Ritual Education Adult Rites  (REAR)

It is through rites that Heaven and Earth are harmonious and sun and moon are bright, that the four seasons are ordered and the stars on their courses, that rivers flow and that things prosper, that love and hatred are tempered and joy and anger are in keeping...He who holds to the rites is never confused in the midst of multifarious change....                     - Hsun Tzu 

The Rites are methodical, cycles of initiation, transmission and teachings at particular life stages beginning at 2 or 3  years of age.  These Rites of Passage or Initiations, as they are sometimes called, are marked with ritual, ceremony and sacrifice and also must include being educated in the ways of the world, the cosmos, relevant to the stage that one is to participate in.  In this way one moves right along from one stage of the Path of Individuation to another, naturally.

In the absence of structured Rites (initiation) supported with Ritual Education (transmissions and teachings) one undergoes "life-changing" events which often go sideways, that is, run into the heartless 2x4 of Trauma, which breeds confusion and misunderstanding that keeps one sidetracked off the true reality of existence - that one is a part of, that one belongs to.  Said another way, traumatic initiations keep one in the ritual phase of Severance, currently termed Separation, which in its stagnancy forms into the "belief that no longer serves you".  With Separation at the wheel and confusion and misunderstanding as backseat drivers, one often finds oneself wanting to change, wanting to "change the world" or simply step up to a higher level challenge, but feel helpless to do so, which brings about great suffering, even in those that live in the confines of comfort.

In what is called the "western world" (a state of mind rather than geographic), such false initiations also leave one deeply mired in the life phases of Childhood or Youth, at 30 or even 60 or 70 years of age, producing disconnection with Nature, with relationships, family, community and the great universe itself for such a one is not in their Right Place, not in Right Relation.   The Rites bring us into Right Relation in our human world.                                            

Education and Initiation are inseparable. 

A newer stage that has developed in the absence of proper rearing as an Adult is termed Adolescent - which refers to being stuck in the psychological, the intellect separated from nature.  Another term we hear from the young is "grown-up", as to refer to another child in a bigger suit.  These immature adult states crowd the South and West with fledgling eagles that never make it out of the nest. That is to say that ones abilities, gifts, senses only develop to the level of fledgling.  Here one is ever eager to fly yet not enabled to do so, which can bring about sadness, frustration and even anger, grief or rage, at the slightest provocation.

Part of the developmental rearing as an Adult is to ignite the village of Senses that we inherently possess, which some cultures say is around 265, are all intimately connected, not compartmentalized.  The development of ones sensory capacity is necessary for our gifts and abilities to come into the world, and these gifts and abilities help us do what we came here to do.  Each of these "heightened" senses can be thought of as a feather.  Each feather in a winged one has a special purpose in the ability to fly, to soar, to land, to navigate. When these feather/senses are dormant or missing, one is prone to feel lost, disconnected, left out, disabled.  In this state one is more likely to respond inappropriately to direction and teachings, go the "wrong" way.  Yet and still, the wrong way has great precision.  It is said, there is no wrong way to get it Right.  It just takes longer and may be more strict, more cutting; the consequences inescapable until the next sense is willfully brought back on-line.  As your heightened senses grow in and mature you are more susceptible, permeable to varied levels of the basic Teachings for do they expand with each enabled sense.  This is true empowerment. This empowerment comes first, then we are more abled to step up to higher level challenges along the Path of Individuation - the development of our Spirit as a human being.

Temptation is a key helper in our maturation, in directing our will to maturation. Consider now temptation as a signal that a new feather, a new spiritual sense is growing in, a growth spurt.  Temptation often comes with a "spiritual experience", which can be blissful or a great loss, and most definitely after a Rite, in which the mind has had a good long sit with Spirit, received teachings from nature, from spirits and interpreters/elders.  Growth spurts often come with uncomfortable, even painful sensations, feelings and/or thoughts.  When one reaches for an old habitual "fix" to defend oneself from the discomfort, the pain, the young sense can easily fall out and then have to start the process all over again.  You will learn more about Pain as teacher upon Stone A in The Library.

