Part 2 - Grounded Awareness

Teacher:

Any good beginning to a spiritual emergency should start with a powerful and connected process. This process should be able to help the individual going through the emerging process feel trust and assurance that the work they are about to embark upon is authentically connected to them and their own journey. In our case this first practice is going to surround the spiritual and human concept we call grounding.

Grounding is the first and most important practice one must establish to help bring forth their unique gifts and talents. Before you move through any grounding practices you must first understand fully this concept of grounding so that your work may be built upon a strong foundation appropriate to your divine lesson plan. After recognizing what it means to be fully grounded one will then be asked to establish a daily practice of grounding that will help to bring forth the uniqueness that lies within that individual. Simply put this means your journey will begin to unfold as it is meant to unfold for you and not the person sitting next to you. Remember that as individuals choosing to experience this world we chose paths that are different from one another and although a mentor may be able to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it, this may be better suited to their path and not your own. So learning to establish your own grounding process will be the most impactful for your future growth.

Through a practice of daily grounding you will be able to establish a strong antenna like connection from your energetic body into the matrix. Doing this daily practice will connect the presence of your higher self or all-knowing self into your human, physical existence. This process will make you aware of the frequencies and energies within you, which will allow you to learn with full clarity the talents that you pose. All of this will happen by way of your authentic connection that has been created through grounding into the divine.

To define “grounding” is complicated, as is anything when you try to dissect it into manageable and understandable parts. On a physical level grounding can be called the physical connection between a human and his surroundings. Some people chose to use “earthing” equipment to be better connected and grounded into the energy of the earth. Some chose to use crystals and minerals from the Earth to feel a vibration and frequency of the present moment. Some chose to walk barefoot amongst the earth to feel at peace and connected with the present moment and others visualize roots or cords connecting their energetic bodies into the planet. When you begin to understand this interpretation of grounding it is very physically rooted in connection to our third dimensional plane. This physical layer is, but one element that is necessary to understand before performing your own grounding practice.

The second layer to grounding involves understanding it from an emotional level. This layer of grounding is more concerned with humanities destiny and what that means in connection to the Earth. As humans seek spirituality they begin to lose touch with their emotions. They do this by becoming clear in their emotional bodies by simply using emotions as indications of what is happening in the field around them and not engaging with the sensations of that particular emotion. This detachment from emotion is a natural process that any spiritual seeker will go through in order to journey into higher dimensional frequencies. In order for a third dimensional being to begin to perceive the different dimensions without concern of ego, which means falsely guided information they must elevate their consciousness from that of the physical plane.  In the physical plane emotions are used to create connections to our physical Earth and to travel away from the Earth dimension one must release these emotional entanglements to begin to perceive on a greater scale. The concern surrounding this quest to raise your frequency is that as humans begin to lose touch with their emotions and the emotional body they will also begin to lose their connection with the Earth. In this secondary level of grounding it is important to know that although we chose to raise our level of consciousness and seek out our connection to spirit we are still human. Humans have chosen to be one of the caretakers of the Earth and in doing so this means we must remain in connection to our third dimensional plane to help keep the Earth grounded within our Universal Martix. The act of grounding allows us to be open to the energy surrounding us yet also allows us to keep our connection to the Earth. This is how we become both human and spiritual being residing in the same time and space. Grounding allows us to have both of these attributes at the same time. This practice will help you to establishing times when you chose to elevate your frequency through grounding practices and other times when you will choose to remain balanced within the normal operating mode of the third dimension (being human). The third dimension is where we can connect into the energy of all other light beings surrounding us including family, friends, doing things we love, and caretaking for the Earth.

The third level of understanding surrounding grounding involves learning to establish guidelines for your energetic practice not only concerning emotions, but now also within the mental field. When you become connected into the presence of the moment you can pick up on what is happening in the field around you. This means sensing into past, future and current situations all by thinking about a situation. It will be important that you are one with the energy surrounding you when you are in meditation and also when you are out of meditation because here everything you think will become a part of your reality or a distraction from it. You will need to trust in your connection to this field because at this point your journey will become guided by synchronistic occurrences and patterns that come to the surface for your review. The mental field requires that you realize everything you experience is for your highest good and that when you ground yourself by using meditation you are creating a direct link into your everyday life for divine awareness to come through. Learning to release control over your mental impulses and reducing your want or need to control the situations around you will allow you the present mind awareness to see clearly what is being created for you to participate in. When you are ready to understand this part of your grounded awareness life will no longer allow you to control your destiny it will bring your destiny to you while you are open and present enough to be ready for it.

