Some Cosmic Humour

Some Cosmic Humour

coloured nebula

Some Cosmic Humour

Laughing out loud does not happen often in my meditation but it did happen a few days ago.

Part of my daily routine is to meditate for an hour in the morning.

Like swimming in the sea the experience changes day by day. Sometimes I am fortunate and I catch a warm oceanic wave. My body and mind melt into a soft flow. My consciousness transcends feelings, emotions and thoughts, and I float in a dimension that is very silken and expansive.

So I was in that state the other day and I followed the guidance of one of the oldest known prayers The Gayatri. I opened my awareness to the being who is the essence of our Sun.

Opening to that dimension I became aware of several beings. Each one was like a cloud of coloured gas. There was a core and a radiance that expanded to several hundred metres.

These beings were human. But they had transcended and were liberated from the cycles of incarnation. Their auras were full of love, wisdom and compassion. Also they had chosen to stay connected to Earth and to humanity, to help us all along the spiritual path.

It was deeply reassuring, healing and encouraging to feel their presence.

And then I noticed a few more of these beings who had a different ambience. Their lighting and colours were different. They were dancing and twirling. Their vibration was still, however, full of love.

Who are you? I enquired.

 We are the ones who are not engaged with humanity.

We seek to move on from our attachment to Earth to wider cosmic fields.

We are the wild sadhus, the crazy spiritual seekers.

We are the ones who disappear into mountains, caves and deserts — and in that wild solitude liberate ourselves.

Their attitude and resonance were filled with humour, compassion, giggles and a wild freedom.

Untamed mystics.

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It is said that the most frequently received piece of inner guidance is: Lighten up.

Britannia Angel of Britain

Britannia Angel of Britain

I met Britannia – Angel of Britain

20 December 2019

Two days after the Brexit Referendum on 23 June 2016 I met Britannia, Angel of Britain. She came to me in a dream and then a meditation.

I have never shared this experience publicly, but following the recent UK election it might be useful.

During the lead-up to the Referendum I supported the Remain campaign.  I felt that the European Union was a guarantee against another world war triggered by European conflicts and I appreciated being able to travel freely. Also my instincts are globalist. I identify as living in a global village. I am first generation British. My parents’ families were from Czechoslovakia, Germany and Russia via New York, Cape Town and Singapore.

When the Remain campaign was lost I was shocked and saddened.

Then I had a dream, which was echoed in a meditation.

The feeling of the dream was expansive, comfortable and liberating.

I had the impression of meeting a substantial being of light. She identified herself as Britannia, the angel or the folk soul of Britain. She was content.

Why, I enquired, are you content?

I am content, she seemed to respond, because the pendulum had swung too far into globalism. The European project was ignoring the precious and unique identities of the nations’ folk souls. I was forgotten but still here.  Brexit remembers me. Trust that this separation is healthy and lays the foundation for a better form of cooperation.

After the dream I was disoriented. The communication dismantled my strongly held Remain position.

I then did my morning meditation for an hour and allowed the dream to come back to me. I sat with it, open, connected, witnessing and enquiring. The encounter and the message stayed with me. And rang true.

As some of you know, my doctoral research was in identity politics. So after the encounter with Britannia I recalled how Hegel, the 19th -century German philosopher, had described nations and their folk souls, emerging from a marriage of geographical/cultural ecology and the incarnating world spirit.  Local landscapes blend with incarnating spiritual energy to create a nation, a national culture and a folk soul.

During the same period another German philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder, wrote that folk souls were beautiful and like individual flowers in a lovely garden. Rudolph Steiner also wrote about them. (Later tragically this philosophy of the volksgeist was corrupted by fascism.)

This understanding of folk souls and the meeting with Britannia altered my thinking and feeling about Brexit. I have yielded to its realities and even its wisdom. At the same time I appreciate the concerns particularly of my European friends living in Britain.

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And now two years on from that Brexit  Referendum we have Boris and his electoral victory.