But here and now, when Temptation comes, you have a choice to turn to an old fix, or to take the "alternative medicine" route which is to abstain and in doing so fix the medicine.  Fixing the medicine refers to aligning things to Spirit.  Where habitual fixes/addictions/behaviours feed spiritual teachings to ego, applying conscious, willful abstinence is a booster for the Spirit.  This is the basis of abstaining from food, water and distractions on the Vision Quest.  But this technology can be applied anytime.

Either route will take you through the growth spurt but it is fixing the medicine that will strengthen your Spirit, which is what the Adolescent/grown-up requires as their Ego is overgrown and only a strong Spirit can overthrow a big Ego. And overthrowing Ego is simply training for dealing with more powerful entities as you mature.  Indeed, the nature of all Rites is to strengthen the Spirit for the challenges of the next level, all designed for Spirit to come to Maturation as a human being - our purpose here.

Here we can also hear how Spirit gives you what you need, not what you want.   It is not to say do or don't at this point - you always have a choice - but to be Aware of your choices and the direction they take you.  Even Zen monks and nuns drink beer or sake from time to time.  For they are aware that every choice can take us a little to the left, a little to the right.  In, out or around, as with the hokey pokey, which starts with "you put your..."  This conscious decision-making is an integral aspect of the Integration phase of the Path of Individuation.

The sense of Death is one of the missing "heightened" senses.  In the absence of this sense in the Village of the senses, Fear comes into the Village.  Fear does not have senses. Fear acts beyond the senses and so tends to cut us off from our senses when it comes into the Village.  This is not malicious. It is just how Fear is. You will learn more of this upon Stone C in The Library of this website.

But let us come back to our senses now.  The sense of Death would normally be ignited in the Youth Rites.  As it is the psychological turbulence of the Adolescent stage blocks our sense of Death, leaving us "death-phobic".  In fact, the psychological runs on this phobia, which backs all other phobias.

The missing senses will take longer to retrieve so we will begin with those that are merely dormant.  Understanding is one of the dormant senses essential to navigating the vast territory of the Adult and key to networking equally well with the seen and the unseen.  With a developed sense of Understanding one can also befriend the Teachings, be so intimate with the ancient ones that live in the heart as to be in constant contact - connected.

I have seen more than I can tell
and understand more than I saw.   -  Black Elk

Confusion and misunderstanding produce and project viral Conditions in modern society.  One such condition is that an adult/grown-up is one who has a car, a job, a house, spouse and/or children - but these make not an Adult.  For the Adolescent (over-aged child/youth) that has not received the appropriate teachings that support the Rites, conditioning can become an enormous burden that produces unbalanced behaviours in oneself and environment, for these too are inseparable. Your understanding of Conditioning will be exercised in Step 2 in The Library.

The West of the Medicine Wheel is known as the place of Power, where the initiated Youth learns about their Gift and how to use it for the good of all and, the consequences of misuse.  For the uninitiated the place of power is like giving a monkey a pack of matches near a gas station.  We see how uninitiated power is promoted heavily in the culture of Disconnection towards acquisition/consumption which produces Harm in the form of unbalanced behaviours that develop into pathological, debilitating and even cannibalistic ways.  Many think of Harm as killing animals and polluting our world.  But it originates in the failure to nip Ego in the bud, which the Rite at the age of 8 years old is designed to do.  If not put in its Right Place, relative to Spirit, Ego then grows exponentially in the further absence of the Fire Ceremony at 13/14 years of age, getting "too big for its britches", becoming a silent (or not so silent) killer of the spirit in all things.  And it is the spirit in all things that connects all as One.

Simply in reading these words, and being read by them, your capacity to Understand is growing, moving you away from the duality of the Tree of Knowledge over to the long-leaved tree of Peace.  And in doing so, you are guided in consciously making the perhaps long overdue move toward appropriate Adult initiation, even if you were not properly initiated, reared, as a child or youth.

Waking as an Adult

As in the song on this page, it is the Child that Wakes up, in response to the appropriate Rites and Ritual Education for that stage. This aspect of the REAR program has the rather dubious honour of Waking you as an Adult, which for some it is rather shocking, often like finding yourself sitting in the fire of Plato's cave.  So, slowly we wake you, over and again, and teach you about standing in your power and bring you into Right Relation with The Teachings for Adulthood.  This process is intensely called for in these times where the glut of psychological Adolescence in the West has fostered a consumptive, conquering "western" influence spreading across the world like invasive weeds.  The exaggerated, uninitiated child adds to this with its "give me, give me" and "look at me!" behaviours.  Furthermore,  the highly congested, stagnant stage of Adolescence is filled with doubt and despair which ultimately have us suckle incessantly from our Mother Earth as if material security could fill the gaping hole left in the absence of the Rites.  And all this reflects back upon us as illness and unwell Society.

