Into the Mist

http://www.urbanmonk.net/233/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/

http://kentonwhitman.com/blog/2007/12/21/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project/

http://themiddleway.net/2007/12/21/spread-the-love-now-group-writing-project

“There is a legend,” [Katerina began], “that every so often the life-force of the Collective begins to weaken because true bonding between couples—and people in general—is not being practiced throughout the infinite parallel worlds that make up the Collective Consciousness. Like all magic, when the magic of loving commitment is not believed in, or not being practiced, it begins to fade and die.

“Without devotion among the people, one to another, the Collective can have no radiance of life. It’s said that the Council of Crones perceived the dwindling lifeforce and though they don’t openly acknowledge the legend, they know the legend also says the Harmony Ceremony must be performed in such times to receive direction from the Collective.

“The Harmony Ceremony is one of very few ceremonial gatherings of the Council in which a member of the Sisterhood lower than the rank of council member or Crone Mother, such as an understudy, will ever be directly involved. In the Harmony Ceremony, the understudy is included as the psychic medium for the Collective. Few understudies over history have been blessed with receiving the message of the Collective.”

“The Council, Crone Mother, and her understudy gather in a special location meditating and chanting for days, or however long it takes for the understudy to be moved by the Collective, whether by vision, voice, or other means. Once the understudy receives some message while in a trance, it is up to the Crone Mother to interpret the purpose within the message, and direct the understudy in the path to take after the Harmony.

“I received the verse of the Sacred Vow, and the Mother said it was to be chanted from within the cottage several times per day while I meditated. She said the vibrational characteristics of the verse would help to heal the bonding rift in the Collective, that it would help restore loving communication and commitment.”

As Katerina went on with her tale, the little path wound its way up a grassy knoll, surrounded by some broadleaf, evergreen bushes. They crested the hill, and Ian was amazed to see elaborate stone formations on a flattened hilltop. It wasn’t a singular ring formation of standing stones, as Ian had seen when traveling in certain countries back home. Although there was some circular distribution of the entire pattern, the arrangement was obviously made by several groupings of independent configurations.

The path they had followed to the hilltop split and headed into several different directions. The new paths connected all the minor groupings, and etched patterns of their own within the larger grouping. In the center of it all, there was a small mounded platform, a few feet higher than the rest of the hilltop.

Katerina waited for Ian to take it all in.

He finally spoke, “Is this our destination?”

“For now. We can stay here, or we can go on if you wish.”

“I’d like to stay for a while, Katerina.”

Ian followed her on one of the paths to the center mound. As they neared the center, the hair on his body stood on edge.
The overall stone layout unquestionably focused energy toward this mound.

He turned to Katerina for explanation, “What is this place?”

“It’s where I received the Sacred Vow.”

Ian could see how one would be brought to some expanded state of awareness in this place. The air was still, yet he heard a roaring in his ears.

“You’ll get used to the sensations in a moment,” Katerina assured him as she spread a cloth on the grass in the center of the raised mound. “Let’s rest a little while.”

Ian’s nervous system was getting a little more charged than he could stand. He felt a need to move from that particular location. Looking about somewhat frantically, he saw a stone grouping that made him feel comfortable on first sight of it. Pointing to it, he asked, “Could we go over there?”

“Sure, if you want.”

Katerina gathered her cloth and they made their way, following the most direct path available to that stone grouping. Once there, they spread the cloth again, and Ian sat with his back tight against one of the upright stones. It faced the sun and was angled slightly backwards, making an excellent backrest. Katerina sat beside Ian, just far enough away that neither of their forcefields pushed the other.

. . .

As night approached, the shadows thrown about by the stones were surprisingly animated. A dramatically highlighted carving in one stone drew Ian’s attention: it appeared to have moved. He hadn’t really paid any attention to the carved patterns until now. It seemed that the placement of the stones and the patterns on them were intended to provide an illusion of movement.

“Katerina, is this movement of shadows on the stones something
that I am imagining?”

“Not at all,” she answered. “The patterns of the configurations, the shapes of the stones and their carvings are designed to manipulate light in times between day and night. The result is a three-dimensional mandala, a visual representation of the Collective.”

