We have a new saying in our house - operating on vibes.
It kind of has a similar meaning to “running on fumes” in the sense that we are doing a lot with a little.
But, it also has a much more uplifting feeling/effect.
Operating on vibes means being the most creative (and generous!) with the resources we have on hand and creating hope that these small, but conscious, actions will create ripple effects of resources and situations that will help us create on a bigger (and more practical/physical) level.
Another way to say it is that we are “acting as if” we are already in the state where the desire is being fulfilled BEFORE our desires are satisfied in ‘real life’.
Another way to say it is that we are doing everything we can to live in the present in a way that (vibe-wise) really matches the future we wish to inhabit.
Another way to say it that we are following our intuition (even we can’t explain it to others) because we sense it knows a good path through this uncertain landscape.
Collectively, we are now in a good time-frame for operating on vibes.
Things are fluid and in flux right now.
Everyone I know is feeling “squeezed” in some way. Everyone is feeling the kind of pressure that yes, makes diamonds, but also is pretty hard to stand over a long period of time.
There is a lot of of tension and many, many, many unknowns.
So we might forget that operating on vibes is even an option. We might never consider operating on vibes to be our best option.
Operating on vibes is necessary when we are neither here nor there; when we’ve let go of the past and the future hasn’t arrived yet. Operating on vibes gives our intuition the time, space and yes, vibes to transcend habitual thoughts and come up with something better. Operating on vibes helps us access the intuition to help us shape the future into a form that we’ll really like.
After all, what good is being a conscious being if we don’t play with co-creation by operating on vibes?
And, do you know who our best buddy is when we want to operate on vibes?
Our intuition!!!
And, do you know we can feed our intuition so it can better lead us?
Yes, we can!!!
And, who can teach us to feed and care for our intuition?
Let’s start with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ retelling of Vasalisa the Wise:
“So now Vasalisa is on her way to gain an ember to rekindle the fire. She is in the dark, in the wilds, and can do nothing but listen to the inner voice coming from the doll. She is learning to rely on their relationship, and she is learning yet one more thing - she learns to feed the doll.
What does one feed intuition so that it is constantly nourished and responsive to our requests to scan our environs? One feeds it life - one feeds it life by listening to it. What good is a voice without an ear to receive it? What good is a woman in the wilds of metropolis or daily life unless she can hear and depend on the voice of La Que Sabe, The One Who Knows?
…
We feed the deep intuitive self by listening to it and acting upon its advice. It is a personage in its own right, a magical dollish-sized being which inhabits the psychic land of the interior woman. In this way it is like the muscles in the body. If a muscle is not used, eventually it withers. Intuition is exactly like that; without food, without employment, it atrophies.
The feeding of the doll is an essential cycle of the Wild Woman archetype - she who is the keeper of hidden treasures. Vasalisa feeds the doll in two ways - first with a bit of bread - a bit of life for this new psychic venture, and secondly by finding her way to the Old Wild Mother, the Baba Yaga. By listening to the doll - at every turn and every fork in the road - the doll indicates which way is home.
The relationship between the doll and Vasalisa symbolizes a form of empathic magic between a woman and her intuition. This is the thing that must be handed down from woman to woman, this blessed, binding, testing and feeding of the intuition. We, like Vasalisa, strengthen our bond with our intuitive nature by listening inwardly at every turn in the road. ‘Should I go this way, or this way? Should I stay or go? Should I resist or be flexible? Should I run away or toward? Is this person, event, venture true or false?’”
- Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, p. 93-94 (in my copy) Women Who Run with the Wolves
*note - Dr. Estes uses the word woman instead of person etc. throughout the majority of this book. This was revolutionary at the time the book was written to center a whole, seminal work of psychology around women. However, what is more revolutionary and future-forward now (IMHO) is to transcend gender - as an experiment feel free to read the above passage using they or he instead of she, and noticing any insights that arise…
Okay, back to why operating on vibes is important, especially at this time...
There is a back and forth that happens between the intuition and the daily self that goes on while we are awake and even as we sleep and dream. The intuition generally isn’t going to scream to get our attention (unless a situation is truly dire). If we are not operating on vibes, we may never get to hear the promptings of intuition over the screaming panic of our daily concerns.
When we operate consciously on vibes, we are creating a “home environment” for that back and forth between our intuition and our daily selves where there is space and time for information to flow between these important aspects of self and life itself.
It’s not to say that we ignore the louder, more habitual, more reactive voices and thoughts; but rather, that we also carve out time to intentionally operate on vibes and let the intuition come out to offer its wisdom.
