The Owl Magazine Spring 2023

Page 50

A Sacred Stories Magazine

Spring 2023

WisdomKeepers

Ascension Texts

A Journey from Grievance to Love Signs of Connection

HEAL ONE HEAL ALL

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

The Heart of the Matter for Spiritually Conscious Parents

with

The
Ervin Laszlo

WELCOME

Welcome to The Owl!

A collaborative sharing of contemporary ideas, fresh perceptions, art, beauty, Universal wisdom, and modern inspiration across traditional and nontraditional spiritual and religious teachings. We invite everyone to the table to share in the rich feast of Life and Living.

PUBLISHER

Sacred Stories

EDITORIAL TEAM

Ariel Patricia

Lindsey Brooks

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Vik Leigh

COLUMNISTS

Franne Demetrician

Mary Ellen Lucas

sacredstories.com

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Inside features Up Close and Personal with Ervin Laszlo 6 A Journey from Grievance to Love 20 Heal One, Heal All 36 Signs of Connection 44 in every issue A Sacred Story 4 WisdomKeepers 26 Artist in Residence 32 The Heart of the Matter 50 Book Excerpt: Your Soul Has a Plan 58 Sacred U Courses 66 3 A Sacred Stories Magazine The 20 36 44
Come On In & See What's

A Sacred Story

On the road to Flagstaff with my husband, I was struck with a severe anxiety attack. We had been traveling fulltime in our RV, and while I enjoyed discovering new places, it left me feeling somewhat unbalanced. Simultaneously, I had been going through a phase where my energetic sensitivity had shifted; as a result, I felt overwhelmed without fully realizing why.

Overcome with extreme paranoia and fear of everyone and everything, I decided to take a few days to do a solitary healing retreat in Sedona, a place that has always calmed and inspired me.

Catching sight of Sedona’s resplendent red rocks, high mesas, and rocky cliffs is always incredibly stunning, and this time was no exception.

“Please help me!” I cried out to the mountains, throwing myself on their healing mercy.

By the time I settled into my hotel room then headed over to the Sedona Creative Life Center, I had regained

enough of my composure to get out of the vehicle and walk around. Still inwardly praying for Divine guidance, something immediately caught my attention through the trees: the top of a gazebo located near the rear parking lot. Curious to see what was back there and following my intuition, I meandered towards it and saw a beautifully landscaped space filled with stately trees and flowers of many colors. A sign at the entrance said Peace Garden.

Ah . . . just what I need, I thought. Entering the manicured grounds, a palpable sense of grace filled my being and beckoned me to walk off the stone path towards a canopy of tree branches. The wind whispered through the shimmering leaves of the canopy, seeming to dance and speak in the voice of nature itself.

Under this canopy, a 12-foot circle of nine impressive rocks appeared before me, ranging in height from about two to four feet. Intuitively, the words Fear Rocks came to me. As

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I reverently entered the circle, the air felt alive and time seemed to stop. Instantly, I understood that the purpose of these stones was to help heal and transform fear by listening and holding space for my innermost feelings that were manifesting as extreme anxiety.

One by one, as I stood in front of and focused on each rock, I received information through my claircognizance about the specific types of fear that each of the nine stones helps to steward: rejection, after death, nightmares, aggression, sickness, violent death, hatred, hopelessness, and helplessness. Luckily, I’d brought a notebook with me, so I scrambled to jot down all of the details that were streaming through my intuition from the Fear Rocks.

The trees chimed in and reminded me that these nine fears are shared human experiences, and that we all encounter them in some way, shape, or form. Walking into the center of the stone circle, I felt an immediate sense of relief in the profound surrender of allowing the rocks to hold my burdens. My prayer to the red rocks had been witnessed and answered.

had the ability to ground, diffuse, heal, and transform my human fears. They imparted to me that I could talk, meditate, and pray with them at any time after leaving the garden and from a distance.

Offering the trees and the Fear Rocks my sincere thanks, I exited the Peace Garden in . . . well, peace. Transformed by this experience of the Divine in nature and my heart bursting open to receive, my inward healing weekend could now begin.

Tracy Sheppard, M.A. is a highly sensitive empath, healer, and teacher. She is a contributing writer to the bestselling book NATURE: Divine Experiences with Trees, Plants, Stones and Landscapes, part of the Common Sentience book series and author of the eBook Free Yourself from Fear: The Fear Rocks and How They Help. tracysheppard.com

This story is an excerpt from:

It was humbling to understand that the rocks' solid and majestic energy

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UP CLOSE and PERSONAL with ERVIN LASZLO

Ervin Laszlo, philosopher of science, leading systems theorist, author, co-author, or editor of more than one hundred books, was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His newest book is The Survival Imperative: Upshifting to Conscious Evolution, published this month. A celebrated child prodigy on the piano and discoverer of the Akashic Field, he is the founder and president of the international think tank The Club of Budapest and of the prestigious The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research.

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Ariel Patricia: Ervin, it is wonderful to speak with you. Please tell us, who is Ervin Laszlo?

Ervin Laszlo: I was hoping you’d ask something simpler than that. The Oracle of Delphi said, “Know thyself.” That is the first principle of wisdom. But I don't know if I’ve reached that wisdom. What I would like to be is someone who lives responsibly, in a way that makes a difference. We are living in very critical times, and we need to make a positive difference.

I've always had the intention, the aspiration to find out something about the world in which we live and do something about what I find. Now this aspiration has taken on a new urgency because we are not doing good things to the world. I'm talking about the impact of humanity for the past 200, 300 years. We have created a mechanistic, materialistic world that is not sustainable. In any case, it only serves a few but is a threat for the many. And so now it is urgent and crucial to know how we relate to the world and to people around us.

to be a responsible citizen of the world?

EL: That sense of responsibility dawned on me gradually, over time. I remember the conversations I had as a young child with my uncle Istvan in Budapest. He was a very dedicated and concerned philosopher. He was a pessimist about human nature and raised questions about whether people are basically good. These ideas challenged me as a young boy. I already had a brilliant career as a child prodigy

AP: Ervin, what is one of your earliest memories of knowing that you wanted

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in music, and I was not inclined to be pessimistic. Everything looked perfect—this was the world I wanted to make my mark in. My uncle’s ideas gave me food for thought and became the groundwork, which in my early twenties launched me on the academic path.

back to the questions he had raised. Together with some young friends from The New School for Social Research, I started talking about these things, and I realized I had my own bottom-line questions: What do we think of the world in which we live, and how can we interact with it? Can we change the world?

For a couple of years, I considered and discussed these ideas while attending courses in philosophy, creative writing, and psychology, first at The New School and then at Colombia University. I coupled this pursuit with my career as a musician. I was traveling a good deal, and in those days, we usually traveled by train and bus rather than by plane. During my travels, I had plenty of time to think and to jot down my thoughts.

After I left Hungary, I lived first in Switzerland and then in France. Then I moved to the United States and lived in New York. I discovered my uncle’s handwritten notes, and I came

Then came a turning point. I was touring Europe at the time, and one evening after a successful concert in The Hague in Holland, a gentleman came to talk to me about what we know about the world and ourselves in the world.

I was interested, and I responded by raising some of my own ideas.

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Up Close and Personal with Ervin Laszlo

He asked, "Did you write these ideas down? If so, can I see your notes?”

