Obama’s Peace Prize

The Nobel Committee awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace prize to Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Reacting to the surprise that Obama was awarded the prize after barely nine months in office, the committee members cited his diplomatic opening to the Muslim world, the cancelling of plans for a ballistic missile defense shield for central Europe, and initiatives with climate change and denuclearization.

We wonder if Obama really deserves the peace prize and also what effect this award might have on his political future and diplomatic efforts. Also will the prize actually promote peace?

If we compare the winners of Nobel prizes in other categories with Obama’s peace prize, there is clearly a big discrepancy in terms of life time achievement. The science and literature awards, for example, often come decades after the research or publication of significant work.

Most of the time, the recipients of the other awards are pretty much at the end of their careers. Thus the awards don’t have much impact on their future productivity.

However, the peace prize has evolved into a relatively present time award. Thorbjorn Jagland, the Nobel committee chairman stated “The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world?”

This focus on what has happened in the previous year is justified by a straight forward reading of Nobel’s will where he stated that the prizes should go to those “who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”

So far as chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics go, we generally don’t know what impact discoveries and significant works of literature have in present time. We need the perspective of history to know who has made the most significant contribution.

The same thing is often true for peace efforts. This has lead to some strange anomalies in the peace prize. Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin won in 1994 for efforts to create peace in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. It hasn’t happened there yet.

In 1973 the prize went to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for negotiating the Vietnam peace accord. Although this ended the US combat role in the war, the conflict went on for two more years.

Clearly the Nobel Peace prize is not an acknowledgment of the achievement of peace. It’s an intervention attempting to promote peace. It’s not a life time achievement award so much as a recognition of a work in progress. It’s a kind of prophecy the committee is trying to make come true.

The present centered focus of the peace prize shows great spiritual intelligence on the part of the committee. For peace is a call from the future to act in the present for the sake of the future.

From a metaphysical perspective, it makes sense to act as though we were time travelers coming from the future into our present to improve a future that has already occurred. For we can clearly anticipate what our future will be like if we don’t act in the present.

From our personal relationship experience, we know whatever healing and peace we have been able to achieve came about because we were able to act in a timely fashion when opportunity opened for us.

The Nobel peace prize can be an effective means of promoting peace. The prestige and money that the prize confers can focus attention on some worldwide concerns that transcend narrow self-interests.

The Nobel prizes are one of the rare planetary awards we recognize outside of sports and media. Thus the attention can be on what serves the planet rather than the interests of individual nations or regions.

What the committee does is to send a message to individuals and sometimes institutions along the lines of “I believe in you.” This is exactly what we ought to be doing: cheering on those people and those institutions that have the potential to make a difference and are making a difference.

From this perspective, Obama really deserves the peace prize. His diplomatic initiatives are our best hope for peace in the world, at least in the immediate future.

Obama’s response to the prize shows he has things in the right perspective. He called the prize “a call to action” rather than a recognition of past achievement. Moreover, he asked the American people to join with him in his peace efforts.

What ultimately produces peace in any troubled area on our planet is a change in consciousness. Thus what each individual does either moves the cause of peace forward or holds it back.

The Nobel peace prize usually focuses attention on the actions of a single individual. Yet what ultimately promotes peace on our planet is what everyone is doing. We need a culture of peace. And we need some way to give recognition and acknowledgment to the thousands of peace heroes that quietly go about their work in our world.

Because the Nobel prize recognizes just one individual or small group of people, it is an award with tremendous prestige and responsibility. Obama has the right temperament to wisely use the political capital the prize gives him and also keep in perspective the obligation to live up to the expectations that the prize confers.

The prestige of the prize will help him with his international diplomacy efforts. On the home political front, it has the effect of disrupting the complacency that has settled in around Obama’s presidency. As the euphoria of having someone really different than Bush as our president wears off, we are vulnerable to losing sight of what an exceptional leader Obama actually is.

The prize also gives some fuel to critics. Those who think Obama stands for One Big Awful Mistake for America probably relish this increase in expectations for his presidency. The peace prize controversy is going to feed into the political polarization we will see in the 2012 time as reflected in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles.

This will be coming in any case so the peace prize doesn’t change that equation to any meaningful extent. What I see happening for 2010 and 2012 is a Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck sourced hijacking of the Republican Party by the most conservative elements in it. This pretty much guarantees Obama reelection as well as a continued big Democratic majority in the Congress.

As already stated in a previous blog, my forecast is that Sarah Palin will win the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

In 2010, the conservative wing of the party, emboldened by their success in ousting the Republican candidate in the New York 23rd District in favor of a more conservative person, will militate for a slate of super conservatives in some of the House and Senate races. This will be another disaster for the Republican Party.

Success in the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey is a false dawn for the Republicans. There is a civil war going on in their ranks and the election outcomes in 2009 make this worse.

Distinguishing the Voice of Guidance from Mind Chatter: Part II

Right now we’re feeling an energetic intensity in our world as part of the 2012 wave that is already clearly present. What we experience is confusion, uncertainty, chaos, and also opportunity, transformation, and spiritual opening.

The 2012 wave can be a time of empowerment and breakthrough or a time of contraction and breakdown. In this challenging and exciting time, we naturally call on our inner spiritual resources to guide and direct us.

It’s the ability to summon Guidance when we need it that may make the difference between the best and worst case 2012 scenarios.

Although our Higher Self is continually sending us helpful Guidance in many different forms, we are not always able to understand or take in the messages sent. Moreover, caught up as we are in the pressing pace of everyday life, we often are just not listening.

When a dilemma or problem arises, we usually can’t wait for some spontaneous sign to show itself. We need some method by which we can invoke Guidance.

Methods for invoking Guidance have been part of human history for thousands of years. They are called mantic techniques, i.e., activities that have to do with divination and prophecy.

Mantic techniques involve physical objects which are then subjected to manipulation usually involved a chance configuration. The Celts developed the runes for this purpose and the Chinese used yarrow stalks to cast one of 64 hexagrams described in the I Ching. Specialized card decks such as the Tarot deck were developed in Europe for divination purposes.

Other divination instruments such as the Ouija board and pendulum rely on the subject’s relatively unconscious control of the device to obtain answers to specific questions.

These mantic techniques have their place. Sometimes they are just the thing you need to break the mental log jam around an issue when the rational mind can see equally good reasons on each side of a question. They can be effective when you are facing some major life decision.

Some years ago I was at such a point in my life so I threw the I Ching. The commentary on the hexagram I threw said something to the effect of “he steps on the tail of the tiger but he does not get bitten.” This empowered me to move away from security and the familiar and come to California from North Carolina to start my life over again.

Here is a mantic technique you can employ without special equipment or training. Start with a clear question in your mind. Put the best options onto a scale of should I do A or B or A or B or C.

Go to your own bookshelf or a bookstore or library where there are lots of books. Close your eyes and pick a random book. With your eyes still closed, turn to a random page and let your fingers go a random line. Then read what’s on that line.

If you don’t see any direct connection to your question read the line above and the line below or the entire paragraph. Then reflect on what was on that line until the meaning comes through.

If you do this experiment with a sincere intention to connect with Guidance, you will always get helpful input on your issue. The mind forms a meaningful connection between your question and the randomly selected text.

This gives Guidance a chance to come forth as an amplification of what was already present subliminally in the unconscious.

Guidance has already been sending you messages to help with your question in different forms like dreams and inspirations. So you’ve already received the answers subliminally even when your conscious personality is still in the dark. The mantic techniques help to make explicit what is already implicit.

As helpful as mantic techniques are in invoking Guidance, they have significant limitations. Most of them involve some special equipment like Tarot cards, I Ching commentaries, runes, or pendulums.

Unless you happen to be a professional or dedicated enthusiast, any activity involving special equipment tends to fall into disuse over time. Moreover the equipment needed makes accessing Guidance an exercise that isn’t always portable.

Mantic techniques can be effective when you have a lot of lead time to apply the technique and reflect on the results. However, they aren’t designed to help you when you need Spot Guidance on some time critical dilemma or question.

Often we need some followup to the initial question we pose to Guidance. We need something beyond should I do A or B in a yes or no format. What we want is some direct method of invoking Guidance that has the potential for an open ended dialogue.

Any effort to invoke Guidance runs immediately into the challenge of the interpretation of what comes through. This challenge is generally greater in mantic techniques where the skill of an experienced practitioner is often needed to fully understand the signs revealed.

