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The recovery of a creative spirit - a soul retrieval
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A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic | |
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Copyright 2010 by K. Ferlic, All Rights Reserved | |
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The concepts of the need to recover our creative spirit and release our creative spirit from the cage of our own making were not concepts within the belief system and education of the author. Rather, it can be said much of his life’s journey was about understanding how and why we put our creative spirit in a cage of our own making and how to go about releasing and freeing that creative spirit. As such, in hindsight, the process to recover the creative spirit could have been made much faster, easier, gentler and playful if the proper concepts and understanding about how we create our experiences were available at the start of the journey. However, the concept of recovering a creative spirit and the need for something like a soul retrieval is a result of the perspective held by mind and the mind coming to access and understand the creative spirit which gives rise to the life we live. In reality, the process perceived by the mind as recovering a creative spirit was actually only the author’s mystical path arising to be recognized and consciously embraced by the mind. With the proper perspective and understanding, there is no need to recover anything. Rather, we just need to become aware and awake. Here it needs to be noted, the mystical path will continually create the conditions in our life for us to awaken to its existence if we are willing to surrender to its lead. However, if mind has its idea of how things need to be, awakening can and will take as long as mind remains in the way. Based on the observations of the recovery of the authors’ creative spirit and that of others, the key is to learn to surrender and follow the feeling of freedom and that which allows for an expansion and fullness of our being. There are three parts to this discussion. One are the life events described below leading up to the outward soul retrieval. The second is a short discussion about the outward soul retrieval after these events or rather, the result of these events. The third is the expectations and the results of the actual soul retrieval, how it did or did not meet the expectations of the soul retrieval, and the meaning of its results. Events leading to an outward soul retrieval The following is a narrative relating many of the events in the author’s life that gave rise to the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity understanding and its applications. It includes the sequence of events which lead up to his outward soul retrieval. More extensive discussions on particular experiences within the narrative are provided through the hyperlinks in the discussion. A description of the results of the outward soul retrieval are found in the topic, "Results of a soul retrieval."
Sections
Three views of this narrative (Top) This narrative can be viewed in
several ways. One way is that it here is a description of the events
leading to the
soul retrieval and can be seen as the story and description of
the authors’ soul retrieval. Or, maybe better said, what is provided
is the perspective the author had as he experienced the
events. It is the perspective provided by his
mind based on the experiences he had in his life. This narrative
provides the more personal and private aspects which parallels the
professional path
determined by his enculturation and what he perceived success in
life to be. In many ways this narrative complements the professional
path and the
employment experience to provide some insight as to what was
going on in the author’s internal and private life as he traveled
the professional path. This interpretation of the narrative is
associated with the
outer dance
we learn to do in the external world as introduced on the “Our
Creative Spirit” website Comments about the journey (Top) It is here an important note needs
to be made about the journey described here. If the author had
understood the
creative process in which we participate before the journey, the
journey itself could have been greatly shorten and made much more
enjoyable. The key to shortening the journey was a two fold
realization that occurred after the
Ultimate Accident. One concerns the depth and breadth of our
inherent creativity. The second was about coming to understand as to
why it was said after the Ultimate Accident described below in the
section entitled, "Returning
to the illusion of mind," the author’s “head is not
connected to the body” and what that really meant. In these two
realizations the time it takes and what needs to be done for an
individual to open the door to access their unlimited creativity and
transform their life can be significantly reduced. As discussed in the topic “The
Subconscious Journey into Creativity,” the journey to recover
his
creative spirit began many years ago as a child. It was
characterized by a
desire and
love for
play and a love for understanding about how the universe works.
The
conscious journey into creativity started in a response to being
unable to get individuals to explore the depth and breadth of the
problems they faced in the workplace. The point at which movement
began to consciously surface the author’s
mystical path
and combine it with
professional path actually began with a key breakthrough in
understanding about two years before (1993) the experience of the
Ultimate Accident (1995). In essence the author found a view of
Creation that reasonably matched his intuitive understanding of
Creation and he simultaneously became aware of the power, and need
for,
clear intention. The understanding he accessed was an
understanding about the
triune self, a
way to begin to work with triune self and a
way to use clear intention through a
single point focus.