We were sitting at the time in the lobby of the hotel where I stayed next to the concert hall, so I ran up to my room and gave my notes to the gentleman. He asked to borrow them, thanked me, and left. The next morning, he showed up at the hotel and said, "We'll publish your notes."

I said, “Who are you?”

He turned out to be the chief philosophy editor of a famous Dutch publishing house, Martinus Nijhof. With his guidance, my handwritten notes were elaborated, and a year later, in 1963, my first book was born: Essential Society. This launched me on another career as an academic and philosopher. Music became a hobby, just as philosophy had been until then. The next phase of my life began—the academic phase.

AP: Ervin, as a philosopher, please share some of your thoughts on how you see our world.

change profoundly. Which way?

I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I am a possibilist. I believe that we have great possibilities in front of us. We can be more than we are: we can attain a higher level of being, a better world. That is a real possibility—a real chance. I’ve had this belief all my life.

We are more than most of us think we are. We are not small and smallminded, and our life is not, as a famous British philosopher once said, “nasty, brutish, and short.”

EL: These are critical times, and the future is in our hands. Things will

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Up Close and Personal with Ervin Laszlo

We are not evil—I don't believe that there is pure evil in the world. There are just misguided people who have been exposed to difficulties and wrong ideas. They had experiences that influenced them in a negative way. Unfortunately, there are many such people in today’s world. But I don't believe that they, or anybody in the world, is inherently evil.

We're born to be part of a large family, a family of human beings, which itself is a part of the community of life on the planet. That community—what we call the biosphere—is an intrinsic part the universe. It’s a remarkable, indeed a fabulous universe that evolves to higher and higher levels of coherence and harmony.

Einstein said, there are two ways we can live our life: as if everything is a miracle, or as if nothing is. He believed that everything in this universe is miraculous and devoted his life to understanding the nature of that universe. That is just what I am trying to do. Understanding it doesn’t make the universe less miraculous, only more awe-inspiring. We behold the miracle and realize that we are part of it. We are miraculous beings.

We don’t live in a passive, anything goes, randomly acting universe. This is a highly oriented “in-formed” universe that evolves to higher and higher levels of being and consciousness. This is my credo, the ground of my being and the inspiration of my becoming.

AP: Ervin, as a pianist, how does music connect with a highly oriented, evolving universe?

EL: I can give you one word that is the key to the existence of this connection, and that word is harmony. Great music is the achievement of perfect harmony. It is perfection in every way. It is harmony in the perfect and perfectly coherent way every one note and cluster of notes relates to every other note and cluster of notes—and so to the composition as a whole.

The classical sciences, the Newtonian sciences, were looking for this harmony but did not find it as an intrinsic element of the world, only as something that can be imposed on the world. But in new physics, as well as new biology and new psychology, all things are based on the parts becoming coherent with each other, becoming whole.

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The ensembles they build are whole because they are coherent.

I started inquiring how this coherenceand wholeness-creation works, even before the laws of quantum physics became generally known. I was searching for it already in my twenties, looking for wholeness in the world. That is the search that motivated me as a musician. In a piece of music by Schubert or Brahms or Beethoven, there is perfect coherence.

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Up Close and Personal with Ervin Laszlo

You cannot change a single note without destroying the coherence of the whole. It all hangs together perfectly, just like a living organism. A great piece of music is far more than the notes that compose it, the same as a living organism is far more than its bones and tissues. In music, I looked for wholeness and harmony instinctively. Later, when I became consciously engaged in serous inquiry into the world around us, I started to look for wholeness and harmony throughout the world. What makes the world into a sphere of coherence? That is when I came across the answer: It is the truly miraculous process we call evolution. Evolution in nature, and then also in the human world, became the focus of my search.

AP: What happened next?

EL: Yale University invited me as a research fellow to develop my ideas and discuss them with students and faculty. During my tenure at Yale, I met many interesting and important people, great philosophers and scientists, including students and disciples of

Alfred North Whitehead, who was a student and collaborator of Einstein.

One such person was Henry Margenau, a great physicist and Yale professor. He became a close friend and mentor. He read my books and helped orient me in the new physics. “How can there be wholeness and harmony in the universe?” I asked, and he helped me look for the answer. The answer, I realized, can be found in the ways and forms of the evolution of complex and coherent systems.

At that time, the idea of evolving systems in nature was not widely recognized. People thought of systems as mechanical—physical, mechanistic entities created by humans for particular purposes. Today, we have a broader concept of systems. We speak of information systems as well as of systems of stars and galaxies and myriad systems in between. We now see life on Earth as the evolution of a particular system: the Gaia system.

I met the renowned Viennese biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, who came to give guest lectures at

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Yale. He answered my query when he pointed out that the answer to my question "How can there be order and coherence in the world?” is evolution as a general process, creating coherent and complex systems. These are systems that naturally evolve toward wholeness and coherence. Coherence means that each part is finely tuned to all other parts in a whole that is a “natural system,” a system evolving in nature. A natural system has coherence in regard to all its parts, and coherence in its relations to all other systems. In its finest form, we now say it is “supercoherent.” The universe is slowly but steadily moving toward supercoherence.

When I woke up to this idea, things started to make sense. There is order and coherence in the whole world, not only on Earth or in some segment of the things that emerge on Earth.

systems philosophy. That book was published in 1972 as a Harper Torchbook, Introduction to Systems Philosophy. Von Bertalanffy wrote the introduction for it.

AP: Ervin, how did your work evolve from systems philosophy to human societies?

EL: I can answer that in reference to a phone call I received. At that time, I was a professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, and I was developing systems philosophy and its implications for our thinking and our behavior in the world.

After my first book on systems philosophy, I turned to creating smaller, more popular versions. Some of these were very successful, including The Systems View of the World, published still the same year as Introduction. It was widely read and debated.

I wrote a treatise dedicated to this concept, which I called

I met someone who was intrigued by the implications of systems thinking for our understanding of societal processes. Richard Falk,

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Evolution toward coherence is inscribed at the very heart of the universe.

who was a leading figure at Princeton University, wanted me to pursue these implications more deeply. He was the founder and director of the Center for International Studies.

One day, Dick Falk called me and said, "I read your book about the evolutionary principles of systems evolution. I think it would be important to investigate how they apply to human societies. Would you be interested in doing this at Princeton?"

“I'm not a social scientist," I replied. “I have not done that before, and I am not sure I can do it by myself.” Dick said, "Come to us and we will find out.”

I accepted the invitation and spent a semester at Princeton giving lectures for the Center at the Woodrow Wilson School. These lectures attracted graduate students as well as professors. We engaged in deep discussions about whether systems laws apply to society and what those laws may be.

The idea was new at that time. Society was thought to be something different from nature. Society was a human creation.

14 Up Close and Personal with Ervin Laszlo

But I maintained that society also is a system, and as there are systems in the living world, systems in the universe and the galaxies and solar systems, so there are also systems of human communities.

I became involved with a program at Princeton called the World Order Project. We worked on finding the laws and regularities of society, how societies move, how they come to be, and where they are going. This is an evolutionary question.

AP: Ervin, we discussed your path from musician to philosopher to

academia to activist. Tell us why you care. Why is it important to you that the world finds harmony and cooperation, and that we move into our evolutionary potential?

EL: It is a critical issue because we now have a chance to improve ourselves and our world. We're conscious human beings. We live X number of years, and then we must pass on—But can we accomplish something real and lasting in our lifetime? Can our living on this Earth as a conscious human being make a difference? I think it can.

