3. MY EXPERIENTIAL DIARY IN PROSE

Session One. January 9 2003

Today was my first proper session with Peter since meeting with him before Christmas. I have agreed to meet six times so he can give me a full introduction to his work.

We spoke for a while, and it was then that he first talked me through his ‘Head, Heart and Hara’ meditation. It was different to anything I had experienced before. I had never thought about my awareness as something I could move. Although I have done many different types of relaxation some of which get you to concentrate on different areas of your body this was something else entirely.

Peter then asked me to open my eyes and keeping my awareness in my hara, to look out from my centre. I was feeling very relaxed but I wasn’t able to completely switch my thinking head off. It was all strange to me but in a very nice way. I felt very strongly in touch with myself, an inner self, in a way I had not conceived of. He then asked me to look at him but although I tried I felt as though I would lose the sense of self I had just discovered.

Peter then asked if I would be willing to try out his special form of tantric pair meditation – resonation - and we moved to sitting on stools opposite, face-to-face and eye-to-eye with each other. I found this really difficult to do mainly because I felt uncomfortable with his sitting so close to me. I could feel all sorts of old issues rising up within me. He tried to get me to really look at him but I found it incredibly intimate and felt paralysed inside. I experienced a feeling of being backed up against a wall.

We moved back to the chairs and talked about what had happened. I felt as though he had triggered within me my core issue. I couldn’t help but reflect on how long it might take in psychotherapy before enough trust was developed to talk about it. Yet I found myself telling this stranger about my Black Hole, that sense within my being of incompleteness, my flaw, my deep need. The private space that I try to fill with food although I know it won’t even begin to satisfy the hunger that radiates from within.

He asked me if I would try again but this time I could set the distance and would not have to do anything, he asked if I would just try and show him how I felt. Well I thought I could do that and what an amazing experience it turned out to be!

As I sat there in front of him I began to think about the space within me that I think of as my Black Hole. I started to get in touch with what it feels like to have such a space and ‘saw’ in my mind’s eye what I imagined it would look like. Well was I surprised! I had always thought in terms of a small neat little hole like the centre of a Polo mint. But I found myself in a desert landscape cut across as far as I could see with this bloody great chasm! Boy was I shocked and worried! How could it be that big? How could I cope with having that at the centre of my being?

But amazingly enough I found that not only could I cope with it I could stand there and feel it, experience it. Not only that but I knew that somehow it was Peter’s gaze that was making it possible. He was helping me to stay there, it was as though he was with me, supporting me. And yet I could see him sitting opposite me at the same time.

And as I sat there looking at him looking back at me I began to imagine ways to change the inner landscape I was also experiencing, within me. I saw trees reaching out with wide green branches, growing up from inside the bottomless crack, a beautiful oasis formed off to one side, palm trees grew around a small still pool. I saw myself scatter handfuls of seeds and watched as stately flowers developed in all the colours of the rainbow.

As time passed I found that I could breathe into my hara as Peter had been suggesting earlier. As I did so I could feel this incredible energy like a deep lake, I was sitting within it and I was aware that at the same time it was within me. It was amazingly powerful and almost palpable, yet I found my head getting in the way as my awareness kept jumping about. I wanted to stay connected to this wonderful feeling yet it was so new to me I wasn’t sure what to do or how to sustain it.

I had lost track of time when Peter broke the contact. We sat for some moments in silence then he indicated we return to our seats. I described my experience and he explained it in terms of a soul landscape, similar to a shamanic journey and unusual so early. I do like to be different! I also told him how I had felt like running for the hills but was so glad I hadn’t.

There is a part of me that feels a connection to him in a deep inner way. It was as if he looked into my soul and it felt amazing. I don’t remember ever having had an experience that is remotely similar. I feel different, as though something has shifted within me. I’m not sure if it was because I dared to look at my Black Hole or the fact that Peter made it possible. This hara meditation certainly feels like a direct way to communicate and words seem inadequate to describe it.

Peter has given me some of his writings on the subject. It makes such sense to me. In the West we are just so wrapped up within our heads that we have lost touch with another way to communicate. In Japan they understand what it means to talk from your belly. They know that the hara is the centre of the soul but we think anything below the waist is sexual and have forgotten how to connect with another being on a purely spiritual level. We have cut ourselves off from this wonderful source of wisdom because of this interpretation. Each and every one of us has within our being a gateway to our deeper selves. I see now that my Black Hole was a portal to my inner being. I found the experience amazing and I can’t wait to go back for more.

Session Two. 23^rd January 2003.

We talked for a long time today. I told Peter some of the changes I have noticed in myself since our first session, and those which other people have observed. The main difference has been my mood. I have felt much calmer and noticeably happier.

It is hard to explain the deep change I feel has taken place. It is as though a different aspect of my being has woken up, an aspect which is healthier. I have stopped wanting to eat sweet things and have bought a fruit press. I start the day with fresh orange juice and have found it quite natural to eat more fruit and vegetables and I feel fantastic.

I have told several of my friends about my experience with Peter and fully expected them to ask for his phone number! If I had been on the receiving end of such information I would want to find out more for myself. Am I seeking on a deeper level? One friend said she admired my bravery! Perhaps I overstated the anxiety I first experienced. The meditation with Peter was so incredible I wish I could give them a taste of how I feel inside, that I could communicate the change. I mentioned practicing the meditation with me but no takers so far.

Today Peter introduced me to some of the practices involved with this way of communication. These included techniques to tune into the same wavelength as the other person via their facial expression. I hadn’t thought about it in such terms before but obviously we communicate with our faces and especially our eyes. If you form your own face into the same expression, you are able to feel within your own body what feeling goes with that expression. What an amazingly simple revelation! However, theory aside, I couldn’t do it for laughing! I couldn’t get the hang of the vowel sounds either. I don’t know how he stayed so patient with me because I was beginning to irritate myself!!

Anyway he rescued me by suggesting we try another eye-contact meditation. It was so much easier this time and I had no problem with him sitting so close to me. It wasn’t such a visual experience this week but I did have a sense of hearing and following someone singing. I was left with the feeling I need to discover my inner voice. The meditation was wonderful and I actually had to touch myself to reinforce my physicality as I felt somewhat unbounded. This was apparently because I was in touch with my soul, wow! I am again lost for words to describe the wonder of it. I almost can’t believe looking into someone else’s eyes could be so incredibly powerful. The man has such a gift. What would I give to be able to do this with other people?

Peter explained afterwards about felt sounds and some more about the vowel sounds he had tried to teach me earlier. He spoke about the ‘tones’ of voice we use and how these are an inner expression of inner tones of feeling. If we ‘tune into’ these moods as basic feeling tones of awareness, we can become more aware of the condition of our inner being and open up to the communication from the deeper aspects of ourselves. It all made sense to me and I remembered reading about these in the material he gave me to read last time.

We talked about the process of getting in touch with the ‘felt sense’ of the other by taking on their facial expression and how this creates a ‘resonance’ between their ‘being’ and your own. It really is quite beautiful. I can’t help but feel what a shame it is that we don’t all communicate with each other on that level. This life would not feel so lonely if we could connect to our felt-sense of each other and that soul resonance.

Peter explained how the ‘resonation’ can be used for healing. If you alter your own felt sense by breathing in light the other will feel the change and ‘lighten’ in response. Amazing really but by god it works!

I tried to explain how I think I ‘work’ with people on an intuitive level, kind of how I paint really. But I have a sense of being behind a glass screen and not in-touch with my own body sense. I felt this was why I had found the earlier exercises difficult. (That and the fact that I had really wanted to do the eye-contact meditation again!!) I have a sense that something important will happen through the meditation but I’m not sure what I mean by that.

Session Three. 30th January 2003.

I asked to see Peter a week early because I had a few odd experiences which bothered me. I had caused myself to worry and had lost my sense of centre. I didn’t want to have to deal with it for another week if it was alright to see him. I am not sure about boundary issues around this work as my only frame of reference is psychotherapy. Anyhow he agreed to see me.

I explained what had occurred and he put it down to teething problems with this process. He asked me if I could get in touch with the feelings I described and to show him while sitting opposite him in resonation. Well I tried is all I can say. I looked everywhere for them. I took myself back to try and recall the feelings of anxiety. In my mind’s eye I saw myself enter a forbidding castle ruin, I looked down dark tunnels, went through dark doorways, I even tried throwing myself off a cliff to see if I could resurrect a sense of what I had experienced. Every time I felt I was getting close the fear just evaporated.

I began to wonder if I had somehow concocted it all as an excuse to see Peter earlier than arranged. I told him I couldn’t find the feelings but we stayed in resonation. He began to give me instructions to follow but I don’t remember many of them. I do recall the one to look into the black of his eyes, to see the depth and safety within. I ‘saw’ the iron gate of the forbidding castle dissolve, the castle dissolved, the earth itself dissolved. I experienced myself within his eyes and at the same time floating with him in endless space.

I felt myself surrounded and supported within a larger aspect of my being. A feeling field of such incredible magnitude, a sense of self that is no self. The ‘I’ that I think of as me seemed so infinitesimally small in comparison to its vastness. I knew that it is not ‘I’ who ‘have’ a soul but that ‘I’ am part or portion of a soul – a larger awareness - that has me as part of its expression. It was just the most amazing experience and yet again the words I use can do no justice to it.

I remember saying to Peter that rather than teething pains, birthing pains seemed more appropriate. I felt that this was what I had wanted without even knowing it, that some aspect of my larger ‘being’ wanted me to recognise it. I walked home in a snow blizzard without a care. I had never experienced such a ‘high’ in my life. No one would ever take drugs if they realised they could feel like this. I felt as though some new Me was looking out from my eyes. I felt phenomenally peaceful and yet powerfully energised.

Session Four. 6th February 2003

Peter and I talked for two hours about colour and related topics. Last week he had given me to read the chapter of one of his books, all about colour. I found it really interesting especially Steiner’s idea that the colour of the soul is blue.

I had wanted to show him the work I have been doing for collage but I don’t have the car and I can’t carry the boards as they are too heavy. I decided to do smaller versions using blue as the background. I did three in the end with the intention to give him the one he likes best. My reasons are several — the main one to thank him for what he has done for me. I find it so hard to do justice to the profound changes I have experienced in the brief time I have known him. It is no exaggeration to say that working with him has changed my life and how I feel about myself. Every one around me has noticed the changes. Not least the weight loss!!

I have been seeking for this kind of soul connection and understanding for more years than I care to remember. Possibly it has been my life search. I know that six sessions will not be enough for me and I am hoping I will be able to carry on seeing him beyond then.

Another reason is because he gives me more time than we originally agreed to and I want to give him a token of my time. The motifs I have found myself developing in my art have been in direct response to this work and I am hoping he will understand the symbols.

While I worked on the boards I found myself reflecting on my sessions with Peter and wondering where they are leading to. I have complete trust in him which in itself is strange considering the little time we have known each other. Actually I feel sure we must have met in a ‘previous life’ as this connection seems very deep to me. Perhaps it is the result of the resonation but I feel there is something more there. I feel as though I have come home.

 We talked about what I wanted from these sessions and I said it was a good question!! He mentioned four possible directions of potential development: myself, skills to work with others, ‘medium-ship’ or artist. I don’t think we have come to any conclusion. (When I told this to Paula she asked if I had said; “All the above and more please”. I think she knows what I am like!!!)

During today’s session Peter introduced me to the use of colour during resonation. He suggested an exercise where I ‘tuned into’ the colour he ‘embodied’. He began with blue which he darkened and we moved through the colours. Sometimes he told me what colour and I had already ‘felt’ the change, at others I ‘felt’ colours he didn’t mention but confirmed afterwards that I was correct. It was quite exciting to be active in the process rather than passive but my very activity prevented me from letting go into the full experience.

After the resonation he told me of a lucid dream he had 4/5 days earlier. He had been floating above a blue sea that he then decided to sink into. He described the experience and it sounded wonderful. He then told me how he had felt my soul while we had sat together and it too was blue. I began to say that I had not felt it when I found myself within the colour. I know I keep using the word but it really was most incredible. I was within the colour, I was the colour and it was blissful. (Thinking about it as I write this I am wondering if Peter sent it to me, I must ask him.)

In the end I left two boards with him, his favourite as a gift and my favourite as a comparison. He seemed pleased and said he liked them. I said in some way the three represent him, me and where we meet. We talked about my art earlier in the session but I don’t remember much about it. Especially after that amazing experience with blue, my soul is blue, how fantastic! Strange how little I have used it unless mixed with red. I want to know more about the colours as they are so crucial to my art work and my knowledge based on the chakras is clearly limited. Peter’s work has many dimensions to it and many influences not least that of Seth. The book he lent me is brilliant: Seth Speaks, The Eternal Validity of the Soul.

Session Five. 20th February 2003.

This time between sessions has been weird and not too pleasant at that. The day after my last visit I allowed myself to lose touch with my centre and I haven’t been able to find it again. A combination of hormones and feeling a lack of love in my life caused me to feel jealous and trapped. But my loss of centre has actually caused me more concern and the realisation that I have yet to learn how to hold on to it or regain it once lost.

I tried to tell Peter where my head has been for the last two weeks but for once I couldn’t spell it out so avoided the real issue. I did tell him about the distance I feel towards my husband. Peter spoke about the conflict between the inner and outer worlds. That if I am serious about working with him then it is something I shall have to learn to deal with. I assured him that I am serious. It was interesting because he certainly heard what I was saying without me having to actually say it. I guess that is the logos that Heraclitus spoke of and Peter quotes in his writing.

I felt as though in response to the changes I have been experiencing I have been behaving a bit like a child with a torch. I have been running around shining it in everyone’s eyes. Then it seems as if in the last two weeks the shutters have been closed around the source. Peter quoted Steiner who said one should not talk about esoteric experiences. Apparently the root meaning of the word initiate was closed mouthed one.

The trouble is I want to share it with everyone!! My natural inclination has always been to pass on any knowledge I consider to be worth having. I just feel this should be known. And people do ask me what I have been doing because they see the changes in me. Not that I tell all to all that ask, I always explore their openness to spiritual ideas. I am well aware that I would be considered wacky by some if they heard half of what I know to be true. Some people are not yet ready for the truth. Shame really, the human race could do with opening their minds and their hearts a lot more.

We spoke about the focus of our work together and the time we spend talking each week. It is usually three hours and he originally said an hour and a half to two hours. I feel as if I push the boundaries as I love talking to him so much. But it is a joint venture here as he can talk as much as I and he could always ask me to leave. So I don’t feel too guilty. He did say today that he loves talking to me and loves having me there. I felt myself glow inside when he said that.

However there is a financial consideration for both of us. He seems to see something in me that could be developed. I expressed a wish to come every week but he has suggested keeping it at every other but he will book three hours so there is a structure if a rather loose one!!. He mentioned teaching me in a more formal way to train me in what he does. I so want to learn but he made it clear that he doesn’t want to pressure me. He knows money is an issue for me but I think it is worth it. This is not a luxury but a necessity, my soul needs this like my body needs water. I can’t afford to miss this opportunity. I’m so excited.

I did ask him about the blue experience last week and he said something about catching me when my guard was down. So yes it came from him. I also made an observation about the synchronicity between his dream and my painting. He didn’t say anything about that and I’m not sure if the look on his face meant he had or not made the same connection. Or if indeed he didn’t agree. I’m sure he would have said though.

He had an exercise for me to do today and it felt like pulling teeth. He asked me to ‘read’ the eyes of a guy in a photograph. I had never noticed before what he was trying to get me to see. He said I will have to trust him that such practices will help my development with the resonation. I have always wanted to run before I can walk!! But of course I trust him so I tried.

I got stuck with the idea that I was just projecting my thoughts onto this guy but this lead to a crucial insight. My psychotherapy training has caused me to think in terms of being an empty vase. A good therapist is supposed to stay neutral and watch out for their own ‘stuff’ they are in danger of projecting onto the client. I realised this is the glass wall I experienced during our resonation in the second session. My bloody training is getting in the way of this process. This is all about feeling with yourself, your body and your very being, needing to be able to read the reflection of the other within yourself. You can’t do that behind a glass wall it is just too impersonal. No wonder therapy takes so long. You may as well talk to a brick wall as to an analyst!!!!

The trouble is the glass wall is a handicap to me being able to read myself and be open to the silent communications from my hara. I shall have to take action!!!

Journal entries: 23rd February - 3rd March 2003.

Over the weekend after seeing Peter I started walking. It was partly in reaction to something in Seth and just because I wanted to. As I walked I experimented with shifting my consciousness and sometimes would stop to check if my awareness was centred in my hara. It became a walking meditation. I would notice how I was walking and use it to get in touch with my inner being. I began to see my body as an outer reflection of my inner state and to teach myself how to read it. I plan to walk at least twice or three times a week. As the mornings lighten I shall try to go after my morning meditation. The thing is I am often meditating for an hour now and I get up at six as it is. Oh well I will just have to try.

I have been visualising smashing my glass wall and breaking the vase.

Monday.

As I sat to meditate this morning I couldn’t shake the feeling that I owed Peter some money so I wrote him a letter. I mentioned pushing the boundaries but also not really knowing where they are. I also told him about the deep connection I feel with him. I didn’t do a copy and I don’t remember any more of what I wrote. I tried to send him a psychic message that a letter was on its way.

