Nature as Metaphor

Let's suppose, as Denise Linn did in "The Secret Language of Signs: How to Interpret the Coincidences and Symbols in your life," that I am a soul existing in the great dark void (before being birth into the material, earthly plane), and in all objectivity, my soul realizes that I need to learn humility in order for my soul to evolve to a higher level of consciousness. To this end, I engage another soul who is particularly loving toward me, saying, "I need to learn humility. Will you incarnate with me on Earth and play the role of my abuser?" This scenario, put forth by Linn, suggests that we have an existence prior to our earthly existence, and that we actually choose our roles, circumstances, and experiences on Earth before we ever hit that portal known as the female womb, the gate-way to human life. (Incidentally, have you noticed that people who have near-death experiences talk about the light at the end of the tunnel? I wonder if the "tunnel" out of this earthly experience at death is the same as the birth canal that is the tunnel into this existence? When we die here on earth, are we simultaneously being born somewhere else?) This scenario also contains the basic elements of Theater. My experience as an actor and writer has led me to believe that Theater itslef is a metaphor, a mirror, reflecting the underlying structure of reality. My entire being resonates with the idea that our souls are directors and playwrights, consulting with various "players" (soulmates) to establish a rough story-outline before arriving on planet Earth, where we then improvise the "meat" of the scene (our human lives). The point is to imagine that we are all here on Earth co-creating a cosmic drama for reasons of individual and collective soul-growth.

From this perspective, birth is not just the beginning of our existence on Earth, but in the larger picture, it is the process by which spirit transforms into matter for the purpose of evolving to a higher consciousness. This perspective also suggests that we have actually chosen the life we are leading, and the characters around us, for very specific reasons. Hence, none of us are victims. Coming from the perspective that we are spiritual beings having a human experience allows us to believe that we already have the ability to direct our lives toward ultimate soul growth. We are so much more powerful than we have been programmed to believe by unconscious (fellow) humans, and it is up to each of us to shake ourselves out of lethargy and complacency to remember who we really are and what power is truly ours.

There are multiple reflections of this theatrical metaphor in the world of men and matter. Whether it is children playing "pretend" in order to explore their developing powers or to try out possible roles in the world of adults, or grown men acting-out their interior conflicts by projecting their fears onto "others" in the world, we humans create drama. Drama is conflict. The only way we humans seem to learn anything of any importance is via struggle. Moving through conflict, we come to new levels of understanding. If we understand the basic premise that life is a mataphor for larger spiritual realities, then we can begin to "see" reality in a different manner. Just as almost every word that Shakespeare wrote carries a double or multi-layered meaning, we humans must begin to see our world with the eyes of the soul, to behold actions, behavior, and events as double-entendres. Just as ancient Astrology, Runes, Tarot, Alchemy, etc. use symbols to convey esoteric meanings, we must behold every-day events as symbolic of a larger esoteric reality.

To illustrate my point, I will relate a 'drama' that occurred in my life and my esoteric interpretation of the event. A few years ago, I arrived in Colorado seeking the guidance of a spiritual teacher. What I found was a sexual predator. At that point in time my story was enacted for me in nature because it is not easy to see our own story from an objective vantage point until it is presented externally for us. A week or so after I had been raped, I went into the woods, looking to Mother Nature for her special brand of nurturing and healing. As I hiked, I enountered three deer. Two of the deer were on the hillside above me, obviously awaiting something, looking in my direction with great intensity. I knew they were aware of me but they didn't move away from me as I expected them to. I lay down on the ground watching them for ten minutes, but they didn't move. I decided to move forward on the trail. I had only taken two steps when something rustled in the brush beside me! It was a deer that had been hit by a car and was dying in front of my eyes. As I didn't want the poor soul to suffer any longer than necessary, I ran back to my apartment, called the CDOW and gave them the location of the deer. Then I returned to the deer and sat with it as it neared death. I have never seen anything quite so profound. The deer glared at me with a highly potent mixture of wild-fear and self-protection. At the same time, the deer was becoming so weak that as its eyes bore through me with laser-like intensity, its neck muscles began to weaken and wobble in slow, concentric circles. I have never, before or since, seen such a display of strength and vulnerability at the same time. The CDOW representatives arrived and mercifully put the deer out of its misery. Secretly, I knew that this drama was intended for me to "see." I understand what indigenous peoples know: that the earth and its inhabitants are reflections that teach us about ourselves. I knew that the deer's death was a reflection of what was happening to me internally. I was witnessing the death of a part of myself, my old personality, and the old ego patterns. I wept bitterly for the deer and for myself. I had seen the utter terror in the deer's eyes before it's death and knew that the fear was my own, for I did not know what trials awaited me on my journey (initiation) through the “valley of the shadow of (symbolic) death.” However, I now know that my old persona had to die in order to allow my spirit to be guided by the ultimate spiritual teacher, my own soul. This Spring as signs of new life appeared all around, I saw three deer race down the hillside, hurdle a split-rail fence, and sprint through my backyard! They were full of vitality, excitement, and energy! I saw that they were a renewed reflection of me, that my time in the dark night of the soul had ended, and that I would soon emerge from my chrysalis to experience re-birth, resurrection, and transformation into a new life and new way of being.

