Rea Nolan Martin's Blog

In the most neutral sense, our enemies are our opponents.

They appear in our lives when unsettled circumstances have emerged to the point where status quo is eroded or no longer viable. Sometimes we’re aware that circumstances have advanced to this degree, but sometimes the gathering storm catches us off-guard. Archetypal Opponents (with a capital O) radiate opposition in all directions, owning none of the ensuing chaos. In literature, we call these characters ‘foils’—mirrors that reflect the unresolved hostility of those around or beneath them.

Over the years, I have faced opponents both personal and collective, upper case and lower, local and global. Some were minor, some major, a few downright epic. The appearance of two of these adversaries shocked me. In the heat of an encounter I wondered, where did this come from? Had I done something to deserve this hostility, rejection, or calculating behavior? Had I ignored the signs? Chosen friendship poorly? Hidden from the truth? Allowed myself to be manipulated? Did I know myself at all?

I had a lot to learn.

I set out to learn it.

Through the study of archetypes, myth, and eastern philosophy, I learned that adversaries come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes they’re human, but often they’re events, obstacles, and opportunities against which we can hone our wills, intellect, strength of character, and breadth of experience. Sometimes opposition and the ability to overcome it raise us to a higher level of moral authority, a level at which we can make a difference in the world. Sometimes it forces us deeper into authenticity, clarifying life purpose, defining character, or allowing us to move a mountain for those unable to move it themselves.

My greatest global opponent was 9/11

Let me say first, that the concept of learning from an opponent, especially a human opponent, does not presume that the opponent has intrinsic virtue. Adversaries of this nature are often morally unstable, if not evil, with lessons of their own to learn, many of them deeper than those they peripherally teach others. Osama bin Laden and his cohorts did not set out with holy intention to teach me a valid life lesson.

And yet, I learned.

I learned about my own ignorance of the world at large, and that of my neighbors and friends. I learned that my country was not beloved by all. I learned that some hated it and us and all the privilege we represented. I learned that some U.S. policies in other countries contributed to that hatred. I learned that just because abject poverty existed out of view in faraway lands, there was no excuse for complacency. I learned that this enemy was deep, insidious, and not likely to disappear soon, or at least until the full lesson was learned.

The full lesson has not been learned.

My greatest personal adversary was leukemia.

Over a decade ago, it coiled and snapped like a viper, delivering its deadly venom to my 16-year-old son. My reaction was outrage. Testing myself against this epic opponent, I became an emotional athlete, developing the hard-won muscles of compassion, courage, persistence, and endurance. Caring for him, I gained practical knowledge of the body, the blood in particular, as well as dozens of effective alternative methods of healing that I still practice today. I have yet to make peace with this enemy, though it taught me much, and my son more. He is well now. The miracle of his healing merits a blog of its own. My own healing is an ongoing struggle that reveals its painful lessons only as I allow.

Terrorism and illness are not the only opponents. Some we recognize; some we don’t. Some are so close we can’t see the length of their shadows. There are financial and marital opponents. Career opponents. Political opponents. There are friends who forget us, stop supporting us, or refuse to forgive us. Sometimes we are the opponents, refusing to forgive them. There are opponents who hide on the sidelines, biding time, waiting to see if we’re willing to sacrifice short-term self-interest for long-term gain. The environment comes to mind. Forgiving enough for now, but is it soon to unleash its pent-up fury?

When it does, will we wonder where it came from?

Opponents come and go. Mostly they remind us that the world is big and we are not, and if we’re going to tackle it, we have to jump high, stretch far, and learn to throw a knockout punch. To develop those skills, we need resistance, opposition, and debate. Illness develops the immune system. Argument develops intellect. Betrayal teaches us the value of loyalty, and points us in the direction of true friendship. Scandal and lies develop appreciation of integrity and truth.

Which brings us to current events

Whichever way you tipped the ballot box, Donald Trump is an Opponent in the most unadulterated, archetypal, upper case, symbolic sense of the word. His story is mythological, a classic Shakespearean drama. If you abhor his policies, he is your Opponent. If you support his policies, but not his impulsive delivery or penchant for attack, he is your Opponent. His presidency, brief or sustained, challenges us like no other to look in the mirror of truth and decide who we really are, and how hard we’re willing to fight for that identity. Are we a nation of inclusion? Exclusion? A nation of rising rage? Cowering fear? Are we doomed to division? Is success measured in artillery? Money? Compassion?

Whatever your answer, this Opponent is forcing us to define ourselves against his policies, his behavior, and our reactions to each other. His confusing rhetoric has directed its oppositional whiplash from the podium to the people and back. We are a tornadic vortex, organized by chaos. Archetypal Opponents often do this. They drive us into corners so uncomfortable that we are forced to fight or surrender. To become something greater or lesser.

Which will it be?

Current debates reveal the fault line in our national landscape. The backlash will be tectonic, but in which direction? Will we strengthen ourselves against the Opponent, or rise up against each other? Will we come together or tear irreparably apart? Contrary to all appearances, we are not victims unless we allow ourselves to be. The outcome is not up to Donald Trump. It’s up to us.

In spite of themselves, Opponents are only there to teach us.

The post Why Our Enemies are Our Greatest Teachers appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

For those who dare to dream, all things are possible, right?

Well, not always.

Dreams abound, especially this time of year, but let’s face it, most don’t materialize. While a few dreams take flight, others fueled by the same optimism and hope, crash and burn. What’s missing? Is it talent? Opportunity? Clarity of Intention? Commitment? Luck?

Or is another, more magical element at play?

