Post Hall of Fame -...
 
Notifications
Clear all

[Sticky] Post Hall of Fame - Posts we want to remember

151 Posts
27 Users
1847 Likes
17.4 K Views
(@journeywithme2)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 1949
 

@triciact

You are very welcome. Glad that it resonates for you <3


   
TriciaCT and TriciaCT reacted
ReplyQuote
(@jeanne-mayell)
Illustrious Member Admin
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 7906
Topic starter  

A little masterpiece by @Vestralux, posted  the day after the Republican Senators voted not to allow any witnesses in the president's trial. 

She is responding to this statement by @codyroo: The problem with this is that we are teetering towards Oligarchy. 

Yes. We are. But we've been teetering towards oligarchy since our founding. Since before our founding. We're a nation founded on a continental genocide—you know, so white folks could own land and plant crops and make money.

We're a nation that fought a CIVIL WAR because oligarchs wished to assert their so-called "sovereign right" to continue with the chattel slavery of living human beings—all in order to maintain economic power. 

While the rest of the world has been orbiting the sun, we've been leaping to the whims and caprices of the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the J.P. Morgans, and their like. As a result, we've become a kleptocracy.  

When slavery was defeated, the Southern oligarchs created mass incarceration and the "free" labor of the prison colony. Today, its proliferation has become a privatized prison industry. Hey y'all, the more people we lock up, the richer we get! To include asylum seekers and children

I could go on and on and on. But the point, I think, is that Americans have to wake up from our collective delusion that we were ever anything else. In fact, this is the dilemma of the entire human race as I see it: Will everyday people continue to permit the tyranny of oligarchs and kleptocrats and sociopaths—and therefore the continued annihilation of countless species, including our own(!), or will we dismantle those forces which perpetuate it?

This is why I think the rage and frustration you're feeling isn't just understandable, it's necessary. We all feel it. And we have to feel it in order to be inspired to do something.


   
lenor, Isabelle, TriciaCT and 19 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@jeanne-mayell)
Illustrious Member Admin
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 7906
Topic starter  

Posted by @Cindy on 1/30/20

As a survivor, I do understand the knee jerk reactions to Kobe's death and how that can be at odds with those who adored him as an athlete. I used to think it was a curse to think of things from so many perspectives at once, but as I've aged, I've come to find it a blessing. 

What Kobe did 20 +/- years ago was wrong. Period. However, he was far ahead of his time. Attitudes take ages to make a dent in mainstream thinking, much less in actions. Just 10 years prior, most had not ever even heard of the term spousal rape until the Bobbitt case, much less known there were laws about it. Neither were the terms date/acquaintance rape mainstream concepts. Most only recognized the Hollywood version-a physical beating utilized to force sex on an unwilling person. Consent wouldn't be a mainstream topic for years after Kobe's case. Even today, victims are routinely blamed by defense attorney's or judges. Back then, it was par for the course for Kobe's attorneys to do what they did. Being high profile, she dropped the criminal case. Kobe came out and apologized, and acknowledged that what he thought as a male was consent, was a far cry from what the female perspective of consent is. This was unheard of at the time. I knew my perpetrators, and above all else, I always wanted an admission of wrongdoing and an apology. At least when she went after him in the civil case, they kept it out of the spotlight, and settled. They could have played blame the victim round two, but they chose not to. That's not to say this didn't benefit Kobe as well, but his statement and apology let me believe there was consideration for the victim in these choices as well. 

Kobe changed. He created his on court persona to handle the athletic and public aspects of his life, and returned to church in his private life. He understood his inability to control his power and adulation earlier, and took steps to see that it didn't happen again. He started whittling away at his Karmic debt he had created. He opened up sports programs for underprivileged youth. He backed women's sports. He had four daughters. He had to live with the fact that each one of them faced inequality in the world, and abuse at the hands of men just like himself, much less the serial perpetrators out there. While supporting her aspirations, he knew in his heart that even if his daughter became pro- his daughter would not have the opportunities he was shown as a male. He knows that as each daughter grows older, they'll find out about his transgressions as well. That's quite a price to pay in itself. 

