Sand Mandalas and Spiritual Evolution

Sand Mandalas and Spiritual Evolution ©2018 Joan M. Newcomb, CPC

Yesterday I had the most amazing experience. I sat down and used Garage Band to record and edit a training that I'm offering on a Global Telesummit in a couple weeks. The thing is, I've had Garage Band on my laptop since 2011 (yes, it's the same laptop, just with a new battery and hard drive), but I've never used it. When I first got it, the technology of Garage Band was way over my head.

But yesterday it was a breeze. But that's because I've been recording and editing my YouTube videos for the last five years. Compared with video, audio is a breeze. It was thrilling.

When I had the recording complete, I decided to add music to it, and something happened. I don't know what, but the entire recording disappeared. An entire afternoon's work vanished.

I spent another hour trying to reproduce what I'd done to no avail (I had an outline but most of what I had talked about was improvised). I went from having the most productive day in months to... pffft.

What's happening? It's not Mercury Retrograde, for Pete's Sake.

My Buddhist husband would say that it's a lesson in the impermanence of life. And there's something to that, because life does seem like a sand mandala sometimes. You spend all this time creating a reality, nurturing relationships, and then it all dissipates in the blink of an eye.

The more you try to hold on to your creations, the less you seem to have them.

What have I learned (besides making sure you save your work, especially in antiquated programs that don't automatically do it for you)?

One thing that I know is that life is not a school and these situations aren't "lessons". They're experiences. They can be redirects. And as I'm writing I also realize that the subject that I'm working on is an upgrade of a course I offered two years ago.

Old techniques don't work any more. Or, they work as well as dialup does for accessing today's internet. Perhaps yesterday's erasure ensures that today's recording will be more up to date?

Here's the other thing that I know, the more I operate as Consciousness in form, the more improvisational reality becomes. Unexpected things happen.

So even as I'm trying to bring information into physical form, I need to let go of the outcome. Pretty friggin' exasperating when under a deadline.

We're going through a major expansion right now and it feels important to stay flexible. To be ready to pivot at any moment.

Reality is reorganizing. Rather than staying attached to what was, I'm curious to see what unfolds.

Because what is truly real never ceases to exist. It's the story that changes, the scenery gets moved around, characters enter and exit the stage.

Stay centered as Consciousness, and you can enjoy it all.

When To Hold On, and When To Let Go

When To Hold On, and When To Let Go ©2017 Joan M. Newcomb

My dog Emma had a seizure and possible stroke this morning. She's nearly 15 and her back legs tend to give out, so when I heard noises at 5am, I thought she'd lost her balance on the kitchen floor. Instead she was lying sideways, looking like she was running, except for the drool coming out of her paralyzed face.

We sat with her as it finished and tended to her for what seemed like hours as she regained her ability drink water and then to walk.

Corentin de Chatelperron by Elaine Apa

I flashed back to 2013 when our other dog, Basil, died very slowly, probably from a brain tumor. He'd had an operation in 2010 that was temporarily successful, but when it apparently came back at age 12 we let him complete his life at home. It was an arduous and unnecessarily painful death.

Today, however, I sat with Emma and did my Consciousness Techniques on her, helping her electrical system come back on line when the seizure completed, allowed for the bigger pattern to reorganize, and still was surprised how normal she was when we were able to get her into the vet.

Thinking of Basil, I'd also communicated with her that if this was time for her to go, it was okay.

Basil's initial illness came during a breakdown-breakthrough time in my life, in fact the operation and the year long repayment for it, helped postpone any decisions. Which lead to my being able to go back East to help my mother the next year. It was a time to hold on. Hold on to Basil, hold on to my mother. Yet I also held on to the on line aspects of my business, my radio show and my phone consultations, while letting go of my Seattle office and in person classes, and wedding business.

2013 was a time of letting go. My mother finally passed in January. We came back to Seattle with a dying dog. Basil passed in April. We let go of our house on Vashon Island that October, and after we moved to Tacoma,  I flew back East to help my father pass. There was also some holding on - my husband was hospitalized in July for what was thought was a heart attack (it was not).

The last few years have been a time of rebuilding, I started a new radio show with a cohost, I started Meetups around the Puget Sound, and I restructured my coaching business. It's felt like a long time of holding on, holding space to provide stability for new growth.

I'm aware of the cycle shifting again, and I'm wondering what letting go is required. As I wrote this, I got the impression that a sailing analogy was called for. Except I'm not a sailor. So I Google'd "sailing terms" and found this:

Often you can’t sail straight at your destination because of the way the wind is blowing. A sailboat cannot sail straight into the wind. So, if the wind is blowing at you, often you have to work your way toward your destination by turning the bow of the boat back and forth, through the wind. If it’s blowing with you, you turn the stern of the boat through the wind. From ASA.com

If you're sailing through life, you have to hold on sometimes, and sometimes let go. If the wind is coming at you, you have to let go of your sail, and the expectation that you'd get there as soon as you'd like. If you hold on at the wrong times, you can get blown over or go off course.