Through the decades, I’ve observed that the biggest difference between manifestation and frustration isn’t the nature of the dream, or even the resources of the dreamer. It’s simpler than that, and yet more complex. The biggest difference between manifestation and frustration is our relationship to life itself. How we see it. How we approach it. Our Life Orientation, if you will. Our primary point-of-view (POV).

The Brain v the Mind

Unless you’re new to metaphysical thought, the fact that our brains and our minds are different species is nothing new. Brains are organic computers capable of complex calculations and decisions. It sorts things out based on the available mental/emotional and physical resources it perceives. Its belief systems are its software programs. Its content a local hovering cloud of information, perceptions, desires, and stored responses. However amazing and masterful, in the end the brain is a physical organ. In other words, like everything on this plane, it’s finite.

The Mind, on the other hand, is not.

The Mind is a quantum field of infinite potential. Accessing this potential, we access all the possibility and probability we can conjure. In order to access the infinite potential of the Mind, the finite brain must expand its boundaries, escape to the edge of its outer limits, and leap. It isn’t easy, or even obvious. If we think of the brain as a finite particle and the Mind as an infinite wave, we see the dilemma. A particle is fixed and determinate; a wave pure potential. In order to realize our dreams, the brain is most useful as a portal to the Mind. Once there, it’s our job to ride the wave of possibility without looking back. To acquire the properties of the wave. To become it.

First, let’s identify your POV.

Are You a Particle?

If you approach life as a particle, you approach it with fixed ideas brought forward from experience, your own or others’. You have a particle POV if your ideas, habits, decisions and lifestyle are limited to a narrow band of rigid choices rooted in the past. Ask yourself, “Am I shackled to decisions I inherited or made myself years or even decades ago?” Decisions that began with, “I said I would do it, so I’m doing it.”  or “This is the way (name the person) did it, so this is the way it has to be done.” A rigid orientation limits potential by confining itself to a closed system of possibility. All things are not possible when all things are not open and available.

Or Are You a Wave?

Waves, on the other hand, are opportunists in the best sense. Waves are perpetual motion, continuously seeking and reevaluating direction and position. Waves flow freely, accessing information from the past, present and even the future as it pertains to the realization of the dream. The ideas, habits, decisions, and lifestyle of a person with a wave POV are flexible, relaxed, and poised for advantage. Waves are archetypal Seekers—individuals in search of truth who are willing and able to follow a course to fulfillment, however deep or fast the river rolls.

First Step: Awareness

Points-of-view are not set in stone unless they remain unexamined. Like any goal, our POV’s should be reviewed regularly. Are my thoughts, dreams, and the process to obtain them still relevant? Workable? Or have I run aground? As eternal beings, we are only stuck  when we refuse to move. Sounds easy, but fundamental decisions are surprisingly uncomfortable, even unnerving. Otherwise we would all be waves all the time. Willingness to shift from a particle POV to a wave POV, means the difference between a small life and a large life. Between the lives we’ve been handed, and the lives we dare to imagine.

Where to Begin

Freeing the mind requires meditation. Similar practices like contemplative prayer also help. Either way, there’s no avoiding the ‘inner room’. Meditation is the key that unlocks the cage that frees the Mind. Quieting the brain and eliminating its infernal chatter, we become aware of our limitations. We release them, unlocking a quantum field of resources. In time, we are able to experience the particle/wave duality of the quantum world, accessing the pure potential of a powerful new life whenever we choose.

Becoming a wave is not a one-time proposition. On the physical plane, we are always prone to relapse into particle thinking. Following is a meditation I use whenever I’m stuck.

Sit comfortably in a quiet place, eyes closed.
Invite the Sacred Presence.
Allow color to appear spontaneously and expand.
Imagine a cluster of unmovable black dots in its midst.
Keeping the field of color in your mind’s eye, observe the tension in your body.
Release the tension slowly from head to toe.
Out of the cluster of dots, allow a slow stream of blue/green to emerge, and move it in a wave across the field. The wave is you.
Release the cluster of black dots one by one, each representing an attachment to an idea, desire, process, or outcome.
Repeat the mantra: “I am a wave; I am free.”
Continue for 5 minutes, increasing by 5 minutes a day until you reach 20.

As you become more proficient, your dreams will gain clarity and dimension. The awareness of your true nature will deepen. The scope of your faith will expand. And then, if your specific dreams don’t materialize, it will no doubt be because something better has emerged out of the infinite. Something undeniably right. Something you could never have imagined before.

© 2017 rea nolan martin

The post All Things Are Possible. Or Are They? appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

I was at a gathering of friends this weekend, and the conversation circled energetically from family, to politics, to weather, to religion, finance, retirement, world events, and back again.  We discussed upcoming weddings, elections, heat waves, house sales, gas drilling in the Catskills, oil spills in the Gulf, and more.  We discussed family histories in the context of genetics, genocide, famine and disease.  The topics varied greatly, but after a while, I realized that these conversations, even among friends, had one overriding element in common with many other conversations I’d had and observed in the last few years.

Rage.

The intelligent and educated opinions of my friends were mostly delivered with tense jaws, lined foreheads, narrow eyes and defensive postures.  To look at them, you would think they were upset about everything, though they claimed they were not.  Even those who were delivering opinions they knew would be well-received, delivered them with some degree of rage.  I asked one friend why, after all these years, she still cared so much about “the outrageous hypocrisy” of a family member, and she told me that she did not care. That she had long stopped caring about the bastard.

