A few announcements:

1. I have setup the “Marc’s Life” list and blog as its own blog, as it isn’t logically part of any of the other businesses that I am creating.  The archive of old posts is still available here.
2. I have been using the Polyphasic sleep site for generic personal check-ins – understandably as I have been using polyphasic sleep essentially as an experiment in personal development (consciousness research).  But from now the site will be limited to my experiences specifically in polyphasic sleep, that has been ongoing for 10 weeks now (wow, can you believe it I have been doing anything consistently for 10 weeks .
3. As excited as I am about Saniel Bonder and his teachings, along with other models of development that we are creating at Trellis and testing in our new Relationship Coaching practice, these things convey best by direct contact rather than email.  Also the “Marc’s life” subscribers (you guys) signed-up as my friends rather than as students of this-or-that guru or transformational practice, so it’s not entirely appropriate for me to wax eloquent on my latest guru to this list.  So I am going to be sharing a bit more concretely to this list going forward.  If you are wanting to stay tuned-in to my developmental philosophy and practice, please subscribe to Lifestyle Design School which is the new forum for these types of things.
4. There has been substantial progress in terms of my life-work and business.  I am starting an online training company for blogging, internet marketing, internet business development strategy, and possibly personal productivity (David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology), under my current wonderful domain name Tranquility Consulting.  I have some trial clients right now and I provide training both on-site and via Windows remote desktop.  I will be marketing through my network, eBay and strategic partnerships.  This idea has been a long-time in gestation.  I will share more later.
5. Rebekah has resigned her job.  She was unhappy there and the personal cost was too high, not to mention lost opportunity for energy healing clients, relationship coaching, weight-loss coaching, and developing Trellis.  I fully anticipate she will make up her lost salary in two weeks time.
6. I am back on polyphasic sleep and it’s going well.  I don’t know what I would do without it and in many ways it’s the lynchpin of my personal development program.  I am attempting to do all my research and business development in the first polyphasic shift (2-6am), and my calls and billable hours in the second shift (9-1).  Then I have a long nap and I am free for the rest of the afternoon and evening. This is my ideal schedule.  I haven’t yet “ironed out all the wrinkles”, but there has been so much change and personal transformation in other dimensions lately that I am not too worried about it.  Getting clear on a business vision (any business vision was huge, and the David Allen / Getting Things Done (GTD) connection is also huge.

So – I won’t say that the “consciousness revolution party” is over – after all Saniel and Linda are coming this weekend and I am so excited I can hardly breathe (I will be spending four days with them) – however, it’s becoming more grounded and concrete.  And while this is too long to get into right now, let me just say that my historical distress / obsession around issues of money and time-management is my core spiritual work (core wound), and is being addressed by the work I am doing with the Bonder’s and Waking Down, in addition to business development at Tranquility Consulting.  All this is an aspect of what Saniel calls “hypermasculine dharmas”, I will just leave you a little nugget:

The fundamental intention [of hypermasculine dharmas] is to dissociate from perceived limits of who we are and what we can or can not do… In order to accomplish the necessary dissociation, extrication, or liberation, the hypermasculine force of being first analyzes the limits it perceives and then deduces, by both intuitive and deductive means, strategies of thought and action that will achieve the desired goals.  The hypermasculine impulse then works to superimpose these strategic formulas of thought upon the living human mind and body.

Chew on that one for a bit, particularly in terms of the potential costs of such a system to one’s psyche.  This is the dominant developmental paradigm of the Western world (and Eastern styles aren’t really any better).

There have been some pretty extraordinary events recently both for me and for my community (Trellis House), of which the most significant is my encounter with spiritual teacher Saniel Bonder. It’s too long to tell in a single mail, and so I am writing a three-part series about it:  To skip my narcissistic ramblings and jump straight to the info about Saniel and Linda’s tour to Philadelphia and New York click here.

