To an artist or spiritualist, the concept of 'channelling' is nothing new, but I can appreciate that some have not explored metaphysics. To keep it simple, channelling is a kind of willful and grounded submission to a moment of pure expression, beyond a logical state. It is the provision of space for your own divinity to flow by getting out of your own way (it is not "not thinking" - there is nothing enlightened about "not thinking"). The brilliant Martha Graham explained it best, “there is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others”. 

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It took me a long time to learn, we ought not seek the answers to sacred questions from those who live not sacredly. Your life is sacred. That is perhaps why privacy seems so valuable to me. Privacy is a fundamental human right, and for good reason, but in a world of "sharing", privacy is morphing into a full-fledged commodity, thus becoming a privilege. This will increase in prevalence across industries in the near future. Privacy is a pillar of intimacy, and intimacy is All (voilà, there's the value). As the human connection insidiously disintegrates, people have become increasingly starved for what they hunger for most - a meaningful connection. Most do not even know this is what they hunger for. When people are overfed with what is unhealthy, they paradoxically become undernourished, so they’re overfed but starving (for nutrients), which leads to an ill body. Similarly, "connection" is what nourishes the soul, connection to Self (Spirit), connection to Source (Universe, God, whatever name you prefer), connection to nature and other human beings. Digital media overfed people with what looked like “connection”, which is meant to be healthy but was actually only “the illusion of connection” - Medea (media) was the goddess of illusion after all. Therefore, a soul overfed with the "illusion of connection", becomes undernourished and starving, and like the body, the soul becomes ill. 

 

We are inundated with options on "ways to connect" and "make new connections'', as if people have become objects of cyberworld - some endless vortex of names and faces, staged to produce ideas of what life is “meant to look like”. However, most often, what is behind the curtains are not the bustling scenes and lively madness of “backstage”, but desolate theatre hallways and decrepit dressing rooms. Most is a facade - an illusion, and yet illusions still dictate people’s goals and value systems. Perhaps because many can no longer discern illusion from truth? All the while, real connections, the kind that move you at your core - those electric, deep, all-elating, playful, wild and sincere connections that emboss your soul forever, feel rare. I suppose that is all the more reason to celebrate and cherish the rare ones. We wonder why marriages don't last and more children and teenagers are depressed now than ever before - within all those stories is the common thread of "lost connection". To establish a meaningful connection with fellow human beings, one is tasked first with connecting with The Self. If one cannot connect deeply with their own being, lovingly (and unconditionally so), how is one expected to connect with someone else's? Of course, I am still learning and I'll be a student for life but even as a student, I am certain that connection with Self is connection to Source, which activates and continually reinvigorates intuition. Intuition is always a reliable source of information, it instructs our own unique navigation in life. Like an instrument, we need only tune it and then remain loyal and faithful to its sound that pulses through us, like a drum and a compass. 

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Someone else's intuitive ideas may not be applicable to you - follow your own! YOU have the answers within you at every moment. If you do not retrieve the answers immediately, there is a Higher Acumen in operation. Fruit picked and eaten before it is ripe can upset the belly. Often, it may be that you don't know when you don't know, because you might act too soon. There are laws that govern our beautiful Universe and without me getting too detailed for now, at play is divine timing, synchronicity and protection. Ultimately, you are connected (directly) to The Fabric Of Eternity, to The Great Cosmic Collection, a light tapestry where the intellect of every dead philosopher, poet, prophet, mystic, healer, composer, dancer, artist, physicist etc, still operates, vibrates and echoes (that said, they’re not actually “dead”). You can delve into the intersection of quantum mechanics and neuroscience, or perennialism if you prefer logical routes into all things esoteric.

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Whether it is an advisor (and please, choose your advisors wisely), or just Shmoogle, many of us experience angst when we cannot obtain an answer immediately. When we cannot simply use a search engine to get the answers to questions like, "will we win that pitch?", or "will I experience that one and only great love of my life?", or "to where shall I relocate?". The momentary pacification we feel when we think we received the answer from an external source, conditions us to continue seeking externally for future answers. However, much like the conditioning demonstrated in Ivan Pavlov's Salivation of Dogs Experiment, it is not the answer that pacifies but the vehicle of instancy that provides the relief. Anything outside of The Self that is received instantly, compounds an overarching condition that for now I will refer to as, ‘The External Fixation'. To reiterate, the soothing is the instancy itself - an escapism of sorts. Conversely, if ‘answers’ were the relief, we would ask more questions, dig deeper, think deeper and become deeper people preponderantly. Instancy branches into many avenues in our world today, and any kind of instancy that makes the anxiety or confusion go away, is but temporary relief from the unresolved agony of our inner wounds and fears of "The Unknown". However, it is the field of The Unknown where we discover Love’s Hand (Universe's Hand, God's Hand, again, whatever name you prefer) and all things become possible. The lush and fertile grounds of potentiality is The Unknown. 

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We have effectively robbed ourselves of The Sacred Mysteries of The Unseen, such that push the Essence of our being to expand. Curiosity's path to mystery and esotericism have thus been curtailed by immediacy. Albert Einstein said “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” When we "pause to wonder", when we learn to be with our own exquisite confusion and dare I suggest, even embrace its chaos, as though it is offered to ourselves, by our Self, as some internal cosmic puzzle, we etch closer to our own divinity. The Unknown is no longer a trigger for anxiety, but by our own alchemy, a source of burgeoning and euphoria (and for the non-muggles in the back, magic too). If you feel so anxious you couldn't fathom the thought of sitting with your unknowns, that’s ok, it’s not your fault, it was designed that way, but instead of another person, or search engine, try going to nature first. If you go openly to nature, you can always find both answers and soothing - the healthy kind.