Before I went to sleep I asked my dreaming self to also attempt a communication. This is what I dreamt:

I hand delivered the letter on a Saturday. He had another client with him who I thought saw me. When walking home I noticed some large white flowers like enormous crocus but I didn’t go too close as I was ‘walking’. I did however look very closely at a purple one as I passed it. The petals were like mulberry paper, semi translucent with veins. I thought about how my friend Annie would love to  photograph them.

Tuesday.

Peter phoned to say I did not owe him any money. I was at work so he left a message with Steve. (He did not ask what it was about so I didn’t tell him.) Peter had also said I could call back and I tried but he was with someone.

Wednesday.

Spoke briefly to Peter as he called back just as we were going to leave for Canterbury. Steve and the children were in the room and I felt inhibited. He made reference to my comment about not really knowing what our sessions are about. I said something about being a bit in the dark, he replied there is more to tell me but he has been waiting for certain things to occur. One being my finishing the Seth book he lent me, I told him I finished it at the weekend. He then asked if he has told me of his connection with the Seth material. I responded in the negative. He has an historical and biographical connection to tell me about! I can’t wait. I told him I don’t have a problem with anything Seth has to say and that I had planned to look for his books today. Peter said I can borrow his. That will be nice! It was lovely just to hear his voice. It reconnected me. I am so sure we have known each other before. I really want to ask him about it.

Thursday

I have been working on my anger today, prompted by a phone conversation with a friend. I had told her of the tension in my neck and she mentioned it as being a storing area for anger. Well it struck a chord in me and I have been reflecting on how I have swallowed my anger over the years to protect my relationship. As I no longer bury my feelings with food, (hence considerable weight loss!) I seem to be embodying it. So I decided to stomp it out along the beach and managed to walk the furthest so far!

I kept noticing red stones as I walked so I began to pick them up. As I looked at them in my hand I thought about my gall stones, little hard lumps of unexpressed anger. I began to throw them away as I didn’t want them anymore. I could feel the colour red inside me and ‘embodied’ the energy of it. I felt amazingly powerful and awesomely destructive. It seemed as if I contained enough power to destroy the world. I laughed at my fantasy releasing the energy as I grounded myself in reality.

As I continued to walk I started to notice how much blue there was along the beach. The covers of the boats, walls, beach huts everywhere I looked I saw blue. So much blue that I had not taken in before. And they all sang out to me as I found myself recalling the blue experience with Peter. I felt such peace within my being I smiled to myself. I had recovered my centre all by myself and it was wonderful.

Friday.

On returning home I discovered a large brown envelope from Peter containing forty pages entitled Aspect Psychology and Morphic Resonation. It is all very interesting and tied together a lot of loose ends in my mind by explaining what is happening when we ‘meditate’ together.

Session Six. 6th March 2003

What an interesting session today was! At the beginning I told Peter about starting to go for walks and the experience I had with red and blue. I also mentioned ‘smashing’ my glass wall and he had noticed the change as soon as I walked in, he couldn’t sense the wall! Amazing.

He had not received the ‘notice’ about my letter but as I left last time he had meant to tell me it was fine to contact him if I wanted to. I think he was meaning a phone call though. But on some level I felt he had expected to hear from me.

I had taken with me a ‘fall-back’ letter asking Peter about the connection I feel with him, that I feel as if he knows who I am. I gave it to him to read because I could not speak the words. I suspected I would not be able to ask which is why I had written it in the first place. He seemed most interested in my comment about not having been in a body for a long time. He said my letter was nothing to feel embarrassed about but I got the impression he interpreted the connection in terms of our greater souls having ‘touched.’

He had also had a ‘red’ experience recently, during a resonation. The red had been brick/brown in shade and so like mine. He used the word synchronistic to describe this and the fact that he had advised someone to do some exercise to develop his special awareness! Interesting or what? Perhaps there is a telepathic link between us on some level after all.

He told me a lot about himself today and some very interesting experiences he has had along his way. It doesn’t feel right to record what he told me but I believe he is a man with a mission and I am in it up to my neck!!!

He had some more exercises planned today. He wanted me to practice some of the ones I had struggled with before. He got me to ‘face’ and ‘embody’ different emotions: vulnerable, suspicious, cold and detached and then angry. I did the last one best but it caused me to giggle a lot. It seemed odd to show these feelings when it was not what I was actually feeling. I think I did okay though.

He then asked me to show him open and receptive, no giggling here, then to get in touch with the sense of connection I had mentioned in my letter. Wow is about all I can say. I can’t describe the experience at all. I was right there in the room looking at him but was miles away at the same time. A few thoughts wandered through my head but I just felt I wanted to soak up all he could give me. As we sat face to face all I can remember is asking in my head for more of whatever it was that was going on between us, and he just kept giving it. 

Sometimes he moved further away then back in again, at times our faces were so close I thought our noses would touch. I had a wonderful sense of filling up and moving back only to fall in again, where I was falling I knew not, into his soul I think. I was left with the impression that he has a better sense of who I am but I remain in the dark.

I found it incredibly hard to come back to myself. Several times Peter broke eye-contact and I thought the resonation was over only to reconnect and find myself falling back into his eyes. In the end he made the sign of the cross and it felt he was trying to break the connection. I shut my eyes and lent forward, he placed his hand on my head and I felt blessed. It was simply joyous, words fail me, again. My heart was singing fit to burst.

At one point there was a palpable heat between us which I think radiated from him, such a warmth. I am left feeling that I love this man with my whole being, a deep soul love without any sexual or romantic feelings to get in the way, just incredible warmth. I could hardly speak afterwards. I managed to ask for a glass of water. We didn’t talk about it. I walked back home completely spaced out.

Journal entry:

Oh my dear God, wow, wow and wow again!

I had an amazing phone call with Peter this afternoon about last week. He found one of our connections during the resonation: A white Byzantine church with him as the priest and me a young man, a member of his congregation for whom he had great affection. He called me by another name, Thomas/Tomas. He felt compelled to make the sign of the cross and then to place his hand on my head as a blessing, exactly as I received it! My other impressions he also confirmed, he appearing taller and the incredible warmth between us.

It was great to talk to him although I had found it really hard to call. He made it clear it was not a problem to do so. He actually thanked me for the experience as he found it very powerful. I laughed and said I had just been sitting there!

He is working at a fast rate with me and said he admired my bravery. (Him too? I don’t see it as brave at all, am I missing something?) He has at times wondered if he has given me too much information but I made it clear that I can handle it. We spoke about so many things, as usual and I’m not sure I can recall all of it.

He did mention how he avoided religious symbolism but is noticing it more and more in his work. It is clearly deeply spiritual and I am not sure I had any idea about how deep it really is.

He had given me his book ‘New Age to New Gnosis’ to read and I told him how impressed with it I had been. It is his latest writing and not many have read it so far. I feel privileged to have been given it. I am in awe of his mind, I said, and how he writes, drawing so many different aspects together. I am lucky to have found him as if ‘luck’ has anything to do with it. I was meant to find him. I have a job to do.

He mentioned The Work and I explained that Thursday had brought home the gravity of it all. I realise that although I have a choice in this I know I am in it up to my neck and that is how I want it to be.

I mentioned the feedback I am getting about being different and that I really feel it. We spoke about my ‘training’, he doesn’t like the word but there are stages to go through although he can’t say how long it takes. His aim is for me to become aware of my full spiritual power and to know how to use it, yes!

We covered so many topics I can’t remember right now but I feel wonderfully reassured by talking to him. I explained how hard it was for me to make the call and he acknowledged my difficulties around boundaries. He mentioned again he was aware of the change in my aura as soon as I walked in the door on Thursday. He also mentioned meeting other people he has worked with, particularly Michael. I must remember to tell him my connection with that name.

Session Seven. 20th March 2003

 I was not happy this morning as we had received a letter putting up the rent by £50 a month. This had the effect of shifting my head into the material world and my plan to be centred went to pot!

After burbling on about the rent I talked to Peter about my snappiness due to PMT. He suggested an alternative idea to counting to ten in that I allow myself time to experience the emotion of feeling over loaded, under pressure, irritated etc: To allow that to become a facial expression and hold it, then, within that experience, to still feel my centre and to come from there rather than to snap straight away, to keep, or find, my centre through the other feelings. It made sense so I will have to try it.

Peter talked about the three stages of resonation: 1. just looking at the other’s eyes, 2. making contact with one aspect observed, using resonation, 3. bringing about a change. It is important that three can only be attempted after one and two. My difficulty is knowing when two has worked.

We did an exercise where Peter embodied a feeling and expressed it in his face and eyes. He then wanted me to connect with that feeling using resonation. For me to gradually try and bring about a change in him, by experiencing it myself. He wanted me to note two things: 1. when I made contact and 2. when he was back in his eyes.

We did this twice to start with. Peter took on an expression of being ‘out of it’ and I was to bring him back. The second time he put himself ‘behind’ and asked me to bring him ‘forward’ until he was looking out from his eyes. So I tried and things seemed to be going okay until a little thought went through my head: ‘I can see you’ and I started to laugh. I explained the reason for my outburst and Peter said he understood why that idea should go through my head because it had worked. We then sat in the chairs and talked. I am a bit hazy about the details though. The reason being that eye contact with him automatically affects my consciousness.

We talked some more about the vowel sound aspect of his work and he wanted to show me a video of a singer who embodies the emotions involved in the words of what she sings. I had no objections so we moved into the back room. She really was amazing, such expression facially, physically and verbally. I found it very moving especially the more melancholy songs. When she stopped singing it was like she was someone else! She had come back to herself. She was truly fantastic. I told Peter I had been singing in the car recently while between clients. An expression of how great I have been feeling.

I told him about an insight I had recently while reading New Age to New Gnosis. I was once told that children sometimes come into our lives to help us change direction. I had interpreted Ben’s appearance as helping us to stop being any more involved with the people we were working for. The other day I just suddenly ‘knew’ he came not for that reason but to stop me continuing my psychotherapy training. I see clearly now that it was the wrong path for me. Yet some of the skills I learnt have been useful.

We also spoke about our phone conversation and how I felt afterwards. I mentioned the feeling that it was just one of our connections he ‘found’ last time and if he had a sense of it before I wrote my letter? But I am not sure he gave me a clear answer to that question. He mentioned wanting to know my sense of it and hence the focus of his enquiry into my soul.

There was so much to talk about there wasn’t time for a resonation and I expressed my feelings of loss when we don’t. He spoke about The Work and our work together. I asked him if he had any ideas as he had mentioned using resonation to discover ‘future’ involvements as well as ‘past’. He had wanted to ask me the same question. I responded that I had found myself talking to a friend about writing his ideas for a wider audience than they are currently aimed at. I felt it sounded arrogant of me to verbalise it but he wasn’t offended. Indeed he acknowledged that his level of writing is very deep.

He told me a little about the responses of other peoples to the different aspects of his work. I think he was trying to let me know that not many are interested in the deeper spiritual side. Yet it is exactly this area that feeds me the most and what I feel I have been looking for.

I think he is keen to get on with whatever it is he wants us to do and seemed a bit unsure how we can avoid so much talking. He asked what I thought and I replied I see it as part of the process, that there has been a shift in our relating and to some extent we have to go with it.

I spoke about the two week gap being too long as it is almost as if we have to get reacquainted each time. He is prepared to see me between sessions if both our commitments will allow. But he didn’t want to pressure me! Doesn’t he realise I would move mountains to do this work? Come hell or high water!!!

 Before I left he went through the vowel sounds and the postures that go with them. He made a note of them for me and I said I will practice them. We arranged to meet next Monday evening. I can’t wait!

I have an increased sense of responsibility about all this. But I recognise the important spiritual aspect to it and the need for the healing this work can achieve. This feels like my life’s work.

Session Eight. 24th March 2003

This is our first ‘in between’ session that I will refer to as Peter’s time as opposed to mine. We met on a Monday evening.

Peter wanted us to work with the vowel sounds that are such an important aspect to this work. As I understand his philosophy our internal communication is based on different ‘tonalities’. We can ‘embody’ these different tones in terms of colour. But most important is how we speak. The tones of voice we use to express ourselves. There is a deeper esoteric level to these tones but I’m still getting my head round that. 

We again went through the positions, facial expressions and the sounds themselves. We then spent time with the Eh and Ee. We practiced them in eye-contact taking it in turns to affect the other. To explain further: Eh has a downward motion, when Peter was making the sound, even silently, I could feel the downward pull within my being, even when I was saying Ee, which has an out-to-the-side motion. Then Peter tried to stay with Ee while I drew him down with my Eh. It was good fun actually. It was quite amazing how powerful a tone change can be!

I kind of liked being drawn down and wanted to stay there, however Peter demonstrated how Ah can be used to draw another back up again! I was somewhat reluctant as I had hoped we would do a full resonation. I don’t feel as connected to my soul without it. However I trust that he knows what will help me in the long run. And he has said these practices will help. I have already noticed a difference internally by using and practicing the whole movement and sounds. 

We then did some work on consonants and we used our names as examples. I was really interested in Peter’s choice of words to describe K, R and N. K=kingly, upright, straight backed. R has a roar to it and N is very knowing. His name: P=POWER and how, he made me jump! T=touch, R is part of Er the last vowel sound and has a giving motion.

We spoke our names silently to each other using the arm movements with the vowel sounds. We then spoke them in resonation. It really was an interesting session and I reflected on several words on the way home, particularly MEDITATION.

Journal entries:

Thursday 27^th March.

Trouble is ……. I’m not sure what!

I feel really disconnected to my creativity and it’s starting to affect my BA course. I had two tutorials yesterday and I have realised I need to do something different, 3D I think. But I’m not sure about time and commitment. This work with Peter feels like the reason for my life and suddenly art seems unimportant. Have I got the time for both? is what I am asking myself. I know I want to do stronger stuff than just what will sell, I’m not playing at this. I recognise my need to do things on a deeper level or not at all. My friend Isobella’s decision to change to full time has caused me to reflect on my position.

I am wondering whether or not to phone Peter. I don’t know if any of this has to do with the knock-on effect of our work together, part of the process or even some uncertainty on my part. I’m beginning to only really feel alive either when I’m with him or after a joint meditation. I feel in limbo, disconnected – to my menstrual pattern as well as my creativity, and even to some extent my soul, and I miss that most of all.

Saturday 29th March.

Clocks change tonight, Spring forward, hurrah! I love British summertime.

This morning I decided to try and sort things out for myself while walking as I remember I changed my consciousness in the first week I started walking.

I found myself pondering about boundaries, self imposed ones as in my art and also around phoning Peter. It was only this morning and yet I am having trouble remembering the details. That usually indicates a shift in my consciousness, and I certainly changed my mood from heavy and troubled to less so. I felt more lively on my return. I did quite a lot of running and was out for two hours.

I made a decision to call Peter anyway as a way of breaking through self-inflicted barriers. We spoke for about an hour. He thanked me for his pictures, (birthday present), he has hung the three up together and has comments on them! I told him about my walk this morning and what I had been pondering ie my reasons for phoning him. How I have felt disconnected this week, about my art and the course. His comments were very useful, as usual. He pointed out that it is not possible to stay in an ‘up’ mood all the time, moods change, sometimes with menstrual cycles or other cycles. That it is my awareness of the difference that is important, noticing its lack. He noted that my description of being different when with others is down to me not shifting my awareness into my centre.

He has been thinking that we should talk about how to relate to people who are not operating on a deeper level of consciousness.

As usual it was great to talk to him. It helped me to see things clearer and his comments are always spot on. Trouble is I now can’t remember all that we talked about! I am glad I phoned though.

I just remembered one more thing about boundaries sometimes they can be protective, the important thing is not to let other peoples’ moods effect my own.

Tuesday 1st April.

Just wanted to record some dream fragments from last night:

I was with Peter and we were visiting an old, dark and disused house. I’m not clear why we were there but I have a vague idea about contacting someone from our past.

The details are hazy but I remember Peter touching me in a deeply affectionate way, I think my face or cheek. I asked him about Karin and what the implications were. He seemed to think she was okay with it. His touch wasn’t sexual in nature although it had an intimacy about it. I remember leaning into him, feeling his warmth and safety. At some point there was another Me, a third one, but I don’t remember any more about her.

Session Nine. Thursday 3rd April

Oh wow! (again)! Totally amazing resonation today: spot the dream connections.

Peter began by talking about our Work together and about the areas of potential development. He asked me if I had any further thoughts, I didn’t but I waffled a bit! I told him a bit about my dream but not about the touch. I also told him how I tried to reconnect the following night. I had awoken with a really clear idea about something deep which I felt confirmed what I already knew. Unfortunately I didn’t record it and come morning had completely forgotten it. So annoying.

He asked me about the vowel sounds and asked me to go through them. I found that hard, I hate it when someone is looking at me. So he didn’t look directly at me. He made a few corrections then we resonated them together three times. He indicated by tapping me gently as he changed from one to another.

We then talked again, this time about if you are connected to your inner self you are more likely to look within others in your contact with them. This creates a deeper and more rewarding contact for both parties. Being self orientated has little real contact.

We sat for a resonation about 12.30 for about an hour.

I was attempting to relax into the process and to let go of whatever it was I could feel holding me back. I was aware of Peter using some vowel sounds and mirrored some of these with him. I had an image in my mind’s eye of a ship and an anchor. I felt I should anchor myself to Peter so I did then throw myself overboard to sink beneath the waves.

Something clicked in me about our earlier conversation, Peter had talked about reaching into the other so I thought I would try it. I gathered my being and felt my way into him. I could tell from his face that he could feel my touch. I responded to some of his expressions by mirroring them and felt the amplification in our resonating. At some point I felt an incredible energy rise through me and around me.