Throughout all his life all the author every wanted to do was what he called play. As was stated in the discussion "The Need to Get on With Life" in first grade at age six, he use to complain he was sick so he could stay home and play. Whenever and wherever he could, he would play. But it was a particular type and kind of play that he would seek. It wasn’t playing as most people thought about play. It was doing something that cause a particular feeling to arise within his being. He could practice the clarinet for hours and feel the play. He could sit and work mathematic word problems in the summer between his Freshman and Sophomore high school years and feel he was at play. Play for him was about doing something in life that created a particular internal feeling. Using such an internal feeling to guide his life lies at the essence of how the internal compass works. However that feeling of play in his life essentially went dormant until high school. Until high school, his model trains kept the feeling alive as well as into middle age. In high school, he began to learn how to go around the system to create what is necessary. It was his first profound experience that there were alternative ways to the expected or demanded system. With the understanding about learning how to go around a system he spent the next 20 some years going around the system to experience play. One way he did it was to always change what he was doing. He discovered by doing something new all the time, he could challenge himself and have the feeling of play. By the time he reached his early forties the author was averaging 18 months per job position with even less time at any one assignment - and the cycle was tending to get shorter, and shorter, and shorter. In essence he was become bored with the life he had created based on how he was taught the world worked. Eventually he would have to look for an alternative way to live life. In the fall of 1993 a reality wave struck. Here he was in my early forties. He had successfully leap frogged from position to position. He rose higher and higher professionally and organizationally. He essentially reached the top in August, 1992. He remained there until September, 1993. And, most importantly, he had fun doing it - it was almost like play. The only thing he lacked was the official recognition of what he had done. But he had reached the top of the pyramid both professionally and organizationally. In his personal life, he essentially had it all. He had the house - two car garage, of course, a home, dog, and all the other stuff that went with it. He had completed what society required of him. But there was much more, much more, to life than what society taught. The question is, "Are we open to what is offered?" The mystical path begins to raise itself into awareness (Top) For the author, the recovery of the creative spirit can in many ways be seen as the mystical path raising itself into awareness. Where as a traditional soul retrieval is about calling back or retrieving an aspect of our creative spirit which has become bound or lost to our awareness as a result of a traumatic type of experience, the author’s path wasn’t so much about traumatic experiences as it was simply reversing the creation process of how we create our experiences. The process of recovering his creative spirit is probably best seen as starting in a trip to the Southwest United States beginning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, offered to him in August 1993. In essence , it was more of a pilgrimage into the past than a trip. But is was also a journey into the future for, in essence, it was a job interview at two different levels. A friend who was ferrying a car across the United Stated offered the trip and to meet the author in Santa Fe after a meeting the author was attending. The friend wanted to create a mind body healing foundation and asked the author to accompany him on part of his journey into the Southwest to better get to know and interview the author. In essence, it was a long job interview. It was the time the author and his friend spent together that ultimate determined that the author received an invitation to help create the mind body foundation and become its Executive Director. But there was another interview that was also offered. The Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity material is about assisting individuals in accessing and releasing their unlimited creativity. It is about both awakening a part of the unconscious and revealing many aspects of the subconscious and creating that what they desire to experience in life. In particular, it is about aligning with the intention for our life and having the experiences we incarnated to have. To do this there needs to be another to call forth the creative spirit and create a safe and secure space for it to awaken and come out. One of the roles the author played for his friend was to help create that safe and secure space for his creative spirit to come out and express itself in the way it needed to do. So, in effect, he was also being interviewed for a new role in life. The question was, "was the author open and willing to do such work?" We need to remember, we do have a free will and it is always available for use. Whether we realize it or now, we have reason for incarnating into our current life and freely choose or accepted that path. The mystical path is a reflection of that choice and the experiences we incarnated to have. Although the mystical path to our life may lead us to opportunities to have those experiences, we need to be both willing to accept what is asked and then do the work to gain the understanding to capitalize the opportunities. If we can step out of mind and surrender to our path, there is really no subsequent choice for the path makes the choices for us. Usually if we choose it is mind interjecting its preferences which causes the choice to arise. Following the path is more like moving on an autopilot. To follow that path, our heart and what we feeling determines the direction for our life and the mind attends to the details to make it happen. However, we are enculturated to think otherwise. Additionally, life is always pulling us in other direction. Consequently, we will always have a choice we need to make for mind is always responding to the experiences we have based on its judgments, preferences and the like. To follow the mystical path the choice is to continually surrender to the path and allow it to lead. In this regard, the choice is made for us as to what direction we go in life. However, we have to choose to surrender. The trip to the Southwest laid the seeds for a spiritual and metaphysical transformation. At the end of the trip while eating lunch in a Chinese fast food restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, the author had the vision of himself as a Samurai warrior ceremoniously presenting his sword to a spiritual/physical leader - one who represented truth. In doing so he was offering his loyalty and it felt as if he was offering the strength of the equivalent of a thousand warriors. He had no real understanding what the vision meant - at least at the time. In hind sight, such a strength was needed for the situation he was going to face over the next two years. Upon returning from New Mexico, events were beginning to happen rapidly. The author was faced with a choice. Because the organization was restructuring and beginning to downsize, he could stay where he was, "play second fiddle," cause some disruption to people who were personal friends, and maybe arrange to get back on top. Or he could leave and start a new game somewhere else. Not wanting to disrupt the lives of his friends for whom he had great personal and professional respect and not really liking to play second fiddle after being in the solo and number one slot, he chose to look for opportunities to play elsewhere. Creative as he is, he struck a deal which for all practical purposes allowed him to move almost laterally organizationally. But, as soon as he moved the people with whom he cut the deal left and larger organizational changes brought new