Much of the transformation of consciousness has felt very personal. People have been drawn into the process of change often through pain, challenge, or an innate instinct to grow and evolve. The emotional charges we feel around these issues, whether they are triggered from current circumstances or emerge from stored memories in the past, give us our sense of individual experience. We are unique: each of us has our own way of seeing things, a perspective or frame of reference based on our accumulation of such experiences over this and other lifetimes. We want to share this with others, to be met and known, honored and respected, and hopefully, loved for "who we are". When we aren't seen or heard, we feel more pain or isolation which, with inner reflection, can lead us to the awareness that we aren't really listening to or loving ourselves. 

The next phase of the process then begins and we seek to listen to and honor ourselves. We want to know our inner guidance, intuition, or what is for our own highest good. We may begin to seek to find a way to access other levels of wisdom through connecting with guides, angels, or gurus. Sometimes we learn to use tools such as pendulums, kinesiology, or dowsing for guidance about daily decisions. Or we may learn to quiet our mental chatter long enough to allow our own inner voice to be heard and/or to allow the voices of spirit guides or teachers to be heard. This is a phase of healing and learning to become more conscious of the multiple levels of consciousness, all of which are simultaneously present and informing us in every moment. Gradually, a kind of confidence is built as we follow that inner voice in our personal affairs or healing path to successful conclusions. Even if we can't explain it to others in a way that they will understand or receive, we no longer feel that same pain or isolation because we have learned to trust ourselves. 

This is a vital phase of learning and cannot be skipped over in this process of transformation. The movement from judging everything and everyone, including oneself,  from an external frame of reference to building a clearer internal structure of consciousness gives the individual a more conscious way to know oneself while also beginning to feel connected to the currents of consciousness that flow through all of creation. Learning to open, listen to, and move with these inner perceived currents provides us with many wondrous experiences of "being in the flow", of synchronicity, or of personal confirmation. Yet it is not the end of the process, and eventually we are led out of our intensely inner focused personal time of transformation to combine our new found awareness and strength within the larger whole. 

As we enter groups with a desire to co-create experiences with greater honoring of the contributions of each person, we want our intuition or way of accessing guidance to be recognized and respected. The first phase is to do what we have learned, what has worked so well for us in the personal inner phase of evolution. But we soon become aware of how others see and perceive differently basing their perspectives on various ways of tuning in. Coming from that place where we have placed our trust in our internal way of knowing, we may experience the flip-side of when we initially felt so different and isolated from the mainstream. The combining of these strong inner guided individuals can seem confusing or threatening, especially where the old hierarchies of power and control are still undercurrents that have not been consciously surfaced within the group. People can be attached to their way or system of knowing and may also be translating that knowing through the personal need for self-validation. Most often, when such groups combine, there are subtle but very real power struggles that begin to feel like  "dueling pendulums", as people vie to speak their truth and take their power. Alas it is just another face of duality based in a belief that someone is right and someone wrong. Some groups have come to this point and dissolved or fragmented with great pain and soul searching as the result. Most of us have had such experiences by now, and may have retreated back to the personal cocoon of our own inner processes with some fear of coming out again.

Let me assure you that this process is right at the center of the next level of transformation and one which is at the crux of the collective initiation of this age. Inner validation is not what is needed in this next phase of growth, nor is it to go back to the first phase of needing to receive credit or value from those in the group. The next step is to allow our consciousness to relax out of the hold of the personal self into the field of awareness that beholds all without attachment to any one position. In this stance, all that is offered through individuals is part of the living field of that moment. Creation herself is also within the moment informing the individuals. As awareness is allowed to evolve itself without attachment or defensive maneuvers, something begins to emerge that has great power for life. That life animates all who have been present, whether or not any of their insights ended up as the culminating awareness. Those who are quietly open and play more on the inner rather than vocal levels are also just as important to the process as those who are more articulate. Creation sources all who are part of the creative urge that has gathered the group and the larger intention within the whole is served. 

