The Sun of The Sun of The Sun

 

 

                                                        Painting, Edvard Munch

 

Heart as microcosmos of the Sun and belly as Earth

Looking up at the night sky, I often watch with astonishment on the millions and millions of stars shining against the dark plasma, reflecting on how and if we humans are aware of how our own light is flickering back here on Earth? We are star-dust, made both of the heavens and of the Earth, yet many are totally unaware of our cosmic origins or our Gaia nature. I get the sense, that the heavenly side of this equation is watching and flickering its light right back at me and also feel, that during my life-time the heavens seem to have come closer. Many esoterically oriented people, and nowadays also progressive physicists refer to humanity as a planetary neural network of unaware, semi-aware and conscious neurons within the etheric body and auric field of the Earth.

Another example is the “Morphic resonance fields theory”, introduced by Rupert Sheldrake. Somehow this is echoing the ancient mysterious book “The Cloud of Unknowing”, describing the field from which artists, mystics, inventors, new thinkers and ordinary men and women alike, tap into and seek inspiration and ideas. Really, what they are tapping into is the field of collective wisdom residing on soul-levels. Equally physicists excited and eagerly pursuing the holographic Universe models, look upon humanity as souls projecting their light, or lack of it, to their “event horizons”. In their view, we are the Universes reflections, its co-creators and storytellers. We exist in a holographic lattice of reality in an eternal circuit of consciousness.  

The inner is always expressed in the outer, which then causes the inner, both personal and collective fields to expand further. Currently we are watching artificial intelligence (AI) taking strides, and as with all new technologies there are huge gains on the horizon and equally dark clouds of trepidation and fear. Discernment is needed and what better bullshit-detector than your own Sun/heart or your belly/Earth.

What is it in my personal electromagnetic field which constitutes the flickering light? Is my light just a tiny little neural point, or a larger synapse in an unseen information highway.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the emanating light originates from my heart, deeply grounded in and as Mother Earth. Spreading and expanding to include my whole being. I am breathing in a toroidal field of soul infused beingness expanding and imploding, in the rhythm of the cosmos. Deep within my energetic heart caverns is a singularity point, a mini black hole/whole, connecting the earthbound with the heavenly bound in my field. I am the bridge, constantly becoming.

I’ve learned and felt that I have three distinct energetic hearts. Let me explain how I think, but first I have to make another threefold division. For simplicity’s sake there is 1) the part of me which is Earth bound, represented by the base and the sacral centres, governed by the elements of earth and water. 2) There is the part of me representing individuality and humanity, held by the solar plexus and the heart centre, governed by the elements of fire and air and lastly 3) the part of me which is heavenly, represented by the throat and the crown centres, governed by purified etheric substance and deva-essence. This third part does not really become fully active or relevant until the earth-bound part has been purified and integrated. Equally individuality, through the individuation process and spiritual work needs to be surrendered to the greater whole, the soul and heart of humanity as a whole.

Our gravest imbalance lies in having forgotten the Earth-bound elements of earth and water within us. In our naivety, greed and selfishness these have been relegated to resources ever to be extracted and exploited, killing the very foundation upon which life depends. We have to return to Mother Earth in an understanding of loving care and stewardship, if we are to save ourselves. Indigenous people still hold this wisdom and we have a lot to learn from them. 

 

Now you may wonder, why don’t I mention the Ajna or third eye centres, nor the Alta Major centre? These centres are late bloomers in the expanding electromagnetic spiritually inspired aura. They are synthesizing centres, opening in due course as the process naturally proceeds successfully. Another important, seldom mentioned in New Age parlance, is the spleen centre, that too synthesizes and builds the bridge between matter and spirit. It is as huge double centre with six energy streams flowing downward towards Earth and six energy streams flowing upward towards soul and spirit. Here’s an example from ten years ago on how I worked with some of the shadows in my spleen, inspired by the Gene Key teachings, given out by Richard Rudd, as well as my skills as an Esoteric Healer, teachings given by the Tibetan through Alice A. Bailey.

https://cosmicdewdrops.blogspot.com/search/label/Shadow%20of%20Control

Let’s get back to the three energetic hearts. The solar plexus I feel is the heart of my personhood, my individuality, how I shine my light here in this three-dimensional world, corresponding to the physical Sun. The many layered heart centre, with its twelve energy streams is really my humanity. Its opening is delicate, often it has protected us so long, rightfully shielded us from hurt, asking initially that we respect the defences we may have created and hidden in the unconscious. When opened it naturally understands our inter-connectedness, reconnects to our innate kingdoms of Nature as well as our heavenly firmament, corresponding with the heart of the Sun. The Sun loves, spreads and shines its light and love equally to animals, plants and Earth as a whole, as should we. Minerals and precious stones, corresponding to the crystals in our bone-structure, need darkness and pressure to form. What a gorgeous miniature Sun-sparkle they shine once they reveal their beauty. Great example of the necessity of tension and pressure to produce exquisite beauty. This tension we humans also need in order to unfold our gifts of true Self & Soul & Spirit. Mother Earth, living Gaia provides just the right challenge for this becoming and unfolding. The Sun loves us too, so why are we trying to block it?

