My Meditative Inner Work:
How difficult it can be
To see reality...
When it is colored so deeply
By what is inside already...
However, what I CAN see
is the inner work required
to clarify my vision...
Usually, I work with no more than
one single, small grain of "sand" at a time...
but this IS enough!
To see reality...
When it is colored so deeply
By what is inside already...
However, what I CAN see
is the inner work required
to clarify my vision...
Usually, I work with no more than
one single, small grain of "sand" at a time...
but this IS enough!
Toward Inner Harmony
The focus of my life, my art and
my books is meditation and self-creation. As of 2022, I've worked through a total of 9 lifetimes of material (8 past and 1 current). This has entailed spending a lot of time working with my memory and its
contents. However, in the process, I've also worked hard to develop a positive
relationship with all my parts. The work of integration toward wholeness, with
the corresponding development of an inner structure where body, mind and spirit
meet and work together in harmony, feels critically important to me. I continually work towards "wholeness" and "harmony" within me. This is also the work I share in my two books as well as here on my web-site. Reading this material and working with the thoughts and feelings it sparks within you or exploring some of the techniques I’ve shared for remembering and working with inner material; can be a step along the way in your own journey of integration toward wholeness.
The Importance I See in Inner Work: It is clear that what lies within me affects EVERYTHING I do or say, so whatever inner work I'm able to do manifests each time I touch anything or anyone... No matter how humanly faulty my touch is, I want it to be my best and I want to continue doing the necessary inner work to keep improving my best! This way of living allows me to feel as "good" as possible about living my life and being me... no matter how it looks or feels or what I have to face...
The work I do inside, I take with me into my next life, so it stays with me forever. Unlike what I touch and do out in the world, I don't leave it behind when I die... I take it with me beyond the grave... so I can keep refining and perfecting it with whatever life I'm given to explore next...
Also since I live with me and all that is inside me, not only every moment of every day, but all of every night too... working to develop solid, working relationships with my own parts and faces feels more important to me than anything I could possibly do to develop a relationship with someone else who can only be with me for a much shorter time... Furthermore, each person is unique, so no one else has had exactly my experiences, with all of their accompanying thoughts and feelings, so no one else can really understand, accept or work with them and the complex inner network connecting them together either. Only I can do this work for me!
My Past-lives and how they fit:
When I began this journey back in 1992... I could NEVER have imagined I would have to go back through SO many past lives to ferret out my errors in thinking and being and find new, more solid “growing” ground... Back then, I thought I would be able to find what I needed just in my current life’s material, but this hasn’t been the case. In the end, I’ve gone back through 8 past lives extending back to what must be about seven hundred years ago. However, for now I'm only working actively with 7 of these past lives. Although I retain ALL of the memories from these various times and places, for now I don't work actively with my most distantly remembered life-time. In this case, I only know there was a great dissatisfaction with life as I lived it then and a sense of a better direction to explore and for now I don't need to know more than this...
Currently, I'm working most extensively with my 6th most distant life... There isn't a way to express all that is here in the world and this has been the source of a GREAT sadness and confusion in me for a VERY long time, because it has been and still is a VERY important and influential part of me! A great deal of my work with it was done during the past almost 30 years when it was in subconscious awareness, but wanting to surface... Throughout this time I was unknowingly stretching HARD, to go in opposite directions. As a result, this life-time has helped me IMMEASURABLY to lay a MUCH stronger foundation than I EVER could have without it... However, once it surfaced into conscious awareness there wasn’t much more I could do with many of the pieces that surfaced, because many of them weren't able to grow in my current direction, so more work with them was almost impossible, especially after having spent so long working to go in completely opposite directions... Consequently, although I did work with these parts for a short time, once it became apparent that they had a very different perspective and focus with questions of their own for which they needed to find answers, I saw they were clearly ready to chart their own coarse, so I suggested that it would be better for them to continue on their own... The parts that actually lived then and still needed to do further out in the world explorations, now continue to live somewhere else and are no longer parts of "me". Nonetheless, I do continue to work with my memories of this time and place and they are HUGELY important!!! There's still SO MUCH to feel and understand of what happened to me in this life-time, which is now about 500 years ago... and this continues to be a VERY influential and important part of "me"; with definite contributions to make concerning where I go and what I feel currently!!!
However, having experienced this “split” of parts in “me”, I understand that although I can continue to work with parts of me with various life experiences beyond the grave, my ability to do this depends on there being a common direction for growth which is supported by my guides and others in the unseen realm... When this invisible support and common ground are lacking, separation is inevitable. This amplifies the importance of my connection to my inner guidance. It is this connection to the unseen realm through my guides which is PARAMOUNT! This connection and the learning which results is what REALLY continues...forever.... through countless life experiences...
The 8 parts (7 past and 1 current) that I now hold in conscious awareness and continue to work with actively, DO have a desire to grow in the directions that feel “right” for this life and REALLY know how all these life-times of experiences have felt.. not just a piece or two here or there that happens to be a little similar so it resonates! They've been there, actually in my shoes, every step of the way, either consciously or subconsciously! In my experience, subconscious pieces aren't dead... they're very much alive, aware and able to feel the important, relevant pieces of what is currently happening. They just aren't active. Although much of what I've pulled from sub-conscious awareness has been traumatized, everything there hasn't been. They've all just been pieces of my experience that I wasn't ready to work with for one reason or another, so they've rested there waiting for me to be ready.... When I've been ready they've surfaced... There seems to be a semi-permeable boundary between conscious and subconscious awareness, so not everything can pass through... only the relevant, important pieces can pass. Consequently, the pieces in subconscious awareness have a much fuzzier view of what is happening in current time...but they still feel! Their feelings bubble up and get mixed in with all the others felt in current time... Therefore, unbeknownst to conscious awareness they influence how things feel and thus also the directions that are taken. The part that was consciously aware in each life, is the active part and has a clearer, more complete memory of what happened during that life-time, but there are definite ties between life-times and the influence of what have been sub-conscious pieces can be clearly seen throughout. I've now brought fairly complete and detailed memories of 7 past-lives into conscious awareness from subconscious material. The 8 parts (7 past and 1 current) that I now hold in conscious awareness and work with actively, REALLY know how all these life-times of experiences have felt... so they've become my closest friends and partners and the ties between us get stronger and stronger as we consciously work to both re-feel and improve our understanding of all we've been through together! I'm actively working, all the time, with these 8 life-times of material... Knowing now, the source of so many of my feelings, I'm able to understand and work with them SO much better!!!