Though Ian couldn’t claim to know whether the mandala was an accurate representation of the Collective, the patterns that resulted had a consciousness-expanding effect all on their own. He could imagine that a ceremony involving a number of spiritually progressed women, chanting away as the patterns changed, could have overpowering effects on a person.

“The Sacred Vow verse was the Collective’s communication this time, Katerina?”

“Yes,” she responded. “It’s not always the case, but the legend is that it was also the message received by Crone Tara during the first Harmony ceremony.”

“So, why do you think I received the verse in a dream years ago?” Ian asked.

“Without being aware of what you were hearing, you were more sensitive to the needs of the Collective than even the Council of Crones. Years before the Harmony Ceremony, you were prepared to receive the Call. Without a doubt you are one of only two people identified by the Collective as being capable of helping resolve the fraying network of emotional bonds within the Collective.

“For all history of the Union, the complementary receiver of the Call—the receiver in the Union reality— has also been a member of a mystic order of a nature-based belief. It has always been believed that only masters in such a belief system are appropriately perceptive of the flow of energies in nature—therefore capable of becoming aware of the rift—and of the calls of the spiritual universe for assistance. That was why I thought you must have been teasing when you said you’ve never been a member of an order.

“Though the related legends in the Union orders have sometimes varied considerably from our belief, those orders were always familiar with the concept of the tear in the Collective. They also believed the coming together of two people selected by the Collective would provide a solution to the rift. Each culture had its own protocol and directions to follow once they were in contact.”

Ian returned to the topic. “That explains why everyone in your village was so respectful to me and glad to see me,” he said. “The only problem is, I don’t know if I’m up to performing to their expectations.”

“They all know the legends and are aware that the Council performed the Harmony Ceremony,” Katerina said.

“How am I supposed to be able to help the Collective, Katerina, when I didn’t even know it had a problem?”

Katerina didn’t answer right away. She carefully weighed her words when she said, “You know. It’s only that your cultural experience hasn’t provided you with a means to express and understand what you know. You have already seen that you know much more than you consciously realize and are able to express in words.”

. . .

Suddenly though, her expression softened and she said, “Have you ever heard a myth about the Rejoining of Spirit Mates?”

“Not that I know of. Please tell me the story, Katerina.” Ian made himself comfortable, hoping that his relaxed responses would help her focus on less troubled thoughts.

“There is a belief held by some that, in human form, we are only half the persona we were in spirit—spirit being a nonphysical segmentation of the Absolute Intelligence into an individual consciousness. In spirit, we are both lover and beloved. This love felt by the spirit for its whole self is too pure, too perfect to be perceived by human senses or the human mind. This energy is too powerful to be contained in a single physical form.

“So, should this spirit choose to enter the physical realm, wishing to look into the eyes of love, to feel the touch of love, to know the longing of separation and the jubilation of rejoining, there is a price. When entering into the corporeal reality, they who have been forever one are thrown apart—sometimes across time, worlds, or realities.

“A thread that binds the two remains, but most of the time it isn’t perceivable or comprehensible by the physical being’s conscious minds. Sometimes awareness of the connection can be awakened by studies or activities that make one more aware of the core self. As is often the case, it’s possible that the pair will not become aware—or if they do, they are unable to cross the distance between them. In these cases, their rejoining does not occur until both return to spirit.

“Therefore, any of these persons are only half the entity they were in spirit form. On those blessed occasions when one finds his or her spirit’s true complement, he or she is rejoining their other half, becoming as close to whole as can be achieved in the physical form. The person has the opportunity to experience that which originally seduced spirit into physical form.”

**Disclaimer: For me, truth is personal and the consciousness that created the world before us is so complex that it can and does simultaneously manifest an infinite number of realities that sometimes appear to the human mind to be diametrically opposed to one another.

