The day had began hot. I woke up and flung the doona off my body and lay there wishing a minute was an hour. My morning routine consists each day of shower, meditate, make coffee, get lunch, get daughter and go. But on this particular day all that seemed like entering into a marathon that started with a gunshot; a shock to the etheric body. It’s my will that usually pushes me into the rhythm, my will that gives when there is nothing left to give. It seems I am relying on my will without remembering that is not the only thing to be relied upon. It seems in the last month, I have lost my spirit.

Often, when I am, alone, I have a fleeting flash of a memory, of being beyond this world. I have never had a near death experience, but I have left my body on occasion and these memory flashes speak to a world without limit, or suffering. It is a lost memory, that every now and then I recover, of being bodiless, weightless, worry-less. I then feel a pang of grief and after that, a sense that I am not ‘home’. When I was younger I could have sworn that reality was a cruel joke, that this was not IT. Later in life, during a meditation Rama said, “This is not THE reality.” It then made sense to me why I felt homesick. If this was not THE reality, I was not home, for the true reality, where I vaguely recalled being free, was beyond this heavy world.

So I found myself on this day, feeling as though I had a spiritual hangover, had forgotten I had another home, had lived without a body and was very much at the forefront of being sucked into a vortex of smallness, of work, of tunnel vision and humanity. I rise, go through the motions and seek out the tasks I have to fulfil and then sit in the car, in the quiet waiting for my child to finish brushing her teeth. This is the only time I have, where I AM.

I have not yet found MYSELF this week. I seek out sleep and comfort. I seek out quiet and spaces where there are no demands and I wonder why this week is so hard? I call my mother in law and she alerts me to the fact that something is about to shift. That the stars have a lot to say about a change in the human experience of reality. I wonder am I picking up on this huge shift and feeling the heaviness of it in my being? Is anyone else?

I’ll ask Rama….’Seeking out spiritual comfort is a natural state. The soul resides not only in the body, but permeates all that it encounters. Is influenced by all it takes into itself. This is then processed, formulated and expressed as soul life. The life of a soul is an ever undulating wave of being, moving and shifting like the waters of the ocean. Only when the waters are still can the soul rest and find comfort.’

I ask, ‘But how do I do this? I am so tired all the time. I am so busy all the time.’

’First see that moments in time are all eternal, each one. Time is not linear. A moment sits in the realm of eternity. Each moment holds the opportunity to find stillness. But it is inner stillness, not outer movement that offers the space for peace. To do this when in the tunnel, when in the hive of activity one must become the centre of the wheel that spins. Stand and see that you are the centre of time spinning around you. Stand still inside, for that moment, and do not seek the next. Stay in that moment and all will become still.’

To be still, to reside in peace amidst chaos. I ruminate on this and find myself pausing. The stillness is there.

How to work with energetic boundaries is an aspect of metaphysics that took me a long time to truly understand. When I was young I had no idea what they were, let alone how to maintain my energetic boundaries. Being on the extremely sensitive side as child, I remember feeling uncomfortably overwhelmed when around other people. Looking back now, I realise it was uncomfortable because I found it hard to separate my feelings, from other people’s feelings who were in my orbit. My personal boundaries were very ‘soft’.
If one is an empath it is a natural state of being to tune into others and so one’s energy boundaries are naturally quite fluid. From what others have shared with me it seems it is a common experience for empathic people to absorb other people’s emotions without realising this is what is happening. For the empath, the result can often be confusion as to what is being felt simply because the feeling being experienced is not theirs. This brings me to the question; how can one deal with the emotions flooding their heart and make sense of them, when their source is from someone else? The answer is, you can’t and that is where the problem lies.

During my younger years I was an energy sponge, constantly absorbing the emotions that floated in the ether around me and I did not handle it well. As a result of all the absorbing I did, I was seen as emotionally ‘messy’ by my parents and my older sister. I began to develop a complex about this inability to switch off from all I was picking up on, which in turn then created within me quite severe social anxiety because each time I stepped into the space of another, I would feel what they were feeling, making it impossible to act ‘normal’. As a result I did not enjoy socialising and was not able to navigate the world of people and for many years did not stop immersing myself in the feelings of others. Very soon my soft boundaries led me to feel responsible for how other people felt, which lead to letting people in who did not always have the best intentions.

I then began to observe this type of letting in due to soft boundaries, not only within myself, but in others who were similar to me. I recognised that once a person is ‘in’ and was often let in due to an empathic response of sympathy, it can be difficult to get them out. If the other person has a strong will and the person who has soft boundaries is linked empathically to them, then what that strong-willed person dictates to be true, will be felt by the empath and believed to be true. Being empathic leaves one vulnerable to this kind of psychic attack where the attitude of the person let in can influence the thinking of the empathic person to their own detriment. This is why learning to develop firm energetic boundaries is crucial to a healthy spiritual life.

Now sympathy and empathy are two variables at the heart of having soft boundaries. I find that when I am interacting with someone, I search for a point of connection. I naturally try to find the energy point within the interaction that will link me with that person. I imagine this is what everyone does as a human being, as every soul is by nature empathic. Yet some are naturally able to disconnect their energy from others out of self preservation and this is where the creating of firm boundaries begins. Self preservation is not about being selfish, it’s about preserving one’s wellbeing by not interacting with another in an unhealthy way, so one pulls back and self-protects. But my need to be so open was not simply born out of lack of self preservation. It was also born out of the desire to help others. You see, I felt at first that if I disconnected empathically to create a firm boundary, I would lose my ability to connect, to be caring, and as a result would not be able to fully comprehend the human being before me. I felt I would be stuck in my own sense of me, left unable to support. It was a compromise I was not willing to make and I chose the act of connecting empathically so I did not fall into selfishness. I just wanted to care, to give and to feel what the other felt. This inability to find the right balance lead me to relationships with controlling people, and to being bullied by other adults who did know how to set up boundaries so strong that they felt little empathy at all towards the response of others towards them. Deep down I envied them and their detachment. But this is not what I wanted. If I were to work as a healer and help others, switching off to the perception of another, switching off to their pain, was not an option.

This is where is I began to learn about equal energy exchange, and this was to be my saving grace. What I realised was, I had been confusing connecting in a healthy way, with connecting in a way that was so empathic that I lost myself in the other person. I was not honouring my own energy, I was not honouring what I gave out and what I received. I was not giving myself pause to collect my energy and assess what an equal exchange between myself and another was. I just let it flow so freely within the exchange, that I did not know how to say, no, this energy does not belong to me therefore it is not mine to take on, or help heal for that matter. As a result if I were pushed around by another person, no matter how terrible their behaviour, I would always find a way to feel responsible for it. I would think I had ‘attracted’ it and so deserved it, or I would think I deserved the poor treatment because I had allowed the dynamic to happen in the first place.
An equal exchange of energy does not leave one feeling tied up in knots. We have to develop an awareness that feeling tied up in knots when interacting is a result of soft boundaries and not being able to see whose energy was whose.
If we interact with someone who is trying to manipulate for whatever reason, we will feel it in our solar plexus, the place where self worth resides and having soft boundaries wreaks havoc with my self worth.

I consistently felt I was to blame for any cruelty I experienced at the hands of another. So my self-worth diminished from childhood to adulthood. I let all sorts in and as a result, my sense of what I deserved became rather skewed. So at that time the exchange of energy between myself and others was not created with consciousness. If it happened in a way that was equal and pure it happened by default rather than a higher level of being. Seeing this dynamic consciously was the first step I had to take, which led to a deeper understanding of how it needed to work.

Having healthy energetic boundaries is essential in protecting us, but to do no harm to another means the intention must not be malicious when setting up the boundary.

