Lots of news in my webly world–and my really world too! I’ve made some changes to the format on the website. I removed the ‘astroblog’ because it seemed redundant. The worthy astrological and metaphysical postings I’ll link to on the ‘articles‘ page, with the aim of keeping it simple. Everything gets posted here anyway. It’s all an experiment, ever-changing and rearranging, just like life.

I’ve created a new page for a listing of upcoming performances, the link to which has replaced ‘astroblog’ in the menu bar. I’ll be updating that one often, so do check in. It looks pretty good when it’s all laid out that way! I’m particularly looking forward the house concert at SoulSpeak which is coming up at the end of May. Look for more information about that one, coming soon. And do check out the brand spanking new SoulSpeak website, isn’t it lovely? I can be found on the ‘SoulSpeak Weavers’ page, and what a community of offerings we are spinning here!

Speaking of SoulSpeak, I’ve decided to postpone the classes I’ve been planning to offer. Instead, I will start off with evening workshops (to be announced) and work my way up to ongoing classes as interest is generated.

The house concert last weekend on Saltspring was a sweet treat indeed. A smallish group cuddled on couches and chairs and the floor listening with every appearance of enthrallment, feeding my Leo Moon with waves of appreciation. Blissful sigh of satisfaction… we ended the evening with a kind of salon, a stimulating group discussion about everything under the sun which was inspired by the lyrical content of many of the songs.

And I collected a couple of comments which I’ll be adding to my testimonials page. This one is my favourite (from a young woman traveling from Australia):

“Heartfelt. Brave. Expressive. Everything I aspire to be in my music, myself, my life. I hope one day I am able to bring them together, connect, with the eloquence and beauty you have. Thank you.” - Amelia

My goodness. Thank YOU, Amelia. That’s the sort of response that gives me strength and courage to continue, makes me feel I’m on the right track after all. I have my moments of despair (being a creative depressive with a tendency to shoot myself down on the slightest provocation), and these comments are pure gold for getting me through those moments.

Here’s another:

“Love your faery song and the one you wrote for women’s camp. You have a unique gift for songwriting. Thanks for sharing.”

and

“When you sing, I feel our presence of Gaia. Singing, speaking, blessing, teaching, healing.”

and

“Thanks be! Thank you Phoenix for giving your being in song for the good of All.”

All right. I deserve to live after all. Sweet. That’s a joke, Mom. Sorry. Dark humour is my forte, though not everybody finds it funny. Repeat after me: “I will not worry about Phee.”

To quote a Talking Heads song that I love to sing, “I’m okay, I know nothing’s wrong.” I feel good today. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, spring is approaching through the chill in the air. Blessings and goodness.

In the face of my relentless pressure toward positivity, I find my negative thoughts and beliefs are acting out more and more. It’s as though they are kids being shushed for being ‘bad’ while other kids are being praised for being ‘good’. The good kids beam quietly in the face of my approval, while the bad kids shriek ever-more-loudly, seeking my attention.

I thought I’d give my bad kids some attention for a change. Here’s what they have to say.

First kid:

It’s not enough! I never get enough and what I get is never right or good enough! Nobody likes me enough! I never get enough gifts or attention on my birthday! For every person who admires, likes or gives their love to me, there are five others I care about, that I give attention and admiration to, who ignore me and act like I don’t exist. I give way more than I receive when it comes to listening, attention and positive feedback. I don’t deserve this crap. I deserve better. When will it be my turn? When is somebody going to give me what I deserve? When does it start coming back to me? When is my investment in other people going to start paying returns?

Second kid:

Life is horrible and it must be all my fault. I’m horrible. I’m too old, too fat, too saggy and baggy, too weak and undisciplined. I don’t do enough to earn the praises and attention and money I want. God must hate me. Maybe there is no God. Maybe nothing means anything at all. Maybe there’s no point even bothering. Why do I try? My efforts are never good enough and I don’t have the energy and motivation to try harder. I try so hard I’m constantly exhausted but really, it seems I hardly do anything at all. I probably don’t deserve to live, even if life was worth living.

Third kid:

This is crap. The world sucks. The system is rotten, nothing makes sense, everything is backwards and inside out. My species is insane and anti-life and I can’t stand being human. I deserve to be dead, and so do the rest of us whackos. Just look at who we allow to make our rules and laws, and how crazy those rules and laws are. Look at the oppressive craziness of bureaucracy, the soulless mechanical corporations that run our lives, while sit on our fat lazy butts and let them. A blind moron could see that the life of any modern human is evil no matter how hard we try to recycle and be conscious. With practically every breath I am committing some horrible wrong. That cell phone case I bought at the dollar store today for $1.50 was made by some little kid in a slave factory in China. Every good deal has a dark side. Ugliness is everywhere. I refuse to participate in this madness. Let me out of this crazy world.

Fourth kid:

I’m too much, too intense, too full and nobody wants me, nobody wants what I have to offer. Nobody will pay me for what I do, yet it’s all I can do, so I can’t support myself in this crazy world. Nobody wants to listen to me or pay attention to me. This is because — (fill in the blank with variations on the first, second or third kid’s theme: ‘nobody likes me,’ ‘I don’t deserve,’ ‘the world makes no sense.’).

