Standing Stark: The Willingness to Engage
Chapter Eleven
Living With Contrast
I had adjusted to the darkness. What had previously seemed so dark wasn’t. There was enough light coming from a diminutive hole to the sky far above, as well as from the low entrance, that I was able to discern the other walls. Having circumambulated the small interior and groped my way into a corner, I was standing wedged, facing the center, my shoulders touching either wall for stability. I closed my eyes and moved into a meditative state.
Almost immediately, images swirled through my internal field, not stopping for me to identify the nature of them. Finally, with a backdrop like a fast-forwarded movie, stills were plucked out and pushed with intensity into the foreground to rest jarringly right in front of my inner eyes, as though demanding further study. They seemed to stay only long enough for my brain to register each image before that one disappeared and the next one arrived.
As sometimes happens when I receive images during trance states, these were parts from a larger whole, the wider aspect being invisible to me. But the pieces chosen to be revealed to me were crystal clear, strikingly so. The first one was filled solely with what appeared to be small widths of an ivory or oatmeal-colored cloth slightly overlapping one another. The next image had panned down and enlarged enough for me to realize that the cloth was wrapped over the head of a person. The face, from the eyebrows to chin, where the image concluded, was exposed. I somehow assumed it was male, but beyond that the face was nondescript to me.
Another shot showed the neck to its base uncovered, the shoulders and just below the collarbone shrouded. The picture halted there traveling no farther down the body, concentrating my gaze on the hollow of the throat. Suddenly, there was movement. The still became a movie. A hand moved into the picture holding what looked like a long quill. As I watched, the long fingers tightened their grip on the tube and forcefully punctured the soft U-shaped spot and held it there. I had the sense that something was being drawn out. While it may have been something physical that was removed, I had the understanding that it was the power contained therein that was ultimately meant to be captured. Then, the whole scene disappeared and I was once again aware of the ground beneath my feet and my shoulders against the walls.
I opened my eyes, stood for a few moments longer, looking around, realizing that I must have been connecting with one of those who had been buried in this chullpa at what we call death. I had an overwhelming desire to stay in this temple, this sanctified offering, but knew that it was time to go. I moved a few feet to my left, crouched and duck-walked through the place where the large square stone had been removed, into the bright afternoon light.
There I found my two traveling companions and Don Américo talking quietly, or just sitting. I joined them. After a while, Don Américo motioned, inviting us to follow him on a walk around the mesa’s edge. I followed closely behind him, the others straggling farther back enjoying the view. After a distance, he came to a sudden halt and brought me over to the very rim and gestured to a flat rock jutting out below, indicating I was to light there and meditate.
I balked, clearly telling him with my gesture, “I don’t think so!”
After all, he had no way of knowing — or perhaps he did — about the phobia of heights that I’d had for a long period in my life. I’d undergone a process some years before that released the fear, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to test it to the extent to which he was directing me.
“Yes!” he said to me adamantly in Spanish. “This is good for your work.”
Figuring he knew how to hook me, and grumbling a bit internally to myself, I acquiesced. Don Américo went on about his own business, leaving me to find the way to my perch. I didn’t want to think about the sheer drop of at least a thousand feet and preferred to look instead at the narrow ground where I would place my feet. I charted a short course and then carefully picked my way to the stone and settled into a comfortable seated position. Legs crossed, spine straight and ready to meditate, a bizarre urge ran through me. There was a strong part of me that wanted nothing more than to physically leap into the lonely, empty space in front of me that stretched for miles! Quickly quelling that impulse and pushing it from my mind, I closed my eyes.
The stillness that had begun in the chullpa made itself known again and I immersed myself in the quiet. After a while, I heard a tranquil wind from the right, whistling softly, slowly coming along the perimeter of the mesa. Surprisingly, I felt it touch my body and instead of moving around me, it went through me on its way to the left. The wind was immensely long, its blowing gentle, but when its tail finally exited, it left me bodiless, having indulgently thrown me into the abyss I’d wished for after all. I dissipated into the dark nothingness of the Void while, at the same time, I merged with the totality of the landscape, covering it. The silence was such that I have no words for it, but a feeling of profound tranquility and yet expansive joy permeated the being that I call myself.
