All posts by Oren

8 Virtues, Meditations

The 8 Virtues Medicine Wheel – Southeastern Balance

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Having just been focused on the Southern consciousness of expansiveness for 20 mins or so, doing spontaneous taichi-like movements, I was complete and bid farewell as my body rotated a quarter turn towards the Southeast.

Leaning into this region with my knee facing forward, my hands and wrists flowing outward into the Southeast, the energy seemed so quiet compared to the vastness of perspective I had just come from. My heart throbbed heavily, and its loving energy was awakened as my hands passed in front of it towards this place.

As I focused on my heart, a divine being seemed to rise from the Southeastern horizon. It was a woman, or womanly energy – flowing, succulent, beautiful and yet somehow formless or at least ever changing in form.

Tears of sadness seemed to press on my eyes for escape as I communed with this precious energy that so completed me. The divinely feminine energy responded and embraced every energy I projected, sending back loving energy and support. My heart opened further.

Suddenly, the femininity I worshiped in this place seemed less personal. I could truly see it as an extension of myself and less as some female form “out there.”

Then the thought occurred to me, “What If I were a fully feminine-embodied woman communing with the Southeast? Would I not surely be in communion with divinely masculine energy?” Then my higher mind responded, its thoughts pervading the atmosphere with complete presence like a booming microphone from every atom in my vicinity.

“This is the place of Male/Female Balance.”

Ahhhhhhh….. a great exhale of relief as my conscious outer mind released in the presence of such a powerful thought, my body seemingly naked and alone as I danced in the night without a thought of my own.  Body, heart, sky, mountain, breeze, moon, movement – all elements were just together in peace and at the time I had no thoughts to describe any of it.

Male and female balance.  Yes.  The mind activated again, now riding on the guidance of this place.  I reflected on my current relationship at the time – its dysfunctions and the imbalanced energy that emerged from both parties when together.  I reflected on all my past relationships, and how when I was presented with divinely feminine counterparts I was unable to love and embrace them in the divinely masculine way that filled them best.  Every face that I ever loved and worshiped was suddenly passing before me all with glassy eyes and open hearts, searching mine – all seemingly asking:

“Why couldn’t this love last?  Why couldn’t this love last?  Why couldn’t this love last?”  My answer was different for every face.

When the faces of lovers had passed, then they started again from the beginning.  The eyes were happier, the hearts lighter.  The question now seemed to come less from them as from a deeper part of me:

“How is this person’s love still blessing my life?  How is this person’s love still blessing my life?  How is this person’s love still blessing my life?”  My answer was different for every face, and I was filled with joy ever more with each response.

When the last face passed, a single thought occurred:  “How is my love still blessing the destinies and circles of their life?  Of her life?  Of her life?”

I couldn’t know or fathom the answer to “How.”  So the question rephrased itself:  “Is my love still blessing their life?”  Affirmatively, a smile drew upon one side of my closed mouth, breathing more deeply and relaxed now as I reached out with my knee leaning toward the horizon as though I could reach and bring it closer with every swoop of my hands.

Then all the ways I may have hurt them, always on the back of my mind before, but now directly at the forefront were presented and embraced with compassion.  Most importantly, the ways that I had run away from painful or hard times, seeing from this perspective how that situation could have been overcome, and how much more love would have been on the other side of distress.

And now the past seemed clear.  There was peace.  And yet my work with the Southeastern Male/Female balance was not yet complete.

The present, the future.

“What kind of masculine qualities can I bring?”

“How can I invite the divine feminine more into my life?  How will I bless and sustain her when she does?”

These two questions shaped my inner life for the next half-decade.  I was determined, not to run away, but to be still and bring what has to be brought until one of two things finally happen:  the one I am with changes inside, or the one I am with changes naturally on its own.  I resolved then and there that I wouldn’t be the one to “try” and make this happen.  Everyday I took the time to retreat into my inner female goddess, and she carried me through the hard times.  She embraced me when the one before me could not, and after many years and a direct visit through inner ritual, everything in my life rearranged itself according to this new inner reality.

