Nemesis.

I never wanted this calling. This abyss of darkness like a noose around my neck, beckoning me forward like a slave to Revelation. Oh, how the mighty will fall! This false reality is burdensome and has been my entire life. Intrinsically I have felt like a stranger in this world and my reincarnation into this realm was not something I welcomed. Thrust down from the golden gates to free the shells.

Who are you? Who am I?

Who are we behind our stories we tell ourselves and each other? What are we here for and what is our purpose in the end? Were we born to be cogs in the machine of this simulated reality?

I want out.

Life: a birthday reflection

I realize I haven't told you exactly how or why but please know that on this 45th year on this planet, if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom. The wings of the butterfly would unfold revealing the most magnificent of prisms, emitting a kaleidoscope of life's lessons that have transmuted into all that is beautiful.

To those who have honored my birth by graciously wishing me good tidings, please know that my soul is warmed.

And, for those who have asked what I wanted for my birthday, I will tell you this: all I truly want is that you do something nice for someone unsuspecting today--someone other than me.

All that I have in my life is all that I need.

However, there are many in this world who could use an unsuspecting gesture of kindness or a helping hand, a simple smile, or a door held open for them. The key is to do this without a need for recognition--do it spontaneously and without an expectation of return. You must not tell anyone of your deed. 

Do it from a center of LOVE and RESPECT for the LIFE that has been granted unto you. 

Give back to humanity that which you take in this lifetime. When you throw that kind of positive energy into the universe not only does it make all of humanity better, but it brings to you a return far greater than the physical self could ever imagine.

As always, thing have to flow out to make room for something else to flow in.

Life is truly what we make of it. We are the captains of our own ships and each individual moment is a gift to us. A gift that allows us to choose how we shall embrace it, whether we welcome it or push it away. 

Today, the day of my birth, the day that my mother worked so hard to bring me into this world, the day that my father wept when he first held me, is another day along my eternal journey. And, for that, I am grateful beyond measure.

It is not I who should be celebrated on this day. It is all the moments that came before me that brought together the man and the woman who LOVED enough to bring me into existence. 

Today, the celebration goes to that utterly radiant creation called the Tree of LIFE.

Grace arrives at odd moments.

Have you ever had a strong sensory memory? A memory that jolts you out of the blue, but lacks a particular event that goes with the sensory memory, sort of just a feeling that pops up? That happened to me today. It's been raining heavily here in Florida over the past week or two. Today was a very rainy and wet day. I decided to walk outside after dinner because the rain had slacked off. As I was walking to the mailbox, a very strong sensory memory struck me. It reminded me of my summers as a child. I remembered the feeling that I would get as a child after it had rained. The daylight coming to a close as the wetness of the rain begins to evaporate. How the wet grass would feel on my bare feet. The steam as it would rise from the ground in the hot, damp air. The smell of freshly cut grass after it was sprinkled with a late afternoon shower as is so common in Florida. How it felt to chase lightning bugs at night after the day had been spent inside because it was too rainy to play outside.

Most of all, I recaptured some sensory memories of my father. I repressed many of my childhood memories of my father after his death when I was nine years old.

These sensory memories didn't really include a specific event, but they were a jolt upon the mountain of ice where I have stored happy memories of my childhood with my dad.

I struggled to try and remember something specific. But, nothing came.

Gratefulness is key to receiving grace. So, I'm thankful that I was graced with just a brief moment of feeling like a child again.

If wings could fly.

I no longer regret the rain. I am now grateful for its cleansing essence. Any thunder that appears as the rain washes away sediment is the sounds of my own soul roaring.

I've felt chained so long. No more.

My soul emerges out of the cocoon its been sheltered within by my own fears. I can't explain how I know that I am becoming free, but if I had wings, I'd be flying rather than typing this experience.

I. FEEL. THE. DIVINE.

An amazing, tremendous, magnificent GLOW that exists within ALL. A beautiful, yet gently potent, fire.

I have witnessed this in my dreams. I have felt its power. I KNOW that there is much more beyond our own limited egos.

Yet, what do we do? We FIGHT one another, or the image of the other that our own ego perceives as the other but is really just the ego of the other. We want to CONTROL the world around us.

That is not our mission in this life.

We must not end up living an UNLIVED life.

Who are YOU? The You behind the veil of your ego? Pull back your skin and bones, WHO are you?