• Part 1 (this mail) is about my developmental journey over the past 7 months, which has involved a chain of events, both internal and external, for which I feel deeply blessed and grateful.
• Part 2 is going to be about Saniel Bonder and his developmental philosophy (that is called Waking Down), that has completely swept me away and created a kind of coagulation of all the different facets of my thinking around issues of development, and clarified the nature of my being-in-the-world and my work. I will describe the basic concepts of Waking Down and the impact they have had on me.
• Part 3 is about the changes that have occurred in me, particularly in how I am bringing this work into the world and also taking myself back into the “marketplace”, or the real-world exchange of goods, services and ideas. In other words, it’s about how I am able to hold onto an experience of “awakening” (of sorts) and still pay the bills.

Part 1: My Story

Over the past 7 months (since September  of last year) I have been on the most exciting developmental journey of my whole life. It began with a virtual “explosion” of my writing (the blogs: Adventures in Relationship and Community, Lifestyle Design School and Polyphasic Sleep Blog),  and research on various spiritual teachers (Andrew Cohen, Swami Rudrananda, Swami Kecharanatha / Michael Ott), and then continued with getting laid-off from my job last December, and embarking on a series of  lifestyle experiments including polyphasic sleep, juicing and raw foods.  We successfully produced our first Morehouse course (Basic Sensuality) just under three weeks ago, and took three extremely transformational trips to Shalom Mountain. Plus there are all the usual tasks of “riding” a commune and keeping three women happy (a big one and two little ones).

Some of you were quite worried about me, as I haven’t appeared to be overly concerned about paying our mortgage (which is actually a misperception – I am extremely concerned, just not panicking about it; and am thinking more strategically about the situation than is apparent from my writing). Others have let me know that they thought I had “gone off the deep end,” that my writing was showing signs of hypomania, and that, essentially, I needed professional help.

I shared my reaction to this in a previous post, which is that I am always deeply grateful and appreciative of negative feedback, since it makes me listen more to other people (always a good thing in my case) and, even when I feel it’s “off,” it will tend to nudge me in the direction that I should be going in anyway. Hypomania, narcissism, and grandiosity / ego-inflation are tendencies that I need to keep a close watch on.

Of course many of you thought it was all wonderful. Positive feedback is good too .

Despite everything, I was very clear about several things…

Despite the wildness of the “ride,” I was always very clear on one thing: that this ecstatic creative process that I was going through was for real, and that it was going to give some result as yet unseen but far beyond anything I could imagine. There was a pre-rational, instinctive kind of “knowing” about this. I was feeling throughout the whole experience (and continuing now) that I was living an acceleration of my own personal development and evolution, a kind of coming into my own and into my power, perhaps even a “spiritual awakening.” And I felt hugely grateful. It was truly a tremendous gift, an unexpected grace, a variety of “divine madness.” It was very, very cool.

The second thing that I was clear on, was that my own “shadow side,” or psychopathology (which is hypomania and narcissism), was involved, and was obvious for all to see. I am nothing if not transparent, and by some good fortune (for which I blame my parents) I don’t seem to have much in the way of shame or embarrassment about who I am and how I occur. I was pretty upfront about all this, too: to the extent that the central drive of my life is the exploration of consciousness and of pathways to enhanced states of being, feeling and perception, the chief subject of my research is myself. And therefore I will be scientifically rigorous in sharing the results of my investigation, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Third thing I knew is that all work-life and financial issues were going to resolve themselves. This is the really the crux of the matter: where is the money coming from? How do I take an “awakening” experience and ground it in the marketplace? Given my (and human being’s in general) infinite capacity for self-deception, it’s a very legitimate question. I cannot fully answer that question yet, but there has been much progress and I am satisfied with the answers I am getting so far. Please understand, I am not at all a “woo woo, Law of attraction / think positive thoughts and everything will be alright” kind of guy. I am a computer scientist and a Physicist by training. At the same time, I have made (and lost) hundreds of thousands of dollars at different times in my life, and I know by now that money is a manifestation of consciousness. Meaning that, to paraphrase one of Murphy’s laws, “Money expands or contracts to fill the need that created it” (Ok to quote me on that . Failure of this communal experiment is not an option. Money is bound to come.  And come it has from unexpected places like new Relationship Coaching clients, Yoga Transformational Bootcamp and a variety of workshop leaders approaching us to use our space.

