As One………….

I believe numinous and spiritual experience are ever present around us, it simply takes for our perception to be open to it. However most of us go though life largely unaware of the truly exquisite magical nature of our world around us. As empathic / spiritual individuals I feel we are more open to a kind of energetic intimacy which is vastly more profound and sensual.

It may be in form of a spectacular view,  a feeling of oneness with nature or some other occurrence that we intrinsically recognise as something ‘other’ than our more frequent day to day perception. 

And on rare occasions it appears it can be interpersonal :

I hardly know you but when I think of you or if I am graced enough to be in your presence something extraordinary happens to me.  My spirit is given flight, all my senses are heightened seemingly to ensure that in no way  I miss any aspect of your divine self. I bathe in your gaze and become lost deep in your eyes. Any self control I have, has withered away as I respond to your every word and gesture.

To others it would appear to be an intimate friendship but when we are together we are as one, intrinsically in synchronicity in our interaction. The content and context of our verbal and non verbal responses are immaterial, they simply serve the purpose of allowing us to subtly and with pure, intense sensuality mingle our individual energies. Consummating our union with every word, touch and exchange of eye contact. Any sense of time is lost as this is beyond physicality, this is the realm of the eternal soul. There is no beginning neither no end, only this moment for eternity.

Anyone watching would see I was lost to you, like prey willingly hypnotised by an enigmatic predator. As a sailor must have been drawn to his personal death by the seductive call of the mermaid, I too wish to answer my heart and souls call to be as one with you. Even if it meant that I was never to find myself again it would be  small loss to be a part of you, always.

Thou Art That..

Although to others I appear as simply yet another human being amongst millions of other human beings. The expectation from them is that I too operate and act from a similar perspective. In that I will to some extent seek personal, ego related goals. That I will endeavour to make myself secure by the acquisition of material wealth. That I will have similar external interests involving media driven activities of which I am assumed to have a shared predilection. 

This is the hard part, as I by and large do not. 

Living within a society that lives out and expects individuals to adhere to an anthropocentric ideology  is, for me, completely unnatural. 

My empathic spiritual journey has now led to perceptual changes in the way that I experience the world around me. 

I am as one with the Earth. 

My human body forms the flimsiest demarcation of my soul, for my soul too is at one with the Universe. 

Out in the forest the feeling is intensified. 

In the wilderness, the air in my lungs once expelled becomes one with the wind. The breeze then wraps itself around my human form, caressing my hair and skin. Evaporating the thin sheen of sweat on my brow, which had once been part of one of the great oceans. Although the presence of blood, bone and sinew are to be found within me, they too are only borrowed. One day, upon my passing, I will again return to the Earth from whence I came and from which I have never truly been separated. 

Even in my humanity I can sense the other. 

The autonomic consciousness of the bee as it almost preturnaturally carries out its duties to ensure the survival of his hive. 

The feral mind of the fox, raw and unencumbered by a superego seeks to satiate his hunger. 

The various parts of the dense undergrowth, clearings and landscape that give rise to their own genius loci. That speak subtly of sublime nature spirits, evocations, spiritual communion and desperate entreaties to the ‘other’ world. For in these places the veil between the worlds is barely perceptible. One can easily visit other dimensions and planes of existence simply by being present. 

I have no wish to return to my previous experience of life as a simple, egoic human. Indeed I feel that I could not if I wished to. 

So if you see me around, please feel free to say hello as I have much to discuss and desire to hear of your thoughts. You will recognise me by my eyes, they have all the elements of the Earth therein. 

Primal Empathy

Primal Empathy 

( or my current take on understanding empathic awareness) 
Within ancient cultures ( especially of the indigenous form), animism seems to have been the original belief system adopted by humanity. It’s a little paradoxical however because the ‘practice’ of, and the animist beliefs associated them were never extrinsic to man’s early existence. 
“Our original way is not a belief system. It is a lived way of life, being a participant within the whole of the living world”. (Graham Harvey 2014).
We were closer to Nature, creatures, objects and places were all perceived to have a spiritual essence. All was deemed to be animate and alive. 

Bearing this in mind it would be quite understandable that the human race had a natural empathic relationship with the world around them. 

This may thus suggest that empathy was an organic and naturally occurring emotion in early Man. 