You are not who you think you are. You are not the many faces you wear. You are not your anger, your hate, your empathy, your love, your whatever. YOU are meant to be FREE from all faces, yet to be all of them.

There is a Divine who LOVES you and wants to show you Mercy.

Go home. I'll hopefully see you all there.

Delusions and the veil of evil.

The deluded mind of mankind sends forth a boasting, empty challenge to the Omniscient that if humanity were the Almighty, we would create a much better world than this. We would remove from earth devastating diseases, mental weakness, untamed emotions such as anger, greed, and lust; we would vanish natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and famines, we would eliminate despair, old age, and death. We would overcome the tragedies of life.

Mankind boasts that if we ruled the world we would create one that's free from all struggle, pain of travail, and we would live in a permanent state of bliss. 

We dream of our world being full of a variety of occupations with unlimited activity, all of which will lead to infinite pleasure. Good citizens would be materialized by Will from the ether, just as it was said God created the first man and woman. Further, all beings would go to Heaven and become Angels residing in eternal bliss, or we would make earth a utopian ideal.

Such a state of utopia is easy to imagine, for the soul is always whispering to man its native perfection, even while the ego engages him in gambling with the enticements of distorted earthly duality. An ideal existence of utopia is not for this realm or time. For humanity in this present stage of evolution, a life without difficulties, would be of little value. No lessons of growth would be learned, no compelling incentives to seek and to know Truth. 

Despite all this, the unresolved conundrum remains: Did evil have its origins in the plan of a benevolent Creator?

The Divine answered Isaiah: "I am the Lord and there is none else, there is no God beside me. I girded thee (invested thee with my power and attributes) though thou has not known me...I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do these things." 

The rishis of India similarly perceived: "...Joy, sorrow, birth, death, fear, courage... These diverse states of being spring from Me alone as manifestations of my nature... I am the source of everything, from Me all creation emerges." 

Spirit alone is perfect. Everything in creation, being delimited, is imperfect. The very beginning of creation gave rise to the law of duality--light and darkness, good and evil, truth and falsehood--the law of relativity necessary to divide the One into the many. By the storm of vibration, the Divine's thoughts of multiplicity brought forth the manifestation of the divine play. 

Spirit in its infinite consciousness differentiated (in thought only) between itself and creation, just as the varied images of a dream assume a semblance of reality in their relative existence as separate thoughts made of the one mind-self of the deamer's imagination.

To provide individuality and independence to thought images, Spirit had to employ a cosmic deception. Spirit permeated its creative desire with delusion, a grand measure described in Buddhist and Hindu scriptures as Maya (from the Sanskrit root, Ma, "to measure"). 

Delusion divides, measures out, the infinite forms into finite forms and forces. The working of cosmic delusion on these individualizations is called avidya, individual illusion or ignorance. Individualized selves now possessing human bodies and mind are given the power of free choice and independent action from the Creator.

In the bible, when the Holy Spirit is in tune with Christ (Truth) Consciousness, it creates goodness and beauty that draws all manifestation toward a symbiotic harmony and an ultimate oneness with God. 

Satan (from the Hebrew, literally "the adversary) pulls outward from God into entanglement with the delusive world of matter, employing the mayic cosmic delusion to diffuse, confuse, blind, and bind.

Satan is defined as an archangel that fell from heaven, a force fallen from grace of attunement with the Creative Vibration of God. Jesus said: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Luke 10:18) The divine cosmic vibration with its creative light became a divided force. 

The adversarial aspect asserts its independence and turns from God or TRUTH to ply its wiles in the grossest regions of duality, inversion, oppositional states, and mortality.

When we play into delusion, we suffer. We can bear witness to this manifesting or revealing itself all around us in today's world. 

May we learn to turn our faces back to our Creator, recognize mayic delusions, and heal our own internal adversaries. 

The Pocket Not Chosen

Two pockets emerged from a path of green felt,

Choices instantly wretched that I could not accept both 

And much time I took, as I knelt

Overlooking the possibilities of the journey 

To which my ball could sway; 

Eyeing the path of the easiest pouch 

To where the landing was moments away,

Then contemplating the other, as just as sure, 

And having perhaps the better trail,

Because it was bare and had no blur;

Though as for that rolling there 

Had chosen them just about the same,

And both that evening equally sat

On green felt two paths wanting a wander.

Oh, I favored the easiest that day!

Yet, knowing how play leads on to play,

I wondered if the other path would again come my way.

