A few days ago, I was sitting on my deck, basking in the warmth of early morning as the sun rose over the northern flank of Haleakalā volcano. I’d had my morning coffee. I’d eaten breakfast. I’d downed the first quart of water, and taken my supplements.
And I was sitting there feeling the urge for … more.
It was a subtle feeling. An inner restless sense of “Not quite there yet …” that I’d been feeling on and off for quite some time. (Days? Weeks? Months? Years?) A feeling that often accompanied me throughout the day, showing up as several restless passes at the refrigerator door, each time staring vacantly at the unappetizing contents, uncertain what I really wanted.
Sugar? Nah. Carbs? (The other sugar?) Hmmmm …. no bread. Another rice cake? Um … no. Peanut butter? Nyet. Another cup of coffee? No way.
Back to the office and my computer, the restless “I want something more” feeling dogging my footsteps.
After several days of this, I finally decided to dive into the felt sense of the impulse and the energetics lying behind it. And here’s what came up. Behind the urge to “eat,” I felt restlessness, frustration, anger, impatience, desire, longing, pressure … and … not to be paranoid or anything:
There was definitely the sense that I was being pulsed from the outside … pushed … prodded by something or someone (some frequency?) to want.
A kind of insatiability feeling. A subtle panting kind of need for more …
Whoa!
Is this how vampires and parasites feel? Slightly empty. Never fulfilled. Always needing something outside themselves to feed upon? Yikes!
Logical food sources
Of course, in this abundant, yet lack-filled world of ours, there are plenty of things we’re told will fulfill this hunger.
Money, sex, power, bigger houses, fancier cars, wealth, diamond tennis bracelets (Who the hell would wear a diamond bracelet to get all sweaty running around on a tennis court? Oh, the insane frivolity of this symbol of “love!”) Trips to the Seychelles. Original art. Gold and silver. Acres and acres of land. A second, third, and fourth house. An ocean-going yacht. Political position. Sexual power. Beauty. Drugs. Alcohol. Food. Video games. Television.
What can I grab that will finally fill me up? What will end this ache inside?
Maybe my body is simply lacking some sort of vital nutrient?
Are my cells simply registering a mineral lack? Or are they vibrating to a larger, more subtle form of emptiness? A lack of spiritual food for the soul? A wandering spirit’s restless search for a safe haven?
A hunger for meaning? Peace? Love?
A gathering of women
Not long after this internal examination, I was invited to join a group of women in an online zoom call, the purpose of which was, fundamentally, healing.
The underlying thread connecting the 15 women on the call was Jacqueline Hobbs aka Oracle Girl aka OG—an enigmatic phenomenon most of us had been engaging for several years. (A phenomenon … finally I’ve found a word that fits her!)
Anyway—I knew some of the ladies on the call because they live on Maui. With the exception of a gal from the Netherlands, the rest were new faces scattered on the mainland of the US.
No doubt because of our common alignment with “the phenomenon,” there was an immediate, underlying sense of coherence and safety about the group. And after all the typical “Hi, my name is ___ and I’m from ___” introductions had been made, the group rather quickly found its way to silence.
Silence.
Every so often the silence would be broken by a woman spontaneously sharing what was “up” for her at the moment … fear for a child lost and broken in our crazy world, hooked on drugs, desperately searching … or personal pain in the body, disease manifesting … or confusion … how to navigate the exploding tensions at work, in the home, on the planet? … or memories of childhood abuse surfacing after 50 years of self-created amnesia and desperate repression … or …
Deep, vulnerable offerings laid into the circle with a quiet lack of pretension, allowing the silence after the words were spoken to carry what were, in essence, prayers for healing into the bosom of the Source connection building between us in …
Silence.
A different kind of sustenance
The meeting was pretty much the antithesis of any other group meeting I’ve ever engaged. And, to be honest, there was a part of me—an internal voice—that spent a solid amount of time at the beginning of that two-hour call judging and complaining about the lack of action. The lack of organization. The lack of apparent movement.
I felt the energies of frustration and irritation build in my body as the voice inside my head went on a rant: Are we getting anywhere? We need to be getting somewhere! Don’t we need to be doing something? Hello???? Let’s just drop the call and get on with the day. There’s that editing deadline to meet on the book and that blog to get out and and and …
Clearly, it was the voice of my (extremely strong) inner masculine essence, accustomed to goals, duties to perform, and effective A to Z linear action designed to “get things done” speaking.
But instead of giving in to the voice and bolting off the call to go do something “more important,” I stuck with it and received a potent lesson in feminine “doing.” Because, you see …
Silence is not empty.
And stillness—with its lack of overt action—is not impotent.
Silence contains the omniscient intelligence of all Creation … it makes room for Universal Mind to show up and be received and known.
Stillness attracts potential … gathers potential … holds potential.
Stillness contains power. Power that can be potentized by prayer and intention and then released to find its way to be received or not; to be actualized or not depending on an infinite number of variables that only nature’s intelligence can sort out.
Bottomline, there’s a reason it says in Mathew 18-20:
Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
The field of consciousness potentized by silent group intention and spoken loving prayer was unfathomably powerful. I could feel the field building on the call. And at the end, hitting “leave meeting,” I came away refreshed and encouraged to face the rest of the day.
A different kind of food
I had tapped into something very real. The substance of things dreamed of that soothed and fed me plentifully on every level of my being.
I was no longer hungry. No longer in a hurry.
Yes, there were things to do and actions to take “out there” in the world, and, after the call, I attended to them from a place of calm capacity, and grounded steadiness. The following day, when I reflected on the call and its aftermath and compared it to my former state of subtle daily gnawing hunger, I realized that:
The fullness I experienced connected to Source energy while connected to others connected to Source energy was a fullness like no other.
A grounded fullness I’d never experienced even after the most profound meditation.
A grounded … dare I breathe the word — power?
Whatever the word, the whole thing made my very presence on this Earth feel more sustainable. My reservoir felt deeper. My capacity larger. My limits expanded.
How long the sense of fullness would last, I did not know. I was simply grateful to have experienced the kind of sustenance and safety that being connected with others of like mind and intent in silent oneness can bring.
Which brings me around to one last point.
I’ve realized part of the hunger I’ve been experiencing in life has been the hunger for solidarity and support. A hunger for like-minded alliances … companions on the life journey who can be counted on to stand for and strive for what’s authentic, deep and real. Sisters and brothers who can be counted on to vulnerably show up for life, health, and growth of both self and other, no matter what.
There’s a reason humanity has been pushed and prodded into physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual isolation. As beings of pure love, we are strong and powerful as individuals. As a collective, we are invincible.
Yes, I can clear and maintain my own energy field in the face of parasitic energies and the feeding frenzy besetting our world—the emotionalism, the lies, the out-of-control uncertainty, and the resulting need for externals to satisfy and hold onto.
But how much easier is it to accomplish with other beings of pure love by my side? How much stronger am I? How much greater is the field of love we can create together!? How much more awesome are the changes we can make in this world together? How much more inspired can we feel?
Easier, stronger, greater, more awesome, inspired … who doesn’t love the sound of that?
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” ~ Yoko Ono
I couldn’t say it better.
Much love and aloha ~
Cate