Now that the three bodies of the first triad otherwise known as the first level of conscious awareness have been discussed it is important to know that when a soul achieves the proper grounding practice it will bring into alignment all three subtle bodies, uniting human and spirit into one. By intentionally creating balance between the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies you bring forth an energy that solely resonates with your frequency. This is the highest level of connection you will be able to find to grow and learn from while working through this metaphysical filed.

What you are doing during a grounding meditation is telling the universe that your energy is in alignment to channel and bring forth that which you need to be made more clear on and work through. After you perform your grounding work during your meditation you will have the opportunity to work with your collection of guides, angles, extra-terrestrials and other light beings who will be available to assist you with whatever intention you set for your practice. When setting an intention know that by using limiting words during your process you will likely follow a path that is limited to the words you use. Our guides and angles are here to assist us in working through our divine lesson plan. This plan was constructed between us and these guides and was specifically created for us to use while moving through our human and other incarnation experiences. If the work, you wish to perform in the physical world does not align with your lesson plan you will need to be clear in what you hope to accomplish before things become clear. Our guides will assist us based off of our intentions and sometimes our intentions are not stated from the highest possible perspective. It is important to keep your questions to the divine open and void of attachment. This will allow you to receive the highest level of guidance and will not place limitations on your experience.

To review, before you sit down to meditate or after your grounding practice when you are balanced and clear you will want to establish that which you hope to work on using a very clear and thoughtful intention. A practice that is helpful to capture high level intentions and questions is to carry around a notebook during your day. When you have moments of clarity throughout your day either through synchronicities, patterns or hunches it is recommended for you to write these impulses down in your notebook to be reviewed at a later time. Preferably when you can enter into a state of meditation. Once you have established your open channel by grounding through mediation you will be able to openly work from your kept notebook writing and reading without breaking your connection to the divine. This is called a state of trance. By establishing a state of trance in your mediation you can be assured that you are connected into the frequency of your guides and here they will be able to present to you the material that best suits your lesson plan.

If you are unfamiliar with the experience of being in a state of trance and you need more clarification on what this feels like, simply look more fully into your nightly routine of fallings asleep. The moments before you enter sleep, but are still aware of your surroundings is when your brain is reaching theta levels that begin to allow the subtle bodies to harmonize together in a fully balanced and receptive state. It is here that the body makes subtle twitches and adjustments before full sleep is found. Your body should become heavy and you may even find your bodily sensations become heightened which can lead to startling sensations if caught off guard. Similar to meditation, this is why it is important to find a space where you will not be interrupted frequently, not because it will pull you out of the meditative state, but because the body is so receptive that an intrusion will startle you to a point of intense shock through the body. During a state of trance, you will be very aware of what is happening around you, your eyes might even be open and you may find it easy to achieve automatic writing. To find this level of trance you simply need a repetitive sequence of guided commands that brings your body into a level of calm yet receptive conscious awareness. The grounding mantra will feel quite like the work performed by a hypnotist. Most people use a singular grounding pattern their whole lives never changing it to get themselves into a state of trance, once you perform this pattern a few times it becomes easier for the body to subtly fall into and out of this state. Another way to know that you are tapped into a state of trance is that shortly after you come out of this state you begin to forget what was received and experienced. Typically, after your meditative session as the hours’ tick by the information you received will become harder and more difficult to recall. This is a good sign that what you experienced was trance.

The last and single most important tip for grounding is to keep your breathing controlled. Your breath cycle will be able to take you deeper into your meditative state as well as bring you out if an interruption is needed. It is not uncommon to need to break your trance pattern to write something down in your journal or respond to someone in the third dimension. These reactions are all normal and ok to engage with whilst in meditation. Simply put your attention on your breath and continue the cycle of inhalation through the nose and exhalation out through the mouth, when the interruption is over you will return right back to the point of receiving when you left. By being able to bring yourself into and out of meditation like this it will allow you to move easily into states of waking meditation. Waking meditation will be the next big achievement in your spiritual process.

