Kundalini Splendor

My Destiny

I have burned my house down.
                             Kabir

I have destroyed it all––
myself, my assumed
identity, my face of
who I am.

Sometimes I used flame––
sometimes a mirror of truth.
Sometimes a chopping block
to rid myself
of those false claims.

Now I am free
and can choose what
I wish to be––
a bird crying at midnight,
a salmon swimming upstream,
a page in a wisdom book,
a lost continent,
an invisible cell
in the body of God.

Dorothy Walters
February 17, 2019

My dear friends and colleagues,

As you can see in this photo, my new book, They Call Me Grandma Techno, is now in print and can be ordered online at 1xRUN.com! The 157-page hardcover book features 150 color photos that I took at the Movement Detroit electronic music festival every year from 2007-2018. Detroit Free Press Pop Music Critic Brian McCullum's conversation with Grandma Techno provides text for the book, and Jason Clark of Paxahau writes an introduction to the Movement festival and Grandma Techno's place in its history.

With heartfelt thanks to my publisher, Jesse Cory of 1xRUN, the Paxahau producers of Movement Detroit, hundreds of generous donors to our Kickstarter campaign, and an enthusiastic team of creative, committed individuals and groups who have worked for months on this project, we are ready to celebrate a book launch and signing at the Sheometry Music & Art Festival at Detroit’s Marble Bar on Saturday, August 10.

In addition to Grandma Techno’s book signing from 12 noon - 8 PM, this female-centric festival features performances by R&B artists Monica Blaire and Ideeyah, and electronic music DJs Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale, Minx, Whodat, Jenny LaFemme and John Collins, among others. It goes from 12 noon until 2 AM and includes art curated by Detroit painter Sabrina Nelson, a wide array of food, vendors and grassroots organizations. Festival tickets can be ordered online via Resident Advisor.

Over these past months I have been fortunate to be featured in the VICE video, “Grandma Techno Captures Detroit’s Rave Culture,” and a radio interview with Ryan Patrick Hooper of WDET, Detroit’s public radio station, “Grandma Techno Parties Harder Than You.” The adventure continues…

I look forward to seeing some of you at the book launch but whether or not you can join us in person, please know that I am grateful for the time, energy, support and encouragement I have received from each one of you during my years as a photographer.

All the best,
Patricia a.k.a. Grandma Techno

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
www.patricialaydorsey.com
playdorsey@comcast.net
Instagram @patricialaydorsey

(from Dorothy:  Patricia and I have been closest friends for over 20 years.  We met when I was living in San Francisco and she was spending winters there to escape the harsh weather of Grosse Pointe (near Detroit).  Åt that time, she simply used a cane (as I recall) but even then she showed her spirit and spunk.  She often rode the Muni across the Bay to attend Jazz music in Oakland, and then returned alone at a late hour.  Brave woman!

When the U. S. invaded Iraq, the U. S. began rounding up persons with suspicious passports and deporting them summarily, often without benefit of trial or hearing.  One such person was held in detention without trial, having been seized in front of his terrified wife and children without notice or due cause.  Patricia befriended his wife, who went to court again and again, hoping to get a hearing of his case.  ˇhis hearing never happened.  Ultimately he and his wife were reunited in Lebanon and they invited Patricia to visit them and she accepted.  She traveled overseas alone and had a wonderful reunion with her friends.

More than once, Patricia drove alone (in her outfitted van) from Detroit to NYC, this at a time when she was unable to take a single step alone––M.S.

Sh is a gifted photographer and her work can be seen on Instagram.  She is one of the most remarkable persons I have ever known and I am immensely grateful to have known her.)

III

Reawakening

First, I have a confession.  For quite some time I have simply not made space for any kind of practice, or, if I did, I found my response weak and uninteresting.

But, today things changed.  I did a short practice yesterday and did indeed feel a few stirrings of delicate bliss here and there.  But when I first got up today, I detected pleasant energy moving within, so I made simple movement my priority.

