Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage
Chapter Ten
Asking the Answer
Each time we return with a practice or ceremony to a physical space, or even time of day, we continue to collect the energy generated there. The method and place where we engage becomes the storehouse that increases the strength of the ritual and the gateway of spiritual development.
We know this to be the case due to the various sacred spots in the world, known as power places. Many of these locales are associated with ley lines, or strong energy meridians naturally existing in the earth. Over the centuries, people were drawn to these locations instinctively and built their temples in such regions. While it may have been a conscious political motivation for subsequent conquerors to knock down the temple walls of the vanquished and build their own churches on top, there likely were other unconscious causes as well.
As human beings, we detect the energy of our environments and those around us whether we realize it or not. We are drawn to where we receive a heightened sense of well-being. Power spots contain that energy naturally. When people also worship or open themselves in these places, it adds to the power and vibrates in the field. Vibrations are the property of space and timelessness into which we can all tap.
Certainty
I made my earliest trip to Palenque merely to have a holiday with friends. It wasn’t then meant to be a spiritual undertaking. At that time, I had no knowledge of ancient Maya history or traditions, but found myself attracted. Over the week that I was in the area I returned to the ruins several times, something continuing to draw me there.
One afternoon, I was sitting on a slight rise behind the palace, gazing at its perimeters. I suddenly became aware that I was seeing something in the air directly above the palace — colors. Thinking my vision was faulty, I looked away and glanced back. Unmistakable turquoise and terra cotta shimmered in the field around the building. What’s more, when I turned to some of the temples, I saw the same thing. At the time, I filed this experience away as merely interesting and thought no more of it, other than another slight curiosity.
The following year, I returned to the region with the same friends, a few added to make a small group, and plans to go again to the Palenque complex. But before going to that destination, we rented two bush planes and flew into the jungle to visit Yaxchilan and Bonampak, ruins not as accessible as Palenque. As I wandered around Bonampak, I entered a temple with a bas-relief scene unfolding on its wall and had the shock of my life. As opposed to the carved walls I had seen at Palenque, which had no color, color still remained in places in Bonampak — mostly turquoise and terra cotta! Not familiar with Maya history, I’d had no knowledge that Palenque’s temples and palace walls had also once all been painted. However, I saw evidence of that fact vibrating in the energy fields around the ruins in Palenque and right in front of my physical eyes there in Bonampak!
Once again, I could have decided these were merely curious experiences, if they had not led me to a certainty where I had previously only held a suspicion. All manifestations of what we call time vibrate in the ether and we have the ability to access them if we choose. Indeed, we may do so without even realizing it. It’s based upon our resonance at any given time. These vibrations exist relative to any thought form, person or thing ever to have existed or to exist. This is true for the vibration that manifested as a man who became known as the Buddha and the one known as Hitler. All these vibrations exist. We choose which ones we will engage by virtue of our intent — or our intention. When we open to connecting with the Cosmos, we take on this very real possibility and probability.
Guidance
In my book Calling Our Spirits Home I relayed a dream that gave me both a warning and a prophecy. Eugene O’Neill appeared in the course of the dream metaphorically compelling me to write and advising that it would become part of my livelihood. It showed me essentially ignoring him and becoming distracted down another avenue. I had this dream well before I considered undertaking the book in question, or even any writing for that matter. I also knew very little about Eugene O’Neill and hadn’t, in my memory, been exposed recently to anything he’d penned. Much later, when I finally decided to write, my attention was indeed split by a venture that proved, in the end, not only disappointing but also distinctly unprofitable. I hadn’t been smart enough at the time to heed his advice.
Again, it’s possible that this is just an interesting and coincidental story. But after I had started this present book and was finding all ways imaginable not to write — as writers sometimes do — Eugene O’Neill appeared to me again in a dream. This time it was very brief. But it was a flash I clearly recalled.
“I’ll have to go,” he said to me and began to turn away.
“Wait!” I cried out desperately, waking myself up.
After that I once again picked up my pen, so to speak. A few weeks later, I was cross-country visiting my parents. While there, I had dinner with an old friend. In the midst of our conversation, I told him about my unusual relationship with Eugene O’Neill. We laughed about it and went on to other topics.
When I returned to my parents’ home late that night, they were already in bed. Being too energized by my hours long discussion with my friend, I looked for a way to unwind so that I could go to bed. Reading the newspaper is not a habit of mine. However, the newspaper was there and after scanning the front page, I opened it. There staring back at me was a photograph of Eugene O’Neill! In a column entitled “This Day in History,” I was informed that on that date in 1946 “The Iceman Cometh” had opened on Broadway. I also noticed from the article that he had passed the year I was born. I may have been chuckling with my friend earlier that evening, but someone was having a big laugh at my expense then. It was a few more hours before I was able to retire for the night.
