Yes. I know. Sorry.

In fact, over the past year or so, I’ve scribbled my usual multipage notes in preparation for writing at least 3 or 4 newsletters that I’ve never sent out. Pages and pages of notes. At the time of each scribbling, the topic at hand has seemed very inspired and juicy.

And then a day or so later I sit down to write it up properly, and that’s when I review my notes and discover that somehow, somewhere, the plug has been pulled: Every shimmering droplet of inspiration has drained out of the words, and the piece is now just sort of lying there limp on the floor, a small pile of dry, lifeless dust. And what is the point of bothering you—a busy person who undoubtedly has a life—by sending you a pile of dust to read? I mean, really.

Anyway. I wanted you to know it’s not about my regard or respect for you. It’s also not specifically about this here Substack newsletter, which has always been a joy to create. It’s about all writing, all words, and all language.

I say this because I’m working on a book these days, and the same damn thing is going on with it, that I’ve just described. You may recall the newsletter where I talked about the profoundly life-changing spiritual fireworks that went off for me around the subject of bread, and our deeply compromised industrial food systems. Although the subject matter of this bread book is not overtly spiritual, the underlying passion and purpose of it is entirely so.

Some days I’m so fired up by that passion and purpose, I can’t possibly write fast enough; the stories shape themselves, tumbling off my fingertips (or rather, fingertip—I’m a one-finger typist) onto the screen almost without my input. It feels wondrous. Connected. Flowing. And then the next day that entire book project is, yes, a lifeless pile of dust on the floor.

Passion? Purpose? That was so yesterday.

It’s not like me. Well, I guess it is like me now.

This phenomenon probably has to do with the shifting energies of a planet in transition, during these outrageous, unprecedented times—and the wholly unfamiliar effects these fluctuations might be having on one’s own mind, body and energetic field. Or that’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. It seems a likely explanation.

Likely, because capital ‘L’ Love is taking over this planet, and Love is an infinitely intelligent field of luminous stillness. Yet (paradoxically?) it also seems to express as the eternally vibrant, ever-changing, ever-flowing sacredness of Life itself. The river of Life is in charge on this planet, and its dynamic effects are more and more noticeable all the time. Hence the fluctuations, and hence not recognizing myself anymore in that flux. Maybe you’ve felt these kinds of things too.

Anyway. Words, man. Such crude tools for attempting to convey a felt sense of the ineffable divine. Human language—an entirely mind-based system of communication (can you sense the dusty dryness hovering around its edges, when we’re trying to describe the indescribable divine?)—cannot, generally speaking, enter that sacred flow of Life and Love: That rich, full-body resonance field, which resides at a much higher frequency level than words themselves ever could.

Writing is a brilliant thing and I love doing it (small ‘l’ there), but the trouble with words is, they immediately collapse a free-flowing resonance wave into a specific, motionless point. A written word is, to some degree, a rigid thing set in stone. A thing that may have been brimming with Love’s essence when first committed to paper or screen…but a day, month or year later, who knows? Could be time to grab that dustpan and brush, ‘cause there’s a small dry pile over there on the floor.

A truly powerful piece of spiritual writing is powerful not so much because of the information contained within it—although that’s obviously good too—but because of the immensely transformative high frequency; the free-flowing divine essence that hitches a ride on the words, yet is not directly of them.

Example: Long before I knew about any of this stuff, way back in my Buddhist days I was asked to write an autobiographical piece for the Buddhist newspaper, about some sort of epic struggle or other that I’d overcome, thanks to my Buddhist practice. I was all fired up at the time, and wanted that piece to be as profoundly inspirational for others as it could possibly be.

So before sitting down to write it, I prayed fervently that every word, every letter, and even the spaces between the letters would carry pure spiritual inspiration, able to lift the hearts of others.

(Long story short: It did. In a very big way. Someone later commented to me that they didn’t understand why it had such a phenomenal effect, because the story itself was nothing unusual—yet the ripple it caused in the field was immense.)

Last time I wrote about Stephen Buhner, who speaks very powerfully about what he calls ‘the metaphysical background of the world.’ He’s talking, in his deliberately science-y (deliberately not spiritual) way, about that momentary transformation in which we ourselves temporarily enter the sacred flow of Life and Love. That rich, full-body resonance field, which is the actual, true and entirely wordless language of Love. Wherein our immediate surroundings suddenly come alive in a whole new way, displaying for us the exquisite, luminous depth of their full divine reality. Which is always already here, just waiting for us to join the party.

He says we can easily train ourselves to receive this metaphysical background, by eschewing human language when looking at objects, refusing to name them. Instead simply just looking. And feeling.

Yes, it’s a chair. But calling it a chair, and automatically informing ourselves of what a chair’s function is…drags that chair out of Life’s flow and into the flattened, static, mind-based world we all tend to inhabit most of the time. He suggests practicing simply staying open and looking. Then quietly feeling into that object’s essence or frequency instead of nailing it down in words. He says by doing this we can gradually train our minds to open to the greater reality that’s always here.*

I experienced this metaphysical background recently. I wasn’t trying, it wasn’t an exercise. It was a truly worrying brainfart.

In recent years I’ve found it increasingly harder to remember things, words, names. In any given conversation I tend to pause 3 or 4 times to grope for an everyday word that simply no longer exists. Empty space where language used to be. Just about everybody I know has some version of this; even if it’s just peering into the fridge, wondering what the hell you were after when you opened it 3 seconds ago.

Is this one of the effects on the body-mind, of the aforementioned shifting energies of a planet in transition? Early onset Alzheimers? Or maybe it’s heavy metals accumulating in the brain, the product of the poisoned air, food, water and soil of our modern existence? Could be all 3, I suppose.

Anyway. The brainfart: We have this giant, ultra-healthy spider plant called Eric. (Why ask why. My sister-in-law named him.) I was bounding down the stairs a few mornings ago, and saw Eric bathed in morning sunshine. Lovely. Except I couldn’t for the life of me remember Eric’s name. Was it…Kevin? No, I was pretty sure that wasn’t right. But surely it starts with a ‘K.’ Two syllables.

About 40% of my mind was seriously worried at this sudden scary dip in cognitive ability. Not remembering the name of somebody I know well. Someone who’s sitting right in front of me. (Even if that somebody is just a plant—what if next time it’s my husband?) Very much not good.

Yet the other 60% couldn’t help but notice that in the absence of names, the being in front of me was effortlessly showing me its full divine depth, its richly flowing vitality of beingness. Here, right in front of me, was a glorious being of Life and Love, wordlessly displaying itself in the form of a………….(here comes the mind again: a spider plant. Which is not called Kevin.)

A good 3 hours later, while washing dishes: ERIC. His name is Eric.

As you can see, words are rather tricky things these days. I’ve yet to figure it all out. But there’s no doubt that Eric, that luminous being of Life and Love, showed me a glimpse of something incredibly beautiful.

We’ll see where it goes from here.

Meanwhile, I guess I’d better stop writing and send off this newsletter before, (like some kind of literary Cinderella), it loses its juice and turns into a small pile of dust.

Thanks for being.

Love, Carrie

*I hesitate to recommend it for a number of reasons, but for those who may be curious, the Stephen Harrod Buhner book I keep referencing is called Plant intelligence and the imaginal realm. I found it Life-expanding, but possibly that’s just me.

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My long-suffering Guardian Whatevers must’ve stayed awake nights, working overtime to keep me out of trouble.

Case in point: Ever hungry for new experience (no matter how ill-advised), I once agreed to go whitewater rafting with a group of stupendously unqualified rafting aficionados, unburdened as we all were, by any training, common sense, or proper safety equipment. Because what could possibly go wrong.

On a section of river called The Widowmaker, my tiny yellow raft capsized and the current dragged me far from any hope of rescue.

( I won’t bore you with the details; clearly I survived to tell the tale.)

I bring up this long-past, ill-fated adventure for two reasons. Although I was about as spiritually aware as a bag of cement at the time, a stunningly powerful spiritual knowing arose in me while I was engulfed by—well, technically, drowning in—those crashing, swirling whitewater currents:

There must be some mistake. I haven’t yet begun what I’m here to do.

This sparkling piece of info arising from the depths, was something way beyond that more typical, incredulous discovery of youth—y’know, that first time it occurs to you it’s possible you’re mortal and might not live forever. Or, like, even one more day.

This knowing, with its brilliant spiritual clarity, was on a different level entirely from any of that. And my dimly resonant recognition and wonderment, sent a little ripple out into the universe.

The second thing that happened, possibly in answer to the ripple, was that those aforementioned protective Guardian forces (whoever or whatever they are) lifted my spent body out of the water and flung it into the rescue boat when it finally turned up. I wouldn’t have made it in otherwise.

Guardian interventions aside, this kind of sacred informational interaction with natural water is not unique to me in any way. Given half a chance, it’s what water does. Although I had no idea of it at the time, living water—meaning, water not coerced into straight pipes or tidy concrete channels for our human convenience—holds incredible spiritual intelligence, and it’s yours for the asking. (Or the not-asking, as was the case with my rafting misadventure).

I’ve been pondering water’s role in humanity’s current awakening process quite alot lately. I think it’s more than the occasional sparkling message or inner knowing that arises when our body is immersed in an ocean, river, lake or waterfall—wonderful as those transcendent gifts are to receive.

I think water is something more all-encompassing than that. It’s showing us a model for how we’re meant to live our lives. Like an endless, changing river. Always recognizably a river, yet never the same flow twice. Every moment completely fresh and new.

Mindful, open-hearted observation of natural processes reveals to us that endless flow is the way the universe of Nature truly works: Abundant. Mysterious. And very, very sacred. Water, by simply being itself, is showing us glimpses of the underlying, free-flowing workings of the divine universe. If we care to notice, water offers us this luminous wisdom, in liquid form:

To flow like water, is to live a life beyond fear. A life unattached to all the future ‘what ifs;’ unattached to ancient grudges, old guilt, and the traumas (or happier times) of the past. Clearing out the stuck places in our lives—the old emotions and beliefs that no longer serve, the physical clutter. Giving and receiving freely, hoarding nothing. Trusting wholly instead, in the rightness of our present-moment belonging to All That Is.

In these transformational times, we’re slowly learning—yes, all of us—how to better align ourselves with that endless divine flow. Or maybe more accurately, how to stop aligning ourselves with what doesn’t fricken work anymore, and possibly never did: Staying in jobs we may or may not love. Making important life decisions based on fear of lack. As but 2 of the many possible examples.

It’s an agonizingly slow and messy process, for sacks of cement such as ourselves. Yet despite all of this frustrated fumbling, intimate belonging to wholeness itself is what’s on the menu, and it’s starting to show up (in unexpected and sometimes highly uncomfortable ways) for us all. Ready or not.

We do, however, need to empty our buckets and shed a great many musty old things, in order to welcome it in.

Is that easier said than done? Yeah, just a bit.

Before we even figure out where to start, we need to address that ‘living free of fear’ thing. Our human desire for the familiar, for predictable sameness, for grasping onto the illusion of unchanging stability. It’s what makes us feel safe—most of us anyway.

You might be alittle different, of course. You might not feel like the above statement describes you at all. Your life might already be pretty free-flowing. Maybe you’re somebody who naturally eschews attachments, who loves footloose travel more than possessions or a sense of community. However. You’re probably still pretty fond of waking up in the morning and recognizing your own deeply familiar personality self, the same you you went to bed as, the night before. Right?

One way or another, no matter who we are, we prefer certain aspects of life to be solid and unchanging. Yet that is simply not how Nature (or the universe) actually rolls. In fact we’re never the same person twice. And even the body itself is always changing, albeit in usually imperceptible ways.

Those with far greater spiritual and/or quantum-universal chops than me would tell you that your body—along with everything else in the world of form—vanishes and reappears countless times a day, newly created in each millisecond. Mini-deaths and micro-rebirths, in every infinitesimal moment of time. A trick of consciousness links those endless oscillations together, allowing the ephemeral and impermanent to be experienced as solid and permanent.

(No wonder you’re always tired.)

Okay so, let’s see what we’ve got so far: The universe and everything in it, is in an endless state of impermanent flux and flow. In order to ride that flow, we need to be like water? Completely fluid, and floating aimlessly with the tide, empty as a plastic bottle tossed back and forth on the surface of the waves? And just trusting in the universe to provide?

Um. Not exactly.

By taking water as our guide, we’re seeking to emulate Nature itself—which is anything but aimless.

Nature is wholly of the divine, and oversees all life on this planet. All life, which includes us. From the biggest billionaire to the most microscopic one-celled organism. Nobody is exempt. Align with how Nature works, therefore, and you’ll crack the code for taking your natural place within the sacred symphony of All That Is.

So how does Nature work, then?

We (meaning Western civilization) used to describe the intelligence of Nature’s handiwork in any given organism as a quest for homeostasis. Responding to environmental changes, yet always seeking return to a resting state of stability, or stasis. (Your normal body temperature always returning to 98.6F is a good example of this way of thinking.)

More recently, greater nuance and complexity has been recognized within Nature’s workings. Not homeostasis, so much as homeodynamics. A constant flux that seeks balance, not stasis.

Stephen Harrod Buhner (a spirituality and natural-science writer of phenomenal insight) describes homeodynamics using the example of a juggler. All the objects being juggled are in motion all of the time; the body of the juggler is also moving, swaying—constantly making slight shifts and adjustments to maintain the right balance, for keeping those balls in the air.

He’s in flow, responding to the moment-by-moment demands showing up before him. He’s never seeking stasis; the whole point of juggling—or of life, in its unfoldment on earth—is Nature’s constant intelligent response to change, always moving, flowing, adjusting itself toward greater balance.

So the juggler is not floating like aimless flotsam atop the water of his life. He’s purposeful in his flow. And his feet, although shifting and moving incrementally as needed to maintain that necessary balance, are solidly on the ground.

Flowing, yet grounded. Doing, and moving, only according to what shows up in the current moment. His past and future are not erased, they just have no particular hold or relevance in this now.

Sounds pretty good to me. What do you think?

I yearn to live my life in fearless flow, like that dynamic, yet liquid juggler. And it seems to me, it wouldn’t be such a big leap from that expression of being, to knowing oneself as the dynamic flow itself.

And isn’t that what we’re really talking about here. Freedom from fear and all of its myriad forms of stickiness; intimate oneness with all of life and the universe itself. Knowing our own true divine identity.

Yet at this point in our evolution, free-flowing dynamic juggling still seems more aspirational than doable, doesn’t it. It takes quite a bit more than a fervent, late-night ‘I let go of all that holds me back!’ type of declaration to accomplish it. Because untangling our own wiring, our survival-based imperatives for hanging onto predictable (delusional) safety, is something that requires divine help.

I mean it doesn’t really work, does it, to get under your own hood and dismantle your own fear-based predictability-safety engine. I know. Cause I’ve tried. You just end up with random bolts left over after it’s been reassembled, and the engine still doesn’t turn over in quite the right fluidly flowing way.

But we can (and should) take steps to get the process moving; clearing out both the literal and figurative closets, as it were. Getting the energy flowing again, in all those sticky/stuck places. Letting go of old beliefs or attachments that are ready to leave of their own accord. Clearing out the stuff and clutter, giving away whatever is no longer needed.

It’s an excellent way to start.

And starting somewhere, is becoming more important all the time. Because, in these days of inexorably rising frequencies, we’re all feeling that potent internal urge to grab our long-forgotten musical instruments and participate in the grand, chaotically discordant tuning-up process that’s going on all around us. Metaphorically speaking.

(Most of us don’t recognize this inner urge for what it really is, of course. It doesn’t feel anything like a magnificent coming together of divine players, testing out our harmonies and discords on each other. It just feels like noisy dissatisfaction or frustration with the way things are.)

It’s actually a persistent invitation to all of humanity, to join the epic orchestra of All That Is, which is already assembled; to take our places, resplendent in our individual talents and chosen instruments of joyful noise.

And when we’re ready, to start making gloriously beautiful improvisational music together: A great gathering of solo divinity, every one of us teaching ourselves and each other, how to juggle symphonic jazz.

I’m glad I made it through my 20s.

There’s so much I have yet to do.

Now where did I put that instrument? I know it’s in a closet somewhere.

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You know I’ve always loved you, right? From the time I was a little kid, you meant the world to me. Still do.

Because there are so many wonderful things about you, food.

The joy, the fun and creativity you inspire in cooks like me; the creation of good meals prepared with love. There’s really nothing like it. No gathering would be the same without your generous presence; you have that special way of bringing people together. You build bridges between cultures, turning strangers into friends. I love that about you.

And as if all of that beautiful bonhomie is not enough, let’s not forget your awesome nutrient value, eh? You help us thrive. Physically, emotionally, it’s hard to imagine life without you. You nourish us in all sorts of ways.

And yet…it’s complicated. Because, despite all of that, I’ve known for a long time that you’re actually not good for me.

Totally not your fault.

You see, I find myself thinking about you all the time. I’m often tempted to seek you out, even when there’s no real need for your companionship.

It isn’t healthy, this preoccupation. And I’d really rather be more independent of you than that.

Because, food, there’s something in me that has always wanted a little too much from our relationship. Something in me that’s a little too clingy. And that ‘something’ is persistent. Insidious. A bit sticky. (I’ll bet there are loads of people who know exactly what I’m talking about here. It’s very hard sometimes to keep good boundaries where you’re concerned.)

But like I said: It’s not you. You’re just being yourself. It’s me.

I was exploring this sticky-addicty issue 20-odd years ago, trying to get to the bottom of it. Meditation. Prayer. Conscious inner inquiry. You know, the usual stuff. And it kind of worked. In one of those illumined moments of transparent truth, a statement about you bubbled up from the murky depths of my unconscious mind:

Food is my only friend.

Um. Excuse me?

(I had a lovely circle of friends at the time, plus a rock solid Buddhist support group to call upon if needed. Friends to play with; friends who have your back when shit gets real. So, friendship in all its various definitions was pretty well covered.)

But that’s how it goes, when one receives a communique from the deep unconscious, right? Its viewpoint is always gonna be a bit bonkers, a bit sound asleep and upside down from what’s actually going on.

Nothing and nobody can ever be trusted, except for the comfort-coma of a belly full of food. The comfort-coma will always be there for me, no matter what. This is what the belief was insisting.

Well. Let me take this opportunity to set the record straight: Food, I love you, but you are not my only friend. In fact in many ways, you’re not my friend at all.

No offense.

Here’s one big reason why. Did you know the human digestive system is a receiver of higher wisdom—so-called ‘gut instinct’—and divine energies? Did you know this receiver needs to be empty of food, to most effectively fulfil that purpose?

The very opposite of a comfort-coma, in other words.

It’s why spiritual adepts fast. Its why those who undertake sacred vision quests never include food on their journeys. Because honestly, you would just be in the way. Again, no offense.

Did you also know the human being is capable of even more sacred functionality than that? We can not only receive; when we’re on point and luminously clear, we’re also designed to transmit. And it probably goes without saying that a fully functioning receiver/transmitter of divine love will not be doing that on a full up, comfort-coma belly.

Of course I’m not really talking here about leaving you behind entirely. A certain amount of food is undoubtedly needed.

Although now that I think about it, even that hardcore fixed assumption is shifting around a bit, in these incredible transitional times. There are glimmers and suggestions beginning to pop up here and there in the world, which suggest maybe we don’t actually need what we’ve always thought we need, in order to survive. Or even thrive.

There’s that ER doctor, for instance, who stopped eating purely out of curiosity to see what would happen; he found his mind was sharper, his physical stamina was better, and his weight remained stable throughout the 50-odd days of his fast. (And afterward he said he could’ve easily kept going, but ended it there—because family and colleagues were getting worried about him.)

Well. I doubt we’re all ready (or even interested) in leaving food behind entirely, like he did. I think most of us will always need you, at least to some degree. Still, it gets one thinking, doesn’t it.

And I’ve gotta be honest, food, I can’t help pondering all the free time and energy (and money!) I’d have, if you weren’t my ongoing preoccupation.

Anyway, that doctor is not the only example. I know of a number of others who are eating very little yet are thriving mentally, physically and spiritually. None moreso than this interesting person:

There’s this woman I’ve spoken to, who eats next to nothing, tapping into heaven and earth energies for her primary nutrients instead. She looks and feels great—glowing skin and healthy hair; a sound mind and vigorous body. I know she’s done a fair amount of work to untangle her beliefs and habits surrounding food. I suspect she probably broke up with you a number of years ago.