Even today, one can still read of other cultures for whom this ethos predominates i.e. Native American and the indigenous Aboriginal let alone historical references including Hinduism and Buddhism to name but two. 

The question is, what happened? 

It seems patently obvious that currently most of society are happy to act as blind consumers of the Earth’s resources, be it animal, plant or mineral. 

Even with each other there is an ongoing one upmanship. Individuals seeking more wealth and power than our peers in order to satiate our ego’s, thus warding off the underlying feelings of insecurity and disconnection. 

Have we been socialised and conditioned out of these feelings? 

For those of who are genuinely ’empathic’ or energetically sensitive, it would explain much. 

Many of us feel :

  – a natural loving affinity for all of Nature and the Earth 

  – an acute ability to feel the pain of others including humans, animals and the environment 

  – out of place in Western Society, as if we belong elsewhere 

  – often a sense of loneliness and anxiety eased when in Nature

 So if this were the case, what can we draw from this supposition? 

I personally feel that we need to remain authentic to ourselves and to individuate as individuals. This way we can be led by Spirit to serve our worldly purpose. We may not know the whole picture but in many ways we do not need to. We can be content in the knowledge that we are here to serve a purpose and to this we must be true. We should not mistake our empathic gift to be something to be used for personal gain or to be seen in isolation as a burden on ourselves as sometimes it may seem. 

For being energetically sensitive is all about connection and realising the interconnectivity of all creation. 

I have been fortunate in having experiences of feral vision and Advaita which seem to support this scenario. 

Therefore the existence of the Oversoul / Collective Unconscious /Paramatman appears to be a defining issue in understanding true empathic feelings. 
“I feel it with my body, with my blood. Feeling all these trees, all this country. When this wind blow you can feel it. Same for country … you feel it. You can look, but feeling … that make you. Feeling make you, out there in open space. He coming through your body, look while he blow and feel with your body…because tree just about your brother or father…and tree is watching you. Earth…like your father or brother or mother, because you born from earth. You got to come back to earth. When you dead…you’ll come back to earth. Maybe little while yet…then you’ll come to earth. That’s your bone, your blood. It’s in this earth, same as for tree” (Bill Neidjie 1985).

Tat Tvam Asi……?

As many of us go through times of what seems spiritual growth a number of occurrences may happen. 

  – Our human ego becomes transparent ( as do the covert ego led actions of others). That is to say we still have instinctual urges and drives but we see them for what they are, merely actions to defend itself and preserve its fragile integrity.

  – We transcend in our awareness of the world around us, well over and above our previous human egoic based interpretations we had held before. 

  – Paradoxically we may perceive ourselves and the world around us as a vastly interconnected web yet seamless in our shared existence. 

  – Whereas our previously ‘reality’ may have been defined in human terms as the experience of life that is identified with the majority of individuals within that particular society. It may now include much numinous experience. For example of being aware of the mythic aspects of self and society. Of the subtle but substance of dreams,  visions and unexplainable personal epiphanies. 

 

If these instances occur one can easily find oneself feeling isolated and alone as few others share similar experiences. 

These feelings may not be new, especially to those of us who have ’empathic tendencies’. 

For those of us who are ‘energetically sensitive’ ( or empathic), most, if not all of our lives can be spent being misunderstood not only by others but also by ourselves! 
Ironically if we can incorporate our empathic perceptions into an understanding of the nature of existence, we see that we are far from alone. The fact that we can preternaturally sense the energies of people, places and objects suggests that there is an aspect of self in others. As in the  Sanskrit phrase ‘ Tat Tvam Asi ‘, meaning ‘ Thou art that ‘ ( from the Chandogya Upanishad). 

Empathy therefore, if one is able to nurture it effectively can be a springboard into spiritual awareness. Whereas if one sees it as a solely personal, human quality in isolation, it may well become something of a burden. 
In summary, empathic awareness along with spiritual awareness can easily leave our human, egoic selves feeling alone and isolated. Yet paradoxically from a spiritual / objectively empathic perspective the suggestion is that of the unity of all things, of there not being a identifiable separate self.

The Story Thus Far…………….