Waking meditation is simple enough to understand it is the process of grounding your energy throughout the day and being open to receive guidance while you are alert and awake without having to get into a meditative state. It is important to have established a strong meditative practice so that you are clear enough to be able to receive waking guidance. Most humans are not clear enough in their energetic field to be able to interpret this type of guidance. Due to lack of practice or clarity or both their own minds/mental bodies run on over drive inhibiting them from picking up on the patterns, synchronicities, and impulses that stream through their consciousness throughout the day. So when their most authentic guidance comes in they assume this to be just another impulse of an overactive mind. True guidance is sometimes so simple it is overlooked. This waking guidance can be as easy as getting out of your habitual patterns and following a whim or thought that floats into your mind out. These impulses are always streaming into you and the more you engage in their calls to action the more guidance and clarity you will receive. These experiences will help to heighten your human experience. As every human knows change is hard and does not sit well for most living in the third dimensional. When a standard routine is questioned and you receive guidance to change a habitual pattern, most people hesitate and will push this thought away. If one is not clear and does not have a trusted practice it will become harder to distinguish between ego mind and authentic guidance. The less one follows the cues of the mind the harder and more convoluted their path becomes. To trust ones own instinct and intuitive hunches is the easiest way to begin to follow the divine path and the simplest way to do that is to clear your mental field and begin following all impulses, seeking that which is the divine voice within.

When exploring the concepts of the ego mind and authentic guidance there is a lot of internal understanding and self actualizing that needs to be done before one can achieve full clarity. Once a person has gone through a self actualizing process more trust is created within their field and a clearer connection can be made. It is easy to tell someone to clear negativity out of their life, and remove fear. We ask them to eliminate the guilt and anxiety holding those people back from an authentic connection, but for one to actually go through a self-review and perform an introspective journey surrounding their life and to implement these changes is a completely different ball game. It takes time and careful consideration to go through ones’ internal system to watch for these ego indicators to pop up signaling where more clearing needs to be done. The collective consciousness is becoming very clear and the frequency of the planet is shifting. This means that many before you have done a lot of this work in preparation for your arrival into this matrix. So much of the negativity within the collective has been shifted and the false programming that seemed to control our emotions continues to reduce day by day.  This opens up your ability to connect more fully to the divine energy surrounding you. Now is the time while the planets frequency is steadily increasing to accept this unique challenge to clear your own field and open your channel to the divine. During this time in 2016 it is easy to slip into stages of complete connection into higher frequencies. In fact, most people do this unknowingly many times throughout the day. As you progress it becomes so important to establish practices that will help to keep you connected to your path, the divine, and your highest wisdom so that you can live your most abundant and fulfilled life possible.

You were blessed with your purpose in this life a long time ago. It is your unique ability as a human being to remember the divinity that lies within. Your process here on earth will allow you the pleasure of remembering exactly who you are and what you were created to do. By establishing a waking meditation, you will be able to connect into the field around you every day and receive immediate impulses about how connected and aligned you are on your path. The key to a waking meditation is to tune into your feet. You must establish a connection that moves through your body and out through your feet into the world. By everyday setting the intention that you are more grounded and connected than the day before you will confirm to the universe that you are ready to become engage, and a willing participant in the co-creating of your field.

Once a grounded connection has been established you may then begin the process of opening your mind to receive the impulses of the filed around you. In an unpracticed person who meditates this can be a bit overwhelming at first because it is easy to read into the etheric, emotional and mental fields of the people surrounding you. As humans we live in an electromagnetic world and any time we feel, think or simply be we give off electrical impulses that are carried into the matrix and felt by all. In our world so many humans operate on autopilot that they do not realize they are projecting their feelings, emotions and thoughts into the people around them. If you begin connecting to the universe through waking meditations, you will surly encounter all of these impulses from the untrained people around you. In the beginning stages of your practice this can be alarming because in a body that does not know its own field (etheric, emotional, mental and spiritual) a person might confuse what they are perceiving as their own energy, and not understand that it is merely a projection from a person in the field around you. This is why when you begin this practice it is important to know yourself well before any attempt is made to dive into the matrix. Uncertainty in yourself, your body, your feelings and your practice may send you into bouts of confusion and undue stress. Become aware of yourself before you enlist these practices of oneness within the field.