I have no idea how long I remained in that state, a minute or an hour. It was timeless. Somewhere in the midst of it, something compelled me to open my eyes, and I received a jolt. Not only was my consciousness not fully in my body — so to speak — when I did so, but I had also erased my awareness that I was seated on the precipice of a very high mesa rather than the usual ground! In addition, I had catapulted myself from the blackest black into the brilliant light of the high Andean sun. I slammed my eyes shut, unwilling to experience the colossal contrast.
Slowly though, I began to feel the outlines of my body and the friendly stone supporting me. This time I took my time raising my outer eyelids and gazed without fear across the miles of the Altiplano, the high plains, all the way to the ring of mountains on the other side. I found that I was taken with the beauty of this place that many would consider barren and lifeless. I had discovered the richness hidden from casual eyes.
Bi-locating
While my compulsion to jump into thin air was unexpected at the time, I’ve experienced it before in high places. After having talked with others, I realize that I’m not alone. This is a common urge. What I’ve come to understand is that it’s a petition from the deepest part of us. It’s the soul’s sense of wanting freedom. It’s a strong inner existential yearning that calls for merging rather than separation. Being in the body and mind we experience ourselves as a unit, separated from all else by the skin we wear. We’ve forgotten that we are everything else as well. It’s a wisdom most have lost. We’ve segmented life into either/or.
Perhaps that was the potency that I saw extracted in my vision of the mummy in the chullpa. Only those considered powerful, such as elder priests and nobility, were purported to be interred in these towers. Particularly sorcerers or shamans know how to blend, and charismatic leaders possess the ability to effectively transition even whole nations.
I’ve often wondered about suicide. Usually we think of people who’ve made that choice as doing so because their lives were horrendously painful in some way. Are there ever those who consciously choose this method of annihilation because they can no longer stand separation from the greater Unity? Knowing no other way to experience merging, they put an end to their lives on this plane.
In his books, Carlos Castenada gave examples of sorcerers leaping over a mountain’s edge, or some other void, and turning up safely elsewhere. In esoteric literature, we may find documentation of mystics bi-locating, being seen in two different geographical places at once. While these practices are probably not on the list of skills to learn for most of us, if we are to deepen our path we need to at least learn metaphorically how to intermingle non-ordinary and ordinary reality freely.
In the course of discovering how to shift easily between realities, or ultimately be in both at once, we first experience increasingly intense contrast between the two. This is natural and we undergo it in a variety of ways.
Silence
How is it possible to describe the great silence that prevails when we move beyond the mind and body? Any attempt at words wouldn’t do that reality justice. And yet, there is such sweetness, a profound resting place. The heart intuitively knows that it has finally found its home. Separation is over. Merging has occurred. Unity is realized.
As though a curtain is drawn open to admit the sunlight, we discover that the Truth for which we’ve strived is revealed to be ever-present. We merely partitioned it off. If we’ve chosen to fully immerse ourselves, without fear, into the effervescent warmth of nothingness, we automatically want to remain there. The everyday world matters little in this flow. We sense that we can ride this wave into eternity. And we do.
But with the exception of very few seasoned travelers, the body-mind and pull of the ordinary world segment reality and draw our attention back to the place where we usually reside. The transition isn’t necessarily an easy one unless we’ve traversed it many times and grown used to the departure and return, instead living in the interplay of the overlap. Then it becomes seamless. Until then, we have differentiation. With differentiation we may have paramount awareness of uncomfortable contrast.
Emerging from silent nothingness, returning to the physical plane would perhaps best be gently nurtured. Ideally, we would leave and reappear in a natural setting to the lilt of a birdsong; musically ushering us back through the doorway, settling us kindly into the seat of everyday reality.
But we rarely have the choice. While I have noticed that I am most prone to experience these states while in nature, I cannot orchestrate them. They occur spontaneously. Nor can I hold onto them should I decide to try to do so. While I have not yet carried the great silence with me permanently upon the shift and refocus to my day-to-day life, its merging has sometimes endured for some good lengths, enough for me to know without a doubt what is possible. And the shimmer of that possibility remains ensconced in the cocoon of my being.