My previous post was about an epiphany I had a few weeks ago now. I have had requests to elucidate what exactly I experienced, so here goes.
I generally sense that we all grow develop in different ways in terms of spirituality, that is to say that there is no generic right path. However if we are authentic in our approach to life we have the capacity to individuate and thus are more able to fulfill our own potential.
There have been many subjects and experiences historically that have resonated with me although at the time I was not sure as to why. A kind of intuitive nudge I suspect.
These in short have been :
– sense of oneness with Nature
– Neolithic and pre Neolithic history
– ancient sites
– quantum physics
– Taoism
– Buddhism
– aspects of Paganism ( pantheism and pantheism)
– animism
– the works of Carl Jung
– deep ecology
– Hinduism
These are to mention just a few. I have also experienced instances of Advaita and to some extent Kundalini.
I also am very empathic by nature and can sense feelings and energies in people, animals and places.
However until now I had been unable to unite them into a coherent understanding of my own individual vision of the world.
My current suspicions are as follows :
– in primitive early man there was a strong empathic connection with our planet and its flora and fauna
– in sensitive and empathic individuals today this is also the case. Part of our mind is not ours but is found outside in the object. That is to say that intuitively we feel the unity with existence, that we are part and parcel of the the world around us. Thus due to this kind of unconscious link we are able to feel the energies of others and places around us. We recognize that we potentially share the same soul
– this would explain why many spiritually empathic types feel that do not belong to this world as it is currently. Due to Western Societys propensity to subjugate Nature in many of her forms, to live among the general populations casual acceptance of this is uncomfortable to say the least
– some Animistic belief systems ( e. g. American Indian cultures) recognise the Divinity in Nature and treat the world around them accordingly. This tradition and its maintenance would continue to maintain that natural empathic link.

For many people in Western Cultures these feelings are now lost or irretrievable due to the generic dualistic and Cartesian mindset. Hence many people are concerned about the environmental impact it is having upon our planet.
I hope that I have explained myself coherently as it’s rather a tricky topic to write about, mainly because the essence of it all is not about thinking but feeling.
I’m now going to have a read of the Chandogya Upanishad.

Tat Tvam Asi

A World in a Grain of Sand……..?

Grateful for the opportunity to rest, I sit down leadenly in my armchair and close my eyelids. 

Outside I hear the wind press itself against the windows, giving the occasional gentle whistle where egress is found. 

The distant sound of children’s laughter, as natural as the babbling of a brook.

A soft, lilting chirrup of birdsong joins Nature’s symphony providing the perfect soundtrack to my repose. 
The generic aches and pains from my previous exertion gently remind me of my physical incarnation. I can almost feel every muscle, tendon and sinew of my body, still tender from my activity..

My heartbeat steadied to a dull regular pulse within my chest, my breathing reduced to a gentle ebb and flow. 

Slowly and tentatively I drift into an involuntary but not unwelcome meditative state.
A discreet impartial awareness arises within me, allowing a sensual acuity of my inner processes.

Words are barely able to interpret the experience. 
I can sense ( feel? hear?) the incipient vibration of air molecules upon the emanation of a distant crow’s caw. 

I can sense the almost untrackable speed with which the sound reaches my the membranes of my eardrums. 

That bundle of energetic information now rapidly traversing through a network of neurones and synapses, electrically bridging the gap between receptors to continue it’s journey. Becoming lost and indiscernable amongst the multitude of other quantum neurological activity. 
I am paradoxically both acutely and dimly aware of other physiological processes inside of me.

Of how I am a world within worlds. 

My arboreal lungs exchanging gases to maintain homeostasis. 

My arteries and veins carrying my lifeblood to the entirety of my corporeality as rivers and streams carry sustenance to the land.
My true self is indiscipherable from all that exists.

I am of the world yet also between the worlds. 

I am the earth, the air, fire, water and yet quintessentially spirit.
Returning from my reverie to my mortal existence. Back to the comparatively coarse and blunted sensorium with which my human form is endowed.

I live my life in the knowledge that all is not what it seems. 

That whatsoever my earthbound experience is at any given moment, it is simply a temporarily fleeting corporal construct.

The Ghost in the Machine ( a paradoxical reflection)

” Listen – are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life? ” – Mary Oliver. 
So, what happened? 

I understand the premise that the whole is more than the sum of parts however it gives little in the way of logical explanation. 

So a coal miner marries a factory worker who begat a son. Neither parent ( or any other relative) ever had an interest in the esoteric or spiritual. They were both very grounded in their day to day human existence. Conversation generally touched on the unremarkable topics of football, work, family members and associates. Therefore in terms of hereditary and environmental conditioning I should not be whom I am. 