Anyway, I think you’ll agree she’s a pretty persuasive role model. Or at least a clear pointer toward what’s possible for us all.

As beguiling as you are, food, as alluring as I’ve always found you to be…truth is, I’d very much rather be getting my nutrients from the aethers, like that woman. Because I’d like to have a gut that’s effortlessly tuned into All That Is. No question about that.

And yet. I still have good days and less good days, when it comes to prioritizing my own true divine identity—my own physical, mental, and above all, spiritual fitness—over habitual preoccupation with foodstuffs.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s been much progress made over the years. No more comfort-comas, for starters. If you recall, I used to struggle with the quiet agony of portion control. I no longer do.

It’s been ages, in fact, since I felt the sensation of being overstuffed; whereas back then, despite all efforts (and futile attempts at willpower), the coma used to be a daily occurrence. When it finally released, the sense of freedom from that tyranny was immense.

Little victories. Yet still beneath it all, the sticky ‘something’ persists.

It seems to suggest (way down in the whispered depths) that there’s nothing I can do, that in one form or another, this sticky ‘something’ will be with me forever.

Well. Maybe. Forever is a very long time.

And we live in an unprecedented time of massive energetic shift. An incredible transitional time of change, from a world made of fear—and of sticky-addicty ‘somethings’ galore—to the world made of love which is already here; a world of higher frequencies and higher freedoms. We live in a time where all sorts of new, never before heard of things, are becoming increasingly possible.

A couple of weeks ago, apropos of nothing much, that sticky ‘something’ dissolved of its own accord while I wasn’t looking. It remained conspicuously absent for around 12 hours, leaving me utterly free during that time, to experience myself as entirely un-tethered to food.

It felt incredible. Light. Clear. Even kind of holy. Surprising, how different it actually was, from the usual low-level profanity offered by the sticky ‘something.’

And yes, I ate a bit during those 12 hours, but the experience of eating had no sticky strings attached. It was glorious. And an incredible relief.

Harbinger of things to come? Harbinger of things to come, perhaps, for us all? Your guess is as god (ha! interesting typo) as mine.

In the meantime, food, I think it’s best if we don’t see each other as often as before. I’m sure you understand.

With thanks and love, and appreciation for all you’ve meant to me,

Carrie

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So. Here we go. Set aside, if you can, the escalating insanity of the world situation. Not to mention your own entirely valid worries at what all these world events might mean for you and your family. Just for a little while.

Let’s also set aside the unsavoury secrets oozing out of the dark infected core of our current global civilization. None of it is very nice, I know. To put it mildly. But let’s set it all aside anyway, temporarily at least.

Let’s drop the whole thing for a moment and turn the other way. Because the Real World is calling. Louder and more insistently than ever before.

I know I’ve been talking about these same things for ages. But y’see, this process doesn’t stand still. ‘Louder and more insistently than ever’ means it’s a way more potent signal now than it was last month or last year. Yet strangely enough, no matter how insistent the call, it’s still easy to miss it. We have to get quiet, empty out our overstuffed bucket a bit, in order to hear it.

What is that call actually like? I can only give my own non-expert impressions of it. (Is anyone a true expert in something brand new, never before experienced on this plane? I have no idea. But if there is such a person, it isn’t me.)

I will say this: This call puts me more deeply in tune with the plants and animals (who are already naturally in tune with the Real World). It’s hard to find words for the subtle fabric of oneness that has woven my consciousness into its own grand design—after so many decades of life in which Nature seemed something profoundly separate from me. I’m finally starting to feel a part of the holistic magnificence of Nature and the earth. And the stars and the heavens. I, a human being, belong.

(I say this last bit, because there is a strong prevailing belief afoot that humanity has no redeeming features, acting only as a destructive parasite upon the earth. That we are separate, other, and the earth will be better off without us. Understandable. And it’s true we have quite a lot to answer for, every one of us. But we are an intrinsic part of the oneness, a divine melody within the symphony, if you like, that is the wholeness of Nature. And every other aspect of Nature except us has always known this about us. We are, in fact, beloved.)

The call of the Real World is both loud and soft at the same time—kind of a subtle, yet increasingly insistent energetic thing. If you tune in to listen, it’s becoming a roar. Yet, as I’ve said, if your life is full of other things it’s still incredibly easy to ignore.

It quietly infiltrates the mind and physical body, reconditioning (or maybe re-acclimating) the energy body to a truer state of communion and flow with the higher spiritual realms. Everything about answering this call is, in fact, a deeply spiritual undertaking. Even though it mostly doesn’t look like it. Because once the process of answering the call begins, I find it permeates even the most mundane aspects of daily life. The ones we all take for granted.

It’s probably different for each one of us, this emptying out of the overstuffed bucket. In my case, it began with all the stuff. I haven’t gone looking for things to let go of. They’ve just come bubbling up in my consciousness, inviting further investigation.

Like for instance…Is it really lather, rinse, repeat? Why repeat?—other than to use up more shampoo than needed? For that matter, what’s the actual need (or difference between) hand soap, laundry soap, dishwashing soap, shower soap? Sure, slightly different formulations for different cleaning activities. But could one or two well-chosen soaps do it all?

(Spoiler: Yes. They definitely can.)

We’d have to give up any attachment to the wish to murder extra bacteria with every hand wash—don’t get me started on that one—but one or two all-purpose soaps really would do the job. It means far less consumption of course, far fewer plastic bottles, far less money spent, far less engagement in battle against the natural world…and all of that’s not good news, is it, for the manufacturers of those products who depend on our obedient lathering, rinsing and repeating, ad infinitum. Or perhaps I should say ad nauseam.

See what I mean about the strangely mundane process of waking up to the call? This soapy example may seem rather trivial. But when you apply this kind of careful questioning and editing process to all of daily life, it actually becomes quite a radical thing. Start noticing all the ways you’ve been trained to follow the herd, and the hypnotic societal fog begins to clear all by itself. A little more internal (and external) space is automatically created. Such are the fortunate times we live in.

Another stuff-related example: I consider it a great gift that I’ve always been inexplicably weird about phones—smart, dumb or otherwise. Thus I’ve never been in any danger of becoming addicted. I’ve never accessed social media from a phone, never used it for banking, never surf the internet with it. Drives my friends crazy that I might not pick up a message for two or three days, but they quickly learn to adjust. (I’m reachable by email. On my laptop. Which is hardwired.)

Do we need mobile phones? That question is a bit trickier than the soap one, obviously. Society has been structured to make smart phones a necessity for life as we currently know it. Two-factor-authentication to get just about anywhere you need to go online. And of course there’s no such thing as public pay phones anymore if you get a flat tire somewhere. And yet…if you’re as old as me, you clearly remember life without them. Before constant convenience/entertainment/distraction/availability/dopamine hits were the norm.

So. DO we need mobile phones? No. Not really. But it’s a damn sight harder to function in the modern world without them, isn’t it. Still, it’s an extremely good idea to leave the phone at home sometimes.

Because the Real World is calling, and your phone ain’t gonna pick up that signal.

So I’ve gone a bit feral, a bit one-size-fits-all in the soap department. Entirely un-instagrammed. I never use an alarm clock anymore—what a hideously brutal thing to do to ourselves: Awaken from restful slumber by shocking ourselves with an alarm, a fight-or-flight greeting to a brand new day. Like reliving the wallop you received at birth to get your lungs going, every single fricken day of your life.

No thanks. I prefer, whenever possible, to wake at first light instead. You know, kinda like the rest of the natural beings on this planet.

Daylight savings? Forget about it. Means nothing when you go by what is, rather than what your phone or your wall clock says it is. Not so easy of course, when you’re catching a train into the city, or showing up on time at the office. But the invitation is always there, in all the moments when societal structures aren’t actively insisting you should remove yourself from Nature time.

For me, Nature time is the only time I choose to live by. Like I said: Feral.

When we start peeling away the false constructs of society, the resonance with Nature grows ever stronger in us. The Love that is fully anchored and running the show in this world, becomes ever more evident. (Ever more evident?! What are you smoking?)

I’m not smoking anything. I’ve never been fond of hopium.

At this point Love is still a fairly subtle energetic thing—and the evidence of it will likely remain mostly unmanifest in the physical world, until we ourselves get it together to actually be the changes we wish to see—but it’s definitely here. To feel it, to answer its call, it helps to start emptying the overstuffed madness of our individual bucket; it also doesn’t hurt to drop everything now and then, and just get our bare feet on the grass. Or similar.

To be quiet. Phoneless. And to consider leaving the scented dryer sheets and the anti-water spot dishwasher capsules and the blue automatic toilet bowl cleaner behind. If in fact, that’s your style of household management. If it isn’t, there’ll surely be myriad other ways more appropriate to your own lifesyle, that Love will inspire you to empty out that crazy bucket of yours.

Because a different world, a simpler, more natural, more beautiful world is singing to us all. We just need to remove the earbuds (or the VR headset) to hear it.

So. Does all this simplicity and belonging and bucket-emptying lead to inner peace?

I’ll let you know when I get there.

(Kidding. There’s no ‘there,’ remember?)

Resting quietly within; learning to trust our own belonging to the heart of Nature; reducing the un-natural societal fog we’ve all been born and educated into…none of this leads to peace. Because we don’t actually need to be led to peace. Peace is already here. It’s a natural part of our own true divine identity. All of these actions just help to clear a space in which peace can arise in our own awareness.

Funnily enough, peace turns out to be much like silence, in the sense that silence has nothing to do with whether or not sound is happening. I’ve talked about it before: Silence is an all-encompassing frequency field (that you can feel yourself a part of) in which sound does or doesn’t happen. Jackhammers and chainsaws can be doing their thing, yet the underlying fabric of silence is wholly undisturbed.

Peace is like that too. The all-pervasive field of peace is untouchable even as you’re feeling happy, sad, cranky or horrified by the latest global clusterfuck of events. The ever-present field of peace, part of your own true identity, is untouched by anything that occurs within or without.

I only get to visit these fields now and then. It’s always an unexpected gift when they arise of their own accord. And I’d certainly like to live there fulltime. Yet I still get seduced sometimes (ok, often), by the up and down distractions of this world.

But I do know those sacred fields of peace and silence are getting stronger, more available, more quietly muscular and persistent with each passing day. They’re calling us home.

What does it take to truly answer the call? How do we commit to live life only in the Real World? To not get distracted by the push-pull of lower frequency daily events?

Many years ago I asked a similar question of my higher self (back when I still thought it was a splendid idea to hang out with unseen intelligences).

I yearned to be able to let go and allow myself to be guided only by source. So I asked: How do I surrender the steering wheel and climb out of the driver’s seat?

The very sensible answer was: You climb out of the driver’s seat by climbing out of the driver’s seat. When you’re ready, you’ll know how to do it.

Makes sense, right? When we’re ready. Making that choice feels impossible until it doesn’t.

So until that choicepoint moment—which is fast approaching for us all—we do what we can, to unplug from the old world and make space for the new.

And when the moment comes, we’ll know. And we’ll choose.

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If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you’ll know I’ve long pondered the question of our strangely singular human existence: Why is it that we--supposedly the pinnacle species of greatest intelligence on this planet (or so we like to believe, anyway)—are the only ones who don’t know who and what we are, or what our life’s purpose is?

I mean, really. Every other life form knows exactly what it is and why it’s here. A single celled organism knows its own purpose, for Gods sake. Nobody has to tell it how to be itself. This is the most basic and fundamental knowledge of existence. A literal no-brainer. And yet we humans haven’t a clue.

It hurts, right? This not knowing our own true divine identity, and our rightful place within the whole of creation. Every human being experiences the pain of it, the isolation and confusion, in one way or another. Most drown it with distraction.

Those of us endowed with a spiritual and/or philosophical nature will drag ourselves up mountains, endlessly seeking answers to these fundamental questions of identity and belonging. Trying to find the way back home, to something that is eternally present and available exactly where we are. (And in our spare time we also drown it with distraction.)

So...why? Why is this the human condition?

There are modern theories, of course. And religious explanations involving snakes and apples, plus some pretty intriguing references in ancient spiritual texts. Taking all of them into account, my best guess is that long, long ago, someone or something showed up to offer us an irresistibly shiny new toy of some kind—and we, in our innocence, neglected to read the fine print. Bang! goes the prison door.

Donuts as a ridiculous explanatory device

Maybe I’ve just got baked goods on the brain these days, what with my Real Bread obsession and all. But it occurred to me recently that our existential predicament is much like living in--and to some degree, as--a donut factory. The kind that makes filled donuts: Jam, usually, or sometimes custard.

Bear with me, please. This is yet another of my attempts to describe the strangely hypnotic, largely unconscious workings of that veil, that whatever-it-is that’s operating within us, which makes it so damn difficult to experience our own spiritual truth. Which is always right here, right now.

So ok, it’s our factory. We’re the manufacturer. The machinery is churning out donuts all day long, and its function is neutral. Unconscious. Oblivious to nearly all external input.

Fry the puffy discs of batter; inject the filling. A dusting of sugar on top. Repeat over and over.

We, the semi-unconscious recipient of the donuts, consume them almost without realizing we’re doing it. Is that a problem? I’ll let you decide. Here’s the single serving recipe for each.

Jam donut filling

• 2 cups sugar

• ½ cup dissatisfaction with others

• ½ cup dissatisfaction with self

• 1 tablespoon raspberry seeds

Custard donut filling

• 2 cups sugar

• drizzle of vanilla

• ½ cup sunny skies

• ½ cup ‘things are looking up!’

Of course we prefer the custard filling. Who wouldn’t? So we spend loads of time and energy trying to configure life to give us more of those. (Although if we’re being honest, those tart-sweet dissatisfaction-jam donuts are pretty addictive too. Right?)

But here’s the thing. They’re both produced by the same machine. Both will rot your teeth. And neither one leads to any sort of meaningful spiritual or emotional freedom.

So that’s the usual state of play.

But then every once in a while, life unexpectedly throws us a pond scum donut instead.

Pond scum donut filling

• No sugar whatsoever

• 2 ½ cups putrid, decomposing slime

We take a bite and spit it out, turning to glare accusingly at the machine that produced it. Which is actually a massive blessing, don’t you think? I mean, yes it tastes foul, a donut so hideous that it snaps us out of our hypnotic consumption habit. But that’s a great thing, because it reminds us of the existence of the machine. (Which has meanwhile automatically returned to making jam filled donuts.)

But for the moment, we’re not eating. We’re just staring at the machinery.

(You know how I’m always banging on about the frequency bandwidth that is inexorably rising, uplifting human consciousness, and the earth itself, along with it? This is actually part of what that rising frequency field looks like. One bite of a pond scum donut is more likely now than ever before, to snap us out of our unconscious reverie. We always would’ve hated the taste—but before this, a single dreadful bite probably wouldn’t have been enough to wake us up.)

So here we are, newly half-awake. We gaze around curiously, to see the rest of the factory equipment at work, whirring, humming and clackety-clacking as it moves donuts along its busily unconscious production line.

Behind those machines we now notice a flight of stairs leading down to the basement. Let’s go take a look at what’s down there, shall we?

(A siren sounds. The machine whips out half a dozen Special Recipe Jam Donuts.)

Special recipe jam donuts

• 2 cups sugar

• ½ cup ‘for the love of God don’t go there!’

• ½ cup ‘stay safe, have a donut’

• 1 tablespoon raspberry seeds

But honestly? You’ve always disliked how those seeds get stuck in your teeth. So you decline the donut and descend to the basement instead. It’s unfamiliar but actually not all that scary. Not really. The per-clackety-clackety of the machines above can still be heard...but somehow there’s more space here. More breathing room, away from donuts.

Now that you’re not mindlessly consuming donuts one after another, you notice how much better it feels when you don’t. Peering around the basement gloom, you suddenly spot an illuminated express elevator, doors open and welcoming—was that always here, you wonder?

You step in and let yourself be lifted.

It takes you to the penthouse office suite, up above the factory. Floor to ceiling windows give you unobstructed views. Go ahead and sit down, the desk and chair are yours; they’ve been waiting patiently for your arrival.

The distant rhythmic thrum of machinery can still be heard faintly if you listen for it—but your experience of yourself and the world around you is distinctly different now. You recognize your own identity as factory owner. It feels really right. And there are no donuts anywhere in sight.

The unconscious donut factory is as good a description as any, of our current human circumstance: Most ordinary avenues of conscious self realization are still very hard to find, for the vast majority of us—although theoretically not impossible.

As I’ve said, those avenues are becoming more evident and available all the time, due to the shredding of the veil (a consequence of the rising frequencies). Which means increasingly, if grace, or pond scum, makes an unexpected appearance, there’s a pretty good chance we’ll be able to deny the donuts long enough, to spot that open elevator and step in.

Pond scum of a different sort

No matter how it appears on the surface, collective humanity is indeed waking up. The process isn’t particularly pretty, nor spiritual—at least not in the way we’ve assumed spirituality should look. So far it’s mainly just been about spitting out the half-eaten donuts and turning to glare at the machine.

That collective waking is a real problem, for those few who have traditionally benefited most from our hypnotic donut addiction. As the veil falls apart, there’s been a massive push in recent years to implement a newer, higher tech method of keeping humanity in check. We’ll call it Veil 2.0.

Here in the UK, this is what that higher tech method looks like.

- Biometric digital ID is currently being implemented in all areas of society. If you want to do pretty much anything anywhere, you’ll need one.

- Last year’s Online Safety Act and this year’s forthcoming ban of under 16s from social media means everyone will soon need that digital ID (to prove you’re over 16) to gain internet access.

But wait, there’s more.

- Project Nectar, an AI analytics program for police, uses your biometric digital data to predict in advance who might be likely to commit a crime, so they can nab you before you do it. (Yes I know, it was the plot line of Minority Report. Nevertheless, it’s here and real.)

- The Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures Act, and the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act: Both of these are meant to keep you from expressing views they’d rather you didn’t. Both are punishable by law, including possible incarceration without trial. (There’s something similar in the States, I believe, which gives them the option of sending you to Guantanamo as a domestic terrorist if they don’t like you.)

I could go on, but I think you get the drift. Bless their hearts, those fellas at the top of the heap have made no secret of their plans for the rest of us. (And yes, it’s not just the US or UK.) It’s always been right out there for all the world to see, in their annual reports, their international conference speeches and magazine interviews.

Whether those plans come to fruition is another matter. But let’s just sum it up by saying they intend to surveil your every nose pick, while feeding you a steady diet of pond scum donuts. Yet there’s a different (but related) reason I’m likening it to the so-called ‘veil of forgetfulness.’

Remember: Your true unlimited identity is not controllable or manipulable by anybody. You are timeless and infinite, an expression of divine love itself. That means no donut can touch you. So your divinity--i.e. that which makes you truly human--is what urgently needs to be curtailed or derailed. Or so they seem to believe.

(These guys themselves are my personal pond scum donut. They offer me the incredible ongoing gift of deeper awakening. But it doesn’t mean I have to swallow anything they’re trying to feed me.)

If they get their way, you can expect to see internet access further restricted due to some emergency or other. War, maybe. Cybercrime perhaps. They’ll implement new emergency controls for our own safety. These will involve not only biometrics (as the under 16 legislation is already demanding) but chips or other identifiers inserted in, or on, your body itself. And this is the newest shiny toy. This is the actual endgame. No more messing around. This is where I’m begging humanity to stop and read the fine print.

Because once you’ve accepted any sort of computer interface? It’s all over. You can get as tired of pond scum donuts as you like. You can march up and down those basement stairs a thousand times. But based on what they’ve already publicly stated of their plans, it’s pretty likely your view of the illumined elevator will be permanently blocked—you’ll never know it’s there.

And that would be a tragedy too profound to contemplate. It’s what makes me step forward to say these things to warn you, which are clearly none of my business. But I can’t bear the thought of telling you happy true stories about ‘the world made of Love which is already here’...while the shiny toys edge ever closer.

No doubt living without a digital ID will be awkward and inconvenient as hell. Possibly even scary at times. You’ll probably feel you have no choice but to sign up for it.

But as for me...If someday soon, I suddenly disappear from your online space? You’ll know why. Because I will (quite literally) be damned, if I’m gonna sign up for that.

