Psychospiritual Growth: A download on the road

Years ago, I felt the call to go west. When I did, I spent a lot of time in Joshua Tree, California. It was a place of pilgrimage for psychospiritual growth. It was the place that my inner fire ignited into a much bigger version of what had been. Before Joshua Tree, I had whiffs of a creative spark. During that time in Joshua Tree, I had more intuitive knowing of my path of service being the way that I use language and writing to transform my inner experience so I can be aligned with my soul and live in inner peace, and help others embark on such a journey of transformation for themselves. But I couldn’t rush the process. Back then, I wasn’t strong enough mentally or emotionally to bring that vision fully to life. This trip was different.

 

Another call came right before the fall equinox in September 2023: Go west. This time I knew there would be another fanning of flames, although I didn’t know what it would look like.

It’s a feeling inside that is more like a soft pull in a certain direction versus an alarm bell ringing for a fire, although a fire inside had been lit. It had been years since I visited Joshua Tree–years marred by the pandemic, busy-ness, and sickness. Those years were also full: learning, growing, shedding, and stoking the inner fire that had re-ignited in the high desert. The inner call felt like a celebratory march to the place that was burned into my heart.

I left Alabama and navigated west along route 20, then route 10. I hugged the Mexican border and watched fields of oil rigs in the Permian Basin in Texas turn into swaths of solitary Sonoran desert dotted with saguaro cactus. I drove through White Sands, New Mexico, marveled at the dunes of gypsum, and turned north. My destination that night was a small campground I was familiar with just south of Roswell, New Mexico.

Connecting in Roswell, New Mexico

One of the reasons that I enjoy road trips is the long, solitary days of driving. I am in my head as much as I am in my heart. The manic motion of the passing landscape coupled with the vacuum-like quality of being sealed inside my truck (windows up, air conditioning on) feels like a sensory deprivation tank of a very constructed nature. As I drove, I was able to go into my mental reel of memories of the times that I felt disempowered: each time a lover had put me into a box of what I was worth as a reflection of his emotional availability; each time I was bullied by a family member for pursuing intellectual adventures in lieu of their family-oriented small-town life, a mental lack of availability to imagine anyone could do anything different than what they were doing. Reviewing the mental reel is part of my process of opening up inner space. I feel obliged to witness the memories that still have a charge to them and therefore power over me. Each time it gets a little bit easier to let go. This time, after years of doing this, I felt free. An overwhelming sense of love emerged from my being. The love was for myself and it came with pride that I had never let those people hold me back.

I arrived at Bottomless Lake State Park in New Mexico (just south of Roswell) in the dark. I couldn’t get my bearings because there was absolutely no light around me. I knew I was driving near the campground, so I simply pulled over to a gravel area. I didn’t know if I was on a site. My dog joined me as I slid into the back seat of my pickup truck. There was enough room for us to lay out and comfortably sleep. I kept the windows shut because the mosquitos were out in droves. Effectively, we were still in a vacuum.

Despite being tired from a day of driving and thinking, I found that I couldn’t sleep. As I lay in the dark of the truck cab, I took stock of what was happening: the moonlight outside illuminated everything with a silver glow, but it was disorienting because everything looked silver. The shadows ate the objects outside. The temperature was comfortable and I laid on my blanket for extra cushioning. I had a sensation of motion—something that often lingers with me after long days on the road—but I noticed it wasn’t only in my feet and legs. I felt a racy sensation through my arms and chest, too. I noticed my heart was beating faster than normal.

I kept turning over.

My dog got up from the bench seat and jumped back onto the center console. She turned to face me and I noticed, in the silver moonlight, that her ears were flicking up and down. She watched me with her curious and inquisitive eyes.
That’s how I knew something was happening.

Coco and I somewhere in New Mexico

My dog, Coco, is a trained service dog. Years ago, at the beginning of my recovery from bipolar disorder, she was reactive to fluctuations in mood and perceptual anomalies before I had any idea of the onset. When a hallucination was about to start, or when a manic swing was going to erupt, Coco would forcefully act upon me so that I would stop what I was doing and sit down to ground. If I was driving, she would jump into my lap, press her paws into my face, and wedge her butt on the steering wheel so it wouldn’t turn.

But this wasn’t one of those times.

Because she wasn’t reacting, I could safely assume this was not a manifestation of my disorder—it was something else.

My heart started to race faster as my eyes rolled back into my head, which felt like something had cracked across the top of it. I heard a high-pitched whistle. I breathed into the intense “download.”

Downloads are a term I’ve heard used by people who work with high vibrational energy and entities. Some folx who channel light language, an innocuous script and potent healing energy from the collective mind, say this is part of the 5D (dimensional) shift. If someone is activated energetically, they might receive downloads that affect their energetic field. In more mundane terms, this is the process of moving stuck energy–thoughts, emotions, memories that inhibit a clear connection to the inner self so that the higher vibrational energy can be experienced. The inner peace and soul alignment is on the other  side of moving that stuck energy and being with the higher vibrational energy.

