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The Akashic Record, the Mind of God, and the Quantum FieldRamtha Excerpt #45 from: The soul is the recorder of unfinished business, the tallier in which in the mind of God each subject's achievements are added to this fluid mind that the ancients used to call the Akashic Record, but all it means is space. And we know it today in a much more sophisticated term called the quantum field, and its spiritual name is the mind of God. The Akashic Records, one of those occult terms, but you know all that it means? Space. So let's get rid of the flowery occult stuff. An Akashic Record meant space with knowing — space with knowing — an ether, a subtle fluid that contained every thought, every action, every deed, fulfilled and unfulfilled, by every generation, not only here but every flora and fauna and every bacterial generation. Anything that God gave life to, its life is captured in this space. Moreover, it is just not people here on the Earth. What about the people in the Earth? What about the people above the Earth? What about the people in the Milky Way? But in space, what is called the mind of God in no time, you who have lived always are imprinted upon this structure in all thoughts, all words, all deeds, all intentions — everything, a living record — along with everything else. Not only does that space involve you but it also involves eleven and a half billion other planets in the Milky Way that support life, just like this one, in degrees of involution and evolution. If God then only needed one of those (1) in which to shape new paradigms, then God was a very mobile entity whose dreams of what-if were more powerful than what-was. Moreover, every analogical thought then that ever existed, in essence, is the mind of God. Every flower that waxes and wanes in spring and summer was given life through such a climax, and then God moved away from the flower so the flower now with its breath of life could be its own being and indeed intrinsically sponsor and populate itself. If God is always analogically present, the flower never forms. But it had to be becoming and then moving away by the grace of God to allow what God has created now to be a living thing, a living and breathing thing. Look around us. All this has been brought from nothing into something by an analogical deity who didn't linger here, who didn't linger in the woods but made the lilies of the field, who didn't linger in the lilies of the field but made the insects golden and lovely, who kept moving, because to stay analogically in something is to never complete it and to give it life. And the God of power has moved out, and there then becomes a living and breathing thing. And who could say then that the life force of plants and rocks, bacteria and animals is not divine? It is all divine, because within every living thing there was once a God who dreamt it, became it, and moved out of it, and left with it that divine principle of eternity. Now what egregiousness you show when you hold onto people, places, things, times, and events because they serve you climactically. How egregious of you to cling to people only under the notion of what they can do for you. You have never been the relationship and then moved out of it to allow the relationship to be its own living thing, like the gardener. You have never cultivated something with such enduring patience, care, attention — in essence, focus — that the triumphantness of its stupendous celebration would bring within itself climax, fruition, and an overabundance of joy, that who is to say that that which springs from the heart and the soul is not more powerful than that which springs from the loins. You hold onto things that you experienced, guided by the soul, but to this day have never given them their solitary life and moved on. And without that, and with that, you have not heard the voice of God any longer in your head. You have only heard what you need to do, what you need to do, what you need to do, what you got to do, what you need to do, what you have got to do, because you are unwise people because you have never finished what you keep saying you need to do. So God, primary consciousness, you might say went about its great mission to make known the unknown and indeed interacting with all that was it, that it loved, but went on and walked away and kept creating in yonder valley. The God is mining creation there — and yet these Gods, that is their mission — but what they have left behind is never behind, because the life of each creation, the life being the analogical expression that God gave as consciousness and awareness to that form that allowed it to be animate, we call that simply life. But in life and its awareness, whether seeds of its own regeneration, the doingness of created life brings back to the creator the great gift. And the great gift, we can call that in terms of simplistic saying, is that all of these lifeforms, these ideas from the mind of God really didn't come from the mind of God. They came from God as consciousness and energy, and it was God who gave them life. But their life, the continuation of their life, the propagation of their ability to idealize concepts, even mass to mass, to