Lastly the upper heart centre, above the Thymus, corresponding to the spiritual Sun, connecting to Galactic and Interdimensional levels. This only properly opens when a good portion of “the great work” has been done. No more is the soul’s causal field much wayed down by personal and ancestral trauma & karma, but steps up to alleviate collective and planetary burdens. It’s also the stage, when the monad, pure spirit, makes its presence undoubtedly known, having made small inroads already a bit earlier. This process is not linear, rather a downward and upward spiralling flow. We move to more encompassing levels of service.  

 

 

We could also make another analogy; these three hearts represent the movement from 3D through 4D-5D to 6D and above. Third dimension is the pure materialistic orientation of an unevolved solar plexus. Fourth dimension starts to open up the heart through discernment and questioning, the decent into unresolved trauma layers becomes necessary, starting the purification of the water and the earth elements of the Earth-bound centres. The heart centre has both feminine and masculine energy streams and is the centre where these inner qualities will eventually come into balance. The first stage calls for the masculine energy to start to sort out the inner world, developing the capacity to examine your own thoughts, beliefs and emotions, observing and making adjustments. The second, more feminine energy stage, invites us to melt whatever is blocking the expansion. Both are needed. The feminine energy here also represents the surrender to a higher force, soul. Through the melting we bring in more fifth dimensional architecture, sacred geometry, which corrects the etheric body and re-calibrates the nervous system. Note the harmonizing work here, one force builds new form, new thought and the other melts and surrenders the old. Both are needed for the alchemy to work. The souls greatest yearning is to change age old patterns to support growth and evolution, but in order to do so she needs to be allowed in and fully embody.

A lot of work would have had to happen for the upper heart opening to start, allowing the first glimpse of pure fire of spirit and connection with the monad, the spark of God within you. The atrophied thymus reawakens and a new powerful inner growth commences, it is a big jump, usually connected to the third, transfiguration initiation. The sixth-dimension anchors us deeply into our soul field(s), to pure spirit, ideals and ideas. Through morphic fields we are led into an ocean of love, the soul’s deepest character and our true nature as eternal souls is revealed. This dimension opens us up for interconnectedness with higher spiritual dimensions.

Absolutely none of this expansion is possible without deep love for Mother Earth and her kingdoms, her heart and her livingness, the foundation has to be solid. Without it, the womb/lower belly and the base, expansion experiences will potentially have a lot of distortions and integration will become much harder. We could say that the gut is a fourth heart, another good bullshit-detector, which keeps us grounded and healthy. The intestines have a direct communication channel with both our heart and brain. We are meant to be a bridge between matter and spirit, all else becomes easily some version of spiritual bypassing. This embodied ground has been the main missing link during past, how many, thousands of years. We are not meant to escape the Earth, rather uplift her by bringing spirit through us.

Could this be the reason why for instance the Dalai Lama or famous Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughen-Lee both speak about the importance of the coming Age of the Divine Feminine. Women, have a more direct relationship, through our wombs to the element of water and the womb of Mother Earth. As a species we have to find a way to correct the purely masculine misguided left-brain dominance of today. I agree, although personally, I sense that spiritually oriented men can equally form a very profound, and some have, deep and embodied inner connection with their earth-bound energy, harmonizing with Mother Earth as a whole. The heart centre is a synthesizing, balancing centre, neither masculine nor feminine, rather once fully open hermaphrodite in nature.

In this life my soul came in with the rising sign, soul sign in Leo, governed by the Sun on both the soul, spirit and hierarchical levels. As my spiritual journey has progressed, understanding all these layers of my inner Suns/hearts has been important, and maybe gives also you something to think about, as I open up some of my thinking. With each expansion the previous stage, after a period of integration and widening understanding, has found its proper place and function. It’s not that the ego has to die, personhood just has to find its rightful place as a servant to soul & spirit. Lots of traps on the way, discernment can never be abandoned.

We say: “All roads lead to Rome”, well in spiritual work we might say: “All roads lead to the heart”. She is the great alchemist, the centre where the great marriage between inner feminine and masculine finally come to rest, therefore bringing also the two halves of the brain into balance, enabling the twelve craniosacral nerves to reach coherence through the Kundalini activated and purified central channel, thus opening the inner eye and your wings. Yes, yes, we have WINGS – invisible as of yet, but who knows, maybe soon we will see them as our etheric vision further develops! Your true essence has been transformed and transfigured into an angelic human, a rare species still in this day and age on Earth. Nevertheless, this is where evolution is taking us and the numbers are growing in the millions now. From the caterpillar the butterfly is born, or like the dragonfly, who suddenly decides to climb up a stalk, from its predatory underwater life, transforms into an exquisite form of flying beauty. It happens in Nature all the time and it takes place within us humans as well, albeit the process is slower. Although right now we seem to be in a quickening phase of this remarkable transformation.