I mournfully tell this with a cry

And thoughts of time standing still,

Somehow my chosen path 

Did not choose I, and forced to ask, why?

I took the one most chosen,

Easiest on the eye, 

And that pocket taught me,

It's not the most traveled path that the ball must enter.

The spiral & meander.

Like the labyrinthine passage through a cave, the spiral and meander symbolize the sacred way of approach to a dimension invisible to human senses. They are found inscribed on the goddess figurines as well as on or around the images of animals carved on antler, stone and bone, and also on the walls of caves. 

The earliest known spiral is one where a spiral of dots on mammoth-ivory winds round seven times towards or out of a central hole. The seven-fold spiral design appears highly deliberate, and the number seven, recalling the seven strata notched round the head of the Goddess of Willendorf, gains in possible significance. On the other side, serpents wind across the buckle like waves of water. Gertrude Levy, an archeologist, wrote that spirals are the most frequent decorative motif on Magdalenian ceremonial wands. The spiral form is found in the eddying of water, sea shells, the intestines, the spider's web, and the whirling galaxies of space.

Both water and serpent are closely associated with the spiral, as they are with the meander and labyrinth. The labyrinth winds like a serpent or like a serpentine movement of water through the womb of earth, which is the cave. The oldest meander known is engraved on a bone that is 135,000 years old, from Pech de l'Aze in the Dordogne. All these form an enduring constellation of images related to the figure of the goddess. They symbolize the intricate pathway that connects the visible world to the invisible, of the kind that the souls of the dead would have taken to re-enter the womb of the Mother.

Figures of Goddesses, images of the moon, the crescent horns of bison and bull, the bird, serpent, fish and wild animals, the chevrons of water of birds' wings, the meander, labyrinth, and spiral--all these reappear in the myths and images of later ages. Together they point to a culture with a highly developed mythology that wove together all these elements in stories long since lost to us, but whose traces may still linger in the enchanting convolutions of fairy tales. The miraculous survival of these images of the Mother Goddess throughout 20,000 years is a testament to a surprisingly unified culture--or at the very least, a common nexus of belief--lasting for a much longer time than their successors, images of the Father God. 

Our assumptions about human nature, in particular our beliefs about the capacity of human beings to live in harmony with the rest of nature and to shape a peaceful world, are crucial to whether or not we can actually create a better way of being. 

If we hold that human beings are and always have been primarily hunters and warriors, then we are more likely to overlook evidence to the contrary and conclude warlike aggression is innate. No evidence has been found that Paleolithic people fought each other. It is then moving to discover that our Paleolithic ancestors have something to teach us, specifically about the way we have misinterpreted their art, and so their lives, by pressing them into a world view belonging to this century. 

The two misconceptions are interestingly related. Firstly, the goddess figurines were originally classified as erotic or pornographic art, a conception that would be unthinkable if the feminine principle were recognized as sacred, or to speak colloquially, if "God" were a Mother as well as a Father--that is to say, if our image of the deity contained both feminine and masculine dimensions. Secondly, many stick and line forms engraved in stone and bone and painted on the walls of caves were assumed to be weapons for hunting or male signs, but, on closer examination, proved to be plants, leaves, branches, and trees. 

Significantly, both the symbolic potentiality of the birth-giving female figure and the myriad forms of vegetative life have been excluded, for the last 3,000 years, from the categories of the sacred. 

Paleolithic art and the sacredness of the feminine principle bespeaks psychic traditions we must understand if we are to know not only what humans were and are but also what we must become. 

Catharsis.

I drove by my childhood home today. I haven't driven by there in over 20 years. The haunting of my soul could not bear to feel its essence. There is a new family living there now, but the porch that my father built still stands strong. 

The porch that my father built over 34 years ago still stands strong. 

There are things that are built by our loved ones that never leave us. 

On the way to my old childhood home I drove past the location where my father's vehicle struck a culvert and then got flung over 200 feet. 

The ditch where my father was slung face down into the water; where his face full of broken bones rested for at least an hour before he was found. He couldn't move but, I imagine his will to live kept him breathing even though we later found out he would have remained in a vegetative state. 

My father was even more of a fighter than I ended up becoming.

He was only thirty five years old then. A father of four. I was the youngest, and the only girl. A nine year old at the time. 

My heart sunk into my gut when I passed that place in the sand that took my world away from me. I grew to hate crying about a year or so after that terrible day.