Human beings have an amazing potential for accessing inner spiritual wisdom and Guidance. Sadly, this potential is underutilized by all of us. However, once you understand that a direct method of access to Guidance is possible, you can start to move toward an effective dialogue with your inner spiritual resource.

As you would expect, the more you practice an effective direct method, the easier it becomes to invoke Guidance. With sufficient application you can relatively quickly reach a place of justified trust in what comes through.

A direct method of invoking Guidance needs the following three elements: grounding, clearing, and invocation.

Generally you will need a state of consciousness different from the normal baseline state. A relaxed, alpha brain wave state is best. A deep trance state is not necessary. Guidance can come through clearly in a light trance state that is only slightly altered from full waking alertness.

Applying the three elements in the direct method is your cue to change states and open to Guidance. With practice, you will need no more than five minutes to reach the optimal state of consciousness.

As I describe the self-instructions and visualizations that I use for the elements, bear in mind that what resonates with you may differ from what works best for me. Create your own formulations and let them evolve with practice.

What is important is to have some self-instruction and visualization that helps you ground yourself, clear the mind of preconceptions, and call Guidance into your space.

Because I am more auditory than visual in my cognitive style, the self-instruction aspects of the elements are very effective for me in reaching grounding, clearing, and invocation. The visualizations are in the background or not fully engaged. If you have a visual cognitive style, envision a clear visualization for each step.

The self-instructions I use may be too long for others. For example, I’m using three separate self-instructions with the intent to come into presence.

Begin the grounding element by taking three deep breaths. This is your cue to slow down to the slightly altered state needed.

For grounding I visualize a chord extending down from the middle of my body into the earth. My self-instruction is, “I open my heart, I open to my body, I open to the earth.”

I follow this up with, “Be in body, be in the body. Be in phase with the physical body in this moment.” “Be radically present, be radically present in this moment, for this moment.” “Be in phase with the activity of this moment. Be in phase with the activity of this moment.”

I start my grounding visualization from the heart because, being an intellectual person, I need to take my focus away from the head and the mind and put it on the heart, body, and earth.

The self-instruction to be in the body may seem strange, but it’s a big help in grounding. Like many of us, I’m often not fully in phase with my body.

A clearing element is always necessary to reach the voice of genuine Guidance. Any question or dilemma of sufficient importance to motivate you to seek help from Guidance is going to be conditioned by fear, desire, investment, and preconception.

Until you clear the mind, you’re likely to get what you fear to see, wishfully desire to see, or expect to see rather than genuine Guidance. My clearing visualization is a scene where I throw things I don’t need into a wishing well.

The self-instructions are, “I release all desire and fear. I release all cognitive investment. Keep the center clear. I open my heart to the Grace of profound uncertainty.”

This last self-instruction is very powerful for me. Profound uncertainty is where you reach a space where you genuinely do not know what is going to appear. Then the projective power of the mind is finally given a rest, and a space is opened for something to fall into your mind.

I put the emphasis on the Grace part because Grace is a wonderfully positive emotional state. My intention is to have an experience of the Grace of being fully open to what needs to show up without trying to manufacture anything from the creative resources of mental projection.

The invocation is the last element. My visualization is a face to face encounter with my Guides. The self-instructions are, “Show me the path to the manifestation of my full potential in this moment, for this moment. I choose transformation. I choose transformation. I open my heart to the Grace of Guidance.”

Practice with the three elements can take you to a place of being fully in state with the presence of Guidance. Then pose your questions as if you were talking directly to a person. “Should I quit my job and move on or stay put?” “Is my intended girlfriend coming back to me?” “Is it over?” “What’s important in this moment?”

Because it is coming through the mind, the connection with Guidance is still subject to mental distortion even with the best clearing element application. Often there is uncertainty with respect to what the message is intended to be. So ask for clarity.

“Did I hear that right?” “Am I really supposed to do that?” “Will I have enough time to get to where I need to go?” “Is the money going to be there to follow my passion around this particular goal?”

A helpful way to end your dialogue session with Guidance is to ask, “What’s missing in my understanding of this question?” This opens the door to what may be outside of your expectations.

The best times to invoke Guidance are just those moments when your usual methods for problem solving have reached a dead end and you know you don’t know what’s best or what the next step needs to be.

Invoking Guidance is also really useful at times of heightened anxiety. Most everyone has a baseline state of resident anxiety. This is much greater in some folks than others. But there are often times when we feel anxious without any discernable reason why we feel this way.

One of the less enjoyable aspects of the 2012 wave is a feeling that we sometimes get that something awful is coming our way. When I get that feeling, it’s almost always because I’m not fully in alignment with the Guidance previously given. I’m out of sync with myself somehow.

When this occurs, I generally check out various fears I have about potential threats outside of my inner process to see if they have any basis.

A much more direct way of working with anxiety is simply to invoke Guidance and ask, “Where am I vulnerable in this moment?”

A good time to invoke Guidance is when you’re falling asleep or in those moments when you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re half asleep. The advantage present in these moments is that you’re already in a slightly altered state.

The falling asleep time is also an opening to ask Guidance to send you a dream that dramatizes your dilemma or problem and what’s best to move forward with it.

It is helpful to practice invoking Guidance using the three elements at times when you have the space to ruminate and reflect on what needs to come next. When you practice the invocation in these reflective moments, you have a solid foundation to go for Spot Guidance in time critical situations.

By Spot Guidance I mean the Guidance you seek when you need an answer or a direction in the immediate moment. Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of reflection.

An example would be a situation where you seeing something you’re really drawn to at a store or other location. You wonder, “Can I afford this?” “Should I buy this now?” Often our opportunities are fleeting. Coming back tomorrow may be impossible or too late.

If you don’t have time for the full protocol of the three elements, go for a shortcut invocation sequence. It won’t help to leave out the clearing element though. When you’re under time pressure, emotional intensity runs high and desire and fear have their own voices.

So as a shortcut try the clearing element plus a single self-instruction like, “I open my heart to the Grace of Guidance.”

In a time critical crisis moment, you can go for the super short cut invocation which is simply asking Guidance, “What’s best?”

Distinguishing the Voice of Guidance from Mind Chatter

We’re already feeling the challenges of the 2012 wave. The issue for ourselves as individuals and for our culture and civilization is whether the energetic intensification of the 2012 time will move us to a fuller manifestation of our potential or result in a fall into chaos and dysfunction.

This extraordinary time is a test of character. It’s an opening for application of our spiritual intelligence as a way of maintaining a perspective on the deep story of what is happening in our world.

By spiritual intelligence I mean the deeper wisdom potential that lives within each individual. There is a wisdom source separate from our ego personality that communicates with us. We call on it in moments of crisis. It is available to us in every minute of our lives to assist us in making the most mundane decisions.

I call this source Guidance. What is Guidance? Is it God speaking to us, our Higher Self, our past life self, our future self, some departed relative, our guardian angel, some higher dimensional being, or some wise alien friend?

There is a great chain of being called the spiritual network. We’re sort of near the bottom as embodied human beings. The first level up from humankind is our Higher Self and discarnates of various kinds, then angels and higher dimensional beings, and ultimately Source or God.

It’s easy to get lost in questions of hierarchy and what’s happening at subtle levels of reality beyond our three dimensional continuum. But these metaphysical questions don’t have to be sorted out in order to receive benefit from the inner spiritual resource.

You might think that with all of these spectral beings potentially open to communicate with us there would be a cacophony of spiritual advisors, each having a different voice and message, and with some disagreeing with others. However, things don’t work quite the same in the spiritual network as they do on our three dimensional plane.

For true Guidance comes to us as a single clear voice. It usually expresses itself in terms readily understandable to our level of intelligence. For the most part it doesn’t give us esoteric or cosmic truth. It talks about our everyday concerns in direct personal terms.

This is because the true voice of Guidance is filtered down to us through the medium of our Higher Self. Regardless of where the helpful inspirations originate from in the spiritual network, it’s channeled through the Higher Self faculty.

The Higher Self is our closest point of connection to the spiritual network and thus it’s where our three dimensional based humanity can most easily intersect with the spiritual realm.

Besides the Guidance faculty coming through our Higher Self, there are other channels of spiritual communication open to us. For example, there is the potential for engaging with discarnates, i.e., dead people. For as many different kinds of sentient beings as there are in our multiverse, there is human potential for communicating with these sources.