This was not the first time a download has happened for me, but with Coco as my witness, it was the first time I was clearly able to distinguish the spiritual experience and not the psychological disorder one. I remember being grateful that no one was around so that I could writhe and make noise in peace. I wondered how I would explain this to any passerby. Later, when I met with my spiritual teacher and therapist, I told her about this. I cringed. I said that it really felt different than when I wasn’t well, and because she had treated me through my recovery, she knew exactly what I met. She told me to think of it as a gift and a blessing, evidence of all the psychological growth I had undergone.

I eventually made it to Joshua Tree, California. After visiting some friends and hitting up my favorite places, I decided it was time to leave. My friend Zara was surprised—I had lived with her while in Joshua Tree all those years ago. Her friendship was solidified over creative bonds and artistic explorations. But I knew, intuitively, that I had achieved mission-complete and there was no need for me to linger. Zara helped me celebrate the fire in Joshua Tree—she went with me to have a lightning bolt on my hand, representing the dynamic energy that zapped me and cracked me open while living in Joshua Tree. Zara was one of the first people who I felt truly saw me creatively, saw my vision and understood how I wove different threads together to have new fabrics of ideas. So it was much to my surprise that I left Joshua Tree just as soon as I had arrived.

“I’ve outgrown Joshua Tree,” I told her. It was what my inner fire told me then—no other way around it. It’s what my intuition said. And I knew, too, it’s what my download confirmed. All of this was surreal. One might say that these beliefs are characteristic of a person who is not mentally well. Energetic downloads and part-alien civilizations are not terms associated with a Western worldview—or the belief in such things, I should say. With my dubious mental health history, I might double down on defending myself. It is hard to be seen as someone who has these beliefs AND the mental health history that I do. There are two mainstream narratives that I come into direct conflict with there: a bold, independent woman doesn’t need to be tamed, and a woman with bipolar disorder will forever remain an unpredictable, moody, manic pixie girl. I live outside these narratives, but I am constantly encountering people who expect those exact circumstances in me. The world hasn’t had its major breakthrough and transformation, even though I did. The fire of inner transformation is what enabled me to revise the story and have breakthroughs so that I could choose how I engage with (or disengage from) the mainstream narrative.

 


A few years prior, when I actually did live in Joshua Tree and frequented the library in neighboring 29 Palms, I re-read a hardcopy essay on my struggle to convey exceptional experiences—that is, times when I have had sensory impressions that came from somewhere beyond the purely material world. I was hung up on conveying what it was that I was trying to say. What I was ascribing to “I” was coming across as a tunnel that I had been working on for a while. What I was trying to say wasn’t coming through. I had to open the conversation up—ask what the words wanted from me.

The essay was about the journey inside to inner space—extolling the virtues of personal evolution. It’s part of the process of understanding “higher purpose.” But my essay was falling flat. Phrases like “finding myself,” “knowing myself,” “higher purpose” felt deflated. They lacked force. A reader could get a sense of what I was referring to by my descriptive language, but I couldn’t convey the electricity in my experiences, which is what gave me the enthusiasm to write about them. Most importantly, I couldn’t activate the experiences for the reader,which was what I was trying to do. The space between the thoughts and me, the observer of them, was still too tight.

I started to play with the medium, the language, by going in and out through words that shifted my awareness. I watched for the shape of the letters on the page, then I tried focusing and unfocusing my vision, moving from words to shapes, words strung together, and then back. This became dharana—meditation—on the words. I was singularly focused on them. Eventually my field of vision started to blur. My peripheral vision blurred, too, and the library bookshelves turned into cases full of neon beams of light, and the books on them became crystals.
The idea of the interconnectedness of all of the ideas and writers, and me to them, became apparent as I witnessed the network of lights across the books. The image registered in my mind as a felt sense registers in the body. And then I had a fleeting thought that I was a medium, a part of this vast network who, through the act of writing, pulled ether into material, and with that, created our world because information is our world. We are not the information, we are not the source of the information, and yet we are not separate from it. I felt a deep sense of satisfaction in the core of my being then, and the vision vanished. The meditation was broken.

Unbeknownst to me then, I had activated a trip of sorts, detaching from myself and the world as it is perceived by my mind to a place of pure awareness. This is analogous to cultivating the Witness, the mode neutral being of awareness, separate from the self and yet still connected to the ethereal as a medium for the Self. In doing so, I disidentified from the self as a thing that was perceived, the world through my body and mind identities. It is the practice of opening the I-Self channel.

When I left the library, touched by the experience, I was unsettled by it and I have been unsettled by it ever since.

I was able to gain some clarity about what I experienced by learning how to interpret the experience through the lens of psychosynthesis. I was immediately confronted with questions for reflection: why did I need to convey my experience in a most authentic way? How was I able to detach consciousness from my body and move into pure awareness? Where did “I” go? And how does all of this contribute to a movement toward wholeness on part of my being?