I've often wondered how my attackers coped over the years. They knew my family, so I had to come face to face with at least one of them for years after the incident. I was 12, they were 17-18. To my knowledge, none of them ever participated in another such event. The one most closely tied to my family went to college, married and had two daughters. Karma caught up to him. His girls were little when he took ill. He couldn't work, and his wife supported him until their daughters were grown and on their own. Then she left him to have a life for herself. How much of his illness was because he held in guilt and negative feelings? I know of many who claim that trauma or negativity has harmed their health. Of course I'll never know what was guilt, what was Karma. It's not my business to know. It's his Karmic debt not mine. I don't worry about other's debts-mortgages, car loans, etc. Karmic debt is no different. I'm not owed personally, it is the Universe/Karma that is owed. Whether the debt is repaid here on Earth or in the hereafter is not up to me, nor is it my cross to bear. Making it my worry only adds to my burdens unnecessarily. How someone treats you is their Karma. How you react is yours. I am actually friends with one of his grown daughters. No, I haven't told her. Never will. It's not about protecting him or avoiding the feelings roused by talking about the past. I simply do not want to be the kind of person who would put that kind of unnecessary burden on someone else. I don't want or need that kind of Karmic debt. 

To err is human, to forgive Divine. This doesn't mean that you are spiritual or holy for forgiving. Forgiveness doesn't mean what was done was right or ok, or that we have to be friendly or in contact with those who have harmed us. It means we let go. Letting go means we control our lives instead of letting the past be in control-that is the divinity. How many people have we hurt because we were once hurt? How many have we not trusted? We are human, and made our own mistakes. We can't undo what we've done. None of us. Not all rapists are monsters. Some are people who made the mistake once, and like their victims, will carry the baggage of that mistake the rest of their lives.

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


   
Isabelle, Coyote, Lovendures and 15 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@unk-p)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1097
 

posted by Jeanne on 02-02-2020:

A message for this darkness, and the light that will arise, in the spirit of tonight's meditation. Like Baba's dream, we can face this dark situation with open eyes and see more clearly a beautiful outcome:

"We were made to understand it would be
Terrible. Every small want, every niggling urge,
Every hate swollen to a kind of epic wind. 
 
Livid, the land, and ravaged, like a rageful 
Dream. The worst in us having taken over 
And broken the rest utterly down. 

A long age 
Passed. When at last we knew how little 
Would survive us—how little we had mended 
 
Or built that was not now lost—something 
Large and old awoke. And then our singing 
Brought on a different manner of weather. 
 
Then animals long believed gone crept down 
From trees. We took new stock of one another. 
We wept to be reminded of such color."

 -- An Old Story by Tracy K. Smith 

 


   
lenor, TriciaCT, Michele and 9 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@unk-p)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1097
 

Wow! Jeanne hits another one out of the park!  I might have to reread this everyday, to remind myself of who we are, and who we are dealing with:

Posted by: @jovesta

@lynnventura the thing is he has the socialist label which makes him an easy target for the GOP. ? 

 

Dear sweet beautiful @jovesta whose posts I have admired, and all of us who worry:

We must not worry ourselves with anything the GOP says.  They are abusers and gas lighters. I have learned from the abusers in my earlier life to shut my ears to them and hang out with light workers.    

Abusers will say anything ugly to win. The party that said a trial doesn't need witnesses.  The party of child abusers, woman abusers, immigrant abusers and killers, racists, nazis. The party that locks up innocent children in cages and prisons.  The party that looked the other way while a sixteen year old child died under their watch.  The party that has sold their country to the Kremlin.  The Party that is trying its hardest to break the Constitution. The Party that is going to drill in sacred land, national parks, the Arctic. The party that made animal cruelty legal. The party that is responsible, yes responsible for the coming loss of most if not all of the world's coastal cities and all of their history, not to mention untold loss of life from famine. 

