Reeled in...by Brynneth Nimue Brown

He swam, tiny and persistent

Over expanse of careless ocean

To these cool, smoother waters

Survived the elver hunters

Evaded otter predation

To dangle undignified

From the hook of a man-child

Overgrown infant, oblivious

To the miles journeyed

Secrets in snakelike form.

Just a funny looking thing

To be hoisted out

Giggled over, joked about

Throw back, soon enough?

Or too damaged to continue?

Waters smeared with oil

From yesterday’s little accident

Hide the conclusion.

The not yet man returns

To rod and reclining.

If anything dived beneath his surface

There are no ripples to show for it.

Yet.

www.druidlife.wordpress.com
www.hopelessmaine.com

2012 and the Rollercoaster so far, by Rashelle

Hey everyone,  
 

Delighted to be here, writing an article for the Enlightening Times. Thanks, Jade for the boot up the bot! 
 

Oh what a ride it’s been this year, eh? A wild and bumpy one for many of us from what I observed. We started the year on the crest of Awakening and the tide was high. We all hit the ground, eager and ready to go…and we could see the structures of the world were being shaken to their core, as we had tore down the structures within ourselves. We knew we were living at a significant moment in time, that’s right, now! Ahh..

People were preparing for everything from Ascending from the Earth to Doomsday, to those in the “real” world going about their business as usual. You know the ones in the “real world” don’t you? Yes..the one’s that think we’re all nuts, you got it!! And then spring sprung beautifully…and everything slowed down for a little while before the roller-coaster of the summer months.  

 

More and more news was being brought to light, politicians, pharma, the food industries, the suppression of rights and many of us could see it more clearly than ever. We had been reminded of our power, and opened up to love and the ways of the past were gone, though some strands still remained. We held tight, we resisted and still patterns kept their grip, just like in the financial world, the political world…the religious world…the natural world…all of it...on the brink of collapse, breaking down and putting up a fight, like we've all seenmany times, only to be re-born better, brighter, stronger than ever. Some would probably even call it evolution.  

 

Having embraced our multi-dimensionality and our helpers from other realms we have already evolved beyond the limits of many of our predecessors and now our structures and institutions must follow suit. We all know the process of transformation isn’t always easy but it’s always so worth it. And, imagine..go on…do it with me now, for one minute…imagine how good it’s going to be when the world is at Peace and people are Thriving rather than Surviving, and I mean the many not only the few. 

Have you noticed how many people get consumed with the rage and overwhelm when they discover all the many interesting ways devised to keep the people powerless? I’ve seen many who have found it challenging to move beyond their fear or their anger towards those they see as responsible for this and continue to assign blame which only succeeds in given their power away. So I was thinking, just in case, any of our readers are getting a bit “stuck” in the e-motion of it all I’d share how I do it, and what has worked for me.  

 

We all know the magic of Responsibility by now, don’t we? Yes, I knew the readers here would all be living in the magical world of Responsibility. And as we know like everything else Responsibility is a multi-level phenomenon. 

Anyway, when I first learned about Responsibility I learned we were all the CAUSE of our EFFECT and in so many ways this is truth and when we see it in action from any level, it is magnificent to behold. But let’s face it, that’s only a fraction of the story because we’re also co-creating with 7 billion other souls who are all connected to us and navigating their way through life at the same time and every one of them is a powerful creator just like you and me. For me, responsibility's greatest power lies in how we choose to respond. And let's face facts, we all created this mess together while unconsciously under the illusion of separation. Separation from each other and separation from the Universe.   

 

So I take responsibility for my role in co-creating this mess while I went about my business mostly unconscious!! And for allowing it to continue because I didn’t think there was a choice! I bought into the idea, that I was powerless to do anything and That’s just the way it is and the other non-questioning tosh! I was apathetic and did feck all. I was selfish and self-involved revelling in the consumerism and rarely looking beyond the limit of my own life…and then I woke up!! 