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Up Close and Personal with Ervin Laszlo

I used to be a successful concert pianist. When you do well, you get great write-ups in the papers, and you get accolades. I was accustomed to looking for something like that in my earlier life. I gave up this career because it did not make sense for me as the ultimate purpose of my life. I asked myself, "Do I contribute to something real and lasting to the world around me?” When I look back on my life, could I say, "I did something that lives up to the potential of who I am: a living, conscious human being who is here to do something for the world and for my children and grandchildren and their generations?"

To do something meaningful is an

aspiration of my life. That question I hoped to be able to answer with a convincing “yes.”

AP: Your latest book is The Survival Imperative: Upshifting to Conscious Evolution. Tell us about your book and how it factors into your life's aspiration.

EL: What I can do—as a thinker, an academic, and an activist—is to show

the way. This is a new generation of my books that reflects what I started to think about and to want to do a few years back.

Again, I asked myself, “Will it make a difference that I wrote this book, or not? Did I write a book that shows people the way? Can it be a guidebook towards a better world? What can I share to help people create a more peaceful and harmonious world, with a higher level of well-being and less injustice, disunity, and violence? If the universe evolves towards coherence, how can I show that living up to this evolutionary tendency is the good way forward?”

My latest books, including The Survival Imperative, give my answer. This book is a summation

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intrinsic

of my thinking about the meaning of our life, and about what we can do to help return peace and harmony to the planet.

AP: Ervin, do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with the readers?

EL: I think this is the most exciting time anyone could have been born into. It's a time when the past is no longer a heavy hand, constraining us from doing what we need to do and can do. It’s a time of inherent freedom. We have a high level of consciousness, and we can perceive and try to understand the world. We need to perceive it well, and then act in light of our understanding. We need a new paradigm for our thinking and acting—a new mindset. It’s already being born. Contributing to its birth is our historic task and our ineluctable mission. It is the most exciting and important task any generation has ever been offered to take in hand.

FUN FACTS

AP: Coffee or tea?

EL: Herbal tea.

AP: Book or movie?

EL: Both—but a good book comes first.

AP: Favorite book?

EL: The Glass Bead Game by the famous German novelist Hermann Hesse.

AP: Beach or mountains?

EL: At this point, beach. Earlier, when I used to ski, it was mountains.

AP: Are you a homebody or a globetrotter?

EL: Now that I've entered my nineties, I'm more of a homebody. But I enjoyed globetrotting.

AP: Early bird or a night owl?

AP: Ervin, you are an inspiration. Thank you for your lifetime of work. It has been a delight to have this time with you.

EL: Night owl. I get up only around nine a.m. so I have enough rest to do what I want to do—which is usually more than I have time for.

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A kind word is like a spring day.
— Russian Proverb

A JOURNEY from GRIEVANCE to LOVE

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There is much to be cautiously optimistic for in 2023, despite the polarized state of our world and the ongoing environmental tragedies. This deeply seeded sense of hope in our transformative potential has inspired a collaborative effort emerging within a movement we’ve named the “Holomovement.”

Aligning unifying values with our unique and “integral place in its evolution” is critical to unite humanity and save our planet. Our wholehearted and loving participation is also key.

The journey is a complex one. To move from our vision of a world filled with peace, love, and understanding, to realizing and living these values, we must deal with the weight of our individual and collective suffering. So many have suffered horrific injustice and trauma. We’re in a quagmire of past and present conflict.

How can we release these emotional chains that anchor us in fear, anger, and separation?

It is essential to have a regular practice for healing and access to nourishing support. Dr. Marty K. Casey, contributing author for “The Holomovement” and founder of UnGun Institute, puts it this way; “Hurt people, hurt people. Healed people, heal people.”

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A Journey from Grievance to Love

Our evolutionary choice depends on how we show up in our dayto-day encounters. Forgiveness and connection require that we believe in the possibility of moving forward with purpose as we release our grievances. Can we find the courage to drop the weight of our trauma and choose a path that is not defined by what separates us? Can we feel empowered by what unites us instead?

Shifting Focus from Collective Trauma to Collective Purpose

I believe we have lived many lives. Even if you don’t believe in reincarnation, consider the karmic baggage of human history. With the exception to a few moments in time, our story has been one of horrific and brutal treatment of one another including war, extortion, and violence. The timeline of trauma we carry through our generations is extraordinary. If we can understand anything in one another, it is suffering. For we have all suffered.

Unfortunately, the news we hear might lead us believe we are in a

competition of tragedy and injustice. The narrative is that love is a limited resource and compassion is finite or even naive. Through the lens of materialism, it can seem that we must pick and choose who is most deserving of justice.

But love is not finite. Compassion is sourced from an eternal well.

Many people understand this and put it to work in their lives. If we are to save ourselves and this planet, this is what we must do. The roads we traverse must find their way back to a unified field. This most important journey rests on one question: Are we guided by an agenda of personal or cultural retribution, or have we been called to build bridges that connect us?

With so much at stake for humanity, where and how does healing the suffering and accompanying grievances even begin? Our energy needs to be cleaned and healed if our species is to have hope of moving forward. In The Holomovement: Embracing Our Collective Purpose to Unite Humanity anthology, Dr. Elena Mustakova writes:

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Healing begins with recognizing and acknowledging our hidden sense of vulnerability across social contexts. Whatever our circumstances and beliefs, we each experience the fragility of the human body and psyche, and know viscerally that we

have to build defenses, because society divides us into groups, identities and competing interests, pitting us against each other, and we feel unsafe. We learn early to compensate by telling ourselves stories in order to live. We then often

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A Journey from Grievance to Love

turn these stories into unexamined positions that we defend.

By listening deeply and holding a safe space for hurt, rage, and, ultimately, deep vulnerability, we can begin to re-construct our sense of self and our relationships to trauma and explore what it means to be an authentic expression of our true self within society. In these experiences, we can begin to recognize the commonalities we share in our personal stories and realize that something unites our infinitely different faces of suffering—a shared spiritual horizon.

Beyond Grievances is a World of Harmony

Amikaeyla Gaston, who is an awardwinning singer, activist, and founder and executive director of ICAHSI (International Cultural Arts & Healing Sciences Institute), survived a hate crime and near-death experience. Her recovery set her on a trajectory to understand the human psyche and how to access restorative justice through peace and forgiveness. In The Holomovement she shares:

Beyond the “ists” and “isms” of our body wrappers, beyond our individual comfort levels, beyond doubts and fears resulting in binary thought and competitive lifestyles, we enter into the beauty of our communal, molecular connections and continue to believe that the impossible is possible. We must continue to dare to hope; dare to be dauntless; dare to be fearless, brave, courageous, and bold, even when we are tired, weary, and feeling lost and alone. We are all one, even when we are alone, for we are all connected and are all our relations. You are a relative to me, and me to you, and all of us to each other—so when I get down, frustrated, and petrified by these challenging times, I have to remind myself that we are all a part of each other. To love myself fully, I need to love…all…of…us.

Elena Mustakova concludes in The Holomovement that “such a regenerative, planetary process continually challenges participants to examine their own mindsets, to be more attuned to how they use language, to find and grow within a higher love that fosters wholeness.”