I’ve thought a lot about rage lately—my own rage, and the rage of others.  I am generally a happy and peaceful person, but I have experienced the toxic effect of rage rise up within me like volcanic bile.  In turn, I have found myself physically backing off from the rage of others.  I don’t ever remember this happening before in my lifetime on such a wide scale—not as a child, a young adult, or as a parent.  We at VN have all lived through some calamitous national outrage, but I have come to see that general, free-floating rage dominates our broader culture now more than ever before. The question is…why?

Because I am so aware of its power, my own rage has softened significantly.  Or I should say, once I took a look at the wild, unencumbered properties of rage itself, I have separated myself and my opinions from its tenacious grasp, one claw at a time.  I have toned it down, if not eliminated it.  You know when this has happened, because when it has, you feel at peace, even around the rage of others.  But it was not always thus.  My own rage was inspired by particular events—parceled out appropriately—that is, until it took on a life of its own, as rage always does.  Unchecked, rage will jump easily from thought to thought, topic to topic, person to person, nation to nation.  It is a master predator. A psychic omnivore.

Rage does not belong to you or me; to Democrats, Republicans, or Libertarians. It does not belong to majorities, minorities, or immigrants; to Christians, Muslims, Jews or Atheists. Rage is a Trojan horse wheeled into anyone’s midst in the guise of justice and justification.  It is a dis-ease, powered virally, surviving on its host. The host is us.

I have this theory that our latest explosion of national rage was lit in downtown Manhattan on 9/11.  That we have never recovered from the sheer, unredeemed injustice of it all—injustice that, no matter how extreme our politics, no matter what countries we attack or invade, will ever be made right.  Feed that bedrock national wound with deadly hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, financial devastation, and calamitous environmental disasters—bellow it with polar politics and extreme talk show hosts—and the rage-fire is epic.

How to get it under control?  First, we have to apprehend the enemy within.  Only when we are able to get over ourselves—how our families, our nation, and the world in general, should revolve around our singular, keen, intelligent and astounding points of view—will we come to the end of our personal and national rage. Until we figure that out, one by one, and start listening to each other respectfully—the conversations in families, communities, organizations, and nations, will be fueled by the rage we feed with our own lack of personal responsibility and understanding.

Rage wants us to think that it is a quality of a certain topic or topics of debate.  But the truth is, rage has become a national habit—a weapon in search of any target.  Recognizing our own rage is the first step in ending its reign.  Toning down the rhetoric of our personal and national conversations is the next step.  Otherwise, the only one who will win the next election will be rage itself.  As candidates go, it’s the most clever and enduring of all.

The post The Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

The other day, in a mad dash for lost information, I pored through old and recently deleted emails, getting lost in a sea of old news. I went back as far as ten years, connecting random threads from what I thought was the source of the missing information I sought. The search inadvertently led me sideways and backwards into a mass of family health and medical history that was both compelling and disturbing. After an hour of this sleuthing, I received a phone call and left my office, one thing leading to another in a familiar distracted style, until finally, I walked my dog.

Fluffy, exuberant dog on leash, earbuds inserted, Bob Seeger blaring, I found my thoughts miles away from my feet, entirely missing the sun-soaked path on the river’s edge. Mentally I was reviewing the years-old emails. Many of them were desperate attempts from friends and acquaintances to connect with me in my previous strife. Jogging along the river, I felt that strife. My mood shifted, my gut wrenched, my neck stiffened. My foot hit a shrub root, and I tripped over the leash, skinning my knees and elbows.

Back at the house, I cleaned and bandaged my wounds. It could have been a lot worse, I knew. The phone rang, and I was diverted by a radio interview I’d momentarily forgotten about, followed by a series of book signing requests. It was another two hours before I returned to my inbox, hidden behind a slew of browser tabs. Reading the mail, I was at first perplexed and a bit disoriented. Why were people sending me impassioned messages about prayer and healing? It was a moment before I realized that what I’d been reading was the same trash I was buried in this morning.

The thing about trash is—it’s a waste.

It’s obvious that old news is a time drain. There were so many other things I could (and should) have been doing. But while I was following that email thread, I did notice a couple of things. One was that some of the most impassioned emails had gone unanswered by me. The other was that those same acquaintances had not been in touch with me since.

First I thought—why should that bother me? After all, at the time I’d been tending to the critical medical details of the prolonged emergency of a family member. And anyway, the statute of limitations on email etiquette had surely expired. I returned to my computer and shipped all the troublesome mail to the recycle bin where it belonged. Out of sight, out of mind. Not that the recycle bin is the end of the information road, God knows. To actually delete old news in a permanent way is a separate and very deliberate step in the process of freeing the computer of storage clutter and moving forward.

 Life is a lot like that.

We humans runneth over with old, unprocessed, undeleted news. As fast as things happen in our modern world, it’s no wonder that we race on as if nothing has happened at all. I personally know people in the New York area who have never even discussed 9/11. They just…could not. So they ‘moved on’ or ‘through’ to a safer stretch of road on the information highway. The problem is if we’re not deleting old news, especially traumatic news, we’re building on its unbalanced foundation even when we think we’re not. Like an old-fashioned game of Jenga, we pile new experiences on top of old unresolved experiences, hoping no one will pull the stabilizing pieces out, reducing our fragile wooden towers to rubble.

Gurus reinforce the importance of the present moment, and computer trash is a good way to understand its weight. If you’re spending the day saturated in old news, especially bad news, you can’t possibly create anything new or good. Old experiences ransom our ‘mindshare’, creating a mental/emotional brain drain that causes overreactions to unrelated issues. The truth is—nothing fresh can be created from old material, already set or dried. Picture a potter throwing clay already baked and hardened, or an artist trying to manipulate dried paint from an old canvas. It can’t be done.

