by user_dd | Aug 22, 2022 | Community Conversations
We all know how important it is to nurture a sense of belonging within our bodies. The language may register at a certain level, perhaps cognitively in the mind. Yet there comes a time in our journey when things we understand in the mind must be anchored down into the body. Having a felt sense of the concepts that our minds have come to understand, is essential.
For instance, this concept of a sense of belonging. We may understand what this means in our heads; the idea of safety, security, and protection. This can be understood cognitively as a relationship. We have relationships to each other, to our human family, to the larger more-than-human world, and to this beloved planet. These relationships create constellations in which we can feel varying degrees of belonging.
Moving the sense of belonging from a cognitive definition into a felt experience is a process with no end. Like life, it is a work in progress, and we can only continue to deepen into the practices that sustain our health and well being with a strong will.
So, let’s have a look at three different signs that you are experiencing a felt sense of belonging, in order for you to amplify awareness around what the felt sense really feels like in the body.
- Relaxed Nervous System
The first sign we’ll look at is the state of our nervous system. Within a constellation where we belong, and feel that sense of belonging, we will likely be experiencing a relaxed nervous system across the board. We will not be experiencing any fight or flight responses (or at least minimal).
- Muted Internal Dialogue
The second sign that we’re experiencing a sense of belonging has to do with our internal landscape. Sometimes our monkey mind can run a muck. We all know this feeling, when thoughts seem to think themselves and they move at a mile a minute. Well, usually when we’re feeling that sense of belonging, the monkey mind is able to take a rest. There is way less mental chatter, and more spaciousness in our minds for present moment awareness. We experience more inner harmony that is in response to the harmony that surrounds us. It’s a feedback loop, and we feel it.
- Open-Hearted Authenticity
The last sign that we’ll explore together is about our ability to express authentically. When we’re in a relationship, group, space or place in which we belong, it will be easier for us to speak our truth. Authentically expressing comes more easily, due to the air of acceptance and inclusion that would be present. When we accept each other as we are and feel inclusivity toward each other, there becomes more space for our hearts to express their authentic voice. We feel this as a sensation of open-heartedness, where our heart space is emanating a coherence that is in harmony with the field around us.
There you have it! May those three signs serve to support you in celebrating how you fit within your constellations, whether in 1:1 relationships, groups, your affinity communities, or team dynamics.
by user_dd | Jan 14, 2022 | Community Conversations
Understanding the Etymology of Physikos
Initial Separation Story
There was a separation that occurred long ago. A separation between physical and non-physical, or metaphysical. This separation happened not only in the realm of science, but percolated into our social and societal structures, our cultural and psychological frameworks.
In ancient Greece, the word physikos represented all physical form; encapsulating the study of natural phenomena where matter is observed and its properties are quantified. This term became a representation of all things physical, all things governed by, agreeable and pertaining to nature.
Naturally, this term adapted to what we now understand to be the realm of physics; the branch of science pertaining to the structure of matter and how it moves through space and time. There are governing principles, frameworks and formulas that have established an impressive breadth of understanding regarding these phenomena.
Alright, so back to the aforementioned separation.
This separation, between physics and metaphysics, happened to a large degree due to our inability to measure or quantify the non-physical realm. This inability gave rise to a thread of fear around that which can’t be proven, observed, or measured. Due to this fear, we decided at some point in human history, to separate out that which can be measured from all that which cannot. This separation looked like a fundamental fissure between spirit and science, church and state, and ultimately translated to a stagnation of the former while the latter (science and society sans spirit) was awarded with the abilities to continue evolving.
While science continued to develop, expand, progress and evolve, all things in the realm of spirit and religion were put on hold; the sacred texts were to be studied, protected and preserved. Not, by any means, were they to be explored and applied in a way that could look like the evolutionary progress enjoyed by science. This was all a function of the fact that we, as humans, were afraid of what we were unsure of. Afraid of the uncertainty. Afraid of the unknown and unwilling to stand in humble admittance of the limitation of our cognitive faculties in measuring the immeasurable.
Evolutionary Update!
The fear that continues weaving this thread into the current fabric of humanity is no longer relevant, don’t you think? Here we are, at a time where we’re realizing as a species that our cognitive faculties are simply one aspect of our myriad and comprehensive abilities as multidimensional beings.
It’s time for us to embrace our comprehensive capacities and competences. For us to recognize that the magick dwells within that overlapping center of the venn diagram, where science and spirit overlap. Remember the Vesica Pisces? This is the center we can explore through the Mystery School teachings, whose magick we cover in the Magick of the 7 Mystery Schools class (see our calendar for the next offering).