people in power. Consequently in October, 1993, he found himself organizationally positioned to face three battles professionally which went to the core of what the author believed and for which he stood during his entire professional and adult career. The battles were not about corruption but about unawareness. In brief summary, there were three issues that needed to be addressed in the organizational change. The question was what was the best way to address the issues. One was do you educate people and allow them to determine what is best for themselves or do you tell them what is best and leave them no option. The second was about giving people want they need and not what you want to give them because you think you know what they need. That is, do your homework and find out what the job really is requiring one to do rather than making assumptions about it. The third was about letting people determine their own fate using the resources they have rather than mandating how they are to use those resources and do the job. Quite simply, it makes no sense to hire professionals to do a professional job then tell them how to do the job. In facing all three of these issues, the author was the minority opinion. His opinion and position went against the organizational direction. Rather it was in favor of what he learned long ago as discussed in the topic, "Band Company - the first real experience in organizational theory." He realized the assumptions being made about the organization were not valid yet he could not bring anyone any one’s attention to that fact. The organization had already predetermined how it wanted things to be regardless of the facts. It is said that a good general never fights a two front war - and three fronts, well - they don’t talk about that for, it would be utter lunacy. Needless to say, the battle lines were drawn. The author had no thought of giving up on any one of the three fronts. For years the author fought to educate people to understand that with which they worked and any associated hazards to allow them to choose for themselves and do what was best for their particular situation. The author passionately believed in giving the people the tools they needed to be empowered and to be allowed to determine their own fate. He understood that knowledge and empowerment was the fix necessary to address the types and kinds of issues the National Academy of Sciences identified years earlier when he was hired at the Department of Energy. To honor why he originally took a job at the Department of Energy, he felt he had only one choice - engage the organizations tides that were not flowing in that direction because they did not address the root issues of the problems they were attempting to face. It needs to be remember, as discussed in the topic "The calling unfoldment," the author did not see himself as being expected to perform based on his supervisor’s desires or the positions description within the organization. Rather, because of the calling, he took employment the Department of Energy with the understanding that wherever he was placed, it was to work to fix the root issue of the National Academy of Sciences report. But the seeds of the future were already being planted as he began a two year battle. When his car had burnt up on Interstate 70 indicating a change in the future the die was cast. Although unknown to him at the time, the muse that would led him into the future was already on the scene. Before moving on there is a curious aspect about the trip to the Southwest. The trip did not really end in August 1993. Rather it ended a year later in 1994. In August 1993, the author returned home from Phoenix but his friend stayed in Phoenix to meet and join his family flying into Phoenix. The following year, the author tied to arrange a meeting in Las Vegas to reduce the travel for his western business associates but no room was available as a result of huge conference. Hence the meeting was forced to move to Phoenix. Surprising, why staying in Phoenix, the author found his friend arrive at the same hotel and that they were flying out on the same flight the next day. His friend was on another trip to the Southwest with a second gentleman who was also considering as the executive director for his foundation. The author and his friend arranged to sit together and, in essence, finish the trip of the previous you. Shortly thereafter, the author begin working with the friend to create a mind body foundation. A choice to do something different (Top) By September 1995, almost two years later, the author had lost one battle, brought a second to a draw, and unknown to him, was about to be annihilated in the third. In many ways, the author was discredited professionally for standing for an opposing view. Nevertheless, over time, he was be proven to be correct. However, memories can be selectively very short, history tends to be written by the victors and no one likes being told, "I told you so." The fact he was correct was irrelevant. Although he amassed amazing information about organizational creativity and why the organization kept stumbling over itself, no one wants to hear it. Too many has made their reputation on the course that was charted. Realizing the workplace could not provide him the type and kind of play he desired in his life, he decided to look at his creativity to do his own experiments and look to see if he could create the Critical Mass of Enlightenment Experiment. Unknown to him, at the time, the decision to see if he could create a critical mass of enlightenment was a decision to explore and access his own unlimited creativity. It was a decision which would cause him to recreate his life. In late September, he was offered to take another short pilgrimage. In actually, it was a planning meeting for the mind body foundation for which we was asked to help create and become the Executive Director. But to him, it was a pilgrimage. As discussed in "A Critical Mass of Enlightenment Experiment" the trip afforded the author the opportunity to receive an offer from the Universe. Unknown to him at the time, the offer contained the conditions that needed to be created to open the door to understanding the depth and breadth of our creativity and why so few access their true depth and breadth of their creative power and ability. It identified what was needed to be done that would ultimate "enlighten" him about how to create such an experiment and lead to the Ultimate Accident. In his own way, he accepted the offer. On return in October, 1995, he realized his passion for his trains just vanished as his own awareness foretold two years earlier. He didn’t understand why until later, but it was gone. Only in hindsight did he realize the significance of the awareness that he had two years earlier that his trains would no longer be available after October 1995. It wasn’t the availability of trains as he thought the awareness foretold. Rather all of his emotional and creativity energy where shifted. Only he didn’t know it or understand it at the time. As perceived by his conscious mind, his acceptance of the offer made by the Universe set his life on a new path. Yet, in actually, it wasn’t so much moving to a new path as it was aligning with the destiny this life offered if, if he was willing to take it. Here an important note needs to be made about free will. In exploring the creative power and creative ability available to us it is very clear we are not puppets on a string. We have the power to create our experiences and create the reality of those experiences. However, we each also have a destiny open to us through the mystical path . But we have to accept that destiny. We have to be willing to surrender what it asks of us to do and not do what our mind wants. That destiny will give us both a passion for life and for living and an internal satisfaction that never runs dry no matter what is happening in our external world. As the author looks back over his life, the deep undercurrents of Creation continually called him to a given path and destiny. But the strength of his own will and the power of his mind to choose based on what