The issue of distinguishing the voice of Guidance from mind chatter then turns out to be a twofold challenge. On the one hand, the human mind is fragmented into different subpersonalities, each with its own distinct voice.

For example, there is the inner critic, the inner cynic, the inner child, the inner wild man or woman. The voices we hear in our head are often the result of the mind speaking to itself.

On the other hand, we sometimes experience spiritual communications from different interdimensional sources other than the Guidance that comes through the Higher Self.

With respect to communication from discarnates, being dead doesn’t automatically make one a better person. Moreover not all aliens are supportive of human welfare and not every channeled entity can be trusted.

However, if we can develop a good dialogue with the voice of Guidance, this can be a way to discriminate between life-affirming and life-negating spiritual presences. You can use Guidance to determine if you should engage with some spiritual communication that comes to you or if you should shut the door.

Everyone has at least some transitory experience with these spiritual communications that are not the voice of Guidance. They come in dreams, for examples. Once you have a trustworthy relationship with Guidance, you can undertake spiritual opening to any extent and still maintain good personal and spiritual boundaries in the process.

Unlike spiritual influences that do not come by way of the Higher Self, the voice of Guidance is readily accessible within each human being and is continually present.

Guidance comes to us in many different forms on a daily basis. In addition to intuitive inspirations that come in the waking state, Guidance communicates to us through dreams, fantasies and daydreams, visions, coincidences, accidents, body symptoms, and illnesses.

There are tremendous benefits in being able to take in Guidance in the form of intuitive inspiration. When you’re tuned into Guidance on a regular basis, you can, for the most part, avoid the communication through desperate measures that come in the form of nightmares, accidents, body symptoms, and illnesses.

Because of agreements we make before we’re born, for many of us, our lives turn out to be one big growth conspiracy. It seems our purpose on this planet is to experience, learn, and grow.

If we have a good relationship with our Higher Self, then pretty much everything that happens to us is going be either a manifestation of our positive potential or a lesson pointing us in the direction of growth and transformation.

Everyone is on a growth mission in this life whether they realize it or not. Depending on where folks fall on the spiritual intelligence scale, they may be moving at a rapid transformational pace or almost invisible pace.

For those on the upper half of the scale, alignment with the transformation process will manifest as various spiritual openings to Guidance. We naturally want these openings to be low drama communications versus the fall on our butt variety.

These latter symptomatic breakdown kind of communications come in just when we’re too resistant to see the other messages that were given before. The breakdown is then a symptom of something beyond itself that points to the lesson needed.

When we are forced to stop and ask “Why did this happen to me?” there is an opportunity to see through to the message implicit in the event.

As we ramp up to the energetic intensification of the 2012 wave, being able to take in the Guidance available from our Higher Self in a direct and simple form becomes a crucial factor in getting to breakthrough rather than breakdown.

The 2012 wave is a time of accelerating change and transformation. If we can stay connected to Guidance, we can ride the big waves of spiritual opening as they come in. The result will then be an acceleration of our personal growth and individual evolution.

Many of the forms of communication in which Guidance comes to us are relatively indirect and require some skill in interpretation before we understand the intended message. Dreams are notorious in this respect. Also, we can simply fail to get the point in coincidences, body symptoms, and symptomatic breakdowns.

However, with intuitive inspirations, Guidance uses the language centers of the brain/mind to communicate in terms that are pretty straightforward. But, as mentioned above, there is a constant chatter happening inside ourselves. How can we know which of the inner voices we hear is really the voice of Guidance?

What I’m referring to as inner voices generally come as thoughts and inspirations. For the most part, it not like we hear someone speaking as if it were another person. So inner voice must be understood as a kind of metaphor of a specific form of distinct communication within our minds.

Calling Guidance an inner voice makes sense to the extent to which the thought or inspiration that comes to us has a different quality than our usual internal dialogue. It is by means of this distinct quality that we can discriminate genuine Guidance from mind chatter and other mental noise.

Guidance never advises us to do harm to ourselves, to other people, or other sentient beings. So that impulse you sometimes get to throw your project into the river is not the voice of Guidance. If it’s a hateful, vengeful, or self-destructive thought you’re having, you’re not tuned into Guidance.

Guidance comes from a place of infinite patience and compassion. It has a positive supportive tone but it’s not righteous, moralistic or judgmental. It’s easy to distinguish the voice of Guidance from the inner critic because Guidance does not invoke blame, shame, or guilt.

The quality of the communications from Guidance are generally free of emotional overtones. The inspirations are direct, straightforward, and real time focused.

For example, when I’m getting ready to go somewhere I’m generally anxious about whether or not I’m got everything I going to need. “Is it going to rain?” “Should I take my umbrella?” At this point Guidance will come in and say, “You don’t need that.”

I wonder should I eat this big snack right before I go to sleep? Guidance comes in and says simply, “That would be a mistake.” Note there is no “ought,” “should,” or “have to” here, just a straight forward message.

At other times, Guidance comes in to say something like, “It would be good if you did this now.” I wondering whether I should stay up a little bit latter than normal in order to make a small step forward in my project. Guidance will say, “This is important.”

What you discover is that when you have tuned in the real voice of Guidance then, at least ninety to ninety-five percent of the time, what was said to be important really is important. What was said to be a mistake, really is one and what was said to be not needed, really wasn’t.

This awareness gives us a road map with respect to discriminating the voice of Guidance from mind chatter. Follow up the inspirations you receive that you believe are coming from Guidance and see how helpful and accurate the counsel is. Pay attention to the quality of the voice from which inspiration sprang.

To the extent that the information is on target almost all the time, you will have succeeded in tuning in the Guidance station on your inner radio.

Another way of looking at Guidance is to see it as an appeal to us coming from our better nature. Ira Hayes received a call one day of this sort. Hayes was one of six men featured in the iconic photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima.

After the battle, the three survivors were shipped to the United States to be part of a war bond drive. There was confusion with respect to who the sixth man was. He was falsely identified as Hank Hansen.

Hayes disputed this because he knew that Harlon Block was the actual sixth person in the photograph. But Hansen had already been officially identified as the sixth man and Hayes was ordered to keep quiet.

Hayes came back from the front a shattered man suffering from what we today identify as post traumatic shock syndrome. He became depressed and alcoholic. However, one day, eighteen months after he returned, he received an inner call from his better nature.

Hayes then hitchhiked 1300 miles from Arizona to Texas to talk in person to the Block family and tell them what he knew. Block’s mother, who always thought that her son was the sixth man, wrote a letter to her Congressman. An investigation ensued and Harlon Block’s place in history was restored.

Guidance comes to us spontaneously in many moments of our lives but you can also call Guidance forth when you need it. How to invoke Guidance will be the subject of Part II of this thread.

Humans Behaving Badly

In the month of September, there have been several instances of disturbing breaches of decorum. These violations of implicit social contracts leave us wondering what is happening and what it means.

Moreover, what motivates our emotional reaction to these events which are of relatively small consequence compared to the unprecedented planetary challenges we face such as global warming and worldwide economic turmoil?

For those who may have been kidnapped by aliens for the last week or so or have otherwise been out of the current events loop, here is a summary of four incidents of interest.

Thursday, September 03. After a football game between the Oregon Ducks and the Boise State Broncos won by Boise State by a score of 19-8, Bryon Hout, linebacker for the Broncos, taps the starting tailback for the Ducks, Le Garrette Blount, on the shoulder and says something to him.

A Boise State coach yells at Hout and tries to pull him away. Before he can do this, Blount knocks Hout down with a punch to the face.

Wednesday, September 9. President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress on the subject of health care reform. He gets to this point in this speech: “There are those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms – the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

At just this point Joe Wilson, representative from South Carolina, yells out: “You lie.”

Sunday, September 13. Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters play a semi-final match at the US Tennis Open. Trailing 4-6 and 5-6 and behind in the game 15-30, Serena is called for a foot fault by the linesperson on her second serve. This makes the score 15-40 and match point.

Williams walks over to the linesperson, points at her with her racket cursing, and says something to the effect of shoving the ball down the linesperson’s throat. Williams is assessed a second code violation (she had had another earlier for racket abuse) and so there was a point penalty. This makes it game, set, match for Clijsters.