It has been a very long time since I could do floor asanas, so I do my process standing.  What I do is very simple, yet it has taken me decades to reach this point.  I call it "subtle, subtle yoga."  As I have gotten older and stiffer, I am required to do less and less in order to arouse and enjoy the "bliss."  This bliss (which at times escalates to rapture or even ecstasy) is, for me, evidence of union with the divine.  No, we cannot think our way to god/goddess, but we can indeed feel the energy of this sacred presence  move within both our physical and subtle bodies.

Here is how I do it:  I rotate my hands around my body a few inches away, often holding a special vial of essential oil (containing frankencense and amber––only this particular vial will work).  As I move my hands around (today) my head and face, I feel sweet and delicate energies bathing my physical and subtle bodies.  Gradually I move my hands down until each area is suffused with loving frequencies.  Sometimes I take deep whiffs of the essential oil.  The result is bliss, reminiscent of the earlier times when rapture was so intense.  This bliss is soft, gentle, only a wee fraction of what it was in that earlier stage.

But I don't care.  It is perfect for where I am now.  Indeed, I don't wish to reexpeience the strong currents of the beginning.

I am grateful to discover that Kundalini pleasure is still possible, now in a much more refined form.  For me, this is still the path of union with the divine and I still believe that all of us are heading in this direction as we go through this current stage of our evolution.

Dorothy Walters
July 24, 2019

(Image from internet)

Our Awakening As Multidimensional Beings with Jack Stucki


When: Friday, August 9th, 7:00 – 9:00PM
Where: Boulder Friends Meeting House, 1825 Upland Ave., Boulder, CO 80304
In this compelling presentation, Jack Stucki will include:
His multidimensional work with the luminator machines.
His contacts with fractal beings: what they have shared and how they share left-handed spin torsion to help with mankind’s awakening.
A short (5 min.) video featuring the music of Byron Metcalf, Jack Stucki and the beautiful fractal art of Brenda Molloy.
A suggested donation of $20 will be gratefully accepted at the door.
If you can’t make it in person, we will be broadcasting the presentation on Zoom.
Click the button below to attend online:



Jack Stucki, RMT, BCIAC, began his professional career in 1967 as a music therapist.  He was influenced most by the people he served, including severely and profoundly retarded children, and the comatose.  His work with the comatose was featured on educational television and headlined in the Contemporary Magazine of the Denver Post.
In the late 1960’s he taught Group Dynamics in Counseling on the graduate level at Western State College, Gunnison, CO.  In the 1970’s he established one of the earlier pain clinics in the nation. His work has also been featured on the television talk show “The Changing Paradigm.”
In 1991, he was a member of the fact-finding team studying the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and introduced professionals in the Ukraine to biofeedback.  From 1995 through 2006, he was in private practice in Colorado Springs, CO and continues to be involved in the Merkaba Research and Healing Center, which he co-founded.  He was the instructor for a course in Integrative Medicine for the University of Colorado Medical School. He served three terms as President of the Colorado Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.  He was a recipient of the Johann Stoyva Award for outstanding contribution to biofeedback.
His main interest lies in using high technology to explore subtle energies, culminating in the current use of and research with the Bio-luminator, and constructing energy clearing devices such as the functional art objects he creates called Sacred Space Generators.  His work has been presented several times to The International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine (ISSSEEM), and to other related groups, as well as featured in three books published in 2010: Life Force, the Scientific Basis by Claude Swanson, Ph.D.; Radiant Minds, edited by Jean Millay, Ph.D.; and Healing Stories, by Robert Alcorn, M.D.; and additionally, two books written by Mark Macy:  Miracles in the Storm (2001) and Spirit Faces (2006); and again in the 2019 book by Claude Swanson, Science of the Soul, the Afterlife and the Shift.
In June, 2011, Jack was awarded the prestigious Doug Boyd Wisdom Keeper Award during the annual conference of ISSSEEM.  This award is presented to “selected individuals who exemplify the spirit of gathering and sharing ageless wisdom through stories, books, presentations and gatherings in an effort to raise consciousness, cultural preservation, serve humanity and make the world a better place in which to live.”
Jack was a keynote speaker at the International Conference on Shamanism (in 2013), and in 2016 he was a keynote presenter at the ISSSEEM Conference.
Click the button below to attend online:

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The Source of Wisdom

We can either be a vessel into which others pour their notions of truth, many derived from ancient voices long silenced and distorted by centuries of translation and transition, or we can shape our own
containers, considering each concept in turn, filtering and rejecting as we incline, until we become a free standing structure, a new creation and combination, available to others to accept or reject as they choose.  "Lay down your own path."  (attributed perhaps incorrectly to Buddha.)  "Light your own way.  Do not believe because I have said it."  (Again attributed to Buddha.)

I like this perhaps spurious wisdom.  I prefer to live in a house that I have built rather than rent space in someone else's edifice, though I will gladly spend time there and perhaps receive some ideas unfamiliar to me before.)

The Coin You Came With

When you were born,
a golden coin was placed
in your mouth.
One side said "transcendence"
and the other "the mundane."

Transcendence took you
to the moment on the mountain
as the sun was coming up
and the whole world
shimmered awake in joy,
when you won the prize
and everyone applauded,
the time you finally held
in your arms
the one you had waited for
for so very long,
listening to Mozart
when you almost went
out of your body with rapture.

When the Mystery
exploded in your body
and changed your life
forever.

The mundane took up
the rest of your time,
which was most of it:
checking to see
if the laundry was finished drying,
trying to do the exercises
like the picture in the ad,
watering the plant,
looking for the lost keys,
taking the car in for service,
going to the doctor's office
to get the tests done,
trying to remember
the rest of the grocery list,
wondering what the new neighbors
were truly like, if the rumors were true,
standing by on "hold."

Sometimes you lived
in one world,
sometimes the other.
Finally you realized
you were part of both,
that one side said: "Ascend"
even as the other insisted
"Keep your feet on the ground,"
even as the hail was pounding on the roof overhead,
even as the flowers were falling
and others were pressing up through the earth,
ready to be born
as the hail beat out the rhythm
of some unknown celestial tune.

Dorothy Walters
July 13, 2019

One or Two?

"Advaita" refers to nondualism, non-distinction between realities, the oneness of Atman (individual self) and Brahman (the single universal existence), as in Vedanta, Shaktism and Shaivism

Let the sages dispute this,
cells do not ask,
just go on being part
of some universe they
do not comprehend,
nor wonder,
am I it,
or am I other,
yet I continue to do
what I am supposed to do,
don't need instructions
or answers to the ongoing query,
feel the love overflow,
ecstasy is mine.

Dorothy Walters
July 14, 2019

WHATEVER THIS IS
By Dorothy Walters 

What is it,
this channeling god,
these words pouring through
like love strokes of light,
these syllables taking over
becoming flesh, my flowing veins,
I cannot remember
when it was not this way,
when my blood did not ache
for whatever this is.

from "A Cloth of Fine Gold: Poems of the Inner Journey"

Spiritual Emergence Anonymous: A 12-Step Program for the Integration of Spiritual Emergence
by SEA Service Board Members Marie Grace B., Teresa M., & Tee C.


A grassroots 12-Step program has recently been launched to assist in the integration of spiritual emergence (SE) and spiritually transformative experiences (STEs), based upon the principals and ethics of the original Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-Step program. The purpose of Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (SEA) is to help support the integration of SE and STEs in individuals whose spiritual transformation is so powerful that they desire assistance and support within a group environment. SEA offers the potential to serve ‘STErs’ worldwide through online meetings until local chapters can flourish. We are ever-forming and transforming, welcoming the dynamic growth of this organization as more people join and help shape the endeavor.

