from their liberally militaristic ways because they have become attached to the pacifier of the military-industrial complex.  What would happen if the real blood sucking welfare vampires were being targeted and questioned?  But we know that the dominant forces and the hidden hand in society likes to remain unexamined.  Now, if I am looking at all this through the spirited lens of duck consciousness, that would be a foul ball!

When we dive into the deeper waters of life, we are able to perceive into the realm of Infinity, where Intention awaits, infinite possibilities abound and solutions are revealed.  When we fly over an aerial view of the iceberg, we see that what lies beneath the mere tip is a much larger mountain.  If only the folks who cry “social Darwinism” and assert “that’s just the way it is” would open up to the wisdom that it is less about Nature versus Nurture and more about Nature and Nurture always co-creating and interacting with One another 100% of the time, in any given moment.  In much the same way as duck, when we effectively learn to navigate land, air and water, we become equipped to dive into our emotional nature.  Further, when we nurture our emotional selves, we learn to soar into the heavens.  In this way, we co-create Heaven on Earth, one step, one moment, one breath at a time.  And just as Rome was not built-in a day, building A New Earth is a process, not without its labor pains.  Will we allow for duck to assist us in staying afloat on Mothership Earth and alleviate creating suffering for Our Selves?

Stay True,

Ari

Cleansing with Frog

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I remember driving to play with the boys in the band the other evening and feeling particularly spirited while listening to the peepers singing in a wetlands choir, if you will.  Although I clearly heard their messages about cleaning and purification, the lyrics arrived more telepathically and clairaudiently than in words of human language.  In fact, just the other day I hopped into a friend in the community and we traded awareness that now is the time to get back into balance and purify the soul.  One way to feed our souls and nourish our mind-body-spirit connection is to fuel our human vessel by awakening the fruitarian, vegan and/or vegetarian within by eating foods that follow that suit.  Even if only for a day or three, what an experiential opportunity to detoxify and purify.  In the spirit of co-creative exchanges while building a New Earth together, I wonder how you will feel after such an action plan?   

Part of walking with one foot in spirit and one foot in ground is to wash the dirty laundry and reduce, reuse and recycle.  For example, I visited our recycling center today to release dead weight and then ventured to the redemption center to return bottles.  Following that, I felt more free and less bottled up inside.  Does anyone else out there feel more alive when they release judgements of self and others?  I enjoyed my co-creative connection with Mother Earth after venturing out in nature and invoking frog’s energy to call the rains to quench Her thirst and inundate our planet to cool it now.  Does anyone else feel the presence of God when they gently allow negative thinking and emotional patterns to pass with care?  The waters in our life is asking us to flow.  When we become stagnant, our water element becomes polluted and we radiate that outward onto the world around us.  Don’t we have enough of that outside of our control?  I Am inspired to know the Unity Consciousness that I am One with everything and yet a diverse expression of that Oneness.  Do you hear what I hear?  Do you see what I see?  Can’t you hear the thunder?

If you find yourself feeling tired, overloaded, hurried, frustrated, guilty, itchy, nervous, at a loss, empty or weakened, perhaps you might benefit from meditating on frog’s medicine.  Who knows, maybe taking a relaxed, peaceful deep breath, while picturing the rains cleansing your Being and then exhaling your inner demons to see the light of day will lighten you up?  And why not get near water, unplug and listen to the sound of silence?  If you have access to a tub, taking a long bath is a nice way to relax and stay afloat as we swim through these changing tides.  If only the fundraising genius of the Amphibian and his “friends in Congress” would reduce their appetite for destruction, invest less in guns and awaken their frog totems and work its energy in the positive?  Could President Alfred E. Newman and his homies inside the Beltway facilitate a transformation of our global economy into a more equitable structure than the one we currently maintain?  Was it John Lennon or Ferris Beuler who imagined us stopping and smelling the roses, rather than getting stuck in the business of making plans?  Do you dream about our human consciousness flowering into something beautiful? 

Stay True,

Ari

When flying high in Heaven, please remember to keep your talons firmly rooted in the Earth

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While driving home from school the other day, a bald eagle feathered my ripple as I noticed him effortlessly riding the thermals, then swooping down and gracefully landing on the ground adjacent to my car.  While I was inebriated by the spirited experience and I felt pleasantly full in the moment I ate it, the digestion process was soon the death of me, as I kept my foot on the pedal and my eyes on the road.  Moreover, I counted my blessings of eagle’s powerfully passionate reminders that we are pre-wired to hear the voice of spirit, albeit programmed to hear the voice of ego.  This is not always easy to discern, especially in our modern world, where it is so convenient to merely change the channel if we don’t like what we see and/or hear.  Yes, I understand how our Founding Fathers were inundated by eagle’s sacred nature, even if this powerfully Divine animal totem’s spiritual significance is often misunderstood.  For example, within the current nightmare we collectively share, we are told that we should worship a bigoted, ego-centered mantra that tells us that the better the devil we know old guard should be feared like a metallic atomic bomber that might blow us all up if we do not conform to the illusion of “separate but equal”.  But who has most bombs (the good guys) and who has illegally sold them in backdoor deals that are glossed over with double-talk by our well paid talking heads in TVland (the good guys)?