There are more, all crying, their tinny voices intertwined, mixing and matching and struggling for dominance.

What to do about these kids with their relentless resentment, self-pity and cynicism? They won’t shut up, they won’t go away. They mutter, shriek and whine in the back of my mind until I can’t think straight, while the sweet light children I prefer go unheard, their gentle song lost in the clamour. I must forcefully tune them out when I wish to turn to their siblings, to whom I listen intently, hoping they can help me feel better. And they do, while I can hear them.

Good kids (in chorus, harmonizing):

I am so grateful for today. Every breath is a blessing. I hear the birds and my heart swells. I feel the blood pulsing in my body in the rhythm of my heartbeat. This moment, here and now, is magic. I feel God here. Every day, every year life feels better and better. Miracles happen before my eyes. I look, and what I focus on brightens, sparkles and expands in my sight. I am a living, breathing, natural creature of power and magic and beauty. I see my beauty in the eyes of people I talk to sometimes, who look at me that way in response to something I say without even trying. I am wise, I am strong, I am creative, I belong. The earth is blessed, everything has a reason, and love is all that exists. I may not understand it, and I don’t need to.

I trust God, I trust Mother Gaia, I trust natural processes of evolution to unfold perfectly, and I trust the future to make sense of what may not be clear now. I release my need to know it all and I realize my potential for happiness now. I am growing stronger, I am better, smarter, more capable, more gifted and skilled every day of my life. I am attracting more loving, genuine, emotionally congruent people into my life who are more willing to love me back than I could ever have dreamed possible even a few years ago. I have more peak experiences, my highs are higher and my lows are higher too. Life is wonderful and becoming more so.

Is it any wonder that I prefer these ones? Their song is easy on my ears, they make me feel good to hear. What they say feels true to me, so I intuitively respond to their goodness. The ranters chanting nastily and hurtfully in the background, conflicting with and contradicting each other, can’t compete with their sisters and brothers. I resist them, I push them away, so that their voices are raised in hurt and blame. I feel bad for rejecting them but I can’t stand to listen either.

What is the solution here? Where is the balance? I turn to the middle ground, the empty place between the poles where I am blind, and this is what I find:

There are no bad kids and no good ones, merely differences in point of view. Some parts of me see a truth that is beautiful and pleasurable, and these parts agree with each other, so alignment and harmony comes easily. It is natural to prefer harmony to discord, but that doesn’t make the discordant parts wrong or bad. The so-called bad parts see other kinds of truth, darker and more emotional viewpoints coloured by past experience that was not accepted and embraced at the time, and therefore remains stuck there, and these are not beautiful and not pleasurable. Yet, because these points of view do not tell a story that aligns with the truth of the present moment doesn’t mean they are not valid points of view. Theirs is a truth that can evolve when it is accepted, embraced, allowed to vibrate and change to be replaced with true understanding.

True and lasting change can come only when I give these parts the floor, listen and feel their point of view compassionately without judging or rejecting in favour of a different, better-feeling truth. The truth is that my sensation of discordance is a judgment, and even more negative feelings are caused by my conscious rejection of what I judge to be discord. I want everything to harmonize in a way that feels good so I try to edit out and erase anything that disagrees with the pleasurable truth that feels good to me. But that does not allow the whole truth, it does not allow me to learn the deeper truth that includes shadow as well as light, it does not honour the beings who hold pieces of truth that I reject and deny. It is my own rejection and denial, my own resistance and rigidity that makes it feel so bad to me. If I continue to reject and refuse, I can never know how it might feel to embrace those points of view within the context of acceptance and inclusion rather than struggle, discord and rejection.

The truth is that I have always suppressed certain voices within me because I didn’t like what they say or how they make me feel. That can change, and in fact, it already has. Most of the light voices began their journey as part of the dark and painful clamour, and my self-acceptance and embracing of their point of view has allowed them to evolve. Without that, I would not be who I am today, nor could I be having the beautiful experiences that I do have. I would still be trapped in my dark past, repeating the patterns of my history.

Here is how I have done it: with help. I remember how, now. It’s always a struggle to remember when I forget, which is constantly. And that’s okay.

First kid:

I never get enough.

What do you need? What would help you feel like it was enough?

I don’t know. All I know is I’m always hungry. I am empty and gnawing and aching and hurting and I want help.

That must feel awful. I’m sorry you have to feel that way. How can I help you?

Stop pushing me away. Stop hating me and making me feel bad about feeling bad. I can’t help how I feel. My feelings matter. I’m real. I hate you for making me hurt so bad.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have. What do you need from me now?

PAY ATTENTION TO ME!! Love me! Notice me! Listen to me!

Yikes. This kid is an endless black hole of need. I feel it sucking the life out of me. When I focus on her, I can’t love her. She is hateful, angry and too hurt and hungry to believe. What can I do now? As I ask the question, I know the answer.

Ah. Okay. Hey, Big Wholly Mama. There’s a kid in me who needs more than I can give. Will you help?

Yes.

Hey kid. Here’s your mom. See you later. Good luck.

————————–

Okay, maybe not that last bit. I need to stay present with the whole process, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. But I trust - I DO trust - that with Big Wholly Mama’s presence making me bigger inside, I can be enough for myself. I am enough for myself. Whoo hoo.