When setting up healthy boundaries that lead to equal exchanges of energy there has to be a choice made, not to take too much from the other and not to give more than one is able to give. If we take too much, whether this be in the form of time or money, whether it be in the form of wanting compliments or attention because of our insecurities, we will be left feeling unbalanced and so will the person, or people we have taken from. On the other hand if we give too much, if we give away too much of our personal freedom, our ideas, our thoughts, our secrets and our money, or time, then we will be left feeling empty and unfulfilled because here is the spiritual truth deep down we all know: no one can fill the void within us. If we expect others to try, then we are asking the impossible. And this is where energetic boundaries become crucial. If they are not set up in a healthy way, then we will allow others to take from us to fill a void within them. If we do this, we will be drained completely because we can’t fulfil another’s needs to the point where they are full and neither can another fulfil our every need. Therefore we need to recognise when this dynamic is in place, and question, am I giving or taking in a way that is based in the shadow self, in the Archetype of the Prostitute? The shadow-self exchange of energy based in the Archetype of the Prostitute is the worst kind. Here the intention is based in darkness where we literally prostitute our energy out and completely give away our personal power and in these cases one must develop extremely firm boundaries.

But again, it all comes back to treating the space we take up in the world as sacred. This is the complete opposite to working from the shadow self when interacting with others. If we can see and know that we are sacred beings, not because we have earned the right to call ourselves this, but because we are in essence light beings having a human experience, then we can call our own space sacred. With this perspective in mind we can also approach others with a reverence for their sacred space and so when energy is exchanged, each will hold a space for the other, to exist in their own being, without violating their boundaries.

It is important to sit firmly in the understanding that we can give endless amounts to others and still have this be an equal exchange of energy if we draw the energy from the right place, from an endless source that resides within us, a source that is inexhaustible, a source that is eternal love. Giving and receiving from the spirit never leads us into a situation where boundaries are crossed or there is an imbalance in an interaction with others.

Rama has always encouraged me to work from a place of peace and stillness, to work from a space that is quiet and centred.

‘Cause the least amount of karma, withdraw your plans, your actions into inaction and peace.

Work only with the heart through meditation and stillness.

This needs be the focus; stillness and inaction based in love and observation of what is pure, natural and good.’

The ‘How To’ in Summary:

1. Acknowledge that you are a sacred being, so treat your personal boundaries as sacred.
   
2. Work towards healing a lack of self worth by knowing that you have the right to be here and to receive unconditional love not because you have earned it, but because you are essentially a spirit that is pure when beyond this world.
3. Become aware that you cannot give, or take, in a way that harms another for we must all honour the sacredness in each other.
4. Understand that you are allowed to say no. Actually… learn to say no if you are always inclined to say yes to please others. Just to be clear, this will cause discomfort in others but it is not to be considered ‘doing harm’. This discomfort is one of the main reasons boundaries are hard to hold; we don’t want to cause other people discomfort and so kick into people-pleasing mode.
5. Know when to stop. Or at least try to sense when it is time to close down the dynamic and stop giving too much, or taking too much.
6. Know when you have said enough.
7. Learn to recognize statements that are self effacing and said to please the others. This is a clear indicator that our boundaries have softened. So slam your trap shut when you feel the impulse to do this!
8. In a social dynamic for a few seconds at one point give yourself permission to sit back and breath, particularly if you feel a headache coming on, feel your heart rate increase, or your body heat up around your neck, chest and face. Just be still even if it’s for a second, and just be still in your own space.

Standing on a dirt road many years ago I wandered early in the morning. I had woken to the sound of strange birds, their calls different to the Victorian birds that sang in the background of my life. Over a period of a year I had begun to hear my spirit guide Rama communicate more clearly and as I walked along the road that weaved throughout the lush trees of Nimbin, he spoke freely, answering my questions. I had been left by my boyfriend at the time and found myself briefly homeless up north, too far away from family to find solace and without as much as $50 in my bank account, not enough to get home; a 16 hour bus fair I could not yet afford.

My friend Angela had answered her landline and in a desperate plea, I asked if I could come and stay until I had found my feet again. She was a two hour bus ride away from the town I’d found myself in. I remember how the sun rose differently each morning to home. It rose with heat and yellow light, a light that seemed to move the green colours of the forest around me, outside of itself and into an ethereal space, pulsating out against the bluest sky.
The question line I had been following with Ram continued from the day before. ‘But why does a belief system exist?’ Ram had shown me during this escape from abandonment, that I created my world simply through thought, that I created the paths I followed, that they rose up before me the instant I placed my foot on spiritual ground.
It took me a few days of questioning before it began to settle in me. I questioned his influence over me, wasn’t that the creation of a belief in something outside of myself? He answered with this:

‘Guidance, within guidance, within guidance, within guidance. Guidance is different to a belief system because you are led to your own knowing. It is not manufactured to suit an outcome, it is a way and one of many you may choose, but there are set laws that rule the realm you exist in and so Guidance is given to help you navigate this world. Belief in me is belief in a construct, but I exist on many levels so my identity is what interacts with you. But I have existence in that which has ‘no identity’, this aspect is beyond comprehension so my being must interact with you in the space of ‘I’

Given that my own spirit guide urged me to comprehend that the idea of him was a construct, that he was eternal, not a ‘he’, not a name, not a god, not an idea to be worshipped, but an aspect of All That Is, it seemed this teaching was integral to my own journey. I must pause here to say that maybe this is not anyone else’s journey, but this is the whole point. What I think is simply, what I think. My belief does not equal truth.

Rama continued;

‘Belief sets the parameters of what you experience in your reality. It creates the boundaries of how far you are willing to go. But here, beyond the physical is divine truth, untainted and eternal untouched by human perception. This you can trust, because it is the true reality.’

So as I moved through life, I traveled down paths of intense belief systems, creating firm boundaries. Yet still I had to question even the questioning of whether or not belief was truth, or whether I could free myself from my beliefs and still function. I delved into healing modalities that held strong belief systems, into tarot circles and light worker circles that clung so firmly to belief systems that at times I felt an outcast if I did not talk the talk. I had been in a church when I was young and so knew what it was like to believe only I and my fellow believers held the light inside, all others were doomed to the fate of hell. But inside these belief systems that orchestrated my life, both socially and mentally, I felt a part of something; I felt a sense of belonging.

Yet it always stayed me, this idea that I was to be free from belief. I can imagine that belief and truth are interchangeable. It is well within my lofty mind to comprehend that a belief is truth and a truth is a belief. Does believing not make it so; I think therefore I am, what I believe?
I remember when I first started my healing business Blue Star Tarot, I had found a saying somewhere, maybe written down, maybe I’d heard it from someone, but I used it on my website and a poster I had made up for my readings at psychic fairs, that said: ‘Believing is seeing.’ Yes, you read that right, believing comes before the seeing. We believe in something and voilà, it appears, as real as the day is bright. Ergo, belief must be truth then?

Throughout the ups and downs of my life, and believe me there have been many, as I was constantly questioning and searching for a sense of belonging, my belief in what I had experienced when I left my body on occasion, held me to the mast of life, so that when my ship was hell bent on sailing right into a storm, I managed to stay above the park water, the dark water that threatened to pull me into a watery grave that I would never rise from. So the belief that I existed beyond the physical, because I had been there, kept me sane. Rama was always there, invisible, but still there. He was what I believed in when I was utterly alone. Yet he said to me once; ‘Worship nothing, as this is a man made concept.’ I was not to worship him, I was not to believe in him in a way that blinded me from truth.

So what of belief and truth? How do we not mistake one for the other? They function very much the same, do they not?

This I have been pondering, asking Ram, how do I know if I am facing truth, or belief? Just the other day I seriously began asking again, how do I not mistake belief for truth? And I do understand why the freedom from belief, as belief can create resistance and opposition. But it is not something I will ever be devoid of. I simply strive to avoid becoming embroiled in it, no matter how enticing. But how, how do I know? And so he began to answer.

The first thing Rama impulsed was, that the acquirement of truth requires effort.
It is not easily attained. The attainment of it works as an act of purification of the soul, leading to connection with the spirit, the spirit being who we actually are. (Note here, I was taught by Maria, my motherly spirit guide, that the soul is born out of the spirit. That the soul is a vehicle and only an aspect of our true Self, allowing us to function as a human. But please note the note that you do not have to believe this!)

