consciousness

04 01 2023

Consciousness and You by Elektra Porzel

creation Abdominal mind, Brain, connection, consciousness, conversation, Craving, Creation, Creation Templates, Elektra Porzel, Enteric Nervous System, Historic mind, Language of Creation, Life-enhancing, Life-generating, mental mind, Mind, Neural networks, neuroplasticity, Observing, sentient intelligence Brain, consciousness, conversation, Creation Templates, future, gut brain, historic mind, Mind, neuroplasticity, sustainable 0

We hear a lot about the word consciousness these days. It wasn’t a common word 50 years ago or even 10 years ago. So, what does consciousness mean?

Dictionary definitions

…the awareness or perception of something by a person:” her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence”

…the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world: “consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain.”

…an awareness of yourself and the world. Research on consciousness has focused on understanding the neuroscience behind our conscious experiences.

These definitions don’t fit my experience of the journey into greater consciousness not only of what is ‘me’ but also of what is the ‘Self’ that came here to earth to be, to do and to have. It is not a straightforward awareness of my mind nor is it a straightforward awareness of the greater dimensions that interact with humanity.

First let’s look at our brains – the head brain, the Gut Brain and the heart.

Up until the 1980s, the medical profession only recognized the head brain. They thought that it was unchangeable…that nothing could be done for people who were either born with defects or had injured their head brain. Two paths of inquiry changed that picture: Neuroplasticity and the Gut Brain. Research into what we now call neuroplasticity has proved that the head brain is the most malleable organ in the body. Different parts of the head brain can be used for different functions. Now the medical world is discovering all the myriad ways that the brain can change so that birth defects, accidents, stroke are no longer jail sentences but are instead opportunities to rewire the brain and for the individual to move into being differently and being more. Other research discovered the second brain/gut brain which has almost the same white and gray matter as the head brain and most of the neurotransmitters. The microbiome of the gut brain informs us 24/7 what is occurring within us and outside of us.

Then what is the mind?

It’s the functioning of the three brains – the enteric nervous system/gut brain, the heart and the head brain all connected by the Vagus Nerve and our Spirit. We think of it as our intellect or maybe everything we experienced in the past thru thinking, willing etc. Our brains hold all of the information, ideas, beliefs that we have been fed by our larger society, our family, our religion. These beliefs/truths are stored in pathways in all our brains. So, when we ‘think’ our mind is ‘thinking’ we are mostly simply reordering what we learned earlier in life. We are not actually thinking something new, instead we are repeating the old statements that were given to us as the truth about the world.

How do we change if we are simply repeating what we have been told?

We can’t think newly if we never explore ourselves outside of the box that has been provided us. Dipping your mind into the wider arena of discovery starts the process of consciousness.

What are ways that we can expand our thinking?

There are tools for the individual to use in this journey of ‘opening up to’ different perspectives, different information. The Newfield Network suggests that you step outside your normal thinking and investigate new perspectives. Like the five blindmen who disagree what an elephant is…. when they ‘opened up to’ the idea that the other blindman might have a different experience of the elephant…they could change their position around the elephant and thus gain another perspective. Eventually the ‘all’ of what an Elephant is would be clear to them. The same process happens with each of us when we ‘open up to’ others’ perspectives, others’ wonderings, others’ hopes. Our comprehension of what more there is to the world, to life expands; our neural networks in our three brains gain more pathways; we have more choices in our thinking; and our levels of reactions lessen as these additional choice points makes responding easier instead of reacting to input.

What are the ways that you can search out different perspectives?

I use conversation with others who listen fully with their minds, their bodies, their hearts and their spirit. They want to open up to others’ perspectives. They are looking to create a future that takes care of everyone on earth including nature, the land and the waters. Conversations with these people opens me up to others ideas and information, their wonderings, and their hopes. We use language to explore these ideas. Our language is expanded thru these conversations and then become anchored as words with larger meanings in our brains. Those meanings carry cognitive and sentient information which makes the new neural pathways part of the our whole system, body, mind and spirit.

In order to language my inner consciousness journey, I use the Templates of the Language of Creation to give myself a connection to Creation and to access the deeper wisdom of my Spirit and Creation. It is in the regular writing of my Creation Exercises that I deepen my own consciousness of who I have been (my historic self) and of my Self…whom I deeply am, whom I came to earth to be, to do and to have. I experience these two processes…the observing of what is occurring and the craving of something new in my life. This interaction of Observing and Craving is integral to my consciousness. They cannot be separated out as just one or the other. We must reflect on where we are in order to take our next step to creating the life that we crave.

