Mellow Hotline
by Josephine Laing
Over the past year or so, I've noticed that if I've shaken the reins loose and let myself indulge in sugar for a time, like I recently did over the holidays, then I'll tend to find myself more capable of digressing into rants while in conversation with others. Rather then listening and sharing, I pontificate. The rants are always, from my point of view, well justified and they fully warrant the fervor of their delivery. But really, they are just emotional outbursts based on my opinion in the moment. And one days sugar indulgence inevitably leads to the desire for another day's indiscretion, holding the potential for endless reiterations. So, mostly, I try to remember to bring the raspberries with which to adorn a celebratory cake and eat only those instead. And, most of the time I succeed.
Recently, I borrowed a book from a friend titled Fleeing Vesuvius. Vesuvius, you may remember, was the volcano that blew some two thousand years ago, smothering the Roman city of Pompeii in pumice and ash. The book gives a well documented, scientifically supported account of the very real potentials and abrupt changes we may all well experience with our current looming economic and environmental collapse scenarios. The authors rightfully suggest that cobblers and wheelbarrows may well take on renewed importance. Hollywood's recent contribution, a movie called "Contagion," hit the theaters with images of mass epidemics. A few years back, they gave us "Escape from L.A." All chilling possibilities.
But, as one of my dearest wise friends once told me, "Josephine, if you want to look on the dark side, you can go deeper then you could ever imagine and still there will only be more and darker events and potentialities to dwell on. Or, instead you can focus on what's right and good and beautiful. Then the amount of inspiration and new heights of appreciation and gratitude for the many blessings in our lives will astound you with their awesome magnitude. You can take your pick." And I think she's right.
Back in the 1970's, while Frank and I were still in high school, just a few short years after San Francisco's "summer of love" and the cultural revolution of the hippie movement, many social groups arose. These groups created support networks and the free clinics for health care were born. Along with this progressive movement for change came the "Hotlines," which are various telephone networks available for people to call when in need. So naturally, as teenagers, we came up with our own hand jive expression for a hotline. Holding our hands up near our hearts, thumbs hidden and fingers pointing down, we'd separate our pinkie and ring fingers, holding those two close together and spreading them apart from our index and middle fingers to form the letter M. Then we'd move them all back together pointing straight down again and then open them up again like a flashing marquis, intermittently forming a capital letter M. While doing this, we'd say, "Mellow Hotline, where's your head at?" as if we were answering the phone.
In those times of more gentle recreational drugs and the peace and love movements, a good rant was seen as a disruption to the equanimity and calm. But, we were all exuberant young folk after all, so we occasionally had spurts of often sugar fueled outbursts. Still, there is wisdom in the mellow hotline gesture and it's intention to call our attention back to which direction our focus is drifting. Are we headed down into the depths of disintegration and despair, or would we prefer to acknowledge what is right and good and find peace in that? Or, should we do as the Buddha urgently advised which was to "Do nothing, (because) time is too precious to waste" and instead sit in the place of non-duality and non-judgement.
Personally, I think that the Christian teaching story of the final judgment day holds the potential of being very profound. But my interpretation of the material is a little different. Rather then going up to a big gate in the sky, and having some guy in a white robe decide if we can enter the clouds or must instead be thrown down into the fire, I think the final judgement day comes when we all finally stop judging. Then we can enter the nirvana of heaven right here on earth. And I've recently come across an example of just that.
Some of you may have heard the noteworthy news story of Dr. Hew Len, who worked at Hawaii State Hospital for the criminally insane some twenty or thirty years ago. At the time he began his job there, many of the inmates were in permanent residence and were often held in restraints or in seclusion. Violent outbursts, both physical and verbal were not uncommon and due to the chaos all of this created, it was difficult to keep the facility in good repair. The turn over amongst the employees was high. Most would have agreed that it was a very depressing environment with little to no hope for a brighter future.