The other interesting thing I notice is that although this past life material seems to have a completely separate consciousness when it first moves from subconsciousness to consciousness this separateness gets less and less distinct as I work with them. In fact, now, they seem to have mainly merged. There are still distinct “issues” and memories that relate specifically to each of them, but I have no sense of a separate consciousness... only a single consciousness... and a MUCH larger “me” that includes all the memories with the “issues”, thoughts and feelings from all of these different times and places...
I was dimly aware of my past-life as Medicine Woman even as a very young child. The others have come through later. I had to be ready to work with them... and I needed training and practice for this, so this took time... I got the training I needed with the Milne Institute, the workshops and therapy/bodywork sessions I took and my reading. There was A LOT of trauma in the Shelters... so I got my practice working with trauma there... The Shelters also gave the traumatized pieces of me who were in sub-conscious awareness an opportunity to see how I worked, so they could begin to trust that it would be OK to surface... In my experience, traumatized parts are quite fearful to rise and be seen... They're afraid what they have to share won't be acceptable... afraid that they won't be acceptable and there isn't any other place for them to belong, so the need for acceptance is GREAT!!
My initial access to the bulk of this past-life material was possible because my current life's experiences were similar enough to resonate deeply with my past experiences... However, I noticed that my reaction to my current experiences was greater than was warranted... As a result, I was looking for some kind of inner influence that was responsible for this stronger than expected reaction... This seemed to open a path the past life material could follow to rise to the surface to conscious awareness. Later, once this had happened a few times, I could feel the presence of sub-conscious material surfacing in more subtle ways and would look for connections between what I was currently doing, feeling, seeing or... and something that felt strangely familiar... like a vague, foggy memory. Sometimes I would try out imagined scenarios to see how they felt and occasionally, one of these would just pop into place! YES!! This is the piece I was looking for... Sometimes too, a scenario seems to fit for awhile... because it's as close as I'm able to get for now... but is later revised with something that fits even better! Other times, the piece that seemed to be missing would just suddenly pop into view on its own... Once the memory has really surfaced I've known I've experienced these things because the memories are qualitatively very different from just any regular story that I could have heard or imagined. My own experiences feel MUCH more immediate, more recognizable, more ME! There is usually a flood of details, often including physical sensations which surface with them and they all FIT!!! However, I also haven't lost my sense of current time even when I'm up to my eyeballs in a piece from my past... The two different times and places are superimposed on each other... It's like looking at something with two VERY different eyes... It's easy to know I'm in current time, but I also recognize the resonating past time, so I KNOW I'm there too... even though the past experience has always taken place in a substantially different, situational environment... I still know I've been EXACTLY there, in this other time too and I feel it INTENSELY in ALL its exquisite, often painful detail just as if it was happening NOW, not decades or hundreds of years ago! This sense of exactness, is nonetheless slightly relative... Sometimes it is just VERY, VERY close, but can and does get EVEN closer... However, in spite of how well they fit together and explain what would be otherwise inexplicable, I can't know absolutely, FOR SURE that these were REALLY past lives, lived here on earth in precisely the way I think now... I DO know they are previously sub-conscious pieces of me that have had a BIG influence on my current life's path. I also DO know that explaining them as past lives helps me to understand and work with these parts of me in the best way I know how! I also absolutely know that if I haven't been exactly where I now feel I've been... I've been somewhere VERY, VERY similar and close... I've felt ALL these feelings, not just the usually smaller pieces which are part of my current experiences now, but sometime... somehow... already... before... usually with a MUCH greater depth and intensity! These BIG feelings from sometime before, fit PERFECTLY with the circumstances and situations in which I've placed them as "past" lives. The circumstances of these "past" lives also feel strangely familiar and KNOWN... However, even though the following framework doesn't explain things half so well, I can also accept the possibility that these past lives might be explanatory "stories" I've fabricated in response to my need to understand... similar to the way science fabricates its "stories" to explain happenings in the outer world... Nonetheless, the past-life explanation is VERY functional and working with it as I have, has made a HUGE positive difference to me inside!
These past lives have usually taken their time to move from sub-consciousness to consciousness... The whole life-time hasn't usually surfaced all at once... Instead they've moved upward piece by piece... Many of them have included A LOT of trauma, so I don't think I could have worked with them effectively if they'd arrived all together in a single piece... Once I know something is trying to surface, I focus on doing what I can to help; working with them like a midwife, aiding their birth. The work of feeling their experience as clearly and in as much depth as possible begins next. When the experience is traumatic in nature, this stage has usually involved A LOT of tears! Later, once calm has returned, we are able to see the experiences from new perspectives, which permits a clarification and understanding of their "why's" and "wherefore's", to which everyone inside contributes,.. As we're ready to work with more pieces, more of the material surfaces little by little, day by day for awhile (often it's been years), until the whole life-time is all clearly up and accessible in conscious awareness... However, this is just the beginning of the real challenge; of learning how to live, work and grow together... by following our inner guidance through life’s maze... and this is unique to each individual...what they need to explore, learn and understand...and how this needs to be done...
When is Inner Work Required?
It is my sense that the world I confront is really neutral... any reaction I have to it other than neutral indicates the presence of some kind of inner content which I want to examine and understand.
It can be tempting to stop once I'm "happy" or "feeling good"... but for me this is NOT enough. "Feeling good" or "happy" isn't a goal! It's just one aspect of an experience; NOT the whole or the end! I HAVE to understand why... I have to understand why this experience feels good... Like all feelings I want to examine its roots and nuances... I need to understand the nature of this "good"... whatever it is... Maybe it's only comfortable or familiar and not really so good... Maybe too, there are still subtle, easily overlooked pieces that don't feel "good"... What are they? What messages do they contain? Are the roots REALLY grounded in something solid or just embedded in illusion? Can I ground them more solidly? The search for "my truth" and the questions seem to go on and on and on... However, as I'm not content to stop with "happy" or "comfortable" or with doing what is "expected" or "familiar" which seem to provide others with resting places, I was beginning to think there was NO resting place for me and I've been feeling like I REALLY needed one to be there. However, I now understand I DO have a resting place. It's only temporary, but it's enough. I reach it when I've felt every experience as deeply and clearly as I can for now and have understood each one to the best of my current ability...
