Track record

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

A friend mentioned that I am not posting regularly anymore, which of course is true. It set me to remembering when posting was a daily occurrence, over many years. How many posts? Over how many years? I looked at the site’s dashboard for statistics:

My first post was on March 9, 2007, nearly 17 years ago. Since then:

  • 4,356 posts, of which all but three are mine, or are credited to me. (Sometimes people would write something I would use as a guest posting, but the stats still attributed it to me.)
  • These posts have drawn 7894 comments, of which 1833 were mine, presumably in response to something someone said.

March 2007 to now makes 201 months. Divide 4,353 posts by 201 and you get an average of a little more than 21 posts per month, the equivalent of one every business day for nearly 17 years. That’s a lot of postings, enough to make something of an afterthought of anything that may follow.

 

Seth’s New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

Jane Peranteau passed this on to me, and I pass it on to you as well.

[From Dreams, “Evolution,” and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, by Jane Roberts, Notes, Session 891.] Seth:

“I wish you a MERRY NEW YEAR, into which I hope you manage to insert a touch of light-heartedness now and then.

“Now if I were you, making a list of resolutions, my list would include feelings and attitudes. Things to do are well and good—very good indeed—but the feelings and attitudes are at least as important.

“I would not presume to make a list of resolutions for you. But in an imaginative endeavor, this is what I pretend I would list if I were you. Though this is a new year, there is nothing really new about the list.

“One: I will approve of myself, my characteristics, my abilities, my likes and dislikes, my inclinations and disinclinations, realizing that these form my unique individuality. They are given me for a reason.

“Two: I will approve of and rejoice in my accomplishments, and I will be as vigorous in listing these—as RIGOROUS in remembering them—as I have ever been in remembering and enumerating my failures or lacks of accomplishment.

“Three: I will remember the creative framework of existence in which I have my being. Therefore the possibilities, potentials, seeming miracles, and joyful spontaneity of Framework 2 will be in my mind, so that the doors to creative living are open.

“Four: I will realize that the future is a probability. In terms of ordinary experience, nothing exists there yet. It is virgin territory, planted by my feelings and thoughts in the present. Therefore I will plant accomplishments and successes, and I will do this by remembering that nothing can exist in the future THAT I DO NOT WANT TO BE THERE.”

(Words that were originally underlined are capitalized)

 

Serving Ra

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

[This conversation took place a week after I returned from two weeks in Egypt.]

Monday, March 11, 2019

So then, friends. Talk to me.

We’re always talking back and forth. Mostly it doesn’t involve words.

“People are always praying, and their prayers are always answered.” The hired man Tarbox said that to Emerson.

In a way, we outside 3D are always praying, and you in 3D are answering or denying what we would have you (us) do.

I suppose that is one way to look at the result of the vast impersonal forces, and the vast personal forces, contending.

Contending by what we are, not necessarily by what we wish.

We in 3D are always at the center of things, and yet are nearly insignificant in the larger scheme of things.

Isn’t that true of your lives in general? “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.”

That’s the first time I’ve understood that saying in that sense.

As you change, everything you know changes aspect. It is just natural.

I feel like this is our first reset after Egypt, after a sort of forgetting.

You didn’t forget, you were unable to maintain. There’s a difference. The spirit may be willing and the flesh weak. That isn’t the same as the spirit deciding, “It’s too much trouble,” or “This other bauble is more alluring.” When you returned to your home and what had been your life, you had a day of functioning in unified fashion before you got sick. You deliberately and calmly went through necessary chores as they occurred to you and as you prioritized them. You felt as you are feeling now.

That’s so. I hadn’t quite realized I was feeling it again now till you mentioned it.

Which is why we mentioned it. Describe it, for others and for your own later purpose of comparison.

Everything quiet inside. Almost a need to balance, physically. The body quiet but not lethargic, energy-filled but not buzzing in the way one is when trying to sleep through jet lag, say. Awake and alert, the line open but no static nor competing programming. A nice state to be in.

This was your state, and you got sick. Being sick, you did not forget your intent to remain connected, but you were unable to bring the energy to physical endeavors. Your physical illness did not lead you to forget the connection, you see. You knew what you wanted to do, and, more important, wanted to continue to be.

It might not have worked out so well if I had been unable to breathe.

Here you are selling yourself short. It isn’t like there has been no permanent acquisition.

That’s very good to know.

But you know, it is like the sexual analogy you drew: The woman is always able but not always willing; the man is always willing but not always able. Like any broad statement, it could do with some qualifying, but it is true enough. And like most analogies, it may be applied in more than one way. You in 3D may be always willing but not always able. More commonly, you are always able but not always willing.

Relative to doing the will of the larger being rather than insisting on doing the will only of the localized 3D consciousness as if it had no larger context.

That’s a decent way to understand it. and now you are more likely – hence, more able – to continue to serve Ra.

Yes, that’s what came to me in Egypt, and not for the first time there. Something within said, “I still serve Ra,” and I understood that to mean, not that 21st-century-me served an ideal formulated thousands of years earlier, nor that I am divided among various beings each of whom serves gods of their own, nor that it is strictly a metaphor for willingness to serve the part of ourself larger than the 3D self. It is a little of each of those things, but it amounts to something more.