From a metaphysical perspective, this was surely inevitable because Jeremy Corbyn never made a single statement asserting the dignity or pride of Britannia. If I had ever been able to challenge him personally I would have asked: To whom are you loyal – to the idea of an international working class or to the British people?

Whatever we may think of Boris we can imagine him wearing a Union Jack waistcoat.

And yes of course I acknowledge too those beings who are the Unicorn of Scotland, the Dragon of Wales and the Lion of England.

 

As individuals we all have multiple identities. Politics is complex.

There is a spectrum of activities that will achieve peace on earth, happiness and justice for all beings.

Some meditate alone and radiate into the ecology of humanity.

Others are frontline activists.

Bless you all.

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As I wrote in my last email my affirmation right now is:

Stay steady.
Stay hopeful.
Maintain right livelihood.
Model good care for people and planet.

 

statue of britannia

Ten Secrets of Psychic Protection

Everyone is sensitive to atmospheres and vibrations.  This is a normal human sensitivity. But some of us are more highly tuned than others.

Some sceptics might protest and say that it is all imaginary – made up by an overactive mind – and I reply: Did you ever rent or buy a home where you didn’t like the vibe?  The sceptic responds: Never! And I, trying not to be smug, say: Case proven. Because you are sensitive to atmospheres.

One of my friends was an officer in a nuclear submarine. When things went wrong and needed fine tuning, the captain always asked my friend to fix it because he had an extraordinary sensitivity to how the vessel felt and where it needed attention.

My dad was a psychiatrist and disliked all kinds of psychism and spirituality. Nevertheless he claimed that he could tell what was wrong with his patients the moment that they stood in the doorway of his consulting room. How could he do this? He said that he could read body language, but I have known of many blind people who have the same ability so cannot ready body language. So what is the source of their sensitivity? And in your own home or work place, can you feel the mood of someone coming in the front door – especially if they are angry or depressed?

This is all very normal stuff. We all sense invisible stuff. It is a human sense just like sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Sometimes, in ‘respectable’ language, it is called intuition. For me, I simply understand it as a result of the fact that we all have magnetic fields. Every atom and cell in our body has a magnetic field. That is basic chemistry and physics. Planet Earth has a magnetic field. Birds guide their migration roots using their magnetic field.

When something enters our magnetic field, it creates an ‘event’ that ripples through into our nervous system. We then feel or sense it.

The challenge for some people, including me, is that we have very sensitive energy fields and nervous systems. This means that sometimes we feel too much and it can be disturbing, tiring or even overwhelming.

In my mid-twenties for instance I lived off-grid for two years in the High Atlas Mountains of southern Morocco. When I came back home to central London my body could not stop shaking for several months as I felt all the vibrations of the city after two years in the mountain calm.

At the same time I was also exploring different approaches to spirituality and healing. Because of my own sensitivity I was particularly interested in spooks and negative atmospheres. I explored whether these unpleasant experiences were psychological or energetic phenomena and how to discern the difference. I led many workshops and trainings in this topic and wrote two books Psychic Protection and Feeling Safe on the subject.

I can summarise the advice I give to people who are sensitive to energies:

  1. Learn about your magnetic field and energy body; and how it integrates with your nervous and endocrine systems. Know thyself.
  2. Do what works best to strengthen your nervous system. Less caffeine, less alcohol, less recreational drugs, less rubbish food. More exercise.
  3. Learn about internal martial arts – chi gung– how to use meditation and movement to build your inner strength.
  4. Develop a stable grounded centre of gravity – what is called hara in martial arts and bottom in horse riding.
  5. Practice the classical strategies of psychic protection such as protective bubbles, shield, columns of lights, power animals and plants.
  6. Keep your energy moving – physically, psychologically and in your home and workplace.
  7. Use your sensitivity to deepen your connection with the unconditional love that permeates the universe.
  8. Ask and pray for help.
  9. Develop your ability to love, bless and forgive those whom you dislike and might be ‘enemies’.
  10. Understand that sometimes you attract difficult situations that are in fact great opportunities for learning and development.
Book Cover Psychic Protection by William Bloom
Book Cover Feeling Safe by William Bloom

New Years Resolutions and Cosmic Balance

Ninety per cent of New Year’s resolutions fail. People look forward into their lives and commit to change. Unfortunately the vast majority are sucked back into old behaviours. Little do people know that their failures are part of a grand psychological and cosmic drama.