Sunday, September 13. At the MTV music awards in New York City, a 19 year old country singer, Taylor Swift, wins the award for best female video. After she says only a few words, Kanye West comes onto the stage grabs the microphone and says: “Taylor, I’m really happy for you. I’m going to let you finish but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time.”

At this point Swift is so rattled she can’t continue.

Jimmy Carter weighed in on the Joe Wilson outburst and basically said he thought it was motivated by racism.

In each of these four incidents the conflicts were between people of different races: Blount is black, Hoyt white, Wilson white and Obama black, Serena black and the linesperson Asian, West black and Swift white.

I think Carter’s comments were counterproductive. This is not because racism is no longer an issue in America, but because we need to make it so. We need conflicts to be focused on issues of substance and not issues of racial bias.

It’s important not to jump to the conclusion that Wilson’s outburst was racially motivated even if he has in the past defended flying the Confederate Flag over the South Carolina state house.

Racism will no longer be an issue for us just at the point where we judge people according to their character and conduct and not because of their skin color. The United States has a way to go before we arrive at that place, but I think we ought to celebrate the progress made along that line.

For example, no serious American politician today would defend openly racist views or support politics like segregation based on these views.

With that said, one index of progress in having a just society free of racial basis will be the extent to which people of color are treated equally with whites when they behave badly.

Blount was suspended from the Oregon team for the remainder of the season. Since he is a senior, this ends his football career as a college athlete and dims his chances to compete in the pros. The person who taunted him, on the other hand, will not miss any games.

The reaction to West’s improv at the MTV awards has been a vilification that is way out of proportion to the harm done.

On the other side of the racial social justice ledger, Wilson was censured by the House of Representatives in an unprecedented move. Serena’s $10,500 fine seems like an insignificant consequence, although further action against her may be forthcoming.

In terms of what is motivating these incidents of bad behavior, frustration is a key factor. Blount had what must have been his worst day as an athlete before the fateful punch. In eight carries, he was a net -5 yards and was tackled for a safety.

Serena was being outplayed and losing her match to Clijsters when she had her meltdown at match point.

As part of a shrinking Republican minority in Congress, and with Obama in charge of the White House, Joe Wilson has his measure of frustration with respect to the prospects of having his legislative priorities given serious consideration.

West was apparently frustrated that Beyonce didn’t get the award for best female video.

The issue here is how we are going to respond to the stresses we will encounter in the 2012 wave that is already upon us. Acting out and loss of emotional control is certainly one option but one with disastrous, self-sabotaging consequences.

These events are object lessons that we can learn from along the lines of negative role modeling.

We need to strengthen the provocation gate-keeper function within ourselves and resist the temptation to act out when provoked. The 2012 wave puts us on edge and irritation and frustration are what we experience on an almost daily basis.

These incidents of bad behavior are disturbing to us because they seem to indicate a weakening of the social contract that makes orderly life possible. If the competitive passion of sports degenerates into brawling, sport as an organized activity can’t continue.

Similarly if tennis players are allowed to bully and intimate the referees, the integrity of the sport is undermined. Heckling of the President disrespects the office and takes away from the authority that we wish to invest in that person.

And an awards program is totally disrupted by someone stealing the microphone from the person who just won the award.

I think these events are especially unsettling to us now because we sense that our entire civilization is undergoing rapid transformation. We have justifiable anxiety that some of our institutions are not going to survive without major overhaul.

At the very least, we want the changes that we are undergoing in the 2012 wave to not degenerate into social anarchy and chaos.

As described in other blogs, the 2012 time is turning out to be a time of both breakdown and breakthrough. Some people are going to thrive and experience tremendous openings for transformation and manifestation of their potential.

Other people are going to be caught up in contraction, negative emotional states, and hostile behavior.

We’re seeing now the beginning stages of a kind of polarization of people into groupings based on spiritual intelligence. The health care reform debate is one current index of this trend.

On one extreme are those people who are trying to reach meaningful reform. At the other extreme are people who are resisting reform and fighting it with misinformation and outright lies.

We can see this polarity reflected in how the perpetrators in the bad behavior scenarios reacted to their situations. In two cases, genuine remorse was expressed that reflected some understanding of the true nature of the regrettable conduct.

In the other two cases, what we saw was what could best be characterized as defiant apologies. These were statements crafted by a public relations staff person for the sole purpose of taking the people of interest off the hot seat.

Blount said that he would accept any punishment for his conduct. And Kanye West went on Jay Leno’s program with the expressed intent of making a sincere public apology.

Serena didn’t apologize at all at first and made it seem as though her outburst was some kind of collateral effect from her being a passionately competitive person. This makes it seem like she believes her conduct should just be overlooked.

She went on Good Morning America and, while acknowledging she was not a perfect person, used the occasion to hype her book. She stated that the incident would be a chapter in the forthcoming book, ostensibly showing her in a net positive light.

Joe Wilson refused to apologize to the House of Representatives. He is making his heckling of the President into a statement of defiance of the policies he opposes.

Our social order is being transformed. This transformation has been in the making for decades and the 2012 wave just accelerates the process to a dizzying pace.

The apocalypse we face in 2012 is not sourced in catastrophic earth changes but in a reinvention of civilization. We’re reaching a point at which we’re not sure which implicit rules of social order still apply.

When you look at the big picture of social transformation, there are some really hopeful and positive trends and the bad behaviors illustrate these.

For example, we’ve reached quick, relatively universal consensus on the unacceptability of the behaviors in question. I think this shows an overall trend of growth in spiritual intelligence for our species as a whole. A new sense of social justice is emerging.

This is helped, of course, by the mass media technology of the internet and social networking sites.

If you make a complete ass out of yourself, as did each of the perpetrators in our bad behavior scenarios, your action is likely to become immortalized in videos and replays that reach millions in the blink of a eye. Instant replay of stupidity and bad behavior is available for now and for all future generations.

In the MTV awards event, there were also moments of incredible Grace that emerged after the initial chaos. There was breakthrough as well as breakdown in the same evening. Taylor Swift showed tremendous poise in the situation after having been assaulted with an unimaginable turn of events.

Five minutes after her big moment had been literally ripped from her fingers, she went on to give an astounding performance of her signature song for which she won the award. The performance starts out on a subway platform under New York City, continues through the moving subway car, and ends at Radio City Music Hall.

As it turned out, Beyonce won the MTV award for the best video of the year. Citing her experience of being 17 and winning her first award, she invited Taylor back to the stage for a do over of her acceptance speech. She turned the potential rivalry with Swift that West was going for completely on its head.

Health Care Reform Forecast

Congress is returning from the August recess and the fate of health care reform will soon be decided. Much is riding on this initiative. With the economy still struggling and health care costs continually rising, many economically disadvantaged people just can’t afford health care.

There are an estimated 46 million people currently living in the United States that have no health insurance. Millions more are underinsured and, when you add these people to those with no insurance at all, it is a staggering 42% of the United States population under age 65.

From the short term perspective, it would seem an inauspicious time for a progressive health care push with uncertain economic impact. There is justified fear that the federal deficit could grow even larger with a major health care reform bill.

Yet Obama’s effort to bring one of his principle campaign promises to fruition in the fall of 2009 is very timely if you look at the big picture. For millions of uninsured or underinsured people are either not going to the doctor at all or availing themselves of some sort of stop gap treatment like emergency room visits.

Looking at the economy from an ecological perspective, some version of affordable universal health care makes good sense. Without it, a significant percentage of our population is not fully productive as a result of preventable and treatable health issues. And taxpaying citizens have to ultimately pick the tab for the stop gap treatments of the uninsured and underinsured.

Moreover, out of control health care costs pinches all but the most wealthy people and erodes their economic prospects. A single serious illness or accident can easily result in a six figure bill. If you have no insurance, then you are facing bankruptcy. If underinsured, it’s most likely going to result in a wipeout of your savings.

The motivation to serve the greater good in the big picture is a good working definition of what is meant by a progressive politician. At the other end of the spectrum are those political folk who are motivated by short term, narrow personal and economic self-interest. These would be the contra progressives.

The tension between these two camps seems to be the big undercurrent in today’s political landscape. This dynamic doesn’t translate neatly into Democrat or Republican or liberal and conservative labels.

For it seems that we’re drifting into a three party scenario with Republicans, less progressive and more conservative Democrats, and more progressive, more liberal Democrats. Then the three functional political groups would be Republicans, conservative Democrats and liberal Democrats.

