Recently I took part in a research study regarding OIF and OEF veterans, and how their untreated PTSD effects those that love them. Studies show that the failure by our government to provide effective deprogramming to combat vets, and their resulting emotional suppression, disregulation, and too often infantile personality syndrome – is now resulting in widespread PTSD – in “dependents” and romantic partners as well.
The truth is that this country now keeps its soldiers deployment ready – by medical suppression of symptoms and emotions (utilizing anti-depressants, anti-anxieties, and stigma propaganda), rather than using trigger normalization and cognitive therapy – methods known world wide to effectively help heal PTSD.
Military authorities know the law of war is the exact opposite of the laws of love and life, and that our government’s lack of accountability is psychologically killing vets, their loved ones and families.
They know today’s war is terrorism, and terrorists’ placing of their own innocent women and children in harm’s way – or equipping them with bombs – has contributed to returning vets misidentifying their own loved one’s and their struggles, as emotional liabilities – or worse – as the enemy.
Now combat PTSD, complex PTSD and complex combat related PTSD is epidemic.
Isn’t it about time someone let the cat out of the bag, and told returning soldiers the truth, if not for their own sake, for the sake of those they went to war to defend – not harm, or for the sake of those they will pre-emptively abandon?
For how is military training just, if we permanently brainwash all human vulnerability out of the man, and destroy his capacity for love, trust and human empathy?
The following prose is dedicated to all combat vets, especially the men, who have been wrongly told by society (not just the military) that vulnerability and healthy expression of emotions, including just anger and grief, is wrong, unmanly – or unhealthy. It is not written to demonize the military, who many young people join, in fact, to find order and meaning in life, or to make up for emotionally lacking or abusive childhoods. It is not written to knock the brotherhood and bond often felt by war buddies.
This prose is simply written as a wake up call to all vets to recognize that man’s systems, including the military, are self-referential. Systems exist so that systems work, not to save you from them. Systems do not exist to serve the laws of love. Only humans can do that.
And as human beings, we all have choices to make in life. Are we going to serve love and life, by facing grief and pain and being there for our loved ones, or war and death by trying to make ourselves “invulnerable” as drones, to everything and everyone around us, while punishing the innocent for being healthily human?
Healing, for the returning combat vet, depends on his willingness to let love save him.
you sat on a fence waiting watching your options fall, like a chandeliercome crashing down from great heights
you sat on a fence thinking you were protecting them while you served as a slave to them all
frozen in February, you sold Sarah to the naysayers, to the crooks, and to the liars
for suffering too much
you mistook her for the enemy because you mistook yourself for the Physician, the Savior and Master
you honor the old woman instead whoshot you in the head without making a sound, while cutting your skin for a doll
like a spell caster fashioning admirers some sell their own gifts and lie about love
men think it is their job to save the world so they say semper fi
to their own image and to men who don’t love them
women think it is their job to save their own sons, so they bury them alive in basements of funeral homes
clatter, clatter against a fence post I saw your body wrung, a broken walking stick with the body of a crustacean
only when the just man leaps
will he hear Sarah’s screams, will he find that his plane is on fire and invisible nets waiting
only when the tide brings in not dead bodies and debris but the truth one has hushed in self-bottled silence
will chains unravel love float,
and pearls rise on the waves
for only those who trust in love walk on invisible waters
“Never had she danced so beautifully; the sharp knives cut her feet, but she did not feel it, for the pain in her heart was far greater.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid
Life is like a dream, and it is also like a book.
I dare say I like it when life’s seemingly insignificant moments come together, forming patterns, and a lesson can be drawn therein – as if the Creator created the universe, and time, specifically, for each of us. But I find life’s mysteries and their unraveling fascinating, not just because they are central to who we are as individuals, but to who we are as a humanity. We are in this life together, like it or not.
Unstable people might also find meaning in every day things, but it’s not this fact that makes them crazy, for everything does have meaning. Even in mental disorders, according to Jung, lies a secret order, and in all chaos, a cosmos. I dare say by contrast, I find those who don’t find meaning in anything, perhaps not crazy – but not that bright, either.
For what makes the delusional who do find meaning in everything deluded, is that they dare to assume what the meaning of these things are, as if they are God, and personally infallible.
For me, I simply like to ponder mysteries that don’t end, and such mysteries, fortunately, are really quite abundant. Spiritual mysteries are, in fact, way too big and plentiful for anyone to understand completely, this side of the grave. But moreover, I like to ponder how, if a Divine Being would so supernaturally order the universe, to put mysterious parable, or infinite pattern, into each of our very small lives – so that our souls can mature – this must mean that this Creator is all good and all powerful, even when we don’t understand the bigger picture that His puzzles present.
Perhaps life is less about finding out who we are, and more about finding out who the I Am – is.
And maybe knowing the created, and knowing what created the created, is somewhat interchangeable. Because to find out about anything created, one has an advantage if first one finds out – what purpose for it – the designer, he or she, had in mind. I have learned this lesson the hard way, from perusing Lowe’s hardware department – only to come home with a “tool wardrobe” that only makes me look like Rosie the Riveter – while rendering all my renovation aspirations into renovation limbo.
Stay with me here.
Yesterday was rough.
First of all, I have a problem with the repetitive mundane, and a lack of self discipline exacerbated by loneliness. I become increasingly aware of my shortcomings and limitations, as well as arthritic pain, when I force myself into some marathon labor, on yet more renovations, started a very long time ago. I speak here of tasks that will not even grant sweet, artistic satisfaction – until I’m entirely done.
“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we’re so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
― Hans Christian Andersen
Yesterday, exhaustion fell upon me as early and inevitably as the dusk, and it was exhaustion made deeper and more complex by reoccurring memories of a human love I had once found – but now, had lost. I felt heavy with not only physical, but emotional weariness, which had been mitigated briefly while I busied myself, but come to fruition in the night, in high definition, highly sensitive person fashion. So I sank into the old and weathered-but-welcoming sofa in myliving room, next to a coffee table that I had managed to refurbish, and in fact graced with laptop, pen and paper, and a glass of Merlot, self-served in a crystal wine glass – because I, at least, should love myself.