So the truth works as a purifier and when attained, brings Dharma, or what Zoroaster would call; Right Action. Out of truth comes right action and it may hurt others but the pain is, as a whole, healing. Truth has a healing quality to it that sustains life, a healthy inner life. Internal truth is what counts, a truth that is to be followed as one follows their destiny. It does not push, it flows, yet it can be blocked, so when unblocked, no matter how painful, it brings relief, inner relief. Truth is cathartic, truth has a way of working its way out, of balancing things out in a manner that demands healing of the heart, the soul. It is the colour of deep blue, moving into cobalt blue in the auric field. Truth brings freedom, hence freedom from belief allows for truth to reside in the human soul untainted.

He also showed me that beliefs are like bricks in a building. You can place them in line, they build walls, they hold in a space, what is ours, what is secure. They give security and keep us safe from the big, bad wold who threatens to huff and puff and blow our tower down. But they can also tumble if not maintained. The bricks of belief must be constantly justified, put back in place if they break or fall out, and are at times, incredibly hard to maintain.

Truth is not a brick it is a breeze, he says, one that lifts the heat off your face on a hot day, breathes life into a stale room and sustains a pure existence in a world that at times is filled with big bad wolves, if we know where to look that is.

I had always hoped that one day I would learn how to stay silent when it mattered. Silence, Rama has always taught me, is where life is created, where the growth occurs. Noise, the noise of the mind, the noise of talking, the noise of the outside world, is what prevents us from being still and so Rama said; in the silence is the sound of Source. Yet as a child  I would rabbit on, as a teen I talked too much when I felt nervous and so, as an adult, I still have to keep a check on when I need to just be silent.

Because I am attempting to practise the art of silence I am fascinated by those who have mastered it, and those who have not. Let’s begin with those who have not. Meandering about one afternoon at the park my family and I ran into a friend of a relative. They began talking quite normally at first, casually you could say, until something rather odd happeneded. Their own course of conversation began to darken, their own thoughts about their teenage child took a turn for the worse, and it seemed to me, standing there mouth open, that this person was not able to pull themselves out of their downward spiral into self confessed doubts. Each spoken word that followed the next was born, like a vile abomination, gross and bloodied until I saw in her face sheer embarrassment. She just could not stop what she was saying and her own insecurities created this awful scene of unguarded speech that rendered her looking quite undone. I managed to keep my response to a minimum and left the scene, my own teens in tow, feeling relieved that I had not said more because this on many occasions, I had done the same and was shamefully relieved for once it was not me who had spilled the sullied beans. So what is it about us as human beings that cannot pick those moments when we should be silent, and actually BE silent!? Why do we not have the self awareness, or even the self preservation to just shut the tally ho up!

Looking at this from the other side of the shore, where the silent ones stand, I see there are many positives to staying silent in situations where we interact with others. A good silent listener makes one feel heard. My husband and I had decided to rebuild our tiny house. Like mice we flit in and out of the small spaces trying not to bang into each other and so an architect was engaged and we sat down to discuss the build. He had a soft, gentle face with a look of bemusement and warmth that immediately opened us up. We sat opposite at the dining table, where other household members politely squished past between wall and chair. He opened his questionnaire and began. The first question was; ‘What is it you want from your new home? What is personal to you?’ My other half looked at me and I at him, a bit shy and then we shared. I felt heard, really heard and seen as he sat silently cocking his head to one side, taking notes and smiling in between our breathy statements. Tears welled up in my eyes and I found myself relaxing the same way I used to as a child when I would play with my teddies in the warmth and security of our lounge room, bathed in complete peace and abandoned trust. I connected to myself in a way I had forgotten to do, simply because I felt heard. He had been silent the whole time, listening with his heart and head. But silence is not pure and free from darkness. In silence is agreement. Stand silently while another is attacked, not speaking, and you have justified brutality. 

So where does the balance lie? Actually it has nothing to do with balance does it really. Well not entirely. If I truly delve into the dynamic behind speaking and staying silent, behind listening and wanting to be heard, at the heart of it all lies the self, the self swinging between altruism and self love, attack and withdrawal. The dynamics within the self determine whether we truly see and hear others and whether we are able to speak our truth without harm. Not truth with a capital T, but our personal truth. To get at the heart of the matter we have to ask, can we allow others to have their truth?
This is a big cog in the wheel of learning how to listen and how to speak from the heart, because knowing when to speak, or when not to speak all lies in this; are you coming from a place that resides in the light or the dark? To hear is to stop the need to give one’s opinion out of the need to be heard, and listen. To speak comes out of the need to speak one’s truth without the need to shove it down another’s throat, to be heard. The dynamic lies in the self. It lies in the ability to allow others their truth, while speaking your own without creating harm, without crossing boundaries and violating trust.

Since the last two years have passed into memory it has become clearer and clearer to me why my Spirit Guide has always taught me freedom from belief. I used to question him, why, how, how can I have no belief system if I live here on earth? I felt it must have made up who I was? But as I grew older I wondered, rather than questioned, what harm do belief systems create? War, hatred, division, separation… all stem from belief systems. I saw that fundamentalist thinking, no matter how beautiful it seemed to me as a way of being, created the most harm, was the biggest pendulum swinger of the self that held the most judgement. People die and kill for their beliefs. Lose the belief systems and fundamentalist thinking and the need to be heard, and from it arises unity. Speak only of oneness, that is what the other side has taught me; a way of speaking that is so foreign to my humanness.
So every day that I venture out, I practise. I try to live in peace and as Lobsang, my gentle guide from the Himalayas tells me time and time again when I want to shout in anger;  

‘Do no harm.’

Then I feel the peace that comes from silence, from not needing to speak my truth and force it on others. It renders me blameless in the face of attack and calm in my heart and the image that holds me in this is the silence of a monk beneath towering, snow covered mountain peaks that I have never actually seen.

Alarm goes off, bedcovers are thrown back. ‘Ah, another day of remote teaching.’ Stub toe on the edge of the bed as I stumble to the bathroom. The hot water is surprisingly refreshing. Knock at the door. Annoying husband, mainly because we have been locked away together for months, in fact everyone is annoying. Sigh, “Be out in a sec.” I try to summon the strength to care. Tap goes off, step out carefully. Dont want to slip in case I end up in hospital and contract covid that way. Actually given I live in a country town, considered metro, I most likely would contract covid that way, in a city hospital, not in my small, breezy, open spaced country town. I stop, pause my thoughts, pants half way up, to silence my own movement. I hear the thunk of the door and telepathically say goodbye to my husband. The only path that has kept me sane so far I will continue to follow. Emerging out of the bathroom, I catch the scent of Jasmine coming through the fly wire door. I move towards it. My fingers wrap around the latch and more air touches my face. There she sits, my meditation chair, swinging gently to and fro, pushed by a gentle breeze. I arrange myself in her, wrap the blankets around me and begin. First the smooth silence envelops me, then the stillness of body calms my heart beat. A vague sense my spirit guides are there, touches a space in front of me. I reach out like a child leaning towards being held. ’Ram’ I call inwardly, an image floats across a blank screen; fire, something ancient. The word b…e…n…u falls into my mind. I stay with this image and word for a while knowing it is something. Thirty minutes have passed. I lift myself out into the cool spring air. I feel different now. something shifts in my thinking.

I pass the day writing, drawing, making, taking photos, shooting videos of hello and; ‘This is what your task for the morning is.’ I push through the computer to reach my class floating somewhere out there in the ether, beyond the Internet that feels like a giant, confusing planet I cannot for the life of me navigate. Each time I create a lesson, more ideas flood in. But how practical are they? I think them through one at a time. Nope that would take an hour and would translate as five minutes on my class website. Nope, that would not be understood without a twenty minute video explanation that would bore the poor things. No matter how grand the ideas they can never match the beauty of teaching in the moment of; NOW! That my dear friends is the greatest travesty of all this, one can never truly BE in the moment.