Come on, you care what they have to say about Bernie Sanders, a good man who has never wavered in his service and who wants our country to be more like Denmark?  

We need to focus on winning, not on losing. We are stronger than they are.  We are in the light. There are many more of us. They are aging out. We are expanding. 

 


   
lenor, Isabelle, BlueBelle and 7 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@jovesta)
Noble Member Registered
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 147
 

@unk-pI totally agree!!

 


   
Jeanne Mayell, Unk p, Jeanne Mayell and 1 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@jeanne-mayell)
Illustrious Member Admin
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 7906
Topic starter  

Thank you @jovesta and @unk-p.  It is you and this incredible community that spurs me and all of us to be better. 


   
Unk p, jovesta, Unk p and 1 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@coyote)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 915
 

Posted by @luminata on 2/27/20 in New Wuhan Coronavirus:

All you lovely souls here - and how beautiful you all are!

Jeanne held a meditation/healing session on this new plague last night.  I don't know of she's posted it yet, but knowing Jeanne, it will be posted, and I encourage those of you who could not attend live to join by watching when you can.

I scanned the last couple of pages here and feel a huge spike in panicky reactions.  And yeah, I panicked about three weeks ago knowing many of my coworkers were attending a big sales meeting that included attendees from our China branch and potentially bringing this new virus back to the home office.  

Plagues are scarey.  They kill people - this one has the potential to kill lots of people.  And the scariest aspect of all is there is really not much we can do about it.  Truly, for a period of time, usually a year to 18 months, there is a free fall.  People are going to die.  ( yep, we all know we're going to die someday, right)  Jobs are going to be lost.  Accidents are going to happen.  Money and goods(including food) are going to be scarce.  Travel is going to be locked down.  

And we've done all of this before.  

Pandora opened her box untold years ago.  Eve ate that apple.  Yet we're here.  We Are Here!  And Hope stuck around after Pandora opened her box.  

Counting the number of people with this new virus isn't going to change it.  Trying to anticipate how many and who will die because of it won't change its course.  Blaming incompetent governments for the way they are testing, or disseminating information about it won't make it go away.  

Spirit has this one.  Wherever you are, who ever you are, just know that we are in a period of change.  Life is going to be different for awhile.  Lessons will be learned.  Hope is still with us.

Hope sees that the world will change for the better.  I personally think we'll see a significant reduction in greenhouse gases- convert to a more work from home environment- move to a more local focus for our sustainability.  These are GOOD things.  

Yes, it's going to be messy.  Lots of mess on the horizon.  Personally, I am quite sure the trip I have planned in early April to see my son for the first time since December is going to be disrupted.  That sucks.  Truly sucks, hate it with a passion, will certainly throw a temper tantrum to beat any two year old's if/when that comes to pass.  I suspect my job will be eliminated by the end of this year and the company I work for will not survive the next couple of years.  For all I ( or to be quite honest at this point any one of you) know, I have this virus and could be on a respirator or dead in a month.  

But, BUT(!) Spirit has got this.  If I can't see my son in person- I wasn't meant to.  If I lose my job or my life- it is for a reason.  

Man proposes and God disposes.  Life is what happens while you're making other plans.  Shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which one fills up first(thanks to my Grandma W for that wonderfully colorful and apt description of how to navigate being a human).

We're in a tough spot.  This is a pandemic with serious ramifications.  Unless you can develop a vaccine ( and I feel there are people who read this site who can) then you're going to have to ride this.  How you ride it is up to you.  Panic isn't going to help you ride it.  

What's helping me get through is:

Knowing we're in a crisis.  I don't guess anymore that we are in it - counts and iffy government reporting won't change it.

