Navigating Between Two Worlds

Stabilising a new quality of consciousness is a shared endeavour.

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Resonant World #106

This is an attempt to write a post that’s been percolating in my system for a while, but which I’ve been avoiding committing to the page.

I want to write about the increasing sensation I have of “living between two worlds.”

There’s the mundane, linear world of received wisdom; cultural agreements; scripted interactions; and a sense of slow-motion societal collapse.

And there’s the “Second World” — a realm saturated with pulsing intelligence, and layered with half-obscured meaning; where the Soul is a felt presence; everything is inter-connected; and there’s literally no limit to what’s possible.

These two worlds co-exist, in my experience, separated only by a thin film of remembrance. Mostly, the mundane realm appears far more solid, real and persuasive to me. The old thought patterns turn in their kaleidoscopic fractals — so familiar, and yet so stubbornly difficult to transcend.

Although this world can feel heavy, it’s not always a bad place — there can be a lot of joy. And yet, it’s missing something essential — a quality of the sacred.

Even when we do fleetingly encounter this quality — seemingly by chance — we’ve been deeply conditioned to deny these glimpses, or push them away. But it’s these encounters that open us to the possibility of the existence of the Second World, eternally at hand — but veiled by appearances.

As my consciousness work has deepened; as I’ve allowed myself to digest more of the grief that lives in me — handed down through my lineage, by no means solely “mine” — the Second World has become more available to me; more present, vivid, and alive.

It’s this Second World I enter when I spread the Tarot. It’s the invisible landscape illuminated by the psychedelic flare-gun. It’s the world from where the unknown Other bleeds through, manifesting itself as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena and other forms of the seemingly supernatural, as documented in Jeffery Kripal’s book The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge. (Resonant World #70: ‘An Intelligence Outside Space-Time.’) (Resonant World #104: An Initiation into Deep Healing).

Here’s Kripal, the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, speaking at

Daniel Pinchbeck

’s excellent The Future of Consciousness seminar last Sunday:

“What I mean by the Flip is that someone like an engineer or a medical doctor is trained in a materialist physics mode of thinking: That everything is essentially dead matter, that works through mathematical relations, and can be measured and quantified and manipulated. And [then] they have some kind of experience: It might be on a psychedelic, it might be a near-death experience. It might be that their sister just telepathically knew instantly when they were in an accident. But something in their lives flips them, and they then take this position, that…subjectivity is primary, and the material world is actually somehow emanated from that…To kind of put it in a nutshell, they realize that there's different metaphysical interpretations of reality, and that they really matter, and that they depend on one’s states of consciousness.”

I’ve experienced my own Flip — or series of Flips — that have catapulted me into the Second World, and I love it.

Because it turns out that the Second World is our mundane world. They’re not separate — at least, when I have eyes to see.

I would love to hear in the comments if anyone else has a similar sense of navigating between these realms — and about the modalities you use to criss-cross them.

Lighting a Beacon

Of the countless paths to the Second World, the route I find most reliable is through deep relationship; attuned communication with another, in an atmosphere of unquestionable trust.

Another path could lie through acts of service — submitting to impulses more generous to others than my mundane-world mind would permit.

And I can find yet another path by choosing to learn from those who’ve been navigating between these two worlds far longer than me.

When many such people gather, it’s as if a beacon has been lit — drawing the seen and unseen emissaries of the Second World closer, and sacralising the ground where we all shall meet.

That’s in part why I was so excited to see the line-up of the eight-day Collective Healing Conference 2024 (the new name for the annual Collective Trauma Summit), which starts on September 24.¹

Glittering Firmament

I’ve followed the work of many of the speakers — and some are known to me personally, including the visionary Anita Sanchez, a wisdom keeper of Mexican-American and Aztec heritage, who I first met at the Climate Change and Consciousness conference in Findhorn in 2019. (Here’s an interview with Anita about the Eagle and Condor prophecy for a podcast I created with my friend

Tarn Rodgers Johns

in February, 2021).

Other guests include Bayo Akomolafe, the ever-evanescent public intellectual; Dr Sue Morter, whose talks and book The Energy Codes have been major inspirations; Michael Meade, whose guidance in connecting to the Soul to find one’s calling in these tumultuous times has also been a great source of nourishment; and Dr Shefali, a conscious parenting coach, who has been a significant influence on Genevieve’s Resonant Parenting Project. And of course, the gathering will be convened by Thomas Hübl, whose teachings during the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training, and now Collective Trauma Facilitator Training, have changed so many aspects of how I relate to the world(s) around me. (Resonant World #79: Why I’m Training as a Collective Trauma Integration Facilitator).

Some of the other speakers are Dr Gabor Maté; Serene Thin Elk; Alanis Morissette; Richard C. Schwarz; Dr Daniel Siegel; Sulaiman Khatib; Maoz Inom; Rebecca B. Weston; Iya Afo; Kai Cheng Thom, and many others.

Deeper Self

I suspect Michael Meade was talking about entering the Second World when he made this observation during his prerecorded interview for the conference:

“The first step is for the “little self” to realise that there’s a deeper Self. And people usually have that experience by being overwhelmed, or a great loss, or a great challenge…So the ego lets go, out of fear, out of being overwhelmed. And then if we allow ourselves to be present in that moment, the deep Self or soul manifests.”

And here is a clip of Dr Mariel Buqué speaking about her book Breaking the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma:

“From generation to generation, we have ways in which the body absorbs… certain ways it operates which can actually lead to disease over and over again…What we know is that there are ways to create reversals — by utilising our body, and utilising mechanisms of healing that really tap into the physical, that can…at least help with diminishing disease progression, or at the very least help them to experience their bodies in a way that feels tolerable, rather than being over-consumed by pain.”

I also love this clip from Kai Cheng Thom’s beautifully succinct definition of collective trauma:

“The dominant culture is always saying ‘focus on making money, focus on doing your job, focus on being professional’. And the collective body reminds us ‘that’s an illusion. What is real is the experience of being in relationship with others.’”

I consider the Collective Healing Conference an annual highlight, and a truly potent resource for anyone seeking to deepen their work to integrate individual, trans-generational and collective trauma.

I suspect the conference will also prove a reliable portal into the Second World.

I’ll see you on the other side…

And I’d love to hear in the comments if any of the above clips resonated.

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Free Bespoke Guided Meditations

Since offering to create up to five free tailor-made guided meditations for readers last week, I’ve met two requests. Let me know if you’d like me to send you a five-to-10 minute recording to support you in your integration work, or embodying a particular quality more fully. I love making these kinds of recordings for myself, and I’m curious if they have the intended effect on other listeners. (Resonant World #105: Bespoke Supportive Audio).

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1. I receive a small share of any sales of conferences packages made through the links in this newsletter. (I was a co-host on the previous two conferences, and recommend them on the basis of my own valuable experiences of these beautiful online spaces).