How is it that I could be the “protégé” of Eugene O’Neill? Or that simple events could arrange themselves in a way that I definitely glean meaning in them for my life? The only answer I have is that at those times when he actively manifested in my awareness, there must have been a resonance of some sort between us. If vibrations are similar, they often attract. I noticed that I saw him only when I was using delaying tactics, or was generally unconscious in my actions. Perhaps in his life, he knew those same patterns all too well. I can only feel deeply touched by his clipped, direct guidance and be grateful for it.
I haven’t seen my mentor in a metaphysical manner in quite some time. But writing has become a regular practice for me. Maybe it’s his intense dark eyes staring at me from the newspaper photo that I preserve on my desk that keeps me in line. He’s had no further need to reappear.
My illustrations here lend a new meaning to possibility. If something has ever existed in some form, then it’s still present on a certain level. In the instances above, I stumbled upon this truism. But we can consciously open to it. Holding the intent to connect with what would guide us, we can do so.
The Premise
Like an unconscious mantra held in the mind, we ask a question in any given moment. In asking the question, the answer naturally comes to us. Therefore, in holding the thought, we ask the answer. This is the paradox that guides our lives.
We cannot ask a question for which there is no answer. Our minds can’t conceive of such. It is also true that what our minds cannot envision as reality, even though perhaps experienced, we wipe from conscious memory and reject, often trying to kill the messenger in the process. Through some fluke of determination when our minds can conceive of a wider reality, or at least have some inkling of acceptance, that conception will generate answers beyond the questions. This opening will then move us into new experiences through the wider framework of the mind — and we wonder how we got there.
This is not unlike driving on a highway, going into a trance state but continuing to drive, only to come later to the realization that many minutes have passed without conscious awareness. This is a common experience we’ve likely all had. We went “somewhere,” but we didn’t. Attention was merely shifted while what was automatic continued to perform.
There is nothing actually new in existence. What is has been and will always be. It is a fantasy to think anything will ever be totally obliterated. Even if we entertain the idea that some ancient scourge no longer exists, in fact it does. As long as one person gives attention to the scourge in question, that thought starts a process. It begins to create the possibility of attracting the vibration that then has the opportunity to segue into form. The more people who hold to the attraction, the more pull it has to materialize. This is how such mass tragedies as Hitler’s Holocaust were able to occur.
It is equally true that as someone reaches out with questions of a higher vibratory nature and are joined by a number of others who do the same, we can create what seem like miracles to the ordinary mind. Hence, such manifestations of the Holy Virgin or other sacred figures in particular locales can be explained this way, as can long-distance healing of individuals through prayer circles. In truth, all these manifestations vibrate around us at any given moment.
It takes some sort of compatibility with the vibration, even if only wonder, to plug into it. This certainly explains how inventors can experience the “aha” that produces a discovery at the same time, when they may live across the world from each other. Then there may be an involvement of egos arguing that theirs was first, or there were spies involved. It’s really that there was a likeness and strength of mutual intent of inquiry in the asking that brought the same vibration to all at the shared moments. It also demonstrates to me how I can often have what seem like extraordinary insights one day that I find validated in reading or experience the following day. It’s the ensuing phenomenon of the foregoing meditation.
The aspect for us each to consider is not whether any of the aforementioned is true from the mind’s perspective. It’s more to notice the answers brought into our lives through the nature of the asking we each do unconsciously.
Begging the Question
In daily living, we mostly question, from habit, those things we think we already know. Indeed, since the mind portends we already know, the attraction is strong to be shown the same old answers — perpetually.
This is true because the mind loves to engage through the ego’s desire to perpetuate itself. As discussed several chapters earlier, we create this unending cycle through the life beliefs we hold inside, whose asking answers the rut of our existence. It doesn’t matter the nature of the rut, it’s the burrow that feels familiar. Because we are such natural creatures of the routine, we are wont to give ourselves a leg up, at least until the rut becomes far worse than what we perceive is “out there.”
There’s a wonderful anecdote about Einstein. The story goes that a journalist invited Einstein to tell people the most important thing imaginable that would make a difference in their lives. Einstein said that he would instead ask them to answer a question.
“Is the world a friendly place?”