If we are to create a more viable and sustainable future for coming generations, we must come to the world, to ourselves differently. That means learning to identify our historic patterns and habits and lessen those that are not life-generating. That means changing how we be with others in our families, in our communities. We must look to creating a world, a society that works for everyone. Our present economic system does not do that. Our present healthcare system does not do that. Our present educational and judicial systems do not do that. These needed changes have to mean that we will return to honoring and respecting not just all people but also nature, the land and the waters. Without this whole system response to the earth home and its inhabitants, we won’t be creating a sustainable future for our grandchildren and coming generations,

To learn more about the Templates of the Language of Creation, I suggest that you visit the website of the Language of Consciousness Institute. Go to our products and investigate what supports we can give you in this inner and outer journey of deepening your consciousness. (www.loc-institute.com/store/) If you want to be in conversation with others, join us in several conversations we are presently offering. (www.loc-institute.com/courses-events/)

What is most critical is that you place yourself in a supportive field with others. It is in the common journey of discovery and ‘opening up to’ that we find that we are most able for what has been hard for many of us. The LOC Institute offers free mentoring when you first start writing your Creation Exercises and paid mentoring whenever a need for support is felt. Go to our website to see what is being offered. (www.loc-institute.com/mentoring/)

03 25 2023

The Value of Conversations In Our Lives Now by Elektra Porzel

creation communication, connection, consciousness, conversation, Elektra Porzel, Exploration, Inspiration, interactive, interdependent, interrelated, Life-enhancing, Life-generating, Unity Eisenstein, Indigenous, next stories, Sand Talk, sustainable futures, Yunkaporta 0

We are in a time of humanity’s consciousness expanding towards a future where unity is dominant while simultaneously the old stories from the reality of separation of what is the ‘truth’ are fighting to stay in power. We each must pay attention to what we are paying attention to…the old stories that keep us in historic patterns of beliefs and actions, or the new stories that offer us the life that we crave. One way to do that is through conversation.

What are conversations? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, they are informal talking together, an oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas. Is there a name for conversations where all participants are listening fully with no stances for judgments; where there is a mutual opening up to the others’ perceptions, ideas, wonderings, hopes? Let’s call it ‘Full-On Opening Up Into’ Conversations (FOOUI)! That’s my definition of conversation and the kind of conversations that I promote in my conversations on Zoom!

To open up to another’s perspective, another’s wonderings, another’s hopes for the future is to expand your own capacity to experience more, to see the world through another’s eyes. As you open up through this listening, you gain new perspectives. These new perspectives inform your choices and your actions. Those different choices and actions lead to different results in your life. Different results that help you create the life that you crave for yourself and for others.

In the present western society, there is a ‘talking at’ others from judgments or beliefs. We could call it a ‘not-listening’ to the thoughts of the others. There also exists a ‘belief’ mindset in which the individual hasn’t questioned their own thinking…are their thoughts what someone else told them or did they create these thoughts themselves? In this ‘belief’ mindset there is no examination of evidence pro and con or weighing of what others are saying relative to the ‘belief’. In ‘Full-On Opening Up Into’ FOOUI Conversations, we examine both our own thinking and seek evidence for our own thoughts as well as the thoughts/ideas of others. This form of internal/external dialogue is important to us now. Without those basic parameters of internal/external listening, how will we realize that there are other ways to view the world? How do we change how we behave or choose? How do we create new ways to be with each other? How do we create new ways of working together to create a more sustainable future for humanity?

The only way to get different results in our life is to open up to others’ perspectives. It’s like the five blind men around the elephant. If each blind man stays in just one position such as the leg or the trunk, they will never know the entirety of what an elephant is. If they listen and open up to what others are present to, they have the opportunity to move to the other’s position around the elephant and thus have a fuller comprehension of what an elephant is.

We each are a blind man about something in the world.

What better way to get a larger picture of the realities and the possibilities that are present in every situation, concept, experience than to participate in FOOUI conversations? Being in conversation does not force you to change your perception or opinion, it only serves to open you up to the more of what others are experiencing, thinking about, perceiving, wondering about, hoping for, dreaming about.

I hold conversations every week about the ideas of two different authors, Charles Eisenstein and Tyson Yunkaporta. They each have written books about the need for our present western society to shift our practices and policies, so that we can create a viable sustainable future for humankind. Eisenstein offered us his ideas in his books Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible as well as in his blog on Substack. In his book Sand Talk, Yunkaporta proposed that indigenous practices may offer us some practices, some concepts and some being states that we could use as templates for each of us to adapt in order to create a sustainable future for generations rising.

Each week I have two conversations on an Eisenstein Old Story-New Story proposition. Each conversation has different participants and therefore each conversation ends up focusing on different issues and evidence. It’s fascinating! Lucky me to be with these women who share from their history, from their wisdom, from their wonderings and from their hopes for creating a better future for our grandchildren and coming generations. Join me in April to be part of the conversation around Eisenstein’s Next Stories and Yunkaporta’s Sandtalk. The Eisenstein Next Stories conversations are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The conversations on Sand Talk are every other Wednesday and focus on one chapter of the book while looking for adaptability to our lives and possibilities for humanity’s future. Join me in FOOUI conversations and/or join others in FOOUI conversations where everyone listens without judgment, where everyone opens up to the possibilities of different perspectives, of different dreams and of different possibilities. Let’s open up to each other’s perspectives and discover the more of what there is to perceive in the world!

