Category: Tools and Tips

Dear Being Energy Community,

When did you unfold wings?  How did you do it?

Lets start by looking at how we can apply the myth of the Plumed Serpent to our daily lives. First of all it calls for daring.  When we decide to do something new, we start a personal process of becoming, a process that moves us from something we know into unknown and unfamiliar territory.

The myth describes the story of a snake evolving into something inconceivable.  By growing wings the snake becomes airborne and changes into something new and undiscovered.  Earth and sky are united, and conceptually, it reveals a personal process that opens us to uniting the contrasts or contradictions within us.  In order for us to change, we need to give something up before the new thought or behavior becomes the new one.

The myth of Quetzalcoatl links the space between the old and the new, and embodies a process of becoming.  For the shamans of Mesoamerica the Plumed Serpent is a symbol of evolution.  It describes the evolution of the cosmos, or the evolutionary process each one of us embodies.

Apply this concept to your life:

When was the last time you dared to try something completely new?  When did you unfold wings?  How did it feel?

For example, when leaving the stability of an old job to start something completely different.  On the one hand it is exciting and fulfilling to move towards something more meaningful, yet on the other hand, it produces the kind of teeth-chattering fear of not being able to pay the rent or mortgage.  What will I lose, what will I have to give up?  What if I’m successful?

What else unfolds in that process?  If I am moving towards more meaningful work and looking for congruence with one of my beliefs or perspectives, like, “I need to contribute something to the world, I need to give back,” what new view will unfold?  I might find that I have reserves of energy I didn’t know existed for working on projects that satisfy my belief of helping others.  I might find that helping others sometimes satisfies me more than the people I want to “help.”  I might learn that I need to take more time to understand the needs of others before taking action to help them.

Certain aspects of myself unfold and in that process I embody contrasting perspectives. The transformative experience creates a wider perspective that moves me toward new behaviors.

The myth of the Plumed Serpent connects us deeply to the universe and all its contrasts, light and dark, life and death.

You may have heard the quote from astronomer Carl Sagan, spoken in an old television series called Cosmos.  In it Sagan said, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.  Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.”  When we connect with the cosmos, the evolutionary process inside of us, we can become something new.

We at Being Energy practice a sequence of movements and breathing techniques, the Quetzalcoatl movements to explore new beginnings, or to intend a shift in our lives. Through the practice of this sequence of movements, we shift our perception; we focus our minds and hearts in the unfolding momentum of the present moment.

We focus on the vibrations within us to activate the sinewy, undulating movement of the serpent moving up through our spine.  We spark our mind-body to remember and manifest an ancient memory of who we are, and who we want to become.

The Quetzalcoatl movements activate the vibratory force within to connect with something new outside of us.  We open ourselves to the moment of our wings unfolding, acknowledge our discoveries and actively choose new paths. When did you unfold your wings?  How did it happen?  What aspects of you need to unfold?

Share your comments, ask questions and keep exploring!

Dear Being Energy Community,

We are including three video links to help you get started with your recapitulation practice, that is, to start your day with a dreaming attention, to set your intent for a mindful day.

As we move closer to the dream of In Pono, our topic for Hawaii, we feel the pull to just get to it, to start a more sustained practice of recapitulation.  We’re going to let the videos speak for themselves and share with you why the Seers of ancient Mexico developed this practice into the art of clearing and enhancing our energy.

Another foundational underpinning of the Being Energy® practice is that we can shift our perception through movement. Before starting your recapitulation, try the Being Energy movements in the next video, or simply practice them throughout the day.

Next, listen and follow along with the recapitulation exploration.  Start with Recapitulating How You Woke Up, each day and see what happens.

Some of the benefits of recapitulating every day, even if it’s for 1 minute at a time, builds a capacity for:

• observing rather than making judgements about events or people
• connecting to feelings, which leads to a fuller, more expansive view of a situation or event
• healing ourselves, allowing us to give comfort or provide aid and relief to the self in the past event being recapitulated
• self empowerment

Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Dear Being Energy Community,

“Every warrior on the path of knowledge thinks, at one time or another, that he’s learning sorcery, but all he’s doing is allowing himself to be convinced of the power hidden in his being, and that he can reach it.”

–Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence

This week we invite you to immerse yourself in silence to manifest the power that is hidden within you, your connection with Intent.

Intent, the pervasive force of the universe that is connected to all things, inside and between all of us, is the force that allows us to perceive. It gives us direction and purpose. The ancient seers asserted that anything we perceive is a result of the pressure of intent.

We all are irreplaceable parts of a larger picture: an infinite universe that is constantly changing, attempting to become aware of itself. According to the ancient sages, the universe itself is compelling us to expand our consciousness through our life experiences on this blue, magical planet Earth. In this universe of energy, consciousness is what weaves us all in a vibratory concert of love and enlightenment.

How can I live in a higher state of consciousness on a daily basis? How can I flow through daily life interactions without getting stuck? How do I move from the victim or bully mindset, to the higher state of consciousness that Castaneda talks about and how can live joyfully? How can I authentically, in my uniqueness, co-create what I really want for my family, for my community?

We can actively shape our lives through a consistent practice that engenders unbending intent. By offering the physical body different experiences of movement and feelings, we expand our perception. In the process of expanding perception we create direct access to consciousness, to all things. We flow with life instead of struggle. We learn to handle Intent.

Being Energy® movements provide the physical body and the mind to remember, on a deeper level, the Intent that exists within us, and our connection to all things. We move into deep states of Silence and access Intent.

All of the above is what we will be exploring in our retreat in Tuscany, Italy: reconnecting through deep silence to Intent. In this retreat, based on your individual physical and energetic needs, we will guide you to create your own unique connection with Intent. We will provide both the tools for a consistent practice, and the inspiration for sustaining an unbending intent.

There will be practical instruction and group sharing on how to support a sustained purpose and commitment to your life, as we build a consistent practice and engender unbending intent. You will be given tools for a deep encounter with your inner self: your seer within and how to return to this experience when you are back in your daily life.

For a taste of what we will practice in Italy, try this exercise for moving into Silence and connecting with Intent:

• Watch or practice along with any of the Being Energy® movements;
• Pause to observe how you feel before and after practicing the movements.

We invite everybody who wants to gain practical experience and knowledge of the ancient seers to join us for this practice!

Aloha Community!

Pono, a word from the Hawaiian language, represents the concept of being in harmony with all things. It includes the quality and the respectful loving caring relationship one has with oneself, with all the people in our lives, with the Earth and with Spirit, God, or the Universe. For example, to be in Pono with oneself is to feel that our beliefs and behaviors, or the choices we make are aligned with larger forces, and that we are living with a sense of integrity and wholeness. Being in Pono adds to a greatness of Spirit and self-power that is at the core of an ancient Hawaiian belief.

At Being Energy, through movements and breathing practices, we access the mood of Pono to then review our life stories and reflect on our life purposes. Pono is a guide to Recapitulation; it helps us to reflect on these important questions:

[checklist]

• When am I in pono with myself or with others?
• Who am I not in pono with?
• Who do I need to forgive?
• Who do I need to ask for forgiveness?

Recapitulation
The process of Recapitulation, as we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, allows us to go back to any moment in time in order to balance the energy of that moment in the past. This process has a profound effect on our energy and energetic system as a whole bringing tons of benefits to our lives. When “making peace” with our past and healing our wounds, we become more present, less fearful, more alive.

Recapitulating is entering into conscious dreaming states
One benefit from recapitulating one’s life is the access to states of “conscious dreaming.”

When recapitulating, we start by choosing a memory we want to visit and begin by seeing ourselves, as if in a movie. We observe ourselves without judging and cultivate a state of quietness and focused attention that transcends the barriers of time, just as we do when dreaming while asleep.

Similarly, when we start recapitulating, we start paying attention to a particular moment of our lives and we travel in time. “I,” the one that is observing the experience, enter into a state of “dreaming,” transcending space and time, enhancing the view of the particular moment being experienced, being able to shift my perception to a higher state of consciousness.

Music to Enhance Dreaming and Recapitulation
There are a variety of strategies for incorporating the Recapitulation practice into our day-to-day routine, and tactics for creating the space, or the right mood for Recapitulation. We start by clearing the stress of our day and altering the vibrational patterns of our thoughts by listening to music, or the sound of waves or chimes, and enticing a new, calmer mood.