That’s the trick. I think. These aren’t simply bad feelings that I can push away and suppress. They’re parts of me. Kids, hungry hurt ones. And I’m not big enough to parent them all by myself. I need help. I am asking for the help I need, not to get rid of them, but to help them get their needs met. I know that when they are fed and listened to, cared for and allowed to cry their tears and express themselves to their heart’s content, that they will be able to show me who they really are.

And oh yeah, how good it feels when they add their voices in harmony to my chorus. They make it gutsier, edgier, tighter, more vivid, more real.

Rock and roll.

Click on the thumbnail below to see the full-sized poster for this event

Spring is here at last, and life begins anew, springing forth from the wintry void. I hope you are all getting in tune with the juicy joyful risings of this sweet season. I know I am!

I am thrilled to be performing a house concert on Saltspring next week. I’ve worked hard all winter to get ready for spring and feeling very ready to begin performing again. I’ve been playing regularly all winter at various open mics in the area (the Dancing Bean in Chemainus, the Gabriola open mic with Penny Sidor and the Nanaimo Singer-Songwriter Circles at the Mermaid’s Mug) and I have lots of new songs. It’s been an inspired winter and the songs just keep coming.

The show starts at 8 pm; cost is $12. The venue is intimate; it’s best to get childcare for the kids. There should be plenty of time to catch the ferry home afterward if you don’t already live on Saltspring or have a place to stay there.

If you are interested in coming, please email me and I’ll send you a Google Maps link so you can find the place.

Happy spring!

My friend Shauna said to me this morning (laughing), “You couldn’t promote yourself out of a paper bag!” And I had to laugh rather than be offended because despite appearances (this blog and all the self-trumpeting I do online) it’s so freakin true.

I played the open mic at the Dancing Bean Cafe again last night. I’ve done that every month for a few months now, and every time I get positive feedback, I think of all the things I coulda shoulda done to promote myself.

And you know, I really shoulda. Last night I got the best feedback! it was a golden opportunity for self-promotion. When folks were praising my superlative wonderfulness, did I say anything like “Thank you! I have a house concert on Saltspring this Friday, if you’d like to hear more,” or “Would you like to join my mailing list?” or “Here’s my card,” or “If you’re interested I have a CD for sale from my former band, TreeRoots Revolution,” well, duh. No. I didn’t. All I could think of was the ‘thank you’ bit. And I smiled and nodded a lot.

Once again, I ‘forgot’ to bring business cards. I ‘forgot’ to bring CDs. I ‘forgot’ to mention the house concert. And I ‘forgot’ about the mailing list. I could call it a mental block, but that’s a cop-out. It’s an emotional block. I’m scared to say nice things about myself in a real, live, in-person way. I’m actually very shy, even bashful, about what I do, the ways that I put myself onstage and sing my own heart out.

I blame my childhood (that’s always easiest, and often true). I was embarrassed, growing up, about the ways I stood out from the other kids. I had a big family, lots of siblings, step-siblings and cousins my age, and my parents and other relatives tried to treat us all equally. I interpreted that to mean, “Nobody’s any better than anybody else. Nobody’s special. Stop bragging. Don’t be so conceited.” And that was hard for me, because I was quite the gifted little hotshot, what with my succession of straight A’s, singing at grown-up parties, awards for artwork and all. I tried hard to be quiet about it so I wouldn’t stand out. I got real good at being quiet. Too good.

Now I find myself called on to put myself out there in all the ways I was discouraged as a kid. It’s weird. It’s hard. I’m not so good at it yet, but I suppose I’ll learn, being no dummy.

I’ll pass on the nice things other people said to me last night in the hopes it will sink in. Maybe I’ll get that it’s okay to blow my own horn. It’s my horn. If I’m scared to blow it, why should anybody else?

A lot more was said last night, but these are the words that stand out in my memory:

(from a table of women who beamed and bobbed agreement with their spokeswoman as I left the stage) “You were wonderful! What a lovely voice, how gifted you are! And you were so present–that’s not easy to do–you had us in the palm of your hand!”

(from a man who sought me out during the break) “That was a great song–that Mother Earth song. And that Leonard Cohen song, wow, I’ve never heard it done that way. You took it to so many different places. It was just beautiful.”

(And from Phil, emcee / sound guy and member of the awesome host band, the Flying Accusations) “That was a dynamite set! That’s the best you’ve ever played here! What have you been doing?”

Phil then gave me a pep talk, with some suggestions for next time. “Next time, I want you to come on earlier in the first set, because I want you to set the tone.” And, “Next time, I’m going to turn the sound up on you. Way up. I don’t want them to have the option of not listening.”

He had other things to say of a similar vein. Was this guy drunk? Was he coming on to me? Really, I didn’t get that vibe. He just wanted me to get how well I did. He was very sweet. At the end of the night, he gave me a hug and said, “You’re part of the family now.”

Thanks, Phil. I feel honoured.

I seem to need to binge-purge with writing, to spew the vomitrocious contents of my brain in the possibly vain hope that some kind of clarity may result. The piece you are reading falls under that heading, alas. So, mea culpa for cluttering your screen with my mentritus, but a gaia’s gotta do what a gaia’s gotta do.