C.G. Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the mystical, metaphysical, and mythical insight that we all possess.  The type of perspective seen in this article is also evident in his novels. He sees fiction not as something less than truth, but something akin to a mantra…a means to induce the reader into comfortably ‘allowing’ their personal truth—a living, ever progressing truth, fit to their need at any given time.
His current novel, Sacred Vow is first and foremost a metaphysical love story, a tale of soul mates—twin  flames—a journey toward our one true love…in its infinite expressions…bringing together two individuals from disparate realities—but one spirit—to heal the rift in the Collective Consciousness.

Get the  full length FREE PDF of Sacred Vow by going to www.cgwalters.com/spirit_story.htm   and clicking on the link in the page to download the eBook. This will allow you to save the book to your disk.
Purchase a signed paperback copy from http://sacredvow.dragonsbeard.com – or buy from your favorite brick and mortar, or online store.

This copyrighted article may be freely reprinted as long as the entire article and complete by line is included.

Welcome to the ever-progressing horizon!

I went looking for a single, unchanging truth—something to buffer my mind and spirit from the harsh realities of life. Many popular paths were sampled. Despite their undeniable benefits for so many others, I was not able to achieve a similar satisfaction.  I never doubted the value of the practices I sampled, but merely accepted they were not right for me at that time. A key does not cease to be a key because it does not fit the lock in hand.

In time, I collected tools of insight, from here and there, that promised to be helpful. I was determined to construct a custom truth, catering exactly to my unique ‘lock’. Once my compilation had come to some initial stopping point, I realized that some basic concepts within the items from the varied sources were repeated. So, I started to trim out the duplicates and those issues that seemed to possess the least power for me—what I deemed as not vital to my personal definition of reality…Occam’s razor, if you will.

Having felt successful in my collection, I was inspired to condense this compilation to its most basic form. Surely, such a simple answer as I sought did not require a tome to store its meaning. Maybe there could be a mere handful of insights that I could carry about through life. From those few, all other needed knowledge could blossom, as—and only when—needed.

Little by little, I worked my way through condensing the information, directed by only the most-tenuous hint of intuition—the same guide I had used for initially collecting the material. At the time, I had no real proof that the perspective that was developing would be any more useful to my goal than any of those already available paths. And I could have accepted any of them straight away without so much effort. I was, however, experiencing some discernable benefit from the mere focus of my efforts. So, I continued, if for no other reason than the meditative state of the endeavor.

There were times when the search revealed things about me and about my life that made me wish to be free of the journey that I had started on. Sometimes revelations extracted from my dwindling compilation implied a necessary view of the world that I did not find comfortable, or was not yet ready to step up to yet. Occasionally, my conscious mind would scream in defense, ‘you initiated this. Throw it out and walk away!’ But I had been warned that once one starts down the path seeking an expanded awareness, there is no turning back—you cannot go ‘home.’

At some point, the process of the pursuit became so much a part of my definition of self, even the uncomfortable revelations were less distressing than the idea of turning my back on this path. This stage proved to be quite necessary. For now I condensed what remained with abandon, without the slightest fear for what material might be lost. If intuition did not save it, each passage or concept was eliminated or combined with another. The text alone could no longer be my truth. The alchemical process of the path had become the truth!

In due time, that particular portion of my process was completed—only to start a much more complex progression. It reduced the “truth” that was to buffer me from the demands of life to a single statement. But the resulting ‘fixed constant’ did not exactly match my preconceived idea. It did not provide me with exactly an invariable ground on which to build a sanctuary. What I was left with informed me:

Truth is but a resting place until the next revelation—the ever progressing horizon.

 **Disclaimer: For me, truth is personal and the consciousness that created the world before us is so complex that it can and does simultaneously manifest an infinite number of realities that sometimes appear to the human mind to be diametrically opposed to one another.C.G. Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the mystical, metaphysical, and mythical insight that we all possess.  He see fiction not as something less than truth, but something akin to a mantra…a means to induce the reader into comfortably ‘allowing’ their personal truth—a living, ever progressing truth, fit to their need at any given time.

His current novel, Sacred Vow is first and foremost a metaphysical love story, a tale of soul mates—twin  flames—a journey toward our one true love…in its infinite expressions…bringing together two individuals from disparate realities—but one spirit—to heal the rift in the Collective Consciousness.