I also believe (and I give part-credit for this to Timothy Ferriss The 4-hour workweek) that almost all of us are very confused about money. We tend to pursue money as the gateway (or required access) to certain experiences (ie love, freedom and adventure). But the truth is that love, freedom and adventure are much cheaper than we imagine, once we start to think seriously and creatively about having those things. I have found in my case that it is much better to pursue the underlying needs first, and once that comes clear to find the way to fund the vision. I have written an entire website about this, Lifestyle Design School, in case you are interested.

Into this fertile soil, Saniel Bonder comes into my life…

While at a Shalom Couples retreat, our friend Pat Parisi says, “I”ve started working with these really cool people, Saniel and Linda Bonder.  They are looking to expand their community when they come East this Spring, and I thought of you guys.”  First Rebekah checks out their website and says “These folks are right up our alley, let’s do it.”  I check them out and am blown away.  Next thing I know, Saniel Bonder called us to talk actual plans. Before I can say “shakti,” we are hosting Saniel and Linda Bonder for 3 of their 4 Philadelphia events. This is an awakened master who is going to be spending 2 days in my living room!

Saniel and Linda Bonder are actually going to be in Philadelphia for four events in early April (Thur 4/2, Fri 4/3, Sat 4/4, Sun 4/5) and also in New York City (Mon 3/30 and Wed 4/1) and Albany (4/10). If you are anywhere in the neighborhood (and even if not – this is worth traveling for) I hope you will join us. For details click here.

Waking Down is the most practical, effective, revolutionary information I have ever come across for anyone on the spiritual path – or for anyone who wants to have love in their life while engaging joyfully and passionately with the world. It’s also not some woo-woo spiritual teaching. Saniel was a founding member of Ken Wilber’s integral institute, has been teaching for 17 years, and there are hundreds of documented cases of spiritual awakenings through contact with him and with this work. I know him personally now, along with his life-partner Linda, and I have found him extremely down-to-earth, practical and humble. He also answers email and can be booked for sessions at a reasonable cost, which makes him attractive as a teacher of enlightenment .

Stay tuned for the next article in this series: Awakening into Relationship and Community, Part 2: Saniel Bonder and Waking Down.

Life has been really wild here since Rebekah and I came back from Shalom Mountain and since I started my Yoga Transformational Bootcamp a week ago.  Rebekah and I are totally in-sync again, which is a beautiful thing when it happens.  With 3 Morehouse teachers visiting for the Basic Sensuality course, life has become even more intense and chaotic than it was before – a bit too much even for me, I must confess.  All normal scheduling and life-predictability has fallen by the wayside, polyphasic sleep is off, job-hunting is off… it’s a little scary actually.

And yet I feel so much energy (Shakti) flowing right now that I know deep-down everything is Ok.  Producing our first Morehouse course has given me an excuse to get in touch with a lot of people, and even though I am getting mixed response to the invitation to come to our courses (the Evening with Vic and the Basic Sensuality), I have been having really excellent contact with people, which is deeply nourishing to me, so much so that I am determined to make this kind of reaching out a regular part of my life.  I feel I have been quite self-involved lately, and that stage is coming to an end.  Opportunities for service and contribution are sprouting up all over the place.