And I gave myself the gift of self-love and when I did I realised I had an abundant source of it to create magic in the physical world, and none of us are powerless to spread a little love and kindness in the world. We can all take action to DEMAND more Equality for All, because that is who we are, just forget about who they are. Let it go…and let the fire in your belly that the anger has left since it's departure become the PASSION that stirs you to ACTION!   

 

Tune into your HEART and bring all you have learned in the spiritual realms here and do your thang!! Don’t just do it!! Do it…real good!! I don’t like to talk about God because of what man has done to the label, I believe, like LOVE, or consciousness, God is a term for the indefinable, for the energy that animates everything, for the one shared mind, the Universe and each and everything in it. So normally I’d talk in other terms but one of my greatest teachers Dr Wayne Dyer has something really profound to say about the EGO and how it’s an acronym for Edging God Out! 

How simple, yet so profound! And, it’s so true although if you have anything negative anchored to the word God I would suggest using the word love instead. Only thing is, it may not seem quite so profound if you think ELO..Edging Love Out, you’d probably be expecting a tune rather than a deep truth lol!   
 

Boy, have we seen the battle with EGO played out both internally and externally this year. Phew! And there’s a way to go..but hey now we actually know the little ME is part of the big ME and this ME is here to be the best ME or MAGNIFICENT EXPRESSION of the big ME possible. Got it? LOL! Ahh…a little confusion…always good to open the mind. What I mean is this..as I came to celebrate my oneness with the Universe and everything and everyone in it, and realised I was a Magnificent Expression of All that is. Wow!! Mind blowing when you stop and think about it really. 
 

The term EGO has also been used my many to represent the PERSONALITY and like all labels there are many overlap in the definitions, representations and understandings of both these terms and somehow for many it became a battle to the death. It’s all a bit brutal for a being of love..is it not? For a fuller explanation of why it may be time to stop battling the EGO and make friends instead click here.

What if instead we simply ask the question Is this Edging God/Love Out?

Or

Egging God/Love On?

 

Embrace your shadow, you’re not here to be nothing but love, you are nothing but love already. You are here to be you and to be you with bells on! We are at a choice Point for humanity and the Earth now. You have been graced with the gift of AWARENESS, use it wisely. Please check out the Free choice Point movie featuring Gregg Braden, Dr David Hamilton, James Caan and many more and if you feel inspired join the movement. Or join another one that resonates with you, just take action in the way that fills you with Joy and soon you’ll forget all about the anger and be so busy co-creating with passion that one day you’ll turn around and realise that world you want to see, is here now.

Until we meet again friends I leave you with the words of Voltaire, later hi-jacked by Star Wars…”With great power, comes great responsibility.”

Rashelle x  

Images ©2012 Jade Ashcroft All Rights Reserved. 

http://www.esoteric-art.co.uk/

An Unconventional Initiation Into Traditional African Healing Part 1 by Jean Sobiecki

19th July 2012: Its been three weeks since I started using southern African psychoactive spiritual medicines called ubulawu, as part of my training process to know African traditional healing —and I can say its been one heck of an unconventional initiation….

As a background, I am an ethnobotanist with university training in botany and medical anthropology.
I have had a life-long calling to healing: including the use of medicinal plants, the knowledge of which I gained through self study of nature, books, making and using my own herbal medicines as well as learning from local traditional healers throughout my life. I am currently apprenticing with a Northern Sotho healer named Mama Maponya in Johannesburg, to learn traditional southern African medicine.

The Sotho are one of a number of Bantu language speaking tribes occurring in southern Africa. These groups originated from central Africa and migrated southwards. Traditionally, the Bantu people cultivated fields (a main crop being Sorghum) and raised cattle and supplemented this with by hunting and gathering wild foods. Some of the core beliefs of the Bantu people are that of the principle of community (Ubuntu) and the role of their deceased ancestors, around which many rituals are performed.