After I left Joshua Tree, I continued my exploration of the Mojave Desert and then went east into Arizona. Dry, sandy terrain turned into grasses and wildflowers and pine forests that crept up the sides of mountains. I decided to drive up Mt Hualapai, an unimproved forest road that was rutted out in places. “Chains or four by fours only.” It was the night before the full moon in Aries, and perhaps this motivated my fiery ambition. I sought the quiet of such a remote camping spot so I could sit and hear my intuition more clearly. That is, I knew my download in New Mexico was important but I didn’t know why. No big breakthroughs came, no aha! Moments, but I sat in the peace and stillness of wild forest. I rose with the sun and enjoyed the dawn hours of tranquility. I felt at one with the nature around me, and I acknowledged that that was all I needed. As I drove down the mountain a few hours later, I encountered a baby elk. I had the overwhelming intuition that it was a gift from the woods, the encounter. I looked up indigenous symbolism at a truck stop for morning coffee. I read on an internet encyclopedia that elk symbolize sovereignty and inner power.

Later that week, I happened to be attending the Parapsychological Association’s monthly meeting. One of the table chairs, Everton de Oliveira Maraldi, a scholar of religion and parapsychology, was holding a discussion on exceptional experiences. An exceptional experience is anything that falls under the umbrella category as out of the ordinary framework of Western psychology—near-death experiences, hearing voices, telepathy, alien encounters, etc. I believe that exceptional experiences are a natural and healthy part of psycho-spiritual development. They occur not out of a diseased or disordered brain but from our connection to consciousness outside of our brain.

I find that in the scientific community, there is an earnest effort to somehow bridge the gap between Eastern or indigenous wisdom and Western, scientific study. I had this in the back of my mind as I mulled over the elk sighting, the download, the impulse to go west and honor my inner flame. These journeys usually have a rich personal significance for me, meaning made out of synchronous events and fortuitous encounters on the road. I’ve always held a position more aligned with Eastern and indigenous wisdom, that I travel because I am in tune with the world and what I need to do to find my most empowered perspective. It is no coincidence that things have happened on my road trips as they do. But what is the way to bridge the gap and provide a scientific framework for understanding these occurrences? And how can I anchor my deep-seated belief in the consciousness of the cosmos working through me (a spiritual point of view) while I live out the human experience (which comes with narratives and a whole lot of psychological ick)?

This is why I have been involved in the parapsychology community. I want to be part of that bridge. Likewise, Everton is creating a bridge, too. He takes a cultural, religious approach when dissecting an exceptional experience, and when that, the bridge leads to more normalization and more discussion of exceptional experience and inner space. The point of dissecting them is to know something about our human experience in general, how these experiences appear across cultures, and specifically, where there is room to allow more self determination in the case of the experiencer—there’s a difference between a researcher or an outside party (like Everton) observing an exceptional experience and an experiencer-reported event (like me describing my download). Moreover, like this trip to Joshua Tree, I am reminded that it’s the journey and not the destination. Keep on trucking.

The biggest challenge here is to know how and when to treat the exceptional experience as a thing unto itself (revealing some measure of psychosocial growth or numinous event) or as a symptom of a disease.

Regardless, it is very important to document such happenings so that there is a more clear map of inner space. (I can help you with writing these things out. Reach out to start a conversation.)

I believe this is the fire that ignited in me in Joshua Tree. It was during the years that I was estranged from my beloved town in the high desert that I did a lot of work on myself, my socio-cultural self, the one beyond the “bipolar disorder girl.” I’ve long outgrown that personality in favor of rigid self care, an understanding of the neurodivergence of bipolar disorder, and a healthy respect for mainstream Western psychology. It’s dogmatic and materialistic and looks at the mind like a machine sometimes, but this is a good balance for the depth psychology I am trained in (psychosynthesis) that perceives each individual as a spiritual being having a human experience. The emphasis is on the spiritual and not the materialistic.
It is no longer hard for me to be seen because of all of the psychological and spiritual work that I have done on myself. In fact, I welcome the act of being seen because I can talk about exceptional things and hold the space for others to relay theirs. I believe this is part of my bridge-building service to the world. I just had to go west to let the energies roll through me.

***

Hi there! Thanks for reading. I’m a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide who explores psychospiritual growth.

I write my own story. In that light, my writing is service–the stories I share about my own psychospiritual growth, the process of self exploration & self transformation, and the way culture affects us are my gift to the world.

I share the knowledge and processes that anyone can implement to achieve inner peace. This is a transpersonal point of view and embodied transformation through creative writing.

And, I explore the deep stuff–what we do when we recall past life experiences; how we engage the archetypal resonance of embodied experience; when to call the “weird stuff” you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening and when to call a mental healthcare practitioner.

