The Gallery of Dreams

 "The Gallery of Dreams" is now featured at the website of The Risen Books. Subscribe at the link provided there for updates to the various galleries -- much to see and experience! 

"In The Woods" - a spirit-generated painting
with Boris Pasternak

I am Unanimous in This

 Here's what's called "a short", a recent and enjoyably mysterious encounter with my good friend, Sally Taylor, which was spun from a longer interview with her and Gary Langley, another good friend.

OR/AND

Peruse the evolving Gallery of Dreams.

The Gallery of Dreams

Finally, my life has orchestrated a return to my beloved painting endeavours. 

The mediums are water, and inks include plain, scented, iridescent, sheen, mica pigmented, organic; brewed in Germany, Japan, France, U.S., U.K.

Additionally: inktense pencil, watercolor pencil, regular pencil. 

No brushes were used in their creation.

Consider visiting the complete gallery as it grows:  

https://therisenbooks.com/gallery-of-dreams

"The Swallows Always Return"
6" x 9" inks on watercolour paper

"Crescent Moon Rising, heat lightning, fireflies."
6" x 9" inks on watercolour paper

"Moons, bats, fireflies, sidhe, dreamer"

6" x 9" inks on watercolour paper"

"Grackle, cat, blood moon rising, fireflies"
6"x9" inks on watercolour paper

Insect Voices

Oh, the matsumushi cricket is singing

Chin-chiro, chin-chiro, chin-chiro-rin
Now the suzumushi bell-ring cricket is starting to sing
Rin rin rin rin ri-in rin
Calling out through the long autumn nights
Oh how beautiful are the insects' voices !

“Insect Voices”
– Japanese Nursery Rhyme

[First posted 9/21/06]

My home is miraculously placed at the base of a primeval forest – meaning it’s never been timbered – and I go very many walks and runs through its 200 acres every chance I get. I often go running when I want to experience life without the simulate self’s chatter – for some reason, I can’t think and run at the same time, I fall down. During today’s run, the intense physical experience naturally led to pondering my physical embodiment, as spirit encased within the very material it enlivens. Not only on my own seemingly individualized embodiment, but also on the embodiment of this body within the larger body of the forest, of nature, of the planet. My body is of nature, and so it is nature. A great word of power, “is” – present tense of “be”. I am nature. Nature is me. Separation is a misperception.

While in the woods, pondering led to listening, and an increased realization of something I’ve understood for a long time, which is that the sounds of nature are music to the brain. And just in the same way that music informs us of non-verbal deep, emotional aspects of our individualized immortality as it fits into the Universe, the sounds of nature reach the deepest possible places of a materialize body on Earth. I had a music professor who postulated that musical instruments were human attempts to duplicate the human voice. Perhaps — and taking this a few steps further, one could say that the human voice is the human attempt to duplicate the music of nature, which cannot exclude the immersed, embodied human experience: wind, rain, fire, birds, crickets, thunder; breathing, tears, sexuality, poetry, heartbeats.

In order to feel fully immersed, fully human, the brain must be nourished with the sounds of nature. Humanity has removed much of itself from such opportunity. This is why I’ve often suggested that one go into nature to find spiritual sustenance and relief; replenishment and grace.

A study in the 80’s of right brain/left brain responses to nature sounds revealed that “. . . Japanese and Westerners alike heard music, machinery and noise sounds in the right brain and language sounds in the left brain, but Japanese heard vowels sounds, crying, laughing and sighing, the cries of insects and animals, waves, wind, rain, running water and Japanese musical instruments in the left brain, the same as language, while Westerners heard these sounds in the right brain together with music and noise.”

     (From: The Japanese Language Brain)

It’s no surprise that Japanese culture is based on the drama of nature, revealed in ceremony and ritual on every level, including their love for the voices of crickets. Since I was a child, and now, listening to crickets brings me to an incredibly deep and joyous trance state that can last for hours.

Brokenhearted Dragonflies: Insect Electronica from Southeast Asia

Droning cicadas, dragonflies and other insects display their charm as masters of the High Frequency Airwaves recorded live and unprocessed by Tucker Martine in the lush settings of Laos, Thailand, and Burma.

