Woke up from a night of intermittent sleep and howling winds to a clear blue sky and thick ice on Sir's water bucket. But in comparison to the extreme commutes I glimpsed on the morning news feed of friends, from my blanketed comfort zone, my work schedule on this blustery cold day is a dream. I'm working right now, in fact, as Alice Sara Ott plays Chopin piano waltzes for the delight of Tigs and Tux, destined to stay in until temps climb to today's high of 30. Mid-20's is quite a bit warmer than -11 currently playing in my hometown back in Illinois. Winter work for me today is centered on clearing channels, residing in open space, working with the energy of light, and learning the healing powers of sound. And writing of course, from a variety of positions. Starting here with the first blog post of 2014. Aloha!

The photo shows one of my main work stations: the pillow on the journey rug in the workroom, with the apophylite and amethyst that often hold the high chakra ground while I work, and are known to be effective in such a position for the work. The word work shows up four times in that sentence, and that's indeed the word for it. Doing the work is a real thing, as is the writing or editing work I'll also do today, from another work station in a comfy chair looking out at the blue. Which is a different kind of real work from the laundry, or the soup stock making also on the docket today. No driving required, no money spent, and I can attend to my old horse, Sir's, hydration by carrying out hot water buckets throughout the day. Simple, but effective, allowing perfect movement breaks. The simplicity and balance of today and today's winter work is a joy, and I am grateful for the myriad small and immense wonderments all around me. The light is phenomenal.

Basically, we're all doing the work of transformation on various levels.. Winter work here today includes turning bones to clear liquid; turning ideas into exchanges that in turn transform into checks in the mailbox; turning blue sky and ice into tankas; turning sound into healing. The foundation of all transformation is open space filled with light, and the different ways we real-ize and work with it through our minds and soul's knowing. 

In journeying, I look in and out at the same time, with eye covering blotting out all light. Headphones feed my mind with repetitive drumming by a group of fellow practitioners, keeping the theta waves going in a sound-generated lifeline to this world, the lifeline I literally journey on so I can get back. Doing the work requires being in multiple dimensions at once, going into other worlds or realms at will, interacting with the assistance and guidance of helpers, and bringing back energy to this world. In remote work, that energy gets transported through Middle World to the client wherever he or she may be. 

So, as in dreaming, there's a lot of traveling, which is why it's called journeying; a lot of interactions and transmissions. The mind receives an amazing array of information through many channels, visual, audible, sentient, metaphysical; yet to the ordinary reality eye, nothing happens. There's nothing seen, eyes are closed, there's nothing said, and nothing done. A dance of embodied spirit with disembodied spirit that medicine men and women have danced through the world for hundreds of thousands of years.

In meditative practices, such as with the Warrior Syllables I'm doing at present, another kind of relation to open space is happening. Mind is stilled, channels in the body where the chakras spin clear and open, obstacles are removed, and groundedness in space allows positive qualities to spontaneously manifest. Doing this type of practice before journeying, and others such as discharging energy through placing my hands on the crystal clusters set up for that job, readies me for the work. Doing it for my personal attunement is, I'm discovering, essential. And as a practice for healing, it is most effective. I am just beginning to learn this technique. The ability of masters to affect cellular structure through this practice is astonishing and seems miraculous; it is in truth an adept use of open space. For me it is another area of work in progress. To the ordinary eye, naturally, it appears as if nothing is happening.

Which brings me to the famous line by the poet W. H. Auden that poetry makes nothing happen. Nothingness is the primary field of interest in my poetry and critical work. I can't help it, it enthralls me. Here again is the awareness of open space as the stuff of life, what the universe is made of, what we are made of. Looking out on this clear blue sky day, it appears there's nothing happening. The wind moves through the high treetops, and they respond with their own movement and sound. The wind chimes on the porch play a few notes, in tune with Chopin. In open space what arises arises, what disappears disappears. Without open space nothing would happen. Nothing does happen. I love my work: to let the arisings come through, let the open space fill with light, and energy transmit and transform. When I do my work, I aspire to be a hollow reed the wind blows through, creating sound and resonant vibration that affects matter across time and space. I myself do nothing.

Okay, back to work! May your winter work be warming and transforming. Oh, and speaking of those two things, it may be a perfect day for this alchemical medicine: Jane Grigson's Celery Soup, a genius recipe from Food52. May your journey home be magically assisted by helpers in many forms.

What's up with the photo? It seems to have orbs floating in the sky, a tilting old building, and some kind of swan cloudshow. I took this photo at Hawkwood in December of 2008, looking out the window of the big room where The Company of Hawkwood had just finished a meditation as part of the weekend mystery school with Caitlin Matthews, John Matthews, and professor-author Ari Berk. Just today, Caitlin Matthews posted about this longstanding annual event on her blog, Soundings, where you can be guided to everything you need to know, and even still make reservations to attend this year's weekend, if you so desire.

I bring it up because she brought it up because it's coming up for me big time as I create my own mystery school musings. Today I mention it not only because of the Company of Hawkwood energy, but because of world events, as a way of thinking about what my particular mystery school concept encompasses. As I synthesize How Things Happen into areas of potential inquiry, as I develop the scope and discuss it with colleagues, questions arise, and it's helpful for me to articulate answers to those questions. People ask, what sort of stuff will you do there? The scope is wide but small, far reaching but quiet.