  • If you are a mental healthcare professional who would like to work with me on your journey of psychospiritual growth or integrating transpersonal psychology with your client practice, go here 
  • If you are a GenXer who wants to learn about a transpersonal worldview and write your own story in a group setting online, go here
  • If you are interested in my work with language and changing the mental healthcare narrative through transpersonal psychology, I invite you to read the curated pieces from my portfolio that are on this website and reach out

BTW: I love tattoos and coffee.

***

Curious about seeing the world and the mind as multidimensional? What does that mean for science?

  • Check out Public Parapsychology. Learn more about what psi is and why psi belongs to everyone. Join other seekers and citizen scientists who are exploring parapsychological phenomena for the benefit of understanding the spiritual nature of the material world.
  • Also consider joining The Parapsychological Association. Support an organization of professional scientists and independent researchers who are pushing the boundaries of our current understanding of the mind. Programming and publications include excellent resources for mental healthcare practitioners and healers who support individuals with transpersonal experiences. 

Psychospiritual growth: Into the stream of consciousness to plant a seed

Earlier in the year, I was pulled by a then unnamable sensation to anchor in the Deep South versus return to the northeastern corner of the United States. My psychospiritual growth was piqued. But I had to fill in the blanks about what it was/is in Alabama that makes me feel called here. Why here and why now?

I spent a few months in the actual spiritual emergence, bowled over by the entirety of circumstances that led me to land in Alabama. 

I’m still sifting through the experience and the accompanying stream of consciousness thoughts and sensations. They are my compass through inner space. Ultimately, I believe I’m moving toward integration of these pieces, but I am still looking at the granular level of the process.

When we are functioning like “normal” (or whatever normal means for someone), we rely predominantly on our logical mind, our left brain. We make connections between events and personal beliefs in a way that involves thinking and language. When changing into a different state of consciousness, or bearing witness to experiences when we are “losing our mind” or “going crazy” or forced to navigate a situation without logic as the main compass, we function in the intuitive mind or the right brain. This is when a lack of conscious reasoning takes over, “gut feelings” come to the fore, and language eludes us–we may do better to “think” in archetypes and symbols. 

In altering states of consciousness, changing mindsets and being open to the receipt and processing of information in ways that are “not normal” for us, the way we make meaning of experiences starts to change. Time perception changes. The way the moment is perceived might have sensory qualities to it that differ from a person’s day to day experience of time. And, when we are in a state of Witness consciousness, separate from thoughts, unattached to the mind and able to observe all around us in a neutral, not engaged manner, energy shifts. There was a need to take care of myself medically and physically. And there was equally a need to take care of myself mentally, as the stress of living in the city had taken its toll after two years. Leaving New Orleans happened in the three-dimensional world. I could call that outer space. That tripped some strings in inner space. I’m not sure the distinction of inner space matters, save for the perceptions that we have of these intuitions from the third eye that come through the invisible layers of the world as if they arrive from different dimensions. They are all experiences of psychic phenomena that can happen during emergence.

Synchronicities emerge from the lower unconscious and higher unconscious in the presence of awareness. Jung refers to a famous story of synchronicity as a beetle tapping on a window precisely at the moment a patient of his brought one into conversation. In his writings about the event, he noted that there was “something down there” in the subconscious that was emerging; an account of a train ride he embarked on recounts his experience of hearing an inner voice that said “what the fantasy depicted would become completely real.” In other words, when plunging the depths of psyche, when the hard shape of a personality or a mindset that had previously given structure is ruptured, it is difficult to determine what is reality or not. Consciousness alters.

There was a synchronicity of the deepest level on a day I was towing north toward New York. I was in Alabama, a state north of Louisiana and generally somewhere I would not choose to be. It is notoriously conservative and boasts aspects of Southern culture that do not match with my lifestyle. I was lost in my thoughts, about four hours in and suddenly an alarm went off, indicating my trailer was disconnected. I looked out my passenger-side window and saw smoke. I pulled off the highway and before I could even pull up the app to call for roadside help, a white truck pulled up in front of me on the shoulder. None of the series of events seemed real. In other words, I slid into altered consciousness.

So, why here? Why now?

I am not exploring this experience (or inner space) through a human-only (psychological perspective); I’m also not about taking a spirit-only perspective (spiritual perspective) where this was a purely fated event as the universe willed it. I believe the here and now is about embodying both perspectives and moving toward empowerment, which looks like my ability to choose what is needed in a moment so I could make a conscious choice around making meaning of what happened. 

Why here, why now is not answered logically but in stream of consciousness. It goes something like this: I live in the country, which is rural and not as diverse as other locales I have lived, where gentrification is a whisper no one fears to hear, where most people who haven’t lived here have preconceived notions about what it’s like to live here. Those preconceived notions are gleaned from mainstream history books and mass-media-broadcast narratives. They fear the substance use and religious overtones and trade labor because it seems so last century, as in, problems that come from a lack of change. In other words, time has stopped here. The future isn’t falling over its own to feet in the name of progress. The present is all that matters here. There are layers to the present. I splice them into time-space as Saturn time and Moon time, my term for time beyond time. Saturn time that governs in a linear, material here and now point of view. Moon time is spiritual essence and cycles, repeats across an ethereal here and now in which multiple timelines are present.