I work heavily with possibilities... especially for what feel like major decisions... With each such situation I face, before I do ANYTHING, I look at the possibilities and do my best to feel for a "right" direction in which to move. If I'm given enough time and I am usually given this gift, I work with each possibility I can imagine, (including ones I REALLY don't want) one at a time; making each one feel as real as I possibly can and then examining how it feels... Where are the resistances? Where are the pulls? What is their nature and what are their roots? Having examined a possibility in this way, I feel again for a "right" direction... Often it has changed because I've seen that my resistance has only indicated a difficulty and my desire just an expectation of something I think will be "good" or "pleasant" none of which have ANYTHING to do with "right feel"! I then work with the next possibility I can imagine... and on and on until I've exhausted ALL of the possibilities I can imagine... At the end of this process, I still won't have done ANYTHING out in the world, but I will have done a great deal of work understanding me and what lies inside me... Having done this work, I'm as prepared as I can be to follow my inner guidance wherever it leads... It is an exercise to "loosen" me up so I'm able to move in ANY required direction... After doing this exercise, I know some of the inner work I'll probably have to do, to align and accept, in any direction my inner guidance suggests... This exercise also increases my general awareness of what is inside me, showing me many of the inner influences that could propel me in all the directions I've explored. It feels, inside, a little like the steps the Whirling Dervishes take in their spinning dance... Like physically spinning, it often leaves me feeling quite dizzy and even a little nauseous... Nonetheless, it is a VERY effective way of working as I accomplish A LOT inside me, but it is also a VERY gentle way of working as I take only the few steps I really HAVE to take out into the world. Furthermore, just the few steps I'm now taking out into the world seem to land me in enough places where I feel I've been quite "scribbly" and have "colored" outside the "lines"... Here, I always find confusion to unravel or aligning and accepting to do...which is never easy, but it is the work I'm TOTALLY committed to doing, because doing it does the most to improve me inside... gradually clarifying the fog of my confusion so I can see and live better... However, in addition to the inner work of aligning and accepting, there's the work of understanding "why". Why this direction was chosen, and why it is "best". This work can only be done afterwards, as the consequences of my action unfold. There's no point in trying to do this in advance, as my experience indicates that the consequences of any given action are unknowable and can be ANYTHING! There don't seem to be any rules and the "recipes" for "good" behavior haven't "worked" either... In my experience, the consequences also seldom seem to have so much to do with easy, pleasant or comfortable for anyone... Often too, the short-term, immediate consequences have been the least important... Although the exploration of possibilities I've explained above, using mind and imagination help me A LOT, they are NO substitute for actually taking steps out into the world, feeling how they feel and working to accept, align and understand! Although the imaginary exploration is a lot of work and does yield some VERY important insights, it only gives me a head start on this other, more important inner work which surfaces after actual steps out into the world have been taken...
The "Best" I've been shown seems to happen when everyone gets to do some kind of inner work as a result... but what someone else's work may consist of I can only occasionally briefly glimpse and then only enough to see that some kind of work is there for them. As each individual can only really see and know their own work and how it feels and what it requires and, and, and... in spite of how it can sometimes look, we each seem to have our vision mainly restricted to our own private domain. For someone else, most of what is happening inside, "behind the scenes", can only be guessed at as the largest part of of it is invisible to anyone but the individual themselves... and even for the individual many of the impelling influences can lie deeply buried in sub-conscious material which take time and effort to unearth... Occasionally someone is privileged with information that seems to allow them to see a piece of someone else's material. However, when this has happened to me, this information has been needed for different, private inner work by both parties. It hasn't been how it "looks"... They haven't been able to somehow magically "read" my mind or have much real, in depth knowledge of me! They view and work with the information they've been given through the "lens" of their experience and I through the "lens" of my experience... As I see it, we each view the world from our own unique perspective. No-one can ever really be "in" someone else's shoes... Since the two "lenses" of experience aren't ever the same, the inner work and resulting understandings can't possibly be the same either...
Although I've always tried to do what would be "best for all", starting in the early 1990's, when I began doing this inner work, I consciously tried to do this. Working consciously made a difference... However, it's gotten increasingly clear that "best for all" is well beyond my ability to comprehend!!! I only begin to catch its flavor, little by little, as it's revealed in the unfolding details of my life's journey... I've seen I have to do A LOT of inner work to be ready to have even a VERY small piece of it revealed to me. Consequently, I try to be "loose" and "open" while I feel, best I can, for a "right" direction in which to move and trust I'll be shown how "best for all" needs to look in each situation I face, little by little, as I'm ready to understand... Life includes SO many situations, each unique and each one full to overflowing with IMPORTANT tiny details, each of which contains some kind of message for soul... prompting a new understanding, direction, improvement or... as well as a plethora of influential and important players, AND what now seems to be a strange and unfamiliar destination, so I know I'm not going to understand much about "best for all", or most of what lies inside me for a VERY long time! In fact, I think, eternity will be too little time...
Discovering The "Inner Law of My Being":
I ask three questions: "Who am I?" "How am I?" and Why am I?" The first question addresses which part(s) of soul and/or being I'm working with... The second question addresses what is "up" for this part(s)... What is it needing, experiencing, feeling or thinking? The third question addresses why I'm doing, thinking, or feeling what I am... I want to understand better... What connections am I meant to make and how am I to work with them? Are any adjustments or shifts in direction required? If so what are they? If they feel "right" I make them, but I also ask: Why are they necessary? What pieces inside will be impacted and how? Often my initial understanding is quite imperfect and only clarifies gradually after making the adjustment or change, but asking these final two questions indicates my interest and readiness to receive answers... and I keep looking for them... for a LONG time...
