Apositiva

As you may remember from our June newsletter, Betty, my mother, had a cockatiel named Sunny who one day took to the sky. Betty felt saddened, but then comforted by my brother’s perspective of the bird’s one opportunity to go for the highest goal a caged bird can ever reach – the sky!

My mother told me that she wasn’t going to get another cockatiel after Sunny. Although she loved having a bird singing and talking with her, she was giving up. She still had the little canary that never sang, which she inherited from her sister several years before. It was just as well that she just leave it at that – right?

Betty likes to go to shopping malls, and pet stores are lures, especially when the cheerful little sounds call out for attention and friendship. So, a few weeks later when she went shopping, there were some new baby cockatiels that grabbed my mother’s attention as she passed by the store. She said she was just looking, but you know how love at first sight is!  Betty fell in love, and several days later brought “Sparky” home. Sparky was born on July 4th, and my mother began training him. She was delighted at how fast this little baby bird picked up new songs and phrases. Before you knew it, this bird was having long, wonderful conversations and singing along with Betty.

One afternoon Betty got a call from a woman who asked her if she was missing a cockatiel. The woman said a cockatiel had landed on her shoulder when she was outside, and when she called the police station to ask what to do, an officer suggested to talk to Betty. My mother was stunned. Was this her bird?

When we hear of opportunity or possibility, all kinds of lights go off. What if? Our hearts beat a little faster, our pupils dilate, and our body releases hormones and chemicals that prepare us for action! Betty invited the woman to bring the bird over. Excited, but still holding back in case it wasn’t her lost bird, she looked to find another cage in the attic. What would Sunny think of new little Sparky? Oh, maybe she’d need a new, bigger cage. Was he her bird? She was filled with questions.

A car approached the house, and a woman came to Betty’s door carrying a brown bag – it was all she had to contain a bird. My mother welcomed her in the house, and anxiously awaited the possible reunion. Alas! It was not her bird. The woman didn’t have accommodations for a bird, so she left it with Betty. As it turned out, this was a quite bird, and it didn’t talk, nor did it whistle or sing. So, she now found herself with two birds that didn’t sing – the canary and now this new cockatiel.  She put out some notices to try and find the owner and responded to some e-mails, but this new bird looked like it would be here to stay. My mother started thinking about names.

Did you ever hear the saying, “things come in three’s”? Well, it was going to be like that for Betty this season.  On her way out, she was just up at the top of the street where she lived and “BAM!” Her car was hit and she found herself sailing through some bushes, across a lawn, and stopped just before hitting a tree. Shook up, she waited for the police to come and make a report and worried about the outcome of the accident. Going  back home she found herself sitting in her kitchen surrounded by her birds.

Have you ever been in an accident? Do you know the feeling of time slowing down and the sensation of reviewing what just happened over and over and over?  Do you almost wish you could re-arrange the details? When it comes time to get back up and try again have you ever found yourself deciding not to try again?

Sometimes we get hit sideways in a conversation and spin out of control for a moment, left feeling confused or stunned. Feelings are tricky things and how we feel and how another person feels at the same time can be tricky. We mind read how another person is feeling when conversations collide. Yet… someone, perhaps God, life, the universe... knew what was needed this day.

The insurance company called and told her the car was totaled. She’d only had it a couple of years, and now it was gone. This was the first new car she ever bought by herself – a big leap in action at her age (after 70). As Betty sat in her kitchen, surrounded by her birds, thinking about this accident, her perfect driving record for 50 years, insurance, her car, she felt lower and lower. Suddenly, she was startled to hear a sound she’d never heard before!  Singing! The canary sang!  Turning to look at the bird, she just listened. This little canary who had never sun for her sister and never sang here had burst into a beautiful, melodic song! 

Now, I can’t say why this happened, because Betty has tried to figure it out and has no idea. What happened afterward, however, was wonderful! Betty’s heart was so lifted that she got busy again in her activities.

She filled out the car accident paperwork, and turned it into the agent.  The company then handed her a check to purchase a new car. The next day, my older brother Andrew took her out shopping and she found a new car (at an incredible price!) that she said she feels even safer in.

A couple weeks later at the court date on the accident, her ticket was dismissed! Now active as ever, her spirits are flying high, and she’s out contributing to her community again. Sparky is talking up a storm and knows more songs, and my mother said that this little baby cockatiel is flirting with the new bird, now called Lucky. The canary? It still sings, and sings, and sings.

If you’ve been disappointed by some event, conversation, or anything, let go of it along with 2008! We have an opportunity for a fresh start with a new year.  Decide to start now. Bring in your desire and we'll form an alliance to create your dream.  It's time - is it not?  Come on in and we’ll make your song together! I’ll hold a space in my calendar for you!

In the 1970’s Cleve Backster, an FBI polygraph expert, began documenting his office plant’s spontaneous reactions to human thought. ¹ He actually attached the electrodes of a lie detector to their leaves and recorded the results. It seems that a human thought evokes a response from a plant that can clearly be recorded by the machine. In fact, the readings clearly resemble arousal patterns of the human nervous system. That certainly puts a whole new spin on the benefits of hugging a tree as opposed to chopping it down!

Further research showed that the plants could also tell the difference between a bluff and a serious threat. They reacted to other organisms as well such as bacteria being killed in a sink drain and eggs being dropped into boiling water. This fascinating and important piece of research presents rather graphic evidence that we are indeed all connected – not only to everyone but also to everything in our environment – quite literally.

Defining Truth – the Ultimate Pursuit
What this study also highlights is how unaware we are of all of this communication taking place around us.  Much of the interaction between us and the living organisms in our environment, including other people, is often invisible and unconscious.  Such is the nature of connection.  Much of it is often beyond our conscious control although we tend to think otherwise.