I free-associate astrological archetypes. They become characters that appear in my day to day life. Walking, talk synchronicities.

Another flow of thoughts: The country has lived up to its stereotype of being full of characters. The diversity here is not so much in the literal sense as it is in the metaphorical one and found in the characters I encounter. I think about my guardian angel who helped me with my tire incident earlier this year (the incident that was the turning point that led to my move). During one particularly challenging post-tire incident week for me, he had, unbeknownst to him, painted this out my struggle. I was drowning in the heat of the summer and drowning in the overwhelm that accompanies a complete plot twist and unexpected move. I was struggling to make meaning. I felt a deep something for the land that was the most illogical choice. I wanted to understand why I felt myself choosing Alabama over New York.

The archetype of the artist reveals the beauty to be had in the process of transformation.

The artist revealed his new painting, a calm, cool under the sea landscape. The painting represented a secret place to which I might recede in the darkness of the chaos that is inner transformation. He had painted my bubble. Here, I harvest seeds, the things I am learning.

A few weeks later, I was having dinner with another friend from the Deep South–a native Alabamian with military service, manual dexterity, a suave gentleman nature and a soft accent. This is typical of the men here.

This friend is a gentle-natured man, an archeologist. He is not one to be worked up, save for one trigger, which I learned came from his signature way of speaking: “When I travel and people hear my accent, they think I’m an idiot. For them the Deep South means losers who don’t know shit. But we have here what you want there. We have community. We are spiritual. We believe in family and we care for one another.”

And in his soft roar, I heard the other piece I was looking for: now is never how it used to be.

We incarnate over and over trying to be how it used to be. If I resist the rupture, the opportunity to go out of my mind and into the space and characters around me, I lose out on the ability to grow.

I think we chase that all the time–the idea of how things used to be–and we forgo the present. The present is ultimately the ripest seed, the seed ready to grow.

This blog was written during a sun–Saturn opposition. That means, there’s a tension inside that is reflected outside. The urge to live and let live, the stream of consciousness, isn’t finding satisfaction by the confines of the material world. It is too much for the form. The boundaries between the world and I feel too tight. Saturn wants to binds to life in a finite time and space, but I can see beyond it when I relax into the stream of consciousness, the impulse to life across all times (something I call Moon time). Perhaps the value in the rupture this summer is the reminder that asking Why here, why now?  is an invitation to perceive outside of boundaries of Saturn time because ultimately, our impulse to live and our spirit is boundless.

                                                                                       
The land here is pregnant with memory. It stays while I, my spirit, comes and goes through it, the memory. I want to honor that continuity of life through times of shift and transformation. I’ll drop a seed here: these experiences shape the course of lifetimes. I will be learning from this summer for lifetimes to come. It is I who am in charge of fate. I’ll let that idea grow in me for a while.

The rupture of structures (including ego structures) and alteration of consciousness (immersion into the sea of streams of consciousness) lets me play with associations as if I am spinning the wheel of fate. My conscious choice will dictate where my energy will go. Here again the energy of the sun–Saturn opposition strongly emerges. The ability to discern one’s own boundaries, to create strong ego (a good use of ego) that supports psychological growth, is one thing we incarnate to learn. And then, those boundaries become our compass.

This blog is just a smattering of dots, really. Stream of consciousness ideas. The why here, why now is really a lesson in presence during spiritual emergence and consciousness expansion. The lesson alludes to the importance of letting the intuition take over, to be flooded with sensations of memories, and to acknowledge time beyond the present moment–and in the present moment. The ever present opportunity is to witness the present as pure consciousness and find a place to plant a seed. There you will grow.

 

***

Hi there! Thanks for reading. I’m a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide who explores psychospiritual growth.

I write my own story. In that light, my writing is service–the stories I share about my own psychospiritual growth, the process of self exploration & self transformation, and the way culture affects us are my gift to the world.

I share the knowledge and processes that anyone can implement to achieve inner peace. This is a transpersonal point of view and embodied transformation through creative writing.

And, I explore the deep stuff–what we do when we recall past life experiences; how we engage the archetypal resonance of embodied experience; when to call the “weird stuff” you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening and when to call a mental healthcare practitioner.

  • If you are a mental healthcare professional who would like to work with me on your journey of psychospiritual growth or integrating transpersonal psychology with your client practice, go here 
  • If you are a GenXer who wants to learn about a transpersonal worldview and write your own story in a group setting online, go here
  • If you are interested in my work with language and changing the mental healthcare narrative through transpersonal psychology, I invite you to read the curated pieces from my portfolio that are on this website and reach out

BTW: I love tattoos and coffee.

***

Curious about seeing the world and the mind as multidimensional? What does that mean for science?