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May we all find that higher love. Within the context of a Holomovement, may we discover our own way to release our grievances; heal our karmic field; and transform as one humanity, working in harmony for the good of the whole.

The Holomovement: Embracing Our Collective Purpose to Unite Humanity is an anthology exploring the science and spirit of the living universe and our integral place in its evolution. Find inspiration to support the wholeness in motion around us, integrating your unique

gifts and the Holomovement’s unifying values into a collective story serving the greatest good. www.holomovement.net

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Ascension Texts WisdomKeepers

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The oldest religious texts in the world are the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts . Dated to c. 2400 B.C., they were written in hieroglyphs carved on the walls of the subterranean tomb of a pharaoh named Unas, located beneath a pyramid at Saqqara, Egypt. These texts are a collection of spells and utterances meant to protect and sustain the pharaoh during his afterlife journey and enable his spiritual transformation or transfiguration into an Akh . The akh is portrayed as a glorious being of light who, effectively, has the same personality as he did on Earth, but is freed from the body and now sits among the gods. Some believe the Akh body was earned by successive lives as a good person.

According to the Pyramid Texts, during a time called Zep Tepi the First Time or the Golden Age—civilization was established by intermediaries between the gods and men called the Urshu , a category of lesser divinities whose title meant “the Watchers.” The Urshu lived on the Earth as the guardians

and guides of mankind. The great British Egyptologist, E. A. Wallis Budge, refers to them as “angels.”

The ancient Egyptians viewed their civilization as a legacy coming directly from these Divine celestial beings, who existed in Egypt thousands of years before the pharaonic dynasties that were established in 3100 B.C. It was they who established the first ascension schools on Earth. For thousands of years, the mystery schools of Egypt sustained the secret wisdom and knowledge of these ancient ascension masters. This knowledge was protected by being kept hidden and secret, and only revealed to initiates by a master.

The Pyramid Texts were intended as a guidebook for the ascension of the pharaoh’s Akh through the various stages of the afterlife journey. This journey included the resurrection of the Akh and its finding its rightful place among the gods and the stars. The ancient Egyptians believed that, without these texts, the pharaoh would not be able to ascend.

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WisdomKeepers

The texts established the profound belief that death was not the end of one’s soul. Instead, death was seen as a step taken or a tool used by the soul to transition into another way of living. Interestingly, the Pyramid Texts describe the king ascending upon a throne. This motif of the flying ascension throne is common in many later ascension texts. Also, the soul is portrayed flying like a bird to higher realms.

These texts are the first written account of a celestial ascent. It is no coincidence that this first text is an ascension text, or that it was found near a stepped pyramid referred to as the “Stairway to Heaven.” As we will elaborate, Ascension was the singular pre-occupation of the ancient mystics and adepts. They planted the seed of the ascension tree upon which we feed.

I need to emphasize that these texts, and the extraordinary teachings they contain, were initially kept secret. Common people were not privy to these teachings, which were reserved for the elite initiates and priests. Scholars did not hear about them until they were discovered by

French Egyptologist Gustave Master in the early 1880s.

It is utterly remarkable that these secrets were preserved for all those thousands of years. From 2500 B.C. until the time of Moses (1300 B.C.), Pythagoras (600 B.C.), and Jesus, and continuing until the end of the Roman Empire (A.D. 400), initiates continuously made pilgrimages to Saqqara to learn ascension secrets.

A particular theme that originated in the Pyramid Texts is that of passing through gates into other realms. Specifically, there were seven gates. These later became associated with halls or holes in space through which the ascending soul travels. The ancient Egyptians considered it essential to know the names of the guardians of these gates, and/or the necessary passwords.

The Pyramid Texts introduced another core ascension concept or practice: the pure soul, or purifying the soul. To the ancient Egyptians, the object of Earth life was to pass the “weighing of the heart” test when, at Judgment Day, the heart was weighed against the feather

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of cosmic truth, righteousness, and balance, called the “maat.” If the heart was pure, it would balance with the feather. If not, the soul would be recycled until it attained purity.

Maat is a state of perfection to which all nature is called and for which everything strives. The quest for maat was at the center of the ancient Egyptian civilization. The pharaohs led by it. Individuals were expected to “do maat” in their everyday affairs. They felt that human beings should conduct their lives in a righteous manner so their hearts would weigh favorably on the scale of justice. Those who had lived righteous lives would be judged as able to move on or ascend to higher levels of existence.

Testing or judgment is not a oneoff experience. In spiritual affairs, our heart is constantly on the scale. The importance of purity of heart as a pre-requisite for Ascension was emphasized 1,500 years later in the Psalms of the biblical King David: “Who shall ascend the Mountain of the Lord?” the priests would ask. “Who shall stand in this Holy Place?”

The answer was clear and unequivocal: “Those who have clean hands and pure hearts” (Psalm 24:3-4).

Another core ascension tenet introduced by the ancient Egyptians was that ordinary people can ascend. This was demonstrated by the evolution of the Egyptian mummification rites, which emerged from Saqqara.

At first, only the pharaohs—who were considered incarnations of the gods— were afforded these elaborate rites and magical, spiritual procedures. Over time, the rites would be performed on wealthy individuals. As the process gradually became more affordable, even average people were mummified—and so were their pets, especially cats. This development demonstrates that the idea of the immortality of the soul and its ability to ascend to higher regions was known and accepted as a possibility for more than just the elite priests.

THE STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

The Pyramid Texts can be thought of as a code for the soul’s ascension. It is no coincidence that they were

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discovered near the stepped pyramid at Saqqara. This pyramid was built for King Djoser in c. 2600 B.C. and is said to be the oldest man-made stone structure on Earth. Its purpose was to facilitate the king’s journey to rebirth in the afterlife, which is why it was known as the “Stairway to Heaven.” The great Giza pyramid, which Egyptologists claim was constructed soon after the Saqqara stairway, was known as a transmutation machine and a place of Ascension.

Many similar step pyramids have since been constructed throughout the world, including in Babylon, Cambodia, and the Americas. These

pyramids are extraordinary structures where the gods came down to meet, and sometimes mate with, humans. They were also repositories for the ascension knowledge bequeathed by the gods.

Imhotep built Djoser’s pyramid at Saqqara. An architect, master stone builder, magician, scientist, and medicine man, Imhotep was the first historical person to be deified. In the process, he became the first historical figure to ascend.

Imhotep’s name means “he who comes in peace.” He was known as a son of Ptah, the god whom the ancient Egyptians

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said came from the star Sirius and fashioned the human body. Interestingly, Ptah’s hieroglyph includes a string that resembles a double helix of DNA, as well as a compass and a square, the tools of transformation. He was known as the god of Egyptian stonemasons, craftsmen, scribes, and priests. He created technologies like a resurrection stick and the Ark of the Millions of Years, the ship upon which the throne of the pharaoh sailed across the waters of eternity. Imhotep wears a feathered cloak.

Imhotep's eminent position in Egyptian society is documented on the statue base of Djoser, which is now kept in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. That base contains the most important and only known titles of Imhotep: "prince, royal seal-bearer of the king of Lower Egypt, high priest of Heliopolis, director of sculptors." Given the extraordinary privilege of being named on a royal statue, it is supposed that Imhotep was, in fact, considered a respected member of the king's family. Some even think he was Ptah incarnated.