Currently the Sun is in solar-maximum spitting out solar flares, bringing penetrating high velocity Galactic gamma rays to be absorbed by Earth and all her life-forms. Living Gaia, Mother Earth is answering the call with heightened, irregular Schumann resonances, she is waking up from within, offering us challenging weather patterns, catastrophic fires, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as she clears her way, purifying in her own transformation. She is heating up from inside, just like all the planets in our solar system currently. Fire and heat are always needed for transformation, be it a planet or a human being. Tension and chaos are equally needed for any species to make such a quantum leap into a higher life form, a transformation, which in our time and age reaches deep within our cells and DNA. The more people are brought into this awakening voluntarily, through loss of meaning in the crumbling of old structures, the stronger the morphic field for the necessary changes becomes, tipping the scales for humanity, enabling an evolutionary jump, it seems inevitable. We sure seem to be creating a lot of chaos currently. Looking at the topsy-turvy chaos of today’s world, where most things seem to be upside down and therefore sometimes impossible to comprehend, it might ease our discomfort to take this grander view of being part of an amazing, never before seen group effort of transformation, transfiguration and metamorphoses.

In the awakening process we see people abandoning the strict hold of the ego as the central point of reference, i.e. the dominance of a congested and overactive solar plexus. It is still a centre of separation and selfishness rules. Eventually, we get tired of our moodiness, stress, tension, obsessions, irritations and selfishness and start questioning our beliefs, we start to transmute the congested emotions into aspiration, altruism, compassion and love, the heart starts to open. It is as if the collective solar plexus has entered a self-destructive process, destroying and trying to re-balance itself from the inside. Its long reign is coming to an end. Faced with extinction, rapidly falling childbirth rates globally, environmental challenges, wars, depression, lack of meaning and other mental and physical maladies, our greed just has to stop, we have to return to simplicity.

The mineral kingdom is in our base-centre, the plant kingdom in our sacral centre and the animal kingdom in our solar plexus. What do we see? Human beings turning more and more towards their hearts to make sense of the chaotic world and the animal kingdom struggling in its sixth extinction event, reacting both to our mistreatment of them and the powerful new energies flowing in.

Here’s a quote from a blog post on the Solar Plexus from ten years ago:

“Unfortunately our current one-sided reliance on mainstream science and academia are polarized in the solar plexus, they have become our new religion if followed blindly and dogmatically. We think rational thinking is the pinnacle of our being and we are for instance not allowed, in most places, to bring our emotions into the workplace. Because the solar plexus is a structured centre, it gives us initially safety, and we try to resolve and control our more unstructured, often chaotic emotional expressions by pushing them under the radar of the socially acceptable norm of behaviour. We put a lid on! This is a massive cul-de-sac. If we distance ourselves from our emotions, we easily become arrogant, thinking we are better, cooler, more sophisticated, more intelligent, therefore better than our fellow human beings. We make a lot of comparison in this bandwidth to boost our self-esteem and our sense of self-worth. If we distance ourselves too much we get totally cut off from our emotions and create a very sterile and numb environment. The mind is a very beautiful tool, but it needs to be used wisely and not allow it to alone rule the show.”

This ego battle field has been apparently visible and obvious during the past five years of mis-; dis-; and mal-information, world-wide crisis one after the other, it is hard to keep up. The solar plexus is the centre for the lower mental plane, concrete mind, very skilled with the power of words and boy how brutally we play this out on social media today, avoiding responsibility by extending that power to the algorithms to determine our fate. The old ways do not work anymore and something has to give. This bandwidth of humanity has ruled the show for such a long time, it currently fights fiercely for its supremacy, survival and privileges. What will it take for us to turn to our hearts, to Mother Earth who nourishes us and provides us with endless patience? What will it take for us to realize we are her; she is not separate from us; her elements are my elements. We need to build anew our foundation as earthlings, as custodians of this beautiful Planet.  

We women get a tiny taste of this metamorphosis during our menopause, whether we are spiritually oriented or not. For me, the menopause coincided with my kundalini awakening process, producing heat coming both from below and above, exploding in my heart. Luckily, I was privileged at the time and could withdraw into retreat mode for a couple of years. I could allow the inner expansions and explosions without restraint or dampening medications. It is a natural process where a woman, if she is so inclined, finds her deeper inner wisdom. Like the heart, the womb has many layers and secrets to tell, planet Earth is a watery planet and my waters and her waters are the same. 

Air is the medium in the upper centres, and the messages from the soul are carried through the water in the Earth bound centres.

 

 

Ages ago, must be some 35 years ago now, my higher Self offered me a few hints. I had just started a more regular daily meditation practice and in a sequence of a week, two symbols were presented for my inner eye several times to ensure they were etched into my consciousness. The first was the Egyptian symbol, the Ankh, the key of life, and the second a shimmering DNA-strand of chromosomes, which showed additional strands of the DNA being lighted up, actually all of them.  At the time I didn’t know or remember what the Ankh was, it took some research and later some remembering to appreciate this symbol to the fullest. I didn’t read too much into these inner visions then, but in hindsight I can appreciate that they initiated a process in me, which to date is still ongoing.  One might think, oh, what a slow process, 35 years, but in the bigger scheme of things one life-time for the soul is like a blip from a cosmic perspective. When grand cosmic initiatory processes are initiated, like the one we are in the midst of right now, impacting the whole of our Solar System one may appreciate, WOW how did I manage to be here right now when everything is changing. I’m sure many of you have the same feeling and appreciation. A cosmic initiatory process puts our current obsession on climate crisis in a much wider perspective, humanity may not be the sole culprit after all. We have to grow up and clean up this planet, that is for sure, but in order to do that, we cannot be “the cancer” of this planet, as some propose, rather learn to deeply love ourselves as part of the planet, and stop the illusion of separation.