If life on Earth is a cosmic drama, a reflection in matter and form of the unseen spiritual reality, then the seeker may begin to ask, "What is my role in this drama? What is the larger picture? Who am I?" At first it seems terrifying to not know who you are, to witness the deconstruction of one's own personality, but this is only because we have been so programmed and conditioned to buy-into incredibly narrow identities and limiting realities, based on marketing schemes and religious dogmas designed by people who want to turn us into a bunch of homogenous, zombie-consumers who will believe whatever we are spoon-fed. The people running this country do not want us to know our true, infinite, personal power because that would mean they would not be able to control our minds and by extension, our purse-strings. I have come to the realization that it is much more liberating to not know exactly who you are, because rigid ideas about identity stop you from experimenting, learning, and growing. If you already think you know everything, nothing new can break through your programming. Allow yourself to not know so that new answers will grow.

Listen to the voice inside you. Anyone who claims to be a guru or teacher is suspect. A true teacher tells you to listen to the wisdom with in you. Your dreams are part of your own inner wisdom and no one can take them away from you. Mine your dreams for the gold within. Discovering the mystery within my nocturnal dreams and learning to unlock their secrets is the very thing that kept me alive during my darkest hours of recovery from rape. Like Carl Jung in his autobiography, I have found that the world inside myself is far more interesting than anything happening in the often superficial, misguided, external world. The inner world is also the true portal to the cosmos. Outer-space is really the space inside us. People who poo-pooh others' spiritual beliefs because they don't coincide with their own thinking are petty tyrants. The saying, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" was around long before the time of Christ. The pagans, adherents to nature-based spiritualities, observed nature and saw that when one person tries to control or harm another, they are only hurting themsleves, for they understand that we are all One in the larger scheme of things. If you go back far enough in history and time, we all come from the same place and we are all related. That is the natural order of things.

Shakespeare wrote: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and entrances; each man in his time plays many parts." The phrase "in his time" seems limited (to life on Earth). What if "our time" is multifarious in terms of levels of consciousness, different planets as schools of thought, and infinite/simultaneous realities? I believe that if I can even think the thought that we are multi-dimensional beings with infinite powers, then the reality is possible. I am finding that when I operate from the assumption that my mind and heart together are capable of creating anything I want, then these things actually begin to manifest. This is the knowledge that the heirarchy of men, The Church, and the Establishment have sought to suppress for thousands of years. The process of Birth is not only the entrance of spirit into this physical plane, it is a physical metaphor that expresses the esoteric mystery, the formula for creation, and its blueprint lies within each of us.