I look around at the space I teach in. I move my eyes from the king sized bed, to the two bedside tables, the tall boy, not the kind that would turn my head, the long wooden, dark stained clothes rack, no walk in closet, sadly, as I would most likely hide in it when I do not want to be found rather than ducking commando style onto the floor between the bed and the wall, opposite the door, and rest my eyes finally at my desk with hard chair to match. I move to sit down and wait. I do not have a flattering light for zoom, so as I squeeze myself onto my chair that presses against the bed, I begin propping my computer up with books so my double chin doesn’t frighten anyone because the angel is wrong. Time ticks over slowly while I wait to be ’let in’.
I have flashes of my youth waiting outside bars, looking down at my converse sneakers wondering if I will be ‘let in’. I then on reflection commend myself, as I wipe finger marks off my screen, that have I dressed today in a manner that would be considered professional, light and colourful. I muse over my refusal to wear pyjamas for the sake of my ‘mental health’. Maybe I’ll tell my colleagues that, then remember quickly social etiquette. I long quietly, as I check I’m on mute, for the days where I might’ve by chance had an awkward overshare with an overtly kind colleague in between classes.

Phew, I’m in. The zoom begins smoothly, none of us are invited to speak. I watch the numbers rise as people ’enter the room’. I decide at the last minute to turn off the video and lie back on my bed. I snuggle up and breathe into the lecture about supporting the teachers of our time. “When we meet another in this time of separation we ought to meet them with our humanity, the deepest part of ourselves that truly listens to another, not with the desire to fix them but to truly see them in their humanity.” I feel I am at ease now, not so alone. I recall the word Ram gave me this morning and pull out yet another screen to search for meaning.

I find it; Bennu, an Egyptian god. Bennu, a god on a rock, perched and calling creation into its space. A god connected to the human Ba, the personality that lived on, that rose from the ashes of its own creation.

Tears well up. I swallow as I feel the connectedness of my fellow teachers striving to guide the souls of other humans through the tiny space of our screens. I set my head back on the pillow.

We will rise from the ashes, I speak only to myself in the quiet of my room; ‘Humanity will rise from the ashes of our own humanity.’

It first began in 1990. I had finished my HSC, which in those days was a High School Cetificate, and was waiting for the results. There is nothing more nerve wracking than waiting to find out if you have made the grade; was I going to be a failure, what would I do in life if I didn’t pass? Although I had worked pretty hard for the exams, self doubt plagued me, as it did and always had. Self esteem of the highest kind was not my forte. So I had asked my dad for a job working in my parents’ hotel. It was the off season for the ski resort and the place was empty. All I had to do was clean rooms while listening to my Walkman. My friend Danni had asked if she could join me and so we became a little family of two, cleaning hotel rooms and waiting for our futures to unfold. She was very much into crystals and her mum was an avid spiritualist. I had begun my journey when I fell in love with an American who, when I first laid eyes on him, I knew I had seen before. Well not seen, with my eyes but his soul I had seen before. I knew him before we even spoke and so after falling in love for the first time at 16 and saying goodbye to him as he left for the States, I pondered on this experience of knowing someone. When we were together I understood things about him I could not have known, intimate things about his heart, his nature and so I began searching about energy in the school library.
I figured if I had known him before, I had been born before, and if I had been born before then I had not ceased to exist after death.
This idea facinate me. Was I energy? If I was, what was energy? I found a book by a gentleman called Albert Einstein. In this book he stated something that sent me on a path I would only ever leave once and return to years later. He claimed that energy can’t die and can’t be created. Meaning it has or had, always existed. Well I listened to my friend Danni as we cleaned the rooms. I listened to her talk of past lives, about her mum’s crystal collection, how her sister could hear a baby speak to her from the womb. ‘Can you teach me?’ I asked. She then took it upon herself to educate me, since no one else would. My dad was an atheist and believed in the ‘gene pool’ and my mum, a rather delicate old fashioned lady with a simple hearted nature, did not like talking about such things. So an appointment was made, and I was to see a Channeler and her mum would take us.

Looking back now I realise, I knew nothing of channeling, so when I sat before this lady I was completely unprepared. Wind chimes echoed outside the window. She sat before me and breathed deeply, then sharply. Immediately her face changed, I became dizzy and my eyes, that were staring intently at her, began to dart back and forth. I felt like I was spinning inside my body without moving. Then the voice. Her whole persona changed to that of an Indian man. He addressed me as though I were his daughter and his student. He explained he was my guide, that he and I had shared many lifetimes together, the most recent in India, where he had been my teacher and I his student. He said many things, but the most poignant of it all, the conversation that stayed with me was, his announcement that one day, through meditation I would hear him, that he would take me to India and that his name was Rama.

That night I had a dream. I was flying in the air with this guide, practicing summersaults. I flipped forward with ease, weightless and free. But then he said, ‘Now go backwards.’ The thought which passed through me then, is still vivid now. ‘If I do that I would have to let go of all the laws of physics. I would have to defy nature.’ So I did. I began to feel a buzzing, like I was in the center of thousands of bubbles all passing through me, then, out of my body I moved. I was no longer in what I would describe as a physical space. But I could still ‘see’ the room. What defied reality, was that I could see three hundred and sixty degrees around me, all at once. There was no pain, no sadness, none of this existed. I felt pure peace and bliss, free in a way I had never known before. There was no time, no contrast, no opposition, and I state all of this with hindsight, because at the time, all just….was. I then saw my body lying on the bed, on my side, one shoulder clearly exposed while the rest of my body was covered. But as soon as I began to analyse what I was seeing, I felt the buzzing sensation again and I was back in my body, in bed.

I sat up, still reeling from the strange sensation of being weightless, peaceful and yet I grieved. I was overwhelmed with a sadness I cannot describe. It was a longing to be back there, to be free of this cumbersome body. This sadness was like a homesickness. The separation, the cold sharp corners of the physical was devastating. I felt alone and for days I wandered around lost. But then a second dream came, but this time I was standing on top of a cliff, my guide by my side. With my arms outstretched I heard him say very softly, ‘Jump.’ So I did, I fell and again the buzzing, the bubbles but this time I move through colours, through a rainbow sequence of colours, then as suddenly as I was out, I was back in again.

So this was to be the starting point of my journey with my guide, Rama. I wrote in a journal as I had always done, one day hoping to be a writer, somehow feeling like I was practicing, and in this journal I had listed all the questions I had for my spirit guide. Does God exist? Are there Angels? Do animals have souls? Why do we reincarnate? The list was endless. So on I went, into my future. I did well at school and was accepted into University studying Journalism and Creative writing, but the feeling stayed with me, that loss, that loneliness. I spoke to Rama all the time, wrote constantly, as though he were there listening. But still the skeptic in me doubted. Maybe he was not real? Maybe I was wrong? All I had to go on, was recalling the feeling of sitting before the Channeler and the feeling of being outside the physical world. But soon these became simply ideas, concepts and I lost myself in the confusion.