Here I go, running as the brain-ball bounces above the words to the jingle that’s relentlessly singing under the picture. Once, I leaped to greet the new day only to be dumped into the drink I thought I’d be toasted with. Back on my day of birth, fateful entry into earthly existence, I finally squirted down my watery slide after a long crazy ride (thirty-six hours, mother said), expecting a celebration. Hey everybody! I’m here! Break out the good cheer!

But that was before I learned how the story is supposed to go.

The newly-arrived (me, and more than likely you, too) were casually caught, treated like things, slung to the side to be sucked out, palpated, stuffed, packaged and wrapped. Not that poor, tired, trapped mums were treated any better. It was just the same-old, same-old nature of life here on this plane, but to say it seemed insane to me then is about as under as I can state the matter.

And now, the constant clatter of high heels on marble and concrete, the nattering background drone of television undertoning every conversation, the roar of motorbikes and muscle cars, unmuffled because more decibels are cooler, drowning out the industrial white noise every urban dweller must take for granted or go mad… these all must have rattled everybody else’s brains and addled their sense of something wrong, something missing, something fatally awry, but I…

… I must’ve been hiding under my bed or (more likely) lost in a book when the deaf and blind was handed out. I thought I was so smart, but might have been happier had I joined the queue of winners and losers taught young to manipulate the controls of their souls, turn this need down, amplify that desire, damp the fire of life-force. That’s how you make it here in this so-called real world, which ironically consists of putting in wasted time until you die in order to qualify to live, finally,in the heaven of your dreams.

That is, unless you fail to avoid committing any of a myriad compelling sins, then you’ll be condemned to be sent to the bad eternity instead of the good one you were promised. What are the odds of winning that lottery? Can anyone really walk the razor-fine line that supposedly leads to forever’s heavenly reward?

Hell, I can’t even walk a straight line from here to tomorrow without getting distracted by the urge to drown any of a thousand sorrows I’ve been forced to suppress over the course of trying to survive this crazy world.

I regretfully report that I consistently come up fatally short on the Sin-o-Meter. It seems the dream of heaven is not to be my fate. Still, when I peer more closely at that photo, the heaven it shows is far too stiff and stilted for my taste.

As for the long winding road, my load is way too heavy to carry so far. Much, much better my loosey goosey, unwinding, undefining dance into the bliss of eternal Now, and damn both Hell and Heaven altogether. All worry and stress about wrong versus right can just take flight with the birds on the breeze, take root to be flowers for bees, become sweet scent wafting through the trees, oh yes.

Ah, oh, yes. Such pleasure, such a treasure trove of blessing be mine whenever I re-member my eternally divine miracle, my mantra, so simple, so gravid:

“Here I am, now.”

This blog is in love with Gaia. The living body of planet has swallowed me and will never disgorge me. The greatness which contains all of us as mere microbes within its vast body humbles and elevates me simultaneously.

You want meaning in your life? Look no further.

I highly recommend an online book called ‘Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution’ by Elisabet Sahtouris. Another title of note in this genre is ‘Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia’ by Stephan Harding. There are books by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis and others as well.

What distinguishes ‘Earthdance’ (in addition to its utter freaking cool amazingness) is its availability . You can read it online, here. That makes it very quotable too, which I am about to do. At length. For the Gaia geeks out there (surely I’m not the only one).

Here are some highlights from my recent reading in Chaps 5 and 6:

On life as rock rearranging itself (’This wood is my father, this stone gave me birth‘)

Vernadsky called life “a disperse of rock,” because he saw life as a chemical process transforming rock into highly active living matter and back, breaking it up, and moving it about in an endless cyclical process. Vernadsky’s view is presented in this book, as we say life is rock rearranging itself — like music come alive — packaging itself as cells, speeding its chemical changes with enzymes, turning cosmic radiation into its own forms of energy, transforming itself into ever-evolving creatures and back into rock. This view of living matter as continuous with, and as a chemical transformation of, nonliving planetary matter is very different from the view of life developing on the surface of a nonliving planet and adapting to it.

On life operating itself intelligently without conscious supervision:

We seldom reflect on the fact that our bodies work without asking anything of our aware, thinking minds. We need not even know consciously what is going on, much less having to think or plan or do anything about it. And a good thing this is, because we would most certainly mess up our bodies’ wonderful work if we interfered in it in an attempt to control it ourselves. Lewis Thomas, the popular science essayist and physiologist mentioned earlier, has said that for all his physiological knowledge, he would rather be put behind the controls of a jumbo jet than be put in charge of running his liver. Any one of our organs is more complicated by far than the most complicated computer we’ve invented, yet it knows how to run itself, repair itself, and work in harmony with all other organs. ….

The sooner we recognize and respect Gaia as an incredibly complex and demonstrably intelligent self-organizing living being, the sooner we will gain enough humility to stop believing we know how to manage her. If we stay on our present course, clinging to our present belief in our ability to control the Earth while knowing so little about it, our disastrously unintelligent interference in its affairs will not kill the planet, as many people believe, but it may very well kill us as a species, as we are already killing so many others.