In southern Africa there are two main types of traditional healer-doctors: the herbalist (Inyanga in Zulu), and the diviner (Isangoma: Zulu). The diviners like shamans are the spiritual specialists, and use divination to communicate with their ancestral spirits to diagnose their patient’s misfortunes or medical conditions. Both the herbalists and diviners use psychoactive plants as spiritual medicines in their practice and give these under guidance to lay people who use the ubulawu’s to dream and make connection to their ancestors.

Psychoactive can be defined as any substance that can alter our behavioral functioning, be it perception, emotions, cognition on the whole. Many common substances are psychoactive from milk to sugar through to caffeine, opium and psychedelics, each having their own particular effects.

Until recently southern Africa was often considered to be poor in psychoactive plants. Yet the research I have done since 1998 has helped to revitalize this field of ethnobotanical research and I have show that a multitude of plants are used for various psychoactive uses: for relaxing, stimulating, dreaming etc.

Ubulawu are traditional African preparations made mostly from the roots of a variety of herbs and creepers, and sometimes the stems or bark of certain plants that are chopped or ground and left in water that is churned with a forked stick to produce foam. This plant infusion is washed with, the foam eaten or the liquid is drank and vomited with. Vomiting or emetic medicines feature in many ancient systems of healing to clean the body and mind. Using the medicine connects you with yourself, and your ancestors through dreams and they often have mild and subtle psychoactive properties.

Below is an abstract of a research paper I have just had published on African spiritual medicines in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs in August titled: Psychoactive Ubulawu Spiritual Medicines and Healing Dynamics in the Initiation Process of Southern Bantu Diviners. This paper gives more detail on the traditional spiritual plant medicine use occurring in southern Africa, for those who want to know more. 

Abstract—The use of psychoactive plants by traditional healers in southern Africa appears to be a neglected area of ethnobotanical research. This article explores the healing dynamics involved in the use of popular psychoactive plant preparations known as ubulawu in the initiation rituals of Southern Bantu diviners. Research methods include a review of the literature, fieldwork interviews with Southern Bantu diviners, and an analysis of experiential accounts from diverse informants on their use of ubulawu. Findings reveal that there is widespread reliance on ubulawu as psychoactive spiritual medicines by the indigenous people of southern Africa to communicate with their ancestral spirits, to bring luck, and to treat mental disturbances.

In the case of the Southern Bantu diviners, ubulawu used in a ritual initiation process acts as a mnemonic aid and medicine to familiarize the initiates with enhanced states of awareness and related psychospiritual phenomena such as enhanced intuition and dreams of the ancestral spirits, who teach the initiates how to find and use medicinal plants. The progression of the latter phenomena indicates the steady success of the initiates’ own healing integration. Various factors such as psychological attitude and familiarization, correct plant combinations/synergy and a compatible healer-initiate relationship influence ubulawu responsiveness.

I can say that through my own current use and experiences with the medicines, what I understand of their effects and qualities is not what I expected based on all the literature…it has been very enlightening for me. Ubulawu’s psychoactive effects are very subtle not like what most consider psychoactive-i.e., strong visionary psychoactives, yet the way they take you into parts of yourself can be profound.

I call this an unconventional initiation since initiate traditional healers usually go to the rural areas and seclude themselves in huts living the traditional way—yet I have undertaken to use the plants in a noisy central business district of Johannesburg close to my teacher, living in a rented place with a landlord that is not ideal for me. This however, I have learnt is not what matters. It’s adjusting to any situation and persevering with the training that matters.

This is my journey with one of the plants called U (I can not name the medicines until I have finished my training).

INCEPTION: 2 July 2012
I began using these foaming medicines that one vomits with every morning and the first medicine called U opened me like a flower ordered to so without any protection to the light or darkness: just revealing who I am, to myself.
Being in this new home I don’t enjoy; cold and dark (being mid winter too), I felt the struggle of being in bed with my negativities, inflamed, raw.
My anchor: Buddhist dharma. Visiting the Buddhist centre in Johannesburg I felt peace and safety.