Since opening its virtual doors in March 2018, following two years of development, Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (SEA) has so far reached spiritual emergers in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark, and Nederlands. SEA has been invited to hold a presentation and round table discussion, similar to the presentation at the 2018 ACISTE conference in Chicago, by the European Transpersonal Association (EUROTAS) at their annual conference this September in Paris. Each 12-Step meeting begins with the following affirmation, or Serenity Prayer, taken directly from the original 12-Step program: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Q: Why ‘anonymous’?
A: Equality and safety are paramount. SEA promotes respect for each individual to develop and follow their own inner divine guidance. SEA creates a confidential group space (both sensitively considerate and warm-heartedly comfortable) where people share first-names only with no strings attached. Equality is of primary importance, to nurture a sense of being peers in the common process of grounding and integrating spiritual experiences. Participants are encouraged not to disclose their status, profession, or work identities. No sharing or soliciting of healing or spiritual commercial interests are advertised or promoted.

Q: Is this mainly a group meeting?
A: That is only one aspect of the program. Initially a person joins through a group meeting. Currently group meetings are held at various times weekly online until enough people in specific locales can meet together in person. Each individual selects someone they trust to ‘sponsor’ them, which means they meet outside the group. The sponsor becomes a companion while the person works the 12 Steps of SEA. Working the 12 Steps is a personal experience of journal writing and self-reflection that takes the participant on an inner journey of revelation and integration.

Q: Why 12 Steps?
A: For spiritual cleansing and grounding. The primary purpose of the 12 Steps in SEA is to assist individuals in re-centering their lives from ego-oriented towards divine orientation, while simultaneously integrating their new sense of spirituality into the social earthly environment. By supporting the impending transformation within us to ripen, we allow ourselves to grow into inner peace and outward grace. This is both the natural healthy maturation of human spiritual development, which is also aided by divine guidance. It can be a difficult journey with extensive time commitment and need for communal support. The 12-Step program is particularly valuable for STErs who have already experienced a spiritual awakening, albeit too suddenly to integrate comfortably into their former self-identity. The program offers the steps that STErs did not have the opportunity to take in preparation for their powerful experience. Working the 12 Steps provides spiritual/emotional cleansing and psychological/energetic grounding needed to integrate the spiritual awakening and bring it to its potential transformation.

Q: Aren't the 12 Steps only for addicts?
A: No. There are other 12-Step groups, in addition to SEA, that gather for spiritual growth rather than addiction rehabilitation. The original 12 Steps were ‘channelled’ during a spiritual experience through Bill W. in the 1930s, who adapted them to help his fellow alcoholics, thus starting Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He had experienced spontaneous recovery from alcoholism resulting from an STE experienced earlier in his life, which led him to search for ways to help his addicted friends. The effectiveness of the 12 Steps for alcoholism and other addictions is simply that it prepares an individual for, and leads one to, a spiritual awakening.

Q: Are the 12 Steps Christian-based?
A: No. Bill W. was not Christian. He rejected Congregational Sunday School at age 11.

Q: Does SEA make any money?
A: SEA is completely volunteer-based. SEA is a self-supporting, not-for-profit organization. Money needed to run the program is acquired through donations only.

Q: Who runs the show?
A: Group conscience and the 12 Traditions of ethical organization. Each group is self-organizing and independent, making decisions through consensus and waiting for ‘group conscience' as the highest quality of decision-making – our way of discerning divine guidance. The 12 Traditions of organizational ethics (used by AA and other 12-Step groups) form the backbone for governance. The SEA steering committee (called the SEA Service Board) also makes decisions through group conscience. The Service Board will assist groups in starting up, give ongoing support, and support groups to hold to the standards of the 12 Traditions. The 12 Traditions prevent exploitation of individual participants, groups, and SEA from commercial interests, advice-giving, dependencies, and internal political maneuvering.

Q: Doesn’t a person have to hit rock bottom before being motivated to work the 12 Steps?
A: Not necessarily in SEA. We in SEA are not addicts and do not have to wait until we have lost our homes, jobs, or relationships. We have already surrendered our lives (both willingly and unwillingly) to some extent through our STE. We admit to feeling our lives are unmanageable when we face the painful situation of the inner conflict we may feel – wanting to return to the bliss we experienced, yet finding ourselves suffering in new ways in what seems like a discordant, difficult-to-tolerate world. In SEA we use the 12 Steps to move from spiritual awakening to spiritual transformation, bringing us more fully into the world by living fully from our spiritual core.