Moving toward that eventual point, there are glimpses, small teases. There’s also another aspect to these favors. If we’re going to travel the deeper path, we need to learn how to navigate it. If we were thrown into such a sea without any tools we would be seriously disadvantaged at best. So, there are the continuing series of re-entries we make to increase our awareness of the geography. If we pass back and forth over similar area enough times, perhaps we will become familiar enough with the territory to make the one transparent to the other. In the meantime, the transitions can be shocking until we recognize them for what they are.
Coming from the great silence, we are still initially immersed in it upon the return. And the external voice with which we speak has been drowned in its vastness. The brain doesn’t operate to send the signals required to activate it. Nor do we normally want to do so. The silence is so complete that to move from it has been literally painful in my experience. Any sounds other than most of those associated with nature, or some forms of music, have a similar effect to sticking one’s finger into an electrical socket. Others’ voices, of any timbre, can be like fingernails scraping across a blackboard, or a dentist’s drill. Car motors revving and issuances from a television feel like a violent physical assault. It can actually be likened to a person who has been stone deaf, but begins, through some intervention, to hear. The majority of sound is then raucous, feeling like an affront to the soul.
For myself, there is a reluctance to engage in any usual interaction with others at these times. This is so for a few reasons. Unless we are just content to share the silence and allow it to carry the deeper correspondence, I’m often unable to communicate any other way. While I am able to see and hear amply indeed, my mind is still “impaired,” needing much time to swim legions up out of some depth, with my voice in tow, to be able to pop words out into space. Attempting too soon, I would resemble a fish opening and closing its mouth, discharging nothing of much sense.
Just so, if I am with those who are willing to be companions in stillness, what each of us experiences individually is only amped exponentially through the power of the circle.
Another reason for my own quiet is that I find that the minute I start to speak, I begin to dissipate the energy which I naturally want to retain as long as possible. That’s different, however, than speaking or teaching from an infused state. In this case, there’s no mistaking the command of higher consciousness spontaneously moving through to transmit to those who are open to listening. The voice has purpose.
In the former, it’s the contained caress of silence that finally imbues the latter voice through experiential knowledge that must be held long enough to inform the verbalizing. Speaking too soon then doesn’t allow the gelling to happen, letting the real cellular knowledge seep away. What can return in force is the conflagration of the habitual mind trying to overwhelm Truth. In the conflict, Truth may seem to slide just out of sight, even though it’s always within reach.
The silence may come when we make a space, take time out from normal activities. It can come through meditation, using the breath to empty the mind; finally inspiring the no-breath. It can come through a walk in the forest, mindfully, slowly placing the feet firmly on the earth, connecting in such a way that the body is no longer a body, but a bubble of energy skimming along the surface of life. It can come through intentfully opening the crown center of the head during times of creative expression. We only know that silence has visited when we return to our work later and wonder who has written the passages or painted an image nowhere in our memory to have done so. But oftentimes, no matter how we prepare the ground, it doesn’t come. At least not to the depth we would choose, or the habitual voice imposes instead.
And sometimes it can come unbeckoned at most inconvenient moments! Several years ago, a friend and I were going to lunch at a busy restaurant. I had just slid into the booth when I suddenly seemed to be beside myself. While I could still see, I was aware of nothing else except what I can only describe as a solid column of energy descending through my crown, so powerful it removed me from my body, along with any thoughts I may have had in my mind. I could only look at my friend as he kept asking, “Are you okay?” Solely after the silence allowed me to finally sidle back to join my body-mind could I answer at all. It was a good hour before I fully felt like my “self” again.
At the time, I put the incident on the much longer than normal durations I had been spending in meditation seeking clarity and balance due to some difficulties I was undergoing. But still today these charges come periodically, through the Crown Chakra or Third Eye, momentarily transmitting the energy of the great silence, verging on the loss of body-mind awareness, honing my abilities to continue daily actions nonetheless.