Days and nights upside down, grief’s and pains visiting me from unmet desires, writhing— stirrings in my spirit…seeing the addictions of desires, giving up on them, having too.
Waking up at 11:30 the one morning facing guilt of not doing the socially accepted thing of waking up early. “Why am I sleeping at this hour”? A program in my head said. “I should be working”…I said hell to it.
Who Am I? Is this all my intellectual pursuits? Get me out of this shithole place, I told myself: Venturing into a nearby suburb of Kensington, I sought a townhouse, a place of my own, maybe something would pop up….but I knew in the back of my mind it wouldn’t happen overnight. I remembered what my teacher Mama says “No good comes with rushing”. 

For days I felt my nerves raw and burning, my minds negativity rising up like an oil slick, no way but to pray, face it, then I saw it is time to face and overcome my fears, not just entertain their existence, that or just give up my training, but then…?

11 July: After the 9th day in a panicky state I went to see my teacher Mama Maponya, whose wisdom and compassion is like that of Buddhist lamas, she said “this is what the medicine does, it shows you who you are, gives you direction to know yourself”.
Fuck. I hated what I saw, what I couldn’t run away from. “I can’t do this— I can’t be a healer. I can’t open to my ancestral spirits—I’m sensitive enough” I told her in excruciating honesty. “I just want to teach and do research”.

15th July: I woke up in the morning with clarity of knowing my story, my truth crystallizing: (I wrote these down with a strong knowingness)
I have found my truth: What truths for myself have I found?
I know I am a seeker of truth.
To know my truth, I must be aware.
I know that the dominant culture in the West: capitalist culture hides us from awareness and truth.
I do not know if there is an omnipotent God, but what I feel is true is we have been given life in order to create: what we want.

Finding peace and happiness is my responsibility—our responsibility: no one neither god nor anyone will save us.

I believe healing our minds and learning to love and overcome our fear is the way to happiness and peace.
Awareness, taking responsibility and loving ourselves will lead to mature being and inner peace.
I need to take responsibility for my life and what I truly want.
Our capitalist consumer culture has taken us away from peace through addiction to strong desires and fears and insecurities through design thereof through mass media marketing and advertising.
To be at peace with myself I must deal with and heal my fears: my fears of people: of conflict and being afraid of conflict.

To do so I must believe I will not fear (though accepting it), being confident and believing I deserve to express my honest truth. I deserve a voice.
The healing I want to teach is spiritual freedom, to guide people.
If I am cold I must find warmth. If I am unhappy I must make the conditions happen that are necessary for my happiness to occur, as the Dalai Lama says.
I sense a journey overland is on the HORIZON.

These thoughts distilled for me in the course of the day and I shared this on my facebook mindfulness and consciousness group: What is enlightenment other than making the journey alone, into who we really are, learning to overcome our fears, our addictions, making peace with ourselves and the world and mastering our minds and negative emotions, to finally rest into the truth of who we are-essentially: pure mind, open heart.

Finding my truth is finding my enlightenment.
19 July 2012: I stopped the medicine. The pressure slowly eased up. I could handle my landlord—everything was better.
REST….days…

REVISITING U:
It had been a very intense journey into my shadow, my core of who I am.
It’s not as if I could turn away from my negatives while using it, it was there till I came to terms with it.
How wonderful that a plant can do this: accelerated learning. So often we sleep in our slumbery ways to ourselves “ya I know my shit stuff” but then a minute later we are distracted by whatever it is. Not with U. I could feel how open it made me, how unrelenting it was for me to face myself while I was using it, a constant mirror.

After having stopped U for 5 days I had been given my next medicine to use; but I felt I wanted to take U once more. It was my intuition—my ancestors.
24 July 2012: That morning, kneeling down having churned the foaming medicines I knew it was good.
After vomiting with U this time I realize and recall that Elliot, another traditional healer I met, said I must heal myself first then do research, it will strengthen me. Like mama reiterated; the plants will support me in who I am and my work. 