My intention was all over the place as the experience was so new and incredibly exciting. I found the image of a magnolia flower in my mind and tried to ‘send’ it to Peter. I was aware of several times reaching back into his energy field and could feel our inner aspects meld. The power in that was wonderful. At times I was aware of him smiling in response to me. At another time he seemed cold and distant even forbidding. After my initial uncertainty I perceived that as a challenge and continued to reach into him with my being. Generally I was aware of his response as positive. I felt safe within his being, warm, protected, accepted, welcome and invited. I felt as if I wanted to lean on him.

Our faces stayed very close throughout with very little change in posture, it was very intense and intimate but perfectly comfortable and natural. I felt he was showing me different aspects of himself and at one point I thought about Seth II as Peter seemed almost alien to me in a detached emotionless way.

Afterwards I felt I was almost pulsating with energy. I found it almost impossible to speak and felt myself return from quite a ‘distance’. After some time passed Peter asked what I wanted to do next, stay and talk, or leave and stay with the feeling and speak later on the phone. I expressed a wish to stay but also how hard it was to string a sentence together!

I just wanted to grin like a fool.

It took a while but eventually I was able to verbalize my experience. It seemed to be totally in sequence with him. He was aware of my ‘touch’ and was delighted by it. He had been showing me various aspects of himself, each time going deeper, very deep.

The vowel sounds early on had been the Lord’s Prayer, something he occasionally uses but this had been his most powerful experience with it. At the end he had been aware of our connection going back eons!!! He had thought of my dream and the house in it. I remembered that at some point I too had thought of my dream and so I told him some more details. About his touch and its nature, that it was this that I wondered about Karin’s response to.

Peter felt my dream could be precognitive in relation to our resonation. The night before he and Karin had sat in resonation which had been very deep and powerful. That it was rare for him to experience two such resonations two days running. That Karin’s response in my dream was spot-on and she is okay with our work together because she understands the soul connection involved. (Note to Peter I am a bit hazy about this point so feel free to correct me.)

So I finally mentioned the ‘s’ word! I talked about my difficulty in this area and joked that if this was therapy I would probably be talking about it for years, he laughed at that. I then spoke about my negative body image and its roots in pubescence and adolescence. I always felt I was fat because no one told me my body changes where normal and should be welcomed. I used to feel uncomfortable in my skin but have been aware of how that is changing as I am losing weight.

This work has given me a deep inner sense of connection to my inner being. Somehow this has been radiating outwards. The changes in my body are an outer manifestation of a deep inner change. The tone inside has changed, I no longer need to protect myself with layers of fat. I don’t need it any more so off it goes.

Peter was clear about the non-sexual, but instead deeply spiritual aspect to this work. He spoke about giving clear messages and how I would need to be aware of that when I work with men. I stated I don’t usually have problems at giving off ‘stay clear’ messages!

Oh my, this work is so incredibly exciting I can’t wait for the next instalment!

Journal entries:

Friday 4^th April

Interesting meditation this morning, I woke before 5.30 so meditated then. I was reflecting on yesterday’s resonation and experimented with the vowel sounds of the Lord’s Prayer. There are several I’m not sure about but I think I got the general gist of it. At the end I was recalling Peter’s experience of our connection and also felt a sense of it stretching way back in time. There is so much to discover and I’m so impatient.

I have a strong feeling of change because of yesterday and that resonation with Peter is the key to unlocking different aspects of myself. I feel I need some stabilization within that will come with practice. I feel a real need to explore deep within Peter to find those different aspects and that way our work together will become clearer. I know we have important work to do.

Saturday 5th April.

On my way to work yesterday musing about my meditation I had a clear sense that somehow I have a message for Peter but I have no idea what it may be. I felt that possibly the magnolia flower is significant partly because I dreamt of similar flowers when I ‘delivered’ my letter to him. I thought it would be nice to phone him to share these ideas rather then just call when I feel I need him. However he wasn’t in and by the time he called back this morning my head was in a completely different space.

On my walk this morning I was aware of some tension in my shoulders. I used my inner body awareness to tune into my centre and realised it was not to do with my outer life but my inner one. Something stirred up by Thursday’s resonation, I became aware of my feelings of responsibility in whatever work it is that Peter and I have agreed to do together.

I told him my sense of having agreed to this a long time ago and his feelings were that this must be the case because of the way I had responded so far. He was pleased by what I told him as he knew the time would come when I realised the implications. I told him what had gone through my head on the beach: Oh My God what have I agreed to do?

The image of the anchor on Thursday had a new significance as I really felt the need to anchor myself to him and to rest my head on his shoulder. Some words from the New Testament came into my head: Peter is my rock. At that point I had found a stone which felt significant, it had a channel running through it, and I picked it up for him.

He said he is okay with me leaning on him but although he alone can do it he can’t do it alone. He doesn’t have to. Something shifted between us on Thursday which we both acknowledged as significant. He shared with me a bit about what has been in his head in relation to having experienced two powerful resonations. He found the material for several long letters to his links in Australia. Apparently things have been causing him some concern but he didn’t go into details.

We spoke about humility versus acknowledging one’s power. He told me Paul had struggled with similar issues and would I like to read something he has written on this subject. Of course I would! We spoke quite a lot about religion and his writing New Age to New Gnosis. I told him I had once thought about training as a R.E. teacher, strange but true he also considered that as a career path! I reiterated my feeling that this Work is what I have been looking for, for years. I know inside it is him I have been looking for.

We also talked about ego strength and the need for such to do inner work.

Session ten. Thursday 9th April

In many ways a frustrating session with Peter today, ultimately because I feel as if I wasted the time. I am impatient and Peter has suggested I should trust the process a bit more. He reminded me that it is still early days in our time together and my learning. I always want to run before I can walk!

I had taken a drawing I had done about myself nearly two years ago which I thought Peter might like to see. It has a heart in the centre of concentric colours with three red flashes coming out from the centre. We talked briefly about it. I find it very hard to say much about my art, find it hard to read it objectively. Peter believes I need to become more subjective, something to think about.

He spoke to me about Gurdjieff’s ideas about The Work and gave me a draft copy of the aims and means he has written for the web site. He wanted my opinion, which unfortunately freezes my brain. He had wanted us to put our heads together over it but my head was full of other ideas.

Recently I have wondered if my creativity is going to continue to be expressed through art and therefore if I should stop my degree. I hadn’t painted for weeks and it was beginning to seriously concern me. We talked for an hour and a half before Peter suggested we did a slightly different resonation today to help me get in touch with a felt sense of the issue. I was to allow my thoughts to just flow and try to amplify any feelings I experienced. He sat opposite me and I didn’t have to open my eyes unless I wanted to, but just allow the emotions to show on my face.

I allowed the confusion to enter my being, tuned into the tone, amplified it and then expressed it through my face. I experienced myself exposed on a mountain top, naked and vulnerable. I became surrounded by mountains all baring down on me. I recalled my reaction to a film the day before when a mother who couldn’t cope with her children suffered a mental breakdown.

I began to relive my experience of feeling overwhelmed, when my children were small. I had not been able to cope with the different demands on my time and I had desperately wanted to develop my art. I felt ashamed of the way I had behaved towards the children. I remembered feeling they would be better off without me and longing to go home, thought they would be better off if I was dead.

I tried to open my eyes to look at Peter as the tears flowed. I asked for a tissue and said it was stuff from the past. Peter had picked up my sense of being overwhelmed. We resumed resonation but things get a bit hazy from this point. He spoke to me about the hara centre still being there, even when our head is in turmoil or the heart is feeling pain. Our feet still touch the ground and we can gain strength from being grounded.

I breathed into my centre and reached out my being into his. I found peace and stillness. He spoke quite a lot but my consciousness had shifted and I can’t recall the details. I know he soothed my spirit in regard to the past. He quoted Seth: all experience is vitality to the soul, a different state of being. He reminded me of the blue of my soul, he could still see the blue. It flashed around me and was gone again.

He told me that angels have colours but archangels have a single colour. When I allowed that archangel energy to work through me it would be healing. I had a sense of a great energy surrounding me but I was within a membrane or bubble. I tried to touch it but was frustrated by my efforts. I wanted to give it to Peter so I gathered in the blue and sent it to him. I tried to feel it by expanding my being into his. It almost worked. But I think I tried too hard.

Peter broke off and spoke about returning to myself differently to retain something from the resonation. I told him I couldn’t feel the blue and he linked back into me. I think he tried to send it to me like he had before but I just wasn’t receiving. He told me he was quite black and I reached for that with some success. He seemed to be listening to his inner voice and broke off the contact again.

He reminded me it is still early days and I will have to be patient. If only I could be. The rest is hazy but I told him about my tears and my memories. Went into too much detail about the film which had sparked something off inside. That I could actually speak about that time without the pain is testament to the healing I had received from him.

He mentioned Gurdjieff again and how he saw people as going through the motions of life like automatons. But how people like me and himself had trouble doing that. He told me a little of bringing up his sons on his own. How his office space had been in the lounge and he had to structure his time ruthlessly. He hinted that he has had his hard times too.

We spoke some more about my course and he asked how I saw myself using the time I talked about having if not studying. I mentioned the mess my home is in and he stressed the importance of putting my house in order. He asked what space I have to myself and I realised how cluttered my workroom has become. It is no wonder my creative energy has got stuck, how could it flow around all that mess? Priority no. 1 = clear out my workroom and make space for my art to flow.

He stressed the importance of making a decision about my art, any ambivalence needs resolution otherwise it gets in the way. That it is hard to centre when one’s head is occupied.

On my way home I found myself calling into a friend’s new business and talking about my dilemma. She understood some of the stresses being also on a degree course with the same collage. We shared some of our individual issues and I came to realise that in one sense I am running away from a wall. I had mentioned this possibility to Peter. Things had become tough, I had reached a point of commitment and I was wavering.

I felt much clearer in my mind as I continued on my way home and I was cross with myself for using my time with Peter for such a trivial red herring. I felt there was another issue I had avoided talking about. Our last resonation had altered our relationship and I hadn’t adjusted to the shift. However talking about my process to another friend I realised that it had been necessary as part of my inner clearing.

Resonation was like a tidal wave washing through my inner being, crashing on to my beach of awareness. The next step was to beach comb through the psychic flotsam and jetsam to find any treasures and clear up the rubbish. Earlier this morning I had dithered over what clothes to wear as, for the first time since dropping two dress sizes, I had felt exposed.

During today’s resonation I had connected to that feeling on a deeper level. I had some doubts in my abilities to cope with any extra demands on my time. I knew from deep within my being that I was ‘meant’ to be involved with Peter’s Work. I feel last weekend I received a flash of a possible future and I panicked. I think I am being prepared on many levels not yet available to my consciousness for very good reasons. I do need to trust the process and my deeper selves. I am being protected, all in good time!

I do not need to worry about being overwhelmed I am no longer the same person and do not need to be spooked by ghosts of my former self. I am in a very different space now. I am strong enough, I can do this, what ever it is!

Journal entry: Saturday 12th April.

Just woke up after a very strange dream:

I was taken up to London somewhere to meet a Jewish man called Ave Abaie. He lived above an inn. His door bell was hidden. I was to meet him because the person who took me believed I had certain gifts/abilities which fulfilled a Jewish prophecy. But I can’t remember who took me. I can’t remember much of this first meeting either, except that he was younger than I expected, around my own age, dark, serious and intense. His room had been dark, full of books and other things I couldn’t see in the gloom.

I took it upon myself to call again, I remember trying to find the door bell, I was with someone but don’t know who. The inn keeper came out and told us Ave was away for the day, he had been very reluctant to go but couldn’t get out of the commitment.

I went again, a third time, with my mother. I didn’t tell her what I was doing but took her into this Jewish area that was off a main road. It was amazingly old fashioned. The design of the shop fronts was like going back in time. I found the inn and we sat down with a drink. The inn keeper recognised me and said he would find Ave.

He came and found me and I made some excuse to mum about having to see someone. We had been having a conversation about how I had been behaving in a different way. I don’t think mum was happy with these changes.

This time I meet with Ave the inn keeper sat with us and another much older man. They were concerned about my safety. They mentioned getting run over by a bus as a risk. I reassured them by saying I believe we cause our own ‘accidents’ and I didn’t feel I needed one.

They had decided that I was ‘the one’ although they expected my abilities to be a bit further developed. To this end they wanted me to study with Ave.

To do this I told my parents he was a potential husband and we wanted to get to know each other before making a decision.

The next thing I remember I was hanging up a white blanket or sheet from a tree in Ave’s front garden. It symbolised a message to the community. The technician from college was there telling me about pruning shrubs, that I knew enough to recognise the centre growth and be able to work out the rest.

At some point I was in an auction house with mum looking at small chests of drawers. Towards the end I was going through my old jewellery. I remembered doing the same as a young girl, I was trying to get knots out a chain. 

I have been reflecting on the last ten days. The way I see things now is: the resonation we did last week was so deep, echoes from some dimension effected a change in my relationship with Peter. He was certainly different with me on the phone last Saturday, more like a friend. Somehow this change brought up some old patterns within me. I have only ever had one male friend before and he was like a big brother to me. I don’t feel I know the ‘rules’ of such a friendship.

I had wanted to talk to Peter about this but I think the wobble was deeper than I realised. The film then capped it all by shaking loose some old feelings of guilt and worthlessness, which clearly needed to be released and healed.

I felt incredibly strong within myself this morning walking back along the beach. I am so far away from the person I was then and I have come even further since seeing Peter. I hardly recognise myself sometimes and it is wonderful.

I’m not clear how much it was the ‘glimpses’ of responsibility or the changes in Peter towards me that caused the reaction. I know something scared me and I know I really do not need to worry, at all. I also realised last night that my thoughts about leaving college were ‘should’ I, I never asked myself if I actually wanted to or not. I also think this was in reaction to my feeling of unworthiness and self sacrifice.

Session Eleven. Thursday 17th April, evening 6.30-10, Peter’s time.

Told P my dream - he made several notes and found it very interesting. He spoke about the ‘inn’ as being a meeting place. The dream was a construction of a real inner event, a ‘gathering’ of other aspects of myself have met and to remember it I created the dream to bring the message into my conscious mind.

The message, P felt, was given in a crafty way and is contained within me being the one they were looking for. The message is that: I AM THE ONE. I find it hard to articulate the deeper meaning of this as it is still on a ‘felt’ level. But I feel sure I will understand the full implications over time. But it relates to my entity, I am the one, as in, not a part, (I think.)

Anyway it seems it is a very important dream.

I mentioned the parallels to himself which he acknowledged. He also thought there was some telepathic communication between us again. I hadn’t known until he told me today that London was the starting place of P’s work. Also there seem to be some elements of Golders Green off the Finchley Road, not an area I know, but where P had been this weekend, visiting his mother’s house. He talked about this house and I want to see it as it sounds wonderful.

P laughed about the men in my dream saying my talents were not as far developed as they expected and made a comment about it being typical, they always expect more. He also told me about Steiner saying for every internal development there are three external changes. No wonder I am changing at such a rate then!!

He told me he dreamt about me in the months before we met. I felt an inner ‘jump’ when he said that but I didn’t give it away. Instead I asked in what context. He didn’t go into details but said he had had several dreams with an unknown woman, sometimes Karin was in them. I was stunned and only later thought of questions like: how or when he knew I was the woman? I have yet to tell him of the little ‘leap’ I felt when Karin first mentioned him to me. Until that point neither ‘knew’ about the other’s existence. Which of our souls was communicating to the other? We must talk some more about this as I am bursting with curiosity.

I told him how I knew within the hour of leaving here last week, (what a long week it has been) what I would do about my course. I told him of the conversation I had on the way home. He wanted to know at what point I experienced the change. I had to recall the events in my mind and pinned it down to Sue’s comment about not acting during times of transition. I had teased her about recent changes she had made. Looking back I realised there had been an internal change at that point prompting a light hearted response. P suggested I look out for such inner changes and begin to be aware of them.

I told him about my walk and my new found inner strength. I mentioned nearly phoning him and my thoughts against doing so. He said I really do not need to worry about this and that he had nearly phoned me. I wished he had! Several times in the week when the phone rang I wondered if it could be him. Although he had wanted to demonstrate there is no problem using the phone he had a strong inner voice telling him to leave me with my process. That he was to trust I was okay, he knew I would be alright, which of course I was.

I commented on the change in our relating which occurred during our last phone call, my awareness of the shift and the reaction within me. He pointed out the change in me, my new found strength, he was very aware of it.

Referring back to last week I mentioned the process I then went through and the healing which he gave me. I asked if he had received the blue I sent to him during our resonation. He had and was thus confused when I said I couldn’t feel it. He expressed his desire for me to experience the colours and I echoed his feeling.

He talked a bit about a dictionary of relevant terms and mentioned several of them in our dialogue. He talked of the ‘meditative attitude’ to life, the reconnection with the ‘abode’, abdomen, hara, of checking where your awareness is and ‘re-centering’ yourself in the lower body. Connecting to the ‘under body’ and the energy contained there, listening to the ‘inner silence’ within the hara, of ‘giving voice’ to the messages from there, ‘speaking from within’.

I love listening to him. I could sit at his feet all day and drink in his wisdom. I find myself complete in his company.

