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Comamamunity: Don't Give Up the Ghost

Close your eyes and picture a thermometer. A vertical gauge that registers 100 degrees. Now picture your "havingness" of money. Where does your money gauge register? Where is that red bar? Thirty degrees? Fifty? Now hold onto that picture and visualize that red bar moving up to 75 or 80. Can you recalibrate your mental expectations around money? A friend of mine is taking a psychic energy course and shared this exercise with me. She uses it to check in and adjust a number of areas of her life: money, romance, health, and security. She takes the picture in her head, which reflects where she is holding her energy, and then she raises the bar. She expands her capacity to manifest prosperity by challenging her energetic beliefs.

In this course, she is learning all kinds of cool things like how to channel energy through her charkas to feel more balanced and grounded; how to use her mind to create more refined, higher-frequency energy; and how to make energetic space to better experience her intuition. I am always eager to hear about the latest activity or skill the class covered. I love this stuff. Like her, I find this realm of exploration compelling, inspiring, and surprisingly practical. I can imagine that for some people, taking a class in which the participants—adults—are waving their arms around one another to sense auras may be perceived as kooky, but I think of taking a psychic energy class as no more exotic than a dance or cooking class. Why wouldn't someone take such a class? Why not become better versed in energy fields and intuition? What have you got to lose?

I'm a fan of that whole delicious stew of psychological, spiritual, and cosmic mysteries. I am convinced the nature of reality is more expansive and mysterious than we are led to believe, and as I've gotten older, my desire to learn more from them has intensified. These mysteries school us in the intelligence of feelings versus facts. The necessity of listening to our inner self and life—and to trusting both. If we limit our intelligence to socially endorsed (and in our culture male-dominated) ways of thinking and perceiving, we turn out the lights on essential intuitive knowledge and an orientation to life that is more balanced. I would go so far as to say this is what our current world lacks, and it's creating major fucking problems.

Women have always been the flame keepers of intuitive, feeling-based wisdom. It's our nature. We're wired to feel our way through suffering, compassion, and love. We are guided by a need for relationship, and our antennae for relating are stronger. We are the natural clairvoyants. These innate skills are powerful stuff, and for some, threatening. Hell, women have been persecuted historically for our fluency in such things. Remember the Salem witch trials from seventh grade history class? Now that was spooky. This is not to take anything away from men. They do what they do beautifully, and we need both approaches to create harmony. But there is no denying the value system of the establishment has not valued our feminine gifts. I believe as a result, we women have discounted our intuitive powers. We've been encouraged to mistrust the unknowns and put our money on what's factual.

Our lives are rushed with commitments and teeming with information outlets. There is no shortage of facts out there, and we could construct our lives almost exclusively from the contents of the books, news programs, articles, and opinions from others. It is tempting to let all this information tell us what is best for us and for the planet. The problem is a lot of this information is just not meaningful. A lot of it is motivated by fear (and the need to produce content, attract viewers, and make money). I think most women know that as helpful as this information can be, it is not nearly good enough. We possess an internal compass that does a far better job of revealing what we truly need to know, and what is right for us. Not right in an empirical, provable way, but in a knowing in my heart kind of way. We know when a baby is better off sleeping than eating, in spite of what the pediatrician, book, or Dateline NBC says. We know when a job, in spite of a hefty paycheck, isn't right for us. We know when we are comfortable walking down a street and when we need to call a cab. We know when something is bothering someone, even when they say they are fine. We know we can't keep consuming world resources with abandon, even if the culture says more is always better.

We know all these things when we permit ourselves to. When we slow down, listen, check in, and are willing to believe what comes to us. And that can be challenging. That's where something like the psychic class comes in. Why not get some tips about how to move bad energy? You know those days when you feel mired in muck, negativity, and conflict? It's easy to let our minds race with worry, doubt, and judgment. Wouldn't it be helpful to have a new method to help come back to center? I say, yes. And while we're at it, I want to know about my past lives and my karma. Give me acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and therapy. I want my hand read, a tarot reading, and my chart done. I want to know when Mercury is retrograde. I want to understand archetypes and analyze dreams. Why not? I find all these things to be as educational as reading books and newspapers or watching documentaries. I am capable of discerning what resonates for me and what doesn't, and I want to tap into all kinds of resources. The culture may pooh-pooh it, but this is a culture that is serving up genetically modified food and ignoring global warming. Hardly an example of conscious, life affirming ideals. I want to know and understand myself better. I want to feel more abundant, attuned, and inspired, and I think there are a lot interesting, enjoyable ways to do it.

Let's go back to the prosperity gauge exercise. Maybe it is silly. Maybe it is a waste of time. Maybe how we feel about things has nothing to do with how things develop in our lives. Maybe our expectations aren't related to the outcomes. Or maybe doing this little exercise is the equivalent of holding the winning ticket to the energetic lottery. You don't know if you don't try. It's ironic, but we've been simultaneously indulged and denied by this culture. We've been indulged with the idea that we are so fucking smart. So informed and advanced. A bunch of scientists and engineers making things faster and more powerful. But the truth is most of us, myself included, are not at all intimate with the rhythms of nature and ancient wisdoms. I've heard people scoff at the idea of wearing gems and crystals for their healing properties. Maybe it is ridiculous. I don't "know" anything about it, but I do know cultures around the world have done this for thousands of years. What do we know that they don't, or should it be the other way around?

I vote we turn the tide on this worldwide marginalizing of intuitive, compassionate intelligence. Proudly enroll in a psychic energy class. Practice positive thinking. Boycott negative media. Put a bowl of rice in your prosperity corner. Celebrate a solstice. Sage your home. Believe in ghosts. You'll probably feel better, and you'll help save our world.

column added on 2006-11-26 :: ::

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