create, to experience, that from life's activity generated a form of thought, that we would know clearly today that it is not the brain that creates mind, nor is it consciousness and energy — although it is the substance to which mind would spring — that mind is a phenomenon that is the result of consciousness and energy on the brain, its ability to move within its river of consciousness upon its vista and to perpetuate and to create within its capacity, that that living form's mind, mind, will flow back into the God mining new life in the valley, and that is called the gift back to God. It is called essentially the mind of God. God has no mind. Mind is the reporting card of the adventures of life, and then God's mind is determined by what has been created and then its free will to live. David Bohm's Implicate Order and the Quantum Field So what are these segregated particles that physicists study that only blink on once and then they blink on somewhere else, but they think it is the same particle? And so what they are doing is they are measuring in the quantum rough background, the rough field here, they are endeavoring to measure if that particle has a spin, and if they understand it does, then they can calculate its mass and they can calculate its mass from the velocity of where it will appear again. But guess what? What further complicates the problem is to focus on one particle. And then they see this one, and the moment they see this one they have lost this one, but they remember it mathematically. So they can plot the weight and the velocity of that particle in a quantum field. Now imagine this is a human big fat brain like yours but a little bit more educated. And so this educated brain started this process in linear physics — and not only Newtonian physics; physics means to study particles — so linear physics was to study the nature of the decay of any one atomic structure in terms of time, distance and space. Nuclear physicists study the action of the nucleus of atomic structures, and subatomic physicists, quantum physicists, are studying particles outside of the atomic structure. Got that? So now astrophysicists would be studying large bodies in space and their potential movement. In other words, astrophysicists would be studying the Milky Way and clusters of stars within it and their momentum and their gravity field and how they affect the other stars around them. Now what is similar to astrophysicists and quantum physicists is that they are both studying particles. One just happens to be larger than the other one. So now Bohm then understood something, along with his guru. His guru said this is the Akashic Record. All of you to some degree have been influenced by ignorant gurus and ignorant knowledge, and the knowledge is to be able to read the Akashic Records. Well, Akashic in ancient Hindu, coming from the description of Sanskrit, only means space. But when David Bohm looked at the implicate/explicate order, he saw space, and his guru said, "Yes, but that that you peer upon is the ether and which we call the Akashic Record." David Bohm parted with his guru in this context. David Bohm said, "If this is the Akashic Record, then I must spend the rest of my life explaining the karma of those virtual particles that flash in and flash out and which I cannot measure their distance,their mass,their property,their velocity." And what do you think the guru said? "Trust me." David Bohm survived his guru but he survived without his reputation intact. And the only thing that survives from his truly brilliant mind and colored superstition was that he was endeavoring to understand this realm in terms of karma, in terms of the Akashic Record, and which David Bohm himself could only understand with his theoretical, mathematical mind, concepts of particles that were here to affect this reality. And indeed he concluded that there are particles that are never manifested in this form, and those particles he would call later virtual particles because they come in for a moment and then disappear, are never constant. His dying wish — so we now know the Akashic Record didn't save him — his dying wish was to understand what particle does the Observer focus upon to bring that elusive virtual particle into a constant in the frame of light and matter, and where was the Observer in bringing this into constitutional viability. And David Bohm, at the end of his days, had to part from his guru because to the level of knowledge the guru had, had no understanding about becoming the tiny. The guru only saw it as the Akashic Record of information. "Yes," he said, "that may be true. But what is the nature of any particle that constitutionalizes the unfolded field? Tell me then, as in Morse code. Read me the dots and dashes of these particles if I am to conclude they are the Akashic Record of all life." And in the end, David Bohm lost his prestigious reputation as a physicist because he was misled by a controlling guru, that the guru himself, so blatantly uneducated not as to understand particles as infinite life and David Bohm not to understand that particles were life, and so he leaves us with — he leaves us with — the implicate order and the explicate order on the bridge we call