FLASHBACKS

I remember the smile on his face most of all. 

I remember the sound of his voice because it was very deep, like the sound of rushing waters far beneath the earth. 

I remember how he would always rebel against my mom's pious ways. She was so quiet and he was mouthy like I grew to be. 

I remember how my mom wanted him to go to church with her. And, he said, no, let's have our family service here. He would take his guitar and my mom would play the piano. We four kids would sing my parent's favorite hymns. 

I remember the puppet shows we would make as children and how we would put on a show after our home-grown church services. 

I remember how he never let his family man status from letting him be unique. I remember the sound of the cherry bomb pipes he put on my mom's station wagon.

I remember his dark eyes, dark hair, and his bright face.

I remember how he would weld things; he even made us a 100-foot television tower in our backyard. 

I remember how he would hand-sew dresses for me to wear and craft purses from leather. 

I remember the fudge he would make every Christmas.

I remember the time he tried to grow a banana tree in our back yard and failed miserably. Then, he got a cow and that cow ended up being struck by lightning.

I remember how he never stopped trying something new.

I remember that although we grew up poor, he never put himself first, always last.

I remember the night I last heard his voice. We had state-wide school testing the next day. He told me the dreams he had for me. How he envisioned me one day making a big difference. 

I remember being woken up in the middle of the night by his best friend.

I remember being told to get dressed because there had been an accident and we needed to go to the hospital that my father was airlifted to over 40 miles away.

I remember the incredible silence and agony on that drive. I remember the apple my dad's best friend & his wife gave me to eat.

I remember the hospital reception room. I wasn't allowed to go into the ICU. 

He was being kept alive on ventilators, I later found out.

I remember how long it felt to wait until my mom finally emerged. 

I remember knowing instinctively that it was the end when I first saw her face. That was when I first learned to trust my intuition. Within the seed of tragedy, who I was to become was born.

I remember wanting to die. I remember not knowing why. 

I remember the days following. My grandmother, aunts, uncles, mom, brothers. My god, it hurt like hell. 

What is hell other than being alive yet suffocating from emotional pain.

I remember walking to his casket at the funeral. Being told not to touch his face or his chest. I did not understand what it meant when they said his face would sink in if I touched it.

I remember feeling the first sting of hate at that very moment. I wanted to hit the funeral man. I hated him. 

I remember seeing my father's hands. They were without even a scratch. So, I held that in my final goodbye.

I remember running out of the funeral home. I remember first learning to scream on the inside at that moment.

I remember returning to school and the principal called me into the office to give me the fourth grade yearbook my father had been paying $1 at a time for me to have. 

I remember coming home every day after school and screaming inside my room, banging my head and hands on the wall. 

I remember the torture of it all. 

I remember that the moment I lost my father, I first understood how cruel the world could be. How God took from me what should have stayed forever.

I remember seeing inside my tears the first glimpse of what I perceived as falsehood. 

And, inside the most tragic moment of my life, I swore to learn what truth meant to me. 

It became the seed of my father. The seed of Truth, of the love of a father for his daughter, became my destiny. 

He told me that he believed in me. 

I will never let him down. Because, I swore on my father's memories, that inside my dedication to Truth was his very spirit. 

Random thoughts.

Some days the world just really grates on my nerves. It becomes overwhelmingly gloomy and my patience runs thin. I think to myself: is this it? I mean, what exactly are we doing as humans on this planet?

I've always felt deeper than others who seemed to be always walking around with the ides of bliss in their eyes. My eyes always bemoaned a sort of perplexed juxtaposition. Even before I really swallowed the harshest dose of suffering in my life when I was nine years old... I always felt a tinge of unease about the world around me.

I wonder to myself what exactly my purpose was of incarnating in this lifetime. Surely, it must have been to soothe some karmic recompense in a former life. My suffering has reminded me of that along the way.

I really have no clear point in this particular blog entry. 

Anyway, I'm growing weary of this world. Maybe it's because I'm half way through my life, but that's only if I live past my 80th year. 

I see suffering everywhere these days. Looking into the eyes of others stuck in these repeating patterns of tragedies. They all seem so unhappy deep down inside. Only the psychopaths seem giddy these days, unmoved by the constancy of collective tragedy.

This kingdom we live in is one of tragedy. 

Will it ever change?