I told him how I had remembered his words; there is always the hara, after an argument I had in the week. That by reconnecting with my centre I had found the words I needed to respond rather than stay silent like I usually do. I saw this as a significant change in the way I generally deal with internal conflict. I realised I have been trying to be a square peg in a round hole, for years. I feel as if I am coming back to myself after years of being lost and it feels so great.

Since we last met I had a significant clear out in my workroom and came across something I thought P might be interested in reading. Some years ago I had become friends with a trance medium and had permission to audio tape some of the sessions. I found three transcriptions which I lent him along with a covering letter contextualising them. I had not wished to use up precious time talking about it but I did mention it briefly. I asked him if he has seen many trance mediums, none he has been impressed with. But then after reading the Seth material anything would pale in comparison.

P spoke about reading Jane Robert’s biography and how little she seemed able to make use of the material she channelled. I said this was the root of my reluctance to develop in this area although it seemed I had some potential. He told me Steiner’s way and his personal belief in owning the information and recognising its source is within you. We spoke of the ‘language’ used in spiritualist circles adopted by developing mediums as a way of understanding what is happening. I pointed out the nature of P’s ideas are radically different, which of course he knows!

P gave me something to read which he asked for some feedback on. It was more information for the website.

Phone call: Saturday 19th April4-5.30pm

I had a response to the information P had asked me to read. I had initially found it hard because the tone of it did not feel right. I had to overcome feelings of sacrilege in daring to criticising something he had written. But what I was left with made my head spin and I knew I couldn’t wait until Thursday to talk to him.

Thankfully he was available and amazingly receptive to my comments, they echoed his own, thank God! He said he had taken a risk in asking me to read it and was pleased I had been honest with him. I replied that honesty is very important to me, (it is to him too). I was so relieved to hear his thoughts.

As usual we covered many topics mainly around the craft and risks of writing. He had asked me recently if I would write about some of our resonation sessions and I had reminded him I have been keeping a journal since January. I said I would start typing them up for him. I spoke about the change in my confidence since working with him, particularly in my tendency to pass on what I read and consider worth knowing. He seems to think not many people have an inclination to teach others.

I can really relate to what he writes and feel it has given me a language to express things I already believe in. He told me academics hate his writings and subject matter, denying that such things could be. His work is deeply philosophical in its nature and I guess not everyone can access such depths. They could open their minds a bit further though. In reference to the piece which prompted this conversation he felt a different genre is needed and that he is not ‘the one’ to write it. I joked about wondering when that sentence would come back and hit me in the face!!

I started writing that evening. The first step on a long journey I have always known I would take, especially since meeting P. He really is amazing and I feel incredibly honoured to work with him. That he wants to teach me is a constant source of wonder to me but I feel like I have come home.

Session Twelve. Thursday 24th April.

Gave Peter my notes on Invitation to…. Plus my typed up edited sessions 1-7.

It was hard to hand them over as my old rejection fears rise up to stop me taking risks. I told him about reading my old journal and the notes from that which I had added to the end of the session notes. I spoke about some of the things I had forgotten.

I told him about a resonation I had done the night before with a friend. I had sat with the intention of finding a past life connection and was very pleased with the results. Peter asked me specific questions about the different steps I took and why. It was really good to go through it with him. He said I was a star pupil and warmed the cockles of his teacher’s heart. I just glowed and said give me an idea and I will run with it!!

His comments were really useful. I must remember the important elements are intent and feelings, vision should follow feeling. I was pleased as I had been feeling rather than seeing. I also told him that I had felt the connection in a distant way but wasn’t sure why that was. I had noted that if ‘I’ was ‘there’ it contradicts my feeling that I haven’t been in a body for a long time. He wondered if it was a sub-personality as explained in the Seth material and I replied that I had also wondered about that. Who knows?

Peter told me some more of the history of resonation and some personal details. There is no precedent in any spiritual practice. The crucial element is the involvement of two people to make it work. A key issue for today when people have so many problems relating. I do feel very strongly that his ideas should reach a wider audience. There is just so much potential to help people, so many facets to his work. He spoke for some time today and I was aware of opening myself up to take it all in on a deeper level. Unfortunately my shift in consciousness affects my memory.

We spoke briefly about drugs and I also told him about my connection to the name Michael, being my son’s middle name after my ‘guide’. A few days before he was born I had awoken in the night terrified about giving birth. I had experienced a comforting presence which let me know all would be well. I had always called my guide Michael and after that I wanted it to be my baby’s middle name. Also I told Peter how it had been the archangel Michael card which informed me I should buy the set of cards that were very important to me a few years ago, deeply spiritual cards which taught me a lot.

He mentioned resonating at 12.30, (how we can use up time talking!), and had I any areas I wished to explore further. As I hadn’t he suggested a deep colour search into the non-human level, I was game. So we sat opposite each other.

Peter suggested some vowel sounds and we began the session with our eyes open. We raised ourselves up through Ah, out through Ee and down, down, down with Eh. It took a while to descend. I was aware of alternating between the two cycles Peter had drawn my attention to earlier: moving my intention into him and down into his hara, circling through my hara and up through my eyes back into his. Then the reverse: drawing him in through my eyes by turning my gaze inward towards my centre. I got lost occasionally and had to refocus as I got distracted by waves of feelings.

Peter spoke: could I feel the black? I realised that I was indeed within darkness and dragged a Yes out through my lips. We moved into deep blue and I think purple but I was too deep to recall it accurately. I do remember the gold, I felt that the strongest. Then Peter introduced the tree, a magnolia tree. I had no trouble with that or the flowers. I was aware of red when he mentioned purple/magenta, and the white, the colour too intense to go into.

I clearly remember our beings were so blended it felt as if we were experiencing the same flower within our combined essence. That was incredibly powerful. I can’t describe the feeling, you would have to experience  it yourself. To be psychically inside another is just exquisite.

Peter drew my attention to the brown of the tree and the soil it grew from. I felt as if my very being was the tree, growing out from deep within him. I could feel him surround me. As he shifted closer and I moved in response, I became highly aware of where our outer bodies were touching; of his legs outside mine, I was aware of his hands on his knees and mine in my lap. Our faces so close to each other we were breathing the same breath.

I was acutely aware of the shift in the energy whenever either of us moved. I still don’t understand the body shifts in relation to the process but no doubt I soon will. It feels natural to just go with any urge to move.

We were deep within brown when he changed and I saw a different aspect to him, completely new to me. He seemed to physically shrink and as he moved in even closer the energy became highly charged as I felt myself responding. I felt the energy rise within me in equal intensity. Peter moved his right hand into the space between us at hara level but I could not have dragged my eyes from his if I had wanted to. I did not see what he was doing but felt no physical contact.

There was something distinctly canine to his aspect now and he sniffed the air I breathed out. My senses where reeling almost out of control, and I wasn’t sure where they were taking me. The intense pleasure I felt was confusing me and I drew myself to a halt to try and take stock of myself. I was baffled by the change in Peter and by my response to him. As I connected to my inner self I knew my trust in him, felt it, sat in it and communicated it to him. I knew I was safe with him, I could look at any aspect he showed me and not be shaken by it. I let that awareness shine from my eyes.

(As I sit writing this over a day later I wonder where things would have gone if I had allowed myself to go with it. However I know I needed to halt. I need to feel safe with my own power as I realise Peter is with his. He knows what he is doing and as yet I don’t, but I know I want to.)

By now Peter had changed again, this time very distant, almost cold as he sat back and regarded me. His face seemed to expand, I was still reeling inside and unsure how to respond. An ice cream van went past and the sound broke the tension as we smiled at each other. He broke the resonation contact and I tried to bring myself back, it was a long way to return.

Peter returned to his chair and I staggered to mine. We sat in silence, I was all over the place, my centre was somewhere deep and my head was throwing all sorts of nonsense at me, past issues which had no place or relevance. I looked at Peter, he returned my look briefly then closed his eyes, I sat and watched his face, he seemed to be listening within but I couldn’t do the same. I wanted him to speak first as the only words in my head were ‘What the hell happened there?’ I waited trying to find some composure. Eventually he asked what my experience had been.

I was having trouble recalling the flow but as I spoke most of it returned. When I got to the canine he mentioned being a bit naughty. He told me of an aspect of himself who works in the dark. He has written about him and has been waiting for the appropriate time to print me a copy. We both acknowledged the wolf and he said he had been looking for the wolf in me. I told him I had started to respond but was unsure where it would lead. I’m not sure if I communicated my sense of confusion as I was still trying to work it out in myself. I did mention being baffled but knowing I trusted him. I really can’t recall where the conversation went from there but I felt everything was okay.

Yet again this experience has shaken me to my very core. I am finding myself having to deal with a very powerful energy within my being. I am very aware that my head could spin out of control and my ‘ego’ could really ‘do a number’ on me. Why do I have such a problem with feelings of pleasure? The only reference point I have is sexual and I know in the core of my being that this is not what this about. But I am lost without an alternative frame of reference.

I have to stay centred in my hara and trust the process. I know energy is just energy, it is what we do with it that counts and how we judge it that causes problems. Is the bliss of spiritual ecstasy any different from that of an orgasm? Surely it is all the same to the soul? I’m sure Seth has something to say on this.

I knew I would have to deal with my issues around sex sometime soon, I knew it would emerge as I lost weight. Also in the very first resonation with Peter I touched something in the energy we sat within that felt so good I was instantly suspicious. I was reassured by Peter’s writing that it is our Western culture which sees everything below the waist as sexual. But I knew my upbringing is polluted by the same interpretation.

This has to be the hardest step yet. Thankfully I have talked about this issue with Peter. I haven’t got two years though! I know I can trust him, I know this work is spiritual, I know I have the power within me if I dare to release it! 

Journal entry:Saturday 26th April

Last night I read some Seth material on this subject and he has a lot to say. Primarily for me, sexuality is just one way to express love but not the only one.

I meditated for nearly an hour this morning. I focused on the new aspect I have felt in my being since my resonation with Peter. I felt a difference in my bearing yesterday and how I walked. This new aspect felt feminine and she rose from the dark. I found myself thinking about the dark side of the goddess which every woman touches in her monthly cycle. Miranda Gray in her book Red Moon writes as follows: “The goddess was seen as manifest in the three light phases of the moon as a trinity of growth, fruition and decay, reflecting the transient cycle of the seasons and of life. The unmanifest goddess was the dark phase of the moon, the womb, the invisible, continuous source of life. Later depictions of the moon goddess showed her as a trinity rather than a four-fold aspect not because the dark aspect was unknown, but because she was hidden to the human eye like the dark phase of the moon. She was the darkness of the invisible, unmanifest, the source of life and potential. And was the essence of the whole cycle, as the light could not be perceived except in relationship to the darkness.”

When the cycle was split the dark goddess came to represent death and destruction instead as an essential part of the whole. As the Temptress, She is full of sexuality and knows how to use her power. And she has made her presence known to me. She echoes within my shadow and she has a wolf by her side. She calls me to acknowledge her and to own some of her power, I feel her as strength, within my being, She straightens my spine and looks out from my eyes. Oh Peter do you realise who your shaman has woken up?

I went walking. I took a note book with me today as I often find my thoughts useful and then forget to record them when I return. Lots of things were buzzing round my head but not until I recalled an AA Milne poem ‘Half way up the Stairs’ did I start making notes. ‘It isn’t really anywhere, it’s somewhere else instead.’ Is the last line and seemed a useful description of where resonation takes you.

As I walk I notice how calm the sea is and how usually I would tune into it but not today. I am in touch with and aware of a deeper energy and keep wondering what impression I left Peter with on Thursday. I feel a familiar urge to contact him but go through all the usual injunctions. I really want him to call me and I wonder if our telepathic link has been strengthened by Thursday. I send out a call. I know it is there but as yet seems to operate unconsciously.

I reflect on the magnolia flower and the drawing I did for him yesterday.

I want to give it to him and I know where he will be this morning from a previous phone conversation. Do I have the nerve to go and find him? I feel a sense of something deeper than the both of us as somehow effecting our connection, moving us into position.

I really feared my head would spin out of control yesterday but I am so pleased it hasn’t. I know it is all inside me I feel secure in my trust for Peter and know that he knows what he is doing. I also feel secure in my lack of physical desire for him as a man. I know our connection to be soul based, he is my teacher and he is helping me to wake up to my power.

Yet another phenomenal change has occurred within me through resonation. It did shake me a bit on Thursday but I knew then my trust was sound. Peter had mentioned earlier in that session about a twinkle in my eye recently, was that her peeking out to test the water? I realise She has been around for a while, waiting for me to own her as part of myself. I just needed the nudge in the right direction.

I still longed to see Peter and to show him who was looking out from my eyes. I decided to use this new aspect and dare to walk through another imaginary boundary. I took the picture of the magnolia with me and forced myself to appear before him with the words if I was invasive I wouldn’t stay. He seemed surprised to see me but motioned for me to sit. I gave him the picture but crossing that boundary took so much I couldn’t speak to him. Thankfully I had my note book still with me and gave it to him to read while I tried to centre myself.

Why do I have this reaction? He has never rejected me yet some old pattern expects it. As always he made it okay and I managed to relax enough to talk to him. We talked about Thursday and I told him some of what has been going through my head mentioning a further conversation when we next meet.

After a short time in his company we ‘connected’ and all my nerves vanished. He was pleased with the written sessions I left with him. Said I’m the only one who has made the effort to do so. He read of a different sense of himself and his work. He thanked me but it is my pleasure to do it. He said something about seeing himself as a composer who, with no one to listen to his music, has taken to writing it instead. He could play for me all day and others should hear it too. I will do my best to make sure they do.

“You can take me there to a distant place I’ve never been before,

I could leave this world

I could follow you like oceans to the shore.

You can take me there make the rivers of my mind flow through my dreams.”

I guess it is the depth of my feelings towards him which causes me to feel nervous each time I see him. After a few minutes I seem to calm down and find the place in which we meet. Somehow he always looks different face to face than he does in my mind. I guess I hold a sense of him built-up in layers. That is the Peter I need to refind each time we meet. I don’t really know the outer Peter very well, yet he knows so much of me.

He not only accepts me but welcomes me and I don’t get the feeling he is responding to my outer shell at all. It is a deeper me he sees. In seeing me and accepting me on that level it allows me a greater self-acceptance. He knows my soul and that fact is just so incredibly amazing. I have inside of me an awareness of him seeing my soul, and have felt it myself, through his eyes. It is almost like being in love but so much better, deeper and longer lasting.

Supplement to Session 12, Sunday 27^{th .}

Morning Meditation:

I have just been recalling Thursday’s resonation, I took myself back to the point where I became confused with the feelings aroused within my being by Peter’s wolf. I relived the intensity by bringing back into myself the sensation which was rising up from my depths. I wanted to ride the waves and see where it would take me without the distraction of his physical being to confuse my senses. Suddenly I knew it for what it was and I allowed the feeling to wash over me. I had a name, a sense of its tonality it was blissful to acknowledge it. I wondered what the Greek word would be, realising the richer definition would have more meaning than the impoverished word we use today.

I felt within my being the depth of my love. Knew my love, was within my love and felt its power surround me. I saw the magnolia flower and understood its purity. Felt the deep magenta pink at its base as it sat held by the brown stem attaching it to its tree, rose up the petals becoming more delicate as the white made its presence felt.

Oh the White . . . ., you are right Peter the white is too beautiful to touch, the feeling would be overwhelming. I have never experienced a depth of feeling like this. I could feel it wanting to burst out my eyes as I gaze at you. To communicate its self to you. But you know it don’t you? You were there before me. It has taken a journey through my shadow to allow myself to see, to know.

I have, like so many of our society been restricted by a limited idea of what love really is and where it is to be experienced. I never knew I could love a man like this, without physical desire. Thank you for releasing me from my bonds. My sketch of our flower is such a small thing to give you, as ever my art is before my awareness. In drawing it I have given it an expression, a physicality I had not yet allowed myself to identify. That is what I meant when I said I didn’t quite understand the symbolism of the flower.

These feeling tones of awareness have been blossoming within me. Your gift has taken me on a journey of self-discovery which I never want to end. How many more flowers do I have the capacity to express? You have opened my eyes to my potentiality and I can never thank you enough for the richness I being to feel in my being and my life.

You are a very special being and I am thankful on a daily basis that whatever bond there is between us has drawn me back to your side. Last week as I was writing down our session together I wrote these words: ‘I could just sit at his feet and drink in his wisdom. I find myself complete in his company’. It came from my heart and I hope you saw the glow in my eyes when you described me as your left-hand woman. I will try to deserve the honour you give me.

Session Thirteen. Thursday 1^st May 2003

 ‘Inner body awareness’ is sensuous by nature. What we consider to be ‘electricity’ between two people arises when our inner body awareness cannot be fully contained within. It rises to the surface, our fleshly surface and we seek a discharge of this energy through physical contact.  The feeling we identify as love is a bliss of a sensuous inner soul connection needing no physical contact or intimacy. Sexual contact and intimacy is more to do with blissful physical sensations.

P asked about my week and how I had embodied the new aspect of myself. I talked about having more energy than usual, feeling more confident in myself, of my spontaneous trip to London the day before. As I spoke I felt energized and knew it was showing on my face and shining through my eyes. As I looked at P our eyes locked for several minutes. I had a sense of him reading me, feeling my awareness with his.

I told him how I had been noticing colours even more than usual, that they seemed to be singing at me. He asked what colour I would use to describe my experience and I said magenta without hesitation. He wondered what I thought of the colour yellow. I responded that I have been influenced by Steiner realising that yellow has a spreading quality to it. He told me of a dream he had this week involving yellow and a red pentangle with my name around it.

