A.R.E. Meeting for 02/28/11

Leader: Greg
Reader: Marsha

In the How to Interpret Your Dreams book, we are in Chapter 2, page 22, ready to begin the section "Conscious Efforts at Cooperating with Dreams."

The discipline is still to keep a dream journal.

Changes When You're a Channel for Healing

I bought Echo Bodine's book Hands That Heal, after listening to her being interviewed on the Sunday morning "Reflections: The Wisdom of Edgar Cayce" radio show. I was just flipping through the book when I landed on a page that mentioned how she changes when she is about to channel a higher energy level. I thought that some of the "symptoms" that our study group brought up during the last meeting meeting could be related to our journeys.

Here are Echo's words:

Since writing this back in 1983, my body has been through many changes because of being a channel for healing energy.
Every so often, and there is no set timing on this, my body goes through a process to take me to another level so that I can channel stronger energy.

The signs are not always the same, so sometimes I don't know I'm in one of these transitions until it passes and I begin channeling stronger energy.

These are the different changes I go through when my body is going to another level as a healer:

• Metallic taste in my mouth
• My appetite increases quite a bit
• I put on 5 to 10 pounds 
• I crave chocolate, baked potatoes, red meat, and coffee (decaf), and I drink gallons of water
• I either stay up until two o'clock ord three o'clock in the morning reading everything spiritual I can get my hands on, or I feel extremely creative and redecorate, sew, or write, OR I become extremely tired and sleep all the time
• I become quite a hermit, hiding out from everyone including close friends and family members since it feels like I need to be in the "silence" 
• I usually stop all physical activity such as running on my treadmill or going for walks
• I get spacey and absentminded
• I have dreams where I'm in a classroom learning something new
• My body feels like it's going through a metamorphosis, like I'm in a cocoon and will soon emerge a butterfly
• My hands start channeling stronger energy, and they can hurt, go numb, feel arthritic, or feel really fat and thick. They are very sensitive and don't like to be touched
• Sometimes when I go through these periods, I don't want anyone to touch me or hug me
• I feel like I'm in some kind of chamber, and I don't want anyone "messing" with my energy
• Sometimes I can hear voices far away teaching me something, yet my conscious mind can't make them out; they sound muddled

These periods last seven to ten days, and when I come out of them, I go back to normal, except I know I've come through something really important and am now a stronger channel. My diet goes back to normal. I get off coffee and cut way back on the sugar, the red meat, and the chocolate. I lose the weight I put on. My mind becomes more clear, and I'm less forgetful. I naturally crave fun, movies, people, and socializing in place of the solitude I craved before.

I go for months or maybe a year before I go into one of these changes, but seem to go through at least one of these transitions every year.

A.R.E. Meeting for 02/21/11

Leader: Greg
Reader: Greg

In the "How to Interpret Your Dreams" book, we finished Chapter 1, and next week will start Chapter 2.

The discipline is still to keep a dream journal.

For those interested in the story I read on the A.R.E. blog (with the quote "Boston is OK") that affected my dream that night, the story is here.

A.R.E. Meeting for 02/14/11

Leader: Greg
Reader: Greg

In the "How to Interpret Your Dreams" book, we are on page 15, about to go into the second dream category: "2. Elements of the conscious personality, are, in effect, the mental forces of an individual."

The discipline is still to keep a dream journal.

Remember, next Monday (21 February), we will meet at Cindi's home. A map will be sent out a little later this week.

A.R.E. Meeting for 02/07/11

Leader: Greg
Reader: Sylvia

In the "How to Interpret Your Dreams" book, we are on page 12, about to go into the third functional definition of dreams: "A dream can give an insight into God's law or His working in our lives."

The discipline is still to keep a dream journal.

Sylvia's discussion of the book about the lives of Jesus reminds me that there is a post on our blog about this topic: http://cospringsare.blogspot.com/search/label/Christ

Cooperation - The First Spiritual Lesson

This article by Kevin Todeschi was posted on an A.R.E. blog. Kevin explains that the first lesson in A Search for God, Book 1 is not so much about cooperating with others, as it is about cooperating with God.

Having been involved with the Cayce work and the A.R.E. for more than 30 years, I am certainly aware of the important cornerstone "cooperation" plays in the readings information on spiritual growth. Obviously, it is the first lesson in personal spirituality recommended by the study group program and A Search for God, Book I. It is also a lesson frequently brought to mind whenever groups of people gather for some activity at A.R.E. – a conference, a meeting, even a social activity. In fact, I could not begin to count the number of times I have heard someone say, "Well, you know, cooperation is the first lesson," even in a joking fashion whenever there was the smallest semblance of a challenge or a conflict or a disagreement between two or more people. The irony of this statement is that the lesson on cooperation is not really about cooperation between people (although that is definitely an important byproduct); ultimately the lesson is about learning to cooperate with God.


Certainly, cooperation with God sounds like a tall order! It seems like cooperating with another person would be easier. How can we even begin to know the process for cooperating with the Divine? But the Cayce readings are clear – we must learn to set our personal egos aside so that the Divine can work through us, bringing spirit into the earth plane. It is for this reason that the meditation affirmation used for Lesson One is not about learning to cooperate with someone at work or the neighbor next-door, but is instead phrased as follows:

Not my will but Thine, 0 Lord, be done in and through me. Let me ever be a channel of blessings, today; now, to those that I contact, in every way. Let my going in, my coming out be in accord with that Thou would have me do, and as the call comes, "Here am I, send me, use me!" (262-3)

The idea that we are representatives of the Divine is certainly connected to our birthright as spiritual beings having a physical experience. More important, perhaps, it is inextricably interwoven with one of the main purposes for which each and every one of us came into the earth: to bring the divinity of the Creator into the third-dimensional plane. In fact, each soul is a potential emissary of that one spirit in the earth. That's the ultimate purpose for each and every soul. Learning how to cooperate with the Divine so that the Divine might work through us.

Early on in my work with the Cayce information I had often wondered about how best to cooperate with God until I came across a reading given to a 61-year-old widow in 1943 that seemed to provide a simple first step. The woman was faced with numerous challenges, including a change of careers and a potential move. During the course of her reading she asked: "How can I discipline myself at my age to do what is mine to do?" Cayce responded: "Repeat three times every day, and then listen: 'Lord, what would thou have me do today?' Have this not as rote. Mean it! For as He has spoken, as He has promised, 'If ye call I will hear, and answer speedily.' He meant it! Believe it!" (3003-1)


Quite a number of individuals I have spoken with over the years have found this exercise valuable because it seems to create an expectant sense of cooperating with the Divine. To be sure, the degree to which any answer is connected to bringing spirit into the earth essentially reflects how well we have been able to set self aside, cooperating with God in the process.


From the readings' perspective, cooperating with God is important for individuals, for groups, even for organizations. On one occasion when a member of A.R.E. asked how she could best serve the association, Cayce's response was that the ultimate service would be to work with the association so that both the individual and the organization could bring spirit into the earth:

Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman not ashamed, rightly dividing the words of truth and putting stress where it belongs, and keeping self unspotted from the world. It is not to serve the Association, it is to work with it that the glory of God may be made manifest in the earth. (5277-1)

Obviously, cooperating with God is the ultimate lesson for us all.