it thought and believed was more that sufficient to chose and create another path. He had to choose to leave the path of his mind and surrender to the mystical path and what it required. By December, 1995, his emotional energy and passion for a professional life was gone - totally evaporated. There was a tremendous nonconscious shift in awareness. Nothing really changed in his life yet all the opportunities and prospects professionally at work, outside work and at home seemed to evaporate. Work all of a sudden become synonymous with isolation. Professional standing and credentials were somewhat sacrificed over the years to fight what felt like moral battles, and in many ways they were - who has the right to determine one’s future - the individual or another. Yet, the author began to feel isolated because he was now seeing how differently he saw the world worked from the way he was traditionally taught. In many ways it seemed he was being emptied. The arrangement to partnership and start a much sought after emotionally and creatively stimulating mind body medicine foundation as a means to the future also collapsed. What he did not realized is that to change anything of significance in one’s life internal changes much occur first to make room for the change. In this regard, many aspects of his friend’s life and his life were changing. Through no fault of their own, the changes shifted the ability of the author and his friend to work together. On the surface it seemed as though the author and his friend were growing apart but the change necessary for the author and his friend to create what they desired required each of their lives to undergo transformation and move in different directions. What was not obvious to the author at this time but only revealed in hindsight is that the creative process requires internal changes that must accompany desired external changes. There is the need to withdrawal or unplug from the world as we know it and experience it to create something different. How much we have to unplug totally depends on what we desire to create. So, in addition to the professional relationships, although they took a little while longer, many of the friendships the author had with others in his life also underwent change. In essence, forty four years of private life with all the enculturated baggage of youth and societal expectations was crushed under the weight of the change he choose to make. What wasn’t realized at the time was that all the enculturated dreams and understanding that childhood brought were dying. As they died, so did the emotional energy associated with the trains. The trains were the physical manifestation of holding on to the dreams of childhood. The trains were the safe haven for the author’s creative energy in that world given to him by the culture and society in which he grew up. What was dying was the hope, the dreams and the expectations which society gave him. He realized that most of his life was living for other people. He could not be who he wanted to be as reflected in the essence of his being. In many ways he did not know who he wanted to be, but whoever he was, he was more a product of enculturation that a product of his own creative spirit. The life he created in that enculturated thinking was not allowing him to act the way his creative spirit wanted. The current system was not working to meet his deepest needs and everything tried to do to change it externally was not working. He came to realize what he was doing was simply depleting all his energy in trying. There wasn’t much energy left. Everything was dying. But one more thing needed to die. The author knew for some time things were not going the way he would expect based on the solutions that society provided and/or recommended to fix any the problems he faced. It didn’t seem to matter if it was a personal, professional or an organizational problem. Things just were not working. He tried them all. He listened and read the authorities and gurus. He was looking for that which was effective to create something different and nothing was working. In many ways he was beside himself. Nothing seemed to be working and he seemed incapable of helping anyone with anything that would work. Completion of assembling a critical mass (Top) Although things were not going the way he desired and the way he expected, he still loved to play he loved to do experiments. It was at this time he made two choice almost simultaneously that, in essence, assembled the final pieces of a critical mass to create the conditions for an experience of the Ultimate Accident. First, given how nothing conventional seemed to be working and seeing the number of successful but unhappy individuals he was meeting in life, he chose to look for an alternative way. He began an exploration into the unseen realms of creation based on an intuitive insight/feel he had years earlier as an undergraduate. He started this exploration of the unseen by a visited with the psychic spouse of a college classmate. In this visit he was told, he was just starting his life work. He was told he would be a builder of webs of like-minded people and there would be books. Second, he had agreed to help an individual and to do what was necessary to create what seemed to be their heart’s desire. It was to create a retreat center were individuals or a community of individuals, who shared a common outlook and desire for a life, could come together in a way which was mutually supportive and allowed for the journey in life at all levels (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) to be made with someone rather than alone. It was to be a safe and secure space where an individual could have the freedom to explore and act to manifest their heart’s desire. Its essential difference from existing places was that the retreat center would give the individual the freedom to explore, discover and act on the truth of their own being rather than following some external tradition, social, religious, spiritual or otherwise. To accompany the retreat center there was also discussion about the concept of writing a book on finding such a family of individuals. As stated above, the arrangement to partnership and start a much sought after emotionally and creatively stimulating mind body medicine foundation as a means to the future collapsed. Along with that collapse went the associated relationships. Because of the pain caused by the attachments to these collapsing dreams and expectations, the author felt it was necessary to ensure the startup of any new creative endeavors and/or partnership with another was done within the proper context. In agreeing to work with the individual to create a retreat center the author knew something needed to change, something needed to be different in terms of how individuals work together. That is, the author felt that maybe his ego and the desires of his mind over rode the necessary changes that were required for the mind body foundation to be created. The author wanted to ensure in some way his ego would stand aside and allow what needed to happen, happen. He felt it was the ego of the individuals, his and others, in some way were interfered with the necessary creation process. He want to try and ensure that did not happen again. Since he was had been experimenting with setting intentionality, he felt there were two things that needed to be done in starting any new creative endeavors/partnership. To ensure things were done correctly, he set out to start any new creative endeavor in a very clear intention. The question was how to ensure the establishment of that clear intention. Although he read and studied all his life, over the six years prior to December 1995, he had done an enormous amount of reading on spirituality and metaphysics. Being trained as a physicist and having a love of play and experimentation, he created a "spiritual experiment" in an attempt to align the internal and external Creative Powers of Creation/creation with clarity of intention for what they desired to create. From a mental perspective, he challenged the Creative Powers of the Universe and looked to see what