Neither of us could make much sense of it though. I did say I understood yellow to mean knowledge. But that didn’t seem to help. Later I thought the usual association is jealousy but don’t think that would make sense either.(?) Maybe it is one to come back to. (Note to Peter: could this dream have been precognitive of our resonation, when I was trying to ‘be-witch’ you? What do you think? or have I already? Ha ha!!)

We talked for a long time again today and it was quite late before I braved to ask if we had time to meditate/resonate, explore each others interiority, psychically meld our awareness, whatever. He asked if I wanted to? Like asking a child if they would like a sweet!

He wanted me to try and embody the goddess aspect I had written about in last weeks notes. So I tried, felt myself sink deeper and deeper into the dark space of my inner being, into my unbound interiority. I think I found a sense of her and allowed her to look out my eyes into his. I clearly felt his essence link into mine.

I began to feel I was challenging him with my power, pushing him. A little voice in my head was speaking to him, asking if he could take what I threw at him. And of course he could. As I drew deeper within myself and extended my feeling body towards him he remained solid beneath my gaze. So I tried a different tack, began to draw him into myself, enfolded myself around him, turned my gaze inward to pull him in deeper and deeper.

At some point in these games he started to make suggestions and put me through my paces. Like we had in a previous session he took on withdrawn aspects and challenged me to draw him out. Suggested like all men he was scared of my power, how would I deal with that? Then that he was walled up inside and vulnerable. He then got angry with me for looking into his vulnerable places. I think I passed the tests. I enjoyed the challenge and felt an improvement in my abilities from the last time.

After that we went deeper into each other’s being. I recalled him saying earlier that thinking in terms of sending someone energy is masculine. Why not receive someone fully in the embrace of our awareness? So that is what I tried to do. I opened up my awareness to receive him. I ‘intended’ to wrap my psychic self around his, as opposed to pushing myself into him. Our connection became deeper and deeper.

At times I was aware of ‘holding’ the feeling to amplify it, at others I rode on the waves of the feeling tone rising from within. I didn’t have any images but the feeling was so incredible. I could feel myself fill up to almost bursting with the intensity of it. At the same time it felt I was deep within myself and him. The blend was stronger than last week and I had no thought that I couldn’t handle it. At some moments it felt as if we had both stopped breathing, in that space between out breath and in breath.

At times I was aware of a heat between us but that was my only physical sensation, otherwise I was totally lost within yet without at the same time. Feeling without boundaries yet also at the far reaches of them, it was exquisite. I didn’t want it to end, I could have sat there all day. But P has a better sense of time than I and brought things to a halt. 

After a few minutes we started to talk but realising the time I had to leave. I was pushing it to collect my daughter and it was her birthday. The next few hours were like torture. In a conflict between my inner and outer world I learnt an important lesson: that I must leave time to walk home slowly. I had to have a walk that evening, time to write up my notes, read what P had given me, a long meditation next morning and another walk, all before I could begin to come back to my centre. But I did manage to do it and was quite pleased with myself. A few weeks ago and I would have found it much harder.

The following afternoon I called P to go through what had happened.

Phone call: 2^nd May

P had been able to sit and reflect on our experience for some time. When he heard what I had been through he said he was impressed! I do love praise, it makes me glow!

He described what he had been doing as a whole body resonance. Many times when he is sitting face to face with someone, he is very in touch with his inwardness and able to attend to the inwardness of the other, in this case me. He is able to dissolve bodily boundaries and in doing so felt his soul in my body and filled it up.

In essence it was a direct transfer of power. He calls this awareness of others shadow gazing, looking into the dark pupil into the dark inner space. He had been intensifying the transfer to such an extent he was not surprised I felt I had reached my boundaries. In giving me power he was also empowering me, filling me with his self.

The earlier phase had been about me exercising my intent and my own power. He had felt me doing something before he had even asked me to. He said I was effective in what I was doing but needed to work on my outer aspects particularly my eyes.

I mentioned taking note of his comments to still my eyes but at times had been very aware of inner sensations, which caused my eyes to flicker. He told me when I had kept them still, a clearer aspect had shone through. He mentioned the connection to Carlos Castaneda, the unblinking gaze and unbending intent. Also in what he says about maintaining the impecability of the ordinary self while keeping awareness of the extraordinary self. I’d had a lesson in that aspect yesterday! We talked about organising our time together in a more constructive way! Leaving time to meld and talk afterwards. We both have to stop being so polite and more blunt with each other!

Session Fourteen. 8^th May 03

We started today’s session talking about an e-mail letter I had sent to P. in it I had posed a question about whether my ‘being’ had taken him somewhere new. He told me that ‘deep-sensing’ is a connection he deliberately establishes in order for it to take him somewhere new.

He also made reference to my comment about Florinda Donna when I mentioned being influenced by her petulance. P sees this as me ‘getting into her spirit’ and allowing something to rub off onto me. He identifies this as a very important basic skill. It has similarities to creating the ‘double’, inner body/inner being. That my ‘sense-impression’ of Florinda engendered some sort of ‘double’.

He referred back to our last resonation for an example. A whole body resonance can work in two ways, 1. feeling your soul in the others body or 2. feeling their soul in your body. This relates in a way to inner connection in general. There are times when we are physically together and times when we are apart. The balance of these times is important but he didn’t say why. However if I feel a connection with him when I am not actually in his company then there is a connection.

When you read a book and catch a sense of the author’s fundamental mood the next step is to find yourself embodying the ‘double’ of the other and this is very significant. This was leading us into the area of having ‘designs’ on other people’s awareness.

When you are with someone you find that you ‘catch a mood’ from their demeanour. The important thing for this work is to able to ‘hold’ the sense of your at-tune-ment and then to stay with your ‘residual sense’ of them once they have left your company.

The sense within you is the other’s embodied presence, or ‘double’. If you stay with that residual sense and allow it to engender a mood in you, you open yourself to forming a new aspect of yourself. There then needs to be a third person with whom you experiment ‘embodying’ these aspects to.

When we are with someone we are influenced by their ‘inner body’. We can become conscious of this process and chose to ‘body’ the aspects we ‘sense’ to expand our own identity or otherwise it comes out unconsciously in our dreams.

There are three stages to feeling:

1. Feeling ourselves and our inner body.
2. Opening ourselves to feel the ‘draught’ of the others feeling/embodied presence, (by turning one’s body into a ‘sense organ’ then descending into ones ‘inner self’. To decide to ‘feel’ the other.)
3. the residual sense of the other held within by ‘time-binding’

The important thing to develop is one’s handling of the transitions between situations or activities in such a way as to safeguard one’s residual sense of where one has just been. When you have ‘no-words’ about something you are put in touch with your ‘felt’ understanding or ’residual’ senses.

When engaging in ‘time-binding’ make sure to take time to stay with your ‘residual sense’ as what comes out of that is a deeper sense of what has past or a deeper sense of the other.

We talked a bit about my art course and my day at collage. I mentioned a tutorial where the group of philosophers known as phenomenologists were referenced in how I talked about my work. Of course P knew about them and surprise, surprise they have a connection to his work. He told me of the trail which leads back to Martin Heidegger from Castaneda via the tutor at UCLA, Harold Garfinkel and another German, Alfred Schutz, who introduced social phenomenology to America.

Garfinkle was interested in ‘ethno methodology’, the study of paradox. We all lead a social life and we also talk about it. The words we use are very important as they create an agreed account of what happened. How events are documented relates directly to the ‘facts’ which are agreed upon and understood. People talk most often to reenforce points of departure that are never questioned.

Words define our world and we have accepted codes of discourse and codes of conduct which serve to create an agreed understanding. But Garfinkel wondered what happens if people break these codes? He encouraged his students to act differently in familiar situations and to notice what happened from a different perspective.

He posed the idea that there is a deeper understanding of events – what is actually going on. In Carlos Castaneda’s books, his shaman, Juan Matus draws our attention to this partly by introducing new terms and breaking down the language by using different words. In his later books the events are remembered after they took place, just like dreams,

Seth also talks about an inner order of events from a different perspective. He wrote that dreams are a residual sense and as such can be ‘bodied’, that physical symptoms might be one way to experience this. That ‘bodying’ and dreaming are two aspects of events and they give expression to deeper events which have occurred within our being. The dream we ‘remember’ is already an interpretation of a deeper level event and we actually ‘dream-up’ waking life events and form them in the same way. It is however the deeper events which are significant. 

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote that we are constantly projecting ourselves into the future. The word in German which he used means both ‘here’ and ‘there’ which are equal in time. We are both ‘here’ and sending out a ‘double’ to ‘there’ at the same time.

Going back to the ‘direct communication of awareness’ P wanted to stress the absolute bottom line principle: the understanding of your awareness of another person communicates directly to them. Knowing this is different to understanding it. Listening is a form of active communication of awareness.

In ‘deep sensing’ the other will be aware of being ‘taken in’ in a quite different way. Conversely if you ‘body’ an awareness that too will be picked up, if you convey a message it will be communicated.

He suggested to me that I practice resonation with out doing resonation. That is, to ‘intend’ to feel myself, now: as open to receive the other, now: bodying forth a message. Afterwards I am to stay with my ‘residual sense’, and to feel the double of the other ‘inner sensing’ them. He called this an everyday relational practice of dream-body awareness.

I had told P earlier of a dream I had had that morning when I came to visit him early at 6 o’clock. He said this was an example of sending out a double.

For today’s resonation P wanted me to take the lead. He reminded me of an exercise we had tried in our first session, of deep inner touch coupled with an outer touch of hand to hand. Well I couldn’t do it back in January and it seemed as if nothing had changed. I found it impossible to touch him, putting my knees around his was bad enough. I tried and tried to centre myself but failed each time. P used eye contact to draw me into myself but although I was centred even that didn’t work. I could not seem to lift my hand off my own knee.

I told him I had identified this block a few weeks ago and had intended to ask him if we could try this exercise again. Somehow I hadn’t got around to it and now I knew why. So he tried a different approach. He reminded me where I was to ‘come from’: my hara. He held his hand against my belly and got me to push against it using my diaphragm muscles at the same time as being centred there. I could immediately notice the difference and felt in-touch with my own power.

Instead of getting me to then touch his hand with mine he instructed me how to hold his right hand across my left, my right fingers within his palm. I was to deepen my inner gaze until I felt ready to touch him with my being. As I did so I was to ‘find’ the ‘soul centre’ in his palm with my finger and to apply pressure in direct relation to how strongly I was projecting my ‘felt sense’.

We tried this first with his eyes shut, which he opened when he felt my touch. Afterwards he asked me where I had been coming from. I said my womb. He asked if from my heart as well and I acknowledged that aspect was there, he had felt the affection. I have been within a millimetre of the right stop on his hand too. ???We tried it again with his eyes open to begin with. He then took my hand and did the same to me. 

We experienced another really lovely contact. There was a deep inner being sensuous feel to it. As I reached into him I knew he felt my touch. As his finger searched my palm I could feel his touch within my whole being. I found myself responding with almost, equal intensity.  He asked how I rated the experience on a 1-10 scale. I asked his or mine? As his was 10+ mine felt like 8-9 in comparison. He got me to do the exercise one more time, eyes open, and to this time ‘fill him up’ in his belly and chest area, with my ‘deep sense’.

This just took me so much deeper into my inner being that the old memory fails again!  It was such a deep, deep contact. At some point he took his hand away and we sank into another dimension. At some point in the earlier stages he placed his hand on my belly again reminding me where my power was to come from, that this was not a relaxation. The power was within the ‘tension’ of the muscles, diaphragm and eyes, and the ‘intention’ of the being/gaze.

And boy could I feel it! My whole body was quivering with my intent as we blended our beings together. The feeling is sublime, exquisite and at the same time amazingly ‘normal’. When we are actually joined psychically it has such a reality about it. It is only afterwards I realise how far we have been in our inner depths and also how fantastic it felt. Only in its absence do I really appreciate the loss. Only when I have come back to myself do I really miss the connection with him.

This work just gets better and better, deeper and deeper as does my relationship with Peter.

He took over at one point once we had started to return to ourselves. He told me to follow him and I tried. I could see he was sounding vowels and attempted to mirror his facial expressions. It felt like a prayer but not the Lord’s. He explained it was a Jewish prayer and had me say the words after him. I’m not too good with new languages but he had me try again and again until I said it right. The basic message was one of conscious submission of the ego to the power of God. Not about surrender it is not a passive letting go but choosing to submit.

We had a short time to compare experiences and shared points of contact, before I had to leave at 3 o’clock again!!! He gave me lots to read.

Later that evening Peter called me on the phone. He had wanted to express his enjoyment of our session and to let me know he was impressed with my achievements. I have a good teacher! He wanted to also go over the main aims of today, to confirm the degrees of intensity in these practices.  The ego allows you to ‘embody’ by ‘in-tensing’ the muscles. An embodiment of intensity and intent is directly related to the combination of ego and essence. It is an inward tensioning using thoughts by becoming aware of one’s head and muscles at the same time.

He wanted to check out that he wasn’t overloading me and I reassured him he wasn’t.

We spent some time talking about writing and the development of one’s own ‘language’. Words are never your own but language can be. It is important to find the words we resonate with to find the philosophical depths of what we read and what we want to say. We also spoke about discipline and finding a balance with spontaneity. I feel I am not disciplined as I tend to only do what I like doing. Peter told me to be gentle with my art and allow it to gestate. If the inner impulse is strong enough one will overcome the initial pain to reap the rewards of applying one’s self to the task.

Session Fifteen. Thursday 16^th May.

On my walk this morning I had been thinking about a small phrase Sh’meyah had written in his last letter to Abaie - love is not greedy. It set something off in me and I was aware of retreating into myself, like a hermit crab into its shell. Greedy was a word that had haunted me for all of my life. My grandma had been a very over weight woman and I had been given the message that food was an enemy. But food was also a metaphor for love in my family and I had grown up with the belief I wanted too much of everything from love to life, the very life-stuff which feeds us. But how much is too much?

I took these musings to Peter as I needed to check out what he had meant by his statement. Was he trying to tell me I wanted too much from him? I had never received that impression before but somehow I was always expecting to be too much and anticipated rejection. I realised that I had been carrying guilt around with me for years because I had many expectations of life and people. I had tended to try and bury my needs, with food, feeling that somehow I was in the wrong. My continuing weight loss a concrete demonstration of what really feeds us. I was no longer using food the same way and was having to deal with root issues.

My first session with Peter had exposed the black hole inside me which I felt could never be filled although I had tried to do so with food. But working with him has taught me this ‘hole’ is a gateway to my inner being which is endless and boundless. In response to which I realised that I really want nothing, ‘no thing’ at all. When I am ‘grounded’ within, I am completely satisfied, it is only my head which tells me I have needs and wants. The part of me ‘in the world’, but I know I am ‘not of this world’ although I am in it.

Peter was quite clear about the intention of his statement. It was in no way directed at me. More it was a comment on the expansive nature of love. It would be easy for us to indulge in our inner connection but the real benefit of our link is to reach out to others. Love is inclusive not exclusive, there to be shared. Like the colour yellow, love’s tendency is to spread out.

We spoke a lot about dreaming. I told him of two dreams I had this morning:

1. Took place in his room, he had, hanging on the chimney breast, two pieces of wire I had twisted together. It was copper and silver, had a loop at each end and was shaped like a bow. I had not given it any value but Peter liked it and had asked if he could keep it. There was a similar shaped artefact also hanging up and they over lapped.  End. (Note to P; as I wrote this I was reminded of my lucid dream in which I asked you to ‘remind’ me where I had put ‘something’. I think this is it, you had it all along and I ‘forgot’ its value!!!)

Peter had woken at some point in the night and had a sense of me being in the room. He suggested that next time I experience a lucid dream I could try and visit him to wake him up. He is able to stay in that space between being asleep and fully awake to enter the world of dreams. This also made reference to another dream of mine when Peter had whispered to me about being together when we dream.

2. Took place on a beach, a woman had been rescued by the police but they had not untied her hands from behind her back. A man she was involved with stood by but didn’t know what to do to help. Meanwhile an older man who she had previously been married to came and took the ropes off. He then laid a board on the sand and stood a sailing boat on it, there was a hole in the board for the tiller to stand in making it safe to board. His actions had the sense of nurturing about them. He knew what to do to help her to feel better and safe. He not only provided shelter but knew how much the boat would mean to her.  

I think we both understood the dream but spent some time looking at the words I had used as a way to understand the expression of dreams. The idea of ‘rescue’, ‘having one’s hands tied’, the natural setting; the beach and sea, which are important to both of us. Phrases like: ‘an older man’ ‘providing shelter’, ‘he knew what to do’, also the past connection between them. All these words are access points to understanding the language of the dream and therefore the communication from my inner being, my ‘dreambody’, which created the dream as an expression of a deeper event.

“The word of the dream is inwardly connected to the word of the body, not in the sense Freud assumed but in a quite different way. A person with a sore throat reports finding things “hard to swallow”. “Having “one’s hands tied” and “finding things hard to swallow”, are both expressions with an endo-referential as well as an exo-referential sense. They do not merely denote some externally identifiable ‘thing’ that the speaker sees or senses – a dream image of the woman or a body part such as the throat. Both the word of the dream and of the body have an endo-referential meaning. They give expression to inner bodily conditions - conditions of our “dreambody”. For the feeling of “having one’s hands tied” or “finding things difficult to swallow” is an inner-bodily feeling, whether or not one’s outer ‘physical’ body actually has its hands tied or finds things difficult to swallow. It is out of such inner-bodily states – conditions of our dreambody - that both dream symbols and bodily symptoms arise. The bodily symptom of the sore throat a type of ‘body dream’. The woman in the dream was a ‘dreamt body’.