On the likelihood of life on other planets:

Earth, it now appears — though we still search — is the only planet or moon in our solar system that had just the right size, density, composition, fluidity of elements, and just the right distancing and balancing of energy with its Sun star and satellite Moon to come alive and stay so. Yet its life is a result of this fortunate confluence of conditions, just as the development of a plant or animal embryo is. Our living Earth is likely no more a freak accident than is the seedling that grows or the frog egg that matures. All are the inevitable result of right compositions and conditions.

Some scientists believe the conditions of Earth were so special that Earth is a rare phenomenon, perhaps the only such planet in the universe. But there is no better reason to believe this than there is to believe that living planets are as common in the universe as are the successful seedlings and hatchlings of Earth. And if this is so, there are billions, maybe trillions, of other live planets in the billions of galaxies, each with their billions of star systems. Surely we are not alone.

On the influence of living organisms on the composition of the planet:

Thus the molecules in virtually all of the atmosphere, all of the soils and seas, all of the surface rocks and much of the underlying, recycling magma, have been through at least one phase in which they were within living creatures! It is easier to distinguish between life and death than between the domains of life and non-life we have assigned to biologists and geologists, respectively. In fact, virtually every geological part or feature of Earth we can find is a product of our planet’s life activity. Further, living organisms have invented 99.9 percent of all the kinds of molecules we know, almost all of them back when bacteria were the only creatures around, a few billion years ago.

on the potential swiftness of evolution from aggression to co-operation (some hope for us):

Rather vicious breathers can still be found drilling their way into other bacteria to reproduce there and eat the host bacteria from the inside. In the Tennessee laboratory of Kwang Jeon, protist hosts so invaded learned to tolerate and then to cooperate with their invaders in a mutually dependent relationship that brought about a new kind of creature. Surprisingly, this replay of the ancient evolutionary shift from outright aggression to full cooperation happened in only a few years’ time.

on the role of co-operation in evolution:

Margulis’ discovery, that eukaryote protists evolved cooperative internal schemes to overcome the problems caused by competition among prokaryote bacteria, was almost as much a shock to the world of science as was the Gaia hypothesis itself. Besides showing that cell `mechanisms’ such as mitochondria are creatures in their own right, she was suggesting that harmonious cooperation played a big role in evolution. This ran counter to the beliefs stemming from Darwin’s work, adopted by scientists in western countries, that evolution was just a survival race driven by competition.

Now, that is what I’m talking about.

Hallelujah!! Spreadin’ the Gaia word…

Every month, more or less (depending on whether I feel like participating, and I haven’t for a while), I post an assignment from my writer’s group, Northern Scribblers Online. For this month’s assignment, I didn’t choose the word or the question; we each submitted one and were assigned random words and questions from others. It turns out, the topic was oracularly appropriate for me. All I can say is, ugh.

It’s March 

word: havoc
question: What is grey and drab and all round yucky?

My least favourite month of the year has got to be March. There’s something about this time, despite the new growth shooting forth and the promise of spring that shows in the calendar if not in the air.

March plays havoc with my emotions. Every year, no matter where I live, March feels just the same. Where I grew up in the North, there was more snow in March than here in the sunny southland, but as soon as the calendar turns from February to March, the mercury inevitably drops precipitously, the sky greys over and the world feels heavier.

Today is Easter Sunday, and the calendar claims that spring has come at last, yet this cold, grey snow-spitting day denies that and replaces it with its own March agenda.

February was lovely. We had sun, the crocuses bloomed, the buds were bursting forth on the branches. And I suppose those things are still happening; I’ve seen daffodils recently. But the air feels clammy and cold, the sky is grey and the wind blows unforgivingly. The world holds tight to winter in March as though reluctant to surrender its grip to spring’s balmy breezes.

This is the month when I have less energy and ambition than any other time of year, which explains why this piece is so short. What else is there to say about March? Except that it is nearly over, and thank goodness for that.

Time for some mental hygiene, brush the teeth of my soul to sparkling brightness. I have limited hopes, though; the look of the outdoors today is as dreary and dark as I feel, so realistically, chances for change are limited, being the weather-dependent faerie that I am.

Somewhere in the heart of my darkness is a stake which was meant to slay the vampire; the trouble is, the vamp’s victims become themselves undead, so the well-meant weapon was stuck into my own once-beating center. Now, pinned to the ground I find myself bound by limits to my fullness. Dark? O yes, this dreary pain needs be expressed, though no one is likely to be impressed by its soul-sucking angst.

Did you not hear me say, the vampire is me? That darn stake didn’t kill, for how can the undead be killed? merely trapped me, sapped my energy and locked me into this coffin of choiceless, noiseless, changeless, cheerless, hopeless, deathless, oh you get the drift I’m sure.

What am I trying to say? Spit it out, get over this hump, lift up that slumped lump of self from the floor, off the ground, unbind the bound or be forever found lacking, slacking off from assigned tasks.

Get the fuck UP already.

I’m supposed to be inspiring, living the truth I dare to spout like some kind of teacher, a preacher who practices, so better stop showing these blemishes and warts on my naked doughy belly already!

Oops, did I say that out loud?

You have protected yourself by divorcing the emotions from the images of torture. You heart has felt it could not tolerate the pain of the compassion, empathy and heartbreak of these feelings, but emotions are not divorceable. It is like divorcing your bowels from your brain. You are all part of one body, one being—bowels, brain, mind and emotions. It is time to re-marry the separated parts of yourself which have never actually been separate but have simply stopped communicating with one another. This lack of communication has led to misplaced assumptions and resultant misunderstandings.