Now, I won’t ruin it for those of you who peruse movie channels regularly, for new releases capable of entertaining (or at least distracting, for awhile) – but who don’t regularly get your hopes up to this end, because you are smarter than a strawberry.
I won’t ruin it for you, in case you haven’t yet seen American Fable, by telling you how this movie ends. Suffice it to say, last night I watched, on my laptop – placed upon that refinished coffee table – a palatable and pleasing tale, about a little girl who risks everything, including her family, to do the right thing and help save an old man – imprisoned in a silo – simply for being rich and powerful.
And then I fell asleep.
When I awoke, the rain which had come down earlier in the evening had stopped. I awoke disoriented, trying to assess my this-is-not-my-bedroom surroundings. I only found comfort and familiarity in my dogs, still dozing loyally beside me on the thick, fake bear rug I had placed below – to hide for the time being, unfinished floors.
Not every creature has left me, I noted with what I hoped was not bitterness, but gratitude.
Or perhaps the dogs had just been afraid of the thunder. This was more likely.
I was vaguely aware of a recent nightmare, but the physical pain I felt now was greater and more intense than merely attention consuming. I glanced with self-accusation at the empty wine glass, a migraine teasing at my temples, but this unfortunate, punitive severity paled in comparison to the pain as sharp as hot knives, shooting through both my arms and in particular, up and down both of my legs.
I had assumed it was arthritis.
I realized now, I didn’t know it to be arthritis.
I had felt compelled to play doctor. I had blamed – perhaps wrongly – my not so ensuring government insurance program (the kind that not-rich and not-so-powerful entrepreneurs like myself, are necessitated to use). I suddenly felt regret and even fear in this moment, such as that that derives from a long bout of personal losses, and an inadequate, self preservation plan.
Had I been like the schizoid, seeing only the meaning I wanted to see, in what I only sensed to be true?
I fumbled for my reading glasses and immediately googled the symptoms of fibromyalgia on my cell phone, each movement exacerbating the pain. I now read each symptom dutifully, feeling way too old for my young looking, fifty-one years. As I read these symptoms, what I didn’t want to know registered as true, with a corresponding emotional impact that seemed once again, to double and triple already unendurable pain.
Could it get any worse than this? Perhaps I should google bone cancer next.
Or not.
At least I had had the foresight to pick up a spray bottle of something promising to be both icy and hot, the last time I had gone to the drug store, and if I could just be stubbornly tenacious, like Lazarus raising himself from the dead, I might extricate myself from the now not-so-comfortable couch. I could then, perhaps, after a generous application of analgesic (and two ibuprofen swallowed with something other than wine), settle into a more relieving and restful position, perhaps even post-meditative slumber, upstairs. But the searing, burning sensation in my legs must stop, before I could meditate, or contemplate anything – and sleep at all.
Oh Lord, please make this stop.
I prayed that angels of strength would strengthen me, for I was sinking fast. Melodramatic? Perhaps. But the intensity of this pain scared me, and I don’t scare easily anymore. If I cannot be reasonably well, I worried, how can I complete those tasks, even greater than my renovation projects, which God wants from me? Have I healed from so many traumas and shocks in my life, have I been shown so much discerning my true vocation, only to find God really intends for me a sickbed martyrdom, at this point in time?
I can’t believe His will for me is “just” immolation and offering of physical infirmities – despite not being exempt from this worthy path, through any merit of my own. Besides, I don’t want to burden my still rather young, adult children, and there would be no one left to tend to my side, pay my bills, or change my sheets, when I potty myself. (The dogs remain my dependents, not the other way around.)
But are these thoughts just another, I do not want to know? Or the evil one, intent on discouraging a dream?
“Brave soldier, never fear.
Even though your death is near.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier
So upstairs, about an hour later, lying in bed, I felt both strangely cold, and strangely hot.
I had sprayed an awful lot of medication from the small metal bottle on my mostly stripped down body, standing as relatively upright as I could in the upstairs bathroom, and now stood in a puddle of it. Even the spray bottle slipped out of my hurting hand, clattering loudly against floor tiles, rolling somewhere unreachable. I could not endure the pain necessary to bend down and clean up the mess I had made, so I could not take precautions against slipping in the puddle the next morning – with preemptive housekeeping – those good habits of which Mother had warned me never to forego, when I was just a little girl.
But even after this self-dousing with medicated spray, I could not detect any lessening of pain, only an added, feverish twist. Now, as I pulled covers up, then off again, writhing in agony, I found someone had turned my mattress into a stone. Soon, I found myself trapped in that self-defeating loop, of trying too hard not to think about pain, trying too hard to drift into contemplation, and trying too hard to sleep. The magnitude and sharpness of pain filled up my mind, blocking everything else out, and I imagined a bleak, fibromyalgic future, the pain leading to sleeplessness, which would lead, in turn, to anxiety and depression. I had read that commonly happens, thanks to google and my cell phone. What then? What’s next? I cannot do this alone.
The limit of my endurance had broken, and I started to cry.
Nothing less than God can satisfy us. – Julian of Norwich
Then I noticed the morning birds singing.
And it was just starting to get light outside.
Casting my eyes upwards, head extended back against the pillow, I stopped crying for a moment, and looked up at the same brilliant moon that I had seen almost every other night, through the window which rose up behind my head board. It was a moon which now peeked out from behind a brilliantly patterned, green underside of a canopy of leaves, on the giant tree which grows very close to the side of the house. I must have fallen somewhat into a dream state, because I heard myself silently talking to God about my place of business, my soul speaking some spiritual language that we both seemed to understand.
This is my woods.
I see that it is… I long to sweep you up, into my arms.
And finally, half awake, I noticed my pain had slightly diminished, replaced with an even stronger, burning sensation. It was a feeling of longing I have felt quite occasionally in my life, and it transcends everything else here on earth, even physical pain. I wanted to go home. I was homesick.
I do not know for certain that my birth was accompanied by a near death experience, but I remember, in a vague way, that other home, that better place, somehow outside of time, where the Bright Light, the Presence, is, and the angels reside. It is a home I remember forsaking only to help undo whatever my mother had done – so that she could continue to live with me, and the rest of my family there.
I loved her so much, as I still do now. But my mother has grown old in this life, I too am tiring, and I long for what I can’t quite remember in fullness here below. I am not suicidal, but I’ve longed for that Someone and that Place with all of my heart, in times such as these, but also in times of great joy.
Child, do you not know? You never left My side.
In that moment, in my bed, it felt like if God allowed me to remember heaven more fully, my soul would detach from my body right then and there, and go to Him. He would, indeed, sweep me up in His arms. I imagined at least, He was giving me this option.
But what about my children?
The longing was something so ecstatically sweet, it hurt – but it was not pain like sharp knives in the legs. It was a burning of the heart I cannot explain adequately. The only thought that could prevent me from entirely succumbing to it, was the thought of my adult children, and the grief they would feel if I were suddenly dead. This thought grounded me in that moment – with sorrow, compassion and love for them. I even shuddered to imagine my dogs, who would sleep faithfully until they starved to death, beside my already dead corpse. For what are our lives worth, if not opportunities to sacrifice for others?
And isn’t it more fitting that a parentgive her life and sufferings for her children, and the caregiver care for the creature, than the other way around? So, in that moment, I offered to God my pain (which was now re-surging) and the rest of my life for my children. I also offered up these things for all those God might want me to assist on this earth by way of love, even as I had once, as an infant soul, come to life – for my mother. And perhaps there was another human love, that I wouldn’t get to love, if I let God take me now.
I don’t remember when I fell asleep again.
But in the dreams that soon followed, I heard voices speaking over me, talking about how I needed emergency surgery.
It is her third emergency surgery.
No, she has already had five.
The human love I had lost was somewhere in that room, and a doctor’s assistant with a silent angel’s voice was asking him, will you care for her (meaning, will he care for me)? My former love shook his head. He looked irritated and tired. No, I have to work to do. He was an important, hardworking man, and he too, had recently been sick.
The feminine voice hovered over me again, telling me “they” could get me on his father’s insurance plan.
No, I have to see my son, my former love answered, now offering a different excuse, and one successfully silencing me – because I wouldn’t question his parental love.
But wasn’t this disordered, if his son was fine, and my life was in danger?
And even in my dream, I recalled that this man had blamed me for his own illness, as if love was counter-indicated for good health, rather than what God intended to help heal and set people free. But in fairness, Former Love could have been trying to say that his only business in the world was to exist for the sake of his children. Was he an analogy for God?
No, clearly, he was not God. This was the man who had broken my heart and abandoned me, not the Bridegroom of my soul, who had done neither of these things.
So I wondered, in the dream (because I am ever logical) how could it be true that I could get on his father’s insurance, if wewere not even married? How convoluted and dark this dream has become, I thought. I was somehow aware that I was dreaming, but able to stay asleep.
Then I saw his father in the dream, who was older, unshaven, and surprisingly rather disheveled looking, even though he still wore a suit, as if he too, had recently endured a lot of pain or abuse. In fact, he looked strangely like the same man from the movie I had watched the preceding evening, who was imprisoned in a farm silo for many months, simply for being rich. Now this kind, gentle man was in my dream, sitting alone in untidy clothing in a hospital, or some kind of waiting place, but looking relaxed now, as if in secret, he really owned the place.
You can be on my insurance, he intuited to me directly, without speaking a word, not because he is my son, but becauseyou are my daughter.
I don’t remember the rest of the dream, but as I awoke the next morning, I had the brief sensation of being wheeled out on a gurney, through the exit doorway of a surgical unit,into a recovery area. I was slowly waking up in my dream, and in real life. I just had time before I woke up for real to notice a very small sign posted on the wall (in my dream) beside the surgery door through which I had just exited. So I sat up in the wheeled cot, straining to read it.
It said: I HAVE A PLAN.
And one more time, right before my alarm went off, and I sat up in my real bed, I heard an assistant’s voice, hovering over me, saying something like:
She’s stable.
And it was then that I noticed my pain was almost gone.
There was one more dream I had, because, finally feeling more at peace and refreshed, I dosed off a bit longer. It was about tea. That’s all. A flash of rich imagery, tea leaves in one of those plastic baggies in which I usually store it, and a heady, sweet, herbal fragrance.
Love will find a way where wolves fear to thread. – Lord Byron
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living. – Soren Kierkegaard
The door is wide open, don’t go back to sleep. – Rumi
There’s no Power but God, the Feminine says I amforced to work, I Am All force is a lie, She says, sorrowing Anddisagrees You are not I Am, you are the world Andno cosmos in your hand Who told you man, to serve The Lord was to serve the man? For what serves man’s interests does not serve Mine nor those that are My kind I am not the mother who forced the claim to what’s inside your head The bottom of My Heart your Spirit begged like Angel’s dying cries where you punished My Voice
which had not made so
and stoned Me till He’s dead I Am the one can talk to souls My angels talk at night The black witch steals her own relief As if your life her right
When your Soul returns to you My life insurance plan Don’t fear the birthing pain
that frees Soul’s Voice False mother’s Victim is I Am
“It will all be better in the end, and if it is not better, it must not be the end yet.” – Dean Koontz
“God wants us to be happy and enjoy our lives, and so he sends angels to help us.” – Lorna Byrne
When people talk about their life flashing before their eyes, they often speak of it as reviewing images from a reel of movie film. I contend this film, or mental story book of our life, is constantly replaying somewhere in the back of our minds – especially as we age.
Some images come to us crisp and clear, no matter how often our tape is replayed, popping to the surface of mental awareness especially when we are feeling inspired orsentimental. These memories have meaning and emotional depth, marking our lives like purposely placed book marks.
Others images fade into white, like footage or a window obscured by static or snow, and try as we might we cannot clear the window to remember what really happened to our second cousin ten Thanksgivings ago. We also can’t recall the discussion our parents had, that night we were sent to our room early, and missed the season finale of our favorite TV show.
Perhaps the forgotten or missing elements of life are insignificant, the monotony ofeveryday life finally overcome, and that’s why we forgot them in the first place. No mystery hidden here by powers unkind. But periods of monotony may not be insignificant, and are not always forgotten.
Trauma or stress on the other hand, is that from which we tend to dissociate, and sometimes forget, only to have these memories resurface later in life.
I contend there is meaning in everything, even in the why of why we forget certain things, and why other memories constantly show up.
I believe bad memories that constantly show up, show up not to condemn or threaten us, but because there is something we need to figure out or unlearn – and then relearn correctly – if we are to realize our own innocence and natural birthright, which is always peace and joy. Darkness and self doubt is just an illusion.
But sometimes not unpleasant scenes keep resurfacing, like benign flashbacks, which one is at first unaware.
One begins to notice these if only for their repeated persistence. And they become more and more interesting – until one is compelled to figure them out, as well. I have several mysterious, or “cryptic” memories like this in my life.
Here’s one.
It was summer time.
I was a highly sensitive child, so I was often more in tune with my interior life, nature and animals, and the beauty and mysteries of the changing seasons, then I had tolerance for children of my own age – and the games they seemed to enjoy.
I see West Point very clearly, the visuals and smells of it. I remember tiny, sparkling rivulets of crystal clear rainwater, meandering merrily down the road where I lived. I remember gentle sunshine filtering through leafy, overhead ceilings of oak and pine, and the soft, warm breeze which carried with it the sweet smell of green, neatly cut military grass. I remember the incense-like stain of red and gold marigolds, which adhered to my hands like golden finger paint, from giant seed pods broken open with a pleasing snap.
Can you see it, feel it, remember this with me? For me, even to describe this induces overwhelmingly realistic sensations.
This summer there was a birthday party at the end of the road at a house where a girl I knew lived.
She was slightly older than me.
She had been kind enough to invite me to her party, and therefore I was obliged to go. The fact that she was not a close friend, and sometimes gave me a vaguely uncomfortable feeling, was not relevant, nor was my disinterest in the trivial games that seemed to very much interest the other kids.
I don’t remember the cake.
I don’t remember the interior of her house.
I don’t remember of what most of the games consisted. But I do remember when one of the girls dramatically announced that one of the other little girls – arriving late – was a fortune teller, and was going to “read” our futures, and everybody got all excited. At that point I decided I had had enough, and tried to quietly slip away.
Too funny. I guess I had spiritual pride at an early age.
My interior life was way too interesting, and I was way too intuitive, to imagine enlightenment could be aided by another little girl. Especially not one who might not mind overly sweet frosting, the brutality of bobbing for apples, or God forbid – playing spin the bottle with the few boys present. But if I was anything at that age, I was docile, and did not want to hurt or offend anyone.
So when one of the older girls ran after me across the back yard (after I had made my quiet escape, sneaking guiltily out the door) I was subject to her, and returned with her. I was told that the little girl telling fortunes was really “nice”, and she specifically wanted to tell me my fortune, for some reason unknown. I didn’t know who this fortune teller girl was, but she had specifically asked about me, wanted to speak with me, and tell me my fortune.
With some kind of glass ball.
Or something she was using as a glass ball. I think it may have been a basketball.
Looking glass, basketball, did it even make a difference to them?
But I probably said make shift prayers of deliverance – you know – just in case she was consulting with demons.. or a basketball. I certainly didn’t like demons, nor was I particularly fond of basketball.
Just sayin’.
The fortune teller girl matter of factly told me I would have three children – one of whom would die young (I think she said I would miscarry) and a boy and a girl, who would survive. I remember thinking she was the unfortunate one. I remember interiorly balking at this stranger’s insistence that one of my future children was going to die. She said not only that, I would be divorced twice. But I also remember she was indeed very “nice”, and said do not worry, you will be very happy in the end.
So for some reason, every once in awhile, I remember this little clairvoyant, her calling me out, her “service” to me, and her ever so confident prediction. This is one of those odd scenes that has kept resurfacing in my life – with increasing, mysterious persistence.
Of course, I don’t remember the little girl’s face, but perhaps that’s because it was obscured by a veil. I make note that this is not unlike the scene in Jane Eyre, when Mr. Rochester disguises himself as a fortuneteller, and gives Jane a spankingly accurate picture of herself.
Yes, for some reason, certain memories will occasionally resurface in my mind like a slide from a slideshow, or movie the angels are showing me, to show me something important, repeatedly, until I finally figure out what it is.
Of course at fifty-one, three children later (a boy and girl now grown, and a baby I tragically miscarried) and two divorces later, I am, paradoxically quite joyful, and have my suspicions why repeated exposures to scenes like this are important, when taking instructions from angels – who reveal the mysteries of life to us, like scenes from a silent film rerunning through our brain.
For they teach the highly sensitive we are not alone, even when we thought we were, and unlike what we might think, we are not the only child of God who intuits truth of a deeper variety – than held in fashion by what we perceive – as the “many”.
Yes, we are very special.
But so is every other individual human being in the eyes of God. God loves each of His children in a mysteriously individual way, much as if the suffering or death of just one of His children, was as untollerable as the – also “predicted” – suffering and death, of His only begotten Son.
There are many paths not widely taken, in fact, an almost infinite number of them.
This is because souls are as unique and individual as there are stars or snowflakes in the sky, and we each get our own road upon which our souls must “grow up”, our own private revelation language of sorts – in which God’s angels speak.
