Opening a Channel

More than a quarter century ago, I began channeling. It was during a youthful period when I went into a deep dive of daily meditation, yoga and mass consumption of New Age books. I must have read a channeled book and then read a book about how to channel.

I put my pen to paper, moved my focus into witness mode as the book described and almost immediately, ideas that I couldn’t identify as mine came pouring through. It was kind of miraculous and also, a bit concerning.

During this same time period, I was creating a show with commedia dell’arte theatrical masks. Creating, painting and sculpting the masks themselves was part of the magic. It took many weeks. When I began to put them on in rehearsal, I would look in the mirror, try on a few wigs and hats, search for a voice to match the look of the character and out would come these fully formed beings, complete with life stories that they were eager to share. Again, kind of miraculous and also really fun.

Together, these two practices, channeled writing and mask work, changed me in ways I may never fully understand. They expanded my consciousness and helped me learn how to be in service to creativity. By surrendering my ego and stepping outside my familiar personality again and again, my ideas about who I was became less fixed.

The Intelligence Behind the Mask

When I put on a mask, it’s like changing the channel. My main station personality steps out and another one comes through. They often arrive with their own light and dark sides, their own agendas and sexual orientations. Although I am gay, one of my characters, Walter, adored my female friend Ragan. I had to pull off his mask before things got too steamy.

Iphelia (I FEEL YA) is a fairy godmother character. She is hilariously funny with a sense of humor quite different from my own. She would leap into the air and float gently down to the floor among her ribbons. She would pose coquettishly and announce loudly that she was being beautiful…Here I am being beautiful Up High! Here I am being beautiful Down Low! Here I am being beautiful Upside Down! while struggling to peer between her legs and her many layers of hot pink tulle. I had never even thought of that recurring joke before the show but after a series of performances with her, I remember thinking, damn…I wish I were as funny as she is.

And then, of course, I was her.

Her humor was coming through my body, my voice and imagination. And yet I experienced her intelligence as something separate from my own. It made me wonder how I could possess an ability that I didn't feel belonged to me?

From Mask Work to Channeling

When I began channeling, I noticed that a particular phrase would often appear at the start.

When all is said and done, there can be no other way to say this…

At first, I judged the phrase as odd and unnecessary. It doesn't mean anything. It almost seems to circle around itself. But I came to realize that the phrase itself functions as a threshold of words I pass through between two different states of consciousness. 

Channeled writing feels very similar to mask work. I like to say that I invite my main personality into the back seat and let some other part of me take the wheel. I am still there as a passenger being taken on a wild ride as an idea being formed, even as I am the one forming it.

My channeled writing often takes me out into the cosmos. It describes the process of building light bodies, reframes the soul's journey, and explores the avatar nature of humanity. Sometimes it describes life on other planets or offers guidance for navigating the upheaval we're experiencing here on Earth. Less hilarious, but still entertaining.

I'm not a consumer of fantasy or science fiction, so I'm curious where these ideas come from. Sometimes the material is difficult for me to understand, as it speaks from a perspective of reality that stretches my mind to its limits.

When I sit to channel, I often have no topic in mind. I sit patiently at the top of a blank page, let my mind go blank. I focus my attention on the tip of my pen and catch the words as they come. It feels more like taking dictation from an alien. 

Sometimes I don't know where the writing is going until the very last word lands on the page. And then, suddenly, the message becomes clear. It is revelatory and often, I am the one learning from what I've just written.

Where Does the Intelligence Come From?

I've watched videos of people who channel in front of live audiences, including well-known figures such as Bashar and Abraham-Hicks. Their channeling can be quite theatrical with distinctive voices and ways of speaking. They offer predictions and spiritual advice that people are seeking in these turbulent times. Sometimes when I watch them, I feel my own antenna turn on.

I haven’t really shared my channeled writing. As much as I love creating it, I don’t know how much to really believe in the ideas that come through. 

And I still wonder, am I simply making it all up? Is channeling a form of opening a hose so that some kind of unfiltered creativity comes through my body, mind and spirit on a different …channel? Is it an altered state of consciousness? Or is there genuinely another intelligence communicating through me?

After all these years, perhaps the question of where the information comes from is less important than what I've chosen to do with it. Ideas from my channeling have found their way into my workshops, writing and teaching. And when I look at the books of channeled writing piling up around my desk and photographs of the characters who came through my masks, I realize just how much these practices have been a part of my life story.

The great choreographer Martha Graham famously spoke about the artist's responsibility to make themselves a channel. To me, it suggests that creativity isn't exclusively about manufacturing something through personal effort. Sometimes creativity asks us to get out of our own way. 

My heart still laughs at the memory of Iphelia, my fairy godmother. Every magic spell of manifestation she cast required an orgasm at the end. Then she would want to go immediately into the kitchen and have some toast. So maybe in that way she was like me but I still wish I was as funny as her. Maybe I am just as funny AS her.