For each being there is an "inner law of being". It is unique and individual and can only be understood by the individual themselves. I've found continually asking and answering these three questions is gradually plumbing the depths of this law for me with increasing clarity. It is my sense that life is lived best when we understand how each situation we face and each choice we make fits and is in harmony with this law...
For me, it isn't enough to just do a "right" thing... it is understanding that is MOST important!!! I don't stop asking "why" when something feels "good" and often I'd rather do something that feels like a mistake and understand why it feels that way than do something that feels "good" on my first try... The "mistake" is often more instructive! However, understanding takes perseverance and PATIENCE! It only dawns little by little as the relevant thoughts and feelings surface and connections are made... Since there are SO MANY subtle details to feel and the roots of both our thoughts and feelings are so often hidden; buried DEEP in subconscious material; understanding takes a VERY long time!!!
A major part of my work in the world now is my web-site... I work and re-work what I've placed here... again... and again... and again... "tweaking" and adjusting small details which I hope make what I have to say clearer and easier to understand... Unlike my books, which I haven't changed since about 2014, my web-site was keeping pace with the inner work I've continued to do. However, as of 2023 it is no longer keeping pace with my inner work. Nonetheless, I do continue to modify, change and revise what I've put here... which hopefully makes what I want to say clearer and more easily understood... Please keep this in mind and don't assume that because it superficially "looks" the same that it IS the same! If you look carefully you're likely to find IMPORTANT changes have been made.
I don't write solely for your benefit either (though I do hope you find something of value here)... Although I enjoy sharing the parts of my work that I feel are potentially useful to others... just the writing itself has also been VERY good for ME!!! I really love to do some of this kind of writing... The kind of writing where I can "scribble" and change and modify and refine... The kind of writing that gets read, so I feel the importance and urgency of "getting it right". "Scribbling" privately isn't always enough... I LOVE the long, slow process of writing and all it does for me inside! With the kind of writing I've done here, I get to work at putting my best out into the world; slowly, little by little; risking misunderstandings while I organize and clarify my own understandings, thoughts and feelings... Writing, especially the private "scribbling" I do, also helps me notice things and make connections between things I'd have easily missed otherwise... and usually its slow speed pushes me to feel something more deeply or clearly...
I highly recommend writing to anyone who really wants to get to know themselves! It doesn't matter what you write about... just where you are today is fine... even if you had a DULL day write about that and how it felt... write about something you felt or wish you'd felt or expected to feel... write about something you're puzzled about or don't understand... write about something that concerns you... write about anything that is "up" for you in any way... but DO WRITE! The writing is just for you, so it doesn't have to be polished or easy to read, grammatically correct or... often more is revealed if it isn't thought about too much... even just a string of words put down on paper will do as long as they touch or seem to relate to something that's relevant or "up" for you... just keep putting the words down... throw them out onto the paper...let them land anywhere on the page... after, when you've exhausted your well of words...see what kind of pattern they've made... explore how they connect to each other... which words seem to want to be together and which ones want to be apart... see what this reveals... and... sooner or later you're likely to see things, surprising things, things you didn't know about yourself... and if nothing else happens at least your thinking and feeling will most likely be clearer as a result! Many people think daily writing or journaling, is just about recording the daily events of your life as they happen... This isn't that kind of writing AT ALL! Recording may creep in, a little, but it's really about exploring and discovering all that's inside you... with an open, non judgmental curiosity and strictest honesty! I doesn't have to be done daily either, though this can be a very beneficial habit or practice to foster... Any time that feels "right" or you're interested and would like to "know" or "understand" more about yourself is a "good" time! Pen or pencil and paper also seems to work better than a computer, but the important thing is to WRITE honestly and just for yourself!
"Never is most lonely man alone... "
(a quote from somewhere)
Following My Inner Guidance to Live HER Way, NOW...
I try to live my life in the same
way I create my art – in meditative consciousness, without a plan, one moment at
a time.
I try to live my life in the same
way I create my art – in meditative consciousness, without a plan, one moment at
a time. Working in meditative consciousness is a VERY different way of working! I got my exposure to working this way in the courses I took learning craniosacral therapy with the Milne Institute. The way it is taught here, this work is all done with an inner focus in meditative consciousness. I think it is something that has to be experienced and can't really be adequately explained, but I'll try because it made such a difference to my life... For me, it is a little like splitting my awareness in two... one part being outside in the world with what is happening there, in current time and space, and the other being inside...without a plan, open to direction, asking, listening and feeling. The focus is on this second, inwardly focused part, so it is highlighted and my awareness of the first part is dimmed and secondary, and the information that comes through this first channel, which for most people is primary, is treated as extraneous information for the most part. Until I took these classes, I thought meditation was something that could ONLY be done when you were doing NOTHING out in the world... except sitting or lying down. However, now, in these classes, I saw it was possible to do more...MUCH more! I saw clearly that it was possible to work, very successfully, with other people while remaining in meditative consciousness myself!!! What a revelation!!! I KNEW instantly that I didn't just want to do craniosacral work this way, I wanted to live my ENTIRE life this way!!! I NEVER wanted to leave meditative consciousness!!!
However, there was an additional surprise in the works for me, I couldn't learn in the usual way, just by copying someone else and applying it in their way either. This wasn't a total surprise, as I'd already learned with art, that others could tell me how they painted, but they couldn't tell me how I needed to paint what I saw... So it was in these classes. Unlike how I was taught there, I discovered I couldn't do craniosacral work on someone else AT ALL... I could only work with my own body and consciousness... Although we were told this could be done and given a couple of small clues as to how, it wasn't what was taught... However, I could practice this new way of living life and I did... and I began to learn how to work on myself by myself, little by little, step by step... on my own.