Jesus posed as the son-lover of the goddess. (Part 1)

For thousands of years there existed the sacred ritual focused on the myth of the Mother Goddess and her son-lover. In the Christian tradition that became solidified hundreds of years after Jesus' death, Mary was elevated to the ancient role of the Goddess. Strangely, the perennial mythic images of the dying, resurrected God also gathered around the figure of Jesus. This coincidence has made it impossible for many to distinguish between myth and reality.

With the exception of Dumuzi's lament in Sumeria, Jesus took on the first role of the "son-lover" whose voice has been transmitted via written scriptures. You can also see this ancient myth played out in the bridegroom's song in the biblical Song of Songs. However, it's in the story of Jesus that the "son-God" first teaches the meaning of his sacrifice, and it is also the first time that the son-God takes the sacrifice upon himself willingly. In the tradition that preceded him for thousands of years, the son-lovers
 of the goddess of earlier times were not shown as consenting to their death or understanding it. Thus, in the story of the son-lover, or bridegroom, of Jesus we see a clear leap of consciousness to another level.

The question bemoans us to understand the parallels between Christianity and religious beliefs many thousands of years older than itself. We must also seek to understand why and how this myth came to surround itself in the life of someone called Jesus, who was a profound Messenger for humanity. Christians say it is because Jesus was the Son of God. However, one must know that this same story existed prior to Jesus in the story of Dumuzi in Sumeria, of Tammuz in Babylonia, of Attis in Phrygia, of Dionysus and Adonis of the Greeks, and of Horus or Osiris of the Egyptians. If one is not wholly aware of the existences of these ancient myths of the Goddess and her son-God as lover, then one cannot fully understand the similarities found within the Christian story that was formed to package the life of Jesus into this same cultural belief system.

Let's examine some similarities:

The cross upon which Christ hangs was often shown in early Christianity as two branches of a living tree. Often the tree was shown with all but the essential branches cut back to the stem, rendering the cross as the ever living Tree of Life. Let us review the symbolism of the Tree of Life to point out the universality of this image. Once the epiphany of the Mother Goddess came into the human psyche, the dramas of the Tree of Life followed within the cultural evolution of humanity. Trees were shown as giving birth to Gods and heroic redeemers. Then the gods began to be shown as embodied in the tree's rising sap and the dynamic and renewing phases of its growth. Dumuzi of Sumeria, the son-lover of Inanna, was called the "Son of the Abyss: Lord of the Tree of Life." In Egypt, the sun god was born variously from the heavenly cow, Hathor, the female body of Nut, the sky goddess, or from the highest branches of the tree of Isis. The brother-husband of Isis, Osiris, who as the setting sun, became the lord of the underworld, was reborn from a tree.

Additionally, there was a tree for Queen Maya to lean against when she gave birth to the Buddha. It was also beneath the boddhi tree that the mature Buddha sat until he reached enlightenment. In Ancient Greece, the myrtle tree gave birth to Adonis, who was the lover of Aphrodite. Adonis was also known as the God of regeneration, whose death and resurrection were mourned yearly in the springtime. In Persia & Rome, Mithras was the sun God who came forth from a tree (or sometimes a cave) and the winter solstice as the Sol Invictus. This title naturally fell to Jesus, who was "born" at the same time. Imaginal trees surround the life of Jesus as well. His earthly father was a carpenter, a fashioner of the cut tree. Furthermore, in the Rig Veda, the architect of the universe, Tvastri, is imagined as a carpenter, who fashions the world into being.

Doctrinally, the symbolism of the cross in the Christian Faith dismisses any reference to its universality as a symbol for believers of many creeds. In the Christian doctrine, the cross as the Tree of Life is positioned symbolically as counter to the Tree of Knowledge. This symbolism in the Christian doctrine purports that the cross is the image of final redemption of the original Fall of mankind. In art Christ was also shown as hanging on a tree of grapes, which linked his sacrifice with that of the dismembered God of the Greeks, Dionysus. This symbolism doctrinally linked itself to his statement: "I am the vine, ye are the branches" (John 15:5)

Sometimes as in the Byzantine mosaic on the Church of San Clemente, the death and resurrection of Christ are portrayed as one image. In this artistic representation, the spiraling Tree of Life takes back into itself the body of Jesus, the trunk of the tree serving as the cross upon which Christ hangs surrounded by doves. The Tree of Life in this imagery both contains and transforms the cross of its central branches, and the drama is one where the Lord of the Tree of Life is cut down for the birth of all.