That afternoon, reflecting on these thoughts, I wondered—why had I not emptied my own bin? Both digital and emotional? Why were those files so handy? What possible good did I think could come of holding onto so much grief and sorrow? I was over it, wasn’t I?

Maybe not.

And so began the self-examination that led me to this question: What had I missed in that experience that still awaited resolution? After a period of meditation, I realized that in that strife I had felt alienated from everyone I knew. (Or at least from those who had not had a similar experience, which was pretty much everyone I knew.) A gregarious person, I was suddenly alone and in charge of a terrifying situation for which I had no reference points. People were eager to give advice, and yet, they had no idea what we were experiencing. How could they? So I hunkered down to figure it out myself. Isolation, even self-imposed, creates walls of resistance that for a while may be a protective reflex, but over time can become a hardened form of ingratitude. I realized that for a time, I too had become ungrateful, even for those offering all they had—prayer and solace.

That evening I walked into my office, sat down, and deleted my entire recycle bin. Hidden files were everywhere, so it took a while. But this time it was well worth it, because now I was creating room in my computer for new stories, new threads, new events. Afterwards, I picked up the phone and called a few old pals, creating room in my heart. Awkward at first, I soon felt my burden lighten precipitously. Some day, I thought, it would be these people who would need help.  I wanted them to know that I had taken the time to create room, not only for myself, but for them.

Room to move forward.

The post Can’t Move Forward? Maybe This is Holding You Back. appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

 

By most accounts, the search for God is an ancient, oil-slicked highway rutted with potholes, interrupted by long tunnels that lead mostly to more long tunnels. It’s dark and stormy, often foggy, directed by ambiguous signage spelled out in dead languages. Except for the occasional downpour of refreshing manna, the road appears to be a steep incline of harsh laws, stringent warnings, and mind-numbing repetition of ritual.

Can we really blame anyone for getting off?

Raised Catholic, I took the first available exit ramp in the late-70’s when I was in my twenties. This detour marked a brief period of quasi-atheism, when I was searching for anything but God. I say ‘quasi’ because I wasn’t committed to atheism the way I was committed to say—yoga, vegetarianism, or the neighborhood happy hour. For me, calling off the search for God was more like a peaceful release from the dogmatic heel on the head. I just quietly stopped believing, if not in God, than in the image of God that had been impressed on me since birth.

Being a quasi-atheist didn’t change things for me, or really even rearrange them. It wasn’t an existential crisis. I wasn’t angst-ridden or depressed. Neither did it alter my organic, ingrained compassion for others. I didn’t need religion for that. In fact, in a way, the absence of religion made my compassionate action seem more meaningful. I wasn’t motivated by the promise of a future eternal reward.  No guilt or threat of damnation dragged me by the hair into compulsory charity. I loved those I loved, and helped those I helped without attaching my actions to any ‘ism’. If I performed works of charity it was because I wanted to. With the boss out of the picture, I became a spiritual freelancer, exploring philosophies and experiences that were discouraged, if not forbidden, by the corporate faith.

Philosophies like myth and archetype.

I devoured Plato and Jung and Campbell. Through them, I understood that atheists and theists are two sides of the same archetypal coin, claiming more in common than either side realizes. For one thing, both sides are seekers, seeking the source and nature of life. One seeks it in God; the other in a natural order, often one observed through science. In some ways, (stay with me now), this opposition creates balance—believers challenging nonbelievers to consider that more forces may be at work than can be measured, at least currently. Higher forces. Flip the coin and watch nonbelievers challenge believers to question their complacency in beliefs rooted in an ancient cultural past. A past where huge communities of people were rejected, tortured, and enslaved.

These arguments have merit too. After all, creation by its very nature cannot be shackled to the past. Creation exists only in the present. It is a constant, irrepressible force. A force that speaks to us continually through visionaries as diverse as Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, and Stephen Spielberg. It speaks to us collectively through technological advancements and seismic human social movements like democracy, ecology, race and gender equality, and more recently, LGBT rights.

Evolution is the voice of consciousness proclaiming new paths of being and becoming. It lifts humanity up from the depths of competitive exclusivity to the heights of compassionate inclusivity. It challenges us to grow, innovate, and honor our differences. To stop victimizing each other in the name of God. It is the creative power unleashed in humankind, driving it ineluctably forward. When we instead shackle every action and consequence to an ancient past, we deny progress, obscuring—even denying—the presence of an active God in the cultural present.

In my thirties, I too, moved on. This time, instead of abandoning God, I abandoned atheism for its lack of ability to measure things like instinct, intuition, and imagination. Applying myself to new intellectual paths, I soon figured out that the search for God is anything but intellectual. You can’t get there from here, as they say. And although I appreciate a good intellect as much as anyone, for me at least, as a singular path it was just too confining.

As Einstein said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Ironically, it was in calling off the search for God that I found my guiding force. By sitting in my own silence I was able to experience the gentle, illuminating glow of the Godhead. A Godhead redefined, I might add, not as the perceived giant superhuman of my childhood catechism, but as the original incorruptible force of our planet, our cosmos, and our humanity. An Intelligence of a holographic order, beyond intellect, complete and unconfined, supporting our personal efforts to learn and grow. An Intelligence that empowers us to channel its forces through works of literature, art and music; scientific discovery; the formation of responsible, nurturing societies; and in the actual co-creation of humanity via conception and birth.

So, how to find that essential force for yourself?

