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Editor: Judy Harrison
Asst. Editor: Grace Cavanaugh
Design/Layout: Darren Roth
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Volume 4: Autumn 2009
Editors Note:  The light now has a special glow as we move to the new rhythm of the fall equinox. Crisp mornings and sun-filled days create a brightness within our being and lightens our step. How fitting that the Libran keynote states: "I choose between the two great lines of force," as we stand midway between the longest and shortest days of the summer and winter solstice. May we come to know this midway point as the Lighted Way and expand our understanding of light in all its various manifestations. Light is the theme for this edition of Soundings. My hope is that you come to know the light that the words in this issue reveal and that they support you as you Change yourself - change the world!
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Good News
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At Spirit Fire
Spirit Fire
has been approved by the National Association of Social Workers to give
24 CEU's for its 4-day retreat program "Creating Clarity - Supporting
Compassion". This retreat will run Oct. 14-18. See the website for further details.
In the World
UN Days & Years Meditative Initiative has been developed as a way by which individuals and groups can support specially designated UN days and yearly themes. Its purpose is to help create a climate of thought receptive to the vision and value of a compassionate world order. Meditation on these themes can bring new ideas into global thinking resulting in greater creativity on the part of servers in the outer world. To participate or learn more go to www.intuition-in-service.org
NASA's Hubble space telescope has been recently refurbished and its new images were unveiled on September 9th. The telescope's new imaging camera is more sensitive to light and can be used to observe in ways that are significantly more efficient. We will now be able to observe objects on the fringe of our solar system, witness the birth of planets around other stars and probe the composition and structures of the atmosphere of other worlds. To see how Hubble has given us new eyes to see the universe go to: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia.ero/index.html
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Peace Starts at Home
By Cherie Peterson
 This statement means much more than knowing peacefulness in our families and within our associations. Peace starts in our hearts. No matter what we believe or how strongly we believe it, it is how we are feeling inside that is important. Is the story that we are currently enacting about opposing forces with the so-called "other" or have we moved beyond that style of competing with them and ourselves?
What a huge job it is to compete! We are all One in Spirit AND we are also totally different physically, emotionally, and mentally from anyone else. We are, each of us, a unique personality. Yet, as Spirit within the larger Life, we are connected ultimately as One Life.
So how can we go about professing to know better than others, to have different, more, or greater insights than anyone else? All we know is what we know. Our unique perspective gives our thoughts and actions color, shape, and form. It gives them material substance. How we share that substance, however, determines the level of peacefulness in our hearts. Listening to others, instead of needing to be heard, says more about who we are than the facts we spout off demonstrating just how much we know.
The mind plays us for the fool. Why? The more we know, the more we understand, the more we form opinions. Opinions separate us from others. They make us 'right' and others 'wrong'. We show off through our preferences, demonstrating how good we are; yet ultimately, it only demonstrates how small we are. Conversely, through silence and listening, we reflect the essence of our inner self, no longer needing to yell and tell all. We are models of peace instead, an inner peace that shines brightly and speaks loudly. When this occurs, we have attained a level of awareness that allows others to shine.
So, peace starts at home. In our hearts we magically transform by accepting others for where they are in their personal growth, who they are, and why they have the perspectives they do. We no longer have to shout from the highest mountain peak to be heard. In silence we hear ourselves. Each breath pounds through our heart and soul and we know. We know peace.
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Light, Consciousness, Wisdom
by Joy Om
Light
 Our essential nature is Light. The bodies through which we experience our world are, in reality, energetic forms of light. Each unique energy field, including the physical and etheric, through the more subtle emotional, mental and causal, are distinct vibrational frequency patterns of light.
Light is also part of the construct of the liquid crystalline collagen fibers that form the connective tissue of the human body. Research has shown this tissue to actually contain the tiny meridians and to be a fundamental communication system of the body, allowing the organism to function as a coherent whole. Biophoton waves of light are even found to be emitted from the nucleus of the living cells and are stored in the helical tubes of the DNA.
