W.H.

     About the time I was looking into the Hawaiian religion called Huna, I happened to be reading Wuthering Heights.  One of those celestial coincidences, I'm sure.  As I had never read the book before and I had never seen the movie (any version), it was a revelation. 

     Imagine my shock as I read Catherine's statement, "Nelly, I am Heathcliff -- he's always, always in my mind -- not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself -- but, as my own being -- so, don't talk of our separation again -- it is impracticable . . . "  She recognized something in him -- her own self, really -- and that belief seemed unshakable. 

     And that was how I felt about recognizing my own Twin Soul.  I was amazed that a novelist from the 19th century would write about this obscure concept.

     So, I did some investigating about how Emily Bronte came up with the idea of Twin Souls.

Off Topic -- Need to Rant

     Publishers.  Ugh.  They should be hung up by their toenails from the ceiling fan, I swear.

     First of all, this latest rant has nothing to do with The Gemini Bond.  That I did all by myself, thank you very much.  Besides, The Gemini Bond is based on my own personal experience, put into a fictional package.

     But this latest rage about publishers has to do with my other field in the arts.  Yes, today I received another rejection letter.  I could wallpaper my office with those.  My major beef, however, is that it took them over two and a half YEARS to decide to reject my work.  Before that, another publisher that I've had some success with took three YEARS.  Do you see the trend here? 

     I know that publishing houses move at a rate that would make glaciers seem speedy, but really -- does it need to take them YEARS to decide whether to publish something or not?  If I were Queen of the world, I'd immediately sign a law that says that publishers cannot take hold an artistic work for longer than twelve months.  After that, they must return the work to the artist.  Failure to do so would result in death, or perhaps having to clean my house for the rest of my life.  They might choose death.  After that, I might legislate world peace, and then solve world hunger.

     But I swear, the publisher law would come first.

Channeling, Part 2

     In my last post, I sounded a little harsh in my judgment about channeling. Sorry about that.  However, I do feel that channeled information can be tainted by one's ego and its little wants.  Here's how I know:

     I channel, too.  (Shh.)

     In learning how to channel, I came to know how the ego can interrupt or even distort the information that is coming in. Getting the ego out of the way is still a challenge.

     As I learned more about Twin Souls, you can imagine how many times I asked my guides about what it meant, and if I had pinpointed the right person as being my Twin, and on and on.  Yeah, I asked.  About forty thousand times.

    And how many times did my ego get in the way?  Well over thirty-nine thousand times.

     That's why I prefer to look at sources that are outside the influence of my ego (if that's possible).  And that's why I continued the search in the wisdom traditions of the world about Twin Souls.

My Twin Souls Search & Channeling Sites

     In the early stages of my search to understand Twin Souls, I did what most everyone else on the planet does -- I googled it.  Ten years or so ago, what came up most were channeling sites on the subject, and they ranged from interesting to goofy to downright scary.

     An example.  I was reading a twin souls board where people wrote of their experiences, and the mediator came in now and then with posts about how he wanted to travel to southeast Asia to find his young (14-year-old, as I remember) twin soul that he had been dreaming about, and how he was going to take her and wrap her in his arms and . . . . .

     Ewwww. 

     So, I did some research on what exactly channeling was.  It's common among all wisdom traditions, from the shamans in native cultures to mystics in religious traditions.  It means that one opens oneself up to information from the Source, usually conveyed through some spirit guide or angel, and then presented either in verbal form or written down. 

    Here's the problem:  the information is only as pure as the channeler is.  Think of it this way:  the information is pure spring water, diverted through the spirit guide, and then poured through a funnel -- the person who is channeling.  The sense I get is that the information can be tainted if the funnel is not clean.  Imagine pouring water through a dirty funnel.  The result is dirty water.  And what can dirty a funnel?  Well, anything that we humans are prone to -- selfishness, ego, control, pride, and on and on. 

     So, I've learned to take channeling with a large grain of salt.  This is not to say that no channeled information can be trusted, but I choose to verify it with other sources. 

     And so I continued my search to understand Twin Souls.

Coping as an Empath

     I know, I know, I was supposed to write about channeling.  Well, today I'm in coping mode, and I wanted to describe to you how it is to function as an empath in a busy, busy world.

     Generally, I'm able to do my job without too much direction or oversight, and have passing interaction with most of my fellow workers.  My job also involves a lot of contact with a lot of people, and just dealing with all their emotions is difficult enough.  Still, most days I do fine and manage to keep my sense of self intact without getting too inundated by other people's stuff.

     Today, however, was one of those days when a coworker who is new was asking a lot of questions, which I'm happy to answer, but I felt like parts of me were being sucked away because I didn't have much downtime.  Then, I had to attend a meeting near the end of my day, and it was all I could do not to feel completely overwhelmed and shut down.  As it is, I feel that most of the time I come off as standoff-ish or shy to my co-workers.  If only they could understand that I'm just trying to stay within myself enough to avoid becoming overburdened by other's emotions and thoughts.  It's tough, especially on days like today when I don't have enough opportunities to decompress.