Stop looking. Silence the mind with all its fears, biases and justifications. All its lateral, sequential thinking. Its presumptions and premature conclusions. Its rigid, inherited belief systems. Its lack of vision. If you want to find God, find the center of your heart first, and just, well…ask. Any mystic will tell you that a sincere inquiry always produces results, especially for beginners. (God can’t resist a lost sheep.) Out of that silence, answers will fall like manna, everywhere you look—in nature,  conversations, relationships, coincidences, and events of all kinds. And in the process, every aspect of your life will gain dimension.

Including your religion and your science.

The post Calling Off the Search for God appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

I’ve prayed for a lot of people in my life, and I’ve been well prayed for too. Some of it worked out and some of it did not, or so it seemed. When things did not work out, the result was generally greeted by others with a flurry of excuses, such as, ‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ or ‘God’s ways are mysterious.’ Firm in the belief that meaningful prayer should produce a result, however, I pushed through some of that mystery, and in the process, improved my odds.

In the simplest terms, prayer is intention. Intention is focused thought. In prayer, we lift our intention consciously into the universe, generally directed at God, or in some cases, a divine intermediary whose job it is to amplify that intention and send it on up to the head office. Prayer has always had a mystique about it, placing it in the unearthly category of the magical unknown. It’s true that when prayers are answered, it’s pretty magical. But it’s also true that, thanks to modern physics, some of the mystery can be explained in scientific terms.

Prayer may rise up from the heart, but it’s generally articulated through the brain and moves into the universe in waves. Brain waves are forms of electromagnetic radiation that, like other electromagnetic waves, travel at the speed of light. Depending on their strength, waves have the power to affect the energy and objects in their path. Since brain waves are not as strong as other electromagnetic waves, they benefit from fortification. This may be one reason why prayer works best in groups of two or more. Groups of people compassionately directing intention with the same focus on the same object, create a stronger wave that’s more likely to effect the desired change. Large groups of people focusing on a unified outcome have tremendous potential for significant impact.

The first time I saw this process actualized, it sent me to my knees.

The year was 2008. Our son was gravely ill, and the doctors told my husband and me that he would likely not survive the night. That was the eve of his nineteenth birthday. On the surface this appeared to be the tragic climax of an arduous three-year-long war against blood cancer. There were those in our circles who piously accepted this prognosis as God’s will. “At least you had those three years,” they said. “You’ll always be grateful for that.”

I wasn’t the least bit grateful.

As a magical thinker and deep spiritual believer, I wanted my son not only to survive, but to thrive. He was an incredibly intelligent, clever, and motivated young man with a great deal more to offer his family and the world. As his spiritual and medical advocate, I was intractable in the belief that God could save him if he wanted to. Just do it! Why aren’t you doing it!  It pained me to ask, because after all, couldn’t he read my mind? My prayers were bold, honest, and combative. I had nothing to lose. I was a spiritual lioness defending her cub. The doctors had done all they could. I was waiting on a God who was taking his sweet time.

But what if he was waiting on me?

Saint Paul and other mystics talk about the ‘Mystical Body’ as more or less the eyes, ears, arms and legs, etc. of God on Earth. Infused with latent divinity, we are charged with tuning our antenna, balancing our psyches, and developing these spiritual gifts at all cost.

”These things and more will you do in my name.”—John 13:13

For the foot soldiers among us, this may mean feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless. For those whose gifts derive from mystical realms, it may mean learning how to manifest outright miracles. One thing is true, as the collective mystical body, we are endowed with more power than we’ve ever bothered to develop. It makes sense that at some point in human evolution God would kick us out of the nest and let us figure it out for ourselves. How else does one learn to fly?

 “Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7

At the peak of my son’s jeopardy, I thought I grasped the power of petition. But in the midst of that experience, I was shown an order of prayer higher than I believed possible. That night as he struggled so profoundly, I called my family and widespread prayer community, soliciting support. Those who were not wringing their hands with anxiety, got down to business recruiting more prayer groups through friends and over the internet, on and on, until a chain of viral prayer swept the globe, gathering speed and force in a fast-moving tsunami of advocacy for our child. The numbers were overwhelming, and included over fifteen countries. The intention was strong and direct. “Save him,” said the wave. “Let it be done.”

Early the following morning, I awoke with a start, instantly aware of a major shift. Against all evidence to the contrary, I knew my son had been healed. I knew it. I had never experienced such a knowing in my entire life. I rushed to his side, where he was struggling beneath his oxygen mask. The nurse said she would call the doctor, that the infiltrate in his lungs was overwhelming him. We would have to make decisions. Things had taken a turn for the worse.

“No,” I said. “Lift the mask. He’s trying to tell us something.”

She protested, but consumed with pity, perhaps, pulled his mask aside to prove her point. As soon as the mask was off, he sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to himself, smiling; his eyes clear and alert. Considering his acute level of infection, just the ability to breathe on his own would have stunned the nurse. But the ability to sing was otherworldly. Doctors ordered a mobile x-ray, which proved the infiltrate had all but disappeared. He was moved out of ICU later that day. The next morning he walked down the hall and took a shower on his own. Two days later, he was back in his college dorm.

He hasn’t been sick since.

What I want people to know from this experience is that every prayer matters. Not the lazy drive-by prayers tossed blindly into a black hole. You know the ones. Not those. Not the anxious prayers fueled by fear and desperation. Put those prayers away. Those prayers are for the spiritually undeveloped. It’s time to learn the confident prayers of empowered believers, the kind that rise up from the indwelling of the divinity at the core of your being and mine. The future of the world depends on this. It is our evolutionary responsibility to develop these gifts. Every selfless thought and intention directed confidently at the healing of another person, animal, plant, or the Earth itself, stacks the deck in favor of survival and enlightenment. Every prayer counts.