I have food supplies for probably a month.  I tend to keep a well stocked pantry even in normal times.  I'm not going out and buying the whole store.  Spend what extra money you have to stock in some canned goods.

Masks aren't going to help.  Please don't buy into this and leave the  masks and personal protective gear for our first line defenders.

Spend your Hope on supporting your local medical community in any way you can.  Ask them what they need and give what you can to get it for them- this can be volunteering to organize community communication through e-mail or other electronic communication.  Do they need food delivery, do they need people to cancel public meetings, do they need better personal protective gear.  If you have money- contribute to your local hospital.  Take some online classes in CPR - get yourself prepared to be the best nurse you can.

Let's shift our energy from looking anxiously at how bad this is going to be (personally and communally) to focusing on how we can fortify those who are in the fight already and will be in it for awhile.

We're here- the jeanie isn't going back in the bottle.  No government is going to solve this.  WE have to.

 

Love you all!


   
deetoo, lenor, BlueBelle and 5 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@michele-b)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 2159
 

Posted by @journeywithme2 who works in a lab and has excellent understandings and knowledge about the spreading coronavirus/COVID-19 in reply to my thoughts and theories about COVID-19 potentially mutating between species and humans in new forms now .

She had posted this previous reply :

"I have already seen corona virus antibodies in previous bloodwork for auto-immune and infectious disease labs. There are several kinds of corona virus... COVID-19 is a novel virus, an emergent new strain of corona virus. We vaccinated for years with a live vaccine for canine corona virus - which had two types.. the upper respiratory one and the GI variation. We were having the discussion at work the other day about the fact that we may have already had and healed from COVID-19. It is a matter of speculation and food for thought... .and.. would be interesting to find out about ."

And replied to me with this...so many things to consider that I thought everyone should read it! 

@michele-b

"most forms of virus are specific to species...the canine corona supposedly could not infect us..the antibodies found in bloodwork was the human common cold type. There are many kinds of corona virus that are specific to species...but as we have seen.. some have mutated and crossed species..here is a good summary of how many there are:  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html

It's not out of the realm of possibility. Some stories put out there say it originated in the "wet market" Others say it escaped the virology lab like SARS did in 2004 - " someone knows the Truth but they aren't talking"

"People around the world commonly get infected with human coronaviruses 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1.

Sometimes coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and make people sick and become a new human coronavirus. Three recent examples of this are 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV."

Another thought I have too, is that humans are overloading and destroying the planet... and once things reach a tipping point Earth shrugs us off in great numbers. As the ice caps melt they are freeing up ancient microbes , virus and bacteria. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/melting-glaciers-liberate-ancient-microbes/

These would be illnesses that no one currently living has any immunity to.

Perhaps Covid -19 is a wake up call?

Just my idle speculations as I sip my morning coffee and wake up on my day off.."

And @coyote

Thank you for sharing @lovendures post above. For weeks I'd felt her panic and was concerned for her heart and health as she's such a great person and contributor so to read this where you pulled it al ltogether Lovendures just lifts my spirits and makes my heart sing!

So many others are just riding the rollercoaster now but am thrilled for your beautiful shared post!

This darn virus is getting into people in mind/ body/spirit and thats the first step of how illness begins. (I actually feel blessed that I have far bigger fish to fry and need to stay centered and grounded and stay happy and grateful for every day in every way) so love love love these great information or great positive emotions posts that you are all sharing on this thread ??? 

 


   
TriciaCT, Unk p, deetoo and 9 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@journeywithme2)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 1949
 

@michele-b

Oh... I am a veterinary technician of 30 years service and still going... the labs I referred too is the running of bloodwork  - sorry about the "medicalese" that may have confused you. The veterinarian community generally study and care for 6 species canine,feline,equine,bovine,caprine,porcine  and specialty practice with reptile,avian,amphibian etc. All study Zoonoses - transmission of diseases from animals to people - two most commonly known.. rabies, intestinal parasites, others like Leptospirosis  are lesser known - our job is to educate the public on them and how to avoid them as well as treat patients that contract them. They also work in laboratories studying zoonoses :" A zoonosis is an infectious disease caused by bacteria, viruses, or parasites that spread from non-human animals to humans. Major modern diseases such as Ebola virus disease and salmonellosis are zoonoses. "  and in our agriculture and food animal productions.