January the first month of the New Year is named after Janus the Roman two-faced god. He looks backwards into the previous year. At the same time he looks ahead into the future. When people make New Year’s resolutions they are just like Janus bewitched by both the future and the past.

Deep in the darkness of mid-Winter we ponder our previous year and we make commitments for the coming twelve months. We resolve to change and improve.

Researchers have looked at these intentions. (https://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics). Topping the list is losing weight and healthier eating. This is followed by self-improvement, better financial decisions, stopping smoking, doing more exciting things, spending more time with family and friends, more exercise, learning something new and selfless good deeds.

This same research is sobering as it shows that only nine per cent of people feel that they succeed in fulfilling their resolutions. Our pledges are well motivated and reasonable. I will exercise. I will stop being snippy with my family. I will save money regularly. They are fuelled by good intentions. Yet there is a ninety-one per cent failure rate.

What lies behind this dismal record? It is too easy to blame laziness or a lack of commitment. I suggest that there are two other powerful but unrecognised forces that fuel our resistance to change. One is biological. The other is a universal dynamic systemically built into the very essence of life. It is good to acknowledge and be realistic about both.

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First the biology.

As a species of successful apes we know that we are biologically engineered to survive. We are driven to eat, create shelter and procreate. But beneath these obvious instinctive drives is another crucial force, the hidden mechanism of homeostasis. This is the regulatory method built into our physiology, into our nervous and endocrine systems, that ensures a stable state. For example if we get too hot we sweat in order to produce moisture that will evaporate and cool our skin. Your homeostatic mechanism knows the stable state of your body and works to maintain it.

But homeostasis also creates problems. Once your physiology and psychology are accustomed to a particular state then homeostasis will work to maintain that state to ensure stability and continuity. Even if that behaviour, or emotion, or thought pattern, is self-harming the homeostatic mechanism is driven to maintain and to continue those conditions. There is this powerful biological dynamic in all of us to persist in behaviours that have become habitual.

How many times have you pledged not to react to someone in a certain way? But when that person presses your buttons off you go triggered into your conditioned and habitual behaviour, driven by the biological mechanism of homeostasis that is blind, sometimes stupid and very powerful. We can see this in addictions and habitual behaviours of all kinds and the power they have over us.

We can make clear, adult and conscious decisions about what we want to do. But irresistible and painful cravings may then corrupt our resolve and suck us back into old, even self-destructive, patterns.

Homeostasis works against us when we seek to change. This is a harsh reality that needs to be acknowledged. Of course it is balanced by another survival instinct. We are also animals who enquire, follow our curiosity and adapt. We learn how to self-manage our habits and cravings. But as mature adults most of us are wise enough to acknowledge that we are vulnerable to the strength of old patterns.

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Then there is a cosmic dynamic that is similar to homeostasis. It is a magnetic attraction that glues everything into solid form and has implications for human behaviour.

Look at the big picture.

The whole of the universe, from a grain of sand out to the infinity of endless galaxies, is held balanced between two great forces. One force is the continuous expansion and movement initiated by the Big Bang. The other force is gravity, magnetism, that holds everything in place.

Nothing could exist if the only dynamic were explosive never-ending expansion. It requires the equalising balance of gravity and magnetism for anything to manifest in solid form.

This polarity between endless expansion and the magnetism of gravity was recognised and symbolised in many ancient philosophical and spiritual traditions as a marriage or a dance between two cosmic forces. Mother-Father. Yin-Yang. Earth-Heaven.