Both give expression to conditions of our inner body or dreambody.”

The rest of today’s session was my introduction to Abaie, during eye-contact resonation with Peter. He began by talking to me about his own experiments with the sounds of the letters. He felt the first ‘a’ was a low sound and came from the hara, we silently spoke the letter at the same time as mouthing the ‘sound’ to each other. I could feel myself sink low with my being.

The ‘b’ as in boundary and bubble has an inner sense of rising to the surface. As we sounded this letter I felt myself expand to my physical boundaries and at Peter’s suggestion extended my ‘self’ beyond them. I was filled with the inner sound of the letter, ‘b’-coming ‘b’-igger. The next ‘a’ has a higher tone than the first, coming from the solar plexus and rising up through the top of my head, to far stars. The ‘i’ sounds like ee and expands out to the sides. The ‘e’ comes back in and down as ‘eh’, sinking deep, deep down. Peter drew my attention to the circular motion in the name. We practiced the sounds together then he asked me to go within myself and really get a feel of the whole word, the spirit of Abaie, then to ‘send’ him that felt sense.

So I did….. I rang the name over and over within my inner being, following that circular movement from down in my hara, up to my physical boundary, out through the top of my head, extending to the sides then back in deeper and deeper. Each time I followed through the cycle I went deeper and deeper into Abaie, feeling him within me.

I could feel a stinging in my eyes and realized the familiarity of it. I had experienced the same feeling in several resonations with my friends and most strongly the Sunday before. It was him wanting to look out from my eyes. Recognizing this I allowed him through and the stinging stopped. I wanted to sit up straighter and my shoulders felt huge. I recognized him, I knew his feel, remembered all the times he has sat within me waiting for my realization.  Looking out from my eyes into Peter, I, as Abaie, projected myself to him and saw recognition reflected in Peter’s eyes.

We sat in resonation, blending our psyches and our felt sense of this inner aspect of my being.

Another truly amazing experience.

When we spoke afterwards Peter told me he had ‘heard’ my repetition of the name resound within him. He agreed with my physical description of Abaie as big and strong, emotionally strong as well, but incredibly gentle.

Session Sixteen. Thursday 22^nd May.

Peter began today by outlining a structure for these sessions and his reasons behind it. He wishes me to become adept in this work by mastering the guiding words. He intends to add to the stock of these words for me to learn their deep definitions. To this end he will begin each session with a discourse wanting me to note down the guiding words.

He stressed the importance for me to prepare myself for each session I conduct by meditating on the specific words I will use. I have been aware that Peter prepares thoroughly for our meetings. Just that morning I had been in town shopping at 9.55 when I wondered where he might be, knowing he starts his day in town with a coffee.

I knew that wherever he was he would be thinking about me and preparing for our time together. Such dedication and commitment to any individual is truly admirable. To know myself as the object of such consideration causes my heart to continually expand with love. To realise I need to develop equal care with who I work with is indeed sobering, a real responsibility.

He wanted to bring my attention to the first session notes I had retyped last week. He noticed the absence of the word abdomen when I wrote about the hara. He would like me to include a reference to the ‘abode’ when I go through the meditation in more detail and to stress the motion of deep breathing, being from the feet upwards, into the belly first.

When he said this I realised I had switched what had occurred in our introduction meeting and the first proper session. In that very first meeting he had gone through the head, heart and hara but in January he had indeed drawn my attention upwards from my feet. The motion of deep breathing had been into my belly from the lower ground, the under body.

He also drew my attention to inner body awareness as something I could mention: the aware inwardness of the body being composed of field qualities and tonalities of awareness.                                                                   

        

Peter had also noticed I had included a description of his room in the new account. It had led him to wonder what I had noticed within his space. I went around the room and it was interesting what I had missed. The main being two rams horns on the mantelpiece yet I must have looked at them so many times. He asked me to stand up and see if I could say what the most important item to him was. It wasn’t a test, just a bit of fun but whenever I am called upon to do something ‘psychic’ I instantly freeze.

I looked around and mention all the items I have noticed over the few months I have been seeing him: a little black ram, a mineral paperweight, a mask behind the computer. I thought it might be around that area as I like to have special items where I can see them, although my eyes were drawn to the book case behind Peter and the several pictures of people around the place. I mentioned this and Peter asked how many images I could see.

I went round the room from the photos on the desk, past Martin Heidegger on the wall inside the door, (we spent a few minutes talking about him), to the postcards on the mantelpiece finally to the drawing on the top of the book case behind him. Hardly an overwhelming display of my abilities as this last picture was the item in question.

The image is of Anton Bruckner a composer I had never heard of. Peter told me how important his nine symphonies have been to him because of the depths of the music. Peter has designs for my inner music education. Beginning with Philip Glass, a modern composer, he lent me his concerto for violin and orchestra.

He talked about the Direction and Disciplines of the Dreambody arts. The importance of daily exercising your ‘intent’, to stay seated in your hara, by balancing awareness of upper and lower body. In moving your entire awareness to the lower body and ‘grounding’ yourself you speak from a deeper voice. ‘Total Body Awareness’ means constantly checking out where your intention lies and to learn to feel the insideness of your body and dwell there comfortably.

The guiding principle is when you are in touch with your body as a whole you are in touch with your self as a whole.

Peter also talked about the connection between deep diagnosis and medicine sounds. Disease begins with a felt sense of ‘dis-ease’. This is a dislocation with an inner body state, when people have a limited range of identity and therefore body alphabet. This dis-ease becomes somatic when there is incapacity to give outward body expression to inner body states. People basically lack the language.

There is a close connection with sound and health. The inner language is based on sounds and without a range of inner sounds the inner aspects go unexpressed. The biggest problem and dis-ease of our time is the lack of the vowel sound ‘eh’. We have lost the ability to descend.

The rest of today’s session we did some work on inner, silent sounds, the ones of our inner names. Adopting our usual positions, face to face, Peter first asked me to ‘sound’ my first name, Ave, Ah v ee eh. I went through it several times then added my second name, Abaie, Ah ba ee eh. Peter said it felt lovely. He found a change in him from thinking about outside issues to feeling refreshed.

We sounded the names together. Then Peter introduced me to two of his ‘inner names’ - Vedor, V-ee-d-or and Sh’meyah, Sh-m-eh-y-ah. He took much longer to go through each letter and I could feel the power contained within each one. Awesome power, which I felt resound deep in my soul, filling me up and taking me deep within myself. Never again will I doubt the power of sound, the magic in words and letters. I can quite believe the ancient druids used sound to move the stones at Stonehenge. It was an incredible experience and one from which I was reluctant to return.

Session 17. Thursday 29^th May – first poetic record

With love and care you nurtured my organic soul

Tending the fertile soil and planting the seeds of your wisdom

From within the darkness growth came forth

As your intent strengthened my resolve

I sat at your feet drinking in your honeyed words

Listening with equal care

Letting them fall like rain onto parched earth

Little knowing who else would overhear

I have a message for you, I know not what it is

The tree which grew when you reached into me

Brings a flower to behold

Can you see its meaning if I draw it for you?

A voice came through the darkness

Do you see me, do you know me?

Will you acknowledge me?

Will you hold me or do you fear the fire?

Easier to sense the physicality of the serpent

Believe in temptation and integrity

Stay strong and withstand the call

But she too knew patience and bided her time

Silently she moved into position

“Try out the whole body sensing”, the whisper came

Innocently I answered the call

Following a deeper instinct to connect to you in love

Your gaze opened me up like a flower in the sun

Like a bee you came this time to drink my honey

We ate of the tree of knowledge

Choosing to fall into each other

Spiralling together into divine bliss

Separate again the distance seemed too vast

Floating within myself fear took hold

Did I go too far?

Is his veil still there, can he yet see her in me?

Retreating into lonely space aching all the while

Your scent lingered to taunt me

I could still see your smile

As we had acknowledged the pleasure of our union

Through that space the answer three times came

My heart swells fit to burst into a thousand songs

Validated into being She looks through my eyes into yours

In doing so becomes part of me as I am part of you.

Session Seventeen supplement:

I have been thinking about power and love, again. I realised that I have been repeating a pattern and it is based on the romantic notions of love so prevalent in today’s society. We are sold the idea that we are somehow not complete until we have someone to love who loves us. Two people come together and become one. I now see that unless each person is whole any relationship is formed out of need, one believing they must ‘have’ the other. But all the time we look to another to make us whole we can never be so. What we really need is to take control of our own power not give it away. No one and no thing has the power to make us happy unless we believe it to be so. That belief is our power. If we stopped looking outside of ourselves and looked within we would find so much potential to be more than we ever thought possible.

I found an entry in my walking note book, written 4^th May:

“Recognise the fluid nature of your being. As water flows so do you. Allow the flow to go where it needs to. Then learn that you can direct the flow with your intent. This is the power you seek, it is within you. Trust the flow and things will happen beyond your wildest imaginings. TRUST and INTENT are all you need. There is no such thing as pollution when it comes to the feelings of the soul. All things are equal. You are all you need to be, you are one in All That Is, you are never disconnected from your source, re-member.

All will be well.

All is well.

All is as it should be and continues to flow into ever greater potentials. Life does not stop, God does not stop, it is all as it should be and continues to be. Beingness is the state you can achieve because you are already there, just remember this.

Love is all there is, everything else is an illusion. You have been dipping into a deep well of love so expect some changes! Allow the flow and go with it into your deepest being. It is all love seeking expression of itself. Try not to get caught up in should or shouldn’t, you are learning all about your power, the power of love. It fills your being, you are consumed and feeling full up but you are not overwhelmed. Trust in the process, let go and in letting go you will find your power. Love is the only safety. Don’t get caught up in the world of the ego, IT is playing games but you don’t have to. Just breathe into your centre and remember.”

But I have allowed myself to get caught up in my ego, I keep forgetting to ground myself, all because of my romantic notions. It is the same issue every time we have a deep resonation. Each time I go deeper into myself and touch my own power I see it as Peter who made it happen. But it is not, he opens a door but I am the one who walks through it. I am learning to use his teachings and techniques, me. He was not expecting or directing what occurred between us last week. I must wake up to myself. The power is within me, no one else. That is what he has been trying to get me to see. I am complete within myself. He doesn’t make me whole, I am the one who does that.

Together we have a combined power but only as two complete in themselves, not as halves making one. That is what he was trying to tell me the other day two + two. He and his divinity + me and mine. That is the way forward, for all of mankind. We need to feel complete within our self otherwise joining in based on need and that is not healthy.

 

Session Eighteen. Thursday 5^th June.

The first part of today was a discourse on what Peter has been writing as the last part of Peter’s book ‘From New Age to New Gnosis’. I didn’t take notes and as it is written else where will not be recording it here.

To begin our meditation today Peter asked me to concentrate on my head, being aware of the surface, to feel it so intensely to the point of feeling it no more. The next step was to allow my awareness to spiral downwards into the dark space of my inner belly, the hara. We began to explore the dark of our own interiority, filling ourselves with the dark substantiality of this inner dimension of being.

Peter then invited me to look into the dark pupil of his eyes, into his inner being. I tuned into whole body sensing as he asked me to feel into the dark, to feel the woods and sense an animal. His request activated my mind’s eye and I was in the dark woods with all my senses expanding into there within. I felt like a deer, sensing a predator, the whole of my being listening.

Peter then drew my attention to my outer boundary wanting me to almost turn myself inside out psychically, to feel the space beyond myself. I found this hard to do, initially. The inner journey is very familiar now and I have found I can shift my consciousness with ease. However this was quite a challenge and took some time to achieve. He suggested my outer skin was my sense organ for everything beyond. After a while I lost touch with my inner body, sensing outwards with my ‘feeling body’. I become aware of Peter, could sense his ‘feeling body’. He drew my attention to the space in all directions and to the light poring into me.

Just as I was getting used to being outside of myself he asked me to return to the dark within. I felt more comfortable here and as I began to expand into the dark he instructed me to go back out of myself again. Somewhat reluctantly I did as I was told, struggling again with this new practice: Drawing in the light, again becoming porous, an all-seeing-eye, an orb all sensing, and filling with light.

And there within the light Peter introduced colour, as the place we can be together. In my mind’s eye I saw two clouds of light infused with all the colours of the rainbow, spiralling together, intertwining. Now becoming one colour, he suggested. I saw red but also sensed blue and mixed them to create magenta, a very red hue of magenta with scarlet flashes.

As I watched Peter fully absorb the colour I felt our ‘feeling bodies’ being to meld. I saw pain on his face and wondered what it was about. I was aware of some part of me holding back. As far as I sensed him move towards me l responded, as he drew back I did the same. I was mirroring his movements but not taking any initiative to go further, almost withholding myself, wanting him to push me to make a move, but he didn’t. We continued this dance for a while enjoying the movements. Then he broke the contact and ended the meditation. 

As he did so and I began the journey back to within my usual boundaries I became aware of a pain in my neck and shoulders. A long time passed before I could even look at Peter as I was struggling to focus on what I was feeling inside, on what was causing this pain. He spoke about using physical keys to ground your self after meditation but I didn’t take much of it in as I was in too much pain. He said I looked sad and I acknowledged that I was but didn’t know why.

He told me of his experience of our meditation and it matched mine. He too had seen the colours spiral together and his one colour had been red as well. However he had then had a completely different experience. He had sensed something deep within me. Not just sensed but seen and scented, a flower, soft, delicate and fragrant. For which I read weak and vulnerable. We spoke about the difference but I was unwilling to take these particular sensuous qualities as being part of me, as my association with them equalled pain. And so began my most painful journey so far.

Later that day:

Seriously exhausted am I! I feel as if it was me that got washed up today, by a very large and unforgiving wave. Peter saw a part of me I don’t even acknowledge myself, let alone show anyone else. I don’t do soft and delicate. I feel totally exposed, how and why did I let that show? All that pain wrapped up in memories I do not wish to be reminded of. No wonder I have been smoking, it is always a stress reaction for me. This is the pain and discomfort I have been experiencing for nearly two weeks. I just can not take this on board; I feel I have a real block.

It is no wonder I felt vulnerable last week and reacted the way I did to perceived rejection. This particular aspect has been in the background for a while. It is all tied up with previous relationships when I allowed myself to be soft. Never again, I said to myself, I will not lay myself open to hurt. So how come I have now, with so much to lose.

Journal entries:

Friday:

Bad night woke many times with abdominal cramps like labour pains. Feeling sick and my stomach is demonstration of my delicate nature as it has gone completely soft, I feel dreadful. I am taking the day off sick, staying in bed, to work things out. It seems as if I have no option but to take this new aspect on board, it is determined to make its presence known one way or another. I guess I had better face up to it or I will be ill until it wins. I have no doubt it will win in the end so I might as well give in gracefully. I can but try anyway, if only I knew how. Will attempt to focus on my ‘felt-sense’ of what the root is. Maybe I need to get in touch with the old pain and let it go, transubstantiate it into tears. Or just being willing to see myself in these terms will maybe help, willing submit.

Saturday:

Something seems to have shifted, I feel much better if a bit ‘delicate’.

I feel as if I am recovering this new aspect of me along with my ‘health’. I took a short walk this morning as I didn’t want to overdo it. I can feel a difference inside me as I embody my soft nature. I took more notice of the flowers on my walk, really looked at them.

This process feels like a constant baptism of fire. It must be my inner connection with Peter which provides me with the strength to keep with it. It is almost as if I am being purified by the combined strength of our joined souls. The power of his soul and his deep knowledge of his different aspects, gives me the space for those aspects within me to gain recognition. It is like the best type of parenting.

Session Nineteen. Thursday 12^th June.

Today we talked about how to deal with waves of emotion. Peter suggested I practice ‘bodying’, remembering to feel Head and Heart and Hara. He reminded me to be ‘mindful’ by becoming aware of my inner body boundary. To tune into my body ego as opposed to my mental ego. It is possible to transfer emotional pain into a bodily pain, move it into your muscles, the discomfort will soon disappear. He also suggested letting the process find expression in a facial demeanour.

Sometimes the most prominent emotion is anger in response to the process being triggered in the first place. You may feel hurt or annoyed at being made to feel something. In this case Peter suggested learning to accept the emotions and respond to these not to the ‘other’ who may have triggered them. Own the emotions as belonging to you and to work with them.

Peter reminded me that as long as we are thinking ‘about’ something we are not really thinking. It is about learning to be ‘aware’ of our thoughts without letting them focus us on an object. When you remember to shift into your body then thoughts become something one is aware of.

Winniccott was the first psychoanalyst to affirm that somatic disease has a healing function to portray; it is your body forcing you back to attend to it.

We should learn to take irritating emotions more seriously, to body them, get to know the reasons, good reasons, and then take them seriously. Seeing the process as a weakness and trying to dismiss it won’t help, better to see emotions as a wake-up call. Awareness and mindfulness are the keys to body awareness. Practice taking emotions seriously and take them through the felt body. Eventually thoughts will become ‘things’ occurring in a region of the felt body.

Today’s meditation took place in the lilac room upstairs.

Peter wanted to build on last week’s exercise of extending the inner self beyond the fleshly boundary we usually think of as our ‘self’. To do this I first had to move my awareness of my body inwards to my inner body. The next step was to move my awareness as a ‘feeling body’ to my physical boundary then to ‘feel’ beyond. It was the same as when I ‘reach into’ Peter but this time he wanted me to stretch myself further, into the colour; to feel into the colour.

I was able to do it quite quickly and had a sense of expansion and airiness. Unfortunately I had misunderstood what I was meant to do. Thinking that I was to maintain my awareness at my periphery, I was unsure what part I was supposed to ‘feel’ with, once my awareness was outside of what I usually take as my ‘self’. It was amazing but I was stopping myself from really experiencing it because I was trying to turn myself inside out. I had a sense of where Peter was and could feel him beyond me but I was stopping this awareness from coming back into me. He spoke about the light coming into our awareness from beyond and I was able to feel it, just.

We talked about it afterwards and I realised what I had been doing. The inner body is a boundary with an inside and an outside. The quality of this boundary is essentially a field and it is ‘felt’ with awareness; a field of awareness. I had been trying to keep myself on the other side of the boundary. It had taken a lot of effort and I found it funny when I realised I had been making it harder for myself than it needed to be.

Session Twenty. 19^th June.

Notes of what Peter taught:

The body with which we feel ourselves and others is our inwardly felt body.

There are degrees of embodiment.

Bottom line principles:

The more in touch we are with our bodies as a whole the more we are in touch with ourselves as a whole.

Therefore if we are not in touch with our inwardly felt body we can not connect inwardly with others.

If we are not feeling ourselves in a bodily way we can not feel others in a bodily way.

Relation is bodily.

Our inner body is a field body, could be spelt ‘feel-d’, it is non localised and is the felt shape and substantiality of our field of awareness.

As a field body it is unbounded by the flesh.

This is not a new thought philosophically. Our inner body has its own felt boundary which is nothing more than a field boundary being more or less permeable, more or less rigid, more or less containing.

Space is the spatial field of your awareness. There is the outer field of our sensory awareness and the inner field of our self awareness.

The exercises we have done together are to develop the sense of the inner body as an awareness body. Using these exercises can help people to expand their awareness of themselves.

‘Dasein’ – being here/there, ask how much is this person really ‘there’. To what degree of embodied presence, in a bodily way and in touch with their own inwardly felt body are they?

Ask where is your awareness now?

In what part of your body is it concentrated, how much and where?

In introducing inner body work use phrases like ‘be aware of ….’, ‘move your awareness to …..’:

…Inner space,

…Surface, skin,

…Space around your body,

…Upper body as a whole, above the waist.

…Lower body as a whole, waist down.

…Centre in lower abdomen

There are regions and spaces both inner and outer; move your awareness to or remove your awareness from…..

There are simple in roads???, for example: ‘feel’:

Your centre of awareness,

Your chest as a hollow vessel,

The inner space of your head, (or chest or abdomen, ) as a whole space,

The entire space around you.

A consciousness is a field pattern of awareness. As a perceptual pattern of awareness each consciousness has a different pattern of awareness.

When we study something we are seeing how it appears to us, not how it ‘is’: a patterned field of awareness.

The whole of reality is simply the outer face of our own larger field of awareness with its qualities, tonalities and patterns.

The inner body as a formative body: if feeling is something we do, what then are feelings? They are field qualities of awareness, a particular ‘way’ in which we feel ourselves. That is what makes feelings fundamentally different from emotions. These field qualities also have a basic tone – they are tonal qualities of awareness, like a qualities of a person’s tone of voice.

Whenever listening to a person’s voice, to music or any sound, one is hearing ‘tones’ which have a particular ‘quality’ for example: clanging, metallic like mast wires. Voice tones can have ‘qualities’; warm, full, hollow, watery, airy, light or weighty. Somehow all ‘sensual’ qualities are qualities of ‘tonality’.

With the formative body, the inner body; we give ‘form’ to different feeling tones, we shape, form and experience their sensuous qualities. A feeling tone is nothing but a field tone of awareness, a quality of awareness.

Facial expressions give form to feeling tones. A tone is essentially formed through stretching something – inner tension which leads to muscular tension, i.e. ‘given form to’. Body identity is a resonation between feeling tone and form. There is also a feed-back loop where form feeds and amplifies the feelings it give form to.

This is the creative process.

A mood is a tone of feeling with sensual qualities that tune and colour our whole awareness of ourselves, other people and the world.  

Sound: what is a sound? It is a shaped envelope of tone. We give form to feeling tone, so what is a feeling tone? It is a sound. How do we give form to feeling tone? With a voice which uses sound to modulate a feeling tone.

Any 3D form is a visible sound, a visible shaping of a field tone of awareness: a feeling tone that in turn gives certain sensual qualities of that feeling tone.

Paintings give form to a pattern of feeling tones, music is a patterned tone, in doing so they bring out certain qualities - a mutual interrelation. Creative expression gives form to a certain mood: patterned tonalities of awareness. The pattern can be 2D or 3D, as in sculpture, similarly a sound can be a 3D form.

We also talked today about the amount of weight I have lost since seeing Peter: at least three stones since January. It has been a natural process and although what I eat has changed I have not been dieting or ‘trying’ to lose it. Only this last week several women I know have come up to me and commented on the change. Although I have had people notice before now it seemed strange to me that suddenly more people were commenting.

I was telling Peter how I am always asked how I have done it and I always explain my inner change as being the starting point. I usually mention my work and meditation practice with Peter and depending on who I am speaking to I may talk about the deeply spiritual nature of The Work.

The odd thing about all the changes I have experienced is that I feel more myself than ever before. My inner body awareness has increased my confidence in who I am, even though I have realised that this ‘I’ is constantly changing and developing. I feel as though a weight has been lifted from my whole being not just my body. I feel more comfortable in my skin than I thought was possible.

Learning all about the sensuous nature of the inner body has had a direct impact on how I feel about my own sensuousness. The deep well of love which exists through the portal of my deeper self has been feeding me. My soul connection with Peter has opened the door for me to walk through whenever I remember to do so.

The role Peter has played in this transformation is crucial: his interest in me, his patience with me, his steadiness in steering me towards greater self-awareness and inner body knowledge, all this and much, much more.

The way he is able to accept whatever aspects of myself come to light has enabled me to accept them too. The simple fact that he looked into my soul the very first time I allowed him to look into my eyes and drew forth love and healing. That he was then able to guide me into contact with this endless being and provided the frame work for me to understand what I was experiencing, recognising and teaching me the sound of my inner name, Abaie, providing me with a key to unlock the lids of all kinds of treasure chests.

Resonation:

We sat today without Peter making any suggestions on the direction we should take. He was silent throughout. We began the descent into the dark space of our inner beings.  Unusually I saw a face change on Peter and saw him as a pirate captain of a ship, on the search for treasure.

As we went deeper still I had the image in my mind’s eye of him as a mountain, eons old, solid and steadfast. I experienced myself as melt water cutting through his surface, carving out the very rock of his being, making my mark on his landscape. I tumbled over his edge as an endless waterfall, travelled to the sea, was evaporated into water vapour, turned into snow which fell over the top of the mountain to begin the cycle all over again. Meanwhile Peter stood firm, just being ‘there’.

As we sat I went through the usual steps: turning my gaze inwards, at other times projecting myself into the black pupil of Peter’s eye. At one point I became aware that he was not being as active as usual, he sat regarding me and I took on the same aspect and expression. As the connection was amplified it felt as if we were looking at our self or looking through the same eyes. It was strange; as if we were one being looking at it’s self.

There came a point when the tracking voice in the back of my head fell silent and I knew we were very deep in another dimension. I felt myself expand beyond measure and watched as Peter turned his head to the left. I closed my eyes but the connection between us did not break or alter in any way, I could still feel him. After some moments we reconnected our eyes and Peter ended the resonation. We sat opposite each other for a few more minutes returning from wherever we had been. I reached out once more with my feeling self and Peter smiled as he felt my touch.

When we spoke about our experiences Peter told me he had not been working at his usual level however this did not seem to change our ability to resonate into a very deep place. When he had turned his head to the side he was experiencing coiling as a huge black serpent. He also knew we were still connected without eye contact. It felt like a very profound contact we had made.

Session Twenty One. 3^rd July.

A lot of today’s session was taken up with talking about my home situation and my increasing need for my own space. Peter’s last e-mail had touched on the subject of a different ‘place’ to dwell, a palace for the senses. I have made the decision to put a bed in my workroom when I return from staying at my friend’s house. Over the next three weeks, during the times I go home to be with my daughter, I intend to reorganize this room and create a sanctuary and spiritually focused space.  

We also talked about not get ‘drawn out’ by the other in meditation. Peter suggested thinking in terms of inner awareness as being a ‘blob’: parts get drawn into things or people. But what happens if they get cut off? This could lead to fragmentation. In the case of ‘alien abductions,’ parts of inner awareness get ‘drawn out’ by technology, especially television.

In thinking about the essence of mediation we are looking to develop an unbroken mindfulness of one’s inwardly felt body. Given that the inwardly felt body is our awareness body, our own thoughts can be experienced as an abducting force.

If we think in terms of our ‘periphery’, then meditation is about coming back to body-time from the world.  But how can we avoid being abducted at all times and in all situations?

Peter suggested we sit opposite each other: He instructed me to feel the surface of my face, then the whole of my head, feeling it being covered with a membrane which slips down over the surface of my body. Then to feel myself sitting within the deep water of amniotic fluid, coming up to my waist. While sitting in this fluid to then concentrate on my breathing, each out breath going deeper within my inner being, with each in breath to draw up the fluid into my being; For my awareness to become like a fish; able to swim from hara to mind within this fluid. We sat together in this fluid both full with it and fully within it.

We then resumed our conversation, this time I asked Peter about what do in resonation when faces ‘appear’ on my partner’s face. He suggested I feel the unique tonality as I tune into a particular face. To then hold it within, riding it and reading the resonance. When the resonation is over and sitting with eyes closed, to then hold the image in my mind’s eye and see what it brings up within me. He suggested I remember to ‘mirror’ the particular gleam in the eye that accompanies the face, he called this the ‘emitting expression’.

We then had a discussion on the term ‘New Yoga’. Peter had written something and gave it to me to read. He mentioned some discomforts he had and I found myself finally telling him about my own feelings of reservation about the term. That I have kept quiet because of my lack of knowledge on the subject of yoga. I had practiced some yoga years ago but knew very little on the history or philosophy. Some of Peter’s writings had enlightened me but I was still left with a slight feeling of discomfort with the term.

I now understood Peter’s use, but still felt there was something missing. There was something about the re-invention of products used as a marketing ploy, in terms of something being ‘new and improved’. I was also concerned that I am typical in my limited understanding of what ‘old yoga’ is and therefore representative of how others might react to it. We didn’t come to any conclusion with our talk but it was clearly in Peter’s mind when we sat to meditate.

Session Twenty One. Resonation:

I really don’t know how I can even being to describe today’s connection. I have never known such blissful inner sensation, filling me up. Such sustained pleasure. I was almost melting inside but also shaking with the intensity of our combined intent.

At the early stages I was aware of working quite hard. I kept getting brief waves of intense sensation, blissful but brief; each time I extended my feeling body. Then I found I couldn’t extend it so I concentrated on going deeper within, using the warm amniotic fluid I had sat myself in, reaching up to my waist. As I breathed in I felt it rise within me, as I breathed out I sank deeper into my own interiority. I felt my awareness fluid within my body.

I became aware of intense changes on Peter’s face, I realised he was speaking to me but it felt like a different language. I wondered if it was Sumari or Shum – what Peter has described as the true language of the soul and the source of all languages, a language of inner sounds. There was an intensity within each sound and rather than try to understand it I just opened myself to hear it inside. I allowed the silent sounds to resound within me. To do this I checked that my awareness was still within my hara and opened my upper body as Peter had spoken about before. I opened myself to receive him.

All of today’s meditation was at a very deep level of consciousness and my tracking voice was switched off quite early on. Consequently I cannot recall the finer details of the different stages we when through although it fell roughly into three separate stages.

In the middle stage I was aware of a change in Peter’s facial expression, it was softer and the changes were slower and less intense. He seemed to be smiling at me with a welcoming expression. So I mentally checked myself again from head to toe and using my feeling body as a sense organ, in touch with my whole body as awareness, I felt my way forward to make contact with Peter’s feeling body.

A wave of sensual feeling took over my whole body, my inner feeling body, I could sense his soul and knew ourselves to be blended. I almost felt drawn through him. I could feel the embrace with such intensity it was almost as though I was being held within his arms. And it lasted, was sustained by my intention. My abdominal muscles were so tight the tension rippled through me.

Wave upon wave of blissful inner sensation; at one point I could feel myself as the colour red and the heat generated by our joining was palpable. I was able to sustain my whole body awareness, fixing my eyes in his, losing myself within his black pupil, my intent fuelled by a new power. Resonating with him, mirroring his expression I was awakening something or someone new within my inner being. The sounds of our melding crashing deep within and reforming a new song, a new aspect – ‘being’ created; we were spiritually in tune with each other. And it felt absolutely wonderful. I could have stayed there for ever but Peter broke the contact.

As we sat back I was aware of still being in resonation with him. I felt insatiable and my love for him shone from my eyes, inviting him back into them. And back he came, our feeling bodies and whole body awareness once more extended towards each other. This time there was a more gentle connection as we smiled our pleasure and melded our beings, relishing in each other’s feelings, knowing how deep our soul connection is and taking great delight in it.

Session Twenty Two. 10^th July.

Today’s session was mostly talking, I had been staying with a friend and met her friend who was in need of some spiritual counselling. I told Peter about my conversations with him and his receptivity to Peter’s work and writings.

I spoke at some length about my children and being a mum. Ben had the hump with me because although I had turned up for a cricket match I had sat in the car with Cella and Charlotte and watched him play. He had wanted me to be on the field and was not happy about my reasons for staying in the car.

Peter talked about the inner umbilical cord, being able to attend to the children’s inner feelings about situations they may not like. I had ‘good reasons’ for my actions but was I able to ‘see’ Ben’s feelings? I spoke about my conflict of not being ‘child-centred’ and he asked what I meant by that. I am not one to do things with my children although I always try to be around for them if they need me. Peter pointed out that doing things is not necessary for being able to be in tune with them, something I realised I am fully able to do.

I mentioned feeling overwhelmed by Charlotte when she was little; that I had a physical connection to her pain and had needed, to some extent, to cut off from her for my own protection. She is similar to me in her emotional sensitivity, thin skinned. I had experienced difficulty with the demands she made on my time and energy. I had always compared my parenting to that of my husband’s and usually judged myself as less able.

My talk with Peter today helped me to see that I am a better mum than I previously thought. I was not damaged by my own parents’ lack of demonstration of their feelings, it has made me more open to the feelings of my own children and more able to hold them physically and emotionally. In recognising since working with Peter that I am unscathed by my upbringing I have no need to worry that I will damage my children. These insights have had a profound effect on the way I view myself.

We didn’t have time for a full resonation today but Peter invited me to make an inner connection with him. So I reached out with my feeling body, after checking my whole body awareness. The process is so familiar to me now and last week’s spiritual experience with Peter had brought forth a new power in my own abilities. He could feel my contact and brought his chair around to face me. As we blended together he asked me what I had done to make the connection and I explained.

He took me through some sound work using the name of Mahakala, the black one.  It was quite a powerful experience and I found myself going quite deep within my inner being.

Notes from Session Twenty Three, 17^th July.

Sounds and Mantra:

Mantra – liberation from the mind – root meaning.

Thoughts arise from words – yet we can sense meaning in the very sounds of words. We can get beyond the mental dimension of the word and into the felt bodily sense of its sounds.

Mantra is normally understood as the repetition of a word or phrase. This is not the essence as Peter understands it, instead it can lead to a deeper understanding of language. The meaning of sounds and mantra are deeply connected.

An example: someone muttering under their breath, preparing to swear, you can see it in their facial expression, their mouth holding the word, on the verge of expelling it, they are bodying a mantra, the bodily shape and form of the word held back. Bodying is the opposite of somatising, it is not symbolising or expressing something as a cathartic release.

Mudra of the face: the gesture or disposition, the expression of a word or sound. For example the different ‘meanings’ of the ‘m’ sound, the different emotional tone is being bodied through a ‘mudra’ of the face – personification – mask – of the ‘m’. You can observe the difference between an ‘m’ of pleasure or agreement, even to what level of intensity that agreement may be: an ‘m’ of ‘yes I can see your point but I’m not sure’, to an ‘m’ of ‘yes of course, I totally agree’. Or perhaps an ‘m’ of real pleasure or ecstasy against an ‘m’ of that feels nice.

A facial expression is a letter of the soul behind which is a sound imminent within it, just like a letter is the silent face of a sound or image of a sound when written down. There is a very old understanding that if you were able to utter every sound of the alphabet, simultaneously, you would be able to create the human form.To identify the mantra of a word you start with a particular speech sound or syllable, turn it into a mudra of the face, without uttering it, experience it permeating your entire felt body with its particular felt quality.

Onomatopoeic words or clusters of such words can help to identify its tonality. For example the letter ‘v’ – vigour, vibration, wave, resolve, verve, nerve. Only through such a cluster can you get a qualitative essence of the sound. You can’t use a word to describe a letter because that word would contain other letters in it. Although you can select one word which comes closest eg. V= vibration.

M= womb, warm, permeate, melt, meld, meditate, mantra, meaning, muse.

