Broken Selves

We go through life searching for the fragments of our broken selves. Those pieces are within us all along, but we do not know it.

Instead, they seem to be in the possession of others whom we must find. Destiny leads us to the people holding our missing fragments.

When such a one is discovered, our impulse is to claim that person. He or she seems precious as a jewel, a reflection of what we most desire.

But wholeness comes from discerning that it is not someone else we must claim, but our own selves. That sliver they seem to hold, and the power over us that it represents, needs to return.

This is a key not only to our freedom, but to the sliver-bearer's as well. Reclaiming our power is a gift both to ourselves and to the one who has borne the burden (though involuntarily or even unconsciously) of our unmet need.

When our power returns and is amalgamated with its source within, rest and peace can become realities.

We are then able to hold the restored globe of our lives calmly, and consider its manifest possibilities with the full attention of an undivided and undiluted self.

We cannot realistically serve the world at large until we have served the world within,

by uniting its disparate fragments into a unified and coherent whole.

The Unknowable

The Unknowable requires total trust.

Without trust, whatever is happening or might happen seems threatening. And whatever has happened seems a mistake.

Trust assumes that everything is in God's hands and that His will is operative to bring about goodness.

Past, Present, Future

The present doesn’t connect with the past anymore. Nor the future. The trajectory between them has been broken, aborted. The future can’t reach the past through the present.

When the polarities of past and future are trying unsuccessfully to connect with each other via the present, the experience of living becomes hellish, a nightmare of dashed hopes and dreams from which one desires escape at any cost.

The message gets presented in a way that can’t be side-stepped: acutely painful life circumstances in which no resolution seems likely. Even holding out hope represents another return to the vain and frustrating search for a connection that has disappeared.

This is experienced as a profound discontinuity. Of course, “future” and “past” are only thought forms, but emotional energy is bound to them. And when this energy cannot flow from one side to the other – it sits within bodily cells churning and uncomfortable.

But release, if it can be called that, is possible, and comes from consciously accepting the complete uncertainty of continual change. It comes from relinquishing both past and future and abiding NOW in the presence of The Unknowable.


This present moment is one’s only safe place – the only place where actual peace can occur. And from this place it is possible to get a clearer perspective on the history of the past and expectation of the future – to view these from a point of detachment free from emotional energy.

This severing of past and future could be represented by the Tarot Tower key, in which a lightning bolt knocks the inhabitants out of their realm in the airy mental regions and dashes them to the ground of acceptance.

The intensity of the shock leads to surrender- when past and future can no longer connect, the heart has no alternative but to embrace the present as its only reality.

Wisdom Listens

"Wisdom listens quietly while others talk."

Boris Rafferty (2012-2073)

An alert blog reader has passed on this timely article from Carl Johan Calleman:

9.9.9. and the Mayan Calendar

The number nine has been endowed with a special significance in many different spiritual and religious traditions. Nine was the number of muses in Greek mythology and Nine were the number of worlds in the Scandinavian. Nine was the number of doors to the holiest part of the temple in Jerusalem and the month of Ramadan is the Ninth in the Muslim calendar. Moreover, the counting system used by most of the world today includes nine numbers and so the relevance of this number is much ingrained in us. Also, in the Mayan tradition the number Nine plays a predominating role. The only existing inscription from ancient times that discusses the meaning of the Mayan calendar “end date” for instance speaks of Nine “deities” that will descend then as its crucial event. This would in modern wording mean that Nine energies, or Nine cosmic forces would fully manifest then since the ancient Maya would look upon time periods as “deities”. As far as we can tell these “deities”, or cosmic forces, are like evolutionary wave movements, built on top of one another where we are currently riding on the eighth one getting ready to ride on the ninth.


The Nine Cosmic levels (Underworlds) that according to the only existing Mayan inscription about the calendar end date (Tortuguero monument 6) will manifest then. Currently we are in the eighth level (The Galactic Underworld) gearing up to the Ninth and highest level, the Universal Underworld. Photo of the Pyramid of the Jaguar in Tikal by the author.)

In the manifestation of these evolutionary waves we may now as we approach the Ninth level notice an amazing synchronicity. This is that the upcoming date 9.9.9 (September 9, 2009 in the Gregorian calendar) happens to coincide with the beginning of a Mayan Sacred Calendar count of 260 days. Hence, in this calendar, in use since 3000 years, the modern date 9.9.9 has the energy of Hun Imix, or 1 Alligator as its English translation reads, which happens to be the first of its energetic combinations. If we ponder what this synchronicity may be telling us the most natural conclusion to draw is that on this particular date we are called to focus on the number nine and especially the Ninth level of the Mayan calendar system, whose coming into existence we are soon about to witness.

