"We," Me and My Body Organism
For the new moon-cycle month which began on November 20, 2006, in cultural time, I selected my body organism and its viewpoint as my central focus. I was seeing my physical body as a divine being in its own right, designed at the outset within this basic system of reality to be intelligent, self-correcting, and always trying to move toward health and wholeness when it isn’t blocked from doing so. According to sun time, this was still the third quarter of harvest, during my natural world year of “Putting It All Together.”
Prior to last November, for every new moon cycle I had chosen specific emphases, celebrating them at the beginning of the cycle with a ceremony. I'm smiling as I write the following: I always play a beloved bamboo flute during portions of it. Then at the completion of each moon cycle I read what I've written in my journal, Dances and Dancers, for that period of time, correlating events with my initial focuses. (I also use these procedures with sun equinoxes and solstices.)
How do I select what to make significant? When it is time to do so, something always arises that feels exactly right—a type of direct knowing. While in the bathtub the day before the new moon cycle started in November, I inwardly heard that along with making my body central and consulting with it frequently, it is best for “us” to do what we do in terms of what is delightfully enjoyable and fun! “I” responded with, “Hurrah!”
During sun and moon ceremonies I conduct somewhere around our land where our home is, which Jim and I call Harmony Hill, I use activities I began making an integral part of my life in early 1976: Every morning when I arose I went outside on the deck and addressed the seven directions—east, south, west, north, up, down, and within. After that I aligned myself and my body with all Earth inhabitants—plant species; those who live in the soil; the soil itself; the winged ones; the feathered ones; the finned ones; the crawly ones; the four-leggeds; the two-leggeds; those who are above ground and those below ground; the components of air; water above ground, underground, in the air, and in the soil—along with the sun, moon, and stars. This is an orientation where rather then being separated from the Earth and superior to other species, “we”—my body organism and I—are integral parts of it everywhere.
The shift in focus to my body’s point of view and choices on November 20, 2006, came at a time when “I” had already established a clear position and identity as an Essential I and spirit-being, I had well-established two-way-street connections going with divinity overall and its appropriate aspects, at the time Jim and I were primarily using operating patterns in relationship with one another that were easy and enriching, and I thought my body organism and I had successfully removed most of the BA portions of our cultural programming.
At the outset of this large energy reorganization—to the centrality of my body’s viewpoint and decisions—it was immediately quite evident that many of the choices my body was making were different from those “I” made. Initially, I saw mine as being far more efficient, productive, and pragmatic. Even though, of course I had previously considered my body and tried to do good things for it, I had been the director and decider in most situations. As an example, in the later morning of the first day of activating these new designs, when it was a good time to add some movement by dancing, my body decided it wanted the new Native American CD “we” recently had been stretching to before going to bed rather than the livelier one I had been thinking of playing. When we came to the third selection of the CD it had chosen, where there was lovely flute music, I inwardly heard it say it wanted to play the flute after lunch with that part of the CD—which we later did with joy.
Even though I thought “we” had removed most of the cultural BA disability designs, I made an important discovery: I had been tying up energy in relationship with my body through the use of patterns I was energizing about things I believed needed to be done and how much there was to do—my controlling originations in relationship with my body. With our new emphasis and the removal of my controls, I literally felt its energies shift, open up, and be much freer. (Over time, as you will read later, it became apparent it wasn’t that simple, although this was a good start.)
By then, most of the prior chapters of this manuscript were already started, well-developed, or nearly completed. The writings thus far had come forth with an amazing steady flow and ease, intermingling beautifully with the rest of my life. Even though I had planned to begin to delve into materials I’d collected over the past few months in three baskets—books, magazines, CDs and DVDs, when my body organism turned its attention to some books elsewhere in the room, I followed its lead. It seemed that in highest good, “all things considered” terms, it made perfect sense to put everything aside and go on a trip with what I think is really a composite mental, emotional, spiritual, physical body organism.