How to begin?

1) When someone requests prayer, pray for them instantly, fervently, and confidently.

2) Form what I call ‘a ring of commitment’ around their intention. Reject all temptation towards fear and doubt. Your job now is to pray against the tide. Loosed of the burden of earthly logic, you are empowered to unleash your considerable energetic force into the wave of possibility that with enough participation will likely turn that tide in favor of your intention.

3) In between prayer requests, pray, meditate, and generally commit to your own spiritual development. After all, your prayer could be the tipping point, not only of an individual’s recovery, but a community’s. Or a nation’s. Or the Earth.

Or the spiritual empowerment of humankind.

 

(c) 2015 Rea Nolan Martin  All rights reserved.

This and other inspirational essays are featured in Rea’s upcoming book, WALKING ON WATER, available in May of 2016.

The post How to Put the Power in Prayer appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

I remember a particular New Year’s Day in my mid-twenties when I was full of resolve. I was living in a Chicago suburb, where I managed a profitable business in a career I loved, owned a charming country home, and from any other perspective, held the world in the palms of my hands. No resolutions required, right?

Wrong. I was miserable. Over the previous year I’d fallen steadily into a funk that I was unable to define or escape. It just was. Or so I told myself. That year I made a resolution to turn my life around–to really change things. And even though there were obvious external issues at play, I began with the only person I knew would not disappoint me. Myself.

In an effort to improve my life, I joined a health club, worked out relentlessly, and adopted a spectacular Great Pyrenees puppy. I got more fit, made more money, and read more books. I advanced my skills and my career. I made more friends. On weekends, I poured myself into yard work, improving our little country acre to the best of my ability. I sought improvement everywhere and in everything I did.

By the end of that year, I was more miserable than ever.

If my life were a road trip, you could say I was driving without a view. I’d carefully scrubbed off all the gnats and sticky pieces of travel grit, and still come up with zero visibility. Why? Because with all my hard work and good intention, I’d refused to address the chief obstruction on the windshield. At some point I would have to face my hopeless relationship.

We all do this. We make resolutions to improve our lives, to seek greater awareness, to become more compassionate beings, whatever the lofty goal. Yet we work around the elephant, not only in every room, but also splashed across the windshield of our dreams, blocking our potential. In my case, the elephant was an unhealthy relationship. For you, it may be a job, career, education, health, dysfunction in the family, difficult roommate, or an addiction you just can’t (or refuse to) acknowledge or overcome. So instead, maybe you also join a health club, bump up the nutrition, and attend retreats to appease the emotional exhaustion created by the elephant you are so busy climbing over and around. Here’s the thing. It doesn’t work.

You’ll never get where you’re meant to be if you can’t see the way.

How to begin:

1) Make yourself road-worthy.

If you want to make essential progress in your life’s journey in the next year, the first thing you’ll need is a vehicle. That vehicle is you–body, mind and spirit. You can’t get far with a banged up car. Whatever it entails, bring yourself into balance. For me, it’s good nutrition, exercise, prayer, meditation, creative work, and energetic therapies, like acupuncture and Natural Force Healing. These steps are preliminary, ongoing, and crucial. At any given point, if you’re out of balance, your view will be distorted.

2. Define the destination.

Roll out the map of your life, beginning with childhood, and identify the activities that gave you the most joy and stimulation. Prioritize them. These are the gifts and personality archetypes that drive you. If you feel no particular connection to specific activities, your mission this year is more exploratory. Sample new things. Join groups. Paint, sing, dance, hike, travel. Make mistakes. Find your compass by changing direction. Identify the path you’ve walked up to now, however accidental. See how it varies from the one you’d envisioned, and plan how to bridge that gap. If you’ve never envisioned a life path, this is the time. Create it now.

3) Dream big.

Dreams are the unedited creations of the imagination. They represent our best selves. Don’t limit them, at least for now. Place everything on that map that you can imagine would provide fulfillment. For some it will be an expansive, even a global life plan, including travel. For others, it will be an inner journey of spiritual exploration. We’re all standing at different points on the path, and our experiences, dreams and intentions will naturally reflect that. Once you’ve planned your itinerary, identify any obstruction/s or impasses you foresee. Address them before the journey begins. It may delay your trip a bit, but with courage, ingenuity, and perspective, most impediments can and should be overcome.

4) Choose your passengers wisely.

Look around. Are your present companions the people you would take on a lifelong road trip? A single vacation? A night out? None of the above? Do they enhance your life? Advance your dreams? Offer wise counsel and faithfully nudge you in the right direction? Are they dependable? Do they bring you joy? (Do you bring them joy?) Act accordingly. If there’s work to be done in this area, including counseling, do it before you get in the car.

5) Open the windows and put the top down.

In other words, open your mind and prepare to learn. This journey is about authenticity and growth. It’s about becoming who you really are. The people, places and mode of transportation you choose, via job, lifestyle, hobbies, or even recreation, are not only your chauffeurs, they’re your teachers. If you choose carefully, you’ll experience joy, focus, fascination, and serenity, but also the discomfort of having moved beyond the familiar. Feel that discomfort, sit with it, and learn from it. It’s the bridge from your old life to the new. Trust that its invaluable importance will be understood and appreciated when you’re waving to it in the rear view mirror, if not sooner.

When I look back at my younger self that year in Chicago and all the unrest that followed, I see those years as my greatest achievement. Those were the years I broke through my comfort zone and dared to dream. Those were the years I acknowledged my own worth and invested it in the future. It might have taken some waterworks to clean up that windshield, but I’ll never regret it. Everything changed from that point forward.

