Events » Past Events » It’s About Mobility: the San Diego NewWorldView Conference
By Rich Stammler
“Growth fundamentally means an enlarging and expanding of one’s horizons, a growth of one’s boundaries, outwardly in perspective an inwardly in depth.” ~ Ken Wilber
I was speaking with Lynda Dahl at the close of the S2K Conference in New Haven, Connecticut last October. I questioned her pleadingly, “Lynda, SNI is not hosting any more conferences, Rocky Mountain had their last conference in September, and New Haven was a one shot deal. What is next?”
Lynda responded that a conference had been planned for San Diego in the spring of 2001 and that it would be a good one. With Lynda’s words reverberating in my mind I sent a silent message to my inner self to work on actualizing that probable event for me. With all the Early Sessions devoured and having read, by now, everything Seth and Jane wrote either singly or together, I would soon go into Seth withdrawal. Conferences bring me close to the material. They also thrust me into a host of new probable realities punctuated by important dreams, spontaneous insight, synchronicity and incredible energy. New Haven had been my third and each one moved me forward in the material and propelled me toward the next step in my development.
Lately I have been visualizing the actualization of the next step, or should I say leap, in my expansion of consciousness. What I see is a massive oak door, four feet wide, ten feet tall, and four inches thick with a large ornate handle that you might find in an ancient castle. It is the doorway to a sparkling new present. I grasp the handle and manage to open it for fleeting seconds. I pull on the door and the old rusty hinges groan as they rotate and the door swings open a little. The sight on the other side is breathtaking. A majestic spiral galaxy lies out across the inky space surrounded by bright pinpoints of light. Its two arms spiral out in that magical Fibonacci ratio and billions of stars populate the arms. Young, bright, newly formed stars, bright blue, dominate the leading edges of the arms. The inner half of the galaxy manifests dust lanes highlighted in reds and blues by the nearby stars. The central core is an intensely bright ball of stars compacted around a massive black hole, which is not visible. The galaxy is a physical manifestation of an incredibly complex, incredibly large pyramid gestalt, one of the multiverse’s largest and finest consciousness structures.
Several years ago, at about the time I began digesting the Seth material, I purchased a sports car. It was a Toyota Celica GTS – red – with lots of pep and a pleasure to drive. It provided excellent mobility and was a symbol for me of the mobility of consciousness; it certainly represented the new mobility I was learning from the Seth material. So, logically I emphasized my symbol of mobility by purchasing so-called personalized plates that stated proudly, “SETH GRD.” The plates don’t mention that I am a “C” student but I am working hard on extra credits to bring that grade point up.
I was proud of my progress and my symbol. In the ensuing years the sometimes arduous path has left its mark on the vehicle. I ricochet off a guardrail narrowly avoiding a serious accident. My wife, Sandi, backed into it with the truck and my son-in-law borrowed it once and a truck hit the back. These altercations, recorded in the sheet metal, indicated this means of mobility was getting tired. My son drove it for a while and he did not respond to its call for maintenance, resulting in a ruined motor. (This was also symbolic of our relationship at that time.) I overhauled it (it’s an abundance issue) which took me more than a year to finally complete. That was about twelve months ago and since then, although I pride myself in being a relatively good mechanic, constant expensive problems resurfaced again and again. The Celica was to go to my daughter this summer, appropriate because of all the family she was the most receptive of the Seth ideas and has used the lessons to make dramatic changes in her life.
I didn’t want it to end that way but I was at the point where one more major maintenance issue and I was going to throw in the towel and donate the vehicle to charity. The week prior to the conference, exactly that happened. Although I had replaced the clutch as a precaution during the engine overhaul, it had now failed. Three days prior to my departure for San Diego I was shopping for a new vehicle. I did so with some mixed feelings. Was my Seth vehicle letting me down? Was this a transition or had my use of the material failed me? Was this a failing grade or graduation? I didn’t know. Perhaps the conference would tell me.
Thursday was a beautiful day. Spring in Virginia is like nowhere else. This was a cool, bright day and abundant fruit trees in full bloom were everywhere. The light greens of renewed life blanketed the countryside.