Another devastating affect of the absence of the Rites and Ritual Education is that there is no where for our true Children and Youth to grow for their parents and other influential figures are still in these places, hogging them.  And there is sparse guidance available to stop the slowly genocidal depression attacking our Youth that we see results in suicide.  Furthermore, without Initiated Adults, we will be without True Elders, for one must first be an enlightened Adult, then guide others, share wisdom, as an Elder.  There is no way around this.  It is the absence of enlightened Adults that has us willfully destroy the very body that gives us life, both our Mother Earth and our physical bodies, her Earth Lodges.  In the current trajectory, our demise will not only due to lack of clean water, food and air but the lack of enlightened Adults.  This is not the "end" that is our destiny.

To change our deviate course one must change their own mind, master the mind as to follow the Way of Spirit before attempting to help nature recover from our Ignorance.  As Einstein spoke, "you can't fix a problem with the same mind that created it."  He realized that our survival as humans - a vehicle for Spirit to grow itself - relies on falling in line with our Right Place in the Web of Life as two-leggeds walking in an honourable way, upright and dignified which is to say, without hiding in shame and blame, regret and resentment, for these block us from taking our place, from being SEEN BY the rest of the earth’s beings we share this planet with.  It is in being SEEN BY our relatives that we come back to our rightful place as A PART OF the Web of the Life.

The Vision is to see the world that also sees us. But to be truly seen, one must be open. One who possesses the Vision is also known as enlightened.  Some that possess the Vision can also see ahead and inform the elders who inform the People on how we can meet our collective Destiny, together.  Einstein brought this guidance to us with the well quoted words above, yet for many, the True Realization of these words would take decades, perhaps a century.  The enlightened Adult gets better and better at Realization of the Truth in what our guides and Elders bring us.  Yet and Still, Understanding comes before Realization.  In this ritual education we will work with what is referred to as the Hopi Prophecy in this regard.

The enlightened Adult also learns to see both ways, to walk simultaneously in the physical and spiritual worlds, navigating the mental and emotional waves and storms skillfully as they arise and fall.  To be an Adult is rather like surfing spirit. One spends much time paddling, getting tossed around and at times "catching the wave" of Transcendence, what we refer to as the Glide in this course.  As an Elder, one serves Spirit, becomes one with the water.  We could go so far as to say the Child plays with the water and the Youth carries it.

Having a Ritual Adult Education and support network enables you to enact your Role, your purpose in this stage (for each stage has its own purpose) which is to Give Life, not necessarily as procreation but as enlightened beings that understand completely the needs of the Planet come before our own.  But this cannot happen when we are self-involved, that is, so concerned with protecting our comfort, security and well-being that we leave our Elders standing in the rain.

As an Adult whose purpose is to Give Life, one does not rely on Meaning to give life a sense of purpose for you but to constantly create and adapt meaning towards your purpose as an Adult to Give Life.  To do so, one must make a commitment to ever-deeper levels of Understanding in order to penetrate the more complex (so complex as to be simple) teachings that come to you when you go beyond personal experiences and drop the barriers, the safety ledges of perceived knowledge - what you think you know. This level of Understanding is not to make comforting sense of things but to prompt you to keep the teachings close when they come to you, to be intimate with them, spend the years necessary to LIVE them.  Be clear however that as an Adult, all this must be done without being seen as a goal, as something to accomplish, for this was the way of thinking in the Aristotelian West.  The North is Socratic and here all knowledge and experience is transformational only when applied for the good of All, for the 7 generations before and the 7 after, and Beyond.

