The way the frigid water meets the craggy shore of the Norwegian coastline, evokes a powerful feeling from you. There is an epic flavor to the felt experience of its sight. There is a cruelty to its beauty that both beckons and warns. If one understands the way that vibrational reality works, it is no surprise that people are a vibrational match to the land that they call home. You could tell the story that the people are altered by the land and in time come to reflect it. You could tell the story that the land is altered by the people and in time, comes to reflect them. But I prefer a more romantic story. That the two are drawn together because they are already a match to one another. Like soul mates, inexplicably led by a subconscious drive for belonging toward one another.

Having exposed myself to what remains of the Viking people (as well as their living progeny) I can say that like soul mates, this Norse land and the Vikings reflect one another. There was an alluring cruelty to them that just like the landscape here, both beckons and warns. I do not have a lengthy, cerebral opinion to share about the Vikings. It was a culture that like a unique and powerful flavor must be felt in silence. The heart can comprehend it and the mind cannot. I will say that it is such a dense energy, with such an edge, that the thought forms associated with it are still alive and well. They are strong enough that the years have not caused them to dissolve. The Vikings did not identify their belongings as different to themselves and as a result, part of their consciousness still clings for dear life to the items. It clings with the tenacity that Vikings are so famous for around the world. The powerful identification with those items, binds their memories to this physical world.

In general, I love visiting museums and ancient sites. I find history entertaining. It is a rich feeling experience that puts your own life into perspective. But like other people, I often begin to deteriorate when I’m around historical energies for too long. There is a reason that it is so common for people to become drained or start feeling ill when they visit museums or areas where history is concentrated… Earth can be seen as a platform for the expansion of universal consciousness. This is the unifying thread between creationism and evolution because both are true and instead of contradicting one another, they compliment one another. But you are now living in the manifestation of the expansion of what has come before you. You are the culmination of every life you have ever lived. You are also the culmination of all of your ancestors. You are the culmination of everything up to this point. Everything you experience causes you to form preferences; the wanted and the unwanted. When you know what is wanted, you will gravitate in that direction and eventually your reality and the world at large will become a reflection of those things. This is how species evolve; it is also how society evolves. So essentially, you are living in a modern world that is the current culmination of what previous cultures have desired over the course of their life experience. In general, the vibrational frequency of earth’s time-space reality has been rising. So we are in fact living at a higher frequency than ever before. When we step into a museum (or place of concentrated historical energy) we are literally stepping back into what has already been expanded from. We are interacting with a lower frequency.

Many of us experience this on a more practical every day level when we revisit our childhood homes or families. By virtue of living through the contrast of those early experiences, we gave rise to powerful preferences and since then, have lived into the expansion. Going back home is like going back into that contrast and thus doing that will quickly deprive the body of energy. The two best ways to ‘combat’ this effect, is to either stay completely present with yourself in the modern day here and now, observing the artifacts instead of allowing yourself to be taken into the experiencing of them. Or to hold such positive focus towards whatever you are observing that you remain in alignment with a higher frequency while experiencing the artifacts. This is what most ‘history buffs’ are doing. But I must tell you (for those of you who are brave when it comes to being willing to feel) that letting the experience and thought forms of the past absorb you into them as if they were happening in the here and now, is one hell of a way to experience history.

All perspectives are valuable to the expansion of our consciousness, including the perspective of the past, the now and the future. In my opinion, the true ‘masters’ of consciousness are adept at going in and out of perspectives and timelines as if they were a change of clothes. If I really need to understand the consciousness of a specific people in the past, I prefer the approach of completely allowing myself to surrender to the experience of the past. Letting go of the “tether” to the here and now (the modern perspective) allows you to fully experience the past in a way where compassionate understanding and awareness can then bloom within you.

I am flying back to the United States today. Leaving Europe to fly back home always makes me feel like I am flying ‘home’ to a foreign land. I feel a sense of belonging in Europe. I feel cut from the same stone as both the land and the people. I feel like I am leaving my family behind when I leave. One could say that it is the goings that makes the comings sweet; in the same way that one could say it is the hunger that makes food taste good. But I must confess in all honestly that I am hoping we desire our way out of the experience of separation in the future as a species so I never have to leave anything or anyone behind in body, mind or emotion.

At this time of year in Oslo, the sun begins to rise at 4:00 am. Unable to sleep, I sat on the high-rise balcony of the apartment watching the city sleep below. This trip to Oslo has highlighted for me, the way that the unwanted circumstances of our past, prevents us from moving forward with our lives… or even from being present with what is. But sitting on the balcony this morning, I became even more affirmed that an often-overlooked fact is that our fantasy about what we wished would have happened also prevents us from moving forward with our lives and from being present.