 


   
lenor, deetoo, Michele and 3 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@michele-b)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 2159
 

@journeywithme2

Loved all of this stuff!!!

I've had 77 animals since early childhood to age 70. I'm practically a zoologist. Haha.

All the usual multiples of cats, dogs, bunnies, chickens plus more than a dozen birds, many, many reptiles (turtles,  iguanas, snakes, lizards etc. plus spiders, rats, a scorpion (I kid you not and a tarantula) plus mice and rats my list goes on and on.

Many brought in by the mass of pet lovers sharing our dna to the max overload to how I might have otherwise chosen to live or share my home at the time. (

 Many escaped (the little Houdinis) when I was the only one home to catch them, too!  Well once a 75 year old college knitting instructor put on my leather rose cutting gloves and caught our 3 1/2' to 4" long iguana when she noticed him sitting on top of our living room bookshelf and put him back in his gigantic terrarium with his little missus in my son's room. 

My husband and son were science majors and a daughter acted as a fill-in vet tech at a pet clinic for 3years and in my extended family we have 2 doctors, a nurse a veterinarian!  Lots of science along with my and others arts and humanities!

So I've lived and breathed more animal science (and fur, feathers, fins and scales) than I can even remember over the years.

However, didn't  know a thing about animal to human transmission decades ago-- a very good thing in retrospect now!

You're a veritable flowing fountain of awesome information! Love it, truly!

 


   
lenor, JourneyWithMe2, lenor and 1 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@journeywithme2)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 1949
 

@michele-b

hahahaaa! I love it!!! At 65 , when I was little, I drug home every stray puppy,kitten,cat,dog,squirrel,racoon,snake,lizard,bird,rabbit I found...at one time we had 23 cats!!! My Daddy said... "If you drag home one more critter I will take you all and dump you in the river!!!!" As a hardworking father with 7 mouths to feed I am sure he felt overwhelmed trying to handle the pressure of feeding us all. I wanted to be a veterinarian but life and poor choices derailed that pathway for a good long time.. and.. being a single mom raising children on my own... I became a technician instead. I have had numerous animals over the years..still have 6 pets of my own and foster and place many more. It's all good!

 


   
lenor, Michele, lenor and 1 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@journeywithme2)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 1949
 

@michele-b

Yes 7 human mouths and all those I drug home LOL. A Minature Pinscher I rescued from euthanasia as a 10 week old pup and gave to my daughter ended up living with her as her beloved child for 16.75 years. She (the dog) saved my father's life and his house from burning down when my daughter (who was living with him in his widowhood so that he wasn't alone) was at work. I like to think it was to reward him for all those waifs he left me take in and care for and re-home. I will always share my home with critters.... and help all of them I can. Kindred Spirits we are indeed!

 


   
lenor, VestraLux, Michele and 5 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@michele-b)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 2159
 

@journeywithme2

Unbelievable synchroncities and godwinks.

I had a weird glitch and my huge long post on my family and all my cats and kittens and one alerting my brother to wake everyone up and saving everyone's life..poof..whole post gone.

So glad you had a chance to read it!!!     But one more unbelievable- yet not- thing in common. Both of us with pets saving lives from a house fire.

Glad you joined us. My life long love of connecting with and finding things in common with others is vastly more interesting as a result.

Love love love it all ?