In the Ageless Wisdom teachings imparted to humanity through Blavatsky, Leadbeater, Besant, Bailey, Steiner, the Roerich’s and many others, some hundred years ago, all refer to the “lower centres” and cleavages we carry. Unfortunately, the reference to “lower centres” has been too often interpreted as less than or somehow inferior to “higher centres”. We have also all been, in the West, influenced by Christianity’s devastating concept of sin. I call these centres the Earth-bound centres, those in which I am her. Naturally the times when these teachings came, there was a huge emphasis in spirituality on purely the transcendent, as if only reaching upward toward the light was the only saving force. American philosopher Ken Wilber introduced the concept “transcend and include”, we are only now slowly learning the include part of his concept. We’ve come a long way, understanding the unconscious, deep psychology, trauma, epigenetics, ancestral and environmental influences as well as quantum physics, entanglements, expansions in astronomy and cosmology. It’s been a revelation for many to learn to appreciate the sacredness of matter, the holy grail of the body and Mother Earth – God lives in absolutely everything. Pantheism is on the rise among philosophers.

Not long ago, I visited an exquisite, beautiful Eastern Orthodox church in Central Finland. As I and my friends were meditating in their church, we could sense the absolutely gorgeous upper temple upheld and created there throughout decades of spiritual work by the monks. But there was no body, the energy was cut off at the throat and heart levels, hardly any flow to the earth-bound centres. They felt like a frozen lake. Luckily, they had a long row of gorgeous huge conifers along both sides of the road leading up to the church. Here we found the flow of the earth-bound energy and thanked the trees for their service. A reminder that Earth ever seeks homeostasis and we better join her in that endeavour.

Back to Helena B, Annie B, Alice B and Helena R, and other brave women during that first impulse. I have always marvelled about these women amanuenses of the Spiritual Hierarchy - the brothers and sisters, who have graduated Earth school and guide us from the inner side of life. These women were real pioneers in female individuation, sticking with and following their inner call. Something in their constitution allowed the downloads to ground, as they all found powerful manifestations and forms on the physical plane to bring forth what was coming through them. I suspect they had good foundation, were in contact with their earth-bound centres of water and earth, even though their mental thoughts flew high.

Individuation for women was still a rare thing a hundred years ago, still is in many parts of the world. It was early days for the women’s liberation movement, for equal rights and the pursuit of your own inner calling or study of any kind for that matter. This had been a sole male privilege for thousands of years and whenever there is privileges, there are blind spots. Most women in the West are well on their way in their individuation process, some of them have expanded and stepped onto the spiritual path and some have consciously entered the crucible of soul-infusion and alchemy. I lift my hat and honour all these women. It is not an easy path, not for the faint hearted.  In this current shift of the ages, souls in female bodies will encounter the collective trauma of the suppressed divine feminine, stuck and frozen in layers of matter as well as in soul fields. The alchemy and embodiment can be painful for the physical body as thousands of years of blocks and frozen energy is released back into healthy flow.

I see this women’s individuation process, in just a few generations, clearly in my own maternal line. My grandmother was uneducated and had fourteen children, my mother being number thirteen. She, in turn, was a self-educated house wife with four children, I am number three. One thing our mother hammered into us four girls, was to see to it that we educated ourselves and never found ourselves in the position of having to depend financially on a man. What did I do? I followed her advice, albeit with trepidation because of my dyslexia, study was hard in those early years, but I persevered. One of my painful childhood wounds, which later became a womb for transformation. We work with the hand we are dealt.

I had a short marriage, one child and self-sufficiency financially through a successful career in international industry. I can only be grateful for my mother’s sober advice; individuation became possible and when the time was ripe, the spiritual path opened up. Dyslexics, I later learned, tend to have their upper temple open, spiritual- and artist communities are full of them. Individuation is a pre-requisite, one has to know who one is, in order to know what and who one can become.

It is now twenty years since I left the busy business world and committed myself fully to my spiritual path, opening, melting and absorbing and embodying layer after layer of expanding heart. I’m an elder now, a sound-board for other like-minded in transformation, writing my blog, leading meditations and the occasional workshop now and then, following the world accelerating its chaos, waiting for the soul of humanity to awaken on mass. The soul opens the heart(s). It’s time!

