LESS EGO / MORE SOUL

“Awake.

Shake dreams from your hair
my pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign of your day
the day’s divinity
First thing you see.

A vast radiant beach and cooled jeweled moon
Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains of infancy
The music and voices are all around us.

Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
the time has come again
choose now, they croon
beneath the moon
beside an ancient lake

Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
everything is broken up and dances.

Indians scattered,
On dawn’s highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s,
Fragile eggshell mind

We have assembled inside,
This ancient and insane theater
To propagate our lust for life,
And flee the swarming wisdom of the streets.

The barns have stormed
The windows kept,
And only one of all the rest
To dance and save us
From the divine mockery of words,
Music inflames temperament.

Ooh great creator of being
Grant us one more hour,
To perform our art
And perfect our lives.”

- Jim Morrison, Ghost Song

True alchemy lies in being able to recognise the possibilities that lie before us. To feel limitless opportunities existing, beyond time and space; just waiting to be expressed.

Understanding this, a true alchemist learns to consciously direct their energy – with gratitude – towards the most desirable outcome. This is the art of manifestation.

They are patient, taking the time to listen to their environment; to interpret life’s symbolism and to connect with the collective consciousness.

The have learnt to surrender to the now, to see beyond the illusion of “reality” and to adapt to the present situation – no matter the experience.

They see the space between the clutter and fear not its influence.

They do not dread pain, nor seek to avoid or dissolve it. Instead, they hold space for it, recognising that without pain, there would be no experience and no reference point for rapture.

And so, with non-attatchment they walk forward secure. Knowing that there is enough and that they are enough – just as they are.

“What’s wrong?” I asked the body.

“No one listens to me…you don’t listen to me…you just go ahead and make decisions, like you think you know what’s best.”

“That’s not true.”

“Can you feel me now? Can you feel what I feel? I feel sick. And so we feel sick. And I tried to warn you; I tried to tell you to stop eating; that I’d had enough; that more would be too much to handle. But you just listened to the mind who said: more is better, more is good, and god this tastes amazing! But the mind is deluded. It doesn’t know how to feel. It gets distracted. It’s been conditioned. It doesn’t understand.”

“Come now, I’m sorry…”

“And then when I want more of something you listen to the mind again. Your exercising and I feel great. But the mind is bored. The ego is afraid; it doesn’t want to be silenced by the heart beating ecstatically in our chest. It doesn’t want it’s thoughts being pushed to the side as you surrender to existence; feeling the breath, flow through our lungs; feeling the blood rush through our veins. And so it says enough. I tried, and now lets stop. It tells you I’m not strong enough. And so you give up; afraid to go into the unknown. Little do you know I was just beginning to enjoy myself.”

“Look I’m really sorry…Can I make this up to you? What can I give you? Do you want food? Water? Do you want to rest?”

“No. You’re still not getting it. I want nothing. I need nothing. Except for you to check in with me from time to time; to listen to me at least as much as you listen to your mind; if not more…I watch you, day after day, walking aimlessly around, trying to find God; trying to experience enlightenment. But you can’t because you aren’t prepared to allow yourself to feel; to be with discomfort. Your mind – bless it’s chemistry – is too focused on finding remedies; “solutions” to the so called challenges of feeling. It’s a game the universe is playing with you; guarding its best kept secrets behind the façade of illusions…distractions to make you forget. I live in that world; where everything is beautiful and everything is right. But what is wrong is that you aren’t here to share that with me.”

“I want to be with you.”

My body laughed. “Oh it will take some time. But I would like that very much.”

“Okay, so how do I…?”

“Stop trying. Stop living by certain “rules”.  Just allow yourself to feel fully and act in alignment with those feelings. That’s all you need. Don’t listen to the mind and don’t think. Don’t judge and don’t try to change things. By all means gravitate towards that which makes you feel good, but try and stay aware of temptation; aware of distractions that lead you away from that which you seek so desperately; aware of your fear that invites those distractions. In other words, learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. I didn’t know what to do.  I sat for a while. I waited. I even meditated – or well I tried. But the truth is I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know what I feel… Maybe I should go and read a book... My mind said. Unconsciously, I made  a move.

“And that was all I allowed myself,” my body sadly sighed.

I’ve recently been learning that no matter the conditions I still have the ability – the choice – to feel good about myself…and about life. The hard part, however, is often finding one’s way through all the darkness…and letting go of the illusionsof the external world; the illusions that at times we should fee bad for ourselves…hate ourselves…punish ourselves…

Not true.

If I can find a moment, maybe once a week, to go outside and stare up at the vast night’s sky, I can’t help but feel love for this existence. Just the fact that our hearts are beating and our lungs are breathing; that we are free and alive, with the potential to experience such an array of sensations, feelings and events, is enough to fill a heat with gratitude.

A valuable lesson I have learnt over the course of my journey is that there is no need to have an excuse or a reason to heal.

Looking back over my life, I can see how I have created problems for myself, to fit in and to justify my ‘need’ for healing. Blinded by this, I closed myself off from love – my parents love particularly – and invited dis-ease into my life as I subconsciously sought to compensate for this suppression in other ways.

A symptom of this became evident when I realised that when I was sick I felt more comfortable in letting others fuss over me, nurture me, love me and so I would subconsciously attract sickness, when what I needed most was nurturing love.

Now I realise that in order to expand, I really need to let go of these attention-seeking behaviours and embrace the psychological femininity that allows one to process those raw emotions like pain, fear and sorrow in a healthy way.

When we create problems in our lives – consciously or unconsciously – we are creating our experience from a lack mentality, seeking to justify why we “deserve” to be healed; why we deserve love and attention.

This stems from the fear that there is not enough healing energy (unconditional love) to go around.

There is.

And wounded or not, we are all equal in our deservedness to receive such healing energy. We don’t even need to fully understand why we feel we need to heal for the healing to be justified. One just has to be motivated to expand and be the carefree person that they would like to be.

Here’s a little history, of a bigger mystery
I have written this story into my song
If it isn’t what your used to
Then I hope it will allow you
Maybe if you choose to then you’ll sing along

I am as old as the universe
I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again
I am a child of the universe
A part of all women, and a part of all men

Once upon a sometime, and once upon a somehow
And once upon a somewhere, There was a big bang
Energy revolving, energy dissolving,
Eneryg evolving, and that is what I am.

I am not a somebody, I am not a nobody,
I am a celled one body filling this space.
All I ever could be, and all I ever would be,
and all I ever will be is here in this place.

I am but a flower, who blossoms in a hour,
and in me there’s a power that goes on and on.
Power in the roots of me, power in the shoots of me,
power in the fruit that will pass my seed on.

I am as old as the universe
I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again
I am a child of the universe
A part of all women, and a part of all men

– Rainbow Child Lyrics by Unknown

P.S. ConFest was amazing…I do recommend!

“I begin to see that I live torn between two realities. On the one hand, there is the reality of my existence on the earth, which limits me in time and space, with all its threats and opportunities for satisfaction. On the other hand, there is a reality of being that is beyond this existence, a reality for which I have nostalgia.”

– The Reality of Being by Madame Jeanne de Salzmann

“Other cultures are not failed attempts at being ‘western’. Rather, they are an imaginative response to the age-old question: what does it mean to be alive?“

 - Wade Davis

click click