Circle of Light:

A suggested way to start a waking meditation for an experienced or novas meditator is to establish your grounding meditation in the morning when you wake up. An example of a grounding meditation will follow this explanation. After you run through your morning mediation set the intention that you are more grounded and connected than you were the day before and ask that you become aware of your highest and most loving guidance throughout the day. Visualize your feet and see them as trunks of a tree willing and open to walking through life present and grounded. This will initiate your presence process which will begin to allow you to feel the flow of the universal energies from the matrix. It is from this place of grounded awareness that your highest guidance will be able to help illuminate your path. Once you have performed your grounding meditation and connected to the Earth anything that tries to pull you from the grounded state of awareness can be sent down into the core of the Earth becoming transmuted from your field. Meaning it will be pulled out of your energetic field and away from your potential repetition of this pattern. The more you keep an open awareness of your energetic field the clearer you will become on your divine path allowing your unique gifts to play out. Anytime you feel overly consumed by the human reality playing out in front of you simply connect to your feet and see the trunks of two large trees replace the image that are your two feet and begin to walk with connected awareness once again. 

Teacher:

Example of a Grounding Meditation:

Sit in a comfortable space sitting up to begin with since this work needs to be actively participated in. Begin your breath work, breathing in through the nose and exhaling out through the mouth. Keep this breath through the entire practice. Bring the legs together and squeeze making contact between the knees, thighs, calves and inner feet. Hold this tight squeeze for three breaths. After the third breath release the muscles of the body and feel how open and receptive the lower part of the body has become. Make the statement that your frequency is now higher than it was moments ago. Next bring your fingers into the palms of your hands creating fists, lock your inner arms along your ribs, suck in your stomach and squeeze all of the muscles of this abdominal area. Hold for three breaths. After the third breath release and feel into the opened flow of the body. Make the statement that my frequency is now higher than it was just moments ago. Next bring your fingers into the palms of your hands creating fists, bring your elbows up on either side of your head and lock your fists onto the top of your shoulders. Stretch out your neck and drop the corners of your mouth down towards your jaw line. Hold for three breaths. After the third breath release and feel into the opened flow of the body. Make the statement that my frequency is now higher than it was just moments ago. After this last hold you will open your body completely surrendering into a fully open and receptive position. Next you will place your attention at the top of your head and find the silver grounding cord. Pull the silver grounding cord down through your head following your spine and send it out your groin area. Allow this cord to move in between your feet and into the surface of the earth. Sink this cord down until it hits into the core of the earth. Once in the core of the earth allow the silver ball of energy to form underneath your feet. From here place your attention at the bottoms of your feet and allow the root chakras on the bottoms of the feet to open. Next using your exhalation, you will push your energetic root system out of the bottoms of your feet and into the earth. Allow the roots to form whatever pattern they may and guide them down past the center of the earth towards the exact opposite side of the earth that you sit upon at that moment in time. From here allow the roots to protrude out the opposite side of the earth forming an anchoring connection that connects your channel into the earth. You will then place your attention at the top of your head around the crown chakra. Finding the crown chakra you will intentionally open this center and begin to draw down the white divine light. As you bring down this energy you will make the statement, only that which serves my highest good is allowed to be with me today. As you pull this divine white light down through your channel you will feel into this energy. As this light moves into your head and arms you will feel how this energy resonates with your being in a very personal and unique way. You will then move this energy down into the stomach and pelvic region. From here you can draw this energy down your legs and into your feet.