Get the  full length FREE PDF of Sacred Vow by going to www.cgwalters.com/spirit_story.htm  and clicking on the link in the page to download the eBook. This will allow you to save the book to your disk.

Purchase a signed paperback copy from http://sacredvow.dragonsbeard.com – or buy from your favorite brick and mortar, or online, store.

This copyrighted article may be freely reprinted as long as the entire article and complete by line is included.

It seems that a lot of angst would be spared if the spiritual path—and life, in general—had an undeniable standard pattern that could guarantee we were ‘on track’. There would be an invariable voice of the intuitive, heard by everyone—that you could compare with what your friends heard, just to make sure you were tuned into the right channel. Maps could be acquired in advance of any planned spiritual progression, to do away with all the years of meandering through endless forays.

 So much effort is required to first determine if the mounting need within should be responded to as a worthy motivation or merely (as we are often told) a chance to mature—in the real world a word frequently implying a directive to ‘neglect,’ ‘deny,’ or ‘rationalize’. Once certain we have a true calling to this path, we must next determine from just where the voice of one’s guiding intuitive will emanate. What language will we use to communicate with it—service, art, and dance, even words? What environment will most likely evoke its presence? 

For me, one of my most powerful connections to the Absolute—the Tao, or whatever you may call the unified intelligence—has turned out to be through just the right story: something that takes the form of an extended mantra, imbued with a rhythm and symbolism resonating so personally that it seems surely to be a direct manifestation of my intuitive self. Such a ‘chant’ lures me beyond my imagined limitations, to allow me to unreservedly embrace an otherwise untouchable identity.

That being the case, I guess I should not have been surprised when over time, I became aware that whenever my higher self, spirit guides, or other such familiars have been unable to otherwise get a piece of learning across to me, one of their choice tools is to bring it to me in the form of a story—even if I am the writer of that story. No matter what I have in mind, or am working on, I find my writing activities are suddenly hijacked along a previously unanticipated path. If I am in the midst of a neglectful sabbatical from writing, my mind becomes so inflicted with an unfolding tale that I must write it down to free myself from its clamor. 

These playful friends of mine (my muses) are quite talented. For, as soon as they force me back to the keyboard, or by the moment that I realize that we have taken a “wrong” turn (if I was currently in a writing cycle), my conscious mind has already been seduced into gladly following their whimsy. 

As a rule, once their intended lesson is conveyed via the resulting story, I am amazed that I was not already consciously aware of the information they have presented. Quite often I am such a complete convert that I cannot imagine how I could have been unaware of this particular information previously. Sometimes I suspect that I merely want to have as much as my instruction as possible delivered in this, my most favorite way.   I can’t offer any reasonable excuse for why I have periodically withdrawn from writing when I know that is the fount of so much valuable instruction for me. The most likely justification that I can offer is what flows before me is sometimes more than I was prepared to stand up before: sometimes “the truth may be recognized before the peace to live it is realized.” 

The last time I had the good fortune of a being redirected along a path of instruction, I was making my way to rework a long-neglected bit of writing: doing preparatory exercises of short stories. Without warning, one of the stories—that soon became my novel, Sacred Vow—lay hold to my attention, far exceeding my intentions. I pursued, curious about what passed before me. After hour upon hour of following this new lure, I came out of my little 3×5 writing closet in a deep meditative state. Clearly, this story would be no mere preparation for another.

Shortly afterwards, my job was downsized.

I now had no excuse not to follow with abandon. My writing closet—so small that I must turn the chair away from the desk to be able to stand and open the door to leave—may be an appropriate environment for inducing a meditative state—sitting in the dark for long hours, staring at a single light before me (the computer monitor). But I think there was something more going on. For ten to twelve hours a day, over the next several of weeks, I followed where the experience led. I was enjoying the story unfolding before me, but I was ecstatic from the sensation of extended periods of being connected to my higher self. My wife said that I possessed a radiance when I walked into the house during breaks in the writing. True, I typed in the text, but I did not initially imagine their meanings.  