Most, but not all, of the Republicans seem to have framed the health care reform debate as an opportunity to undercut the presidency of Barack Obama.

Certainly if Obama were unable to get a health care reform bill done with a basically filibuster proof Senate and substantial majorities in each house, the tremendous momentum and political influence he has enjoyed since his almost landslide election would seem to have been curtailed.

I think this is what’s behind the campaign of outrageous disinformation that has come from the Republican camp. They are helped, of course, by vagueness with respect to what a final version of health care reform bill is going to be.

But it’s undeniable that some of their aspiring leaders are playing on people’s fears. Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are the leading offenders.

What I look in the crystal ball what I see is that there will be major health care reform passed by the Congress within one month’s time. Moreover, what amounts to the soul of health care reform, a public option, will also get through in some form.

My reading is that about 70% of Obama’s vision of health care reform will be enacted this year. A 30% compromise will be needed to assuage the fears and reservations of more conservative so called blue dog Democrats.

This will be pretty much a Democratic bill without much Republican input or support. Obama and the Democrats are going to push ahead without going for further bipartisan consensus.

What will be disappointing in the bill from the progressive point is view is that the public option will be in some watered down form like something that comes into play with a trigger option in the next three years or so.

This is still a monumental achievement and it will be eventually be a very popular program with wide public support as the details come to light and it’s put into practice.

Those who are busy writing the obituary of the Obama presidency will have to find something more productive to do.

2012: What’s Needing to be Healed Coming to Awareness

The 2012 phenomenon is a wave of energetic intensification that is already happening in our world. This 2012 wave presents us with a unique opportunity for transformation. For one of the effects of this wave is the activation of feelings and emotions.

We are being juiced by this wave that is sweeping over us and energy is flowing into all parts of our nervous system. Long standing issues, emotional events from long ago, and deep longings are suddenly intruding into our awareness.

The perspective in which we hold these feeling activations is a key to whether we see the energetic weather fronts of the 2012 time as an oppressive disruption or as an unexpected opening for empowerment and healing.

When our issues come into awareness, there is an opportunity for healing if we can make a full conscious connection with them and reach a level of radical honesty about what is dysfunctional in our lives. What is needing to be healed is coming to awareness. Let’s designate this process by the acronym WAHEALA.

We already see WAHEALA at work in various aspects of our economic system. Such things as credit default swaps, subprime mortgages, and investment banking practices have all been brought into painful awareness. Now some kind of economic adjustment is happening and we know that the economic future is not going to be like the past.

The 2012 phenomenon is WAHEALA for our whole civilization. When we can acknowledge the WAHEALA that is taking place in our own lives, we can be like the tai chi master gracefully stepping back in the face of the energetic forces we confront, staying on center, ready to meet the next challenge.

Awareness and conscious connection are often not sufficient to bring about the healing we seek especially if long standing issues are being activated. We also need a new perspective in which to hold them.

Often the emotions that accompany the awareness of our issues can be a cloud standing between us and an understanding of the deep story.

This will be especially true if what we feel is guilt, shame, or blame. These emotional states induce us to contract our awareness and take solace in various distractions and addictions.

If guilt, shame, or blame is what you feel in the WAHEALA feeling activation, it’s important to do a ritual clearing of the energetic field. See my blog entries Clearing the Energetic Field Part I and II for guidelines on how to move these energies to an experience of greater empowerment.

Once you’ve cleared the energetic field, ask for Guidance about the deeper meaning of what’s happening in your present experience. Assume that you have access to some spiritual resource within yourself. Address this Guidance with direct questions such as “What is this?” “Why has this old memory of past pain suddenly come to mind?” Be patient while you wait for a response.

When WAHEALA is happening in your life, everything else goes into slow motion. You’re not going to be as efficient as you were before with respect to dealing with mundane responsibilities and keeping the work momentum moving forward.

When you can put full attention on WAHEALA, you can speed up the process. This would be through such activities as journaling, counseling, and reflection.

Often, however, our tasks and responsibilities take up most of our attention. Then WAHEALA will still be happening, but it will be working in the background of everything else that you do.

Should that be the case, you’ll be vulnerable to sudden, unexpected crashes of attention where you get unusually tired, fall into passive behavior like television, or otherwise suffer distraction from what you feel is important to do.

Fortunately, in the WAHEALA experience, Guidance is actively giving us input about how to adapt and manage our energies. Be alert for spontaneous inspirations to improvise on your usual routine and habit patterns.

When WAHEALA is afoot there will be times when you need to marshal your energies and heroically overcome the resistance to being fully focused on accomplishing some short term goal or work task.

There will be other times when you’ll need to declare your space an exertion free zone and put yourself on a banana slug pace for a while.

WAHEALA turns out to be a challenge of energetic maintenance. Even without the 2012 wave, our modern pace of life already presents us with abundant challenges of managing our energy. Hopefully we have developed some adaptive strategies. So, when you’re aware that WAHEALA is taking place, give more attention to energetic management activities such as meditation, exercise, recreation, play, and rewarding social activities.

With WAHEALA you’re just not as efficient as you used to be and the attention that the spiritual opening requires may leave you feeling like your life is on a downward spiral.

But WAHEALA is a growth phase and whatever investment you put into transformation will yield big rewards in the future with respect to whatever goals you have.

Don’t look too far into future. Focus on the challenge of the present moment. Have faith that the transformational process will take you to a place of healing and effectiveness.

When WAHEALA happens, social needs increase. Rewarding human relationships become more important than ever before. This is an opportunity to deepen the relationships you already have or to find new love. An opening for genuine intimacy is possible. The need for connection becomes greater than our fears of commitment or of losing ourselves in inappropriate or dysfunctional relationship.

Economic Forecast

Here is a progress report on the economic predictions I’ve made in the last couple of years and a preview of what is to come in the remainder of 2009 and 2010.

My prediction was for a worldwide global recession (The Great Recession) starting in late 2007 to early 2008 that would last about three years with further economic disruptions lasting for at least two more years.

My reading was that the stock market would fall to a low of 7500. I predicted some positive signs of recovery around the middle of 2009.

It appears that the recession started around the middle of 2008. The stock market went to a low of 6500 but this only lasted about a week and then it rebounded to the predicted floor of 7500. We are seeing signs of recovery here in August, 2009.

With a minus 1 GDP for the last quarter, economists are predicting a positive GDP for the third quarter of the year. This would make it seem as though we may be officially out of recession by the end of 2009.

Recession is defined as two quarters of negative GDP in a row and recovery as two positive GDP quarters in the row.

This makes it look as though the Great Recession would only last a year and a half rather than the three years predicted. However, there are several problems with measuring the Great Recession with the yardstick of GDP.

In the first place, the GDP projection doesn’t take into account the unemployment rate which always lags behind the official recovery by some months. It would be perverse to claim that our country is in recovery with a 10% or higher unemployment rate.

My reading on unemployment falls in line with mainstream economic forecasts of further increases in unemployment in 2009 to at least 10%.

Also using GDP as a basic measure of economic health is a symptom of the economic challenges we are facing. Government spending is one of the core elements used in computation of GDP and, with trillion dollar deficit spending, Congress has artificially pumped up the GDP. You don’t have to be a psychic to realize that this is not a sustainable scenario.

We’ve been operating from an expansion metaphor as a model of economic health. The expectation is that all the measures need to be in continual increase.

But the United States like much of the Western world is moving towards zero population growth. In some countries the population is currently shrinking. Russia and Japan are two examples. At some point in the not too distant future, we’re going to have fewer consumers and fewer individuals to generate a perpetual increase in goods and services.

In many third world countries, it’s a different scenario because their populations are still growing and poverty is rampant. Therefore their economic needs and priorities are different from the industrialized world. This increasing disparity between rich countries and the poor countries affects everyone on the planet.

As we have seen economic troubles in the United States triggered a worldwide recession. Globalization has made the world economies interdependent and even what’s happening in remote places on the globe will eventually impact all of us.

Also, of course, the model of perpetual economic expansion ignores limits in the availability of natural resources. Right now we’re right on the cusp of peak oil. When the full impact of peak oil starts to manifest, the production of oil available to the world will start to decline irrespective of how much exploration and development is invested in generating new supplies.