Here are three good ways to operate on vibes and feed our intuition this week -
listen to MIRROR or MIRROR 2 on the April Free Page, writing down whatever comes through as you emerge from the meditation
listen to one of the meditations I've listed below - all provide that presence, time and space that are such important “foods” for our intuition
join us this Friday at ROAM LA for a VERY SPECIAL experience that will 100% feed our intuition in a beautiful, long-lasting way
As for operating on vibes - I have to say one more thing…
It is extra-important right now to have some sense of how you would really like your life to be and feel. Even I, with my penchant for being visionary, recently had to update my version of the “vibes” I want my life to emanate.
The world has changed.
I have changed.
It makes sense that I needed to update.
If this is where you want to start (or start over), THE FUTURE is a special meditation that lets you “try on” various futures to ensure they really are a match for you, here, in this new era.
Likewise, SIESTA is also a really great meditation for focusing in on and clarifying the vibe of what you really, truly want to invite into your life experience (and expands our definition of “abundance”!)
And if you are feeling REALLY edgy and BOLD… MERMAID tests and expands our ability to receive gifts, which has an effect of upgrading the vibes we are operating with from day to day.
So, here’s my wish for us…
That we can operate on vibes until something more practical/physical arrives.
That we operate on vibes enough to give our intuition the presence and awareness it needs to be nourished and fully fed.
That we can tell when it is time to update an old vision and then operate on new vibes in order to create an energetic match for what we really are craving.
Let’s experiment with operating on vibes and see what happens throughout the rest of the month… I bet you anything that those of us who feed our intuitions well during this time period will be FASCINATED by how far we can go when we operate on vibes led by our intuition.
Until next time,
Jess
“What I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but that we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we're truly the authors of our own ambitions. Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.”
- Alain de Botton
"Today we are all doing penance every day. We're working hard, trying to make money to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, trying to maintain a good relationship or marriage, trying to keep our children safe and happy and educated, trying to keep the world from blowing itself up. We don't need any more penance. We need some joy, an ideal, encouragement, a philosophy worthy of us, a real community, neighbors to keep us from having to go it alone. We need our own religion: our sources of inspiration, hope, and healing."
- Thomas Moore
“As I read the Book of Genesis, God didn't give Adam and Eve a whole planet.
He gave them a manageable piece of property, for the sake of discussion let's say 200 acres.
I suggest to you Adams and Eves that you set as your goals the putting of some small part of the planet into something like safe and sane and decent order.
There's a lot of cleaning up to do.
There's a lot of rebuilding to do, both spiritual and physical.
And, again, there's going to be a lot of happiness. Don't forget to notice!
What painters and sculptors and writers do, incidentally, is put very small properties indeed into good order, as best they can.
A painter thinks, "I can't fix the whole planet, but I can at least make this square of canvas what it ought to be.'' And a sculptor thinks the same about a lump of clay or marble. A writer thinks the same about a piece of paper, conventionally eleven inches long and eight and a half inches wide.
We're talking about something less than 200 acres, aren't we?"
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“Provided we can escape from the museums we carry around inside us, provided we can stop selling ourselves tickets to the galleries in our own skulls, we can begin to contemplate an art which recreates the goal of the sorcerer: changing the structure of reality by the manipulation of living symbols.”
- Hakim Bey
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, every woman, when they get quiet, when they become desperately honest with themselves, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all queens, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.”
- Henry Miller
"Between where you are now and where you'd like to be there's a sort of barrier, or a chasm, and sometimes it's a good idea to imagine that you're already at the other side of that chasm, so that you can start on the unknown side."
- David Bohm
"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
–Martha Graham
“The camel has a big dumb ugly hump. But in the desert, where prettier, more streamlined beasts die quickly of thirst, the camel survives quite nicely. As legend has it, the camel carries its own water, stores it in its stupid hump. If individuals, like camels, perfect their inner resources, if we have the power within us, then we can cross any wasteland in relative comfort and survive in arid surroundings without relying on the external. Often, moreover, it is our "hump" - that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable - that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes.”
- Tom Robbins
“We end up stumbling our way through the forest, never seeing all the unexpected and wonderful possibilities and potentials because we’re looking for the idea of a tree, instead of appreciating the actual trees in front of us.”
- Charles de Lint
An ant hurries along a threshing floor
With its wheat grain, moving between huge stacks of wheat, not knowing the
Abundance
All around. It thinks its one grain is all there is to love.
So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to.
This body, one path or one teacher.
(but there is another choice, an invitation to)
Look wider and farther.
- Rumi
It's in the imagination
With which you perceive
This world,
And the gestures
With which you honor it.
- Mary Oliver