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Entries in awareness (632)

Tuesday
Sep152020

Breathe more mindfully

Today, during a breathwork workshop, we explored a variety of situations. It dawns that we have the choice to function unconsciously, which implies allowing emotion to take control, or, we can be present, grow more aware, choose to respond consciously to whatever unfolds. We explored what it feels like to breathe as we experience different emotions, where the rhythm of the breath changes as well as the signs and signals of the body. Go ahead, reflect on what is happening within you right now. Scan the body. Focus on the breath as energy flow. What stands out? Could it be that something invites closer attention? What are you willing to see?

If you wish to breathe more mindfully, are curious about the nature of the ideal breath and are ready to explore breathing techniques that empower you to live a fuller life, contact us for details about our next breathwork event to be this Tuesday, October 6, 2020 on the Sunshine Coast.

Saturday
Sep052020

Moving beyond addiction

The subject of addiction is a popular topic for mediation. Ponder the the following:

"You look very insecure, sitting up there in your tree", said one highly-ranked Chinese official to a Ch'an master who enjoyed his life perched in the treetops. "Oh ho, good sir, YOU look very insecure to ME, down there on the ground!" replied the delighted master.

This often referenced Chan story contains a message which, we are told, the official was wise enough to understand. It was the official, whose life and fortune depended upon external favour and considerations, who was insecure. These were his unconscious addictions, the foundation upon which his life was built, on "shifting sands". It was his attachment to these external conditions that created his insecurity, his instability and restlessness.

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One day, the Buddha and his monks were walking down a road and were confronted by a frantic and miserable farmer racing down the road. He stopped them, saying "Good monks, I have lost my oxen, they were travelling this way. Did you see them?" The Buddha sadly replied, "No, we have not seen them. Perhaps they took the fork in the road back there." At this, the farmer wailed and continued his complaint. "Only this summer, locusts ate all my crops? What will I do?" and he ran crying down the road. The Buddha watched him go, and turned to his friends, saying "Dear monks, do you know how lucky you are? You never have to worry about your oxen or crops."

Thought and memory are the same. Until we know the difference between thought and awareness, no clarity arises. We are taught to take for granted our memories constitute who we are. Yet, 'who I am' in this moment, is not a thought. It is unrelated to what we think we have ot not. Rather, it is felt. As we are fully present, all that exists is awareness. Who is being aware? The monks know Being and no-One are the same, that is, everything. No-One is everybody. We cannot allow awareness to arise if we keep reverting to memory. The moment we feel a lack within, we feel separate, incomplete, like something is wrong or missing. This leads to addiction, the perceived need to fill a void. We do everything in our power to fill it, talk about it, do something to enable us to feel good about ourselves.

Alcoholism or other addictions allow people to experience what it is to feel uninhibited freedom. Becoming addicted to dark thoughts keeps one focused on and perpetuating the focus on the pain body. Until we realize the very nature of being is infinite. It cannot be destroyed. We forget we are whole, awareness. This starts the sense of lack, which brings separation, and the need to fill a voice from which emerges addiction and fear.  We are not afraid of something. We are simply fear. This fear exists because we are convinced something is lacking. We have lost trust not only in others but also ourselves.  The thought arises how could I be free of addiction? There is the amnesia of what is universal. You cannot prove it, you can only live it.

Similarly, when a person wants to know about love, he may read books, watch movies and hear about other people's experiences Yet, One does not know what love is until one begins to feel love, feel the love inside the self. Until he tastes love, feels it inside himself, he cannot know it.  Truth is not something we can prove. It is self-evident. We exist. When we wish to prove, we revert to memory and get lost in the quagmire.  As long as we live grounded in memory, we will fear death, old age, sickness , of so many things, everything.

The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results", says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Jesus too said that the Kingdom of Heaven is ever-present. Of course, the problem is, everyone is not always fully present. We are in the future, we are in the past, we are in our memories, we are in our anxieties, we are in our fantasies! Why? Because we are attached to our story; our personal narrative. We play it inside our head constantly. As we cook, we daydream. As we drive, we fantasize. As we work, we consider what better job there is for us out there. And as we love, we all too often do the same thing. So rarely are we simply aware of what we do, simply mindful.

Monday
Jul272020

Get More out of Life

To get more out of life, its useful to get in touch with our thoughts, emotions and feelings and also be aware of what is happening in the body.

By practising breathwork, we may grow acutely aware of grief, fears, loss, anger, physical pain, emotional pain and energetic imbalances. Many people have heard of the unconscious mind but you may not be aware of the difference between conscious and unconscious breathing and how unconscious breathing plays out in your body.  What if growing aware can improve your health and be a turning point for positive change?