On the third day of the November moon cycle, in the later afternoon I stopped in Jim’s studio, his personal room next to my personal room, to chat before meditating and bathing. During our conversation I said that more than likely I wouldn’t be watching a television program with him he had some interest in that evening. Then, with amusement I went on to tell him about my evaluations of my body’s choices thus far. I recounted how the day before, after reading in Time magazine a write-up of a movie he and I were thinking of seeing at our local theatre that week, my body had decided it didn’t want to be subjected to the brutality, violence, and noise in it! Last night it had decided it didn’t want to see any more of the program he and I were watching on television, and for this evening it wanted to read inspiring stories of other people’s lives that were being highlighted in a magazine that came in the mail that day. I laughingly added, “I see these being very healthy choices!”
That same day after meditating in the mid afternoon, a delightful review of many experiences I had in the past played across my inner screen, and while on the way to the bathtub I inwardly heard, “The best is yet to come, and won’t it be fine...” Then, amidst the luxury of bubbles, warm water, and a beeswax candle burning nearby, I remembered that in September 1957, a month before the birth of my daughter, after a very difficult phone conversation with my father, I had fervently vowed to break the cycle of sickness I felt I was entangled in. The event with my father had led to my realization over time that what I was really seeking was health in all ways.
So in the bathtub the day before Thanksgiving 2006, I saw the fulfillment of that 1957 vow was now able to be more fully actualized by letting my body organism decide what was best for it. It felt like a divine time energization I set forth forty-nine years ago, that had evolved over the years, was playing out in the present in natural world and cultural time frames.
Earlier that day, in the morning when Jim was in town doing our weekly grocery shopping at the coop, while exercising “we” had listened to Diane Rehm interview Art Buchwald, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and humorist, about his new book, Too Soon to Say Goodbye. We had also heard two previous interviews between them earlier that year when he was in a Washington, D.C. hospice facility. (From now on when I say “we” I mean me and my body organism, and when I say “I” it means me as a combined Essential I and spirit-being. Additionally, along the way, at times I’ll also be reminding readers what I mean.)
Art Buchwald was 80 in 2006. In February 2006, he decided to forego more dialysis for his failing kidneys. He was told he’d have fewer than three weeks to live, and when his kidneys began functioning again he left the hospice facility and was able to go to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer. As I listened to Art talk with Diane Rehm at her D.C. studio in November, during the third day of shifting my focus over to the wisdom of my body and its abilities, I heard him express his quest for Love throughout his life: in the hospice he experienced it dramatically, both with the quality of care he got there and with those who visited or communicated with him in other ways.
That evening when “we” read the stories my body organism had been initially interested in earlier, they were nice, but there was another story it discovered in the magazine that was truly heart-warming and most enjoyable! This happens frequently, where an initial attraction is an opening that leads to somewhere else. When I thought about these recent events, I knew that somehow all of these experiences were intermingled and connected in multidimensional ways.
During the night, my dreams were different. The next morning when I wrote about them, I could see that one of the dreams was more than likely directing “us” into some watercolor painting in relationship with the natural world, using a book about Chinese sketching and painting we’d purchased a few weeks ago from one of our book clubs. When I checked with my pendulum it agreed. (I’ve been using a pendulum for years now, seeking expanded guidance in situations where I haven’t had a clear sense about something, or am looking for more affirmation. The pendulum I use is a crystal that hangs on a silver chain and gives me only yes answers. Sometimes it moves back and forth vigorously, at other times it is halfway or partially enthusiastic, and in some situations it is motionless.)
After getting a sense of one possible direction where we would be focusing our attention soon—with sketching and painting—the next noteworthy event during this fourth day of our new moon cycle, which was also Thanksgiving in cultural terms, was when my body organism became quite interested in a book about chi energy that “we” had also purchased via a book club weeks or months ago. (We belong to two book clubs—One Spirit and Quality Paperback.) It was easy to see the connections emerging between some Chinese painting designs and some Chinese ideas about energy and energy systems that are an integral part of their cultural past/present matrix of beliefs.
