Unpacking Boxes, Planting Seeds, & Emptying Cups

Greetings from Lake Shastina!

April 26, 2016

Yesterday I noticed a pile of boxes in the kitchen of the lovely home where I am currently staying.  

Later, in the afternoon, I noticed birds at the bird feeder on the deck railing outside with a hummingbird hovering in a nearby bush.

Those two images sum up what my process seems to be here in the Mount Shasta area.  

The process of becoming increasingly aware of my “boxes” (the implanted ideas I carry that have been unconsciously shaping my experience, the filters that both attract the experiences I am having and shape my interpretation of what those experiences mean to me) allows me to see them for what they are:  limiting beliefs that create a defined, limited and even restricted reality.   It is also becoming easier to see the "boxes" other people are living within of which they may or may not be consciously aware.

The energy field and the awesome presence exuded by Mount Shasta requires me to expand, dying to old limited ways of being and opening further to my multidimensionality.

After completing a Creational Sound session here in the house a few days ago, I looked out the window and a flock of big white birds with black wingtips were soaring.   Similar to the seagulls I had observed at my previous viewing spot over on the other, far side of the lake, these birds were much larger and I thought they were probably some sort of snow geese.  I ran and got the camera.  

The next day my hostess, Ahuva, and I were watching a small group of pelicans paddling along down below on the lake.  I mentioned the “snow geese” I had seen and she assured that, if they had black tips on their wings, they were pelicans.

Incredulous, I cut out one frame of the video, blew it up and sure enough.  It had been pelicans that I saw riding the updrafts.  A flood of tears followed.

Many of you will remember that my father died just a year ago and Pelicans was the last song I sang to him.

“Come up high and fly with me!

Feel the joy of synchrony

Feel your wingtips touch the sky

Feel the joy of knowing why 

We fly together, 

We fly in rhythm.”

It felt like the pelicans were inviting me to SOAR!!!

During my time here in the Mount Shasta area, I have been immersed in a very rich process of deeply feeling my Oneness will all life.   I was able to read half of the series of books, The Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East by Baird T. Spalding, and the "magical" events described in those volumes definitely triggered increased awareness of "boxes" agreed upon by many of those who of us who live in Western culture.

Unpacking “limiting” boxes, seeing them for what they are, dismantling them and learning how to fly free without them seems to be a process that many of us are engaged in at the present time.  (See Cutting the Strings.)   I find each time I discover another of my boxes, there are emotions involved in letting it go.  Although the box is constricting, it has held me in a familiar reality.  Each time I recognize and dismantle one, I step into a greater unknown, a greater field of possibility, with accompanying feelings of various degrees of uncertainty and fear.

Yesterday, while I was watching the variety of birds that show up and avail themselves of the gifts of birdseeds that Ahuva, generously leaves out for them, I was filled with a knowing that that beautiful places to live where one can interact readily with wild creatures and observe them as they go about their lives is one of the things I DO want to create for myself wherever I go in the world.   I actually felt the seed of that idea lodge itself within my consciousness in a very alive, fun way.

Learning how to consciously create, planting the seeds intentionally within ourselves for what we truly want to see grow in our lives requires a very deliberate and active use of our imagination, control of our emotional energies and laser sharp mental focus.  

Creating what we consciously choose to create also requires time for going into the stillness.  I've been thinking about how so many people I meet are so full of day-to-day-life concerns swirling around inside of them,

that there is no room for new ideas to come in about simpler, happier ways in which they might be living their lives. 

So since I'm the one that's observing this in those around me, I have to look at how I am doing that myself.   In third dimensional reality we become used to living in a linear manner.  One step leads to the next step.  So I sit in the quiet and ask for the next step.  

Yet now I am becoming aware that there is a deeper stillness, a deeper emptiness, a space within where anything is possible.  Here in this moment.  ANYTHING can be created.  NOW.  So what do I choose to experience???  Or perhaps more accurately - what does my soul choose for me to experience?

All is in Divine order.

Namaste.

Bouncing Around vs Stillness

Happy Full Moon!

From my perspective, there's a lot of bouncing around going on these days.  Bouncing back and forth between third-dimensional duality awareness and higher, multi-dimensional perspectives as we learn how to live in the higher frequency now surrounding us.  I observe this "bouncing" phenomenon in the people around me, and as I recognize it being played out before me through their attitudes and actions, I become increasingly sensitive to the changes in myself as I bounce around experiencing life from different vibrational states of being.

Years ago in New Zealand I had an experience of sitting in my van observing and feeling the energy of a large flock of sheep as they flowed past me, all in a big hurry, just following the herd.

