A Paradigm-Shifting Encounter With The Divine

May 23rd, 2008

‘elloooo all! Some technical difficulties with my laptop significantly cut down on my site-updating ability for a while, but hark, for I hath returnethed!

My break from writing may have been just as well, as this recent period has certainly been one of those times when a lot of my beliefs and general approach went through a major overhaul. I’ve recently been reading a lot about the idea of “complex adaptive systems,” which I first discovered on the Divine Cosmos site. For the purpose of this entry, one of the main premises is that some systems posess a sort of system-wide intelligence. If pushed far enough toward instability, rather than collapsing, the system will instead spontaneously and quickly restructure itself into a new sort of order, the outcome of which is inherently unpredictable. This is apparently a relatively new science that focuses on the study of complexity, and much like David Wilcock of Divine Cosmos, I believe it has major implications for a lot of things that affect our lives.

Now, science is not my area of expertise (I’ll leave the science geekdom to Gehenna :D) but it’s interesting that I would come upon this concept at this time. It definitely rings true in my experience of what’s been happening to much of my paradigm lately! I debated whether to post about this experience, but after all the material I’ve covered about negative entities, I figure discussing the positive stuff thats been going on will balance things out a bit and hopefully give my readers a new perspective on what’s possible.

As I said in the post Create Your Own Reality Check, with all the experience with negs that I’ve had, I’ve often wondered — where is the “higher help” in all this, and what is their place in our lives? For the past few months I’ve been heavily focused on trying to make a connection with something positive. I’ve had my fill of the whole neg thing and then some; I’ve long wanted a change of pace.

More specifically, I’ve had plenty of experience with “adversaries”; I want to know, from direct personal experience, that there are also allies out there. Almost all of my efforts have been about trying to connect with my higher self… but as usually happens with me, I seem to have ended up with something completely different from my actual efforts; go figure. Not that that’s a bad thing; it’s never boring in any case!

Recently a friend suggested I check out the band Therion. As I’ve found out, most of their lyrics consist of various mythological and metaphysical references. My delight over this was matched by my suspicion that the fact that I actually understand most of the lyrics probably means I need to get out more. My undisputed geek status nonwithstanding, one of the songs on their latest album is called “The Perennial Sophia” and comes off almost like a hymn of sorts. For anyone who doesn’t know (gno?), in Gnostic thought, Sophia is the personification of divine wisdom.

Now, my concept of the divine is pretty fluid; I’ll talk to and try to connect with different “faces” depending on why I’m actually doing so at the time. And, while I don’t go as far as to call myself a Gnostic, I definitely take a lot of my influence from there. Sophia is a personal favorite aspect of the divine to connect with; there have been a few times when I’ve tried to do so and did feel something back, usually in the form of love and comfort. This has always been relatively subtle; enough so that I couldn’t completely rule out wishful thinking, and would only last for as long as I was reaching for it.

So, one night I’ve got that song on and am singing along, getting pretty absorbed in the music… when I suddenly start feeling waves of that same vibe that I associate with Sophia herself, except in a much more powerful and undeniable way. Oooo. I let the intensity of all this keep building until there seems to be a sort of cycle going on between myself, the music and this energy… it’s pouring into me through my crown, and I’m sending my own back while still singing and having fun. I got the distinct impression that whoever’s on the other end was enjoying it too. Very cool feeling. When the song was over I was still feeling this energy very strongly and thought to ask for a bit of extra protection from negative interference. I seem to have gotten it, judging by the way things have improved on that front pretty noticeably in the past few weeks. Later on, still feeling it, a friend suggested I try asking for an attunement to this energy in order to hopefully establish a more permanent connection that I can tap into as needed. That seems to have worked out well, as now I can do so pretty easily whenever I feel the need. Often I also feel the occasional random wave of it throughout the day; feels like she’s saying hi.

I’m still exploring the possibilities of this connection, but it has definitely produced a lot of changes for the better. For about three days after the first experience the flow of this energy was near continuous, and I was almost completely non-irritable. Even before I’d had my coffee. Issues and problems that seemed pressing a month ago now seem far away and a lot less relevant, and I feel much more well equipped to face them head on, but from a more emotionally detached perspective. I’ve always been a pretty laid back person, but now my relationships with other people and life in general feel much more harmonious. Most importantly, I’ve written before about previous difficulty feeling truly connected with other people and the divine — at this point I feel both, much more intensely than I ever have. And I’m likin’ it a lot. Something tells me this is only the beginning, and I’m excited to see where these new developments are headed…

To bring the discussion full circle — this has definitely been another one of those times where my complex adaptive (belief) system and perception was shaken, stirred and spontaneously rearranged itself into something even better. The key to being able to have
these experiences though, is in the word “adaptive.” Systems, especially belief systems that are rigid, are also stagnant, and do not hold up well in the face of inevitable change. They strain, and eventually they break. This concept can be applied just as well to our internal processes, as well as external human institutions. As I’ve learned, reading about the divine in various forms is one thing — the subjective personal experience is a whole other story. I had long suspected that all the study was just an intro, and if I ever was to have an experience like this, I would have to unlearn most of what I thought I knew in order to avoid reading my own biases and distortions into it. This has held to be very true. One of the most striking revelation so far has been that these interactions don’t evoke in me any need for formality or even “reverence” per se. Love ‘n respect, sure, but if anything I’m just as irreverent as I always was. It has felt a lot like (re?) connecting with a friend; just one with a much more expansive perspective.