It is said that experience is the mother of all teachers.  To teach is to bring forth. Spirits may use such things as experience and imagination to bring you back to your Spirit.  Yet rest not in experience, imagination nor knowledge even.  For it is in this rather loopy feedback system that Understanding is most able to adapt us to change.  Though you may feel comfortable with an experience, inspired by imagination or secure in knowledge, it is not a good time to lay low, avoid change, and keep doing the same thing or taking the same approach that you always have.  The change necessary to move right along is one you did not make yourself.  Real Change is a river, its course determined not of your wants and physical needs or even where you wish to go and when you'd like to arrive there.  One could even say, Change has a mind of its own.  One who possesses a Changing Mind is both fluid and grounded as you travel through the conquests of self-imposed conditioning, presumptions of programming and impulses of consumption to the ever flowing network of the Heart that houses Universal Truth, the Laws of Existence and Nature, and ultimately the peace that comes of the union of opposites, known as Transcendence or The Glide.

This Ritual Education connects you with Native American teachings, those of Buddhism, Daoism, Toltec Wisdom, Celtic, Quantum Physics, Alchemy and the Metaphysical, Botany and Science; the introspective, inward-focused meditative practices of the Eastern philosophies joined with the creative, outward-focused practices of the Western world mixed with the Intelligence of the Plant and Animal Kingdoms, a veritable smorgasbord spread out for your enlightenment to arise like the morning star.

Aha!  That word again...the seemingly incomprehensible enlightenment!  Yes, it is available to you here and now as good company for Transcendence as well as a handy tool for rewiring privilege and entitlement to Responsibility.  Yes, enlightenment is what you are responsible to: not a good job, a comfy home and garden or right to travel the globe, though these things may come more freely (without harm to yourself or others) when your primary duty to be enlightened is fulfilled, that is to say, abundant.

Ok.  Here we go upon this fluid course that flows with the vastness of All My Relations, the seen and the unseen walking through the sands of Time upon the face of Mother Earth.  It is told in many creation stories that the world began with Complexity and is making its way towards Simplicity, opposite to the basic beliefs of evolution.  We too will travel this way, upstream as the salmon do, perhaps rubbing you the wrong way at times with seemingly haphazard complex never-ending ladders made of pages fuelled by the power of The Word, story, song and imagery come of many traditions and cultures, yet ever enhancing your simple gifts as an Adult of Patience and Purity and the laws of Love, Respect and Honesty.  So too does your ability to feel Peace and Joy grow as to nourish your enlightenment, so long ignored in Ignorance and constipated in fruitless Struggle.

As your capacity to Understand grows you will also encounter the Truth inherent in the Vision; not a "thing" yet a way of seeing with the Spirit Self and being seen as Spirit Self.  For every creature, every stone, the wind, the fire, everything....has a Spirit and in this we are all Related.

It is told that if one has a vision and does not understand how to hold it that it can be dangerous, prevent one from growing.   Every visionary, imaginary encounter must be connected to The Vision.  The Huichol people tell of this in stating that no one can make Art until they have first received Vision.

This course acts as a virtual Vision Quest in that it both emulates the workings of a traditional Vision Quest undertaken by sitting alone for 4 nights and days in a remote spot on a mountain with no food or water and basic shelter.  For in these busy times, few are willing or able to "go tell it on the Mountain" and fewer still able to hold a Vision, and so we bring the mountain, and all the teachings it holds, to you in this Ritual Education.  As those in the West generally have a computer and internet, an on-line/virtual process is simply the most effective means to seed initiated Adults into a world desecrated with Adolescence.

Though this may appear to be yet another on-line course,
it is a Live Ceremonial invitation to Life and Educational Ritual
 to induce your Spirit Self.  

One of our Values is to grow the Villagers in the area in which we live.  For the Villager must come before the Village.  If you are not local to British Columbia, the West Coast, you may still take the on-line portion of the REAR program and join us for our on-land Rites as you are able, ever aware you do so to "take it home" with you, to feed your people.  Yet as with Jumping Mouse, this may be difficult if you find no support back with your people.  It is for this that we offer continued support to keep you in the Way of Spirit with the teachings on this website and direct contact with your guides.   This "direct contact" is not necessarily on-line meetings or phone calls but more like how mycelium and trees work together for the good of all.  You remain in contact by following the Protocols of your station in Life.  For those reading this, that station is the place of Adult.  This course will provide you with these protocols.