It was not long and the Southwest Airlines aircraft climbed confidently into the blue sky and turned west to my destiny. The route took us over Oklahoma and Tinker Air Force Base where, in my previous career, I piloted the E3A (AWACS) and explored the world in the physical. Mobility this time was confined to the three-dimensional because during those years I was unaware of the interchangeability and seamlessness of the inner and outer realities.
San Diego sits on the edge of the ocean in a bowl surrounded by low hills on three sides. From the hotel in the city center, a scan across three quarters of the skyline reveals the silhouettes of palm trees, like ancient sentries they guard access to this psychic coordinate point. That arena teems with life, symbolic activity, and the hotel is right at the center of it.
Thursday evening’s session kicked off the proceedings and delivered the promise of yet another great psychic event for all participants and, of course, me. The Seth quote at the bottom of the agenda set the tone.
“I cannot say this too often – you are far more than the conscious mind, and the self which you do not admit is the portion that not only insures your own physical survival in the physical universe which it has made, but which is also the connective between yourself and inner reality… It is only through the recognition of the inner self that the race of man will ever use its potential.” – Seth, Dreams and Projections of Consciousness
We truncate our consciousness, separating us from other parts of ourselves. This is true whether that boundary is the ego and the physical vehicle it rides, the mind and body, the self and the shadow self, the self and the environment, and the self and the inner self. We manufacture those boundaries and, therefore, the conflicts that are attendant with it. We must develop mobility through those boundaries, which then eliminates them. In a telling conclusion, Ken Wilber, in his book, No Boundary sums it up by saying, “For boundary lines, of any type, are never found in the real world itself, but only in the imagination of the mapmakers.” You and I are the mapmakers drawing boundaries where they do not exit.
Interesting. In my second career, I work for a federal agency whose function it is to make maps. We take photography from space and use it to delineate elevations, rivers roads, urban areas, countries and oceans. We label, delineate, define, circumscribe and demarcate. And every time we do and every time you and I do, we create a boundary. And as we create a boundary we contain something and set up a point of resistance, if not open conflict. The challenge is to move through the boundaries and create unity.
According to the Gospel of St. Thomas:
“They said unto Him: Shall we then, being children, enter the Kingdom?
“Jesus said unto them:
“When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below,
“and when you make the male and the female into a single one, then you shall enter the Kingdom.
It’s about mobility, mobility into the greater self. And this mobility is simply an awareness of what is and what always has been.
Or in the words of John Muir, ”When we examine anything in the Universe we find that it is hitched to everything else.”
After I finished Wilber’s book I was so inspired I wrote a poem Me, No More, No Less that attempted to capture his (and Seth’s) ideas. I brought it with me to the conference to show Michael Steffen. The object was to determine if it met the requirements to be published in Perspectives, the Brass Ring Bookstore publication. You see, part of what lies in that galaxy beyond the oak door is that part of me which yearns to create words in prose and poetry to capture the germinating seeds of ideas in my inner garden. It is yet another instance of new mobility necessary to access and develop the Rich that is the greater me.
The next day I gave Michael the poem and told him, “there are no strings attached. If it meets your requirements for the publication great, if not, then so be it.” In spite of his singular focus to make this first NewWorldView conference a success, Michael graciously said he would look at it.
In one of Friday’s sessions Lynda mapped out consciousness with a deft precision of a brain surgeon. Following her presentation Bob Waggoner (Dream Bob) conducted an excellent seminar on dream states and various techniques to achieve lucid dreaming and out of body states. This is one arena where the me/not me boundary is unfortunately still intact and except for two very isolated instances that were fleeting at best, I have not yet achieved this mobility of consciousness. I’ve spoken with Bob at every Seth conference and he continues to provide me with reading suggestions and helpful hints. I promised myself that night I would renew my effort at significant dreaming.
The extended setting in front of the hotel is really remarkable. Fred Allen Wolf in, The Dreaming Universe discusses the Australian aborigines as believing that the primary world “dreamtime” (Framework 2), contains all pasts, presents, and futures and that out of this dreamtime, our world of mind matter and energy is created and continually arises as in a dream. This remarkably Sethian view is shared by a number of so-called primitive cultures. But, what it teaches me is to be alert to unusual events, syncronicities and impulses that arise out of my daily reality. Indeed it is often very fruitful to assess daily events as you would a dream.