Alien Life Forms
In the movie “Windtalkers,” which used as its base the Diné, or Navajo, code talkers during World War II, there was a scene I will long remember. Two of the main characters, destined to be code talkers, had just arrived in boot camp. They’d already had a few less than respectful interactions with non-Diné as they were trying to get acclimated. At each of the exchanges, the Diné recruits would exhibit looks of shock or bewilderment at the brusque responses they received. They finally came to stand together in the midst of others who were moving hurriedly along like ants on the way to meet their fate. One said to the other, “I’ve never seen so many white people.” The message that clearly came across was that there was a vast difference in code, one the new talkers would be wise to break in order to get along in that environment.
The distinction between the experiences of the two characters in the film and most of those who have passed certain milestones in the context of the spiritual journey is that we know the code that perplexes them only too well. That’s why we chose to step on the path less taken in the first place.
But there comes a time when we’ve become transfixed with a certain kind of amnesia. The code with which we were previously so familiar becomes absolutely bizarre to us. What was once the norm is no longer. Something else has taken its place.
A threshold has been crossed. While the preempting process may have been gradual, there is suddenly a point that comes when the crossing is complete. At that point, we look back over the bridge and can no longer relate to the place we left. It appears to be a nowhere land. The code we used to live is so much gibberish to us.
We often experience increasing chasms between others and ourselves. That is, unless those others have been traveling in lockstep with us and passed through similar terrain. With the gap, we may suddenly find ourselves strangers in formerly well-known territory. Or depending on our tendencies, we may decide that our previous peers are the ones who are alien life forms.
The feeling of alienation is common. But what is true is that no matter how foreign we feel, there will be those with whom we are comfortable. Like is attracted to like and we can discover community and support in whatever realm we deem valid. It is also the case that the farther we move from mainstream thought, the fewer we will find to form a consortium. The folk that we do discover will then often gather to shape what seems like a thirsty oasis in an otherwise parched desert.
There is a fact concerning the quality of vibration we emit depending on the focus we individually have. If we choose to stew in any of our historical limitations, there is an emotional heaviness that slows our energy frequencies down. As we concentrate instead on the jewels of the Core Self, our literal being is lighter and our vibration speeds up. It’s this factor, matching and mismatching energies, to which we respond when we experience camaraderie or estrangement.
Also know that there isn’t anything inherently “bad” about where many people continue to be, or where we ourselves once were. It’s merely a reflection of level of awareness, wider choices, and discernment of long-term ramifications. As we unceasingly make the decisions to further our commitment toward the authentic life, we will walk the land that automatically leads us from one bridge to yet others. In the country in-between there will always be a new code to learn. The newly acquired language will have its own secrets that we will eventually forget as well.
What Awaits
There’s a shared experience that we’ve all had at different points. It matters little whether we’ve been to a formal retreat, engaged in a week of camping at a primitive site or merely carved out some days to lie on a beach or travel cross-country. We step outside everyday time and create a cocoon. An enclosure surrounds us, normally inhibiting worries to the degree that they go underground for a while.
I was once astounded at the finesse with which a friend of mine did this very thing as we prepared to take a trip together. He arrived at my home the day prior to our departure with great anxiety weighing him down. Due to some unpleasant circumstances his entire livelihood was heading into a mudslide. As we set off the next day, I marveled at how he seemed to set the concerns completely aside for the duration of our foray. By doing so, he created a space that allowed some clarity to emerge. He returned home with a new outlook and some potential solutions.
It can also happen that during retreat times we open, trying on new perspectives and behaviors. Juxtaposed to that beauty, whatever is resident within us that could barricade the bridge will usually come up and out, sometimes with a vengeance! These occurrences can be disturbing to the individual, but also stunning to fellow travelers or retreatants, coming like a jolt out of the blue during otherwise wonderful occasions.
If we are recipients of a projectile from someone else and have a response — beyond surprise — then we know that we, too, have something to learn through the incident. If instead we merely witness the event, we can be assured the missile hasn’t found fertile ground within us. We can then send silent support, through our non-response, that the person will work through the internal challenges.
Sometimes, though, all is sensational in our cocooning and it’s only upon our literal return to the everyday life that things seem to go wrong. The castigating internal voice that was magically hushed during our sojourn reinstates itself louder than ever. Activities are blocked. Bliss slips away. Frustration takes its place. Whatever seeks to hold us back will attempt to do so, encouraging the opportunity to forget the cocoon. Instead of emerging as a butterfly, we regress to the larva!