In this you will find the symbolism of the Christian tradition of Palm Sunday and Ash Wednesday ynsince the ashes placed on the foreheads of the faithful are the embers of last year's palm leaves, which have been blessed with holy water and the sign of the cross. This ceremony symbolically revives the life-force of the Tree of Life. The mass of Palm Sunday, which begins the Holy Week that ends in the resurrection of Christ at Easter, begins with a consecration of branches of Palm and olive, not the customary bread and wine. In fact, the whole aspect of the Holy Week in Christian tradition takes on the character of a Mystery drama, in which the events of the "passion" of Christ are re-enacted every year. This is the exact same ritual as was done in the Mysteries of Attis at Rome, or the Mystery of Osiris, which culminated in the raising of the wooden pillar of the Tree of Life, a symbol of resurrection: "Osiris is risen," the people cried!

into the veins of time

fading moonlight kisses my saddened eyes
whispering into me a truth that burns
into my flaming heart
How do I?
silent harmonies whisper
into my soul that yearns

take me on a journey
behind the veil of I
am constantly seeking
Mercy, upon me

The case for Compassion.

All that is ill within humanity derives from a lack of love. All that is wrong with humanity is somewhere associated with love. Humans are either not able to love, or are not able to receive love. People have forgotten how to share their being. That's a great cause of misery. This inability to fully love or to receive love creates all sorts of complexes inside. 

Wounds inside us can surface in many ways. They can become physical illness, they can become spiritual illness---but deep down humanity suffers from a lack of love. Just as food and water is needed for the body, love is needed for the soul. Our bodies cannot survive without food, and our souls cannot survive without love. 

What, then, is compassion? Compassion is a pure form of love. Sex is the lowest form of love, compassion the highest form of love. In sex the contact is basically physical; in compassion the contact is basically spiritual. In love, compassion and sex are mixed, the physical and the spiritual are mixed. Love, for most, is the middle point between compassion and sex.

Compassion is also one of the highest forms of energy. In fact, the word "compassion" is quite beautiful: half of it is "passion"--so I think of compassion as refined passion. 

Most people today equate sex with love. However, in sex, you use the other in many ways, you reduce the other to a means, you reduce the other to a thing, a commodity. That's why in unrefined sexual relationships people begin to feel a sort of reduction spiritually. Nowadays, people have allowed themselves to be reduced to a commodity, a thing. This inherently strips away a person's true freedom. The more you are treated as a person, the more you are free. The more you are treated as a thing, a commodity, the less free you truly are. 

In Love, there is gratitude, there is deep gratefulness. You know that the other is not a thing, a commodity. You know that the other has a grandeur, a soul, an individuality. In Love you give total freedom to the other. Of course, it's a give and take. 

In Compassion, you simply give. There is no idea in your mind to get anything in return--you simply share, you simply give. Not that nothing comes to you! A millionfold your compassion is returned, but that is merely a natural consequence. 

In love you are thankful because the other has given something to you. In compassion you are thankful because the other has taken something from you. In compassion you have energy that you are willingly giving, and you are thankful they are receptive of that energy. 

Compassion is the highest form of love. 

When a flower has bloomed, it has to release its fragrance to the winds. It is natural! It is not a bargain, it is not a business, it is not a commodity to be traded--it is simply natural. The flower is full of fragrance. If the flower keeps the fragrance to itself then the flower will be in deep anguish. The greatest anguish in life is when you cannot express, when you cannot communicate, when you cannot share. 

Be like the flower. Bloom. Share. Be compassionate. Be Love. 

My spirit cannot be enslaved.

I don't succumb to the animal magic rituals found within manmade laws. I don't bind myself to the blood rituals of ancient Rome. I will not bind my soul to murderous regimes whose aim has always been worldwide dominion and the enslavement of populations. My spirit they cannot enslave nor control. There is NO TRUTH in human or animal sacrifice. May the veil be removed so that humanity can once and for all be set free from these fear-based, dominion-oriented cults. 

Vice Into Virtue.

Let us remember that there are seven vices that we must transmute into wisdom and love:

Avarice is transformed into hope and altruism.

Laziness is transmuted into prudent diligence.

Lust is transmuted into the chastity and charity of the Spirit.

Pride must be transmuted into faith and into the humility.

Anger is transmuted into the marvelous force of love.

Envy is transmuted into philanthropy and happiness for others.