In the early hours of “our” sixth day of the new moon-cycle month last November 2006, a dream showed us how current-day competition can be transformed, and one avenue to make the transition. In the dream “we” were consulting with a television producer after seeing one of his recent programs. We were showing him that instead of using current-day formulas, he could craft rich stories and complex characters who were seeking and finding more satisfying ways to live their lives, programs that could be very interesting to many viewers. Because he had some familiarity with my worldview, during the conversation he was quite easily able to grasp my meaning and immediately take off with his own enthusiastic creativity. An aspect that was so enjoyable is how easy and emotionally satisfying the experience was—and how little time it took!
When I/we thought about the dream the next day, I realized a message it was giving is that cultural competition can be used as a transformation process, from DCBA designs and experiences to transitional DCBAIO matrixes, and then to other realities. Results and effectiveness could still be evaluators, but the designs themselves and resulting events would be different than DCBA events, where there is a winner or a few winners and many losers. Hence, competition used for purposes of there being healthier lives for everyone could be stimuli for each individual to design and apply their own creative mixes around that goal.
Also, this felt like a very large and expansive dream, where for years I have seen me and my body organism as a sending and receiving station in relationship with appropriate aspects of divinity everywhere, and in relationship with Jim and his body organism here. Well, for decades one of “their” focuses—Jim and his body—has been competition, which they have been in the process of Understanding and transforming. Summarizing in the present, from all of those connections, this seems to be the healthiest picture “we,” as an expanded-multidimensional-composite-of-being, can come up with regarding cultural competition that is spread throughout our global lives—to use it for individual and overall transformative purposes.
The next night in a dream, as an experiencer I had a role as a female in a tight structure where the comparisons and standards were such that here again there were just a few winners and many losers. The person I was playing was one of the losers and I experienced emotions of both jealousy and dejection when she compared herself to the achievements of another female in the dream. Later the following morning, after reading the Sunday paper and doing some journal writing, when I felt semi yucky emotionally I realized that I hadn’t completely pulled out from last night’s dream experiences and its lingering effects, including a college football game Jim and I had watched earlier in the evening.
Since I’ve learned how to dip into various belief structures for experiential purposes in my awake life, and then pull out fully to the position and worldview that I and my body organism have established together as our home base, this is a procedure I can also use with dream energies that may still be affecting “us” unnecessarily. Since obviously more needed to be done, I imaginatively went back into the dream, removed my character from it, and undid all the script’s energy web-work and patterns. That way, by also inserting a DCIO (Individuality/Oneness) framework where there was room for each individual to become what they are capable of being within that reality, each person was able to feel good about themselves and about each other. And then I let it all move on. After that, before lunch my body decided it wanted to ride our exercise bicycle in the basement, which is another way to move energies on and out.
Regarding the football game scenario and its emotions, I left it alone for many reasons, one of which is that it didn’t feel right for me to interfere with those large-scale cultural experiences—it wasn’t my place to do so. Another reason was that the ongoing drama was still unfolding for that season, and we—as a combined body organism and spirit-being experiencer of same—were feeling just fine by that time! Nevertheless, during our afternoon meditation, divine guidance recommended that I gently and imaginatively take the whole DCBA web-work apart, seeing its components dissolve into the ocean of energies to be used for other probabilities. When I did so, it felt like another element of getting my part right, as best I could.
Next, I’ll enlarge the picture more fully with some background leading up to this large-scale November 2006 energy shift over to my body organism’s point of view and its choices.
Beginning in the later 1970s, I began to see my body as an intelligent being in its own right that was designed to seek health and be healthy, one example is how cuts and injuries are healed. In the early 1980s when I started to have what are called “hot flashes,” I stood back and told my body, “Honey, you know how to take care of this,” and it did. As an experiencer I sailed through the menopause process. This was a big shift from cultural patterns I’d learned earlier, where one’s body was seen pretty much as a machine that needed to be fixed at times, was always subject to possible invasion by some outside force, and of course wore out.