the light (2), which in those terms will constitute the body, the very large, very massive body that we hold today. Gross matter is made of atomic structures, atoms, bound not necessarily with the same atoms. In other words, the atoms that make up a piece of wood are a whole library of atoms that have various degrees of chemistry in them. For example, no one can look at a piece of wood and say, ah, this is a piece of fiber, because if we analyze the fiber down to its molecular basis, we will find that there is no such thing as atomic wood, that atomic wood is made up of many atoms that give us the illusion of wood. But the chemistry that makes up wood — the sap, the coagulation, the carbon levels, the H2O levels — if we were to remove any of those from a piece of wood, it would no longer be a piece of wood. So wood is not one atomic atom. How many of you understand that? And the sap that pulses through it is not wood either; it is a chemical. So you think that the kingdom of heaven looks like the pyramid (3). But the pyramid is a template to get you to understand the different levels of consciousness and energy and time, and in a more sophisticated mind to get you to understand what are the natures — what are the natures — of quantum particles. And clearly at this juncture — those of you who are bright enough to take the leap — everybody here understands that every one of those particles is alive. They are not simply dust in a dust storm; they are alive. They are cognizant beings. Hard to imagine. So as you try to shrink your large and heavy world down to the small, then the paradox is that how could life keep living there in its original form after what could you possibly estimate as time? When you think the kingdom is only this big, how could it be possible that there could be expansion in the kingdom? Well, therein lies your ignorance. In this creation of life you never created the end, because in the mind of God there is no such thing as ending. And God's great effort at analogical mind instilled the breath of life in everything that was created. In these kingdoms, nothing has died, rather everything as a lifeform has evolved. Everything is evolving. It means it is changing and it is doing it accurately and perfectly. So there is no death there. And there is, you would say, "All right, are they eating each other?" No, they don't have to, because the idea of food wasn't an idea. It may well be sometime in their future. But consumption had nothing to do with keeping their body alive. It was rather consumption of an electrical field, and that happened to be their atmosphere. What isn't God? If God, the great creator, the great gardener, is leaving fields of flower and fruit and nut, fields of animals, what is that that comes back to God? The mind of God, because this is the gift of life, and its activity called mind is what comes back to God. What is not God? Who is not God? What ingestible lifeform would not return to the mind of God? How can we presume such frightful human beings, living as if there is no tomorrow or threatening to terminate life as a torment and punishment to others around you, the ultimate pain delivered? How can you who live in such a struggle for life — which you do, which will become clear — could you absolutely understand that your mind is returning to God and that you shan't go back to the Void? That is impossible. That which God has created, indeed that which God has analogically given life to, belongs to God. And how do we dance in the mind of God? As individualistic and as lovely and as beautiful as the twinkle in God's eye, when God leaves that breath of life, for we consume God. And even ingestible bacterial forms of matter are God and were ingested to enliven. That was the purpose. And what is the reward? They will always live. Endnotes
1 Analogical thought. Copyright © 2003 JZ Knight JZK Publishing, A Division of JZK, Inc. Editor: jaime@ramtha.com www.jzkpublishing.com *For information on Ramtha and Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, please contact: Ramtha's School of Enlightenment, P.O.Box 1210, Yelm, WA 98597, or call 1.800.347.0439, 1.360.458.5201. http://www.ramtha.com
Ask NancyBy Nancy MarieIf you would like Nancy to answer a question (all identities will remain anonymous) please mail it to: Ask Nancy Dear Nancy, Dear Anonymous, All of life is interconnected, much like the waterways of the world. One part cannot move or respond without affecting another part. The natural flow of chi throughout your body is very much like the waterways of the earth. When the flow of your chi is interrupted either through injury, stress or tension, it can disturb the natural balance of your whole system. When I was young, my father would purposely go out into the rain and stand there for hours to watch the natural flow of the rainwater across our land. He felt it was important to identify the natural route of movement of the rain before he placed any building or even stack firewood on our property. He use to joke about his behavior and say that he did it because he was basically lazy. I now realize he knew that if you don't disturb the natural movement of energy you can avoid creating more work and problems for your self. Whenever