If we stop thinking of the terms "Mother" and "Father," and "Masculine" and "Feminine" in terms of gender or genitalia, and start replacing these ideas with the more accurate definitions of the energies they represent, we can start creating a new understanding, a new paradigm. Father or Masculine energy = "willpower," "action," "sowing, planting." Mother or Feminine energy = "intuitive," "receptive states," "gestating thoughts, ideas, or seeds that are nurtured, cared for, protected until ready for birthing, manifesting, or becoming reality." The feminine is the energy or the vehicle that harbors new realities. The symbolism of Mother Mary holding the child Jesus is a metaphor for spirit having entered into the physical plane. The word "Christ" means "soul-directed." Thus, it is the spirit that is soul-directed that manifests new realities, that births new consciousness into being. My trauma, my “drama,” has been a spiritual path that has been instrumental in getting my spirit back on track by becoming guided by the soul instead of the ego.

Kathryn Preston

Deeksha Dreams

This happened a few years ago in Colorado:

I had had extremely vivid dreams of John Brown, my ex-fiancee and first love, in the past four or five years, though I haven't seen him since 1990. When I lived in Carbondale,CO a few years ago, he came to me in a dream, as if he were right in front of me, and told me that I was “in recovery,” and that I would be ok. He also said to me (in a dream) that I had to let go of him so that someone else could love me. I remember being shocked because it had been so many years since we were together, and I thought I had let go.

I remember he nearly had a breakdown before he left me in Alaska to go home to Newfoundland when he graduated from UAA . He thought he was going nuts and didn't know if he was doing the right thing by leaving me behind. In those days, I was the strong one. I was his rock of Gibraltar. I assured him that I would be ok, and that he had to get on with his tasks of either training as a cross country skier for the Olympics, or going on to law school, and that I loved him no matter what happened, and would join him when I graduated. Until that moment, I had never felt anyone's love so strongly in my life. That he would feel so conflicted, that he felt he was going insane - no one's ever loved me like that - before or since. When I went to Newfoundland for Christmas and New Year's, he gave me a diamond ring. Later, when I was back in Alaska and lost weight, the ring fell off my finger and into the washing machine and was never retrieved, and I knew that was a horrible sign. Little did I know, he had already met someone in law school ... and the separation, distance and time apart was getting to be too much ... for him. I would have hung in there until .... So, in the moment that I was thinking about all this, I started sobbing, I had loved him so much. We were so good together. I felt like screaming. It hurt like hell to remember and feel the pain of his loss again, but I also knew that I had to allow myself to feel it fully in order to be able to let it go.

I read some physics recently that said that the smallest particles in the universe are not matter or light waves, they are bits of information, and that when one particle meets another, it leaves a part of itself - they each leave a bit of information with the other. Thereafter, the book suggested, there is always some form of communication that happens on a subatomic level. And I thought that this could explain the communication I received from John in my subconscious. I knew I needed help letting go. So, I prayed. I visualized myself interacting with Mary Magdalene. I imagined her with long dark, silky hair and bronze skin, with the most beautiful smile. I imagined her embracing me,talking and listening to me like a truly divine, compassionate, empathic mother would. I pleaded with her not to leave me, and begged her to help me. I didn't specifiy how. But, I knew that I needed to know how to let go. I needed to know how to remove the barriers in my psyche that keep me from trusting anyone else, that keep me from getting close to anyone. Then I cried myself to sleep.

And this is where it gets really interesting.

Later that night, I had a dream. In the dream, a WORD appeared very clearly. Although I did not recognize the word, I remember thinking while dreaming: "I have to remember this word and search for it on the internet tomorrow to find out what it means." Of course, the next morning, I forgot ... BUT, I worked from 10a until 7p, and when I got home, I opened the newspaper and looked at the calendar section inside the front page to see what events might be happening around town that evening. Lo and behold, I saw the word from my dream in the newspaper, and as soon as I saw it, a lightning bolt of realization hit me! I said, "Oh my God!" out loud five times, and got up to call the number that was in the newspaper. The word from my dream was right there on the printed page, and when I saw it, the dream came flooding back to me. Apparently this word, "Deeksha," alludes to the transfer of divine energy, and I view this dream and my subsequent reading of the newspaper as direct communication from the universe!

Transferring energy is a direct answer to my question about "how do I let John go?" I have been waiting for communication from the beyond my whole life! And today, the universe made sure that I GOT IT!