happened. In reality he was no so much challenging the Creative Power of the Universe as much as he was challenging how and what he was enculturated to believe about the Creative Powers of the Universe and the power of our intentions. In essence, he was only accessing his own understanding of the Creative Powers of the Universe and how they operated. He was opening the door to accessing the depth and breadth of his creative ability and creative power. First, based on what he had learned about metaphysics and spirituality, he created an opening prayer. It was designed do several things. It was designed to set a clear intention for the creative endeavor and properly set the stage. It sought to assist and direct the egos to move aside and called upon the assistance of the external Creative Powers of Creation for the endeavor. Second, the author chose to create a series of rituals. Because there seemed to be a lack of freedom to act because of enculturation and hardships of life encountered by his associate in the past, the rituals included a portion related to actions specifically freeing their creativity from these binds of the past. For years the author always described his work in safety as teaching the birds to take the bar off their cages to give them the freedom to do the correct thing. He always felt when he advised people in the workplace he was showing them how to free themselves from their perceived limitations and limited thinking. So here was an opportunity to do just that. But it was to be done at a new level with the appropriate spiritual and metaphysical understanding. Additionally a ceremony was constructed around what the individual’s intuition provided as to what they needed to experience. The ceremony/ritual was enough out of the ordinary to be different, but sufficiently believable that the psyche could retain involvement in the ritual as opposed to believing it was fantasy. It was designed for the bound creative spirit to find a freedom of movement and to catalyze the creative endeavor. One function of ritual is to provide the mind and body with a powerful memory which the individual can draw upon to continually catalyze their efforts when circumstances become difficult and obstacles arise in the creative endeavor. The ritual was done in the spirit of love, play, creativity, and clear, focused intentionality. Comprehending the initial results of the Ultimate Accident (Top) There were two results. One result of the ritual seemed to be the Ultimate Accident for the author. The other result was within the principle we cannot give what we do not have, as the author acted to create the conditions for the Ultimate Accident for himself, he created the space for the release of other individual’s bound creative spirit. What the author experienced within this individual much like what the author experiences years earlier when he would release the charisma of individuals as discussed in the topic, "The Experience as a Healer." In essence, he created the space for their charisma to come out. It is stated here that the results seemed to be the Ultimate Accident for the author. Initially the author thought he created the Ultimate Accident through the ritual and in creating that space it would allow the creative spirit/charisma of others to come out. It was not until the author tied to recreate the Ultimate Accident for others using the ritual that he discovered it wasn’t the ritual that lead to the Ultimate Accident for himself. Nor was it the particular ritual that allow their creative spirit to come out. Rather, the Ultimate Accident occurred when he created the actual conditions that were identified in the offer made by the Universe during the planning meeting trip at the end of September at Virginia Beach. Those conditions happened to be incorporated in the ritual he created. Or, maybe better said, the ritual was created with part of the correct conditions identified in the offer made by the Universe at Virginia Beach noted above. Creating the space for the release of the individual’s bound creative spirit seemed to be more of a by product as a result of the author experiencing the Ultimate Accident. In part that was true. In experiencing the Ultimate Accident he created a safe space for the other’s creative spirit to come out. But there was more to the process. Only in time, reflection and a few additionally lessons learned did the author come to realized he needed to create the space to get an individual in touch with the source of their creativity and then allow the individual’s own creativity to lead them to the Source. Our problem is that mind thinks it knows how to get us to a conscious experience of the Source and the Source of our creative power. However, in realize it is what keeps us from continually being in conscious awareness of the Source and having access to the true depth and breadth of our creative power and creative ability. The reason for this is our creative power lies in feeling and stepping out of mind to surrender to the feeling to lead. What the author failed to properly consider for the longest time was that the ritual he constructed was based on what the individual’s intuition provided as to what they needed to be experienced. In the same way the author was provided an understanding as to what he needed to face during the Virginia Beach trip, the individual had a dream/vision/insight as to what they need to experience. To them it was sort of a fantasy. Mind will always make the true path to the Source of our creative power and the Source look like fantasy or simply a construct of our imagination. However, the author took the fantasy/intuitive insight at face value. The author created the space for them to experience that fantasy within the ceremony. That in turn was the key for their creative spirit to come out. Their creative spirit had a safe and secure space and the doorway was provided for the individual to step through based on their own insight which honored their unique creativity. In many ways the ritual/ceremony constructed honored and embraced the unique creativity of the individual’s creative spirit and that is what allow it to feel free to break with the binds of the past. There is a physics phenomenon were when an observer observes an experiment their observation changes the experiment. Reality, as are all our interactions, is very much like this phenomenon although we are consciously unaware of it. But, in reality it is a two way street - the observer changes the experiment, but the experiment also changes the observer. We are a creative living process which changes who and what we are by the experiences we have. The ceremony was quite effective. The binds and limitations were released, but in both participants. Some experiences reinforce the past causing us to remain the same and some change the past allowing us to become different because of the experience. As a result of the ritual/ceremony, there was a renewed passion and enthusiasm for life with great creativity and clarity of life’s purpose in each individual, especially for the author. Everything seemed to be there that was needed, all the pieces seemed to fit together. Challenging the Creative Powers of the Universe and what the author was enculturated to believe did pay off. There was a personal experience of oneness/Oneness. The author was imprinted with the experience of the Source that took time to digest. It was nine months later before a clear way to communicate the awareness appeared within the author. Although there was a great difference in the magnitude of the experience, in time the author realized the current experience was related over twenty years earlier to what was experienced previously while in college. He come to understand how we are never really removed from the source/Source. Rather, the separation is only an illusion created by our mind for the sake of an experience of our own creation. Yet, there was an even a deeper correlation between the college experience and current circumstance that the author would come to understand but only as still more time passed. In reality, the Ultimate Accident was the soul