you are in a situation that compromises your deep natural breathing, you interrupt the natural flow of your chi. You might not notice it right away, but like the rainwater on the earth, it will eventually erode your centeredness and your health. Many years later, while I was recovering from a back injury, I gained a deeper understanding of what it meant to not disturb the natural flow and balance of the body. Since I recovering from a injury, I was placed on a very fast learning curve. Whenever I listened to my body and followed its direction, instead of implementing force, I was pain free. Having studied yoga for many years, I realized that it was all about alignment. For in yoga when the bones are aligned or stacked on top of each other, very little effort is needed to maintain a handstand. On the other hand, when alignment is not present, great force is required. During the many months of my recuperation I was repeatedly taught the difference between moving with the natural flow of chi (your inner waterways) and imposing any degree of force. For the moment my mind decided it wanted to follow its own agenda I was quickly rewarded with intense pain. It doesn't matter what causes us to move out of alignment with our authentic self, the result is always the sameÐwe lose our center and experience some kind of pain or discomfort. The real trick is learning to not lose that alignment. Ask yourself these questions: Are you getting caught up in other people's fears and beliefs? Are you approaching life with an open and compassionate heart? Or are you becoming so stressed that the natural flow of your own internal waters is getting interrupted? According to Deepak Chopra in the Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, all stress is created in the mind. Whenever you perceive a situation is out of control, no matter what the reason, your body is placed in a state of stress. When this happens, your breathing patterns change and the flow of your chi, your life force energy, is interrupted. In the mind, where stress is created, we have two information sources or databases. These databases are similar to the hard drive in your computer. One database holds the beliefs that were encoded in you by your family. I call this the learned imprint. The second database or hard drive carries information that your soul intentionally brought in when you were born. This information reminds you: who you are, why you are here and gently guides you along your path. I call this the soul imprint. If you have any conflicting beliefs about how you should behave or respond to a situation on these two databases you will have to sort through all the conflicting beliefs in order to find a response that is appropriate for you. This can be extremely stressful, especially if you have to go through the same process 20 or 30 times a day. Your physical body is designed to operate in a relaxed and open manner and entrain with its environment for the purpose of energy conservation and harmony. But as the chaos in the world increases, it is important to know how to use your breath, the sound of your voice and subtle body movements to entrain your body instead with your inner terrain — your soul. This inner entrainment can provide you with a safe haven to consciously make the right choices for you. To regain your center and maintain it during such difficult times, focus first on your breathing patterns — they are a key to the natural flow of your internal waters or energy and the foundation of all of life. Ask yourself: Are you breathing in your chest? Or are you bringing your breath all the way to your belly? Notice when you do breathe shallow and when you are able to breath all the way into your belly. These observations can be extremely insightful. Your body functions at it best when you breathe fully into your lower belly all of the time. Now focus your attention on your inhalation and exhalation. Is one more relaxed than the other? Some feel that your inhalation and exhalation pattern is symbolic of the way you live our life. If you have trouble inhaling deeply it may reflex your inability to let things in. If you have trouble exhaling fully it may reflex your inability to let things go. If you do notice an imbalance between your inhalation and exhalation then lie on your back and place one hand on your lower belly. Slowly inhale in through your nose and follow your breath all the way into your belly. (It should fill up like a balloon.) Then use your abdominal muscles to squeeze your belly and slowly push your breath out your mouth. It may seem awkward in the beginning, but continue this breathing in this manner until your body relaxes, for at least 15 breaths. Then with your eyes closed, observe any changes in your body. Over the years I have found that a regular practice of breath or sound mediation, yoga, tai chi and or chi gong can help you build a deeper communication with the flow of your internal waters and strengthen your entrainment with your soul. A daily practice of any of these techniques will help you keep the flow of your inner waters moving and reopen the channels whenever the flow has been interrupted by fear, tension or stress. I hope this is helpful. Nancy Marie is an