Consciousness and the Field
The biophoton field of the living system is comprised of electromagnetic waves of light. The coherence factor inherent in this light field allows it to potentiate and mediate the subtle energetic realms of "mind, psyche and consciousness." Consciousness pervades the subtle and dense bodies, transmitting, storing and eventually evolving the experiences of our interactions with life.
The acupuncture meridians as well as the chakras are specialized vortices of light within the biophoton field, a light that is continuous with the greater Field of which we are a part. Thus the higher refined sensing, intuitive and subtle abilities are available through an expanded contact and awareness. Memories, and particularly traumas, are imprinted in these vortices and the tissue matrix as energetic patterns and can be released through physical and energetic activation. The resulting energy resolves as the '"light of consciousness."
Wisdom
There is a saying that "the body never lies." The significance of this statement is that physical and subtle forms are the manifestation of the truth of our being. Within these fields of light will be found the qualities of our incarnated purpose and the means of its expression in the world. As we open and align the body and the energy fields, we expand our interface with that world and our influence in it. Each of us becomes a lighted channel for the expression of unique divine quality added to the consciousness of the greater planetary whole. We gather experience, we develop knowledge and we become the essence of wisdom to be shared as love and compassion with all.
www.essentialembodiment.net
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Encounter with Rumi
By Les Waldron
 When Sidat first recited Rumi's poem, I heard more than words: I heard an invitation that refused no one. That same night, I committed Rumi's poem to memory. All these years later, I treasure his gift in my life; I wonder if he knows what he has wrought?
Rumi is a Master Soul Ringer. His words arise from an experience of being. Being transmits without distortion through time and translation. When we partake of Rumi, this substance of soul comes awake and illumines our seeing.
The breezes of dawn have secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are moving back and forth across the threshold where the two worlds meet.
The door is wide and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
Rumi
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Changing Landscape
A Comparison of the First and Second Saturn Return
by Judy Harrison
 A truism in astrology is that Saturn is a friend to the aspirant or disciple on the path. While it may not be the friend that we readily seek or want to embrace, most would agree that the timing, rhythm, discipline, structure, and karmic opportunities that Saturn affords, and even imposes, is supportive of the soul on its journey (in contra-distinction to the personality), which we often identify with. This is especially pronounced at the time of one's Saturn return, that is, when Saturn transits its place in the natal birth chart. This happens roughly every twenty-nine years and the significance, and at times disruption in the life, makes it an event that does not go unnoticed.
For myself, as I experience the changing landscape on various fronts during the period of my second Saturn return, I have been able to view this with an eye toward what my initial Saturn return was like. Surprisingly, while the "fronts" are similar, the intensity and quality of the experiences are each quite unique. In part this may be due to age and experience, certainly, but I think that there is something else to consider; namely the vehicle through which one is processing the event and the shift in consciousness (hopefully) through which one is able to meet the experience.
In terms of timing, Saturn returns occur at a juncture in the life where there is an ending of one phase and the beginning of another. However, the theme of the first return is more about setting one's foot on a correct course in life as an adult, while the second looks more at the completion of the previous segment of adult life and the re-creation of the self in the life as one moves toward the final phase of the journey. For myself, during my first Saturn return I was challenged to evaluate where I would play out my adult life in terms of location and career, and even to consider who that would include, pushing me to evaluate the relationship I was in and the partner I had chosen. And so, life-changing events such as relocation, new job, and divorce were the challenges of the time, which required my physical action and response.
Conversely, my second Saturn return has seen the ending of my family life in terms of caring for children, the winding down/ reviewing of a career, and the questioning of what will continue to be my work in the world. As such, there is more of a mental taking stock. Both events include an emotional charge and have caused me to re-set my course, but clearly the quality, intensity, and tone were specific to the time; the first being of a more astral-physical nature while the second being more astral-mental. What that means in practical terms is that my first return filled my life with drama and crisis while the second holds a sense of closure and re-orienting around a necessary and impending shift. And so these two returns stand very much like bookends, framing the portion of my life that has happened between the two returns. At this second return then, I am given pause to evaluate the path I have taken and the internal discipline that I have been able to develop as a result of the structure, both chosen and karmic, under which my life has unfolded. It is this framing and opportunity for reflection that makes one a more conscious participant in the new set of circumstances that Saturn will next bestow. Additionally, in terms of consciousness, what I realize is that soul worked seemingly from the background during the first return while it is in the foreground during the second, resulting in a change in focus from "Soul in the life" to "soul in the Life" as I moved through and into the respective periods.