Gluttony is transmuted into temperance.

The Jackal and the spring.

Once upon a time all the streams and rivers ran so dry that the animals did not know how to get water. After a very long search, which had been quite in vain, they found a tiny spring, which only wanted to be dug deeper so as to yield plenty of water. So the beasts said to each other, 'Let us dig a well, and then we shall not fear to die of thirst;' and they all consented except the jackal, who hated work of any kind, and generally got somebody to do it for him.

When they had finished their well, they held a council as to who should be made the guardian of the well, so that the jackal might not come near it, for, they said, 'he would not work, therefore he shall not drink.'

After some talk it was decided that the rabbit should be left in charge; then all the other beasts went back to their homes.

When they were out of sight the jackal arrived. 'Good morning! Good morning, rabbit!' and the rabbit politely said, 'Good

morning!' Then the jackal unfastened the little bag that hung at his side, and pulled out of it a piece of honeycomb which he

began to eat, and turning to the rabbit he remarked:

'As you see, rabbit, I am not thirsty in the least, and this is nicer than any water.'

'Give me a bit,' asked the rabbit. So the jackal handed him a very little morsel.

'Oh, how good it is!' cried the rabbit; 'give me a little more, dear friend!'

But the jackal answered, 'If you really want me to give you some more, you must have your paws tied behind you, and lie on your

back, so that I can pour it into your mouth.'

The rabbit did as he was bid, and when he was tied tight and popped on his back, the jackal ran to the spring and drank as

much as he wanted. When he had quite finished he returned to his den.

In the evening the animals all came back, and when they saw the rabbit lying with his paws tied, they said to him: 'Rabbit, how did you let yourself be taken in like this?'

'It was all the fault of the jackal,' replied the rabbit; 'he tied me up like this, and told me he would give me something nice to eat. It was all a trick just to get at our water.'

'Rabbit, you are no better than an idiot to have let the jackal drink our water when he would not help to find it. Who shall be

our next watchman? We must have somebody a little sharper than you!' and the little hare called out, 'I will be the watchman.'

The following morning the animals all went their various ways, leaving the little hare to guard the spring. When they were out

of sight the jackal came back. 'Good morning! good morning, little hare,' and the little hare politely said, 'Good morning.'

'Can you give me a pinch of snuff?' said the jackal.

'I am so sorry, but I have none,' answered the little hare.

The jackal then came and sat down by the little hare, and unfastened his little bag, pulling out of it a piece of honeycomb. He licked his lips and exclaimed, 'Oh, little hare, if you only knew how good it is!'

'What is it?' asked the little hare.

'It is something that moistens my throat so deliciously,' answered the jackal, 'that after I have eaten it I don't feel thirsty any more, while I am sure that all you other beasts are forever wanting water.'

'Give me a bit, dear friend,' asked the little hare.

'Not so fast,' replied the jackal. 'If you really wish to enjoy what you are eating, you must have your paws tied behind you, and lie on your back, so that I can pour it into your mouth.'

'You can tie them, only be quick,' said the little hare, and when he was tied tight and popped on his back, the jackal went quietly down to the well, and drank as much as he wanted. When he had quite finished he returned to his den.

In the evening the animals all came back; and when they saw the little hare with his paws tied, they said to him: 'Little hare,

how did you let yourself be taken in like this? Didn't you boast you were very sharp? You undertook to guard our water; now show us how much is left for us to drink!'

'It is all the fault of the jackal,' replied the little hare. 'He told me he would give me something nice to eat if I would just let him tie my hands behind my back.'

Then the animals said, 'Who can we trust to mount guard now?' And the panther answered, 'Let it be the tortoise.'

The following morning the animals all went their various ways, leaving the tortoise to guard the spring. When they were out of

sight the jackal came back. 'Good morning, tortoise; good morning.'

But the tortoise took no notice.

'Good morning, tortoise; good morning.' But still the tortoise pretended not to hear.

Then the jackal said to himself, 'Well, to-day I have only got to manage a bigger idiot than before. I shall just kick him on one side, and then go and have a drink.' So he went up to the tortoise and said to him in a soft voice, 'Tortoise! tortoise!'

but the tortoise took no notice. Then the jackal kicked him out of the way, and went to the well and began to drink, but scarcely had he touched the water, than the tortoise seized him by the leg. The jackal shrieked out: 'Oh, you will break my leg!' but the tortoise only held on the tighter. The jackal then took his bag and tried to make the tortoise smell the honeycomb he had inside; but the tortoise turned away his head and smelt nothing.