And though we may feel alone in our journey (because each path is different) we must never forget our shared humanity, and the author of life who calls after each one of us. Angels teach us how to be happy, bring us together, and help us learn what is important to learn, even if we remain unaware of their assistance. But as humans, we must also learn that service to others is as much a result of healing and happiness, as it is a means to that end. For it is God Who forever holds the globe of our earthly existence – in His own hands.
There is only love or hate. These are the only priorities left.
In retrospect, Oracion felt Mother had done her a greater disservice when she had recommended Oracion be auctioned for dragons, than when she had sold Oracion’s night visions to a troubled prelate, for the cost of a trikerion lamp.
After all, the dragons had done Oracion no harm, and when she, a princess but only five years old, demanded Mother tell her – what offenses dragons had committed that all of them were guilty of death (just so a princess could bear a prince) – Mother could give no answer.
“If any knight slays an innocent, unproven dragon for my sake, not tried for its case” Oracion had announced, licking honey cream casually off of her fingers (for she was eating a thick slice of current bread) “be he a knight, a prince, or even be he a king – he will never have my hand.”
Oracion had gone then to see Father, still licking her fingers.
She found him in the expansive castle library on one of the tall ladders towards the back of the room, beneath the ancient ceiling vault upon which the artists had drawn angels. He was paging through a heavy volume he had pulled from a shelf, beside an open window the height of one wall. From this emitted a gentle, summer evening breeze, that caused long, gauzy silk curtains to flutter, like wispy skirts of garden nymphs.
Father often seemed to understand Oracion, when others could not.
Indeed, he had overheard portions of Oracion and her mother’s conversation, which came echoing in from the dining chamber. It was funny how within this castle there were so few secrets, yet so many, that Oracion was wont to realize.
Glancing down at Oracion, Father was now only halfway absorbed in the fine volume, which had such outstanding, gilded lettering running down the length of its spine, luminous calligraphy seemed to jump right off of the binding, in response to the flickering candlelight.
“In your mother’s culture it was an honor for princesses to have suitors duel over them,” he stated, matter of factly, still appearing to peruse the book. “And where there was not game, the men would invent.”
Oracion crossed her arms at this remark, her brow knit with great consternation at what seemed like Eros’s error, then sat down silently into a great armchair, three times too big.
“That does not impress,” she had finally responded, which was a response that was also three times too big, for such a little girl. “So why would it honor?”
Father considered for a moment, then slid the book back into the row of bound manuscripts, closing the space. He came down from the ladder and sat down next to his little girl empty handed, drawing her lovingly – into his arms.
“Do not worry, my righteous little Oracion,” he told her. “Your mother knows it will not happen that way. For I will not let her do that to you.”
Oracion had looked up at Father then, suddenly more hopeful of a future not devoid of that virtue of which marriage claimed to promote, and which Father had taught her only too well. Father knew what love was, and he also had a habit of fixing things right.
His love for Oracion was like a deep well from which she could draw many delightful draughts, to the degree to which she was thirsty, and simply trusted he had secreted them there. Satisfaction was always there waiting. And since satiation could be so endlessly drawn – with little more than an inclination of will, or the sound of one’s voice in this kingdom, why did not everyone know joy? And why then was poor Mother, so often sad?
“How then, will it happen?” Oracion asked.
Father smiled.
“Oh that. I do not know… for that is for you. But you are part Etherate, so you will not be won. You are also nobility… so you will rule with your king. You are a shape shifter, so you will marry like mind – with free choice – and finally – you have warrior blood within – of deep and ancient origin.”
“Warrier blood,” repeated Oracion. “Oh Daddy, I know. I will duel with the suitors and whomever can beat me – I will allow them my hand.”
At this Father had laughed robustly, even slapping one of his knees.
“I don’t know about that, my dearest, funny heart. Perhaps, but not like you imagine it. You are sure to meet him in the midst of battle, but you are going to have to be willing to be saved. The saving part is mutual, and non-negotiable – for true love is a gift freely given, and accepted.”
This explanation sat true with Oracion, so she had not pondered it further, or plumbed its depths. Until she met Cosmos, the angel-boy she called Christmas, in Father’s mysterious orange grove.
Now it made even more sense, as if Father had been mapping for her the lines of his face.
As for Mother, perhaps she had just been teasing, but Oracion decided never to tell her about the boy she had heard being called Cosmos. Telling Mother such things might worry her, hasten competitive suitors, or provoke a loosening of dragons.
And she had instantly loved that little boy like Christmas morning.
But that she was going to marry Cosmos – the boy she called Christmas – was something the Presence had revealed to her as well, so in Oracion’s mind it was already settled. There only remained decorating the ballroom with balsam and pine, not encouraging the other suitors, and planning the feast to which she planned on inviting all nobility, fairy-kind, shape-shifters, servants, commoners and animals alike, regardless of rank, species, table manners… or lack thereof.
But as the years passed, that magical and sleepy spring day in the orange grove faded like a sweet dream rather than a certain, tangible memory. Though she missed her beloved Christmas with an aching, ever-present longing, Oracion had begun to assume her angel boy was already in heaven and waiting for her there, like one of those perfect cherubs, whose images had graced Father’s ceiling.
The significance that the Divine Presence would allow her to meet Cosmos again, right before Oracion found herself, as an adult, shifting into the past to revisit her father’s death – was not lost on Oracion, whose mind was ever reflectant, and constantly sifted analogy and thought. Analogy and thought, to be effective, were like shadow and light, juxtaposed. Though she had perfected these mental skills in time travel lessons as a child, instantaneous contemplation and awareness were something she had never been without.
So truly, as an adult, Oracion knew that hearing Cosmos’s voice (even as he rescued her from a blended-dragon, who was really her brother) was at the same time what gave her strength to face this uncomfortable reality.
Should it have come then as any surprise, that the Artist who tempered the forest she loved so dear, with variant hue and melodious bird song, had balanced her life with such a great paradox, albeit in the unhurried, eleventh hour, like her own father, glancing down from a book?
But He had.
And it did.
It did come as a surprise.
The sound of her lover’s voice, when she had heard it that second time, as an adult.
Oracion noticed that during the most important events in life many things happen at once, and perhaps this was how they tended to take one unaware.
Even as she found herself shifting helplessly away from the now adult Cosmos, back into the past, visions started flashing rapidly before Oracion’s eyes like cut away still shots of life. The current buns with their sticky, dehydrated fruit – now a startling, disturbing ruby red – and her mother’s eyes, on the surface kind – but with hidden complexity.
This was a jarring disorientation, more dizzying than grains of sand in a sand storm, flying into her face.
The two visions crossed, in a sense also juxtaposed, and she saw her mother shifting into a dream snatcher. Mother’s eyes seemed to sink in her face until they were filled with heavy, deep pools of currant jam – which became dried, coagulated blood. Oracion suddenly became aware of her own eyes becoming filled with something opposite – wet, stinging, and raw.
The wetness of tears upon Oracion’s cheeks stung like a bitter salve, even as she passed over and saw below the hang man’s noose being erected by the priests – and the testers – in the castle square.
But she needed to cry to put back into her own mother’s eyes – life.
A loosening of emotions had been necessary and caused by this time shift, and Oracion wept even as she felt, and was becoming aware, of new – but past – surroundings. She felt the godmothers clinging ever more tightly to the folds of her skirt – Sweet Joy, hiding her eyes, burying her face, as if in this time shift she would be Chagrin once again. But it was also then that she heard the Madonna of the Glistening Wood saying “He thirsts”.
Her voice was both a startlingly lovely, beckoning song, and a gentle pleading. She had promised Oracion to stay near.
Suddenly all Oracion could think was “Father” – the immensity of him – and the depth of his love for her, what it had been, and what it was. She was back in the turret bedroom her parents had given her, now weeping for Father, whose death was about to begin.
This was how Oracion realized it, the day the kind lady turned her tears for her mother – into tears for Father – at the sound of her voice. For if she hadn’t spoken Oracion would have died of grief, and martyred herself – for a wrong cause.
“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.” – Carl Jung
“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” – High-level Freemason, releasing a sensational secret
I have lost my faith. I have lost my faith in man. Moreover, I contend, to really find faith in God, one must discard all counterfeit religions.
Likewise, it is only when man recognizes his very enemy as his other self, and embraces his own humanity (with all its accompanying sufferings, griefs, victimization, and mini-deaths) that any one man can find life.
Despite the obvious unpopularity of this truism – and mankind’s many attempts to change it, like a race of monkeys repeatedly banging their heads against a cage – dying to self is the only way any one of us can get out of this life ‘alive’. And death to the lower self, the animal self, is the only way we can live life – to the degree that we are able – as if it is heaven on earth.
That is, in freedom.
As another writer put it (in my opinion a lot more eloquently than I) we must paradoxically “not give a fuck” what happens to us on this earth – to healthily change this life.
For as humans, we are all in this together, and therefore in a spiritual sense, represent one another. All healthy religious schools of thought hold to some version of the Judeo-Christian ethic “Love thy neighbor as thyself”.
Perhaps this is because, despite being infinitely unique, like countless snowflakes – with just slightly different life experiences and traumas, or choices of free will – we would all ‘be’ or ‘see’ exactly like our ‘enemy human sees’ – and has come to believe.
It is really difficult for the sane to believe that there are men who don’t deep down inside ‘mean well’ – or want ‘good’ – if you really think about it. “Goodness” is like a magnet, that even atheists desire and fight to possess, though some might call goodness by a different name. And God alone sees men’s hearts, and this similarity between men. In fact, if you embrace any variety of an all good God and His all good creed, you must pray with Him for a new world order, that “they may all be one”. Those who fight against this creed become ‘anti-Christs’.
But for those who mean well, this necessitates we would want our brother to “get to heaven” – not therein triumph in our brother’s nonexistence.
C S Lewis touched on this startling principle in Till We Have Faces, as have many other esoteric and spiritually gifted writers. Without the outside-of-us Higher Power on the inner self, and without actually embracing grief, no man can fix the discord between the humanities, move mountains, change people, the world – or our surrounding physical existence – let alone change the shape and nature of self, or the state of the human soul.
Indeed, as psychiatrists know, suppression of grief and suffering, refusal to acknowledge that we are helpless, in need of one another, or that we have been victimized, sometimes even by our own parents, is what causes mental illness, and is the seed of sadism, and the development of a breed of empathy-less men. Empathy-less Man, as I like to call him – Brute Man – though he may experience pleasure at the expense of another, cannot understand or ever attain joy.
If one cannot grieve, have empathy for oneself, and hates and judges oneself and his own weakness instead, one will certainly not have empathy for one’s own kind, or will judge his own brother accordingly, rather than fighting back against the ignorance and evil that afflicts humanity.
It is like suffering and fragility is a necessary healing and illuminating window or door, if properly approached, that every human must pass through to get strong, and therefore not an evil at all – even though in the passing through it might hurt, and feel like we have gotten wounded.
In fact, though praying “may it be done on earth as it is in heaven… that they may all be one” is a hard, but healing prayer – attempting to make earth ‘heaven’ by one’s own efforts, on the other hand (though it may not ‘hurt’ at all) is quite another story. The damage done to self and to others simply by drug addiction – tells this story all too well.
Going at it ‘alone’ by one’s own efforts – not God’s – is being dangerously out of touch with reality, and exemplifies mankind’s historically repeated tale, its failed efforts to obtain power and grandeur.
In fact, it is this error or delusion of self-importance and power by which brute sociopaths and brute ideologies have, without any trace of human empathy, traditionally caused death, sometimes of millions of people, those deemed too “imperfect” to live here on this earth. Sociopaths and sociopath like ideologies lack human empathy, but strangely assume to speak or act in the very name of God Himself, or as if they alone, are above God’s laws, the elected elite.