The first protocol is to Respect Yourself, necessary to walk with Honour.  One way to do so is to prepare for ceremony in a proper way and allow time after the ceremony to reflect on it.  This time of preparation and reflection reminds us that Ceremony is not confined to a single event.  Ceremony is a reminder to carry, to be, your Spirit Self in a sacred and respectful way everyday.  As such, this 8 month Course both prepares and supports the Ceremonial Rites you may attend.  And for those who do not attend, the Ceremonies enacted reach out to you all the same.

The Medicine Wheel holds that each being has four aspects of the Self; the Child, Youth Adult and Elder, and that each one be Respected as a part of the Whole.  From the perspective of the initiated Adult, the place of Child within us is where we tap into our innocence and wonder about life. Within the Youth aspect, we can regain our enthusiasm about life, look forward to life, and gain our independence from that which we have been dependent on. When we rest in Adulthood we mature in taking responsibility for our lives and what we create.  In the place of Elder, we remember we can live with wisdom even while we are young if we are diligent and self disciplined on our spiritual path.

The Medicine Wheel is also a tool that leads one out of the trappings of Samsara and the deep attachment Karma has for the Dharma/Teachings.  For here the light of Illumination sparked in the East is fanned by the winds of the North, its Understanding dispelling the darkness of Ignorance in the West as to for the Moment to come when it comes, and let it go when it goes, as for All Beings to Be Happy, come what may.  In this is the foundation for Wisdom.

Though it has been said that the major cause of depression, disease, restlessness, greed and violence is failure to undergo the Rite of Passage to initiated Adulthood, the reinstatement of the Rite in you doesn’t guarantee smooth personal circumstances; on the contrary - it exposes all that is not real, which can range from feeling grief, to frustration to devastation and even as if you are dying.  And so it is essential you have real Guidance from those who can truly see you.   And your Guides can see you even better as you drop each veil, each barrier.  And in this you feel and are Seen.

So what does one get for being initiated, enlightened? Basically Peace of Mind, a mind as open and fluid as the heart, changed from Consumption to Contribution that we might remember the future with Joy despite all surface tensions.

Accommodate the Incomprehensible

Enlightenment comes of knowing that you are biased, one-sided in any given moment, that inevitably you come with limitation, and making that bias as obvious as you can to make clear what is false and what is real so that Enlightenment may blow up the bridge between them.  So is it said that Enlightenment is a destructive process.  Enlightenment comes as an experience at first, and these experiences a marker for your departure from the place of Adolescence into assuming the privileges and responsibilities come of the Conscious Adult and the KNOW-HOW to apply it!  This can also come gently.  Indeed, in voluntarily stepping into your maturation the heart-wrenching "2x4" is retired.

As it is, maturity can be thought of as Remembering and Remembering the food of Life.  The child lives in the state of enlightenment yet knows not how to use its tools to nurture their world, nor is it their place to do so. As the gap between child and adult grows due to extended adolescence one may experience the Soul, also long ignored, demanding to come into union with the Ego which can be experienced as psychosis and delusion or "kundalini rising" too fast.  And too often the person and society at large have no experience or tools to work with it and all become stuck in confusion, depression, blame, shame or other forms of mental unrest. A way to understand, support and celebrate the "love affair" of Soul and Ego so often spoken of by the mystics is the undertaking of this virtual quest to enlightened, initiated Adulthood which weaves the threads of the Red Road, 4 Noble Truths, the 8 fold path, the 4 Agreements, the Royal Alchemical Arts, Conscious Word Apothecary, Maps of Consciousness and various Medicine Wheels into your cozy "sweater" of enlightened vision that you may pull it on in preparation for adapting to the luminous "body" of the One, the same one that gives the forests and mountains their luminosity.

For some Enlightenment does indeed pose itself as a far away star, hovering beyond your reach. This is simply to coax the longing for its familiarity in those who feel a stranger in a strange world.  Though enlightenment may seem as distant as the sun, you can feel it, and know that it sustains you.  Enlightenment is not perfection, it is simply cleanliness, a mind kept clean and so able to clearly See with the Vision the mental projections or "defilements" of Soul and Ego inherent in truly knowing ones Self.  In the words of the great Lao Tzu:

"It takes knowledge to understand others,
but it needs a clear mind to know oneself."