 

 


   
lenor, JourneyWithMe2, lenor and 1 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@unk-p)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 1097
 
This, so beautifully posted by @vestralux, 3/10/2020:
 
 
Posted by: @coyote

Collective sickness is my area of concern. I know that I came into the world at this time in order to work with globalized culture’s wetiko—the sickness of separation. As training for that work, I chose to be born into a body with NF2. NF2 inculcated the mindset of separation within my familial bonds and other personal relationships over the first 21 years of my life. I then chose severe depression and attempted suicide as part of my life contract. I also probably chose a number of potential triggers that would tip me into the abyss. I journeyed as deep into wetiko as I could possibly go while still being able to emerge intact on the other side.

@Coyote, my dear soul friend. For ten days, I've had a task reminder set on my phone, imploring me to log on and read your new posts as soon as I could. I've been swallowed by maximum workload, but equally so by the hit to my energy that happens to me whenever the collective is experiencing something chaotic, uncertain, and fearfully painful—as it is now with pandemic and falling markets. 

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing yourself. For vulnerably and openly baring your experiences for us.

How grateful I am/we are that the knife wasn't appealing. That the train wasn't fast enough and you were tired. That the cliff face wasn't as sheer a drop as you'd thought. That, even though you'd planned and checked and rechecked, workers locked the pedestrian gate to the George Washington Bridge. 

I've met too many spirits who had suicided to believe that no one is successful unless they're absolutely and entirely done with living. Add just enough despair and desperation to a sudden impulse, and not even the most stalwart guide or guardian can shut the gate in time. My point isn't to quibble the politics of the afterlife, but to say that I believe it is both a miracle that you're still here (and that I am still here)—and also that you had especially bold and orchestrated support from the other side (perhaps "stalwart" doesn't come close to describing it). And I'm convinced that there's a reason for that, which I see that you know, so I pray you never have reason to forget it.

Further, I honor your story and find a lot of my own in it. To wit:

"Collective [trauma] is my area of concern. I know that I came into the world at this time in order to work with globalized culture’s wetiko—the [trauma] of separation. As training for that work, I chose to be born into a body [that suffered every type of ongoing abuse from earliest childhood, and into a deeply traumatized ancestry]. [This multigenerational trauma] inculcated the mindset of separation within my familial bonds and other personal relationships over the first [35+] years of my life. I then chose severe depression and attempted suicide as part of my life contract. I also chose a number of potential triggers that would tip me into the abyss. I journeyed as deep into wetiko as I could possibly go while still being able to emerge intact on the other side."

And here we are.  

 

The last time I set out to end my life, I chose to walk alone into a dilapidated area in midtown Atlanta. Here and there on the sidewalk there were homeless men, teetering in an attempt to walk, or curling up with a bottle in a paper bag. Women with listless eyes were walking back and forth along the curb, calling out to passing cars. The backdrop to all of this was my destination, a 5-story concrete parking structure which was in the process of being demolished; crews had been blasting the site that day. I planned to enter that crumbing stone carcass and never leave.

I'd stopped for just a moment on the sidewalk to look at my fate. I didn't feel anything. Hadn't felt anything—not fear, not curiosity, certainly not anything positive or pleasant—in months, maybe as long as a year. But as I stood there in front of that immensity of collapsing concrete and dust, thinking only, "This is what the end of the world looks like," I became suddenly and acutely aware of a feeling. That feeling was an energy, and it was streaming directly toward me—and now all around me—from someone who had quietly stepped beside me to my right. 

There hadn't been anyone else nearby when I stopped, but when I turned to look, a man was now standing only inches from me. Just standing there, facing the demolition site, as if we were two old friends staring pleasantly over the dystopian landscape together. 

The man was a tall, slender Sikh of perhaps 32. He was wearing a white kurta (a long tunic) and what I remember as a beautiful turquoise-colored turban. (Though sometimes in my memory it's orange or reddish.) I remember the whites of his eyes being the whitest white, and how his beard and skin and everything else about him seemed to shine. 