From this standpoint San Diego offered powerful symbols. The scene across the street was remarkable. Directly across the hotel is a harbor with two entrances, one winding to the left under a long, gracefully arched bridge that connects San Diego with Coronado Island, the home of the San Diego Naval Port. Moored immediately across the street was, a museum piece, the sailing ship, Star of India. Through the centuries with ships like these man explored the earth plane and mapped it, primitive mobility but sufficient to establish the first boundaries. In addition, that second night a cruise ship docked a few feet away. It elegantly carries thousands of passengers to exotic ports on the Pacific. A water body such as a river, pond, or ocean always represents rich deep inner reality in my dreams. Fish, of course, are the exotic, colorful ideas that emanate from that realm. So the mobility symbolized by these large ships played into this important scene.
Directly ahead of the hotel the harbor curved due west to a distant spot named Point Lomas containing perhaps the most powerful symbol of mobility to inner reality, the submarine.
In the evening I ate at the seafood restaurant across the street, a gateway to the harbor. As I entered the restaurant I saw my two friends from a dream I had before the 1999 Elmira Seth Conference. In that dream they were two large carp that let me pluck them out of the water and hold them in my arms like fat puppy dogs. They felt good in my arms. Now they adorned the wall of the restaurant, a part of a large mural and in it they pulled the sea god Poseidon across the water with enthusiastic smiles. My friends from deep inner reality assured mobility.
Drifting off to sleep that night I requested a significant dream.
The next morning I was aware of dreaming but did not retain the material. But what I did retain came as a result of the AMTRAK train. Within a block of the hotel on the other side from the harbor the local electrified tram ran and next to it, the AMTRAK train which ended in the Sand Diego train station. Early each morning it signaled impending departure with its melodious horn. This morning the horn brought me abruptly out of the dream state but helped me recall a key dream.
“Oz, our barn cat, was in some kind of nondescript danger and I wanted to remove it to a safer location. To remove it to safety I tried to place it into a black box. This box was about half the size of a cardboard shoebox and rather than place the cat in the box and then put on the lid, I put the cat on the lid and then put the box over the cat. Only the legs stuck out a little but because the box was cardboard I just pushed down. To my horror, the box cut off the cat’s left front leg at the elbow and the back right foot at the paw. I looked at the cat and wondered if it could function on two legs. Being nearly lucid I recalled a dog on television that got around quite well on two legs. But, I thought I would have to go to the vet to reattach the legs and wondered if the vet could master all the intricate connections of vessels, tendons and nerves.”
I tried to decipher the dream but could not. My first interpretation was that it was precognitive and I had the impulse to call Sandi, my wife, and warn her. However, somehow that seemed too obvious and I wasn’t comfortable with the interpretation.
Saturday brought a number of excellent exercises, presentations and seminars. A panel discussion moderated by Don Middendorf discussed inner and outer relationships. During the course of the discussion Don offered that there were now numbers posited that were larger than infinity. This concept I didn’t grasp. Really Don, infinity is never ending. How could the number be greater than that?
I retreated to the hospitality room on the 14th and top floor of the hotel. This room and its accompanying balconies have a commanding view of the harbor, Coronado Island, and the ocean. That morning a large cruise ship, its top floor higher than that of the hotel, had anchored next to the dock immediately in front of the hotel. The sight was imposing. But, perhaps more significantly the name on the ship was “Infinity.” Now there is a symbol of mobility.
In the afternoon I particularly enjoyed Laura Davis workshop and her rerolling exercise. In it you affirm a desired outcome in the future and then recreate the past consistent with that new future. It develops mobility into the probable event by imagining and affirming it in the present while restructuring past events consistent with that new present. What made this much more effective than a standard visualization exercise is that it was done with a partner, someone who was not a close acquaintance. Because the partner did not know our remembered past, the discussion of a new past, which was articulated by way of structured questions, was completely accepted by the partner. This total acceptance of the new past by the partner created a condition of positive energy toward that probable past in turn creating the mobility toward a new present in the future.