Thank you for reading,

love…Micaela

 

 

 

Geared up to open human hearts

  Role of the Findhorn Foundation in consciousness evolution, soul infusion and the unfodling of the love petals of the soul

(this post is a bit long - but hey - so is the souls path)

My journey with the Findhorn Foundation (FF), a spiritual, ecological and holistic centre in Northern Scotland started some 12 years ago. The past 7 years I lived there and served this centre.

 Colourful greeting from Findhorn, made by Yasko Takahashi

As the heading says I think the Findhorn Foundation and its community is really here to help unfold and support the opening of the human heart chakra. It is good to have an idea what the greater purpose of Findhorn in the bigger scheme of consciousness evolution might be, therefore I have expanded a little my own inquiry. This is both based on my own experience of how my own heart and soul have remembered and opened as well as my study in esoteric philosophy. These teachings are esoteric (hidden) to a large extent because they teach about the subtle, unseen realities behind all forms and one seldom pays attention to this invisible world until the heart has started its delicate unfolding.

Many of us may agree that creation, source, existence itself thrives on diversity and wants to explore and express itself through life in a multitude of life-forms including the human life-form. We can certainly see this principle at work at Findhorn, in only 53 years this community has achieved a lot and there does not seem to be an end to the expressive creativity that flourishes here – HURRAY!

“Nature itself holds the clue to the Divine. In its myriad forms the great potentiality of being is poured out, streaming from the womb of potentiality, exploding into act. A kind of meta-physical combustion seems to be working in the fabric of things, in a surge of incipient energy breaking out of its bounds of nuclear forms and disappearing into the Beyond” Bill Everson/poet 

Usually people seek out Findhorn, often guided by their soul, when they have somehow exhausted their ambition and ego-centred expression or are just about to do this even though they don’t  quite know it yet and are waking up to the fact that there is more to life. Alternatively they are eco-aware young or older people who have come to learn about sustainable, holistic living, perma-culture and eco-design. Often in the course of their time within the field of Finhorn they find the spiritual aspect, if they did not have that before and they find the path to the heart. We should not exhaust our energy in conversations about what was the hen and what was the egg – what came first, spirituality or eco. It doesn’t really matter, what is important is that the heart chakra opens – either route – Findhorn would have done its job.

Way back, in early 70ties, it was decided that Findhorn should become a “rainbow centre”, welcoming all. This set the tone, vibration and field of what spirit, i.e. the inner side of life, wanted to unfold through this intentional community. Findhorn Foundation did not become the exclusive initiatory mystery school but rather an inclusive and expansive Aquarian demonstration centre of unfolding consciousness and through this serving the world. Findhorn has also been described as a centre where the soul incarnates more fully into the personality and this is directly related to the opening of the heart chakra.

When the human heart opens it IS the bridge to the spiritual realms and allows the creativity of soul-expression through – a soul-expression which holds both the abundance and the potentiality Bill Everson writes so beautifully about. It is naturally holistic, universal, thinks ecologically and opens to the understanding of interdependence and the rights of all life-forms, both seen and unseen to live in harmony on this planet. What also tends to happen is the development of some degree of group-consciousness. This is all in the nature of the soul.

The human heart is sealed and closed protecting the weary traveller, i.e. the soul until a time when there is readiness, a fertile ground to allow its tender opening. As a place and energy field Findhorn and community represent a fertile ground where a wonderfully safe space is created for this unfolding to happen. In any individual life, in any soul journey, this is a momentous moment because possibly for the first time the “downward gazing soul” has caught the attention of the personality in incarnation. Or even if it has happened before in a previous lives, each life has to come to a point of remembering as we tend to drop down into amnesia when we incarnate.

The love people sense here, the acceptance they experience paves the way to a more soul-full life, and soul-full lives expresses themselves in diversity, creativity, expansiveness, joy and abundance. An open heart enables source to come through as source expressing itself, its unique contribution through each and every one of us in this dimensional realm. We all have a unique divine blueprint, a gift to the world. May Findhorn therefore continue and own even more this process of opening the human hearts so that all expressions spread out like the seeds from a sunflower – which was I believe one of Eileen Caddy's guidance (Eileen was one of the founders of this centre of Love & Light). This to me is our world work.

 Eileen Caddy, Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean with David Spangler (left)

What does esoteric philosophy teach about how the human heart opens – what are some of the stages?

Naturally this is a process that spans over many incarnations. Opening of the human heart is a long process of a soul unfolding according to the esoteric philosophy traditions. In each life we have to remember were we left of before and what actually constitutes an expansion for us and life will lead us to this.

I’ll try and present this complex unfolding (you are a whole Universe so how could it be simple) to you in a simplified nut-shell version so that my point of why I think Findhorn is especially geared up to support this process becomes clearer and how Findhorn contribute to the bigger picture of our ONE HUMANITY.

