Good morning!
An earlier start to my day, today, as I am off to Carleton U for a lecture series on astronomy. Yup, not much to do with anything I usually do, and I’m loving it!
What great joy to read your insights about yourself, revealed and shared! I have long known – for myself and in my life – that in the choice between willing and able, willing is the far more potent force. With willingness comes the ability to learn and discover. Without it, there is no level of ability that transforms…us or our world. Clearly, in this potent collective of engaging godforces, willingness runs deep.
Thank you all, for being on this journey with me. Whatever path you are choosing to walk – be it part of an email group, the privacy of your journal or the Comments section, below – it is evident to me that the collective mind that we are, knows something. It is evident to me that we are willing to know what we know, in the face of the absence of any evidence for ‘it’ to be known or ‘real’. I am reminded of a summer storm. The sun is still out… but the wind changes. It ‘feels’ different; smells different; blows differently; and its subtle (for some) effects are pulling at our awareness to inform. Can we trust that, even if the local meteorologist is saying clear skies?
My mind persists…..
Knowing what is not to be explained. Like standing in an interrogation room with a two-way mirror. On one side, all that exists is the room. On the other side, life is unfolding with much greater complexity and potential. Which side of that mirror do I want to be on? And what lies beyond the other side of the other side?
I recently came across a TedTalk (you’ll find it here, if you’re interested) that drew my attention because it spoke of “…”Perception and creativity are very intimately connected.”
Although the context for this talk had to do with brain function and technology/machines, it struck me that there was a gaping hole in that statement which helped me to make sense of the growing apprehension of AI. And that is: judgement. Between perception and our response to what we perceive, lies judgement (Beliefs/Values/Attitudes). That judgement then leads to the direction our creativity can/will take.
When I know something that I cannot explain or rationalize – something that exists outside the collective agreement of its existence – I am perceiving something that is discernible to me and yet, non-existent for others. That does not mean I am not perceiving; nor that what I perceive is not there.
Before I can act on what I am perceiving, I find myself stuck in the sticky mess of my own internal cues ABOUT my internal cues: stuck in the quagmire of my judgements about my own perceptions; as well as stuck in the judgement of my expectations around my perceptions that demand I be able to ‘create’ (i.e. do something; make a choice; take an action; etc) so that my perceptions might be turned into some practical realization to be applied to the quality of my life. (After all, we have never been taught/learned that perception, itself, has great value without the need to convert it to something that will be meaningful for, valued by and approved of by others. And yet, I (personally) find great joy and expansion in awakening to a new perception and allowing it to carve out its own course.)
In truth, I am not there… yet.
For now, I am choosing to be still….to stand motionless in my perceptions, that are revealing to me my judgements about my permission to perceive. That, in itself, is a powerful discovery!
That I perceive, is a given. We all do. The challenge becomes : can I perceive – and hold valid, relevant, meaningful, reliable – that which others do not?
What I perceive is a world heading to the brink. Not to the brink of its own existence – but to the brink of life as I have known it. I perceive a world reeling in the face of forces in the shadows… and by ‘forces’ I mean actions taken beyond the conscious awareness of those being acted upon. I perceive an acceleration of the consequences of these forces and the mindlessness they continue to compel from the vast majority. Why? Helplessness is likely a big one. And hopelessness, likely a bigger one. Long ago, having worked for years with others, I became painfully aware that helplessness combined with hopelessness leads to despair. The world, in many ways, is despairing.
In this instant, my judgement of my perception pops up, chastising me with notions of: think positively! Do something and take meaningful action to…to… to what??? Stop it? Change it? Slow it down? In truth, there is no ‘it’ to act upon. Perhaps in this case, the demon is perception, itself.
Perhaps this is where the notion of ‘death’ comes in. I see ‘death’ (mine, the world-as-we-know-it’s, etc) as pushing the reset button. And if that were to occur, then what? My belief? Given the state of our own individual and collective consciousness at the moment of the reset, we would simply return to that same level of ‘performance’ of evolution of consciousness.