Sometime during this workshop Michael Steffen came by to tell me he liked the poem and would publish it. To my surprise he also asked me if I wanted to read it during the evening dinner. What was my inner self up to now? As I responded to Michael with a confident “sure” I could feel the movement of probable realities as they edged nearer to my present.
I had talked with Bob Waggoner several times during the conference and shared with him this recurring, annoying dream that I had. It has to do with one of those public embarrassment situations that come up in my dream world about once a month. I’m at the point in my dream where there is another part of me observing the dream saying, “here we go again.” So after Laura’s workshop we were at the same table and I asked him if we could discuss it. Actually, I said, “Bob, is your dance card full?”
Bob replied, “why?”
“Well, I want to dance with you.” I quickly added, “Do you have time to talk about a dream?”
Being the gentleman and good friend that he is, Bob acquiesced and repositioned his chair.
Now that I had his attention, I began. But, instead of beginning with the recurring dream sequences, I told him that I had an interesting dream that morning that I didn’t understand and outlined the dream about Oz. This piqued Bob’s interest and he asked if I wanted to role-play to get at the dream meaning.
He had described the process to me before and because I was familiar with it I told him, “sure.” The technique is a Gestalt Therapy technique (although I think it clearly has elements of Jungian Therapy in it also because the dream interpretation is completely up to the patient). So the object now was for me to imagine myself the characters in the dream and evoke feelings that would lead to a correct interpretation.
I explained to Bob we have two barn cats that have adopted us and one of them is Oz, a tabby cat reminiscent of the first cat that was mine in my childhood. Oz is a friendly cat that overcame severe fear of humans and is a ready companion whenever we go to the barn. Now it is very close and is always ready to be stroked. The children named her Oz (I don’t know why, but an interesting element in the events since Oz was a wizard that falsely promised mobility to another reality).
Bob began, “Rich, close your eyes. I want you to imagine you are Oz. How do you feel?”
“I have lost mobility. I am restricted. I can’t explore. I can’t express the catness in me. I feel bad, negative.”
“Ok Rich,” Bob continued, “now you are the box. How do you feel?”
“I contain and restrict things. I protect.”
“What are you feeling?”
“I feel somber, I am like space, black, and contain the universe.”
I was aware of noises as someone cleared the materials off our table in preparation for the evening meal.
“Now Rich you are the legs that were cut off. What do you feel?”
“I have lost my purpose. I’m cast adrift.”
Bob interjected, “how do you feel about Rich?”
“Rich wasn’t careful enough. Rich has responsibility to fix me. The cat needs me.”
“Now tell me, how does Oz feel about Rich?”
“I feel vulnerable. I freeze in place when he puts the box down over me. I’m afraid and have lost my spontaneity, a part of my self.” Emotions intensified in me as I spoke. Curtains were being drawn aside and light shone into the closet of my mind that contained unaddressed fears.
“I don’t trust Rich. I know he’s trying to do something positive. But there is a feeling of danger and I can’t discern his intentions.”
At this point, it hit me. I opened my eyes and looked at Bob.
“Oz is me. Oz is the ego me and Rich is my inner self.” Suddenly the curtains were drawn back, flung open and the light shown into a dark place in my psyche.
Bob ripped off the top sheet on the legal note pad he was writing on and drew two line connected by an arch over which he wrote the word “bridge.”
I continued with great excitement. I was sitting at the edge of my chair, my face animated. “You see I’m trying to get to where I can pursue and express my creativity. I want more wealth so I have more freedom and mobility. I have expressed these two goals to my inner self, which entails, perhaps, quitting my job or reducing hours. I’m afraid my inner self will come up with a solution that will emphasize my creativity at the expense, temporarily, of the physical things I enjoy, like my farm. I want the freedom to work less so I can follow creative impulses but I don’t want to give up what I have now. The truth is I don’t fully trust my inner self to work the right solutions. Its intentions are not clear to me.”