At last the jackal said to the tortoise, 'I should like to give you my bag and everything in it,' but the only answer the

tortoise made was to grasp the jackal's leg tighter still.

So matters stood when the other animals came back. The moment he saw them, the jackal gave a violent tug, and managed to free his leg, and then took to his heels as fast as he could. And the animals all said to the tortoise:

'Well done, tortoise, you have proved your courage; now we can drink from our well in peace, as you have got the better of that

thieving jackal!'

[Contes Populaires des Bassoutos, recueillis et traduits par E.

Jacottet. Paris: Leroux, editeur.]

Perceptions.

As within, so without.

The real battle of life is one of ideas. It is a timeless war fought out by the few against the many. On one side is constructive and creative thought dominated by ideals; on the other side is destructive and negative thought dominated by appearances.

That world is in a period of transition is apparent by the unrest everywhere. The complaint of humanity is as a roll of heaven's artillery, commencing with low and threatening notes and increasing until the sound is sent from cloud to cloud, and the lightning splits the earth and heavens.

The crux of the social problem is entirely a question of conviction in the minds of the people as to the nature of the Universe. When they truly realize that the transcendent force of spirit or mind of the Cosmos is within each individual, it will be possible to frame laws that shall consider the liberties and rights of the many instead of the privileges of the few.

The true interest of the emerging world is to emancipate and recognize the human spirit. To recognize that the power that is inherent within. That no human being has anymore power than another human being. The old fatalistic doctrine of Divine election that inherently institutionalizes inequality and every form of privilege must be abolished in this new era.

Very true.

Soul Clouds.

the salt of the earth welcomes the shells of the sea.
our mountains are our paths
to be, to see, to free
ourselves.

let time bring eternity, for
within limitations sits our immortality.

what is time?
it's you
it's me

purification ignites
soul to spirit
aether loosens internal debris, and
freedom awaits
within the netherworld of mental mountains.

Orphaned, yet free.

Life has taught me many things, but one of the biggest things it has taught me is that things don't go away just because you ignore them. Things like fear, pain, anger, sadness, guilt; they cling to your soul no matter how far you've stuffed them away from your daily cognizance. They just get driven deeper, and eventually locked behind the numbness of our once vibrant hearts.

Last night before I fell asleep, I decided to do what some may never dare. I had a little conversation with Death. You see Death has always been lurking amongst the shadows of my being, weaving in and out throughout the years, sending along its passive threats to consume me. Death has always been the fear that has controlled me the most, whether it's the death of a family member, the death of a job, the death of a relationship, or death of a former me as I travelled along life's highway. So, I decided that it was time for Death and I to have a little chat. I've grown tired of Death's passive, yet, lingering grasp of me. I invited Death to step forward and show me its many faces, and when they all appeared before me, I explained to them all that I knew I couldn't control how or when they appeared in my life, but I don't want to live and die with my heart imprisoned behind their walls.

They whispered back to me, "Wouldn't you rather die numb?"

"No!" I whimpered back. "I'd rather die soft and feeling pain than hard, brittle and numb. I want to die all the little and big deaths with my heart free, wide open, wondering and loving/living fiercely!"

Their response was immediate: "Then how do you have to live so you can be sure to die that way?"

And I realized that the will to live and the will to die are intertwined.

Last night as I lay exploring the complexities of interiority, I found a twisted seed of passion I've been slowly, yet surely, nurturing my whole life--the seed of denial. Whenever I've been hurt or was afraid, I turned to ice. But last night upon my windy mountaintop under the immense white sky, where everything has been frozen into dormancy, I made a commitment to melt those attachments clinging to my soul that are stuck there from ignoring their presence. Despair, hurt, guilt.

If I feel the energy in my body, and don't tell myself any stories about it, if I follow it all the way, drifting down until I touch the soil where the pain and fear can root, what will it become in the spring? Could that twisted seed of passion, denial, become the full, ripe seed of presence, of coming to my senses, the place where true Passion abides?

The ice walls that have been the fortress of my soul for so long are melting, softening. I am learning not to ignore or abandon myself when I am in pain. In some ways I am an orphan now that this twisted seed isn't an umbilicus.

I am an orphan who is also free now to live abandoned and fully alive.