My judgement tells me: not useful. At least, not for me. I’m not doing this again – and I know I’ve done this many times.
With perception and judgement having had their say, creation presents.
Create what? I have, for decades, created conversations and the space within which they could/would unfold. Conversations and explorations to shift perception, bring judgements to the surface, with the hope/intention of new creations. In this moment, I no longer trust that at this point (in my expression) there is value in continuing to engage that, for myself. As a result, I am taking steps to ensure that much of what I continue to hold as meaningful and important, etc. will be archived and accessible for any and all who chose to access it. And then, I’m done with that conversation.
(Sidebar: I take great comfort in knowing that I have come to this place of knowing, hearing and witnessing the life-changing Voices of those many women in my life who dare the deep dive into their individual and collective Self! I can’t think of a more glorious way to live!)
Creation demands something new and different from and of me. I either hear and embrace that call or I leave (i.e. ‘death’). And so, I am listening intently as I also put my life in order.
I continue to have the great desire to create. What I have is no clarity on what that creation might be. The conversations that hold interest for me (transhumanism, climate (emergency) change, nanotechnology, etc) are still on the periphery for so many. Witness this very experience: of all the women I know, there are so few who will choose to engage. Why? Because it is a challenge – and a frightening one – to know that you know what you know whether you can explain that, or not. And THAT is nonetheless, what leads you.
I stand at a place where I wonder: is that next expression of creation one to unfold within this reality? Or is that next creation one to awaken a whole and different reality? From which side of the mirror will my creation unfold?
Long ago, something within me was awakened as I waited for the shuttle to take me into Kona. A wave moved through me… and I was changed. It is not my mind that led the change – it was the wave. Like a pulse of ’something’ rippling through the very space/time fabric of my reality…. like a ripple of Intelligence through the galactic plane… and in a breath, I knew I was on the other side of the mirror. My life continued from there to here. And in this now, I wish for…and long for… that next wave.
In a world shaped through collective consciousness (and I do believe that this ‘reality’… this planet/world… is one that is shaped through collective consciousness), I am not hopeful. In this moment, the mass collective consciousness is one of fear, helplessness, rage, despair, hopelessness, poverty, betrayal, violence, war, greed, etc. etc. etc.). There are those for whom that is not their truth. I find myself wondering: is there enough ‘juice’ for the first to be reshaped by the second? I no longer know.
In this moment, I am in a ‘death watch’ with my mother. I know that she and I have danced for millennia in this exchange of mother/daughter – taking turns with every manifestation. As her mind continues to swirl in her slow-motion dance of disintegration, she defies the odds by overcoming any and all challenges of the body; rising to heal herself with ease from the moments of physical challenge. Remarkable to witness, actually, as her immune system response presents as the 21-year-old she holds herself to be. I know that as I wait for her moment to choose to go, her perceived ‘ending’ will trigger some new beginning for me. She has access to information re that timing, that I do not. And it will come when it comes. When she goes, I will go back to Kona. I have always known that my return trip would require that I be prepared not to leave there. And in that, I am at peace.
And so, perception, judgement, creation. As one who has long been propelled to create, it is a challenge for me to simply sit in the perception….judgement free. It is what it is. When I am moved to write, I write. When I am moved to silence, I am still. When I am moved to connect, I reach out. I do nothing unless propelled from the inside, out. And I wait…
I have moments of deep, deep grief. They are often triggered by the sense of my mother’s departure… and I know that the depth and intensity of the grief are not just for my mother but are for our collective Mother. In some ways, Gaia is leaving us to live out our own creations; no longer buffering our effect on ourselves; no longer robbing Peter to pay Paul for our recklessness with the very sphere that allows us to exist. Gaia will be fine. All that lives on this planet, will not.
Some have written about Earth as a ‘prison’ planet; that this is a place where the souls that present are in some kind of quarantine. As much as this planet could be a Paradise, our collective consciousness can make it a living hell. Perhaps it is that we are here to learn how to free ourselves from the prison of our own, individual mind that our collective mind might be freed. Perhaps we are asleep; asleep to the power of our own conscious creation. And until we wake up – each of us and all of us, at once – it will continue.