Exploring Charles Eisenstein’s Next Stories April

https://www.loc-institute.com/product/exploring-charles-eisensteins-next-stories-april/

Becoming the Modern Indigen using the ideas in Sand Talk

https://www.loc-institute.com/product/becoming-a-modern-indigen-using-sandtalk-by-t-yunkaporta-and-the-creation-templates/

03 15 2023

The Art of Unpacking Soma

creation Awakening, Body, capacity, Commitment, connection, consciousness, interactive, interdependent, interrelated, Life, Life-enhancing, Life-generating, Lori Candon, Mind, Perception, Spirit, Victoria McMahon balance, Body, emotions, Mind, Spirit, unpacking 0

by Lori Candon collaborating with Victoria McMahon

Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies—

“Physical illnesses are the body’s response to permanent disregard of its vital functions. One of our most vital functions is an ability to listen to the true story of our own lives.”

We each have a story, a series of events/circumstances, influenced by our individual and collective (societal/historical) experiences. Story may formulate from a tape that continuously runs in the mental mind, linking thoughts with emotion, or from a habituated shaping of our physical body. The shaping of the physical body produces a mood; creating a link between body and emotion. Shaping may operate on behalf of life or you may recognize an experience as disconnecting from life.

The Art of Unpacking Soma has been a theme in my storyline for over 40 years. Observing began through the access point of the mental mind; deciphering the world from a place of either/or thinking (good/bad, right/wrong, safe/unsafe). A hypervigilant, external focus led to disengagement with expressing internal emotion and feeling body sensation. I operated from a place of “being at the effect of circumstances”, which for me means surviving the world and navigating relationships.

As the practices of yoga and tai chi brought me back into relationship with my body, other modalities reconnected me with emotions. Threading my experiences of mind, emotion, body language has opened me up into strength, stamina, capacity for embodying choice. Embodying choice has me have agency for “being with” the dynamic unfolding of life, inviting more.

Can you identify either way of being?

Does a story come to mind right now?

How do you gain access to authoring a new story?

Exploring our unique communication system and observing our mind, emotion, body languaging informs us of our level of engagement with our living body (Soma). The intelligence of the entire organism (Whole System Response) is a vital lens in which we organically engage with the world. Through the interactive, interrelated, interdependent Soma Communication System, we increase our capacity in the unfolding of how we language an experience. This informs moving with experience, being in direct relationship with the fullness of life within us and in community with others.

Is your unique relationship with Soma what you have been longing to discover?

Are you pondering the possibility of a new way of operating in your being that gives you a deeper connection to you?

Are you able to remember a moment when you felt aligned, all aspects of the mind, the emotion and the body interacting in a harmonious way of being?

How are you unpacking that which no longer serves you? Choosing to explore and awaken into observing and engaging as a somatic being opens us up into living our purpose while experiencing the joy of who and what we came here to be and do.

Coming from an organizing nature, unpacking for me happens in so many different ways. Imagine a suitcase where everything is jumbled and stuffed inside, unable to close and function properly.

Then, imagine a suitcase where all the contents are organized and have a place.

Now it is time to unpack the suitcase. Do you throw the contents into a disorganized heap only to ‘deal with it’ later? Do you remove the contents in an organized way, returning the contents to their rightful place? Do you take the time to be with the experience, listening to the wisdom of Soma?

Sometimes unpacking is messy and happens all at once and sometimes it is a slow, deliberate process. There is no right or wrong way to do it. You can be in the both/and…you can go into the depths all at once or you may choose to take one baby step at a time. Consciously choosing what, where, and how to unpack supports moving into ‘trueing’ with Life itself.

Link to our video to explore what ‘trueing’ is for you

Trueing Ourselves in Somatic Relationship

For me, the art of unpacking is a dynamic process creating generative movement toward balance. It is an expansion of either/or thinking into both/and thinking. While sustaining and maintaining life enhancing languaging and fluidity of the entire communication system, soul consciousness is able to operate through form to remember itself.

“Health is the natural expression of the body, mind, and soul when they are in rhythm with the One Life.”- Dr. Randolph Stone, Health Building

https://www.loc-institute.com/product/the-art-of-unpacking-soma/

03 01 2023

Traditions…Hindrance or Support?

creation Awakening, communication, connection, consciousness, Elektra Porzel, future, humanity, Mind, Observing, Perception, Reality Eisenstein, future, humanity, new stories, next stories, old stories, traditions 0

Traditions! Do they support us or hinder us?

By Elektra Porzel.

We all have celebrated shows where the children defy the traditions and prosper. Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind with one daughter refusing an arranged marriage and another marrying out of her religion and culture. We witnessed the joys and the difficulties of these choices. We also have been part of or heard of families broken by the children’s decision to live their lives differently. In my generation, it was intermarrying between culture/religion groups and then racial groups. Now it’s children defying being what their gender has traditionally been in their family lineage and/or in their culture’s definitions of gender. All this change, while welcome in some parts, is never easy. Our families’ traditions are often based in a larger cultural context and that is based in an earlier time when adherence to tradition assured the individual’s and the family’s survival. Our family’s reaction to our changing of traditions can be separation, hurt, judgment, shaming as well as welcoming, integration, owning.