In the millennia after this transition, Imhotep’s influence grew. He was deified during the New Kingdom and a worship center and ascension school emerged at Saqqara. As noted, this center was in continuous operation for more than 2,000 years. By Roman times, Imhotep had acquired god-like status. The Greeks identified him as their god of medicine, Asclepius.

Archaeologists and Egyptologists fervently seek Imhotep’s lost tomb, certain it will contain immense secrets, and likely even lost knowledge about Ascension.

William Henry is author of ASCENSION: Divine Stories of Awakening the Whole and Holy Being Within, a book in the Common Sentience book series. He is an ascension scholar, author, investigative mythologist, art historian, and TV presenter. This article is an excerpt from:

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ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

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I have been writing in a journal since I was young; back then, we called it a “diary.” Mine was a little pink patent leather book with a “lock,” presumably so prying eyes wouldn’t read my deepest, darkest, pre-adolescent secrets.

I poured my heart out in that little book. I don’t remember what I wrote about, but it was probably how my parents didn’t understand me, or why the cute boy at school was ignoring me, or the D I got on my math test. My writing impulse started then. When that little book was filled, I decided it was too childish to replace it with another little patent leather book with a silly lock on it. Instead, I used my babysitting money to buy a nice notebook that I could slip between my mattress and box spring at night, thinking it was safe from those prying eyes. I never asked my mom if she found it or, God forbid, read it. All I know is, that book became my best friend and confidant.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated volumes of journals. Many of them are stored in big boxes in the garage. I’m not sure why I keep them. Maybe it’s because so much of my life is

documented there. In years past, my journals were where I wrote about heartache and sadness, about losses and pain. I dumped it all there in words. It was a safe space for me to unload the feelings and thoughts that I simply couldn’t bring myself to say out loud to anyone, even my therapist or my best friend. Eventually, I became my journal’s “fair-weather friend,” only writing when my heart was heavy.

When I became immersed in my spiritual journey, I found that journaling was a wonderful companion. My nightly writing became letters to God. I would pour my thoughts out to the great unknown, feeling that my heart was safe to share on those pages. All my yearning and longing; all my joys and insights; all my sorrows and worries were scribbled on the pages of my journal. I recorded my gratitude for the path I was now on, which would lead me to places I never dreamed I would go.

In 1992, Julia Cameron published The Artist’s Way, which is a course in freeing the artist within. Four years later, Sara Ban Brethnach published the widely acclaimed Simple Abundance, A Daybook of

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Comfort and Joy. Having spent much of my life in a state of insecurity and unease, discovering these books was a breath of fresh air. The words gave me a toe-hold on creating joy within simplicity and re-discovering my sleeping artist. I learned the practice of gratitude and took myself on artist dates. I embraced The Artist’s Way program and followed it to the letter for an entire year.

Not long after I completed that year, I heard and felt the call to interfaith ministry. The rest is history. My journal entries shifted their tone and evolved to the place where I express my deepest thanks to the Creator for every blessing in my life.

These days, I write in my journal most nights before sleep. Sometimes, my entries are stream of consciousness, like Cameron’s morning pages. They may flow with or without direction, but they flow, nevertheless. But most of the entries are love letters to the God of my understanding. I begin and end each entry with gratitude, even on the dark days, of which there have been many in recent months.

I offer up my day’s experiences for insight, my challenges for clarity and understanding, and my longing and yearning for direction.

Gratitude is my primary spiritual practice. Gratitude is my anchor. Gratitude lights my way and gives me grace.

If you haven’t tried journaling, I humbly suggest you give it a try. Start by writing five things for which you are grateful. Start with the simple fact that you woke up this morning, or that first cup of coffee, or the feeling of the sun on your face. You’ll be surprised by all the blessings in your life that you might be taking for granted. Let them have some space on a page in your diary. It feels good, and we all want to feel good.

Until next time.

Rev. Franne Demetrician is an interfaith minister. She has been a licensed holistic health practitioner since 1995 and wrote a spiritually oriented weekly blog from 2015 -2018. Franne is a working artist, photographer, writer, spiritual counselor, mentor, and teacher.

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Artist

Heal One, Heal All

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In Kali-Ki ReikiTM, there is a motto: “A healing for one is a healing for all.” Kali-Ki Reiki practitioners find this to be true on multiple levels, from the personal to the universal. In practical terms, the motto means that Kali-Ki Reiki practitioners need to practice reiki self-healing on a regular basis. Energy healers, like many of our counterparts in medicine and caregiving, often put caring for others ahead of self-care. While this is sometimes applauded as selflessness, the truth is, only by taking care of ourselves will we have the strength and fortitude to deal with the pain and suffering that is presented to us. We healers need to—as they say on an airplane—remember to put on our own oxygen masks first, ensuring we can breathe while assisting others. No one who asks for reiki healing for pain and stress relief wants to work with a stressed-out healer.

We know that, when one person is happy, it tends to elevate the mood and perspective of the people nearby. When clients who are depressed or in chronic pain come for reiki healing and leave with a pain-free sense of well-being and ease, they often find

that their complicated interpersonal relationships begin to go more smoothly. Problems that seemed insurmountable before suddenly have a simple solution. We know from firsthand experience that happiness and well-being can be contagious. The happy person also finds that sullen store clerks become helpful and smiling.

What exactly is this contagious quality that propagates well-being in ourselves and those around us? Why do we, for the most part, feel happier around happy people? This question can be answered in the esoteric and universal realms of energy healing and how reiki works. Neuropsychology and biochemistry tell us about “mirroring effects” in which seeing a smile can prompt a smile. Happy people release chemicals that activate happiness chemicals in others. Certain scientific traditions even accept “biofield” theories that claim that an undetectable—and as yet unmeasurable—energy field surrounds the human body which influences and is impacted by the biofields of those who come into close proximity.

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The biofield theory might explain what we see happening in Kali-Ki Reiki. For Kali-Ki Reiki practitioners, the biofield is a small part of the infinitely vast field of consciousness that underlies all that is. That field of consciousness is pure awareness, unchanging and endless. Known to some as the unified field, the God field, or the Brahman, Kali-Ki Reiki practitioners call it “Limitless Love.” It is love in a non-dual sense, meaning that it is not relational or conditional—it just is, and it is the source of all that is.

The unchanging and undifferentiated awareness of Limitless Love is the energy out of which the universe(s) and all beings emerge. In Kali-Ki Reiki, the creative energy of Limitless Love is called the “Loveforce.” That which delivers and transmits the Loveforce is referred to as Divine Mother or Maha Shakti (great power). Limitless Love is essentially neutral, and so must be its power. Kali-Ki Reiki practitioners liken the Loveforce energy to a mother who cares for and nurtures her creation.

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Heal One, Heal All

When Kali-Ki Reiki was first introduced in 2008, it appeared as a mystical revelation to me from Divine Mother. She clearly indicated that this healing practice, with its symbols or light-forms, was to be used to heal not just individuals, but to heal collective humanity and the planet itself. Over the years, Her messages have insisted that we all come to know the underlying truth of the unity and interconnectedness of all that is. Our sense of separation is illusory. Each person’s suffering and joy is linked to the experience of others. Our collective suffering is linked to the ravaging of our planet. We must heal ourselves to heal our world.