One of our Being Energy® teachers, Robert Savery uses music to access Pono. Robert is a musician and songwriter, and has written hundred of songs, many of them, lullabies to help create the mood of pono for recapitulation. Lullabies gently soothe the nervous system, and lull us toward a dream state.

SEVEN-DAY CHALLENGE
Join us in a daily practice of Recapitulation for 7 days, just 5 minutes a day and find out for yourself the benefits that this will bring to your life.

Here the steps:

• Sit comfortably in your bed, or in a chair, close your eyes.
• Play the Lullaby by Robert Savery. Listen to it once or twice until you are feeling quiet.
• Go over the events of your day and notice when you were not in Pono with someone you were with that day.
• Pause and start observing that particular moment: notice where you were; what did the room look like? What did you say? What did the other person say?
• Breathe deeply aligning your breaths with a movement of your chest and head.

• Inhale fanning your heart and head in one direction, exhale fanning them in the opposite direction

• Continue to view the scene and notice: What were you feeling?
• Keep breathing and observing the scene without trying to alter it in any way.
• Whenever you feel you have finished viewing the scene, or if your mind begins to wander, stop.
• IMPORTANT: There is no need to arrive at any conclusions, no need to make up a story of the situation. Trust and allow your body to receive the knowledge and wisdom that comes from observing without judgment.

Let us know how you feel. Has anything shifted? Do you have any new perceptions?

Carlos Castaneda wrote in The Wheel of Time, “Don Juan’s claim was that once any practitioner has viewed his life in the detached manner that the recapitulation requires, there’s no way to go back to the same life.”

Join us in Hawaii to explore Pono in depth and to more fully enhance your life.

Mahalo,
Aerin and Miles

Dear Being Energy Community,

The Recapitulation is a practice developed by sages in ancient Mexico. The technique guides one’s awareness back in time and space, making a quantum leap, to insert itself in specific moments of our lives where we “got stuck,” where we lost a part of ourselves. With the awareness of today, the present, and through a state of inner silence, it’s as if we have traveled in time and we have arrived at that experience, accessing a particular memory with the intention of freeing the energy caught in it and bringing back to the present.

In Being Energy® we see the recapitulation as a state of dreaming where you recall the pieces of yourself you have left behind, so to speak. It can free us from unconscious beliefs we’ve developed as a consequence of our interpretations of past experiences and relationships and which we still carry today, no matter how long ago the event took place.

It is a restorative process for healing, restoring our wholeness and integrity. Recapitulating allows us to rearrange our “inventory,” our set of beliefs, ideas and responses to fellow beings. The purpose is to create more inner space for silence, mystery, and for exploring the very nature of our existence.

We start, like Carlos Castaneda told us, with recent events, and then go back in time all the way to childhood. We choose specific events, especially the ones with an emotional charge, when our hearts felt broken, or when we got fired from our jobs, or when a loved one died. We bring our attention to those moments when we did not have the time to process them, or the awareness to embrace them, when we did not know what to say, we said the wrong thing, or when we did not stand up for ourselves or others.

One great way to start, to immediately feel the benefits of Recapitulation, is by acknowledging the stones we carry in our hearts. Here are the steps to follow:

[checklist]

• Choose a comfortable and quiet place to sit down. Be sure to turn your phone off. This whole experience should take no more than 10 minutes.
• Take three deep breaths to quiet your mind for a minute or two.
• Start remembering the details around the experience you have chosen to recapitulate. Where were you? Where was the place? What was the timeframe? What was happening? How did you feel? What thought ran in your head? What was said? How did it end?
• Take a moment to fully recall the feeling and be with it.
• Place one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest. With your eyes still closed, inhale deeply as if wanting to inhale the feelings, thoughts, images, colors, the whole experience. Then, breathe out, letting go and freeing the situation and any attachment to it. Let it go and set the experience free.
• Keep breathing in and out until you feel something has loosened up.
• Bring both hands to the heart, open your eyes and notice any changes in your perception and state of awareness.