I am afraid of some of the paths into my new reality where I can spend more time writing, drawing, and learning. I have erected a boundary between the ego self and the inner self because the ego is afraid it will lose control and power. The mobility into the inner self is constricted. It’s about mobility toward a new probable reality, a new more creative, more fulfilled probable self.
Well, Bob. What an incredible demonstration of the power of your technique. Thanks. Superb. I realize it is up to me to work the solution and the reconciliation with my inner self. But you have brought the issue into crystal clear focus, which, no doubt, is the initial step.
[Note: As I am recording these thoughts and observations my son interrupted the activity with a phone call from Roanoke VA. He and his spouse are moving back into this area. He has a perfect new job waiting for him as soon as they relocate and a few days ago purchased a new motorcycle. He described for me the thrill, sense of mobility, and power riding this new vehicle.]
I walked up to the hospitality suite. She was still there sitting at eye level seemingly at arms reach, just a short astral hop. It was the cruise liner Infinity ready to take all of us into that infinite ocean of inner reality.
I spoke for a time with Jim Pickerell. He single-handedly managed the hospitality suite. He did a great job. Although it was the first time I met him, like many others I meet at the conferences, I felt I have known Jim for a long time. It turned out he was the one that placed the life-sized Yoda cut out in the hospitality suite. I wanted to know how I could get one. Jim, Joe Campbell, I, and many others are inspired by the Star Wars story. That symbol of inner wisdom needs to sit in this room (my home) with me reminding me of the knowledge, compassion and power of inner reality [and the inner me]. Wasn’t it Luke Skywalker who could not use the awesome poser of the Force until he learned to trust his inner self?
It wasn’t long until supper. I went downstairs full of restrained anticipation. The conference dinners are always fun, delicious, and invariably bring new insights. This evening would be no different. At my table sat David Ibrahim and, later, his friend Jenny. David has roots in the near east and the Balkans, dovetailing nicely with some of my own family’s roots. Jim was there as well and also Bob.
Nancy Walker worked the proceedings with her characteristic energy. It floods the room she is in and washes over the participants like a tropical wave. You can’t escape it and you cannot help being totally charmed by her. However, I thought of my debut, the poem. The audience is friendly, without a doubt, like the universe, it leans in my direction. But, my topic was more serious and contemplative than what Nancy was doing and it would take a bit to get the audience retuned. I would have to do a lead-in.
Jim was called up to play his American Indian flute. It was beautiful and haunting. I closed my eyes while he played and was immediately transported to a broad dry mesa where I sat playing the flute as I scanned an extensive vista of broad plains. The vision next changed to a small waterfall perhaps two feet high of crystal clear water. I began to see faces in the falls one beside the other all across the falls.
By the time Michael called on me I knew I would have to be calm, deliberate, and articulate clearly. The topic, Me, No More, No Less was deep and multifaceted. It is difficult to grasp it clearly when reading, let alone when listening. When I walked forward to the front of the room I was barely able to contain my beating heart. I had concluded long ago during those times when I was addressing the 200 crew members as an AWACS operations officer, or speaking to my small squadron in England, no matter what the message, if it is from the heart it will turn out right. Now was no different. Not only was this from my heart but also as Seth has pointed out, all creativity comes from the inner self.
This was it. I was on the threshold. I had my hand on the handle of the oak door. Would it open?
When I read the last line, “No More and No Less,” there was a second of silence and then loud applause (at least that is the way it sounded up front). In the last year there were times when I could feel probable reality swirling around me. More than once I could actually feel myself stepping into a new probable reality. As I soaked up the applause like a sponge and turned to walk back to the table this was one of those times. The massive oak door was moving, the hinges creaking and a bright light shone through the crack in the door.
That evening I met up with Ray Irwin in the hospitality room. Ray is a brother of mine. He and I have walked (flown) similar paths. We were both flying instructors in the Air Force Training Command and have both put flying behind us, physical flying that is. Now we are focused on flight into inner reality and into the dream realm. He has made more progress in this regard and he eagerly gave me advice. The Monroe tapes and techniques have put him over the top and I will try them also. It’s about mobility.