One year into University, I found myself away from family, alone and still searching for answers. I think that I was lost in the physical world, because I had been out of it. I had been to the other side and there was no one I could find who understood what that was like. Everyone seemed to carry on as though this was it, but it wasn’t. There was more and this was not THE reality, this was fake and so I became a very sad soul. My best friend from school came to visit me and told me she had found God. So off to the city I went, changed campus and joined a Christian cult. I was eighteen and vulnerable and thought well, maybe they have the answers. Rama slipped into the background, like a neglected friend. I wasn’t allowed to believe in him anymore, plus maybe he wasn’t real anyway? For two years I threw myself into the bible, into hell, into heaven. The conversations with God felt real, but all the rest was an act. It was as though I had fallen asleep. There was no Rama, there was no reincarnation, there was only one shot at getting it right and if I stuffed up, well then, Hell was what I had to look forward to. One night, standing in the kitchen of yet another Christian house I had been placed in, I dared the Universe to get me out. So the next day, in the mail, came a letter from the American. He had not written to me for years, but there it was, opened, read and on my desk. I stared at it and knew what to do. The next morning I pretended to have a cold and so when they went to church I packed my car and fled.
I sat in the hotel, in the restaurant the very next day, watching the staff potter about the place. In that moment I felt pure relief, I did not have to fear Hell. I knew it was not real and then the thought of Rama returned. Was he still there? Was he real? I had no way of knowing. I moved into a house in the city, owned by my parents and for the first time, I had a secure place to live. I was in my early twenties now, as I had deffered University and travelled in between. By this time I had studied Reiki, I had found Tarot and I was reading every spiritual book I could get my hands on, which I had been doing before the Church intervened, but had stopped out of fear. I had time and the safety of a home to immerse myself in spirituality, so I began to meditate on a regular basis. I became so dedicated that my room permanently smelled of incense and oils, as I would sit in my bed and connect with that space I had found so many years ago. Then my friend Erin invited me to a Pranic Healing course. This changed my life as I finally was presented with an opportunity. The Master healer was visiting from China and happened to attend our course for the day. He offered those who desired, a healing. This was not a common practice as he was rarely in Australia. This was an opportunity not to be missed. Erin nudged me into the line. Okay, said the Skeptic, let’s test it again, is it real? Well it came to be my turn. I sat on the chair and he looked down at me. ‘What do you want?’ He asked. I replied ‘I want to hear my spirit guide’ and he laughed. ‘You must be meditating a great deal to achieve this.’ I told him I had been and he went ahead with the healing. He pointed two fingers at my throat and closed his eyes. Shock went through me. My throat began to buzz. For days it stayed that way, buzzing. I swallowed constantly, trying to get it back to normal.
Then one morning, standing under the washing line while pegging on my wet clothes, it began. It was, at first, like trying to listen to a voice that was just barely audible. Then as I stood still, waiting, wondering, exploring inwardly in a way I never had before, I heard him. He was speaking about my questions, what questions do you want answered? I could hear him but there was no sound. It was a voice without sound. It felt like I had to follow the thread of his presence. So I ran inside, past my confused sister who was living with me and into my bedroom. I sat on the bed and began to meditate. He then swept in, energetically cut my head off with a huge sword, I popped outside my body for an instant, then back in again and he simply said; ‘See, it is of no signifigance.’

From that moment we were in constant communication. He became my ever present guide and teacher. How strange it is to have that kind of support. It’s not dissimilar to having an imaginary friend, someone only you can see. ‘Rama’, I would say, ‘How do I detach from this situation?’, or ‘Rama, why am I so easily hurt by people?’ Rama…..that name at this point, was a name I had know since forever it seemed. But it was just a name, one that I had been given, it was not one I questioned, nor asked anyone about and no one I knew in the spiritual circles I moved in, had ever heard of it, or if they had, no one said anything to me. My diaries that span decades, are filled with conversations with this being, advice, words I would never use, concepts I barely understood, about intention and creation, about energy and ways to work through life. The guidance he gave never sounded like me. I was being taught, rather than regurgitating information I already knew. I never questioned it really, when he spoke because it felt a certain way when he connected. It was the same feeling I had when I left my body in my teens. It was a feeling of seamless oneness, tempered by non-humanistic wisdom and peace. It was something outside of me, but still the Skeptic in me doubted.

After a few years of studying and writing, meditating and connecting with Rama I took off up north to Queensland, following a boy. Classic error in judgement. He ditched me after we had driven all the way up the coast and left me stranded with nowhere to live. I had no money and so called my old High School friend Angela who lived in Nimbin. Angela’s home on the mountain was a haven, a place where I found solace from a broken heart and hurt pride. The earth was a beautiful rich red, the trees that surrounded the property were lush and green. A long driveway wound up from the main road to her rickety home where she and her three children lived, without a man, all on their own surviving on the small pension she received each fortnight. She gave me a room to stay in beneath the house. It was open and a little rustic, but I had surrendered to her lifestyle and so developed within myself a certain comfortability that comes only when one is totally penniless and homeless, when the conventions of life have fallen away and trust is all that’s left. Two things I remember vividly is the huge snake in the bathtub outside my room and the teachings Rama gave me.

As I wandered around the mountain, taking in the beauty, Rama spoke to me, taught me. I asked so many questions and the communication became very clear. I was shown a way of seeing things that was completely oriented around how we manifested experiences, life and how intention was a part of creating. He spoke about the jewel held within the moment, how the path through was to find freedom from belief.
Each day I walked and listened then wrote all he said in a scrappy notebook I had bought from the local newsagent. The writing grew large when I documented what he said. I couldn’t write fast enough when I sat on my rickety bed and listened to his voice. It was a strange feeling to not know what words would come next and read as I wrote, without any prior knowledge of what would be said.
He was my life at this juncture and then one morning as the sun rose I crept outside, the light drawing in colour, building the world around me as it spread. The air was thin and warm, so unlike the morning air at home that wakes your skin with its brisk cold. I began to walk, to listen and now looking back I wish I had not heard what he said.

’It is time to step out now and live what I have taught you.’ I grabbed the words in my mind and questioned him. It was silent, I heard nothing. I called out again to him, but the words moved into a void and were lost.
He was gone. I was alone.
From that moment the world felt different. I felt like a teen who had been asked to leave home for the sole purpose of learning how to live independently. Shoved back out into the world armed with knowledge of what Rama had taught me, but without the voice of comfort, without any direct connection.
I caught a bus back home and my mother picked me up at the other end, tired, broken, but ready to return to University. The Skeptic in me still sat in the background assessing, determining what was real and what was worthy of belief. Did I believe Rama existed? How could I not after all I had experienced. But skepticism tempered with hope is never a bad thing. So I carried on a cock-eyed traveler hoping more proof would come my way. Rama however did return but this is another tale I will tell another time.

 

 

It had seemed to me I had already been told that all the negative I experienced, all the hate, hurt and evil of the world was a lower vibration of energy, which needed to be raised up into its purest form, which was Love; Source in its highest vibration. I understood this and had seen it in action, this process of raising the lowest form of energy, into it’s highest form. I felt angry, and forgave, I’d been hit with aggression from another and learned from it, I’d raised the lower into the higher many times and continued to do so. Well at least, attempted to do so..

The group of beings I had connected with, whom I came to know as the Druids, said ‘it’, that is good and ‘evil’, the process, was likened to changes in colour. One could change the colour of one’s emotions from red; angry, into indigo; peace, within the blink of an eye, within the change of a thought. To them it was all malleable and from the same thing; All That Is. Anger could be turned into love, as easily as night could become day. The sun simply had to rise and shine the light. It was, this whole question of the presence of evil and the shadow self; a matter of learning.

Rama had taught me that when Source separated itself, for the purpose of knowing itself, it created that which was Not, the Other. The Other I considered is somehow connected to the existence of evil, of shadow. How, in a dualistic world,can you have Light without Darkness? Doesn’t the experience of the dark lead us to know just how bright the light can be? I figured, at this point in my learning, I knew who I was, because I had experienced pain and discovered my own beingness and I knew who I was because I was not… the Other. So I sat with this knowing, this acceptance of the dark as part of my journey as a human being.

But a few years later, just recently in this time of Now, I stumbled across a book I’d found through researching using key words and phrases given to me by Rama. I had been asking about the light, about our origin. This book was called The Return of the Light. What a find I thought, a random book, not common knowledge from my perspective and it was a channeled piece, a series of conversations and the being who was channeled, or the main being, was none other than Horus, or whom she, the medium Elora, referred to as Hera. Well I can tell you, I was excited to read this one, and so I began.

What this being proposed was that the Prime Creator, who made our world also made a mistake. It seems, dum dee dum, Prime Creator whilst minding its own business creating  stuff, ho-hum. Did not notice a malfunction in its creation. So a dark element came into being and began ruining Prime Creator’s perfect creation. This infection spread and before Source could say ‘oh crap’, evil had entered the Universe and we fell.