Q: But what if I want MORE spiritual experience?
A: SEA is the gift that keeps on giving. Everyone in SEA loves spiritual experience. That is why we choose to honor it, open up more to it, and integrate it, rather than stuff it down out of sight and mind, or broadcast it for fame and financial gain. The more we embody and humbly embrace the myriad aspects that radically opened to us in our STEs, and the more we experience inner divinity, then the more flows through us from that place of inspiration. SEA is a program in which candid sharing is both the cure and the service. The natural outcome of ‘simply showing up as who we are’ is the vehicle for us to heal, companion others through the journey of spiritual transformation, and receive support to develop our own personal spiritual gifts to serve the planet.

Q: Why choose this over other spiritual paths?
A: This is not a spiritual path – it is the core of spiritual process. SEA is a transformational process that excludes no religion and requires no religion. People of all religions and no religion find it relevant. The 12 Steps are similar, for example, to the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, a spiritual development process that first came to Saint Ignatius during a spiritual experience in the early 16th century. They were passed on for centuries through European monasteries and convents. Ironically, Jesuit priests assumed that Bill W. had distilled the 12 Steps from the Ignatian Exercises and were surprised when they met Bill W. in 1941 to hear of his direct ‘download’ during a spiritual revelation! Monks and nuns engaged in contemplative practices have passed on through generations this Ignatian process for spiritual purification and practical grounded discernment to further deepen their experience of union with the Divine integrated with service to mankind.

Other examples of spiritual processes that have much in common with the 12 Steps of cleansing and grounding are the Balinese rites of cleansing, Native American shamanic soul retrieval, and various religious pilgrimages. These initiatory/purification rituals are intended to be practiced within the context of their specific community and culture. In contrast, the 12 Steps have been embraced by the Western world, where those who consider themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’ are growing exponentially, concurrent with an increased lack of multi-generational local community. The 12 Steps have become a global phenomenon—thus, they are more easily and authentically accessible on a global scale.

Q: What adaptations has SEA made to the AA 12 Steps?
A: Adaptation is ongoing in order to make the steps relevant to current needs for people around the globe going through spiritual emergence. For example, SEA has substituted “spiritual transformation” in the final Step 12 for “spiritual awakening,” because people come to SEA after some kind of spiritual awakening, thus transformation (or integration) is the goal. Similarly, in Step 3, we say “God as we understand God” rather than “God as we understand Him." Or in Step 8 we “include[s] ourselves” in the list of people we may have harmed.

To learn more about SEA or to attend a 12-Step meeting, find the website at: www.spiritualemergenceanonymous.org

Go to the ACISTE YouTube channel to catch all our previous Community Conversations!

(And these things happen, as well as the moments of transcendence.)

Relax

Ellen Bass

Bad things are going to happen.
Your tomatoes will grow a fungus
and your cat will get run over.
Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream
melting in the car and throw
your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.
Your husband will sleep
with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling
out of her blouse. Or your wife
will remember she’s a lesbian
and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat –
the one you never really liked – will contract a disease
that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth
every four hours. Your parents will die.
No matter how many vitamins you take,
how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,
your hair and your memory. If your daughter
doesn’t plug her heart
into every live socket she passes,
you’ll come home to find your son has emptied
the refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,
and called the used appliance store for a pick up – drug money.
There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.
When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine
and climbs half way down. But there’s also a tiger below.
And two mice – one white, one black – scurry out
and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point
she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.
She looks up, down, at the mice.
Then she eats the strawberry.
So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse
in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,
slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel
and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.
Oh taste how sweet and tart
the red juice is, how the tiny seeds
crunch between your teeth.