As an Adult initiated in and experienced with the Vision and fuelled by the power of The Word as Sound does this Ritual Education nurture Enlightenment in you, guiding as the water does the canoe.  I am an enlightened being yet still grapple with the surface tensions here and there which can make me sleepy and forgetful at times.  At these times my Understanding reminds me that the mystic cannot tap into the spiritual river that flows through the mundane streams of Life without both practical skills and a clear mind, the mundane and the sacred.  Yet and still I cannot steer The River.  Now for some, the declaration of my being enlightened might put them off right away, like green eggs and ham. Fortunately, my training is also influenced by Dr Suess, for a wise sense of humour and cadence is integral to protecting your developing enlightenment from lies and deceit.  And in Truth, anybody who approaches the Pachamama with sincerity can live in a state of enlightenment, without any outer form of Authority or Guidance to conform to.  Indeed, the wise wield no authority.

In taking a Rite of Passage one has access to the Spirit World where things get done 6X faster than on the physical realm, yet not in a linear "to do list" fashion.  What might take years of therapy, searching, webinars, rehab and the consumption of a plethora of books can be coaxed and cajoled to come out and play in the seemingly random readings of this Ritual Education. For does the Spirit World use highly advanced technology and quantum mechanics necessary to meet the whirling maelstroms of Consciousness. That said this is no quick fix, yet a wonderful, lasting starter. We are not going to turn a punky Chevy into a smooth Ferrari right away, yet over time Change will come. The breadth of this Course will attune your vehicle to higher frequencies, clean your filters, rev you up and send you on your Way into Maturity that you may be better equipped when Change comes.  In fact, it matters not so much what the vehicle. What matters most is the driver and what you do with it.

It is has been said by Bertrand Russell, 'The only thing that will save humanity is Cooperation.'  When one Cooperates with the Spirit World we are more likely to Git R' Done, to expand the realms of information and knowledge into increasing intelligence that moves us towards Wisdom, which is knowledge that comes of the spirit world.  This intelligence is not the fuel of intellect yet a purely blended mix of thought, emotion and feeling that enables your heart to give Life your all!

How Do We Do This?

Having already experienced the West fully and perhaps ad-nauseum, your fight-or-flight system and adrenals are likely exhausted, perhaps even checked-out on their way to redundancy just as the wisdom teeth and appendix did.  The Course of Changing Mind streams the skill and know-how of the North, the place of Adult, into your neural pathways that come of a Central Nervous System developed long before mankind came into being that we may become responsible for remembering a proper human future - one reconnected with the Original Instructions that We, as Man, have strayed from.

Furthermore, the constantly adjusting in-depth understanding inherent to this Ritual Education Rite of Passage will inculcate you with the skills, wisdom and practical assistance to:

  • adapt to heart-centred thinking steeped in Values
  • put your memories in order that all may be deemed innocent
  • know that you don't know
  • unglue your bond with oppressive behaviour
  • see more than you can tell and understand more than you saw
  • navigate problems without breaking into their volatile solution
  • banish "struggle" from your vocabulary and attitude
  • release childish behaviour
  • eliminate dependency on the hierarchy of Need
  • disengage from trauma based control
  • mind your own business
  • differentiate Creation from Reality from Dream
  • free yourself from the non-communicative state of confusion
  • come into the comfortable feeling of being familiar with your Self rather than feel like a stranger in your own home (Know Thy Self)
  • maintain enlightenment through Conscious language use
  • accept everything about yourself and other people, in fact, marvel at the unique patterns and dynamics that connect a radically interdependent world

It must also be stated that this is NOT a pick n' choose list. ALL of these aspects must be taken care of.  And this is for why we take many months.

It is of utmost importance that these things not be seen as goals, for goals lead to searching and searching is always accompanied by struggle.  Besides, if you are searching for something you must already know it.  The Medicine Wheel Teachings you encounter on this journey will come clear simply through your personal experiences; no goals or searching required.  With the fertilizer of Experience the teachings flourish in your Understanding, which must first be expanded as to accommodate the plethora of new ways to relieve old memories, beliefs, conditions that are lined up waiting to be seen as they truly are - liberated.  By the completion of this Rite of Passage, which includes a one year period immersed in your own Life after the Tradition Vision Fast, you too will See and Understand.