I know that I chose to come here…. to this place and time… to provoke. I am not here to soothe and comfort. I am here to poke and prod. To compel and propel. To irritate and agitate. To recognize that without the mixing, the ingredients will never come together to form the cake. I know (with or without evidence) that it is required for the collective mind to heed the call to a new and different path for creation. For so long, I trusted that there would be enough…. enough…of everything! Enough time. Enough opportunity. Enough information. Enough interest. Enough willingness. Enough determination. Enough vision. Enough courage. And in this moment, I am no longer sure of any of that. Perhaps, in that, lives my own despair.
For this moment, I am done.
Louise
Hi there…
This gap between reading Louise’s post today and now makes it difficult to connect, to reclaim the thoughts, sensations, feelings it awoke on me…I’m not as fluid as I was yesterday, I’m more centered in this “me” and less “all”.
I’m malleable, fluid…for some that’s a sign of weakness, of failure of the “will power” of being authentic…and yet, I feel amazingly authentic with this blessed fluidity that’s “me” as it allows me to expand and embrace and remain curious at 50 as much as I was at seven, 14 or 21.
To demonstrate this malleability: in order to isolate myself from the rest of the office team and write this, I’m listening to Yaima’s album “Pellucidity” and it changes everything: I can’t be done with “us” when there are still so many of us creating such a music and realm of what’s possible.
In so many ways, today Louise’s words expressed my own awareness: deep inside I know this is over…I keep reading and engaging and see that the mentality behind every “solution” is what’s flawed, not the solution itself. Problems are seeing as isolated and out of context: “energy”, “climate change”, “food”, “social injustice”, “human isolation”, “mental health” and so on…the story underlying all of them is the same, but few can see it…my dearest forest in Mt Elphinstone is being logged to make electricity poles and the “solutions” discussed go from creating a plantation of trees to be logged to the creation of a protected park for tourism…nobody seems to see the forest for what it is: a giant being in itself, a giant arm of Gaia with many interconnected cells: the trees, the soil, the birds…each in itself an ecosystem and all of them part of us and our being alive in this realm. Nobody seems to see the flaw in settling for pseudo solutions, or seeing trees as a “resource” to continue an unsustainable life arrangement in which we need ugly things like electric poles…
I don’t know if I chose or was chosen or no choice at all was made. But I know that I’m more myself when I serve, support, connect, comfort. While many things I am and do may be seen as being a rebel, even an outcast (and I have endured the treatment society gives to those who are different), I’ve understood with time that I’m more myself when I don’t confront, when I don’t think, feel and act from the Story of Separation…there is something inside that instinctively rejects judgment, discrimination, hatred…I do feel angst, pain and many times, unbearable rage when those I love most are senselessly destroyed, exploited, oppressed…and who I care so deeply to feel that rage? They rarely fall under the human species: since I was very little something in me chose the side of the forests, the wild, the living and even “no living” creatures.
I have no doubt that civilization as we know is ending and that its collapse has already started. I have no doubt it will go down in ever increasing cycles that are and will be affecting species, ecosystems and people in different way depending on many factors…I have no doubt extinction is already underway and that life as we have known it so far will change into something else.
There’s something in me, however, that keeps pushing and I still don’t know why. Why I can’t just stay still and focus on “myself”. It may be that I don’t see “myself” as separated, it may be that I see so many in all age levels and all ways of life doing things that inspire me. Like yesterday, waiting for the other community garden members come to the meeting, I see this boy making noises, more or less my youngest son’s age and I wonder why nature created him, how does his life looks like for his family, his community, himself as he would never be “normal”, carrying a fate of making strange noises and moving around, what’s on his heart, on his mind, is he trapped, is he freer than you and me? And while I’m there observing, there comes this young and nice looking guy, introduces himself and starts being there for this boy as a caring brother, as the father I never had…and I cannot but feel the tears of joy inside my heart: there it is, the reason I’m not giving up, the reason I have chosen to stay behind among the multitudes in mainstream street, in the heart of the city and suburbia: I could easily choose otherwise, I could stay in the ecovillage with my permaculturist friends, or I could be in the wonderful Roberts Creek right now, confronting the bulldozers and hugging my friends there…but doing so I would also betray my heart as it belongs to those who are not yet awake and may never be.
