Five Levels of Social Consciousness

I thought this was interesting, as seen as part of the transformation process. . . The Institute of Noetic Sciences bulletin, The Noetic Post, Vol 1 No2, reports:

"The five levels of social consciousness that we have identified include:

(1) embedded, where consciousness is shaped without conscious awareness by social, cultural, and biological factors and which is a kind of presocial consciousness;

(2) self-reflexive, in which people gain awareness of how their experiences are conditioned by the social world through reflection and contemplative practices;

(3) engaged, in which people are not only aware of the social environment but also begin to mobilize an intention to contribute to the greater good in some outwardly directed way;

(4) collaborative, in which people see themselves as a part of the collective and begin to work with others to co-create or shape the social environment by collaborative actions, such as collective inquiry, social networking, and learning; and

(5) resonant, in which people report a sense of essential interrelatedness with others—a field of shared experience and emergence that is felt and expressed in social groups and that stimulates social transformation."

The Pleasure State of the Universe

Wherever I am, I can dissolve the apparition of the physical world, my body, and my personality-self. I can become a ball of light floating in the center of space and time, totally supported from all directions. As I float here I can raise my vibratory rate and my light changes. It moves from golden to intense diamond, and I "see" myself as a glossy area in the field. The longer I hold this in my awareness, or hold my awareness at this focus, the larger the space of "me" becomes.

The larger the space of me becomes, the harder it is to hold it, and soon a natural motion of expansion takes over for my mind, and the motion moves on its own, and the scope of the space of me adjusts itself according to universal rhythms. The ride is sublime! As I experience the ride I become so much more and less and more of what exists and I don't ever use mind to stop or hold because that would be rude; that would be an uncomfortable disturbance to the natural pleasure state of the universe.

As I continue being with the ride, I become aware of being other beings and groups of beings and in these foci exist streams and webs and intricate lacelike patterns of knowledge and progressions of insights to conclusions that only last a fraction of a millisecond before melting into new flows, and the flow through a knowledge web goes forward, backward, all directions at once. Going into these knowledge webs is another kind of ride where I see that saturating myself into omnidirectional knowledge pathways instantaneously is the most natural form of knowing.

Copyright by Penney Peirce 2011

Free Foreign Editions

I have several copies of the foreign editions of my books. The cost of sending them abroad is prohibitive, but for anyone in the USA, who would like to pay the postage, I'll be glad to send them to you.

FREQUENCY
3 German
2 Norwegian
7 Danish
3 Swedish
1 Japanese
1 Italian

INTUITIVE WAY
1 Swedish

You may contact me via my website: www.penneypeirce.com

3 Radio Interviews with Penney Peirce

You can listen to an interview about Frequency and Intuition at:

1. HeartGlow Living Radio with Host Deb Snyder, PhD, Sept 28, 10am PT

2. Whitley Strieber's Dreamland, with Host Marla Frees, Sept 29, 11am PT

3. Conscious Talk Radio with Host Brenda Michaels, Sept 30, 7am PT

SNAKE by D. H. Lawrence

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Thoughts on Meditation

My Australian friend Susie Surtees and I were talking about intuition and meditation one day and she took these notes and put it together in a really clear way. I just found the document and thought I'd pass it on.

There are two worlds that offer many kinds of perception.

There’s the "outer" world with your eyes open where you see objects and space: we generally become aware of 90% of this world through vision — you know this one well.

We’ve become used to thinking about vision-based perception as the major way of perceiving.

When you close your eyes, though, there’s a different world — an inner reality of energy, imagination, and many levels of nonphysical experience and awareness.

What happens in these inner worlds often determines the way the outer world looks and functions.

There are also three parts of your brain and perception feels different and behaves differently when you’re in each of those parts. Every kind of perception is legitimate and useful, and provides different things.

The lower brain (brain stem/reptile brain) controls automatic functions like breathing, heartbeat, and digestion. It is very connected with your body consciousness.

It’s also about survival and safety, causing the fight-or-flight reaction when we feel threatened.

It can provide you with immediate "energy information" via vibration, in the form of expanded or contracted sensations and feelings.

The mid brain (limbic system) is the center for sensory awareness — vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. It influences long-term memories, motivation, appetites, and sleep cycles. It’s also where you experience similarities, love, affection, and belonging.

Vision is closest to the upper brain functions and smell is closest to the reptile brain functions.

In the upper brain (neocortex) there are two hemispheres.