Finally, you will bring this energy through your feet and into the roots you had laid in the earth. Once this channel is completely illuminated you will place your attention at the heart center. You will find the center most point of the heart and allow the three lines that represent the matrix to move in and through this singular point. Move one line from the head down the body and into the earth, crossing through your heart convergence point. The next line will move from the left side of the body out and though the right side. You will lastly move a line from the back of the body out though the front, each touching the center most point of the heart. This will create the grid of the matrix in, around, and through your body. These lines will connect through you and into every other being in this matrix. Like the geographical lines on a map so to we run the girded lines of the matrix through our own bodies. From here we will call upon the highest and most loving vibrational words we can hold in our own bodies and then send these impulses out through the matrix lines. Words like, gratitude, love, kindness, abundance, grace, transcendence, joy, peace, happiness. Once you select a word that you can feel within your heart you will allow this words energy to fill your body and with your intention you will send this energy out into the matrix, like an offering to all who you are connected into. As soon as you send this out you will feel its vibration rushing back towards you and as you follow this vibration into your heart center and then down towards your feet. Once your awareness is focused around your feet you will ask that a vortex or black hole be opened under your feet and into the center of the earth. You will then acknowledge the green vibrant energy of the divine feminine residing at the bottom of this vortex. You will then pull this line of energy up from the center of the earth and allow it to sweep through your body. Feel how it flows in your own body and allow it to open you more fully into your receptive channel. Pull this energy from your feet all the way up to above your head where it can connect into the divine white light energy. Once you find the white light energy above your head, you will change perspectives and ride from heaven to earth with this white light energy back down towards your feet. As you feel this energy move through you acknowledge how it flows differently than the divine feminine energy and allow yourself to open up fully to this experience. Next you will ask that both energies move through you at the same time. This pull in opposite directions will open up a vortex of energy around your body that you can use to raise your frequency. As this vortex opens up around you begin to allow your consciousness to be pulled into its spin. You will now find yourself on the outside of your physical form, witness now as you get pulled in towards the heart center. Find the door that represents your heart center and move into this space. Take notice of this setting and call out to your inner child. Once you find the inner child send an I love you their way and ask to be show to the door of the sacred heart space. Next move through this door and into this chamber, this is a unique place where much learning and travel can be done. From here find the golden pool of light that is the god head energy and merge yourself into the pool of light. You may be able to submerge yourself into this pool if so with every step you take allow yourself to become more and more detached from your physical body. As you submerge your energy into this light allow your only perspective to be that of golden light. Now let this light spill out of the pool and fill your complete internal channel. Filling first your heart space, then into your throat and solar plexus chakra, next the golden light will move into your sacral and third eye charka, and then into your root and crown chakra. From here the light can spill into you entire physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies until it overflows completely and becomes the entire matrix around you. Here you can be everything and nothing at the same time. From here call out to your unique soul frequency and call back through the golden light only those particles that belong to your unique soul song/frequency. As these particles move back to where you are they will create a vortex of energy that funnels down through the crown of your head and back into your heart space. This energy will materialize into a form that represents your highest and most loving self. For here you will become the energy of your higher self. From here you can continue to move into different levels of meditation or sign off for the day setting again your intention to be more grounded and connected to your divine purpose than you have ever been before. You will then close the meditation by bringing your attention back into your physical body and move back into your physical surroundings.

You can use this meditation or establish your own grounding practice by becoming connected to your field and finding what resonates most with your own path. Many times individuals will take parts of different teacher’s meditations and create a melting pot meditation that feels resonate with what their body needs. Never be scared to play around with different meditations. That which serves your highest good will always feel right so play around until you find the energy that sits best with your body. The only requirement for your grounding meditation is that you state something to the effect of, “only that which serves my highest good is allowed to be with me today.” Every detail after that is up to you. You will know a meditation is right for you when you can see, sense, and feel into every word or command being spoken. Grounding is used to anchor the physical body as well as the emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies to the present moment. When we are completely present in life things become clearer in the field surrounding us. As third dimensional beings this is the ultimate goal we are looking for, to be able to flow the highest and most connected light of the divine at all times. Being human means you are given a body that can become very dense if not properly taken care of. Only during times of heightened awareness and complete integration can we experience such things as trance, auras, time travel, guides, angels, and astral projection. The first way to establish your gifts in this life time is to become completely grounded in your field and into your daily life. This will align your energy bringing full integration of the energetic bodies making it easier for your next steps of growth to happen.

Grounding

In meditation it is so important that you begin each practice with a grounding. In my experiences meditating I was told over and over by teachers and intuitive's that I was not accomplishing correct grounding.

This is not the thing you want to hear when one you think you have it down, and two they never tell you how to accomplish it for yourself they just tell you your not grounded. So after many years of trying different techniques and seeing different teachers I finally was told I had it down and was securely grounding in my meditation.

That technique I would like to share with you. I will start out saying that I hope thus technique gets you started and like me you might have to evolve it over the years to match your need and frequency moving forward.

GROUNDING:

Start by sitting in a comfortable position with your feet on the ground. Make sure your head is supported and you feel comfortable. Hands allow to lie open along the sides of the body or place hands in Guyana Mudra for grounding. Next start to visualize yourself standing on top of the earth. See the gridded energy line with in the earth and acknowledge their power. Next visualize your grounding platform. This can be of your own making don't rush it try and let something come to your minds eye naturally. Next visualize yourself stepping onto this platform one foot at a time. As you life your foot really actively feel that foot being sucked down like a magnet on to your grounding platform. If your know meridian points focus your attention on kidney point 1 bubbling springs. Then repeat with the other foot. Now that you are on your platform you want to move it on top of the warts surface and allow the platform to magnetize down on top of the earth and settle into some of those energetic lines running with crystalline energy. After you secure this connection to earth, we will start to call up earths crystalline energies through the platform through your feet and into your body. Performing the ring of earth we will call this crystalline earth energy into your body and create pools of earth energy inside your body to stabilize and bring you balance and stillness.

Ring of earth:
Start out pulling the energy into the bottom of the foot through kidney 1. This point is on the bottom of the ball of the foot right in between the first and second toe about and inch down from the top of the foot. While working with this energy I like to visualize it take the form of a plant like a vine of ivy moving through me or roots of a tree or a stem of a flower. Whatever image works for you go ahead and use. Next allow this energy to move to the point behind the ankle, on the lower back outside of the ankle. Let the energy pool here and allow the flower or roots to extend out of this point creating a pool of connected energy. Next move up the middle of the leg and to the point on the very middle of the backside of the knee. Again let your flower blossom out here at this point. Next move all the way up the inside of the body and to the points on the sides of the top of the clavicle bone. Allow two more flowers to blossom here. Then move up to the point on the bottom of the Adam's apple on the front and back of the body. Allow two more roots or flowers to grow. Then move to the points under the ears right where the earlobe hits the side of the head. Allow two more earth energy pools to create here. Then finally these two points merge into one at the top/crown of the head where the energy will exit your head and move up your spiritual chakra pillar to your higher self. Then working in reverse follow and trace this energy line back Down the body to your feet and back into earth. I do this two to three times before I move on.

After I work with the earth energy I usually visualize myself growing legs of light where I visualize my legs extending down into the earth and actively pushing the grounding platform down into the earth. I do this active push through the earth for three or so breaths. Actually I look for a source of white light that I connect into with my platform then I stop.

Next I start my invocation to call in my guides. This could be different for everyone, but as we are all the same these will work for you until you specifically connect to a group you chose to work with. Starting this process we must find our heart of hearts to work with first because this is where we will invite spirit in. I like to do a breathing technique with the heart first to open then I ask to receive. Start out using a circulating in through the nose out through the mouth breath. Then gather an emotional memory that creates feelings of joy and happiness something strong that you can focus on. Next using the breath move that memory from your mind into your beating heart. From here release the emotion tied to this memory and allow it to just be in the area of your heart that lies directly behind the emotional beating heart. Now find stillness. With you attention on this area of the heart I like to use the circulating breath to open and expend the heart. After a few breaths you are ready to invoke your help and protection for this meditation.

Finding your heart and using breath we are going to call in the Devine mother and Devine father (silver and gold) active pull this energy down your chakra pillar using the breath into the heart. Then moving up wards again invite in the mighty I am presence. Allowing this to settle into your sacred heart center. Moving up again calling in the ascended masters, the league of lights, the high councils, the christed civilization, the highest and most loving angles and saints, and the arch angles to be with you in your sacred space. Then down to the ascending Gia, the animal spirits, nature kingdom, devas, elemental forces, and crystalline energies. Then call in your own highest and most loving spirit guides to help you in this activation today. Then say I call you all here to be as one, to act as one to speak as one.

Lastly and most importantly depending on what kind of work your doing call on the crystalline energies to surround your body and auric field to protect you during your meditation. I usually say something to the effect of, so that I might meditate and pray under the Devine guidance of source. Visualize the ball of energy becoming a mirror ball so that you can see out but nothing can see in.

This brings you to a place of peace where you can then work actively on whatever other intentions you may have. Or you can sit and receive in quiet stillness.

A big influence on this grounding meditation for me was Meg Benedicte. I found her when I moved from my 7 body chakras to the 5 spiritual chakras. She opened up a lot in the way of higher connections for me.

And so it is!