It amounts to a 3D-shaped consciousness aware of itself not as a unity but as a community, and now proceeding to a sense of itself as an integral part of something that transcends itself and yet depends upon that 3D awareness. Both, not one or the other.

For some reason I think of Prince Gautama, naming his newborn son Fetter and walking away from his life as a prince.

Balancing the obligations of one’s life in society against those of one’s duty to one’s own soul, which would you choose? There is no wrong answer. It’s all in what you are willing to sacrifice, for what purposes.
A life spent “serving Ra,” “doing God’s will,” “remaining connected” to the guys or the higher self or call it what you will, amounts to living a life you will find most satisfying, and the way you think about it mostly will be tacked on after the fact, as usual. Only, don’t be afraid of words, or of other people’s misunderstandings. Lead the life you are called to lead, knowing it will be mostly incommunicable anyway. Your life is what you are, not so much what you do. What you do is a pale wavering misleading shadow of the life you really lead. How else could it be?

A Sense of Place

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

I remind readers that on the 23rd, I posted what I hoped would be the beginnings of a sort of forum, inviting your responses in the form of comments. (Putting this out just before Christmas probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do, so now I will compound it by putting it out just before New Year’s.!)

A sense of place: An Experiment

Posted on  by Frank DeMarco

A sense of place
[This is an experiment to see if we can foster conversations on this blog. Jane Coleman proposed a topic and Jane Peranteau, Christine Sampson and I each promised to give it a paragraph or two, and then I would put it together and post it. It is our hope that others will feel inclined to add comments via Reply or, if that doesn’t work, by emailing me so that I can post on their behalf.
[Hint: Write your remarks in a word program first, and save them. Then if they get lost in the process of trying to post them, you only have to pull up the saved file and copy it to me to do for you.]

From Jane Coleman:
I was thinking about the year I went to Yosemite National Park and went hiking for several days. I noticed that my memory had a certain feeling about it, something unique. It had its own signature and resonance and mood. I could call it a signature, and yet it encompasses all these things.
As I considered that event, I also recognized that all the places I’ve ever been have a certain signature about them. They each feel a certain way. The memories have colored them. I would equate that to the way I recognize my friends. Each has a unique feeling about them, their unique signature, some something that I would recognize no matter where.
Your thoughts?

From Christine Sampson:
Ok. Here’s what I got.
Carnival! The joy! The excitement ! The things to do, to observe, to participate in, to ignore, to discover! My life in retrospect. The faces, the places, the actions, the inactions, the dismissing, the accepting, the relishing. Each individual act, moment, created and placed by forces beyond the conscious mind, to allow exploration and growth and knowing and wonder.
I sit in the warm sunshine feeling very feline. Thankful. In gratitude.
A cacophony of all visible and invisible, to be sussed out and savored in a flash or at leisure.

From Jane Peranteau:
After sitting with it:
Our response to experience leaves emotional trace elements, like snail trails, in the mind. Pathways that create scaffoldings of self-knowing.
Are these the same as filters?
Yes. Because pathways change what we allow in and what we don’t. They change us in terms of our choices. You can have a pathways series that builds a filter or serves an openness.
The feeling you have for a person or a place determines an openness to them or a caution or a closed-ness. Succeeding experiences can change that–e.g., as we forgive or are forgiven, receive insights and revelations, or continue to be enhanced by further experience.
Feeling is always informed by everything we know, which is everything we are. It is not experienced separate from reason or science (e.g., science can track feeling’s movement through the body and mind) or knowledge.
Would it be fair to say that the signature each of those places and people have is your love for them? The uniqueness of signature recognizes how love is not a blind blanket emotion but fits the characteristics and traits of who is loving and what is loved.
[Good question, Jane C. A big question. It incited a trail of sudden awarenesses that led to insights along the way, each having the potential to be its own pathway. Frank, I see what we’re doing as another extension of what intending ILC makes possible.]

From Frank DeMarco:
It has always struck me how different places have a different “feel” that is more than mere aesthetics. When I was a boy, the fields of my father’s farm were quite different from city streets, say, or someone’s lawn. The woods that were behind our house and across the street had a special feel that I loved. My life had trees well before it had books! And places devoted to a consistent endeavor seem to me to acquire their own signature, as well:
• Churches, or any place where many people have prayed over many years
• Libraries, suffused with the auras of readers and, it seems, writer
• The grounds at The Monroe Institute, specifically, where for more than 40 years people have come to explore their unknown potential.
And these are just “ordinary” places! We haven’t even touched on what are called sacred sites.

Jung and the guys

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

I suppose it is inevitable that as we age, we look back and say, “I wasted so much time! I might have done this, or that, or the other.” I am sure we have all missed opportunities. Who uses all his talents? Who takes advantage of  everything life offers? I don’t see how else it could be.

But maybe this lament belongs among what we might call theoretical regrets. Because nobody can take advantage of every opportunity, how can it be a tragedy or even a misfortune that we miss some? Maybe this is why people say, “All paths are good.”  On the one hand, every step we take forecloses other opportunities. On the other hand, foreclosing (or overlooking, or disdaining) an opportunity opens up new possibilities. Two ways of saying the same thing: There isn’t any one path. There are many paths, including the paths one makes oneself by wandering off on one’s own, and they’re all valid.