Lastly, the GPD is a measure of quantities and does not effectively measure quality of life. We assume that the standard of living and quality of life mirrors people’s access to material goods and their financial means.

This is certainly true up to a certain point with respect to food, clothing, shelter, and basic health care. But once poverty is not an issue, having more stuff and more money doesn’t necessarily lead to a better life.

Gainful employment does not automatically equate to meaningful work. The activities which give people the most life satisfaction often don’t correlate well with what pays the most money.

What I see for a post 2012 world is the possibility of the emergence of a new economic paradigm based on ecology, sustainability, and quality of life indicators. We already have the means to raise the population of the entire planet out of poverty.

With a focus on quality rather than quantity, we can have a world devoted to the full development of every person’s potential. This would be a world in which every person has the choice of how they want to spend their time and engage their energies unfettered by survival concerns.

Right now we stand right at the crossroads of the two paths that lead either to this wonderful economic metamorphosis or some version of nightmarish economic apocalypse.

How will we manage in this transition phase between the old and the emerging economic realities? Are we going to go about remodeling our economic house by burning it down first or find some less drastic solution?

What we experienced in the US in the last fifteen months or so has been an economic configuration that could be represented by the letter U. We’ve had catastrophic economic declines and disruptions that have now leveled out to a relatively flat place. We’re at the bottom of the U and just starting up the right side.

But we’re not at the beginning of the end of the Great Recession. We are (to steal a phrase from Winston Churchill) just at the end of the beginning. To accurately represent what’s coming down the road, you have to take the right side of the U and flatted in out from ninety degrees to something more like 45 degrees.

From the GDP perspective, the recession is going to be officially over, yet unemployment rates will be at 10% or greater and the economic situation of most of the people in the United States will not have changed much. My reading is that it will take us fully three years to have unemployment back down to pre-recession levels. That would be the middle of 2011.

My reading is that the stock market will be at just over 10,000 by the end of 2009 but it will be mid 2011 before the stock market regains the high point it had before the recession began. That high point was 14,198 on October 11, 2007.

With respect to the housing market, my reading is that it will be five years from the mid 2008 starting time before there is a substantial recovery in this sector. Even then I don’t see the inflation in house prices we experienced before.

The severe economic challenges we are currently having are a symptom of the profound changes that are needed. We’re evolving to a new economic paradigm. But, because there is little acknowledgment or awareness of this, the bad economic results we’ve recently witnessed look like things are just falling apart and recovery looks like a return to business as usual.

But business is never going to completely return to how it was before. Many of the jobs that have been lost are not going to return. We just don’t need as many people to run the economic engine as we thought we needed before. The model of having everyone working 40 hours or more per week needs to be changed. The idea of what work means has to evolve.

If you look at our economic challenges through this lens of economic metamorphosis, then you can see how the Great Recession is a benefit to our civilization. It can wake us up to the fact that fundamental change is needed in how we do business and how we can achieve a sustainable and functional economic system.

But how long is it going to take us to reach the best case scenario of a post 2012 positive economic reality? It will take us at least 20 years to get there on our own.

Fortunately we’ll have some help along the way. This will come in the form of extraterrestrial technology which will give us a new cheap form of pollution free energy. With this help my forecast is that we’ll have a new economic paradigm fully functional in not more than 10 years from the present date.

Energetic Weather Update

We’re already feeling the effects of the 2012 wave and one symptom is an intensification of energetic weather. By energetic weather I mean the net resultant of all the subtle vibrational influences that impact human beings. It’s something in addition to whatever interpersonal or intrapersonal drama we have going on. We experience it as an emotional atmosphere and vibrational intensity.

When the energetic weather is intense, there is anxiety, uncertainty, fear and confusion but also excitement, anticipation and a sense of it being a particularly meaningful time. The Chinese character for crisis illustrates the dual potential of strong energetic weather. The character is a combination of the symbols for danger and opportunity.

My reading is that there is an intense energetic weather wave coming our way in August, 2009. August will see the biggest energetic waves we’ve experienced so far this year. I don’t see anything particularly dramatic happening to source this either in the United States or in the world as a whole. I don’t see any major domestic or world drama for August.

The energetic weather originates from the 2012 effect. It is part of the vibrational intensification that our planet is undergoing in the run up to 2012 and in the immediate years after.

When I prophesy the coming of a big energetic wave for August, the objective is not to generate fear and dread. The goal is to provide a context in which we can understand what is happening and adapt to it. In some ways August will be a microcosm of the whole 2012 phenomenon. Empowerment, transformation, and breakthrough will be possible but there is also a potential for chaos and breakdown.

We can move up to a higher level of order or suffer a loss of cohesion and structure. This makes sense in terms of Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures. According to this view, if you subject a highly complex system to a strong vibrational influence, it has the potential to go to a new level of order or it may just fall apart. This is exactly the challenge we’re facing in the 2012 wave. August will be a preview of what is to come.

The higher sense of order that is possible is in the form of personal insight, transformation of old habits and patterns, and creative potential. The energetic wave front generates an altered state. The issue then becomes whether we’re going to be fully present to take advantage of this perspective or allow the activation potential of the energy to carry us into dysfunctional attitudes and behavior.

When we can find a way to anchor ourselves in the present moment, the energetic weather waves can propel us into a state of authentic present centeredness. This will be a state of heightened awareness and spiritual opening.

Rather than the authentic present centeredness designation, let’s call this state radical presence. This term focuses on the felt difference in perception and awareness that contrasts with our usual state of consciousness.

I’ll be saying more about radical presence in future blogs and I’ve written about some points relevant to this topic in the Empowerment and Transformation in the 2012 Time Parts I, II, III.

Respecting the fact that radical presence is a open ended topic that reaches into every aspect of effective living, I want to detail a few pointers that seem particularly relevant to the energetic weather challenge of August, 2009.

If centeredness, authenticity, and presence is the goal, it’s no surprise that meditation would be especially important in times of intense energetic weather. There are hundreds of forms of meditation and they all have a positive effect. Any activity that takes you to a calm, centered place applies. It might be walking by the lake, or working in the garden, or just listening to soothing music.

If you have a sitting meditation practice, this is an especially effective form. Continuity is important. It’s more effective to meditate five minutes a day, every day, then to meditate an hour one day a week.

Noninvestment is another important adaptive key. Noninvestment means letting go of form. In the 2012 time as a whole and, for August in particular, we’re not going to have business as usual. If you get caught up in how things are not working the way they used to or in the overall chaos that can be witnessed at every turn, you’ll be vulnerable to a negative emotional spiral.

Don’t focus on dysfunction as dysfunction. Keep your attention on your goals whatever they may be. Reduce expectations of efficiency and focus on effectiveness. It’s not really that important how long it takes you to reach a particular goal or how many detours there are. Getting there is what’s important. Focus on the goal not the form.

The energetic weather front that we’re moving into brings with it a temptation to speed everything up. We feel activated, stimulated, excited. Yet it’s essential is to slow down the pace. Radical presence is a relatively slow wave brain state. When the pace gets speeded up, you fall out of phase with the activity of the moment. One indicator is when things started falling off the kitchen counter on to the floor.

An example of a speeded up pace would be what we often experience on the freeway when the traffic is relatively low. This speedy pace can put us out of phase with the physical body. When you’re speeded up, you’re energetically out of phase with your body. You need to be in your body to have radical presence.

The energetic weather waves bring with them a noticeable increase in the irritability and irascibility index. This makes for challenges in our interactions with others. People tend to overreact to things and when conflict results, it often feels like people have taken up irreconcilable positions with respect to each other.

It’s important to not overreact to what other people are doing. Resist temptations to provocation. Seek mediation when conflict results.

The Henry Louis Gates kerfuffle is a good object lesson for these challenges. Mr. Gates came back from a trip to China and had difficulty getting in his front door so he broke into his own house. A neighbor thought this was a burglary in progress and called the police. Gates ended up being arrested for disorderly conduct. Obama weighed in and said he thought the police acted stupidly.

Here we see three parties who seem to have overreacted to a situation which did not have to result in conflict and major political distraction at a time when big issues are being negotiated in Congress.

Obama’s resolution of inviting the aggrieved parties to the White House for a beer shows the positive potential inherent in the chaos of the 2012 time. What started out as a regrettable series of blunders by all parties involved resulted in a grand gesture of racial reconciliation and healing. Mr. Gates recently sent flowers to the neighbor who called the police on him.