August Explains It All and Everything The Best Ever Good Job

[Originally posted 12/5/10]

HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.
GUILDENSTERN: Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
HAMLET: A dream itself is but a shadow.
ROSENCRANTZ: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.
HAMLET: Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars' shadows.
~Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

Friend and reader, John, asks:

“ … just a quick whacky question for Tim (and you), if it's possible. It is our first time in body here. Got it! However, is it possible to have been somewhere / from somewhere else prior to this life? Or are we 100% 'factory new' creations? You see the incarnating here for the first time makes absolute sense to me, however I have had such a strong sense of somewhere else prior to this life here. I can not explain it any better than this (except for a strong sense of the colour 'green'!)... thus I am call this a 'whacky question'. I had been waiting for this question to take better shape before I asked it ...however that didn't occur so I am asking it as best I can.”

John, I also cannot explain it well in terrestrial language, or at least any better than Tim has through me in the chapter on the subject. As you have waited for the question to take shape, let the same happen for the answer, which must ultimately come from you and only you. But let me try to summarize it all as best as I see it from my perspective and after having some relationship with the material over the years. (I would also like to stress that there are many "clues" interspersed throughout the book in the form of footnotes.)

As Tim's exploration suggests, it appears we are sparked into being – as a being – once and only once; Creator Source gets it completely right the first time, so there’s no need to “return” to try to get it any more right.

But because we are so relatively limited in our earth-defined and confined senses, we are aware of barely a smear of a smidgen of a wisp of what's really going on around us  – not just in our own personal and shared dimensions, but in that of other dimensions, including that of the Risen – interpenetrating ours. We do, however, pick up a lot of stuff on the perimeters, which “leaks in” and then which our ego-mind interprets in its own self-centered and (usually) fear-based way. Based on its memories and those of others, it makes up answers and stories to satisfy its own need to be "alive," important and in control; and then we (the sleeping Authentic Self) believe its suggestions, as we also may believe the ego-minds of others who try to convince us that their stories are true and correct; and in some cases, that something bad will happen to us if we don’t subscribe to those same beliefs — so we should give those ego-minds control over our ego-minds. And many of us do just that.

If Authentic Self were fully awake and aware, it would be able to see Reality for what it truly is, and enjoy an awesomely fuller life – Its immortality, actually – without fear.

All that being said, upon finishing with this body and transitioning to another, our minds are powerful enough to generate whatever environment we most deeply desire - which is actually what we do here on earth, and quantum mechanics scientists are saying just that - and The Principle of Affinity will draw us to like-minded others to join with and generate personal and  shared geographies. We do all this on earth as well, but are too gravity and time-laden to (usually) be conscious of it. Hopefully we will transition to a light-filled, awakened, Risen life.  But if we should have such strong beliefs about reincarnating back to the earth, and fed by intense emotional desire, our minds will generate that experience as directed by the ego-mind.

The difference is that the ego-mind's result will be an experience, but not the original real thing it yearns for; a simulation, in other words. As a simulation itself, the ego-mind can only produce simulations. In still other words, what you, as controlled by ego-mind see, you get; what is expected, appears. (So maybe expect something different?) Some of us may actually be in our "first-sparked" appearance, but many of us are actually living (i.e. sleeping) in one of these simulated earths right now, and one that is not much different than the one we left, which is what ego-mind thinks it wants. It can't imagine anything other than what its own memories tell it, which is why it teaches us to cling to memories, to cherish and strengthen them, so it will have much more power to draw on while using our actual energy to generate its simulation. The ego-mind cannot imagine anything else because it doesn't have the ability to imagine. However, we, as Authentic Self, do have this ability, which has been gifted to us out of the unconditional love of Creator Source's own Divine Imagination, and that is why the material of The Risen book stresses imagination so much as a way to begin to get off the cosmic merry-go-round. Is it any wonder, then, that the ego-mind works hard to convince us that imagination isn't real? It will even co-opt our own imaginations by suggesting to us what to imagine; because we are asleep and highly suggestible, we do it, and with spectacular results.