In the beginning of these tradition challenges, we are not always aware of the ultimate value that this shift to the family/societal structure and functioning will be. When it occurs on a societal level, it is harder to monitor and control the positioning of old=good, new=bad scenarios. As we negotiate how to celebrate holidays, how to speak to others of these choices, of altered expectations, there is an up and down of the roller coaster of creating new ways of being, new norms for the family or the society. We are watching an extreme response to change in our legislatures in the USA trying to limit choice, to limit voting, to make silence about the real history a mandatory action, to push back the clock of change. Ultimately they won’t succeed AND they make the process of integration so much harder for the society as a whole and for the individuals within it. While they voice their actions as trying to protect society for the future, they are actually lessening the viability of the society for the future.

We must create a new reality for humanity to live within, to prosper within. That future must meet the criteria of sustainability. Our traditions, our institutions are all up for needing change. We are seeing them falling apart right now. My questions is this: How do we create a sustainable future for our children, our grandchildren and future generations coming? How do we navigate these times without falling into judgment, shame, blame? How do we open up to the greater benefits and be compassionate to ourselves and others in the bumpy road of navigation to a new norm, a new pattern of living as a family, as an individual, as a society?

These questions are all up in two discussion series that we are offering through the Language of Consciousness Institute this month. ‘Becoming a Modern Indigen’ explores what we could gain from reviewing the practices and thinking of indigenous peoples, of our long-ago ancestors. In ‘SandTalk” by Tyson Yunkaporta, he suggests that our present western society’s traditions and institutions are not viable as a sustainable culture for the future. He offers for our investigation the practices and thinking of the aboriginal peoples of Australia. In Becoming a Modern Indigen, we will explore his thesis chapter by chapter…trying out some of the practices, writing our Creation Exercises around those ideas. Lots of wonderful deep conversations will surely occur.

To learn more: https://www.loc-institute.com/product/becoming-a-modern-indigen-using-sandtalk-by-t-yunkaporta-and-the-creation-templates/

In Exploring Charles Eisenstein’s Next Stories, we explore his ideas about new stories that are rising about humanity’s future. He too believes that our present society is not the basis for a sustainable future for humanity. This is discussion is aimed at looking at all the perspectives that dance around each ‘Next Story’. It is free for March.

To learn more: https://www.loc-institute.com/product/exploring-charles-eisensteins-next-stories-march/

03 01 2023

What is…Exploring Soma?

creation Body, connection, consciousness, Creation Templates, Language of Creation Body, embodying, emotions, intelligence, languaging, listening, Mind, Observing 0

What is…Exploring Soma?

by Victoria McMahon and Lori Candon

SOMA = Living Body

Soma includes not only the physical body but also the intelligence of the entire organism that can change itself. As living organisms we are born with the impulse to move toward safety, connection, belonging. Depending on our experiences, beginning in the womb, our bodies shape around our biological responses to safety/lack of safety, connection/lack of connection and belonging/not belonging.

Do you have recognition that you are a somatic being?

How does being somatic register in you?

Somatic being is the innate way of listening, observing, and operating in human form. We all experience ourselves on a continuum of Somatic being – from the awareness of our Soma, just coming into awareness of Soma or not engaging in awareness with the Somatic system.

If you haven’t been introduced to the experience or languaging of Soma until now, celebrate your expanding curiosity for how you long to engage with life. If you already operate in relationship to Soma, what ways are you longing for more or deeper access? Either way, you are inviting yourself into a new way of operating in depth of knowing, embodying who and what you are!

Is your interest piqued?

What is it to operate in life through the lens of experience and language of Soma? We have access to our organic nature through mind, emotion, body languaging.

In gaining access to mind languaging, we are exploring and building our capacity of attention. Attention is about recognizing our words, thoughts and actions that follow a thread of either being life-enhancing or life-depleting. Moving into the observing of being with these threads, we are deepening our connection to the rise of emotion and body languaging. Discovering the woven patterns in-forms and invites us into practices that move us beyond mental mind thinking. Then we are able to organically re-shape into a mind that operates in unity.

The languaging of emotion is about listening and following the ebb and flow in the emotional field. This organic flow invites somatic opening up into the gift of being emotionally present. Engaging emotional presence with mind and body, we experience how emotion shapes thinking and physical body sensing/shaping. This interweaving sustains our capacity to observe and be with rise and release, flow and restriction, and interruption or completion of energy in motion.

Body languaging is the third access point of Soma. Typically, when you hear the word Soma, you think of paying attention to the body, registering sensation. Registers can include muscle tension/relaxation, pain/ease, temperature changes or tingling energy sensation. Observing and tracking the intelligence of body sensations connects us to our body shaping, informing our mood and mental mind thinking. The integration of body, emotion and mind generates the potency for deeper exploration of Soma.

Observing from this deeper exploration, we can develop practices that create choice:

Shifting language of mind, emotion, body
Operating in connection as somatic beings
Engaging in life-enhancing ways with Self, Others and the World
Generating purposeful action towards your longing in life

Are you ready to step into this way of operating in your being, giving you a deeper connection to your organizing design?

Register here: https://www.loc-institute.com/product/what-is-exploring-soma/

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”- Rumi

02 26 2023

Discovering the Deeper Natures of Unpacking, By Elizabeth Geyer

creation Awakening, capacity, Commitment, community, connection, consciousness, Craving, Creation, Elizabeth Geyer, Emergence, Inspiration, Observing, Soul, Unpacking choice, commitment, community, consciousness, Creation Templates, Observing, self study, sentient intelligence 0

Have you ever had a topic you were super interested in take you down many different pathways to relate to it? Have you ever had that topic become almost a friend, and not let you go? This has been unpacking for me!