  • Check out Public Parapsychology. Learn more about what psi is and why psi belongs to everyone. Join other seekers and citizen scientists who are exploring parapsychological phenomena for the benefit of understanding the spiritual nature of the material world.
  • Also consider joining The Parapsychological Association. Support an organization of professional scientists and independent researchers who are pushing the boundaries of our current understanding of the mind. Programming and publications include excellent resources for mental healthcare practitioners and healers who support individuals with transpersonal experiences. 

Psychospiritual growth: A transformative festival and an unexpected integration

I’m three months into living in Alabama. The reason I decided to stay here is the Talladega Forest. While bearing witness to an immense spurt of psychospiritual growth, I needed to ground. So I camped in the area to rest my nerves and muster up the courage to drive again. The intuition to stay (versus carry on to the Catskill Mountains in New York) was strong, I always asking for guidance from the land since that feels like the source of the signal to stay. One day, while hiking in the Talladega Forest, the intuition to stay became an embodied demand, one that seemed to come from my higher self. It is the call from the higher unconscious we must heed if we are to step into transformation and integrate that which is emerging so change in self and personality becomes embodied.

 


I was very excited to hear of Awakenus Festival, a music and arts festival happening on private land called Bohamia in the Talladega Forest. All of my previous favorites (EDM, ecstatic dance, art, community, nature, spirituality) seemed to have a convergence point in the three-day festival. What’s more is the location is about 40 minutes due south–literally down Alabama Highway 77, on which I now live in a tiny home community–so this all felt fated. I reached out to the organizers and introduced myself as a transpersonal guide. I offered to provide support to individuals at the festival. I’d set up a chill out tent, a sort of art installation sacred space, and help tend the good vibes. And this event was scheduled to happen the weekend before the Lion’s Gate on August 8, an energetic portal that occurs every August when Sirius, the spiritual north star in Canus Major, aligns with the Sun in Leo and Earth. It’s a staircase to ascension if you’re plugged in to the energy.

The higher self is very much being tapped by the collective energy currently running through Earth right now in Lion’s Gate portal—one might say, the higher unconscious (on a personal level), something my mentor psychosynthesis psychotherapist Dr. Richard Schaub says is accessible in the upper realm of the psyche, is the realm through which the intuitions from the higher self arrive. Of course, “higher unconscious” and “lower unconscious” are only arbitrary descriptions. Higher is equated with visions and messages from what is in the realms beyond us. Lower is equated with the shadow that is repressed, whether from our individual and current lifetime or the collective and ancestral lifetimes that we carry in our body. Each contain pieces of the human experience that we must integrate into our personality so that we are most present in the moment.

Sometimes festivals like Awakenus are full of people tripping their faces off on plant medicine or pharmaceutical drugs. Maybe some are looking to convene with the higher unconscious, escape the Matrix and eject from the default world (aka dumpsterfire reality). Maybe some have experiences, as their subconscious ruptures and gives the gifts of darkness and demons, which must emerge and be witnessed and be consciously held so the energy can dis-integrate and the person can recover that piece of their power. Be led by intuition or be led by freeing yourself from unconscious patterns.

And other times, festivals like this are completely sober spaces. I like those the best. I’ve chosen and lived a sober lifestyle for years now. This has to do with my mental health—it’s best when I am sober—and my physical health, too. I can’t fully embody inner transformation when I am not fully embodied.

Dr. Schaub and I talk about this, the access to the higher and lower unconscious realms through substance or organic experiences. Immersive, super stimulating environments like festivals are meant to entice a sensory overload so that you can go out of your mind. The drugs are direct-connects to the higher and lower unconsciousness that contain material we seek to commune with. But the work of integrating what emerges, what we tap into, can only meaningfully be integrated while sober. The higher and lower unconsciousness can be accessed without drugs—it takes a lot more time and inner work. Breathing techniques, meditation, and somatic practices can take you there. And sometimes, the emergence happens spontaneously. Regardless of the path, the integration must happen with intention and full embodiment.

Awakenus Festival, like many others, is set up with a transformational culture. There were opportunities to have social impact (a bin was set up to collect food for a local soup kitchen and a note was made in the introductory email about bringing reusable containers). There is a focus on community—community dinners, community walks, even community sharing happening at tables or piles, places strategically throughout the grounds. One table was full of rick rack–like period pads, costume jewelry and Mardi Gras beads. As I stopped to look, a woman called out: “Help me declutter my apartment!”

My love for festival free-for-all spaces comes out of my love of rave culture and the up-all-night dancing in wild club outfits. I was immersed in the scene in London, England in 2000 while I was attending an international university there. The ability of music and a dancefloor to bring people together left a deep impression on me. The sensory overload took me out of my mind, but I didn’t have the integration skills I have now.