In the last minute of the last hour and when the final wave comes, I want to be there, holding the hands of the unawakened…part of me, however, wants it to be with that forest in its final hours, or even go under before the last tree is lost. As I said, I’m fluid, I move, I’m malleable, I cannot choose, and yet somewhere in me, I have already chosen.
Beautiful…moving! Thank you. I feel you.
I have been trying something new in the last few days. Trying on the idea of sharing more of myself. I am doing this for two reasons, first it feels very freeing to just tell the truth and secondly I think the world is ready for truth and maybe, just maybe in hearing it others will find the permission they need for themselves to speak more of their own truth.
Having lived with Deb for 16 years I have experienced in real time what it looks like to have an internally validated, intuitive human being move through the world. I have felt a desire to be more this way but my intellect and desire to please often won out in my daily experience. While I might be a slow learner with this, I have been opening more and more and today I stand in a place where my own cues are coming in loud and clear. It feels like a new life actually and as I expand more and more this way I am delighted with the peace and joy that fills my life.
So here, without self-editing is where I find myself in this moment around the issue of biosphere collapse. It’s my truth.
Our species is on the way out and it is happening fast. I know I will not see my 60th birthday and in just over month I turn 46. In fact I am uncertain that I will get a chance blow 50 candles off a cake. I know that this body will not have an opportunity to get “old”. I am not upset about that in any way. In fact I am excited that the blight of humanity will cease to exist soon and with our demise the ruthless and unending violence and devestation will come to a halt. There is nothing that could convince me that with our current consciousness we should continue to live for generations on this beautiful planet. We could go green, drive EV’s, put solar panels on our homes and stop flying across the planet. We could grow our food and slow down our baby making and yet we would still be the same. We would just be doing everything we are doing now – with a green hue around us. We would still as a collective feel unworthy, we would still have our souls swollowed up by the parenting process, we would still want to consume more and more and more.
I would rather just see the reset button pressed. I would love to know that not another sentient being would ever be commoditized (raped, caged, dragged, drugged, murdered) for their muscle, maternal secretions and reproductive materials. I would love to know that 13 year old girls would not have to give their bodies away on street corners. I would love to know that mountain tops would not longer be blown up or the veins of the earth would no longer be bled dry.
I don’t have hope or faith. The only thing I hold when it comes to humanity is disgust.
I am angry, sad, outraged. I want it to just stop.
I want to stop hearing the never ending machines, I want to stop seeing the virgin toilet paper coming out of the store in shopping carts, I want to look at the ocean and know she is healthy, clean, safe for her beauties. This will not happen now, not in my lifetime. We had our moment in the sun and now the sun is going down.
I don’t feel ripped off, this was never mine to have. I just feel hurt, the way I imagine Gaia feels hurt. I am hurt that greed and power and consumption drove us to this point of no return.
So I listen in, pay attention to my dreams of giant tsunami waves and the burning in my stomach when I look at the ocean and know how she had been so badly hurt. I make my plans with Deb to do what we know we need to do to stay as safe as we can right now. Plans that others will not understand. I don’t care. I will share part of me with them, my truth when it feels right. I will allow others to see what it looks like to be raw and vulnerable and naked to the sensations that move my being.
Thank you,
Deb
I woke up this morning with a knot in my stomach. Heart pounding with a familiar sense of agitation and unease. I looked out the window and saw a beautiful day. What I perceive and what I feel are very different however. Rarely do they sync up anymore. The birds songs were silenced by the irritating sound of angry machines: the float planes that I’ve learned to hate and the mountain rape that ceaselessly chugs along—business as usual with nary a thought for tomorrow. I don’t know how much more of this my nervous system can take. As I become more energetically attuned in to Gaea, my tolerance for man’s world is reduced to nil. Fuck.