But then Dr. Len, a student of the ancient Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono (pronounced: hoe oh poe no poe no) began to work there. He calls his practice of Ho'oponopono "cleaning." Dr. Len would go into his office each day and spend his time looking at the files of the patients who were in residence there. He was not reviewing the files to see how many demented atrocities against society his inmates had committed, but instead he was looking at them as an opportunity to clear his own beliefs, from within himself, about who the inmates were. He felt that seeing the charts and photos of patients who had murdered and raped or stabbed and believing that that was the reality of who they are, held those inmates to that identity like a contract. Instead, Dr. Hew Len did his "cleaning" on himself, assuming 100% responsibility within himself for his role in creating that reality for them by holding onto his negative judgments and beliefs about them. In his office he would observe his own negative viewpoints about each inmate and acknowledge his own subsequent participation in creating that reality for them. And then he would simply let those negative beliefs go by using Ho'oponopono.
He would sit and look at reports regarding conditions in the hospital or he'd look at the inmates files and notice the beliefs or "data," as he calls it, within himself and say to that belief or fear or judgement, that he may have been holding in his mind; "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to clear you. Please forgive me. Thank you."
This is quite an extraordinary practice. And Dr. Len feels that when we do this consistently, we can can free ourselves to our own divinity, to our source, to our core. And when we thus free ourselves, we allow inspirations and manifestations to spontaneously arise from that pure potential source which we all share, instead of from our judgement and our adverse belief systems.
Dr. Len says that this is not about petitioning divinity to change the other, it's about speaking to the inner child within, the part of ourselves that believes what it is told by others or by ourselves, and asking it to let go of those beliefs. Because it is only from that state of neutrality or clarity, a clean slate, that we can allow divinity to percolate up as an inspiration. From this standpoint change is free to become a manifestation from source.
We hear from the spiritual teachings of the world that we create our own reality. Yet we wonder how that can be so in the face of trauma or disease? None of us would consciously choose to create that. But maybe on some unseen level, our judgments and belief systems do affect our reality. Dr. Hew Len and other proponents of the practice of Ho'oponopono think that they do.
While Dr. Len was clearing his own self, cleaning up his own opinions and beliefs about his external world in this way, spontaneously that external world began to transform itself. It became progressively more and more free to become a different expression of itself. Without any outward action on Dr. Len's part, the staffing problems in the hospital began to resolve. The repairs and general cleanliness and order of the place began to align itself. Programs for cookie baking and car washing and tennis tournaments for the inmates started to emerge. And all of these occurred not through any direction from Dr. Hew Len, but spontaneously, on their own. The shackles came off of the inmates and the seclusion rooms, formerly full, gradually emptied out. The normal turn around time for inmates began to shift. Instead of many years of internment, their problems were resolved and they became able to rejoin normal society in a much shorter period of time, like three or four months. Even the number of criminally insane people in the state's population diminished. Eventually the hospital simply closed. It was no longer needed. Isn't that amazing! Earthwise.org has a YouTube interview with this humble yet extraordinary man describing this experience and his practice. And a man named Joe Vitale wrote a very popular book on the subject called Zero Limits.
And I think that's were we want to go. Bad things may happen, but we don't need to hold them hostage to that reality. We are creative beyond our wildest dreams. We are, by birthright, a part of source.
One of the meditations that I've enjoyed and have shared with others for years is what I call "seeing the god in everything." It only takes a second, (or three minutes, or thirty if you like,) to quiet the self and to ask divinity to show itself to you, in one of it's multitude of guises. So, today, it arises in my mind's eye as an incense cedar wearing a cloak of white, standing tall on a hillside of snow. Tomorrow, it's a herd of gazelle grazing on a plain or a comet passing through a universe of stars. The next day it's waves crashing on a rocky shore, or a child bone thin with pleading eyes. It's all god. All of it is an opportunity to see the divine in everything. Our problems are here to awaken us.
The Buddhists teach that fear, Maya, is the illusion. And Christianity teaches that it's all only love. But, we don't need to go outside of ourselves to find this. We don't need a middle man to tell us what's in our source. We only need to clear away our judgments and allow that clean slate of pure potentiality within each of us to percolate up through us. Because we all spring up from source.
So, that is why I remember "Mellow hotline." Can we let go and clean and clear our minds and free ourselves to our equanimity? Can we remember our source and allow the creation of inspiration, beauty and joy in all aspects of our lives and our earth experience? I know that we can. Because "it's all good." Or should I say, "it's all god?"