Later, I sought out ecstatic dance once I had added a yoga practice and a spiritual framework to my own self care. Admittedly, I’ve always worn gawdy and loud outfits as normal day-to-day wear. The wild colors, plastic neon lights embedded into shirts, barely there spandex onesies dubbed as “festival gear” passes as normal for me, but it’s nice to be surrounded by others who feel like they can let loose, too. Admittedly, it is precisely why festivals are sacred spaces: all societal norms are off. Festivals are a place to explore, indulge, try and see who you are on the other side—be it with drugs, or sober, or through the eclectic people you meet and art you are exposed to.

The treacherous hill

As I approached the massive hill to Bohamia, I looked up and said, “Ain’t no fucking way.” This felt like the first test. I was still learning to find my confidence to tow my trailer. The first challenge was to get to the festival by going up a steep and rutted road paved partially with gravel. I took deep breaths and with the encouragement of two festival organizers who were perched at the gate, I put my truck into four-wheel drive low and pressed the gas. I kept speed so I would keep the momentum and not roll backward. I was driving up a metaphorical mountain, too, because my higher self had called me to this event and I couldn’t shake the notion that something was there for me to find. Something was emerging. My higher self had led me this far. So I had to get up the mountain, and I did.

There was a significant thunderstorm the afternoon of the first day when I was due to arrive and that delayed me from setting up my tent. There was another the next morning, but I comfortably laid in my bed in my trailer and watched the rain pelt the tree leaves. I felt bad for the folx in tents peppered across the property. When I walked up to the main area, I passed wooden fences strewn with clothes and tent pieces drying in the afternoon sun. Most of the fun of a festival is had in the tent camps that spring up. Years ago, while attending Beloved, a renowned transformational festival on the west coast, I unzipped my tent that had been set up at night and saw in the dawn light a sea of a few hundred tents that contained thousands of people sleeping (or recently returning). The isolation of that festival (we had to be bused in due to the difficult accessibility of the forest) made the container (the way the festival was experienced) a tight one. We were at a secluded location and nearly unable to leave (unless an emergency arose). I think that is what people seek especially in places like Burning Man, the accessibility of the default (outer world) to breach the experience makes it more special. It’s a firewall against societal norms.

I couldn’t help but reflect on how they followed me here. I “went extra” as a few people noted by bringing my trailer. It was an inadvertent status flex. It kept me separate from the rest of the festival. I had parked behind a stage and I enjoyed my air conditioner that didn’t completely drown out the loud and continuous psytrance that played for a few days straight. And the tent that I had set up in my chill-out space had only trickles of visitors, so I spent a lot of time roaming and reflecting. I felt myself going into psychology-mode, discerning what each person might be taking and where they might be in inner or outer space. I set up writing prompts to circulate on the digital frame next to the altar in my chill-out tent: The 8/8 portal is open. Do you step through? A new timeline has arrived. Do you trust it? No going back. Can you leave it all behind?

Hanging out with blue roses in the Planet Dust chill out space

I thought of the higher and lower unconsciousnesses that were rupturing in each and every person as they stayed in this crucible of transformation created by likeminded community, art, music, and substances. I hoped the people felt the transformation and I waited eagerly for people to talk about it.

But no one did. And I didn’t know why.

At the end of each night I retreated to my comfortable trailer and wondered how I had gone wrong. It wasn’t the experience I thought I would have, the communal oohing and ahhing and fascination with every piece of every offering at the festival. I wondered where I had missed messages or even put too many expectations into my own mind. This was supposed to be an epic return to post-pandemic normal. This was supposed to be affirming of my decision to stay in Alabama. As the days turned into nights, all I could think about was going home and hanging with my dog and a book in the quiet of my lot on the river.

I reached out to a colleague, one who has been with me on my psychosynthesis course for the past two years.

“Am I doing something wrong? I’m here but I’m not. I can’t even get myself to dance into the wee hours of the night. I don’t know who I am.”

“You’ve changed,” was her reply. “You’re an academic now.”

Her response shook me to the core. This was a new timeline. If I thought about who I was in the past, I was someone who was hoping for more inner peace, a better world, something. But I always envisioned my personality staying the same. My needs and behaviors would stay the same. And, what she did for me, I was intending to do for others. But those folx weren’t there yet. You can’t force transformation. It comes in your own time with your own calling.

When I attended these festivals prior to the pandemic, I was lost inside myself and I looked for these gatherings to be lost in the community. I wanted to wander aimlessly and leave everything to chance—have adventures and make tiny missions like finding water, or a glow-in-the-dark bracelet, or the place where the music sounded the best. It was escapism from the default world, but it was also a way to play with reality.

“But I feel bad I’m not even joining for community meals. I have food with me and I’d rather prepare something nourishing.”

“You’ve changed.”

Later, as I walked through the barn, an area of communal food and art and exchange, I saw someone picking through food left on a counter. I knew that the price of the festival was steep and, for some, it meant choosing the lowest tier and scavenging for food. Waiting for food to show up.

If finding what reality would throw at me was my version of adventure for the festivals, someone else’s was finding basic needs through charity and intentional giving.