Skeptical? Curious? All are welcome, come join us in the inquiry.
by user_dd | Sep 2, 2021 | Community Conversations, Transitory Thoughts
At what points throughout your day do you feel the most alive? What moments are your energy levels and your mood at a high level? These moments, for the most part, are often moments where all of our ‘bodies’ are engaged and activated; our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies are online and present in our experience.
Can you think of all the moments throughout your day when you tend to your physical body? Chances are, you commit a lot of time caring for and nurturing your physical form. This extends beyond just a work out; through basic processes of nourishment and elimination, movement and hygiene, we care for the needs of our physical bodies on a day to day basis.
There are aspects to these processes that can be up-leveled. If we are, in fact, becoming more mindful of the way we show up on our paths toward embodying our Highest Selves, then it becomes increasingly important to see the importance of every moment, every instance, every beat within the symphony. For it’s within each beat that the grand orchestra reveals itself!
Every moment is significant; there is nothing that is insignificant. In that way, a meal can become a prayer. A bath can become a purification ceremony. Everything is visible to the eyes of our Highest Selves; the more we think, feel, and act in alignment with our Highest expression – the more spiritually fit we become.
Optimizing Agility and Building Resilience
Staying spiritually fit means showing up to the interdimensional gym. We don’t need to be intimidated by the heavy lifters and the bench press; simply starting with some subtle squats and jumping jacks will do just fine. This gym is the non-physical space where our non-physical Selves can come online, to make use of our gifts from Spirit, and strengthen the muscles of agility, adaptability and resilience. Strengthening these muscles increases our ability to stay flexible amidst great change, meet any given moment with access to clarity and clear thinking, and make decisions from a place of poised inner trust and empowered choice.
A class we teach designed for training student to effectively use their energetic muscles on a daily basis is called: Spiritual Intuition Class.
Read further to learn more.
The Spiritual Intuition Class introduces the practice of using your psychic senses to get the answer to anything, anywhere, anytime, even under difficult circumstances.
How do some people just know what to do in any circumstance? Did you know that everyone has psychic senses? Are you using yours? In ‘Spiritual Intuition,’ you’ll learn multiple exercises you can take with you anywhere to develop your psychic gifts. With practice, you can access and develop different types of psychic senses innate to being human, so they never again go to waste in your life. What are you waiting for!? Let’s practice!
Benefits of Spiritual Intuition:
- Improve your self-confidence
- Develop the full range of your psychic abilities
- Clarify ambiguity with nothing more than your own inner wisdom
- Increase your intuition and spiritual gifts
Attendance at Modern Mystery School classes always means you’ll have a real experience of the energies we are working with. In this class, you will receive a student manual with the exercises we are using so you can do them yourself. After a discussion about how psychic senses work and how they can be developed, Matthew will lead you through these exercises so you know how to do them.
By attending this class, you will:
- Be able to identify the 5 psychic senses
- Describe some of the characteristics of how each one works
- Perform an exercise to develop each psychic sense
With questions regarding the class – contact me, otherwise if you are ready to activate and strengthen your intuition – register for Spiritual Intuition Class: https://spiritintransition.as.me/MMS-Classes
by user_dd | Mar 6, 2021 | Transitory Thoughts
We are living in extraordinary times. In some respects, COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of change in a world already overwhelmed with it.
Many have wondered, “when do we get back to normal?” Many are beginning to wonder, “Will we ever get back to normal?”
There is some comfort in the idea that this pace of change could be temporary. Indeed, there have been times in the past where the pace of change has increased dramatically for just a moment in time, tempered by longer time periods of relative stability.
Paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge even created a theory to describe this evolutionary cadence of change, called “Punctuated Equilibrium.”
Gould and Eldredge’s “Punctuated Equilibrium” theory states that each catastrophe is followed by an explosion in the number of new species, at “a rate faster than can be accounted for by Darwinian mechanisms.”
Evolution has not been gradual
In other words, evolution is not gradual, as the Darwinian perspective promotes. These scientists suggest that evolution actually results from a much longer period of relative stability that is periodically interrupted by catastrophic events—not unlike COVID-19.
Do you feel like we’re in a catastrophic event? Or is this just a miniscule blip on the radar judging by evolutionary standards of time? Comment below and let us know what you think.
by user_dd | Apr 11, 2016 | Community Conversations
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$355
I took a deep breath and looked again. Yep. Three hundred fifty-five dollars, three brilliant black numerals smiling back at me from the screen.
How is this possible? I thought. Only a week ago I was nearly broke.
It was at that moment I absolutely fell in love with Airbnb. No wine or dinner or foreplay. This was it. In love. I’d been hosting people from diverse places and from all walks of life—lawyers, psychologists, magazine editors, lighting technicians. They were all friendly, fun to talk with, and generous. One couple had even bought me cheesecake. Now I was staring at the full material complement of these exchanges, earned in a little over a week.