There are periods or situations in our lives when we feel unsafe or unloved. We may hold onto emotional pain for many years, if not lifetimes, until we are ready to address those feelings.  By growing aware of the emotional body and allowing it space to communicate, we gain insight into ourselves and opportunity to heal past or ongoing wounding.  Being present to painful or uncomfortable emotions does not mean acting them out in harmful ways.  Rather, breathwork and related meditation practices allow us to be present with and feel these emotions. To get the most out of life, we are invited to love, accept and integrate all of ourselves. 

If this post resonates, invite you to search relevant key words for related articles like:

Breathwork shifts habits

12 Ways breathwork empowers me

Interview with Dan Brule 

Interview with Steven Farmer

Interview with Jaan Sanaam (Jerabek)

Wednesday
Jul152020

9 Benefits of Tuning into light language

When open and receptive, we all have access to a universal healing modality called light language. This multidimensional, energetic language is understood by all on a soul level. It is channelled Dynamic Frequency Encodings of Sound and Light. We are constantly receiving, decoding and transmitting energy on various frequencies. For some, this can feel like a heavy load. From the moment this possibility of light language enters our scope, the intention is for it to serve our highest good. If this involves gaining insight into ourselves and new realities, then this is what light language allows.  We have a responsibility to live in integrity, recognize and get comfortable with light and dark, to create balance among polarities within us.

Light language flowing through us adjusts to the resonance of each of our vibrational needs in the moment. With perfect timing, this emerges in a spontaneous urge to utter words, sing tones or write script that seems mysteriously familliar.  This may happen out of the blue, intermittently, at night or, more regularly as we grow more conscious and accepting of ourselves. Light language can take shape in our mind's eye as sacred geometry, symbols, or other images, be expressed as we conduct energy of the air in physical gestures, drawing, painting, and enage in other creative forms of expression.  We may or may not recognize visible shifts in our lives but its happening and continuing even after light language is uttered.  As the impulse arises to allow more sound and  light energy to flow through, feel the way into these 9 benefits;

1. clearing energy 

2. balancing chakras

3. activating dormant systems

4. aligning with vibrations of Well-being

5. expanding perception 

6. activating spiritual or psychic gifts

7. deepening awareness

8. grounding confidence, truth, clarity of purpose

9. harmonizing polarities within and beyond ourselves

Friday
Jul032020

Interview with Robin Easton

Over the years, I have had the joy of knowing Robin Easton. We connect on a variety of platforms and resonate with unique journeys.  During this period of planetary shifts and changes in perception, I feel intuitively guided to interview her. 

As a nature photographer, long-distance hiker, animal communicator, author of Naked in Eden- My Adventure & Awakening in the Australian Rainforest, she guides others to see the world differently, to trust intuition and strengthen conections with the natural world.  Thanks Robin, for reconnecting, for opening up and inviting us to feel the way into heart-warming shifts in our own lives.

Pleasure.

1.   If you were to present yourself using three words, which would you choose?  

“Emotion, Soul, and Nature”

These terms reveal mystery, awareness and depth of character. Please expand...

Emotion: 

I am deeply, fearlessly emotional, both by nature and conscious choice. I love exploring raw, honest emotions, no matter what they are. Many years ago, around the age of twenty-six, through personal experience and my own soul journey, I discovered that instead of resisting my feelings, instead of trying to control them, judge them, shift them, manage them, or bypass them with my mind, I could use my emotions as Living Vehicles, highly Intelligent Vehicles that had a direct connection to The Great Mystery. I knew, that given the chance, these Emotional Vehicles would carry me Home. The inherent energy of emotions is to return to truth, resolution, peace, and love. 

It sounds like regardless of what the mind tells us, feelings are vibrations that actually weave the story of our life ...

I realized that I could safely let go and flow with this Emotional River. I could embrace this ancient intelligence, these living emotions loaded with eons of Cosmic Code. If I allowed my emotions to live and breathe, they would effortlessly carry me Home, back to my most profound origins, my most honest and empowered self. My soul would effortlessly heal. 

Many people relate to the idea of the human experience being a healing journey.

I also realized that no emotions are judged by Compassionate Life. Judgment is a human condition. However, in the pristine presence of Life itself, nothing is seen as “good or bad” or “right or wrong.” In the absence of a lifetime of judgment, there was only with The Great Mystery. No evil would befall me for exploring emotions that my cultural had shunned, banned, or told me were bad emotions. I would not destroy the Great Fabric of Life by viscerally expressing and exploring my rage, hate, despair, shame, horror or any other emotion that my culture had told me were ‘bad’ or ‘negative.’ Living wild, as I was in the Australian rainforest, far from my culture, my ancient soul had room to remember a Life Force so vast that it would encompass and embrace all that I felt, all ‘wrong doings’, all darkness, all deviations and emotions, and it would do so with the utmost tender love.