In the right hemisphere we experience patterns, direct knowing, conceptual awareness, and process experiential learning.

In the left hemisphere we make choices, control lower brain impulses, anticipate consequences, organize thoughts, plan, set goals, and practice critical thinking.

It’s also the center of language, analysis, definition, and meaning.

When you operate in the left hemisphere most of the time, you limit other modes of perception, which limits your potential, and your reality.

You block your ability to know intuitively, through direct knowing. Direct knowing saves time, is accurate, and efficient.

Meditation moves you out of the left hemisphere into the right brain, then drops you into your midbrain and reptile brain, and further into your heart.

It helps you become more conscious of other more expanded ways of perceiving. You realize your body, your cells, and the field of energy around you are all conscious! Together all your ways of knowing form a giant nonlocalized brain.

It helps to tune in to what you’re experiencing physically in your body to develop intuition so that when you’re confused you can cut through the mental chatter and confusion to the core truths.

You’ll learn to do this during everyday activities and to stay consciously aligned with your personal values during times of stress and in all of life.

You’ll become better at regulating your emotional and thinking landscapes and be in a place of calmness and ease during unpredictable times.

Meditation can be active — guided and purposeful, or passive — no thought, just direct experience.

Copyright by Penney Peirce 2011

hello

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Passion Is. . .

There is a door to spaciousness and silence and stillness; step through. Don't think about when you'll leave.

In the moment there are no blockages. These are a function of left-brain thinking. If you're processing rather than creating, your left brain is running the show.

Passion only comes when the heart is open and the body, senses, and feeling ability are fully engaged. Passion is engagement without thought of an exit point or strategy. Passion is motivation fueled by the mind aligned with the soul and the lifetime's destiny. It feels so good and easy, even if challenging, so totally absorbing. Passion is purity of focus and non-selfconscious release through talent. So it pays to develop skill and facility.

I want to make squiggles with a big fat calligraphy brush full of thick black ink and my left brain immediately says, "What a waste of expensive ink! It takes years to have the skill to make good squiggles." But a stubborn part of me, perhaps the REAL me, wants to go through the door to the new space, the place I recognize, to explore the mindless sensation not the form.

Abstract Japanese Calligraphy from the Kazuya Akimoto Art Museum

Join Penney at Kripalu for a Weekend Training!

Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration
October 14-16, 2011, Kripalu Center, in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts.

Explore leading-edge concepts from Frequency, the best-selling book by Penney Peirce. This workshop will teach you how to succeed in what Penney calls the “new energy reality.” You will learn to master the dynamics of energy, time, and intuition, and unblock the flow so you can easily synchronize with your destiny.

In this intensive, you will learn to

• Feel your personal vibration and “home frequency,” free yourself from negative or low vibrations, and keep your energy level high
• Access intuition and accurately interpret the nonverbal “energy information” your empathic body receives from the energy field around you
• Use “frequency principles”—methods based on the way energy actually functions—to solve problems and create the life you want
• Improve your relationships using principles of resonance and “frequency matching.”

Discover how you can apply energetic principles to tasks in your personal and business life so you can make accurate decisions, set priorities wisely, and know when to act.

Recommended reading Penney Peirce, Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration (Atria Books/Beyond Words).

One Voice in Many: Part 9

I've been posting bits of an old manuscript I wrote in 1980 or so. . .and it's interesting to see that in my attempts then to merge into the collective consciousness and speak from that unified voice, so much of what was said is so simple and true today. The Voice in me could easily be the Divine Voice inside anyone and everyone. Previous parts can be found on Jul 12, Aug 19, Aug 26, and Nov 4, 2010; Jan 15, Feb 9, Mar 30, and May 17, 2011.

CONSCIENCE
We must find our source of internal wisdom, out teacher part, that will guide and remind us of our true identity. That part is the conscience, though in its truest functioning, the word "should" has no place. The essential conscience speaks of truth and gently reminds us of what is real—really real, not superficially real. Over millennia the conscience has become the watchdog for the mind/ego and we've forgotten its divine function.

When do we question? When do we surrender and trust? When our integrity demands it. Integrity is conscience in the best sense—not shoulds but wants, wants based on truth. Our actions come to be regulated by subtle physical tensions; if we don't act according to truth, it feels terrible to live with it. Sometimes doing what is necessary is temporarily uncomfortable to the mind, but the spirit is rejoicing.