As I turned in the bed Sunday morning I felt a pain in my right foot. AMTRAK once again brought me out of slumber and I was immediately aware that my fourth toe was red and swollen. It was painful to move my foot under the sheets. I would have to wear the sneakers home and worked not to walk with a limp. I packed up and checked out of the hotel.
Walking out of the hotel to catch the shuttle, I noticed a new cruise liner anchored across the street. It was the Sea Princess, not the largest of the three ships but the newest that had docked there. It was shining white, bright, and invited participation in its journey. Beyond the cruise liner steaming through the channel was a cargo ship with three large cranes affixed to its deck to facilitated movement of objects and things for transportation. It was a burnt orange color, creating a strong contrast between the large body of the vessel and the blue gray water. You couldn’t miss it. Emblazoned on its side in large letters, “Concept Carriers.”
The shuttle traveled the short distance to the airport as I contemplated the significance events of the preceding days. It occurred to me that if there was a giant coordinate point for mobility then San Diego was it and the Holiday Inn Hotel that hosted the Seth conference is in the dead center. The hotel is bordered by two four-lane streets and within one block to the East lies the local electrified city tram and the final stop for the west coast AMTRAK. In front of the hotel across the four-lane road is the dock for the large cruise ships, the harbor contains countless ships, sail boats, and other water conveyances of all types. Beyond the harbor on the other side are the large military naval vessels including an aircraft carrier, and further out still the submarine facility. Within five minutes ride to the north of the hotel is the San Diego airport a beehive of arriving and departing aircraft. This city is clearly a major coordinate point for travel into a number of actual, probable and multidimensional realities.
The colorful Southwest aircraft roared off the runway and climbed sharply. I looked out from my window seat to see the Concept Carrier heading out toward the inner sea to facilitate movement. The aircraft entered a low bank of clouds and, like that technique for exploring past lives, shot through the solid overcast to emerge on the other side in bright blue sky and a radiant sun. Just that quickly I had popped out of the San Diego reality into another.
Just as in the dream state physical reality sometimes brings events so unusual that you have to ask yourself, “how odd, what can it mean?” Our intermediate stop en route to Baltimore was Nashville and flying the approach to the Nashville airport I saw something so startling I couldn’t believe it. In the suburbs approaching the airport one-third, and in certain areas up to one-half, of all the vehicles were, like my old Seth vehicle, bright red. I mean shiny, intense bright red. There were sports cars, trucks, SUVs, station wagons, sedans; you name it they were below me shining in the sun and bright red. They stood in driveways, parked on the roads, stopped at stoplights and traveling on the highway. It reminded me of the fans (the entire city) in Lincoln Nebraska during a football game, a sea of red. What was my inner self telling me about my mobility issues? Don’t worry Rich; it’s going to turn out just fine?
I got home later that day to find that the horse had stepped on Sandi’s right foot and the little toe was swollen to twice its normal size and was dark blue. She hobbled on the foot fearing that the bone in it was fractured.
The next morning Sandi woke up and her left arm was so painful she couldn’t move it. She had ridden the horse the day before and something about the activity had severely inflamed the tendon in her left elbow. I had to help her dress (Hmmm – fantasies are sometimes actualized). I drove into town with Sandi on her way to work and she dropped me off at the dealership. The new vehicle was ready for me, bright, shiny, plush. It is my new reliable, eminently elegant means of mobility on the physical plane. I had the foresight to schedule an additional day’s leave for Monday. Who wants to purchase a new car just to drive it to work? I relished the drive on this perfect late spring day. Does reality look different? No. Does reality become different when the means of mobility changes? Absolutely!
“Once you see symbolic things,
You, too, will see symbols everywhere.”
– Joseph Campbell“Some day comes the Great Awakening when we realize that this life is no more than a dream. Yet the foolish go on thinking they are awake. Surveying the panorama of life with such clarity, they call this one a prince and that one a peasant – What delusion! The great Confucius and you are both a dream. And I, who say all is a dream, I too, am a dream.”
– Chuang Tzu
[Note: The ideas herein borrow from Wilber and, of course, Seth. I strongly recommend Wilber’s book No Boundary.]