TIME that precious commodity, that here in the modern day we seem to hold the paradigm that it’s in short supply.  We have a lack mentality around it and its something we live our lives by.

I most definitely have had big issues around this one, clock watching, deadlines, and if any “spare” time it had to be action packed so as not to waste this precious substance.  I held beliefs like “time is running out, get a move on girl”, Time is scarce”, “there is never enough time to get everything done”,  “ I wish there was more time for me”, “Where has all the time gone”, to “I am getting older my life is running out”.  Hurry, hurry, hurry, quickly, if I do something the easy way it will save time!  I am sure you can think of many of your own.

What are we doing to ourselves, to our relationships, our families, and our community? Never making time………

Completing the medicine wheel initially with the Four Winds, this commonly held paradigm was still in full flow.  When Alberto stood up in front telling us about the Mayan concept of circular time, and how he never waits for anything, like queuing up in the airport he never waits, I just thought, oh rubbish!!  Get in the real world Alberto.  Well now something big has changed I have had a huge shift in consciousness and now fully appreciate exactly how this “lack” mentality on time is a head thing.  It’s a patriarchal control issue and if we have the wisdom to let go, life becomes a totally different world.

I am not sure when this change in my perception changed or what happened to help me see differently but whilst researching something for the coming workshop I read something that really resonated with how I had started to live my life.

Something huge has shifted, it didn’t happen over night, looking back I can see its been evolving slowly over time.  I can see clearly how it’s my connection with the Universe; I am no longer feeling separate.

Since entering into the Crone energies, reaching the age of 60 a year or so ago I have begun to start seeing my life so differently.  I am finding the wisdom to truly let go of all the pain that has surrounded my war I had with the world for my survival and by putting down my archetypal weapons I can see exactly how the that vulnerable little child protected herself and how I thought it was serving me.  I have let go of the beliefs that I have to do everything myself and know now its ok to reach out.  In doing so I understand fully that trusting in the flow of life, dropping the control, time loses its enemy status.  Is any of this striking a cord with you?

The “letting go” is where it all begins, it can be easy or it can be hard, its all in the intention and again the beliefs we hold.  What beliefs are you still holding?    I held “how can I ever get over this, best thing is to forget” Wrong! It festers, first it’s finding acceptance of yourself and your shadow parts, and then finding acceptance of others in your life (we cannot change anyone else, but we can change ourselves and how we react to situations.) Practice being non judgmental and if we find ourselves in the act, its more than likely to be found in our own shadow……….  Try not to shrug your shoulders and lay the problem at someone else’s door, its all within us, and if we have the courage to have a look, only good things can happen.

Once acceptance is truly in place the rest seems to follow relatively effortlessly.  For me this is where I began to realize that the universe was actually supporting me, I was not alone in the world anymore.  I had space to allow it in, seems so simple really but its been one hell of a journey to get to this realisation.  I hope for many you are already there, I wouldn’t wish this part on anyone, but if you are still where I used to be, take note, if you keep doing the work, one does get there, honest!! And it is so worthwhile.

One has to face death to really live…  I am in the midst of another round of dying, my home.  This was and I suppose to a degree is my sanctuary, although I now realise that my sanctuary is within me.  When I left my husband which seems eons ago now, I left with only a suitcase of clothes, I adored the feeling of being free, but over time I wanted to surround myself with objects that reminded me of who I was, all this is because I had no clear identity, for so long I had been “Bruce’s” wife, wife of a successful businessman who had it all.  Who was I? The shamanic path has helped me with this, now I see I don’t need all the  “stuff” I am who I am, not my possessions.   So over the past few weeks I have been slowly letting go of everything I held close.  Obviously I still have to sleep in a bed, have items that are functional, but in the exercise of selling things on eBay, ordering carpet and selecting what I really need, that TIME element has reared, not in its scarcity way but in the not waiting and just getting on with life until it comes to me.   Time is not final, it’s not linear with a start and end, it’s most definitely circular, being present, just being in everyday and know the universe supports my every thought.

The following quotes from Don Antonio in a book by Alberto Villoldo

TOMORROW

“Manana to gringos, is the day after tomorrow, clock time moving inexorably forward.   For us it’s a philosophy, largely misunderstood by westerners, it means, not doing today what will take care of itself tomorrow. Do what needs to be done today and no more. Not one inch more, you can call it the gift of patience. Trusting the implicit order of the universe, even if you cannot understand it at the moment. Never wait for anything, a bus, a train, for the water to boil, choose to enjoy the sun warming your back, the cool rain on your face and then the bus/train comes along.  Enjoy sitting by the warm embers warming you and then the water boils, no sooner, no later. No “waiting” it will make you insane.  I never wait anymore, everything comes to me

TODAY

Today annihilates yesterday.  The person who went to sleep last night no longer exists.  But we to cling to the idea that we have a personal history, a past, and this is our identity.  We can only ever be what we are in the moment.  When we cross a stream the water rushes past underneath us, when we cross that stream again, its not the same stream, its not the same water, that has long gone down stream on its journey to the sea.

Blessings, Carol

The mask- oils. oil pastels, and layered digitally

Dear Brave Souls: Just some reflections about a kind of perfectionism that insists on ‘highest standards from self and others.”If one carries this attitude, one can be sure one fails daily. One starts one’s day by secretly saying ‘Today I, the grand perfectionist, will fail in many ways, for I shall not be able to be perfected in each thing I do, say, enact.’ Not today. Not on any day.

There is a punitive aspect to spellbound perfectionism, as though punishing or criticizing or condemning self and others is somehow alright, to be expected, and that one can have gallows humor about it all. It isnt alright. It is cruel. Cruel foremost to oneself. And cruel to others. And cruel because it destroys relationships with decent people. Again, the spell carries a curse that there shall be no resting place, no contentment.

There are other nuances to perfectionism, such as strong resistance to surrender it… which is our clue to that not only has an evil curse been put on the child spirit of this person, saying they will never and ought never accept themselves or others, and that others ought not accept them either, for they are so defective…

but also that somehow the perfectionism is armor… a false armor to be certain, for perfectionists’ hearts can be broke, they can have life befall them, lose their jobs, be bereft, even though driving toward perfectionism with all the drive possible.

So, holding to such perfectionism is not what it appears to be on the surface, an earnest striving to do all things perfectly, but rather perfectionism appears often to be striving not to be seen, critiqued harshly, punished, exiled… ah then, we have clues to the original curse and can spell break it.

If perfectionism is in some large part a plea to ‘let me live, please allow me to take up space on this earth, please let it be alright that I am alive, please do not find me unworthy of life, please have mercy on me and I will promise then if you will let me live… then I will grovel in perfectionism and I know this means I will live cursed, failing each day to be perfect, up to your standards, all of the rest of my days… but I will forfeit myself if only you will please not leave me, please do not harm my spirit. Please let me live.”

In this sense, perfectionism is an armor that looks like Swiss cheese. It protects nothing in the end. And more so, beacsuse the abusing parent has spellbound an innocent child this way, they have also bound them in an even more sinister way to keep trying to please the cruel parent, keep thinking if they only this or that, the parent will love them unconditionally, that the parent will at last, come back to them and be kind and be sheltered, wise and good.

This is sometimes called father hunger or mother hunger, hping that by being good, this will turn the parent good. But even that, the father/ mother hunger is set into place by the brute parent, who uses that hunger to continue to berate the child, not grown, that they are not enough to receive this fabulous love, that they never will be.

What we call father/mother hunger when it is aimed at the ill or deficit parent over and over again, is actually a straw man set up by the prevarivating parent so the child will never do to them what they did to the child: abandon them.

When this spell is broken, the adult child realizes that real and true mother-father hunger is not for the ill parent. It is for ANYONE who will be decent, good, merciful, loving, listening, wise with them.

This is an important differentiation: The child who is free of the curse of the father or mother who doesnt want them but doesnt want anyone else to have them either, will then choose strong good people as parents of the soul and heart. They will find the true parents they belong to. They will no longer be once-born and twice cursed. They will be twice born and free to live new life.

But looking back over many an adult child’s life who thinks they are ‘not good enough’ and thereby compensate that wound with the flimsy armor of perfectionism…. more so, we know, from the tone and timbre of the underlying plea to the abandoning parent, that being spellbound into perfectionism occurred in the perfectionistic person, likely as very young dependent child who was given message after message that they were a big inconvenience, that the child could not be as no child can be, ‘the perfect child,’ meaning the fully controlled child by another…

and that therefore, for being a mere child, a beautiful, precious child, they were called out, shamed, humiliated …and told ‘be perfect or else daddy/ mommie wont love you, mommie or daddy will leave you’…. mysteriously or remaining in full sight but empty hearted toward the child.

Nothing terrifies and freezes a child’s heart more than knowing when they are in such need and so vulnerable as tiny children, that the rock of their life, will not be there for them… and that the parent blames the child for the parent’s own cruel faithlessness toward their own needful child.

This, if so, is terrorizing a child. There is no deeper cut to a child than to sever their security that no matter what, no matter WHAT, they will be loved.

The way back to true home, is this. Rout all old parental assault from your mind. No one has a right to live in your head saying these deleterious things to your child spirit day in and day out. Secondly, go make some minor errors on purpose. This also is freeing, literally bashing back at the parental voices in one’s head that do not belong there. Take a friend to be witness to your mistakes. Make them small and harmless. You may find these humorous, for you are breaking a law you never agreed to abide by. Good for you. Go for it.

You see that the curse cannot hold especially when you can laugh at it. Thirdly understand you are an adult now, not a poor little dependent child who truly would die without their parent’s protection. Now you take care of yourself well and in ways you were not taken care of then. This is what is called self-care, self-comforting, and also this is called growing the good mother within.

Though it may have taken only minutes or days and months to harm a child so deeply that it would take the child years to find their way out of the spell and back into true life, it is every soul’s birthright to bulldoze the house of torment in their own minds and to build there a warm cottage in which live two kindly souls who are ever happy to see you.

So much decontaminating of the mind is an act of prayer, mercy and goodness, pointedly practicing changing the radio station from all screed and no news, to the kind and fierce wisdom station.

This is within everyone’s reach. The spell is over when you say it is over. No one has a right to own another human being, not even psychologically and certainly not spiritually.

You were born free. Take it back. Take it all back. It is fine that you take up plenty of space on planet earth. Despite addled nay-sayers to the contrary, it always has been so that you were meant to be…

I send love,
dr.e
excerpt from Warming the Stone Child, book ©c.p.estés, Chapter: Ways to Know You Are Healed Well Enough.

I recited this very powerful poem, its roots are in Sappho, a small shard of a manucsript that remains, inspired Dr Clarissa Pinkole Estes to write the rest, it so powerful and oh so beautiful.

133

ALL THAT IS BURNING FOR LOVE IS HOLY

[The stars are little beauty] fires;

they [glow, but they are just tiny] babies

[next to the splendor of the moon.]

Anyone who is a lover

can see how the moon

in her long gown

shakes a [silver] powder

all around her body,

then sets it afire,

and then how then she [burns]

for her lover

with such a [silver] fire,

all night long,

all night long,

turning first this way

and that in the sky,

spinning ever so slowly

before the eyes that watch her,

loving the eyes that watch her,

turning slowly,

taking all night long

in order to show

– and slowly –

her every treasure.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/william_li.html

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar. His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world.

The video programme here is one of four documentaries broadcast by the BBC a couple of years ago.  I have watched all four now and its left me reeling.  i guess its something I have known all along, but seeing it here in moving pictures it brings it home why this system needs to crumble, why we ned to unplug from the patriarchy.

Thanks to my dear friend Carolyn for posting this video clip this morning

Today annihilates yesterday.  The person who went to sleep last night no longer exists.  But we to cling to the idea that we have a personal history, a past, and this is our identity.  We can only ever be what we are in the moment.  When we cross a stream the water rushes past underneath us, when we cross that stream again, it’s not the same stream, it’s not the same water, that has long gone down stream on its journey to the sea.

Don Antonio

Whatever life brings up for us, know that its arisen because we have something to learn from it, learn to see the gifts in all and every situation.

The poem is by RUMI, the famous Sufi poet who died in 1273; he states very clearly just what I am trying to say, he says it far more eloquently than I ever could,

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

An amazing read, buy it now and I guarantee you will not be able to put the book down until you get to the end, its a real page turner, and make such perfects sence

If we part the mystical veils and look at planet Earth,
what do we see right now?

We’re approaching the end of a cycle of time. The Patriarchy’s profit-before-people system is breaking down. Humanity’s 5,000-year schooling in power, abuse of power, and masculine/feminine imbalance is nearing an end. Something new is rising: a wave of Divine Feminine energy—so subtle yet so powerful—is moving across the planet, bringing balance in its wake.

So how do we deal with the Patriarchy’s breakdown?

We unplug our energy from it. We recognize that, at the end of a cycle, it is proper for the old to die so that something new can be born.

How can we facilitate the birth?

The Patriarchy has conditioned women to be weak. But our spiritual essence is, and always has been, power—the ability to access power from the depths of silence, to hold power within our bodies, to wield power through the heart.

At this moment, women are being asked to stand in their power. Not to standagainst something, not even to stand for something, but to stand in the energy of the Divine Feminine, an alignment where the polarity of for and against comes to rest. As individuals, none of us can stop the violence, heal the Earth, or bring peace to the world. That is the job of Spirit. But even one woman standing in this energy and allowing it to direct her life’s work facilitates the job of Spirit in a more efficient and graceful way.

The Patriarchy has conditioned women to compete against each other as a way of keeping us disempowered. It is time for us to throw off our conditioning, reach out to each other, and collaborate. Collectively standing in our power creates a network of energy that resonates as “enough is enough.” When that vibration becomes sufficiently strong on Mother Earth, the self-serving mechanisms of the Patriarchy will grind to a halt.

At this moment, men have a very different task: to reclaim the energy of the heart, to honor women while they do this sacred work, and to process their response to the crescendo of female power.

Is there hope for the future?

Between now and 2012, as the old patriarchal age ends and a new age begins, we—women and men alike—have a window of opportunity: the opportunity to dream a new world based in the energy of the heart, masculine/feminine balance, unconditional love, and respect. There is no question that this new world will prevail. The only question is: How big can we dream?

This website was created to share the experience of one woman who stood in her power, unplugged from the Patriarchy, and is learning to align with the Divine Feminine. It is her invitation to collaborate. It is a rallying point for those who wish to dream a new world.

Lucia Rene

Unplugging the Patriarchy