Why this is relevant in our current time and why the Findhorn impulse came through when it did in the 60ties is also part of the picture. What got seeded in the 60ties is meant to flower now. In our process of moving from the Piscean age to the Aquarian age (a 150 year transition in itself) a new collective consciousness is being birthed. We see this all over the world in the grass-root movements and a tremendous spiritual awakening taking place. We move from the Kali Yoga (age of darkness) to the Satya Yuga (age of light) and the opening of the human heart is part of this process and represents a movement into greater coherency with the evolutionary process. Many of us wanted to be here on earth at this time as it represents a giant opportunity for the soul to evolve. One result of the work at Findhorn is the tens of thousands of people around the world who have been touched by the impulse here and are doing their contribution towards a more sustainable, holistic life-style. Findhorn has turned out to be a great incubator of new ideas, from Eco-Village Network, Gaia Education and recently the New Story Movement just to mention a few.

The Soul is often referred to as a Lotus; this is just to give it a picture we can relate to. What the different stages of the Soul Lotus really refer to are different energy streams that expand our consciousness through numerous life times. The soul is said to have 9 major petals/energy streams and the unfolding is not a linear process but one of synthesizing and attuning to different levels of consciousness, yet it also follows a certain sequence. These 9 soul petals are divided into three Knowledge Petals, three Love Petals and three Sacrifice Petals. Here sacrifice refers to the original meaning of the word which is “to make holy”. Each of these categories are divide into Knowledge/Knowledge – Knowledge/Love and Knowledge/Sacrifice and Love/Knowledge – Love/Love and Love/Sacrifice and finally in the last tier into Sacrifice/Knowledge – Sacrifice/Love and Sacrifice/Sacrifice. When we come to this last stage we have our final enlightenment immersion into non-dual Oneness. Remembering of that which we truly are and along the way we would have had minor enlightenment experiences and peak experiences before, but at the last stage we merge permanently into Oneness, mount the cardinal cross in the heavens and resurrect (to use Christian terminology). The petals are related to the elements, i.e. first we deal with EARTH in the Knowledge Petals, then WATER in the Love Petals and lastly FIRE in the Sacrifice Petals, the element of AIR is the carrier of all.

Some characteristics of the Petals

I will not start at the beginning but from the last Knowledge Petal, i.e. Knowledge/Sacrifice (3) to give you a sense of the flow.

During the later stages of the Knowledge Petal (P3) individual uniqueness is still not present, it is suppressed and we are the uniform, blend with the whole, don’t stand up for ourselves, we conform. We make best of our circumstances and there a lot of – “oh, let’s not think, or talk about that” – lots of unspoken taboos. Because the last petal in this first tier is a Sacrifice petal we “make” our emotions behave to do our job and we may wreck our backs working 14 hour days. You may say “I must do this even if it kills me”. It’s the stage of modern slavery, enforced servitude. Natural joy has disappeared. Here we had in the recent past the Industrial Revolution and current day Globalisation which drives work to where low paid work forces are available. These can be nice good people, constructive members of society. But they are often unhappy and wonder at the end of their lives was it worth it. We still have the whole military and most of the economic spheres here and we rely very strongly on our lower mind, but we are not the observer of the mind and we are definitely not very much in touch with our emotions. In the chakras there is a focus in the solar plexus centre, sacral centre and base. All knowledge petals are related to the element EARTH.

LOVE

The Love Petals (P4), related to the WATER element, start to unfold when we have exhausted the previous stage and seek conscious balancing of pairs of opposites and respond to the Law of Attraction and Repulsion. In the first Love/Knowledge stage psychology begins, we start sensing something higher, something immanent and we start to comprehend causes. We basically move from the Hall of Ignorance to the Hall of Learning. The inner observer starts to emerge and we seek harmony between the opposites, recognizing that both are needed and we seek reconciliation. Stillness enters and we start to look within. This is the phase were great work of healing takes place on the feeling level, feeling the pain, healing it by feeling it. A lot of people visit therapists when this petal has started to activate. This is higher knowledge applied through love, yet it is not yet soul love. Introversion becomes possible. We are paying attention to our feelings and we give attention to our subtle bodies for the first time. A lot of mending of the incongruence’s between a person’s inner self and a person’s outer self takes place and it brings about authenticity. 

The “downward gazing” soul notices us for the first time and starts to pay attention to the call that comes from the personality, even though only fleetingly. We are beginning to discriminate between mind and emotion, a lot of self-examination, memory and recalling patterns. All planes are included: physical, astral/emotional and mental. The Higher Self is in the process of being born to consciousness. This is the world of the personality as a whole and its relation to itself as an integrating something to the soul (higher source within). We are verging towards the world of meaning and starting to understand cause and effect. This is the stage of becoming distinct, of individuation and conscious self-betterment. We want to improve life and the eyes begin to focus upon self....about being our own star....The Ageless Wisdoms call these Lotuses of Integration, Lotuses of Progression, Lotuses of Ingathering, Lotuses of Harmonization, Lotuses of Fusion, Lotuses of Progressive Centralization. We recognize the rights of others and we do not do physical damage to others. Here we have the average really good man/woman who shows some measure of love.