Depending how we each answer that question will frame the flavor of our lives. We will determine how safe we experience ourselves with others, and with the world in general. This will divulge the foundation we move from in fear, or in trust, at any given point. It has nothing to do with the fact that, indeed, there are events happening in the world that harm and people who harm, or that are joyful. By holding that question and answering it through our belief systems regarding safety, we attract to us what we believe will continue to fulfill us — even if it doesn’t.
The bottom line is that we ceaselessly ask the answer — how is this true? — for whatever we hold in the ego’s crusade.
Expanding the Framework
Since the mind wants to engage, which is its purpose, we need to work with what we have. We can use the mind in a way that allows us to go beyond what we have thus far been shown through the natural attraction of what is already resident there. The truth is that people who have chosen to devote themselves to the deeper life have made this distinction.
It stems first from the inner place of intent that stimulates an interior framework of inquiry outside the usual state. We can liken this inquiry to cinders placed underneath a mired wheel that provide enough traction for release from any previous entrapment. The beauty is that the Core Self already knows and owns Truth. But by allowing the queries to emerge from that space, the asking can create the experiences to inform the everyday self. Thus, we can collaborate with the very core aspect of ourselves to stretch the operating framework bit by bit — until unending galaxies become apparent.
Questions of the Quest
Using the Re-membering Process as a model, prior to the initial Sparking, we’ve been in a sleep state, experiencing varying levels of numbness in some or all parts of our lives. While it is possible to be aroused from the sleep, there’s also the potential of remaining in the stupor of confusion, like a bear coming out of deep hibernation. Something needs to provide the leverage that will propel the awakening, for the task of Sparking is waking up. Holding these questions will begin to generate the raising of the head, the gazing of the eyes and the engaging of the body.
Where am I?
What am I feeling?
What am I lacking?
Once we are aware of what currently is, in order for the journey to evolve, we need to ascertain in what ways we have been untrue to the Core Self. In this way, we can determine what we need to detach ourselves from in order to create the space for something else to come to us. The task of Separation is un-learning. Therefore, we need to uncover how we might have learned to give our power away and how to take responsibility once more. The sometime painful answers to these questions will give us the impetus, if we choose, to move away from a false past. We then will be shown the actual nature of our previous existence clearly.
Who am I not?
How did I abdicate?
How do I serve myself?
Once we have this understanding, we can turn our attention to the Search, whose task is widening possibilities. To truly detach, we need to turn toward the chance of something else. Because this process is much like brainstorming that generates many choices, it can be a time of lighthearted play in the fields of opportunity. Allowing these questions to radiate will bring the potential right fit.
Who am I?
What are the possibilities?
If the journey is to continue, floating and trying on will eventually get old. The knowing of the Core Self is allowed to stand and reaches out to the everyday self. In the time of Initiation, the task of assimilating begins to ingrain the Truth. What was only held at the inner point will meet with the outer point. These questions will bring that meeting in the middle and create the opening to the next aspect of the process.
What are my gifts?
Where am I going?
What do I need?
This circle brings us back to where we started and returning to the world, but with the Core Self risking exposure. Re-entry requires the task of immersion. It also requires discernment of what to show and how to re-engage in a sense, not because the Core Self cares about annihilation. That’s not a possible occurrence anyway. It’s more about what to show residents of a linear world about the beauty of the nonlinear domain in a way that they can create the Sparking for themselves. It’s about being kindly patient with the fears of those who are elsewhere on the path, or still asleep to the dream they have been living. It’s about finding the open framework within a structured society, and the tools of non-doing in their implementation through these points of departure.
How do I return?
What gifts do I share?
What is the structure?
How do I implement?
The way of a spiritual evolution that I call the Re-membering Process is through fully asking these answers. From there, we can extend our awe to enrapture even deeper experience and the wonder of All That Is.
Ultimately, it’s about the willingness to engage no matter what — and being aware of the nature of what we are asking. It will surely come back to meet us along the way. The choice we all make is whether and when we take the lead.
All events described in this book are true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.
I will publish chapters every few days until complete. Find links in the Table of Contents below.
Table of Contents
Chapter Three: The Inner Point
Chapter Four: Intentful Existence
Chapter Five: Connecting With the Cosmos
Chapter Seven: The Space of No Need
Chapter Eight: Conflicts on the Path
Chapter Nine: The Edge of Limitation
Chapter Ten: Asking the Answer
Chapter Eleven: Living With Contrast
Chapter Thirteen: Unconditional Being
Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage
Copyright 2004 by Carla Woody. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be directed to: Kenosis Press, P.O. Box 10441, Prescott, AZ 86304, [email protected].