retrieval. Creating conditions for the Ultimate Accident was the calling back of the author’s creative spirit and was the fulfillment of creating a critical mass of enlightenment on an individual level. The Ultimate Accident was the return of his creative spirit. Yet, there was no mental awareness and mental understanding of this inner transformation. That had yet to occur. Mind only knows the past and what it has experienced. There was now the need to have experiences for the mental understanding of what occurred within. Returning to the illusion of mind (Top) Within days of the Ultimate Accident, during what he thought was a routine vision to an empathic, intuitive, osteopath, he was told in a somewhat surprised tone by the osteopath "Your head is not connected to your body." The intuitive observation of the osteopath was a surprise to both the osteopath and the author. In essence, the comment was about finding the mind body connection and having the inner awareness of the transformation reflected mentally. In particular, it was about how the enculturated mind was so removed from the intention which lied behind, and gave life to, the body. The author’s first thought was, "If this is true, why didn’t anyone else see this before now?" In hind sight, what is clear, it was not seen before because there was nothing in the author’s life prior to creating the critical mass of enlightenment about his life and his mystical path which allow for him to be "enlightened" and the mystical path to be recognized. What the author did not realize at the time was his energy had already shifted toward the intention for his life as a result of the Ultimate Accident. The internal changes were now being revealed externally. The internal disconnect between what he thought and believed and the intention for his life of which the author was now becoming consciously aware was also being revealed externally in what others could see if they were perceptive. However, it would take time for the thinking and beliefs of the author to come into alignment with his life purpose. As long as the author continued to believe his mind over what he felt and his intuitive guidance, the correction of the misalignment would only take longer. As he was told by several psychics with whom he worked while looking for an alternative way, "It will not workout as you think/expect." Quite simply his thinking and what he believed was out of alignment with the where he needed to be going. The next phase of the journey was really about changing what the author thought and believed and then living the changes in the world. It was about learning to live life navigating from the heart. In any case, relatively quickly there was an intuitive insight from the individual who sought to create a retreat center as to an individual who might help to address this seeming lack of connection between the head and the body. The author was eventually lead to an intuitive/psychic/shamanic healer. In meeting with the author, the healer said the fourth chakra, the heart chakra was twisted and shut down. It was twisted like you would twist and seal the top of a plastic trash bag. She also added it was her perception that his heart was shut down when the author was very young. The images she was receiving as to why the author’s heart chakra was twisted appeared to be related to being in a valley next to a creek. The author recalled being down in the creek valley seeing what was called Chartier’s Creek named after an early French explorer up close for the first time as a child. It was a reasonably sized creek flowing in Southwest Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. The creek was orange from runoff water from the closed coal mines. He remembered that his young mind could not understand why the water was orange. As a child, he never saw a clear stream or creek in his local environment until he was maybe six or seven year old. To see a clear stream, he had to get far enough away from the mine runoffs. All the natural water flows where he lived were orange. The lady continued on and said , "You made an agreement with your father that you would not start your life work until his passing - where are the dog tags?" The author replied, "What dog tags?" She responded "The one’s you played with as a child." She was referring to his father’s military dog tags form World War II. The dog tag were two pieces of metal worn around the neck imprinted with an identification much like that uses to identify dogs. The author did recall playing with them as a child. World War II did have a very significant impact on the author’s psyche as a child. Although born after the war, his life was impacted by those in the war and the events in the world as a result of that war. The dog tags which the child held onto were symbolic of what his father lost in the war - his innocence. The lost innocence was not so much in fighting the war and the enemy. Rather it was an the innocence about those who stayed behind and used the system for their advantage. It was about those who stayed out of military service and capitalized on the sacrifice of others. To address the separation of the head and body the psychic/intuitive healer suggested a shamanic soul retrieval. At the time, the author had no better idea at the time to correct what the external world seemed to be telling him. Additionally, in spite of all that he had learned, he was yet aware enough to simply look inside and follow his own internal guidance as to what needed to be done. So, he elected to have a soul retrieval performed. The issue of not yet being aware of following his own internal guidance is discussed in the topic, "The outward soul retrieval." The results of the soul retrieval as performed is discussed in the topic, "Results of a soul retrieval." Another vision - the catalyst for action (Top) Within a few weeks of the Ultimate Accident while during in a planning meeting for the retreat center, there was a combined vision birthing that can best be called a gentle phoenix experience. The vision was about rekindling the flame within the heart in a gentle fashion rather then the typical and traditional harsh phoenix experience. There was the vision that each person has a life to be lived, a life to be experienced, encoded on what is traditionally called the soul that is expressed in their heart, through their heart and can be called the heart’s desire. The heart’s desire, in essence, is an experience unique to the individual, that no one has ever had before and no one else can have. It is one that is carried uniquely within each heart. When living from this heart space, the individual then becomes one with the Creative Power of Creation which created them that lies within and they will live life passionately and enthusiastically. Within this vision were books, a learning center, a retreat center and much more. Over the next two months there was great creativity. It was at this time the author began to play around with initial ideas on writing and collecting the ideas to be addressed. All the ideas seemed to be there. There seemed to be enormous clarity. In hindsight, it took fourteen years to have the experiences to capture the understanding and put the information into an communicable form let alone build a retreat center and learning center based on the understanding. As the author moved to create that soul retrieval, fate, or maybe rather destiny, stepped in. Something puzzling happened about the time of the soul retrieval The soul retrieval was delayed twice. It was as though things were not ready until the universe was ready. Something needed more time, but what and why? In hind sight, it seemed as though the universe needed to allow a sufficient, but minimum time for the author’s psyche to become imprinted with this freed creative spirit and, in essence, become addicted to this new spirit of creativity and life in the spirit. He needed to be imprinted much the way he was imprinted by the experience of the unfolding flower. He needed time to understand how it was possible to live an alternative way as he set out to find. Quite simply, the alternative way was about a life