© 2012 Josephine Laing
Over the past year or so, I've noticed that if I've shaken the reins loose and let myself indulge in sugar for a time, like I recently did over the holidays, then I'll tend to find myself more capable of digressing into rants while in conversation with others. Rather then listening and sharing, I pontificate. The rants are always, from my point of view, well justified and they fully warrant the fervor of their delivery. But really, they are just emotional outbursts based on my opinion in the moment. And one days sugar indulgence inevitably leads to the desire for another day's indiscretion, holding the potential for endless reiterations. So, mostly, I try to remember to bring the raspberries with which to adorn a celebratory cake and eat only those instead. And, most of the time I succeed.
Recently, I borrowed a book from a friend titled Fleeing Vesuvius. Vesuvius, you may remember, was the volcano that blew some two thousand years ago, smothering the Roman city of Pompeii in pumice and ash. The book gives a well documented, scientifically supported account of the very real potentials and abrupt changes we may all well experience with our current looming economic and environmental collapse scenarios. The authors rightfully suggest that cobblers and wheelbarrows may well take on renewed importance. Hollywood's recent contribution, a movie called "Contagion," hit the theaters with images of mass epidemics. A few years back, they gave us "Escape from L.A." All chilling possibilities.
But, as one of my dearest wise friends once told me, "Josephine, if you want to look on the dark side, you can go deeper then you could ever imagine and still there will only be more and darker events and potentialities to dwell on. Or, instead you can focus on what's right and good and beautiful. Then the amount of inspiration and new heights of appreciation and gratitude for the many blessings in our lives will astound you with their awesome magnitude. You can take your pick." And I think she's right.
Back in the 1970's, while Frank and I were still in high school, just a few short years after San Francisco's "summer of love" and the cultural revolution of the hippie movement, many social groups arose. These groups created support networks and the free clinics for health care were born. Along with this progressive movement for change came the "Hotlines," which are various telephone networks available for people to call when in need. So naturally, as teenagers, we came up with our own hand jive expression for a hotline. Holding our hands up near our hearts, thumbs hidden and fingers pointing down, we'd separate our pinkie and ring fingers, holding those two close together and spreading them apart from our index and middle fingers to form the letter M. Then we'd move them all back together pointing straight down again and then open them up again like a flashing marquis, intermittently forming a capital letter M. While doing this, we'd say, "Mellow Hotline, where's your head at?" as if we were answering the phone.
In those times of more gentle recreational drugs and the peace and love movements, a good rant was seen as a disruption to the equanimity and calm. But, we were all exuberant young folk after all, so we occasionally had spurts of often sugar fueled outbursts. Still, there is wisdom in the mellow hotline gesture and it's intention to call our attention back to which direction our focus is drifting. Are we headed down into the depths of disintegration and despair, or would we prefer to acknowledge what is right and good and find peace in that? Or, should we do as the Buddha urgently advised which was to "Do nothing, (because) time is too precious to waste" and instead sit in the place of non-duality and non-judgement.
Personally, I think that the Christian teaching story of the final judgment day holds the potential of being very profound. But my interpretation of the material is a little different. Rather then going up to a big gate in the sky, and having some guy in a white robe decide if we can enter the clouds or must instead be thrown down into the fire, I think the final judgement day comes when we all finally stop judging. Then we can enter the nirvana of heaven right here on earth. And I've recently come across an example of just that.
Some of you may have heard the noteworthy news story of Dr. Hew Len, who worked at Hawaii State Hospital for the criminally insane some twenty or thirty years ago. At the time he began his job there, many of the inmates were in permanent residence and were often held in restraints or in seclusion. Violent outbursts, both physical and verbal were not uncommon and due to the chaos all of this created, it was difficult to keep the facility in good repair. The turn over amongst the employees was high. Most would have agreed that it was a very depressing environment with little to no hope for a brighter future.