Way back in November of 2022, I could see in my mind’s eye, a gathering place, with people gathered around a fire, telling stories and sharing their experiences. I felt such a deep kinship with this group that had not yet shown itself! Guess what? That group surfaced, and began to meet to immerse ourselves in the writing of The Creation Templates. Then, another ‘download’ occurred over the holidays. A knowing that unpacking our lives, our journeys, and the deeper relationship with ourselves could be created. I simply kept being with that ‘can’t not’ feeling…can’t not unpack in 2023!

Currently, this amazing group has almost completed The Art of Unpacking The Creation Templates, series 1. We have just begun to form a relationship with unpacking what there is to unpack in our lives. I had no idea that unpacking had so many pathways! I also had no idea that unpacking would show up everywhere…not just in the writing of the Creation Exercises! There are so many ways to look at unpacking now!

What might you be unpacking this year? How has using a magnifying glass to unpack what is there for you shifted you being who you are? How has taking a deeper dive into the wonder of you been for you? For me, I can see unpacking everywhere! I am unpacking my health and what that is for me; I am unpacking becoming an empty nester, becoming a mom to only three cats and missing the 4th one that just moved out. I am unpacking what my relationship with my daughters is for me now that they aren’t here at home anymore. My relationship with my partner and how we are here at home…another exploration…my relationship with unpacking…with others I hold dear in my life and who they are as part of this unpacking…unpacking what listening to my heart is…listening to my body…listening to my mentors…listening to Mother Earth. This list could go on and on!

The other lens I am observing from is that which has my attention, and discerning that attention with more clarity. In other words…what happens if I am writing a Creation Exercise, unpacking it, and I hit a wall? To observe further I have now learned to ask this: Have I hit a wall because the language in this phrase I am unpacking cannot hold a deeper resonance? Have I hit a wall because the phrase has ‘unearthed’ discomfort and I am not certain I have the strength to follow the unpacking thread? These are questions I have never asked mySelf. What do I ‘do’ if the Template falls flat? Well…newsflash…I am coming to discern that writing that falls flat means I need to let Time pass and let the mind, body and spirit ‘steep’. Knowing I am uncomfortable about something only makes me want to persevere to follow that thread to walk along the path to move to the next greater whole! And looking more deeply if the writing isn’t resonating at all has also been part of the experience of unpacking. Choosing to write a Creation Exercise more mindfully and slowly has been a big help to solve the issue of my writing falling flat.

If you are unpacking, and you run into a wall…I call it a firewall…perhaps ask your heart some of these questions. This year I am working on relevancy and potency of exploring mySelf and Her deeper natures of Being. “S.H.E.” has a lot to say and is loving Her audience!

Unpacking the deeper nature of Being and Self is an amazing journey thus far. I would love to share this experience of unpacking with you! In hindsight, I am so blown away by the deeper nature of life that has shown up all around me, loved ones, my communities, both local and global, with the Earth and the Universe…this is BIG? Yes?!! Who wouldn’t want this amazing experience?

To register for The Art of Unpacking, Series 2, register here:

The Art of Unpacking the Creation Templates-Series 2 with Liz Geyer

02 24 2023

Becoming a Modern Indigen

creation Body, Brain, Commitment, communication, community, connection, consciousness, Creation Templates, Elektra Porzel, Emotions, Exploration, Language of Creation, Mind, Observing, Perception, Reality, separation, Spirit, Unity Indigenous, reality of separation, reality of unity, Sandtalk, Yunkaporta 0

What is a Modern Indigen?

by Elektra Porzel

In Western societies, we have lost much of what our indigenous ancestors thought about the world and how they interacted with it. In studying present-day indigenous peoples, we can extrapolate that our indigenous ancestors were part of a connected relationship with each other, with the land and with nature. Those relationships included their access thru their bodies, their emotions, and their minds. Many of us have lost those regular connections. Our western focus is on activities that pull us into the mind which defines how things are different and not how they are the same, not how the other is connected to the ‘me’ and to the ‘us’, not how our bodies inform us and how our emotions inform us. Thus, the reality that we live within is one of separation. This is not a sustainable mind/body/spirit reality for humanity to build on for the future.

Many present-day humans are seeking to reestablish these connections with their body, their emotions and their minds. They are seeking to be differently in their relationships to each other, to the land and to nature. We are seeking to recreate a reality of unity with all life, so that our children, our grandchildren, and the coming generations will have access to a world where there is a place for everyone and everything. A world where everyone can be supported in bringing their unique gifts to the community. A world where the people hold the common good in their actions and thinking. That’s my version of a Modern Indigen.

How do we relearn some of the ways our indigenous ancestors thought and how they interrelated with the world?

Each of us are the descendants of some indigenous people. Some are still active in that lineage while many of us are dozens to hundreds of generations away from our indigenous lineage. Though we can’t go back in time, we can look at how the indigenous peoples of the present-day think and act together. That viewing can give us a more vivid comprehension of what it means to be in connection with the land and nature. To be in the wholeness of thinking of and with, of acting within the whole.