Over the years I also saw physical symptoms as my body’s language that I could read symbolically as I did with dreams, very personally, while reflecting about what they were telling me. This worked well. When I had some upper back pain a few years ago, I realized I was feeling too much responsibility—oh my aching back. The realization itself and the specifics of why I felt that way, along with talking with Jim and each of us making some adjustments, led to no more back pain within the overall context of our lives at the time.
About seven years ago when I looked very carefully at our society’s aging beliefs, where it’s all a downhill process with some sort of deterioration leading to “death,” I decided to complete my disengagement from those patterns. Earlier, for decades Jim and I had been saying we weren’t using those debilitating aging designs, and instead were opening the system up to see how healthy we could actually be. The completion I did about seven years ago was to mentally thank all those disabling cultural patterns and imaginatively remove them from my body, where we were no longer energetically connected to them, or them to us. Instead, I decided to start the clock all over again with a new birth day, one that was fully open to health. Today, I see this as a positive development. Nonetheless, there’s more to our story.
Along with all the wonderful events and experiences in Jim and my lives, there have also been many stressful times and situations, including the years after his father’s passing in August 1998. Then Jim, as an only child, became intensely involved with his strong-willed, aging mother who lived across the state from where we lived, until we moved to her locale. (After moving, Jim was able to continue what had become his financial services business by that time, via technologies that were available such as the Internet. Previously, in later 1996 and early 1997, I had stepped out of most of our combined real estate and other business activities because I had felt a strong need to return to significances I had made in earlier years.)
In 2001, a week after 9/11 here in the United States, Jim’s mother had a series of strokes that started a process of hospitalization and eventually residing in an assisted living facility. During that time, with some help from me, Jim went through almost fifty years of accumulations in his parents’ home and was engaged in its sale, while also being closely involved with his mother’s proper care and well-being. Finally, everything took a toll and he had a type of physical crash.
This was all within the same period of time that I was immersed in writing God’s River of Love, a book I felt I should be writing, that I set aside repeatedly as those other events took place in our lives. As the stressful situations continued, there seemed to be accumulating results. In the spring of 2004 my body organism began to express symptoms of stiffness in its legs and feet, a weakness in the left wrist and hand, and a lack of steadiness and balance. (As an update, Jim’s mother passed on peacefully in January 2004. She had been living in a nearby care facility.)
Again, I’ve seen physical symptoms as the language my body uses, calling for my attention as an Essential I/spirit-being. It was clear I needed to energize what manifested as strength, flexibility, steadiness, and balance, while not energizing patterns that deter those results. Even though I had been doing that, along with frequently visualizing and imaginatively experiencing the physical and emotional feelings that go with full, agile mobility, my emphases were obviously not enough. Certainly, they helped! Nonetheless, I kept coming back to Understanding that for “us,” this is truly an individual process; it is “our” own personal voyage of adventure and discovery.
Yes, I had disengaged “us” energetically from our society’s debilitating aging patterns and had started the birth day clock again about seven years ago, but “we” still had become caught up in situations afterward that were stressful. Sure they were filled with opportunities for expansions and Understandings, while at the same time they were difficult and I felt them affecting my body in those years. So, in the immediate present we decided to imaginatively redo those stressful experiences—and let them all move on.
On the eleventh day of our November 2006 moon cycle, November 30th, again in the bathtub amidst bubbles, warm water, and a nearby beeswax candle lighting the room in a soft glow, we began the process of going back to earlier stressful times. When we did so, what we immediately realized is that all we had to do now was to extract the rest of the Understandings, which we imaginatively did. Then, accompanied with our Appreciation and Love, they dissolved. I further realized that no longer was there a need for any symptoms of weakness, stiffness, or lack of mobility. “We” were now fully able to be a DCIO body organism and spirit-being. It was exhilarating! Then when some wisps of doubts came forth like, “Can all of this really work?” I stood back and watched as these thoughts emerged and dissolved, choosing to replace them with spacious-present divine Trust, which also flowed freely as it moved on and dispersed.