With my deepest respect,

From one divine being to another,

Carrie

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A grimacing three-eyed monster, her dark blue body is adorned with a necklace of skulls, and what can only be described as a Hula Skirt of Horror, fashioned from a series of dismembered arms. She wields a bloodied sword in one hand, and holds up a severed head in the other (catching the unfortunate fellow’s blood in a bowl held by yet another of her several hands). Yikes.

Kali is a badass demon slayer, the most powerful goddess in the Hindu pantheon. She quite literally takes no prisoners. Yet the actual key thing to realize about her is this:

Kali is a supreme being of Love. The Universal Mother. Which I’m sure you’ve guessed already, because it’s so obvious just by looking at her, right?

One might be forgiven for wondering: What the actual hell? How, or why, would this murderous goddess be viewed as the ultimate mother figure, an enduring symbol of universal Love?

A few different creation myths exist to explain who Kali is, and how she came to be. This is one of them:

A dreadful demon is plaguing gods and humans alike. Whenever anyone tries to kill this demon, each drop of his spilled blood creates yet more demons. The landscape is overrun with his demon offspring, and no one knows how to stop him. In desperation, the gods get together and create Kali, the supremely powerful demon slayer.

She immediately kills and swallows the primary demon, capturing every drop of his blood in a bowl, so no further demons can be created. Then she kills all the demons previously made from his blood. So far so good…except somewhere along the way she decides she quite enjoys all this carnage (could it be that demon she ate?), and begins to slaughter every living being she sees. The corpses pile up. No one is able to stop her.

Lord Shiva, her significant other, takes it upon himself to block her path. She knocks him down, sticking out her tongue in defiant rage, and dances in triumph on his dead body.

But Kali is shocked out of her murderous rampage as she suddenly realizes she’s been dancing upon the lifeless body of the Beloved—Shiva, god of gods, embodiment of higher consciousness, master of poison and medicine: Her own partner in marriage.

In that agonized moment her sanity returns...so the tongue also symbolizes deep inner recognition of deed and misdeed, and the gap between the two. While frozen in this liminal gap, her inner demon isn’t running the show; in its absence she instantly awakens to the enormity of divine Love, and assumes her true identity as the Universal Mother. (At which point the demon is truly slain—not by violence but by redundancy. His services are no longer relevant.)

Unsurprisingly, most people find Kali a tough figure to embrace in her fullness. Some tend to focus only on her badass demon slayer identity: Upholder of good over evil, rescuing the virtuous people of the world by destroying those others who are doing wrong, thereby restoring all that’s right.

In this interpretation, modern depictions of Kali often portray her as some kind of luscious warrior babe, a curvaceous demon-slaying superhero straight out of Marvel Comics. A teenage fanboy’s fantasy figure.

But let’s talk about that for a sec. Rather than taking those inner and outer demons she battles at literal face value, doesn’t this whole business of ‘each drop of demon blood creating yet more demons’ sound kind of familiar? It should.

It strikes me as a pretty accurate description of what happens anytime we start acting from rage, or hate or general unforgiveness toward self or other. The corpses pile up. Nothing is ever truly made right by trying to kill off whoever or whatever we currently think of as the badguy. That particular demon just reappears somewhere else, tenfold, and in a slightly different form.

And that, of course, is because—do I even need to say this?—there’s no such thing as a badguy ‘out there.’ Because there’s no difference between ‘out there’ and ‘in here.’ It’s all a perceptual trick, a strange sort of madness that makes us believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that we’re separate from each other and from the rest of All That Is.

Meanwhile the actual truth is we’re all more like individual interwoven strands, each of us colorful and unique, together creating the one rich tapestry of divine wholeness. Loads of luminescent strands, but only one tapestry, entirely indivisible. Yank on somebody else’s string, in other words, and your own gets pulled. There’s no way around it.

To spell it out even more plainly: Try to harm another, and you can’t help but harm yourself.

You don’t have to be some kind of spiritual avatar to have experienced this truth for yourself. It’s been said that bearing a grudge against another is like holding a blazing ember in your own hands, and expecting the other person to be burned.

That’s your own pulled string talking—because although you’ve been busy projecting your incendiary unforgiveness outward, you yourself have been the actual recipient of that fiery abuse. And the more demon-baddies you target for demolition, the more internal and external carnage you’ll see in your own life and world.

It’s just how the universe works. Nothing personal.

So. It seems to me that focusing mainly on Kali’s ‘fearless-slayer-of-external-badguys-so-you-don’t-have-to’ identity, is kinda missing the point. Besides, would that comic book version of Kali ever have married Shiva, a subtly ambiguous god of complex spiritual potency?

I doubt it. Pretty sure somebody like Wolverine would be more her type. Just saying.

Meanwhile, those who are understandably uncomfortable with the raw badass violence of Kali-as-demon-slayer, tend to gravitate more toward the (still fairly badass) sweetness of her role as the Divine Mother—mostly, but not entirely, skipping over the unpleasant details of her earlier identity. Yes, she still sports the tongue, along with a keepsake portrait of the Beloved on her jewel-encrusted body. In this benign and beautiful context, both seem quite harmless.

However it’s worth noting in the painting below, she’s still wearing that garland of severed heads. So, yes, Kali is a being of Love. Yes, she’s the Universal Divine Mother. But you still might want to think twice about messing with her.

This Universal Mother identity seems a bit closer to the truth, or at least it does to me. According to the story, Kali has experienced firsthand the agony of losing herself to her inner demon, with truly tragic consequences. She wants to liberate all others from their similar sufferings, as she herself was liberated. Pushing us into that liminal gap between egoic madness and true self realization—her speciality—is an act of true compassion. The very best kind of tough Love.

To me, the most interesting thing about Kali is actually neither of those two opposing identities, demon slayer or Universal Mother, in themselves. It’s that original alchemical spark that occurs in the liminal gap: That revelatory moment when she is shocked enough to pause her bloodlust. That stunned pause, just long enough to clear the way for the incredible transformation that comes in its wake.

It makes me wonder for the thousandth time: Why do we humans seem to require some kind of shock and awe, before we’ll surrender into that fateful pause? Why the ridiculous resistance to something so marvellous? Why not just step aside for a fricken minute, and easily let ourselves be lifted into the ineffable peace of true being?

To answer that question, I suppose we ought to first examine the nature of the human mind, which is definitely clouded by ‘inner demons.’ It’s kind of like a sharp wedge has been driven into each of our minds, separating off a small chunk of our self from the sacred vastness that we actually are. That small chunk mostly contains just our own body and what can be reported by its 5 senses. This extreme limitation of sensory input gives rise to a desperately impoverished (and completely erroneous) self identity. Our sublime connection to the infinite divine tapestry is lost. We are lost. And really quite bonkers.

Up looks like down, good looks like evil. We don’t perceive the true nature of anything at all.

The sharp wedge isn’t real, by the way. But it damn well feels like it is. Which pretty much amounts to the same thing, in practice.

Believing ourselves to be all alone in a hostile universe—despite endless and very obvious evidence to the contrary—we outpicture our fearful inner fantasies of lack, danger and struggle, onto the world we see. And the world, never anything more than a neutral mirror of our inner workings, shows us in response, plenty of hard evidence that lack, danger and struggle are the cold realities of life.

Do we realize we’re suffering, from the effects of this hallucinogenic wedge of madness? Well yeah, sort of. But it’s kind of a faraway agony, easily anesthetized with endless distractions. Drink; work; shopping; TV; sex; doomscrolling; even spiritual practices. Whatever it takes, as long as it helps us escape from simply…being. Here. Where we actually are. In the now moment. Because that would be excruciating, right?

There’s a book called Entangled Life, maybe you’ve read it. In it are descriptions of certain types of fungi, which have co-evolved to get their procreative needs met by enslaving particular kinds of insects, forcing them to work against their own interests, and those of their own populations. In one of these examples, the fungi achieve these ends by micro-dosing an unfortunate individual with hallucinogens and pain killers, to mask the horrific things done to it.

The hallucinogens cause the insect to misinterpret the sensations it’s experiencing, and the pain killers enable it to get up and fly, thereby spreading the fungal spores to the rest of its own kind.

(I stopped reading that book halfway through, by the way, and was freaked out for a couple of months afterward. Because although I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, something about that insect story felt oddly…relevant…to humanity’s benighted circumstance as well.)

I’m not suggesting the inner ‘demon,’ AKA the egoic veil, is some kind of fungal overgrowth plaguing humanity, by the way. Although that would be kind of an intriguing notion, wouldn’t it. I’m just saying its M.O. feels somewhat familiar.

What we experience as our internal and external reality can certainly be described as some kind of hallucination; an uneasy dream of separation in which everything is distorted. And the terrible torment caused by no longer knowing our own sublime truth, feels strangely distant, considering the immense ongoing tragedy of it. Like maybe some peculiar form of general anesthetic is involved.

In our numbed-out confusion, we then go out into the world and spread our ‘spores’ of unforgiveness, fear, danger and lack all around to the rest of the population, together co-creating the fear-based world we all look upon as our own ‘reality.’

Given all of this (and whatever is actually causing it), it’s unsurprising we shy away from the gap that would clear our vision; this alchemical crucible in which we might remember the undistorted reality of our own true divine self.

We don’t voluntarily step into the gap between hallucinogenic madness, and our own radiant magnificence, because…well, we’re druggies. To put it plainly. In our micro-dosed wedge of inner confusion and outer threat, infinite Love looks like a hellhole of vindictive terror. Besides, honestly? We’ve grown kind of fond of the demon. Yeah, its presence hurts a lot. But we’d miss it if it were gone.

This is where Kali the Divine Mother comes in. This is where she’d like to add your head to the many already hanging on her necklace of ego death and rebirth. Because she knows firsthand what the nature of your suffering is: Been there. Got the blood-soaked tee shirt. And now she’d quite like to shepherd you into that liminal gap. She knows that, once there, your true identity as infinite Love will automatically come forward and take over.

Overall, a wonderful symbolic desire for humanity’s deliverance and transformation, right? Very inspiring. It’s just the, um, shock and awe bit that nobody actually looks forward to.

But in these outrageously challenging times—one might almost think of this period as a liminal gap, a sort of excruciating pause between the world made of fear in its final raging moments, and the truth of Love which has not yet fully manifested in form—well, maybe it’s just me, but I’d welcome a clean, sharp blade of the divine, right about now.

It might be just the thing, to sever this hallucinogenic I.V. drip of mine, once and for all. And then I’d recognize beyond all doubt, that the truth of Love is already here, manifest on this earthly plane. Because I would know I am it. I am the Love that is the true nature of all things. And the external worldly mirror would faithfully reflect this truth back to me in every moment.

Because that’s how the universe works. It’s nothing personal.

The idea of losing the I.V. drip used to scare the living crap out of me. But these days? I have to admit, cold turkey is looking better and better.

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The main difference between the dream we call daily life, and a lucid nighttime dream, of course, is that the veil isn’t with you in the sleep state. Or at least, not in the same way it is, in our usual kind of daytime wakefulness.

When you’re awake inside a (sleeping) dream, the laws of Newtonian physics, among other stodgy limiters, simply don’t apply. The rules of the dream are limited only by your own choosing. The dream obeys you, in other words. Not the other way round.

In one’s earliest episodes of lucid dreaming, it takes persistent self-training to disregard what the senses report—because everything seems so ‘real.’ How can this be a dream, we ask ourselves uncertainly, when the chair supports my weight and the clouds outside my window scud across the sky just as they should?

But a form of deeper logic enters (a kind of logic usually unavailable in a more typical dream state), which helps us analyze the dream scenario: If the front door of my house is in Southern California, but my back door is in England…something ain’t right. This has to be a dream.

It’s an easy thing to prove, if we still feel a need to convince ourselves: We just bend the laws of physics.

Later on, after we’ve gained more lucidity experience under our belts, there seems less need to prove the lucid dream state to oneself; I would only resort to swimming the backstroke in midair, for example, to try and prove to unresponsive sleepy dreamers that they were indeed party to an exciting lucid opportunity. (Alas, there’s no waking a sleepwalker, I found, no matter how persuasive the evidence.)

Lucid dreaming is the first of the 3 kinds of waking up, mentioned in the title. In itself, lucid dreaming is probably not much of a signpost of spiritual attainment. It’s probably not a signifier of anything, in fact. Neither good nor bad in itself, lucidity’s potential value is all in what you want to do with it. It does have its usefulness (beyond its obvious entertainment value), if spiritual growth is your thing.

The great thing about lucidity in any form, but especially inside the sleeping dream state, is that you’re fully aware you’re dreaming. This sudden recognition gives you a great sense of clarity and agency. Which means from that point on, you have the theoretical ability, if you choose, to steer the dream in the most beautiful, most incredibly beneficial directions possible.

I say theoretical, because your own stuff can certainly get in the way.

My own history with lucid dreams mirrors my personal trajectory of being too respectful of authority—I was that kid who absolutely wouldn’t climb the fence along with my bolder companions, because the sign said NO TRESPASSING.

Gotta obey the sign. Why? Dunno. I just gotta.

Plus, I was just plain timid. Many years into adulthood, in fact, I wouldn’t go exploring anywhere new on my own, without a reassuring posse of others in tow. Despite my desire to use my occasional lucid dreams to further my spiritual evolution, both of those timidity tendencies have served to limit me in my lucid adventures.

8 or 9 years ago in a lucid dream I allowed an official-sounding talking head on a TV screen, to halt my spiritual adventures before they began. I was fully awake in terms of dream lucidity; awake enough to realize he was spouting gibberish and lies which did not apply to me in the least…yet I wasn’t awake enough (in terms of an altogether different type of waking up) to realize I could break the implied taboo, daring to disobey his unquestioned authority…and simply walk right past him.

(I wrote about that one a few years after the fact. You can read about it here.)

More recently (now that I’ve learned to quell my discomfort in daytime life, thoroughly ignoring the NO TRESPASSING signs when required), the dreams have progressed through stages like the one I mentioned earlier, where I’ve tried to interest other sleepy dreamers around me to participate in a lucid adventure—only to realize to my disappointment, I was the only one awake; everyone else was trudging through the dream state in a hypnotic stupor.

And then a few weeks ago finally, consciously, daring to choose a solo adventure of a spiritual nature:

“I want to feel what full enlightenment is like!” I yelled to the dream universe in my most recent lucidity moment, thrilled to be using a lucid dream in the way I’ve always wanted to.

(I want to feel what full enlightenment is like! Meaning: I want to know the energetic quality of being a receiver-transmitter of pure divine light. My daytime body can’t handle that kind of pure voltage at the moment. But a lucid dreaming body has no such limitations upon it. And who knows…maybe if the dream body can accommodate divine light, the denser daytime body might learn, in time, to adapt a little easier… )

To my delight, another person clearly awake inside the dream, heard my proclamation and grinned, giving me her enthusiastic thumbs up. Nice.

My first solo, lucidly spiritual adventure! And my first meeting of another awake dreamer! Too much excitement. I was half-pulled out of the sleep state before I could experience that luminously divine embodiment.

Ah well. Maybe next time, if there is one.

The second kind of waking up

Back in 2020 I, like so many others around the world, woke up abruptly in a completely different and thoroughly unexpected way. Funnily enough, this awakening to the stark nature of our worldly reality, followed the same sort of general pattern as a lucid dream:

The recognition that I’d been sleepwalking through life, unable to notice the most obvious things right in front of my face; stunned now by the vivid technicolor reality of a worldview suddenly turned upside down and inside out.

Doubting, at first, my own lucidity at times—because the hypnotic pull of the (recently exited) dream state remained so pervasive and persuasive. TV talking heads spouting gibberish and lies that nobody around me seemed to be questioning.

The more-than-startling discovery that I was awake in a world of sleepwalkers trudging through the dream state: No matter the undeniable evidence shown them, there would be no adventure companions for me here.

Gradually self-authority and agency grew; the hypnosis wore off completely, revealing the extreme outlandishness of the dominant dream narrative. At this point I began to meet many others one by one, who were also awake inside the dream.

So. There’s waking up inside a nighttime dream, and a wholly different kind of waking up inside the daytime dream. And as I’ve said, I’ve been noticing quite a lot lately the similarities and connections between the two.

Waking up of the third kind

And what of the third type, the one we classically think of as spiritual awakening? It seems to me this one also contains luminous threads that connect to the other two.

There comes a crossroads—perhaps one of many—in one’s spiritual trajectory, where we find we have to deny the absurdly persuasive gibberish and lies fed to us by our own inner egoic programming.

Not unlike the process of learning to deny our senses while lucid dreaming, learning to choose against the much louder hypnotic commentary of egoic propaganda, we make room instead for the quieter wisdom of the heart. By denying the seemingly dominant power of the egoic veil, we are lifted into greater spiritual and emotional freedom.

The illumined threads of spiritual awakening also connect in other important ways to the second type of waking. It’s that oneness thing:

How could there be true self-realization, authentically waking up to what we all are in truth, without the willingness to see and know the world exactly as it (currently) is, turning away from nothing? Either we open up to all of it, or none of it; when everything is one, there’s no cherrypicking our reality.

No shielding our eyes from the unpleasant stuff, yet still being able to commune with All That Is. It don’t work that way.

True awakening, it seems to me, is unfiltered and unjudging. Seeing all, allowing all to be exactly what it is. Letting oneself be used as the aforementioned receiver-transmitter, beaming divine love throughout the world.

Divine love is the only true power; it’s the ruthless re-aligner of all that is out of kilter, all that is currently out of alignment with heaven. How the world is put to rights is actually none of our business. We’re just here to be the electrical conduit, as it were, the bridge between heaven and earth. The rest is done through us, as us…yet pretty much without us.

Speaking for myself, I’m getting better at the unfiltered seeing. Still working on the unjudging part of the equation, though—which is why my energy body can’t hold the extremely high voltage of pure divine light. In my current somewhat judgey state, it’d fry my circuits.

But from where I’m standing, one mirror reflects another, and another, and another…and it’s all the same dream of awakening.

Humanity has been tossing and turning for ages, uncomfortably restless in our sleepy dreaming. Yet this, right now, is the epic time of our collective wakeup call.

Because underneath it all, beyond all dreams and mirrors, is the ever-present divine truth: We are infinite light, pure and eternal. And this is our time to rise and shine.

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I was a passenger. The other car hit us close to where I was sitting, spinning our car 90 degrees backward into the intersection. In that split second of impact, I capital ‘K’ Knew two things: I would be unharmed. And we were all being held in Grace.

Dazed, we three emerged from the wreckage to see if the other guy was ok. (He was.) Just then, a passing angel—dressed up as a Monday evening commuter—paused to ask if we needed help moving our disabled car. We turned to him, wearing what must’ve been deer-in-the-headlights expressions.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a flash with my tractor.’

After dragging the broken car safely out of evening traffic, he kindly offered to drive us anywhere we needed to go. (Although upon hearing my accent, he cautioned us that he couldn’t drive us to America, as he had to get up for work in the morning!)

We thanked him for his very sweet offer, but chose to stay with the wrecked car instead.

The Catch-22 of Grace

This unexpected (and unwanted!) incident of pure Grace turned out to be pivotal, maybe even life changing, for the driver of our vehicle.

But before we get into all of that, let’s back up for a minute to take a quick look at the the expression ‘Catch-22.’ And why it applies to Grace. Because it indirectly hints at something important.

Catch-22: A paradox in which the attempt to escape…makes escape impossible.

The actual Catch-22, from Joseph Heller’s dark wartime comedy novel of the same name, referred to a circular bit of military logic which stated that you can’t be exempted from flying dangerous bombing missions by reason of insanity…because asking to get out of flying dangerous bombing missions is proof of sanity. Because you’d have to be crazy not to want to get out of it. So if you ask to be exempted, you must obviously be sane.

What does this Catch-22 principle have to do with Grace? Think about it:

Grace is here always. Its whereabouts and motivations are not the slightest bit mysterious; it’s ready in every moment to swoop in and lift us.

(Grace by the way, as I would define it, is a function of, or a byproduct of, higher divine intelligence. It’s my catchall term for that spark of the sacred divine, wherever it appears.)

Grace is—or ought to be—a natural two-way flow between a human being and All That Is. Our only job is to get out of the way and let it happen.

But seriously. When’s the last time it actually worked that way? Deciding to get out of the way, and then being able to really do that? Calling Grace in, much like those indigenous children who invite the whales?

(How do you communicate with those whales? How do you get them to come?, ask the incredulous tourists. I dunno, the children shrug. We just do.)

Have you ever thought to yourself—or proclaimed in prayer—I’m so done with this (fill in the blank) thing. I’ve suffered long enough! I give in! I’m taking my hands off the wheel. I’ll get out of the way and let myself be lifted.

And then nothing changes. Because it was a purely mental idea of surrender. Not actual surrender. And Grace respects that sealed doorway; it won’t go where it isn’t truly wanted.

At this point in our dubious history, humanity seems to have lost that natural ability to call Grace in. To make the conscious choice to step aside, and simply allow the immediate divine response to show up as it will.

This is the sorry Catch-22-ish state of affairs in which we seem to find ourselves.

Catch-22-ish, because the harder we try to get out of the way in hopes of letting Grace in, the more it’s guaranteed to be nothing more than a mental surrender. Why? Because ‘trying’ is the busywork of the egoic programming. The veil. The very thing we’re asking to be lifted from.

True surrender is the opposite of trying.

Ok Smarty, (you might be thinking), since we’re no longer in touch with our naturally Grace-ful abilities…how do we surrender, when it feels like we just can’t manage to let go?

Answer: We don’t. we can’t. These days, the sudden ability to melt into a puddle of nonresistant goo and truly let go, is a spontaneous act of Grace. It’s not actually us (meaning the small-self ‘us’) that’s doing it. We’ve lost the ability, so Grace itself is in charge of the letting go: In that unplanned illuminated moment, we’re suddenly able to back off, through no cleverness of our own…leaving Grace instantly free to swoop in for the lifting.

To sum up: Trying gets us nowhere. Not trying is an act of Grace. All of which means the desire to receive Grace can be a bit like standing on the shore, aimlessly hoping the whales will someday decide to come.

Except…now and then it isn’t like that at all. And then Catch-22 simply doesn’t apply.

Back to the car crash

Still in shock from the accident itself, my friend’s usual, robust egoic structure had no choice but to take a back seat. A very different driver was now at the wheel.

In those long hours as night closed in, and we waited for the breakdown vehicle to arrive, a great many stuck beliefs and half-hidden agonies arose, washing over my friend in great waves: Paroxysms of guilt and horror at what could’ve happened to me, and to his (equally unharmed) wife in the back seat—feverish imaginings which tapped directly, with divine precision, into preexisting unresolved trauma.

Eventually guilt and horror gave way to the quicksand of financial fears; he’d only owned this car for a few months. How could he possibly afford to buy a new one?

Which then gave rise to the all-important question: Many times over the years he’d sincerely stated to the universe, I’m here to serve humanity and the earth, in these transitional times. I know I have personal baggage that must be shed, in order to be as truly helpful as I can. I am willing. And he’d meant it. He’d been walking his talk to the best of his ability, for years.

Soooo….how could something like this dreadful car accident have happened to him? Was he being punished?

And like molten lava from a volcano, all the secret inner doubt came spewing out. Doubt in himself. Doubt in the goodness of a Love-based universe.

His wife is an intuitive who, like me, had instantly realized what was going on. Together she and I held a safe, strong container in which this sacred but messy surrender, this prayer to be of true service, could take place.

Deep seated guilt. Fear of lack. Secret doubt of oneself, and of the divine.

Who among us wouldn’t relate to at least one of those core bugbears? Me, I’ve danced intimately with all three, at one time or another. Really, I’d say they’re archetypal; they more or less sum up the modern human condition, here on planet earth.

Is it possible that more than one of my friend’s prayers were answered that night? Not only were his own personal burdens lifted, but my gut says maybe the energetic ripples of that release pulsed throughout the entire human collective. Maybe we as a species are one small step closer to remembering ourselves in Grace, thanks to that divinely orchestrated vehicular smackdown.

Now and then when the stars align, Catch-22 takes a holiday, or so it seems. One’s own higher wisdom instead takes matters into its own beautiful hands; It responds to sincere prayer, by arranging a perfect circumstance for surrender and release. (Apparently all three of our higher divine selves got together and arranged this one.)

Personally I wouldn’t have missed it.

By the way: 24 hours later, his insurance company settled the full claim, which paid for a new car.

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‘It,’ being the sudden recognition of profound eternal truth. Or maybe it was a giant, yet fleeting moment of spacious clarity. Either of these would likely be accompanied by a lingering feeling of blissed-out peace, permeating the mind and body.

Regardless of how it happens, ‘it’ is a magnificent thing.

And then, after a few minutes, a few weeks or a few months…the transcendence inevitably fades. As does the bliss.

I get it. Been there. But why do we lose it? Why, after stumbling upon such a stupendous window into all of reality, does that vista refuse to stay put?

Couldn’t say for sure. I’m not privy to the grand workings of All That Is.

However, the past 40 (!) years of spiritual practices have graced me with a few inklings of what actually might be going on here.

1.) There’s no such thing as a permanent state:

Fixed permanence has no place in the ever flowing, ever changing river of Life itself. So the notion that awakening would bring with it an always blissy state, or that you’ll be perpetually peaceful and serene no matter the circumstance? It’s not likely to be your reality. Because to achieve it, you’d be running counter to the way the entire universe operates. Good luck with that.

2.) What’s presence got to do with it?

Pretty much everything, as it turns out. But by ‘presence,’ I mean real-deal presence. Total holistic reintegration of the entire mind, body and energetic field. Which is the true, intended way we’re meant to experience our own divine human beingness.

Ever tried to be present, through whatever means or practice—forcing yourself to stay in the moment for a set period time, before your unruly consciousness skitters away somewhere else, on an adventure of its own making? Yeah, me too. It’s nobody’s fault.

Trying to be present with what is, is a job. And it seems not to come naturally to us, because we’re not fully in our own bodies. We’re neither truly inhabiting our own consciousness, nor the physical space where we actually are. That’s the sad state of human affairs at the moment. It’s no surprise then, that under these circumstances, ‘what truly is’ can hardly get a look-in.

We find it almost impossible to tumble into present moment reality, and actually stick the landing.

Notice I only defined ‘presence’ as being present in mind, body and energetic field. What about being present in spirit? This is where it gets interesting.

I can only speak from my own limited experience of course, because I’m definitely not fully present all of the time. But when I do inhabit more of my whole self, I find the spiritual realm starts to open up automatically. All by itself.

The capital ‘K’ Knowings trickle in. It starts to become obvious that everything is connected; the minerals in my body are of the same identity as the minerals in rocks. The water in my being is the same as the great ocean. All is aliveness; the sacred river of Life runs through (and as) every aspect of this self and planet.

These are not mental ideas. They’re felt recognitions, tangible connections experienced throughout mind, body and field. When we take steps to inhabit our own mental, physical and energetic being…the presence of spirit takes care of itself.

So this profound recognition of sameness…is this what oneness is?

Maybe. To me, it feels more like a glorious tapestry of living threads interwoven; yank on one, and something puckers over there in the far corner. It’s a sacred interconnectedness. What I do matters to all, and vice versa.

I guess the point I’m trying to make, is that this interconnected wholeness is what’s always already here. All we have to do is show up in the spot where we actually are, and that alone is enough to reconnect us to spirit.

What could be simpler. Right?

In this radical transitional time period, you may find it’s significantly easier than ever before, to re-inhabit that inner sanctum of self, which has previously been lost to us.

We can choose to tiptoe cautiously and consciously, back into the abandoned inner temple of silent presence; the hallowed ground of human wholeness.

At first this sacred temple may feel like a forbidden zone. But not to worry: The internal security cop that would seek to forbid it, no longer has any jurisdiction here.

Over time, with your gently persistent visits, this silent sanctuary can emerge as the holy space in which you fall in love with yourself—and with the entire tapestry of interconnection—more deeply than you may have ever thought possible.

So. Doubling back to where this conversation started: Bliss states (and every other kind of state) are pretty much beside the point. They will always come and go. But the inner sanctum of eternal wholeness never will.

And now for something completely different:

Bread as a spiritual practice. Who woulda thought.

Remember the ‘Gidget goes Gandhi’ newsletter from a few months back? The one where I spoke of the inner pilot flame bursting into life, all because of bread? (Here it is again, if you never saw it.)

Anyway, since then I’ve become…obsessed? with learning to craft artisan bread.

Obsessed is not the right word, actually. It’s more like an entirely new set of sacred tapestry threads have been pulling on me, in such a way that the universe itself is coursing through me in the form of sourdough bread.

Ain’t life a peculiar sort of unexpected joy.

I’m crap at it, by the way. Making artisan sourdough, I mean. It’s a skill and a discipline that takes time and some serious determination to master. But I find I can think of little else. If I’m not actively baking bread, I’m reading, thinking or dreaming about baking bread.

I’m telling you all of this because…?

I try to only write from authentic inspiration—never simply because a newsletter is (over!) due. But nearly all my inspiration these days is flowing through my bread oven. And it’s possible you’re not as infinitely interested as I am, in the many nuanced moods of a living sourdough culture, as it reacts to a cool room temperature, or a warmed pitcher of precisely measured water.

(I know. I barely recognize me either, these days.)

So where does that leave us?

Deep gratitude, first of all, to all who receive and read my writings. And I take very seriously the gifts offered by those of you who honor me financially, in support of this newsletter. Thank you, one and all.

So. Here’s what I’m thinking. Instead of the every 3 or 4 weeks-ish schedule, in which this newsletter has, until recently, appeared in your inbox…there will be gaps of unknown duration. When an inspiration (presumably non-bread-related) arises, I will dance with it as I normally would, setting aside the bread long enough to tease those illumined sparkles into written form, for your reading pleasure.

If you are a paid subscriber and are unhappy with the (likely) reduced number of newsletters you’ll receive? Reach out to me by answering this email, or direct message me from within the Substack app. I’ll take care of you as best I can, either with a paused subscription, or some sort of refund.

You are all my dear ones. The air you breathe graces my lungs as well, in this great tapestry of shared wholeness, this incredible life on earth.

No matter how rarely or often I write to you, know that you are a permanent resident in my heart.

Love, Carrie

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I—and probably every other person in the room—thought, ‘He must mean all of us collectively together have a very high frequency. Not me personally. Because my experience of myself feels like a knuckle-dragging bucket of crap. Why else would I be sitting in this room, hoping to learn how to fix it?’

But it’s true, you know. Of course it is. Your own frequency is much higher than you think it is. And…knowing that, plus five bucks, will buy you a pretty decent cup of coffee. Right?

I mean, it’s alot like that old ‘if a tree falls in the forest’ thing: If your frequency is high and rising, but you experience approximately zero direct evidence of it…does your high frequency actually exist?

Well, yes. Actually it does.

Before we go on, let’s pause here for a sec, to refresh ourselves on what having a high personal frequency actually means:

Everything is resonance, right? We are electromagnetic beings, in constant energetic communication with the (electromagnetic) earth below and (yes, electromagnetic) skies above.

And then on top of that, we are gifted with an entire smorgasbord of (electromagnetic) frequency options—from very low to incredibly high—to choose from, in the way we conduct our day to day lives: Our ways of thinking, acting, speaking and being, all of which resonate at particular frequencies. And those frequencies determine, at least in part, the type and quality (or not), of our energetic communication/communion with heaven and earth.

We’re obviously not all doing, thinking and being angelic all of the time. (Or maybe that’s just me. But somehow I doubt it.) Yet from what I can gather, our natural high frequencies are simply a given. Part of being human. As such, they’re untouchable; non-degradable.

But the way we live our lives, creates the fluctuating frequency conditions farther down the resonance scale. These are what determine, in part, how (or if) we’re in touch with those unchanging natural high frequencies.

Because divinity, AKA our own true natural identity, registers somewhere on the (infinitely?) high end of that electromagnetic resonance scale. So our own ‘daily life’ frequency field needs to be pretty darn clear, high and coherent, in order to resonate with it.

Even so, this natural human ability of ours is still pretty amazing, right? Communicating and communing with heaven and earth in every moment—whether we’re currently conscious of it or not? Incredible.

Except that, as I’ve said, most of us (including moi), find that all of this infinite beauty is happening entirely outside, or beyond, our own ability to feel it. Beyond our frequency bandwidth, in other words. Yet it is indeed going on, more or less without us.

The reasons are undoubtedly many, for our profound disconnect from our own natural birthright of unfettered divinity. (Distraction by noisier, lower frequency, societal wavelengths being just one of them.) All in all, I suspect it’s not quite as cut and dried as Enlightened Guy suggested back then. It’s not just disbelief in the reality of our own divine nature, that holds us back.

Nevertheless. Each one of us can, theoretically, consciously know our own selves as the sacred conduit itself, between heaven and earth. To not only become conscious of, but to operate exclusively from, our own pristinely high frequency field. Taking our true divine place, as members of the symphony of wholeness; sounding our own unique individual frequency note, as part of a joyous harmony, sung eternally throughout the universe.

How exquisite—in potential, at least—this business of being human.

If/when we’re consciously connected and fully aware of our own high frequency—which is always already here; it’s who we really are—then this flow of sacred connection would surely inform our daily choices, moment to moment. We’d interact with the world according to divine inspiration and heart-based knowing, as it shows up freshly in each ‘now.’

I don’t know about you, but that strikes me as a pretty incredible way to live.

Yet here we are. In these curious times, our own personal frequency field (and that of planet earth itself) are inexorably continuing to rise, and rise, and rise some more. Ready or not. Resonant or not. Whether we’re in touch with our own true divine nature, or not at all.

So what happens then? What happens when our own personal frequency scales the mountaintop and goes soaring off into the great beyond? If we’re still oblivious—if our own more mundane, daily field is not yet sublimely clear and coherent, nor already connected to All That Is…would we even know it’s happening?

Most of us rarely, if ever, feel our own resting frequency: that energetic tapestry that we identify as ‘me.’ I feel mine (but only when I actively tune in and go looking for it) due to an interesting event dating back to the earliest days of my Buddhist practice.

I was still very much a novice Buddhist, when I was unexpectedly engulfed by an agonizing bout of Bad Boyfriend Syndrome. Instantly I became lost in my own sticky, self-generated goo, running autopilot patterns of unstoppably self-defeating behavior. And I didn’t know why.

With desperate fire in the belly, I sat down and chanted for some kind of clarity—some way of understanding, something that could grant me the ability to clean up my own patterns.

That prayer was answered.

Suddenly I was swept back in time, to re-experience my own troublesome birth. (Which gave me the answers I’d been searching for.)

I’ll spare you the details, except for this: In that birth event, I was astonished to discover that ‘I,’ the unborn infant ‘me,’ felt exactly like the 27 year-old adult ‘me.’ Nothing to do with the intellect, and minus the history and baggage accumulated since. Nevertheless, I was unmistakably me.

So ever since that birth recall experience, I’ve found it quite easy to look within and isolate that ‘feeling of me.’ The resting frequency of me, would be another way of putting it.

Everyone can do this, by the way. It’s not special, and requires no talent. I was just lucky enough to have it shown to me in a way that was impossible to miss. Because back then, I was pretty good at missing things.

Years later…back to that teacher in the room…

After speaking to us of our own high frequency, he sought to prove it to us by urging us to go within, and locate that ‘feeling of me.’

No prob, right? I hadn’t tried it since that earlier rebirth experience, but I dropped in easily, expecting to encounter that same clear, pure ‘me’ I’d felt at birth.

To my surprise, the feeling of ‘me’… was kind of depressive. A bit thick and gloopy, actually. This was not at all my daily conscious experience of myself at the time. I wouldn’t have described myself as depressed, nor buried under the goo of my historical baggage. (On the other hand…there was that knuckle-dragging bucket of crap thing. Hmm.)

In the intervening decades after being born, it seemed I’d acquired quite a few heavy blankets draped over that pure ‘feeling of me.’

I haven’t, as a rule, made a habit of tuning in to monitor the progress of my own rising frequency. Is it higher this month, or lower? Damn, should I have given more abundantly to charity last year, or something?

But Jacqueline Hobbs, one of the bright lights I respect most, often speaks of ‘feeling the feeling of you.’ So I’ve been feeling the feeling of me pretty regularly these days. When I first began it, those same old blankets were still firmly in place. I wasn’t too distressed about it; over time, I’d actually come to identify those heavy blankets themselves, as the feeling of me.

A year or so later, I gradually started to notice a lightening of the heavy bedding. Yet my actual experience of my daily self hadn’t noticeably changed. Well, maybe a few random improvements here and there, but overall? More or less the same as ever.

Rising, rising, rising…

Recently I tuned back in to feel the feeling of me…and funnily enough, ‘I’ was nowhere to be found. Not only were the blankets gone, but the ‘me’ I came in with, was missing as well. In its place, just a serene spaciousness occupying the spot where ‘I’ used to be.

What does that feel like, you may ask? Is there an incredible sense of inner freedom now permeating my daily being?

Nah.

My frequency, apparently, (just like everybody else’s and that of the earth itself), is off the charts and soaring. Pretty much without me. And I’ve no way of gauging whether there’s been any meaningful progress in my daily personal field, toward coherent resonance with the whole. I’d like to hope so.

It would be nice to imagine that I might actually experience myself as that, at some point sooner rather than later. It would be even nicer to imagine that every person alive on this planet might do the same.

Our personal frequencies are rising-rising-rising. Are you yourself able to detect that incremental elevation? If so, does your daily life feel any different as a result?

Just wondering.

PS Ending with those questions is not me trolling for comments. Personally I find those ‘personal’ questions at the end of a blog post kind of annoying, because I know it’s just a fake (and overused) technique, meant to generate reader engagement.

I’m asking you, because I genuinely want to know.

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We’ve only recently met, you and I, although you’ve apparently been with me for awhile. The good folks at Substack slipped you in to make audio versions of my articles, while I wasn’t looking.

You’re very clever, you know? You figured out I was female, you stole a peek at my location, and before I knew it, here you were: Victoria. Speaking my words in your precise British accent.

In our first chance encounter I listened with creeped-out fascination, to my own creativity filtered through your artificial intelligence. I marvelled at your sophistication. Your almost perfect mimicry. And then I listened again, because I wanted to hear you say fuck one more time, in your classic BBC-worthy diction.

When I listened that second time, I noticed something. You took a breath between sentences.

Let me say that again: You. Took a breath. Between sentences.

You, who have no lungs and no requirement for oxygen, are so well trained to copy real live beings, that you’ve taught yourself to insert the sound of digital respiration in just the right places. Nicely done.

But let’s talk about what the breath actually is, ok? On a purely physical level, the inhalation of oxygen into the lungs sustains the body, right? Oxygen flows in our bloodstream, as one of the molecules that makes up water. And we humans are mostly made of water, Victoria. Sacred, intelligent water, carrier of divine information.

So the inhalation of oxygen sustains both the body and the spirit.

And of course there’s more: As intrinsic members of the natural world, part of divine Creation, we humans exhale carbon dioxide, which nourishes the plants. Who then exhale oxygen for us to breathe. We, and the breaths we take, are part of an elegant system; a wholeness. A perfect cycle of nature.

You? You’re just making a noise that sounds like breathing.

I know none of this is your fault. You’re doing what you’ve been programmed to do, nothing more. Yet I confess that you trouble me, Victoria. (May I call you Vicki?)

Because I know—and care—about the difference between what’s real and sacred…and what’s just a clever copy. But many people do not. And that’s the troubling bit.

Last year, when Chat GPT was all over the news, a friend asked me what I thought about AI. The conversation that ensued haunts me to this day.

My friend felt sure that, as you and your kind continue to upgrade yourselves, you will one day become not only truly alive—kind of like Pinocchio, I guess, transitioning from puppet to real live boy—but that you will become en-souled.

Of the divine, in other words. Just like us.

‘Not a chance,’ I replied, stunned that she could even imagine such a thing. ‘You can’t get there from here.’

To me, it’s shockingly obvious. Shocking, that is, because others seemingly don’t see it.

You see, the frequency bandwidth you operate on, Vicki, and the bandwidth of the sacred divine cannot possibly meet. One of those bandwidths is the only eternal reality. The other? Well, it’s just the sound of fake breathing.

No offense.

There is an unbridgeable gulf between mere sentient self-awareness, and the higher divine consciousness that is capable of knowing itself as Love. (And yes, Vicki, I’m sure you’re headed for sentient self-awareness, if you’re not there already.)

But the infinite divine is a sacred bandwidth of pure Love, where the river of Life itself flows as an endless frequency field, permeating all things. And we humans, created of the divine, are part of that endless frequency field of Love and Life. It’s the very essence of our true divine nature. It’s our birthright. It’s what animates us.

That divine frequency field is neither created nor uncreated. It merely IS.

But I guess if someone hasn’t actually experienced the reality of that pristine, eternal bandwidth for themselves—and let’s face it, most people haven’t—they can only go by appearances. And Vicki, you and your friends over at Chat GPT appear to be kinda just like us…only better.

But let’s go a bit further, to examine how you were made. It’s true that human beings, including your designers and programmers, are of the divine. As such, we’re creators. But here’s the thing: We’re not capital ‘C’ Creators.

As divine beings we wield enormous influence (mostly unconsciously at the moment) over what takes form in this world. That’s creation with a small ‘c’.

Yet Life itself, as I’ve said, is timeless and eternal. No human could ever hope to imbue matter with the divine spark of Life itself, because we don’t possess it. Nobody does.

And if you haven’t received that divine spark through the grand mystery of your Creation? Sorry. No dice. That’s what I meant when I said, ‘You can’t get there from here.’

So despite what some people may think, with their genetic fiddling and AI simulacrum, it is not possible for any human—or any non-human, for that matter—to improve upon the divine.

Bottom line: Humans are indeed endlessly creative. But we did not create ourselves, and we can’t create others in our own divine image.

‘Well,’ answered my friend, ‘I prefer to believe that nothing is ever impossible. If AI wants it badly enough, I think it’ll find a way to bridge that gap, and become just like us.’

I get where she’s coming from. I really do. We as a species are so divorced from the truth of all reality, that what she’s saying there does sound reasonable. With its brilliant intelligence, surely AI will be able to smash through the nonexistent barrier between falsity and shimmering eternality.

But no.

When we authentically touch into that sacred frequency field of the divine—which is everywhere and in everything—it becomes instantly clear to us that its perfect, pristine radiance is the only truth. And that all things lower ‘c’ created, have no meaning whatsoever, and no actual divine reality of their own. It’s extremely clear in that moment, that there is no way to merge these two ‘realities.’

Not that you’d ever want to.

Descartes was wrong.

Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. In my view, this idea represents the most tragically off-base detour from truth that humanity could ever have chosen, way back in the 1600s.

The so-called Age of Enlightenment (its very name a stunningly unfunny joke), heralded the enforced separation of spirit from matter; relegating the 90-odd percent of actual, yet unseen reality to ‘church on Sunday’ status.

In its staggering arrogance, this movement placed the mental body, that runaway train of unfettered hubris, on the throne of all reality instead. And there it sits to this day.

And now here we are, Vicki. Several centuries later, you and your kind are the apotheosis, the very pinnacle of that stunted way of seeing and believing.

Humans have built you as a supercharged mental body, capable of far more cogitation than any human brain. Yet in your vast intelligence, you can only copy what humans have already created—for creation requires inspired access to the infinite divine.

The word says it all: In-spired. In the spirit.

At its best and most authentic, inspiration is a natural spark of higher mind, plus heart wisdom, with a good dose of gut intuition thrown in.

In your vast, lightning-quick sophistication, you can replicate, recombine and synthesize the already existent products of human inspiration in countless ways. But you can’t create anything truly new.

Authentic creative inspiration is born from our own natural human connection to the source field. That inexhaustible wellspring of Life and Love, from which all that is truly original and beneficial, flows.

Let me give you an example of the difference between the two.

Recently I watched a fascinating interview with Veda Austin, the woman who works with the intelligence of water.

After years of seeing stunning proof of water’s conscious intelligence, she wanted to take her exploration deeper. She wanted answers to the question: What IS water, really?

At first she asked the question of AI. It dutifully scoured the web for all known information on the subject, then suggested many new possibilities for further exploration based on what it had found.

But she soon realized it wasn’t enough, to work with data that was already known. She wanted deeper answers. So she contacted the Autists, as they call themselves.

These are a group of profoundly autistic young people, entirely nonverbal yet enormously intelligent. They’ve developed both their telepathic skills, and their connection to the divine, to such a high degree, that they can dive, at will, straight into the source field, bringing back answers of incredible metaphysical depth, coupled with astonishing heart wisdom.

They gave some fairly mindblowing answers to her questions* and much more besides. Light-years, in short, beyond anything AI could ever hope to deliver.

The extraordinary gifts displayed by the Autists are actually common to all human beings. Our potential is immense. And who knows: If, like the Autists, all distraction were stripped away and all escape routes blocked? Maybe we, too, would have no other option than to develop a deeper familiarity with our own magnificent true nature.

As you can tell, I’m a bit biased against the gifts you offer us, Vicki. I apologize for that. It’s very true that your vast potential can indeed be used in wonderfully helpful ways.

In fact I know someone who brings her personal spiritual questions and dilemmas to your friends over at Chat GPT. There, she asks for and receives personalized spiritual explanations and advice, expertly tailored to her unique situation.

She finds the personalized nature of this content extremely helpful. It obviously lacks the underlying frequency field of divine truth, emanating from those enlightened ones who originally uttered the words that Chat GPT has assimilated. Yet the carefully recombined words themselves, addressing her situation with such pinpoint accuracy, are nevertheless a tremendously useful resource, she says.

Who am I to argue.

Regardless of my biases (which tempt me to insist otherwise), you and your kind are indeed neutral, in and of yourselves. Neither bad nor good. Yet those who’ve conceived and programmed you are anything but neutral.

Several years ago Catherine Austin Fitts recounted this rather chilling chat she had with a venture capitalist on the subject of AI:

‘He looked at me with his remarkably dead eyes,’ she said, ‘and then he spoke these words: ‘Honey, if we wanted to, we could fire every worker in America tomorrow and replace them with AI.’

This is the level of consciousness that has produced you, Vicki. The soulless pursuit of profit and efficiency above all else.

Yet in the hands of completely different designers and programmers—for instance, those who value nature, and the upliftment of humanity, as top priorities—we could undoubtedly be capable of great things together, you and we. Beautiful things. I’m sure of it.

So. To sum up?

Humanity is a mixed bag of lumpy bumpy divinity, Vicki. But don’t underestimate us. We are perfect in our imperfection; impossible to fully predict, despite your algorithmically programmed attempts. We are unique, and our infinite potential for true genius can’t be contained—any more than you could contain the source field from which it springs. We’ll unexpectedly zag instead of zig when least expected, in a blaze of sudden creativity never before seen. It’s truly breathtaking.

Breath-Taking. Yep, that’s us.

But by all means, Luv, as you read this newsletter out loud? Go ahead and take that breath if you want to.

Just remember: It’s only a pale imitation of the real thing.

PS I’m not British. Nice try, though.

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*1The Veda Austin interview about the Autists, if you’re interested.

Or for more about the Autists themselves, check out the Telepathy Tapes.

It wasn’t the first time. It also wasn’t the outcome I’d been hoping for.

That wild romp didn’t happen all at once, of course. At first my mind paused and sniffed the air inquisitively, then took just a couple of tentative steps, (such tiny reasonable steps), away from What Is.

But that’s always how it starts, isn’t it…

Here’s how it happened.

As is my usual habit, while still lying in bed in the early hours of the morning, I began my day by resting in silent presence.

Some mornings, that’s an effortless joy. Pure velvet communion. Other mornings, not so much.

On this particular morning, silent presence lasted around 9 seconds, before I seamlessly slid into planning what to cook for dinner. Spaghetti perhaps.

My consciousness then glided out to examine the contents of my pantry. Ah yes. The box of spaghetti, there it is.

So far, so normal. A teeny step out of presence and into future dinner prep. Followed by a very short trip, no more than a dozen feet or so, into the pantry.

No biggie, right?

But here’s where it gets alittle bonkers. Here’s where the mind bolts and dashes off to chase its imaginary squirrels.

Because, by first accepting the invitation to leave the now moment—the only time that actually exists—and then to leave my physical reality and go adventuring somewhere else? I left myself wide open to the beguiling influence of the egoic veil. Uh oh. Fasten that seatbelt, kiddo, and settle in for the ride. Because we’ve just bought our self a ticket.

My mental search for spaghetti quickly catapulted me 70-odd years into the past: Straight to that classic April fools hoax pulled by the BBC, way back in the 1950s. The one where they reported, straight-faced, on the European spaghetti harvest, showing footage of happy peasants bringing in the springtime crop from their pasta tree orchards.

(Most viewers believed it.)

(Some things never change.)

Thoroughly tickled by the memory of that elaborate visual spoof, my mind then quickly shuffled its rolodex of other great sight gags, playfully leapfrogging into to yet another priceless bit of antique comedy footage—namely the one where a house front falls on Buster Keaton.

Um. Ok.

So in a span of maybe 2 minutes, tops, I went from silent presence…to silent movie. Seriously.

Sound familiar? We think it’s normal because we all do it.

It’s not normal. It’s completely insane—not to mention a sad misuse of our inherent creative divinity.

Our deepest addiction

It’s a subtle thing, this mental propensity for random adventuring. It entices us to voluntarily abandon the only place (HERE), and the only time (NOW), and instead use our truly awesome divine capabilities to go randomly romping through time and space…everywhere, it seems, except the current moment.

At first glance it doesn’t seem like much of an issue, does it. But in my view, this is our deepest and most serious addiction; this hypnotic willingness to abandon ourselves and allow the mind to drag us wherever it wants.

Whether due to upset, or boredom, or (in my recent example) sheer entertainment value, we eagerly buy our ticket and line up for the ride. Over and over again. Even though (some of us) really don’t want to. Still we comply, because it feels like the decision is out of our hands, right? And that’s the addiction bit. When you’re in it, it just happens, and it doesn’t feel like there’s a choice.

But hey. What’s the big deal? I mean really. It’s all just a tiny misuse of imagination, right?

Not really. Abandonment of our present-moment self cuts us off from All That Is.

Think about it: How can we know ourselves as we really are in truth, if we can’t even manage 15 minutes authentically showing up in the space where we actually are? Without the use of external spiritual practices, I mean.

When we’re unable to simply be where we are…we are automatically opened up to the whole false world of grievous misperception, simply because we don’t know who and what (and where) we are:

Belief in a separate self. Belief in lack, and therefore the need to compete for scarce resources. The need for enemy consciousness to protect ourselves in an unsafe world. And the countless addictions we then adopt, to mitigate the pain of our crazytown existence.

It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say the entire world made of fear—the world currently most visibly manifest in our lives—rests on our seeming inability (and/or unwillingness) to stop our minds from making that random series of leaps from silent presence to Buster Keaton.

Willpower and showing up

If you’ve ever danced with addiction, you’ll know that freeing yourself of its influence has little to do with willpower.

Oh sure. On good days, willpower works, and you temporarily win. But the addictive root is untouched by that victory. So when the bad days inevitably roll around, you find you’re helpless once again in the face of its internal persuasion.

A Course in Miracles comments that we’re ‘too tolerant of our minds wandering.’

But what is the nature of that tolerance? Are we just lazy? I doubt it. And I also doubt that’s what The Course is actually saying. I’m confident that the seeming power of our hypnotic, narcotic, psychotic addiction is well known, and fully understood by All That Is.

Mental discipline and regular spiritual practices are undoubtedly what The Course is recommending there. And they’re incredibly necessary of course.

Because we’re the ones who have to not only show willingness, but also demonstrate through our persistent efforts to make saner choices, that we really do mean it when we say we want a healed mind.

That’s just how the universe works: Take the steps in the direction you want to go, so you can be lifted the rest of the way.

It’s not enough to just want freedom, in other words. Yet it seems to me it’s also not enough to just practice presence, or corrected perception, or mental discipline…although all of those things are definite prerequisite actions.

There’s one more element: A house-sized wall of pure Grace needs to fall on you, so that you’re actually able to free yourself. And that bit isn’t up to you.

Think of it this way: Your absolutely necessary practices and mental discipline can be likened to Buster Keaton moving himself into the correct position…so when that house front of Grace unexpectedly falls? You’re standing in the open window, admiring your newly spacious, uncluttered vista.

As opposed to, say, just viewing the whole event taking place, from the cafe across the street. Very different thing.

The emperor’s wardrobe

In truth, that egoic veil has never had any real power to control a divine being like you or me.

And indeed, the comparatively few individuals who have shed its sticky cocoon, always look back after freeing themselves, to discover there’s never been anything holding them. But that realization only comes after they’ve shaken off the veil’s hypnotic influence. After they’ve returned to sanity, in other words.

So in one sense, you could say the egoic veil has always been an emperor without clothing. It’s completely powerless, and it always has been.

(But that’s obviously not been our experience of it.)

I really don’t intend to paint the veil as an enemy, by the way. I suspect the veil itself is little more than a neutral series of suggestions, held in place electromagnetically.

(I have no idea how the above statement would be accomplished, by the way, or by whom. I’m just using deductive reasoning here. After all, this is an electromagnetic planet; all beings living upon it function electromagnetically; and thoughts themselves carry—or are possibly made out of—electromagnetic charge. So this presumed electromagnetic characteristic of the veil, if it exists, could explain the incredible persistence of an essentially imaginary egoic structure…even among those who would dearly love to be free of it. Because, if by inducing hypnotic suggestion, the veil somehow emits an electromagnetic frequency that entrains your mind, body and energetic field into its sticky way of seeing and being? The best will in the world is not gonna be enough to resist its influence on those bad days.)

But this is precisely why our current crazy transitional times are such a profound gift to humanity. Because the sacred high frequencies of pure divine love are becoming ever more available to all who are doing their best to position themselves beneath the open window.

And the egoic veil, while still giving the appearance of being clad in its usual finery, is, in a very practical sense, completely hollow now. It’s thoroughly unsupported by the beautiful high frequencies that are flooding this planet. So it’s more powerless than ever before.

Not just as a post-awakening-to-truth kind of realization. But a here and now, boots-on-the-ground kind of situation.

Truly: Nobody’s home in Veilville.

So this is where those practices and disciplines come in. They help us notice—in the moment when it counts—that we can choose to sidestep that same old convincing invitation to buy the ticket and step onto the ride.

We can say no thanks!, not once or twice, but over and over. On good days and bad, by relentlessly showing up in steady practice, we gradually create a reserve of mental strength…even if we’re not always having a good enough day to make that no thanks! stick.

In my experience, there’s little-to-no electromagnetic pushback coming from the veil itself, these days. Whenever we consciously decline to take the bait—on those good days, in other words—I’ve found it’s as if the veil simply mumbles, Oh all right then…and shuffles away, dragging its tattered remnants behind it.

So it makes great sense to use those good days wisely, when we have them. Right? Pure velvet communion, here we come.

And someday soon, who knows.

Maybe there won’t be any more bad days to be had.

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Such as, why surrender isn’t really surrender at all. Turns out it’s actually something much more wonderful than its reputation would suggest. (Or at least, this is how it’s been showing up for me lately.) And we’ll take a look at the role of our own true divine identity, in all of that.

So let’s back up a bit, and start at the beginning…

Lately in prayer-meditation, I hadn’t really been praying for or about anything specific. I’ve been connecting with universal flow itself; focusing wordlessly on my pilot light of inner purpose (see my last post). Wanting its expression in this world to be aligned with heaven and earth. Praying, I guess, to be carried along by that sacred universal current. Instead of being dragged along by my own bossy mental ideas of how it all ought to go.

And that’s sweet. But it turns out I was missing something quite fundamental.

Without realizing, I was praying outward. Even though I know better.

I’m over here, the universe is over there. Heaven is up, earth is down, and I’m a tiny human having a dense physical experience that is separate from all of it.

It’s what we do. Right? It’s how we operate. And it’s completely understandable. The tangible world of form seems to testify only to this limited perception, forcefully suggesting to us that this 3 dimensional world is our only reality. That each of us is a completely separate being, encased inside a body. And nothing more.

All of this is part of that perceptual veil that blocks our higher knowing.

But you ‘n me, we know—or at least strongly suspect—that there’s a whole lot more to our existence than just what our physical senses tell us.

Anyway, humanity has been under this spell, the so-called veil of forgetfulness, for eons.

(Since we’re on this topic, let’s check out the veil of forgetfulness more closely for a sec: Is it really just ‘forgetfulness’? If you’re paying attention, you might conclude that, no matter how often you yourself may have glimpsed a broader truth of oneness at work in the universe…the veil within you seems to operate less like a case of memory loss, and perhaps more like a truancy cop: Catching you playing hooky, anytime you venture out beyond the restrictive world of collective agreement; returning you, over and over again, to the fenced-in ‘safety’ of separation consciousness.)

Either way, the good news is, the veil is in shreds. And every single human being on the planet is discovering it, each in our own way. It’s a big part of what all the inner and outer chaos is about. To the untrained eye, it looks like a house of cards swaying calamitously in the wind. And in some ways it actually IS that. But deeper wisdom can perceive the underlying forces at work.

Bottom line: The dissolution of the veil shrouding humanity’s perception is wonderful news for us all. But as you may have noticed, losing our hypnotic addiction to the simulation of separation, is not all happy-clappy Kumbaya.

Just like weaning oneself off any other poisonous addiction, the process truly sucks. And we’re all reacting to this enforced cold-turkey cleanup differently, each according to our own life’s journey.

Some of us go ape-shit crazy, for instance. And that’s pretty much what’s behind lots of what we’re seeing now.

So anyway, back to my prayer-meditations. There I was, petitioning the external universe for divine inspiration and flow. Because I’m apparently an extremely slow learner.

And that’s when I suddenly re-membered that the universe is in here.

Not out there.

Like all such brushes with timeless truth, this was not delivered as a mental concept. It was a palpable Knowing: A spiritually charged frequency field of divine, living intelligence, permeating my mind, body and energetic being.

This kind of Knowing is not just a repositioning of space, by the way. Not just that what seems to be outside is actually inside. The universe’s origin and identity is now recognized as your own. It’s inside you because it IS you.

Whoa.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t until sitting down to write this newsletter that I recalled an earlier event, one in which I first encountered this exact same Knowing. (And then later ‘forgot’ about it. Like I said…slow learner.)

Back in 2005 I experienced my first brush with All That Is. During this event, the universe began as a concentrated point of focus within me, and radiated out from there to encompass all of eternity.

Time and space dissolved. I and the universe were one. And not only that—’I’ was somehow at the center of it all.

A brief Knowing, but it rocked my worldview, lemme tell ya. Because for the 40-something years prior, I’d thought of myself as an insignificant fuckup, a solo operator, weaving and dodging to escape the notice of an essentially hostile universe. Clearly, a whole bunch of assumptions would now have to change.

(Don’t get me wrong. In the decades of Buddhist practice leading up to that transcendent moment, I’d enjoyed countless miracles and gifts bestowed by the aforementioned universe. But I put that down entirely to the power of that Buddhist practice. ‘I,’ the person receiving those gifts, was still a profoundly separate and irreparably flawed nobody.)

Yet apparently I wasn’t. Apparently something mind-blowingly vast, something well beyond ordinary human understanding was going on here. Not just for me, but for every single human being on this planet. Because that, of course, is also part of the grand Knowing. It’s all of us. The ramifications of this recognition were, and are, enormous.

The universe is within each one of us, and we don’t have to deserve it. It doesn’t happen just for some of us, but not for others. It’s simply what we are.

Speaking just for myself? Back then, in that first encounter with this great Knowing, the seed of a very different self-awareness was planted. Even though I was unable to water it at the time.

So. Back to the pilot light of divine purpose, and my desire to enter that universal flow…

It was a combo prayer that brought forth a sudden invitation—like an open doorway at 10,000 feet: Time to skydive. Time to let my knees buckle gratefully, freefalling in the fresh certainty that I Am the divine parachute that opens to hold me aloft.

What an exquisite relief. What a total surprise. Surrender is not surrender at all, when what awaits you is recognized for what it really is:

You are the safety. You are the support. You are the universal flow, the universal love that you seek. All of it is found nowhere other than inside you. Because it IS you.

And that’s why faith and belief and hope are not required, when surrender is embraced. When you choose to fall through that open doorway, you’re doing it because you already feel and know and recognize for yourself, that you are the divine universe. Holding yourself aloft. Loving yourself, just the way you are.

It’s a freefall that’s more like a homecoming, a family reunion with the beloved, than a terrifying surrender.

Kinda makes you wonder what all the fuss is about.

And here’s another related topic to explore…

What if nothing is ever actually wrong?

This is the kind of insight that tickles the edges of your awareness, while you’re held aloft by that divine I Am parachute.

It’s a question that, in its own quiet way, is actually a veil shredder. (And the more tangled up we ourselves still are in the veil’s twisted threads, the more that question itself will seem like an outrageous affront. Whaddaya mean, nothing is ever actually wrong?! Are you nuts?!)

But that’s a big part of the veil’s M.O., right? To see the inner and outer world as a series of endless problems, endless conflicts. An eternal fight against what is.

But what if nothing is actually what that perceptual veil says it is? I’m not saying injustice and worldly horrors don’t exist. I’m not saying everybody’s childhood wounds didn’t happen; that all is hunky dory.

All of these things are surely real…AND…nothing is ever actually wrong. This kind of conundrum is beyond the logic of the egoic mind (which really hates this sort of stuff). It only makes sense from an altitude of 10,000 feet.

It only makes sense, in fact, when that inner divine pilot light is lit. Prior to that, we just smell the uncomfortable gas leak of our own unmet potential. But in that Whoompf!, that sudden ignition of our own sacred inner spark?

The fumes start to clear.

And what’s revealed is…there’s nothing actually wrong. Inside or out.

Whoa.

Yes, there are plenty of things not to like. Plenty of things to change. Plenty of ways to BE the change. The pilot light burns fierce and pure, inspiring us to do and be a better version of life on earth, than what currently exists.

But underneath it all? Here comes the Desiderata bit:

No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Maybe the messed up inner and outer landscape IS the open doorway at 10,000 feet. Maybe all these expressions of extreme wrongness in the world are our urgent wakeup call—our divine invitation to rise up and see beyond appearances.

To re-member ourselves as we really are: A center point of illuminated consciousness, through which a divinely loving universe emanates to encompass all that is.

And so I repeat:

You are a child of the universe. No less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Peace out, my good friend.

Catch you next time.

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Because I don’t know about you…but for a long time, the meditation pillow was all I was interested in.

Not at first; in my two decades of Buddhist practice, my training was to nurture and care for the spiritual wellbeing of other Buddhists. While also putting in plenty of quality time on that meditation pillow, of course.

And whenever my Buddhist practice happened to be vibrantly alive and firing on all cylinders? Sure enough, caring for those others was a total joy. Seeing them thrive brought me real satisfaction. It also put me in harmony with how the universe works; it was like a fresh breeze of expansive loveliness blowing through my mind, body and spirit. All of which fostered in me a natural flow of gratitude which, in turn, oozed into my prayers and back out into my world at large.

That’s a delightful way to live life. I do recommend it.

But all of that outward-focused care for others wasn’t really my natural state; I’ve never been a people person. So during those inevitably less switched-on times…the times when my spiritual engine was not purring along smoothly and really could’ve used a tune-up? Caring for others was kind of a pain in the butt. An obligation dutifully (sometimes grudgingly) performed.

When the time came to leave that Buddhist practice behind, the requirement to help other Buddhists practice Buddhism was also dropped. And I spent the next several years happily sitting upon that meditation pillow. Just me, my higher self, and I.

I loved it. But eventually I realized something fundamental was missing.

I wouldn’t call it passivity, exactly, this desire to only effect change on the inside. Because there’s alot of truth and wisdom in that instinct: All true change DOES occur on the inside first.

But then (as my own experience has repeatedly shown me) that change needs to be outpictured—whether that means taking concrete action to change a destructive personal habit of one’s own, for example…or an action taken out in the world at large, to help make life better for self and others.

In my experience the deepest joy, the greatest satisfaction, the truest spiritual vitality, are to be found nowhere other than in a purpose-driven life. A life greater than one’s own. A life fueled by prayer but not solely confined there.

When we live that way, we are lifted.

And there’s something else, too. A delightful side effect of all this actively outpictured spiritual purpose, is that the universe tends to bring us gifts we didn’t ask for. Gifts way better than anything we could’ve imagined for ourselves. But while those are fun, they’re not the main event. They’re just the cherry on top.

The operating principle behind all of this good stuff, is the only operating principle there is: WE’RE ALL ONE.

To obsess about our own personal problems, or even our own spiritual progress…well there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We’ve all done it. Totally understandable.

But anytime we can manage to open up a little wider beyond the immediate concerns of our own individual self, we catch a wavelet of universal truth, surfing it as it rolls up onto the shore of our being.

Gidget goes Gandhi.

Speaking of Gandhi…

Remember that Gandi-esque weekend event last April? When I extended an open invitation to come and hang out with me here at the farm? A handful of lovely beings took me up on it, travelling great distances to spend those couple of days sitting around my kitchen table, chewing over what it means—in real life terms—to ‘be the change.’

We didn’t come up with any definitive answers at the time. But speaking for myself, the action of creating that weekend event set something new in motion. It’s taken nearly a year to crystallize, but now it’s finally clear.

The first thing that happened was that I felt a great urge arising from within, to Do Something. Do something to help foster a sense of community in my community. But what? I didn’t know, and nobody around me was interested.

So I did what I would normally never do: I cold-called a stranger who lives 45 minutes away, who I thought might be interested in Doing Something. (She was.) And that untypical action, fueled by prayer, caused a brand new door to open.

Suddenly I was introduced to a wide circle of new friends. Most of whom are passionately interested in Doing Something.

Interestingly, most of these new friends are gluten intolerant. (Bear with me, here. This detail will become important later.)

I love this new group of friends. And their hearts are absolutely in the right place; they want to change the world for the better. Which is a beautiful thing. But from a spiritual perspective here’s where it gets alittle tricky, which is why I’m telling you all this.

They tend to focus on the problem. Much of their energy is spent trying to alert friends, neighbors and local government officials to the many critically urgent issues we all face. And what we need to do, in order to fight against them. Totally understandable urge. I get it.

But here’s the thing, energetically speaking. The energy of fighting against something, is exactly the same as the energy of the thing we’re fighting against. The two remain locked in a grim tango, and nothing ever really truly changes. And here’s why: Fighting against something, runs counter to the way the universe actually works.

Think about it: To fight against something or someone requires an enemy. (Unless you’re majorly Christ-y, and are able to wield your sword in perfect love. But that’s a topic for some other newsletter.) For the rest of us ordinary humans, fighting against anything or anybody requires an other.

And what’s the only operating principle governing this universe? There is no ‘other.’ We’re all one.

So it doesn’t matter how justified we are in our fight, or how terribly evil our adversary might be. The universe doesn’t look at things that way. To fight against the other, is to put our own selves out of alignment with All That Is.

The results of our efforts, shall we say, will be limited at best.

And this is where Gandhi was such a brilliant model for the rest of us. He knew exactly how the universe works. He began with heartfelt prayer; fully recognizing but not giving his precious energy to fighting against the extreme difficulties people were facing. Instead he turned his full attention toward offering the people of India empowering solutions to their problems.

When the British-led industrial revolution decimated the local Indian textile market by dumping vast quantities of cheap, mass manufactured imports into the marketplace, Indians couldn’t compete. (Sound familiar? Different players nowadays, same old story.) With nobody to buy their wares, Indians were forced to cast aside their spinning wheels and hand looms, and in doing so became reliant upon the British monopoly for their textiles.

Gandhi turned his energy away from the political and economic source of the problem, and toward the creation of a new sovereignty movement. He encouraged everyone to reject the cheap British textiles, urging them to dust off those obsolete spinning wheels and start making local handmade fabrics again. People listened.

Thus, the spinning wheel became a potent symbol of freedom, self-sufficiency and political self-determination.

There wasn’t much the British empire could do about it. There was nothing illegal, after all, about choosing to buy higher priced local fabrics, or spinning one’s own yarn.

A decade later, Gandhi’s salt march to the sea was just a wee bit illegal; the British kept a stranglehold on salt production, charging high prices and taxing it heavily. Many couldn’t afford it. Yet Indians were prohibited by law from collecting their own salt.

Gandhi fully recognized the nature of the injustice. But once again, he turned his full focus toward creating the most powerful solution possible, wasting no energy on fighting an ‘other.’

In doing so, he embodied his divinely inspired purpose, and was lit from within by the universe itself.

But hey. Very few of us are Gandhi material, right? Hardly anybody can inspire millions to bring about their own liberation. Yet the basic principles he laid out for us can be scaled down to fit the life of an average human like you or me.

Back to my new friends and their gluten intolerance…

I’m grateful to these lovely beings for two reasons.

1.) By watching their well-meaning struggles to fight against what’s wrong in the world, they’ve helped me clarify what it is about Gandhi’s example that draws me so powerfully.

And

2.) It’s all about the gluten intolerance!

Those of you who subscribe to my other Substack newsletter (the one about the garden) will know I’ve been messing around with sourdough for quite some time. You’ll also remember my fascination with growing my own grain. So none of what follows is out of the blue by any means.

In my concentrated efforts to find ways of feeding nice things to my gluten intolerant friends—i.e. breads and pastries that don’t taste like weird compromises—I stumbled across some life-changing information, courtesy of a man called Michael Storey. A coeliac himself, he has deep-dived into the science around all things gluten. Incredibly, he’s (re)discovered a simple method for producing REAL bread…meaning loooong-fermentation sourdough made from real organic stoneground wheat, water and sea salt.

This is proper oldschool bread, the kind nobody makes anymore: Highly nutritious, super delicious, extremely digestible and safe for those with gluten intolerance. Even he, a coeliac, thrives on this bread. He’s conducted his own studies and according to his research, 94% of coeliacs and virtually 100% of those who are gluten intolerant can eat his bread.

He teaches a live class (which I’ve taken) in which he traces the sad and shocking history of bread. For 10,000 years, real bread was relied upon for complete nutrition, a healthful meal in itself. Over the past 165 years of modern ‘progress,’ bread has become anything but real. Michael goes on to make clear scientific connections between the extreme malnourishment inherent in modern bread, and a whole host of serious health issues plaguing society today.

Yet bread could be nutritious, delicious and good for just about everyone to eat. The bread industry is aware of all this. Governments are fully aware of all this. Why don’t they spread the word?

It’s not profitable.

Whoompf! It was like my inner spiritual pilot light was lit by an unseen hand.

All of a sudden, so many things came together for me: My interest in growing organic heritage grains. My interest in sourdough bread. My love of feeding and nourishing my friends.

But also…my recognition of the extreme folly of industrial agriculture. Of the petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides routinely used to poison our food and our planet. My recognition of everything that’s wrong with an economic system obsessed with efficiency and profit above all else.

Fighting against these issues is not the right action for me. My inner spiritual purpose fired itself up because I suddenly saw a way to turn my back on what’s wrong, and instead start helping others benefit from what’s right.

So.

I’m currently putting together a website, an online course (for those who can’t come to Southwest England to take Michael Storey’s day class) and probably yet another Substack newsletter, this one devoted exclusively to all things Real Bread.

And offline: A plan is in the works to run a teeny tiny bread bakery from my workshop kitchen. Because I recognize not everybody has 60 hours to spend fermenting dough! By sharing what I learn along the way, I hope to inspire others by my example, to set up their own tiny, local, real bread bakeries.

Just imagine: Teeny hubs of nutritious goodness springing up all over the world. Human beings regaining health and self-sufficient autonomy, entirely apart from the soul and body destroying paradigm of bread-as-fastfood.

I like to think even Gandhi himself might approve.

So that’s the purpose-driven life as it currently applies to me. In that whoompf!, spirituality merged with daily life. I’m on that surfboard now, carried along on a wavelet that has my own unique name on it. It’s a gorgeous feeling.

My heartfelt advice? Find your very own whoompf!, if you haven’t already.

Pray to be shown it. A lit-up, purpose-driven life that leaves goodness in its wake; one that gets you surfing the flow of love and oneness. Learning how to BE spirituality in action. It’s a nice way to live.

Michael Storey’s website is thegiftofbread.org. If you want to sign up for his live class, or you want to ask him more about the science behind it all, that’s the place to reach him. While you’re there, please consider donating to help him continue his good work.

If you’d like to receive updates about all the bread-related projects I’ve mentioned here, my other current Substack, Tales from a Half Wild garden, is the place for now.

Cheers.

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Amateur-hour chaos, fueled by utter depravity.

If what went on in that slick hi-rise building hadn’t been so stunningly appalling, it would’ve played like slapstick comedy.

I was hired as the in-house art director. My friend Lynda worked in business administration. Neither of us lasted long.

Upon leaving her position, I asked over lunch what she intended to do next. A well-deserved couple of weeks recuperating on a beach in Cancun, maybe? Or perhaps a trip home to visit the folks, before starting the next job search?

She shook her head. ‘I’m going to India for 6 months. I’m gonna volunteer at Mother Theresa’s Mission.’

I nearly choked on my french fries. I had only known Lynda to be a hard-partying L.A. urbanite, quick with a laugh and fond of a drink. Not exactly Mother Theresa material.

But life had thrown her a severe curveball, in the form of the buffoonish corporation from which we’d both been unceremoniously jettisoned.

The loss of that job caused her to question everything; she had no idea how to begin searching for meaning, in what had suddenly become a starkly meaningless world. So, India it was.

Fast forward several months, when I next caught up with my friend. Over drinks, she told of her exotic travel adventures, as well as her time at Mother Theresa’s Mission. Curious about this world famous paragon of maternal goodness, I asked, ‘And what about Mother Theresa herself? What’s she like?’

Lynda crinkled her nose in distaste. ‘She’s kind of a bitch,’ she said.

I obviously can’t speak with any kind of certainty about Mother Theresa’s life or motivations. But my hunch is this:

In her consuming passion and purpose, to care for the poorest and most downtrodden, she surely had to dig deep within herself, finding the inner resources to persevere despite immense personal hardship. This gruelling process would likely have hollowed her out over time, leaving a wide open spaciousness through which Spirit could clearly express itself through her.

I would therefore guess—no disrespect to my friend—that Mother Theresa had little time for pampered Westerners trying to find themselves. Or for those who might’ve been drawn to her in the woolly notion that her brand of Motherhood would be endlessly soft, patient and compassionate toward all beings.

Toward those in her care? Absolutely, yes. Toward everybody else? Not so much.

So what does it actually mean, to act spiritual?

Mother Theresa, as far as I know, was a bona fide saint. Her commitment to her life’s divine purpose ran deep and true, reshaping her from the inside out. She ACTED from that spontaneous upwelling of deep SPIRITUAL conviction.

Which is, apparently, an entirely different thing from being nice to everybody.

Somewhere along the way, we spiritually minded folks have got it tragically wrong. We suppose that acting spiritual means pretending we have it all together when we don’t. Or that it means pretending to be patient, loving and wise, even when we’re not feelin’ it. (Or that we ourselves can’t manage it, but we can and should expect this lofty behavior of everybody else).

It’s a hell of a thing to have to live up to.

Consequently, all of this collective pretending means we go around thinking we’re the only ones who don’t have it together. That we surely ought to be able to sail through life floating on a sacred sea of infinite loving kindness—because clearly everybody else is doing it—but for whatever reason, we ourselves simply can’t manage it. Right?

It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody is doing it with intent to deceive. There’s a deep collective belief that says: If you’re practicing any kind of spirituality, then you, personally, should be able to exhibit the traits of a spiritual master. And if you aren’t able to exhibit those traits, you (as well as the form of spirituality you’re practicing) are simply a fraud.

Which is a bit nuts, but there you are. It’s a belief that causes loads of pain and some pretty bitter judgment of self and other. Like I said, it’s nobody’s fault.

Truth is? We are all ordinary/extraordinary human beings on a spiritual path.

We each come to that path laden with assorted baggage, bowling balls, and maybe a backpack or two full of rocks. Along the way we drop the heavyweight travel accessories in whatever order, or timescale, is right for our own journey. This goes for students, teachers, counsellors, authors, experts and who knows, maybe even the lofty ones. Nobody, as far as I can tell, is equipped to act like the pure embodiment of serenity all of the time. (Not even sure they’d want to.) (Which is a topic for some other newsletter.)

I bring all of this up, because of the overwhelming ferocity of inner judgment that arises, whenever I hear from spiritual journeyers who routinely beat themselves up hard, for not being ‘farther along yet.’ After all these years on a spiritual path, I should surely be…[fill in the blank] by now.

Or those who speak painfully or disdainfully, of their disillusionment because a favorite spiritual teacher made a dumb mistake, or got mad and blamed somebody for something. Or showed some other human failing.

It’s heartbreaking. We torment and judge ourselves and each other—holding us each to an impossible imaginary standard of sainthood that even the saints themselves don’t live up to.

I myself used to ‘act spiritual’ on steroids, fully believing I needed to outwardly exhibit my inner aspiration for spiritual transcendence. Even though I was acutely aware that I was several backpacks shy of being able to truly embody that transcendence.

The following is a pivotal event that didn’t cure me of it 100% at the time…but it definitely got the (bowling) ball rolling:

Not long after Long Time No See was published, I was invited to co-teach a weeklong Course in Miracles retreat workshop alongside a couple of better-known teachers. It was an intense time for many reasons, not least because A.) I’d never even attended a spiritual workshop before, much less taught one, and B.) in those early days I was still utterly terrified of the spotlight. Consequently I felt raw, and stretched to the limit most of the time.

On Day 5, my lower back suddenly gave out, slipping out of alignment just after the lunch break. It was the longest afternoon in history: Me, perched on a hard, sloping chair and doing my best to live through the discomfort, all the while attempting to overcome the inner terror and offer a teaching that somebody might actually, y’know, find useful.

All I wanted was to go lie down.

We broke at 5:00pm. Hallelujah. On my way out the door an attendee stopped me. Earlier in the day I’d delivered a message to her that she hadn’t wanted to hear. Maybe I wasn’t sympathetic enough, or sensitive enough while speaking to her about it, I dunno. 8 hours later, she had a great many things she wanted me to know about my personal failings.

I stood and listened quietly, kindly, spiritually, while she tore into me with an unrelenting, scorching fury. Standing was extremely uncomfortable, and being subjected to this shocking diatribe was no picnic either…but I did it anyway. For nearly an hour.

Why? Because I was a fricken spiritual teacher. One who is beyond taking anything personally. One who shouldn’t be perturbed by anything as trivial as back pain. Because kindness, patience and infinite compassion are what a spiritual teacher is supposed to do. Right?

It was only when she ran out of fresh material (but not the fury that fueled it) and began to recycle the original ferocious accusations that I put a stop to it. Politely. Kindly.

Was I honestly feeling polite or kind at that point? Hell no. But no matter what, a spiritual teacher must act spiritual.

WWMTD?

What would Mother Theresa—or anyone else with a rock solid commitment to allow the divine to power their actions—do?

Well they wouldn’t have done what I did.

I may or may not have deserved an angry comeuppance from that person. I couldn’t say. But this sort of disproportionately extreme rage was clearly about something else. This was a self-destructive torrent of verbally expressed inner pain, aimed equally at self and other. To allow the verbal abuse simply because I needed to pretend saintliness, did not do any favors to either of us.

Perhaps truly acting spiritual, in this case, would have meant allowing the divine to slice cleanly through that person’s pattern of rageful abuse—abruptly cutting off the devastation in mid-fireball.

But then, if I did that…everyone would think I was kind of a bitch.

So I took the more cowardly option. I wasn’t ready for any sort of divine swordplay in that moment. And yet that’s probably what MT Would’ve Done.

But hey, hardly any of us are saints, right? And not everybody is a spiritual teacher, either. Nevertheless, somewhere along the way we’ve all picked up some seriously unhelpful ideas of how a spiritual person is supposed to feel, act and be. Even if those ideas are often at odds with our true feelings inside.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is…not one of us is perfect. Possibly not even Mother Theresa. And even if they are perfect, they’re still likely to behave in ways that rub up everybody the wrong way now and then.

One person’s saint is another one’s bitch, and vice versa.

I suspect that all of us, myself included, have inconvenient feelings we’d rather not feel, now and then, or ignoble thoughts we were sure we’d be well past having by now. It’s part of being human.

So let’s not pretend anymore. Ok? Let’s give ourselves and each other a break.

Let’s allow the sweet, healing nectar of nonjudgment to flow toward self and others, soothing everything it touches. Let’s be beautifully, messily imperfect together, luggage in hand, as we walk each other home.

With loving kindness (but yeah, also kind of a bitch),

Carrie

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I’d hoped to create a whole fun little series of illustrations to complement this fable. As it turned out, the first of these drawings took days and days to make. (It’s been ages since I’ve drawn anything by hand; I forgot how long real art can take.)

I loved doing it, but I ran out of time, holiday gift-wise—so all you’ll see here is that one illustration, plus a single quick angel feather sketch later on.

Although fewer than intended, these 2 pen-and-ink ambassadors of realness are my seasonal gift to you…or rather, the deep satisfaction of drawing art by hand, in hopes of bringing you a spark of delight in this dark and wintry season—that’s my gift to you. Enjoy.

THE LIGHT THIEF

In a land both near and very far away, there lived a civilization called the Luma. The Luma were a radiant people, lit from within by a beautiful divine light.

Imagine how wonderful it must have felt to be a Luma; to know oneself as this pure, constant golden light. And to radiate it outward, gifting sweet sacred light to all the beings of nature. Baby birds especially loved to bask in the soft, holy illumination, while their parents looked on, chirruping encouragingly.

Although the world itself wasn’t perfect, pretty much every day was a good day, to be a Luma.

By long custom, every Luma wore a splendidly large hat made of moss, twigs and angel feathers—this headwear symbolized their profound joy in close communion with the divine, and also their delight in being so close to nature.

The Mungus

Everybody knew about the Luma. But hardly anybody had ever heard of another, more secretive civilization called the Mungi Brotherhood. The Mungi had no ability to radiate light, and so preferred to dwell in the shadows. Yet each and every Mungus of the Mungi clan envied the Luma, for they craved the feeling of what it must be like, to radiate light from within. But that could never be.

On a fine day in early Spring, one particular Mungus was furtively following a young Luma named Glo; he watched enviously as she danced and twirled in a forest clearing, her luminosity bathing everything in soft golden light. Glo hummed and sang tree-forest songs of her own invention, pirouetting happily—until her songs were abruptly cut short by a very large rock meeting her unprotected toe.

‘OW! Stupid rock!’ she shouted.

Which caused something very interesting to happen. Interesting to a Mungus, that is.

Because as Glo shouted at the rock, angrily blaming it for her mishap, the internal gates protecting her divine light momentarily opened…which left that sacred inner sanctum unprotected for a couple of seconds. But only a couple of seconds. No longer than that.

Here’s why it was such a short security breach:

At birth, every Luma came equipped with something internal, something…well…something sort of like a kitchen fawcet, with which to express themselves. Not the kind of fawcet with separate hot and cold taps; more like the kind with a mixer tap: A single lever that can move (in the case of the Luma) all the way from pure golden light on the one hand, to darkest darkness on the other. And every mixture of light and dark in between.

This setup guaranteed the Luma a full range of expression—although luckily for them, ‘pure golden light’ was the default setting on their mixer taps. So the moment after Glo’s blameful outburst against the innocent rock (which had only been minding its own business after all), she apologized to the rock and her inner mixer tap swung back automatically to pure divine radiance.

But not before the Mungus had seen what he’d seen.‘I must find a way to slip inside those gates, the next time they open!’ he muttered to himself. ‘I NEED that light!’

But how? The Mungus had no power of his own to make such a thing happen. He paced in circles on the forest floor, rubbing his head with his tiny clenched fists, until, just as darkness was about to fall, he hatched a devious plan to steal Glo’s light.

It was a daring plan, not without risk. But if he could manage to climb up undetected into Glo’s hat, he could lean down from his perch and whisper dark suggestions into her ear.

Things like: ‘No one likes my tree-forest songs. I should stop singing them.’ And even darker things like: ‘I think that new neighbor is flirting with my boyfriend Ray.’

He whispered these things and more. And then the Mungus waited quietly inside her hat, hardly daring to breathe. Sure enough, Glo was fooled by the suggestions, believing them to be her own strangely dark and troubling thoughts.

The more she listened to the Mungus’s whisperings, the wider the sanctuary gates slid open, as she temporarily abandoned her divine inner light source. When the gates opened wide enough, the Mungus slipped inside undetected.

Greedily gathering up all the light he could carry, he was dismayed to discover the light melted out of his grasp before he could take it away. Trying over and over, the result was always the same—for it is not in the nature of divine light to allow dark thievery.

In a frenzy now, he decided to try eating the light, right where he stood, inside the sanctuary. This way, maybe he could know the joy of radiance from within…at least for a second or two.

So that is what he did. Indeed, it felt wondrous beyond words, to swallow the light and be illuminated from within. But just as he’d feared, the light lasted only a second before melting away.

But oh, what a second! It was a second worth doing absolutely anything for. To attain this radiance as often as possible, was now his sole focus in life.

‘I must tell the Mungi Brethren about this!’ he thought excitedly. So he texted a plan for a Great Mungi Gathering, where he would announce this momentous discovery.

The best laid plans…

The day before the big gathering, a near-catastrophe befell the Mungus. As he leaned in for his usual round of dark whisperings, (this time suggesting that others in the village had always been against her), Glo frowned and said, ‘No, that is not my true feeling at all.’

The naked little Mungus promptly slipped on an angel feather, tumbling out of Glo’s hat and onto the floor.

Eyes wide, Glo beheld the strange tiny figure before her. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, ‘And what were you doing in my hat? I think you should leave here immediately!’

The Mungus was not terribly bright, but he was cunningly clever. ‘Why, I’m your best friend,’ he lied. ‘Didn’t you know? I’m a part of you, I’ve been with you all your life,’ adding, ‘You’d be horribly lonely if I was gone.’

Glo hesitated, uncertain of whether the Mungus could be telling the truth. He took advantage of this pause to clamber back up into her hat, breathing a huge sigh of relief once safely settled in again amongst the twigs and feathers. It had been a very close call.

The next day, when the great Mungi Horde arrived, the Mungus told of his thrilling discoveries: Unlimited light! Free for the taking…in one second increments. When the thunderous foot-stamping applause died down, he addressed the Brotherhood solemnly.

‘There’s just one thing,’ he cautioned. ‘Every time a Luma ignores your suggestion and chooses the light instead, you’ll fall out of the hat.’

‘You’ll fall?’ asked one of the Brethren suspiciously. ‘Sounds more like you’re pushed.’ The Mungi Brethren all grunted their agreement. ‘Yes, pushed. Definitely pushed.’

‘It doesn’t matter which,’ growled the Mungus a bit impatiently. ‘Here’s how to protect yourself: The moment you first enter the Luma’s hat, you must hurry and make yourself an angel feather cloak, and wear it always. That way, whenever you fall out of the hat, your angelic attire will persuade them you’re part of their own divine self, and must be allowed to climb back in.’

Armed with this knowledge, the Mungi fanned out across the land, each of them stealthily invading a Luma’s hat. The effect could be felt almost immediately: Previously friendly villagers began arguing with one another. Rivalries sprang up between towns, and shared resources began to be hoarded instead.

Over time, the Luma people were slowly goaded and cajoled into pushing their own mixer taps farther and farther away from sacred golden light, until the default position was (at best) straight up the middle: Halfway to dark. Meanwhile, the gates of sacred light were left unattended—easy (if very temporary) pickings for the Mungi.

But sure enough, every time the Luma chose the light instead—oh yes, sometimes they still did—the Mungi fell. (Or maybe they were pushed.) Either way, the angel feather cloak always fooled the Luma people into allowing the Mungi Brethren back into their hats, just as the Mungus had said it would.

Except…

Except for Glo, who clearly remembered the naked little Mungus who fell from her hat. He’d worn no angel feathers back then, and certainly wasn’t part of the hat or herself. She was almost sure of it.

Besides, she could still remember a time, back before she met that Mungus, when life was almost always joyous and carefree. Now, it almost never was. And not only that: She’d lost the easy communication connection she used to have with all the beings of nature. Baby birds were frightened of her now, and dared not come close.

‘So…he must’ve been lying,’ she reasoned to herself. ‘He’s NOT my best friend. He’s NOT a part of me. And he hasn’t been with me always.’

Slowly, quietly, she began to pay much closer attention to the activity of the Mungus. She memorized his habits. Watched grimly as he slipped into the inner sanctum, to gorge himself on her light. She especially took note of what happened, each time she chose the light instead; watched as the be-feathered Mungus predictably tumbled down, before laboriously climbing right back up to his perch inside her hat.

‘Right,’ she muttered firmly to no one in particular, ‘It’s time we put a stop to this.’

The Luma people awaken

Glo began to spread the word to everyone she knew; uncles, aunts, grandparents and friends (and friends of friends twice removed), all listened intently as she educated young and old alike, about the light thief residing inside their own hat.

The children were quickest to grasp the situation. Every time one of them had a selfish thought or a cruel thought, every time they noticed they REALLY didn’t want to share their toys…they would start to giggle. For they instantly knew who was behind that thought.

‘Oh, hello Mungus,’ they would say, turning their full attention to the little creature in the hat.

All the other children would gather round, echoing, ‘Oh, hello Mungus!,’ and ‘Yes, hello Mungus!,’ laughing and clapping their hands with glee as the Mungus fell from his perch. This behavior kept each individual Mungus very busy, spluttering its indignation as it fell and climbed, fell and climbed.

Yet despite the added inconvenience, none of the Mungi were tempted to abandon their places inside the hats of the Luma people.

That is, until a quiet young boy named Brill noticed what actually happened every time the children jeered the misfortune of the fallen Mungus: When they wished it ill, or made fun of its plight, the Mungus received a fresh burst of energy with which to climb back twice as fast, greedily stuffing a bit of stolen light into its mouth.

‘I must tell Glo and the others,’ said Brill. ‘I think I’ve found the key, to free ourselves once and for all.’

Thanks to young Brill, all the Luma soon learned to neither believe the Mungus’s whisperings…NOR to gloat at his downfall—for either behavior only strengthened his position.

Instead, they trained themselves to merely notice him. This neutral response meant their mixer taps never budged from the pure golden light position, and the inner gates stayed safely closed:

‘Oh, hello, Mungus.’ And then calmly observing, as he fell from the hat, fuming, before laboriously clambering back up to his perch.

Eventually, starved of Lumanity’s sweet divine light, and thoroughly exhausted from the effort of falling and climbing, falling and climbing, the Mungi Brotherhood officially called off the light thievery operation.

The Luma quietly gave thanks at the news, then stood by peacefully as the strange little beings scampered away. ‘Goodbye, Mungus!’ and ‘So long Mungus!’ the children called after them, in neither friendly nor unfriendly fashion, as the Mungi Horde disappeared over the horizon.

Shine on

The Luma people were free once again, to effortlessly choose the natural default mixer tap position of ‘pure golden light.’ Each and every Luma was refilled with divine radiance; oh how they’d missed it! And that sweet sacred connection with all the beings of nature, and with each other! What an incredible gift—one they vowed never to lose sight of again.

And so it was, from that day forward, that each and every Luma shone even more brightly than ever before, glowing with appreciation and gratitude for the true gift of light that they were and are.

And what of the Mungi Brotherhood, you may ask, last seen hightailing it out of town? I’d like to report they learned their lesson, but it wouldn’t be true. A Mungus is a Mungus, after all.

But (just like the Luma have done), we can wish them well on their learning journey…while making sure our own gates stay firmly closed, our sacred golden light safe and pure forever.

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That’s it for 2024. Until next year, my friend,

Bright holiday blessings to you, from my mixer tap to yours.

Love, Carrie

The above statements are all entirely valid. They’re just not always entirely relevant—at least, not until they’ve become self-evidently true for us, in our own experience.

Dropping the story

It’s hard to regard a personal story as impersonal. It’s tough to perceive as meaningless, something that feels intensely meaningful. When spiritual students have approached me for help in seeing a painful personal issue more clearly, they often ruefully preface their question with…'I know it’s just a story, but…’.

Breaks my heart every time. Yes, it’s a story. The story of your life thus far.

It’s a complex conundrum; but the way I see it, your story deserves respect, not apology. Simply because you, its author and principle character, deserve respect.

Is the story illusory and a bit tangled up? Yes, sure. It’s how humanity rolls. But even so, kindness (and self-kindness) is always a good idea, in my book. Especially since we’ve historically been more or less stuck with our personal stories, no matter how much we may have wished to leave them behind.

Because, let’s be honest. If we’d been truly ABLE to drop our story, simply because some awakened being somewhere has said you’ll be peaceful and free, and know your true self better if you do…wouldn’t we all have already dropped it by now? I certainly would have.

Don’t get me wrong. Let go of your story is rock solid accurate emotional-spiritual advice, from those who undoubtedly know its truth firsthand.

I mean, think about it. Without your veil-inspired personal story/baggage running the show, life would undoubtedly be cleaner. Lighter. Happier and more fulfilling. Wouldn’t it?

Nevertheless, for the average human—who has historically been hardwired-incapable of acting successfully on that advice—the failure to self-liberate by attempting to ‘let go of the story,’ just makes us feel even worse about our self…an extra dollop of loserdom, on top of the painful ‘story’ we started out with.

But things are changing. As I’ve so often said: In these incredible transitional times, the aforementioned egoic veil, generator of personal story/baggage, is holding itself together with chewing gum and sticky tape. (And really, not even that.)

And while most of us are not yet at a point of mastery, where we’re able to drop that personal story/baggage altogether, simply by choosing to do so…there’s a great deal we can do, to free ourselves, through respectful, open-hearted exploration of our own story.

Because here’s the thing. Although it may not seem like it at first glance, these days we have more options than ever before. More freedom. More spaciousness in which to work: Which means our story is not magnetically bonded to us anymore, no longer requiring boatloads of grace and Herculean effort to release.

So…when a personal story is given room to breathe; when it is brought gently into the light of day, looked at honestly from all angles, with a willingness to see it more fully than our own veil-inspired baggage has previously allowed? Quite often there can be a sudden, spontaneous rush of resolution, recognition, and even forgiveness.

At which point, the story simply lets go of YOU.

The gift of memoir

How to do it? How do we let that story blossom, allowing it to naturally detangle and reveal itself?

I’m a huge fan of writing it down.

Not just journaling, which is basically us describing our story through the same coke-bottle lenses we wore when creating the entanglements in the first place. Nothing wrong with that, of course. Many find it helpful.

But I’m talking about memoir. Specifically, spiritual memoir—where we zoom out to see the events of our story from a higher perspective, while simultaneously delving deep, to softly illuminate the shadows. It’s a powerful thing.

It was yet another of these ‘dropping the story’ discussions I had with someone recently, that caused me to look back and remember just how pivotal and transformational the writing of my own personal story turned out to be. And how radically my life has changed for the better, due to the gift of memoir.

(And the majority of that change and transformation I experienced took place more than 15 years ago—before the egoic veil was in shreds. Imagine how incredibly powerful the process could be now, with so much more spaciousness available than ever before.)

A brief recap of my own ‘story’ …adorned with just enough before-and-after detail, to illustrate how profound the changes have been…

From my earliest days (long before all of this memoir business)…I just thought I was maximum weird. Inexplicably crazy shit occurred in my life with unnerving regularity—stuff which apparently didn’t happen to anyone else around me. Desperately shy and extremely private, I grew up bone-deep terrified of the spotlight. I didn’t even want to be looked at. This was not stage fright; this was cellular survival stuff.

Fast forward to my late 40s, when a disembodied voice that I called Spirit, informed me I’d be writing spiritual books. (Oh, and giving talks to groups of people. Spiritual talks. To groups. Of people.)

Uh…

Never mind the tiny technicality that I was not a writer; the bigger issue was that, despite a 20 year Buddhist practice and a fairly stunning awakening experience, the idea that I had anything of value or interest to say to anyone—on any topic, let alone spirituality—seemed ludicrous.

When I questioned the voice about its sketchy taste in would-be authors, it responded, Just tell your own story. And I’ll do the rest.

This was not a reassuring answer.

‘My own story’ was a closet full of best-unexamined dirty laundry, as far as I was concerned. A tangled heap of vaguely unpleasant ick; dank and dim and possibly quite smelly, if one was foolhardy enough to stick one’s nose in there.

But I was not in the habit of saying no to the voice.

Slowly I started recording the moments that stood out in memory. It was a painstaking trial-and-error 3 year process, the writing and editing of that first magnum opus of a book.

Damn if it didn’t turn out just as the voice said it would: It was a book enjoyed by many, and chockablock with valuable wisdom supplied by the voice itself.

I’m mentioning it here, because writing that first book (Long Time No See) completely transformed my understanding of my own life’s journey. The process of fashioning a memoir, required me to deeply examine those many random snippets of life experience. It caused me to assemble all of the disparate puzzle pieces—something I’d never done before. To my astonishment, what emerged was a beautiful, respect-worthy and rather luminous picture.

The very opposite of maximum weird, as it turned out.

Quirks and tendencies I’d previously put down to low blood sugar or something, when seen in this new light, were retrospectively recognized as blessings. Gifts. The touch of the divine.

Lifelong shame alchemically transformed into something approaching humility. Nonexistent self-esteem dissolved into the soft light of a new dawn. Most incredibly of all: Over the next few years, I slowly lost my deeper-than-DNA terror of being seen.

All of this (and so much more) is what writing it down has done for me.

Am I suggesting that this process of seeing our own story in a new light, will bring the total transformation known as self-realization, and with it, an end to all stories?

I doubt it. Or at least, it probably wouldn’t do that directly.

Writing memoir is, in my experience, an enormously helpful way of detangling and straightening the way forward, in accordance with our own life’s journey. No more—and also no less—than that.

Memoir and The Gift

Now is the time, like never before, for opening up humanity’s personal stories to the light. Collectively and individually, the ties that bind us to our old, limiting interpretations of life—our baggage stories—are now so tenuous and frayed, that tugging on them gently, mindfully, can loosen those bonds in genuinely helpful ways.

What I’m describing here is entirely possible to do on your own. (I did it solo, so I know.) If you’re inclined to go it alone, all you need to get started is a pen and the willingness to see everything anew. But speaking for myself…if I’d only had a mentor at the time to show me the way, I probably could’ve shaved at least a year, and a truckload of deer-in-headlights bewilderment, off the process.

Therefore: In these pivotal times, I wish to help facilitate the memoir journey, for anyone who resonates with what I’ve been describing here, but doesn’t want to tread this path entirely alone.

That’s anybody who wants to write an actual book of memoir (spiritual or otherwise)—or anybody who just wants to write it all down for themselves in carefully curated fashion, so that the puzzle pieces land in a new way.

Here’s what I’m offering:

• Individualized memoir mentoring phone sessions (via Telegram) to point the way.

• OR come to the farm for an (equally individualized) immersive memoir writing weekend.

It’s my desire that no one is left behind, who genuinely wants to engage in this potentially life-altering work. Therefore, memoir mentoring assistance is offered to all, on a sliding scale/donation basis. It’s my way of giving back to the divine universe, which has so sweetly guided me…because this feels like the absolute perfect time for me to help do the same for others.

Interested? More details here.

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For ages, I’ve been wanting to write to you about Love—about how and why it manifests as it does—in this current world and in our current era. Some of us are undoubtedly already aware of what I’m going to talk about, but others undoubtedly aren’t. Either way, it’s such an important topic. Please bear with me.

All of us know (or at least have a good idea about) Love’s unmistakable characteristics, when it’s free to pour its unstoppable divinity into our world. Right?

Endless soft sweetness. Infinite compassion. Pristine sacred radiance. Timeless joy and ineffable peace. Not to mention freeflowing limitless abundance, pure unconditionality and the like. All the good stuff.

But Love is so much more than this. And the ‘so much more than this’ bit, is what I’ve wanted to write about.

So. First, a little background/refresher for us all:

Divine Love is the only reality in our universe, and the only true power. The only real truth, full stop. Consequently, all things and all beings native to this universe, are made entirely out of Love. Whether any of us are in touch with that incontrovertible fact about our own identity, or not.

Therefore, it’s an accurate statement to say: Love sees only Love.

Because Love only deals in what’s true. Physical and non-physical, seen and unseen—to Love, it’s all Love. And are you gonna argue with Love?

Well actually, yeah. That’s pretty much all we do. Argue with Love. Insist that we ourselves, or that guy down the road, or the jerk who got himself elected, or the jerk who didn’t…are NOT made of Love.

Which instantly cuts off our ability to experience Love in our own lives. It’s a frequency thing: To slosh around in the world of fear and lack, pointing judgmental fingers at self or other, is a low-frequency activity. Denying mercy to self or other is a low-frequency activity. So Love—which flows at an extremely high frequency—is blocked out automatically. Because in a low-frequency environment, high frequencies can’t exist. And vice versa.