SMOOTHNESS IS TRUTH
Believe in smoothness. This is the quality that reveals spirit in all its manifestations. This ease of creation is the essence of the Divine. Divine will most often operates to create synchronicity, or miracles of timing. Pay attention when events fall this way, for smooth rhythm is truth. When situations seem to occur haphazardly or feel frustrating and rough, look to see what slightly twisted thing might be being created. It is you who are out of rhythm, for the Divine creates perfectly.

Not one thing can be out of place or time in this universe. The Divine knows all and all proceeds under divine super-vision, which is simply another name for the universal laws that guide the flow. Every motion and action in your life is divine energy connected to divine consciousness and ordered by divine sanity. Keep seeing it, keep saying it, keep living it, keep thinking it, and the grace and magic of it all will grow in your life.

DIVINE SANITY
Nothing is given that is not to be used. It would indeed be ridiculous for the Divine to spend life force energy to create dead, unoccupied forms. All universal truths may be known through common sense for they are common. We are made, ordered, and maintained within these compassionate laws, and if you just look and listen they are easy to recognize and know.

Imagine yourself standing before the all-knowing Creator. Become now as this Being knows you. Can you even imagine how well this Being knows you and your capabilities? How much you are valued? You are constantly catching up with your Creator's ever-present, ever-increasing knowledge of your totality. By merging into your inner core, your simple emergence place, you can have a new experience moment-by-moment of this great self who you are, as the Creator reveals you to you. You are being created constantly.

Copyright by Penney Peirce 2011

Milarepa's Wisdom

"How senseless to disregard one's life by fighting foes

Who are but frail flowers,

How foolish to spend your lifetime without meaning

When a precious human body is so rare a gift."

—Milarepa

Allowing Destiny to Unfold

I recently found this piece of writing I did after I had had a stream of clients who had lost motivation for what they'd been doing successfully for a long time, and who were now feeling rudderless, not yet able to find the sense of their destiny-direction. I asked my inner voice, or Inner Perceiver, what was entailed in finding and embodying one's destiny.

Notice the feeling of being "stuck" in the old, of resisting what feels old. Notice that this experience is characterized by a sense of contraction or clenching of your energy flow. Your mind is doing this, by trying to identify and define a whole new pattern before it is revealed experientially to your body. The left brain will truly be the last part of you to know, so let it rest. The new life, the new pattern of destiny, must unfold; it doesn't come to you like a ball thrown from the heavens. It is more like a seed sprouting from your center, and gently, in perfect timing, unfolding its shoots, leaves, and roots. Your body and the world around you act as the soil and water, the training of your mind to let go of projecting into the future for answers and instead to drop into the deep dark within-place is the nutritious fertilizer. Faith in your own soul's plan and ability to evolve you effortlessly is the water and sunshine.

Next, look for the shoulds, have-tos, and can'ts that underlie the contractions you feel. Example: "I have to pay the bills, so I can't just stop and start over, or do something I love. I should be responsible." These are ideas that come from the limited mind, the old sacrificial way of being. Pause and temporarily disengage from these left-brain negative, declarative statements. Then, let go of the pictures connected to these statements that cause grief, like imagining your downward spiral into poverty, illness, loss, and abandonment. Unplug from those images. Take the negative electrical charges out of your personal field, by imagining that they are grounded out of existence in the light of your soul, the same way static transfers from your body to another substance. You might experience these charges as your "buttons" or "triggers," fears that cause instantaneous contractive reactions in your personality and organism. Dissolve them. Move into neutrality and openness.

Next, let anything be OK. Be with things in the moment, just as they are. There is no NEED for change, as all is well right now. When you can truly relax into the truth of that, you will next feel that it's fine for anything to occur, and that what comes to you will arise from your soul's wisdom, which is always evolutionary. Pay attention to what you want to do NOW, and do each thing with childlike interest. You have emerged from the dark forest into the sunlit meadow filled with flowers, birds, butterflies, and a gurgling stream. It is a new, spacious world. And not knowing what's possible to discover, not holding an outcome in mind, simply experience each new thing as though you are a highly alert animal. Hear and relay the inner flow, noticing that it is the motive of both your own soul AND the collective consciousness of all souls, not separating from the flow-through to judge it. It will move you naturally from one experience to another.

Notice people again and rejoin the interaction. See their light and how they would be with fully open hearts. Turn around your judgments to allowings and express yourself freely; give what you want to give, what brings you pleasure. As you enjoy the people more will gather. Enjoy basking in your own light—the soft fuzz of its penetrating healing, effortless creativity, and magic. Enjoy the light of the others. Enjoyment is a powerful attractive force.

