Warning, this post contains some disturbing content.
What would you like to see on this sign? (photo source: Pixabay)
I was, I believe, about mid-way through my studies with the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. Driving in my car, as I so often do, down a road so familiar cellular memory could take over and I could lose myself in my thoughts. How many of us have been down these types of roads? Lost in our own musings and not paying mind to what is happening around us?
That day, though, I was paying attention. I was looking with new eyes at what had become so familiar that, I realized, I had become accustomed to it to the point of acceptance. I was jarred into a reality that I found acutely disturbing. I was looking at the facade of a convenience store. A sight not at all uncommon, which is why I was deeply disturbed. Posters defaced the windows, calling eyes to drink in the alcoholic beverages held inside. Mouths to draw in the cancerous smoke of the tobacco sticks sold behind the counter. Bellies to fill with the carbonation of liquid chemicals laced with artificial sugars. Defile your body and numb your mind, they called out to every onlooker: man, woman, and child.
This is my world, I thought. This is what we have chosen for our life, collectively. I was deeply disturbed. Yet, I had also come to accept this, at least partially, driving along the roads and barely noticing my surroundings. Even, sometimes, stopping inside these stores to purchase a beverage or snack to fill my hungry body. And what about my mind?
Last night, while watching an episode of “The Crown,” which I’ll admit has become a bit of an addiction, I fell into a similar state of disturbance. Once we make the conscious effort to open our eyes to our surroundings, we cannot help but see what is before us. “Hold her still,” the voice of the handler demanded, while a stallion did the deed of impregnating a mare. “Well done,” was the response after the deed was complete, as the satisfied parties left the scene.
I, though, was infuriated and saddened. What of the mare? “Hold her still.” “So,” I declared out loud, “they essentially force rape her.” And, everyone applauds a deed well done. Once again I found myself thinking, And this is the world I live in?
This morning, while going through my email, I found myself clicking through the daily dose of petitions in the hope to instill change. It’s always disturbing, the barrage of cruelty that meets the senses head-on. A macaw shot for fun, a comatose woman raped for pleasure (another rape), but it was the face of a young woman that pulled my eyes into the layers held behind the scene. Her grin, an artificial high of delight, as she held the dog she calls “Momma” with bloodied feet. A thrill-ride of violence. A young woman who had taken her scooter and dragged her pet behind her. “Mission accomplished,” her eyes spoke. “Look what I’ve done!”
And yet, I thought, why should we be surprised? Look at the billboards we feast our eyes on? They come in myriad form. Books filled with glorified rape and violence. Big screens bringing to life pillage, greed, lust and more gloried rape and violence. I have never enjoyed reading horror novels, nor have I ever enjoyed watching their counterparts on the screen, yet so many of us do. Perhaps, in part, because we can say, “This is not happening to me.” But is it not?
Look around you. What is your world like. Are you okay with it?
When I sent my visionary fantasy novel, The Labyrinth, to a young beta reader, she asked me if anyone was going to die. She expected violence and even murder. Why not? It’s everywhere. Glorified. Accepted. Welcomed into our homes through media, news, and entertainment. What we create becomes our realities. That, in itself, deserves some thought.
We’ve had Millie now for three weeks and one day, to be precise. Millie came into our lives when she was just nine-weeks-old. It wasn’t a spontaneous decision. The four of us had been discussing what we would do once our terminally ill, 19-year-old feline companion Penny had passed. We knew our 11-year-old cat, Yoda, would miss his sister, but we also knew that the cats and the dogs in our house had chosen to live separately since we had welcomed our dog Daisy, and then two years later, Rosy, into our lives.
Zelda & Millie after two weeks together
Three-and-a-half years ago, after our beloved Daisy passed, we adopted Zelda. We didn’t know how Zelda would respond to our two cats who had long ago established their separate space inside and outside the house. Being a rescued dog with an unknown past, Zelda soon decided she would stick by her new “mom” wherever I went, which included into the cats’ space. Often Yoda and Penny would scoot outside their cat door when they saw Zelda, but not always. Over time they learned to walk around together and mostly leave each other alone. If they felt threatened by Zelda’s presence they would give her a quick swat to the nose, hiss and run away. Rosy, rarely dared venture into their space.