I believe that behind these cosmic forces, whose times of activation are described by the Mayan calendar, is an intelligent plan for the history of humanity that comes from a higher source and has a benevolent intention. To realize this is also to understand the importance of the guidance regarding how to follow this plan that we may gain from the calendar of the Maya. These nine cosmic forces are influencing and in fact governing our collective consciousness and so we have every reason to pay attention to what is going on in this cosmic time plan.

Synchronicities can often be interpreted in different ways, but if they are profound they always deserve our attention. 9.9.9, three Nines in a row, may for instance be seen as symbolic of three sacred calendar rounds of 260 days that will now in three steps lead us to the completion of the Ninth level of evolution which is its highest level. To the best of our knowledge this highest energy state of the universe will be attained on the energy 13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13 13 Ahau (13 and Ahau are symbols of completion in the Mayan calendar) on the Gregorian date October 28, 2011. This highest state does not in any sense mean the end of the world, but only that all the Nine wave movements are then completed. Maybe we can use the metaphor that we are now about to climb the last hard steps of a ladder until we climb on to the roof where we will find a new stability under our feet and a place to rest.

Regardless of what this final climb will mean we thus have reasons to expect an unprecedented period of change in a very short period of time. This is partly because we are entering the final phase of the eighth level of evolution and partly because a wave movement of a very high frequency, the Ninth level, will radically come to transform the collective consciousness in such a way that we will see the world in an entirely different light. It is for this reason that in the three upcoming Sacred Calendar rounds that follow upon 9.9.9 we will need to network and focus our intentions so that they converge in the birth of a new world. This is all the more important as there are several sources that seem to indicate that the sixth night of the Galactic Underworld, beginning on November 8, 2009, may come to generate a deep downturn in the world’s economy.

The first of these 260-day Sacred Calendar rounds, the one which actually begins on 9.9.9 and goes on until May 26, 2010, may be seen as a period of build-up to the Ninth level that is suitable for prayer, meditation and mental focusing. We encourage community building, networking and spiritual synchronization in this time period, also of a practical nature. The second 260 calendar round, starting 27.05.10 will create a preliminary arrival of the Ninth level and the beginning of this will be marked by the Cosmic Convergence, July 17-18, a significant focus point for spiritual projects of a practical nature that will prepare for the birth of a new world. The third Sacred Calendar round of 260 days will begin February 11, 2011 and includes the actual activation of the Ninth level, the Universal Underworld on March 8, 2011. This may be the most dramatic of the three steps as it leads up to the establishment of the highest energy state of the universe on October 28, 2011.

I believe that through these three steps, three Sacred Calendar rounds, starting on 9.9.9: 1/ Build-up, 2/ Preparatory Ninth level and 3/ Actual Ninth level of the evolution of the cosmos, the universe is now about to deliver what it has been striving towards all along, the establishment of a new level of consciousness, a unity consciousness. I also believe that the Ninth level is designed especially to generate such a unity consciousness, which will transform all of human society. For the human race it will mean very big challenges and opportunities. These changes will however not happen by themselves and need to be manifested by the human beings themselves who may then chose to resist or welcome them. From this perspective we may thus look at the date 9.9.9 not only as a numerological curiosity to celebrate, but also as an opportunity for us to focus on and embrace the participation of humanity in a transformation process of a very large scale, the one brought by the Ninth level of the Cosmos.

From what we may understand of the Mayan calendar the unity consciousness will set an end to all forms of dominance of one human over another and especially those generated by the left brain. What this likely will mean is that instruments of dominance, such as the current financial system, weapons, national borders and many other structures upholding authority in this process will come to crumble as an effect of this unity consciousness coming into existence and so conclude with the birth of a new world where a divine harmony characterize the human relations. This end to dominance will also affect the relationship between the genders on a global scale that as a result will profoundly shift. Needless to say, there will never be any return to business as usual. Instead we will need to approach the birth of the new world consciously and with an intention of co-creating it in a positive sense and not just react to the various difficulties that lie ahead. I believe that such a collective intention of co-creating the new world will be the best way of easing the consequences of these difficulties.

Although what is starting on 9.9.9 is only the build-up phase to the Ninth level, this date is nonetheless a very important focusing point since the timing of the continued preparations for the emergence of this level are of the essence. From this follows that the more practical projects that will start to manifest in the Cosmic Convergence, July 17-18 2010 as the name implies, will have to be based on an understanding that the very framework of the human existence and of consciousness will be dramatically expanded. The expansion of human consciousness is what will bring the socio-economic transformation at a time when the hardships of the old systems may be expected to be painfully felt also by nations that currently may been considered as wealthy. As the Ninth level is finally activated our identities will come to be defined in a much expanded spiritual framework.

This article comes much too late to encourage people more broadly to focus and intend together for the future. Nonetheless, many will celebrate the 9.9.9 date regardless (see for example http://www.fredpajorden.se/sida21.html ). The purpose of my present article is then only to inform those that will be celebrating this date anyway, that indeed this is not just a numerological curiosity in the Gregorian calendar, but that the date plays a profound objective role in the cosmic plan as we may understand this from the Mayan calendar directly leading up to the birth of a new world through the Ninth level, 9.9.9. It is an ideal time to participate in prayers and meditations with the focus and intention of co-creating a new and better world. Additional tools for networking and communication with the focus on the Cosmic Convergence, July 17-18, 2012 will be developed as we go along. 9.9.9 may be seen as an initial and modest initial call for the co-creation of the birth of a new world.

Malmö, September 6, 2009 (11 Edznab)
Carl Johan Calleman

The Blank Rune

The Blank Rune has come to me,
both as present circumstance and inner state.

The slate is wiped clean as endings are fulfilled
and all that formerly was
becomes as though it never had been.

Nothing is yet written upon the fresh unmarked surface
as emptiness waits to be replenished with unknown newness.

The Blank Rune calls for total trust in what cannot be seen,
courage and an empty-handed leap into the void.

It portends, nay promises, a death.

Rebirth shall come, but who will be its witnesses?

Hard Stories

"I have seen the place that looks at the stories of the world.

and to it, all the stories are the same -

even such a hard one as mine.

There are no easier and no harder stories;

no simpler or more complex ones.

They are all just the background noise of human existence,

having only as much significance

as a person's belief in them."

Boris Rafferty (2012-2073)

Land of My Youth

"I will return again to the land of my youth,

Where my heart knew peace,

And testify that God is in all

And has never looked away."

Boris Rafferty (2012-2073)

Beauty in Poverty

It is most important to open up in depth and truth, to be present where we are and a contributor to life around us.

There is beauty everywhere, but the poverty-stricken do not perceive it.

The work of spiritual maturation and renewal requires allowing life's harrowing experiences to open our hearts for the sake of others. Through our own hurts we become sensitized to the wounds of others.

So that we learn to be the soothing touch

that we ourselves desire to receive.

Being

The perception of “story” fades and floats out of reach. From this place I sense my inner life as distinct from its painful, confusing outer manifestation, filled with drama and dilemma. This is where I need to live and breathe all the time.

The shocks and traumas I have carried inside are dramatically played out on an external stage, where the ego wanders destitute and mad in a sub-current of endless despair.

But there IS an escape, a true escape, that comprehends these external dynamics as historical, not eternal.

They are to be accepted, and the feelings they touch released, resolved. They are to be allowed full expression within the awareness of a greater Life that is not diminished or compromised by them.

That greater Life embraces all possible human experience; nothing is to be shunned as unfit or unworthy, shameful or defeating.

The range and depth of these testifies to the richness of being.

And being is not disturbed or threatened

by anything.

Learning to Love

Learning to Love

The challenge is this:

What is hidden inside must be exposed and examined
Before right action can be taken.

Pain is apparently an effective agent of motivation for exposing and examining what is hidden inside.

It is important to be ready to learn, to adopt and accept a higher paradigm and potential.

To see in oneself how the ego’s three modes of “wanting, frustrated wanting, and indifference” (according to Eckhart Tolle) have operated, and to seek instead to learn to love without manipulation.

This means, so far as it has come to me now, to love without hopes or expectations. To love without anticipating a return on that love, to love as though – or even though - no physical, emotional or mental sharing was to be the receipt.

I want to learn this.

I am willing to expose and examine what is hidden inside
so right action can be taken.

I want to be a light,

I want to lift burdens rather than add to them.

I want to learn to love.

Live Without Wanting

"The purpose of this session is not

To give you what you want,

But to teach you to live

Without wanting."

Trust

Trust

The distant stars speed through space,

Yet appear unmoving to our eyes.

Their seemingly constant orientation

Reflecting infinite patterns of cosmic meaning

Into our tiny, vast human experience.


The grand work of the Universe thus proceeds

Unceasingly, unerringly, patiently.

Each increment of the soul's spectrum

Being allowed its gradual growth into fullness,

What was known transforming into unknown -

What was unknown into known.


Oh Peace! Oh Heaven!

Let me trust the Great Unfolding

As it courses through this life!


Let me trust the Great Love holding,

As a dear and beloved angel,

My little light.

Beneath the Waves

Beneath the Waves

Let me drift
Beneath the clamoring, clattering waves,
Beneath the shouts and shocks of superficial surface
To the cool green below
The mysteriously comforting depth
The tranquil truth, the reassuring reality, the solicitous solitude
Let me sink, fall and dissolve
Into the peaceful particles at the bottom
Secluded from the turbulence above, engulfed by loving liquid arms
Let me be a gentle ripple
Within the vast, mesmerizing current of cool, calm consciousness
A ripple known and loved by the Great Water
Infinitely small, yet possessed and protected by what is
Beyond all measure and limit

In my peace, in my sanctuary of serene, embracing hope
I shall think of you my friend
You whose disparate though unified particles
Mingle with my own
Whose similar ripple
Passes through my own
Whose cherished aspect
Resonates with my own
You who are so intimately familiar
As to no longer be considered completely distinct
I shall look to your mirror
And wonder in awe at the miracle
Of Boundless Love
In the Great Water

The Last

Wilson spent
His last day working on the engineering network
His last hour putting together a fantasy football team
His last minute instant messaging on the Web
His last second eating a donut

Wilson spent
The last day
The last hour
The last minute
The last second
Thinking there was more time to spend than there was

Now everyone in the office talks in whispers
Faced for a few searing moments
With the unrelenting fierceness of life
And of its eventual absence

Bewildered by an authority greater than their own
That can remove someone from occupation and friends
Without asking permission
And never bring them back

And everyone in the office dolefully reflects
In those few searing moments
That eventually – too soon –
This unrelenting authority will seize them as well

And they will helplessly repeat
The last day
The last hour
The last minute
The last second
Wilson spent

The Eleventh Hour

The Eleventh Hour

They thought they saw reality
As they sat and watched TV
Where egos flaunt and preen and fight
The same routine every night

They lived inside their paper dreams
Where life is only what it seems
Where nothing can be understood
And feeling numb is feeling good

They viewed from dark mentality
Pictures no one else could see
And spoke of beings strange and grand
That left no footprint on the sand

They played games without the rules
Learned lies and riddles in their schools
A shadow land of shadowed souls
Filling up their hearts with holes

But who will take them by the hand
And lead them to the Promised Land?
Who will show them to the power
Waiting in the Eleventh Hour?

They fought and bled for history
Believed in things they could not see
Struggled to overcome the odds
Of worshiping a thousand gods

They lived alone and died in fear
Grew angry if love came too near
Yet longed for what they could not find
In the vacuum of the mind

They wasted their few days in vain
Hiding from the grief and pain
Of working hard for happiness
And getting paid in crappiness

They dissected what they had
Divided into good and bad
Some to keep and some to chuck
Based upon good old dumb luck

But who will take them by the hand
And lead them to the Promised Land?
Who will show them to the power
Waiting in the Eleventh Hour?

They were what we all became
In the final dying flame
Of time’s desperate ending beat
Beneath the sun’s unyielding heat

They were the cosmic first and last
The future dissolving with the past
Those born to learn they need not die
Offered wings and taught to fly

They were this world’s best and worst
Humankind’s most blessed and cursed
The sinking, leaping generation
Destined to come to true salvation

But who will take them by the hand
And lead them to the Promised Land?
Who will show them to the power
Waiting in the Eleventh Hour?

The Gift of Freedom

The Gift of Freedom

The image of Jesus on the Cross has come to mind several times today.

The Bible says that in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed in agony:

“Father, if thou be willing remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will but thine be done” (Luke 22:44).

In this scene Jesus is presented as opposed to Crucifixion; as buckling under God’s imperative and going to the Cross against his own will and better judgment.

But there is something about this view that doesn’t feel quite right.

It seems too human in the way most of us are – self protective and reluctant to suffer for others.

Maybe . . . when Jesus looked at that Cross on the distant hill, maybe he actually felt JOY about it.

Maybe he even felt gratitude for what was about to happen.