Not being able to continue on and do craniosacral therapy left me "high and dry"... I'd spent ALL my money continuing to live in Toronto and take these courses... I could no longer move forward as a craniosacral therapist like I'd thought, but I couldn't go back to being an accountant either... Just thinking about doing this made me SICK... I couldn't do ANYTHING just to make money... My heart HAD to be involved and it now only wanted to continue the work I'd begun with the Craniosacral Therapy courses... I could ONLY work on me... which left me with PLENTY of work, but NO income, or money to live with... That was how I lost everything at the beginning of 2000 and landed in women's shelters... That was DIFFICULT!!! However, there was a bonus... In the Shelters, I found the best possible place to practice my new way of living life... I continued to hone my skill at remaining in meditative consciousness and working from there. It was challenging!!! I was given a very small amount of money each week, but unlike the others there. because of my diet I had to use it to buy my own food and somehow hang on to my car, which felt essential for wherever I would go next... I was always working with essential, pressing needs, I wasn't at all sure I could meet.. so just this was HARD! Life in a Shelter has an inherent instability about it, as most people aren't allowed to stay longer than 3-5 months in any one of them... Consequently for the 3 1/2 years that I lived in Shelters, I was constantly on the move from one to another, so I seldom felt very "at home"... In addition, Shelters are a place of constant change and chaos... people from all walks of life, most of them very different from mine and many suffering from some kind of trauma, all crammed in together... coming and going all the time. It's a place of mess, noise and confusion, NOT the kind of place one normally would go to meditate! The 3 1/2 years I stayed there were DIFFICULT and HARD, but they were GOOD for me in ways I can only really appreciate now, 20 years later! This environment helped me lay a good, strong foundation for my new way of living life... but staying in meditative consciousness is never easy... I still have to work to do it!
With my life now, I work to give myself the freedom to make a mess with both my life and
my art. I have difficulty with messes, particularly after living in the Shelters (which took me as close as I could possibly get to my last life, which also felt like a HUGE mess!)... so allowing myself to make messes isn't easy. However, I do my best and try to let go of concerns I have about how what I do looks or its impact on either the outer world or on what I'll have to face as a result, and focus inside instead, on following a "right" feel, understanding me and learning what I can from
whatever happens and how it feels... Making messes still frightens, but the freedom to make them seems to be essential, if I’m to explore
anything really new or different and always as long as I’ve followed my inner guides and the sense of “rightness” they send, although the consequences have often been challenging, difficult and frequently quite frightening, they have also been instructive and ultimately safe enough. I
feel like Gandhi, who said, "Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote
freedom to err." Feel free to explore both my writing and my art, listening for
whatever they have to say to you...
I can't give you answers, we each have to find our own... Even with my own life I mostly fly blind and just feel for a "right" thing (which is where my inner guides seem to be pointing) best I can, paying close attention to what happens, how it feels and trying to understand... I don't know how it's supposed to look or what steps might be required or what I'll see or learn from taking them... Also, where I feel the presence of my inner guides most strongly often doesn't look like anything I would have classified as particularly "good", "appealing" or "comfortable". Instead, I have been pushed deep into unfamiliar territory where I haven't "known" and have felt unsteady, uncertain and vulnerable; full to overflowing with feelings! Furthermore, what they suggest often runs counter to ideas of "good" or "bad" or "safe" that I have, so following them has NOT been easy! Nonetheless, following their suggestions has ALWAYS landed me in a place where I had confusion to unravel, which has been MOST beneficial! Consequently, I can clearly see that each step I've taken, not only in my current life, but in my past lives as well, has been both necessary and essential for me to find the directions I needed to take and explore to lessen my confusion and thereby increase my understanding of life and my ability to live it better...
I can't give you answers, we each have to find our own... Even with my own life I mostly fly blind and just feel for a "right" thing (which is where my inner guides seem to be pointing) best I can, paying close attention to what happens, how it feels and trying to understand... I don't know how it's supposed to look or what steps might be required or what I'll see or learn from taking them... Also, where I feel the presence of my inner guides most strongly often doesn't look like anything I would have classified as particularly "good", "appealing" or "comfortable". Instead, I have been pushed deep into unfamiliar territory where I haven't "known" and have felt unsteady, uncertain and vulnerable; full to overflowing with feelings! Furthermore, what they suggest often runs counter to ideas of "good" or "bad" or "safe" that I have, so following them has NOT been easy! Nonetheless, following their suggestions has ALWAYS landed me in a place where I had confusion to unravel, which has been MOST beneficial! Consequently, I can clearly see that each step I've taken, not only in my current life, but in my past lives as well, has been both necessary and essential for me to find the directions I needed to take and explore to lessen my confusion and thereby increase my understanding of life and my ability to live it better...
These inner guides are like a wiser part of each of us. Their suggestions are usually given in VERY small whispers, so I've had to be VERY attentive and listen carefully to catch their messages! They usually don't just give me the answers I'm seeking either. Instead, they have guided me so I could discover the answers I needed for myself. I've found, they often "speak" intuitively, so opening this pathway in me has helped me connect to them. They've also frequently made use of metaphor and symbols as well as contrast and similarity... so I've needed to look through these "lenses" too... Often the path is a winding, twisting trail that doesn't look like it goes anywhere that makes "sense", but taking it anyway, I've discovered, like in a fairy tale, that I magically find the answers to many of my questions and puzzles... and looking back from an inner perspective, the entire journey DOES make A LOT of sense! I give a current example of the kind of path I follow in my "Questions about Moving & Posture..." meditation which I added to "My Meditations" page at the end of 2022...
Many people think that "specially trained or "gifted" people" such as a Doctor, a Therapist or some other intermediary, such as a Shaman, are required to connect to Inner Guides and do the kind to work I do. They can be helpful, but I haven't needed much of their help. I did have a therapist briefly, back in 1992/3, when I was trying to decide to stay with or leave my marriage and to give me a few beginning steps of my inner work and I took many workshops and explored many therapies after I decided to leave, but that was just to learn how myself! I haven't used "special" plants, mushrooms, chemicals or hypnosis or... either... These are definitely NOT required and I feel, they can actually get in the way... I've found I can do ALL that's needed with nothing more than what I already have inside me... just LIFE, body, mind and soul have provided me with PLENTY to work on and with! The requirements are basic and simple... available to everyone! Rituals have occasionally been helpful, but they've been best when they were ones I designed myself. "Practices", like Tai Chi, have also been useful, but I've needed to be willing to drop both rituals and practices on a dime...NOT because they were difficult, hard or boring, but solely because all their benefits had been clearly exhausted... Although they've often still felt "good" and I still "enjoyed" doing them, the real, underlying benefit has suddenly disappeared... They haven't continued to be beneficial or useful forever... All my guides have ever asked of me has been a strong desire to connect to them as well as to all parts of myself, a deep desire to understand, a willingness to listen and feel deeply and to pay close attention to everything that happens to me in the minutest detail possible...as well as the courage to go where they suggest or push, even when it makes NO sense or feels unsafe, uncomfortable or just unfamiliar... However, at the beginning, help can be needed to recognize their "voices" (I think each person senses them differently)... and take the first steps in working with them... These first steps give enough of a sense of the benefits of working with them to make continuing possible... I got my start listening to and working with my guides mainly from the courses I took with the Milne Institute, the workshops I took with Ipsalu Tantra and the work I did on my own with the I Ching (The Chinese "Book of Changes")...