Another major event during Saturn's return played out on the landscape of my active spiritual life (although isn't all of life really spiritual!). At the time of my first Saturn return, I moved from a spiritual dabbler to a seeker, which saw the discovery of the "blue books" (teachings of the Tibetan Master DK written by Alice Bailey) and my involvement and subsequent immersion into esoteric studies and the occult path. As I hover at the second return however, I realize that while currently the structure that it has afforded me has become foundational to my very being, my interest is no longer to expand my knowledge in that genre but rather to live, grow, and share the fruits of its wisdom. And so the mantram that Donna Mitchell Moniak, founder of Spirit Fire, brought forth:
"Break through, break through divisions of mind
Let all come undone,
Court the edge of enlightenment,
Then disappear"
has taken on a new meaning during this second Saturn return, as Saturn works to break through the structures that I once relied on to support a greater livingness. Again, while that is my personal experience of the two Saturn returns, what was the over-riding difference between the two that was playing out in my spiritual life expression? As I see it, during the first return, the challenge was to set myself on a course to appreciate and experience life through my dual nature, while at the second return the integration of my dual nature became the ground for moving forward.
In the midst of my second return, and looking back upon that first, I guess Saturn really was my friend. My job was Saturn, my marriage was Saturn, and my children were Saturn, as were the blue books. And now I leave those behind, married to Christ Consciousness if you will, mothering to an evolving humanity and seeing my job as conscious service and dharma. Structure and discipline have been internalized; its unfolding expression remains.
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Deeper Understandings about Dying
by Donna Mitchell-Moniak
This is the reprise of an article written in March 2007 after spending a week providing hospice care for a dear friend who was dying of cancer. She was a special person, a living saint as far as I was concerned. Being with her 24/7 for that week was one of the most profound weeks of my life.
I am bringing this article forward again (and rewriting it) because many people I know are over 50 and thus experiencing the hand of the Angel Death visiting their families. Parents are aging.
May these thoughts bring understanding.
Did you know the proverbial tunnel of light that people see and are drawn into is co-measured to the openness of the heart? For the person of a open heart chakra the tunnel is not a tunnel at all but a field of pure light. The person passing is being absorbed back into the very essence of Life.
Esoterically, this can be understood from the point of view of incarnation. With the intention of incarnation, the soul anchors the life thread in the heart of the base chakra, in the heart chakra, and in the physical heart. As it does so, the soul's life impulse is sent through wormhole-like tunnel of light to these points within the fetus. With the release process of death, the life impulse reverses its course back through the same tunnel of light.
Did you know that the light is invoked in part by the sounding of all the good that the person has done and experienced in his or her life? The passing of a person is often a most beautiful and harmonious thing. This is because, literally, all the good that they have done (love, caring, giving, compassion, empowering of others, etc. begins to chime or re-sound. The more good the person has done and been a living expression of, the more melodious the sounding. For an advanced person, truly the angels do not sing more beautifully! This song elicits light and causes the formation of the lighted exit. This magnificent harmony is also the very process of release, because sound is light, light is sound.
This is the primary reason why when people see "their life flash before their eyes," they never see anything bad, negative, or painful. They only see the good, happy, peaceful, and beautiful. Only someone who has done the most heinous of things (like genocide or horrible violence repeatedly) sees the bad. This because it must be seen, must be acknowledged in some way, before the soul can leave the incarnation.
In the days before a person passes, their body will do certain things. These are common to all people regardless of what is causing their passage. The occurrences, however, have to do with the extraction of either the life or consciousness thread.
Breath patterns change. Life and breath are synonymous terms. As the life impulse is being withdrawn, the breath changes.
Electric jolts, or kriyas, might start in the body, observed on the outside as spasm or twitching. This is the natural response of the physical body to the vital etheric energy being withdrawn from it. The electrical matrix upon which the body formed is disintegrating. The physical body responds with erratic distribution of its energy forces.