Funny synchronicity- I also ventured 18,000 km from my birthplace, to Australia. This shook me up, introduced me to the "emotional river" and led me to wake up to a whole new way of being. 

In flowing with this Great River of Emotion, I would not only burst open confining, old prisons, but I would fully awaken to Life. I would always have emotions, but I would no longer fear feeling my emotions. There is a magnificent distinction there. I would no longer need to manage or control my emotions, or other people’s emotions, or the world around me…so as not to feel. I could freely feel all that arose. In doing so, I was set free, birthed into the Vast Cosmos. 

Love that you highlight from the moment we connect with the universal in our own story, we relate to something far bigger than ourselves.

With this deep understanding, it no longer mattered to me which emotion arose: rage, joy, grief, fear, love, despair, shame, or curiosity; I embraced all without judgment, and with wide open, curious heart…just as the Great Mystery embraces me. I no longer chose to manage or control my emotions. I simply walked into a place of solitude--at the time it was the Australian rainforest where I was living--and I reclaimed my birthright of emotions, all emotions. Nothing was silenced. I simply let speak the emotions that sought voice. I embraced each emotion as an already wise teacher. I let my emotions overcome me, tracking and observing them as they flowed through all the ages of my existence. I became wailing grief, fiery rage, trembling fear, and always euphoric love, empathy, and compassion. As I befriended my stunningly alive emotions, I befriended myself. It was, and still is, a singularly intimate experience between me and Life. 

What a beautiful way of describing how you shifted from focusing on words to tuning into the language of emotions and the wisdom felt in silence.

Once I committed to allowing my emotions, I became these emotions, let them speak their truth. Often generations of supressed emotion passed through me, cleansing all those who came before me and all those yet to come. 

As I allowed the dam to burst, I observed what unfolded. I didn’t need to analyse my emotions. They told me what they wanted me to know, and what they needed, why they were angry, sad, ashamed, terrified, despaired, joyous, or in love. I saw them as highly-intelligent, Living Entities that knew where they needed to go to reach resolution and fulfillment. 

The emotions you describe as 'highly-intelligent living entities" take shape in my mind's eye as geometry. I sense everything as vibration and frequency and this takes shape in sacred geometry paintings.

I set only one boundary in this emotional ‘allowing process’ or soul journey; I would not physically or emotionally harm another life in any way. I would take full responsibility for everything I felt.   

I feel that much of my American culture lives with animotophobia; fear of emotions, any emotions. We live in a type of institutionalized deadness or numbness, lacking the inherent vigour of Life itself. Our culture fosters and supports this state of numb unconsciousness and amnesia. Legal and illegal numbing agents are as readily available as blades of grass on a green lawn. Even our psychology, our medicine, allopathic and alternative, as well as our religions and alternative spirituality, our schools and higher education systems teach us to control, reign-in and shut down our emotions. This emotional starvation and eventual shutdown usually start at a very young age. With time, it is seen as perfectly normal and rarely questioned. 

Animotophobia is familliar in practice even if many peopel are unfamilliar with the word.

 Could well be. However, the soul never experiences this shut-down as normal. Emotions are kin to our souls; they will not be denied. They have a will and life force all their own. When we do not acknowledge our emotions and honor this brilliant life force within us, when we deprive our emotions of witness and healthy, natural expression, they invariably slip out sideways, desperately straining for resolution in whatever way they can. In this frantic, often out of control push for resolve, our emotions then can cause chaos, suffering, and destruction…possibly, desperately trying to get us to feel. Emotions want to be seen and honoured, for they are the Soul of us. 

That is so true! Breathwork is one tool that reveals the nature of blocked emotions people often do not even know they have.  It helps me remember so much, including how to let go, be fearless, open to experiencing everything. Truth exists to be uncovered directly.  Surrender is a timeless teacher.

I live in a culture with few places to sit, explore, and feel our emotions. I do not mean to just sit and talk about emotions, but to actually have a visceral, animated experience, one with sound, energy, movement, tears, wailing, released rage, or laughter, one that can appear messy, confused, raw and seeking, a living experience where we momentarily lose ourselves to Intelligent Emotion. Given the chance, children emote as naturally as rain. They cry, wail, scream, rage and laugh, sometimes all at once. I feel that at some point we all need to be able to experience our emotions without tidiness, judgment, context, or correction.