Whatever you find that gives you your "start" it will ultimately, at some point in time, need to be dropped. It seems we're meant to learn how to work with JUST what we have inside... our own parts and our guides... and even with my guides I now try to come to my own best understanding of the situations I face and what they require, feeling best I can for a sense of "rightness" which gets increasingly subtle and ask if I've understood, giving my guides as much time as I can to respond... I don't think we're meant to lean on anyone or anything any more than necessary... It seems, for better or for worse, we're really meant to stand on our own two feet, facing, feeling and working with whatever this entails best we can. I've found this takes courage and trust... both in my own abilities and even more, in LIFE; especially when I know from personal experience (particularly in my past lives) as well as from what I see happening around me, what kinds of difficulties and hardships LIFE can send my way...
It is my sense that help is usually needed when transitioning to a new way of being and working, because at times like these, everything seems to be unstable and in motion... Old ways are inoperable and in ruins, but new ones are unknown and untried... so our own uncertainty and vulnerability become constant companions... In addition to the courage and trust I mentioned above, for me, this learning process has also required A LOT of patience, understanding and tolerance of myself as I've seen myself stumbling around like a baby learning to walk... As an example, of how some of this can look, I'll share a little of my experience with the "I Ching". I started using it extensively for a couple of hours almost every night and often more on weekends at the beginning of 1993. The information it gave in response to my MANY questions was SO helpful, but as I used it, it became increasingly clear that it was impossible to carry this book around with me everywhere I went and toss coins whenever a choice was required... I liked the "I Ching" particularly because it stopped giving useful information when I was able to decide or understand well enough on my own. I've heard others say the same, so it seems this is a feature of how it works... Nonetheless, dropping it still wasn't easy. Although I'd used it less and less since some time about 1997, I still had to stretch to give away my book and remove it as a possible recourse... I thought I might still need it if I got in a REAL jam... However, I took my chances and just hoped I'd be able somehow to find my way on my own no matter what LIFE sent and gave it away anyway around 2006. I haven't needed or missed it AT ALL since!!!
Understanding just my own very small piece of life, with all of its connections, nuances and details can take a VERY long time! It isn't a fast process! In fact it's a very SLOW process which certainly doesn't end with the "mental comprehension" of ANY idea! Additionally, it seems that not only am I unique and therefore fundamentally alone and responsible for charting my own course... but feelings are MUCH more important than is commonly recognized and thoughts and ideas of MUCH less importance than I was taught to believe... Just making these shifts in understanding, because they have been tied so substantially to my ways of living life as well as to my entire belief system, has been and continues to be a VERY slow, painstaking process!
I try to work with LIFE one moment/step at a time, just as it shows up, without trying to cram it into ANY solid, concrete ideological box that insists it HAS to or SHOULD look like "this" or be like "that". Just recognizing the "idea boxes" I've constructed over all the life-times I've lived is challenging! I'm so used to them and thought they were "right" and/or essential, that they are VERY hard to see! Then scrambling out of them adds another dimension to what is already a LONG, SLOW process! Then there's the REALLY difficult step of trying to live without them! I've worked so hard to get out of the "boxes" I've been able to see that I don't want to construct more, but I've never lived a life without "boxes", nor is it possible to see anyone else doing it, so I really don't know how this is done...
Also a certain amount of life has to be lived to even have questions to ask about it... and the answers, I've found, usually lie embedded in subsequent experiences which can take lifetimes to unravel and clarify. I see this again and again and again, but I'll give just two examples from my experience that I've encountered during the course of living through 2020...
Example #1: This life, back when I was about 16 years old, shortly after I'd begun painting and I was just beginning to feel I could really do something with art... I told my mother, "Someday I want to do art that isn't just a pretty picture..." I didn't know what it meant... and my sentence stayed with me as a puzzle... I puzzled over it regularly for more than 50 years of art practice. Now, in my late sixties, finally I begin to understand...
Example #2: At the end of my life as Russian Army Officer, I was left with a residual big question I REALLY needed answered. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, this life, I asked my mother, but she couldn't give me a satisfactory answer, so I kept asking and searching and puzzling and, and, and... At last, now, as I get close to 70 years into this life... two lifetimes later, I'm beginning to get a sense of an answer... However, I can also see now, that the seeds for this question really lie buried two lifetimes before my life as Russian Army Officer. It took two lifetimes for me to be able to make enough sense of my thoughts, feelings and experiences to even formulate the question and then another two lifetimes to begin to receive some answers...