I felt their fear and anxiety.  Just to keep up.  To not be trampled underfoot by the sharp, thundering hooves of their fellow sheep.

A couple of days ago, I was blessed to have the opportunity to go a spend a few hours in silence and stillness looking out over this little lake and watching a flock of seagulls soaring.  

They were riding the thermals, catching the updrafts and allowing them to lift them to a higher perspective.  Not having to frantically flap their wings to gain altitude, but just allowing the air currents to lift them.  I tried to get a picture of them, but by the time I found my camera, they had already disappeared high into the sky out of sight.

Rather than racing around blindly trying to keep up, may we all find the stillness that allows us to soar, riding the uplifting spirals of energy available in the silence.

Namaste.

Listening To The Earth's Song

Greetings from Lake Shastina!

April 11, 2016

I have been most blessed to stay for a few days in Lake Shastina at new friend’s beautiful home, enjoying this awesome view from her deck:

I arrived during Ilonka’s days off, so quite unexpectedly she has been able to drive me all over the countryside to a wide variety of places here in the Mount Shasta area.  It has been fascinating to watch my own personal emotional/energetic reaction to each place, often a bit different from hers.

In the process of singing to the Earth in each location, one spot after another, allowing myself to open, allowing the energies present multidimensionally in each place to sing through me, I realize that I am being shown still more about this Earth singing process as a form of communion, further deepening my ability to LISTEN to the Earth speak in each spot.

As I open and allow the energies to flow through me and try to match what is pouring in with sound and movement, it feels like I am being shown the state of beingness that each place is experiencing.  Feeling the energies as they sing and dance through me is like listening within to someone telling me a story about what’s going on in each place and what is needed for harmony and balance.  

What I am having to focus on is getting my own emotional reactions and judgments out of the way more than I ever have before, in order to hear/feel what is actually coming from the other multi-dimensional energies that indwell each place - the elemental beings and forces, the Ancient Ones, the Ancestor Spirits, celestial energies, recent human emotional residue, as well as feeling the constrictions of man-made structures that may have interfered with the natural flow of life force energies in, out and through a place. 

The huge gift of these past few days has come from the variety of states of being I’ve experienced while singing to each of the places we have visited in quick succession, one-by-one.  I am becoming more acutely aware of the "flavor" of the very different overall states of being in these different spots, and am witnessing how much more accurately I can receive the Earth’s Song (whether it be one of harmony and flow, or deadness and numbness, or conflict and great disturbance) when I am crystal clear myself.

The first place Ilonka took me to was the nearby Pluto Caves that were formed as a result of a collapsed lava tube.

The energy there felt rather dead to me, numbed, withdrawn.  Not the alive vibrancy of lava rock that I am used to feeling.  The place appears to be highly visited and there is lots of graffiti painted on the rock, which gave the cave a suffocated feel to it when I sang there.  It felt like the sounds I made were being beamed back and forth through the lava tube, calling for the stone to awaken.  Evidently, the part of the caves where I sang is a sacred place where, long ago, native women would come to give birth.  Water made its presence known here by dripping from the ceiling overhead.

We had had an extraordinarily difficult time finding the Pluto Caves.  Our search took us up a nearby dirt road that was heavily trafficked.  The area did not feel happy and harmonized.  Something in that area there is really off balance and it feels like the earth energies have withdrawn their presence.  Was that what we were being shown by our detour?  Or is that simply my projection?  Perhaps when I saw all the graffiti, I withdrew my energies to a certain extent?

* * * *

The next day we set out for Medicine Lake only to discover that it was still under 6 feet of snow.  So instead, we headed north to an old favorite haunt of mine, the wetlands at Tule Lake.  The spring migrations of water birds were in full swing and it was a perfect time to visit.  My own personal process got in the way a bit, so I didn't even attempt to sing there.

On our way back we stopped at Lake Justina.

Reservoirs, man-made lakes have a very different energy than natural lakes.

Standing out on the ramp, looking down at the water I discovered these very strange shapes.  Mutated, deformed frogs?

The place made me feel very concerned about chemicals poisoning the water here in an area of the world that is celebrated for its pure water.  What's really going on???

Over and over I get the message to not try to fix anything that's wrong, but to focus on bringing in the new, higher vibrational frequency energies.  While singing softly and meditating at Lake Justina, I got the strong impression that NOW is the time to focus on getting the High Tide movies out there.

As we continued on back to Ilonka's home, some rain spattered the windshield and we looked up to see that although there had been sunny skies when we arrived at Lake Justina, there were now big black clouds piling up over in that direction.  

Straight ahead the sky was bright blue and the sun was shining.

It felt like a reinforcement of the message I had just received.  The choice of whether to focus on the dark clouds and storms of life or to focus on heading in the direction of the light.  