Whether humanity ultimately survives in its current form is irrelevant to the infinite, universal energy. But if, as humans, we want to evolve our consciousness in such a way that we can all know the Limitless Love at our source, we need to nurture and heal both ourselves and our planet. Healing one person at a time is the perfect place to begin. When Divine Mother’s Loveforce is activated in one being’s system, waves of luminous energy ripple out into the collective and the planet. This is how, in Kali-Ki

Reiki, we understand that a healing for one is a healing for all.

An African proverb states there is no healing without a change in consciousness. Unlike medical treatments that rely on chemicals or biomechanics, reiki heals through the transmission of Loveforce energy via the medium of the healer. In KaliKi Reiki, we have consistently found that when materialistic-minded people feel improved physically and emotionally—as a result of channeled energy they cannot see, feel, hear, touch, or taste—something changes in their awareness. They may suddenly realize that what they have known as reality is not what it appears to be. This transformation in consciousness, Kali-Ki Reiki practitioners call “wisening,” allows them to experience themselves as energy, or an energy field, that is a part of the whole.

Kali-Ki Reiki healers like to invite their clients to think of themselves as sunbeams whose light is dependent upon and not different from the light of the sun. This is how they think of themselves as part of the one whole or one consciousness.

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The word “heal” stems from a ProtoGermanic word meaning “to make whole.” Thus, when we experience healing, we are experiencing the wholeness of our being. As we wisen, we realize that the wholeness of our individual system is connected to universal wholeness. As long as any parts remain broken, how can the universe be whole? From the nondual perspective of Limitless Love, everything is always whole, perfect, and unchanging. But from the perspective of Divine Mother active in the relative world, we must collaborate with Her to evolve into our greatest wholeness—to wisen. She is always waiting for us.

A 1993 statement issued by the Parliament of World Religions declared: “Earth cannot be changed for the better unless the consciousness of individuals is changed.” Once we understand the interconnectedness of the personal and the universal, we can see that a healthy healer is a more effective healer. It is counterproductive to put ourselves on the back burner. As we offer healing on an individual basis, we can trust in the power of Divine Mother’s Loveforce to ripple into and wisen the collective awareness, which in turn transforms how we, as both

individuals and the collective, interact with and care for our world.

Self-care is also care for the greater Self or one soul that we all share. Together, let us heal and be healed.

Joni Dittrich, Ph.D. (Rajashree Maa) is the author of May the Loveforce Be With You: Kali-Ki Reiki: Healing Through Divine Mother & Yogic Wisdom. She is a master of four reiki lineages and a venerated interspiritual teacher of meditation, yogic wisdom and holistic wellness. From many years of practice as a psychologist and healer, she sees true healing as a gateway to spiritual wisening and awareness of the Limitless Love at the heart of being. She is the founder of The Wisdom School based in Napa, California, which is dedicated to offering online and in-person healing sessions and training in Kali-Ki Reiki and supportive practices. thewisdomschool.us

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One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
— William Shakespeare

SIGNS of CONNECTION

Imagine what life would be like if you believed that everything is intimately connected—and if you had proof that this world is alive with magic and mysticism?

Life is meant to be a magical, playful, and creative space. We are meant to maintain our childlike curiosity, wonder, and excitement. These perspectives unite us with the magic of our world.

The universe is constantly guiding us, sending messages, and having a dialogue. As you take each step, you are not on a journey; you are the journey. You are not in the world; you are every piece of the world speaking back to you. You are experience, experiencing itself.

But why does the universe speak in signs and symbols instead of more obvious clues? The signs are there to teach us to trust. They are ever-present and placed in specific moments and times to aid where clarity is most required. Coincidences and synchronicity are simply those moments when the authentic you lines up with awareness of the magic moments.

You have the choice to think of such occurrences as “special” or “ordinary.”

If you consider synchronicity special, then you still don’t completely trust this process. You are still in fight-or-flight mode, pushing, toiling, and moving against your own grain. Synchronicity will remain a oncein-a-while experience—until you realize it is everywhere, all the time.

Once you understand that synchronicity is ordinary, then you open to living in the flow, recognizing all the pieces yourself in the multitude of ways that they appear.

If your life is not entirely the experience you desire, wipe the veils from your eyes and ears and see the world as it really is. Things are not as they seem. There are deeper messages surrounding you, and you are missing them.

When you truly open to your senses, it will become apparent how everything is tied together.

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Rebel Road Tour

Signs, symbols, and synchronicities are anything but random occurrences. They appear in a constant flow throughout the day, speaking paragraphs to each person.

To illustrate this philosophy by

example, I embarked on an adventure around the country during which I only followed the signs. This magical journey was known as “The Rebel Road Tour.” Over the course of eleven months on the road, I found hundreds of examples that clearly exhibited how connected we are to everything.

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Signs of Connection

We started out for Washington, DC, to the first Rebel Road event. On the way, we stopped in Fayetteville, NC where we spent the night. The next morning, the RV would not start. We had to have the vehicle towed to a nearby service station.

As the mechanic tinkered with the RV, other mechanics gathered wanting to know what “The Rebel Road” stood for. I explained that we each have a unique genius hidden inside and that by following that spark, we can fulfill our individual piece of the Divine puzzle. We each hold a necessary space waiting to be expressed. In following our heart’s passion, we will naturally be inspired with answers for the “problems” of the world.

By the time we were done talking, the RV was fixed. The solenoid had been defective. The solenoid is a communication device that sits between the ignition and the engine; it receives the message that a key has been inserted and the engine can go. This was the beginning of our journey and I was nervous that the bill for our solenoid replacement would be $600 to $700.

Instead, the mechanic handed me two hundred dollars and a business card! He said one of the gentlemen I had spoken with was the owner, and he was inspired by what I was doing and wanted to waive the service fee. He also wanted to donate two hundred dollars and wish us well.

I looked down at the business card and saw a pair of angel wings and the name Jim “Souls.” The signs had begun! The universe was winking at me!

When we reached the next RV park, our engine again refused to start, despite several attempts. Having spent several years knowing how connected we are to everything, it was clear that a message was afoot. This was not just a random issue or fluke.

I sat back in the RV and asked the universe to tell me what message it was sending. Closing my eyes, I breathed deeply. The first word that popped into my mind was “solenoid,” pronounced “sillinoid.” I took another breath and began repeating the word softly. After the third repetition,

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“sillinoid” morphed into “silly noise.” I was certain that I had received the message!

I asked the universe, “Is this how I begin the message of my show? Is it the silly noise that keeps people stopping and starting, and stopping and starting, when it comes to their dreams? If that is the message, please let the RV start.”

I went back to the driver’s seat, inserted the key, turned the ignition… and the RV started up! It worked for the rest of the journey. Would you consider this a coincidence? A fluke? Well, there are many more stories just like that.

In this scenario, the damaged solenoid was a metaphor for the chatter that goes on inside of our heads, along with the “chatter of the outside” that keeps us doubting, moving forward and backing up. Needing to be jumpstarted represents how those outside of us often reignite the spark within.

All of this took place on the way to our capital, the place

of our “highest government”— metaphorically, the mind.

Everything is a sign. Tap into your guideposts and sacred encounters, and don’t forget to ask for a sign.