Basically you will come to Peace with whatever "ails" you aided by a Mastery of the alternative Arts as to understand the visible and invisible worlds, how they work and what things are FOR, not as absolutes but as meaningless, creative forces.  Furthermore, the Earth needs humans to be healthy and mature if it is to be fully itself, to fulfill its destiny.  A starting place for this healthy maturation comes for you in these words:

You Don't Know That You Don't Know

Don't worry.  It is perfect for now, a wonderful starting place that keeps the Great Mystery alive in you. For Love lives in the Unknown.  You see, Christ did not know he could not walk on water, yet did it just the same, having a deep understanding of the Laws of Nature and Existence and in doing so, Faith in taking that first step.  Yet even Faith must eventually be left behind.

Christ, a Jew himself, later saw the shortcomings of being a Jew during his allegorical 40 days in the desert.  Spending these “weeks in the desert” with Changing Mind will lead you to see who and what you are, beyond conditioning, beyond imagination and even beyond faith providing an inner cleansing of your current state of human consciousness, dissolving  attitudes and prejudices with our spirited and soulful technology of Word, story, song and imagery so mundanely profound, so unexpectedly obvious and so terribly hilarious that you will know something is “up”. Eventually you get a glimpse of the Sacred Mountains, the Spirit Self which prepares you to see the world As It Is, beyond the confines of time and space.

Below are some views from those who have come this way before you.

 

The magic I've been experiencing has slowed down a bit, it comes in waves now rather than the giant flood I was experiencing for a few months. It sort of feels as if something has been programmed into me and it activates when I apply myself to the teachings. Definitely still a work in progress, but I can re-iterate that I'm amazed at the growth, the maturing I've enjoyed since the start of the course.

Gordon, Victoria ,BC


I have been reminded of the wisdom of my inner child voicing itself when it feels uncomfortable. This has been strongest for me in the incredible paradox that comes of stepping into my vulnerability, particularly around feelings and emotions I had as a teenager that I was taught to repress. In the Course of Changing Mind I found a place of confidence where I can meet these things with joy and gentleness.   

Amy, Salt Spring Island, BC


I am ever looking for new experiences and ideas, thinking.  But these last weeks I felt a fog roll in, and learned to be ok with that, not worried or anxious about it, but to just keep walking.  And that is a huge teaching for me, to experience what it is to just live, and be here in the moment.  I don't know what the process of change is except for just living, and being comfortable in my own skin, which is quite new to me. 

Laura, Nanaimo, BC


I am so deeply moved by the insight the course continually provides me with on how to  to move through my medicine wheel. Before taking this journey, I had taken a year-long course in Wellness Counselling, and it was creating fights within my inner child and teenage characters, for they were without Adult guidance. Coming into the North, we all work together in a more harmonious way.

Asha, Vancouver, BC


In my day to day life, I am thinking more about my responses, able to speak calmly and see things through, rather than reacting, which always has bad consequences.

Justin, Vancouver, BC


I have never been so profoundly touched in my consciousness by something I didn't "get". And find myself having a good laugh about it!

Linda, Vancouver Island, BC


The Path and The Way

"Ours is not to clear up the Mystery, but to make the Mystery clear."

The Mystery is the Divine Creative Power, which though clear to babies, remains largely unclear to the conditioned. Permit me to unfold some of the Mystery now. The trick is to keep things moving so as not to get stuck in the traffic jams within you. If you are going to stick with something, stick with this Rite of Passage to see with new eyes, staying open to the relatedness of all that comes in the readings of the Path and the Way that will deliver you to clear-sightedness.

When you Get Started, the journey begins to take you where you are taken, those places that seem "random" only because you have been possessed or obsessed with hiding that which blocks your Spirit from coming to you. Indeed, in shamanic practice, we seek for that which is lost and return it Home. In The Library you will find the initial Steps and Stones laid out as The Path and The Way which initiate the first process of this virtual Vision Quest known as Severance, in that you must leave behind your reliance on the logical and linear in order to navigate this new territory of the Adult.  The contents of the The Library are open to all and can be read at any time, but must be taken in before the Course begins.