So, would you say that emotions teach us about emotions? 

If allowed, emotions can shatter long-held emotional dams, dams that we have unconsciously grown weary of constantly reinforcing and plugging repeated emotional leaks. If allowed, this Emotional River will crash through our seemingly safe deadness to finally set free Life’s inherent flow. Once the river flows, the entire landscape of our being is reshaped, our world view forever altered. We heal the Soul of us, and the Soul of the world. 

We feel what feel and our bodies know what we need to feel. To allow emotions is one of the most stunningly beautiful experiences we can give ourselves or witness in another. We enter Sacred Ground. When claimed and honestly allowed in ourselves, without harming ourselves or others, emotions are a gift of the purest, most honest Life. We are recharged, uplifted and healed. Emotion is a sign that we are fully alive, that we are flowing with Life.

Indeed. What I hear and feel you saying is we exist to be conscious, to feel fully alive and to guide as many as possible to experience this. Would love to hear you expand on the word  "Soul".

Soul: 

For me, Soul is the deepest part of who I am, and will always be. The Eternal. It is where I landed many years ago when I headed straight into all my emotions of grief, fear, despair, anger, joy, and love. It is why emotions are so important to me. Since my Emotional Soul Journey, I have lived completely from a place of Soul. It now is all I know. I was so utterly reshaped by Emotion that I cannot clearly remember a ‘me’ before my Emotional Soul Journey. 

Over the years, I’ve been told numerous times that I relate to others totally on a Soul level, as opposed to a more surface level. Through this feedback from others, I was able to see the truth of how I relate to those around me.  

I am extremely empathic, so I feel and hear the soul feelings of every soul that comes my way, whether that is in person (face-to-face), on the phone, or through their written word. It doesn’t really matter which way, as I still hear their soul talking to me. Not necessarily what they are thinking, but deep down, what their soul is clearly reaching out to say, or how their soul needs to connect, to be heard, the truths, yearnings, pains and joys that the ‘mind’ denies or reasons-away. 

On a soul level, wordless exchanges are carried out in mere seconds, with lightning speed, and are always profoundly moving and completely honest. I tend to not think of people as humans, but as souls because that is what I foremost see and feel. It is how I experience other species, as well, which allows me to easily communicate with many wild species. 

I love both the Light and the Shadow of Soul, especially the stunningly beautiful ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, a place filled with stunning Light. I have experienced Soul as something that will not be denied, much like Emotion. It lives wild and free, a powerful, Sovereign Entity. It is highly emotional and will not be tamed. Like a mighty river, we can either flow with it or spend our lives struggling to contain it. When denied, both Emotion and Soul will ultimately find a way to express themselves. However, it might not be in a way that we appreciate or would choose. But then, they are trying to get our attention, trying to get our help in setting them free.

There are many humans who move through the world using psychology or even 'enlightenment' to rob the soul of its beautifully organic expression, its grieving, raging, wailing, indignant, confused, unsure, frightened, raw humanity. We humans often forget that the path to enlightenment is rarely via a by-pass. Although, the thought of avoiding the deep, dark pit that yaws open before us, can be enticing. 

While we may cling to our emotional by-pass, often the only way to the Light is through the deepest, darkest shadows…where eventually the Light shines more brightly than we ever imagined. Soul and deep, abiding enlightenment, spirituality, creativity, passion, music, art, writing, dance, and radiant Light are often found through honestly, fully allowing our messy humanity. And, ultimately it is beautiful and magnificent.

I consciously choose to let Soul live and breathe. I love that Soul does not care about tidy emotions or keeping up appearances. Eons old, it is direct, honest and irrefutable, a timeless truth. In my book, Naked in Eden, I write: “Soul is an experiential learner with little use for concept and reason.” When Soul is honoured and allowed to live and breathe in its own powerful way, under its own directive, it is a clear, healing force. When we live with Soul, we know who and what we are.

And what does"Nature" feel like?

Nature: 

Many of us humans think of the brain as the remarkable organ that lives in the skull, but I tend to see the whole of Nature as my brain. Nature would include the entire cosmos, the ‘All of What Is’. 

When we are not plugged into Nature, we are much like a lamp sitting on a table trying to glow. Although the lamp has a bulb in it, and the lamp thinks the bulb is its source of light and energy, its brain), if the lamp cord is not plugged into an outlet, its Power Source, the lamp cannot glow. 