Well I had just received, a few days earlier, the words Von Siegel, from a being who I had come to know as being connected to Anthroposophy, which led to a concept created by Rudolf Steiner called the Seven Planetary Seals. This was a map of our human evolution. So I began to research this as the same time. Very soon the path that very separately both travelled in my conscious began to merge. Rudolf Steiner refered to a being called Sophia. Sophia was connected to Lucifer and Lucifer was the reason behind the Fall of man, when darkness, or imperfection was introduced. My guide Maria, was one of those such aspects of the Divine feminine. She told me during a walk in the bush and a chat, that they, her beings, the Elohim from the Pleiades, created many worlds, many ‘experiments’ as she called them. But she said something dark infiltrated our world, something they did not predict and I saw a vision of horror. Not just physical horror, but something so dark my heart started racing at the impressions. It was something not of this world, our world, but it came from a place and plummeted earth into darkness. Yet she would not go any further in her explanation, and I did not ask.

So I knew there was a reference of darkness and a connection between, Sophia, Rauch Hakodesh, the Divine Feminine, and this darkness. I knew there had to be a link.

Here I found the Gnostics. Well they believed the being Sophia, split from the Christos at the beginning of creation and this being created our Universe. From this Lucifer was born, who then became the God of our known world. But Lucifer, although a being of light, was an ego based deity and in his love of self, he created the demiurge. This is when things when pair shaped, or so the Gnostics say. Well Horus, in this book was hell-bent on stating that Prime Creator, be that Sophia, or Lucifer, or what not, made a mistake and so darkness was born. Oh dear poor us, oh seriously God, you are an idiot! This was very much the impression the writer gives. She ends up having a friend channel Prime Creator and he is very apologetic that he did not notice the dark infiltrating his Universe. Hmmmm, I began to wonder. Was God that stupid?

You see I had gone over to my mother-in-law’s house, lets call her M, and told her all about this book. She verbally clapped her hands together saying ‘Oh yes send me a copy of that one!’ So I did and so she read it. I went over the next day and there she sat, iPad on cushion, sitting up straight, speed reading the hell out of this thing!

‘Well’ I said ‘You are way past where I am!’ She smiled. ‘All right girl let’s discuss this!’ And so for a week the two of us sat head to head, debating and discussing the issue of evil, the origin of it and was God really that stupid if he was the Big God at all? Cross legged, hand on chin I thought, could a perfect God create imperfection? A cup of tea was placed before me, yummy spearmint and chamomile. I blew on the surface of the very hot tea. Even the clean steam and smoothness of the water seemed perfect. There was so much perfection all around us in nature. I had been teaching my class about the quality of numbers and so I began to see all around me the perfection in the design of life. One of my students had given me a beautiful autumn leaf to place on our nature table, it’s seven points a fascination to her. Perfection was there, no doubt about it. But what of Evil?

‘Well M, is it possible that the Prime Creator is not the All That Is?’ I asked again, sitting up straight now to show my confusion was quite serious. My M shrugs, she does not think that an Omnipresent God could create darkness. Well the question still remains, then who did and if so why? The interesting thing about this book was, the medium had remembered lives in other Universes that had not Fallen. So she knew what it was like to live in a perfect state, in a perfect world. Well if I remembered that, I would be pissed off too! Scuse the language but I would!

It frightened me to think I was in a fallen Universe. Was I safe? And who was in charge really if the Prime Creator couldn’t hold back the forces of dark until now. But, I found other references of this mistake in the channeling of a woman called Elizabeth Trutwin. She channeled Sekhmet, a being I very much adored and this being also describes a mistake made by the Prime Creator that allowed the dark to enter. So did the Gnostics, but as I said they blamed poor old Sophia. Hmmmm, the female Archetypes that bring in evil, as Eve did. I wasn’t sold on their view, so I asked Maria. She said…

‘If you did not have the Ka

You would know nothing 

All sight would be lost to you and you would traverse this  world without conscious awareness of who you were, who you could be

To devolve means one has the potential to grow in knowledge in understanding through this physical realm I have manifested

This was only ever done through love

It was the seed, the state of man who was designed to be all things, where this was held, within the seed, waiting to germinate

I gave life the knowledge of good and evil so that in your wisdom you would grow through choice  

A choice to create yourself

Me: did Sophia create original ‘sin’ and if so then is this why she offered her Son? To heal this place because she created the Demiurge?

I did not create the demiurge this was a result of the forces taking part in creation after I became Gaia

At the time of Astar or Aztar’

This echoed in me, this declaration which Maria had given. It was about choice. She was my mother in spirit, often guiding me through tough times when Rama seems to deliberately take a back seat. I began to wonder about the concept of Original Sin. Was the fall, the infiltration, the reason for the concept of original sin? I mean I knew in Catholic terms, of course when we ate the apple, we were lost to original sin, but I began to see that this term may have been misconstrued through attachment of blame. What if it was not our fault we had a shadow side? What if it was some thing done to us in the very beginning? What if it were not a point of guilt, repentance and ‘oh though must ask for forgiveness’? What if we were not to blame for something that happened to our Universe because during the creation process of separation when light separated, dark became present as the Other? Original Sin I realised was true, but not the way the religions deem it so. We need not ask for forgiveness of our dark and light nature, but accept it as part of our story and beyond our control.

M and I met for the final time, in the context of discussing this new idea of the origin of evil, she’d had it, she was fed up and sick of reading ‘that’ book. Oh dear I thought as the waitress placed two Soy Mochas before our salivating mouths. Sometimes I think there is a spot that coffee hits that nothing else can. Stop at one is my motto, and early in the morn. M explained that she felt we ought to keep it simple. That the more she read, the more questions arose and sometimes, that is not a good thing. The sun was shinning, not a hint of evil here, except maybe that cigarette butt lying on the ground I thought. I screwed up my nose at it. ‘What do you think?’ M asked. I gave out the very vague opinion that there had to be an answer. But M was beyond that now. I was alone in my search for the answer.

Being school holidays and all my main planning done, which took most of the holidays, just saying teachers don’t get a break like most think, I had enough time to begin the next part of my research. So far I knew Wisdom was the key to shifting evil, wisdom of the feminine, who had possibly been the creator of it. This would make sense, that the being, the Divine feminine who deliberately separated and created our world was the key to saving it. I stumbled across material by Rudolf Steiner that suggested Sophia was the Other of the Christ consciousness, or Christos. These two who had been one, then split and when they did, Mother Earth was created, our realm was created and three D came into play. Maria had said Choice, that she did not create the demiurge, that she had created out of love and that the knowledge of good and evil is what gave us choice. Choice meant we were free to choose who to be, through the offering of light and shadow. But Rudolf takes this a step further and explains in his Lecture, The Origin of Evil, that yes, Lucifer created the fall, but he also created self awareness and the ability for us to love the self, thus creating the ‘I’, the ego, the ability to Know Thyself through that which we are, and who we can become. Lucifer was born of Sophia, wisdom, knowledge, and when he fell he brought with him the knowledge of good and evil. He is the ego, the child of Sophia, the lower, but through wisdom, through the Divine Feminine, we can evolve the human ego into that which is the Divine ‘I’ through the process of turning evil into good, darkness, into light. A process that Carl Jung called…. INDIVIDUATION.

Phew, I thought after these pennies dropped. It was now late at night and I was ready to let it all go. I read the last part of Rudolf’s lecture and so he said…

Thinking and wisdom now entered into the service of the self and there was a choice between good and evil.

Love must turn to the self only in order to set the self in the service of the world. The rose may adorn herself only in order to adorn the garden.

That must be inscribed deeply into the soul in a higher occult development. In order to be able to feel the good, man had also to be able to feel the evil.

The gods gave him enthusiasm for the higher. But without evil there could be no self-feeling, no free choice of good, no freedom.

Good could have been realised without Lucifer, but not freedom. In order to be able to choose good man must also have the bad before him; it must dwell within him as the force of self-love. But self-love must become love of all. Then evil will be overcome.

Freedom and evil have the same original source. Lucifer makes man humanly enthusiastic for the divine. Lucifer is the bearer of light; the Elohim are light itself. If the light of wisdom has kindled wisdom in man, then Lucifer has brought light into man.