Thus we have abortion against ‘imperfect’ humans for a ‘better earth’ by the left elite, and ISIS and White Supremacist type movements by the ‘religious right’ elite, to impose control, slander, dominate or eliminate the ‘imperfect’ from one’s ‘borders’ for example, via other methods of human destruction.
Man does not seek to be perfect so much as he tends not to want to be exposed to the humbling truth of his own “imperfection”, and what he deems as “imperfection” in others. It ‘hurts’ Brute Man to ‘see’ suffering, poverty, or illness, because these things remind of Brute Man’s own mortality. It hurts him to see – one another.
But ‘imperfection’ is not a sin – not even a fault – nor does ‘imperfection’ prevent freedom, or peace. Imperfection is a state of being – not of our own fault and choosing – and a “cross” all of humanity must bear. Most of us simply inherit a fallen nature.
From a spiritual perspective, the paradox is that though we may be imperfect in a physical sense, we were all born equally innocent, in fact, in the very Image and Likeness of God. Therefore we can only gain true perfection, by reaching into the spiritual dimension.
We are all called to realize that the perfect God-Man is already risen, after being nailed to our cross, just like time is already written, and time is already undone. Likewise, our ‘imperfections’, sufferings and crosses of humanity if you will – are also, in another dimension (outside of time) – already ‘undone’, and it is only through Him that we can obtain our own potential.
Death has already been conquered, just as the “perfect” man has already been created – and crucified for it. Jesus Christ was also nailed to that cross for repeating this truism, this plan for humanity, that I simply reiterate here on this page today. The cross is not very comfortable, but it is a beautiful, healing, life and joy giving reality to many.
And though most of us are obsessed with “left brain” activities regarding time, planning and strategy – to “make our world a better place” – paradoxically, the only things really left of our once angelic conscious that can “move” anything at all, or ‘help’ save the world, is none of these – and never was.
The “spiritual powers” of “movement” are of energy, of what Is, the Forever Now – and include intuition, creativity, communication, knowing, understanding, awareness of patterns and analogy, empathy, free will and prayer. This is revelation, the realization of the deeper meaning of things, their familial, interconnected nature, and what Is, or shall I say – Who Is. This is not to say we must not act out charity, fight back against evil, exposing imposed wrongs on ourselves and others, or defending the innocent, inspired by these higher impulses – but it is the will rather than the deed itself – that is the more ‘powerful mover’ – because that is the ‘how’ we are ‘like God’.
There is a Who Whom holds everything in existence, and therefore a Who Alone that can change or save it.
Also, paradoxically, the spiritual gifts, those gifts that connect us to this ‘Is’, this all powerful God, are strongest in those who have embraced suffering and grief – like the handicapped, or the autistic savant – and practically nonexistent in humanly ‘powerful’ individuals. Man who has made himself blind to this higher reality and spiritual realm, jealously seeks, none the less, by methods satanic (inhuman, without self sacrifice) to ‘steal’ from God’s children their own birth right.
The reason why suffering and imperfection – trustingly embraced – as it is with suffering children, leads to spiritual enlightenment, is because where one sense may be lost via accident or nature, others gifts and senses grow more powerful, like compensatory gifts. Roses bloom, after being cut back.
But ironically, it is the very seemingly ‘powerless’ individual deemed ‘imperfect’ by Brute Man, that is targeted for theft, destruction, slander and extinction – as if the very children of God – those who please His most Sacred Heart the most – who can move mountains by an act of will, prayer, fiat or simple longing for Him – have no functioning purpose at all in this life.
This is why those who know Truth, weep.
And from a Christian perspective, this is why Christ’s own mother shed tears at the foot of the cross.
As the weeping, human feminine she was the “new Eve” that represented all of us, pondering these truths deeply within her heart, as she embraced the ultimate grief. She wept not just for her Son, but for all of innocent humanity whom God allowed her to see would/did/is suffering, and would/did/is willing to be victimized, along with Him.
Therefore the mother of God is our true Mother, more so than Mother Nature or Mother Earth, for she alone – as a human bridge – offers a spiritual pathway of transformation – always pointing not to herself, but to Truth itself. I love this God-used link of the human Mary, who shows humanity whom humanity Is, and Whom God Is, the God that loves us humans unconditionally, despite our human rejection of Him – and the choice of hell.
But this is why in Scripture, we find that Satan hates Mary, with her knowing eyes, and her silent, intuitive heart.
Deep down inside, all evil entities also know (though cannot understand ) the superior power of the innocent through their connection to God, and therefore fear this power ‘of’ humanity – a power that can somehow turn tears of sorrow and suffering – into joy. If evil cannot steal or conquer this power of God’s Movement, evil will ultimately seek to destroy, control or eradicate all those humans whom he assumes possess it, or belong to it. Evil is an illogical force much like jealous schizophrenia, though this must not be confused by brutes to assume those with true mental illness, are necessarily culpable of the evil they might commit.
The force to destroy those of Good Will, the innocent ( a suffering, weeping but capable of joy humanity) is the real Beast, or the Anti-Christ.
Anti-Christs spin off continuously from one another like countless, fruitless, robotic voids or black holes of destruction, ‘reproducing’ from the ‘makings’ of men… and he is legion.
They, these Anti-Christs, are easily recognizable in the broken systems surrounding us that have victimized those very persons they were designed to serve, blaming their own corruption, disorder and ineptitude on the victim, each time around. These broken systems are disordered parents, governmental and all man-corrupted, religious institutions and ‘authorities’ – that abuse their own. Those that really represent God are all humans of good will, and God’s real ‘universal’ or ‘catholic’ church of every denomination. God’s children, of all ages and genders, are hidden and victimized within these systems, usually completely unknown to society – and the world at large.
They are hardly ever applauded.
These innocents have a spiritually powerful, but almost completely silent voice (I have been privileged to know a few) that the world is in general way too busy to hear, or because, after all, there is something better on TV – a reality show – or the football game.
But in America today, the political anti Christs that are really distracting, false and fraudulent dichotomies, rage blindly along in the ‘war’ to destroy the innocent, and battle among themselves, throughout all of society, media outlet and venue.