Zelda trying to figure out how to lick the plate around Millie
Adopting a nine-week-old kitten, though, felt like an offer of sacrifice. What was I thinking? I often asked myself over the course of the next two weeks. There were days when I felt like we had brought home a live meal for the dogs, and the stories well-intended friends were telling me about kittens murdered by their canine companions certainly were not helping to assuage my fears. I knew this would be a test in more ways than one. . .
Our tiny and fearless Millie
And did I mention how tiny Millie was when we brought her home? About the size of a chipmunk, an animal that both Rosy and Zelda tried to chase and capture any chance they got. What were we thinking? What was I thinking? After all, I was the one who would be in charge of Millie’s care for the majority of the time.
Mille atop the stairs to the healing space where I assist others in letting go of their fears
The first two weeks seemed to test every fear my cells were holding onto. I feared for Millie’s life like a mother fears for her child’s. What will I do if they kill her? This thought filled my mind more times than I cared to count. I was, I realized, living my days on the edge of fear. Until I began to let go…
Mille the ever-curious kitten
The first time Zelda lunged at Millie, I thought she was trying to eat her. The second time it happened, I thought maybe she was jealous. The third time she tried to intercede, I thought maybe she wanted to play. By the forth time I realized the miracle for what it was. Instead of trying to protect me, or something worse, Zelda was trying to protect her Millie.
Zelda and her Millie
I’m not going to tell you the fear has entirely disappeared now that Millie’s been here for just over three weeks, has grown to the size of a small squirrel, and now snuggles up next to her dog sister Zelda on the couch when she wants to nap, and bites her ankles when she wants to play. I still don’t leave the dogs and the kitten alone together for more than a couple of minutes at a time, but I am learning to trust in what feels like a miracle to me. That one tiny cat named Millie, so filled with love and trust, can bring a harmony to our house that I never knew would be possible.
Sisters
As I write this, I can hear Zelda snoring on the couch in the other room beside Millie. Rosy isn’t too far away, but for now Zelda has decided that Rosy isn’t quite ready to be beside Mille, and Rosy doesn’t seem to care all that much. A sense of peace has settled into my body, reaching its hands into the corners that once held fear. Anything seems more possible now. Outside the sun shines through autumn leaves and in this ever-turning cycle of life and death that we are all a part of I feel the deeper harmony of balance beneath the outer fears we are collectively holding onto. If this little world inside my house filled with different species with different backgrounds can coexist in a harmonious state premised upon love and trust, maybe, just maybe, we can find that place in the larger world around all of us and realize that core that binds us all together. That core we call Love.
I have been thinking about your presence held fast to the land. Your spirit woven into time, pressing against mine in a longing to be remembered, not for yourself, but for the body you cannot leave behind. In the moors, not yet turned purple, we walked the scars to feel the blade of separation. Parting the veil where the wound never healed. How can a spirit linger for five thousand years, if not for love?
You, the keeper of memories holding the gate to the heart wide open, yet how many have walked past as you watched unseen? The rocks, pressing their heads above Her body to mark time with you, waiting to be felt. You will not leave them. Not yet. Your hands have pressed more than mine, but not enough. Eyes refusing to be opened. Hearts refusing to feel the beat below to match Her rhythm once again.
And so you walk the moors obscured by mist, traveling a broken land. You, who remember the Light to show us where the darkness seeks to be cleared.
For Bratha, who knew Earth before she was broken. And for Sue, who introduced us. To participate in Sue’s weekly #writephoto prompt, please click here.
The washer is dead, the kids are back in school and the new neighbors are murdering felling all the trees in their front yard. The tears are simmering just below the surface, but I’m feeling the urge to rant more than cry. It’s one of those lifetimes days when you find yourself asking (over and over again), What is wrong with this world?!
Here’s the thing with the washer: I had a feeling it had officially kicked the bucket, but we decided to pay the $99.95 service fee to find out that it is not only dead but unfixable. Even if we wanted to repair its multiple issues (there was talk of the display board being broken, as well as the motor), we can’t. It’s ten-years-old, apparently long past its predicted lifetime, and its parts are no available to fix it. I’m really wishing we had not bought that new dryer still sitting in a box, waiting to replace our still-working, albeit-not-very-efficient, yet rarely-used-because-we-let-the-sun-dry-our-clothes-for-free-dryer that is at least forty years old, even if it is a fire hazard…because you see, there was a time when we built things to last, and not consume and throw away.
Yesterday, while emptying the dishwasher that is only a year old, I found myself putting more glasses in the sink than in the cabinet. Spots. Tiny spots, all over them. Thoughts of going back in time and living the life of Anne Shirley (my favorite childhood heroine) danced across my mind while I hand-washed glasses, and later, sodden laundry that smelled like gym shoes after being stuck in a locked, broken washer for two days. I could see myself in a gingham dress, my hair braided and tucked behind my ears while I sat with my bucket of clothes. My arms felt the satisfaction of racking the dirt free across the imaginary rippled back of the washer-board. And, I was smiling. It was a happier day in my mind. Life simple and unblemished by the advances in technology that distract us and push our minds away from the present moment. There is a certain satisfaction that comes with doing a job yourself, instead of letting a machine do it for you. I thought about how much I enjoy hanging laundry on the clothesline and pressing my face to the dry cloth that’s been kissed by the wind and the sun before I fold it away; running warm water in the sink and watching the bubbles multiply before I scrub clean the pots and pans I have used to cook a meal for my family.
Where do you think a washer goes when it’s time to bury it? I Googled the question, and actually found this article in Scientific American, “Where Do Old Appliances Go After They Die?” Since the author sounded like a kindred spirit, I decided to read what he had to say. I was already feeling a bit lighter after the first paragraph, which is actually a question posed by a concerned consumer who does not want to “add to the waste stream” and would rather repair her old appliances. Good luck finding parts, I smiled wryly before I continued on.
But, there’s hope, the article reveals. Utility companies will sometimes recycle your old appliances if you buy a more energy efficient one (at least when it comes to fridges and freezers), or you can go to Earth911.org to find a recycler near you. Aside from the annoying pop-up asking me to subscribe, I’m already loving this Earth911 site, which I’m pretty sure I’ve visited before. It appears to be updated regularly with great articles on how you can reduce, reuse, and recycle, and find more Earth-friendly products. It’s Lupe’s kind-of site, and I think I’ll dedicate this post to him.
“Each time his peers showed off their newest smartphones, Lupe thought of children in China walking barefoot through acres of discarded electronics, picking cadmium and copper from metal circuits with bare hands. He thought of poisons leaching into the porous tissues of skin, coursing through blood with oxygen along pathways to hearts and brains.” (chapter 5, The Labyrinth)
It literally takes two seconds to type in your type of dead appliance and zip code to find a potential appliance recycler near you. I found one in the neighboring town. Looks like they take washers & dryers, so I’ll be investigating this a little further. There are also links on the Earth911 website for recycling a whole host of other products including yoga mats and nail polish. Yep, things are looking a little brighter around here (there’s also a LOT more sun in the neighbor’s yard).
The grinding of machines crunching tree limbs can still be heard, though, and I am doing my best to breath in the possibility of new life forming to replace what has been lost. I know we will soon need to take some of our own trees down that are dying and diseased, and top others to provide enough light for our solar panels. It will not be easy, I will be blessing the Earth and the trees once again for their sacrifice. If you have a moment to add a personal blessing to the trees and the Earth, adding with it the vision of new life flourishing next door, the elemental spirits, (Lupe), and I would be very grateful.
Not at the neighbor’s but down the road where a forest was destroyed for a new safety complex
As for the kids going back to school. There’s not much I can say about that aside from this: I feel like I didn’t sleep at all, but I must have because I can recall having a dream that I was their age, struggling to decide what to wear, and then missing the bus. They both made it to school on time, though, and it’s rather quiet here, aside from the machines next door. It will likely take me a couple of days to get used to it, but I will. Maybe that’s why I agreed to have a tooth filling replaced on my birthday tomorrow. A little pain distraction is sometimes welcome.
Wishing all kids and parents much happiness at this time of year, and if you’re in the market for a new washer or dryer, don’t buy one “made in China.” A word of advice from the serviceman who declared my washer offically dead. May she rest in peace and be repurposed into some new form. And, may our new washer last at least as long as she did.
It’s raining. Again. We have been having a tropical summer filled with heat and humidity. It has been raining nearly every day for the past month-and-a-half. There are usually breaks of sun in between, but the clouds seem to want to linger over this area of the world.
Zelda the dog
I am sitting on the screened in porch with Zelda the dog, watching the fall of water from milky skies. We’ve had to empty inches from the pool more than once this season. That never happens. Usually, we are adding water with a hose after long stretches of heat without precipitation. This summer is not normal, but then again, neither is the weather normal for most of the world right now. The Earth is changing, trying to adapt to, but also protest, our impact. Some believe we are already in a period of crisis. It’s difficult to believe we are not. With fires raging worldwide, and too much rain in other areas, it’s hard to deny that there is a global imbalance to the elements. We like to blame Mother Nature, forgetting that she is merely trying to keep us all alive. Her children. Not just us, but all life on the planet, including herself.
My Children Dancing in the Rain Several Years Ago
We are playing with extremes, testing her limits like unruly teens. Refusing to believe that there is not an endless supply of resources to sustain us, we turn a blind eye to excess in our quest for gain. We play a game of “I” v. “We,” without realizing both the “I” and the “We” are one and the same and no side will win if the other loses.
My Daughter with Orbs of Elementals
I did not sit down to write a rant, but rather a reminder. Today, as I sit watching the rain fall, I am remembering joy. The play of my children as they danced amid drops of water many years ago. And, I, with them, taking photographs and laughing through the feeling of bliss. When hearts open to magic, it finds us. The simple joy of being breaks the veil of separation and the universe dances with you.
Surrounded by the “Fairies”
We knew we were not alone. I could feel the elemental energies dancing with us, and my camera saw them. My children, as many children do, also knew of their presence. I wonder, sometimes, if we have, collectively, forgotten how to dance in the rain with open hearts. To feel the sun not as a bronzer to the skin, but as a fire igniting the sun within. I wonder if wonder has been replaced with artificial pleasures created behind windowless walls. Have you forgotten how to dance in the fall of rain? To breathe fully the joy of being as the sun sparks the cells within? I know sometimes I forget. Too often, I believe.
Rainbows remind us of the Joy of Balance
I wonder, if we don’t stop and remember, will the “we” and “I” survive? I know we will not thrive…for right now there is more of a global struggle occurring than a global dance.
It was a strange series of dreams, on the surface, but then again dreams are often strange…on the surface. I was in school, a large brick building that seemed nearly endless. My classroom on the upper floor and down labyrinthian corridors filled with turns and shadows. One could easily get lost there.
The labyrinthian school in my dream reminded me of this labyrinth from my new book.
I was studying art. The assignment I was given was to fashion a multilayered piece that appeared one-dimensional until you turned it, allowing the light to reveal the inner layers that appear shadowed by the surface. The finished piece had been created, somehow, by my hands, hands that I did not believe could create a painting, much less a rather magical one that. A painting that when turned to the light at just the right angle revealed beautiful, hidden layers beneath. Like a hologram, but there were so many layers to this painting I had somehow created, I could not count.
We were to take our paintings outside, to catch the sunlight so that their depths could be revealed. That is when I started to fly, with my two dogs. Normally, in my dreams, I fly alone…
The two dogs in my dream, pictured here on one of our walks together.
During the day, I had been thinking about density. How we create our own density in our bodies and in our physical environment. We fashion energy into dense forms, like the car I was riding in while I was thinking these thoughts. Cars to drive in, homes to house our bodies, furniture to rest upon, toys to play with…the list is endless. I had also been thinking about how the density inside of me lifts when I visit ancient landscapes where my inner child burst forth into a state of pure joy and sometimes it is as though my feet are so light they hover above the ground…
My feet “hover” above the rocks at Merrivale in Dartmoor as I walk in the pure joy of being. Photo Credit: Lara Wilson
I had also been thinking about rocks, nature’s way of creating density to store the memories of Time. These rocks that draw people like me to listen to their stories, and have the ability to somehow make us feel less dense and confined to the worlds we create.
This bird drew my eye to the heart in stone on top of a New Hampshire mountain years ago.
The day had not been particularly “light.” I had allowed myself to be bothered by others behavior and the nuances of life we can attach so much importance to but are in reality merely passing moments that we can either grasp or let go of. I was, you could say, feeling weighed down by the time I laid my head upon my pillow to go to sleep.
This image popped up on my screen this morning when I opened my computer. Sometimes there are no accidents in life.
I am not, therefore, surprised my dreams brought me into a school, where I was given the opportunity to learn and grow. It was a gift. An opportunity and I had a choice to hold onto the density within me or to examine the art of my creation and allow the layers of light to reveal themselves.
In The Labyrinth, the character Sula, and her five fellow teen protagonists must face their trapped fears and release their density in order to open the gifts of their light bodies. It is essential not only to their individual journeys but also to their collective, as they realize they are each a strand of light in the network of light that connects all life. As warriors of this light, they come to understand they must embrace their true selves and learn to fly above their fears to carry out their mission of repairing the broken lines of light within Earth.
And they are not alone…None of us are. Sometimes we forget we are all connected. That the same fears and light reside within all of us, and we can either create more density together or reveal the light of our creation.
When I left the confines of the brick school building and walked out into the classroom of Nature in my dream, I found myself walking with my two dogs. As my feet lifted off the ground, so did theirs. I lifted first, but they followed my lead. Their leashes weightless ribbons joining us together in a trinity as though we were one-self. I felt rather felt like Santa Claus (yes, I actually had this thought while I was flying with the dogs in my dream), with my companions Rosy and Zelda flying ahead of me over the landscape below. A landscape filled not with mortored walls, but with the classrooms of the ancients. It was glorious to be flying over these places that draw my soul, and allowing myself to notice, but not stop and linger, where I felt the density of fear. I was there to discover and learn. I will remember this, I told myself, so that I can share it with others.
When I woke, I felt much lighter than I did the day before. That is the gift of these sorts of “dreams.”
We’ve all heard about the dangers of gangs and cults, but it is alarming how prevalent and insidious the cult-like syndrome is. I’m writing this post because I have fallen prey to it one too many times and I know so many others who have as well, many of whom are completely unaware that they are willing victims of this dangerous power-play.
My latest episode involved joining a group of “spiritual” practitioners and healers several months ago. A group that was not a cooperative, but an oligarchy. Mind you, there were red flags from the start (one that I could not ignore was the tagline of being “highly enlightened,” which goes against the heart and feeds only the ego. I do not personally believe myself to be “highly enlightened,” rather I learn in every moment) but I chose to ignore them because of my ego, as well as my idealistic heart. Despite all that I disagreed with, I really and truly wanted to help others, especially children and teens and thought I had found a venue to do so.
As I became enmeshed in this group, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the imbalance of energy that it was creating. Not only was it creating a financial drain (in the requirement of a membership fee that provided no return in the form of clients), it created an overarching energetic imbalance. Although I didn’t want to admit it until it became glaringly obvious, I realized the system I had bought into was more about feeding the ego than the soul. No one wants to believe that about a “spiritual” cult group. Yet it happens all too often.
Many of us have heard stories in the news over the years about dangerous cult-like groups and the horrors of what happens to their members. There are numerous cults who claim religious devotional ideals but corrupt the minds and bodies of their members due to the abusive nature of the ego. I was an unwilling victim of the Hare Krishna cult when I was two-years-old and the story is told in my memoir, A Girl Named Truth.
I was also the more willing victim of my family (cult), which is also told in my memoir. A strong statement, perhaps, but when we look closer at how our family units influence and shape us, we often find cult-like parallels and behaviors. Often, as children, we are completely unaware that there is a gross imbalance of power, and sometimes dangerous abuse occurring, because we so very much want to be loved and accepted. This desire can continue into our adult years, even when we should know better because there is a part of us that believes we need to continue to prove our worth.
Whenever there is an imbalance of power driven by the ego, individuals can become subject to a cult-like situation that can be damaging and sometimes dangerous to their wellbeing. It can happen in religious groups, spiritual groups, family units, schools, the workplace, etc. and there are usually some common themes which should trigger red flags.
One or a few people placed in a position of power/authority over others will often use this power to take advantage of you. This can include asking for services without reciprocation. (The leader of the “spiritual” group I was recently a part of would often ask for free services from the practitioners in addition to the payment of their membership fee. This is a gross imbalance of power and energy.) In corporations, sexual harassment and assault often occurs from misuse of power/authority due to hierarchical structures. “Favors” are requested from individuals who believe they deserve these favors because of their “position” in our life. In families, children are all too often abused sexually and physically because of the belief from their caregivers that they are subordinate.
What is, perhaps, most disturbing about this behavior is that it is often completely justified by the perpetrators. Some of which are completely unaware that they are doing anything wrong. In their egoic minds, it is justified. Why? Because we seem to be conditioned to believe that imbalance is acceptable. That there is a hierarchy to our worth as individuals and that it is okay to be above or below another. Not so. This needs to change.
Unfortunately, we see it all too apparent in our political systems. Dangerous misuse and abuse of power leading to harmful consequences, yet we continue to enable it. Why? It’s a tricky question, but when we look closely at ourselves and our vulnerabilities we may come to learn that there is a self-worth issue that needs to be addressed and healed. It can become a (sometimes painful) opportunity to heal and grow ourselves. When we heal the energetic vulnerabilities within us, we are less likely to attract those who tend to abuse and steal our energy and rob us of our self-worth.
I believe our individual and collective history repeats until we decide to heal and evolve individually and collectively. The inner tends mirror the outer, and vice versa. We are a funny race, as humans. We tend toward the belief of superiority and inferiority in our own cultures, but also when we compare ourselves to nonhuman beings such as animals and plants. The irony in this is if we want to ascribe to the belief of superiority then we are naively fooling ourselves. Nature knows better than we do that the web-of-life is about balance and cooperation. If we just watched and listened to what is occurring both within and outside of us, we would come to see this more clearly. We would see that when we struggle, so do those around us. The planet is in crisis, and so, I believe, are we. Our egoic minds struggle to hold onto the false belief that we are greater than others, when in fact, this division only breaks the One Light that threads through all of us. The light that is Life itself. When will we learn?
One of the driving forces behind this concept led me to write my newly released book, The Labyrinth. It is written as a young adult book, with its six teen protagonists, but it is not intended to be limited to this audience. I have, and continue to learn, from the characters in this book series, which I am calling Warriors of Light. Characters who must face their darkness to repair the light within and without. I still hold a crazy vision that unity can one day be achieved and that the broken lines of light in Earth and within Us, can be repaired into wholeness once again. That one day we may look at each other and see ourselves mirrored back, and the look given and returned will be filled with love and only love.
Meet Aponi, one of the six warriors of light in The Labyrinth.
On this day, one month ago, I suddenly declared to the friend I was soon to visit in London, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we found a crop circle?” It was one of those things that just popped into my head. I hadn’t been thinking about crop circles, which is a bit surprising, as I’ll confess I’ve always wanted to see one, but suddenly I felt an almost desperate urge to find one on this particular trip that I was to leave for within a matter of hours…
Sue’s account of the circle can be found here. And I had promised her to write about my visit, and other happenings during the trip soon as well. I’ve only managed to get one post out though. I have kept myself very busy, so even though it’s now my bedtime and I have an early morning yoga class to teach, I find there is no better time than the present.
Maybe I should start by telling you I drew the Mercury card for our Giant and the Sun Workshop weekend. The card for magic…
I didn’t know the circle was sitting in a faraway field in Cerne Abbas until I got there, and I didn’t know the full breadth of its significance (I probably still don’t) until I sat inside of it on the last full day of my visit, days after the events of the workshop had passed.
My traveling companion, Larissa, and I were rather desperate to find it once we knew of its existence. It felt like an opportunity of a lifetime. You know, one of those things you really can’t pass up because they may not offer themselves up again. But it was not so easy to locate…
Contrary to some popular beliefs, crop circles are not always easy to find or access. And, as I discovered, seem to be rather deliberately placed not for our amusement, but for our edification. They are, I believe, both a test and a gift. The real ones anyway.
When one of our companions, Helen, discovered this particular crop circle we were searching for was aligned with the Giant aligned with Orion and encased in a hexagon, I knew I had to find it. As Sue noted in her post, it was easier said than done. Rather like my search for the Nine Ladies two years prior, the land seemed to be testing me/us. Time played with us and stopped our first attempt. We found the general location from the road with the help of some rather kind, albeit skeptical locals, but didn’t realize the trek was a good thirty-minute walk at a brisk pace.
Close to, but not the entrance we were looking for
So we waited nearly a week, and with some urging by Sue and Stuart, we promised to give it another go on our return to Dorchester. Time, we found, was our friend that day. We had, it seemed, just enough.
This time we found the unmarked place to pull over easily, following Sue and Stuart’s directions, it was just feet down the road from where we had initially stopped.
We were the only ones there. The site was unmarked from the road, and as we would later discover, unmarked completely. All good signs in my opinion. This was not meant to be a tourist attraction. So we walked, and walked, me probably a little faster than Larissa would have liked, as the flies swirled around us.
I found I was more nervous than excited. I had that feeling of being tested, but not quite in the same way as I did at the Nine Ladies Stone Circle.