Damn, this is cool.
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
We’ve come a long way from sticks and stones to iPhones and Smart watches. It’s incredible how technology has evolved alongside us. It is helping to shape our world in astonishing ways, ways we couldn’t have fathomed centuries, or even decades, ago.
How are we going to define this new world that’s emerging? We all know it’s happening. We see it in the portable screens people carry around, plugged into a magic realm called Cyberspace. We see it in the lives uploaded onto Facebook and Twitter. We feel it in the cool metal and smooth plastic that are vehicles for global knowledge. Who needs a wand?
All of this is the merest glimmer of the possibilities in the coming years. The Internet of Things will create a world that blends Cyberspace with “reality.” How are we to adapt in such a new dimension?
First, it helps to understand how the Cyber will help us evolve if we allow it to interpenetrate us. We find in many spiritual traditions ideals that are embodied by the Cyber realm. We also find strategies that can help us keep a balanced relationship with the Cyber, without allowing it to dominate us. Truly, there is no cause for fear if we bend like water yet maintain our forward flow.
Here are some of the core qualities that benefit us:
CONNECTION
It has never been easier, in all of the known history of Earth, to communicate. We can reach a person in Japan or India with a few swipes and taps. And it doesn’t matter if we’ve never even met. This type of contact melts many of the boundaries that existed for our ancestors. With such instant access to the world, there’s greater likelihood for us to open our minds and find the commonalities. This effect will only increase as the Cyber covers more countries and devices become more embedded in our lives. We will gradually learn to embrace human diversity and discriminate less by religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or other attributes.
EMPOWERMENT
In the industrialized nations, particularly the U.S., an entrepreneurial fire is catching. A new economy is being birthing, that of the “shareconomy.” With Cyber tools making entrepreneurship easier, and systems such as Airbnb, Uber, Getaround, and LiquidSpace allowing people to easily market their own resources, people are becoming empowered and gradually shifting away from the typical employer-employee model. YouTube, SoundCloud, and Kickstarter are also helping enable people to pursue their dreams and not rely on agents, producers, or big investors to dictate what goes down. We are learning to explore our potential.
NEW PARADIGM
You may have noticed that the Cyber includes both Collectivist and Individualist qualities. Collectivist cultures are often found in Asia and Eastern Europe, and tend to emphasize group consciousness. On the one hand, this may translate to interdependence, feeling supported, and feeling a sense of belonging. On the other hand, it can manifest as conformity, xenophobia, and authoritarianism. The Cyber may refine the Collectivist values and mix them with honed Individualist ones common in the West, such as independent thinking, overcoming limitations, and bold self-expression. A new, global quality is likely to emerge from this Cyber soil.
Now let’s explore the challenges the Cyber poses us, and how we can mitigate their effects.
INATTENTION
So much information barrages us. Texts, emails, social media, news, posts, so on and so forth…We’re now used to the barrage, but many of us might not have realized how it’s affected our cognitive abilities. Our attention is shorter and it’s harder for us to stay focused. Yet, with some self-discipline, it needn’t be this way. Mindfulness is an excellent practice for increasing our attention. Mindfulness can be applied when engaging with the Cyber, whether on our phones, computers, tablets, or Smart gear. Simply being aware and being intentional of where we place our focus go a long way.
For some mindfulness tips, check out our recent post.
DISTANCE FROM NATURE
Living surrounded by technology can lead us to forget our roots in nature. To enjoy a balanced life, and be free of addiction to the screen, it helps to take some time out to immerse ourselves among the trees, near a lake or beach, or just out where there are no lights. Even walking on grass barefoot for 10 minutes would be beneficial.
Check out this post to explore more ways to commune with nature.
DISTANCE FROM INNER SELF
As we get plugged into social media and the lives of others, it can be easy to obfuscate our inner vision of ourselves. We need time to think, to reflect, to introspect. Otherwise, we risk becoming an automaton. So, let’s check out of Facebook and Twitter every so often. Let’s dive into ourselves. Maybe even journal. Maybe sit in meditation. Maybe just relax and contemplate where we’ve been and where we want to go, without thinking of the opinions of others. Whatever we choose to do, self-awareness is vital.
Technology and its emerging reality, the Cyber, can be our powerful ally. We can consider it a sort of guidance as well. Its qualities are helping to pull us into the next stage of our evolution. While the process has some bugs, we can navigate it more smoothly with conscious attention and balanced action. This symbiotic relationship could be profound.
How do you feel technology has helped you, and what do you feel are challenges it presents? How do you face those challenges. Please share below! We’d love to hear your thoughts.[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