Now then, thoughts of new interests and the opportunities to experience them will come. Great people will emerge and you will not feel as though you are the misfit or pioneer in the wilderness forever. You are at the center of a large and loving family with perfect understanding and feeling. Allow it to emerge around you.

We, your family, come to you through your vibration, we speak through your vibration, and all action comes on this wavelength. Do this now: stabilize your desired experience of life. Do it first in your imagination. Imagine sweetness with effortless power to create, which means alignment of frequencies among the dimensions of yourself, so soul and flow can be experienced in all its nuances. Focus on a quality of ideas, then on a specific idea at a time. This acts as a magnet to draw better and better ideas and opportunities. When you receive an idea of what you want, ask for help from the collective consciousness, from all the beings. Don't feel you must ever work entirely alone; this is an old idea.

Destiny is not in the future. It resides in you now and fuels your every move. Do not let old mind habits, the clutter of the ages, interfere with your smooth transition.

Copyright by Penney Peirce, 2011

MY NEXT LIFE by George Carlin

I want to live my next life backwards: You start out dead and get that out of the way.

Then you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day. Then you get kicked out for being too healthy. Enjoy your retirement and collect your pension.

Then when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work 40 years until you're too young to work.

You get ready for High School: drink alcohol, party, and you're generally promiscuous.

Then you go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, and you have no responsibilities. Then you become a baby, and then... You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in Spa-like conditions—central heating, room service on tap, and then... You finish off as an orgasm.

I rest my case.

(I have been informed that this piece was actually written by comedian Sean Morey)

Frequency Is Now in Paperback!

New in paperback (after almost 3 years in hardback!), Frequency now comes with five downloadable audio companions to further enhance your work with your personal vibration and home frequency. Access the downloads page at Beyond Words Publishing: http://www.beyondword.com/penneypeirce/

Writing a Poem as a Sacred Act, Part 2

Looking back through my collection of poetic punctuation marks, I see they describe many very human moments of walking the path toward spiritual fulfillment. The Path has its ups, downs, and sudden turns, yet it also follows inherently orderly principles. I am mostly fascinated with what is simple, ordinary, childlike, and at the same time profound and symbolic of these compassionate universal laws. What creates a living state of awareness, a contagious mood, the timeless pause?

I'm not so motivated to write a great poem structurally, as I am in catalyzing "real moments" and turning on the heart's light switch. I'm also interested in the differences in the way men and women perceive the path to spirit. Culturally, we seem to have accepted a predominantly male priesthood's ideas of abstinence, detachment, and overcoming the sinful body and emotions with mental discipline as the only truths about how to reach heaven.

As a woman, I've always felt that the earth has great dignity, wisdom, and light and is far from being an evil force or a place of suffering. All actions—be they sane, insane, compassionate, or selfish—exist within the body of the Great Knower/Lover. To reject part of our totality is to miss the wide road to enlightenment. I believe human emotion and the capacity to feel is our saving grace; it is what differentiates us from the minerals, plants, animals—even the angelic realm—and makes humanity such an important cosmic experiment. To feel passion and know the inner fire allows us to evolve consciously and intentionally. And thus, we can drive the evolution of the physical plane and accelerate the flow of consciousness through heightened yearning. To me, this is the heart of poetry.

To accept everything about our humanness and love it with the compassion of the Great Mother is to enter into a union with Spirit that gives much greater enlightenment than can be attained by moral dictates. We must learn to trust the natural laws inherent in our cells, in the mechanism of perception itself, and fall into the formless order, as the fast-flying Arrow of Truth ironically sometimes lands in the all-enveloping, deep, dark Lake of Joy.

I started thinking about truth and joy as aspects of the same thing when I received the I Ching's hexagram 58, Tui, The Joyous Lake, as an answer to a question. The hexagram is composed of two identical trigrams—above: The Joyous, Lake, and below: The Joyous, Lake. The description says it is characterized by "the smiling lake," and "joy is indicated by the fact that there are two strong lines within, expressing themselves through the medium of gentleness." It goes on to say that, "Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in social intercourse. In this way one assumes the right attitude toward God and man achieves something." The image is described: "A lake evaporates upward and thus gradually dries up; but when two lakes are joined they do not dry up so readily, for one replenishes the other. It is the same in the field of knowledge. Knowledge should be a refreshing and vitalizing force."