If we build our life on fantasies of what could have been, we are stuck in life. We have no stable foundation for creating a life that we enjoy. We continue to try to turn our parents into what we wish they would have been, we continue to try to achieve the successes that we wished we would have achieved. This is a painful state of desperation. It is “living in the past” to the exact same degree as we do when we are haunted by the reality of what actually happened. Subconsciously, you think that if you achieve that fantasy, your past will be remedied and healed and you can be complete. But if we have any hope of healing, moving forward or being fully present with all of our energy in the here and now, we must stop trying to chase and create that fantasy. Instead, in order to work with what we identify as “real” we must bury our fantasy of how we wish the past had gone. For that reason, I want to re-introduce a process I used to teach, that will help you immensely. To begin this process, I want you to close your eyes and connect with your heartbeat. If it helps, place your hands over your chest and imagine it beating. Do nothing more than listen and feel for its pulse. Breathing in and out deeply and naturally. Continue to do this for approximately 4 minutes. When you feel yourself settling into the experience, think back on the parts of your past that caused you pain. Instead of deliberately going looking to remember specific events, let them surface of their own accord, trusting that the ones that surface are the parts of you which are eager to be released. As if you were looking backwards and observing over your life, where do you feel stuck? What, if you were being honest, could you never really get past?

Maybe you were given up for adoption

Maybe you were abused

Maybe your parents got a divorce

Maybe one or both of your parents did not love you like you needed to be loved

Maybe you did not fit in with your family

Maybe you were bullied at school

Maybe you got hurt

Maybe you got sick

Maybe you missed a crucial opportunity

Maybe someone who you loved, died

Maybe you struggled for money

Maybe you didn’t feel seen or significant

Maybe you felt jealous because of what someone else had

Maybe you lost a job or didn’t get a job you desperately wanted.

I want you to take out a piece of paper and write down these past events and think about how you would have wanted them to go differently. I want you to write down your fantasy for how you wanted your life to go and how you wanted the people in it to be.

For example,

Imagine your parents keeping you instead of giving you up for adoption.

Imagine your parents deciding not to get a divorce, but instead loving each other.

Imagine your fantasy father exactly how you would wish him to be.

Imagine your fantasy mother exactly how you would wish her to be.

Imagine you taking that opportunity and becoming an instant success.

Imagine yourself being popular in school and the other children including you and wanting you to play.

Imagine yourself as rich as a prince or princess.

Imagine your life exactly how you would have wanted it to be.

And then, imagine a coffin or a funeral pyre. One by one, imagine laying each fantasy in that coffin or on that pyre.

If you feel like it, once you have collected everything you want to put into that coffin or funeral pyre, mentally say a eulogy, which will help you to release these fantasies… Something like “I hereby lay to rest my fantasy of the childhood I wanted. It wasn’t in the cards for me. It did not happen and it wasn’t my fault. I am ready to release you now and live my life from this day forward; doing what I can with what I have from where I am.” Now, mentally close the lid and place a flower on top and go through the entire process of burying it in the earth. Or light a match and imagine setting the funeral pyre ablaze and watching all of it turn to ash. Feeling grief during this process is natural. Let yourself cry if you feel like you need to cry. Let yourself sink to the floor. Let yourself get angry. Be present with whatever happens inside you emotionally, without trying to change it. And when you feel like you are ready to come back to the here and now, wiggle your toes and fingers and take three deep breaths before you open your eyes.

After you open your eyes, take the sheet or sheets (plural) of paper that you wrote all of your negative experiences and fantasies on and find a secure place to set them on fire. Watch the fire consume the words on the paper, knowing that they are now released back to source. You are now free. You are no longer burdened by these past events or weighed down by fantasies that did not come true.

If we keep trying to undo what was done, we miss opportunities in the here and now. We may not even see them. And when it comes to people, if we keep trying to turn them into what we always wished they would be, we are running into a dead end. We inevitably find out that we have no control over them and that they constantly disappoint us. The reality of who they really are and how they really act is constantly shattering the fantasy we have of how we want them to be.

As morbid as it is, think of being attached to the fantasy of how we wish the past had gone like trying to revive a dead body. It is much the same because we are trying to revive a dead past. How long are you going to prop this dead body up at your dinner table and talk to it and give it baths and pretend it is alive, before you admit to yourself that you know (but don’t want to face) that it isn’t alive. How long before you let the body go? How long until you decide to own up to what was and what is and grieve your losses and set yourself free to move forward with what you do have from where you actually are? You may feel like doing this process alone, but I have also found that doing this process in groups can be particularly healing, especially if you share your process with each other afterwards and collectively burn your lists. It is natural to grieve the death of a fantasy. And so it is a good idea and healing in and of itself to support one another as you move through this process.

This symbolic burial is a perfect way to put to rest the “if onlys”. After all, chasing a fantasy wreaks havoc in our lives. And it prevents the universe from bringing us the beautiful, feel good reality that we have been looking for.