We in the Pacific Northwest are enjoying stellar fall weather! Day after day of blue sky, bright sun, golden leaves drifting down through green sylvan glades, woodsy ridges awash in color, Japanese maples of such brilliant vermillion they seem made out of stained glass or garnets. Through this panorama the full moon flies past the night stars, Flickers call their agreements, deer wander the lawn, and I take it all in as I cultivate the spiritual warrior within, and conjure the new hoop of the next chapter of my storied life, seemingly out of nowhere.

As you know, intrepid reader and fellow soul traveler, I receive a lot of guidance from all sorts of channels. This morning's comes in from 1) the congruence of a book I found in the back of a shelf I haven't seen since I moved here three years ago, 2) a medicine card I pulled without ado from a deck from a drawer, and 3) a quote that tied them both together. As I grok the wisdom and feel the assimilation energetically inside my body, 4) Flicker chimes in–yep, right on cue right here and now–flashes her pink underwings and affirms, as Flicker always does for me, that Spirit is here and knows I'm paying attention. During that entire sentence, Flicker has been voicing from the red cedar she flew to a sentence before. These synchronicities are vital to How Things Happen in my world, and fire my imagination. The photo shows my faux bird nest of stone eggs and feathers I've found here from Flicker and other species. 

The card I pulled spoke of the Spiritual Fire within, the Luminosity we carry–scratch that–the Luminosity we, and all things, actually are. We are Light. Everything's frequency, moving light. Mathematicians and Quantum Physicists have cool ways of notating that, and lots of fun words like quantum foam. These gorgeous fall leaves are shifting their frequency and we are onboard for the ride. Wow! What a light show. The card advised letting go of all drama and simply letting the truth of being Light inform my cells, my consciousness, my world. Flicker agreed.

I took the book, Sandra Ingerman's Medicine for the Earth, out to the sunny porch and opened to a random page. The beginning page of the chapter on Imagination. In Sandra's transmutation work, imagination is a key component. Within the chapter is a quote from Caroline Casey, Imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to follow. Ingerman advises letting that one soak in for a bit.

Dreaming your reality into being is using the creativity, the luminosity within you and your sentient connection to the light all around you to imagine, to 'cast forth enchantments' as 20th century mystic Neville put it (and Ingerman mentions). The power of the imagination directs light and frequency–Flicker agrees! Imagination sees the scene so completely it is shimmering in the light. The sounds, the smells, the tastes, the colors, the clothes... actually this is starting to remind me of the theme song to Green Acres a little. For imagination to lay the tracks for the reality train, you gotta get into it. Really dream it up big time, exactly as you want to see it. Do it, live it, be it, for real. Then when you bump into it you recognize it. Oh. Yes. There it is.

It's interesting to note what comes up in resistance to this creative work, this creative playbook, of imagination. All the authority figures who pooh-poohed the power of daydreams, who put down your abilities in the dreaming up department, or dissuaded you from the worth of imagination, the imaginary helpers and magical happenings we love to create from an early age, so naturally. These self-styled reality experts pop up from our wearied neural pathways to wag a finger or roll their eyes, give a withering lecture, certain of knowing better about what's what. That's not how things happen, they say. But you know what? These too are imaginings, reality-shaping ones as any other. If for such a mind, that's not the way things happen, well, for them it is not. Period. The reality train coming in on those tracks will look a bit different. And yes, Flicker is discoursing all through my final edit of this paragraph, in the little bubbly chirpy vocal patterns they do so well. You tell 'em, Flicker. Word.

It could be said that, frequency-wise, now more than at any previous time, we are able to use the power of Imagination, free and clear from old conditioning, to transmute trauma and toxicity within and without, and create something much more pleasant for us all. It does require getting some clarity, feeling our feelings and examining our fears, learning how to feel the luminosity within, open to influxes of light and circulate it through us. It takes a little practice to state our personal choice and empower our decision making abilities, choose love not fear, no matter what. It's only ourselves who can turn off old programs, give the old voices a cookie and a hug, rose-colored glasses, and maybe a security blankie for a lengthy naptime. As I just corrected a proofreading error in that sentence, hours after the initial posting, a quote box on the edit page delivered, from Walt Disney himself, this golden nugget: If you can dream it, you can do it.

Do you have an initial excited response to such a statement, followed by a negating 'well it's nice but it's not really true' type thought, or a 'that may be true for some people, but not for me'' thought? Sometimes it helps me to imagine a delete button, a mute button, or a lovely hamper in which I toss the old conditioning fears that pop up to block the Imagination in full swing. Sometimes I crumple up the curmudgeonly 'scratch pad imagination-stupifying thought' and toss it over my head into the imaginary metal wastebasket of some old classroom. A little movement, some sound effects, are fun sometimes. Whoosh! Zap! Or the vintage sound of the phonograph, or tape, winding down as the plug is pulled. The sudden clarity of a gong. Flicker calls also work, really really well. They cut right through.

My accountant says he tells his negative self-talk, Thank you for your opinion. Now shut up. Whatever your transmutation method, dare to dream, and ditch the downer dialogue with diligence. Enjoy your railroad building. Your reality train's looking beautiful already.