In ‘SandTalk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta, the author describes and explores different ways that his aboriginal ancestors (and his present day indigenous community) connected as individuals and as a group; how they thought and how they acted together while in relationship with the whole.

This is a living example of whole system thinking where we examine the whole as one actively in connection with others. There is no examining one piece at a time as we have done in our western thinking. This is a wider, deeper, higher way of holding the other while in a dynamic connection. It feels to me that if we take the time to dive deeper, we can ‘get it in our bones’ and thus come to comprehend how we might think and act differently.

Yunkaporta offers to the reader the opportunity to listen to the activity in its placement within a whole culture. What would it mean to live in the wholeness of such an activity in the western culture, in our larger friend/families or kin groupings? How can we teach ourselves and our children to move into practices of whole system thinking and acting? Will such a move give our children and grandchildren a future that is sustainable for generations upon generations?

I hope that this intrigues you, interests you. I am offering all of us an opportunity to delve deeply into these ideas in ‘Sandtalk’ with a program called Becoming a Modern Indigen.

Starting on March 15th, I will be leading a book discussion/immersion group where, for each call, we will discuss not only the ideas put forth in a chapter, but also we will explore how to live that concept/practice in our lives. For those of us who write the Creation Exercises, we will write a Creation Exercise on a term or idea from that chapter.

I sense that this book needed a deeper look than just a one time reading. I want to create a better future for my descendants and yours. Only in the deeper wider thinking can we try on these practices in ways that might work in the present. This is a deeper dive. Hopefully we will be integrating these new ways of thinking about and being with others into our daily lives.

My plan is for the group to meet every two weeks starting on March 15^th at 9amPT.

Want to take this deeper dive with me?

First, register for the program ( https://www.loc-institute.com/product/becoming-a-modern-indigen-using-sandtalk-by-t-yunkaporta-and-the-creation-templates/ );

Second, buy the book and read Chapter 1 before our first class.

From March thru early June, we will meet every two weeks. Then we will take the time to let all that whole system thinking and acting settle into our systems. Starting in September we will return to the book discussion/immersion looking at Chapters 8-14.

When I first read this book, I listened to it because Yunkaporta’s voice provided the sound frequencies of his truth. Then I used a Kindle version and a paperback version to let my mind track his connections more deeply. I recommend all these versions for you to use in your deepening into the more of what we humans can be and do.

Be with me in this deeper dive of exploration and application to our lives!

Starts: Wednesday March 15th. Runs for 7 calls for Chap 1-7

Time: 9amPT -10:30amPT

Cost: $89

02 14 2023

What is Scaling? By Liz Geyer

creation anxiety, Awakening, capacity, consciousness, Craving, Creation, Embodiment, Emotions, Energy, Imagination, listening, Liz Geyer, Observing, Resonance 0

Synchronistic Sage-Sacred Safeguarding

Centered Clairvoyant Certainty

Animate Astronomical Attentiveness

Listening Life’s Light

Imagination’s Intensities

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Grounding Guided Growth

On a beautiful fall day, in the middle of a small town, full of festival goers, I had my first real experience of scaling. My heart raced, agitation and irritation were upon me. My solar plexus was on fire with a feeling like dread. All of a sudden, everything around me became brighter, louder, and my sense of smell heightened. All of my senses were so attuned to everything in a minute’s time. I knew I could no longer stay at this sweet fall festival. I had no idea what was happening to me. I had no idea that I was experiencing an ‘up leveling’. My body instinctively knew (my mind did not), that I needed to ground myself. I found a park with a stream nearby and laid next to the stream for three hours! Energy stabilized in the body, and the agitation slowly dissipated. This first experience of scaling was the longest, and most profound event. Since then, there have been several events like this, with differing experiences, varying from extreme agitation to irritation that did not dissipate for hours at a time, to feeling very emotional. Once I knew I was in another recursion (event) of scaling, just being aware helped calm the systems.

What IS scaling then? To assist myself, I wrote an acrostic poem above. Experience has shown (only my own…yours might be quite different), that scaling happens when we are moving from one energetic place to another. Sometimes scaling happens slowly over time…perhaps days, or slowly over hours. Sometimes it can come on quickly. I recall being in a body of work with Tantra Maat a couple of years ago. We were beginning something new, and suddenly, I felt a huge rush of energy happen in my solar plexus. I wasn’t certain how to handle it. I realized I was scaling, and this was another register…the rush in my solar plexus. I was also a bit lightheaded. I recall Tantra having me breathe fully and slowly. I also recall feeling as though there was not enough room in my abdomen for the amount of air coursing through it. I imagined a huge balloon, expanding out with each breath. Soon, I was able to feel a balance occur in the body, and my head felt better aligned, the dizziness dissipating.

Scaling is a fascinating experience. There are many situations that might have us scale. One might be a shift in the energy on the planet. Another can occur when we are in an event with many, many people, and the feeling of unity brings a huge rush of energy into the systems. Yet another might happen as we write the Creation Exercises; particularly the last three-5,6 &7. As we delve more deeply into our explorations of Self and the world around us, we can experience scaling in our writing. I remember a few times when I was writing these exercises and there was such a huge rush as I read the finished exercise to myself!