Without deep connection and merging with Nature, we humans are much like an unplugged lamp. We might still look human and even look beautiful, but we are not plugged into our Source. We are not glowing. Left unplugged, we wonder why we don’t feel light and energized, or why we feel depressed, lethargic, unfulfilled, hopeless, lost, angry and alone. 

Left unplugged, we often experience mediocre intelligence, little creative impulse, and even less desire to explore our own lives or Life in general. We tend to operate far below our true Nature, our inherent Gift of Life. 

As a human-collective, when we walk around unplugged from our Source, often in a state of amnesia, we exist within the confines of a very small, illusory reality. We act independently of the rest of life on Earth, independently of the rest of our ‘Self’ (Nature). We walk around thinking that the reality we live is the ‘all of us’, the ‘all of everything’, a reality where we hold dominion over all other life, both animate and inanimate. 

In truth, we can never exist separate from Nature, not even in death. Separation is a physical impossibility for we too are Nature. However, we can and do exist in ‘separation thinking’, which has far reaching ramifications on ourselves and all life around us, including air, water, and soil.

As a species, when we plug into our right place, along with all the rest of Nature, the inevitable outcome is a ‘re-membering’. We become a member, again. We plug into our greater brain and infinite intelligence…Nature. We discover more peace, heightened creativity, reassuring sense of connection and belonging, and an endless supply of love and a vital intelligence that is capable of guiding us throughout our lives and beyond. We begin to empathize with other species as we understand their lives, needs, and gifts, as we understand that they are part of us. In this dawning we recover our empathy toward all life. This Intelligent Love flows through all things, is all things.

Ultimately our intelligence does not come from books, schools, teachers, or gurus. Intelligence is who we are. Just as the tree knows to grow toward light, its Source, we also are hardwired to grow toward, and with, our Source.

Although, I have 'called in' and communed with many species in the wild, such as beavers, mule deer, rabbits, crows, and more, every single time I do it, the awe of it never diminishes. I never feed or touch my wild Friends; we simply spend time near each other to commune. The wild ones are always safest left wild. During this merging of souls, I hear their thoughts and feel their feelings, and more thrilling is that I feel them feeling me. We often exchange breath to leave imprinted memory through scent. I always go away filled with stunning intelligence and wisdom, directly downloaded from my wild friends. 

The intelligence that we can tap into and be part of is breathtaking. I have often thought that I am only a 'body' and all of Nature is my brain. Without conscious connection to Nature, which in truth is the rest-of-myself, I am like a body walking around without a brain. Since my intelligence and creativity is Nature, without it I am less than mediocre.

If we allow it, Nature has a beautifully humbling effect on us. We realize that we have more to learn from other species than we ever imagined. We tap into the most piercing intelligence going. To sit and witness Nature is to see intelligence unfolding before our eyes. Everywhere we turn Intelligence is happening; from the unfolding petals of a rose; to the heliotropism of sunflowers as they follow the sun east to west; to the green leaves that turn sunlight into chlorophyll; to the cawing blue jays warning their tribe of intruders; to the morphing of billowing white clouds; to the stunning fuchsia rays of an evening sunset. The world around us implores our awakening, eager to commune, teach, love, and reveal itself…as yourself. 

When we forget that we are connected to all life around us, we suffer a grievous loss to our beautiful humanity. Our grace and dignity fall by the roadside. Without awareness of our Extended Self, we lack empathy for each other and all other life forms. We often feel little or no connection to the natural world that we are inseparably part of, and no compassionate connection to ourselves. We become the deadliest species on the planet. An absence of empathy usually leads to fear-based actions: greed, abusive power, decimation, unconscionable cruelty, and blind quest for the almighty dollar. 

Right now, on planet Earth, our collective absence of empathy is epidemic. This absence of empathy allows us to kill, destroy, and decimate on a mass scale so vast that we have brought about the world’s sixth great extinction. It is the only mass extinction in planetary history that has been caused by one species…humans. Because we live in separation-thinking, and yet cannot physically be separate from Earth, we destroy the source of our life. Hence, we destroy ourselves.

Resonate your alternative love-based view of the fearful idea of pandemic.

Yet, when we consciously merge with Nature, our Extended Self, we are rich beyond comprehension. We understand that the very Life we now love…is quite literally our own. We are not separate from anything. When we merge with and empathize with all Life, nurturing is born. We hunger to protect that which we so dearly love. We humbly know that we cannot live without it.

Likewise, children raised in relationship with nature, and adults who reclaim their relationship with Nature, are far more likely to develop empathy for all life. They usually have deep values, caring natures, awareness of the world they live in, and clear, strong values and conscience. We naturally protect what we desperately love.

If it feels right, please share a relevant excerpt from your book...