Rudolf Steiner Lecture: The Origin of Evil, Berlin 22nd Nov 1906

That was the answer I screamed loudly in my head after reading  this. The whole purpose behind evil was freedom of choice! We had the freedom to choose and thus the love that we would experience would be born of free will and a choice to make love our most treasured gift in this life. There is no choice without duality, that was the key to understanding why a perfect God could create the dark. It was created was so that we could choose the light as conscious human beings developing and evolving into so much more.

So Heru, I felt may have half of it right, even if the ‘Prime Creator’ made a mistake, I think, who the Druids call, the Highest in High, is beyond even all of that and sits in the Void, creating the constant flow of creation and love, through letting us be what ever, or who ever the ‘hell’ we choose to be, scuse the pun. We are not evil, we are not good either. We are far more complex than that. But what a journey it is moving from dark to light, even within a heart beat, all the time still being loved, because if there is one thing I know for sure, all the guides I have met and the people who have passed on I know, sit outside of all this shadow/light stuff. I have no doubt that outside of what we know of as the Maya, there is only love and light. So I don’t mind getting my gum boots on and wading through the dark of this life so long as I have a home to go to when it’s done.

H…ooooommmmmm…e. ; )

 

 

 

It seems only recently that scientists have openly begun to acknowledge that we create our reality. In actual fact it was as early as 1805 that a physicist Thomas Young, first had the idea to shoot an electron through two slits, changing the way we perceive reality forever. This was called the double slit experiment. What was revealed shocked scientists world-wide, as it appeared that when the single electron was not observed moving through the two slits, it collapsed into a wave form. Yet when it was observed, the electron remained a particle. This meant that human consciousness had a direct effect on a wave, become matter.

Haven’t we all heard, from someone at least, that we create our own reality? What an odd thing to postulate, many would say in the mainstream world of reality T.V, shopping centres and fast food. This world, this reality is so chaotic, random and often difficult to work through, then, if it were true that we created our own reality then the responsibility for creating what we experience, lies with us. Yikes!

I think the hardest thing to do in this world is to feel this is true when cruddy things happen, which are not obviously of our own doing. The work place for one is a huge space which presents to us difficult behaviour from others and a sense that we have been knocked down, betrayed and treated unfairly. How does one detach if this is true, that I create my own reality, that I am responsible? How do I work through the feelings of hurt at the hands of another?

This lesson has reared itself again in my life, but, despite not wanting to take the full brunt of responsibility for another’s actions, I am very aware that the ‘unfair’ issues I face at the moment, originated from my past. You see what we face in this Now, is never separate from what we have experienced before. I might be in this Now, but part of my consciousness still resides in my past. You see as a teen I was bullied quiet badly when I attended a small, country town high school, in my childhood valley. I was terrified to walk down the hallway as the rougher girls in the school, who decided they did not like me, would sneeze in response to my presence because apparently, I was a dog, a bitch and they were allergic to me. Aside from dealing with the verbal and physical abuse, pretty soon they had spread so many rumours about me that the whole of the school had decided to shun me. I remember sitting behind a tin shed, next to the woodwork room just to find a moment of relief from the taunting. The loneliest of lonely moments is this kind of solitude. So when I grew up and moved through so much in life, travel, study, husband, children, work, I thought nope, I’m good, those days are over. But the truth is, I am still creating my reality now, based on my experiences during that time.

So after finding myself the brunt of a similar situation I know that I have to face those old fears and move my consciousness to the Now, that I live in, not the past. Somehow, I have to detach myself from it, or I will keep creating the same reality of feeling bullied.

I had been to a market and was very drawn to a woman selling clothes that flowed in the breeze of my little town in my new valley. The silk shawls and soft materials called to me, as did she. I went up with a slight smile on my face, feeling somehow this was someone I wanted to talk to. She said ‘Hi’ in a lovely bright manner and like so many Magicians, whose archetype allows them to sell smoke to a fire, ice to an Eskimo, she began to chat with me. I bought her shawl and asked her, about herself. I was curious… She told me of India, of Rishikesh, a place I had planned to visit. My mind lit up with images of her by the banks of the Ganges, washing her feet, at peace, away from civilisation. I envied her at that point. What would that be like, to be so free? At what cost did that freedom come, if any?

The next month she was there again, filling a space in the open car park, her clothes flowing once more. My husband and son were hovering so close by that I felt their auric fields bump mine as I chatted with her. “Go on you two!” I flicked the air with my hand. ‘Keep moving, I’ll catch up.” I turned back to her as she reached for her singing bowl. She said what had been troubling me, that I was not able to speak my truth. I know it sounds like something many healers may say to draw you in. We all want to hear that we are seen, by the unseen. But she had nailed it. My consciousness was still back in the eighties, crying in the toilets at school and I was not coping with the present because of it. She gave me her card and I set up a time to go and meet her.

Where does my stuff go I wonder, when I leave each moment? Where does my energy go, where do I really exist? If this is a reality I create, then, is it real? What of the games we play online, the virtual reality, doesn’t that feel real? Does quantum physics say that this too is a game, a reality made up of energy, waves and particles that follow what we think, feel and do? If so, do I need to be so attached?

As I drove to her home, miles away from mine, I had, for the first time in ages, time to just be. No husband, no children, no work demands, no need to give. There was nothing but myself. A dream I thought, is my life a dream? I arrived at the house and walked up the stairs. She was waiting at the top wrapped in a shawl. She smiled hello, no small talk, a trip to the loo, then on the floor I was guided to lie.

Her singing bowls rang and I allowed myself to merge with their sound. Waves of sound moved through me. Where does my consciousness lie, I contemplated again and why do I still attach to the pain of the past? I felt my guide Rama come fully into the room. He showed me the moment I met him, channeled through the body of medium. I wanted to cry out because he came through as though no time had passed between that moment and the one I was in. He was present in both. I began to move up, out of my body, but no further as my breathing began to labour, which is what happens when I get to that point, as though my body says, no you can’t leave yet.

It was here in this space that I felt no time, that reality was moment to moment, created simply by my awareness. But still that nagging feeling sat in me, that I was not good enough, that I deserved to be treated badly. Then, moments later the feeling passed and Rama became the focus as he showed me that this was not The Reality.

When it ended I sat up dazed. She began to tell me about her life. She was a true devotee to letting go, to detachment, to her Swami, to her practise. I knew a great deal about the teachings she spoke of, as Rama had taught me, but still I was not there yet, I could not let go, leave, wander India with my consciousness on the other side of this reality. I was what she and what Rama had shown me many are. I was a Householder. My life was filled with attachment, so my consciousness sat with that. I could not move past this, and so after this realisation I left with many questions.

Does creating a reality without pain, require letting go of all that attaches? Or could my consciousness reside in that space of detachment while still attached to so much? The past I knew, still needed healing and I thought what if I let go of the need to be heard? Would that be enough to heal myself of the pain I still felt from the bullying? Could my consciousness reside in the Now, fully, letting go of the need for my truth to be heard, because that is what caused me the most pain back then, my truth, the truth of who I was, had been squashed.

I sit with this now, this vibrating thought, that there is someone I have met who lets go, who sits with the Swamis as I wish to and funnily enough that gives me hope, that inspires me. But what if I could create my own reality free from the pain, not because I sit in solitude, but because I don’t need those who hurt me, to hear my truth?

One afternoon, a long while ago, walking through the supermarket after embarrassing myself with an acquaintance this thought struck me out of nowhere. Well not entirely out of nowhere, but the sentence was clear; ‘You can do no wrong, there is nothing to fix’. How could this really be true? I had come across this healing message before. The first time it was said to me, was after I came out of the rabbit hole and found myself at a Raja Yoga centre meditating. ‘You are not broken, there is nothing to fix’, was placed in my mind much the same way. A sentence out of nowhere, clear and precise. But where does this idea of being ‘broken’ come from? When I looked at myself objectively, I seemed to fumble in the presence of certain people. I often wondered how obvious it was that my solar plexus was going nuts, that I was recoiling into a default of always needing to do better. It felt ingrained in me that no matter how much I tried, no matter what I did, there was always more to heal. I marvelled at those who have self-confidence pegged, who naturally felt as thought they had a right to stand in their own space. But I knew I did not have this temperament, nor this natural ability to believe in myself when the external world was saying the opposite.