I will tell you straight up that the teachings of this course are not an easy read. In fact, you are being read by the teachings as for the Teacher within to be brought forth to choreograph the perfect experiences for your spiritual development.  In reality, every reader is the reader of his or her own self.  The writings are only optical instruction for the reader to discern what, without the writing, one would perhaps never have seen in oneself.  In seeing what is written here in oneself, is proof of the Truth in the Word.

The words, songs and images of the Course, along with our weekly Council meetings also track the pills of pain you took by the hand of your inner physician to help locate the places where the extraordinary lives in you as to bring you out of the stagnancy of Consumption into the circulation of Contribution.  And as our one-to-one shamanic sessions coach your own inner shaman you are also brought into direct contact with healing to clear any boulders still resisting the Mountain, that which persists in getting in The Way of you giving Life your All. For the place of nurturing and generative Adult is to Give Life.

One of The Rites of Passage teachings...

"If there is a problem, it is due to your unquestioned thinking." 

Here we tap into the 5th Toltec Agreement to "question everything", sending it not outward but directly to Inquiry, that pristine faculty of an Intelligence capable of increasing independence from the Thinker and its thoughts.  Upon this course we will address Problems straight on, their cause and how to work with them through Inquiry.  As Inquiry comes to its own end it will lead to knowledge. Yet knowledge can become toxic if taken from the material realm only.  Knowledge that comes of the unseen world put into action by Experience leads to an Understanding which breeds Compassion and Kindness, greater bandwidths of Intelligence.  What if you were the experience of Increasing Intelligence living in a climate of Love? What would that be worth to you?  Better yet consider what the cost is to our children, our families, the planet and all life upon it of remaining in the climate of Greed and its ever hungry progeny known loosely as technology rather than Increasing Intelligence.

Take the teachings as Medicine
for the Heart

As a natural extension of the Medicine, the Course of Changing Mind brings you ancient means to skillfully and artfully live the teachings, tried and tested for centuries, millennium even, dropping in drip by drip.  You know something is Good if it lasts that long. Some aspects of this method were once banned, made illegal and nearly forgotten. But always there were those who managed to bring forth the Medicine to keep the heart, as big as the universe, healthy. With your permission, and guidance, these alchemical teachings will bring forth The Medicine in you.  As it is said, when the student is ready, prepared for the worst and expecting the best, the teachings will come for one is never given more than one can handle.  Yet and still Life is under no obligation to wait for your perceived readiness. Certainly is difficult to be "ready" in the absence of time and space yet as you are reading this, and the words reading you, are you deemed ready.

As alluded to earlier, one of my guides is Dr. Seuss, which gives you some idea of the places you will go - The Vision, The Medicine, Enlightenment... Though the white blanket of enlightened Adulthood may seem "out there" for the average person - like a star - so too does it provide reliable navigation when undertaken with a steady course, unshakeable guide and some practical know-how to wear it well.  A'han.  All My Relations.

In preparation for this undertaking, please do the following  (in no particular order):

1.  Read the first steps and stones in The Library to initiate Severance.

2.  Familiarize yourself with the ways of the Medicine Wheel and laws of Nature through the story of Jumping Mouse for it is sure to get your heart started.

3.  Click here for instructions to get you to the Threshold when the time comes.

Any questions, please contact neith@changingmind.co

(be clear, that is dot co not com as in

collective, cooperative, collaborate, consensus)

Changing Mind/REAR is a localized, non-prophet organization.

Our mission is to remove all that whacks you out of alignment with pendulating teachings from the East and the West to deliver to you the revisioning ability of the One Mind open resource that provides direct access to the vast and wondrous library of the Heart, also referred to as the Akashic Records, the right and privilege of All.  So, there's the "woo-woo". Now we say, 

You whoo....

Additional materials suggested for the Course are An Inklings Weave and The Shaman'ca Loop, available below.

Develop the ability
to BE READ by words.
Order your copy of
An Inklings Weave,
the "back end" code
to your Vision Quest,
to assist your
Changing Mind.

Click here to order your digital copy.

Rites of Passage teachings

And the Shaman'ca Loop CD for audio assist in Increasing Intelligence.
(click image for direct access)

You can also visit our Facebook page but it is easy to get lost there.
Most of our communication is through email.

facebook_icon1