[/checklist]

Recapitulation, as a technique, brings results when practiced systematically. Some of the benefits of recapitulating one’s life are:

• Physical level: More alertness, more focus, more energy, lighter, less muscle contraction, relief of chronic pain, flexibility
• Emotional level: Expanding views of yourself and the world around you, organizing thoughts and emotions (your inventory), quieter mind, kindness, acceptance, “loving what is,” compassion
• Energetic level: being more available to the spirit, entering into non-local vibration.

After almost 20 years of practicing and teaching how to review one’s life to hundreds of people, we can say that Recapitulation is an ongoing revelation of energy as it flows in the universe.
Because it shifts or relocates our perspective, we begin to see our lives from a different place, the vantage point of our soul. This dreaming state becomes clearer, our relationship to it gets stronger. We may eventually perceive that our soul, our energy body, is dreaming us.

The most interesting result of Recapitulation, Carlos Castaneda told us, is how we rekindle our journey of awareness, our purpose in life. We unfold it as a bird unfolds its wings, and open ourselves to a larger, more encompassing understanding of the mystery we are.

Dear Being Energy Community

One of the most fascinating concepts of the ancients is the concept of time.  We focus on time this week because it is something that seems to be escaping us, outside of our grasp. So we want to pause and reflect on the implications this concept has on cultivating awareness and shifting to new perspectives.

People living in Mesoamerica, for thousands of years, understood time differently that we do today. Instead of a linear sequence divided in seconds, minutes and hours, that moves from past to present and then to future, they saw time as cycles. They understood human beings as part of an ever-changing universe and our connection to all.

One example of this concept is demonstrated by the way the Maya predicted and understood the world in which they lived.  They created a complex calendar system that included three interconnected circular calendars. They recognized that the natural world, the cosmos, and even their own bodies functioned according to observable cycles. They recognized that the celestial bodies within these cycles emanated energy, forces that informed human perception. To locate themselves within these cycles the Maya tracked the movements of planets, the moon, the sun, and very important to them, Venus.  They devised a complex system to determine the energetic potential and possibilities of every moment on earth (Click here to read more about the Mayan calendar).

People of Europe in the 15^th century provide another example of this concept of a relationship to the stars, relying on astronomical cycles for harvesting, planting, getting married, etc. An example is conveyed in the Clock of Prague that includes astronomical dials.

People knew then, based on the position of the celestial bodies in the sky, that there were more propitious moments for a variety of human affairs. The clock of Prague, which contains an astrolabe, a continual display of the sun, moon, stars and planets, demonstrates the importance of these observations on a daily basis.

By connecting to the cosmos and the motions of the celestial bodies, we can expand our notion of time. The seers of Don Juan’s lineage asserted that it is energetically essential for human beings to realize that the only thing that matters is our journey of awareness, our relationship with the universe.

There is much more to reflect and say about this, but we leave it to you to send us your comments and questions to further explore this topic. For now we would like to invite you to take action, to bring a NEW idea of time to your own home.

We would like to invite you to bring some stars inside your home as a guide to understanding the importance of circularity and cycles around us. Most of us live in rooms with 4 walls, lacking the movement and fluidity of cycles, which limits our perception and emphasizes the syntax of linearity.

This is what Carlos Castaneda taught us to do and what we have been practicing for years.

• Draw the FOUR phases of the moon, each phase on a separate piece of paper: First quarter moon, Full moon, Last quarter moon, and New moon.
• Be creative!
• Hang them on the four walls of your bedroom or living area in the following way: New moon on the South wall (South pole), Last quarter moon on the West wall (setting sun), Full moon towards on the North wall (North pole) and First quarter moon on the East wall (rising sun).

Over the next lunar cycle, take note of any changes in your thoughts or actions towards the Sun, Moon and stars in the sky.  What’s new?  Do you see anything differently?

We have followed this suggestion of Carlos Castaneda for many years and as an example, it has changed our spatial and conceptual perception. We all live in square rooms and apartments and we have developed a greater sense of circularity.  This sense of cycles immediately connected us to nature and to the cosmos.

We look forward to hearing about your experiences,

Aerin & Miles

*Image courtesy of Theilr, under CC license