How we handle any exacerbation of limitations that have contained us in the past is a sure measure in the course of our opening process. It is expressly our abilities to remain aware and modulate the release of the old habits through rapt attention and intent that ensures the ever-deepening cycles of the Re-membering Process. We then ultimately transition into the land of no contrast. And all is fluid.
In NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, there is a change process called “Foreground/Background” that lessens, or potentially obliterates, physical pain or mental irritations that a person may have. A practitioner explores with the sufferer the internal structure of what they are enduring. As an example, this survey may include bodily felt sensations, internal dialogue, imagery and so on. The practitioner then finds something that is similar in the person’s experience, but to which they have either a neutral or positive response. In the case of a chronically painful joint, a counterexample might be another joint that is flexible. Or with sensitivity to the sound of a person’s voice, another person’s voice may be used.
While the two explore the structure of the analogous context, the practitioner suddenly directs the person’s attention to something that would be common to both settings, “Are you aware of the tip of your nose?” While anchoring the complainant’s attention on the innocuous, out-of-awareness aspect, the practitioner quickly diverts the person’s notice back to the original point of contention. But mysteriously, the discomfort is no longer there, or is greatly decreased. The former sufferer is baffled, the mind confused, but lightened considerably. The practitioner is invariably delighted.
It seems as though this kind of negotiation also occurs when the great silence permeates. We know through scientific research the very small percentage of the brain we exercise. I sense that within the remainder resides the entry point to the great silence. What is a common experience to both is respiration. The secret of our deliverance was hidden from us when the term Holy Ghost was mistranslated in the Bible. The Source was resident in the accurate translation Holy Breath.
In meditation practice I sometimes ask people to choose some problematic little nut they are wanting to release, but has a way of remaining. Then, with the inspiration coming from the silent mind, we caress the stubborn thought form with our breath. And on the exhalation we begin to shrink the size of it through a natural relaxation. With each subsequent inhalation the silent mind automatically comes more to the foreground, while the troubling aspect moves to the background and often dissipates altogether. We find that we have this choice in attention. We can realize that Divinity is providing us with ongoing resuscitation, which is not separate from ourselves. We decide the mere shift in concentration. We can choose what then brings us to the enduring conduit finalizing Holy Birth.
The Trick of Light
In the Southwest, the ponderosas and pinons have been dying by the millions. First stressed by drought, bark beetles, then scale have been able to gain a more than ample foothold. What was an ongoing natural process to clear the forests and send the weakened back to the earth to be composted has become what seems to some like an inordinate chance for nasty little invaders to devastate the beauty of our natural resources. There exists a communal sorrow for most human inhabitants around these areas as we witness something acting well beyond our control removing what we value.
On the eve of the United States and British invasion of Iraq, just upon dusk and the hour of power, I was driving home, winding through the forest climbing slightly in elevation, my heart heavy. As I came up a rise, I expected to see the usual huge swathes of rusty brown fire sticks amidst the otherwise dark green of the forested mountains a short distance away. What I saw instead took my breath away and caused me to slow to a snail’s pace to engage with the sight for as long as possible.
The seemingly decimated trees were glowing with an unearthly orange-red light of such an intense saturation of the like that I’d only seen once before, almost appearing to leap out of the landscape.
Now, logic says that it was sunset. The sun had just descended behind the mountain to the west and this trick of light was merely a reflection of rays striking the dead trees. Indeed, this was my second response — after the one of awe. But I believe that the overwhelming reverence I first recorded was the correct reaction, because something else pointed my notice toward the other trees. Those trees were wearing their usual colors. No intensity there. Nor did the few clouds in the sky carry any more sunset brilliance than normal.
The sole time I’d witnessed a previous showing of this kind was a deeply spiritual event. Like a dealer displaying his hand under unlikely circumstances, I sense that the power of Creation was purposefully revealed to me. The message was clear in both cases. What seems devastating is not. What seems hidden is not. What we bring to light will change our perspective. From the farther reaches of the Cosmos, all is still as all is fluid.
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].