Monday, September 20, 2021

Rolling In and Rolling Out


In intuitive philosophy, there is a concept called involution. There is also the concept of evolution. Eastern philosphy sometimes refers to this a the Inbreath and the Outbreath of Brahma.

The idea of involution-evolution is multi-facted with one aspect being to perfect the relationship between life and form. 

Simplified, involution is Spirit becoming substance, wrapping itself in a form (a body), and using that form as a means of expression.

The word involution comes from the Latin"involvere". The prefix "In" meaning, in and "volvere" meaning, to roll. Therefore, involution means "to roll into, envelop, and to surround". 

The Latin roots of evolution are, "ex" meaning, out and "volvere" which we learned means "to roll". Evolution has to do with the process of unrolling.

The process of evolution is a process of identification. First, we identify with the physical body, then with our emotions, then with our mind, then with our personality, with our Soul, with our Divine Self, and ultimately we re-identify with Source and oneness. Essentially, that is what evolution is about. And it's what the Spiritual path is about.

So, what does this have to do with our everyday life?

Everything.

The purpose of life is evolution. To evolve means to become less matter and more Spirit. We become that by being committed to daily improvements. This is when real growth happens!

Improvement happens when we watch our selves each day. Observe your thoughts, your emotions, your words, your actions, your moods, your haits--be determined taht you are going to correct some deficiency or do something with greater discipline, care and mastery than you have ever done it before. All it takes is consistent regularity, and before you know it, you will have made 365 improvements!

Every accomplishment, each improvement we make is a step up the ladder of evolution. Why? Because an improvement, in essence, is a subtle raise in frequency, and as we steadily raise our frequency, we evolve out of a dense spectrum into a high frequency one.

Evolution is a step-by-step process. Every deliberate improvement in our thinking, feeling, speaking and acting creates change in the fabric of our bodies through which our consciousness operates. Each good thought, kind deed, pleasant word, or positive goal adds strength to our auric field. Therefore, a commitment to small, daily improvements literally rearranges the constitution of our bodies at a cellular level, increasing the frequency of our auric field.

The higher the frequency of your energy or vibration, the lighter you feel in your physical, emotional, and mental bodies. You experience greater personal power, clarity, pleace, love, and joy. You have little discomfort or pain in your physical body, and your emotions are easily dealth with. 

When you raise your vibration, you create an energetic environment where low density, low vibrational energies are unable to be and function. Low density or low vibrational energies can be negative emotions and thoughts, attachments, imprints or entities. Raising your vibration makes these lower energies no longer part of your reality.

As low vibration energies are reduced, and high, positive ones increase, you will feel more alert, vital and focused. You get a boost to your sense of well-being and wholeness. Things that you once felt were lacking or missing are replaced with a stronger and grounded sense of being.

The higher your vibration, the more expansive you aura and energies become. You take up more space and feel the underlying energetic connections with all of existence more deeply and profoundly. You tend to feel and experience a more palpable oneness with all. Your connection with Mother Earth is strenghtened and you are more grounded which may, in time, reduce over thinking and a feeling of separateness from life.

Raising your vibration is as simple as breathing in and out, deeply and with intention. Place your hand on your abdomen. Invite the vital life force that travels upon breath, into your body. When we breathe down into our bellies and fill ourselves with breath all the way up to the top of our lungs, we are inviting fresh oxygen into each one of our cells. This, in turn, nourishes every system in our bodies. And we stimulate a bundle of nerves at the base of the spine which engage the parasympathetic nervous system, thus inducing relaxation.






Sunday, September 19, 2021

Visitors

 


Recently our home was blessed by a doe raising her speckled twins in the woods around the small lake out back. She taught them how to make their way up through the back of the houses, to our garden and the neighbor's pear and plum orchard. Delight filled us more than frustration the times we discovered squash blossoms or pea flowers nibbled from their stems.

It was a hard blow the morning I discovered the doe's body at the head of our drive. My thoughts immediately flew to her relatively new born, still-spotted twins and how they would survive. We would see them near the road and toss them apples, carrots, and pears to lead them back down to the safety of our garden and orchard. Back to where they could smell the woods and the water of the lake beyond. 

They were always together. Side-by-side the fawns nibbled grass, fallen fruit, rose hips, berries and more squash blossoms. We would notice their hoof prints in our carrot bed and along the dirt path to the lake. They drank from our fountain and bird bath while our cat chattered to them, doing his best to make new freinds. At night we could hear them rustling in the brush behind our home, bedding down in camouflaged safety of the salal and oregon grape.

Once while quietly tending to garden tasks and lost in my thoughts, I felt a presence. I slowly look over my shoulder and there they were--less than six feet away, probably wondering when I'd stop blocking their access to the raspberries.

Our hearts broke again the day we discovered one of the fawns fell to the same fate its mother had. I gently carried its body into the woods, placing water and berry leaves in its mouth and covering its body with roses. Deer have been a significant aspect of my life for as long as I can remember and the unnatural death of one, cuts deeply into my essence. 

Several times throughout my life, deer has presented its graciousness and beauty to me in personal, memorable and often potent ways.

When I was seven years old, my uncle once found me on the edge of the woods near his riverside cabin in upstate New York. I was bent at the waist exchanging breath with a young fawn while its mother alertly stood nearby watching over us. Soft against my cheeks, the fawn's breath smelled like freshly cut grass mixed with spruce and cedar bark. Mine probably smelled of apple slices, American cheese and Cheerios. 

As my uncle neared, the doe positioned her body in front of us and firmly nudged her fawn towards the trees. The young deer bound into the brush and the doe looked at me surely wondering why I had not hopped behind the salal as well. 

I remember my uncle stopped, lowering his nearly seven-foot frame into a squat.

 "So, you've adopted that one?", he softly said to the deer while nodding towards me.

The doe turned her head toward me, then back to him.

He smiled at me, his little niece perfectly happy to live with the deer, and shook his head. And the doe, deciding I would not make a very smart deer, turned and walked into the trees, her side gently brushing against my back as she departed.

 

    

Panthers in the Temple

  Guardians of the Sacred, Symbols of Transformation Panthers crouch in the shadowed recesses of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu, their stone...