Most of the time, the view from my windshield is crystal clear. I wish the same for you.

Happy New Year!

The post Five Steps to Manifesting Your Dreams in 2016 appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

Last week, a Jewish friend of ours dropped by for a visit. Slightly overwhelmed by all our Christmas paraphernalia—the tree, the ornaments, the cards, the gifts, the wrapping paper, the manger—he said, wide-eyed, “Wow! This is…amazing.”

Shrugging, my husband said, “Well, you guys have Hanukkah. We have Christmas.”

“Is that what you think?” our friend said. “That Hanukkah is the Jewish Christmas?” He leaned in meaningfully. “Well, it isn’t. Hanukkah is about miracles.”

Taken aback, my husband said, “So you think Christmas isn’t about miracles?”

On it went in a playful manner until I, mentally exhausted and anxious to see the finale of Homeland, sent everybody packing. Just what the world needs, I thought, more arguments about religion. The things we don’t understand about our own religions would fill a cosmic library, never mind other people’s religions—just the skeletal dogma alone, never mind the infinite layers of cultural nuance.

But it got me thinking.

The next day as I ran in the park with my dog, I wondered what Christmas (or for that matter, Hanukkah) really meant once the religious and cultural elements were stripped away, or at least neutralized. After all, doesn’t every religion claim miracles? Aren’t miracles the very basis of religion—supernatural proof that we aren’t godforsaken?

But as an author of Visionary Fiction, for me at least, miracles are more than religious magic tricks. They are transcendent events ingrained in the human psyche, endemic to the stories we have told ourselves and recorded since the dawn of time and consciousness. Distant truths we hold sacred and deep, often defying language. Ineffable. Haven’t we always known we were more than flesh and blood? Isn’t there more to this world than meets the eye?

Even for the most confirmed of us, however, belief in the miraculous remains abstract and untested. Only in terrifying moments of illness or emergent death is its latent essence teased from our subconscious into broad daylight—a flicker of hope that ignites the kindling of possibility. Maybe I can be healed! Maybe I will survive! Maybe peace is possible! (Maybe my hopeless team will finally win.)  Maybe—just maybe—we really are supernatural creatures, in spite of the gravity that grounds us.

“Simply click the heels of your ruby shoes, Dorothy. The power was always within you!”

Of course, when cornered, most of us don’t believe we can simply click our heels—or at least not without reservation. It’s easier not to believe. Not believing is a way of protecting ourselves against the odds. After all, miracles are scarce. If not, they would be reliable, quantifiable events that we humans would soon take for granted. We understand miracles to be extraordinary favors meted out by the discerning hand of a supernatural power from (name the religion). Miracles are few and far between. So if your neighbor is granted a miracle, you’re probably out of luck. Right?

Not if you understand Christmas.

Before Christmas, we, through our Jewish forebears, reached outside ourselves to a distant, omnipotent God for help and liberation. God spoke to us through burning bushes, separated seas, manna sprinkled from heaven, and fuel that burned in our lamps for eight days straight. We cried out to him in anguish and desperation, and in response, he showed us his favor, granting miracles at great cost from a far away kingdom.

Christmas, on the other hand, is the story of many miracles accessible to all. It’s the story of God made man. Of divinity awakened in the sleeping giant of humanity.

Christmas is not just about the birth of an exceptional man. And it is obviously not about trees and ornaments and stockings and gifts. It’s about the re-imagination of humanity. It’s about the incarnation, recognition, and realization of God within us. It represents the Divine element of our heritage fully-developed in an equally human Christ, a man who arrived in humility, led a life of humility, and expired by means of unsurpassable humility. Why? To redefine power. To dismiss the ego in favor of compassion. To introduce us to the angels of our higher nature. To flip the switch of infinite possibility within our minds and hearts.

To create abundance.

Before returning to the Father, he said of his many miracles, “These things and more will you do in my name.”

If only we understood his gift enough to believe it. If only we believed it enough to open it.

The next time someone tells you, “You’re only human.” Tell them not so quick. Tell them we are all equipped with the light that descended upon the Earth in an inexplicable event that produced a kind, loving, humble man who stood apart from the tribe. A light promised, not only in the Hebrew Bible, but in religions and myths that preceded those beliefs by millennia. An indefinable gift with unending potential that we are always learning to open a little bit more. It grows as our awareness grows. No one is without it. It lives among us still.

So are we human? Yes. And so much more.

The post We’re Only Human. Or Are We? appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

So you’re not feeling great. Maybe you’ve been diagnosed with a borderline condition—cholesterol or blood pressure, fatty liver, pre-diabetes, or early signs of arthritis. You’re sent home with strict instructions to take better care of yourself. You do your best. You buckle down for a while, buy a gym membership, eliminate sugar, add fiber, consume the recommended supplements. Maybe you even go vegan. Months later, your lab results still aren’t in range. Soon you’ll be on those pills you swore you’d never take.

How do you turn this around?

Doing everything in your power physically and nutritionally are obvious elements of healing. But there’s usually more to it. The body is an incredibly intelligent, interactive biological and energetic matrix that in most cases is ready and willing to cooperate with our best efforts. But sometimes we are our own opposition. If we have bodily complaints, one reason may be that we spend too much time complaining about our bodies.

We’ve all heard the mantra:

“You’re not thin enough. You’re not tall enough. You’re too busty. Too flat-chested. Too ugly. Too gangly. Too ordinary. Too pale. Too dark. Too old. Too little. Too much.”