Weeks later, hiking with a friend, I told him of some of the views of reality unfolding in this new book. After listening attentively, he said: “Do you really believe this is the way it works?”  

We continued deeper into the woods, as I gave his question thought. I was a little amused at the answer I finally had to admit. I said, “Until I saw this information in the story, I can’t say that I had any such ideas. But now, yes, I think this is a truth.”   

“You know how tarot cards unveils truth depending on the way the cards fall?” he asked. “Perhaps just such an auspicious falling of words on your screen is unfolding the same way.”  

For just such moments of clear connection with my higher self as the writing of Sacred Vow, I gladly pay the cost of the once seemingly endless attempts to connect with my unique path and intuitive voice.

 Copyright 2007 CG Walters  

C.G. Walters primarily writes fiction that focuses on the mystical, metaphysical, and mythical insight that we all possess.  He see fiction not as something less than truth, but something akin to a mantra…a means to induce the reader into comfortably ‘allowing’ their personal truth—a living, ever progressing truth, fit to their need at any given time. His current novel, Sacred Vow is first and foremost a metaphysical love story, a tale of soul mates—twin  flames—a journey toward our one true love…in its infinite expressions…bringing together two individuals from disparate realities—but one spirit—to heal the rift in the Collective Consciousness.    

Request a full length FREE PDF of Sacred Vow by going to www.cgwalters.com/spirit_story.htm   and clicking on the link in the page to send an email request. Purchase a signed paperback copy from http://sacredvow.dragonsbeard.com – or buy from your favorite brick and mortar, or online, store.    

For a recent interview with CG, listen to the KarmaCaffe Spiritual Hour archive at

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/karmacaffe/2007/10/18/Karma-Caffe-Spiritual-Hour   This copyrighted article may be freely reprinted as long as the entire article and complete by line is included.

This excerpted article is from the novel, Sacred Vow (Dragon’s Beard Publishing, ISBN: 978-0-9774271-4-7, paperback, Fiction: Visionary/Metaphysical). There is a rift in the Collective Consciousness because people are not bonding one to another. The Sisterhood of Crones (a description of the order, not their name–as their name is without word) is about to perform a ritual to receive a message from the Collective Consciousness….

Prologue

Choice of the ritual location was dictated by nature just days before. Hundreds of people had roamed hill and field, dowsing for the place possessing the energy necessary for their purpose. The intended process could not take place on one of their customary ceremonial sites, but only the spot identified as radiating the strongest flow of earth energy at the anticipated time of the rite.        Three ley lines, channels of the land’s energy, crossed a wooded hillside in a small patch of flat ground. Two ancient hardwood trees, one standing on either side of the rear of the opening, leaned forward before the rocky slope that bordered the backside of the level area. Their leaves filtered what little light could make its way from above.        Between the trees, at the base of the slope, there was a large greenish-gray stone. Its jagged face rose some twenty feet in the air. Three small streams, swollen with recent rains, flowed down the slope, marking the perimeter of the flat plot of land in front of the stone, before converging and flowing downward over a small waterfall. The stream-encircled ground was carpeted with a thick, soft moss.        Once the location had been identified and verified, the holy women who would use that place and its energy consecrated it. On the appointed evening, shortly after midnight, a ceremonial procession of The Nine—which consisted of the Crone Mother, leader of their mystic order, and eight more of the wisest women of their society—Katerina, understudy to the Crone Mother, and their considerable entourage made their way to the location. For several hours, from their village to the south, those who remained behind could see the winding line of torches, and hear the repetitive chants as the group made their way to the anointed site.        Once the group arrived, still in the dark of the night, attendants placed torches around the perimeter of the chosen site. Then they spread seating mats in a large circle on the ground for those who would perform the ritual, with the Crone Mother’s back to the large boulder at the head of the flat ground. Katerina took her position, in the center of the circle, facing the Crone Mother. Once the members of the ceremony were seated, their retinue withdrew some distance from the site, in order not to disrupt the proceedings.

This copyrighted article may be freely reprinted as long as it is reprinted in its entirety, along with the by-line.