As if running Trellis and producing the courses were not enough, I have started four other personal transformational businesses in the last month (either alone or with Rebekah), of which two are already generating some income (albeit small amounts): we had new Relationship Coaching clients here on Saturday; the Yoga Transformational Bootcamp I am organizing has been going very strong, in less than a week it has become the core of my personal development program; and I have  research clients for both Lifestyle Design Coaching and Polyphasic Sleep Coaching, which I am doing on a gift offering basis for now.  In addition, there have been some important conversations and meetings regarding both possible work opportunities and our financial situation, which I am not going to share here (it’s a bit premature).  I feel pretty confident that these conversations will give fruit within another few months, so I just need to find a way to bide my time until then.  This has been deeply settling for me.  I am thinking for now of short-term contracts that I can pick-up on the freelancer marketplaces (Guru.com, Elance etc.) and from my network – see Web Technology Guru (that’s me . I just need to put some attention on that, which I am planning on doing from next week.

Two other very important connections to note as well.  Given the success of Yoga Bootcamp, I have wanted to get a Yoga Teacher certification, and I am going to take the teacher training at a place called the Yoga Life Institute which is quite near here.  This is more than your average yoga teacher training, it’s essentially a year-long program in Yoga and Vedic studies.  I can begin right away, it’s open enrollment.  I am thrilled at the thought of having this kind of structure and discipline in my life, including being mentored, service and community-building opportunities at the school, and a supervised individual practice.  An entire year of yoga and meditation daily are bound to have a profound positive impact on me.  Secondly, I have made contact with a spiritual teacher in Swami Rudrananda’s (”Rudi”) lineage, his name is Swami Khecaranatha (previously Steven Ott), who has agreed to meet me in Berkeley at an intensive he is doing in July to see about working with him.  This is the first time in my life I have ever considered taking a “guru”, but I have been so profoundly impacted by the Rudi teachings (described in John Mann’s book “14 years with my teacher”) that I feel very drawn to this. It takes a minimum 3-year preparation to be considered for the teacher training (and no guarantees!), and the training itself is 4-6 years, so this is not something to go into lightly. I will write more about this, including the nature of the practice, another time.  Just  to say that Rudi was an American born (Brooklyn Jew!) enlightened being who taught all of his life out of his Manhattan art-dealer storefront and never charged a dime for it.  He died in 1973.

Given all this, you can understand why I may be feeling a bit overwhelmed.  But it’s a good overwhelm.  This afternoon, I spent some very good time with my step-daughter Ariana, who is 9, and it was the perfect thing to do in the midst of “a crisis.” .  Truthfully there is no crisis, just a bit of work to do.

Despite many ups and downs, I am still deeply happy and confident about this radical experiment in passionate living that I am involved with.  The experiment is defying traditional wisdom, even scaring me at times, but I am being moved by some great wave of life and I have given up resisting.  It has been ongoing at this level of intensity now since last September (6 months and counting) and shows no signs of stopping; I have never experienced anything like this before.  My writing has slowed down a lot, which is a good thing, as my energy is starting to move more outwards.   I feel in many ways that the last six months have been a preparation for this next thing that is coming now, that I have been building-up self-confidence and some kind of internal structure during this time.  I am anticipating that March and April are going to be an extraordinarily eventful and fulfilling time for me and for all of us here at Trellis, and that many gifts are going to be offered.  I am happy and grateful beyond belief for all this.

Thanks again to everyone who sent me feedback, both positive and negative on the polyphasic sleep.  I am currently on day 5 of a modified Everyman schedule (normally 3 hours “core” sleep plus 3 x 30 min naps), in which I substitute a 2-hour nap for the second nap.  It does increase total sleep to 6 hours a day but I am feeling fabulous and extremely productive all day.  I am doing this in conjunction with a partial raw foods diet and a lot of exercise and there have been days that I am so happy I feel like I am on drugs.  I am totally blown away by the impact of this quite simple lifestyle change.  I have also been stone-cold sober from coffee during this time.  There is a very strong correlation between coffee and hypomania for me, finally I had the good sense to stop.  I am not always the swiftest at these things (this has been going on for 15 years) but I generally do get it eventually.

