ATTENTION!

  The Napa "aura" has worn off, but my realizations are sticking. I become more aware every day as I work to remain in a state a conscious awareness. While that may have too many off-putting, "New Agey" overtones, it's very apt for those who really want to break free from the daily hypnosis that sets in when we move about our lives with the switch perpetually on automatic. I admit it's more comfortable that way, being on automatic, but what it does is rob us of our spontaneity and the new insights that come with paying attention to every move, every breath, every thought. Practice assures that you don't lose the thread of what you're doing.

  There's a certain ecstasy in attentiveness. Smells and sights are more defined, senses more acute. The pleasure of being alive more vivid in my heart and mind. Very little more needs to be done. My mate doesn't feel any urge to join me in this consciousness adventure; he has his own way of connecting with himself. He's more assured. Since I am not, I undertake the daily practice to help me feel more assured and more awake. I am one of those people who's too inured in habit, in moving quickly and failing to pay attention. How many times has by husband had to take my keys out of the front door?

  What's really been nice is that little voice that comes in as I'm watching the news, saying to me, "just another story." We buy into so many of them, because life is a gigantic movie and we get to both watch and create it, plots, subplots, all. Will it take years to erase my film from the junky stories and images I've placed there? I won't even ask. I'll just do it.

  The next  post should come from my co-author, Catherine Solange. She's another voice and my partner in the HeartFix method. Shalom!

   

TIME TO TAKE A NAPA

     On a short but longed-for trip to northern California this weekend, I endeavored to absorb the refreshing vibes that only this peaceful area of our great state can offer. And I did. Along with imbibing some excellent draught beer (on St. Patty's Day) and later letting my tongue loll on a hefty chianti, then the next day trying a rather average sauvignon blanc while playing Scrabble at a svelte, minimalist oyster bar, I bathed and am still soaking in the mind cleanser only travel can furnish. My search for a "HeartFix" to apply to the dilemma detailed in my last post was rewarded in Napa, heart of wine country, with, first, an experience that could have been terrifying; then afterwards, revelations ramped up by books found at the Napa Library Book Sale. All in the company of my co-author Catherine, whose casual and spot-on understanding of the consciousness concepts added even more realizations to my realizations.

   Just the stark contrast between Napa and my own home area began the cellular shake-up in my brain and heart. So. Cal. somehow survives and endures others' lack of respect for the environment and so much run-down land and architecture, whereas wine country displays the lovely benefits of residential wealth and charmingly prominent environmental concerns. All was clean. All was safe. Almost all was compact and easily navigable. The slight inconvenience that disturbed Cath but tickled me no end: We got stuck in the hotel elevator. For almost a half-hour. I leaned on the alarm and signalled "SOS" over and over again--but it wasn't until Cath grabbed her cell and called 911 that some response was forthcoming, in the form of the Napa Fire Department. After what seemed an eternity, we were freed. It was wonderful. Turned out the stuckness was our own fault, shared with the hotel's lack of information.

   Cath and I are on a whirlwind course of "busting loose" from the games that no longer work for us. In brief and simple terms, this concept starts with seeing our personal lives as holograms, the light furnished by our "expanded selves" and filtered through patterns we have inserted between the laser light and our outward awareness, thereby creating everything we see and experience. The idea rests on the fundamental quantum understanding that nothing we have, see or experience here is "real"-- the only reality is Consciousness, or God,  and that our experiences are  "corrected" or expanded, if you will, by taking back the power inserted into previous patterns that have brought them into what we call material existence.

Robert Scheinfeld does a much better job of explaining this! Our beliefs and prejudices are stories that we abide by until we realize they're only stories and disconnect from them.

In  short: The folderol I've been entertaining about the downslide of America and the incursions on our freedoms are just . . . stories. I've been energizing these not-to-pleasant stories with my attention and interest and can just as easily disconnect! Napa's environment made that pretty easy, and as we drove back home I promised myself I would carry the realizations with me and practice them.

So far, so good. Must be the wine.

HeartFix: Don't believe everything you see. 

I REALLY Want to Say it. I REALLY DO.

OK, so the cartoon above could be considered a bit of an exaggeration. But I have been having to rein in my impulses to comment on the developing political situation here in the grand ol' U.S. of A. Anyone paying attention can see a clear demarcation between traditional American values and the sympathies of the left embodied by the current administration, and that the current left-leaning powers are on the ascendance. Trouble is, I am dead-set on training myself to be non-judgmental, to not incorporate this growing divisiveness into my own mindset, and to affirm the NON-reality of all these games we play in an essentially unreal world. (See former post for more on that.)

But damn, it's hard. The illusion of this world is so real, and it's so easy to jump into one camp or another. I have my human opinions; they rear up like angry cats and prepare to hiss and scratch at the least provocation, vociferously demanding a hearing in the wider populace. Of course, blogs and websites and Facebook make that all too tempting, and yes, I fall for the temptation.