In our chakra system we integrate the lower three chakras and the opening of the heart begins, the throat centre also starts to express itself as it is the clearing house of the integrating personality, yet the solar plexus still dominates, it is the furnace of feelings and this is a very watery (emotional) tier. There is a tiny bit of activity in the head centre and some initial activity in the Ajna centre. We are self-guiding, self-reflecting and self-directing and aspiration has started. The light is seen through the waters and we start to move from pure materialism to well-being and change from outer values to inner values. Some altruism may come in and we become somewhat sensitive to the group. We are getting our act together and we start to question more. We can “taste” the inner Sun and are looking towards the light but we are still in the separate prison of our own house. Integration is really about withdrawing your projections, but we are often unconscious of the triggers causing our projections.

The next petal to open is the Love/Love (P5) which comes about through the process of gradually transmuting the love of the subjective nature or of the Self within turning our attention to the love of the REAL, higher intelligence LOVE.  We are still in the watery realms therefore fire by friction, which started in the previous petal, continues. Solar Fire is first realized in this petal as we aspire more consciously towards the soul. We start meditating and want consciously to build the connection and relationship (anthaskarana or Rainbow Bridge) to the soul. We strive to unite mind and heart and we will eventually pass the point of no return. The real task here is to achieve soul contact and our mental body starts to be affected by the souls down flow, especially in the later part of this petal. The soul is felt as a higher power and we reorient ourselves. We die to being content with expressing merely as a dominant personality. We are still in the Hall of Learning but we have intimations of what it might be like in the Hall of Wisdom. The soul shines in the Hall of Wisdom and it begins here under the Sun in the fifth petal, often with the influence of Leo strong in our chart. We actually touch a Higher Power. We enter the world of meaning, interpreting patterns and the place of anything within the wholeness. The path of pure ambition has shown its insufficiency and we are getting off the centre of our own stage. Here the path of aspiration becomes even stronger. When this tier has started to open we actually try to do something for the evolution and helping others. This is the stage of creative expression of mentality and merging of lower mind and higher mind, the heart continues to open. This fifth petal already has a good portion of light and shines its brilliance in dark places and this light is not kept under the bushel, these people are often seen. In the teachings they are called the Points of Fiery Excellence, are highly magnetic, evolved, creative and altruistic world aspirants, possibly writers, artists, thinkers etc.  Some mysticism comes in and we leave the lesser Sun to move towards the Real Sun (i.e. the Spiritual Sun). Downfall here can be pride, arrogance and fame which comes too early – the ego falls and the heart emerges powerfully. Later some humility arises from humiliation. There is a strong sense of purpose and we lift our energies from the solar plexus to the heart consciously. The transmutation of our emotional nature really starts here. The soul is now the object of our attention. This is the first solar (Sun) petal, the personality becomes radiant. This petal has two stages: “I am That” and “I am That, the Soul”. We are still selfish; but it has turned to fulfilling our own soul purpose. Here the esoteric philosophy point out that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing as there is risk of aggrandizement and delusion.

Our throat centre represents the personality and the heart centre the soul. The head centres are coming into effect and we move slowly from self-love, to soul-love towards group love. Real group consciousness without asking much in return for the separate self does not start until the 7^th petal. In this 5^th petal imagination develops; emotional idealism and discrimination as well as spiritual discernment. There is revelation of beauty and of inner quality, a place to reveal and download your soul talent; we contact our own genius – our Higher Self. Once the personality is satiated you can make progress. This is a very rich petal where many things are against each other and merge with each other; intellectual, artistic and heart person.  We are turning from ambition to aspiration and getting the ideal of service. We may have the “born again” experience and we are at the midway point of the BRIDGE, i.e. heart. It is a very important petal with a lot of decisiveness and reorientation. Here we have the first determined orientation toward the inner God. This is the beginning of humility; foundation of compassion later. Often we have to recapitulate some of the previous petals.

In the Love/Sacrifice (P6) petal a human being tries to consciously give up his/her own desires for the sake of his/her group. The motivation is still somewhat blind and still coloured by the desire for a return of that which is given and love from those he/she seeks to serve, but it is of much higher order than the blind sacrifice (P3) to which a man/woman is driven by circumstances in the earlier unfoldment. Here the central ring of the soul lotus comes into full unfoldment and the heart centre of the monad (pure spirit) is first seen. In this philosophy the soul itself is seen as an intermediary between spirit and matter. The mutable cross in astrology ends here and we step onto the fixed cross. The person has integrated his/her emotional nature, mind and heart have come together, but is still not fully and completely inspired by soul light, yet continuing to receive more of the energy of the soul.

We are very hard on ourselves in this petal; critique our personality expression as we try to be the true server. It is an important decision point, often ruled by Libra. We have by now become good at meditation, reaching and communing with the soul on a regular basis and when we are willing to be tested we can say we are truly on the Path. We prepare for the entrance to the Hall of Wisdom. We are still in the World of Meaning were we learn to know the causes behind effects and the place of any function in the larger context. We arrive at spiritual discernment when we take the first Initiation (Birth of the Christ Light or Buddha Nature in the Human Heart) at the lowest level of the causal body and this can really only happen when we have started to unfold the Sacrifice tier. Here we undertake a lot of spiritual reading, studying all things as symbols which reveal spiritual causes. There is more conscious testing brought about by Pluto (brings “stuff” up) and Vulcan (the blacksmith of the heavens who hammers your aura until it is clean) – they will test you! Basically bad stuff comes up and good stuff comes down. This is the stage called “entering the cave” – the Hermit in Tarot – the cave is the cave of Initiation, which means a huge expansion of consciousness, a quantum leap.

Now we want to serve rather than require; we are tired of the many forms of the personality and are looking more and more toward the soul’s own form. We enter the playground of the higher mind, i.e. we want to know about the plane on which the soul is found. We are trying to give up our own desires for the sake of the group we serve, but are still expecting rewards. These Lotuses are called Radiant Lotuses, Lotuses of Purification, Lotuses of Adjustment, Lotuses of Reflection, Lotuses of Discrimination and Lotuses in the Cave. We are spiritually pregnant and we make corrections and adjustments, discriminating between soul and personality. We go silent and talk less as we are yearning for the Kingdom of God. (Much later we fly out of the cave with our wings open at the fourth Initiation, Petal 9). Here we have the budding mystic, the sensitive struggling and longing for illumination of the soul. A mystic proceeds on the heart line, whereas an occultist proceeds on the wisdom line, but there is no real wisdom without heart so an occultist who is able to work consciously with energies and forces is not really allowed to do so until the heart is open. There is the intensity of feeling in the presence of God – of the numinous. This is the stage of adaptation, discipline, training, correcting, house-cleaning, discarding rubbish and attempting to respond to group need. There is something more important than the “I am” – and we do it consciously.

Some of the head centres have opened and the synthesising Ajna centre is important as we continue to integrate. There is a vision of the future and a guiding direction. When the portal of initiation opens the seven head centres must awaken because we are preparing for the seventh petal and the first Initiation.  Mostly we have normal use of the lower centres, heart, throat, Ajna opening, four centres in the head open and the Alta Major centre at the back of our head starts to open. At the first Initiation we have 25 % control, i.e. 25 % of our atoms in our body carry a higher light. We have become more objective about ourselves. We are still motivated by desire but now it is the desire for the return. There may be a phase of self-criticism, a feeling of unworthiness before the Higher Power. The risk here is to lose touch with the lower centres and therefore lose touch with Earth; denial of the lower can enter - a denial really of the Divine Mother as we yearn to ascend. This is a big service petal and we are working for others, even if little selfish at times. But as we will later learn, we cannot ascend to the Father without taking the Mother with us, only thus can the great marriage of the feminine and masculine aspects of ourselves take place. This sacred marriage happens in the heart.

We ask “What is my motive?” We have learned to control our astral nature and are intelligently participating in world affairs. It is a crisis of gestation. Before every Initiation there is a crisis of the Burning Ground. This means that the soul energy burns the dross in our field of numerous incarnations. Remember that this field is an interpenetrating auric field which touches us deep all the way to our physicality. We consist of both elemental and deva substance. When the soul purifies us, eventually all elemental essence in the soul field which has been distorted during previous lives comes to be purified in the dark womb of the feminine (our body, our Earth). This continues with greater intensity in the Sacrifice Petals until our liberation.

Love/Sacrifice is about everyday life, everyday life becomes divine, beginning to transform everyday life into something more numinous.... God is here too we realize. There is an alignment with the soul in everyday life, a very practical approach to divinity. There are many pains as it is difficult to acquire what you desire, i.e. soul-infusion and purification. Here we discriminate between need and want and through detachment wisdom grows.

Lots of people in religious/spiritual orders/centres and in monasteries are here, making pilgrimages, going far to find the soul in the outer world – the guru/ashram – yet the soul is not the same as the outer teacher. We become more introverted with some self-centredness possible, we may say: “I am going to serve the world but it is hard to manifest”. We are giving but still wanting something in return. Not until the Fourth Initiation do we get to a point where we do not want anything in return. We are still nailed to the Fixed Cross and some demonstration is needed, body is more or less under control and heart is opening more. We have to kneel to take the first Initiation, possible loss of material things (Capricorn – the mountain of Initiation).

In the three following Sacrifice petals, which represent the Initiatory Path and where the element FIRE with its electric fire dominates the First Initiation can be confirmed. Maybe in another text I will write about them, but for now I wanted to concentrate on the Love Petals and the HEART.

As we see the unfolding of the heart is a long, long process and this is, I believe, what Findhorn is here to serve, enhance and enable. How these awakened hearts express their unique gifts in the world is the contribution.

PS! Where the esoteric philosophy and the non-dual approach, which is so popular today, differ is important to understand. The non-dual says that you are already what you are seeking, i.e. the soul, therefore you are perfect. Esoteric philosophy agrees but recognizes that the perfect soul, or divine blueprint, cannot fully express itself through the personality and is in itself evolving. Perfect in its potentiality, but imperfect in its capacity to express itself successfully through the personality in order to serve and make an uplifting contribution. Without understanding, the non-dual approach can become a trap or a diversion, a potential avoidance of the actual work to be undertaken, i.e. clearing up our portion of the collective unconscious and bringing in more love and light. This is honouring the “job description” of every awakened soul.

love....Micaela