by Laura Lee, © May 2020Paul and I find it so rewarding to introduce this work to people who want to try it for the first time. We’ve heard from many of you who had had wanted to trek out to the Institute over the years, so we are very pleased to bring the work to you! Thanks for attending the first of a series of Zoom Ecstatic Trance Posture Sessions, with our follow up Q&A. Thanks also to the teachers and long-time members of CI who joined in support. We hope you will continue with us in the weeks ahead, to give this work a full and fair trial. So many of you had classic, rich and vivid experiences the first time out. We find this to be true of all our groups — that some “launch” with the first sessions, some with the second, some the third, and by the fourth, we find most everyone’s physiology has fine-tuned and aligned with this subtle but profound shift to support a full trance experience — you’ve gotten the kinks out. It’s like learning to ride a bike or play the piano — but its your body doing the work, while you get to stand-by and watch. Allowing your self to ‘witness’ and receive, without expectation, with an open heart, with gratitude for this magnificent, intelligent, loving universe, while you listen to the rattle or drum is all you need do. Should your intellect start questioning, the ‘monkey mind’ start engaging, an exterior distraction draw your attention, or pain arise — simply focus on the sound of the rattle and let that take you in.
One of the gifts of this work is that you are never in danger of over-dosing. With the absence of outside substances, it’s your own inner ‘pharmacopeia,” your own body’s wisdom that is stirring up and releasing the biochemicals, the beta-endorphins, the lighting up of brain centers and coordination of neurons that supports this shift into this particular altered state. It’s healthy, natural, and easy, and built into your very DNA. Yes it may take a few sessions to fully fire these rockets and get you launched. Think of it as a piece of your ‘inner technology’ that has grown perhaps a bit rusty, and just needs to be gently and lovingly fired up to get the kinks out, and start humming. We hear in your collective experiences that you are all on the right path — well done! As you strengthen and flex this particular ‘muscle’ you will find yourself slipping easily into trance with the proper cues — the ritual. It’s also in our DNA that your body/mind/soul recognizes the cues in our ritual, and responds accordingly.
The ‘sonic driving’ is key. To optimize your experience, we offer our rattle and drum audio tracks. Paul went into professional recording studio with drum and rattle to produce the CD, and the online CI store offers digital downloads. Sample the tracks to choose between the two rattle tracks and do get at least one of the drum tracks (drum solo, or drum/rattle combo) as Paul uses a drum for some of the postures we will be doing. Each 15-minute track is $6 or buy the entire 4-track CD for $20. All proceeds support CI.
If you feel further inspired to add a few more accoutrements, click here for a list of what you have around the house that you can use to follow along in the ritual. Bless your sacred space before hand — light a candle, bring in fresh air, add a vase of flowers, crystals, shells, walk the perimeter and bless it. It may be part of your busy household, but its sacred when you do this work. It takes nothing out of the ordinary to open this extraordinary door — that doorway is within, and you now have the key to throw it wide open.
We began our online introductory workshop with the Chiltan Spirits posture. Easy to hold, standing, sitting, or sitting crosslegged, we see this posture depicted in artifact from North and South America, from Europe to the Middle East to Africa to Asia, and over a span of thousands of years. This is a healing posture. We like to begin most workshops with a posture from the healing category of the 100-plus postures in the CI canon, for re-balancing on many levels, and for the infusion on energy, and for the full spectrum of experiences that generally ensue. It is always gratifying to see how readily people take to this work, underscoring the conviction of Felicitas Goodman, CI’s founder, that this work activates a capacity built in to our very physiology, and that is universal in scope.
In listening to the group’s trance experiences, we always find the reports inspiring and instructive. As confirmatory, as over and over we hear the tell-tale signs indicative of being deep in trance. I hope this article is helpful in better understanding this work. While we are finding that our trances are as deep and vivid taking place over Zoom as they are in CI’s kiva, we don’t have the extended time to discuss the work at the length and depth we can in our on-site workshop setting. So by posting these notes here for your ready access, in lieu of covering this aspect of our work. For more discussions on all aspects of this work and more, we invite you to our Q&A Zoom sessions to get your questions answered, and your comments and observations heard. Visit Our Scheduled Sessions
First, let’s review the few experiences that we heard via Zoom. We did not get to hear everyone’s experience, for time constraints, and those I did, I managed only to jot down key words and phrases (I usually manage to write more extensive notes; guess I’m still getting my Zoom chops down! And, volunteers are welcome — be the scribe as you lead a breakout room — greatly appreciated!)