Because there's little room for logic in severe suicidal depression, I happened to be holding my camera. He smiled warmly down at me and asked if I'd like to be in one of my own photos (he was offering to take it for me). I declined, which he seemed to anticipate, but then he turned, gestured forward with his arm, and asked me if I wanted to walk with him for a little while. It was the tenderest invitation.

We walked slowly in silence, for no more than a block. When we reached the corner, he pointed across the street and said, "This is my stop." It was the MARTA station hub.

He told me goodbye and I watched him cross the street and board an empty train. He immediately came to stand at a large window inside. When our eyes met again, he broke into an enormous smile and waved his arm broadly over his head, as though he were greeting (not departing from) a loved one he hadn't seen in ages.

My heart still heaves with the memory of it. 

As the train and its single passenger pulled out, the Sikh kept waving until he was out of sight. At that point, I realized I'd been smiling and waving back, and that tears were streaming down my face. That was strange enough, but when I looked around me—and there is no description that could do this justice—the very particles in the air and sidewalk and street and bridge and buildings were rippling, glittering.  

Every surface in midtown was covered in graffiti and suddenly the colors and forms were blowing me back in their genius and beauty. The homeless men, the working women, paper trash drifting down the street, that collapsing concrete structure I'd chosen for a coffin—absolutely everything was alive with startling perfection. "Awe" is an impossibly small word to describe something so vast as the feeling of suddenly being taken into the arms of the omnipresent Divine.

The backstory for how I'd gotten to that sidewalk is too long, but suffice it to say that a recession had recently hit the country, and via a series of corporate collapses and inexplicable personal accidents, I'd rapidly found myself jobless, homeless, auto-less (due to a massive flash flood just days before), and physically sick with no means of getting well. What's more, I had no family, no support system, no where to go. [Not incidentally, these were the very symptoms being expressed all across the country, by America in toto.] 

And yet, somehow, miraculously, I walked out of there, away from that demolition site. A stranger had appeared out of nowhere, and because he did, I chose to live. I chose the hard work of re-membering my soul's purpose, reclaiming my sovereignty as a spirit, and stepping into service for the collective. Twelve years later—the time it takes Jupiter to orbit the sun—and here I am, blessed to live that purpose everyday. 

It would be untrue for me to say I haven't felt the lull of the abyss since then. As everyone here knows, it's hard to be exquisitely sensitive amid so much suffering, volatility, and change. Due to my early experiences, I'm wired to prefer solitude and isolation, even though I recognize it will take connection and relation to heal ourselves and our planet. I reckon these puzzles are for you and your generation to help sort, Coyote, and I know you are distinctly suited to the task, for which I am most grateful.

Though...perhaps even the wound of separation has a purpose. As Murakami wrote in your beloved Kafka on the Shore: “A certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect.”

?

 

(p.s.,not sure why it appears in such a skinny format when i re-posted it here?)

 

   
Michele, deetoo, lenor and 11 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@coyote)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 915
 

Another gem from @vestralux. Posted 3/15/2020 in Thank You: Now Everything Changes:

I've said that I research and write about the science and contemporary mystical spiritual perspectives on collective trauma—what it is and ways to integrate and heal it. The purpose, of course, is to assist in human healing, reduce hyperpolarization, and illuminate our potential for unity consciousness and higher developmental world stages.

The primary goal, however, is to address the ecological crisis.

Our climate emergency and the mass extinction event we are living through is the direct, instantaneous manifestation of the traumatized energies in our shared internal field. That means there is never enough external tasking—reducing, limiting, altering—that we can do to adequately address it.

There is no such thing as a personal shadow or individual unconscious because we cannot actually be separate, however isolated or apart we might see ourselves to be. And the stunning fact is this: our Collective Shadow holds both our wetiko, but also our gold. Our highest dreams and visions and creative energies—our untapped potential is all there, not just our demons.

It's a matter of alchemy, of turning our lead into light.

