A TIME OF CHOICES

 

The following piece is something all should read. I believe that we create our own reality. Thus far, we have created a fear based reality that may well mean the demise of humanity. This does not have to be the case. The use of knowledge is power. If we can understand the messages like the one that follows, perhaps from a place of knowledge we can alter what is surely leading up to self-fulfilling prophecies for 2012. All such prophecies indicated that humanity had two paths to choose from: transformation or destruction. We are at that tipping point where we must choose wisely, or let the choice be made for us. As you will see, it is not a pretty picture. Nostradamus spoke of the collapse of a paradigm. Not necessarily the collapse of humanity. However, while he saw a path to transformation, it is a pate we must surely choose to take. Certainly, we see that collapse all around us. Religion, social systems, morals and ethics, trust in government, the ecology, climate and more are crumbling daily. Do we have eyes to see? Are there enough awakened individuals to steer us to the proper path before the ethos of fear drags us all down? Time to wake up, people. Time to make clear choices!

 

 

http://greatmystery .org/nl/vancouve r2012pinchbeck2. html

 

The Wizards, Warriors, and Initiates that the World Needs So Desperately Now
(continued from PART 1)

by Daniel Pinchbeck

If such a devastating scenario does not take place, there is still the continuing spill, and the high likelihood that our current known and available technologies will be unable to address it. In this case, we may soon see the Gulf of Mexico area and the Southern coastline rendered uninhabitable. As the Christian Science Monitor has reported in its article,“Raining Oil in Louisiana? Video suggests Gulf oil spill causing crude rain,” there is some evidence that oil is beginning to rain down on inland areas of Louisiana. “Crude oil doesn’t evaporate, but some are speculating that oil mixed with Corexit 9500, the dispersant that BP is using on the ever-growing slick, could take to the air.” As Kerry Kennedy, from the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, stated in an interview on CNN, the average life expectancy of cleanup workers on the Exxon Valdez oil spill was 51 years old. “Almost all those people who did work on the Exxon Valdez are now dead,” she stated. “And BP still here, once again, is big oil not giving the information to the doctors and health care officials.” According to Kennedy, cleanup workers in the Gulf “had been told by BP that they didn’t need respirators. Apparently, they’re concerned about poor media images of people wearing respirators and rubber gloves and starting, quote, ‘hysteria.’” 

As widely reported, hurricane season is now upon us. Hurricanes could potentially carry the extremely toxic crude oil mingled with the even more poisonous Corexit hundreds of miles inland, creating either a slow-motion mass murder of the local populations or forcing the government to execute a total evacuation from the area. As the oil travels up the coastline over the next years, coastal cities facing the Atlantic and Pacific may also become uninhabitable “Haz Mat” sites. Caribbean islands such as Cuba and Jamaica will be devastated, as will be the coastline of Mexico. 

As I explored in previous works, I am convinced that we are reaching the hinge point of a shift in human consciousness and the earth that will either lead to a rapid transformation of our way of life, our “civilization” and its basic paradigm, or the termination of our species in a series of intensifying cataclysms. One clear reason for this is that our technological powers continue to advance rapidly, while those who are currently in control of these galvanic forces reveal a dangerously reduced consciousness, a lack of forethought based on their self-centered greed, combined with a complete absence of ethical and moral development. As Rolling Stone recently exposed in a great piece of investigative journalism, the bungled handling of the oil spill was preceded by the gutting of the regulatory system that monitored such operations, revealing once again the government’s capitulation to corporate interests. It seems increasingly obvious that, if we wish to survive as a species, the current ruling corporate, political, and financial elite – working seamlessly together to bring about our collective suicide – must be deposed, replaced by a new orchestration of civil society, an openly democratic and truly transparent system, where nothing is hidden, where profit is not the only motivation, and all have a voice. 

As the Deepwater Horizon cataclysm spreads gigantic dead zones in the Gulf, exterminating vast ecosystems of marine life, threatening millions of human beings with illness, dislocation, and death, potentially blossoming into an extinction-level event, British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward continues to display the profound lack of remorse and the blithe disinterest we recall from the tenure of the last Bush to occupy the White House. Recently, he attended a yacht race off the as-of-yet-unsullied English coast, while his public statements include the infamous “I’d like my life back” and the equally extraordinary, “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean.” Despite extensive scientific documentation of the extreme toxicity of crude oil, Hayward has suggested that “growing health problems among clean-up workers may be related to food poisoning, rather than their exposure to crude oil and dispersants.” Our corporate and financial culture instills a mindset of sociopathic disregard, and the system permits certain psychological profiles to thrive within it: those capable of disassociating their actions from any moral consequences. What should be an extreme liability in a complex and interconnected world shared by a multitude of living beings has become an asset for our corporate, financial, and political masters – the current ruling elite who congregate at events like the annual Bilderberg gathering, who see massive loss of life as “collateral damage” along the way to their next golf game or yachting match. By now, it seems fairly obvious that Barack Obama is one of this breed, indistinct from the rest. 

“These deformed individuals lack the capacity for empathy,” writes Chris Hedges in his essay, ‘BP and the Little Eichmanns.’ “They are at once banal and dangerous. They possess the peculiar ability to organize vast, destructive bureaucracies and yet remain blind to the ramifications. ... The corporations, and those who run them, consume, pollute, oppress and kill. The little Eichmanns who manage them reside in a parallel universe of staggering wealth, luxury and splendid isolation that rivals that of the closed court of Versailles. The elite, sheltered and enriched, continue to prosper even as the rest of us and the natural world start to die... And our business schools and elite universities churn out tens of thousands of these deaf, dumb and blind systems managers who are endowed with sophisticated skills of management and the incapacity for common sense, compassion or remorse.” Like the bail out of Wall Street, the BP oil spill disaster makes evident – if more evidence was needed – that, in the United States, the corporations and the government have merged into a single power, a destructive force founded on the mindset of Empire, seeking domination of nature through technology, and control of consciousness through incessant indoctrination via the corporate-controlle d media. There is zero possibility that our atrophied electoral system will interrupt or impede this juggernaut. 

I try to maintain faith that the human spirit will awaken in time to liberate itself from the prison that has been built around it. While my doubts grow, I continue to work for that result – to hope and to pray for it. What seems more likely is that the great churning multitude of humanity will choose to remain distracted, disconnected, pursuing narcissistic aims, vain and virtual pleasures, as the natural world, the generative earth, crumbles around them. On what the Russian mystic G I Gurdjieff called our “ill-fated planet,” most people apparently prefer to die rather than awaken to the situation, think for themselves, and join together in a collective movement to restore the earth and build a sustainable and equitible global society. Many of us can see the awakening happening, but it seems to be coming far too slowly, in hesitant fits and starts, while the destructive force also grows in strength, pumping up the volume on mind control technologies, predatory drones able to assassinate from a distance, data-mining intelligence operations, and all the rest of the sterile evils that our technocrat sociopaths can envision and unleash. 

These are aspects of my current view of the world: the faltering of my faith, that horrible presentiment that the forces of disillusion and destruction have already triumphed, that creepy familiar feeling (as if I already experienced this, long ago, on some other lost world, many forgotten splinters of incarnated lifetimes ago) of failure and futility. On another level, I feel an equally uncanny presentiment that all of this is still going perfectly according to plan, that the script of our collective world movie/space oddysey has to unscroll or unfurl in just this stomach-clenching way, toward its still mysterious denouement. Observing my own life, I see that it often takes a drastic crisis to spur me into action – perhaps that is the only way change ever takes place, on the individual or species level. 

The environmental and economic meltdown could clear away all the obstacles and obstructions that keep us from attaining clarity, from putting into practice what we know intuitively to be true. Is it possible that the Jungian archetypal Self – the increasingly humanized god-image that seeks to incarnate in our human world – must bring about the complete breakdown of what is known and familiar, to open the space for what can only be revealed, in the fullness – and emptiness – of time? Perhaps we can only reach the depth dimensions of our higher being through an unfolding mega-crash that exposes all levels of delusion and self-deception, that forces those of us who desire illumination to break all the bonds, the “mind-forg’d manacles,” that keep us from attaining liberation. Or perhaps I am only making a hopeful story out of the toxic rubble and radioactive fragments that will soon be all that remains of our ruined world, if the corporate sociopaths and Little Eichmanns have their way. 

I consider the geyser in the Gulf to be analagous to the rupturing of the amniotic sac that occurs at the end of pregnancy. This event presages the birth of the new being, who must be forced by a terrifying and life-threatening crisis to use the organs he or she has developed over the previous months – developed without knowing what purpose they serve or how they function. Like the fetus at the end of the pregnancy, the human race has devoured the stored resources within our mother’s secure womb, the fossil fuels buried deep underground, and now we must learn to survive on new forms of energy, taking the initiative on our own. 

Over the course of history, humanity has developed delicate and sensitive organs of consciousness and perception, without truly knowing their eventual meaning or purpose. Unlike other species, we have a tremendous excess of communicative capacity, leading us to make art, write novels, dance, compose symphonies, imagine elaborate inner worlds. How do we know that these seemingly marginal aspects – aspects that seem to have little to do with our survival as a species – are not, in fact, essential to our unfolding evolutionary trajectory? Aboriginals in Australia believe the sacred task of humanity is to “sing the world into being,” communicating with the ancestors in the Dreamtime. Perhaps, through an awakening of our imaginative and psychic faculties, we can restore this primordial communion, and reopen doorways that modern society slammed shut long ago. 

Our creative capacities are one legacy of our species’ recent history, a new extension or organ of consciousness that has developed along with our increasing technical and technological capabilities. Another aspect of our evolution can be found in the world’s esoteric knowledge systems. These systems give us tools for evolving consciousness, for perceiving and interacting with other dimensions of reality. We learn from the traditions of mystery schools that humans are capable of performing marvelous and magical feats that overturn the apparent physical “laws” proposed by science. Up until now, such manifestations have appeared rarely, usually linked to a particular person – books like In Search of the Miraculous or The Autobiography of a Yogi describe many psychic feats of certain masters. In our modern desacralized world, there are also many well-reported accounts of “miracles” – inexplicable psychic phenomena – such as mothers suddenly able to lift 3,000 pound vehicles off of their children after an accident, and so on – acounts of powers that exist in one moment, but afterwards seem to fade into nonexistence. 

In the same way that electricity was once inaccessible to us until engineers learned to channel it in the early 19th Century, is it conceivable that these psychic or psycho-physical capacities could become steadily available to people through a disciplined training, once the mechanisms behind them are better understood? I believe that we are currently in transition from the physical to the psychic phase of our evolution as a species. In order to manifest this, we would need to develop a shared realization that such a shift is possible. This requires an open dialogue on the legitimacy of psychic phenomena and synchronicity, building a foundation for general acceptance of the powers and potencies contained within the psyche. I am compelled by Rupert Sheldrake’s theories around “morphic resonance” and the “morphogenetic field” that forms when sudden inspirations and breakthroughs become habits and patterns, creating what scientists mistakenly call “laws.” Those who have broken through to a new level of understanding need to create the template, strengthen the morphogenetic field, before the larger population can comprehend what is happening, and make a transition. 

It is now agonizingly obvious that humans do not change their ways until they are far outside of their comfort zone. It is only at the point of death that transmutation becomes possible. Perhaps the rampant desecration of the physical world is going to force the more conscious subset of humanity to purify their intentions, clearing cobwebs from the shadowy corners of the psyche, to access extrasensory capacities on a regular basis. Many of us have experiences of this energy, this potential, but the manifestations tend to occur at uncontrollable junctures and in mysterious ways. In my own life, I have found that psychically charged events occur at certain highly charged junctures, which seem to reveal the working of a synchronic order, as if some form of superconsciousness, when magnetized by the energy of intention, can ripple through the underpinnings of our 3-D reality, causing changes that seem beyond the parameters of what we generally accept as possible. Can we learn to access these capacities on a regular basis, like the dependable current we get from electricity? If we can come into alignment with this superconscious shaping force, we may be able to begin to heal the wounds of Gaia, to stop tormenting the generative earth that shelters us and gives us life. I think it is quite possible that even the course of seemingly unstoppable biospheric and geophysical events, like climate change or the oil spill, could be altered through collective psychic effort, much as indigenous groups like the Hopi used initiatory ritual and trance dances to bring rain down from the sky. 

I pray this is the universe’s wager for us: that we will go beyond our current ruts and limitations, that we will manifest a future of imaginative joy by stepping into our potential, becoming the wizards, warriors, and initiates that the world needs so desperately now. As Nietzsche pointed out accurately, “man”, in his current form, can only be a transitional creature. Either we are rapidly approaching the terminus point for our species or we can collectively choose to transmute, creating an evolutionary implosion, from the physical to the psychic realm. As the oil gushes forth and the earth’s resources disappear, it may be that we can learn to thrive on subtler and far more powerful forms of energy. Working together, we can guide the world toward its next phase of being – a plateau of intensified consciousness and synchronic coherence, in which conscious evolution becomes both sacred game and participatory art form. 


DANIEL PINCHBECK was a founder of the 1990s literary magazine Open City with fellow writers Thomas Beller and Robert Bingham. He has written for many publications, including Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone. In 1994, he was chosen by The New York Times Magazine as one of “Thirty Under Thirty” destined to change our culture.

His 2003 book, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism, seems to have really given him a higher profile among those interested in alternative religion and spirituality.

In his recent book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel deals with planet-wide transformation of consciousness, crop circles, ancient prophecies and the end of the world.

Pinchbeck lives in New York’s East Village, where he is editorial director of the online magazine Reality Sandwich. He writes a column, Prophet Motive, for Conscious Enlightenment publishing (www.cemagazines. com), which appears in Conscious Choice (Chicago), Conscious Choice (Seattle), Whole Life Times (LA), and Common Ground (SF).
www.realitysandwich .com

 

 

MAKE THE BASTARDS STOP!

The BP oil disaster continues to ravage fragile coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife of the Gulf of Mexico.

Now we are hearing of an additional, grave threat. Sea turtles and other protected species may be victims of sea-surface oil burning, skimming, or other efforts to control the spill.

In addition, many animals exposed to oil at sea will die by drowning or poisoning without ever being counted.

We can find no official public record of the numbers of animals being caught up in the oil slick or injured during response efforts. Current wildlife casualty reports only include the captured and collected animals, not those animals exposed to oil and left to die in the wild.

We need your help. Please take action today. Urge the Unified Command and federal agencies to:

• Place qualified third party wildlife observers on "Vessels of Opportunity" responding to the BP oil disaster;
• Publicly report all wildlife observations in the oil impact areas;
• Postpone burns when protected species are present to allow for appropriate intervention and immediately implement measures to eliminate avoidable harm to all protected species; and
• Coordinate wildlife rescue interventions when necessary.

We also ask that the agencies charged with safeguarding wildlife and protected marine species systematically collect and publicly report field data on oiled wildlife, not just those animals captured and collected, so that the public can see the real toll of this disaster for wild animals large enough to be effectively counted.

More Background

In an effort to contain the oil, BP and the Unified Command have responded by applying chemical dispersants, skimming oil from the sea surface, and conducting a series of surface oil burns.

Local responders and conservationists are complaining that these activities may be burning, drowning, or in other ways harming or killing wildlife, including endangered sea turtles.

Mike Ellis, a Louisiana boat captain reportedly involved in rescuing sea turtles, has been quoted in news accounts complaining that:

"They drag a boom between two shrimp boats and whatever gets caught between the two boats, they circle it up and catch it on fire. Once the turtles are in there, they can't get out."

We urge a more accurate, public accounting of the wildlife death toll from this disaster and more aggressive and appropriate intervention anywhere that oil response activities are taking place.

Please take action today: Urge the Unified Command to place third party observers on the response vessels and on the ground, publicly report wildlife observations in the oil response area, and call for intervention when necessary.

Thank you for your activism and support,
Stacy Small, Ph.D.
EDF Conservation Scientist

SAM HARRIS TRAPPED IN OUTDATED PARADIGM

It is ironic that Sam Harris, who blasts religious dogma, would then use similar dogma to try to create an “objective morality” based upon science. As I have said in the past, I agree with his assessment of the past, present and future danger of religion. My views are fairly clear in the WAKING GOD trilogy of which was said, “It makes The DaVinci Code” read like a church hymn. But somewhere, Sam Harris has gone astray in an attempt to find a working morality in science.



The very notion of a morality is not even an objective idea. To even say there is, or there should be morality does not logically flow from science, but rather from a subjective notion that humanity should live by some form of underlying, or overriding, set of rules. Let’s face it; if we look at traditional science, the only morality you might find is the “survival of the fittest.” Where in the sciences of chemistry, medicine, physics or biology does one find a basis for morality? I guess all atoms are created equal and that they should be able to combine freely with other atoms might work. But even the idea of equal and free are not scientific terms unless you talk of balancing an equation or free radicals.



Further, objectivity in morality would certainly open the proverbial Pandora’s Box. If, for example, we look at nature, we find no rationale for caring for the elderly, sick, or genetically deviant. Nature culls such creatures for the benefit of the whole and to prevent defects from spreading in the population as a whole. Is this objective morality? Sam Harris also points out that enslavement, mutilating female genitalia, public whippings or stonings are morally and empirically wrong. According to our way of thinking, this statement makes sense. But, it is opinion, and opinion is subjective. In an article called “Toward A Science of Morality” in the Huffington Post, Sam Harris says he agrees with physicist Sean Carroll when he says, “I want to start with a hopefully non-controversial statement about what science is. Namely: science deals with empirical reality -- with what happens in the world, (I.e. what "is.").”



At this point, the entire argument must totally shift. What Sam Harris fails to realize is that discussing issues like the definition of ‘well-being’ is not at the heart of the debate. He seems to think that there is a scientific definition that can lead us out of the valley of death of religious dogma into and into the garden of scientific objectivity. This garden would be free of cultural and religious differences and would create an empirical definition that would be beyond reproach. Sam Harris, unfortunately, has fallen prey to his own outdated paradigm. There is no such thing as objectivity. If this is true, then the notion of an objective morality must be tossed out the window, both the bathwater and the baby.



Look at the following excerpt from a piece written by Robert Lanza. It is but one of many articles that clearly indicate that science is leading us away from any notion of objectivity within the universe. It is becoming increasingly clear that the observed and the observer are one. This being the case, we must discover a new paradigm outside of religion and science that can lead us to a moral high ground.



“But a series of new experiments suggest this may be all wrong, and that part of us exists outside of the physical world. The implications of these experiments have been downplayed because, until recently, quantum behavior was limited to the microscopic world. However, this 'two-world' view (that is, one set of physical laws for small objects, and another set of laws for the rest of the universe, including us) has no basis in reason, and more importantly, is being challenged in labs around the world.

We're trapped in an outdated paradigm. A few more equations, we're told, and we'll know it all -- any day now. There's no adventure left, no lost gardens in far away lands. But we all intuitively know there's more to existence than our science books grant. It's the same nostalgic yearning that gives religion its persistent power over humanity.

We assume there's a universe "out there" separate from what we are, and that we play no role in its appearance. Yet since the 1920s, experiments have shown just the opposite; results do depend on whether anyone is observing. This is most vividly illustrated by the famous two-hole experiment. When you watch a particle go through the holes, it behaves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other. But if no one observes the particle, it exhibits the behavior of a wave and can pass through both holes at the same time.

This and other experiments tell us that unobserved particles exist only as "waves of probability" as Max Born demonstrated in 1926. They're statistical predictions -- nothing but a likely outcome. Until observed, they have no real existence; only when the mind sets the scaffolding in place can they be thought of as having duration or a position in space. Experiments make it increasingly clear that even mere knowledge in the experimenter's mind is sufficient to convert possibility to reality.

Importantly, this behavior isn't limited to the microscopic world. New experiments carried out with huge molecules called "Buckyballs" show that quantum reality extends into the macroscopic world we live in. In 2005, KHC0₃ crystals exhibited entanglement ridges one-half inch high, quantum behavior nudging into everyday levels of discernment.

Biocentrism tells us that reality is a process that involves our consciousness, and that space and time aren't the hard objects we think. Recent experiments show that separate particles can influence each other instantaneously over great distances, as if they're endowed with ESP. They're intimately linked in a manner suggesting there's no space or time influencing their behavior. In 1997 Nicolas Gisin sent pairs of particles zooming along optical fibers until they were seven miles apart. But whatever action one took, its twin performed the complementary action instantaneously. Since then, other researchers have duplicated Gisin's work.

All of these experiments make perfect sense from a biocentric perspective. Everything we perceive is a whirl of information in our head. Time can be defined as the summation of spatial states occurring inside the mind. But that doesn't mean there's an invisible matrix in which changes occur. We watch our loved ones age and die and assume that an external entity called time is responsible for the crime. There's a peculiar intangibility to space, as well. Like time, it's just a tool of our understanding.

But the solution to this mystery lies within our grasp, a solution hinted at by the frequency with which the old paradigm breaks down. This is the underlying problem: we've ignored a critical component of the universe, shunted it out of the way because we didn't know what to do with it. This component is consciousness -- us, the great observer.”

Robert Lanza, M.D., Scientist, Theoretician, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/science-spirituality-what_b_624292.html?ir=Daily%20Brief

If we cannot rely upon biased religion or science to create a universal morality, what is left? Are we to be subject to the whims of moral fads or is there something that can guide humanity to a more logical way of living? To this topic, we shall return while keeping in mind that ‘what happens’ in this world is truly up to us.

Burning Turtles and Oily Rain!

Are we being honestly kept informed of events regarding the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? While BP is compensating for lost wages, who is compensating nature for the hundreds of thousands of lost wildlife? Did you know that when you hear stories about burning off the oil slick that sea turtles are being burned alive with no effort to save them?

If this concerns you, please join the Facebook group, PETITION FOR OIL COMPANIES TO COMPENSATE NATURE FOR ITS DESTRUCTION. You can see what's up at, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118567354854294&v=wall

BP-THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!

Dear Philip,

Two days on the Louisiana Gulf Coast last week changed me in profound and gut wrenching ways.

My throat burned and my head foggy and dizzy from the Gulf's toxic fumes, I returned home and shared my pictures and my flip-camera video with my wife, Fran, and 13-year-old daughter, Nicole.

With the horrific images of gooey peanut-butter colored oil, blackened wetlands, oil-soaked dolphins and brown pelicans flashing on the screen, Nicole played the music from the season finale of the popular TV series Glee. And I heard for the first time the show's final song of the year, a slow, soulful, ukulele and guitar-driven version of the classic "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

The beautiful song and the heartbreaking images blended in tragic irony. I choked up.

Thanks to some quick video editing by our EDF team and to Fox for granting us rights to use the Glee version of "Somewhere," we now have a video I hope will inspire you to keep up constant pressure on our Senators to move a strong clean energy and climate bill this year.

SHADOW LESSONS STARTS STRONG

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #11,582 in Books
ATTMPress new release starts strong on Amazon.



When high school English teacher Sean Cullinan comes across a specialty publisher looking for fresh African-American voices, he decides to submit his latest manuscript. One problem: Cully is white. Enter Janine Russell, black lieutenant in the San Francisco fire department and long-time friend of Cullinan. Together, they create a literary hoax that eventually fuels a national race debate. In Shadow Lessons new author Tim Reardon delves deep into the heart of the volatile American race conversation in a work that overflows with humor, honesty, and courage. "Don't let Reardon's breezy style fool you. Underneath the humor and crackling dialogue is a well-crafted novel. It also just happens to be an off-beat examination of race in America. Don't let that fool you either."


About the Author
Tim Reardon graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1990. For the past twenty years, he has taught creative writing at Saint Ignatius College Prep in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife, Gina, and their three daughters: Kate, Claire, and Lizzy. Shadow Lessons is his first novel.

THE SORCERER'S DREAM

The Sorcerer’s Dream: An Initiation into the Sorcerer’s World

This is the autobiographical story of a young woman bumping into the enigmatic sorcerer Running Deer and her initiation into the sorcerer’s world and mastering conscious dreaming. It takes the reader throughout the magic realms of the unknown and gives a new approach to the traditional training of women sorcerers.

The riveting autobiographical account The Sorcerer’s Dream written by Dreamshield takes the reader throughout the magic realms of the unknown and mastering conscious dreaming. This book, following the traditions of Carlos Castaneda and others, gives a new approach to the traditional training of women sorcerers.
The author describes her initiation into the surrealistic world of dreaming and magic, following the teachings of ‘Man of Knowledge’ Running Deer. In the heart of Amsterdam, a thrilling stride unfolds in obtaining the knowledge of the Second Reality on the way to the ultimate goal: finding the Totality of the Self!
The combination of unusual instructions and experiences within the sorcerer’s world and the level-headedness of a very Dutch woman offers the reader excitement and contemplation on the way to the source of this reality, finding the ultimate self through the experiences and understanding of Dreamshield herself. Up until the last page the reader remains intrigued whether Dreamshield will reach her goal.

Right by the author’s side or facing her stands the character of Running Deer. Sometimes mysterious, then challenging, strict as a guru, or vulnerable as a visitor in a foreign country. However, the precise description of these distinctive steps on the road to her initiation stand like milestones in the landscape of this unique history.

About Alysa Baceau, Dreamshield
Dreamshield (Alysa Braceau) studied social work and is a freelance journalist who writes for newspapers and magazines. She has a Healing Practice and gives workshops about the Art of Mastering Conscious Dreaming and Dream Healing.

Facing spiritual, physical and emotional blocks and stopping your dreams

The Sorcerer’s Dream is about my initiation into the sorcerer’s world and mastering conscious dreaming. Among other things, I describe the steps you can take to master your dreaming. It takes you on the road to the totality of the Self. To reach this point you have to face your spiritual, physical and emotional blocks and work to release them. Stopping your dreams is one of the first steps you take in this procedure of facing your blocks. The following excerpt is a conversation with my dreaming teacher Vidar and my dreaming experiences, which gives an impression of this procedure. (The next step which I describe further on in my book is a ritual to heal your inner child).

“Unpleasant dreams disappear when you look right through them. First you ask yourself what is happening, what is going on? When you stare at it, all that remains is beauty, wisdom and strength and the fear of certain situations will vanish permanently.” Vidar summarizes, “On the way to the totality you may encounter many shocking images, but you must not let it distract you. Tell yourself: I will reach the totality. Nothing can keep me from reaching my goal.”

I fly along with the eagle and from the air I see the red path down below bending like a thin trail through the rocky west and I dive downwards after the eagle. Like the first time we land at the start of the trail and after a short walk we fly over the green palm tops in the direction of the ocean. Further to the left there are several bays interrupted by rocks and stones. I circle exploring over the west’s shelter. It is the first bay seen from the rocks, because towards the right the jungle starts narrowing into a point. I descend at sea, make myself comfortable and take in the light orange horizon from left to right and back. The tiger walks towards me, purrs and pushes his head against my shoulder. I stroke his head softly, get up and then we walk to the wooden villa together.

On closer inspection, the house which is accessible via a broad half-rotten staircase, could use some renovating. Except for a few stair-steps the window frames are also rotten and the paint is peeling in some places. Suddenly my attention is diverted by the sound of broken glass. The tiger walks around in circles in the sand behind me. Curiously I walk up the stairs and carefully open the front door, which is ajar, and which gives direct access to the living-room where I stand before my father who has an empty bottle of booze in his hand. He is furious. The floor around him is scattered with pieces of glass. His appearance is just as vibrating as in the last dream. I don’t like to be reminded of this part of my youth and would like to turn around, prefer to erase the dream and if it were written on paper I would ripple it and throw it in the garbage can, but my thoughts are interrupted by the tiger who jumps up from behind me and starts to attack my father.

I am indifferent to the scene in front of me. When the seriousness finally dawns on me, I order the tiger to stop dutifully. But he only listens after I have urged him persistently, stamping my foot. But it is too late.

The living room floor starts to collapse and I try to put a stop to it, but I fail and we all end up in the sand. I get up frustrated, wipe the sand off of me and crawl to the light among the rotten floor boards. I reflect upon the scene for which I was certainly not prepared. The eagle is immediately on the spot and suggests throwing my father in the sea. After careful consideration I turn down the offer: I cannot bear to think that his body or whatever is left of it would wash up on the beach in a few days time. I prefer a conventional funeral.

The tiger does not doubt for one second and starts digging a hole in the ground. The eagle collects the torn body, picks it up with his strong claws, flies up to the sky with a powerful beat of his wings and then lowers my father into the hole. We cover him with sand, everyone of us in our own way. We become more and more fanatical as the sand slips away or dissolves, leaving my father visible. I drop down in the sand disappointed, grab some of the loose sand and look up as I let it slide through my half-opened fist, like an hour glass. From the green oasis we are being spied on by an Indian holding a spear in his raised hand, ready to throw. He watches us attentively, as if he is turned to stone, petrified, except for his deep brown irises shooting from left to right. I am too busy to pay attention to it as I am trying to figure out how I could have prevented the situation, or how to turn this into something positive and then, unsatisfied, I return to reality together with the eagle.

Before I fall asleep that night I return to the west in hope of a miracle, or rather that I wish not to be faced with my father still lying in the way. I call upon the eagle. Looking down from the sky I realize nothing has changed, except that the tiger is walking circles in the sand where my father lies. I sleep on it and than it seems that time has left its marks, but I am certainly not happy about it.

Looking on from the rocks I see my father – dead, but physically unharmed – lying crossways like a hand of a clock in the eastern part of the circle, with his head pointing outside. Overcome by grief I kneel by his side and start crying pitiful. Anyhow, he is more alive than you would expect from a dead man.

He pulls himself up mechanically like a stick, faces me and – with his green eyes and expressionless face – he says exactly what I need to hear: “I’m sorry I was such a bad father.” I wait for the rest of the words patiently, which he searches in the handful of shells in the sand. “But I had no choice,” he continues as he looks me in the eye. I weigh the words, I had no choice. The tiger stretches out like a sphinx, upright and with pricked up ears.

My father begs me: “I won’t have peace before you forgive me.” I am deeply touched and impressed and quickly tell him “I forgive you”. We hug each other and I wonder whether I mean it or said it to make him happy. I wipe the tears from my cheeks, right across the dream reality. The eagle comforts me by putting his wing around my shoulder and takes me to his nest where I wake up.

Vidar points out to me that I witnessed a very troublesome event. “Fixate it, and then it will transform itself into beauty.” I feel stupid. That is precisely what I did not do. It hadn’t entered my mind for one single second to fixate the attack. “If you look fixated, the totems help you to erase unpleasant events from your history. Only then you will be able to reach the totality.”

He says that it is important to stay in close contact with the totems and to share feelings of worth, love, warmth and trust. “Consider them devoted friends. Just think back the way the tiger took your part and the eagle put a wing around you.””


We invite you to join s on the virtual tour for The Sorcerer’s Dream by Alysa Braceau (Dreamshield). The full schedule can be seen at http://bookpromotionservices.com/2010/05/03/sorcerers-dream. You can learn much more about Dreamshield and her work on her website – www.dreamshield.nl. The book can be ordered on Amazon – http://www.amazon.com/Sorcerers-Dream-Dreamshield-Alysa-Braceau/dp/1609101561. SPECIAL OFFER - Every time you post a comment on any tour post - you will be entered into a drawing for a $35 Amazon gift card -- so, share your thoughts with us.