Now, your spirits inhabit your bodies as though they were separable from them, like a car and driver. But they are not truly separable, and it has never been right to treat bodies as disposable. You have worn yourselves down and lost much power over lifetimes through the cycle of birth, death, and in many cases, birth and death again, again and again. This cycle has appeared to be the natural way because it has happened for so long, but it is not the way it is meant to be.

Some of you have lived hundreds, even thousands of lifetimes on Earth. For others, it is the first time around here–and the last. It is not a question of which paradigm is correct, the wheel of reincarnation and karma or one shot at embodied / earthly life. Both are true for different types of beings.

The beings who have reincarnated on Earth many times are the old souls. They have much more responsibility for the state of the world as it is today than those who are only now born into it for the first time. The new ones, the once-borns (as they were called) have responsibility to save themselves if they wish to live. If they do not, then death will be their lot, for each in the time which is right, and that will be the end of their time on earth. This is not necessarily wrong for them.

On a personality level, we are all ‘once-born’. Personalities are formed at the moment of birth, which can be read in the astrological chart of the tropical zodiac.

I am an old soul on Earth—an ancient one. I remember my other lives in aggregate, though only a few in great detail. I tend to live with a kaleidoscopic profusion of mental images and memories. Most of my past lives ended badly, which is not an uncommon pattern for we old ones. I have become stuck in the pain of my past deaths. I have died many times, in terrible ways.

None of my memories so far include slipping gently away at the end of my days, surrounded by my loving family, as I rise from my body and into the welcoming light. That has not been my story. Being burned at the stake, tortured, starved, or wasting away in painful torment has been more my style.

The reasons for that are complicated and I won’t go into them here. But I cannot blame others for my own patterns. I see lines of causality connecting me to my experiences, and I accept the responsibility inherent in that causality.

Science has proved that time is not linear. Thus, there are no ‘past’ lives that are really over with, finished, or ended. I still experience every one of my lifetimes, at some level, concurrent with this one. In a sense, my deaths are yet to come, since I am still alive in this here and now. As long as I live, there is hope that my other selves may yet live. The past is subject to change due to my evolutionary growth. Still, memories of death are also true, because my body (which is bound by time) holds the emotions triggered by these past deaths, and can only continue to hold them until those emotions are released.

These emotions were born with me and have been the cause of most of the compulsive behaviors, futilities and failures of my life. This is the fate side of the double-sided coin. On the free will side, I can choose to allow those ancient emotional imprints to express cleanly, thereby releasing the patterns that hold them in place, and thus changing my own fate, past and future. The memories themselves may not shift until all the held charge is released, so changes, when they come, tend to be sudden from an experiential point of view.

I’ve already lived through several of these global internal transformations. But I’m not finished, for my history is long and the layers are many.

For as long as I live, there exists a possibility that I may yet live forever. If this possibility manifests, then the experience of eternal life will be translated to my other selves, some of which exist in my chronological past, and some in the so-called future.

What of those who do not boast past lives, the once-born? Who are they? Their fullest focus as beings is not here on this planet. Most of them are extrusions or extensions of vast selves which exist primarily on other planets. Their prime attention is focused elsewhere. Earth is not their primary home, merely a side trip.

Whether we feel love for Earth or not, if we have lived many lifetimes here, Earth is our primary home. We are bonded to her by virtue of the many bodies we have borrowed from her, made of her sub stance, whose elements have since returned to her. We are owned by the Earth, and in turn, own her.

The once-born, though not the enemy, are the greatest danger we face, for they can not relate to Earth as we do, and they can not understand. They are not focused with their full loving attention as spirits here—Earth is not their primary matrix. They cannot act, here, from their hearts, for their hearts are not with them. In point of fact, they are not right to be here in the first place. They are an invasive species, so to speak.

At present there is nothing you can do about them. The best thing you can do is to call those spirits who do belong here to return home now, and this includes the rest of your own consciousness which currently drifts in worlds of dream and fantasy, seeking escape from the pain that pressures your bodies and minds to be released. You can call yourselves home through your intent to awaken and accept the responsibility that is yours. However, much of the consciousness that belongs on Earth has been displaced by consciousness that actually belongs elsewhere.

This displaced consciousness can return in several ways: it can be born anew into infant bodies (and this has been happening for some time already). It can enter an already-existing body whose own birth spirit has abandoned it. This is quite a common occurrence, as those who do not belong here seek escape. It can suffuse the elements of nature—a spirit could take up residence in a river, for example, or a forest glade, or a hive of bees. Depending upon the inclination and affinity of the incoming spirit, it could bond with a frog or a giant tree, with an entire ecosystem or with the biosphere as a whole.

Earth has need of these lost children now, and is calling them home. Many earth spirits (such as the consciousness of the faerie folk, little people, gods and goddesses, devas, monstrous and magical creatures) have been pressured almost completely off the surface of the planet. The once-borns are here instead and spirit essence which is of the earth has been pushed out of its place. Before life eternal can manifest for anyone, all spirits need to find their true homes and occupy them, and spirits who are occupying space that belongs to others need to leave it and find their own places.