Does any of this resonate with you? Have you experienced similar events, and perhaps thought it was just ‘you’, doing whatever, and thinking this was you? I know I have experienced scaling this way!

I am on a quest to be with scaling as I unpack the deeper nature of mySelf this year. I am not a beginner with experience scaling, yet I am a beginner with articulating it, and describing my experiences with scaling will continue to give me new perspectives, which will assist me in sharing clarity with others and myself.

How about you? Being with our experiences with scaling and having the markers to assist ourselves and others would be a great option to consider! In the meantime, our LOC Institute team is available, should you need assistance! We can be in the beautiful muddle of scaling together!

12 31 2022

The Art of Unpacking the Templates by Liz Geyer

creation Awakening, connection, consciousness, Creation Templates, Embodiment, Emergence, Inspiration, interactive, interdependent, interrelated, Language of Creation, Life-enhancing, Life-generating, Liz Geyer, Observing, Spiritual Creation Templates, language of creation, spiritual maturity, unpacking 0

Welcome to 2023! Happy New Years to you!

It is a new year, and is a time to be with ourselves to create something new to move into. I am sitting with two brilliant questions Elektra proposed:

“How do I come to know mySelf more?

How do I become more of who I came here to be? ”

Have you been pondering such questions?

What response does your body have when reading and hearing the word ‘unpacking?

I have asked mySelf these questions before. This year, I want to try something different by diving more deeply into this inquiry by unpacking a template three, specifically around ‘spiritual maturity.’

Step 1:

I crave to sit with ‘unpacking’. In the past, I have had some less than great experiences with the ‘unpacking’ idea in the school system. I want to move beyond those experiences of ‘unpacking’, thus, I went to the dictionary!

According to Grammarist.com, unpacking is: “To remove things from a box, suitcase or other container. “

Unpacking has also come to mean, “To analyze something, to take apart an idea and examine each detail. This involves a sort of deconstruction.”

I found out this last meaning came into play in the late 1980’s. Now it is seen as a buzzword in some circles. So correct!

The mind now wants to move into writing a Template 3: “Craving what unpacking is for me is.” This way, I can be an observer to see differently.

Before moving into writing this Template, I want to explore the definition a bit further.

Another source, ‘CITE’ gives a definition that intrigues me: “To unburden, as the mind; reveal.”

This definition is the one I wish to explore further! Focusing my observing lens, I want to explore unpacking the Templates to open ever-deepening layers of the Self to become a more perceptive observer of the many aspects of ourSelves. I crave to reveal more hidden gems of who I AM in addition to (goddess, treasure, crone, magician, gnome, grumpy, almost 101 year-old feisty grandma, sha-woman).

Who else might be here within mySelf to bring into the light?

Whom else might there be to reveal within YourSelf?

Step two:

After exploring a definition, if a word pops out for me, writing an acrostic poem sometimes gives me a deeper sense of the intrigue of the word. In this instance, I was intrigued with the word ‘REVEAL’. I was able to train my camera lens more deeply here:

Revealing regenerative relevance

Enlightened exceptional epiphanies

Validate vast vibrancies

Eagerly explore ‘earnestnesses’ empathies

Activate adventurous, authentic access

Lighthearted, loyally learning loving leadership

What a wealth of in-formation occurred in the language here.

Is there any language that stirs something in you?

For me, I am feeling the beauty of ‘enlightened exceptional epiphanies’. If we are unpacking something, finding ever deeper and more colorful layers of who We are, the word ‘epiphany’ lights up like a Christmas tree! What is revealed in the activity is an art…epiphanies are certain to be unearthed!

Step three…

Now to observe from a different perspective. What if we began to see, hear, feel and sense that the Template writing practice is an art form?

I am sitting here pondering this. Hmm, what…if?

Training my lens on a picture,

seeing the templates as brushing colors onto a canvas…

my solar plexus is lighting up with joy in seeing this picture!

My Experience

There is no clench of dread now! Only excitement! I can see a young child opening a box to reveal a bright light of magic, a bit like a Norman Rockwell painting. I can see this in my mind’s eye.

What if unpacking with the templates looked like this? “ Such a sublime activity”, my wise Self says!

I do admit that sometimes writing the Templates becomes something I know I have to do, yet…

…with this new way of observing

…with this new excitement running through my systems,

I am now going to shift my observer to be with the “Art” of writing the templates and try this perspective on this year! What a great way to begin the year through this beautiful art medium of unpacking.

How does one unpack the templates?

I am so happy you asked! I can’t wait to take you on this journey with me, and with the LOC Team! We can be in this exploration together!

Join me and the LOC Team on Monday, January 16th at 8:00 AM PST, for a free conversation about the value of “The Art of Unpacking the Templates”. The next week, we will begin a new six week series, where I will walk us all through ‘How’ to unpack the templates, using Template 3, specifically this Template: “Craving what spiritual maturity is for me”.

This year, I crave unpacking ‘spiritual maturity’. I know I crave this, because the language won’t leave me alone. I have been wanting to unpack templates and really spend a good amount of time in this activity ever since Victoria talked about taking a year to unpack a template!. Now is the time!