Where there are men, there is no peace.
I have fleeting moments where I wish I could just sleepwalk like the masses so it didn’t hurt so much. Those fleeting moments are followed by a flash of guilt. Is it possible to love too much? In a loveless world—essential, soul love, not the bullshit “love” of our culture—love hurts. Makes me think of that old Nazareth song…
I feel the collapse with greater intensity with every moment of each passing day. I know the knot in my stomach well. Grief. What is it today? Content is irrelevant. Grief has a life-force of its own.
This morning I received an email with a video link to a short presentation by a film-maker documenting the collapse of the ocean, in particular, the death of coral reefs. As I watched the video, I felt the stomach knot increase in intensity. I felt myself holding my breath. I could feel that I was on the verge. The film moved from the magnificent beauty of what a healthy coral reef teeming with life is meant to look like, to the barren, colourless underwater ghost town that they now are. I burst into tears, shaking and sobbing from the depths. Wave after wave after wave…
The ocean is the greatest source of grief for me now. Good lord, everything in this paradigm of separation brings me pain. The ocean is affecting me more now than ever since the relentless premonitions from earlier this year. It was these premonitions that forced me to face my own denial and implored me to discard the denial-infused bullshit of hope. The ocean is also the catalyst for our impromptu move away from the coast. The sad reality is that I wouldn’t even consider leaving if my premonitions, my body and what I perceive with my own eyes wasn’t so clear. It’s so damned heartbreaking. Sometimes I **think** I should stay to bear witness, but my body screams at me to move on.
The body never lies.
The familiar old questions surface: How did it ever get to be this way? How was this fucked-up world ever allowed to happen? Why does business-as-usual blindly chug along as everything burns, floods, withers, and dies around us? Why can so few see and feel the obvious? Why are humans so destructive? Why can’t humans change their ways? Why are humans trapped in an inertia that holds them captive to separation? Why, why, why? It makes no sense to me that a species with so much spiritual potential could destroy even that.
I keep thinking of Louise’s words about humans living different timelines. My timeline is so clear that it’s no longer safe on this planet…especially with the ocean. I’ve lived with advanced timelines all of my life…premonitions, always connected to life. It feels so, so surreal. I have no answers, just so many questions that will never be answered. I’m solid in who I am, thank goodness. I look around and see a bad dream with characters who physically resemble me, but no more than that. It’s an alternate reality that feels so antiquated.
The ocean has always been sacred to me. As a baby, my father would softly sing to me while walking by the ocean on the sandy beaches of Vero Beach, Florida where we spent our winters. When we returned Ottawa, he would make ocean sounds to soothe me to sleep.
The ocean has always meant so much to me. To bear witness to the collapse that so few can see or feel…I feel so alone. I’m deeply grateful for a partner who gets it.
Today I’ve shed many salty tears for the ocean…the true lungs of the Earth.
On the other side of the tears and the grief is the love. My profound, passionate, infinite love for life. I live in service to Gaea. For as long as I can remember, I have always lived in service to Gaea.
One thing I know about my role in this world is that I’ve always had a profound sense of justice. I’ve always been able to see the bigger picture. I’ve always been able to think from a critical perspective. I’ve always challenged the status quo. I’ve always made choices that align with life. I’ve always been a voice for the voiceless.
I give a damn. It makes no difference if its over or not. My love for Gaea trumps all else. Wherever I go, wherever I live, wherever I land, I take mySelf with me. I eagerly share my passion, my voice, my heart, my soul…my love for life—for animals and this Earth—wherever I am. This is the very essence of who I am. Grief and my pain are what cleanse me and infuse me with life, love, truth and deep authenticity. My heart has been cracked open over and over and over again…repeatedly, relentlessly throughout my life. I know that I’m not separate and yet I struggle with my disdain for a world that so flippantly destroys everything I love. In the 3 short years that I’ve lived on the coast, my heart has exploded with such immense gratitude and awe for the beauty that still remains on this planet. My heart has also been shredded too many times to count. I can’t even remember how many times I’ve fallen to my knees in grief, raging and sobbing over the smouldering ruins of a clearcut; how many times I’ve wept and cursed the relentless, endless destructive mountain rape; how many salty tears I’ve returned to the ocean over the collapse that haunts my consciousness; and the endless tears I shed for the fish and animals slaughtered for nothing…for human entitlement.
