The Center of the Universe Is Right Between Your Eyes But Home Is Where The Heart Is

Who or what are we really?

If you can quiet the chatter of your “monkey mind” long enough to examine your inner life with some objectivity, and pay close attention to what goes on there, you will become aware of how quickly it can change from instant to instant depending on what is happening in the moment (time) and the context (space).

In truth each of us are our own unique mercurial mixture of identities that we created from the center of our personal universe where we exist in the center of a choice between conscious responsible action that influences our thoughts, beliefs, and actions both inside and outside of us, or we can surrender and be victims to fear based programmed re-actions.

This ground zero choice point has the potential to provide a glimpse into the concept that the center of the universe is right between your eyes. Read this book if you want to explore the possibility of freeing your spirit, finding your way home, and reclaiming your inheritance as the creator you were meant to be.

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April 10, 2018

The Good Ship Pallamary

by Shaun Sanders – Santa Barbara Literary Journal

A review of The Center of the Universe Is Right Between Your Eyes But Home Is Where The Heart Is by Matt Pallamary

I’ve had some big ideas in my time. No, not the one about tinfoil-lined hats—that was somebody else. But I had one about how, since Earth is basically a big magnet and our bodies are full of electricity, we must be walking around in an electrically charge soup every day. This would be why, just before the phone rings, you’re thinking about the very same person who’s calling. That person’s thoughts were beamed to you through the magnetic soup seconds before they actually called, and your brain picked up the signal. Then you answer the phone and say, “Wow, I was just thinking about you!”

Magnetic soup. But that’s just one of my big ideas. There’s another one about how time is expanding, not passing, and we are riding a wave of expanding energy which we only perceive as time passing. When the universe reaches maximum expansion and begins to implode, perhaps time will go in reverse. But we’ll be long gone by then, and maybe even our descendants too, because it will be a few McZillion years from now (yep, that’s a real number).

If, like me, you have the occasional big idea and then wonder whether you’re not just a little bit nuts, you need to read Matthew Pallamary’s new book, The Center of the Universe Is Right Between Your Eyes But Home Is Where The Heart Is. And you need to read it now.

Initially, I admit to being somewhat taken aback by the title. After all, clichés are powerful things in their own right, and these sent my mind scanning through images of hearth and home, a crackling fire, and—for some reason—a firing squad at dawn. So much for the title. The cover itself is a magnificent amalgam of images, suggesting powerfully that shamanic traditions will be encountered within. And they are, but in very unexpected ways; I was both amazed and impressed the further I read.

Pallamary’s encyclopedic mind takes us on a voyage of discovery in an attempt to connect the dots between ancient shamanic traditions and the discoveries of science. On that voyage, we stop at the following locations: Objective versus subjective phenomena; quantum physics; shamanism as the world’s oldest profession; atomic physics and energy; electrical pulse rates; audio and color frequencies; how each animal’s biology shapes its perception of the natural world; alpha and beta brain activity; neurodynamics…..and all this before Page 50! Pallamary covers a LOT of ground in a short space, and the rest of the book simply dives deeper.

Any one of these locations would make a good destination in its own right, and as a result we get a sort of truncated, yet in-depth, look at each—no mean feat on Pallamary’s part. However, the language used is far from easy. For example, when discussing the evolution of the human brain beyond its early reptilian state, Pallamary says, “The shaman’s use of external symbols and the relationships of the symbols to cultural psychodynamics engage transformative process through entraining neurological structures, provoking a restructuring of the self at levels below conceptual and operational thought.” Okay. I get it. At least enough to follow along. Yet a book jam-packed with such sentences requires quite a few cups of tea.

So Pallamary may not be the next Malcolm Gladwell when presenting his findings to the world, but even though you’ll need to don your thinking cap for this one, it is well worth it. My guess is that Pallamary’s ultimate goal is to give us hope: hope that we can get it right, hope that we are not so close to the edge of the abyss that we cannot pull back, and hope that we will understand the depth of healing that is offered to us in every moment by the natural world we inhabit.

As we continue our voyage, we learn about our inner workings; our relationship to external stimuli; the magic of the number 8 (infinite unity, of course); and the significance and healing power of art, music, mathematics, and symbols. And last but not least, we come to Language with a capital L. For writers like me, this is absolutely riveting stuff. I sometimes teach college writing. I tell students that literacy is probably the most powerful technology ever devised by humans, and that it is a recently developed technology when compared to the other arts. And I wonder, as I tell them this, whether we shape language or language shapes us. In the beginning was the word, and all that.

Pallamary points out that with the introduction of literacy began a disconnect from nature and a disconnect from the sacred breath of life. He then links that idea to shamanistic practices which have always understood most of what we can now prove with science, adding that language plays a part in shamanistic healing. This then leads to Jung’s exploration of the shamanic in his archetypal healing process. So the drive seems to be toward proving that shamanism—a la Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan—had the answers all along. But, while this work goes much deeper than Castaneda’s, it feels slightly too disconnected to achieve its lofty goal. In fact, parts of this complex book dazzled me so completely that I lost track of where we were going. And I didn’t mind—I was agog with wonder!

Perhaps Pallamary had no intention of writing a best-selling crossover book, but he is not far from it. Not very far at all. If you’ve ever had a big idea, you need to read this book, even if it’s just to remind yourself that you’re not nuts and you’re not alone. And, of course, you’ll probably also experience wonder and hope.

A review of The Center of the Universe Is Right Between Your Eyes But Home Is Where The Heart Is

by David Wilder – Think Wilder

Prepare to have your mind blown. Matthew Pallamary’s most recent work, The Center of the Universe Is Right Between Your Eyes but Home Is Where the Heart Is (published last November) is clearly the result of a lifetime of dedicated research and lived experience. He wrote and published 12 books before this one, but this is the first book of his that I have read so far and it turned out to be everything that I had hoped for and so much more. So what exactly is it about?

Well, that’s a bit difficult to effectively pin down, because this book covers a wide variety of topics. From shamanism and visionary states to cognitive neuroscience and sacred geometry, The Center of the Universe covers a lot of ground. It opens with the thought-provoking question “Who or what are we really?” and spends the next 200+ pages delightfully unpacking it.

At its core, this book is a study in perception. Pallamary explores the idea that we are in full control of how we choose to interpret the external stimuli that we use to create our own realities. He backs that up with a lot of science, diving deep into the research that explains why we are able to do things like watch a gorgeous sunrise, listen to a symphony of croaking frogs, or taste the blissful sweetness of an orange.

The section titled “How We Perceive Reality in the Physical World” goes into depth on the concept of sense perceptions, and it’s packed to the brim with factoids about how our physical bodies work. For example, did you know that the average individual is capable of distinguishing over one trillion unique odors? How about the fact that some bears in North America have a sense of smell that is seven times stronger than that of a bloodhound, enabling them to locate food underground?

Pallamary also argues the point that—contrary to popular belief—shamanism is the world’s oldest profession:

“[Shamanism] is an amalgam of the world’s oldest professions with roots that range well beyond our historical stereotypes of witch doctors, wild men, and demonically possessed primitives. Among other things, shamans were the first doctors, performing artists, musicians, storytellers, teachers, priests, psychologists, and magicians, who performed critical functions in their societies.”

In addition to all of those roles, shamans also played an important role in discovering the potentials of plants. Pallamary includes a brilliant quote from a scientist who said, “Each time a medicine man dies, it is as if a library has been burned down.” If you thought you knew a lot about shamans before, just wait until you get a chance to read what he has to say about them—you’re sure to learn a thing or two.

Moving on from shamanism, a section on the Jungian concept of the “dark side” (also referred to as the “shadow”) explains how each of us has an unconscious aspect of our personalities that the conscious ego does not identify in itself. We not only store the least desirable aspects of our personalities there—positive aspects can be found in the shadow as well.

I was especially moved by a chapter in the book titled “The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind.” Shamanistic cultures revered and respected elemental spirits like the Wind, a formless, invisible energy that literally caresses us both inside and out, flowing into our mouths and down our throats to fill our lungs so that we can stay alive. It’s unfortunate that our Western societies do not have much respect for elemental spirits, but I believe that we are building our momentum in that direction. Hopefully we will get there before it is too late.

The Center of the Universe also dives deep into the Hero’s Journey, a popular structural form taken from Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Pallamary shows how it has its roots in shamanism and occurs in every culture, every time, and is “as infinitely varied as the human race itself.” Popular stories like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Ringsfollow this structural form closely, which is part of the reason why they are enjoyed by so many people around the world.

The last few chapters of the book cover the topics of sacred geometry, the infinite octave in art and music, and resonance. I wasn’t that familiar with these concepts before reading this book, but I became so enthralled that at this point I couldn’t put it down. The Center of the Universefinishes quite strong, enticing the reader to keep turning the page.

All in all, I’m extremely glad that I read this book. I encourage you to read it as well, and I’m confident that you will find great value in it if you choose to take on the challenge. Similar to a psychedelic journey, its contents have the potential to evolve you into a higher being.

5/5 stars. 214 pages.

https://www.thinkwilder.com/blog/book-review-center-universe-right-between-your-eyes