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In the previous article of this series, I posed the question, "Is All That Is all it's cracked up to be?" Through my personal explorations of the issue, I came away with a resounding "yes." The key to understanding and appreciating this, I surmised, was to develop a highly personalized relationship with All That Is. But how, exactly, does one establish such a relationship? That is what I would like to focus on in this installment, again drawing from my own personal experiences.

Since my answer to the first question-— "Is All That Is 'all that'?"—came to me through the dream state, I decided to return there for more insight on how to court God. I asked for a dream to give me the answer, and I dreamt, but the dream didn't appear to address the question at hand. And so I asked again....and again....and again. After a number of attempts without having received the answer I was looking for, I decided a new approach was needed. A short time later, in true intuitive fashion, I received a message from within that resonated strongly with me, providing a valuable clue that I then decided to pursue.

A few months before I began this process, I had read a book on alchemy titled "The Emerald Tablet" by Dennis William Hauck. My gut was now telling me to go back and take another look at it. In reading the book initially, I found many of the concepts of the Hermetic tradition to be very compatible with Sethian philosophy, especially in the area of conscious co-creation. But in leafing through the book a second time, there was one quote that jumped out at me—a passage the author cited from an ancient alchemical text titled the "Corpus Hermeticum": "If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like. ....But if you shut up your soul in your body, and abase yourself, and say 'I know nothing, I can do nothing; I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount to heaven; I know not what I was, nor what I shall be,' then what have you to do with God?"

This was a revelation: "Wow, you mean I'm divine, too?

What a concept!"

As obvious as this idea may seem to me now, up to that time, it had never occurred to me that if All That Is encompasses everything, then it must necessarily include me as a part of it. I thus came to realize why conscious co-creation wasn't always working for me: I had psychologically divorced myself from the co-creation partner that dwelled right inside of me! Put another way, I had alienated myself from my own intrinsic divinity.

At this point, I determined—based on an evaluation of my prior co-creation experiences—that the process seemed to work best for me when it most clearly reflected my true, innermost, heartfelt desires and intents. And from that, I further reasoned that developing my personal relationship with All That Is should be based on imbuing it with qualities that reflected those same desires and intents. To that end, it occurred to me that such an idea needed to be embodied in some kind of readily recognizable symbol, one that I could call to mind and latch onto when needed to remind myself of my own divinity and how All That Is works through me in the process of co-creation. And so I asked for a new dream—one that would reveal such a symbol to me. The next time I went to sleep, I got my answer.

I dreamt I was working as a wildlife protectionist on a special project in the mountains of the Northwest, helping to preserve the habitats of endangered species of bears, mostly grizzlies. While trekking through the woods with my colleagues, we were hoping we'd see some of the bears whose environments we were trying to save. Again, we were expecting to see grizzlies, but much to our surprise, we spied something very special: a North American spirit bear, a rare and very endangered bear species, happily foraging in the woods. It was at that point that I became lucid and knew that I had found my symbol, at which point I woke up instantaneously.

The spirit bear thus became the image that I would use to depict the nature of my relationship with All That Is. But why was this so significant? Because it is a highly personalized symbol that I could relate to on many levels (I now knew where the power of icons came from!). To explain my rationale behind this, allow me to provide some background.

To put it mildly, I am a big admirer of bears. I love their strength, beauty and majesty, not to mention the special role that they play in the spirituality of many indigenous cultures (as is very much the case with the spirit bear in native American lore). I so admire them that, as a bearded, heavyset man, I even emulate some of their qualities physically (a clear Framework 1 projection of a Framework 2 notion). I am also an active member of the Bear community, a gay community "subculture" devoted to celebrating the lives of gay men who are themselves built like and/or embrace the qualities of our ursine cousins.

The conditions under which I worked with the bears in the dream were also personally significant. To begin with, I was assigned to a project designed to safeguard the environments of these beautiful creatures. This reflects my avid interest in environmental protection matters, especially where bears are concerned (one such project I'm currently following, a campaign led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, is specifically aimed at protecting the habitat of the spirit bear). The fact that I was working with "endangered species" (particularly "grizzlies") is also relevant; having once had a rather cynical view of how things spiritual and metaphysical operated in the world, I had allowed these areas of my life to become "endangered" commodities themselves. But the threat of extinction was not present here, for the bear was in a protected environment (an echo of Seth's "safe universe" concept), happily foraging away (clearly capable of drawing the abundance of All That Is to it). In short, the qualities reflected by these prevailing conditions in the dream underscored my desire to protect the beautiful and fragile nature of my personal relationship with All That Is as expressed through my divine self.

Thus, the image of a spirit bear in a safe, protected, abundant Northwestern wilderness has come to symbolize the nature of my personal relationship with All That Is. When I feel a need to connect, I draw the image of the spirit bear to mind to provide a symbolic link to the divine. Having such an image to grasp onto makes the seemingly intangible, theoretical process of co-creation much more accessible, more "user-friendly" and, ultimately, more effective.

This is not to suggest that each of you should all go out and start worshipping spirit bears. Rather, my experiences are presented here to illustrate the process of how I found a symbol for my own personal connection to All That Is. This symbol works for me, and it may even work for you, too, but the important point is that whatever connection you develop or whatever image you're drawn to, it must have personal meaning for you, whether it's symbolized by an animal, an abstract image, a piece of garden furniture or whatever else you might choose.

After having gone through this process, I realized I could have saved myself a lot of time by simply reading "The God of Jane." I discovered this Jane Roberts book after having gone through all of the foregoing, and I found that it read almost like review text for me at that point. Perhaps I needed to "do the homework" I did in order to more fully appreciate the contents of this book once I finally read it.

Amazingly, I found "The God of Jane" provided considerable confirmation to the conclusions I drew from my own experiential work. For instance, I heartily agreed with the author on the following: "So, it goes without saying that I make no 'supernatural' claims. I don't materialize holy ash, or perform miracles at midday. .... I do proclaim the uniqueness of my own personality and its private connection with the universe, but I also maintain that each other individual is also unique, with his or her own connection to the universe."

Similar sentiments were later echoed in terms of how they specifically relate to the conscious co-creation process: "....we are each continuous with what 'God' is, and any 'prayer' travels through dimensions of psychological validity that connect us with those portions of our own consciousnesses that are aware of that added identification. This isn't to say that we are each 'God' in absolute terms, but that we are expressions of 'God's' essence. We are part of All That Is, and All That Is is also the medium in which we exist. We are made of 'God Stuff.'"

If you have not read this book, I heartily recommend it. It has become a personal favorite and a rich source of material for providing validity to my own conclusions. But no matter how you approach it, "The God of Jane" is well worth a look. I believe you may find it especially helpful if you're wrestling with questions like those I've addressed in this article and its predecessor. It may help provide you with the keys you're looking for in establishing your own personal relationship with All That Is. As Jane so thoughtfully put it, "....we do each have our personal 'God,' no matter who—or what—we are. .... And why not? A 'God' for each of us, a designation that would give us a sense of personal connection with the universe...."

Brent Marchant is a free-lance writer and editor from Chicago, IL. He is the founding editor of Interior Landscape magazine, a leading horticultural industry trade magazine.