~ Excerpt: Naked in Eden – Robin Easton 

“Your love decomposes all that is not me. You leave me with wild prehistoric eyes. In our mating I forget myself and separation vanishes as if it has never been. I’ve fallen desperately in love with Earth. If we do not desperately love a thing, we cannot care for it.” 

When we spend time with Nature, with our senses fully captivated, we forget ourselves and expand our souls into tree, rock, lizard, water, fresh air, hawk, and all things. Merged with Nature, we start to see how truly vast we are. We begin to experience our Extended Self. As we become the snail, the crow, the deer, the rabbit, and the snake, our own intelligence expands as we take on all that these other life forms teach us. We become as vast as the Cosmos. We come to know the Soul of Existence. 

To understand with our whole being that everything is infused with, and of, Intelligent Love, is to realize that all things are connected. We are never alone. Everything around us is aware of us, curiously observing us, feeling our intentions, and merging with our souls, awaiting to welcome us Home. It is humbling to know that all life around us, even the rock, has been aware of us all along. This awareness gives birth to deep abiding love. We feel safe and held. We unequivocally know our humble place amidst all the rest of life. We realize how little we know, how much we have missed, how much there is to learn and become, and how infinite Life’s possibilities.

In 2010, you shared the extraordinary book, Naked in Eden: My Adventures & Awakening in the Australian Rainforest.  In 2020, the second edition of this book was released.  Please share highlights of what has happened during the gap in editions. Why revise & re-release?

I wanted more liberties with my book than my publisher afforded me. Many book contracts (especially those with large publishers) can limit what an author can do with their own book: like recording and selling an audio book (which I want to do); like limiting how much of the book can be shared or used (such as how many paragraphs from the book can be used in promotion, or shared on a social media network such as Facebook, or on the author’s website, etc); like having to ask permission from the publisher every time I wanted to use any quotes from my own book; like the publisher owning the rights to my two future books before they are even finished (which was a bit like someone owning my soul). Some people might like this situation. I did not. I also felt very uncomfortable with the price that my publishers set for the book, especially the Kindle format. The Kindle was almost as highly priced as the hardcover book. In the book cover design, I had little say, so the resulting cover did not express who I feel I am. I have since redesigned the cover. 

Blessedly I got back all of the rights to “Naked in Eden”, and all future books. I now have my own production company, Robin Easton Productions, LLC., and I publish all works under my own label. It is glorious! 

What a beautiful example of listening to your heart, reclaiming that power you gave away and taking responsibility for next phase of your writing journey. The climate of publishing is indeed changing. We each have the choice to listen closer to ourselves, our feelings and do what feel right to us at each stage of the journey.

What brings you from Australia to New Mexico?

I grew up in Maine, USA and blessedly ended up in Australia running wild and free in one of Earth’s oldest rainforests, which saved my life. After several years in Australia--with much of that time spent living off the grid--the forest told me that it was time for me to leave. I knew I could choose to stay, but I was continually being told that I had other things which I had to do. I felt a strong, alluring pull toward something new, although at the time, I had no idea what that ‘something new’ would be. However, I had learned to trust my heart and soul…and the rainforest. So, I left. 

What is your greatest lesson or insight? 

I wouldn’t call it a lesson, but rather an experience of awakening. In my second book I am writing about dying to myself, a death and rebirth. At age twenty-six, I realized that all that I had experienced, all that I 'thought' was me was not me, not even close. It was all a lie, or other people's pain, other people's beliefs, other people's violence, manipulations and control. 

I finally decided to stop running and to turn and face all this ‘distortion’, to head straight into the fear, horror, violence, hate, deviation from both my culture and from personal experiences that occurred in my life. Once fully embraced, wailed and raged over in the rainforest (where I was living), no matter how horrific, no matter how brutal, it all started to fall away as if vaporized. It lost its hold on me. 

At the journeys deepest end, I thought I would find a beautiful new Robin, but I came face to face with the Great Nothingness...and I did not run. This was the first, real, honest, feeling (lacking all deviation) that I had ever felt. I embraced it with tender love....as mine. 

For almost two months I wander naked, both physically and spiritually, through the rainforest. I did not speak with one human soul that whole two months. As I wandered, torrential rain cried with me and cleaned all residue. 

Finally, one day sitting by a tiny creek, I said to Life, "I do not mind this Vast Nothingness. I cherish it, but am I to always be alone here?" A clear voice spoke, "You are not alone, Robin. You never were. I live here in this Vast Emptiness. You are me. This, dear one, is who you are. Now that you are empty, there is room for me to enter."