We heal and develop psychologically and spiritually a great deal on the contemplative path. When we meditate and enact mindfulness and embodied practices. But those things happen alone, so that only one corner of the Self quadrant is being developed and integrated. The full Self contains not only the I, but the We.

We need practices that bring us into unity and resonance and coherence together. Some of that is done externally, by learning how to be in organizations or communities and shared spaces. How to organize around shared goals with a unified purpose, without allowing our individual egos to seize power or sabotage our efforts. How to do this with love and truth and fairness and trust—and also how to get back to love when we falter, because we always will. These things are vital.

But another part of it is learning how to go inside together.

When I'm in meditation or dream space or visioning, I'm listening to/entering presence with an interiority, an internal sphere. And since there is no separation, you and I can learn to be inside together. We can sit across from each other and presence that field with a lot of coherence and beauty. We can do this even at a distance (absolutely any distance) from each other. We can travel in dream space together, or simply meet there. We can remote view a chosen space together, with a sense of one another as we do. 

And not just you and me, but several people together. Eventually, I believe there's no limit to how many.

I started learning this a decade ago in lucid dream space, but I've practiced it many times since in different forms with groups. And absolutely every experience has opened more and more clarity for me that we are a collective being, not a scattershot race of singulars.

This is our evolutionary nature.

In unity fields, you maintain your individual distinctness and particularity—your "you"—and yet you are simultaneously part of a vaster beingness. You and I make a third, and that third has a consciousness that is beyond either of us. That third consciousness is emergent, something we can't predict or expect. It comes from the future. ...Though it's already here.

And what I've glimpsed in humanity's collective Third is a stunning, glorious, green, glittering, whole and vibrant world. There are still challenges and problems and puzzles, but those are growth fibers, not entropic seeds of disaster, like we experience in the current iteration we've manifested. The difference is in coherence and presence and intention, which are all potent in the word "design."

Climate chaos is a symptom, an effect. The inverse of presencing is absencing. And we have been doing nothing but unconsciously separating and absencing one another for too long.


   
lenor, herondreams, Lovendures and 15 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@vestralux)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 670
 

@unk-p and @coyote  ????

 


   
Laynara, Jeanne Mayell, TriciaCT and 5 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@jeanne-mayell)
Illustrious Member Admin
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 7906
Topic starter  

@vestralux That was a spectacular. I read it in a state of awe. Every phrase is worth pulling out and re-reading. It takes us to a higher awareness. @coyote, thank you for pulling it out and posting it here. 

 


   
lenor, TriciaCT, Laynara and 7 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@vestralux)
Illustrious Member Registered
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 670
 

@jeanne-mayell

Thank you so very much, Jeanne. ❤️

Every word is a truth that speaks from a deeper place, beyond the little "I," the me whose (current) face you've seen on Zoom or whose words you've read on your forum; the me that writes overly long posts, and cusses sometimes, and tends to stay home too much, even when we're not in a pandemic.

I believe the words in that post come directly from the heart of the We that you, and I, and @coyote, and every other beloved here (and outside of here) are together—which I believe is why it resonates for you. It's your song too. 

It's been said, "The next Buddha will be a sangha," which I'd describe as a loving community of co-awakening hearts and minds. It feels as though we're forming a sangha here, just as we were meant to.  

And my heart runs over with gratitude and love and something like, "Hey, it's so beautiful to see you all again this lifetime!" 

 


   
lenor, Coyote, TriciaCT and 15 people reacted
ReplyQuote
(@jeanne-mayell)
Illustrious Member Admin
Joined: 7 years ago
Posts: 7906
Topic starter  

@vestralux I was taking my dog outside in the dark just now and you suddenly popped up on my inner screen. I knew that what you had written was a channeling, a Higher part of you that is the tribal Sangha heart warrior speaking.  Then I returned indoors to see you saying just that.  We are syncing. 

 


   
Pikake, Coyote, TriciaCT and 5 people reacted
ReplyQuote
Page 2 / 8
Share: