Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020
5-22-2020 I had some vivid dreams last night around some actions and behaviors that I feel a deep sense of shame about. And in the meditation today, the focus was around not just moving to the supernal of Chesed, Geburah and Tiphareth but also around working with that feeling of shame and coming to a place of forgiveness for myself…coming to a place where I wasn’t beating myself for past actions and choices but instead simply acknowledging my responsibility while forgiving myself as well. And to be clear...It’s not that I want forgiveness from anyone else, but rather that I choose to forgive myself as a deliberate action to find healing around things that I did.
5-23-2020 I decided to sign up for the cloud hands qi gong class coming up in the early part of June. I feel like it will contribute to that deeper exploration of the internal work I’m currently undergoing. This deeper internal work is allowing me to encounter some deeper blockages around shame, rejection, and other issues that I haven’t fully dealt with. This morning I had a realization about my former relationships and how rejected I felt in most of them, which contributed to my reactionary behavior around them. If I was feeling rejected in the main relationship, I’d try and go elsewhere. That in turn would reinforce the behaviors on the part of the other person, creating a vicious loop that really hurt all involved.
Fortunately I’ve managed to change that with a lot of internal work on my part and lately because I’m going deeper its giving me to chance to work on these blockages around shame and rejection that are deeply embedded and begin undoing them and forgiving myself in the process. It’s not easy work, because it really does bring me face to face with judgement, but also with compassion, which makes the supernal work around all of this perfect. I need to find the right balance of accountability and responsibility with self-forgiveness. I think I can do that with this work.
5-25-2020 I’ve been doing some deep work around my penis lately. I find that there’s a lot of baggage that happens with sex and I’ve felt that in relationship to how I treat my penis. At times I’ve treated as if it is its own entity and I’ve put a lot of pressure on it to behave a certain way, get hard on command, etc., etc, and recently Kat and I’ve talked about the pressures that happen in relationships around sex and made some important choices, namely that we’re just getting to let go of the need for anything to happen and just let it happen naturally. And since making that decision and doing dissolving work with my relationship with my penis, I’ve found that no pressure has lead to deeper and more satisfying sexual release and a happier relationship with that part of my body. It makes me realize that there’s a real need to examine the toxic masculinity that surrounds the penis and undo it in general.
5-29-2020 The work with this supernal is similar to the previous one, a balancing of the paths within me and the energies. I find that this balancing is stabilizing the work of the previous months. And the qi gong is going really well. I’m learning about the subtler aspects of the physical movements which are leading to a refinement of the chi as well.
6-2-2020 One thing Kat really helps me do is get out of my head, and today I was confessing some fears I was experiencing and she just helped me recognize how those fears were really just in my head, so I let go and the closeness we feel is just amazing. She helps me let go. And the internal work I’m doing is also helping with this process of letting go. Continuing to do the Bua Gua and the Gods Playing in the Clouds qi gong as well as refining what I’m already doing is opening some doors within myself. The work with the supernal is also tying into this body work, because it’s the middle supernal and its very much grounding my body.
6-4-2020 Today I was reminded that it’s all about the process. The work we do is about the process and there may not always be an overt result, but consistently doing the world will yield the results at the appropriate time. I dd my sphere of art meditation today and didn’t really feel the archangels and then I did gods playing in the clouds and at first I didn’t feel anything there, and then I did feel the qi rise up in my body and surge through me, powerful, strong, part of me, but only because I’m doing the work, and working the process.
6-5-2020 There are some days where I really struggle. This was one of those days, where I was feeling discouraged, afraid, and doubtful of what I’m doing and whether or not I can even succeed. It sometimes seems like I’m always climbing uphill.
And then I was going through the lessons from Gods playing in the Clouds and the reminder I got in the one lesson was really important. You’re doing this exercise and you’re building on everything you’ve previously done…and yeah it was about the qi gong, but it’s also about life. It’s about doing the work and building on the work and trusting the process even when it seems like that light at the end of the tunnel is so far away. And sometimes it does seem far away, but I just got to remember to keep doing the work, keep trusting the process, and keep moving forward, even when the way forward isn’t easy. And sometimes it isn’t, but I’m going relax into the experience, give myself over to right now here I am and just keep doing what I’m doing.
6-6-2020 Today I learned Cloud Hands, which is a that serves to release bad chi and get the blood flowing. It was an interesting experience to feel it at work. What really stood out to me is how important it is to coordinate the movements. I’ve already been working on this with other techniques I’m learning, but this served to emphasize the coordination further.
6-7-2020 I’m feeling tired, but hopeful. This was a good weekend for me to learn something new and it gave me a chance to go deeper with Qi Gong. Doing this work is also making me intimately aware of my body even moreso than before and the work I’m doing around my body is proving to be really relevant with everything else I’m doing this month. I feel like I’ve found what I’ll be doing each and every the rest of my life.
6-10-2020 I had a useful realization the other day about how I react to feeling overshadowed. I decided to explore the root of that reaction and realize it goes back to my childhood, when I felt overshadowed by my half sister all the time. I’ve felt that way other times in my life, with different people and whenever I have it’s caused me to feel competitive and to compare myself to those people. It’s made me want recognition and seeing that behavior through this lens is helpful for doing dissolving work around it.
6-15-2020 I’ve been pruning my social media lately, in terms of who I’m connected with. In some cases, the pruning is for people who are racist and in other cases, it’s because I don’t find the relationship to be helpful. Instead the relationship is one where there is that feeling of being overshadowed. Why invest in a relationship like that? So I’m done with such relationships and I feel lighter for it.
I’m starting to feel some subtle changes in my body as a result of continuously doing the qi gong. I notice the the stretching and spiraling of the muscles through my body. The connection to the chi is deeper as well. And with the supernal work, I’m also noticing a further balancing of energies, a refinement and focus around what’s been done previously.
6-16-2020 I learned more about wrapping at tonight’s qi gong workshop and it was fascinating because I could feel the Qi generating from the wrapping experience itself, or perhaps its just that I tapped into a deeper level of the experience. I felt my entire body thrum with the energy, creating that experience of the cord between the underworld, cosmos and myself. I’ve also felt the archangels, like a background program. It feels like I’m on the next step of the path, with where with the qi gong is intersecting with the mediation occurring in the SOA.
6-17-2020 Yesterday during the energy gates meditation, I experience how wrapping the muscles can generate more qi gong, especially the deeper you go with wrapping. It was quite fascinating and revealing in terms of how the overall experience made me feel and I later used it for some healing work which also proved beneficial.
6-18-2020 In last night’s meditation I felt the archangels connect with me more closely. The main feeling from that contact was essentially being told I’m on the right track with the SOA and Qi gong work. At the same time they made it clear they’ll show up when appropriate and as needed. They offered a spiritual transmission and I felt it go into me.
6-20-2020 Today I got to attend a meditation on the solar eclipse that was offered by Bruce Frantzis. It was fascinating to learn about the Taoist perspective on planetary energies and see how similar it is to my own practice. It’s another confirmation that I’m on the right path with this work because of how the Earth itself is integrated into the planetary work. It gave me a lot to think about and work with.
6-21-2020 It being Father’s day, I woke up thinking about my dad. I’ve been doing a lot of work around my relationship with myself as a man, and I began to think about this person I never really knew, who I don’t think really knew himself and how much his family and his issues came down to me and have impacted me. My issues around recognition go back to him. My issues around sexuality come in part from him and what I learned…and that’s not even including all the other stuff. He’s dead and yet I still recognize and see how profoundly he’s effected me and shaped my life. It seems appropriate to this end month’s working with the work around this I’m doing.