With an infinite sigh of love, The Great Mystery breathed Life into my emptiness. I fell to my knees on the forest floor and wept. From that day to this...I know who I am.

I have never been the same since. I live in love, breath in love. I wail, weep, and rage in love. I am alive…with Love. All around me, every single soul, rock, tree, blade of grass bathes me in Love. I fall into love, over and over again. Who could resist such intimate tenderness? Not I. I throw back my head in ecstasy…and sigh. 

When we no longer cling to the tiny, illusory, isolated self, when we ‘merge with’ and have no self at all, we become All Things, as vast as the Untouched Infinite. Merged with all Life, we know how it feels. Empathy is born. We no longer want to harm, only to love. 

We extend into the infinite stars and beyond. Our 'mind' is not contained in a tiny skull. We ‘think’ with our entire Being, all of Existence. Our mind is The Great Cosmic Brain, as it always has been…and will be. We think, feel, and love with wildly beating hearts, with passion unleashed. In this Vast Emptiness, we come Home.

Please share your perspective on ongoing world events? 

Something I learned, many years ago in the Australian rainforest, is that Life is always trying to heal itself…on every level. Since we are Life itself, we are automatically included in this healing process, whether we like it or not…and often we do not like it one bit because we don’t recognize the healing for what it is. We tend to perceive it as the bane of our lives, ‘everything is falling apart’, another uncontrollable disruption, a curse, a plot out to get us, or an unthinkable disruption.

Love your reminder that order and disorder exist simultaneously. It is like a choice to sense and experience integration.

In Life’s wisdom and desire to constantly heal and balance itself, we are very blessed. We are not offered only one chance to heal, or one chance to understand ourselves and the Life around us, or one chance to change the course of our lives; we are offered infinite opportunities to grow, heal, and become conscious. This gift of healing and awakening may not always come in a form we want or when we want, but it does come. Every moment is a new opportunity to reach out and connect with Life, to reframe our world view, and to awaken more vastly to life. 

Well, more and more people are certainly prompted to step back, question information given, self-reflect and re-evaluate priorities. People are changing jobs, habits, moving geographically, healing and it feels like energetic shifts on the planet and universe are reflecting this.

Although we might not recognize it as such, Life is infinitely compassionate and continually offers us an opportunity to awaken. When we resist and choose not to see the proffered gift, when we choose not to grow or awaken from the events of our lives, Life does not stop there and say, “Well you blew that opportunity. I tried to get you to awaken and you shut down and clung to your unconsciousness. Well, that’s it for you.”  

No. Life has all the patience and determination in the world. It will circle around yet again and again, creating events that attempt to bring us to our humble knees. Life desperately wants us to awaken. It sets up situations in an attempt to dismantle our rigid defences, and shatter our numb deadness, exposing us to Life, to our Greater Self. We usually do not see these gifts as opportunities. We tend to see them as unfair disasters, setbacks, mistakes, and we are the poor victim placed in the middle of the swirling chaos.  

As hard as it might be to understand, these challenges and disasters of our lives are here to help us awaken. Right now, on the planet, we are being called to awaken in a very big way. Yet, as a collective we have ignored the Call of Awakening. We live in deep somnolence, dead to ourselves and the world around us. We surround ourselves with as many ‘sleeping pills’ as we can. We cling to our amnesia and fortify its maintenance, as we resist awakening. Yes, there are, and have always been, those who walk among us, beautiful, rare souls who implore us to rise up into consciousness, to open our hearts and minds and see that “we are the ones we are waiting for.”  

We humans cannot live on this planet in a state of unconsciousness. Life knows this, and deep inside we know this. Currently, in our chosen state of unconsciousness we are killing everything around us, including each other. We create violence which weaves its way into every facet of our cultures. 

Of course, we lament the presence of this current pandemic. We dislike having to be aware. We grieve the loss of our beloved dead ones, and often fear for our own lives. We hate the isolation. We are restless, and many don’t know how to be still, to be silent, to simply be with themselves. We panic when we can no longer ‘go, go, go’…run. Many don’t like being forced to stop. We don’t like to ‘feel things’…anything. We are uncomfortable with the weirdness of it all, the not knowing when it will ‘pass’. We want to control it or pretend it is not happening. We feel stunned, angry, indignant, and want it to all go away so that we can go back to our ‘normal’, safe lives. We greatly dislike having to be this aware. We don’t want to think about masks and protecting ourselves in the grocery store, being aware of how physically close we are to others, or who we can and cannot be around, what information is true and what is not, and what about our kids and the grandparents. We don’t like this pressure to be so aware. Awareness initially takes effort, especially when we have been living in unconsciousness. Yet, if we want to stay alive---not only live through a pandemic, but stay alive as species on planet Earth---we now need to awaken.

