Without knowing it fully along the way, much of the human journey seems to be towards finding a place of belonging, or resonance with the surroundings.
Yet this search for belonging to something or someone outside oneself can never be fulfilled or satisfied, unless there is first a belonging within.
Dissonance with one’s surroundings and circumstances is due primarily to resistance towards them. As Serge Kahili King writes in Urban Shaman, resistance of this type is the source of human stress and means ‘to stand apart.’
The counter to resistance is acceptance of the local moment, or even stronger, embracing all as it is. This counter-balances dissonance with resonance in oneself.
Resonance art cards bring out three essential and easy-to-remember principles for deepening one’s awareness and resonance. The cards are designed to be elegant, simple and effective tools of personal (and planetary) transformation, for contemplation, reflection and daily practice.
Potent images are coordinated with equally powerful and universal words which are easy and natural to apply in daily life, for oneself or anyone who is on a journey of spiritual awakening or with a motive of bringing betterment to the world.
King’s story of walking barefoot across a wide bed of red-hot lava rocks (in the excerpt below) is similar to the first principle I came to in the process of simplifying a ‘tool of personal transformation’ to its essence.
The first principle of the Emanate Presence tool is:
I embrace all as it is.
This principle is embodied by deepening awareness towards the immediate environment and activity, even or especially if it includes a point of resistance, with sufficient intensity to feel at one with it.
It means to approach all which meets one in life, with an open heart and acceptance that it is as it is.
This flows into the rest of the tool for deepening awareness, which stands on three principles, conveyed by the cards in a variety of designs and art effects:
Embrace the moment (all as it is.)
Express the Moment (the most complete perspective.)
Engage with life (bring the gift of your presence to each moment.)
‘Resonance’ art cards are for anyone who is on a journey of spiritual awakening or has a motive of bringing betterment to the world.
The following excerpts from Urban Shaman are reprinted with permission from the author.
‘….The source of stress is resistance, ku’e in Hawaiian, meaning ‘to stand apart.’
‘Natural resistance produces the healthy cycle of life in which things tend to hold their pattern, but are flexible enough to adapt and change.’
‘Generally speaking, there are four kinds of resistance [as the source of stress] which will be discussed below. I’ll describe the positive and negative aspects of each, along with what I call ‘quick-n-easys,’ brief techniques that can help greatly to relieve each kind of tension….’
[The techniques are omitted here as that is not the immediate focus of these excerpts, and they can be found in the book.]
‘….while on the island of Tahiti I slowly walked barefoot across a wide bed of red-hot lava rocks with a Tahitian kahuna, stepping firmly on each stone all the way. Neither my feet nor the hair on my legs were burned. I’ve seen a fair amount of fire-walking and know of several ways to do it. The most common in the world is devotion, that is, belief in the protection of a divinity, and it works well if the belief is strong enough.
‘The second most common that I know is distraction, a trance-like state of focused attention on something completely different than the fire.
‘The third is motivation, an intensely energetic desire fully focused on getting to the other side.
‘Each of these has in common the effect of moving the conscious mind’s attention away from the fire, thereby reducing or removing the resistance to the heat and allowing the body to follow a natural instant-healing cycle.
‘That, at least, was my theory before walking the lava rocks. I decided to test my theory by trying a different method in Tahiti.
‘Instead of using devotion, distraction, or motivation, I focused all my attention on exactly what I was doing, without the slightest bit of comment, question, or analysis.
‘The effect was a sense of oneness with my immediate environment to such a degree that there was absolutely no fear. Therefore, there was no resistance and no burning. My body went through the cycle of stress-tension-release-relaxation so quickly that cumulative tension effects could not occur.’
– URBAN SHAMAN, Pages 86-88
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These three images are the front cover and inside pages of one of the Resonance art cards. The back cover has space for a personal message.