That said, I do have my own list of regrets, of course. Don’t we all? High on my list is, “Why didn’t I do the reading and studying that would have given me a comprehensive, first-hand knowledge and understanding of Carl Jung’s writings?”

I know the answer, of course. At least, I think I do. If I had received an academic understanding of Jungian psychology, or even if I had done enough reading early on to really understand what he was saying, I wouldn’t be where I am now, reading his work through the filter of 20-plus years of exposition from the guys upstairs. I would have been tempted to explain away their explanations as “nothing but” what I had read in Jung. Even as it was, I had read enough Jung to wonder. Had I made a through study of his work, it would have been much harder.

Still, as I read him now, in my old age, I see so much that it would have been helpful to have known long ago. While I am propounding a useless “if only,” I might as well concatenate them. So, if only I had:

  • made a thorough study of Jung immediately after coming across Modern Man in Search of a Soul in 1970;
  • acquired the theoretical background in psychology to feel at home discussing it;
  • begun talking to the guys when I was in my twenties, instead of my forties;
  • spoken to Jung long before I did, and had the background to ask more penetrating questions;
  • begun working with Rita Warren or some equivalent (supposing there was some equivalent) 20 or even 30 years earlier;
  • used those connections and that education and those sessions to produce a conspectus on reality as it looks when one looks at the description given by the guys when combined with a Jungian perspective.

I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I stumbled around in the dark, feeling my way toward an unknown goal, the way we do, and it all worked out, as I imagine it generally does.

But what a lot of work there is left for the future! We can only hope that others will take up the task as they do their own stumbling toward unknown goals.

 

Romantic backlash? Or new beginnings?

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

For a long time, The Guys Upstairs have told us that whenever we move into a new era, it will be made up partly of new elements, partly of elements previously rejected and thought of as superstition, or error. We’re seeing that now, I think. The attached article from The Guardian makes the point. (If the link doesn’t work, copy-paste this URL and go to it directly:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/28/new-romanticism-technology-backlash

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/28/new-romanticism-technology-backlash

You will note that the author of this somewhat thoughtful piece seems to assume that astrology, for instance, is a bit of leftover superstition that is now making its way back into the  mainstream. Perhaps I mistake his bias. But if I am right, all I can say is, Carl Jung used it to obtain valid insights into patients, and if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.

The piece is worth reading if only for whatever new associations it may raise in your own mind.

How do we live in continuous integration?

Posted on by Frank DeMarco

[For several months, a group of us who wish to work on ourselves have been meeting on Wednesdays via Zoom. Our continuing agenda includes functioning as a temporary group mind, and strengthening our perceptions of our everyday connection to the non-3D. Our routine has come to include a five-minute session in which Dave, our resident shaman, provides drumming while we each go out on an individual journey centered on some topic.]

Thursday, May 27, 2021

6 a.m. Yesterday’s drumming question at the ILC meeting was: How do we live in continuous integration?

When we as a group returned from our state of individual receptivity, we went around and each one reported, as usual. Before we even began, Bill summarized what he got as “Pay attention.” The various messages were so congruent and mutually reinforcing, I said someone should listen to the recording and make notes on what was said. “But,” I said, “It ain’t gonna be me.” Famous last words. So here are my notes.

Dirk: It’s not about doing, but about remembering. We are all connected with everything. No reaching; we are connected. It’s remembering.

Martha: Miranda McPherson says “Do nothing, be nothing, rest in God.” End our projections. Focus on undoing our perception of separations by saying, of everything we see, “I am that.”

Paul: Surround yourself with reminders – art, flowers, music – whatever works for you that reminds you that you are in touch. Our secular world’s influences distract us from this. Cultivate habits that will remind us. The original purpose of religious traditions was to provide constant reminders of the connections we have.

Christine: “I don’t know if I want to live in continuous integration. I am here to experience and choose.” Periodic integration. Like Dr. Who: having extra-ordinary experiences. Don’t discount where we are. We are right where we should be, having extraordinary experiences.

Bill: Pay closer attention to what is going on. Easy to get so involved in your 3D experience that you miss the non-3D aspect. Several times a day, check in with your non-3D self. Can’t be not connected. Assume you are, and pay attention. The result will be different for each. One size does not fit all.

Louisa: Attune to your inner creator, and that will take you to the flow. Your inner peace, power. Let the rest go. Trust the river. Let go of habits, old thoughts, remember the time you had connection, and what supported it.

Dave: It’s a control-panel setting. Each situation should be individually adjusted, as in driving, creating art, etc. We’re in control.

Frank: It has to be important to you: (intent and reminders). Community assistance, such as these Zoom meetings. Call each other on our belief systems, as they surface in conversation. Love the non-3D as well as the 3D. Make integration your aspiration. Use everything for the sake of your intent.

Sue, who came in after we were in the middle of the drumming and thus didn’t know what the question was, got: “All is one,” which, as Dirk pointed out, nailed it.