The person will often feel hot or warm though has no temperature. They might want fewer blankets or covers. This is because fire by friction is beginning to consume itself having no regulation on how to use its fire which the etheric body has offered throughout the life. These two sets of phenomena are clearly related.
Additionally, the solar plexus, the seat of the personality, is also the home of the tumo fire (mystic heat). Thus, as the personality is released into the waiting arms of the soul, tumo is released throughout the body until the release is complete. This happens with more than 50% of all adults who are dying.
As a person gets closer to passing, their sleep begins to include sighs and moans, sometimes sounds of mild pain. Even if the person, when awake is experiencing pain, these sounds are not related to that. They are the sounds of the subtle bodies 'crying.' The subtle bodies experience a version of "why hast thou forsaken me" as the consciousness intermittently withdraws in the days or few weeks before passage. The bodies (mental, emotional, physical) experience being left alone, without the overarching control and solace of the soul.
The passing of a human being is a most sacred event; one to be held in vigil and meditation. It is a beautiful event, with inner song, celestial harmonies, and brilliant displays of light. Our birth is the incarnation of a soul and one day the soul will decide it is done with the worlds of form. But, the truth is that the light that was incarnated will reveal itself to itself. The song the soul sang to create its incarnation it will sing again, but this time with the joy, love, and sense of goodness gained through the incarnation as the method of its release. The soul is not afraid, though the personal self could well be. Our fears are of what we do not know, or in this case, do not remember, for we and our loved ones are souls, and it was a soul's incarnation.
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Criticism is a Virulent Poison
by Sara Traub
"...criticism is a virulent poison. It damages in every case eventually the one who criticizes...it hurts still more the one who is criticized." Esoteric Psychology II pg. 617
 We all know that receiving criticism does not feel good, yet most of us are guilty of doling it out. What happens when we criticize another? It has a very negative effect and wounds a person's sense of self. Do we criticize because we think we know better or that we think our way is the right way and therefore the other person must be wrong? Minimally, this is divisive. More true to us all, it speaks of arrogance and pride. What makes one person right and another wrong? Who is the judge? How is criticism of benefit in any given situation? Simply said, criticism is destructive and does not serve.
There are a few things that we all can keep in mind when that age-old urge to criticize arises:
- Focus on your own tasks and responsibilities. Make sure that whatever you do is done to the best of your ability.
- Realize that to the extent you criticize others, you open yourself to criticism.
- Resist the urge to take responsibility for another person's work. It is their work. Trust that they will do it the best they know how provided they are given the opportunity, training, tools, and resources necessary to accomplish that task.
- Watch the natural critical tendency of the mind. Generally, the mind seeks to find fault rather than to focus on what is right or good. Why? This actually is a direct result of an important function of our mind; it has a natural orientation to focus on details and particulars in order to achieve its goal. The mind is brought to rest when tasks are accomplished. It seeks to feel that rest. So, the mind looks at all that is around it, even in other people or their work, and feels the need to fix, control, act, or change something. We realize that criticism is usually the result of this natural tendency of the mind toward detail in order to experience a sense of completion of the whole. This, combined with one's ego with its arrogance or pride, helps us to understand what criticism really is and how to get control of it.
- Realize that a simple tilt of perspective from what is wrong to what is right or well-done will help one to see any situation more fully. This allows the outcome to be what it is, which might even exceed our expectations.
- Criticism also makes it difficult, if not next to impossible, to see people as they really are. We see weakness and fault instead of the good, the strengths, and the accomplishments. The simple tilt in perspective immediately changes our point of view, which, in turn, changes our opinion, which changes criticism.
There is a distinction between true analytical insight and so-called criticism. There is a place for a certain kind of feedback. We all welcome insight, assistance, and another point of view, especially when given in a constructive manner. An air of co-operation is felt, as well as an attitude of caring. We are left feeling positive and able to consider an adjustment to a project because the suggestion was given in kindness and not with a better-than-thou attitude.
Harmlessness and kindness in thought and word are the antidotes to criticism and the requirements for living and practicing a harmless life.
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