Also it appears that the majority of society live similar lives to that of my parents. 

I seemingly cannot. 

I am consumed by an inner restlessness, a thirst for knowledge and understanding of the world about me. An eternal journey of inner and outer discovery, of questioning everything that I happen upon. 

Despite society’s pressure to live within recognised and largely acceptable themes, I cannot. 

Many of my feelings and ideas used to remain locked away in my head and my heart for the fear of rejection and ridicule of others. Some such were:

  – my ability to read people, their histories, their hearts desire and their hidden agendas

  – the barely tangible energies of places and people, linking past and future existences 

  – the experience of none duality, in the light of which the physical world dissolves into a dreamlike state

  – the daily synchronicities, of eels and Ouroboros, of Nataraja and quantum reality. 

 

So here I stand, watching the world go by in a neverending stream of apparently meaningless activity. Very few seemingly stopping to question what they are doing or why. Most comfortably coccooned in their experience of mortal existence, of living within the confines a predetermined, linear and purely reactive life. 

So, back to my original question. 

What happened? 

Am I cursed? Gifted? Possessed? Individuating? 

A man’s knowledge is always going to be finite in the grand scheme of things, sometimes one has to accept that there are no simple answers. 

Personally I go with gifted and individuating . 

The immense depth and painful beauty of my experience of the world though at times a little overwhelming, is something that I cherish and would never relinquish. 
  – 

  –

Where Worlds Meet

Where Worlds Meet 
Throughout the world there are many places where the meeting of the past, present, future and possibly other dimensions are felt more intensely. These are frequently sites of ancient origin which because of their numinosity are still reverred in some capacity to this day.

In the UK these consist of innumerable stone circles, henges, barrows, hillforts, ancient settlements, holy wells and many others too numerous to mention. 
Being somewhat energetically sensitive I am drawn to these places as they offer an extremely subtle yet tentative connection to other realms and times.

Many theories have been offered as to why these sites are perceived as ‘ special ‘. From leylines to having alignments to the Moon, Sun, stars or other features in the landscape. 

My personal viewpoint is that we, as modern humans with our largely Cartesian / rationalist culture find it nigh near impossible to empathise with our ancestors interpretation of their world. 

But if we are able to become more meditative and ‘ open ‘ then I believe glimpses can be felt or seen from an energetic perspective. 
The flint built walls of the ruined church stand starkly within the henge. Originally sited here to portray the imposition of the new religion upon the ancient beliefs of the indigenous populace. But the henge within which it was constructed had witnessed and was imbued with thousands of years of pagan supplication.
Sitting on a large cold, granite stone just below the medieval church’s tower I observed the dusk descend around me. The last deep amber rays of sunlight cast long shadows across the open landscape of fields, hedges and copses. A slight, ethereal mist hovered precariously over the grassland and the soft banks of the henge and barrow. As if to suggest the gentle rising of past spirits into the silence and security of the evening. Unseen and uninterrupted, they were again free to roam their home land as they once did. 

I could hear the distant hoofbeats of arriving horsemen from an ancient past.

I could hear the long gone church bells toll their last before Nature silenced them for eternity. 
It was as if time had stood still. 

Miniscule stars appeared overhead piercing the blackening velvet of the night sky. 

An overwhelming sense of stillness enveloped the area in and around the henge. 

The intensity of the silence penetrated my core. 

Every animal in the vicinity had seemingly held its breath as if in anticipation. 
My usual human senses no longer individually provided separate feedback from the outside world. 

My physical self had become as one with the world around me, no boundary remained.

There was no longer a separate ‘ I ‘. 

In that singular awareness of non duality, the entire unity of the universe and all therein was laid out in an infinite vision of interconnectedness. 
The deceitful human experience of time was lain to rest with the realisation that all that ever was, is or will be,were there and forever present. The grey veils that had divided the past from the future were simply an illusion.

This place is an organic sancta of Gaia. 

A site of reverence and revelation. Enabling her to impart esoteric knowledge in a way that is timeless and inaccessible from any other source.

Metaphors Rising………….

My whole being is but a small part of the neurological make up of all existence. 

I am but an organic synaptic receiver and transmitter of information.