lived with a free creative spirit with free expression of what has been called the individual’s charisma or the gifts and talent each individual possesses inherent within their being. As was stated above two things happened with the creation of the ritual to ensure the proper start of a joint creative endeavor.. One was the author experienced the Ultimate Accident. The second was the other individual experienced the release of their bound creative spirit. It was a wonderfully, powerful, playful, creative spirit much like the spirits the author saw released in the past as described in "The Experience of a healer." It was as thought the author needed to be impregnated and imprinted by what he was experiencing in the presence of this released creative spirit. It is as thought there was a communication going on between the author’s psyche and this released creative spirit. When the data transfer was complete, the connection was broken and the soul retrieval could proceed. For when the soul retrieval occurred, everything again began to change. He saw this creative spirit seemingly become captured and die. It was as though he was watching the Greek Story of Persephone being played out in front of him. This, in turn, became another event to be investigated as to how and why it occurred. The soul retrieval occurred in late February, 1996, and what is symbolized by heart was open symbolically. The author began to feel and experience life very differently. Almost simultaneously as he internally changed he began to experience life differently externally. However, as he shifted, he watch the released creative spirit of the other slowly start to wane and wither. It was if this newly released spirit of creativity for writing and creating was being strangled. The author clearly saw what was happening but he did not know what to do. He had seen the same type of phenomenon before. He knew the scenario. Had watched the slow death of newly released creative spirits before. But, he didn’t understand the particulars about the current situation to be able to do anything about it. All he could think of was the Greek myths being true in that they do reflect reality in some way. Years earlier, he routinely saw new spirits of spirituality released in individuals and how these spirits faired once released. So he recognized the phenomenon which was occurring. He noticed two things when the spirit was released. The first was that authorities always, in their own way, captured and contained the spirit and directed it the way they wanted it to go. They did everything they could not to let it out on its own and do its own thing. They claimed it was for the protection of the person. It was almost like creating spiritual slave labor - release the spirit and harness that spirit for your purpose, not the purpose of the spirit for which it was created. Second, over time, when the environment in which the spirit lived was too much like the old environment or the spirit could not find its proper place and way to express itself in a new environment it withered and died. In doing so, it be bound much harder than the first time, since now it is afraid to come out again having been once suffocated more than once. The author watched this newly released spirit of creativity similarly die. Although he may have know enough to create the space for its release, he didn’t know enough to create the environment to sustain it. The two, releasing and sustaining what is released, require different understandings about Creation. His experiment with the Creative Powers of Creation was a success, but in its success was the pain of understanding of what exactly he had done. Little did he realize he had destroyed that which he was bringing forth. Without realizing it, he began to control that spirit much like the authorities in saw in the past. Rather than allow it to be free, he saw its energy and playfulness as a means to create something larger. He saw it as a way to create that vision of a gentle phoenix. In essence he want to harness it when it desired freedom Because he sought to create something with this released creative spirit rather than just letting it be free to find its own expression, he caused it to withdrawal. However, in the process he did come to learn and understand what would need to be done next time, The pain of knowing what he had done allowed him to begin the shamanic journey into the heart. All shamanic journeys begin with some type of injury, illness and death which involves the stripping away of how one thinks reality works to allow the individual to see differently and view an alternative way being in the world. Where as the shamanic journey is an individual unique journey, different societies have traditions and different understandings of how the journey must be taken, but it must be taken to reach that internal place of knowing. It has also been known as the phoenix experience. In the Western tradition it has been known as the Dark Night of the Soul. The Dark Night of the Soul is simply the shedding and falling away of all that is of value to which the ego is attached. The pain of the Dark Night of the Soul rather than the euphoria of the Kundalini arises because of the attachments and not letting go. For a brief period of time, the author experienced exquisite creativity, enthusiasm, clarity and understanding. There was a clear oneness of all things. So he asked why. Why was such an experience given and taken away so quickly. He consulted the oracles in his own way and the following answer was received, "Be aware that you need an emotional purpose for a large vision. An emotional purpose will keep you driving forward. Accept your choice. When you make a choice accept it completely and surrender to all the experiences that go along with your decision. When the choice is made, stop evaluating and let go of your desires and expectations. Experience what is." This is, of course, easier said than done. But, in the end, this was the truth which needed to be experienced and key to any creative endeavor. Alternatively said, one needs passion to create. The greater the creative endeavor, the greater the passion that is needed. Passion is only the flow of energy that can be accessed and directed into one’s creative efforts. It is essential to have some thing on which to focus to both give rise to the passion and on which to direct or ground the flow of energy so that a creation will manifest. If you wish, look it much like a lightening bold. There need to be something which create a powerful electrical potential or separation of the electrical charge and then their needs to be a way for that energy to discharge in a lightening bold because of the flow path created to some ground point. So too our creative passion. There needs to be generation of great energy potential through a creative tension then something on which to focus to discharge that energy. Traditionally, the ground point is seen as some form of muse. The experience of the Ultimate Accident and the release of the playful creative spirit of another and its subsequent recapture and loss of the possibility of creating that gentle phoenix without that needed playful spirit definitely provided an emotional purpose to understand what captured that playful creative spirit. It served this role well. It created both the separation for generating the energy in the creative tension and a path to a ground point to discharge the energy generated by the separation. Almost immediately the author went through the Dark Night of the Soul in a way he could never have imagined. Usually the Dark Night of the Soul is created because one does not release the attachments one has. That is, not letting go of the past and what mind desires. Rather, the author experienced a Dark Night of the Soul because he could not let go of the future. Yes he was attached, but he was attached to what is possible. He was attached to that future where each creative spirit is free to unfold true to itself. Realizing and knowing what is possible when the creative spirit within the individual is free to come out and unfold true to itself was too magnificence