author, illustrator, teacher and gifted intuitive. For the last two decades, she has guided thousands of people back to their own clarity and inner peace through her private consultations and workshops. Her first book, The Beckoning Song of Your Soul, A Guidebook for Developing Your Intuition, moves intuition away from the esoteric and back into the mainstream of life, where it belongs. Her newest book, Passage of Change, a fable based on the research of Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., is available now from Inner Eye Publishing. This amazing little book illustrates how our beliefs affect our cellular biology and how changing our beliefs we can literally change our whole life. For more information about Nancy Marie or to order her books call (530)926-0365 or check her web site: www.innereyepublishing.com
ReviewsBy Michou LandonTitle: Pleasures and Principles of Partner Yoga The Pleasures and Principles of Partner Yoga is an elegant and inspiring contemplation of themes essential to Life, not simply the isolated practice of Yoga. This work truly embodies the marriage of the divine and earthly, conveyed through its graceful form, text and exquisite illustrations. It should be clarified that the Partner Yoga presented here is a profound, restorative, relational practice, not a primarily sexual or romantic vehicle that some may expect. Beautiful illustrations convey the tenderness essential to the book's subject matter. They demonstrate a serene and loving presence in poses that range from the profoundly simple to breathtakingly acrobatic. Uniquely inspiring are the communal formations, which creatively interweave numerous bodies into living mandalas. These images, along with the physical size of the book, make it an inviting "coffee table" piece, as well as an enduringly valuable invitation to meditation. The Pleasures and Principles of Partner Yoga presents the art and practice of Partner Yoga through eleven essential principles — Union, Touch, Grounding, Trust, Compassion, Surrender, Silence, Intimacy, Balance, Creativity and Community — explored in simple, sublime essays. When mindfully explored and applied, these insights deepen the practice, expanding the practitioner's capacity to know and respect themselves and others. The unique value of Partner Yoga is the value of any relational activity: to provide a mirror, support for the process, and the safety to embrace what we can easily avoid on our own — including buried beliefs, fears and longings around intimacy and body image. If any fault can be found with this book, it would echo the shortcomings of any "description" of that which must be experienced to be understood or appreciated. I dare say that illustrations and essays succeed to great degree in reaching across that gap between concept and experience. The creators quite rightfully assert, especially in their poignant personal stories, that this practice is possible — in fact beneficial — for newcomers to yoga as well as experienced students. The illustrations, however, show what appear to be svelte, poised and practiced bodies engaged effortlessly in postures. One must hope this would not inhibit anyone; for in this is a practice that can help us move beyond individual body image or limitation and remember that we are essentially the same — uniquely valuable manifestations of an interconnected Whole. Title: Holistic Work — Volume 1 The title is the first clue. This book is an ambitious project — for the authors, for the reader, and for all those called to the work it presents — and I understand that this is only the first of three volumes proposed! Ambitious in scope, earnest in intent and tone, and dense with import and passion, the book purports to methodically review the necessary and universal three-stage process of healing the human condition. By now, most readers already recognize this process to be "an inside job." After detailing the personal, infernal healing journeys that prepared them to refine and present this process to the world, the authors, John and Mary Shepard, describe its application (and the obstacles to it) for the individual, then, by natural extension, to greater society and the planet. Though they claim that the system they've refined, with direct guidance of Divine Source, is unique in its completeness, the key principle is not: Forgiveness — fundamental, holistic and holographic. While few points seemed genuinely new (to me), the content and process they present seems comprehensive and convincing, and as radical as the true teachings of Jesus have been, from his day to ours, for those "who have ears to hear." The content is delivered in casual English, and alternates from conversational and engaging to tediously verbose and repetitive. It seems likely that this read will resonate for some more than others, and might be more compelling to someone who has experienced first-hand and benefited from the authors' work as therapists (or something close). I'd be willing to test that theory. From the standpoint of a sensitive and healer on her own arduous journey of purification and reunion, I found many passages refreshing, insightful, or affirming. As many passages, however, labored what seemed to be recklessly