We came around a bend in the road to another awesome view of Mount Shasta, feeling the incredibly strong impact of its immense presence.

* * * *

The third day our first stop was at Lake Siskiyou, another dammed, man-made lake.  

The energy of the area below the dam that is still in its natural state

which was quite different than the area next to the dam where I stood to sing.

The impression I got as I sang was that there is a deep need for greater flexibility here.   The natural river breathes and pulses, can move and change.  The dam is a rigid structure that doesn't allow the kind of "breathing" that the river needs to be whole and healthy.

Our next calling was to Castle Lake where once again I walked in so that my feet were in the water as I sang.

You can see the view of the lake I had while I was standing in the melted lake water in the foreground.

The sounding here seemed to be a calling out to every element, life force, creature being to fully be awake and living its full magnificence and to help to ignite and activate higher consciousness in every human who visits the lake. 

Ilonka and I took pictures of each other next to the snow in the parking lot. 

Notice my bright red, post-ice-water feet!!! 

Then we remembered.  While at a crystal shop in Mount Shasta that morning, we had been given a crystal to gift to Castle Lake.  As I returned to the spot where I sang (as that seemed to be the spot the crystal wanted to be to do in order to share its presence with the energies of the lake) it began to rain, a very light, fine, misty rain creating little rippling circles on the lake's surface.  A wonderful acknowledgement and blessing!  Message received and rippling out!

As we drove down the mountain, we encountered the breathtaking view

of Mount Shasta poking through the clouds.  It appeared do be floating in the heavens, peering through a hole in the clouds, sharing its awesome presence with us once again.

After a yummy lunch in McCloud, we continued on to our last place to sing at Fowler Falls.  We visiting the Middle Falls first, 

then checked out the Upper Falls 

and finally the Lower Falls 

before deciding to return to the Middle Falls to sing to the water.  

Ilonka led the way down to the river where we both found our spots to sing.  Singing here in this spot felt very whole, and all I felt moved to sing/sound was sacred Aums, spiraling energy through me from Divine source energies to the Earth and back.

Feeling the power generated by freely moving, flowing water is an awesome experience, especially in the spring when it is picking up and carrying all the various kinds of energies of life awakening and bursting forth into bloom!

A very rich series of experiences.  Thank you, Universe!   Thank you, Ilonka!

Singing To The Headwaters At Mount Shasta

Greetings from Mount Shasta!

April 5, 2016

Today I was privileged to be taken by a wonderful new/old soul friend to Mount Shasta City Park where the headwaters of the Sacramento River flow out of the mountain.  She held sacred space and amplified the vibrations as I sang to bless the mountain and its waters.

I have sung there before, but never with such a huge entourage of ancestral spirits of native peoples from all over the planet gathering, participating and singing through me.  The elemental energies were also well represented.  

I was instructed to take off my shoes and stand in the freezing cold water, facing its source.  I began as usual by calling for the spirits who walk with me and the spirits of the place to come and sing through me what was most needed by that place at that time.  One group after another from the spirit world joined us, as huge tears began flowing through me as I felt their response to the current situation here.

The first sounds were bone shaking, a deep, stirring, soul-of-the-mountain cry for help, for attention, for all humans to wake up and realize what is going on all over the planet and to CHANGE things immediately.  To wake up and do what must be done to bring humanity back into balance with all the other creatures, multi-dimensional beings, and living embodied life forms that also share the Earth in each location.

The sounds transitioned into expressing decisive “cutting through” energies, slicing through and pushing to the side the man-made forms and structures that are interfering with the free flowing-ness of the sacred mountain energies.

My hands and my voice danced as I felt how the mountain is meant to be wild and pristine and the waters need to be left alone to follow their intricate paths which flow underground and move in and up and down and around inside the mountain.  

This mountain and its waters have a sacred purpose and are crying out with their deep need to be left alone to flow freely and fulfill their important roles in the grand scheme of LIFE. 

I wonder if humans will manage to reconfigure themselves and how they live here on this land successfully to honor the sacredness of this mountain and the waters that flow through her in time, or if the mountain will have to do it for herself?   The powerful need for a huge shift in awareness is urgent.

Is the land and are the waters being loved and cared for with the intention of creating harmonious well-being for all life everywhere?

Or is the land being used and abused to support an unsustainable lifestyle that is ultimately threatening to the well-being of all life everywhere?

What can I do to love and care for the earth?

Many, many years ago I attended a workshop with Brooke Medicine Eagle.  At that time she told how the elders had told her that if was important to hold the Golden Dream - the higher, finest most wonderful vision of the future that you can possibly imagine.  For the dream that you hold forms the path that you then walk down.