Because His death was going to change the world.

His Crucifixion was going to bring freedom to numberless people living in bondage.

People that Jesus loved.

“Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Is there a greater gift than freedom to someone you love?

And though the cost that gift is “death,” maybe it is possible to be grateful,

Even joyful,

That it is within our power to give.

Let Go

Let go, let go,

It's off to work we go!

The Experiential Universe

The Experiential Universe

In the old days I thought it was grand to string ideas together on words, based on the conceptual world view that was my current fave and rave.

I even thought it meant I knew what I was talking about.

Now I am pretty sure that not much of anything I say is true.

And there’s a kind of relief in that. Less attachment to image, for one thing.

So mostly what goes on here is the attempt to describe personal experiences as they unfold.

For instance, it might be possible to speak of “loss” theoretically, but I don’t know a damn thing about loss theoretically.

What I know is how loss feels as it burns through nerves and synapses, leaving a path of fiery agony in its wake.

In these days I am being treated to a mix of cool and exciting sensations that I never expected to have.

Along with loss there is overwhelming jealousy, irrational anger, icy cold fear, mind-boggling confusion, and quite a few others for which names have apparently never been assigned.

Those "preverbal" ones have their own unique effect – you don’t know what you are feeling, except that it seems indescribably awful in its intensity.

This situation is actually slightly humorous in its own way - like some kind of silent dialog or banter with the Universe.

“Well, you said you wanted to become enlightened,” says the Universe. “More aware.”

“Right,” you agree. “But those things are supposed to feel good!”

The Universe laughs.

“Become aware of what’s going on inside you,” it says. “Feel it.”

"But that doesn't feel GOOD!" you protest.

“How do you know?" the Universe asks.

You pause and reflect.

Right.

Wasted Life

Wasted Life

A friend wrote of “a terrible, vivid sense of having wasted my life.” The shame she felt about this was intense.

It is an experience many could relate to, no doubt.

It may be a natural development in the process of spiritual awakening to become aware of a perceived "wasted" life. Still, to view this in terms of past actions (taken or missed) leads to useless guilt and shame.

The more important consideration, and the one more difficult to detect is this:

Are we are wasting our lives in this very moment?

In the preoccupation with doings that so characteristic of daily life, detecting whether or not this is true can be difficult.

So here are some suggestions which may be useful:

Are we still repeating the same patterns over and over, the ones that were behind the "wasted life" of the past?

Do our thoughts follow in well-worn grooves of attitude and belief, of conceptual identity?

Do we think the same things over and over, with perhaps only a slight modification in form?

Are our emotions like clockwork, always triggered predictably by a given stimulus?

Do we get upset, indignant, outraged, jealous, angry, fearful, etc. on cue?


If any of these questions are consistently answered yes,

It is just possible we will wake up in the dead of night some years down the road with a terrible, vivid sense

of having wasted our lives.

Releasing the Story

Releasing the Story

Over the past months the theme of “letting go” has appeared more than once on this blog. Seems like it always presents itself in a slightly different light or emphasis whenever the message of release is coming.

What are we letting go of?

At first blush that is usually some outer thing – could be a relationship, a situation, a conflict, one’s feelings about any of that, etc.

The journey of letting go gradually seeps deeper until we begin to perceive that it is not merely an aspect of the story that needs to be released, but

the story itself!

. . . in fact,

the whole story making process.

The story is all about attachments, mental and emotional attachments, to things that seem to be “other than me.”

That’s why we are attached to them.

They aren’t us (supposedly), but we want them (or don't want them, which is also an attachment).

So they must be controlled in some way, like the Star Wars tractor beams that force reluctant spacecraft into the Death Star’s ominous hull via unseen energy fields.

Without the story, the attachments fade. Without the attachments, the story becomes thin and transparent.

But why does any of this matter?

Because the world is a miserable place filled with miserable people. Unhappy, unfulfilled people, who think that their personal story is all they have, and if they are going to find peace and contentment it must be through it. And that their story is dependent on the world's story.

So that the world must be made better, greener, more perfect, or whatever utopian scheme seems plausible by means of people who totally believe in their personal stories trying to change the world’s story.

But centuries of people who totally believe in their personal stories trying to change the world’s story have not made it better, greener or more perfect . . .

. . . because the premise is unworkable.

We can’t change the story from within the story.

All we can do to make the world better is go beyond the story.

Both our own personal story, and the world's story.

And this - I believe - is what letting go is leading to.