SIMRAN is a speaker, artist, author, and catalyst for love, compassion, and humanity. She is the author of the upcoming book SIGNS: Sacred Encounters with Pathways, Turning Points, and Divine Guideposts the 9th book in the Common Sentience series releasing March 2023. As the host of 11:11 Talk Radio Show and publisher of the Award-winning 11:11 Magazine she advocates for the visionary and mystic embodied within each person, through creating and sharing conscious, uplifting, and inspirational media.

www.iamsimran.com

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The Heart of the Matter for Spiritually Conscious Parents

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The Wizard of Oz left an indelible impression on many of us who grew up watching this classic film. The movie told a captivating story, and despite a few frightening scenes, it featured a cast of endearing characters that kept kids entranced and enchanted. A sweet, seventeenyear-old Judy Garland starred as Dorothy Gale. Once Dorothy arrived in the magical Land of Oz, the black-and-white movie changed into glorious Technicolor and a new adventure was underway.

One brave character in the movie was the Tin Man, who lacked a heart—or so he thought. He was on a quest to get a new heart so he could love again. His frequent tears of sorrow and regret rusted his armored body, causing him to get stuck in place. The Tin Man came to realize the greatest loss he had ever known was the loss of his heart.

Throughout the movie, the Tin Man displayed tender-heartedness. Events easily brought him to tears, even though he knew his body would seize up, rendering him motionless. The only way for the Tin Man to get unstuck was for someone to use a

nearby oilcan to lubricate his joints, which then would loosen his body up enough so he could move again.

I thought of the Tin Man recently while considering how hard life can be and the importance of learning how to forgive. Who can’t relate to the Tin Man’s broken-heartedness and his desire to have a new heart? Who can’t empathize with the experience of a heart-crushing sorrow? What a terrible loss it is to lose one’s heart, to feel hollowed-out, empty, and unable to move on.

Forgiveness—A Prescription for Heart Health

Those who act out of pain find ways to judge, spread hate, and seek vengeance. This creates the cumulative, corrosive effect of hardening their hearts. It ought not to be a surprise then that the war going on in our hearts correlates to a disturbing rise in heart disease, not only in the United States but also around the world. In October 2022, the CDC declared heart disease as the leading cause of death in the US. Heart attacks occurring under the age of forty are on the rise, defying

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the notion that heart disease is only a problem of the elderly. The World Health Organization has also identified cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death on a global level.

The CDC’s focus is on preventative guidelines and avoiding known risk factors. The medical community addresses the physical symptoms of heart disease—but that is only one aspect of an unwell heart.

Pema Chödrön, an American Tibetan Buddhist teacher, has said, “War and peace start in the human heart. Whether that heart is open or

whether that heart closes has global implications.” A person who strives to maintain an open, peaceful heart makes a huge difference in the world at large.

But how, exactly, can we open our hearts? One way is by learning how to forgive. Extending forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Whenever you forgive, healing occurs and your heart reestablishes its natural rhythm of peacefulness.

Forgiveness offers a fresh start, almost as though you had a heart transplant. Learning how to forgive is a vital practice to cultivate, model,

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teach, and encourage in our children. This is important not only to maintain physical heart health, but also to keep one’s spiritual heart open to its unlimited capacity to love.

Maintaining an Open Heart

A closed, walled-off heart is too often an unrecognized contributor to heart disease.

We all know how easy it is ruminate over a litany of past hurts. Harshly judging oneself and harboring grievances only anchor the pain in more deeply. A Grinch-like heart of stinginess might begin to

form. Nursing slights and painful experiences can build an armored wall around the heart, separating us from our true nature of love.

Even when the physical organ of the heart is clogged by arterial disease, the spiritual heart is always in a state of wellness and harmony. It is this heart, the spiritual energetic heart, that the Sufis understand as the source of a deeper intelligence and wisdom. The spiritual heart space is where we need to sit within when we offer forgiveness.

The transformative act of forgiveness can be an energetic heart-opener,

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The Heart of the Matter for Spiritually Conscious Parents

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similar to a stent inserted into a heart’s artery to break through what has been stuck. What once was narrowed and constricted by blockages is then set free.

The forgiveness process will widen and inflate your heart back toward mercy, compassion, and love. You’ll feel lighter, less burdened, and more peaceful. Whenever you release what has kept your heart stuck in the past, your natural state of openheartedness returns.

With an open heart, we see the world and others through the lens of love instead of fear. Forgiving oneself or another is like using the Tin Man’s oilcan

to unlock the door of a rusty-hinged heart, throwing it wide open to love, as the onward journey begins afresh.

My next column will feature how-to’s on forgiveness.

Mary Ellen Lucas, an Interfaith / Interspiritual Minister, believes we can learn to make wiser choices that create pathways of connection and collaboration to ensure a better world for our children. Life on Little Puddle Pond is a series of children’s books she wrote with silly goose playfulness along with meaningful lessons. The books are pre-chapter books and appropriate for children four to eight years old. Available from online retailers worldwide.

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I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. — Frank Lloyd Wright

CHAPTER 1

YOU WERE BORN WITH A MANUAL

Before you begin, I’d like to share a message from the Akashic Beings of Light:

Welcome. We invite you to step into the Akashic energy field with us. As we guide you through this book, you will notice your life alter and evolve. As you work with the exercises and prayers, you will feel old constrictions released, making life easier. As you work

with this practice, you will see doorways open where once there were blank walls.

We will work with you through the high vibration of Akashic Energy, which comes to you as you read. We will support and assist you in clearing old, stuck energy in your life to move out of fear and into a space of love and faith. We are your Akashic Record Keepers and pure Beings of Light. Our sole purpose is to guide you on this journey. Remember, you are never alone. You are connected to us and Creator/ Source at all

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times. Please feel this in your heart when we say, We are here to support you. Remember that we are pure Source energy. We have never been human and hold no judgment toward the human condition or situations. As you connect with us, you connect to the infinite power of love. You are safe and loved.

My question is, “Have you ever wondered why you are here and what your purpose is?”

The exciting answer is . . . . You created a plan before coming to Earth that holds much of the information you are searching for. But unfortunately, many of us don’t remember our plan, and we spend much of our life trying to figure out why we’re here.

My Soul Had a Plan

I can remember not being in a body, roaming the galaxies as an etheric soul, easily conversing with two other souls in another dimension. My etheric form was free and agile, moving with the slightest thought. But that all

came to a thundering halt when I was three years old, as I realized I was stuck here on Earth, trapped in a body again!

I can remember looking at my hands and being startled. The reality shook me as it filled my little body with fear. Not having the vocabulary to tell my mom why her little girl was so panicked, all I could say was, “I want to go home.” I was filled with tears and confusion. My mother told me everything was fine, and that I was home. It didn’t matter; I kept repeating that I wanted to return home.

I consider myself lucky because that memory, from age three, informed my whole life. It has guided me to seek answers so I can understand at a deeper, more meaningful level: Why was I in a body again? What was my plan? And why did I come here?

When I was a teenager, I had an insatiable hunger to learn about esoteric and spiritual studies. I read every book I could find on the subject. In college, I studied

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philosophy. But the more I knew, the more questions I had.

Then my search took a sharp turn, creating a desperate need to find meaning in my life.

At thirteen, one of my two soul sisters—who was my best friend— went into a coma. I felt her healing was my responsibility; somehow, it was my calling to heal her. I didn’t know how to pray because my household wasn’t religious; even so, I prayed all night to save her life by pulling her from the coma.

I felt responsible when my prayers didn’t work. She died the next day.