I would love for you to join me and the LOC Institute Team in community to be with this activity together! Here is the link to our events page. Hope to see you there!

https://www.loc-institute.com/courses-events/

11 14 2022

Giving Sentience a Place by Victoria McMahon

creation Body, connection, consciousness, Imagination, Resonance, Sensitivities, sentient intelligence, Victoria McMahon Body, body wisdom, communication, consciousness, sentience 0

What are the ways you know yourself to be alive, attuned, aligned with your body…your essence being nature? How do you give language to this sense of you? Have you even considered giving these ways of being a place in your everyday life?

Imagine for a moment, we are sitting in your favorite cafe, park, natural scenic location. I invite you into a conversation about how you know yourself to be alive, attuned, aligned with your body…your being. What might you say in response?

Many of us might respond by saying I am alive because my heart is beating, and I am breathing. I am attuned to the with the sounds around me and I am aligned in listening to you speaking. Which, for sure, is a great beginning!

And then, what is next? How might we expand upon this beginning. Becoming the observer into who and what we are begins with our usual sensing experience and it expands beyond. Being the Observer of life is recognizing that observing is Sourcing Creation.

“Observing is being fully present to what you are present to, opening up into what there is to open up into and having what is yours to have.” Tantra Maat

We have the capacity for sensation or feeling of information taken in through our senses. More than simply noticing, we bring the conscious willingness to engage with these sensory experiences. This conscious doing is ‘observing’! In becoming the observer, we open up into the field of Sentience…so what is it to be Sentient?

Living sentiently is the art and science of actively engaging with sentient processes, which develops awareness of access points to ‘the more of you’. This can also be described as ‘living beyond the circumstances of mind or the culture which you were born into’.

Moving beyond circumstance simply means, you make a place for the daily events of life and simultaneously engage with these events as a Sentient Being….in the fully embodied, fully present Presence of who and what you are.

We have a language or communication system through the body as the body sends language in chemical signals that we perceive in a sensory way. The body tells us when we are hot/cold, fearful/calm, settled/excitable…. etc. Butterflies in our stomach is a common way to describe when anxiety is upon us. This communication system is a beginning exploration into the Language of Sentience.

Sentience is defined as “sentient condition or character; capacity for sensation or feeling.” Dictionary.com expands upon sentience as being sentient as “having the power of perception by the senses; conscious.”

In our capacity for sensation, feeling and power of perception through the senses, we remember we are the power of consciousness itself. This capacity of sentience is innately present in each and every one of us as human beings.

Remember, from the definition of sentience, we have the capacity for sensation or feeling with information that arrives through our senses. And the art of being sentient is engaging with our sensory experience through the power of perception, which really means, being consciously conscious and in relationship with our senses. This is more than just noticing that we have sensory experience.

Engaging with your observings in a consciously conscious way, you experience how sensations, sensitivities, and imaginings thread together to deepen the felt experience and increase your capacity to track the full experience. Body sensation, emotions and thoughts support you in gaining access to how your system operates.

So, building sensory awareness develops your unique language of how you perceive sensation experienced in the body and how the emotion and thinking weave into the body sensation to build the whole network. The network that is Sentient Language.

Stop and listen within to experience the deepening right now.

In this now new moment, what are you observing? (a body sensation, a thought, an emotion, or something occurring in relationship to your being?)

In this observing, what is the next layer that you are becoming present to? And, in being present with this experience, what opens up for you?

Feel the next layer awakening…. notice whether you are experiencing mental thinking or beyond the thinking mind. (Sometimes this is experienced as “this is beyond what my thinking mind could come up with” or “wow, where did that thought come from” – I call it a download). Invite yourself to consider it as the cognitive perception of the more.

Again, check in and notice the thinking…. thought thinking (random thought or limiting thought such as judgment) or beyond thinking mind.

Simply continue observing what you are opening up into and observe again in this opening up into, what does this have you have?

Can you sense how you are with the moment just as it is, not dictating how or what arises (like watching a series of images or thoughts without creating a story or an ending)?

Take a breath….

The art of observing, over time, becomes the discovery into a way of living that engages your sentient awareness.

Breathe in fully….

So, did limiting thought emerge? Did you resist the thought, or could you see this as peeling another layer of the onion in a neutral way of simply observing the thought rising to the surface and making room for it?

As you deepen into your observing, limited thoughts are given a place. Remember everything is a part of everything else and everything has a place. This natural occurrence of limited thinking is simply another expression to show us in observation that we were born into a culture and system that disengaged us from the power and language of our Sentience. And as this is the truth of it, we are fully capable of restoring our connection!

Most of us have grown up and currently living in a culture (the world) that avoids, overlooks, and even disavows the value of Sentience. I am bound and determined to give Sentience a place. Will you join me…us?

Begin now! Engage with the practice of writing the Observing Templates in the final weeks of 2022 and join The Language of Consciousness Institute in January. Lori Candon and I will facilitate the two (2) session exploration: Moving Sentiently with The Observing and Observing Being Templates. Click here to register.

Moving Sentiently with the Observing & Observing Being Templates