Waking Up In California
Site News Brief
Please excuse my tardiness in putting up a new article on Awakening Clarity Now. I’ve been busy with physical therapy following my surgery, and my teaching practice continues to be rather demanding as well. Today, for instance, is the only “day off” I’m taking this week, and I notice I’m writing for the website, not lounging.
My sense of things—I truly never know what’s next—is that I may be writing shorter more frequent posts in the future. Lots of things that pass through my mind that warrant my addressing them in print, but where is the time? I see three partial posts in draft form on my desktop as I write this one. But I promise there’s going to be plenty to read.
So, if you’re keenly interested in what’s going on with this growing teaching, you’ll want to visit the site regularly and not merely await the arrival of my emailed “New Post” alerts. I invite you to stay tuned, and soon enough we can all look back and say, “Oh, that’s what was supposed to happen.”
Waking Up in California–by Video, for Free!
This post concerns a particularly dear Letter from the Field. To my mind, it marks a key milestone in this teaching. It’s dear to me not so much for what it says—although it is both kind and generous—but because of who says it. The author of the letter is Dr. Jenny Wade. For those of you not already familiar with Jenny and her work, let me share some details with you.
I guess the easiest way to start is by reprinting the short bio that appears on the website for Integral Development Associates. Jenny is on that organization’s Advisory Board, along with other notables, including her friend and associate, Ken Wilber.
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- Dr. Jenny Wade is an internationally known lecturer, teacher, and researcher specializing in consciousness studies and developmental psychology who holds a Ph.D. in Human Development from the Fielding Institute. A self-employed management consultant, her theory and consulting practice are the result of extensive research and over twenty years’ experience working with Fortune 500 companies, multinationals, and smaller businesses in a wide range of industries around the world. A published author and lecturer on a wide variety of topics, she has written a new life span theory of consciousness placing developmental psychology in the post-Newtonian paradigm of the “new physics”: Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness (SUNY, 1996).
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Jenny is the author of two books, Changes of Mind: A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness (SUNY, 1996) and Transcendent Sex: When Lovemaking Opens the Veil (Gallery Books, 2004).
Short of my snagging a public thumbs up from the Dalai Lama, this is about as strong as it gets, folks. Many times, for different reasons, I have to keep Letters from the Field anonymous. It’s wonderful to not have to do so here, and yes, I am shamelessly milking it for all it’s worth. This unit does what it does; I’m not pulling those strings.
Jenny also addresses the much-undervalued necessity of follow-up in the post-awakening “state.” Time after time after time we think, “I’ve got it now! I can never unsee this!” What we don’t realize is that at the exact moment we’re saying that, we are announcing to the world, “Oh my God, there was such incredible clarity here, and it’s already gone!”
Re: Thanks–your videos did it! [February 2, 2015]
Dear Fred, I’ve been enrolled in the third cohort of Jeffery A. Martin’s research study* to evoke persistent non-symbolic experience (popularly enlightenment, liberation, non-duality), and this week’s assignment was direct inquiry accompanied by a lot of video/audio resources to help. Although I myself am a researcher of consciousness and had had a classic satori experience years ago as well as another occasion of being in non-duality for a couple of months, all of it had faded, hence his course. I didn’t find [the pointers from a well-known teacher—ed.] or any of the other resources helpful until I stumbled onto yours on YouTube–and I was riveted.
Your simplicity, directness, humor, rapscallion past, and oddball humility–and especially your southern accent, which is “home” to my ears–told how to get there better than anybody else I’ve come across in a long career, at least in a way that appealed to me. I immersed myself in your shorter videos (none more than 30 minutes), especially the one about intellectualizing and the self-reflecting bubble, which spoke to the biggest problem I was having. And your words about denial in another video–and those brought me right home (Location 2, according to Jeffery) without any fanfare.
I want to thank you and let you know how much your generosity has helped at least one other person. And to also express how helpful your work is on following up the experiences, which I know only too well can otherwise vanish entirely. Words aren’t adequate to express my gratitude. If I can do anything to further your work, including providing an endorsement, please let me know.
Much love and esteem,
Jenny
*Jenny is referring to *The Finders Course, which I’ve previously written about here, and will doubtlessly write about again.
Jenny also agreed to write up a short endorsement for ACN’S home page.
I just received it as I was writing this post and I’m pasting it below. Wow!