I see it all. I feel it all. I live in the unedited, rawness of my whole humanity—warts and all.
And then I breathe in the love for my family: 4-legged, two legged. I feel immense gratitude for life. I feel gratitude for my willingness to see and feel it all. This is the heartbeat of Gaea. She needs our pain, our grief, our rage, our compassion, and our love. She needs all of who we are.
And so I will continue to say my goodbye’s to the ocean over the coming weeks with an inner knowing that I likely won’t be back.
What a ride.
Wow… at the end day reading these threads, heaviness descends further on my body – as I invite and allow these words and voices to inform me… to confusion me … to perplex the limitations I hold in my mind and totally invite the feeling of exhaustion into my being… I am here.
My truth, I’ve found myself wishing for my state of being to be electrified with creation, passion aliveness of life, dancing with hope, grace, strength and deep compassion for the awakening state of our collective consciousness. (where’s the awakening?) My truth is our planet, our communities are on the brink of its own existence… how could it not be with the intensity that we have built and created this collective. how it ends, where it evolves to, I have not a clue – much like the my own personal life and my process of choosing in this accelerated dance of evolution of consciousness.
My truth – is I do feel alive, electrified, passioned and profoundly rooted in my willingness and capacity to feel this raw, authentic, intimate way of being and creating – I’d like more play in my serious pursuits – and yet I’m not there yet. It is the reminder – I need to manifest that too. To be steeped in the beauty that still exists and cultivate those moments when spirit touches down with deep compassion and reverberation – yes there are those moments, sprinkled. To not doubt the quantum power of living this way is how I remember, i am more than this physical manifestation. And yet is it enough? Is it enough to know these moments, to not ignore the elements at which Deb and Louise speak too. IS my state of being enough… is the reclamation of my WHOLENESS enough?
I can get lost in the menandering of what I see outside of me, of the collusion I see, the destruction, and make predications about where I/we are headed… and for the most part the ducks are lining up… and is this where I want my attention to be; does this line of questioning beckon and call to my intention for being here. I just don’t know.
In my ‘heightened’ state of being, I hear my conversations with myself: I am unwilling to repeat my history, unwilling to predict my future, unwilling to act until the impulse has fully landed – I am willing yes to be the tough conversations, to stay engaged with those willing to drop below the surface, willing to admit what I don’t know, and even further be in the exportation of becoming as I continue to say I really have no guide posts for what is next…I am very willing to engage the wave and yet am I actually only spinning?
These words reverberated through my being and I found my head nodding YES – at the computer screen: “Before I can act on what I am perceiving, I find myself stuck in the sticky mess of my own internal cues ABOUT my internal cues: stuck in the quagmire of my judgements about my own perceptions; as well as stuck in the judgement of my expectations around my perceptions that demand I be able to ‘create’ (i.e. do something; make a choice; take an action; etc)
And yet somehow that seems to have become a pattern within my way of being…not right or wrong… yet I’m noticing… what is that calling to more of the same?
These words were offered in an email tonight somehow it seems meaningful to offer them hear and read them for myself once again… “I’ve also realized that I have spent so much time studying and reading about mindfulness, breathing and being present, and taking the power to create my own life and reality… And I just need to do it. I think I’ve had some resistance to the reading, the writing and engaging with yet another collective of awakened women, because it feels like stuff I already know. YET, for so long I’ve avoided actually DOING it. I rely so much on others and on talking about and thinking about this perspective and way of being, without actually putting it into practice much. Brought me to realize I need to put my energy into doing it! Creating the life I want right now.”