in what he saw it could provide to let it go no matter how much pain it created. That awareness of what is possible is what sustained him and gave him the courage to continue the journey into creativity. His Dark Night of the Soul was base not on the past, but in the future. It was in the pain of knowing how much we are missing what is possible when the creative spirit within each individual is not able to be free. It is clear about nine months later that sometime in September, 1996, time frame the author was re-birthed into a new understanding that slowly grew and evolved. As described in "The Rebirth" he noticed that he started bleeding from his navel for a couple of days. He also got a call at 1:30 in the morning from a psychic he met in San Francisco while on a business trip, stating that a crystal was to be inserted in his heart to give him energy. When asked who was to give the crystal and do the insertion, he was told that God was going to do it. In many ways it was a classic shamanistic type story. In October 1996 he felt as though he was out of the cocoon so to speak when he did a guided visualization and the image of a butterfly just leaving the cocoon came to mind. The ego shell of the past had completely shattered. In February 1997, he had the opportunity to go to Hawaii. During this journey, he was able to visit the active volcano to thank Pele. He wanted to thank Pele what he learned through the Huna, the Hawaiian spiritual tradition, as decoded by Max Freedom Long from the Hawaiian language and the understanding about the lower self discussed by many author writing on the subject of Huna. In March, 1997, he was able to understand sufficiently what has happened and was able to begin to write It was only in May 97 that he felt his passion and energy starting to return, at least to the level sufficient to begin to write in a coherent fashion and to truly be able to begin to live in the awareness he accessed. In looking as his journey, the Universe, in Its own way, allowed him to simultaneously see the shamanic journey, the hero’s journey of myth, the Western Dark Night of the Soul and the Kundalini rising to compare them as he experienced the journey. But there was much more to explore and discover before he had to understanding to act on the possibility of creating a gentle phoenix and creating the Critical Mass of Enlightenment Experiment. Observations and conclusions about recovery of the creative spirit Here three notes need to be made - one note each about the possibility of creating a gentle phoenix, the Critical Mass of Enlightenment Experiment, and what this overall journey was about. As to a gentle phoenix, with the understanding gained, it is expected that the process of recreating a aspect of our life and/or revealing and living the intention for our life would be made gentle. That is, faster, easier, gentler and more playful that what would normally be experienced. There was the hope/expectation "A" way would be found. Although various way to create a gentle phoenix, or, maybe better said, although various ways to create a faster, easier, gentler and/or more playful way of transforming ourselves was found, there is no single path or approach which will serve all. We each are too unique for such a single path. The Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity understanding and material and associated web sites were created as that the first step in making the necessary understanding available to people for creating a gentle phoenix. There is a death that the enculturated ego must undergo to recreate itself and/or reveal and live the intention for our life. With any transition there is the possibility of some pain. But much of the pain is determined by how hard we hold on to that which must be released. Most of us get what we think is our truth from enculturation - from our parents, our friends, our authorities or in general from others. Living the intention for our life is learning to get our truth from within. It is to live from that place of silent knowledge, secret knowledge or inner knowing. But there is nothing secret or complicated with accessing this information. It is simply about feeling and learning to find our way through the unknown of our own being and in the world using our internal compass. The inner awareness is what can guide us through life. It is real and it is effective. There is nothing secret about it, it is secret only in the sense that most people have not be taught how to tap into it. Additional guidance about creating a gentle phoenix to access the intention for our life or any creative endeavor is found in the topic, "Gentle Phoenix Guidelines." As for the Critical Mass of Enlightenment Experiment, it has been created on the individual level. The author did create the conditions to become enlightened about the mystical path for our life and how we both create the experiences we have and create the reality of those experiences. However effective the author is in provided the understanding to create your own critical mass of enlightenment is a question only you and answer. But, what is clear, is that when a sufficient number of individuals come to understand how we create our experiences and create the reality we experience, there will be an enlightenment available to humanity to recreate itself and what it means to be human. For this to occur, there needs to be a critical number or mass of individuals who come to understand and live their truth and give the space for others to live their truth before it can happen. What is provided by the author’s story and how he created the conditions for the Ultimate Accident is one such path. The lessons learned from this path can be used by others as appropriate for their life. However, the more effective path is simply to calibrate the internal compass to what provides a fullness of being, fullness of life or feeling of freedom in what is done. Then use the internal compass to guide our life and learn to navigate from the heart. Such a path address our uniqueness and provides the fastest and easiest way. The gentleness is added by becoming wise and looking and the lessons learned from the experiences in our life and what we have learned and the lives of those who made such a journey. The playfulness is gain by addressing the reason why we place our creative spirit in the cage of our own making. Finally, when all is said and done, the underlying message is that there are two paths to our life. One path is the enculturated path or the path of the mind. It is reflective and based on what mind thinks, what mind wants and what mind has been lead to believe about itself and Creation. Then there is the mystical path that is offered to us every moment of our lives. It is reflective of the reason which brought us into life. Both these paths will influence our life and in the same way we need two legs to walk, we need each of these paths in life if we are going to engage life. The goal of life can best be described is to bring these two paths, the enculturated path and mystical path into a oneness such that what we think about life and are lead to do from that thinking is fully in line with what the mystical path ask of us. This, of course, is much easier said that done simply because how Physical Creation pushes us into the mind and out of our heart. In not being able to merge these into one path, the goal is to entwine these two paths in a converging spiral such that we are continually moving toward one path. Converging these two paths into a single path is done by learning the two views of creation and spending some time in view of the mind and the view of the heart. The learning to dance and dance between the mind and the heart in an ever tightening dance. Learning this dance is to calibrate the internal compass and learning to navigate from the heart using the fullness of being, fullness of life, feeling of freedom and other equivalent feelings as the compass point. Follow up on the Critical Mass of Enlightenment Experiment is found in the topic, "Creating a critical mass of enlightenment."
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