I may shift to a straight-up Everyman schedule soon, or perhaps even an Uberman schedule (6 x 25 min naps) within a month or two or when my situation stabilizes as I am totally intrigued by it.  But it would have to be gentle – I am not into squeezing every waking minute out of the day at the cost of my well-being.  I am now questioning the assumption that a polyphasic sleep adaptation needs to be miserable.  This would be a breakthrough – there are no studies done on this, just anecdotal evidence.

I actually feel myself in the midst of one of the most exciting and transformational times of my life.  This is a permanent lifestyle change that I believe will have a profound impact on the quality of my life, my relationships, my effectiveness, and my contribution to society.  I have been seeking this all my life.  I have been using my time partly in job-stuff (I got a few small e-learning contracts) but mostly in networking around our upcoming Basic Sensuality course at Trellis.  It’s a big break for our community to be producing our first Morehouse course and we’re all pretty hyped about it. Join us if you can for the weekend of Feb. 28.  I have also become a huge fan of Linkedin, Facebook, and Meetup.com.  Friend me there if you want by following the links.

Not much news on the job front, but I am confident something will come up soon.  I went to a meeting yesterday of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and had a truly wonderful time.  I have now decided that e-learning, instructional design, collaborative technology and social networking is where I want to be.  Changing careers in the midst of a financial crisis is usually not advisable, so I intend to get technical writing contract work (ideally at home, although I will take a day-job if I must) while training and developing my skills during my third Everyman work shift.  I wish I had known all this during my time at Atiam, it would have dramatically changed my experience there.  Even so, I thought a day-job would kill me, but I survived and even thrived there to some degree.  That is a great victory.

Please send me leads or suggestions for technical writing jobs if you have any.

Many blessings to everyone for the new year,

Marc

I have put the polyphasic sleep thing on hold, prior to even starting it, as I have developed a low-grade chronic fatigue (CFS).  I am quite happy, just tired and droopy for the last two weeks.  Historically such things clear out with time and super-healthy diet and exercise, but it cannot be rushed.  I only want to make one attempt at polyphasic sleep and I want it to succeed, so in line with “discretion is the better part of valor” I am pulling out.

I have received a great deal of very interesting feedback on this experiment, for whatever reasons.  Many people told me very honestly what they thought about all this, which was very nice.  Some thought that I had really “gone off the deep end” this time.  Others that my writing was showing clear signs of hypomania.  That I was the most self-involved person that they knew.  That sleep deprivation is highly contra-indicated for someone with manic or hypomanic tendencies. That I could end-up in the psych ward, or in a fatal car crash. Etc. (although fyi there was no driving planned during adaptation).

I think that all this is good feedback, and quite true for the most part.  In general by the way, I usually really appreciate negative feedback, which I take in the spirit of “take what you like and leave the rest”.  I have found that even when it’s more about the person giving it than me, it tends to nudge me in the direction that I should be going in anyway.  It would certainly do me no harm to pay more attention to other people, chill out a bit on the writing sometimes, ponder whether my actions are wise, etc.

And so, I have no issue with any of this, which I think is the same feedback that any rational person would give from an objective (external) assessment of my situation.  What people don’t see however, for the most part – which nobody really can see – is the intensity of my determination to succeed: that “definiteness of purpose and a burning desire” of which Napoleon Hill speaks of.  I think that this will be the deciding factor. Also the fact that I have love in my life, in the form of an extremely supportive wife and family (Rebekah has been wonderful throughout this); and lastly the pure-and-simple compelling motivation of psychic survival. I cannot bear the thought of spending the next two decades in front of a computer all day while the sun is shining.  I want to be self-employed and to work at night.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”

– W.H Murray (sometimes erroneously attributed to Goethe)

And the actual Goethe quote:

“Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.”

I am grateful for the life I have, for my friends and family, and for the tremendous opportunities for growth, love and transformation that are offered to me every day.  Most of all I am grateful for my wonderful wife and children and community without whom none of this would be possible.

Happy new year everyone!