Taoism the ancient philosophy of China appreciated this dynamic relationship and represented it in the famous Yin/Yang symbol. A circle with a wavy dividing line. One side black and Yin. The other white and Yang. But with a small white dot in the black and a small black dot in the white. Yin is the force of magnetism, gravity and containment. Yang the outward expansive emergent dynamic. They meet and are also within each other. Both are required for the manifest cosmos.

As tiny human actors in this cosmic drama we are living proof of this polarity, attracted simultaneously to change and to staying the same. We face and are pulled in both directions. Our biological homeostasis is reinforced by natural magnetic force.

Sometimes the containment is so strong that it feels like inertia and depression. Contrarily sometimes the expansion is so strong that we feel hyper and over-excited.

From this perspective resistance to change is not only a result of physiological and psychological homeostasis. Staying the same is also a cosmic tendency.

You may not buy this metaphysical idea that we are influenced by this dance between cosmic forces. But it is surely a grand metaphor to describe and explain some of the human drama and why it is often so difficult to fulfil our resolutions.

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So what can all this teach us that might be useful? Here are a couple suggestions.

First, if we acknowledge the biological and natural forces that are constantly at work within us, we can be less naïve and ashamed when our intentions stumble. Being insightful and forgiving makes it easier for us to try again. Stumbling is normal.

Second, we can be more strategic and mindful as we plan our resolutions, recognising that we may need more enthusiasm, endurance and support than we previously envisaged.

Slumbering Colossus in the Sky

Slumbering Colossus in the Sky

The largest known form in the universe has just been discovered. (7 May 2015)

A few weeks ago the Royal Astronomical Society published an astonishing paper. Exploring an area in space known as the Cold Spot astronomers have identified the largest known structure in the universe.

Roughly 3 billion light years away from us, astronomers call it a Supervoid. It is colossal. It is shaped like a sphere.

Its major feature is its emptiness. At its core is a magnetic field that drains energy from light, like a black hole. It is the size of 10,000 galaxies. (Our own galaxy The Milky Way contains up to an estimated 400 billion stars.) It is 1.8 billion light years in diameter. 

The scale of it is mind-boggling. Its emptiness is — I struggle for appropriate words — mysterious and engaging.

INTERPRETATION

In archetypal psychology and astrology, in the sciences of interpreting symbols and signs, it is always significant when a new feature of the natural world reveals itself. In our very human way we interpret these events as having personal meaning for us.  This is normal and natural.

Walking in the streets or landscape you might have noticed an animal and sensed there was a message there for you. Black cats. Crows. Owls. A cloud.

When I am out on my motorbike I notice birds that fly across my trajectory and take care to heed their advice. Perhaps it is just superstition. Or innate body wisdom.

In the same way, when a new form is discovered in the cosmos, symbologists interpret it as revealing insights about the human condition. In 1977 a small planet was found in the outer solar system between Saturn and Uranus. It was named Chiron after the centaur in Greek mythology, who is also known as the ‘wounded healer.’

How then are we to interpret the discovery of this Supervoid? The size of 10,000 galaxies. Empty.

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A few days after first reading about it, my psyche began to call it the Slumbering Colossus. I mused that it sleeps for aeons. When it awakes the empty space will be filled with newly birthed galaxies and stars.

This concept comes from teachings in the Hindu Vedas, Theosophy and Steiner. They propose that the universe contains great entities that have cycles of activity and of rest, of manifestation and of sleep. These entities are themselves enfolded within a single source so extraordinary that our minds are incapable of grasping its reality; this is the One About Whom Nothing Can Be Said.

This suggestion of great cosmic entities in a rhythm of activity and rest possesses a natural logic. All around us we can see cycles of birth, growth and death — the breathing of life.

All around us too we can sense that nature is filled with presence and identity. Mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, trees, flowers, blades of grass and much more, all have a presence.