It is imperative that we begin to loosen our hold on the matrix of personal self and individual will so that all of the gifts we have so faithfully struggled to recover and claim can be woven into the new whologram of creation. The transformation of where we stand in consciousness can feel like death, and so it is. We fight to reclaim and trust our sense of self, we persevere to find our truth and speak it, then we have to let go? Again?!! Many give up at this point, not realizing that the next step is the one where we will ultimately find our greatest fulfillment. Fulfillment is not just of the personal level, and those who adapt new age teachings and practices only for that end will find it losing energy and feeling not unlike the emptiness of the dream of personal power or personal accumulation. For many, many lifetimes we have played out our need/desire/ambition at this level, sometimes being up and sometimes down, karmically keeping ourselves and others bound in a seemingly endless game of dueling whatevers. 

The next phase of growth is not in the personal arena. Yes, that arena needs to be completed with as much grace and awareness and unconditional love as possible. But there comes a time when we step beyond it into a new field of conscious creation. We can clean up the last strands of attachment with a process of unconditional forgiveness such is happening in South Africa and in the consideration of massive debt forgiveness for third world countries. Forgive and unbind the karmic holds of the old duels. Then let go, allow your consciousness to reconfigure, and step into the larger animating field of living creative awareness. The individual sense of self shifts and the way you flow energy through your field changes. Instead of everything processing through your chakras, much happens in the field around you. With less investment in the personal, the emotions play with all that is in the living field including all of the love and wisdom that are present even during very traumatic events. The immune system strengthens since it is calibrated to the emotional body, and one begins to draw life-force, not just through the upward or downward currents, but from the field of universal life directly.

As you shift, you will probably find yourself drawn into groups again, bringing that awareness into creative fulfillment within form and experience that is shared at a level far beyond what personal needs or desires ever attained in the old paradigm. Groups who join together to serve a common intention find themselves entering into an organically creative process wherein whatever awareness is needed is surfaced through all the insights and processes that occur. If no energy is moving, or the group seems stuck, a return to listening with an openness to being informed by the greater source of Creation will bring the current back into focus. There may be facilitators of such a process, but all are responsible for their own attunement and willingness to participate with Creation for the greater good of all. The fulfillment of the tasks that become clear during these times of creative awareness raising are also taken by individuals and brought to completion within the same overall context. If any one in the group steps back into the personal plane and tries to divert the flow of life to themselves because of fear, the whole group will feel it, and gradually the flow will stop. Playing with living awareness, which is innately lushly abundant, encourages us to stay open and to gently continue to open to receive. The personal level needs or desires receive more than they ask for if they are held lightly within the field without fear or contraction. Once people have a taste for the nectar of this level of creation, it is increasingly difficult to go back to anything less.

A group is two or more that gather with a common intention or desire. If you find yourselves within relationships or groups who have enough openness to try this attunement and listening process, I encourage you to propose it. If your relationship or group would like some facilitated experiences to learn the process, I or others may be able to assist. Often willingness and a time of group listening with the greater good in mind will open the connection. Keeping it open is the challenge to the individuals within the group to honor the living awareness flowing in ways that may not be understood at first, or that may feel threatening to conscious or unconscious personal investments that begin to surface. If a "duel" shows up, step back into the field of creation and listen to the wisdom. It will show a way to proceed where the life current is strong and able to take root in creation. 

We are to live full and fully, creative and joyful, alive and aware, exquisitely individually unique and consistently informed  by the larger awareness within creation which animates all to the degree we choose to partake. And it is a choice. This collective initiation began within the individual consciousness and is coming to birth through the crucible of group connectivity and awareness. Once a few relationships or groups of people move through the awkwardness of the first attempts to create from this transpersonal field of creative intelligence, there will be a rippling of effectiveness reaching into every facet of life as we have known it. Step forward as you feel the call, and allow your gifts and ways of bringing awareness through you to join with us all. Alomha, and so it Is.
 

Copyright 1999, Michele Mayama