(Thank you, Jenny! And thanks for standing up and being counted. All love, Fred)
- Forget serious teachers and even crazy wisdom teachers! Fred Davis is enlightenment’s court jester, reformed rake, televangelist, and grits-talking magus all in one. He’s the real deal–and I should know, after a career researching consciousness, seeking, and having my own satori and nondual experiences. From years of headbanging to recapture the awakening I’d lost through a severe drug reaction, I stumbled across his YouTube videos–and I awakened. Yeah, that’s right: awakening through a YouTube video! Fred’s simplicity, directness, humor, rapscallion past, oddball humility, and Southern accent tell exactly how to awaken. His no-nonsense approach is stripped to the essentials, with plain talk that’s right on point. Just do it. If you follow Fred’s instructions, you will come home to yourself. If that doesn’t work, buy his books, or schedule a session. He’s the world’s most accessible teacher, and you’ve got everything to gain.
~Jenny Wade
Web Links for Jenny Wade
Integral Development Associates
California Institute of Integral Studies
YouTube (Interview)
YouTube (Snippet of Jenny’s lecture on The Consciousness Chronicles, a DVD series which I reviewed a couple of years back.)
February 3, 2015 @ 4:29 pm
Good story and fine endorsement. Continue being an open vessel Fred.
February 4, 2015 @ 9:11 am
Thanks, Cliff!
February 3, 2015 @ 4:35 pm
Wow! This is GREAT! You earn every bit of this. ( Love the court jester part too.)
February 4, 2015 @ 9:12 am
Hey, Robbin! Thank you!
February 4, 2015 @ 3:56 am
Wonderful appreciation ……….so deserved
February 4, 2015 @ 9:12 am
Hey, Ted! Thanks!
February 4, 2015 @ 2:35 pm
Wonderful letter! It’s true, it’s so easy to fall back into the default ego identification. But I find with your help and other practices, at least once a day, glimmers, rays, and sometimes even full radiance shines through.
Thank you for bringing so many of us to the light. I trust your elbow is healing well.
All love,
Kathleen
February 6, 2015 @ 2:32 am
What a fabulous endorsement Fred! And I add mine here for the wonderful expansion of space and time that I have experienced with that incredibly skillful and loving “rapscallion” Fred character.
And it is great that Jenny is a major integral theorist. In the mid 1990’s Ken Wilber showed me (an MIT physics grad) that Spirituality could be trans-rational instead of pre-rational (although a non-dual Course in Miracles student at the time, I was heavily influenced by Jung and the shamanism I was teaching). I got so turned on I developed a theory of Accelerating Integral Evolution of Consciousness that I presented at the ITC — and Ken’s experiences drove me into Buddhist meditation that led to non-dual investigations and to “Fredness awareness”. Much Love, Carter
February 6, 2015 @ 5:43 am
Milk it for all it’s worth is right!!
Hey Fredness,
What a trip it was to read this since not only am I in Finders Course 3 along with Jenny (she’s not in my workgroup so I was not aware of her being in it) but I am an “official” Location 2 dweller (non-dweller, actually) myself!!
Haha! What fun!
Oh how the Naysaying Nattering Nabobs of Non-Duality (you know who you are!) get a load of this. Jenny is obviously no lightweight in the Field of non-duality so her words will definitely ring some bells, as well they should.
I am disappointed that you will not be joining us for the final stage in FC3, since I was very much looking forward to encountering you again and perhaps seizing the opportunity to move up to Location 3 or even Location 4 with your help and non-dual prodding.
But I see now that I’m gonna have to gut it out all on my own, or with the help of some other non-dual teacher who will playing the role of Clean-Up Hitter, so to speak.
Otherwise all is well. Glad your surgery is over and you’re back now to doing your regular schtick.
Looking forward to more updates from the Field.
All love and all joy,
Gary Falk
PS: I decided to take your advise and use Gary Falk as my non-dual moniker instead of Sri Sri Garydas Ananda. Somehow Gary Falk just sounds more spiritual, don’t you think?
February 6, 2015 @ 11:12 pm
Yay, Gary! I thought the Jenny thing was pretty cool, too. Naysayers be damned!
Joan Tollifson has a funny fake name that I call her sometimes to poke fun. “Ananda Bliss.” Given that, as you know, Ananda MEANS bliss, her fake name is Bliss Bliss!
My fake name is Bodhi Sannyasi. It means, basically “awakened spiritual wanderer.” I developed it in the 90’s, when I thought I was going to be a guru. Of course this was all YEARS before I really woke up!! How funny is that?
February 6, 2015 @ 11:14 pm
Hey, Carter! Thank you so much! I’ll be glad to see you come the end of the month! 🙂
Much love back to you,
Fred