B= boundary, body, balloon, bubble, burst, boast, bloat, burden, bold, and contra – embarrass.

In looking for why particular words have their meanings you will always find some whose given sense are diametrically opposed eg. Vibrant/vexed, love/evil.

The meaning of words as sounds transcends their meanings as words, it is more primordial, more basic. Which raises the question - what happens if we work with nonsense words or poetry? And why is it that words like names are significant? Because it is the inner resonance as sounds which are important.

Vowel sounds also work as mantras, but it is not simply their qualities but their movement of awareness, the descending out breath and descending inner voice tone. With silent sounds we hear them with our inner ear and sound them with our inner voice, in doing so we are bodying a feeling tone.

Therefore we can use sounds to body and attract different aspects, personal or divine. The sounds themselves are the link between the inner reality and outer.

The soul is a whole alphabet and our given names are just one personification of our souls. Each ‘name’ is put together with basic elements which have the nature of sounds. Sound is in some way a shaping of a feeling tone, with substantiality and sensuous qualities.

Mantra is feeling the sensuous qualities of sounds as shaping, in a bodily way, the feeling tones. By giving bodily form to a feeling tone by sound, the feeling tone is amplified by resonance. You become the mantra you are sounding, in turn, it turns your body into a vehicle which attracts the spirit and gives shape to the feeling tone of a particular god or goddess, animal spirit etc.

Mantra is the key to morphing, shape shifting one’s inner body, by using sound to give bodily form to feeling tones and amplifying with resonance: by attending to your face and mouth, sensing the formed expression of a particular feeling tone and sensing and hearing it as a sound.

H= holy, whole, head, heart, hara, halo, hallowed, hall – a sense of space – hale – sound/healthy, inhale and exhale.

Kali – consumes all and devours it, takes it back in. All words to describe her have an ‘l’ sound: disillusionment; emotionally expressing an experience.

L= lull, loll, lullaby, leave off, lazy - dissolving into formless darkness.

Resonation.

This has to be the hardest resonation to record since Peter found our Byzantine past life connection.

It all seemed very deep and yet I was in my head all the time, observing my process and maintaining almost constant whole body sensing.

It seemed at time as if Peter was allowing me full access to his soul, revealing aspect upon aspect. I saw the shaman at least twice and many other dimensions of him. I wondered if he was letting me explore my new found power and giving it full range.

Several times I drew my gaze within to fall deeper and deeper into my own unbounded interiority. I could feel myself descending, dissolving. In the same way our bodily boundaries were also dissolved as I was very aware of Peter’s whole body at the same time as my own. This was new to me and it only occurred to me to sense this since our contact on the beach last Sunday, (when I had met with Peter to talk about some work I had been doing.)

I was not always clear how much or how often Peter was active because at times I felt as if I was somehow leading the way. I was aware at other times that his intention was very strong and the sensations between us were very powerful.

My awareness of him was very intense at times and there was an erotic quality to our melding. I was at one point burning with the colour red and I felt as if my face must be very flushed. I could feel my love swell out towards him as I simultaneously drew into myself as much of him as I could contain, which was quite a considerable amount.

Several times we sat back and regarded each other in an almost emotionless way. At times I felt like a goddess, was bodying some divine aspect and my awareness was pure power. We moved in so close at other times we were almost touching. Many times I found myself mirroring his expressions and movements and could feel the amplification in our combined beings.

At one point I was aware of singing scales, silently within my inner being, the sounds just arose through me and descended again, up and down several times. I felt as if I was somehow playing the sounds of his soul. My scent of him was there very early on, usually I experience this much later. Several times our breathing was quite rapid and at others it almost stopped.

He broke our eye contact but even with our eyes closed we stayed in resonation with each other. We reconnected our eyes again and the tone of our connection was different. Having sat back Peter moved forward again, putting his hands together he moved them towards my abdomen and I could feel him penetrate my feeling body, it was a very pleasurable sensation and I felt myself respond, somehow growing inside and I bodied this, sitting upright, swelling. He bowed his head towards me, twice and although part of me was bemused by this behaviour, the part I was deeply connected to in my soul understood the action. I saw him as a much older man, his hair was grey but his skin was darker, Indian. The expression in his eyes melted me inside. I was in contact with a very powerful aspect and felt the divinity flow through me.

We had sat together for 45 minutes and I took a long time to come back to a familiar sense of myself.

Session Twenty Four. 24^th July, notes.

Most of today’s conversation was personal material mainly to do with my recent decision to finally leave my husband. My marriage had been dead for years but I made the choice to stay because of the children, knowing I would tolerate the situation until the pain of staying was greater than the pain of leaving. My work with Peter had opened my eyes to see things differently. I was so much stronger within myself and had a clearer idea of what I wanted from life. He had helped me to see a whole new way of relating to someone. The way things were with Steve were no longer acceptable to me. He had never been one to talk about things and had little interest in me. Conversation had dried up to such an extent we hardly spoke to each other at all. As I had a wonderful group of women friends this was tolerable but the situation at home was starting to impact on the children and I realised it was time to take action.

Peter and I also spoke about the personal element of our relationship and the impact on it from our work together. At times the revolutionary difference conflicted with my old patterns and those of the society we live in. In the past this had thrown up and brought into view these patterns but with Peter’s help I had cleared most of these away and was staying more whole body aware. However I never knew what was still left and had to keep alert and aware of changes the resonation could cause in its power to wash up debris for review.

Last week’s resonation had been particularly powerful and incredibly intimate. Partly due to my decision to start a new life with my children but mostly because of the depth of my feeling towards Peter, I had allowed myself to think things may change between us.  Peter put me straight on that one, yet again, pointing out the importance of what we are doing. This work needs to get out to a wider audience and this is where our energies need to be focused. We cannot allow ourselves to live on a honeymoon island is what he said. (Author’s note to Peter; in my poem I was talking about a holiday; I would ‘fly you away’ to rest and recuperate, you know, not keep you to myself!! It was written in response to your fatigue. Just in case this is what prompted your comment.)

Something about our combined soul bodies was opening inner dimensions with rich seeds for Peter to gather and with his incredible mind, harvest material for The New Yoga. I was constantly impressed with the volume and quality of his writings after our adventures in inner space. My own reactions and struggles with the changes providing material for my writings. Provided, of course I kept myself focused and not drift into the world of fantasy. Still some of us are quicker learners than others and Peter is just phenomenally fast.

Resonation.

Partly due to my recent decision and I think observing my response to the rest of our conversation, Peter suggested I might like to use today’s meditation to resonate with myself.  So we sat in our usual positions and he reminded me to show him on my face what was going on inside me. Centering my attention within, getting in touch with my inner body awareness, I began to allow how I was feeling to come into focus; to come to the surface of my awareness and show through my eyes.

I sensed sadness, let it fill me, felt its quality, knew it was residue from the collapse of my marriage. A reflection of all the tears I had cried over the years. Within this sadness was disappointment, I felt the quality of that too. There was a past element and a present one, in response to our conversation. There was also a feeling of struggle, again past and present. Keeping my gaze turned inwards I allowed this mixed bag to roll around inside me; turning it over and looking at it from all angles. Showing Peter how I was feeling through my face and eyes I saw his reflection and resonation, noticed the amplification in myself. Time passed.

He was looking at me with such tenderness and understanding that I couldn’t help but reach out to him with my whole body awareness. By this time I was in touch with the depth of my feeling for him and I showed him how I felt. As our souls joined in a gentle nurturing way, we drew in closer enjoying the feelings aroused within by our connection.

Somewhere along the way I felt an inner resolve and fierceness, showed this through my eyes, my gaze intensifying as I bored my feelings into the black hole of Peter’s eye; letting him know the strength within me. Seemingly from nowhere, I was taken with the idea to oscillate my feeling body. The image of a jellyfish floated through my mind’s eye. In this way I began to push out then draw back my sensory awareness, washing it out to Peter and back again, many times, in waves. I was watching his face and eyes closely and saw he could feel what I was doing.

He seemed to be enjoying the sensation so I intensified my gaze. I was drawing deep within my inner self, turning my gaze within a few times but mostly fixed it with deep intent on Peter’s eye. I felt deeply in touch with the whole strength of my sensual feeling awareness of both of us as well as the depth of my feeling towards him. The bliss I was experiencing had a new tonality to it, more inner body. I was aware of drawing him into my eyes and also of him filling me with his awareness. I kept in touch with my whole body through out and it was a wonderful experience. Time passed.

Then Peter sat back and drew his hands down his face, I thought our meditation was over but we stayed in resonation. He sat upright and relinked my eyes with his. He seemed to grow before my eyes, even his head seemed larger, his eyes were wide and I took up the same position in response. I am a bit hazy on the details but I think we sat like this for a while and I experienced a sense of spaciousness behind me. Next his eyes narrowed and with a very slight move forwards I felt myself drawn towards him, in and down. I found myself flow in time with him as he sat back again, within the space. Then back in again and down in a rhythm of movement that was mostly inner body and felt through the feeling body.

He sat back again looking at me in an almost cold and detached way but with an increase in intensity, suddenly I was aware of something like a wave emanating as if from Peter. I opened my feeling body further and was taken completely by surprise, rising through me with incredible intensity; waves of pleasure like I had never known. They rode through my feeling body and I could feel my eyes widen in further surprise as I was hit again and again and again. My breathing was fast in response, as I rode upon the waves of rapture. Through the detached look on his face I could see Peter enjoying my reaction to him. It seemed to go on and on and was fantastic. I was pushed back within myself and couldn’t tell where in my body it was coming from because it was a whole bliss body experience, very sensual and it just kept happening, gradually ebbing away leaving me breathless with the excitement.

When we spoke about it later Peter explained the later stage was due to him embodying the word KAULA, using it as MANTRA. He broke down the sounds and suggested I practise on him. So we spent the rest of the time doing just this. KA the kingly upright spine, the ‘k’ sound held in the throat, at the same time the ‘ah’ of upward spatiality given inner voice. Full MUDRA of the face, eyes wide, lips poised to speak the ‘c’ but never doing so. The sound of the word heard only in the inner ear.

UL the towards-the-other motion; eyes narrowed and lips pursed, loosely.

LA tongue moved to the upper pallet, gently held behind the teeth, moving downwards with your awareness, sinking.

Powerful sounds!

Session Twenty Five. 31^st July 03.

The first part of today’s talk was about Ben. Last Sunday he had misunderstood an e-mail from Peter to me. Ben decided to make contact with Peter in a very physical way leaving Peter with a black eye!  With his guidance I had spoken to Ben and explained the situation to him. He had thought we were having an affair as I had been keeping things to myself about what exactly Peter and I were involved in. In his twelve year old mind he had put two and two together and made five. I had also explained to him the distance between his father and I had been developing for years and had nothing to do with Peter.

On the Monday he had met with Peter to apologise and they had talked for over two hours. Peter had spoken to me on the phone afterwards and today went over some of his observations. He felt Ben has an unusual mind and is a special soul needing nurture. He talked about ways I may be able to help him and various material he could perhaps read.

We also spoke some more about my feelings towards Steve and his towards me. I had been surprised that he had lost his attraction for me four years ago. For the past few years I had been feeling guilty because of how I had felt. I now experienced some anger that he had not been honest with me. My ego also experienced some hurt and was questioning my attractiveness generally. No one seemed to ‘want’ me. Peter had explained that Steve’s feelings and process were nothing to do with my being attractive or not.  I understood what he meant and my ego had recovered.

I spoke to Peter about a book I had been dipping into; ‘The Myth of the Goddess’ and how the authors found common links in all the myths they researched. There wasn’t room in the book to examine Asian or African myths as there was so much material otherwise. The chapters I had read were about the Gnostics and the revival of the goddess in the middle ages and how the Catholic church had led a crusade against the Cathars. There was also much about Sophia, Kabbalism and the Shekhinah, the Gnostic gospels and the documents found at Nag Hammadi. The message I had picked up from my reading was the missing element of the divine feminine within Christianity and therefore in much of our society today.

“The Shekhinah is immanent in the human soul as its divine ‘ground’ or radiant ‘body’, and can be revealed personally to men and women. She is their deepest self, the holy presence of ‘the glory of God’ within them. The sacred marriage in Kabbalism is, as it is in Gnosticism as well as in mystical Christianity and Islam, the union of the soul with this Holy Spirit.”

“Life, or creation, is conceived in the divine union between Yahweh and the Shekhinah. Sexual imagery and the image of light are used in text after text to show how ‘the rays which emerges from Nothing, is as it were, sown into the “celestial mother”… out of whose womb the Sefiroth (creative energies) spring forth, as King and Queen, son and daughter.’”

“When the Ark was placed in the Temple built by Solomon, the Shekhinah dwelt there. However, she disappeared at the time of the destruction of the first Temple (586 BC), when the Ark was lost and the Jews were taken into captivity in Babylon, and she did not return with them to Israel at the end of their exile in 538 BC. She will not return until the coming of the Messiah, and she can not return until the broken unity of the godhead is restored through her reunion with her divine bridegroom.”

I had been struck by the links in what I had been reading and the Work Peter and I had been exploring. The connections we had made through resonation with our divine aspects, our union of these divine aspects as the sacred marriage. I felt it was no coincidence that we had chosen male and female bodies this life time with which to rediscover and pass on what we found. That we had been using the mantra of Kali representing the dark womb from which all life springs with the penetrating serpentine light of awareness, Shiva. That together we represented the much needed balance and combination (if with a somewhat limited perception ), of masculine and feminine.

But most importantly was that what we can do so can others. That together we are plotting a path for others to follow. The power of New Gnosis is there for all to discover within themselves and thereby reconnect with the source of the divine in All That Is; the third presence in all of mine and Peter connections???

We also spoke about self-awareness and the unconscious recognition of those on the receiving end of dual awareness. Peter was keen to make the point that through silence and deep listening we are able to communicate to others. I was wondering if my own well developed level of self awareness had made a difference to my receptivity to Peter and all his practises, ideas and teachings. He was sure this was so. During our session today I had been aware on several occasions of Peter sensing me, I could feel his inner touch. Obviously the more aware I was of my whole body the more aware I was of this happening. But even without such development others would be affected by the same ability, they just would not sense it in the same way.

Something I had realised a very long time ago was the power of self awareness to remove judgments of others. If you know yourself you are less likely to condemn in others what you understand as part of yourself. In really listening to others, in seeing and accepting them as they really are, you pass that message of acceptance on to them. This deepens the level at which you relate because they know you won’t judge them. I also knew that the people I work with had benefited from my work with Peter. My relationships with them had more depth and understanding as a direct result.

Peter had planned for me to go through the Head, Heart and Hara meditation with him again today. But some residue of self consciousness got in the way. Maybe because I was not prepared for his request or maybe I had too much on my plate emotionally I am not sure. But I felt like a rabbit caught in head lights; I froze. I likened it to a driving test, but my immobilisers had been activated. Peter explained that it was not a test and I could approach it any way I wanted. He just wanted us to go through it together to be sure I understood the various steps. 

But I was stuck and could not seem to shift myself. For some reason I could not just open my mouth and begin the meditation. Peter tried various tacks but I couldn’t be shifted. In the end he said we could try next week but I was puzzled by my response and asked if we could resonate with it.

Resonation:

I began as last week by exploring my felt sense of how I was feeling. No words came through the darkness to clarify the situation. I began to feel as if there was nothing to it after all. Although I felt I was at quite a deep level and was searching myself, nothing was all I was sensing. I could feel Peter sensing me and checking my whole body awareness I opened my feeling body to his. After this everything is a bit of a blur. I remember the usual lovely feelings of being melded with Peter, of being drawn in closer and us smiling at each other, regarding each other how we usually do. But today the experience was even deeper than usual. It had a familiar and comfortable feeling to it and very pleasant.

At one point Peter’s whole body jolted and I jumped in response. I was temporarily shocked but refocused my awareness and sank deeper within myself in resonation with him. I think it was then I recognised, or thought I had, the Shaman but there was a different aspect to Peter’s features I felt I hadn’t seen before. Time passed in this stage as we floated about in the dark depths of our inner beings. I was very aware of the scent of Peter’s soul and also saw him inhale mine.

Peter made me jump a second time, this was when he suddenly raised his right arm. He also indicated lower with his left arm. I felt myself stretch my feeling body in both directions in response. Feeling the vast expanse of space all around us I sat back and the posture reminded me of last week and the sounds Peter had been using. I decided to try them for myself: KALI and was sure Peter could sense it. As I watched his face to mirror his expression I became aware he was sounding KAULA and heard the same sounds in my inner ear as I also ‘spoke’ the same mantra. The amplification was very powerful and our breathing became shallow and rapid in response to each other. We revelled in the effect we each were having on the other and very nice it was too, similar to last week but with even more depth of soul.

I began to ‘hear’ more sounds rising from deep within me; sh, ha, are ones I remember but my only clear recollection was Sh’meyah, one of Peter’s inner names. I guessed it must be Sumari I was ‘speaking’. The sounds were soft and gentle, soothing and lovely. After this point I draw a blank, I have no idea what happened next. My only memory is a beautiful sense of peace. I believe I was in a very deep place totally joined with Peter, possibly I was wrapping my soul around his or he was so deep within me, I cannot be sure. I only know it was lovely, intense and absolutely wonderful. Oddly enough although we were very deep I found it quite easy to return to myself. This maybe because I was so perfectly in tune with Peter I resonated with him as he drew himself back into the present. Everything was perfectly seamless.