Speaking of TVland, was anyone paying attention to Eddie Haskell’s recent decision to bow out of the presidential race to dethrone president Obama?  I realize the truth that you cannot be a good propagandist unless it is deeply in your bones.  But “fast” Eddie, I’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with you.  I remember when I went to college out in Western Pennsylvania many years ago.  Back then, you had “all the right moves” and your effective campaigns were fueled by negative ads, spinning tough guy conservative politics and christiancentric religiosity–and you just would not leave the Beaver alone back then either.  Have you and your “friends in Congress” not yet seen the Warren Beatty film, “Bullworth”?  “Yo, the people got their problems, the have and the have-nots, but those that make me listen pay for 30 second spots.”  Why is it that you and your big governmental “friends in Congress” are so eager to force our taxpayer dollars to liberally support your own salary, pension, universal healthcare and other bennies, even after your term has long run its course, but deny the rest of us equal access to concrete services?  If you are really a Christian, who would Jesus bomb and why not level the playing field for the rest of us that belong to the overwhelming majority?  Are we not too part of His flock?  Are you saying that you and your homies inside the Beltway prefer behaving like a bunch of communists, in violation of pretty much every conceivable free-market principle, at the expense of being bribed by the excesses of socialist, oligarchical mega-corporations?  Further, are you saying that those of us who do not belong to the exclusive country club should be incinerated if we do not agree to “shut up and shop?”  Who payin’ you?

But I didn’t write this blog entry to change the “world of 10, 000 things” in one fell swoop and divide my phat cat brothers and sisters that are acting like top dawgs while sitting atop the 1 % of the pyramid, from the 99 % of us.  If only the “minority of the opulent” awakens to the awareness that by co-creating an equilateral triangle, you guys will probably still be on top, but we will all float more buoyantly on the waters of Life.  See Eddie, it’s somewhat akin to your relationship with your old friends Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver–you never really pulled the wool over them either.  Rather, Ward and June showed you respect because they were respectful, even though they realized what a gifted method actor you were, when in reality you were merely putting up a front.  And while the Beave didn’t like getting bullied by you, Wally must have seen glimpses of your True Self because he still considered you a friend.  And like Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver, I am hoping you and your peers in powerful positions of power will mature in a way that developmentally realizes that we are all connected, a la what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.  I am hopeful that you will join us in transforming the current developmentally delayed paradigm that says the fittest dawgs and phattest cats get to party like it’s 1999, but the rest of us should be resorting to cannibalism.  Perhaps there was a time for that kind of all you can eat buffet, but that time is dying and now is the time to cook up something new, puns intended.  But don’t take my word for it, perhaps the energy of Hannibal Lectur would be more convincing and you would prefer to chew on his wisdom that says, “we covet what we see, Clarice.”

Stay True,

Ari

A Soaring Eagle in flight, Passing O’er a Full Moon’s Twilight

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Has anyone out there seen the Twilight film saga?  Beneath the surface of the film’s scintillating radiance or dismissing it as merely a pop-culture hit, I prefer taking an Eagle eye view, rather than a cursory glance.  I remember a brotherly friend commenting last week that “flying high gives us a perspective we cannot have when holding our stuff so close.  And as tempting as it is to leave it all behind, it may be easier to chop off an arm or a leg.”  I couldn’t agree with him more.  When We shapeshift Our Selves from how We appear externally to others, We transform into something greater than Our little ego, into the Light of Consciousness within.  And as that happens, We begin to see the world around Us change before Our eyes.  Easter Sunday is a good reminder to know the “I Am” Christ Consciousness within You.  It doesn’t matter what religion, if any, that You belong to or don’t belong to.  We need to move beyond beliefs, mental concepts and worshiping the bigoted God of Opinion that puts the voice of the ego in charge, rather than the deeper, soulful Presence of Who We Really Are.

While missing out at our last communal gathering was the death of me, one of my brothers at The Clubhouse reminded me that part of Buddhist philosophy is to walk the razor’s edge of life–without getting too swayed in any direction, while releasing Our attachments along the Way.  Moreover, whether feeling madly in love with a partner, enraged that Facebook plans to exclude women on its board when it goes public, the recent Trayvon Martin slaying or the greedy 1% top dawgs sitting like phat cats atop the pyramid hoarding the resources from the 99 % of Us–We need to learn to walk in the center of the circle in a balanced way a la “one foot in spirit, one foot in ground.”  Easier said than done when Goliath bullies David to the point where David has had enough and fights back, in much the same way as when “Jeremy spoke in class today.”  No, I don’t know the experience of being pulled over for DWB (driving while black), but I do understand what it’s like to be profiled and looked upon as an outcast.  I don’t have to tunnel very far down into the roots of my own family tree to remember Great Grandfather being attacked in his own home, taken away and beaten by the Ku Klux Clan for being a Catholic Italian-American immigrant, whom slaved in the coal mines, before Unions and the New Deal helped level corporate greed and exploitation. 

How many of You out there have been revisited recently by folks from your past in Your consciousness?  What do those relationships from Our past have to teach Us about Our Selves and Our developmental process here on Classroom Mothership Earth?  Isn’t it interesting that Hitler said that if he had it his way, he’d prefer to come back to the USA because we had a much greater harness on propaganda than Nazi Germany?  And that was Zen my friend and this is right Tao.  Now We have a Corporate Media led conservative business like Fox News that reveal the tension of opposites by calling their news “fair and balanced”, but like in George Orwell’s 1984, behind the “telescreen”, We see the opposite is true.  In my dreaming of a free for service economy, We co-create novel ways to pool together Our resources in win-win scenarios by thinking systemically.  We celebrate Diversity in Unity and stay afloat on an equilateral triangle.  In my spirited dance, my plea to the top dawgs asserts that We can all win and You really won’t know the difference because You will still be on top and will feel better about sharing because it won’t feel like a charitable duty and sacrifice.  Really, it will feel as natural as crystal clear water!

Stay True,

Ari