Even bigger, the Sun has a presence and identity. The oldest known prayer The Gayatri addresses the soul and inner being of the Sun. Our planets were named as identities: Mars, Saturn, Venus… Constellations too: Aquarius, Leo, Sagittarius .. . 

But when we get beyond our solar system and observable constellations, it all perhaps becomes too big. Our own galaxy the Milky Way is rarely personalised, though sometimes called Great Mother. Beyond our galaxy the sheer grandeur and mystery of it all may be encapsulated in that single and for many provocative word God.

In this way of seeing things, galaxies possess a presence and identity. Like a mountain, or star, or forest. This is natural.

This Supervoid then can be met as a colossal presence. We minuscule specks of consciousness on this tiny green blue planet have discovered it.

I know that it is presumptuous and naive to describe it as a Sleeping Colossus.

Yet it is a presence. It is a feature of the natural world.

Attempting to name it is just a human instinct to grasp its meaning and understand more.

Ley Lines, Animals and Dance

Ley Lines, Animals and Dance

Do animals move around following ley lines?

This was the question recently put to me by a researcher from a wildlife charity.  I loved the question because it focused my attention on that wonderful interplay between animals and landscape.

Immediately I could imagine any animal – a squirrel, an elephant, a spider – moving through their environment. What was drawing them in a particular direction? What was guiding the path they chose?

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Some of you may not be familiar with the concept of ley lines. Others of you will be very familiar, so forgive my brief description.

Ley lines are thought to be flows of energy that move through the landscape. Some people are very sensitive to them.

Dowsers are very interested in tracking them.

Australian Aborigines called them Song Lines and say that people, especially shamans, are attracted to go ‘walkabout’ along them.

In the British Isles the students of Earth Mysteries are fascinated by how many sacred sites, significant places, churches and places of worship seem to be located on very long straight lines. For example, the most famous of these long lines in England is the St. Michael Line which runs from Land’s End in the south west through to the Norfolk coast in the east.

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There is much discussion about the nature of leys. What exactly are they?  In the ‘Ley Lines and Ecology‘  booklet that I wrote quite a while ago, I suggested that there were several types of ley.

Earth’s energy matrix 
Just as human bodies have a matrix of energy, identified as meridians in Chinese medicine and acupuncture, so planet Earth also has an energy body.  Some of these energy lines are several miles high and wide and extend thousands of miles.  (That makes sense, doesn’t it, given the size of the Earth relative to a human being.) Some can be tiny too.

River imprints 
These are the echoes of where water used to flow.

Electromagnetic flows 
These are related to the electromagnetism inherent in any body, but amplified here by the minerals in the ground (eg: where quartz meets clay meets granite) and the way in which tectonic plates exert pressure on each other.

Animal path imprints 
These are the echoes from the repeated movement of animals along a particular path.

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So to come back to the original question: do animals follows ley lines?

My intuition is that like most things in nature, it must be an interplay between all the dynamics of the landscape and the circumstances.

Just as migrating birds use electromagnetic sensitivity to guide their flight paths, but are thrown off course by changing winds and thermals, so all animals interact with their environment.

No matter how strong a ley or path echo might be, if there is an obstacle or predator in the way, the animal will obviously change direction.

The squirrel flows along branches from tree to tree, but shifts direction where appropriate.  (Or evolves into a flying squirrel.)

We humans of course create tracks too. It is obvious in our traffic systems. (Imagine our planet without traffic. Would there still be the energy imprint of where the motorways ran?) You can see how we create tracks too in crowded high streets and busy station concourses as hundreds of people instinctively make flows and adjustments. Waterloo Station, London

When we walk in landscape we are also guided by well-worn paths.

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How beautiful it is then to walk free of determined tracks and to move intuitively through our environment. This free movement can be in forests and mountains and deserts. It can be in parks and gardens. It can be in our homes. It can be on dance floors.

How liberating and healthy it is to follow our instincts and play with the song lines and invisible leys to dance with life.

Malvern_Hills_in_June_2005The Malvern Hills