It began with my temperament. I am a heart based creature. I perceive through my heart, others, and when this heart of mine is filled with Source connection, I love pretty much any one who comes across my path. Yet when I feel out of whack, even popping into the local bakery for a Soya Mocha seems challenging. One side ways look and I would feel close to climbing back into my car, empty-handed. Oversensitivity is hard to work with. I would speculate, am I oversensitive because I am empathic, a Scorpio, or just human? Probably all three come into play, but because I felt everything, it placed me in a position of vulnerability. This is when I would make mistakes, this is when I would get hurt and feel broken as a result.

So logically I would think, in this physical world there are rules I must follow in order to avoid this pain, this vulnerability, so I do not feel broken. I would keep my mouth shut, become submissive, say sorry too much and apologise for things I did, that were not worth apologising for. I felt as though I had to act perfectly on the outside, in order to feel whole on the inside. But alas, this did not work. I spent years exhausted and tired. Then the rebellion kicked in and the anger. Why should I apologise for who I am? This meant I tried to feel whole by being resistant to the dark in the world, resistant to the judgement by biting back. All that resulted from this approach was more feelings of being fractured.

Then, in it would come….that thought, that relief, ‘You are not broken.’ I began to meditate again and found that this time spent in a higher consciousness, allowed me to entertain the idea that my soul, was whole. That it was only this human aspect of me, in this fractured existence, that seemed broken.  My spirit guide Rama began to teach me a way of working with the past me, that reduced that feeling of being fractured. It began like this….

He would say (without words, as a great deal of the time he speaks in concepts and impressions) imagine that time when so and so rejected you, when you felt bullied or lost. Imagine the scene in your mind. Now pull yourself up out of your body and float above it. See yourself, in the past, in pain. Watch how you feel as you move through this experience. Take note of the moment you feel pain then reach down from your place in the ether, and grab that aspect of you. Pull her up to the aspect of you floating above the scene and remind her of who she is. So I began to imagine a couch, that was suspended in the ether, safe from the physical. I would imagine myself sitting on that couch observing many different times in my life where I felt less than or broken. I would observe, without attachment, the way I behaved in that moment. I could see how utterly human I was. Then I would reach down to me and bring me up to the couch and there I would sit in my mind’s eye, during this meditation, twin aspects of myself, both past and present.  I would say to me, you will get here, in this Samadhi. You will reach this point. Don’t worry, eventually you heal, you are not broken. And so it would go, for weeks I did this, imagined in moments of past pain, pulling fractured aspects of myself up onto that couch, telling the past me I was not broken.

Then after a few months, I began to feel whole, even in the face of negative experiences I did not feel as upset. I felt like I was pulling parts of me back together and retrieving them from the past. So when I face situations now where I feel less than, I hear the words, ‘You are not broken’ and recall that feeling of sitting on my Samadhi couch in the ether. I re-experience that safety, that detachment. I understand now that the dark night of the soul has its purpose, because the light is ever so bright, once you’ve experienced the dark. But I had to come to understand that the feeling of being broken does not define my being. I am not broken outside of this physical world and all I have to do, is get back on my couch in the ether and tell me, that I will find a way through. Because we all eventually do, whether this be within a life time, or throughout many.

Sending you all light as the Earth shifts her vibration and the new light, now coming in, fills us all with wholeness and hope for our future here on Gaia.

Blue

 

 

The Fool, when he sits in his highest vibration, always follows joy. He marvels at the simplest things in life and does not ponder the heaviness of it. At his highest vibration he carries no baggage from the past and nothing holds him down. He is like a gust of fresh air that enters a stale room, the scent of green grass in the heat of the sun. He lives without resentment and wholly within his heart.

The Fool in tarot is the starting point of life, it is zero point energy, it is the archetypal innocent human being, the raw representation of wonder and naivety that resides within us, untouched, before we head out into the world and become ‘tainted’ by life’s challenges. The Fool however grows from each encounter within the archetypal world, and as he moves through the challenges presented to him, his consciousness expands, finally integrates with The World, and that is the whole point.

The Fool’s lighthearted innocence is his defining characteristic. It is his deepest truth. What some do not realize is that this truth does not change, no one can destroy the true vibration of The Fool, for this aspect of the archetype will always remain fixed within humanity. The sacred knowledge lies in the fact that we must return every time to the heart of The Fool, for this then becomes a new starting point, at a  higher vibration.

The Fool sits on a spiral, as do all the archetypes, at a point. This is only a point. It may be higher than some curves of the spiral, or lower. Never the less, it is a moment in time, in space. As we move up the spiral the learning level increases. What we are not privy to at a lower or higher point, we do not experience. What our consciousness is not ready to absorb, we do not encounter on this part of the spiral. The Fool works through each lesson on the curve, not realising through his self absorption, that each progression forward moves him either higher or lower in vibration, in consciousness. The Fool will only experience what he can perceive and in the reverse, he will only perceive what he encounters on this spiral of personal evolution. He can go down and decide with his free will, not to integrate an aspect of his chosen learning. He can ignore the warning signs, he can say no like a petulant child. He is free to do as he chooses because free will is one of his defining characteristics.

So on his journey to The World, he moves up or down and at each moment it appears as though where he is, is where he is.

This is the nature of perception, the nature of humanity. We cannot see without perspective, that we have changed, that we have, as The Fool, grown, until we self assess and look at where we sit on the spiral. Consciousness allows us one luxury, which can also be our greatest downfall and that is ignorance. Ignorance allows us to integrate what we are capable of at the time and nothing more, that is; we only get what we can handle. But this is the deepest truth of The Fool, the Shadow truth, the one that trips him up time and time again, that at is; Ignorance Is Bliss. So he sits on the spiral, on a point, the dot, the first expression of I Am, and decides he need not self-assess, he will just exist. Well for centuries he may stay that way, life time after life time, in ignorance until something happens, and this is what brings The Fool out of his reverie; fear and shame, sadness and loss, death and pain. The aspects of humanity that are part of our human experience.

This is truly what calls us to move higher on the spiral. It is not just the innate constant desire to become perfect and then so achieve that perfection, through being in a state of perfection! Rather it is our imperfection which causes suffering, that move us to raise our energy up to the sky. This is what motivates The Fool to change. You see he cannot escape that pitfalls of life, he can only learn from them. He may avoid disaster through raising his vibration and encountering less and less drama, through the laws of attraction, but he can never escape his humanity. Because within our humanity lives the Shadow self. This is what The Fool ,must face and then embrace.

So to clarify, The Fool exists as the innocent aspect of us that seeks joy, because that is what the archetypes are, humanity observing itself, humanity perceiving itself. Yet to move up the spiral of creation we need perspective, we need self assessment otherwise we wallow in ignorance. What shifts The Fool, what moves him is not his present state of perfection, rather it is the negative polarity in the third dimension, that which is Shadow, that which Is Not joy. But why do we have to evolve as The Fool at all! Why not just sit in ignorance.

The answer is simple, because we cannot escape the Shadow, we cannot ignore it, we can not escape it, instead we must embrace our Shadow self by raising the vibration of fear and pain by working through it, into its highest expression and that is divine unity. You see through separation we seek out union with The World. We want to be made whole again and to do that  we have to embrace the whole lot, accept our Foolishness, learn from it and move with The World, into The World, the last Archetype in the tarot. The World holds within it the knowledge of all, good and evil and integrates the two, as it does with male and female. Cohesion is the key to a higher way of living, not rejection of the Shadow self.

So in Tarot we work through the Shadow of the Archetypes in order to sit in the light aspect of the Archetypes, and stay each time, for longer and longer until one day, we find we have spun right up the spiral, all the way up back to Source, back to the Angelic aspect of the human being, sitting at the top of The World.