This witness has been spreading her wings to check out areas of this country that had previously been hidden to me.
Most recently, El Juglador and I traveled to Miami, where much of my family lives, and have been experiencing different worlds within the one we had known before. Those experiences include questions I had never muttered before. What is causing cancers that were never prevalent before? Why are so many suffering from allergies they had never before experienced? How are birds echoing whistles we taught their brothers miles away? Why do we avoid asking about people we wish were not in our life? Why do we prefer to think only of ourselves? Why do people prefer to remember the person you used to be rather than the new person you are? Why does the matrix entangle us so much that we can’t do what we really want?
No matter, really. The person you become when you start thinking about your thinking IS. It is the part of you that can find your Joy.
Joy is not found in the things you do or the people you know. It can not be bought at a store or found in a treasure chest. True joy, the kind that validates the Why of living, is found by doing what burns in your soul. I have found that it can be found when you listen to that little voice within yourself, in your gut, in your God essence, and ACT on what your heart calls out. Are you really alive in your day-to-day life? If not, why are you living someone else’s Joy?
If you are living your truth, congratulations, my friend. Keep going strong in your Truth and stand up for yourself, even with well-meaning loved ones who don’t understand. Maybe your Joy can be contagious. Maybe one day we’ll all be living in Joy and Truth, truly understanding why we were placed on this Being known as Gaia, truly understanding the quantum entanglement of Life.
The birds can be your brothers, as can the dragonflies, the trees, that park bench made from former living trees, that vehicle created with a myriad of Gaia’s gifts.
Think about your thinking, my friends, then think about your actions, connect it with the saying, As Above, So Below, then aim a little higher, outside the 3D existence, into the 4th, maybe even the 5th.
Shoot for the moon, and if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars.
Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m trapped in a Chinese finger trap. Who am I and where am I going? Am I a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend? Am I something else that has no identity in the 3D world in which my sons, my parents, my siblings and my friends live? Part of me tries to free my finger from the trap, the other part of me fights the inevitable release. Do I need to prove myself or can I just BE myself?
When I was a kid, that saying was plastered on the bumpers of cars stuck in Miami traffic or flying low on passing lanes on the turnpike. Priests made it the subject of sermons. Youth group leaders sported the idea on T-shirts. It was something they thought was right. They believed having God as your co-pilot meant you were truly Christian.
I wondered, though, what does that mean? I’m still trying to figure it out. Maybe God shouldn’t be a co-pilot. Maybe He’s a Navigator.
The Bible says this Navigator created us on the sixth day,
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis 1:26, KJV
This section of Genesis is often overlooked or misunderstood. The explanation I present here is that the “us” the Creator speaks of is The Godhead, the Creator’s own male and female trinity, The Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son. That is the foundation on which I will build my argument today. It is, of course, open for discussion. I am far from being an expert.
In those discussions, we were being asked to identify the parts of our being that, in this human existence, sometimes (or maybe frequently) act as warring entities within us. The roommates, Spirit, Mind, Body, and Heart, make up the essence of us. At the time, his roommates discussions were fun and interesting, but the idea was over my head. I tried to understand enough of the idea to be able to internalize. It remained outside of my grasp, although still ever-present in my meditations. I think I’m beginning to understand this better, especially when I found the theory in the pages of the Bible, where mankind’s “image of God” is broken down into our Body, Soul and Spirit. As the Apostle Paul writes, we need to allow the three parts to work as one,
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NASB).
Wait. What about Mind and Heart? Where do they fit in? Could the Body equal the mind and the heart?
While St. Paul breaks it down into our own, human trinity, for St. Augustine of Hippo, the breakdown was two, only the Body and the Soul. My Dragonfly Teacher, on the other hand, adds one more. His Four Roommates theory adds to St. Paul’s Spirit, Soul, and Body by making the Mind a Roommate all its own.
Four,
Three,
Two,
One!
Ugh. To tell you the truth, all of this confusion is an ultimate Finger Trap for humanity. Why should we focus so much energy on blaming the different parts of ourselves for our own misfortune, knotting up the strands of the will, the emotions, and the conscience, overthinking everything?
In my own life, the nightmare entity is the “Should’as” that dictate the expectations placed on us as we try to maneuver this existence. Like a template given to me when my Soul entered this Body, I have been trying to follow directions and stick to the model. But whose model am I following?
That’s easy to answer. My entire life I’ve followed the model dictated by that box that sat in my living room growing up. Whatever the movies or TV showed to be ideal, I jotted into my mind as a goal.
What drives me now
I no longer desire to be what society wants. Sometime during the past ten years, since my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 2007, I found the mechanism that drives this body. I’ve tweaked it and fed it and polished all of those spots that had lost their shine. I knotted up the black snake that led to the TV and threw both away in some hot, arid dumpster in the middle of nowhere.
What I’ve allowed to become the driver of this human vehicle is not a driver at all, it is the knotted-up end of a heavy hemp rope pulling me. As I write this, I’ve discovered that I do not want to be the driver. In this life, I am powerless in what happens to me. (I know it sounds defeatist, but hear me out….) I am powerless and, in accepting this fact, I am freeing myself from the Finger Trap of this reality.
I allow the Navigator to guide me now. For a brief moment, I believe I am not worthy,
…. I step off the edge of a cliff. Straight down I fall, as if in an invisible elevator, until the door opens and I tumble out to find my way back Home, because now I know the way.
My friends, any theory that creates a war within us only serves to separate us from The Creator. God only wants us to present the roommates as one servant.
Back to Paul for clarification,
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2 NASB).
This is not a task to take lightly. It calls up weeping and torturous pain as you analyze yourself and find your true Heart. In fact, many will not be able to do this. The most you can hope for, maybe, is for a happy life and a release from the Finger Trap.
“Uncover your heart,” Teacher whispers. “It is time to dissolve the programming of the Ego mind.”
What? But I don’t really need to ask. I know by now. The programming of the Ego mind is what I call the “shoulda’s of the REAL world,” the world that binds us to the 3D. That 3D world is fading away, I am told. The 3D into the 4D, now dissolving into the 5D. The levels peeling away like the skins of an onion. It is time for the Now Moment of the Universal Heart and the healing process it allows.
Shrek said Ogres are like onions. We, also, are layered like an onion, each thin skin covering another thin skin until, eventually, our heart is uncovered — our essence, our Souls.
It is time to make the Impossible Possible. It is time to be healed, my friends. It is time to make our dreams come true.
I’m afraid I’ve been thinking, again, and that admission may make my friends shudder, but, hear me out, please.
I was listening to another guru talk about our soul’s essence being fractured into several pieces, each piece living its own human existence in another body in another time and place. The goal of life is to bring all the soul pieces together again into one stronger, more wise being.
In meditation a little later, I saw a common, everyday, carnival mainstay, a cotton candy machine.
Just a mess of Creation…
I saw myself spinning in the center, strings of myself fanning out all around me, waiting to be gathered. I tried to gather myself into something, but I made myself dizzy before accepting that I couldn’t. The web of my essence just kept fanning all around, just flapping strings of pink and blue sugar. I realized that what I needed was the Candy Man. Only He could gather my web into something solid.
What if our souls, the true essence of our being, were one stalk of sugar cane converted into a cup of sugar crystals? What if our crystallized bits were melted through the trials and tribulations of our human existence and poured into one gigantic machine in Big Al’s Rec Room, or God’s Carnival of Existence?
What if we were to stop fighting the Candy Man? What if we finally learn to make ourselves the best sugar crystal ever poured into a machine instead of trying to dictate the lives of others? What if that one crystal that first came to that realization finally convinced the others to do the same? What if they all allowed the Candy Man to Create a beautiful mold of cotton candy from the webs of our existence?
What if we are all, every single one of us, connected in this big game of life by the web of sugar crystals fanning out from the center of Creation?
What if we were to finally recognize the Candy Man as the final piece of the puzzle, the One Who will put us all back together again after our Great Fall from the Celestial Wall?
What if we were to simply say, “Yes, God, I believe I am ready. Do your thing.”?
Tucked away behind a FedEx office in Flagstaff, Arizona, just past the garbage dumpster, two trees had grown up together, eventually braiding the two trunks into one tree.
“Do you suppose those are olive trees?” he asked. The fruits were bigger than the olives we buy off grocery store shelves, but I couldn’t say they weren’t olives. Everything about them told me he was right.
Fortunately, we had internet service that day – something that has become a rarity in my life. I focused my phone on the trees, hoping to narrow the image down to get a better view, when I noticed the sun was
getting involved in our questioning. The image I got had sun rays cutting through the clouds and the branches so that the trees became glorious to me.
“These definitely have
to be olive trees,” I said. After all, the sun had gotten involved!
One quick Google search found the truth. Yes, these were olive trees.
There isn’t much more to this blog than the miracles of nature … two olive trees found each other on a hill in Flagstaff, Arizona, learned to grow together, and then, one rare rainy, summer day, are found by two humans when the light of the sun points them out between the showers of the day. On this day, El Juglador and I witnessed another beautiful revelation from Nature.
Pretty cool life I’m living!
Look for the miracles in your lives, my friends. Amazing things have been placed on this home I call Gaia, a living, breathing entity that is the mother of the life living on Earth. It’s up to us to witness her beauty and protect her whenever we can. After all, the Creator gave Her to us. It would be kind of rude of us not to notice the little gifts we’ve been given, don’t you think?
“Row, row, row, your boat, gently down the stream,” the old childhood song played. “… merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”
In my schooldays, this song was a regular chorus round that tested each singer’s ability to stay in tune while singing just a step ahead of or behind, another singer. But, today, that last line made me stop.
“Life is but a dream?” What esoteric wisdom has been given to us as children? Reminds me of Billy Joel’s River of Dreams…
And I’ve been searching for something
Taken out of my soul
Something I would never lose
Something somebody stole
El Juglador got to thinking, too.
“Imagine a droplet of water living as one of a Great River meandering through a vast countryside,” he said. “Gently, the river moves over sandy banks, between rocky cliffs, over smooth river boulders, but always the droplets remain near each other, like a family, never knowing anything but together.
“I imagine that when the river meets a waterfall, just over the edge, the droplets separate, some falling faster than others, some being blown distant by a passing gust of wind. As they fall, the droplets, who have lost their sense of self after being part of something greater, suddenly experience a separation from the family, floating and falling alone, experiencing the exhilaration and possible fear of the fall until the crash at the bottom, where the drops land unscathed to flow again down the river with the family.”
I remember when he mentioned this before, his belief that life is like a river. This song brought up the memory once again, and we both drifted off in thought. He pulled out his flute. I opened my laptop.
What if we are each like a drop of water? After all, we are practically all water ourselves. What if, as the song says, this reality we imagine is really just a dream? That 9-to-5, only a routine. That search for the perfect mate, really only a search for the comfortable family of the river, where we were one of many, never alone, never rejected.
Sometimes, water remains united, as in a chunk of ice left over from the winter before. When the warm spring rains come, the ice thaws and weakens and, when it hits a boulder or the hull of a speeding boat, the ice breaks apart. The water droplets, however, are never far from each other. Cohesion draws water to water, even fighting forces of gravity and wind with just the simple force of desire, never separating too far from the mass of the familial comfort that is the River of Home. What if this life we’re living is the drops of water falling off the cliff?
We are never too far from the moment of cohesion, but, as we fall, we are separated. Although the distance is only the empty space and the rush of the fall, we can’t remember that meandering river where we originated or the peaceful Home where we know we are returning eventually. We have become so enmeshed in the reality of our waterfall experience that we forget what it’s like to be part of the family of the River.
That moment of separation is when we humans need the power of faith most, that belief in one, unifying force that reminds us of the meandering river we used to call Home. The belief in the one God of the Great River of life is our only common denominator, many times.
What if God is that for which we search? Maybe that’s the reason we seek out relationships, why we swarm to social media and water-cooler friendships at work? Maybe that’s the reason we feel alone as we crash down to the blaring music of the roar of the waterfall?
Angel Falls, Venezuela
I wish that, in lieu of the incessant bombardment of sexual propaganda and racial separation we get in our society, we were, instead, constantly reminded of ourselves as just one part of a falling river looking for the way home. Frozen in fear as we fall, we build our own sense of separation. In this reality of superficiality, we judge with our eyes in a racism that goes beyond the dictionary definition and goes all ways … the black man who speaks from his education is judged by his peers as too white, the white man working two jobs to feed his family must lead a privileged life because of his race. The black woman who doesn’t react to a traumatic situation the way others think she should is considered a liar by YouTubers looking for a new conspiracy, regardless of the reality she lives in an increasingly dangerous America. A woman who was born a Fernández is not recognized as Hispanic because she writes and speaks like the English-language writer she always dreamed she would be as an American-raised Cuban. An Ojibwa Indian flute player is not received as a Native American flute player because his eyes are too blue and his skin too light.