Beyond adding to the CI Archives — we are a 501-c-3 research organization so research is a big part of our mission — it’s also the sharing of experiences that in part helps you verify for yourself that this work, works. So while we await more of the attendees to email in their experiences, let’s review my sketchy notes — all journal notes are in italics. I’ll explain the few words in bold towards the end.
NC: Energy, shaking. Concentrated to keep in posture. Tried to relax. Visual of Indian dancing with arms out. Heat in body.
E: Detailed drawing of flow of circular patterns interacting— Circulation around protons. Pain on right. feel good, centered.
N: lots of energy, expansive, vast space. scrubbed body and mind. rain of seeds. huge line of ancestors, going back to our origin.
Y: Two galaxies in the shape of faces. They come together and kiss. Doorway of stone. Hands grew hot.
S: Did not feel like 15 minutes rattling, felt like 3 minutes. Swaying. Hot. Huge phallus, but wasn’t sexual. In the Moon, met Owl. Reached out to soft heart. Cave, lit by moon. Six people standing around and healing a person lying on a stone table. Body turns to light.
BC: In a cave. Saw eight beings healing a person around a stone table. An Owl was there. Turned into a lion, a friendly lion, cuddly.
CS: Ancestors came in.
P: A light show in my visual field. Rattle became a grinding stone, a millstone. I became the sound. I slipped in and out, in and out.
HT: Energy, dancing and singing. Six cells are moving around. A line of red flowers.
H: Heat all around, the stars are very close, very bright, beautiful.
NT: Was up with the stars. Back on Earth, i went down a staircase, into the Earth. cave.
M: Mud house. dancing. feather. Fire. Night sky. Pink flowers. Up in the clouds, flying above.
B. Dancing with eagle feathers. Hook nose of bird, dancing around a fire. Ancestors are here. Open to the sky. Datura flowers.
Let’s also look at the emails we kindly received from attendees:
GD: I was drawn into a group of dancers. They were very close to each other, as if they were not separate. I couldn’t see faces or arms. I only saw the cloth they were wearing (a lot of yellow and a bit of blue and red). And I was somehow shuffled in.
I felt my body moving, rocking and waving in different directions. I had some bodily sensations of heat, tingling,…
When I was getting deeper in the experience it seems that I, my body, was constituted of 2 turning circles (one was my upper body of head, arms and chest, the other my lower body, from stomach to toes). They were interacting and then they became 1 spinning circle. I/the circle was turning around with speed and it looked like a ring of fire going down a hill. Then it fell and became a fire at the ground. I was a fire, like a campfire. Then there came a slit or a tunnel full of fire that connected me with the core of the earth. I went there and I was a small ball of fire in this huge fire, within the earth. I was circling around, moving towards the middle and then I was no longer separate, I was one with the fire.
Then I was back at the surface of the earth and I was connected with all the fires on earth, I was all the fires on earth.
Then I felt the connection with the stars and I became part of the sun. I was so thankful to the sun for the warmth, the light, giving us food,… And at the same time I could feel I was also carrying all of this insight of me. I also connected with other suns.
Then I came back to earth, at the same time, I was at 2 different places: in Monte Alban (Oaxaca) and in Uxmal (Yucatan). These are places I felt a very strong connection with, when I was in Mexico in 2004. It felt like some kind of permission to be there.
And then I became a Maya man with a high headdress and then the rattling stopped.
It was emotionally very moving. The whole experience.
I very much had the experience of being at many places at the same time.
I feel completely open. It feels as if I’m carrying the earth inside of me: I’m the Alps, the Breton sea, the fire,…
And it felled and feels so good, as if there’s a big relief: at first mostly in my heart and my stomach. Afterwards also in my throat, my intestines,…
I didn’t feel like returning to the “normal” life. But when I did, I felt strong, more rooted and centered.
JG: Here is my trance vision:
3rd eye image
pressure in my head which quickly dissipated
I became the raven, flying, then human flying and remembering flying dreams of my childhood
pyramid image – flying up/down
moving deep down into water/oceans
moving into the molten core of the earth – fire
moving into vastness of space and viewing the cosmos -lights
my body exploding as cells, particles, energy -expanding through time/space, eaching all aspects of the multiverse. There was no fear.
moving through processional- vast columns
reached the center of columns – nave? where i began pealing off layers of body energy
And for good measure, here are my own journal notes:
5/9/2020, Zoom Group Introductory Session #1, Paul live rattle
Chiltan Spirits Posture. Sat on chair. Blue mandala patterns front and center, flowing, changing shape, like a kaleidoscope. Going through tunnel at the center of the moving mandalas. Bright Blue, green center. Noticed the mandala had become the iris of a single huge, compassionate and intelligent eye, watching me. I am slowly heating up, there is a furnace at my core. Beings surround me and paste white blossoms all over me, i welcome the healing and surrender to it, open up my pores to it. Waves of bliss wash over me. I see nothing as wave after wave of exquisite, ecstatic life force crash upon the front of me and wash through every molecule; I am enveloped in nothing but bliss.