But then Dr. Len, a student of the ancient Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono (pronounced: hoe oh poe no poe no) began to work there. He calls his practice of Ho'oponopono "cleaning." Dr. Len would go into his office each day and spend his time looking at the files of the patients who were in residence there. He was not reviewing the files to see how many demented atrocities against society his inmates had committed, but instead he was looking at them as an opportunity to clear his own beliefs, from within himself, about who the inmates were. He felt that seeing the charts and photos of patients who had murdered and raped or stabbed and believing that that was the reality of who they are, held those inmates to that identity like a contract. Instead, Dr. Hew Len did his "cleaning" on himself, assuming 100% responsibility within himself for his role in creating that reality for them by holding onto his negative judgments and beliefs about them. In his office he would observe his own negative viewpoints about each inmate and acknowledge his own subsequent participation in creating that reality for them. And then he would simply let those negative beliefs go by using Ho'oponopono.
He would sit and look at reports regarding conditions in the hospital or he'd look at the inmates files and notice the beliefs or "data," as he calls it, within himself and say to that belief or fear or judgement, that he may have been holding in his mind; "I love you. I'm sorry. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity to clear you. Please forgive me. Thank you."
This is quite an extraordinary practice. And Dr. Len feels that when we do this consistently, we can can free ourselves to our own divinity, to our source, to our core. And when we thus free ourselves, we allow inspirations and manifestations to spontaneously arise from that pure potential source which we all share, instead of from our judgement and our adverse belief systems.
Dr. Len says that this is not about petitioning divinity to change the other, it's about speaking to the inner child within, the part of ourselves that believes what it is told by others or by ourselves, and asking it to let go of those beliefs. Because it is only from that state of neutrality or clarity, a clean slate, that we can allow divinity to percolate up as an inspiration. From this standpoint change is free to become a manifestation from source.
We hear from the spiritual teachings of the world that we create our own reality. Yet we wonder how that can be so in the face of trauma or disease? None of us would consciously choose to create that. But maybe on some unseen level, our judgments and belief systems do affect our reality. Dr. Hew Len and other proponents of the practice of Ho'oponopono think that they do.
While Dr. Len was clearing his own self, cleaning up his own opinions and beliefs about his external world in this way, spontaneously that external world began to transform itself. It became progressively more and more free to become a different expression of itself. Without any outward action on Dr. Len's part, the staffing problems in the hospital began to resolve. The repairs and general cleanliness and order of the place began to align itself. Programs for cookie baking and car washing and tennis tournaments for the inmates started to emerge. And all of these occurred not through any direction from Dr. Hew Len, but spontaneously, on their own. The shackles came off of the inmates and the seclusion rooms, formerly full, gradually emptied out. The normal turn around time for inmates began to shift. Instead of many years of internment, their problems were resolved and they became able to rejoin normal society in a much shorter period of time, like three or four months. Even the number of criminally insane people in the state's population diminished. Eventually the hospital simply closed. It was no longer needed. Isn't that amazing! Earthwise.org has a YouTube interview with this humble yet extraordinary man describing this experience and his practice. And a man named Joe Vitale wrote a very popular book on the subject called Zero Limits.
And I think that's were we want to go. Bad things may happen, but we don't need to hold them hostage to that reality. We are creative beyond our wildest dreams. We are, by birthright, a part of source.
One of the meditations that I've enjoyed and have shared with others for years is what I call "seeing the god in everything." It only takes a second, (or three minutes, or thirty if you like,) to quiet the self and to ask divinity to show itself to you, in one of it's multitude of guises. So, today, it arises in my mind's eye as an incense cedar wearing a cloak of white, standing tall on a hillside of snow. Tomorrow, it's a herd of gazelle grazing on a plain or a comet passing through a universe of stars. The next day it's waves crashing on a rocky shore, or a child bone thin with pleading eyes. It's all god. All of it is an opportunity to see the divine in everything. Our problems are here to awaken us.
The Buddhists teach that fear, Maya, is the illusion. And Christianity teaches that it's all only love. But, we don't need to go outside of ourselves to find this. We don't need a middle man to tell us what's in our source. We only need to clear away our judgments and allow that clean slate of pure potentiality within each of us to percolate up through us. Because we all spring up from source.
So, that is why I remember "Mellow hotline." Can we let go and clean and clear our minds and free ourselves to our equanimity? Can we remember our source and allow the creation of inspiration, beauty and joy in all aspects of our lives and our earth experience? I know that we can. Because "it's all good." Or should I say, "it's all god?"
© 2012 Josephine Laing