The Feel is For Real

Just finished a book by Gregg Braden "Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age". His voice is calm and reassuring, unlike that of other books I have read that seem to preach and scream about the necessity of change. I appreciate that.

His basic thesis, as I understand it, is that time, like all elements of Nature is fractal. Like a hologram, there are repeating patterns that differ only in scale. What happens in a particular piece of time is reflected in larger time cycles and vice versa.

He discusses material from many sources.. not just the "usual suspects," although you cannot write any book about this topic without mentioning Jose Arguelles and John Major Jenkins. He gives a more detail about what the Hopi have said about this time period. He also brings in the information from the "bible code" regarding 2012.

He has developed something called the Time Code Calculator which is based on the mathematical principal known as the 'golden proportion' that was used to build the Great Pyramid in Giza. You can access it here.

Braden claims that events in the life of individuals, nations, and even the planet, repeat and that the timing of those events can be predicted based on a 'seed event'. While calculating the possible repetition of the seed event will give us a probable date...it is not necessary for the event to recur. All the elements may be present and still the event may not happen.

This, of course, ties in very closely with the prophetic Mayan texts known as the Chilam Balam. Based on the notion that history repeats itself, the Jaguar Priest prophesied into the future. The Chilam Balam that we have found date from the Colonial period of Mayan history, but they are believed to be based on earlier practices and texts.

Indeed, the Maya concept of time is based on fractals... that is many levels of time occurring simultaneously. Repeating cycles within cycles.

I got two useful things from this book.

First, he refers to a Buddhist teaching that says "Reality exists only where we create a focus." I would love to know where this came from... but it is not necessary.

Lately, I have been trying to find my next step. Not by 'figuring it out,' but rather, by feeling my way, listening. But as usual, I tend to look outside of my current circumstances for an answer. That is... whatever I am doing now, cannot be what I am supposed to do....because it is 'not working.' Sound familiar? This one sentence changed all that. Rather than looking for something different from what I am already doing... I feel the meaning is I should do it more. That is, put MORE energy into it... FOCUS on it rather than always looking out the window so to speak. DO IT with my whole being. In Latin, the word 'focus' means hearth, cooking fire. It is the 'focal' point of the home. The fire in the heart/hearth. Make my heart/hearth the center of my life. In Roman times, the fire place evolved into the altar where the sacred fire was kept lit. In Mayan cosmology, the 'three-stone place', ie, the heart/hearth of the cosmos, is the creation place.

This leads to the second thing I got from this book, which was the nature of the change we must make to thrive during these times.

I am not sure if Braden was aware of the number of times he used the word 'focus' in the book, or if he knows the etymology of the word, but it stood out for me. It was lighting up like a beacon. What is my focus?

He writes about the research by physicists that shows the effects consciousness has on matter, citing some experiments that have been done to demonstrate this. He talks about how a particular team of scientists noticed a rise in global magnetism during 9/11 and other 'world shattering' events. This led to research and observation of the relationship between emotional states, health, and magnetic fields.

He writes about the Institute of HeartMath and its founder who said, "regulating emotions is the next frontier in human evolution." This has significance for me because I have believed this for quite awhile. My years of study and practice of Sufism, a 'heart-centered' spirituality, aims at healing the broken heart of humanity. Basically asserting that it is because we are broken-hearted that we act out in destructive ways, reacting rather than responding, living in fear rather than love and trust.

As an aromatherapist and flower essence practitioner, my role is to serve as a conduit between the plant and human worlds. I truly believe that the plant world is in many ways more advanced than the human. Plants came before animals and made animal life on this planet possible. Every step in evolution was made first by plants, then the animals/humans followed. So, now, we need to trust the plant kingdom to lead us in the next step of our evolutionary journey. Incredibility, scent affects the emotional center immediately. It bypasses the rational mind and goes right to the instinctual level. Flower essences work on the energetic level, again below the radar of the mind. Both these modalities are effective in helping us toward a heart-centered reality.

Braden says that the key to our transition lies in our collective feelings about the change. I agree completely. How we feel about what is going on right now is crucial. Because we, in the modern, western world, are so accustomed to using our mind to understand, we don't know how to do it any other way. Seeking other modalities seems 'silly', 'crazy' or 'weird'. The closest thing we come to any other way of knowing is if we have a religious belief - which is the only kind of 'irrationality' we accept. But, for most people, religious practice and belief eroded away a long time ago. We may still participate, but don't feel anything.

One thing I am aware of is how effective the media are at numbing us. We are becoming armored by watching and hearing all this bad news. We can't allow ourselves to feel because it is overwhelming. How many starving, drowning, brutalized people can you seen in the news? But unfortunately, what this also does is numb us to our immediate circle of friends and family. Numb to the suffering of humanity just to survive the day, we have become numb to our own life. The way out of this is to fast from media. Don't watch it. Don't listen to it. Don't read it. It's true, there's little you can do about it. But what you can do is be sensitive to those in your immediate world. Open to those around you. Help them when you can. If everyone did that...all would be cared for.

How we feel is more important that what we think. The New Age has made us all familiar with 'your thoughts create your reality.' Let's go one more step.... how you feel affects your thoughts. Joe Miller, an incredible man I never met, but who was well known my many of my Sufi friends said, "you can get more stinkin' from thinkin' than you can from drinkin', but the feel is for real".

Thank you Gregg Braden for reminding me of my focus.
His website

How is Country-western Music Like Sufism?

When I was a child, my mother liked to listen to country-western music (as well as many other genres). I hated it. She told me "some day you will love it." I didn't believe her. But... it was true. After I had my heart broken a few times, suffered, cried myself to sleep over love, I got it. To really like country-western music, unless you grew up with it, you have to have suffered a broken heart. Read on to see how that is like Sufism.