~ Ellen Bass

What is Ecstasy?

I just wrote this piece for another site, but decided to publish it here as well.  Some people think of ecstasy as merely joy, pleasure, exaltation, even.  I think it is important to maintain the distinction between this term (ecstasy) and other kinds of delight.  I think ecstasy is the God force, the divine essence, that which we can experience when it comes to us as an act of Grace.  It is as far as we can go to feel divine union.  It is not words nor concepts nor occasional bliss like moments.   It is physical bliss, magnified to the nth degree.  It is indescribable sensuous pleasure in the blood and bones.  Here is what I wrote:


"God is the infinite indescribable boundless love force (life force) that animates the universe including us. We are allowed into that Presence when we are flooded and fully infused with this highly sensuous, totally realized essence of the God field. I call this essence Kundalini. It is more than joy, beyond happiness, greater than pleasure. It is ultimate ecstasy. As one student said, “Oh, this is like sex only different.” To understand it, you must experience it. All other states are preliminaries, glimpses, brief flashes of that immensity. We are all heading in this direction as our world goes through this great transformation in human evolution. It is changing us irretrievably. We now hear in a different tone, speak in a new way, exist as a new being. Our nervous system is restrung into a new mechanism, our cells vibrate in an unfamiliar way. We are remade into a new creation. This is “God moving through your body,” as one visionary put it."

At times the feeling is so intense we think we are going to go out of our bodies, even to levitate.  At first it is overwhelming.  We lie on the floor, arms stretched out, and say, 'Here I am, God, take me."  We feel that in some strange way, we are mating with a deity perhaps Shiva himself.

Literature is filled with such accounts.  When Semele demanded that Zeus fulfill his promise to reveal himself to her in his true form, he did so and she immediately turned to ash.  In another account, Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan and begat two famous deities on her.  The Bible speaks of a time when "the sons of God mated with the daughters of earth." This concept is suggested even in the accounts of the conception of Jesus Christ, the god man who was half human, half divine.  The Pharaohs of Egypt were thought of as god/kings.  And today we have stories of space aliens mating with human partners to produce "hybrids."

(update:  I am now walking with little to no pain.  Swelling of legs has diminished noticeably.  So grateful.  Perhaps related to sleeping on bed that raises legs.  Perhaps to long distance healing from friend.)

Speaking with the Departed

Recently a dear friend and colleague unexpectedly left the planet.  Carol and I had worked on many projects together at the  university where we taught.  Along with a few other like minded souls we had set up one of the earlier women's studies programs in the country, right in Kansas, right in the middle of what was then known as "Bob Dole Country."  Together we had created and published one of the first anthologies of poems by women at a time when women were often excluded from many collections.  We were 'spiritual buddies," friends who seemed destined to collaborate in various ways.  She was a friend among friends, one who supported and encouraged others' personal creative efforts.

A few days after Carol left, I began to talk with her in my head.  I felt this seemed quite natural, but hesitated to tell anyone that I was doing this.

But, lo and behold, when I began to tell others what I was doing, I discovered that many of them did the same thing.  They kept their connection with departed friends and loved ones by talking with them regularly.  For them, this was not a big deal, just an accepted part of their lives.

I have mentioned earlier Betty Kovacs' wonderful book called "There is only Life," in which she recounts her ongoing conversations with both her departed husband and son.  I strongly recommend it.

I told a therapist/healer/friend what I was doing and soon she started conversing with Carol also.  Carol told her that I 'had two more books in me," and that she would wait for me.  I was glad to get both of these bits of news.

I wonder how many of us are experiencing similar events in our lives.  Often we do not share these with others, for fear of seeming odd or even a bit off key.  Perhaps these days things are changing so that we can share these unusual happenings without fear of judgment or censure.

P. S.  Here is more news from my psychic friend.  I have been having much pain in my left hip and leg, especially when I try to walk.  This friend began doing long distance healings on me, and that very day the pain lessened notably.  I am now walking with less than half the pain I had before.  For this shift I am most grateful.