Cloud Cover

Did you ever have one of those days where you have a general sense of anxiety that seems to be blocking your ability to connect? Sometimes I forget to notice energy flowing upward and I don't feel connected. My attention is pulled to unfocused feelings and I seek to explain the anxiety. Maybe I'm forgetting to do something...I search my memory for a reason...it could be a date blocked...it might be a significant grief trigger date...a death? Is something going to happen? Am I amplifying the feelings around me? Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth, writes about going into a restaurant when a parasitic emotion is released and is seeking a welcoming emotionally open victim-it invades a man in a wheel chair who explodes in temper. Tolle writes that this man's energy fed on the collective pain-body; you see, Tolle had just been counseling a woman with a dense pain-body and even though he helped her, some of this woman's pain-body negative residue had attached itself to his energy. So when Tolle walked into the restaurant, the energy around him found a victim at a nearby table, entered this unsuspecting man and made him lose his composure-he pinned the waitress up against the wall with his metal chair and the police had to be called.

This emotional pain-body idea makes me think of all the evil spirit warnings I have heard about while growing up. I sometimes attended tent revivals with Tyanne Poindexter, my somewhat lost neighbor friend, and we would fearfully listen to the preacher warn us about hell and eternal fire, all the while feeling as if we were in big trouble. But getting back to Tolle , he was not saying that the negative had more power than the positive, he just wrote that you had to be careful to be present and nonreactive to the emotional pain. Just allow it to be there until you notice space around it. Sound familiar? I have read about this idea, particularly in Buddhist writings but the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron's work on emotional pain comes to mind the most. Other New Age writings report that it is important to protect your energy so that you are not too open to another's negativity, but be careful not to focus on fighting the energy because resistance acts as a magnet. Yogananda writes that you should never look directly into the eyes of someone who is profoundly under a powerful negative influence or else your individual will could be dominated. Being the kind of person who reads, and then looks to life to verify or disprove, I have noticed some strange occurrences.

Your walking down the street, it's raining, and you have to pass in front of a man who is venting angry words and pulling out the empty white lining of his pockets while rocking back and forth on his legs. You feel both sorry for his confused state and afraid because he might vehemently turn in your direction. You empty your thoughts and focus on gently moving by him. (Okay, so that's what I do- and it happened yesterday!) Or you're in your car removing laundry and a tall large shouldered man stops at the window and stares at you. You quickly lock the doors, and sit in the air-less car waiting for him to leave until you can't take it anymore. After all, you have rights. You live in the tourist zone and its suppose to be safe. So you get out of the car and confront the imposing man. Only the tension you release by telling him to go away, lights a match to his pent up anger and he raises his fist and screams incoherently back at you. You forget about the laundry, run into the house, lock the doors and call the police...who calmly tell you that maybe its a mental patient who was recently released, "Could you describe him for us, please?" (Yes, it has happened.) Those are the moments I think of emotional parasites! What was Tolle thinking? He gave me another boogie man to fear: the Pain-Body.

Oprah Winfrey recommended this particular book and supported Barack Obama's candidacy, so I'm willing to be open-minded...Oprah stand by me, "Walk into the light! Go into the light!" The Poltergeist memory begins to compete with The Exorcist movie scene where the girl is tied to the bedpost and fervent prayer abounds in an attempt to beat the spirit-rapist into submission-ineffectually! What do I do when my own light is covered by inexplicable mood-clouds? I write. I write until its funny, or rather, until I have gained a sense of perspective. What about you? Take my survey and communicate with me!