Just finished reading Serpent of Light: Beyond 2012 by Drunvalo Melchizedek. I have to admit I have been avoiding this one because I thought it was too far out. But since I am reading everything on the subject, I knew I would have to read it eventually. (Hmmm kind of like country-western music)

What I found was one of the books that may not necessarily be 'true' on the level of the intellectual mind, but does have a huge 'inexplicable' effect on the heart and psyche.

For one thing, I had a hard time putting it down. It was compelling. For another, ever since I started reading it, it has been affecting me at a deep level. I can feel something shifting in me.

When I read a book like this I know that there is a level of 'truth' to it that is beyond the intellectual way of thinking. In fact, I can still hear myself saying 'Oh come on...'. Meanwhile I find myself in tears for no reason or finally understanding the difficulty I am having working with the public lately.

Now that I can leave the house, drive and walk, I don't want to be 'in the world' at all. This has been a disturbing recent development. But after reading Drunvalo's book, I had an inspiration concerning what is happening to me and why I am so sensitive to energy.

This is coming forth right now because of this eclipse we are in. I feel a strong desire to re-connect (in a different way) with the Sufi path I have been on (with some detours) for the past 15 years. It has been referred to as the path for those with a broken heart.

The timing of completing the book, the eclipse, working at the County Fair and seeing my teacher's face is perfect. Of course. And once again, The Galactic Alignment is not only occurring out there in the sky. It is occurring in our heart.

Nassim Haramein says there are black holes at all levels of existence. At the level of the human body, the black hole is in our heart. This is the place of creation. Drunvalo says the same thing in this book. And... the Maya say the same thing. The Dark Rift is also the ultimate place of creation/recreation. Death, Birth, Rebirth.

Thanks to My Friend Bob B. - That's What Friends Are For

For those of you who are interested in the progress of my CD-ROM - Beginning Mayan Hieroglyph Class - it is coming along well and should be available soon.

I was wondering the other day how I got into this 2012 thing. I never gave it much thought even though I knew the calender would 'end' I also knew that since the Maya had a cyclic view of time and that endings overlap with beginnings, I wasn't that concerned.

Then I remembered that my long time friend Bob B. had suggested I read 2012: Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck. That's what started it.

One thing led to another and I realized I had purchased Jenkins' Galactic Alignment at the NCGR (National Council for Geocosmic Research) conference in Baltimore a couple of years ago, feeling that it was important, but not sure why. I also read his Maya Cosmogenesis and had quite a shock.

Many years ago, I did pen and ink drawings on handmade paper, of any date requested in Mayan hieroglyphs. I remembered that I got an order from Terence McKenna's wife for the Maya end date. Not sure if she wanted the GMT or the GMT+2, I wrote back for clarification. It was the GMT. So, I made the drawing, which was to be a gift for McKenna from his wife. Seems that it was McKenna who had uncovered significance to the end date that others had not seen. Unknowingly the web of connection was being woven even then. I wonder whatever happened to that pen and ink drawing? A few years later, I saw the two McKenna brothers at the Bioneers Conference and learned about plant messengers.

After reading Pinchbeck, I started reading everything I could find on the topic then went to the Shift by the Bay in S.F. Halloween weekend 2008 and everything changed for me.

I was so inspired and felt that finally all my pursuits, studies, hobbies - entire life experience had been preparing me for this present time. I had read all the books, studied the languages, travelled to most of the places, following my intuition - and now I knew why.

It was such an exhilarating experience to have all the pieces of my life finally fit together.

With my natal Jupiter conjunct the Galactic Center in my 4th house, opposing Uranus in my 10th house, and my mid-heaven conjunct the Pleiades, my natal astrology chart clearly indicated someone whose mission was connected to this time period. That is why I decided to teach my Mayan Hieroglyph class again after a hiatus of several years. See my astrology blog.

As is my wont, I have many interests. I move between them in a kind of spiral motion. Revisiting them, hopefully, on a deeper level each time.

When I stopped teaching my Maya course before, it was to deeply immerse myself in Sufism. I studied to become a Cherag (minister of the Universal Worship), became an initiated Semazen (dervish in the Mevlevi Order), and studied Classical Arabic so as to read and recite Qur'an.

In the past few years, I have gone to several training programs in herbalism and related topics, and gotten more deeply into astrology as well. See my herbal blog.

I regret none of this, because even these subjects, which might seem unrelated to the Maya, have deepened my understanding of their language and cosmology during the Classic period.

Studying the religions of the world for my ordination, I learned how religions are deeply connected at their core. It is only the external forms that differ - related to time and space. The message is very much the same, but new messengers are required who speak to the times of a particular culture.

One way I interpret the idea that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets, ie, the last prophet, is that in the current day we all have direct access to God and can receive divine inspiration ourselves. We don't need prophets anymore. (This is just my opinion). we are all potentially prophets.

As I see it, part of the 2012 shift, is that religion will no longer be needed. The past 5125 years has been the Age of Religion (as I see it). People needed to have someone else, something else, help them to figure out what to do, provide moral guidance, etc. That has run its course. The reason I know this is that it has become its opposite. The intention has now been run through totally and it has now become the justification for immoral acts. We see it everyday. Religion justifying horrendous behavior. No longer the ideal towards which we strive, it has become the excuse for being our worst possible selves. Obviously religion's day is done.

What's next? People taking personal responsibility for themselves and the results of their actions. Conscience, accountability, integrity. Only then can we move to the next level.

The zeros in the end date are portals. They indicate that we have spiralled up into the next level of human development. What comes next for each one of us depends on what we want to see in our future. Each thought, word, action contributes to creating the next 'world'. We all have free will. It's up to you. Set your intention.