We are not asked to live in terror or even fear, although we must honor these feelings, as they are a natural part of being human. However, we are being asked to live in a constant state of awareness…not alertness...but Awareness. As hard as it may be to comprehend, constant awareness is our natural state of being, our innate state of being. This piercing awareness is who we are. We have just forgotten. Now is the time to remember.

I pray that collectively we do not miss the gift this covid-virus brings, as painful as it is, as much tragedy and grief as it brings, and has brought. I nonetheless feel that this virus is here to help bring about a global shift into awareness because at this point on the planet, it is going to require a massive global shift to save the inherently beautiful human species from extinction. We can no longer respond to ourselves, each other, and the planet from a state of unconsciousness that only leads to fear, greed, chaos, violence, and destruction. Now is the time to align our consciousness with that of Planet Earth. The alarm has gone off, the long sleep is over, and now we awaken. Lean into and flow with the magnitude of this planetary shift and life will carry us forward. 

It sounds like you are increasingly aware of different ways of viewing the pandemic and everything in perception...

In light of this awareness, my heart, soul, and tears cry with the thousands of people who have lost their loved ones during this covid-pandemic. These souls know awareness, and will never be able to forget it. Please, rise to awareness and move safely and respectfully through the world so that there are no more losses. Rise to the awakening call, and live your life with awareness, integrity, and respect for yourself, others, and the planet. Do not waste the life you have now, no matter how limited you might feel it to be, no matter how afraid you are, no matter how weird the times. Live your life in honor of the lives lost, in honor of the Life that still lives, in honor of all Life on planet Earth. Live as fully as you can in every moment because it is what you were born to do. 

If someone asked you to describe death and your experience with it, what would you respond? 

For me, there is no death. There is only Life flowing into Life. We do not have to physically die to be merged with The Great Mystery, we can die before we die. It’s who we already are, but we fear letting go, relinquishing control, when right at our doorstep the whole world beckons us to let go and merge with our Greater Self. 

very excited that you share a workshop recording: Things Eating Things- Reconciling Death in Nature

I am one who lost all illusion, died to self, crumbled to dust--never again to pick up my illusory self. What I thought was me, was not. I grieved my own death, and found my Soul in the Great Darkness. It was there in the deepest silence that I heard the sweetest voice. It was there in the darkest dark that I saw the brightest light. It was there in the Vast Emptiness that I found ‘god’. 

Merged with All, we are never alone and we never die. 

Resonate completely.  Love a relevant quote by Nisagardatta Maharaj: For me, the moment of death will be a moment of jubulation, not of fear. I cried when I was born and will die laughing. 

Breathwork is one path which reinforces the same revelation on a conscious level. It is freeing!

Some people describe 'kundalini awakening.' Can you comment on this? 

Since I choose to not read spiritual books or most books, I don’t know what Kundalini Awakening means. I tend to prefer to learn through firsthand experience, observation, intuition, and feeling. When I do this, I am immutably altered for all time. 

Like cloud watching, people do tend to use different ways to describe different ways of seeing and feeling the experience of energy flow.  Words are less important than the experinece itself.

If you could share some advice with our readers, what would that be?

I rarely choose to give advice. I am not even sure what that might look like. However, I do love to share my own personal experiences and feelings--as I’ve done here--and let others derive from it what they might want or need in this moment, if anything. We all are so different and unique; I prefer to witness the uniqueness of each soul, rather than crowd sacred space with an agenda. I love to listen to other people’s stories, feelings, and experiences, with no intention but to see yet another aspect of myself, another aspect of Life itself. I now know that every life I meet has something astounding to teach, something incredible to share. 

Please share anything else you feel the urge to share. What is your greatest wish? 

Although, I might use the word, “wish” in passing conversation, I don’t usually think in terms of ‘wishes’. Not that people can’t have truly beautiful wishes, they do. Wishes can sometimes give people hope in the way that having a dream might give hope. However, I tend to think in terms of, “How can I help?” What can I do here, in this moment, this day, this situation or event? What is needed? How can I help ease the suffering of humans, other species, or the planet? Or, likewise, how can I foster love, balance, or harmony?” 

How can people get in touch with you? Contact details, upcoming events: 

People can reach me through my website. They can also follow my Facebook page, subscribe to my Robin Easton Newsletter and Blog and sign up to be notified about updates.

Thank you again Robin, for your candidness and the energy of this conversation. You invite each of us to listen more attentively to what we all know and feel in the heart.