GUANO, MOLASSES & QUESTING

© 2009 Howard McQueen

I woke up at 5:30 this morning, got out of bed, turned on the light and "ducked" to the floor as if someone was already in motion swinging a baseball bat at my noggin. Up on the ceiling, circling my rotating ceiling fan was a furry, winged, squeaking sonar navigating bat. Hmmmm. Such an omen to begin the day -- such guano on yesterday's freshly vacuumed carpets.

I warmed up my early morning chai, went upstairs and happened to glance at an open magazine on a coffee table. The article title caught my attention "... transcendent dreaming ...", published in a Shamanistic magazine [1].

Down into the second page something jumped off the page, and this I recognized as medicine I could share with a friend. It read

"I felt this heavy syrupy feeling" needing to fall into sleep ...

My friend has been reporting having this constant feeling of being stuck, like in molasses.

The body communicates pain when it is impaired, damaged, etc.

What and how would the Self (deepest sense of underlying self) communicate if it were impaired?

I am sensing, from my own experiences, the Self would communicate physiologically, mentally, and emotionally, and would send signals in our awake state and our dreaming state that would reach us and be felt as

constriction, unease, dread, and a kind of resistance/friction in the deeper subsconscious not being in clear communion with the more conscious aspects of self (and the occasional completely magical artifacts arising in dreams and waking synchronicity ...)

This malaise/stress/friction could be given summary labels such as conflict, not living up to our potential, stuck-ness, rotting on the vine, depression, constant anxiety (to give it but a few labels).

The author of the transcendent dreaming article believes that dreams contribute blueprints (I would also suggest dreams are valuable as road maps - signposts) to an awakening for a transcendent humanity. She also went on to talk about a series of mystical episodes she had with dreams and how many things in awake life synchnonized with her dream elements. I can report that this is happening to me to, although my material is not anywhere near as "episodic" as what she reports (although being greeted by the bat clearly qualifies as something more likely experienced after a night of drinking too much laudanum" :-) ).

Cut to the Questing
I believe my friend’s work and all our inner work centers around aligning with a deepest sense of Self, uncovering the fire that is smouldering, and doing a [somewhat] controlled burn of the subconscious materials and patterns that serve the ego, but don't serve our more divine Self. Divine awareness cares not what your age is, or your mental prowess, or how much money you have in the bank -- divine awareness invites you to step up, open up, and allow it to emerge, so that what becomes the norm, the habit, invoke the obsession to constantly embrace emergence of awareness and love.

Love you, my friend. Hugs and kisses.

Be gentle with yourself. Start with small steps and use discipline to keep challenging yourself. Life is like Edison: Each experiment brings you closer to realization, thus no experiment is a failure!!!

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I must confess that the title (and who knows what else) for this post has been influenced by reading the first sixteen pages of Wild Ducks Flying Backward,The Short Writings of Tom Robbins (Bantam Books, 2005). With this as bedside reading, there is no telling what other visitors will be making their appearance known as the fairy dust is applied and the magic carpet rides again ...

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[1] Shaman’s Drum No. 77 2008; Awakening into Transcendent Dreaming, by Chistina Donnell, Ph.D.