I made sure to bring a few cans of soup, bags of crisps, and other packages of food to the communal kitchen the next day.

I woke up at 6 am on the last day to a group rendition of the Radiohead song “I’m a freak (you’re so fucking special)” belted out by a few stragglers at the stage behind my camper. I smiled before I opened my eyes because I instantly recalled many times doing the same thing—finding the angst that I could only express in community in a sacred space on a dancefloor. Singing together like it was the last night of our lives. Lamenting that it was all coming to an end. A little while later, I made my way up to the area by my chill-out tent to start to break it down. There was a man with straggly green hair and a filthy t-shirt and ripped cargo pants. His eyes were wide and his pupils were dilated. I approached quietly but he saw me and immediately said: “You guys did an amazing job. I got here last night and it was my first festival. This was life-changing.” I smiled and nodded and went to my tent to start the break down. He stood, turning in circles looking around for about ten minutes then disappeared from my line of sight. I was him in some lifetime far, far away. But the gift that I received in this one, right then, from my higher self was that I could let that seeker go. I didn’t need to embody her anymore.

I have completed a significant portion of my masters and I look forward to doing a lot more reading and writing for my thesis. I have a lot of thoughts around the lower and higher unconscious to unpack with my colleagues, those of us who have a vested interest in mapping the landscape—not just taking it for a joyride. Mostly, I have a lot to tell myself to let go of who I was, that the years of inner work and self care really had accumulated to something, and that it was okay to grow.

Home on the Coosa River

There was indeed a portal that opened, and I stepped through, and I am leaving a lot of the past behind. I am consciously returning to the default world of a weathered traveler so that when someone is ready to talk about these transpersonal states in a structured setting, how they can integrate what they find, I am there. And these micro-experiences of society as it could be, and how we might all find our own adventures and twists of reality fueled by art and music and [insert whatever here], so that the world does actually change.
The reason I love transpersonal psychology is that it shows more than anything that mental health is an outside (not solely inside) job. Achieving mental health starts with asking the question “Who are you?”, and to that, acknowledging how it feels to be that person inside and outside of social norms. Who is that person in the world? Make the questions portals for truth, marking initiations into worlds within yourself, and following the higher self there. See what you find. That’s the calling.

There’s a lot here in Alabama that supports my career growth, especially education opportunities and the quality of living (read: in nature) that supports my own mental and physical health. I like being earthy. I like living in the middle of nowhere. I enjoy having my global reach through the internet while I am firmly rooted here. It’s very quiet and admittedly humble as I choose to live in a trailer versus a house. One person’s dream is another person’s nightmare, and vice versa. I imagine many folx would abhor a transformational fest like others would eschew living in a trailer. And I don’t need any other validation than what I have in my body felt clear as day.

I made it back down the hill from Bohamia, towed 45 minutes home, and was greeted by many folx in the tiny home community I live in. It occurred to me how much festival life has influenced my real-life living situation. It’s a more grown-up version. All of us have chosen to live here for different reasons. I just want to be as close to Earth as possible. Living in a house (or apartment) is too far removed. I like to take my hula hoops to the river and throw them around to my curated EDM selection (on wireless headphones to keep the quiet). And no one flinches when I walk around in my bathing suits and boots. It is, in a way, a successful social experiment. And that is the ethos of transformational festivals. I decided I had stepped through the Lion’s Gate, but I found something much more down to Earth on the other side.

As I was pulling in, the man who agreed to back my trailer into my lot was on his way to do laundry in the communal building. Another woman who was watching my dog was away at church but had been in touch with a neighbor who would let my eager dog out. I got settled in and realized I was out of coffee creamer. I asked her for some and she also gave me a big salad to eat.

“You missed out on dinner last night! A bunch of us were hanging out,” said the 50-something neighbor.

“Next time,” I said, smiling. My higher self led me here and I no longer doubt my place or new role in my life, and I step into it willingly. I leave the past behind. And there was no need to go out of my mind; I had explored that plenty of times before. What I needed was the quiet to integrate what I had found.

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Hi there! Thanks for reading. I’m a writer, editor, and transpersonal guide who explores psychospiritual growth.

I write my own story. In that light, my writing is service–the stories I share about my own psychospiritual growth, the process of self exploration & self transformation, and the way culture affects us are my gift to the world.

I share the knowledge and processes that anyone can implement to achieve inner peace. This is a transpersonal point of view and embodied transformation through creative writing.

And, I explore the deep stuff–what we do when we recall past life experiences; how we engage the archetypal resonance of embodied experience; when to call the “weird stuff” you’re experiencing a spiritual awakening and when to call a mental healthcare practitioner.

  • If you are a mental healthcare professional who would like to work with me on your journey of psychospiritual growth or integrating transpersonal psychology with your client practice, go here 
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BTW: I love tattoos and coffee.

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Curious about seeing the world and the mind as multidimensional? What does that mean for science?

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