Such a potent realization – another women rises in her life she is the one in her life – and is this enough? Enough for what? I know I am not here to save the world, I am here to live fully, and for so much more.
Day 2
Good morning,
I have a consistent morning routine that goes like this: upon awakening (after I make my latte), I write a list of ten things I am most grateful for, and why I am grateful for them, I journal for a full page and read from four daily inspirational books. I do this just to get my head on straight. If I don’t, we could end up with a Linda Blair kind of head spinning, green vomit spewing, sort of day. I know that sounds dramatic, but trust me, it’s not.
Over time, I have written a pile of morning ponderings, inspired by these morning readings. It is amazing what has come out of this practice. Most importantly, I have gained a sense that I can do this one day (this now), with a fairly decent attitude if I adhere to my practice. I am very committed to it. It is a cheap therapist; one that works best for me. I know it works because my life has opened up, and my experience has improved tremendously as a result of doing it. The amount of joy I experience is really the true litmus test for how well it is working.
I found that if I can surrender (my ego) to the One Great Mind, consistently, throughout the day, I can allow the Great Cosmic Force to lead me towards my highest good (for that one day). It works. Before I go to bed I have the habit of reflecting on just where I got off track (out of faith), and into fear, for that one day. In recovery we call this practice ‘doing a tenth step.’ ‘We continue to take a personal inventory and when we were wrong we promptly admitted it.’ We do not do a tenth step to beat ourselves up. We do it to learn what is working, and what is not working, in our lives. If done properly, and honestly, we see what we can do differently to make tomorrow a better day. This ties into how I interpret, what Louise has called, ‘the other side of the mirror.’
Reality, to me, is merely how I choose to perceive my surroundings in the present moment, and what I can create is only limited by the present perceptions, and limitations, I presently hold as true. This is what the mirror means to me. I (always) see my own underlying beliefs reflected back to me, in every interaction and experience that I encounter. People meet me where I am at. If I am healthy, I will meet healthy people. Likewise, of course, if I am unhealthy, I will meet unhealthy people. I always manifest the twins to my perceptions. I can deal with that, but it takes a lot of work.
So, this morning, at the end of my morning meditation practice, I read Whisperings from Within, Day two. I am really enjoying this challenge, so far. And it is challenging (I am a bit of a ‘bury my head in the sand’ type of girl…and perhaps a bit Pollyanna-ish?). To be honest, I didn’t have time to research what I was getting myself into with this challenge. My friend sent me a message saying that she had done it before, and would be doing it again if she did not have to be out travelling the world right now (poor gal). So, here I sit, flying by the seat of my pants, somewhat; baring my soul to a new world. But, it feels like the right thing for me to do, at this time. So I will be brave and keep hitting ‘send.’.
Last night, after writing my first response to Day One, I had a bit of sharer’s remorse. I think I share myself unabashedly all the time, so this surprised me. It seems that there remains quite a bit of fear in the underlying layers of my soul. Fear, that, interestingly enough, I had deluded myself into believing no longer existed. I was wrong! When I wrote last night, in the back of my mind was the old shitty fear of not being smart enough, and the stupidity of comparing myself to others…basically wanting to impress you with what I write. Really!? The old adage “better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and prove it’ ran amok (keeping me up past 3:00 am). I have had this fear for a long time. I do my art, most days, and still I have to have a talk with myself upon beginning. It goes something like this: “I know it seems impossible for you to do what you have in mind, but you just need to start here (with this moment), and stay here (in this now). As you move towards a place you have no idea about, magic will happen. Miracles manifest in the realm of doing.”
Every new creative endeavour requires courage and a fair bit of self-talk to get past my deep-seated fears of not being good enough. It is getting easier to push through this fear, with practice, though. I now know that underneath fear is a beautiful Knowing of how Powerful We truly Are. I admit it; I do believe in miracles. I have been witness to too many not to believe in them. But, I only get to experience them when I push through fear. I know,for me, safety is a dead-end road.
This is the kind of nut that lives in a shell like this.
Love,
Jeanette