This barrage of information in which we exist actually corresponds to a sea of frequencies.  The sensitivity of the nervous system and brain to a variety of stimuli, conscious and unconscious, is what keeps us connected.  However, not every piece of information is worthy of banking in the vault of awareness.  The trick is to discern between the myriad of frequencies pulsing through. The bottom line is that we can’t always differentiate between what our sensory system is registering from the external in the moment and the unconscious content of what we’re “remembering”.  It opens “memory” up to many skewed versions of the truth.

Trauma does mold us. Many of the perceptions we hold sacred are a string of fragmented perceptions, past and present, drawn together to form a story, the origin of which may or may not be entirely connected to a current event. The connections we make or seek do not always reflect what is actually happening in the moment. The individual connections are valid, the response to the information as a whole may not be.

Self-trust Versus Self-doubt
Knowledge of the extent to which we’re connected to all things and they, in turn, to us brings a certain sense of responsibility to bear as we walk this earthly path.  Are we joined by love or fear, anger and rage or a sense of mutual caring and pleasure?  Are we running toward something or away from something or someone else?  The matrix doesn’t judge; it merely offers.

The ability to choose fear over love, trust instead of distrust is even built into the architecture of our brains.  The amygdala may be thought of as a "switch" which affects the course of decision-making.  If we perceive a threat to our survival, they click backward, invoking the fight-flight-freeze response of the limbic system and the reptilian brain. This works great in a life-or-death scenario, but the process leaves the cerebral cortex (the conscious-thinking-you) out of the loop.   However, when the amygdalae are encouraged to click forward and engage the frontal lobes, then creativity, playfulness, curiosity, problem-solving and resolution prevail. How do we trust ourselves to tell the difference between what or who is in our way rather than on our way?   Deciding who and what to believe can be maddening if we leave it all up to our heads. Do we draw conclusions from the raw data we capture or what’s interpreted through the filters of past experience?  This is what makes the life skill of determining what’s actually happening in the moment so crucial.  In order to accomplish this, we have to stay conscious ( i.e. stay awake long enough) to gather more information than what initially appears on the surface.
   
This is easier said than done.  Remote viewing helps develop the mental discipline to do this.  Remote viewers are trained to record raw data, to remain a witness to past events and present realities concurrently.  The exercise forces one into a face-off with internalized judgment and self-doubt. As a remote viewer, it’s been my experience that when I stop fighting myself, I increase my scope of choice.

A Remote Viewing Experiment
I once participated in a group experiment to find and follow the connections (“signal line” in remote viewing language) of the imperatives that drive the human condition.  After two days of deliberation, we decided on a list of twenty (ten positive, ten negative) imperitives.  We were then given 3x5 index cards and asked to create four separate pictorial representations of the first two imperatives from each list.  The entire group (about 60) was blindfolded and then ushered into a room the size of a large reception hall where all our cards had been randomly taped face down on the walls.  We were asked to locate our own cards, while blindfolded, within the space of less than an hour with loud music blasting away. 

The words represented on the cards were LOVE, INTEGRITY, FEAR and HATRED.  Everyone’s illustrations, of course, were unique.  The majority of the first cards to be located in this manner were the LOVE ones, followed by FEAR.  Over half the class located at least two of their cards in this manner. One person located all four.  Only three people found none of their cards.  The good news is that the majority of us followed the signal line to LOVE first.  The upshot of this game of cosmic Pin the Tale on the Donkey is that we do have choice.  And although the connections to both love and fear exist simultaneously within us, if we can locate, recognize and follow the frequency of LOVE then that is what will be waiting for us at the other end. 

Remote Viewing taught me that the optimal environment for choice already exists.  We are urged to leap into what is often ironically referred to as the “unknown”, where the imprint of that which has already occurred is laid bare and the future is an infinite number of possibilities.  We move toward what we ultimately seek with no guarantees. 

The message: LOVE is out there – go find it by following your inner sensory compass.   And by the way, you will have to contend with hatred, greed, betrayal, etc. on the way because the contrasts and familiar temptation will always exist.  What a test of unconscious intent! 

Viewing From a Limitless Universe
The experience of viewing something distant in time and space leaves no doubt that what we think and do influences the greater whole and vise verse.  This expanded sense of unfettered eternal connection not only reframes one’s view of life but also of death. Our dance with the matrix is more than just a brief psychic glimpse or a journey filtered by the archives of one’s memory or imagination.  It is the embodied knowledge that not only is consciousness vastly larger than the physical self but that it is inter-connected and profoundly influential. 

We can choose to empower and expand or we can choose to limit and control. Physical manifestation will follow the dictates of spiritual intent. If there is a war to wage here, it is intrinsically within ourselves.  If a sense of connection is based upon the smokescreen of past experience, good or bad, then that path will ultimately produce the perfect setup for disappointment and suffering.   If one allows the direct experience with source to occur, the truth will emerge.  It is judgment and self-doubt that pull us off the path.  By expanding our realm of possibilities, we create a climate of growth for all things.  It is up to each one of us to bring the warring factions of our soul to the peace table, making survival and creativity staunch allies.  

There is a Zen saying: ”If you understand…things are just as they are; if you do not understand…things are just as they are.”  The matrix of all creation awaits. Intent sets the course and surrender ferries us through the great cosmic sea of infinite possibilities.  It is our eternal connection that keeps us afloat.

     1 Cleve Backster, Primary Perception, Biocommunication with Plants, Living Foods, and Human Cells (Anza, CA:White Rose Millennium Press, 2003) 21-27.                                                                                                                                    

(Copyright 2008 Talia Shafir, all rights reserved)