I now saw the points of connection clearly: my relationship to plants, making herbal medicine, —this is who I am—many people do not do this. So yes I am a healer. I must just heal my fears and move forward— with trust, I can integrate my creative, leadership and healing aspects into one like the Buddhist Kagyu lineage master Akong Rinpoche.

Having used U after 5 days of absence I can report that its effects are once again similar to my previous experience…I felt opening to insights again, same old anger as last time with an old friend D (funny how it will surface issues that need resolution), and also realize now how I am progressing on my path.
That afternoon sitting in the meditation shrine room of the Kensington Buddhist I gazed up at Tai Situpa’s photo (another high lama of the Kagyu lineage) and I knew: a distillation of mind was present:

The plants are helping me heal.
Build compassion through the Dharma
And create the conditions for my happiness or fulfillment in life.

The Journey progresses….
Jean-Francois Sobiecki
Phytoalchemist. Website soon up http://www.ethnobotany.co.za

Orbs; vehicles of consciousness? Communication devices? by Jade Ashcroft

Having had a keen interest in ufology and esoteric matters for years inevitably I have found myself drawing parallels between the Science of Magick and the "activity" of anomalous phenomena.

The subject of consciousness has been the philosophers concern for centuries, its multifaceted and mutable form evading description and definition. That which is unknown to one mind, is perfectly understood by another via their level of cognition and perception. A difficulty arises when one persons experience, or memory, of an event doesn't fit within a generally understood or socially accepted framework.

Ufology, Metaphysics? Metapsychology? Pseudoscience? How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

You could share the experiences which you know to be true to you, and face public humiliation, (stoning, or execution) at the hands of those less perceptive, or accept what you know and enter into the shadowy realm within your own conscious experience and begin the personal quest for discovery of Truths in these matters.

During Altered States of Consciousness the perception of things not previously recognised by the normal waking state, becomes possible. But also the functions of perception and awareness are open to manipulation into other "states of being" without our consent or knowledge through the use certain resonant (high and low) frequencies.

Imagine yourself in a place where there are no radio waves, satellite signals, magnetic fields or other broadcasts. Turning attention inward away from the physical world and all its "attractions", deep within the core of ones own conscious awareness or knowing. The faculty of imagination should not be discarded as some childish thing to be restricted or kept on a leash. For where else can you discover hidden worlds and other beings?

Brian Ruhe defines some UFO's as “devas from the god realm who have the power to manifest themselves as unidentified flying objects, when and where they choose.” Perhaps the "God realm" is simply the resonant field within which particular frequencies perform instant information transfer.

Telepathic communication between human minds is possible, and demonstrable, so consider the channel on which we broadcast our thoughts being open to direct communication with other forms of intelligence... not native to our physical bodies?

The late Dr John Mack lectured extensively on subtle realms and the abduction phenomena, to the detriment of his career some may say. You don't have to agree with any of it but merely consider the implications in relation to other dimensional beings. Authors on this subject range between theorising such communication as the work of demons/angels to the "experiencer" suffering from delusions or schizophrenia.

Religion has long sought to control humanity through suppression of information and guarding us in locked cages of predetermined thought. The faculty of belief precedes religion and if the threads of human experiences are carefully linked together, and followed throughout history, it becomes clear that there are lines of communication that are outside our normal states of awareness. But could they be responsible for the evolution of consciousness?

Psychic, religious and mystical experiences that of subjective "visions" experienced during deep meditation are found to be similar in content regardless of which areas of the globe the information issues from. Some may argue that these are collective hallucinations, but perhaps they are ghostly impressions from rites of passage which have been torn from our conscious awareness b those seeking to thwart expansion of awareness or discover knowledge of our true selves. Multi dimensional beings!

In the words of Bill Hicks "we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, life is but a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves."