Dream Journeys

Houses on the hill

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This morning I didn’t wake up with any particularly strong dream, and found it interesting that a neighbor approached me with theirs and asked for my feedback. So here it is:

“This morning I woke up from a dream that I had a huge house. The house was soo big that the kids could play ultimate frisbee in the basement (about the size of a football field).

There was another house up on the hill that suddenly started to slide down the hill. I shouted to the boys in the basement, ‘Get out! Watch out!! There is a landslide and the house is coming!!’

The house from up on the hill crashed to a halt and surprisingly there wasn’t a whole lot of damage. Just a few scratches on the doors.

Then the owners of the house on the hill came home and wanted to know what happened and where their house had gone.   I said it slid down the hill into mine, but when the owner and I went looking for it, it was gone.”

Dream Journeys

Michael Jackson Returns

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Last night I was spending time with the one who the world knows as Michael Jackson.

It must have been a long dream because I can’t remember when it first started, I only became conscious towards the end.

I was in a small house on a busy road and he and I were just talking.  He seemed to really need some company and to release some energy through his emoting of words and stories.

His loving heart, his childlike qualities and his sense of alternate “neverland” reality were all a part of this persona.

I just let him talk and be himself.  I was desperately afraid to even call him Michael or give any hint of  fanfare, for I knew he would leave.  This time was for him, not me.

Right about at the point that I started to become conscious, I had a deep concern for him.

“Michael, I’ve heard that you have a hard time sleeping.”

His energy dropped.   I thought he was going to leave for a moment, but he apparently trusted me enough to say: “Listen, I hardly know you.  Let’s get to know each other better before we talk about these things.” I nodded my head in understanding, but then it just hit me.

“No, I am asking because I can help you!  My words can heal you!  I can heal you!”  It was a dramatic moment, one that he resonated with and inwardly agreed to with the trusting heart of a child.

The dream shifted slightly, in the same house.  Michael was changing into black silk pajamas and my back was to him for privacy – but I did casually glance over as I sat down or some other natural movement.  I instantly regretted it.

Fully dressed.  It was Michael’s turn to confront me.  “I saw you glance over at me, what was that about?”  You want to know what I had going on in here?” Pointing to his crotch.

I was very uncomfortable and now not holding back anything, almost hoping he would leave.

The scene shifted and we were outside near some juniper trees and an alley way outside the house.  A black woman with a white ‘a’-cup camisole, very short skin-level hair, about 6-8 inches shorter in stature than the two of us appeared.  Michael and this woman embraced arms holding each other and foreheads touching, his hand behind her head pulling her close.  He pulled away just slightly, with his hand still behind her head. Her eyes were closed and her facial skin a little oily and little sweaty.   He obviously loved her very much and she him, but was she conscious of this moment?

“She and I look the same.”  He said, still facing her and holding her close, obviously referring to their appearance even though he had his long curly hair.  “And now, she and I love the same!”  He pulled down his black silk PJ bottoms to reveal a man’s shaven crotch, minus the phallus.  I couldn’t tell, but it almost looked as though some vaginal labia had been surgically placed or just penciled in somehow.

He didn’t pause to get a response from me.  He was beyond a personal connection now, I was listening to his message to the world, not to me personally.

“Was his hair a wig?” I wondered what he really meant by “She and I look the same?”  Was Michael gay at all?  No, he clearly loved her, but not completely as a man at all.

Perhaps it was just fantasy, perhaps just dream-like nothings – but I got to spend time with a man who transcended agism, racism, classism, fantasy and reality, and even gender.

I woke up wishing that Michael had been more expressive of his views about things while he was alive, and had a sense that his energetic disposition would suit him well to transition to life without a physical body.

One of Michael’s songs was playing in my head as I finally rose from sleep.  “What about?” Rainbows and flowers and sunrise. Maybe he did speak his mind and his heart, and his love for the earth. But there was such a shame and reclusiveness that I wish he could have just unapologetically given who he had become to the world. I consider this video below one of the greatest gifts and visualizations to the world from a man who transcends so many dimensions.