Truth is something that really does not have to be regulated and monitored as our left brains are wont to do; it is encoded in the inner blueprint of our etheric body, organizing us from the inside in intricate harmony. We can relax about saving ourselves; we are already saved. We can relax about drowning in the void of the quiet black Lake of Joy; a huge part of us is always "dead," existing in the ecstatic nonphysical realms where diamond light is more evident than emptiness. Writing a poem is the sacred act of merging truth and joy, language and direct feeling, earth with water with fire with air.

What characterizes our planet is its feminine, watery nature. We are creatures born of water, capable of breathing water as we gestate. We think we leave the liquid state at birth, yet we are really liquid light; our consciousness flows. Our hearts melt. Our fears evaporate. And our soul can feel parched. Our mind can freeze up without poetry and prayer and devotion and awe. In these days, we are returning to Her and the knowledge of an energetically fluid—not solid—world.

The journey into spirit, as I experience it, is not through the air, flying over the flooded rivers and streams, nor into the far reaches of outer space. It's not about collecting more information, even of the highest ilk. To evolve we must dive. First into the waters of our own emotions, and into those of humanity as a whole, then down into matter itself. We must learn to breathe matter, to condense ourselves into stone, losing our superficial sight, where eventually, if we wait attentively, a new spacious world of liquid light appears, which has been present all along. Then, enveloped in a greater freedom, we can hear the original Word, and on that spiral of sound, the Poem, wind ourselves back out to our Home place where every ephemeral dream is dissolved and the one real thing is remembered.

I’m deep down
in the living stone
the breathing rock
news travels slow in here
no sight, no sound
the self squeezed out of me
forced surrender of will
a world of patience and waiting
of sensing with the bones
knowing is sure
pervasive
the stone is the last step
towards God


DIPPING TOWARD SEARCHLIGHT, NEVADA
long long view down Rt. 95 line drive
through lake bottom haze
creosote bush olive green forever
datura somehow rooted in the shoulders
and flowering big white bells
signs declare state boundaries
owners’ imprints shift
but a second until the land,
the land takes authority again
dissolving all definition into
its deep familiarity with itself—
so deep it doesn’t know I’m here
driving so fast and straight
in this old slow dream

Copyright by Penney Peirce 2011

Writing a Poem as a Sacred Act, Part 1

The urge to keep a journal and write poems seized me early. Inspired by several years when my family lived on a farm in Kansas, I penned this preteen masterpiece: "The most beautiful time in Kansas, I think/Is when the sky turns shades of blue, gray, and pink/This is the time when the breezes are few/And this is the time when the insects are, too." Luckily, keeping on does refine one's sensibilities and craft! Yet even in this juvenile rhyme, there's a seed of the reverence I've always felt for nature, for the way it becomes the Teacher if we can really be quiet and listen.

I carry a journal on airplanes and hikes, to mountaintops, beaches, and foreign countries. A poem is such a good way to distill the essence of a confusing or inspiring experience by blending actual detail with feeling to find the core spiritual message. After the last line mysteriously appears, as though from some inner master, I often feel sublimely wide-eyed, relieved, and wiser.

There have been times when a poem pressured me insistently, practically screaming at me to pull the car over and get a pen and paper from my purse. Then it would explode out in a rhythm all its own like a frilly belch or series of comical hiccups. At other times, I'd hear a phrase that felt like a first line, though I had no idea what the poem might be about. Sometimes a round bulge in my solar plexus would rise slowly to my chest, exciting me, and I'd know there was something that wanted to be said. If I could listen closely, and feel for the rhythm, the opening line would slide out, like a baby from the birth canal, setting the tone for the rest to flow upon.

Writing a poem is such a fascinating and magical thing. So often the words aren't there at first. It's just a mood that captures the whole body, and the mood is like a blueprint that patterns the mind and filters the words. If I stay in it, merged and a servant, the pattern picks the particular flow of sounds. The first thought is often only one plain garment that wraps itself around the meaning the poem seeks to reveal. The whole costume comes into view only because I start to dress myself—the lacy blouse leads to the short socks and black flats, to the purple slacks, to the long scarf, to the rakish beret. Et, voila! Zee outfit!

cool breeze
warm fire
full moon
easy chair
empty plates
soft words
sweet songs
tall tales
short sips
long life

Copyright by Penney Peirce 2011

Join Penney and Simran Singh on 11:11 Radio

Penney will be the guest on the wonderful 11:11 Radio show hosted by Simran Singh, Thursday September 8 at 4pm PT. Please join them for an enlightening hour. The interview will be available on itunes later.