What if this Great River on which we’re traveling is simply the Universe; this life falling into a clear, refreshing lagoon, simply a dream full of experiences. Along the way, the River’s path changes, sometimes smooth, other times becoming rapids. God forbid, it swirls into a whirlpool with a vicious undertow or even a steep drop, like Venezuela’s Angel Falls. In the end, we will rejoin our family and realize we are all one. Imagine what we will Know when we splash down together at the end of the long ride.
I hope our actions during this free-fall of our return into The Great River of the All That Is will not make us feel too much guilt.
UPDATE … It’s been a long two years since I got the call and took to the road. My Dragonfly Teacher doesn’t visit anymore, but I think that’s because I haven’t called on him. As I wrote just after he told me I was ready, “When the student is ready, the teacher will leave.” I now understand I was indeed ready.
He left me in the very capable hands of another teacher who continues to help me grow. This new teacher’s methods are definitely not as gentle as those of my Dragonfly Teacher! To clarify, this new teacher is not El Juglador. El Juglador, my traveling companion on this dual journey of ours, is a servant, as am I, of a greater teacher.
What have I learned? I have learned to question everything I stood for before: First question, then verify, then, finally, re-validate so that everything I stand for now has been wrung through the wringer.
In the beginning, just after the dragonfly left, I met El Juglador, who was a church pipe organist when we began our journey. At the time, I had been locked into the world of materialism and Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses. My eating habits, while modest due to perpetual dieting meant to keep me looking beautiful and young, drastically changed once El Juglador and I started our journey with our limited savings. What he brought along in his pack of supplies was an intense faith in our Creator and in His Word. Within a few months, I had realized that Jesus Christ had been an Essene and a vegetarian. When He cast the demons out of the possessed man and into the herd of pigs, it wasn’t so that the Israelites could feast on roast pork. Pigs are unclean. Ask any faithful Jew or Muslim. (Why don’t Christians believe it, as well?) To seal the bargain for me, pork started giving me migraines in 2014. No more bacon or Noche Buena feasts for me!
My spiritual beliefs have also changed. I felt I was talking to God, the Most High, but He wasn’t my primary contact, I’ve realized. I was lost in my search for spiritual answers. I followed just about any suggestion that was made by my friends and by spiritual gurus. I allowed myself to fall prey to other temptations. One of which, I must admit, was a Ouija board. I thought I protected myself from evil spirits, but, even if we wear the shield of God, we can’t be truly protected if we call demons into our lives. I know many of my friends may think I’m going overboard on this point, but I must be honest. In the past two years, I have had to cast several demons out of me. It hasn’t been easy or painless.
I just thank the Most High that He indeed knew my heart and yanked me from that world. (Yanked is the proper word here. I would not have seen the damage if I hadn’t been removed from its midst.)
The Promise Tree through our screen window, Phoenix, AZ. April 2016
The world as it is now. I do not see things the same way I used to see things. My friends, trust me when I tell you that if you were to meet up with me today, you would not recognize me. Nothing that used to matter to me or make my blood boil has any effect on me. Even my music interests have changed. Hollywood is no longer where I look to for entertainment. Disney is no longer harmless fun. The news has become more like vacuous entertainment and disinformation redirecting our attention than anything holding any semblance of truth. My focus has turned from the material world to the spiritual world of YHWH and Yeshua. You may think I’ve lost my marbles, I think I’ve finally found my truth.
This is one servant’s journey: I have hesitated to write blogs during my lessons because I am still learning. Looking back at past blogs, I am ashamed of some things I have written and done. I do not want people to think I believe I am better than anyone else. This blog is a journey. It is MY journey. Your journey will probably be different.
All that I can recommend is that you turn into yourself and recognize your authenticity, then act on it. You are not a slave to the material world unless you allow that world to enslave you. Look deep into your SOL (soul) and listen to your HEART, an anagram of EARTH, the one connection we all have with each other in this world. The Earth is our world and our Heart is our Truth.
I invite you to take a step onto that journey that is calling you. The devil’s worst lie is the promise that there will be plenty of time for you to change. There is no time better than the present, for we never know when our present will end.
I’d hate it if I’d waited too long to correct the harm that has taken me two years to undo.
Much love and peace to you, my friends. From the road, I continue to write as The Dragonfly’s Student and, as my character was in the story of Faith and the Dragonfly in earlier blogs, I am now and forever will be,