The cell tower was bothering me. It was both a marker of sorts, but also a mar on the landscape. Too easy to locate, but not the sort of power center I tend to prefer. We passed some farmers chatting by their equipment. I’m pretty sure they saw us through the trees but didn’t say anything. They were laughing over their meal, or perhaps at us…
No one stopped us though, so we kept walking until we got to the stone…
A rather conveniently located stone nearby the field we were looking for (the arrow is not pointing toward the circle)
I would have liked to have spent more time with the stone, which seemed to be a guardian. I sensed it had many stories to share if I was willing to stop and listen. Instead, we passed by, paying our brief respects as we did.
The circle, when we found it, was nearly unrecognizable. Three and a half weeks had passed since it had been put down and the wheat had grown back quite a lot in most areas. The center, though, felt a bit barren and abused. By the time we reached it I was starting to feel more than a little uncomfortable about the impact of our presence, and those who had come before us.
The earth was parched and exposed in the center and there were many fragments of rocks that looked like lava stones exposed
It was clear that others had found this site, even though the farmer was not advertising it and had allowed the crops to grow in. It was on the Crop Circle Connector website, though, so I was not surprised, but still alarmed…
These circles are not meant to be walked…
I kept hearing this phrase inside of my head, but still, I walked myself, with a feeling of guilt and a bit of self-disgust.
The energy is already deadened…
I also heard these words. And it was true. It felt, almost, like any other place. Any other farmers field of wheat, but not quite…
Grass bent precisely at the nodes, never broken in the circle
“Take your pendulum,” Stuart had urged me. “And ask these questions…”
I wore it around my neck. I even took it off and sat in the center. Something wasn’t right. So I moved off to one of the circles in the rays. It was nearly grown in but felt less tampered. I put the pendulum back around my neck, sat down and closed my eyes.
The words came through me almost immediately. Questions that were posed during the weekend were answered, and speculations confirmed. I saw the giant in the field without a head and a pattern in the stars called Orion. I felt a presence that felt both powerful and like Love. The words rose up through the ground and down through the crown of my head and for the first time I felt it was okay for me to be there. Just this once. To listen and receive.
I vowed never to return again. Not to this circle, or to another. For once you step into the patterns, a disruption occurs. A disruption of an energy, I have come to believe through what I received during my meditation, is not for us to walk through, but to honor as a part of the dance of energy that is Life, but not life as we are accustomed to living it.
I have read that you can tell authentic crop circles by the way the blades of the crops are bent. As I walked the over-grown lines I looked closely at the wheat and noted the perfection of the patterns that had been laid down weeks before. Thousands of strands of wheat were bent at perfect angles and never broken. The tractor tracks, in contrast, were filled with double lanes of trampled and broken wheat.
As Sue revealed in her post, this particular circle is in alignment with the sacred geometry and ley lines in the land. It appeared just weeks before our arrival, and after the workshop was planned, but before it took place. This, I believe, is not a coincidence. The words that flooded my consciousness while I sat in the wheat spoke of a purpose much greater than our individual footsteps, our individual beliefs, and our individual existence. They spoke of the sacred dance of a Universe sophisticated and intelligent. A dance of energy that used to be infused in the land I now sat upon, and in all land on Earth. I could feel it as a trickle of magic below me, spreading down into the land and through its veins. The artificial tower loomed in the distance as an interruption, and I felt both sorrow and hope.
This is not an accident, the words spoke inside of me, It was placed here for a purpose.
Questions found answers inside of me as I opened myself up to the land’s secrets, and a depth of clarity arose within me. I did not record what I learned, nor do I feel it is my place to share it all here. It is likely some will, and would not believe my words, and that is okay. I used to live in that state of doubt as well. I do not claim to have the definitive answers for the existence of crop circles, but there now exists inside of me a core of hope and awe for the power of their creation and intention. A confirmation, if you will, that Life is so much greater than what we see with our eyes. And that within us and around us there is a dance of energy that is Life itself. All-knowing and intelligent. Searching, always, for our presence.
I dreamt last night of a world I did not want to leave. “Hold me back,” I told my companions, lest I fly up into the wonderous sky above. At that moment I was watching the dance of clouds as they morphed into fairytale forms, yet what was below was as magical as what was above. A child’s playhouse of wonderment and joy. I have dreamed these landscapes before. I have even traveled them in visions only to return to the density of a reality that seems, on the surface, false and formed through the deliberate hands of ego-driven might. By hands shaped by the individual quest for greed.