     After doing my time at the gym (another place where there a lot of people), I came home and sat in my meditation place for a while.  It helped to reconnect with Mother Earth and with my Self.  That's how I cope.  And I'm hoping that tomorrow will be an easier day.

      And, yes, I promise that next time I'll write about channeling.

The Thinking Behind the Thinking

     As I was searching for understanding about what Twin Souls were and what it was that I was experiencing, I was leaning on the thinking that every high school English teacher pounds into our brains.

     You know -- research, verify, cite. 

     I didn't feel right about trusting just one cultural tradition's viewpoint (or Max Freedom Long's interpretation of it).  So, I decided to research other traditions, other sacred writings, other theories, other viewpoints.  That led me on quite a long search.

     But one thing guided my thinking:  rationalism (see previous post).  Yep, Gandhi may not have approved, but the scientific method (or my English teacher's indoctrination) fueled my search.  I felt like if my experience were to be trusted, then it needed to be explained using logic, it needed to be found across many traditions, and it needed to have analogous situations in the natural world.

    Strangely, that led me into the world of channeling.  More about that next time.

On Gandhi, Rationalism, and Bloggers

     I'm reading a biography about Gandhi, and just got to the section about his view of western society.  Pretty interesting, and sometimes disturbing. 

     In his view, western society leans too heavily on rationalism, and doesn't realize the limitations of rationalism.  By this he means that the scientific world view (rationalism) has its place, but the scientific world view cannot explain everything.  It cannot explain God, or ESP, or the aesthetic experience, or love. 

     As an interesting side note, I read last week that a recent poll showed that more educated people tend to believe in God and other non-rational concepts.  Why is this?  The article didn't explain, but here's what I think:  I think that the more educated one is, or the more life experience one has, the more one realizes that one's education can't explain all that is.  In other words, those with more education or life experience understand the limits of rationalism.

     In reaction to this poll, a blogger was noted as being very surprised and even doubted the results of this poll.

     I don't.  I think that there is more to life than the scientific world view.  In the words of Shakespeare, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."  I like that.

  

Unravelling the Mystery, Part 1

     As I posted before, I discovered a deep connection to a person I'd never met before, simply by hearing a recording of this person's speaking voice.  It was like remembering something that had been  buried deep in my soul, and the feeling shook me to the core.  At the time, I didn't understand what this connection was, nor had I ever heard the term "twin soul" before.

     This is how I started to unravel the mystery of this connection.

     At the time, I was studying the native Hawaiian religion, called Huna.  I read a few of Max Freedom Long's books about Huna and found some of it a little hard going, but when I read What Jesus Taught in Secret, it was like a light bulb turning on.  Things suddenly made sense. 

     I won't go fully into Long's teachings, but the short version of Huna is this:  each person's soul is made of three parts -- the lower, animal self; the middle, every-day self; and the higher self, which is a bit like a guardian angel.  The Hawaiians described this higher self as an "utterly trustworthy Father-Mother spirit."

     In What Jesus Taught in Secret, Long explained that as we cleanse our souls and learn to love fully and completely, we are prepared to "move up."  According to Long, moving up means that we are meant to become a higher self while the lower self becomes a middle self.  Think of it as moving to the next rung on a ladder, or the next level of a pyramid.  But as we move up, we are rejoined with our other half, our "soul mate" as he termed it, and become the Father-Mother guardian spirit of the higher self. 

     It made sense to me, and helped shed light on some of what I was experiencing.  But the sceptic in me wanted to know if this was just Long's take on this phenomenon, or were there other sources which taught similar things?

     This led me to see if similar teachings could be found in other traditions.  So, I went exploring.

Coping as an Empath

     I blush to admit it, but I was really proud of myself today.

     I spent the entire day in meetings, surrounded by people, and at one point was in a room with over five hundred people in it.  I'm a self-admitted crowd-ophobe because of the bombardment of feelings that I must contend with, but today went pretty well.

     Here's what I did to survive.  I made sure my cocoon of white light was surrounding me, that I stayed aware of myself and my own feelings, and that I focused on my breathing when the emotions around me were getting strong.  This morning before I left home, I also connected with Mother Earth, and reconnected when I returned home.  I think spending that time grounding also helped. 

     The result -- yes, I am a little head-achy, but overall I feel like I'm connected to myself and not carrying the emotions and moods of all the people I've been around today.  In the past, the feeling of what it was like to have a lot of other people's emotions glommed onto me was like wearing layer after layer of wet wool sweaters.  At the end of the day, it wore me down.  Today, I even had enough energy to go to the gym for some cardio.  Yay, me!