More magic of the everyday

These birds are flying in unison as though magically choreographed. There’s an invisible flow of energy within and between the individuals of this flock. They form a shape-shifting cloud. Somehow, they form incredibly rapid yet coordinated mass movements that leave us land-locked creatures awestruck. They quite literally put our Navy’s Blue Angel fighter jet flight team to shame.

The phenomenon is known by scientists as murmuration and the science itself behind how these birds accomplish it is magical. According to treehugger.com, “The change in the behavioral state of one animal affects and is affected by that of all other animals in the group, no matter how large the group is”. As yet scientists do not fully understand how this is done so for right now, we can just appreciate the magic of it all.

Magical moments

On my walk this morning I witnessed a bit of magic, a twirling and bobbing leaf dancing about three feet above the ground. A slight breeze seemed to keep it aloft. I crept closer to see what kind of spell was playing out, put on my glasses, and peered all around it looking for suspending material like a web or a single strand of spider silk but could see nothing. As I changed my position around the leaf it altered its own position as though playing with me. I then moved my hand in circles, and it began to twirl, when I turned my palm toward it, it stopped and hovered. Great fun!

Transfixed by this floating marvel several people who passed by looked at me oddly as I had now gotten out my cell phone and was videoing the phenomenon. Though I couldn’t see it I surmised early on that it was a silk thread that kept it suspended but didn’t want to spoil the magical moment by reaching above the leaf and snagging the invisible strand. In the end I left it alone being content to leaving its magic extant and hurried on to catch the walk sign at the intersection and continue on home.

More portal hopping

On my walk this evening, I started to review the events of yesterday when I had seemingly passed through a portal into another world and, in that world, had an epiphany that gave me a whole new perspective. But today, the perspective was gone. It was as though I passed through the portal again, and what seemed like a dream had lost its meaning.

This feeling of portal hopping had happened to me several times before, in Montenegro , where I had passed through an ancient rock portal into what seemed like a simpler 17th-century world, then back again through another doorway and into the modern world where the ancient no longer lived.

I had another portal hopping experience some years before Montenegro where I was in the Santa Cruz mountains and passed through a portal into a world of light where I was part of everything about me; then, after a time walked through yet another gate into the world of right now.

These are just three of many experiences that seemed like dreams, and like a dream, when I awoke in the world, the vision was gone. I was left with only a two-dimensional memory. I know that the vision and its meaning were powerful, but I couldn’t quite recreate it. But this time, I had written it down and was able to return to the meaning or at least a semblance of the meaning.

All my visions have been like dreams, dreams of the waking world if you will, and all presented a similar message that there is a cosmic fabric woven of time, space, object, subject, soul, and spirit and all connected and reflecting the One Being. I have been traveling through its gates and portals for years but have only just now begun to see its essence. It has been with me everywhere I have walked. My world has always seemed so very small, though I knew of and have visited many places. But what I saw of it was just what was in front of me at the moment. I’m beginning to see a broader world that’s all around, and through me, that walks with me. I am not separate from it but am it, yet just a little out of phase.

Occasionally walking through this world, I awaken, and for a moment, I remember that I’ve been dreaming and that the awakening becomes a reality. Alas, like a dream, it fades, and the two-dimensional world returns only now, not so much as before. For now, I know that there is a much bigger multidimensional world where I live. I can’t wait to explore it.

A morning stroll leads to a different portal of reality

Magical portal in between two realities

On my walk this morning I noticed several dramas playing out. A little girl ran out of the house with tears in her eyes then upon seeing me made an about face and returned to the house coming out later with her father who placed her backpack in the back of his truck. I then noticed a little boy running like crazy from up the street stopping temporarily only to speak to the little girl. Soon his trailing mother yelled out for him to stop and wait for her. “We have a runner here” she exclaimed to the man who then corralled him by stepping into his path. The woman sheepishly thanked the man for his assistance as she knelt to deal with her exuberant runaway.

As I walked on, I saw overhead small birds attacking a crow and squirrels chasing each other across the road and bounding up the trunk of a tree. A breeze came from down the street and a flowering acacia dropped some of its lavender petals to the ground.

For some reason these little vignettes of life moved me this morning like no other morning of late. 

This morning I saw the play of life upon a stage that had a much greater presentation than the local theater I had been viewing. 

For some time now I’ve been warring with the ego, mine, and the perceived ego of others. I see the ego as this little flawed piece of ephemeral construct that is the cause of our separation and divisiveness, our problems, arrogance, and disconnections. I’ve also been blaming God for having created such faulty and dysfunctional beings such as us humans. This morning, however, I was seeing every vignette, every flora and fauna, every human interaction as expressions of the world soul acting through the mediating ego with each an expression of the totality, the One Being. Good or evil, passionate, or indifferent, ordinary, or extraordinary It is all the One expressing itself by and through its creation. From this perspective all the perceived faults and activities add the spice and animation to the immense vastness of the One.

It was as though I had passed through a portal and into a different and more accepting experience of reality. 

From this different perspective the collective ego, and more specifically mine, was seen as a contributor to the cosmic fabric that is life and not an impediment or something to demean. It is what gives meaning, a collective meaning made up of all the egos and all their perspectives conscious or unconscious.

Once again, the inner conflict that I’ve been having with the creation melted away leaving me with the freedom to enjoy and just be as I pass on through. 

The alchemy of Grace, a transforming experience

A dream of receiving something valuable for no apparent reason led me to look closer at the meaning of grace and its often mystical expression.

Grace: a spiritual experience of love and mercy, an undeserved gift that is unbidden. Though this definition is mystical in nature it also shows up in the everyday when one goes out of their way to help someone with no expectation of anything in return.

The mystical experience brought by grace. 

Nothing you do can automatically bring you the grace of consciousness awakening and there is much that you can do to get in its way. Part of maturing spiritually or soulfully will however, provide a space for it to live within you and grow. Sometimes grace heralds a spiritual awakening I.e., when you awaken to life, how it really is. Connecting with your soul seems to make these awakenings come more often.

What happens when one’s eyes are opened through the mystical?

“Imagine that you are in a completely dark room. You’ve been told that in this room lives a very large snake. As you sit in the room, you can see its silhouette and you feel great fear as you contemplate the potential for it to bite you at any moment. But one day there is a flash of light which illuminates the room, and you see that what looked like a snake was, in reality, a rope. Although the flash of light was momentary, it gave you a glimpse of the truth. Suddenly your long-held fear vanished entirely, and your experience of the room was never the same ever again.”

–from the Advaita Vedanta meaning “non-duality” that is a school of Hindu philosophy, and is a classic system of spiritual realization in Indian tradition.

This is what a mystical experience feels like: it is like a flash of truth that releases you from your limitedsense of self and gives you a taste of a reality that somehow feels more real.

What Triggers the Spiritual Awakening Process?

Spiritual awakenings can happen at any moment in your life. They can be spontaneous, triggered by major life changes, illnesses, tragedies, and traumas such as life-threatening illnesses, accidents, divorces, midlife crises, war, and so much more. They can happen during the process of a meditation or while taking a walk around the neighborhood.

There are also those times when all seems hopeless and emotionally overwhelming what some call The Dark Night of the Soul. If you’re highly sensitive to the suffering of others and are a deep thinker by nature, it is possible that you have gone through, or are currently going through, a Dark Night of the Soul.

The Dark Night of the Soul is a period in life when you feel completely cut off from the Divine. The more aware you become of your disconnection from the Divine, the more chances you have of experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul.

Going through this experience of the dark night is profoundly entwined with the process of spiritual awakening. Before spiritually awakening, we often “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4) to prepare our minds and hearts for it.

Just think about the analogy of getting dressed. To put on new clothes, you must take off the old ones do you not?

Of course, mystical experiences are different for those who experience them but there are a few commonalities that I list below:

1. Conscious Unity

The boundaries of where you perceive your individual identity to begin and end completely vanish i.e., death of the ego. Instead, you’re left with a boundless and infinite union with all that is around you.

2. There Is No Time or Space

With a lack of a definable identity or environmental recognition, your sense of time feels infinite. You go from perceiving time from moment-to-moment as an individual, to perceiving it as a stream of eternal present moments.

Because your sense of identity is gone, your ability to separate “your” surroundings into individual elements also disappears.

3. Objective Reality

Without a discernible identity comes a sense of greater “objectivity” as though you’re experiencing a much more intricate and profound reality. Everything doesn’t just feel perfect, everything is perfect.

4. Gratitude

Most of your ecstatic feelings stem from an immense sense of gratitude. This gratitude is an overwhelming sense of awe at “your” insignificance in comparison to the vastness of existence.

5. Life Is Seen as Sacred

Your sense of gratitude is so vast that you can feel almost undeserving of having been given the opportunity to experience such a miracle. You develop a new sense of respect for the sacredness of life that allows you to be here.

6. You Understand Paradox

Our sense of self or identity creates duality in our perception of reality (“I” am separate from “That”, He or she is over there, and I am here). However, the moment this separation disappears, you’re left with a non-dual reality in which your intellect finds paradox after paradox e.g., things become both light and dark, here, and absent, human, and divine, limited, and eternal. As you try to understand the experience you might have mind-blowing and expansive realizations.

7. The Experience Is Indescribable

The overwhelming magnitude of emotions and intuitive understanding that you experience makes the attempt to describe the mystical experience is limited by language. To put words to it seems insulting to the experience.

8. The Experience Is Temporary

The very nature of a mystical experience is its transience because eventually, you end up returning to your habitual way of life, but the experience changes something deep inside.

9. The Experience Is Life-Changing

After experiencing such a state, death isn’t as scary as it used to be, and the beliefs or ambitions that you once held to be so important lose their meaning. In fact, the mystical experience often awakens a thirst to try to bring as much of that experience back into your regular day-to-day life as possible that in return deepens the spiritual process. 

10. Retrospective transformation

The experience not only transforms forward but in reverse as well. In retrospect there’s a feeling of understanding the path you’ve been on all along and shifts the experience as though it’s always been that way.

Significant images in dreams: Light in dreams

 

Light comes in many forms within a dream. Sometimes it comes from whence it is born i.e. the darkness. It can be the dawning of some new awareness, a new beginning as with a rising sun or with the setting sun and clearing the stage for a brand new day.

It can be the symbol for transformation or a means for shedding some light on something unattended.

It can be a metaphor for God, the Spirit, the Tao, or for great wisdom. It can indicate the divine within.

 

 

In the beginning was the One. It lay at the bottom of the sea

in the darkness of the unconscious mind. The highest goal being

to bring it to consciousness and reunite what was separated once again.

 

 

Frequently light is paired with the image of a mandala where the light of creation resides at the center. When I dreamed the mandala above I experienced it rising from a ‘formless and empty’ black sea suggesting my unconscious mind, bringing with it a new awareness leading me to spiritual growth. At the time the mandala also suggested that I needed to look deeper into the darkness of that unknown part of me for it was in that blackness that a much needed awareness lay.

It can refer to the need for clarity, understanding, and insight. It can be about truth or if cloudy and shadowy it can suggest parts of the unconscious self that have yet to have been brought to full consciousness. If it’s particularly bright you may need to move toward a higher level of awareness.

Those who have been near death often speak of a bright light beckoning in the distance.

In the form of a light bulb it may suggest that you are ready to face some reality, or idea, perhaps even some new spiritual consciousness. A burned out bulb could refer to a loss of effectiveness or negative self-image.

Lighthouses can refer to the need for guidance. In the form of lightning it can suggest sudden awareness or spiritual revelation or even a shocking turn of events that is beyond ones control. To be struck by it might mean a permanent transformation or change taking or having taken place. All “lights can speak to the qualities of intellect, leadership knowledge, and transformation”.*

Light is often a symbol for the creative point in ones awareness, of bringing new light to consciousness.  It can also be symbolic of beacons to follow and is also found within the third eye chakra, that is the “light between the eyes”. This light may be speaking to the primary force of life and creation.

Many if not most “light” dreams are part of the psyche’s way of reuniting what was separated at birth, i.e. wholeness and what the psychiatrist Carl Jung might have said was part of the process of individuation of becoming fully human.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”

–Genesis !: 1-3 NIV

*From “Morpheus Speaks: The Encyclopedia of Dream Interpreting