What am I really doing when I give in to those catty impulses?

You can consider the following a glance into Vickiosophy....which is really just a random amalgamation of things I've picked up over the years studying people, things, Consciousness and Spirituality. I believe (note the qualification) that All is Consciousness, or God, if you will, and that all actions affect the consensus reality to which we all adhere. We can't always know it, yet everything is a part of God. Thoughts, words, ideas, judgements, acts of any nature cause shifts in the substrate of that reality--the quantum fundament. "Taking a side" further polarizes an already polarized world, while, let's face it: Polarities are useful while living in three dimensional reality. But the extant polarities made by the ever-active, ever-living force we call Creator take on added force one way or another when strong judgments and impulses are indulged and sent out into the quantum reality. When I post a political aside on Facebook, I chime in with a resonant belief and therefore add weight to it. NOW....this doesn't mean the belief is wrong or bad, just that I am supporting it.

The polarities in social and political beliefs at this juncture are so extreme, I can almost feel the extra poundage people are adding to their pet ideas about things. While now it remains largely a war of ideas, the liberal-conservative split in this country could, it seems, easily escalate into something worse. So I really want to say it. I really do: Now that guns have come under the increased scrutiny and devaluation of certain politicians who want to personally translate the 2nd Amendment into a mere shadow of itself, the decisive shoe has been dropped that threatens American liberties. History has taught us great lessons of what can result when the citizenry is disarmed. Do I want to think this way? No, I don't. But these are my thoughts at the moment.

Now I am looking into how I can apply the Heartfix method to this personal dilemma. I'll be back later next week with possible insights.

IN SEARCH OF REALITY

Punching up your "reality" quotient starts with an impartial look inside yourself; into not only your present situation, fondest dreams and best accomplishments, and your past, including so-called failures, desires, memories, goals, projects, hopes and outlook, but firstly a thorough investigation and non-judgmental view of the "real you." And who is that? We carry within ourselves both conscious and unconscious habits and attitudes, and until we can look at those and assess them for their value to ourselves and others, we are walking around life on robotic pre-set, insensate, automatic, gravitating like some lower species toward pleasure and away from pain, even if that means stepping on others without remorse and abandoning morals and ethics in order to serve ourselves.

That last description unfortunately fits too many people in our world. My husband and I frequently discuss this peculiarity of Life on Earth, wondering at the prevalence of hatred, meanness, dishonesty, scammers, flim-flammers, no-good-niks and just general flakiness. Funny thing ... it's not as if these haven't been with the human species, always, since before the wheel and before humans became fully bipedal--what we find perplexing and at times very disturbing is the near metastasizing spread of these dehumanizing characteristics while at the same time our store of knowledge and feats of graciousness, goodness and sheer unconditional love keep happening at a record pace. It's just harder to "see" them!

As I write these words, an epiphany: Discussing and fussing over the "bad" only adds to its strength and its dominance in our lives. While facing reality surely helps us navigate, becoming stuck in the bad only foments what we don't want, by continued association. "You are what you think" may be a simpler way of putting it. For all our own discussing and disparaging of what's perceived as the bad and the ugly, their unreality becomes the happy elephant in the room. Don and I live as authentically as we can, and while we both have different ways of going about that, both of us have made note of the way our lives have steadily improved over the last decades. Part of that is growing up and out of childish behaviors. I cannot speak for my spouse, but for my part, the bulk of this improvement relates mostly to remaining as conscious as possible about my own behavior and attitudes, the thoughts I entertain and the ones I tend to disregard. I still have plenty of bad habits, including a reflexive tendency to dwell on the injustices out there, but thankfully I've largely overcome the dank and depressive side of my nature. But ONLY by remaining conscious, staying in the present, not allowing the beast of bad thoughts to overtake my well-being.

The only reality is God. Now, you can take that word and make it anything else that's comfortable for you: Nature. Quantum motion. Universe. Multiverse. Real Self. The "I AM." For me it's God, because that word and its meaning are what I grew up with, what became instilled in me since childhood. The ancillary to that one and only reality? Love. It's what I try to keep my mind on, while the world outside of that becomes less and less real, day after day. That the "bad" out there seems to be increasing... I like to think that's only a coincidence.

"DOOM & GLOOM"--Hardly!

I always knew there was a reason rock 'n' roll would never die! This new Rolling Stones song                    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPFGWVKXxm0     (Uh-oh. Guess you'll have to cut and paste into your browser. Worth it!) gives its own  lyrics that upbeat punch that can help us turn away from what we see and hear all around us. The more we're inundated with "doom and gloom," the more we're directly challenged to affirm the universal GOODness that permeates all of life. Here on earth we're surrounded by media-enhanced "bad news" and fearmongering. Fearmongering has become a strategy of our current administration and the naysayers on both sides of the political fence. It's like everywhere you turn, every periodical you read...