Poor body image is an epidemic that at best sends us to the gym and diet counselor, and at worst creates disorders like depression, malnourishment, anorexia and bulimia. But these are only the obvious and conscious manifestations of the dialogue we have with our bodies. Much more occurs in our internal organs that may take decades to surface.

If you’ve explored holistic therapies, you’re familiar with the concept of Mind/Body as an inseparable unit. If you think you’re telling your body one thing and it’s doing the opposite, think again. It’s possible your inner subconscious track is giving your body a different set of messages. The Mind’s contribution to your physical condition is significant. Ideally, the Body receives what the Mind sends, processes it, and issues a response. If you’re well-tuned, happy, active and eating well, you are most likely supporting a robust immune system that will in turn support a confident, balanced, and expansive Mind. The health cycle thrives.

However, if you repeatedly transmit negative messages, they too, will take root in the body.

Decades ago, an auspicious trip to a recommended acupuncturist introduced me to a labyrinth of knowledge, both physical and emotional. Through many years, practitioners treated my body as a tightly connected system of meridians that corresponded not only to the outside world (via environmental, energetic, and dietary influences), but also to the inner world of my own thoughts and emotions. As above, so below. By exploring acupuncture and other ancient and contemporary energetic modalities (that are now mainstream), I came to understand the emotional messages I was sending, consciously or unwittingly, throughout my Mind/Body network, and where they landed.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), as well as other ancient therapies, every emotion has a corresponding organ. These organs help us to process the stress created by feelings we can’t (or won’t) shake. If we understand the connection, we can cooperate with the process and learn to resolve emotional issues. If we don’t, our organs may store that stress, risking stagnation and disease.

TCM teaches that emotional repositories are distributed throughout the body. For instance, the lungs are said to process grief and sadness. When grief and sadness are acute, the lungs become stressed, making us vulnerable to short term infections and chronic disease.

The liver/gall bladder stores unprocessed anger, frustration, rage, bitterness and resentment.

The kidneys store unprocessed fear and terror.

Unprocessed “frightful sadness” is stored in the heart.

Unprocessed hurt, a sense of depletion, and the inability to express emotions are said to be stored in the pericardium, brain, pituitary and reproductive organs.

The pancreas and spleen store unprocessed over-thinking, worry, and low self-esteem.

The stomach stores unprocessed disgust and despair.

The large intestine receives unprocessed emotions of guilt, defensiveness, and the sense of being ‘stuck’.

Feelings of insecurity, vulnerability and abandonment are processed and stored in the small intestine.

Irritation and timidity affect the bladder.

If we evaluate our organs in response to these associated emotions, it may reveal a pattern. Exposing a pattern may make us more willing to evaluate lingering issues in our lives, such as accumulated guilt, resentment, or lack of forgiveness. We may understand more directly the need to remove ourselves from abusive or otherwise hurtful situations. We may be more proactive in resetting career goals or leaving a frustrating, dead-end job. We may be willing to confront our addictions. Understanding and interrupting negative emotional patterns is one of the most useful tools at our disposal for improving and maintaining health.

How to stop sabotaging yourself:

1) Spend more time listening to your body and less time complaining about it.

2) Determine what your body is trying to tell you.

3) Catch yourself whenever you’re tempted to undermine any aspect of your body, superficial or functional. (For example, instead of saying, “This damn knee…hip…shoulder”—send love to the injured joint, which has, after all, served you well up to this point.

4) Identify the areas of concern and the associated emotions.

5) Consider addressing these concerns early on through medical and complementary therapies such as acupuncture, therapeutic massage, chiropractic, yoga, REIKI and other energetic therapies, as well as psychological counseling.

6) Learn to meditate. Meditation gives volume to your inner voice.

7) At the end of every day, acknowledge your body, concentrating on areas of inflammation, infection, or chronic discomfort.

8) Send gratitude like a waterfall from the top of your head slowly down the neck, chest, abdomen, into your internal organs to your legs, and finally into your feet which map your body and root you to the earth. Give your body the appreciation it deserves and visualize repair.

9) Expect wellness instead of illness.

10) Be prepared for a change in course.

© 2015 Rea Nolan Martin

All rights reserved

The post 10 Ways to Stop Sabotaging Your Health appeared first on Rea Nolan Martin.

I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge a wonderful group of people who have recently helped me on this sometimes lonely, often vexing, author’s journey. The group is called Rave Reviews Book Club, founded by Nonnie Jules, President, who is an author herself. Her concept was to form a group that supported authors on various platforms, including social media, sharing information, and supplying honest reviews. The club has evolved in the past year to offer radio interviews and promos, as well as writing contests and opportunities to learn from and mentor each other.

During the past year, Rave Reviews (#RRBC on twitter) members have retweeted countless tweets of mine, shared many FB posts and blogs about my books, and most recently honored my latest novel, The Anesthesia Game, as a Book of the Month. Opportunities like this garner new readers, certainly, but also help to spread the word in general. Their online discussions are exceptionally useful in sharpening the media message any author wishes to deliver about his/her book.

I have been a writer for decades now, and the onset of social media has certainly changed the course of that experience. Because of it, authors are plugged into many more groups and resources than thought imaginable a decade ago. These are time-consuming activities on both the administrative and membership levels. But as with all things in life, we get what we give. In this morass of independent publishing, Nonnie Jules and her hardworking group of admins and board members are the real thing. If you’re an author, check out this link and consider signing-up. They’ll make your life a little more interesting and a lot more fun.

https://ravereviewsbynonniejules.word...

Link to my radio interview on Buy the Book: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/raverevi...

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