My journey has shown me that there are NO rules to this game of life... EVERY required step is unique to just this situation, time and place... ANYTHING can be “right” and necessary! Life doesn’t HAVE to be enjoyable, pleasant, comfortable, well supported or... It CAN be, but it doesn’t HAVE to be... It doesn’t have to look like “this” or be like “that”... Life as it comes, JUST has to be experienced and felt... and then understood... EVERY moment supplies some kind of experience... The experiences we have, including ALL their accompanying thoughts, feelings and sensations, are the experiences we NEED to have for some reason and the reasons BEG to be understood... There are messages for soul underlying or embedded in EVERY experience, EVERY thought and EVERY feeling we have... Each detail of each experience includes some kind of message... showing us something which can be improved, a new understanding or direction to be taken or... Each person has a unique set of experiences to integrate and a unique way of doing this... There are NO "recipes"... “right” destinations or goals... EVERYTHING is sometimes. However, just to keep things REALLY interesting, my understandings, on the other hand, are ALWAYS subject to revision... NOTHING I understand is cast in stone... or at least not for long... There don't seem to be any absolute "truths". Furthermore, "good" and "bad" seem equally flawed... Everything seems to be relative, situation dependent.... and SOMETIMES... What seems to be required often isn’t and what looks difficult, dangerous or frightening can be just the “right” thing... Pain isn't "bad" and happiness isn't "good"... Furthermore, I've found balance to be often little more than a limited, false control... an attempt to keep myself "safe" and this safe feeling place is seldom where I have the most to learn or grow... Most often its comfort comes JUST from its familiarity... I know I will need eternity to gain the necessary flexibility, discernment, and courage to feel I’m REALLY able to live LIFE at all well... Mastery is thankfully a VERY long process... which, in the end, is what makes LIFE worth living... If living well could be mastered in an instant, for me, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble... Diligence, focus and patience as well as a "compassionate" heart that can accept the necessary "scribbles" and "messes" (particularly the ones we make ourselves...) are essential to gaining and then improving our understandings... which is what I think LEARNING is all about! This trial and error process of embodied learning isn't either quick or easy! It takes TIME! A LOT of time and necessarily includes A LOT of experiences as well as A LOT of seemingly "wrong" turns! Furthermore, just my own tiny piece of LIFE, I find, provides more than enough on which to work! LIFE's puzzle is HUGE!!!!! (As an aside, for those interested in other ways of understanding this learning process the current discoveries concerning the brain's neuroplasticity may be of interest...)
What I share isn't just talk about a pile of "ideas"... it's a life I live and practice ALL day, EVERY day... and have since 1992...
I try to follow my inner guidance to the best of my ability with where I am and how it feels in each moment, trying to understand what lies within me and to work with it best I can and I've found MAGIC here! Although it doesn't always look so "good", and can feel quite frightening, the way I live now has for me, the kind of beauty and magic home-made or hand-made things have... Fairy tales too, when you look past the obvious "happily ever after" endings and feel the details of the process also, for me, share this same kind of magic...
To get the most out of what fairy tales have to offer it is important to realize that the characters aren't to be taken literally. They are symbolic and metaphorical, to be applied in MANY, MANY ways and where they go and how it feels speak to deep layers of oneself... These aren't just "cute" tales for children! There are messages hidden there, beneath the surface, that are worthy of all of your time and consideration as an adult! If you want a start on understanding Fairy Tales differently, I recommend Clarissa Pinkola Estes book, "Women Who Run With The Wolves" ... I read it long ago, shortly after it was first published, at the beginning of my journey. Unfortunately, I lost my copy of it back at the beginning of 2000, along with almost everything else I had then, so I don't know how it would touch me now... but it left me with a new respect for and approach to reading, understanding and working with fairy tales... which I've been employing and expanding on ever since! I'm still learning how to "read" the characters, understanding to what they refer and to the messages hidden behind the lines in their stories... I often spend years puzzling, off and on, over a single tale and all the various interpretations I find hidden there... I find now, I work this same way with my dreams. Here too, the characters aren't to be taken literally... often they represent parts of my being or situations I'm currently encountering or am about to encounter and provide me with valuable insights into all that is "happening" inside as well as directions I need to explore or don't need to explore... I've also looked at what I currently face in my life this way, and this too can yield informative material.
Since LIFE is HUGE and my work with my piece of it is an ongoing process with a continuous stream of things to work on which seem to require improving and puzzles to solve, I'm often deep in confusion which can be quite uncomfortable and often frightening! However, working where I feel weak and confused is where I've found I could make the biggest improvements. I can't improve much working where I feel strong, but working where I'm weak, even the smallest of improvements can make a BIG difference. Consequently, I've found that where I feel weak and confused is really the place where I have the most work to do and can improve most, so it is also the BEST place for me to be... The strong sense of "magic" I've found in how I live my life now, that wasn't there before in my "mainstream" life, definitely helps me work here where it is often difficult... I see too, a BIG improvement in my relationship to my own parts and faces and how we function together...
When I reflect back, I see clearly that each moment I've lived is guiding me to better and better ways of being with each passing day, no matter how hard or difficult the experiences have seemed at the time or how flawed and imperfect I seem to be. I also feel clearly better when I stay with my imperfections and work there, than I do when I focus on what I think I "know" or do "well", which has so often been little more than an illusion... or momentary resting place... often involving countless repetitions of what has "worked" in the past leaving me feeling dissatisfied and MUCH more like a machine than a human being. Looking back now, from an inner rather than an outer perspective, I see I'm able to both see through things and work in ways I couldn't before, which gives me the sense of progress I need. Hopefully you can find some useful pieces in what I've lived and explored which assist your own process of experiencing and learning...
My past lives, which were almost all VERY difficult, have also highlighted for me the importance of connecting to our inner spiritual guides (and we all have them). They are the ones who REALLY know and can REALLY help and they are accessible to each and every one of us if we choose to be open to changing ourselves (especially our ways of seeing and being) and to listening to them and following them... However, these real guides speak in VERY small, quiet whispers and often don't speak at all unless specifically asked... and even then they will often wait for an impossibly long time for just the "right" moment before even a whisper can be heard... Furthermore, what they suggest has often pushed me DEEP into some difficulty where I've had A LOT of work to do! I can only say, that I can see now, that the journey through all the life-times I remember, in spite of all the fear and pain and, and, and... that I've encountered, has been as safe and comfortable as it could possibly have been for me to do the necessary inner work and the results of the work I've done inside me have been WELL worth ALL the difficulties!!! In fact, I see clearly, none of the inner work could possibly have been done without each and every one of the difficulties I've faced!
It seems this connection to our inner guides is particularly critical in troubled times, like the ones the world has faced since 2020... I'd like to think that what I've shared assists you in improving your connection to these guiding forces and helps you work with them to understand yourself and the life you face with increasing clarity. Connecting to my inner guides as strongly as I possibly could has certainly done this for me!