My other soul sister, Shuby, died suddenly in a car accident during college. It haunted me, as I also felt responsible for that death, because I hadn’t been there to save her—even though I lived in California and she lived in Illinois. Why would I think I had a responsibility to heal my friends? It didn’t make any sense to me.

there is another answer: We are all ancient and entangled souls. My feeling of being responsible for them ignited part of my soul’s path as a healer.

By my teen years, I knew I had been a healer in hundreds of lifetimes. Because that was and is who I am at a soul level, my internal knowing believed I could heal my friends, and I could have saved Shuby if I had been in Illinois rather than California. Has something similar ever happened to you? You might sense that you can do something you’ve never done or believe you have a special gift or ability, even though you haven’t been trained or taught how to do it.

Therapists might say that this was a normal reaction to losing someone close. However, I’ve learned that

The Akashic Record Keepers say this happens because we have used that gift or talent many times before, in past lives. We have come to Earth as ancient souls with a plan, whether easy or challenging, and with the desire to unlock our long-forgotten talents, gifts, and experiences so we can heal ourselves and others. We come

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equipped with the tools to do the work we are here to do.

Our biggest challenge is allowing our talents to show themselves.

Your Soul’s Plan

So often, when we feel isolated, alone, or lonely, we think we don’t have a purpose. Yet we feel there must be something more to life than what we’re experiencing!

I want you to know that you do have a purpose. You produced a plan detailing all kinds of experiences, karmic lessons, life purposes, trials and tribulations, relationships, career choices, and so on.

You made plans for different types of relationships with more than twenty-five people worldwide. For example, you wrote contracts with people who would become significant love partners, business partners, friends, parents, children, or siblings.

soul family; in some lifetimes, we don’t even have a social contract with them. I’ll explain more about your original soul family in Chapter 3. Your soul has so much knowledge and information you can use to navigate this lifetime. The reasoning behind your soul choices becomes more apparent as you learn more about your soul’s plan and dive deeper into finding answers to why you are here.

I Wish My Child Came with a Manual

When I was raising my three children, I belonged to two parent groups, including serving as the president of the Mothers of Multiples Club. When my twins were born, I felt insecure about parenting them. I’ll never forget how often I heard a new mother say, “I wish my child came with a manual!”

Some of these relationships come from your original soul family, and others don’t. For example, our parents aren’t always part of our

As new parents, we all feel lost and unsure about why our babies are crying so much, or colicky, not sleeping through the night, or even why they were born with a physical

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challenge. We often blame ourselves because we don’t have answers.

I’ve seen how reassuring it is to realize that life is not random. We make choices to learn and grow. We experience struggles, love, and hopefully joy during each lifetime.

Dream Your Soul’s Desire

Do you dream big, only to settle for small? Some people have big dreams and goals to meet, but they stop because they believe they are not worthy of such grandeur. You might think that your dreams are outlandish or crazy! But, when you realize who you are as an ancient soul, your dreams will become grounded in the truth of who you have been in other lifetimes. You will see that these dreams are an extension from where you left off.

There was nothing more exciting for me than realizing my dream of publishing. The book you have in your hands is my third. Each time I publish another book, I’m in awe that my dream of sharing

ancient wisdom through writing has become a reality. From a soul’s perspective, writing and publishing books were in my soul’s plan to expand my purpose and to share this work with the world.

The same goes for you. If you dream of writing, it might be because you have authored many books in other lifetimes. We can even connect with information from our past lives as published authors, to assist us in creating and publishing a new book. For example, one of my clients who was drafting a book discovered, in her Akashic Records, that the characters in her book were her from unfinished lifetimes when she had died suddenly.

Writing is part of my soul plan and a dream of mine. So, what are some of your grandest, seemingly impossible dreams? Your soul plan is waiting for you to discover its information about the gifts you can reclaim from past lives in which you were a skillful expert with the talents to make your dreams reality.

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EXERCISE FOR REFLECTION

One of the quickest, most direct paths to align with your soul is through your big, beautiful, and magnificent heart. If you dedicate yourself to learning how to open your heart to receive wisdom, messages, and healings, you will change your life and how you experience the world. This might be the key to all you seek.

Column of Light Meditation

The Akashic Masters offer a simple visual meditation to assist in connecting to them through your heart. They wish you to feel your connection from within your heart. This meditation was created to do so:

1. Please close your eyes with your feet flat on the floor. Focus your attention on your connection to your dear mother Earth solidly beneath your feet. Bring your focus from your feet slowly up to your heart, always breathing deeply into your heart.

2. See your heart open, everexpanding. Relax into the

expansion, allowing your heart to fill with the feelings of unconditional love. Stay there until you feel it fully. Breathe into the continued expansion of your heart.

3. Now move your attention and the energy up into your head, the area between your eyebrows, moving back into the center of your head, until you see a small master gland, your pineal gland. Spend time with it.

4. Thank it for all the work it does to assist your body. Send love from your heart to your pineal, for it is the energy center that connects to your higher self, your soul, and eventually to us, the Guardians of the Akashic Records and the Masters from Source. Your connection is how we can communicate with you.

5. See and feel the energy flow from Earth up through your feet. Let it rise up into your heart and move up to connect your heart to your

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pineal gland. Pay attention to energy rising from your pineal gland to the top of your head, making the connection up to us.

6. Imagine a silvery blue column of light coming from us to connect to you. The column surrounds your whole body and continues down into the Earth. You are surrounded and protected by the Akashic Column of Light the Record Keepers and Beings of Light sent you. Inside the column of light, you are held in Divine love.

7. Take a few moments to feel your connection to unconditional love or behold the spectacular sight of you being surrounded and protected in the silvery blue column. Breathe in unconditional love. Know you are guided and always have been.

Records. Relax into the healing energy as you recite the prayers. Feel their source energy running through you, surrounding you, filling you with lasting love.

9. When you feel complete, you may go about your day, confident the healing is taking place.

PRAYER FOR CREATING YOUR DREAMS

I am clear. I am focused. I am ready to do whatever it takes to make my dreams come true. I know that my clarity with the assistance of Akashic Records creates miracles in my life.

I am seen, heard, and recognized for the gifts and talents I offer.

The universe conspires with me to make magic happen, and my dreams come true.

So it is. Blessed Be.

PRAYER TO ACCESS CREATIVITY

8. Inside this connection, you can transform your life with the healing prayers of the Akashic

Mother, Father, Goddess, God, I Am awakened, creative energy.

64 YOUR SOUL HAS A PLAN

As I breathe into my heart, I ignite my creative energy.

I see it spinning threads of gold light.

As this golden ball of light spins ever faster within my chest,

I activate the connection to my creative energy rings, which slowly turn above my head.

Please assist me in merging the strength of my creative energy in my heart with the creative energy of the universe.

As these energies merge, I feel them spin as one, flowing through my head down into my heart and back up again. I ask for creative ideas to assist in my life. I am blessed and filled with gratitude.

Has a Plan: Awaken to Your Life Purpose through Your Akashic Records. founder and teacher of Akashic Knowing School of Wisdom, an internationally recognized school where students can learn to access their soul wisdom in their Akashic Records, along with numerous healing tools, meditation, and prayer systems. Lisa has taught thousands of students worldwide and has helped to train and certify dozens of Akashic consultants and teachers. akashicknowing.com

END OF EXCERPT

Lisa Barnett has devoted her life as a Divine channel of the Akasha, to help people connect to their soul guidance. She is the author of the bestselling book, Your Soul

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