Paradoxically there is nothing more nor anything less than what I am.

Multiple metaphors rising in my mind, blurring any distinction of reality. 

As above, so below.

Macrocosm, microcosm. 

Soil, rivers, mountains, trees and rain.

Flesh, blood, bone, lungs and tears.

Atoms, neutrons, protons and electrons.

Planets, moons, stars and galaxies.
Seemingly the only division between myself and the entirety of existence is my thought.

I am and am not the centre of the universe depending on my perspective at any given moment. 

I am simply an energetic event in a vast infinite ocean of seamless unified energetic activity. 

Nothing more and nothing less. 
My previous human egoic self can never recover.

For such awareness washes away the ego as a tsunami would a sandcastle. 

My perception of reality forever altered. 

I am no longer condemned to the imagined solitary existence of an imprisoned soul in a dying body.

But as with everything there comes a price.

I walk this world seemingly alone in this knowledge. 

All around me individuals and societies enact a form of reality of which I cannot honestly neither acknowledge nor partake. 

Not that I was given a choice. 

However I would rather be in this place of liberation than chained eternally to the blinkered vision of mortal men.

An Infinite Journey…….?

​An Infinite Journey…………? 
It’s funny how life turns out sometimes. 

If someone had said to me many years ago that I had empathic tendencies and these tendencies would greatly effect my life and who I would become, I probably would not have believed them.  I understood however that I was different. I couldn’t understand why people behaved in certain ways or why they made the choices that they did. 

There was literally no one that I could relate to on a personal level. Not that it made me unhappy, I just decided to go my own merry little way. 

So after many years, many mistakes, wrong turnings and uninformed choices later, all has become somewhat clearer.

I am drawn to heal. 

Be it people, animals or places. People with unresolved issues or are in some emotional pain always manage to catch my eye. They may be individuals who I have never met before but who seem to communicate their distress with the briefest of eye contact. Or others who, either consciously or unconsciously seek my acquaintance in order to enlist me at a later stage in our relationship. 

Before I was aware of my ‘ sensitivity’, I would simply automatically do the necessary ‘ rescuing’, much to my regret. For many who seemed to need rescuing were not looking to be so. They simply needed me to fill a gaping emotional hole in themselves. I was simply a tourniquet to be used to dampen their pain and chronic sense of loss. 

Also houses and certain places also drew me to them. Or more accurately, I was drawn to them. When I look back now to many places I have lived, it seems obvious that had a rather ‘ haunted’ feel. 

Also here there seemed to be unresolved business but not of this time. 

There were feelings of darkness, poltergeist activity, entities continually reliving past actions and visions of people and actions past. 

It’s only over recent years that I have come to understand the link. 

I find that for me there is no implicit definition of my abilities. I have a sprinkling of other ‘clairs’  too of varying degrees. 

Despite all the difficulties I have experienced because of my sensitivities, I am truly grateful for their presence as they have me to develop personally and spiritually in a way I could not have imagined all those years ago. 

However that only seems to be part of the journey. Still now I find that I discover other tendencies that I have or somehow developed. 

I pick up on other people’s emotions and frequently they are amplified within my self. If they are miserable, I’ll feel devastated. If someone is angry, I will feel furious. 

For instance, I was having a quiet beer in my local bar doing a little people watching. In walked two well built, muscular men who had had a little too much alcohol. I could tell instantly that they were looking for some target to rough up a little. Their gaze fell on me. For some reason I felt their anger ( I was unsure as to why they were so, it turned out they were soldiers back from a tour of duty). 

It felt as if I somehow channelled their anger, increased it and ( very out of character for me) held their eye contact in an intense and challenging manner. 

They then turned their attention elsewhere. 

This was done completely automatically without a conscious thought from myself. 

Also there appear to be occasional glimpses into other realms or sometimes a mix of realities occurs. Usually I will be somewhere and get a strong feeling or a picture in my head of how things looked in the past. Of people and activities long gone. Things that I thought to have been illusions I feel have reflected other realities. 

I prefer the phrase ‘ energetically sensitive’ to describe my human traits. After all quantum physics has proven that all is energy and there is no real ‘ hard’ reality in terms of form. 

Ancient cultures have also identified this to be true in varying guises i.e.  Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism for instance. 

So let the journey of life continue for who knows, in a world of infinite possibilities what lies around the corner.