Plus recent journal notes from a trance with Chiltan Spirits Posture in January:
1/18/2020
Chiltan, sitting cross-legged. Sank deep into Earth, enveloped, felt pressure on all sides, a warm, gentle, soft embrace. Whirlwind of healing on all sides, renewing my cells. I am in a womb of regeneration, rebirth. Stem cells renew, and cells and organs repairs. I feel my eyes grow fresh and clear. My brain takes a deep breath and relaxes, tension dissipates. Knots untangle, flow of energy. Gratitude.
Let me share with you what I heard, and see, in the notes. I can confidently say, given these reports, you all tranced beautifully. Well done! Here’s why i can say that — Over and over, amongst the collection of reports, we see a) the indicators of beings deep in trance, b) the ‘terrain’ and common elements that occur in the majority of trance experiences, and here too, you see over and over these elements are in all the reports. Not all, but some, within each report more or less. c) a few elements that aren’t frequent, but show up among several reports. This changes with each trance session, and in our group trance of 5/9/2020, I’ve bolded this short list within the reports to make them easy to spot. Compare the reports with the lists below.
A) Indicators of Being Deep in Trance: Feeling shifts in temperature, time, and sound are indicators of being deep in trance. Feeling heat in all or parts of the body are typical, and its not a burning painful heat, but healing, and strangely comforting. Feeling cold or cool also happens, though not as often. There are additional indicators but I am covering just those we see in the reports, above, from this one group trance on 5/9/2020.
B) Elements Common and Frequent to hearing more of the experiences, I expect we’d find more of these common elements. These are replete throughout this collection of reports, and show up frequently in all trances, in all postures. It’s a confirmation especially with first-time trancers, who are not being ‘led’ before hand, and generally speaking, have no prior knowledge of what to expect. In the reports above, we see these elements:
The energy body lighting up — if you ever doubted you had an energy body, it’s making itself known! Lots of energy, moving in interesting ways. tunnels that take you up or down or forward. traveling through any medium – air, water, earth. caves. mountains. ocean. dancing around fire, and dancing/seeing/talking with animal spirits, Ancestors, People in native dress. flying over clouds, over landscape, with or as bird. flying through cosmos. engaging with the stars. fields of color – ‘light shows’. vortexes, swirling, wind, spirals, spiraling. Exploding out with energy. energy waves. One large eye, and multiple eyes, friendly, observing us. Emotional release, intense emotion of comfort, peace, unity, love. release of any and all emotions. Influx of life force/bliss. ancient buildings, landscapes. Feeling better afterwards, feeling a shift of some sort.
C) Elements that are not common, but interesting when several people report the same:
flowers, cells, protons — I highlighted these three words only, because they don’t show up that often, but here you see multiple accounts. I didn’t highlight the other elements, as the entire report would be highlighted. I find it interesting that in looking back, I saw healing on the cellular level in my Chiltan experience in January. I believe this is indicative, with cells showing up again with several others, that the healing works on the cellular level, or can feel like it! I did not note in my journal that I saw individual cells, but using that language, I think I was indicating that on some level, I knew healing was occurring on that deep a level. Again, you all tranced beautifully.
Now let me add a final note — there is often one or two participants, in most groups, that have an experience unique unto itself. Felicitas said that each trance is a gift, for you personally, and sometimes that means yours will be of a whole different character, with unique elements. Decode that, muse upon it, and you will find a personal message. For the rest of the group, yes, your trance is personal to you, yet also one piece of the whole. Each participant is shown some but not all aspects, and when combined, the whole is complete for the entire collective experience, with the benefit for all.
What a beautiful launch. Commit to four trances to see if this work is for you. Tell us how it goes in email, and in the Q&A sessions. This will take you to places you can not yet imagine — yet you’ll recognize once you get there. See how your trances deepen, surprise, comfort, and delight, and widen in scope. You have keys reclaimed from our earliest ancestors — and they’ve shown up to cheer us on.