The left, having chosen disorder over order by means of rebellion, negligence and relativism (“there is no such thing as truth or a moral code that should therefore be enforced or lived”) offers no protection or refuge for vulnerable and innocent victims, like pre-born children, as if they are material objects, possessed by another.
The right on the other hand, has an unhealthy obsession with order that makes man despise everything less than ‘perfect’, or anyone who is ‘weak’ and vulnerable, as writer Dean Koontz put it – an outward demanding “obsessive compulsive disorder of the intellect, rather than the emotions.” These entities on the right work to destroy and silence all those they think contribute to ‘imperfection’ or ‘disorder’ – ultimately – through similar methods and means, though cloaked in a different, even more dangerous language. They seek to breed only a ‘superior’ race.
Both of these political errors, the first of negligence and cowardice, the second of pride, are narcissistic. They result in the same thing – the sacrifice of the innocent or “imperfect and unwanted” for a “greater good” in life. “Greater good” has become code for Oneself (“Hail Man”).
Both are the refusal of self to look inward, the refusal of self to embrace one’s own imperfections of humanity – and the refusal to (instead of seeking ‘perfection’ of humanity outside of oneself) seek perfection and enlightenment of one’s very own soul.
Perhaps there is no place better to examine these conflicting, but equally erroneous pathological ideologies than through the battles that wage on social media, where the Logo that Brute Man has chosen – Might Makes Right – over human reason, truth, self awareness and ‘common’ sense – is obvious, and clearly turning mankind ‘back’ into a mindless beast. Man has become much like a squawking, preening peacock, that can’t even get himself above the material world, rather than like a soaring eagle – who can view a bigger picture – from celestial realms.
Countless times, I have seen this peacock-dinosaur type creature.
Not only have I been the victim of theft, slander, religious shunning and attempted soul murder by corrupted individuals and entities – in real life – that literally sought me out “to destroy” me, but have witnessed and been the victim of the illiterate verbal monster on social media practically every time I enter into that realm.
But wherever provable truth surfaces repeatedly to fight corruption (as I have occasionally done in my work in fraud investigation and as founder of the Saint Germaine Foundation) with no party or religious bias, this is almost inevitably going to happen. This is particularly and ironically going to happen more frequently though, the more uncomfortable truths are expressed by individuals in a straight forward and carefully charitable manner, to enlighten minds, not attack, judge or punish others.
If one simple voice of truth did not have the awesome and frightening power of God behind it, why would truth itself be so frequently banned, shunned, crucified or silenced? Indeed it is always the intended deception of a degenerate perpetrator, to impose a toxic, twisted type moral shame on its victim for speaking out, and fighting back, against the perpetrator’s lies.
In fact, sometimes I have to laugh because Evil is so predictable, like an ancient old coot, cursing at rocks that get in the way of his cane.
Rather than assume the position of shame (though the shaming itself by people you love or are trying to help can be hurtful) you don’t have to fall for the toxic, imposed sense of ‘guilt’ – once you are aware of Evil’s ‘trick’.
It is then you can really sit back and enjoy not giving a fuck.
For example, I got banned recently from Discus by One Peter Five “Catholic” blog owner, Steve Skojek, simply for pointing out contextual error and disinformation contained in his (and his bishop friend’s) anonymous “reveal” against Freemasonry. (Freemasonry is a secret, silent, anti-corruption society that is subsequently forever getting slandered and targeted by tainted clerics – on the right and the left – within the Catholic church, and other entities, despite the absurdities of clerical claims.) Sadly, by methods of distraction like this, the only thing any hierarchy of man typically succeeds in ‘moving’ around – are shuffled pederasts.
It never fails to amaze me, particularly as a female, that members of my own religious interpretation, particularly male members, are still obsessing over who is a ‘radical feminist’ in the church, a mason, a heretic, or what gender gets to use the men’s or ladies room, seemingly unaware of the male trans war going on right before their very own eyes. The brute males, though less identifiable and perhaps lesser in number than femme homosexuals, will always ‘fight’ and ‘win’, perhaps because they appear – so traditionally Catholic – and masculine, even though they possess neither of those qualities, in any orthodox sense of the word.
These brutes are the traditional, “Catholic” ritualists, the Pharisees who worship ritual and discipline perfection over God and His teachings on love. The church has become infested with brute predatorial homosexual types targetting femme homosexuals, women (again) only for breeding purposes, and children for abuse.
I even got accused of Jewry by one woman-subjugating, white supremacist styled brute male on Skojek’s blog, while his adulating guy friends applauded his bravado – let thewitch burn! My last name was (erroneously) dissected and analyzed for Jewish origin (hail man) and banned, while the Catholic church’s own church builders, the masons, have taken vows of silence and circumspection to avoid corruption, and will not/cannot, defend themselves.
But I digress.
The dignified and silent masons are masters at the gentle art of not giving a flying fuck, even if they are defamed, slandered and spit upon. This is true masculinity – that reaches and sacrifices self to protect the innocent, that people of all religions and genders would do well to imitate.
Last I checked, I don’t even happen to be a mason, a ‘radical’ feminist (what’s wrong with being radically female – Mary was) or of Jewish ethnicity, although I wouldn’t mind being any of these things. The whole humorous interchange exposing Skojek’s hypocrisy, his failure to read his own comments, or admit the pathology of his followers – including “The Great Stalin” and “Tall Order” – remains on his so-called Catholic blog – for all to read.
So, Evil inevitably simply exposes himself, like a fraudulent emperor not wearing any clothes, or a mean old man tripping up on his own cane, as if just to entertain innocent, but insightful and outspoken children, and make them laugh. Indeed, this life is filled with much suffering, but also with much laughter and joy, a free compensatory gift from the Father, and the author of Love. Let us not make ourselves unaware of both, for they were meant to go hand in hand.
“It added importance to its jaw, and ignorance of its notes. But Truth is like a living stream, that flows ever eternal.”
-From a dream