Clearing the Energetic Field: Part II

In Part I of this theme I talked about the importance of clearing the energetic field through ritual means as a way of maintaining a positive ecology of well-being. Because we’re not generally thinking in terms of the health of our energetic field, we often tolerate negative energies around us and are then vulnerable to energetic boundary violations that erode our sense of happiness and take us away from our root frequency. This frequency is the vibration which resonates with our deepest sense of life purpose and authenticity.

In part I I described the direct and subtle emotional impacts on our energetic field that come about through interacting with other people. This is part of the challenge of maintaining a healthy energetic field. There are other ways in which we’re vulnerable to energetic field disturbance.

For example, we are energetically affected by our environment at every turn. The pictures we have on our walls, the television programs, movies, and internet we watch, the sounds that come to us from outside our homes, the view from our windows, and the advertising and other propaganda that we’re subjected to all have their effect.

The arrangement of objects in our living space also affects us energetically and this is what Feng Shui is about. The improvements we can make here are part of the skill of energetic design. This would be a process of adding, subtracting and rearranging those influences which empower us or have a negative impact on our energetic field.

One suggestion is that clutter contributes to a chaotic energetic field. What is within your visual range has the most impact so, if you have a lot of stuff, put it out of sight and into some kind of order.

Energetic clearing is the theme we need to focus on because energetic impacts have potentially long lasting effects on mind, body, and spirit. We’re all experiencing various degrees of post traumatic stress syndrome.

In some ways the energetic field is the more substantial part of who we are. Every element of our physical bodies, every single atom within us, gets switched out and exchanged for other material elements over time. It’s the integrity of our energetic field that keeps us from literally falling apart.

Thoughts as well as emotions affect our energetic field. These could originate from within or from some outside source, from someone thinking about us. Moreover our energetic fields can be affected nonlocally both in space and time. This means that you can experience energetic boundary disturbances from someone who is far away as well as close by, and from someone who is alive as well as from someone who is dead.

Thoughts are subtle energies which have immediate and direct impact on our fields. It’s easy to demonstrate this through muscle testing experiments. You ask a person to hold out their arm and think an empowering thought and then a disempowering thought. You see immediately that the disempowering thoughts weaken the person’s ability to hold out their arm.

Sometimes people try to manipulate and control us with thoughts directed our way. When it reaches a certain threshold level, this is called chording. You can experience this effect from someone across the room or from someone on the other side of the planet.

Distance doesn’t seem to diminish the effects, although, if you move further away from an energetically problematic person in space, you’ll feel better immediately because you’ll then be out of the range of the direct emotional impact of their presence.

The nonlocal temporal effects on our energetic fields are something we all experience. At some point we all find ourselves acting, thinking, or speaking in a manner which is exactly the same as what we’ve witnessed our parents do. If you’re like me, and part of the majority of folks who have had dysfunctional parents, this can be quite disturbing.

We don’t need to assume here that disembodied spiritual parents are haunting us although this may be happening. It’s most probably the case that the frequency of their energetic fields has gotten somehow imprinted onto our own. My parents, although both deceased, are still live action figures in my dreams so their energetic legacy lives on in me for good or ill.

There are also discarnate entities which are a potential threat to our energetic field integrity. Not all people at death make the transition of going into the light. Their souls are then sort of marooned in this, for them, inappropriate realm of existence. They can’t really act in this plane unless they can influence someone who still has a body. Some of them are not above trying to hijack someone else’s physical person to carry out their will.

I often wonder how people come to commit the truly heinous crimes we witness or other less violent and destructive but still extremely bizarre behaviors that make up our daily news. For example, a California fifth grade teacher recently sent copies of a DVD to her students with various school activities on it to watch at home. Interspersed in these activities was a video clip of her having sexual intercourse in her home. Was this an innocent mistake or some perverse practical joke playing by a bored discarnate?

Maintaining the integrity of the energetic field is a 2012 concern because, as we open up spiritually and psychically in response to the 2012 wave, we discover that we share our planet and our galaxy with a spectrum of sentience of which living human beings are only a part. If we are going to take on the challenge to open more fully in the 2012 wave, we want to know that we can maintain our sense of personality integrity.

When we take the blinders off and discover that we are not the only fish that are swimming in this big ocean of consciousness, we want to feel more like Jacques Cousteau exploring the wonders of the sea than one of the victims in a Jaws movie.

The issue of the effect of discarnate entities may seem remote from our everyday experience but what we discover when we follow this thread is that we’re already facing a challenge of foreign energetic field influences that live within us. Soul fragments are an issue for every single human being.

Soul fragments can be understood through the metaphor of native versus invasive species of plants. A native soul fragment could be seen from a psychological point of view as a complex. This is a collective of thoughts, feelings, and emotions which all come into play when the complex is triggered.

Under the influence of the complex, we are vulnerable to act out some compulsion and are under the influence of the mood of the complex. Some relatively dysfunctional part of us is running the show.

Soul fragments are generated when we don’t fully integrate our experiences of interacting with others. The dominate emotions are fear, anger, blame, shame, and guilt. An example from my experience is anytime I’m on a team and, for some reason, I don’t get into the game. Then I feel like a raging maniac and have to restrain myself from acting this out.

In addition to the home grown variety, nonnative soul fragments come and take up resident in our energetic field. Whenever we’re influenced by someone else’s strong intention, fear, desire, or compulsion this could be a circumstance of soul fragments that originate from outside the usual boundaries of the self.

For example, if your father wanted you to be a doctor or a lawyer, or if your mother wanted you to marry young and have lots of children, these could be examples of soul fragment issues. Then, assuming your authentic path in life leads away from these intentions, you would experience the inner voices that counsel you to live out your parents dreams as an influence alien to your own deepest sense of life purpose.

The use of the term soul fragment has a dual meaning because it points to what’s unhealed within our own souls, a fragmentation of the integrity of a potentially whole individual as well as this sense of something alien to our individual energetic field. In this meaning, soul fragment points to alien energetic field influence.

Using our plant analogy, we have two concerns with soul fragments. There is the ongoing challenge of maintaining the ecology of our own internal environment by getting the native plants and animals to live in harmony, as well as the challenge of dealing with invasive species which upset this balance.

Whenever we’re hanging onto blame, guilt, or shame, we can be sure there is a soul fragment sourcing these emotions that needs to be reintegrated. Our true nature is to be joyful, passionate, and loving. Whenever these disempowering and constrictive emotional states possess us, it’s a reliable indication that we are out of alignment with our root frequency.

Similarly the energetic frequency of whomever you haven’t forgiven in your life still lives on in you. Then someone else’s soul fragment has taken up residence within your field and you’re carrying their energy around with you.

What we want to do with the soul fragments is to work for a good ecology of well-being by reintegrating the fragments and letting go of whatever fragments are not appropriate for us to deal with. To get to the positive ecology place of balance and harmony, you have to root out the not native species as much as possible.

Another way to look at alien soul fragments is to see them on an analogy with splinters. A splinter is something you pick up in your life that was outside of your body boundaries before. The body reacts to the splinter and there is irritation and sometimes secondary infection.

An engagement with someone else’s energetic field then results in a soul fragment being generated within you. The external influence is the seed for a fragmentation of the soul to occur and the soul fragment is a combination of the outside event and the inner response.

Fortunately we can use the same clearing methods to deal with both the soul fragments that seem to be familiar and habitual to us as well as the soul fragments that seem to be someone else’s issues invading our reality.

Of course, from the perspective of an expanded spiritual awareness, we recognize that the distinctions we draw between what’s native and inside and what’s foreign and outside are arbitrary. The more spiritual openness we have, the more we recognize the holographic interconnectedness of all sentient life. What we need in the 2012 time is the positive ecology of well-being that comes from having a good balance between openness and boundaries.

If we call any disturbance to our energetic field a negative entity, this leaves open the question of whether it’s something we’ve been dealing with for a long time or whether it’s some new disturbance that crashes into our energetic boundaries from a seemingly external source.

These negative entities would then be the disturbances that I talked about in the piece on Maintaining a Continuity of Positive Attitude. The Creative Refocusing Method helps to deal with these negativities.

The steps again are acknowledge disturbance, go to a calm, centered place within yourself, ask for help from Guidance to understand what is happening and to get counsel on the next positive thing to do, and then refocus attention on your goal state.

