Initiate Yourself: Recipes for Evolution in October 2020
Theme for October – “This Is the Unveiling”
In Pleasure Activism, Adrienne Maree Brown says, “I don’t think things are getting worse; I think they’re getting uncovered. This is the unveiling, and at the end of the unveiling, we have nakedness. And that nakedness calls for new desire.”
At least in the United States, we are grieving not only the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsberg but also holding our already shaky breath as the election approaches. The political situation grows more unstable as the veils of other worlds continue to thin.
Your task—really your only task in the coming months—is to survive and hold onto hope. We will get through this. We will rip the bandages off the wounds that have been hidden from the public eye for as long as humans have been keeping time, and we will finally, at long last, learn how to truly work together and thrive.
Experiments for October
1. Full-throttle Transparency – Drop the pretenses. Ditch the white lies. Confess. Admit. Discover your humility. Practice radical honesty. As the veil pulls even further away, there is no room for your secrets, so you may as well unearth them on your own terms. Take matters into your own hands. Create the future you want to live in with your own language.
Challenge Mode: Go public about the ways you have been wrong. Use social media as a tool to kneel before your audience. Admit that you don’t know everything. Show that you, like everyone else, are human. Explore what it looks like when your public face matches your private face.
2. Nothing Is Created or Destroyed – You are quantumly immortal. Your body, your being, your spirit, your soul, your mind are all made of matter, of atoms, of the Earth and water itself. You are endlessly connected through energy to the existence of everything that ever was, and if you happen to exit your current physical form, know that your own vastness lies ahead of you. Spend some time in meditation with the essence of yourself free from physics, free from body. Who are you when you are everything?
Challenge Mode: Shape probability. Your intentions, thoughts, feelings, and unconscious desires change the likelihood of outcomes in ways you can’t always see. As your shadows come to dance this month, pay attention to your ability to project onto and warp the future—whether positively or negatively. Whenever there is less than 100% likelihood of an event, you can, at any time, become an agent who can change what happens.
3. Five Minutes of Meditation Will Heal 100 Heartbreaks – As we head toward the Day of the Dead, ancestors are nearby. They are listening. They are hungry for those who would hear their stories. Allow yourself to examine the ancestors you do not have names for. When you call out to the blood in your body, who arrives? What have they experienced? What do they have to confess? Hear them, and know that, in hearing them, you have already healed them.
Challenge Mode: The Earth is elder than your elders. The land has been witness to every birth, death, love, cry for help, lie, truth. The Earth does not carry bias because the Earth has a complete understanding of the complexity of what has occurred on its surface. Find ways to connect with the knowledge of the land. Clear away the debris, tend the wounds thorns have left. There are stories here that only you can tell.
4. Settle Your Nervous System – What most people want more than anything is to be around others with a settled nervous system. Someone who can cope with new information. Someone who emits a sensation of calm. What practices help you exude clarity in a way that gently affects others? Think of your favorite breathing techniques or mindfulness practices. Try this method of connecting to your core. And, if all else fails, know that you are never too old to hide under the covers.
Challenge Mode: When you have a settled nervous system, your judgment improves dramatically, and this puts you in a position to accurately assess information, make plans, and take action. We need leaders from all corners of diversity now more than ever. Evaluate risks, and make a life worth living for yourself and those around you. If you must choose between tending your people and personal pleasures, you know what to do. Make consent your priority. For help with Covid-related risk factors, we have found this tool useful.
Please tell us how these experiments are working for you! We would love to hear from you at r/highpriestesses.
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Andra’s Recap of September’s Experiments
The offerings for September including making an apocalypse plan, treating everything as more intelligent than you thought, asking yourself what would make your change your mind, and listening to your somatic intuition.
At the very beginning of this month, I had a real run-in with the need to evacuate because I live in Portland, and the level 1 evacuation zone was just a few blocks away from my house. I went through everything in my possession and decided what I would bring with me, planning for both if I had to be on foot and if I was able to take my car. I packed my bags and said goodbye to everything that might burn. It was a necessary and beautiful process. And, even though I did not have to evacuate, I understand so much more now how I would do it. I purchased some additional supplies (sleeping bag, nonperishables, a pop-up tent for my bunnies) and duplicated some of my hygiene products so I could keep a bag ready to go for the future. I highly recommend doing this.
In thinking about the possibility that everything is more intelligent than I thought, my first experience was a fear of what I have now realized is “cunning” rather than “intelligence.” I became very easily scared and paranoid about the government and the power it had. However, when I refocused my attention on the intelligence of trees, of spiders, of rabbits, of plants, this helped to calm me. It was when even the spiders had completely retreated from their webs that I realized the smoke from the fires really was as bad as they were saying. I also have begun to have more compassion for people with differing political views than me, though it is still something I struggle with. I understand that their life experiences and the information they are exposed to play a huge role in their belief structure.
Regarding what it would take to change my mind, I think it comes down to not only being presented with facts but also feeling like the person is being completely transparent about their intention. Why did you put this information together? What destination are you heading toward? What are the motives here? If the motives are not clear, I am very skeptical of new information.
In terms of somatic intuition, I had a great time really tuning into my body and taking every tiny inch, blemish, swelling, and red spot seriously. What could this be communicating about what my body needs? I found that I get zits fairly regularly on the tops of my shoulders and have been working with ways to relax the nerves in those areas for the sake of my health.
I hope you enjoy October’s experiments! Let the unveiling begin.