When the wind is at your back, you still have to let go of your sail or it could violently swing and the boom knock you over.

We're sailing through the energy of life and it requires skill and intuition. Just like sailing a boat, there's a whole body artistry to it, sometimes holding on and letting go at the same time.

There's an expression sailors use, to "leave it on the wave behind". Let go of whatever needs letting go of, hold onto what needs holding, and you'll get there more swiftly.

In The Bardo

©2011 Joan M. Newcomb

From Wikipedia (trimmed for brevity):
     The Tibetan word Bardo means literally "intermediate state" - also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state" or "liminal state"...  It is a concept which arose soon after the Buddha's passing...
     Used loosely, the term "bardo" refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena... from the clearest experiences of reality... up to terrifying hallucinations... the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality, while for others... the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth.
     In the West, the term bardo may also refer to times when our usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, when we are on retreat. Such times can prove fruitful for spiritual progress, as external constraints diminish, although they offer challenges because our unskillful impulses can come to the fore...

To me, the after death Bardo is a time of releasing all the impressions created during physical life.  Everything You identified with (or yourself as) falls away.  The part of you that identified itself as personality is terrified at its demise.  But what is underneath is greater, more brilliant than the little part of you can imagine!

It seems to me we're all in the Bardo right now.  Everything anyone has believed is solid and real has been disintegrating.  The economy, stock market and real estate are some examples.  People are getting laid off from their careers and long term marriages are ending.   Things like this have been going on in individual lives forever, but we're in one of those times when it's happening with collective intensity.

It's not just material or emotional security that is evaporating.  Spiritual and energetic realities are shifting as well.  You may be a follower of one type of meditation or identified with a religious group, and find it's no longer working for you.

Sometimes this is a gradual change, that creeps up on you.  One day you realize that it's been weeks since you went to Church, or sat down to practice, and it doesn't even matter. 

Sometimes it's a sudden shift in circumstances.  Your child goes into the hospital and the rest of your life is suspended.  You go to work on Friday and told that you and a dozen coworkers are laid off.  It's shocking, and disorienting.

Often these "surprises" aren't really surprises.  You knew something was up, you had been hesitant on making future plans, so when reality presented itself, you rolled with it.  Or you 'knew' something was coming and you hunkered down and clung to the present state, so when it started falling apart the pain was unbearable.

As with the non-physical bardo, these times can be incredibly freeing, an opportunity for joyous expansion.  Or they can be times of enormous suffering, if you try to hold onto the illusion of what was.

If you can just let drop what's no longer there, you can open yourself to something bigger and better than you can possibly imagine.

This week, let go of whatever is gone (your regular schedule, that missed appointment, the old way of life, the last relationship, etc.) and open yourself to Your next Big Adventure in life!

Letting Go of Others

©2011 Joan M. Newcomb

There's two parts to today's essay - 1) letting go of loved ones, family members, children, and friends, and 2) not matching the majority, collective, or group.
 
First off, it's important to realize that we are all Spirit (Infinite, Expanded).  That means we're bigger than our stories, our personalities, our bodies, and our individual lifetime.  An infant is as capable at creating it's reality as an adult.  Before we are born, we create our basic story plot, including our parents, our birth circumstances, and our childhood. 
 
I no longer believe that life is a school in that there aren't specific lessons for us to learn.  We're Infinite; we ARE the 'Cosmic Internet'.  Life is a road trip to be enjoyed.  *And* there's always fun experiences with inhabiting into a body and navigating through the density & effort of a physical plane.
 
We are ALL infinite Beings.  Including your children.  *They* created their basic story plot, including *you* are their parent(s), their birth circumstances and their childhood.  Your body may have manufactured (or contributed to manufacturing) their body, you may have given them rudimentary driving lessons, but ultimately, the keys are theirs and their choices of routes and stops along the way is entirely their own.
 
My firstborn was a home birth that ended up being helicoptered to intensive care for the first week of his life.  It should have given me a clue that he was going to go a 'scenic route' through life that I would not have planned for him.  In stepping back, letting go of his itinerary (which I had no power in creating, as much as I'd like to blame or take credit for), he's been able to achieve things I could never have imagined.  And experienced heartache I would have given anything to avoid.
 
My youngest is in Morocco with his college group as I write this.  It did not help that I followed #Morocco on Twitter and got every on-the-street video of protesters being beaten up in Casablanca and a couple other cities.  For one thing, he was in Tangiers on the other side of the country.  And I suspect he had a wonderful time completely oblivious to any political rumblings going on.  He is orchestrating *his* scenic route through life in a more creative way that I could have written for him.
 
We have to let go of others to their own creations.  They are not powerless, they are not victims, and other ones are not evil or bad.  We are all Infinite Beings making up our own storylines for the challenge and the fun of it.  When you can shift to that perspective you can be amused (Spirit is always amused, it doesn't take anything in this playground seriously), and you can appreciate how capable everyone is.
 
This includes letting them go to experience joy and happiness, as well as pain and despair. 
 
This includes letting them go to live, or to die.  As Spirit, there is no death.  It's just getting out of the pool when swim time is over.  The only part that is gone is the body, and that's a very small portion of Who anyone is.  You can still talk to people without their body, they're just harder to hear (until you develop your ability to communicate with them).  As Spirit there are no ethics about how long to inhabit a body, either.  Sometimes a few months in utero is all that's needed.  It's not how long a life is lived that matters, it's how full (to paraphrase Seneca).
 
The second part of this is not matching the group or collective.  You can be in an area that experiences a massive disaster, and have a different experience within it.  On 9/11 there were countless numbers of people who were supposed to be in the Twin Towers or on those ill-fated airplanes that missed their flight or had their meeting canceled, or woke up with the flu.  They did not join the group(s) in that creation.  Joan Borysenko's neighborhood in Colorado had a wildfire burn through, and her house was left standing. 

In terms of spiritual or personal growth, we often have to let go of the group because, instead of allowing for expansion, they're encouraging limitation.  Family members get stuck in perpetuating patterns of dysfunction or abuse, but we don't have to play with them!  It's okay not to be related to your relatives.  Lola Jones says 'spiritual practices are meant to be outgrown', sometimes spiritual groups, churches and belief systems need to be left behind as well.
 
This is also helpful in terms of the economy; you can experience prosperity in a 'down market'.  You can get a job amidst the sea of unemployed, because your energy is brighter and stands out.
 
On the other hand, going through tough times or emergencies can bring out the best in people.  It's an opportunity to grow deeper, emotionally.  It's a chance to open hearts and hands to each other.  In which case, your experience is less painful, you have less suffering, because you are in the bigger awareness of it.
 
Just some things to keep in mind during these exciting times!

Power

(c) 2009 Joan M. Newcomb

I'm in the midst of a tremendous shift of awareness. Which reminds me of a joke - what's the difference between a pun and a fart? A pun is a shift of wit...

What it feels like is a graceful transition into an expanded awareness. Unlike previous shifts which have been painful and dramatic bottoming out before becoming enveloped in Love.

Not that there hasn't been some dramas along the way... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Everything nowadays is the opposite of whatever it's been. Some of which we already know and understand. We no longer have to work 8-6, fifty weeks of the year, remain loyal to one company for a lifetime, stay married to our first husband for the sake of the kids and the mortgage on the house, continue going to Church because what would the neighbors (or our parents) think?

It's an energetic dance. People who've seemed powerful in the past, because they were so rich, so dominant and controlling, are revealed to be the least powerful of all. They've operated from the Power outside belief. The Truth is power's inside. Standing in your own power doesn't feel very powerful (in the old way of experiencing it). Empowerment often feels normal, relaxed, unhurried, centered.

I recently witnessed someone who feels very powerless in their own life manipulating an entire group to their personal will. Yet another interesting illusion of power. More on that later. Maybe.

In relaxing into my internal sense of power, I've received some fun "cookies" from the Universe (reassurance that my Expanded Self is truly driving the bus). Sunday I saw a Safeway advertising gas at $2.23 a gallon. I stopped by there yesterday to fill up, and the price was $2.37. Had I misread it? Did the price go up? I got $10 worth of gas, then did so much driving I was at empty when I returned home. This morning I went to another gas station and the sign said "$2.23" per gallon. I drove up to the pump, looked over and saw the gas station owner changing the sign to $2.37. I looked at the pump and the price still read $2.23. I looked at the owner and he said, 'Lucky for you I haven't changed the other side of the sign'.

Yesterday I had a nail in my tire, which kept me from attending the meeting where the group was manipulated. It was a gift from my Expanded Self to not engage with drama. More on that later. Maybe.

Today I went to Discount Tire and asked them how much to patch my tire? How much to put it back on my car? It was all free.

Okay, maybe these things don't seem all that miraculous to you. But I'm enjoying my cookies, anyway.

I've noticed it doesn't feel like power when it's genuine power (doesn't feel powerless either).

Crazy people/irritating situations are just indicators where you have given up power, or have power stored in this illusion we call Life. When you dance this particular energetic dance, it's all about reclaiming power. Taking your power back from these situations actually means withdrawing your energy from the illusion. When you do, everything falls apart at first (sometimes) and then everything falls into place (like I'm experiencing now).