My soul has not forgotten the true magic of Life. Of untempered Joy. Every so often, it returns me to that state to bring back hope and also Truth. I have walked the broken lands that still hold magic for those who wish to see and feel it. Through the deepest depths of a despair that is not just mine, I have felt the ever-present stirring of Light.
We all walk the landscape of magic, whether we are aware of it or not. At each moment we can choose whether to become the trapped victim of fear fed by that greedy hand lusting for power and dominance, or we can find that ever-present state where the river of Life flows to the frequency of Light.
Here is where the inner-child resides, waiting to dance to Truth. We call her the inner-child because she holds the key to Life. She never forgets the “child-like” state of wonder that is the magic of all existence. The embodiment of true Joy, she resides in all of us. Tuned to her frequency, the world around her shifts to match the rhythm of her dance.
For so many of us, including those who are not yet adults, the inner-child is already lost in a long-forgotten place. We may know she is there. Sometimes we may even feel her inner core of light, but we have forgotten who to get to her. It is as though we reside in a labyrinth that takes on a maze-like form because the light within us is filled with broken lines created by pain and fear. These shadow lands impede the natural flow of light, which is that magical life force energy that vibrates to Truth. To Joy. To Love.
As one well-intended individual has pointed out, the labyrinth that appears in my first book in the Warriors of Light series does not resemble the labyrinths seen throughout ancient cultures, and which is now used in “New-Age” healing modalities. The labyrinth I chose, or rather chose me, is a maze of lines that unite the above with the below. Those who are familiar with esoteric teachings will recognize it as the mystical hexagram, the Star of David, or the Merkabah . Its origin predates religion and division. Two triangles overlapping in union, connecting the above with the below in perfect harmony. The true self, that “inner-child,” can be found always at the center. The seat of the soul. Of Truth. Of Light. Un-changing. There can be many individual journeys to get there, but we all, eventually arrive at the same place.
The book will be out soon…I had a minor glitch in formatting, a glitch which is turning into a gift to allow a more beautiful expression of the book and the vision that is being held to assist and support children young and old reconnect with the inner-child of Truth.
Last night I dreamt I was flying. I was in a sporting good’s store, and on my way to the check-out register, but let me back up a bit. Before I started flying, I had been with Ann and Margo, two characters from my memoir, A Girl Named Truth. Briefly, I was fourteen again, and I could overhear my two former friends gossiping about me. Instead of keeping silent, though, and internalizing my hurt, I spoke up. “I know what you’re saying,” I told them, “and I really don’t care.” And, truthfully, I didn’t. Something inside of me had changed. I had become detached from the weight of their words, realizing they did not define me.
As I walked away, my feet began to lift off the ground and I began to fly. Effortlessly, and with a joy that defies gravity, I navigated my way to the front of the store where I found a queue of individuals who were waiting to “check-out.”
“It is not difficult,” I told them as they looked up at me with awe and doubt. “You can learn to do it too.”
In my forthcoming book, The Labyrinth, there is a thirteen-year-old character named Dell. She is one of the six “warriors of light” protagonists who must overcome their inner fears and challenges to use their gifts for a larger purpose. Like me, Dell was once bullied by her two former best friends.
Playful by nature, Dell is filled with an inner joy that is difficult to destroy. It is almost as though that very joy, that light, is what her former friends are afraid of and seek to diminish. Perhaps they do not realize that same light resides within them too.
We all have a Dell aspect of ourselves. The inner child who represents our true selves resides in each of us. I don’t believe there is anyone on the planet who has not faced adversity, causing their inner light to be overshadowed in some way.
Adversity rises to test the light. It throws a deliberate shroud over its source, and sometimes those who find themselves inside of its darkness lose hope of connecting to that inner joy again. Many of these people are still children themselves, like Dell, on the cusp of adulthood who have already forgotten they have that innate gift to soar.
They may feel broken, lost, and alone. In a world that chooses to reflect more darkness than light, that hopeless can spread throughout the channels of light that reside in all of us, leading to the despair of disconnection.
If you look at the cover of The Labyrinth, you will see the network of light leading to the center. If you look closely, you will notice that light has been cut off by darkness in many places. Dell and her five friends stand at the edges, each carrying the light of their individual selves. A pillar of unwavering light rises from the center. Each warrior, each individual who stands on the edge of the darkness, has the power to reach that inner beam of light. And, as these six discover, we never have to walk that path alone.
The Light Behind the Story 