But it ain't so. You have to dig deep, keep your glowing eyes open and plunge into the fundament of reality....all Light! All fluctuating microparticles designed to fulfill certain divinely designed processes and outcomes.  Why music can shift our perceptions, I don't know, but I wish I could bottle and sell it! Rock 'n' roll has that particularly "flyaway" quality--especially when you turn it up.... and DANCE!

Baby, won't you dance with me?

Take Time to . . . Take Time

"Get your motor runnin' . . .
  Head out on the highway!
  Lookin' for adventure
  In whatever comes my way . . ."
       --"Born to be Wild" -- Steppenwolf

    Yeah, darlin,' gonna  make it happen. LOL!
    The height of my Personal Lifetime Energy System came about just around the time the above tune was topping the charts. When it pounds out of my car radio these days, it still makes me press down on the gas pedal a bit more while shaking my "mature" booty in the car seat, the kind of picture that crack ups any lucky soul who happens to drive up beside me and glances my way. Do I care? No, I do not care, because as so famously quoted by self-help author Terry Cole Whittaker, "What you think of me is none of my business."
   Not so hard when that other person is some yayhoo in a dented Mercedes whom you'll likely never see again, am I right? But bring that someone just a little closer -- friend, family, acquaintance, Distant But Desired Love Object--and oh, golly, all of a sudden how you appear in another's eyes becomes so very, very important. The HeartFix Relationship Manual takes on that dilemma by reminding the reader that what others think of you has no bearing on you or your relationship, unless you allow it. Caveats would include consistent and repeated feedback from your partner, as well as other friends and family, or the little nip from conscience that says, "Hey, doofus, you can do better than this!"
   Today I have a Benadryl hangover and so my energy for plowing into work has been next to nonexistent. I tried to rev up my own sluggish motor by walking briskly with our dogs. A lot of good that did; immediately upon returning home I fell atop the bed, Joey and Jade joining me, so I scratched their bellies with my eyes at half-mast until that "little nip from conscience" prodded me up and into my office.
    I simply cannot accept or forgive myself for being old(er). I cannot give up longing for for the speed and flexibility of my youth. Study as I do the truth about quantum reality and the illusion of the physical world, I am definitely IN THIS WORLD and . . .  time passes. Time . . .
    (Pausing to hear the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today"...
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zfgoJzOCgg.)
    Ahhh. That helped. But this Youtube version brought up more extraneous thoughts about today's chaotic political and social scene. While it was wild back then, it's wilder now, because there seems to be no unified strike against the way things are, no organized push against the erosion of our Constitution and the culture in general here in America. But that's a story for another time. A story that easily forgoes quantum reality in favor of  over-concern about material world stuff.
   The only time is NOW. And with that overworked profundity, I depart this blog and move on to my next piece of time. Somewhere in there I will find acceptance of the aging thing and cheer the fact that my Expanded Self (Scheinfeld's term) is ageless, timeless, ineffable, omnipresent Light.
  'Tis so for all.

   

First Base?

   
   As of 9:40 a.m. today, a re-formatting of the ebook to a doc file is now bought and paid for. Things are flowing more easily now, precisely--Cathy and I agree--because we've relaxed, taken the pressure off ourselves and begun to realize that we're playing a sub-game in the larger Human Game. The game's the thing. More of today's featured  buzz phrases: "Process oriented"-- "It's the journey, not the destination" -- "The journey of a 1000 miles begins with one step"-- "One small step for mankind, one giant leap . . . " No, wait! That's for another accomplishment, reached way-back when the requisite personal taxes for such an incredible Giant Leap were minuscule compared to what we pay now for mere survival baby steps!

   But even that's just another game, an illusion of larger Consciousness that knows precisely how the game fits for you. Hard to recognize at first, but money and finances comprise one of the most populated sub-games on the planet. In fact, we're all forced to play it, usually all of our adult lifetimes. For me, it's been the top-most stressor since I was 16 years old. (2nd place on the Personal Stress Meter was love relationships...hence the ebook!)  Decades before I started practicing different, more workable attitudes toward money I was almost always in a confounding state of low-level anxiety over money, bills, finances, etc. I've worked with myself for years and years, and am STILL working. If there's such a thing as karma, it's a good bet I was once a wealthy king who made the people of his land starve while I dined on venison and beer, sitting, coolly complacent, on my golden throne. LOL! And that's just another story, made up as an explanation for my recurring blocks. The stories we create when we want explanations instead of embarking on solutions! I highly recommend Busting Loose from the Money Game by Robert Scheinfeld  for an exciting and insightful introduction to what's really going on here in the Human Game.

    So far business has been writing, procrastinating, spending, waiting and paper filing (gotta get to that!) instead of  reimagination, compensation, relation and infatuation. See, I need to be infatuated, or sincerely attracted to, the game I've chosen. I watch myself lolling on first base, only mildly inspired,  and seek the kindest cattle prod to move on!