Why do you think you came to Consciousness Studies?

I came because I sat in on a class of Dennis' last September, and in that class, which was just the morning lecture on building the hut, he was having the students concentrate on a button and then also do an inner meditation with creating a star tetrahedron and then getting it to spin. Well, I had just been made aware of that meditative technique from a completely different realm during the summer, and so to come here and have this be visible, to see that he was sharing this with students after I had just experienced it over the summer in another training just blew me away. I thought, "my god he's teaching the merkhaba, awakening the merkhaba, and it just got me so excited and I realized that there was more here for me to learn, so I wanted to come.

In relation to that, before you came here had you been on a spiritual path?

Yes. I have had such a wide variety of explorations over the past thirty years, from eastern paths of yoga to western pagan explorations, expansion drugs--everything. I've just tried a lot of spiritual modalities.

And how have you noticed that Consciousness Studies differs from some of these previous things that you have been engaged with?

I think it takes things that are in everyday life and deepens the observation of them to the point that the spirit living within it becomes more visible. It takes the whole idea of spiritually exploring or meditating and going within or shamanic journeying to a different level. Look at the skull, look at a bone, look at the clouds, look at the flower, look at everything and see it, not flat, but with that other seeing, that spiritual seeing, or that scientific seeing taken to the farthest degree of spirituality, so it is living, it's walking, it's everything. It isn't a going there and finding it somewhere else, it's humming all around me all the time, so it's like walking and living the spiritual practice all the time.

And that for you is more particular to what is brought in Consciousness Studies than things you have explored previously?

It is different because it blends the science and the spirit together, whereas before I have felt like they have been separate modalities.

So do you feel that you are being given effective tools for self-development in Consciousness Studies?

Yes. Definitely.

Do you feel that those tools leave you free?

Do these tools leave me free? Yes, totally, because it is all in my perception of how I want to see things that will take me to the depth of the freedom of my development. It's to the depth of what I want to see. So if I have a fixed gaze and am looking at it scientifically, or if I have an open gaze and see the spirit living within it, I can go to the degrees that I want to with either of those.

And do you feel that there is no requirement to having to work with the things that are brought in a particular way that would not leave you free?

I think that with Consciousness Studies, I feel so totally present in my being, in all of my bodies. I'm so totally present in order to truly see, whether it is with a fixed gaze or open gaze. I am totally present, whereas in something else, like "Oming" and going out, or mind expanding drugs that just take me out, I am not so conscious of my physicality, whereas in this technique I am very conscious and very present.

Are there some things that have stood out for you about Consciousness Studies?

Well I think learning about the relationship of the organs to the soul forces--learning how the soul forces manifest physically in those organs has been very interesting. It's so logical, and yet how do you put it into normal scientific logic? How do I? Well, I don't, I haven't, and yet it is like the big "Ahhh, yes! Of course!" kind of a feeling that I have with it. So I think getting a deeper understanding of the organs has been really powerful, because the relationship of how I am feeling and what I am ingesting and how they physically affect these organs is so immediate. It is just amazing to be able to see and understand that relationship, and I think that it is probably the same way with everything: if I understood barometric pressure, I would know that there was going to be a heavy dew in the morning--if I understood that. That's the phenomenology of all of life, all that there is, and I am just starting to get an understanding of these organs and their relationship to my soul health.

How do you feel about some of the morning exercises that you do in class?

I like them--I like them very much, and I like them more the more I do them. It's not like I am getting tired of them or getting bored with them. I am liking them more, and it's because the rhythm of doing that is teaching me how to see things in the rest of my life with an open gaze or a fixed gaze, or seeing a deeper aspect of things. I am looking at art differently, from sculpture to painting. I am looking at everything with a different perspective. I feel like it has really enhanced my perspective.

Are you presently working with the exercises?

I would say my regular practice is more in the form of having a rhythm of doing a ritual of gratitude daily. I do that with an alter... it's a kind of a meditation, only it can be verbal, or I can write something. But there's always a candle, there's always a ritual around it. That seems to be the one rhythm that I have carried with me.

Do you have any insights that have been perpetrated by Consciousness Studies that have been significant?

The insight for me is the sense of the master plan of it all and how everything is connected with everything. For example by looking at the bones and seeing how the bones are so connected with each other, and how the animal bones are connected to the human bones in a relationship, and how this is all connected to how plants grow, and this is all connected to how the planets move... It's just this insight of feeling a part of this big tapestry of movement, of music. It's like there is a big big orchestra playing, and I am just starting to get a sense of the music playing behind things.

Do you have any frustrations with things in class?

I would think that the only frustration I have is not being able to digest the profound things that hit me fast enough, before the next one has come and hit me. I'm not sure where these things are going in, in me, and I'd like to ruminate or explore one profound concept before going into another one. I don't know if there is a reason why he is giving so many things, one after the other. I mean, in a given morning there can be fifty profound insights and wisdoms and I am just left kind of like, "Wow, he did it again. He blew my mind again." And it is happening every day, and I am wondering where it is all going in me, and how can I integrate it all?

If there was one thing you could change about Consciousness Studies, what would it be?

I would like there to be a period of time in the week where we have dialogue as a group. I know this Friday biography session--I don't know where it's going, I haven't quite figured out its plan and its purpose. It seems like a self-development tool again, but it is being facilitated by someone, and I know that we as a group have said that we would like to get together in a more informal way, so we are now meeting on Thursday nights, but there are a lot of people who have families and children who can't be a part of that. I would like for there to be a time during the week that is part of our class time where we sit in full circle and look at each other across the room and dialogue about some of these kinds of questions that you are asking. I feel a piece missing for that. And Dennis should be a part of that circle.

Have you noticed anything different concerning your relationships with other people since taking Consciousness Studies?

It feels that the quality of my relationships with people has taken on even another timbre of what I want in my relationships with other people. I want a higher level of relationship, a deeper meeting, a sense that each meeting is another thread of the tapestry, and that it is important. So there is a quality in each interaction that is deserving of reverence, and this is not just happening with people, but is happening, for example, on my walks in the morning. I have developed amazing relationships with the animals on my walks to and from school. I have made friends with a rottweiler of all things--now he doesn't even bark or anything--he doesn't feel like he needs to come and rip me apart or anything.

How does it feel in general to be in Consciousness Studies?

I am in the exact right place at the exact right time. I know that. That's what it feels like to me. And I had no idea how important it was for me, until now, everyday I know how important it is. I just knew intuitively that I needed to come here and do this.