At the time when we took care of whatever was still active from stressful memories, I thought that if we had been in the matrix and on the wavelength where we are now, we wouldn’t have co-created stressful situations in the first place, and then on the other hand, haven’t they been part of the motivations we’ve used to be who, what, and where we are now? It’s like in the immediate present, we had effectively made use of that part of our Life and were now ready to move on! Also, I had needed to stand back and give my body room.
Today as I write, I think that my body has been pointing me and us to the question of which body organism—a DCBA one, a hybrid DCBAIO one, or a DCIO mental/emotional/spiritual/physical variety?
Starting with the November 2006 moon cycle, my body has had my full attention as an Essential I/spirit-being; I sense that it is delighted with its role! What seems to have developed is that the fourth time framework of “my time,” that I talked about in the Introduction, has come forth as “our, we, and us time.”
One day during the November 2006 moon cycle I inwardly heard, “Less is more,” which I interpreted to mean that by going directly to my body for answers, we wouldn’t have to take the indirect route of reading or hearing what someone else had discovered for his or her life. Some of the materials I had accumulated as part of the contents of the three baskets I mentioned earlier, that my body wasn’t choosing to delve into at that time, were books about others’ holistic discoveries.
A few days before removing the remaining embedded stress memories last November, one afternoon in the bathtub when I asked the water, which has been a marvelous expanded guide of communication for decades, if there was anything I needed to hear, it told me to realize that we—me and my body organism together and independently of one another—were being bathed in divine Love … to just lie there and experience the beautiful lights, colors, and music. The next day, via my pendulum, my body said it wanted frequent experiences throughout the forthcoming days, where we stopped for a while and became aware of being-bathed-in-Love, together and independently.
Prior to those bathing-in-divine-Love pauses, in answer to prayers during meditations, I had been guided to see my body organism and the Earth organism as surrounded with BA structures that could be peeled off like a no-longer-needed snake skin. When I did so, I saw the Earth and my body as fresh and glowingly healthy. One morning when I awoke last November, the connections were made to use the imaginative BA skin removal technique again, and then imaginatively bathe the whole Earth and “us,” as one of its fresh and fully healthy inhabitants, in divine Love.
A few days later during meditation I was divinely advised to see my body organism as having many levels of its being, where energies flowed through each one easily, and to bathe each one in divine Love. “We” did that. Reflecting later, I could see how my body’s recent focus upon books that expressed Asian beliefs about energy flows had activated many of our experiences from previous years within those types of belief structures, bringing them to the forefront to enhance what we were already doing in the immediate and spacious present. (After Jim's physical crash in later 2001, “we” had many accupunture treatments that were administered by a Chinese doctor.)
Another factor for me and my body organism is our awareness of our culture’s images of beauty, attractiveness, and desirability for those of us with female bodies. This is being written from the perspective of having grown up in southern California, a past/present national and global image center. In our society, a youthful appearance has been given an ideal status to the extent that many older women are having plastic surgery, laser treatments, and injections to smooth out wrinkles. And, many young females are also dissatisfied with their bodies as they compare themselves with movie stars, professional models in magazines, actresses on television, and with other females directly in their lives.
Yes, it does take courage to healthfully express one’s individuality outside the enclosures of cultural norms, and to do so without using oppositional energies. From my point of view, even though there are more options now for both genders and more equality, this is all still within our mutual DCBA reality. Instead, again I’m suggesting that in a spirit-being sense we open the whole thing up for both females and males, by undoing the DCBA web-work of patterns to see what each of us can achieve and look like!
(An edit note added in July 2007. Even though there’s a lot of food-for-thought material in this chapter, I/we are deciding to leave it “as is” because we think it illustrates the interrelatedness of aspects of life, and how one thing leads and flows to another when certain limitations are removed.)
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