So if we are "returning", it is to the same scene, the same earth, the same life, the same relationships, triumphs and tragedies, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Not a completely different one. As described in The Risen somewhere, we are "trapped in a frozen hell" and may have been doing it over and over for many transitions,  because we believe and then think we have to. But we don't. This is the Great Cosmic Wheel of Birth and Rebirth the ancients speak of. They would have advised ways of getting off it, but our ego-minds have reinterpreted, misinterpreted, ignored or denied such guidance in order to try to ensure its own survival. To be able to delay its inevitable dissolution, and if one's ego-mind is strong enough, it can interfere with the correct transition to a healthy Risen state. The Authentic Self is still asleep, and therefore dreaming, and unable to distinguish its own dreams from the thought-generated world of the ego-mind, which is also a dream. A sleeping Authentic Self is highly suggestible – just like someone who’s been hypnotized – and is controlled by ego-mind’s suggestions. Upon finally leaving the earth body – and unless Risen guides and healers can intervene in some way – instead of moving on to Risen geographies, the sleeping Authentic Self is instead carried along into the dream manifested by the controlling and insane ego-mind, and while mostly unconscious of it, is not comfortable – in fact, it’s deeply, deeply sad – homesick, really, for its real home. Real with a capital ‘R’. It also feels trapped, depressed, powerless, and will do anything to feel better. The ego-mind will continue to suggest ways to feel better, (all lies,) while actually gaining more and more control.

Our Risen loved ones, guides and other advocates know that we will eventually awaken, and do not worry about it, since they know time is an illusion, and as consciously awakened Authentic Selves, are undisturbed and at rest – but this does not stop some of them from staying with us, guiding us, and gently making suggestions to help us awaken – especially when we gain enough realization to ask for help.  They will respond! Sometimes their ways are subtle, and at other times, designed to shock us a bit more awake. Although there are countless ways suggested by religions, philosophies and other spiritual systems to become more conscious, to awaken, to get "shocked" back into consciousness, and one of the most powerful and successful shocks is to finally come face-to-face with the fact that we really and truly survive “death.” For some, this will be the visitation or manifestation of a loved one once thought gone forever; for others, it will be events at séances, dreams or unexplainable sights, sounds, phone calls, messages, repeated numbers popping up, songs on the radio, impossible, bizarre “coincidences.” The Risen are Master Artist Orchestrators when it comes to these things.

The Risen asked Tim and me to help them manifest this book, which is their attempt to help awaken the sleeping Authentic Self – and only one of many ways – to enable those who are ready to join with the Risen now, instead of waiting until we leave this body. While we can't yet share the same physicality with them, we can share – and very directly sometimes – minds, hearts, and souls. And now there is increasing activity showing that they are striving to join our physicalities, as evidenced by physical manifestation phenomena at certain seances and other events.

As Tim mentions, here's a fun question – well, it depends on one's idea of "fun." What would it be like to be fully Risen, fully awake and then do what the ego-mind does anyway?

Regarding your strong sense of the colour green, explore this without thought — that is, disengaging the ego-mind — and  you may discover this is one of the subtle ways your Risen guides and friends are trying to get  your attention in order to help you awaken.

Our wish for you is that you relax into your awakening, while continuing to ask for assistance from the Risen.
 
Love, Light, and Blessings,
August & Tim

Button Up and Lighten Up! Apports!

 [First posted 4/18/2024]

I recently attended 3 days of physical mediumship sittings with my great friend, physical medium Kai Felix, as he is fondly known in the séance room by Spirit. The sittings were at a venue near Lily Dale, NY. The third day was spent experimenting in a rousing table-tipping exploration, which was highly and quickly successful with the tables dancing, exhibiting spirit lights, and prolonged levitation, as well as an elegant gemmed pendant apporting onto the table as the sitting closed. There were enough sitters to be able to split into two groups, so that while Group 1 was sitting at the table, Group 2 sat behind Group 1 to observe and lend energy. We sat in total darkness as the usual protocol calls for.