Clearing the energetic field comes into play in the second step as a way to get to the calm, centered place. It has both a maintenance function as something you can do ritually every day like meditation as well as a refocusing application to be applied in the moment when disturbance is acknowledged.

The steps for energetic clearing are to set an intention to clear your energy field, vocalize a clearing declaration, visualize something that symbolizes clearing, and do a physical activity that embodies the clearing intention.

The clearing declaration that I use is this: “I clear and release all energies which are incongruent with my greater good, inconsistent with my Higher Self.” Then, because I know that there are unloving and sometimes sociopathic energetic clusters that I might encounter in my ongoing adventure in spiritual opening, I add the words: “I command all interdimensional parasites to leave my space.”

When the negative entity takes the form of guilt, shame, or blame, energetic clearing can be applied through a change in the declaration. Then using the same energetic clearing method, you change the declaration to: “I clear and release shame, guilt, or blame.”

It helps to be specific: I clear and release the shame of whatever. Then simply say: “I clear and release” as you do the physical movements as described in Clearing the Energetic Field Part I.

A forgiveness clearing would have a declaration similar to this: “I release and forgive (the person in question).” I find it really helps to forgive myself as well as the other. “I release and I forgive Walter.”

Energetic clearing is not instant healing of the soul fragments within the self but it’s a great first step in that direction. When you can release guilt, shame, and blame, what you experience is the meaning of events suddenly becoming clear.

If you take the very worst moments of your life and apply the energetic clearing of releasing guilt, shame, and blame the lessons of the events will be illuminated. This is one of the ways in which you can rechoose the past. Then it becomes possible to see what was previously perceived negatively in a positive perspective.

In Part I of this thread I discussed emotional release methods of energetic clearing. It was pointed out that I should have included laughter as a form of effective emotional release. Also meditation can be an effective pathway of energetic clearing.

Forgiveness work is very effective in clearing the energetic field. I recommend Eileen Barker’s work in this area. www.barker-mediation.com.

Are Elephants an Endangered Species? Political Forecast 2010/2012

Sarah Palin’s resignation of Governor of Alaska puts her back into the political spotlight and brings about speculation about who will run against Obama in 2012.

Obama came to the presidency on a big wave of change. People wanted something different than what we endured during eight years of Bush’s reign. He inherited the economic meltdown of the Great Recession, and, by 2012, it will be his economic strategies that will be upmost in voter’s minds.

Obama’s reelection in 2012 would seem dependent on emergence from the Great Recession and a better economic outlook. Certainly, if things got markedly worse than what we’ve already experienced, the Republican candidate would have a great chance. If what we’ve experienced so far is a false bottom, then a Republican could win.

My forecast is that the Great Recession will have pretty much run its course by November, 2012. That doesn’t mean everything will be restored to what it was before. I don’t see house prices fully recovering back to what we enjoyed during the housing boom years that preceded the Great Recession, for example.

We have more economic chaos to live through and this is part of the 2012 transformation. Some economic institutions and structures will have to be deconstructed and new economic configurations need to come into being. It will take unemployment a long time to reach prerecession levels. I don’t see all of these changes completed by 2012.

However, all Obama needs for reelection is for there to be a sense of positive movement out of economic chaos toward stability and prosperity. My reading is that we’ll start to see these positive indicators showing up sometime from the middle of 2010 onward.

There is a striking parallel between Obama’s presidency and that of Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt inherited the Great Depression economic configuration and like Obama undertook some bold government policies to change things. Not everything he tried worked and, although things improved, they improved very slowly.

The country was still in the grip of the Great Depression in 1938. The unemployment rate in the worst year of the Depression, 1933, was 24.9% and it was still 19% in 1938. Yet Roosevelt had no problem getting reelected and the Republicans continued to suffer big losses in the Congress.

My reading is that we’re in a similar situation now. People believe in what Obama is trying to do and this generates hope and optimism even when economic times are very hard. To defeat Obama in 2012, the Republicans would need some new economic vision that people would subscribe to and I don’t see this happening at all.

I see five credible presidential candidates for the Republicans in 2012. Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Tim Pawlenty. Others, of course, will put their hat into the ring, but I see these as the candidates that could possibly win the nomination.

Mike Huckabee doesn’t presently have the financial backing to sustain a winning nomination campaign and I don’t believe he has the motivation to start working early enough to generate it. Tim Pawlenty would be an attractive candidate for the Republicans, but I don’t see him getting started soon enough or gaining enough early support to reach the nomination.

Newt Gingrich is the person in the Republican Party with the most compelling narrative and the biggest vision. But he’d be 70 years old in 2012 and so too old to be the credible symbol carrier for transformation.

Also Newt has some sociopathic tendencies which have alienated him from people on all sides of the political spectrum and undercut any realistic prospect of his running for president. By this I mean habits of dishonesty and hypocrisy such as his campaign of impeachment of President Clinton for sexual misconduct during a time when he was carrying on a secret adulterous affair.

The two remaining candidates, Palin and Romney, represent the split in the Republican Party between the ideological and social conservatives on the one hand and the economic conservatives and pragmatists on the other. It’s going to be an all out war between these two groups for the nomination.

Palin’s resignation from the governorship of Alaska was widely touted as political suicide and doom for her chances in 2012. You would think that if she can’t stand the heat in the kitchen in Juneau, she isn’t going to be a viable candidate for the incredible pressures of the White House. She has certainly broken protocols and gone against precedents of former successful candidates.

Yet when we get to 2012, you will see her standing on the podium accepting the Republican nomination.

Her resignation as governor will serve her well in her presidential ambition. On her facebook page Sarah said she resigned as governor to pursue a higher calling. I take this to mean she’s letting it be known she’s going for broke, for the big prize of President of the United States.

Quitting the governorship helps her in more than one way. She won’t have to deal with the ethics complaints that are tying up her energy and money. She can’t effectively run a state and run for president at the same time. To the extent that she’s tied down in Alaska, she would be too far away from the centers of political power and influence in the lower 48.

Also she needs this very long ramp up time to be ready for the national stage. This gives her time to get her book published and to be schooled in what to say and how to be. She is an actress preparing for a big role and she needs to study the script.

Palin feeds off of the opponent process of empowerment through being told you can’t do something that results whenever someone tries to tear her down. This enhances her iconic power as the political outsider, underdog, folk hero, and positive feminine role model.

Against Obama in 2012, she has no chance to win.

If I’m right and the 2012 election is going to be a suicide mission for whomever the Republicans put up for president, perhaps there is still hope for Republicans to regain some ground in the Congress in 2010. This has certainly been the pattern in recent times with off year elections.

My forecast is that it won’t happen this time. By January 2011, I see the Republicans reduced to 35 Senators from the South and West. I see a net gain of 5 seats in the Senate and about 10 seats in the House of Representatives for the Democrats.

There are a lot of open races in both traditionally blue and red states in 2010 and this means the Democrats will win most of them. Republican incumbents are also vulnerable in North Carolina (Burr) and Kentucky (Bunning). There was a drift towards the blue in 2008 with states like North Carolina and Virginia voting for Obama. I see this drift continuing in 2012.

The Republican Party is in danger of being seen as a do nothing party and the party of no. I haven’t seen any substantial legislative initiatives coming from their party this year nor have they joined with Democrats in many bipartisan legislative ventures.

Part of the problem, of course, is that they are in a substantial minority in both houses of congress and don’t control the White House. Yet it seems that they are using their available legislative power to oppose Obama’s legislative agenda rather than putting forward a positive agenda of their own.

With Specter’s defection, they have effectively lost the ability to filibuster unwanted bills. Even though the Democrats are not a monolithic ideological block, I don’t see any of them going against the consensus of their caucus and joining Republicans in filibusters.

If you’re an ideological conservative and think that Obama and the Democrats are ruining the nation, then for sure you’ll support the Republican candidates. But if you want to support someone who has a chance to make a difference and has some power and influence, then a Democratic candidate is going to be your best bet.

The Republicans Party is in deep crisis. They have no identified leader or spokesperson and they’ve lost the narrative high ground to Obama and the Democrats. My reading is that it’s going to get worse for them in 2010. They’ve lost the center of those people who are not ideologically left or right.

Their difficulties certainly make sense to the extent that they represent the vested interests of the established order. With the tremendous transformational waves of the 2012 time, they are in danger of being left behind.