egoic claims, which threatened to cast doubt on the assertions and credibility of the authors who professed to be "dissolved of ego." For the sake of the planet, I would happily be proven mistaken! Meanwhile, I shall let the reader decide. Title: Passage of Change: A fable based on the research of Bruce Lipton, Ph.D. This is a very sweet and deceptively powerful little book. When asked to review it, I realized I had already read it. It was valuable to compare the two experiences, and it testifies to the ongoing value of its message, which pertains to the far-reaching impact of subconscious beliefs and crucial role of perception on health and happiness. The book is a teaching story delivered in the form of verse. Alas, the attempt to wrap some of these concepts in rhyme felt contrived enough to be a distraction during my first reading. I recognized the Truth it conveyed, but dismissed it as not the vehicle for it that I'd choose to convince a linguist or a skeptic! Ultimately however, if you heart and mind are open to the message, passages of imperfect poetry are easily forgivable. I came to almost admire the effort. The book has the sort of infectious whimsy and wisdom that spring from the heart and tongue of an unselfconscious child. It also carries the authority of the research on which it is based. Most of us have met some liberated being like the stranger in this story, and if an in-person encounter wasn't convincing, who knows whether this little fable will be. Another option would be to go to www.brucelipton.com and look at the research, or read Lipton's book The Biology of Belief. Meanwhile, this little book is inspiring company. Title: Between the Visions Mount Shasta's own Raylene Abbott has birthed a sweet and intimate memoir of one woman's ever-deepening journey of healing, integration, Union with the Beloved — human and Divine. Gently and simply written, playful and passionate, it is at times a poignant, powerful read. Explanatory passages, which may seem very basic to some, ensure that less "spiritually traveled" readers are included and even educated. Even so, some of the content may command a considerable spiritual maturity or at least openness. Biographical narrative ties together the author's visions, which have served to illuminate her regular, 3-D, human experiences. Often these visions contain symbolism of buried cultures, reviving the timeless truth and tangible relevance ofimages made cryptic by time and tyranny. Union is the cohesive theme, whether as Union of Heaven and Human, Etheric and Earthly, Feminine and Masculine, or the universality among all spiritual traditions and practitioners. The gift of Abbott's personal accounts is to illustrate this unity more experientially than theoretically. This is, however, as the author concedes at the outset, an account of experiences whose true essence and impact are beyond the realm of words. This is why the level of each reader's spiritual openness, humility and maturity can greatly influence how s/he receives the content and message; that is, how much s/he finds resonance and inspiration in the experiences and how much s/he feels an awkward spectator. Tantric exploration features importantly in the book; the candid sexual passages could challenge some, which might not a bad thing. True Tantra holds promise for the salvation of many. Overall, while this little book may not be for everyone, it holds potential value for everyone, whether to answer questions, plant seeds, or truly inspire fellow travelers on the numinous journey home. Title: A Legacy of Love, Volume One: The Return to Mount Shasta and Beyond "At this level of awareness, you discern absolutely that all is one, there is no 'other' ...that all of creation is nothing more than God's thinking aloud." — Saint Germain The Legacy of Love, Volume One, seems to suggest in its title that more such volumes will follow, to offer guidance from Saint Germain during this passage of human kind through the course of sometimes harrowing current events. This collection consists of two parts. The first transcribes discourses offered by Saint Germain through Philip Burley in various contexts and locations, predominantly the 2003 Wesak Festival, held annually near Mount Shasta. The second part documents question-and-answer sessions from selected meetings, speeches and readings from 1996-2003. These discourses can be inspiring reading to anyone, whether followers of Saint Germain or not. For those not initiated, there is biographical information provided early on about both Saint Germain and Philip Burley. Volumes more is available on the Web! Readers not comfortable with references to the Divine as "He," as is common in the three dominant monotheistic traditions, would have to adjust. Otherwise, much of the content carries a message common to many wisdom traditions. The voice of Saint Germain here offers a certain comfort in the authority commanded, the compassion conveyed, and an understanding of human challenges and nature that one might expect of an ascended master who reportedly lived among us for multiple centuries. Title: Mount Shasta: The Vital Essence: A Spiritual Explorers Guide to the Natural and Man-made Consciousness-enhancing Structures on