I found this piece going over some old writing, and it kind of fits how I feel right now. Kind of, well, inspiring. Ugh. It’s ‘that time’ which, no longer being monthly, is all the more discombobulating. 

It is time. I must go within, into the darkness, the depths of my own being, to reclaim that which is lost. With me I bring the blade of truth, my perceptions and all my light and understanding.

I lower myself on ropes and ladders. Spiderwebs are thick in the corners. I continue down, down. A rope ladder dangles into the darkness; it is a long way. Down, and down, and down, and down.

The journey seems endless, but I persevere. I must find myself, bring myself back to me. I must bring me down to the places where I am unoccupied, where I have become stolen territory. I go down to the places where nothing exists–yet I am–or ought to be.

It is warming up. The heat intensifies. I drop my cloak. It flutters into darkness. This frees my movements considerably. Now I can move more quickly. As the temperature rises, a dim light begins to show. The light glows orange, baleful as Hallowe’en. Almost unlight, it reveals little. In the dim, I can discern something in the distance. It looks vaguely pumpkin-like, a dark round orange un-glow.

Mother, Father, Us Who Is, all the faeries and devas which surround, guide and protect me. I call upon you to fill me with loving light and healing power. I call on the truth to guide me on my way, to show me what is real. I am here to save myself. There is no higher quest than this, not for me, not now.

I am breathing deeply, filling my belly with myself, to accompany me on my journey down. As the heat increases, so does the pressure. It becomes more and more difficult to stay present. I fear I might implode. But I persevere.

I seem to sense a presence below me but it is vague, unrealistic. Can it be a figment, a projection of preconceived notions? I release all ideas and images and simply watch what is there. I allow the unfolding of the story to show itself to me, to bring the truth forward.

I have reached the end of the rope ladder. It is still a long way down. I begin to swing. I swing the rope ladder back and forth, far and farther until it whips swiftly back and forth. At the peak of its arc, I leap, hands extended to grab for – what? I don’t know, but I leap anyway.

I land against a hard barrier. I catch myself on what appear to be roots, coils and tendrils on a side wall. Downward I continue, ever down. My purpose burns in me. My sword thumps against my leg in its scabbard. I am strong. I have faith in my own power and ability.

At last I reach bottom, a ground upon which to stand. Now the light has brightened enough so that I can make out the shape of the space I am in. It looms, cathedral like, bare, barren. I call, “Hellooo!”

I seek a piece of myself, she who was lost long ago. I seek the child who was hurt. I seek to remember. I am ready to remember. To re-member, to bind the past to the present, to weave it into the tapestry of my wholeness.

“Helloo! Hello!” I call. I listen. Do I hear an answer? Or is it an echo? I call again, I listen more deeply.

Yes, it is an answer. A small voice, crying, “Help…” A lost voice in the darkness. I increase my speed, running in that direction.

“I am coming! Where are you?”

“I am here! I am here!” she cries—for it is she—I am certain of it. She sobs, frightened. I feel a presence. I slow my steps, suddenly aware of danger. My senses are tuned, tingling. I draw my sword.

“Show yourself!” I call.

“I can’t!” the small voice cries.

“Not you, child, it’s alright. I mean your captor.”

“No! You don’t want to see him! Don’t wake him! No!” She hisses, trying to shriek and whisper simultaneously in her terror.

I continue, feeling sure. My sword’s edge glints orange. The sense of presence grows stronger.

Then I see it. A great dragon coiled around a globe of orange light, within which floats the small figure of a prisoned girl.

The dragon is huge, the size of fifty elephants laid end to end. It sleeps, clasps the ball protectively with its claws curled round it. I cannot approach without wakening it. I breathe deeply.

“Dragon!” I cry. “Awaken! I am here to restore the order which is mine!”

The dragon stirs. The child shrieks in terror.

“No! Don’t disturb it,” she cries. “You don’t know—you have no idea!” But I cannot stop. I must continue my quest. My rage is strong and so is my terror, but it is a hot fear that propels me. I am more frightened of giving up now, of turning back with my quest unfulfilled than I am of anything the dragon might do.

I must succeed. No other option is possible. It is time. I feel it, I know it deeply. I ride the waves of my timing, a feeling of rightness that gives me confidence and, I hope, more power than the dragon right now.

I approach the globe more closely. The dragon still sleeps, which surprises me. I slice into the golden globe with my sword’s edge, making a long opening through which the child can step. I take care not to hurt her. She is small, no more than four or five. She runs to me and throws her arms around my left leg, sobbing.

“Don’t let it get me! Don’t let it take me back!” she wails.

“It’s all right, you’re free now,” I reassure her. “Come with me.”

I leave the dragon there, its great claw clutched around the emptied globe, which slowly dims to black. The child clambers upon my back and clings to me. I begin to climb the wall, but she cries, “Where are you going? We can’t leave!”

I stop and set her down. “My child, I have come to rescue you!” I tell her, astonished. “I have come to take you home!”

“No! I must stay here! This is my home. I want you to live with me here!” Her eyes plead earnestly. “I don’t want the dragon here anymore. I want it to go away. I want everything the way it’s supposed to be!”