SHARING MY WORK:
This inner work has been the most difficult, challenging work I've ever attempted, but it has also been the MOST valuable and has given my life a richness beyond ANYTHING money can buy. So, although much my life since 1992 has been VERY hard, it has also been the BEST time I've EVER lived! I hope what I've shared here on my web-site, in my books and on my blogs gives you some of the value I've found... something you can take from what I've done which improves and deepens your own relationship with yourself ... and how you live your life...
My Work Shared in my Two Books:
My first book: "FOOTSTEPS IN THE SANDS OF TIME... My Journey of Remembering, Self-Healing and Learning Through 4 Lifetimes", shares how I took steps leading me forward this life and simultaneously back in time through three past lives.
It focuses specifically on remembering, working with memories, including the parts and faces these reveal, and then integrating it all together.
As my past lives have all been difficult, "Footsteps..." is as much about working through difficulty to uncover the benefits this hides, as it is about remembering and integration. It recounts the steps I took this life, as I followed my inner guides, which seemed to make no sense, but were necessary to heal wounds I sustained before in these other lives. In this book, I share just enough of where I went, how it felt and what I uncovered to demonstrate how I've worked... I've also shared some of what I learned from the process as well as many of the tools and methods I've used for remembering and working with what I discovered inside. My interest is primarily in soul's digestive process; the inner alchemy of turning raw experience into soul-food which can nourish growth... so both of my books, but especially "Footsteps..." are about this.
Although I read widely and explored many healing modalities at the beginning of my journey, these were all left behind as I continued taking the required steps. Consequently, both my path and how I’ve worked are unique. Doing this work has felt inside like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle falling into place. The result has been a major integration of previously un-owned parts and faces and has explained so much that has puzzled me for the whole of this life.
It is about my walk, seemingly alone, following my inner guides to traverse my inner landscape and what has happened to me, inside, through working with what I discovered. In it I share the poetry and art, I created to assist me to first explore and feel and then later to understand all I’ve found inside.
Although the poetry and art by itself makes a complete book, for those interested and wanting a little more, I've also included an additional section on working alone. In this section, you will find some tools I've found helpful (particularly ones that have facilitated my connection to and my ability to follow my inner guides), a few examples of explorations I've worked with, as well as some further titles I've explored in depth and which you might also find it beneficial to explore... As much of what I've found and worked with in me, has cultural as well as earth creature/human implications, my explorations have a broad application and are not strictly personal in scope. I hope to give my readers some tools to use as well as much to puzzle over, ponder and reflect upon – helping to deepen their own understanding of themselves, their lives and why they are here... With both of my books, but especially with "An Inner Journey", I've also hoped to facilitate your own connection to your own inner guides; trusting that you too will find this as fruitful and magical as I have... The value of the learning which is possible from following your inner guides on an inner exploration, such as the one I've done, can carry you, like it has me, through whatever you have to face and feel in the process...
Changing Direction To Begin a New Exploration:
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| A Butterfly's Changing Life - Art by Sylvia Kay |
I've used this blog to share some of my current art as well as some of my daily, small observations, puzzles, feelings, and, and, and... often about the outer world we inhabit together... and I've let them fall freely like drops of rain... with no return or response required, so they were free to find their own way to where they might be of use or interest...
When I created it, I wanted to do something different from what I'd already done on my web-site and other blogs...Since so much of LIFE seems to be unique and individual, I wanted to simply share the wandering and wondering I did in the outer world and not so much of where this took me inside or the work I did there... which I've seen is so often specifically applicable to just me in any case... I feel I've done what I wanted to with my web-site and other blogs by sharing just enough about my work to give a sense of how I've done it; opening this as a possibility for you to ponder and explore, incorporating any pieces which might resonate into your own work... What I felt I could still share and hadn't were just the steps... the small pieces of the improvisational daily journey... with a first take on how they looked or felt in the first moments I lived them...
This NEW blog has been a place for sharing this part of me... You are welcome to stop by and take a look at: "Steps in a Changing Life..." at: https://steps4today.blogspot.com/, Perhaps what has drawn my attention will be meaningful or interesting for you too....
My Work Shared On My 3 Blogs And Google Group:
For a few more details about my meditative inner work, my books and my art you are welcome to visit my blog at: https://sylviakayfootsteps.blogspot.com. I originally created this blog as an update for my work while my web-site was being renovated back in 2010... However, I've left some material there, about me and my work, which I didn't include on my web-site, which you are welcome to read.
To give my readers a space for discussing the experiences, ideas and ways of working I've shared as well as other material they find relevant to my work I created a google group... My blog at: https://sylviakayfootsteps2.blogspot.com provides my introduction to this group as well as giving a little more information about both me and my work... Although to begin with, as I am the only member of the group, I may have to be involved with its first steps; I think I've set it up so this won't be necessary. It is intended to be my readers' group rather than mine. I've just provided the space.... Its growth and direction will be determined by whatever contributions my readers make... The address for the group is: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sylviakayfootsteps.
My newest blog at: https://steps4today.blogspot.com/, offers a more personal, small, ordinary human take on my life as it has unfolded day by day... I contributed to it for about 2 1/2 years... stopping at the end of September 2017... Although it still feels important to have shared my life in this way, I haven't felt like additions were required... I've discovered that I'm MUCH more interested in and happier sharing my passions and consuming interests, even if there is only a little I can share, because they are so often specifically applicable just to me... My heart lives here with my passions and my web-site is the perfect venue for sharing what I can of them! Again I'm reminded of the importance of giving time to things... It's taken me more than 5 years to explore and then understand the purpose of this blog for me inside... and more than 10 years to begin to understand the importance of my web-site...
The final posts on this blog are also a little different from the others... I've just begun to explore paper mâché as an art form and the final 7 posts show-case some of this... I exhibited a piece of art in "The Woman's Day Art Show" in Orillia in 2016 and so loved the combination of art and writing that was required for this show, that I just knew I wanted to do more... and these 7 posts are the result... In contrast to the other posts on this blog, they are really more like an extension of "My Art" page here on my web-site... However, most of the other posts are just small snapshots of what I noticed or felt as I lived an ordinary human day. You are welcome to stop by and take a look anytime...
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