Do you believe that life moves in straight lines, like a train on a track?
Do you believe that if you do x, and then you do y, then FOR SURE z will happen and FOR SURE you’ll access the feeling of satisfaction you’ve been chasing?
I don’t.
When I was little, I wholeheartedly believed what society told me - that if we do this, then that, then this certain result would definitely happen AND it would feel exactly as promised.
I don’t believe that at all any more.
I’ve come to believe in something more beautiful, and (as beautiful things often are) more true.
I believe that we are living within layers and layers of flows of energy and information. I believe that the lion’s share of these flows of energy and information move in holographic, circular, spherical, wave-like, cyclical and even fractal and supernatural ways.
Sometimes, rarely, those energy flows move in what we might perceive as a linear fashion.
But, even then, that “line of energy” is touching, criss-crossing and overlapping so many more circling, cycling or even chaotic forms of flowing energy and information, that the linearity drips right out.
Which is why I think the I love visualization so much - it is a space where I don’t have to like right angles and rectangles and follow the rules of “logic” that society presents to me as the only way to get anywhere good.
And, visualization also provides me with an arena to see how things “really happen” in this life and the most skillful ways to play with that flowing energy and information.
So, yeah, I don’t really believe in perfectly straight lines - I don’t see them a lot in nature and when they are presented to me as a path to success I suspect I’m being sold something I probably don't need.
You know what I do believe in? Community. People, together, in a room; opening our hearts and opening our minds.
You know what else I believe in? The imaginal realms wherein very little acts like a train on its tracks; where the holographic and the wave-like and the fractal can be seen and interacted with.
Lately, on Fridays at ROAM, we’ve had small enough groups to arrange the blankets in a circle instead of in rows.
This small change, this small shift, really changed how it feels to be together in that space.
Same room.
Same blankets.
Instead of rows, circles.
It is better on many levels, but especially I sense, on the level of our hearts.
I believe the heart is not generally a big fan of the linear, but when you provide it with a circle that expands energetically in all directions, magic and miracles happen.
I am very, very excited for this Friday’s meditation - I’m going to share a powerful practice where we will definitely enjoy the felt experience of playing around with energy (inside you, all around you) and take a dip in the deep end of interacting with a holographic reality.
If you aren’t in L.A. this week, you could also “tap into” these themes by enjoying Liquid Color (currently on the May Free Page), or if you have 99 VISIONS try VISION 47, or really, treat yourself to as many visualizations (big or small) as you can in general ($5 each or $11/month to listen to as many as you like).
The outer world is hard right now.
I want us all to be able to find respite in our imaginal realms so we can access some of the power and wisdom that the non-linear always seems to have on hand for us - when we remember to turn towards it.
Until next time,
Jess
“How do light and visual process connect to what we experience in perception? Why do so many mystics claim to see patterns of light when they meditate, eyes closed? Why do dream images seem so real? And what constitutes memory?
The most plausible theory put forth to answer these questions comes from a neuroscientist named Karl Pribram, and is based on the model of the mind as a hologram.
A hologram is a three-dimensional image formed by two interesting laser beams. This is analogous to dropping two pebbles into a pond at different locations, and quickly freezing the water. The intersections of ripples would be permanently recorded onto the ice, just as the interference of light beams are recorded onto the holographic plate.
…
Looking at the plate itself, we would see only a meaningless pattern of dark and light swirls. This is the coded information of the intersection of the two beams, much as the grooves on a record are the coded representation of a sound track.
When the plate is later “reenacted” by a reference beam that contains the same frequency as the original laser, the image of the holographed object eerily jumps out at you in three dimensions. You can move to the side of the hologram and see the side of the object as if it were really there, yet since it is only light you can pass your hand right through it.
There are many remarkable things about holograms. The first is the information is stored “omnipresently” on the plate. In other words, if the plate were to break into pieces, any piece of the plate would be capable of producing the whole picture, though with increasingly less detail as the pieces diminish in size. The second remarkable thing about holograms is that they are non-spatial. Many holograms can be superimposed upon one another in one “space” or on one plate by using lasers of different frequencies.
…
Because this model hints at each of our brains containing access to all information, even that of other time dimensions, it can explain many things beyond the normal functions of memory and perception such as remote viewing, clairvoyance, mystic visions and precognition.
Contemporary to Pribram’s holographic brain theory, theoretical physicist David Bohm has described a model with suggests the universe itself may be a kind of hologram. His term for this is holoflux, as hologram is static and not fitting for a universe so filled with movement and change. According to Bohm, the universe is “enfolded” or spread as a whole throughout a kind of cosmic medium, much as we would enfold egg whites into a cake batter. This enfoldment allows for an infinite number of interference capabilities, giving us the forms and energies that we experience with our holographic minds. In this content, then, the brain itself is part of a larger hologram, and would therefore contain information about the whole. Just as we perceive the world in a holographic fashion, so may the world itself be a larger hologram in which we are just small pieces. But as pieces, we each reflect the whole.
If this is true - if there is an inner and outer world, both of which mirror the entire creation in any of its parts - then we, as part, contain the information of the whole, as does everything around us. Not only does a grain of sand describe the universe in which it occurs, but each of our minds also contains the encoded information of a greater intelligence, just waiting for the right reference beam to trigger the image.”
- Anodea Judith, PhD, Wheels of Life
“All this data implies that there is some kind of information field existing independently of its perceiver, much as radio waves exist independently of radios, or the Internet exists whether or not you have a computer. The body, with its amazing nervous system and reactive capacity, is the receiver of this information, just as your computer can receive and download information from the Internet.
This field, though it may be immaterial in the physical world, is nonetheless a very real and causative factory, just as an invisible magnetic field causes metal shavings to take a certain shape. This is why the higher planes are called the causal planes. When we “tune in” we can tap this information field and enter the realm of causality.
The biologist, Rupert Sheldrake, has coined a term that at least partially describes this phenomenon, call “morphogenetic fields,” from morphe, “form”, and genesis, “coming into being”. The theory of morphogenetic files postulates that the universe functions not so much by immutable laws as by “habits” - patterns created by the repetition of events over time. The repetition of these habits creates a field in a “higher” dimension which then increases the likelihood that events will fall into that pattern. Morphogenetic fields are characteristic of objects and behaviors, and may explain much of what is called instinct.
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When beliefs are held by large numbers of people, their field is stronger, lessening the change for the survival of opposing beliefs. The field created by the belief in male supremacy is a primary example because it has been instilled so completely into our culture over the last several thousand years, offering greater advantages to men, who are then able to achieve more. As more women find weird power through feminism, another field is being generated that allows the cultural belief system to change form. But it takes a long time and many, many people to involve themselves in building up the new field. As time goes by and the field gets stronger, it makes it easier for the next generation to hold a new belief system.”
- Anodea Judith, PhD, Wheels of Life
Keep awake - alive - New.
Perform the paradox of being hard and yet soft.
Survive without calcification of the tender membranes.
Be a poet. Be alive.
- Tennessee Williams
"The only true voyage of discovery... would be not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is."
—Marcel Proust
"Thoughts in your head are really no different than the sound of a bird outside. It is just that you decide that they are more or less relevant."
- Adyashanti
MY DEAR
is it true
that your mind is sometimes like
a battering ram
running all through the city,
shouting so madly inside and out
about the ten thousand things
that do not matter?
- Hafiz