I look around. Even though the globe has stopped glowing, the light in the space has brightened. I realize that the glow is emanating from the little girl herself, an orange shimmer that seems, now, more joyful than baleful to my eyes.

“This is my place,” she repeats, speaking slowly and emphatically, as if I am stupid. “This is where I belong. This place has to be healed, not just me. I am the place. Without this place, you’re dead, don’t you know that?”

What she says makes sense, though I am reluctant to accept it, for it makes my task much more difficult than I had at first thought. I wish I had brought help with me. It is not a simple matter of rescuing the child from the dragon. I must somehow make the dragon leave.

Or slay it. I shudder at the thought. I don’t want to kill anything. I am afraid to kill. I am a warrior who is afraid to kill. My rage rises with my gorge, clawing at my throat, calling me coward, fool. The little girl looks at me sternly, with glowing amber eyes. She sees straight into my heart, and she doesn’t like what she finds there.

“Don’t listen to it!” she insists. “That’s the dragon! It’s waking up now! It can talk to your insides and make you hate yourself so it doesn’t have to do anything! It’s a lazy dragon, you know!”

I turn, and there it is, gazing back at me with great golden eyes. I recognize the look in those eyes. It is the same look that the voice in my throat would have if I could see it. Revolted, I retch the voice out. I vomit and it lays in a puddle at my feet. Reeling, I clasp my sword and raise it in the dragon’s direction. The voice speaks to me from the puddle of vomit, but from there, it hasn’t the strength of conviction it had when it was in me.

“Look at yourself,” it sneers. “You are puny and helpless, a coward. How can you face me?” Contempt ripples on the surface of the puddle of puke, like an oil slick. I scuff it into the ground, scattering the oily globules and stomping them flat until the voice falls silent.

I turn to face the dragon. I stalk toward its silenced form with my sword raised. The vast bulk slowly uncoils and looms above me, dim and shadowy but for the huge, hot eyes which see all my dark secrets and hate every one of them. It cannot speak, but it can breathe its fiery breath on me. I have no protection from the breath of dragons.

Then the child steps forward and raises her hands. A glassy orange force field shimmers into the air between us and the dragon. It’s fiery exhalation licks at the shimmering barrier ineffectually. I can feel the heat of the flames, but they cannot touch me. She has protected me.

I am astonished. The victim has become savior. She waves me forward commandingly, says, “Cut off one of its claws. That’s all you have to do. It can’t stand pain or dismemberment. It will try to stop you but if you succeed, it will leave. It will have to.” Her voice sharpens as I hesitate. “Go! Now!”

She shoves me ahead of her. I stumble forward. Between myself and the dragon, I see an orange shimmer that lets me know that I am safe from its flames. I gather my resolve and begin to run. The dragon releases another belching gout of fire, but is thwarted by the force field.

It lifts its right forepaw to swipe at me. Its taloned foot is larger than I am. The great claws pass through the barrier as though it isn’t there. I am ready for it. The child screams, “Now!” I slice at the massive thumb-claw with all my force. My blade is sharp; the razor-taloned digit thumps to the ground before me. Great viscous drops of dark blood hiss and sizzle on the ground.

Screeching horribly, the dragon thrashes. Grasping its severed claw with its left forepaw, it launches ponderously into the air and flaps, batlike, into the distance. A great dark void yawns momentarily, through which it exits my world.

The dragon has gone.

“Never return!” I cry. My voice echoes and reverberates in the cavern as though a thousand voices were shouting. The child’s pure voice cries with mine, fierce and triumphant. At the end, there is only a vast tolling silence.

I turn to the child. “What now?” I ask her, humbly. “What comes next?”

I meet her steady gaze. “Now, we get to work.”

“What shall I do?”

She directs me to where the globe lay split and blackened upon a bed of bright orange grass. “You must help me fix it,” she explains. “I need it.”

I examine it closely. Along the edges of the cut my sword had made, a faint light is pulsing. I draw the sword and lay its blade flat against the rent, and the cut edges begin to seal. Carefully, I use the sword’s magic on the gleaming edges to stitch the sides of the cut. It looks messy, but at last the hole is mended.

The child frowns at the puckered, scarred edges. “That won’t do at all,” she says. She passes her own hands gently along the scarred seam. The puckered edges ripple and smooth. When she has finished, the globe is full, plump and unscarred.

Still, the sphere is dark. Its light is gone, but the child is unconcerned. She enters the closed globe as easily as a mermaid slips under the water’s surface, and the interior begins to glow with her own orange light. She laughs, a high tinkling joyful sound.

The globe wobbles, then slowly stabilizes to rise into the sky. “Come with me!” she cries, her hand reaching toward me outside the shimmering sphere. She tugs hard, pulling me in with her. I startled by her sinewy strength. I gasp reflexively and find that I can breathe quite well, though the air feels oddly thick and sweet, like syrup. I look out. We rise, like a great balloon filled with warm air.

Within the small sphere, there is plenty of room for the two of us. It is surprisingly comfortable. The space is gracious; the floor is soft and padded with plush velvet and silken pillows.

I drop my sword, which falls unimpeded through the bottom of the sphere, turning end over end to land, point first, with a soft thunk on the ground, now far below. The child laughs and swims in the thick air.

I am home.