When I was a kid, my mom read me stories about Brer Rabbit, who was always escaping Brer Fox and Brer Bear's tricks. One day Brer Fox and Brer Bear made a Tar Baby sitting on a bench. Brer Rabbit came along and said Howdy, then got offended when the Tar Baby said nothing back. He started to sock the Tar Baby and got stuck.

You can, if you like, react to crazy people, irritating situations. However, to me it's kind of like the Tar Baby, just gets you wrestling with them and giving them more power.

Brer Rabbit got free when he convinced Brer Bear and Brer Fox to throw him in the briar patch, by pleading with them *not* to. It turned out to be where he grew up, so he got away free.

I mean, if you want to wrestle with the Tar Baby and get thrown in a briar patch, that's one way to do it. I'm just saying, why wrestle at all?

Sometimes we can't help it. The Expanded part of you knows not to wrestle, but you're covered with tar anyway. You can be amused AND irritated - it shows you're regaining seniority.

Seniority is a tricky concept. It comes from the idea that You are senior in your own space, your own creation. You ARE your expanded Self. There is NO power outside of you, not in anyone or anything. You're the main character in your hologram. Seniority isn't authority (which implies power over others). Seniority is... resting within your own energy. With the knowledge that it's all your own space, everything is your own creation. But you don't have to get caught up in the drama of it. You can channel surf and decide where to put your attention.

What can I suggest for you to do this week? Keep reclaiming power. Keep breathing. Inhale a lot. Exhale some. Step back from the drama. See what happens when you stop trying. Do something different. Do the opposite of what you've always done. And watch what unfolds.

Email me and let me know what happens when you do!

Resistance

©2008 Joan M. Newcomb

My son is taking Advanced Placement Government as one of his senior year high school classes, so his television viewing choices have changed. I really liked it during the last presidential election when he only watched the Daily Show (a pseudo-news show on the Comedy Channel). Now he's watching CNN and all of the debates.

Having spent a third of my childhood in Washington DC (and lived at one time ten blocks from the White House), I am very jaded about politics. I've pretty successfully avoided the news for the last decade. I choose to read the newspaper, because you can skip directly to the comics (something you can't do with television).

Recently there have been a whole lot of emails going around about Sarah Palin, and because they're mostly Saturday Night Live video clips, I've gotten sucked into watching them. (Go to www.youtube.com and search for Tina Fey, if you're curious).

Yesterday I watched the Daily Show, which compared McCain and Palin's folksy distortions of the truth, with Obama and Biden's retorts (which was stooping to the same level, if you ask me). I found myself getting worried about this country's future, and resisting the mudslinging. Then I added my own special spin on it by thinking - the next president's term will end in 2012. If Obama is elected, it will be a mass consciousness shift that will be instantaneously enlightening and pain-free. If McCain is elected it will be the Apocalypse.

Now, isn't *that* special? I'm resisting the distortions of the truth so intensely my own brain is adding some distortions of it's own.

Resistance achieves the opposite of what you desire. When you resist, you magnetically attract what you don't want. Resistance means you're focusing on what you resist, which means you're steering your life in that direction.

If you want to get the other guy elected, really, really resist him and his VP.

I'd better work on my resistance real quick, because I'm spending the last week of October in DC visiting my mom, a staunch Republican who is usually glued to the TV. I fly home on election day.

How can I not contribute to the collective energy of resistance? By practicing non-resistance. Non-resistance is the ability to be a 'body of glass' to whatever energy one is resisting. Imagine being a screen door and the winds of resistance blows right through (but the bugs don't). Imagine being transparent, so the mudslinging doesn't stick. Imagine all the space between your molecules, negative energy just flows through and out the other side.

Another way is to drop your focus and look at something else. Let go of everything you can't control (which is pretty much everything outside of you). Don't try focusing on the opposite - a sweet and happy Disney fantasy of 'the right' presidential candidate getting elected, because you're still resisting 'the wrong' one.

Take your focus off the election entirely. (For those of you in other countries, you can substitute something else you resist, although I suspect American politics is universally resisted). 90% of us have made up our minds already, so there's no need to continue thinking about it until the day you actually vote or send in your mail-in ballot.

There's lots of other television channels to choose to view, there's other sections of the newspaper, there's other topics of conversation. I personally am enjoying Cash Cab on the Discovery Channel (it's a game show that takes place in a taxi in New York City). My paper has two sets of crossword puzzles *and* sudoku. And here in the Northwest, the weather is always an entertaining thing to talk about.

Changing what's between your ears and what's in your heart will have a powerful ripple effect to your family and friends and beyond. The only way we can change the world is by changing *our* world, within.