The time of the splitting of the worlds is NOW.

Namaste.

The Frog and the Hot Water

Many years ago, someone told me a story about frogs and hot water.  They said that if you put a frog into cold water and slowly heat up the water, the frog would eventually end up cooked, because it didn’t register the gradual increase in temperature.  If, however you dropped a frog into hot water, it would immediately jump right back out.

I think of this story often as I travel around the continental USA - the temperature of modern day living is definitely rising and getting quite hot in many places.  People are gradually being "cooked", numbed by the bombardment of their chosen life style, unaware of what is happening to the earth and therefore to them.  Having lived outside of America for so many years now, it is extremely alarming to return and see and experience the frantically busy, consumer life style that so many millions of people are caught up in.  

I want to hop right back out.  

So many individuals are so busy being busy that they don’t have any time to sit back and consider what their choices and actions are doing to the planet and that there might actually be a more preferable, simpler, happier way of living.

I have spent time in New Zealand with home-schooled children, who have not been allowed to watch TV, and so they are living their lives in a more real world perceived through their very own senses, rather than participating in a world perceived almost totally through the eyes and interpretation of perception of someone else.

EVERYTHING one sees, hears in the media has been first filtered through someone else’s personal point of view, opinions, belief system and agenda.  That is why having an abundance of wilderness and time to interact with it is so critically important.  Being out in the wilderness, having one's own personal, direct experiences with wildlife offers each person a place to discover their own wildness, their own true nature.  

One perceptive young girl living on the North Island of New Zealand, the daughter of good friend, made a comment about an acquaintance of theirs whose life was involved primarily involved with shopping and her latest acquisitions. She referred to her as being a “television” person.  Rather than creating her life moment-by-moment, interacting with the natural world, she was caught up in shopping for a life she had seen advertised and was busy creating the money to afford everything she felt impelled to buy.

One of my biggest concerns as I revisit the continental USA after so many years away is what I call the vibrational pollution being caused by the increasingly technological lifestyle.

Because of my work with sound and using my voice to transmit different frequencies, I have become increasingly and acutely sensitive to all the different vibrational frequencies that are bouncing around in our modern, technological world.  Because I have spent so much of my time in the past 12 years in EMF-free zones, places where are no televisions, walk-around-phones, or microwaves radiating, places where there are no cell phone or WiFi signals bouncing around, I know what it feels like.  

I recently sat with my daughter and granddaughter for few minutes watching a modern Bugs Bunny cartoon.  Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck were still there, but were now playing the roles of Super Heroes and Super Villains accompanied by a horrendous, throbbing, punching soundtrack.  Wondering how they could stand to listen to this awful noise which was having an immense kind of pounding vibrational impact on our bodies, I realized that they must both have become numb and immune to those kinds of sonic vibrations, because the TV is on much of the time.  There is no other way they could bear something so incredibly toxic to the nervous system.

I know experientially how relaxed my body is when I am out in pristine nature, how much easier it is to think a coherent thought, how precious and uplifting it is to hear birdsong and crickets and frogs and doves cooing, the sighing of a gentle breeze, water tumbling over rocks in a stream — the natural sounds that are intended to calm our nervous systems and help us align and harmonize with our natural world. 

I remember the email that got sent around after that huge tsunami hit Japan years ago.  How the people in one of the villages unexpectedly re-discovered the joys of a simpler way of living when their highly technological world was suddenly destroyed.

On a daily basis, for each one of us, it’s all a matter of choice.  But to make a choice we have to be aware that there is a choice.

Am I living the life I most want to be living?  What do I really want to be experiencing day-by-day, moment-by-moment?  And how do I create or allow that to happen?

Namaste!

Wildflowers on Table Mountain

Greetings from Paradise, California!

My daughter and her family took me up to Table Mountain a few days ago, a place I loved to go  when I lived in this area thirty years ago.  It was amazing to look at it all once again through eyes that now see everything so differently.  When I previously lived here, I didn't realize that it was volcanic and that the lava flows in this area are believed by some to be 14 and 39 million years old!

It was the perfect time of year to see the wildflowers blooming.

My granddaughters' sharp eyes discovered this horny toad, which allowed us to get close enough to get a picture of it.

They also discovered this swarm of bees that required every last bit of my camera's zoom capability.

Viewing the waterfalls was our goal, and when we arrived at this one I remembered visiting the very same spot all those many years before.  

This time I was aware of the surrounding basalt columns and knew that this was a place I was being called to to sing to the earth.

Lots of tears this visit.  Understanding that the ancient energies of this place had called to me all those years ago when I first visited this area and that they had ignited me and started me off on a very different path than most most people walk.