Mt. Shasta "Do Your Dreams Challenge Your Horizons?" it says on the cover of this book; or, it asks later, do your horizons limit your dreams? This little charmer of a book will likely challenge the horizons of most readers as it chronicles the apparently factual adventures of a Light Warrior. Though it reads like a fantasy novel, this is a teaching story, in which the author describes biographical events and phenomena that perhaps 98% of the adult population would consider beyond "out there." Yet it does so with a combination of matter-of-factness, pragmatism and whimsy, that makes for an easy, intriguing read. I found myself undeterred by the frequent typographical and grammatical errors. Residents or regular visitors of Mt. Shasta might enjoy this new look at familiar geographical territory. The author recounts adventures at, and suggestions for discovering, natural and man-made power spots on the mountain called Temple of Light, Fortress of Light, the Citadel, The Palisades, etc., which we know by names like Gray Butte, Green Butte, Red Butte, Sand Flats, etc. This isn't your typical guidebook; and you don't have to go to Shasta to glean much of the underlying wisdom. As many claim about our human bodies, he suggests the Mountain serves as an evolutionary support tool. "Mt. Shasta is a spiritual mountain you can climb inside of yourself," says author, teacher and inter-dimensional warrior Bruce Avenell. He clearly emphasizes that the Mountain and its other-dimensional resident are collaborators in the potentially- unlimited spiritual expansion of each individual. But the willingness, clarity and diligence of that individual are the deciding factors in this journey. "Attitude allows altitude," Avenell reminds us frequently. "When I was about eleven years old I decided I wanted to work directly for God. According to the Methodist religion I was taught Jesus had worked directly for God and he was not working in the physical world just now, so the position must be open. I realized that the pay wasn't very good, but I wanted the job anyway." It is this sort of dry, simple humor with which Avenell details seeing beyond optical vision, hearing the inner sound current and navigating non-physical realms that makes it all seem more accessible. You've got to read it to believe it, though; and you've got to believe it to be it. Title: Winds of the Heart, CD The title of this CD, every note played, and every space between awake remembrance of the Breath as the timeless vehicle of Spirit. In so many cultures, breath, Spirit, life, air, wind, often shared the same name. In her liner notes, Gentle Thunder tells us: "I open a doorway inside of me [through which] I allow the magic of Spirit to speak with and through me as I offer my giveaway of music." Winds of the Heart is testimony to this. Each piece evokes, through the tone of a single Native American flute, the poetry or prayer of Breath rising from the collective, noble heart. Gentle Thunder's playing is true and timeless, both personal and universal. The mood seems to evoke the sacredness of mortal life and the eternal thread that connects all life. The pristine production brings us to rest at the warm hearth, or in the numinous passages of a desert canyon, on a spacious perch of a cliff-top tree, soaring above the valley, or beside a reedy, life-giving river. The voice of this lone flute frames stillness and silence to highlight their sacredness. This makes for a profoundly quiet-ing, comforting listening experience which changes or expands with each playing, carrying in its passages the laughter of chil-dren, the prayers of the people, and the wisdom of the ancestors.
Cover ArtistBruce Manaka was born into a family of Artists. His Grandmother taught the traditional Japanese art of Ikenobo Ikebana (flower arranging) — receiving high recognition in Japan. His Mother teaches Japanese watercolor painting. Building on these strong ancestral roots, Bruce's Art digitally blends traditional Japanese style and modern design, infused with colorful vibrancy. At the core of his work is a basic simplicity and harmony — a culmination of the 19 years he spent in a monastery, living a life of meditation and contemplation. "To me, artistic creation is born of deep inner listening. It is about the energies of the artist embracing the dark mystery that we are, giving form and substance to what wishes to be expressed. And with deep listening comes a kind of surrender, an open window allowing the artist to "see" and experience universal patterns of creation. The Kabalah is one such dynamic pattern, guiding the artist/seer inwardly to deeper and deeper levels of mystery until he is face to face with the Unspeakable Beauty. He then begins to understand that the underlying fabric of this Beauty is fathomless Love, and that its tapestry can be seen everywhere and in all things." In the three years since making his transition from the monastery, Bruce has married and now lives happily in Northern California with his lovely wife Patty. Interest in pieces shown on this website or inquiries into commissioned work may contact Bruce through The Dream Masters. His email is bruce@thedreammasters.org.
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