We sat in the same room where the cabinet was placed the previous two nights. Although Kai sat entranced in the cabinet for the first 2 nights, for the table-tipping he sat with everyone outside the cabinet and at the table, non-entranced. 

My group sat with our hands resting on the table top. When the lights came on, a folding chair that had been across the room next to the unoccupied cabinet was sitting on the center of the table top! One leg rested between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand, and the other leg between the right thumb and forefinger of the sitter to my left. Somehow it had levitated up and across the room, silently and without detection, to unobtrusively settle on the surface of the table, which was over 3 feet high!

The other group then exchanged places with us, and experienced the table levitating as well as several "species" of spirit lights emerging out of the darkness, and often closest to Kai. A fellow sitter and I saw several spirit lights from other places in the room, which escaped the notice of those sitting at the table. Thus an important aspect of the exploration was to have as many witnesses in as many different positions as possible.

Another sitter reported to me that he saw a green light "just off the fingertips" of the hands of a sitter at the table:

"I kept describing it as a thing radiating light, rather than say a light just hitting the table. It wasn't until two days ago I realized it was exactly like a hologram. I stared at it for a couple seconds, then it vanished. It felt like it was for me. It was kind of rectangular and actually looked like a cut stone, though the light it radiated prevented me from seeing the thing itself too clearly."

I had suggested that perhaps this was an early formation of the gemstone that apported onto the table at the end of the sitting, but it appeared larger than the manifested apport, and like a garnet (the apport seems to be labradorite -- see below).

As my group then sat for the next round at the table, the shaman's drum and its drumstick emerged out of the cabinet from across the room, and hovering above out table, began drumming in a very sophisticated and loud pattern for over a minute, and then fell onto the table with a loud bang. Even though everyone's hands were still firmly planted on the table, not one finger was touched by the drum in the pitch blackness.

My group then switched places and I was once again sitting behind the sitters at the table. I cannot recall much of that final round, and I can only surmise I was in some kind of non-ordinary state - perhaps "trance". We had been sitting in the room expending much energy for well over an hour and I had grown quite hot, so decided to take off the beige corduroy shirt I had been wearing over another, lighter shirt of black corduroy. Instead of just being able to slip out of it, which should have been easy as it had been unbuttoned, instead I found myself struggling to get it off, and after a minute of that, discovered that the top shirt had been buttoned to the lower shirt! Here was a Spirit Trickster at its finest! Kai noted that this was an exceedingly rare thing to happen, so a photo was taken of it later outside in the light for the archives.

This reminds me of when some mediums have their clothes removed or reversed in the dark. I have received no confirmation that my "trick" was done by a Spirit Person or not, but my intuition is that it was very likely a Lakota Nature Spirit, since that same room had hosted several Lakota yuwipi that I had attended in the past, and where I had been received and befriended by Iktomi, the Spirit Trickster. So I strongly feel this was Iktomi again reminding me, as they had before, to lighten up and "just be happy." Their button magic did the trick!

[Update: After some quiet contemplative interaction after this event, it was revealed that this was, indeed, Iktomi in the role as an elemental healer with some tricks up their sleeve. Such spirit entities do not communicate via human language, but instead via "codes" or "signs". Once I recognized this as a message for me, I was able to decode it quickly, which was signaling and confirming that a particular worry I had been baffled about over the past few months was now completely resolved.  

I also finally realized that the button trick had to have happened during the levitating shaman drumming over the table I sat at. I didn't discover what had happened until I had moved to the outer circle when that part was over.

Philámayaye, Tȟuŋkášila! ]

Here is a photo I took of the apports that were manifested via the medium's hands and eyes, as well as a very beautiful piece of jewelry brought through especially for one member of the sitters. Hans, the Spirit Control, described the glittery surface (material as-yet unknown) as "a screen" which will project some kind of image or scene to the wearer when the time and place are right. The very unique object was brought through something currently being termed as a "portal" - which was an intense blue light that appeared as a kind of opening in or near the medium's outstretched hand, just outside the cabinet. The recipient was asked by Han, the Control, to sit on the floor before the medium, and then told to reach up until she felt it and then to carefully pull it through the portal. She later shared with me that if felt like she was pulling it out of something that felt like "jelly", but it was completely dry as it came fully forth into her hand.

Here is a photo (front and back) of the apport pendant that fell onto the table from the ceiling to close the session. It has been determined that the gem is most likely labradorite, in a setting of silver. It is precisely 9/16 inches square.

 

  "First discovered in Labrador, Canada, by Moravian missionaries in 1770 who named it for the area. It is, however, referenced in legends by older Inuit tribes, and was known to be in use by the Red Paint People of Maine for over a thousand years. Labradorite is a member of the Feldspar family and is treasured for its remarkable play of color, known as labradorescence. The stone, usually gray-green, dark gray, black, or grayish-white, is composed of aggregate layers that refract light as iridescent flashes of peacock blue, gold, pale green, or coppery red.

   "Lore of the Inuit people claims Labradorite fell from the frozen fire of the Aurora Borealis, an ordinary stone that transforms to the extraordinary, shimmering in a mystical light that separates the waking world from unseen realms. It is, in every sense, a Stone of Magic, a crystal of shamans, diviners, healers, and all who travel and embrace the universe seeking knowledge and guidance. For self-discovery, it is excellent for awakening one’s own awareness of inner spirit, intuition, and psychic abilities.

   "Labradorite is also the most powerful protector of the mineral kingdom, creating a shielding force throughout the aura and strengthening natural energies from within. 

   "It protects against the negativity and misfortunes of this world and provides safe exploration into alternate levels of consciousness and facilitating visionary experiences from the past or the future." (From crystalvaults.com)

For comparison, here is a photo of a verified piece of polished labradorite that had been gifted to me by another medium some years ago.

August in the Cabinet

[First posted July 2014] - (all photos © Shannon Taggart)

I've finally recovered from my chaotic return to the US from Southern France, apparently at the height of an especially powerful and bothersome Mercury retrograde. International flights were made incredibly difficult by a sudden strike of the French air traffic controller's union. I will be happy if I never see an airport baguette ever again.

I attended several physical mediumship seances at Mont Cabirol, the beautiful 12 century estate near the medieval village of Mirepoix (which had its own Avenue de Victor Hugo - thank you, great-great-great, etc. grandad!) The well-known spirit photographer and lecturer, Shannon Taggarty, was my wonderful traveling companion, and was allowed to take photographs - including infra-red - during the sittings, including a private one where I sat in the cabinet. Shannon has been asked to exhibit some of the very unique photos from these sittings at a special exhibition held by Abraxas Publishers in England this autumn. It is hoped that Shannon will have the opportunity to discuss in detail and at length her amazing work. We had many long discussions about the often baffling and confusing nature of the "magic" of photography, which apparently photographers understand on much deeper levels in terms of time and light than do those of us who are merely looking at the images to see what we can see.

After sitting in complete darkness behind closed curtains for a few minutes, the curtains were opened and this photograph was taken after a very dim red light was switched on. Shannon and the other sitter reported seeing a good deal of what's technically called "transfiguration," which is where Spirit, or the Risen as I say, utilize various energies of the entranced medium to manifest their own faces and forms over that of the medium's. Although I can't see any such forms in this photo, Shannon has much to say from a photographer's viewpoint about odd things going on. The other sitter's descriptions of the forms seen clearly matched a very special friend who had transitioned over 8 years ago and had been trying to reach me in various ways.

Although you might see some strange things here, I share this photo not to illustrate transfiguration, but to provide as contrast to the next one, when infra-red was switched on. Click on it to enlarge.

Above is a photo taken during the transfiguration sitting. The hands of my etheric body can be seen emerging alongside my physical body's hands. The etheric hands are handling more photoplasm between them, which is seen as a kind of elastic cord. My etheric skull can be seen in the figure to the left, and to the right can be seen Tim's etheric body emerging - his skull and also his hands are engaging with the photolasmic cord. Photoplasmic "mist" is seen above our shoulders, and more mist also traveling down my lap towards the floor, between the legs.

Here can be seen very bright light pouring out and completely obscuring me but for my legs and feet sticking out in their sandals. My colleagues, the resident mediums, believed that this is a  doorway opening from behind/above me to a Summerland. "The Summerland" is a Victorian term for the Other Side, but in my Celtic, non-christian tradition, it's the sphere also sometimes known as "faerie" -  And this is what I believe it is, as I had intentionally gone into the cabinet deliberately with my two Guardians (not Guides) who are of the ancient pre-Celtic race known as Aes Sidhe, who are said to have retreated into the Otherworld or a parallel universe when Ireland was successfully invaded and conquered by the Milesians. The Milesians were from Iberia, and are the present-day Irish people. The Aes Sidhe, who are 8-9 feet tall and present as shining, silvery beings ("The Shining Ones") are not the tiny elementals most people think of as fairies. They are said to have left portals throughout Ireland and Scotland in the many mounds and stone circles that pre-date the Milesians.

This outpouring of light did not show up on any of the other many photos Shannon shot at several sittings. Here is the same photo seen through a different-colored filter, and interestingly, none of the spirit-figure details seen above are visible, although the white light from the Summerland portal is still apparent. Also it's clear, when looking at the valance of fabric running across the cabinet, that there is something disturbing the fabric on the left side, as if a breeze is flowing out.

When I was looking at the infra-red photo with a friend, we thought we could see faces of elemental spirits at my feet. But later, when looking again on my own I was very startled to actually see my two cats -- Bridget, who passed over, 15 years ago, and Oolong, 11 years ago, both about 17 years old. The enlarged section is placed at the upper right. Those who have read The Risen book will have read about my relationship with them. Oolong, to the left and the larger of the two, is a seal-point Siamese, her classical dark markings clearly visible on her face and paws, and Bridget is grey with a white chin, chest and paws; she was quite petite and half the size of Oolong. I showed them to my best friend who had known them both well, and he immediately recognized them. Bridget's facial expression is so clear, I can see all kinds of emotion in it.

A couple weeks later, I was again startled to see that there are two human faces appearing just between my two sandaled feet - a man to the left, and a woman with blond hair in a 60's hair-style to the right (Enlargement on upper left). I'm not yet sure exactly who they are, but strongly sense they are transitioned family members -- the man may be my maternal grandfather and the woman is his daughter --  my Aunt Carolyn, who passed at the age of 58 about 8 years ago from a brain tumor, and with whom I had a special relationship as she was close to me in age. Here is a link to a blog about her as she was transitioning, and one about after her passage, where I met her and she shared her fascinating experience about her illness and transition.

However, that being said, I can also see yet more faces transparently projected over the human ones! One is a family dog that transitioned many years ago, and other, 2 kittens that I can't identify. I don't know how to graphically show this layered dimensionality to anyone else, but perhaps more sensitive viewers may be able to see what I mean. I've often written how Spirit will try to compress as much data as possible into the smallest space - what Tim and I've called "infospheres" - and this is a good example of such information compression.

In the meantime, other faces may become more obvious as I continue to study the photo.

Readers might recall that The Scole Group's initial work culminated in the discovery and opening of an inter-dimensional portal, through which terrestrial humans, the Risen, and other beings could physically pass. It had to be shut down after it was discovered a malevolent being from our future had also discovered it and was trying to appropriate it for negative purposes. The work is now being continued under the auspices of The Norfolk Group.

One significance of the photo above is that here and elsewhere, such portals to other dimensions -- not just to where many of us think of as "The Afterlife" -- are increasingly opening up. I have been hearing quiet reports from various sitting circles that their guides are speaking of such inter-dimensional doorways more and more, and expect to hear more about it as we move forward in exploration.

I would like to add my great thanks to my dear and gracious friends at Mont Cabirol who had arranged for this monumental experience of my life. Many other powerful things happened to me while there, which I cannot share at this time, but perhaps will be able to at some point in the future.