March 5, 2025
Dear Leland and Everett,
An odd and unforeseen benefit has popped up in my Spiritual Stew meetings. The discussions have evolved into something of a check-in, where each participant spends a few minutes giving an update of sorts. Folks are invited to take the conversation wherever they want. Some people raise meaty topics they have been contemplating; mostly though, people talk about their recent struggles, the challenging things going on in their lives. We don’t try to solve each others’ problems, but give participants space to share them, and ask clarifying questions to help each other develop a deeper and clearer understand of those problems.
What struck me the first time we adopted this format, late last year, was how themes appeared to emerge. When I was struggling with the election results in early November, I was somewhat surprised to learn how few participants had followed the election particularly closely; what surprised me even more was the degree to which everyone was struggling with their own form of chaos. I don’t want to divulge too much of what others shared, but I was struck by the myriad ways people were experiencing chaos: in interpersonal relationships, in the life circumstances of their children (like at school, or health scares). Beginning to notice a theme, I started calling some of my closest friends, partially to test my hypothesis but mostly to check in; sure enough, they were experiencing their own forms of chaos.
The idea “we’re all experiencing something similar, each in our own individual ways” continues to surprise me. As we approached the shortest days of last year, I noticed a sadness, brittleness, and fragility in me. Others shared various forms of grief they were experiencing. When we returned from the holidays, I quickly noticed the energy shifting (in me and others) into something more expansive: even though the days were still short and cold, something about the lengthening of the days brought a sense of expansiveness, hope, and joy.
At this point I’m continuously noticing what themes emerge in my own person, and then the parallels all around me: in the meetings, in my key relationships, in the news. Seemingly everywhere I look, I sense we’re all facing different versions of the same struggle.
The theme of the last few weeks I can best describe as a sense of a shifting foundation. Folks talk about recurring organizational changes at work and rapidly evolving relationships and health situations, and I sense each of us feeling as if our foundations are shifting beneath us. Our political discourse implies the same phenomenon: we feel our foundations shifting, and are coalescing to react in tribal ways. The past Sunday I learned was “Transfiguration Sunday”, referencing Luke 9:28-36 where Jesus, while praying on a mountain, transforms into a being of light. Again I see recurrence of a theme, one of shifting foundations, or transformation.
Almost a year ago my visions stopped, but the circumstances probably require some explanation. When I experienced visions I often felt a need to pay attention, to stay alert, in order to remember what I had experienced when my meditation ended. I wanted to capture the stories, so that I might learn to understand the meaning (which wasn’t always obvious as the vision occurred). Over time I came to understand that my vigilance was unfounded and unnecessary, because I would retain what I was meant to retain, when I was meant to retain it. As I relaxed into some faith, I did notice some visions did not survive the meditation into my awareness. I would remember having thought “oh, I should remember this!”, but I would not remember the thing I wanted to remember. Over time this phenomenon became increasingly common. One of my last visions, I recall something of a curtain; as I pulled back the curtain, I found a room full of people working, somewhat like factory workers building something. Eventually, my ability to recall visions stopped entirely, even as I retained a sense *something* was happening during my meditations. I came to believe that something was at work in me, and that I would understand it when I was meant to. In the meantime, I assumed I was meant to find other faculties, or other sources of meaning, in the absence of my visions.
A few things I have noticed in the intervening period. First, I have come to feel energy as either dense or light. Dense energy typically associates with emotions like fear, while light energy associates with expansiveness and creativity. I feel the energy in my own being, and at times in those around me. I have experienced expansive states, which I’ll do my best to describe. It feels as if my energy expands to be larger than my physical body; I feel lighter and more porous than “normal”. At first I experienced the sensation after particularly healing meditations. Now I can summon that sensation, and a corresponding sense of presence, pretty much on demand. I can carry that sensation around with me, whether while interacting with our family or walking around at the grocery store.
When I am in the expansive state, encounters with particularly dense forms of energy are jarring. In my more porous state, I feel more exposed, unprotected, and vulnerable. People expressing their negativity are able to hit closer to the core of who I am, as opposed to deflecting off the armor I used to constantly wear. Matthew 7:6 (“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”) takes on a whole new meaning for me now. I understand that I should only share the best of myself with those who are ready to receive it, and protect myself from the unprepared.
How to protect myself has become an interesting question for me. Recently I have noticed a tendency to overconsume alcohol or food (particularly unhealthy food) when sustaining a presence around dense energy (think negative people). I find that overconsumption of alcohol or food condenses my energy, and helps me feel protected and more calibrated around dense energy. But I don’t particularly enjoy the overconsumption of food and alcohol, and don’t necessarily think condensing my energy is the best approach to being around negativity. Nor do I think avoiding negativity is the goal; indeed, I feel a calling to bring light into the world, which means engaging with the world. And dense energy isn’t problematic in itself: all of us experience prolonged periods of negativity, and become dense as a result; the opportunity is to invite those who are ready into expansiveness, and out of density. Those who insist on remaining dense, so be it. Those who accept an invitation to expand and grow in the presence of light are the point.
This idea of how to engage with the dense forms of energy without getting frivolously hurt, and without engaging in unhealthy behavior, is one I’m exploring these days. If the last couple years are any guide, this is a topic where I will first form a few hypotheses, and then come to an intellectual understanding; with additional meditation, the intellectual understanding will transform into a deep “knowing” of how to approach certain situations. My current hypotheses return me to my old friends intention and surrender. I suspect I will learn that the injuries occur because I am still holding emotional baggage meant to be released. I suspect once I let go of said baggage, I will find myself able to maintain an expansive state around dense energy without feeling exposed to injury. But I also suspect I will learn discernment, and when to share all of my gifts and energies, versus when to move along when facing those firmly rooted in and controlled by their traumas. How that will look is still a mystery to me.
One vision I did have occurred while alert and lucid. My visions typically occur during meditation; this one came to me as a thought form during a typical waking state. I saw a castle and sensed God approaching that castle in the form of a storm. The castle I understood to be constructed of false gods, or more precisely our ephemeral attachments. I understood that our temptation in the face of the storm will be to retreat to the deepest part of the castle, and perhaps even chain ourselves down, in an attempt to feel secure. But when the storm comes and destroys and floods the castle, we risk trapping ourselves in a hell of our own creation. The invitation is to face the storm and…fly? Swim? I’m not entirely clear, beyond allowing God to sweep away our attachments to the ephemeral, even if that means letting go of some deeply held beliefs.
My visions returned this week. I don’t know why, but I’ve had visual experiences twice in the last three days, after almost a year without any.
My point, to the extent I have one: I sense we are in a period of deep transformation. I am being transformed, the people around me are being transformed, and humanity itself is being transformed. We’re experiencing that transformation, presently, as a shifting foundation; we feel the world shifting beneath us. Our temptation is to cling to the dogmas, institutions, and tribes that have historically brought us feelings of security. My sense is that clinging to things meant to be swept away will result in suffering, potentially on vast and incomprehensible scale. Accepting the invitation into transformation will be challenging, particularly because we will feel like we are navigating without a compass. But we will learn discernment, intuition, and the type of knowing that comes from feeling our connection to the Universe and everything in it.
Wish me, and us, luck. I love you.
Love,
Dad
Letters to Leland 