If beings from another dimension contact us through the veil of our understanding... they don't have that far to travel, except through the "
Maya" or projection that we call reality.

The journey back to the self is one fraught with pitfalls and dangers, and from a reference point without conditioning it then becomes possible to begin travelling, dissecting and recording experiences as we follow our individual map. But to get to the point of perception of ones own opinions, thoughts or theories may be harder to reach than you realise. First you have to sift through everything that has been "taught" since birth and literally begin again from a point of knowing nothing.

That which one has experienced directly should be the foundation to begin understanding the nature of reality, rather than that being "spoon fed" to us through mainstream media and our education systems. Defining the nature of ones experiences however becomes tricky like trying to build a castle on shifting sands, and often spawns into a pseudo-science or fringe subjects of their own.

Floating balls of light have been hypothesised as marsh gas, optical illusions, dust motes, alien space craft etc etc. Beings, intelligent entities, communicating through higher/lower (than normal human perception) frequencies, via non verbal communication. For years i have witnessed "orbs" of varying size, colour and duration in both the inner and outer spheres of reality. While their origin is considered by the masses to be outside of the current understanding of the collective it makes them alien (by definition as non human or having no physical body); when absorbed by the consciousness of humanity their function could be described as that of messengers or vehicles of transmission for transfer of consciousness, and information.

The perception of the passage of time in relation to this subject is an important factor. We live in the present moment yet we have memory of the past and the ability to think about possible futures. If we consider the mind theoretically as a trinity of past, present and future where three parts result in a whole "being" and the function of intelligence as a Mercurial glue that holds these functions together, Time travel becomes a matter of a shift in perception or projection.

At the moment there is a great deal of attention being directed towards the 21st of December 2012, with a multitude of prophesied outcomes... none of which can be anything but speculation until the event. There is however a matter that does concern me leading up to this event which has been largely ignored. It relates to what some describe as the "war on consciousness"

If you are informed about psychic self defence and are working on your "Self" then you may stand a chance of escaping some of the traps laid by those seeking to control the mind of humanity. If you are not aware of the pitfalls and are content to be led into A New World Order, and dictated to by the system then they have won the war for your right to BE YOU.

Jade Ashcroft 2012
Website
Surgery for the Soul
Enlightening Times Youtube Channel

Going into your own world. by: Dana Neeley

When you are in meditation, you want to visualize things that you feel close to, such as the ocean, the animals, you can make up the colors in the environment. The animals in it you can make them up as you go, lets say you like the color purple, and you like tigers, you can make a purple tiger with black stripes, anything that your imagination can come up with, do not limit yourself, the sky is not the limit..

I can not stress more the the importance of breathing, when you are having a stressful day, what is the thing we are told most?.. Breath.... Just take a breath and chill out, basically this is what we need to do on a daily basis. With the meditational breathing you can sit at work or lunchtime and meditate within 5 minutes or less, just a few minutes at a time does a world of good for the heart, mind, body, spirit and soul.. Remember breathing in through your nose, then out through your mouth as you feel comfortable in doing so. Find your own method that works for you. 

I have previously covered the fact that we can listen to music during meditation, this is a good tool for focusing, there is an old saying I have said over and over again, if you can meditate on a bus, train, park (with many people) and beach, you can meditate pretty much anywhere.. 

I never want you all to limit your abilities, ever, meditating everyday is very good for all reasons, health being one of them. I personally have healed myself of many things due to meditating and focusing on my intention. Results are different for everybody, but trying is the key. 

Now with the focus, you can do dishes, walk around, some of us have been known for having a full conversation and be meditating while we do this. Yes, it can be done with focus. Discipline is very crucial, the more of it you have the more that you can focus and heal yourself, clear your head of stress, anxiety, worries, depression. I could go on but the list is way to long to even list of the benefits.
Dana Neeley 2012

Soulscape Commission by Jade Ashcroft. See Jade Ashcroft Website