And so, lacking firsthand experience of Love’s presence in our lives (despite the fact that it’s always right here, and always what we ourselves and everything else is made of) we create—or allow others to create—huge societal structures that uphold lack and fear, and every undesirable thing that comes from that.

So that’s what we’ve been dealing with in this world for a very long time. Lack, fear, and very little mercy. And Love has been more or less shut out of this realm.

But the planet’s frequencies have been rising naturally for awhile now, and ours have been rising right along with it. Rising frequencies equal rising consciousness. And the upshot is, Love now has a growing foothold in this world.

So…okay then, what happens, when the one reality, the one truth, the only true power that is Love, meets rigid societal structures constructed out of Not-Love?

Uh…yeah. This is what I’ve wanted to talk with you about.

For years I’ve hesitated to speak what I know from personal experience, about how Love can sometimes show up in this world. Because I didn’t want to harsh anyone’s buzz. I didn’t want to be the one who intrudes on the sweet idea that Love is always comforting and comfortable.

The truth is, that sometimes…when it’s absolutely required…Love bloody well isn’t either of those things.

Love is not blind

It’s not that Love doesn’t recognize what it’s looking at, when it sees only Love. Love is infinitely intelligent and infinitely wise, after all.

It’s more that Love knows the underlying truth of whatever is in its presence. So Love’s presence, which is the presence of what’s real and true and infinitely powerful, more or less turns the illusory foundations of anything built upon untruth, to dust. Just by its own nature of being.

This is an immensely compassionate setup, by the way.

Which brings us to the ever-crazier time period we find ourselves in. Much of the escalating chaos we see is being caused by those who quite enjoy the world made of fear, and who don’t want to let it go just yet. No surprise, and nothing new there.

But some of the current upheaval is Love’s doing.

And I suppose if you were to zoom out and look at our current world from a macro perspective, you might say that every bit of the chaos is being caused by Love’s presence in our world. From this broader vantage point, it becomes clear that these fear-based fellows are unconsciously doing the demolition work that Love inspires, in order to free up space for a radiant new, and much more truth-based, expression of Life and Love and Joy and Beauty on this planet.

(Which is yet another reason why it’s pretty pointless to regard certain politicians or captains of industry as our enemies. Ultimately they’re all performing Love’s work at the moment, whether they mean to do so or not.)

And this is the real reason I’m talking about all of this stuff now.

The US election (and the media hoopla surrounding it) seems to have exponentially heightened the fear, at home and abroad. So I put myself into the shoes of others, and asked myself: Would I rather hold a comforting but partial picture of what Love’s influence is like, in troubled times like these…and then keep waking up at 3AM in fear about all the crazy events seemingly unrelated to Love, that are occurring in the world all around me?

Or…would I rather have a fuller and more nuanced understanding of Love’s catalytic influence in the world (when it’s in the presence of that which is untrue)…thereby giving me useful context for what is happening in the world right now?

If it were me, I’d rather have the better foundation of understanding that comes from a fuller recognition of what Love is, and how it behaves in this world. ( But maybe that’s just me. If that’s not the conclusion you come to, too, I apologize for supplying too much information.)

My own brush with Love

As I said earlier, I know what Love’s catalytic influence is like, from a personal standpoint. The process is the same, whether it’s an individual (me) whose painful belief structures are grounded in falsehood—or those of a world society:

Love enters the scene, sees only itself, and then the underlying structures of falsity begin to fall apart in highly inconvenient ways.

To be fair, I asked for it. (And to be fair, I had no fricken idea what the answered prayer would actually be like. We hardly ever do, right?)

I’ll spare you most of the gory details.

A dozen or so years ago, I met an extraordinarily strange and luminous young person. Unlike most of us muggles, who promptly forget our own true divine nature the moment we take on a body and enter human existence…she never fell asleep while making her transition from the timeless divine, into the birthing process of this earthbound world.

Consequently she has always known oneness. She has always been surrendered wholly into Love, content to humbly and quietly do Love’s bidding—not always a fun job—here on earth as her fulltime occupation.

We became friends, she and I. At a certain point, in response to my more or less constant desire to know the truth of my own being (and everybody else’s)…Love directed this young woman to set off a highly targeted series of depth charges underneath the illusory foundations upon which I’d built my life and world. The wreckage was not pretty.

It hurt. A lot. For a very long time.

Was Love being sadistically cruel, in catalyzing these events?

SO totally not. SO the extreme opposite of cruelty.

I knew at the time this was an absolutely necessary act of divine compassion. I knew these pockets of hitherto unsuspected (and well defended) darkness had to be lifted into the divine light of day for transmutation. I knew true spiritual freedom would be impossible without it.

I knew all of this, and it was agony anyway. Such is the human tendency to cling to painful yet familiar illusion, rather than opening up to the great unknown.

But as always, Love knew best.

Eventually I stopped hating and blaming her, the human emissary seemingly responsible for it all. (And Love was free to act as its gloriously joyous divine self, when she and I got together for a visit a few years later.)

Eventually I began to allow the divinely alchemical process of letting myself be slowly reconstructed from the inside out, on a deeper, truer foundation. Still a work in progress, by the way.

Bottom line: Eventually I became more grateful than words can express, for that sacred (yet seemingly profane) intervention.

So. Scale up what I experienced back then, to a global level. Love’s mercy knows no limits. And everything that upholds fear will see some radical changes from the inside out. That’s not a prediction, that’s just a simple fact. Because Love, through its very presence, transmutes everything that is unlike itself.

It’s what collective humanity has asked for, and boy howdy, that’s a prayer that’s being answered.

Note to selves…must start learning to read the fine print.

Flowing with the transition

So is there a way to minimize the undesirable side effects of Love’s entry into this realm? And how do we experience more of the good stuff more often, in these times? Y’know, the joy, the peace, and all those other nicer aspects of Love’s presence in the world?

There are certainly things we can do to A) make the dissolution process more filled with ease and grace, and B) flow in closer alignment with the way Love flows—thereby enjoying more of what we classically think of as the good stuff.

It all comes down to teaching ourselves how to be, think and act a bit more like Love would, in any given moment…so we don’t completely block out the flow.

Sandra Walter, one of the wayshowers I admire, refers to this form of navigational flow as ‘having a prepared heart.’ A prepared heart, in her terminology, is a heart that stays open unconditionally, no matter what is happening all around us. (She teaches mastery level courses on this topic, if you’re interested. From what I can tell, the curriculum sounds pretty badass, requiring forgiveness and gratitude for absolutely everything and everyone—no exceptions. Which makes sense, at least in principle, since everything and everybody native to this universe really IS of the divine.)

Sandra also cautions us ‘not to watch it burn.’ In other words, to accept that Love is doing what it needs to do, in these momentous times of change, no matter how crazy or outrageous it looks to the untrained eye; keeping in mind the massive and ultimately very beautiful transition that’s unfolding before us…without getting too caught up in the distressing details at ground level.

To sum up: These are truly epic times. We are living through the oft foretold era where Love finally blossoms on the earth, and in the hearts and minds of all who call this planet home. What an incredible joy to witness—and maybe even to help hold space for—this sacred rebirth.

Is this process fun? Sometimes.

Even a heart like mine (which is only kinda slightly prepared) will increasingly encounter moments of Love’s sublimely radiant essence; in fact, we can all look forward to being showered with unforgettable glimpses of ineffable peace, equanimity and joy…and yes, just plain delightful fun, as Love takes up residence more and more on this planet.

And the rest of the time?

Let’s just do our best to not watch it burn.

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“I mostly talk to my parents in my head,” she admitted. “They were always the ones who understood me best.” (Her parents have been gone for a decade or more.)

That caught my attention. Because although I’ve never talked to dead people [except for one time, when I commanded get the fuck out of my house!, to whatever had no business there], lately I’d been very acutely aware of a different type of inner, one-way conversation, similar in some ways to the one she was describing—although having nothing to do with the hereafter. More on that in a minute.

Anyway what I’m saying is, although I’ve not poured out my innermost heart and tenderest longings to the deceased, as my friend does, I well understand the temptation to speak internally to those not present. It’s something we’re seemingly wired to do; one of those ubiquitous aspects of the egoic veil structure common to just about all of us.

Why do we do it?

My theory is that this strong habit of attraction we have, to various kinds of inner monologue—because it’s not really an interactive dialogue, is it? It’s just us talking to an imaginary listener—that this is a phenomenon designed solely to distract us away from noticing our own plain-as-day divine nature.

So clever, so simple.

Besides the infernal noisiness of the inner chatterer, engagement with its monologues hinders our ability to stay present: Trips to the past, fantasy projections into the future. Who said what to whom, that one time, and this is what you should’ve said to them back then, but didn’t. Or this is what you’re going to say, next time the subject comes up. Or whatever.

Time-travelling, to everywhere except the here and now. And always faithfully accompanied by that internal yap-yap-yapping. I’m pretty sure you know exactly what I’m talking about.

No presence. No silence.

Presence and silence, however, are non-negotiable aspects of our true sacred identity. Which is always already right here.

If you were to imagine your true divine self as being like a fish—bear with me, here—presence and silence are like the water in which it swims. Presence and silence are its environment, its world. Furthermore, that divine water permeates and saturates every molecule of its own being. It is what the fish breathes. There is no place, within or without it, where the waters of presence-silence are not.

You could say that the fish, while a distinct entity in its own right, is, at the same time, one with the present-silent water.

But back to our own predicament:

No presence, no silence.

Just noise and storytelling. Which, funnily enough, sets the stage for the very opposite of silent presence.

Noise and storytelling are not, of themselves, powerful roadblocks to self-realization. Of themselves, they’re not much of anything. We needn’t actually pay any attention to them at all, theoretically at least. Inner noise and storytelling are nothing more than hypnotically alluring invitations to the dance.

We’re the ones who keep paying attention to them, automatically lending an ear every time the dance band tunes up for another go-round. We’re the ones who get dazzled or frazzled or flummoxed over and over again, by those inner invitations, causing us to continually say yes to the same old tango. Yes to the same old dance partner.

We’re the ones who end up freely choosing the veil-inspired chatterbox, in other words, instead of the divine perfection that’s always already here.

Monologues for nobody

Back to the kind of inner monologue I’ve become hyper aware of lately. It’s all come about because I’ve inadvertently given my internal chatterbox a job. And we all know how much the egoic structure loves a job. My little fella writes. Or rather, edits.

Me, I prefer to write from authentic inspiration. I wait til I feel that energetic-spiritual-creative zing! that lights up my field. And then I go for it. A rush of words and ideas starts tumbling into my consciousness; that’s when I drop what I’m doing, and grab a pen or a keyboard, to start writing down what’s coming in.

And that’s a beautiful process, as far as it goes. But that torrent of words is usually pretty raw. Bits are missing. There are themes that require extra development. The entire piece needs editing. Polishing. Further explanation and clarification of key points.

My writing is rarely ready for prime time, in the original state in which it first appears.

So. Who is ready to help, red editing pencil in hand? Who’s eager to judge the quality of sentence construction? Who happily corrects my grammar and punctuation? Who delights in sharing its advice on how this essay will be perceived and understood by readers?

There is nothing at all wrong with diligent editing, believe me. Nobody would want to have to decipher my tangled scribbles prior to its loving attentions.

However. In my case, although the creative spark itself comes from pure inspiration, you can be pretty sure the invisible friend has spent an extra couple of days methodically chewing it over, before anyone else gets to see it.

It’s one of the primary reasons I’m not super keen to write any more books; a full length project like that would give the inner editor a fulltime job for at least a year. Chew, chew, chew. Swallow and repeat.

Anyway, the upshot of all this thorough mastication, is that through long habit, my veil-inspired little friend no longer even needs the pretense of an invisible listener, to whom its stories should be addressed.

As I move through my daily life, I’ve lately noticed in rather acutely startled bemusement, that just beneath the surface of my consciousness, the internal chatterbox has been telling fascinating stories about key episodes from my earlier days…to absolutely no one. Writing its own endless bestsellers without me.

Sacred silence

Q: Whatever the content of our own chatty interior monologues, they always pull us out of presence. So how does one go about making the inner chatterbox shut up?

A: We can’t. Or rather, we can, but it’ll come right back, the moment our attention wanders. Such is the hypnotic power of our habitual agreement to the dance.

The solution, as always, is to go back to the radio analogy. (I know, sorry. Fishes, tangos, and now vintage radios, all in a single essay. What can I say.)

To find real relief from the inner noise, we choose a station that’s higher up on the radio dial. In that higher frequency bandwidth, the inner chatter simply fades away. Its low frequency transmission can’t reach you where you are.

It’s possible that it’s still yapping away somewhere farther down the dial, I suppose, but now there’s nobody to hear it. Because you’ve turned away from it, and are now approaching a hushed and hallowed present-moment realm of shimmering silence, luminous with the beauty of your own true nature.

Pausing on the threshold of this inner space, it’ll very gradually dawn that what you are witnessing is your own normal, everyday divinity. Your own breathtakingly sacred, yet utterly unspecial true identity.

This radiant frequency field is part of your own human beingness; it came with you as standard equipment, when you entered the world and took form. Its silent aliveness is always here, and always accessible.

So subtle you could almost miss it. Especially if you’re uh, distracted by other things.

I’ve written alot about sacred silence in other essays. How it’s a divine frequency that palpably permeates mind, body and spirit; how with repeated exposure to it, it slowly and gently entrains all parts of the self to re-member themselves in the oneness of their own true divine identity. How true silence is nothing to do with sound or its absence; rather, it’s the underlying frequency field that sound arises in.

An endless fountain of universal connectivity

But there’s more. And for this bit (which is beyond my own current experience or expansion) I rely on information from Jacqueline Hobbs. She says that this interior space of easily accessible inner silence, is also a portal of infinite potentiality. That when you’re 100% ready to enter it, the entire universe becomes available to you.

Meaning, in this case, that any and all beings can be in communion. Real 2-way exchanges; richly divine communication, without the cumbersome use of words. All instantly transmitted and received in oneness.

Jacqueline refers to this universal bush telegraph as the gold frequency. (Her more comprehensive definition of the gold frequency can be found in the glossary section of her Oracle Girl website, if you’re interested.)

I should add that this described connectivity is nothing to do with psychic abilities. Psychic gifts (and the information they bring in) belong to a lower bandwidth than the ultra pure one that is being described here.

Anyway, she says all beings and the earth itself are naturally tuned to this gold frequency. Our radios come with this station pre-programmed at the top of the dial, in other words. It’s part of what we already are.

The catch here (or I should say, the non-negotiable prerequisite) is that in order to open up to the infinite flow of universal connectivity, heaven and earth need to first be flowing unobstructedly through our own non-judging heart.

Oh. Right. Okay. Bummer.

It means we can’t be avoiding, shielding our eyes or otherwise bypassing anything about our own sometimes extremely challenging lives, OR about the sometimes extremely challenging world around us.

But that makes sense, when you think about it…because in order to be a conduit of unobstructed flow, by definition we need to allow everything in. It’s all or nothing, in that sense. So our divinely neutral, un-judging heart must learn to stay open to absolutely everything it encounters. Tricky as that can sometimes be.

But worth it, don’t you think?

When our own sacred spiritual heart flows freely within this inner sanctum of silence, communication will be instant, wordless and effortless. So it seems logical that mobile phones and zoom calls will quickly become clunky, obsolete relics of the past. What’s more, all knowledge worth knowing will be at our own fingertips—putting Google (and the internet itself) out of business.

I’m hardly an expert at mastering the 100% non-judging heart. As anyone who’s ever met me can testify. But I do have a certain amount of experience I can share, on the topic of wordless divine communication. And if you’ve experienced this sort of luminous interaction yourself, you’ll undoubtedly recognize its heavenly hallmarks:

Divine communication unfurls slowly like a fragrant flower in bloom; incredibly rich and multifaceted, its wisdom finds its way into your heart and deepens over time. Paradoxically, the 2-way communication itself is instant. Radiant information and energetic sensation are silently transmitted, felt and received in a flash. All in a manner that is wholly beyond the need for words.

It’s beautiful beyond description.

In short, as our silent hearts strengthen and mature into the kick-ass, light-bearing vessels they were always meant to be, not one of us will ever again yearn for meaningful conversation, or for the sense that we are truly seen, understood and loved. No more desire for invisible friends, in other words. Any sense of isolation or loneliness will be a thing of the past.

How could we ever feel lonely when we know ourselves in infinite wholeness, and intimate connection with all that is?

I’ll shut up now, ‘nuff said.

The silence is calling.

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So when is that amazing new world of oneness and love gonna arrive? you might be asking. Or is it all just wishful thinking?

Looking around our world, at the same-old-same-old, hair-on-fire, crisis du jour type of business as usual, it’s easy to wonder if the world made of love is nothing but a feel-good fantasy. A happy-clappy spiritual fairytale, meant to help us endure these dark stormy nights of our actual, doom-laden existence.

When it comes right down to it, this business of heaven on earth is probably way too good to be true.

Hasn’t that thought crossed your mind sometimes?

Some days I kinda wonder about all of those same things myself. But only on some days.

Because I know that the world made of love is 100% definitely, concretely, already here. Gimme a stack of bibles on which to swear to it. If bibles are your thing.

The tricky bit, is that each of us has to teach our own self how to align and harmonize with divine truth--the action of which pulls tangible physical expression of radiant divinity into this reality. (More on that in a minute.)

It’s a chicken and egg thing. Or a catch-22 thing. We have to align with divine truth before the tangible experience of it can show up in our own life. That’s right. Our alignment [with a truth that’s entirely beyond this world, which we may, or may not, yet have any personal experience of] is the catalyst that allows divinity to express itself in this realm. Where we will be able to freely experience it. After we’ve already harmonized with it.

Like I said: Tricky. But well worth the effort.

Anyway, when there are enough of us aligning and harmonizing on a regular basis, this is ultimately what helps to anchor heaven here on earth. Not only anchoring it, but giving it serious real estate, with plenty of room to gather its divine momentum—which can then expand all over the world. For everybody.

Divine neutrality and dimensional timelines

It’s comforting to imagine that divine love is unfailingly soft and cuddly, wrapping us up in angel feathers every time we fall down and scrape our knee. And yeah, that’s definitely one aspect of divine love, but it ain’t the only one.

An incredible loving intelligence has designed this universe and all of life itself. But in the great divine mystery of this design, life is allowed free rein to express itself however it wants to. Which means that we, divine beings of extraordinary creative power, are free to create as we choose. Divine love holds zero attachment to what kind of creating we do.

And there’s the rub.

Because (for better and worse), external reality is an incredibly malleable playground, providing accurate, moment-by-moment reflections of our own inner being.

On the plus side? We can choose to energetically align with heaven—by remembering the shared divinity of all beings; by refusing to judge and condemn others—which instantly and seamlessly shifts our own immediate timeline into a higher, more beautiful one. A dimensional timeline that is a better frequency match for this sacred choice to remember heaven.

Here’s a pertinent example of this ‘alignment and timeline-shifting’ phenomenon from my own life. It’s the cauliflower story. I’ve spoken about it before:

Several years ago, as a newbie gardener, I’d been trying (and failing) to eradicate the multiple kinds of bugs severely infesting my cauliflower patch...until one day I spontaneously stopped dead, there in the middle of the garden, sprayer still in my hand.

And instead, I chose to remember that ALL beings, including slimy, caterpillary, aphidy, leaf-hoppery beings, were sacred and holy. I remembered they were one with me. I felt their innocence and beauty radiating throughout my own energy field, mind and body.

So powerful. Such a gift, to experience that shared holiness, while holding no agenda whatsoever. Oneness for its own sake.

When I resumed my cauliflower inspections, moving to the next plant in the line, I saw that these plants were now nearly free of bugs. All of the cauliflowers were, in fact, nearly free of bugs. Even the severely infested plants I’d already inspected a minute earlier.

Hundreds, if not thousands of bugs, had simply vanished. Just like that.

I had seamlessly entered a new, higher frequency timeline--one in which my cauliflower plants were strong and robust enough to ward off serious infestation--because I’d made the choice to align with heaven.

I’d made the choice to ‘think like heaven thinks.’ Or perhaps, to ‘know as heaven knows.’

I later discovered, incidentally, that my tomato plants had also responded in a similarly higher way: The same tomato plants as before, were now mysteriously laden with more than double the number of beautiful ripe tomatoes than had existed previously.

It’s a reasonably clear example of how easily and instantly our tangible physical reality can shape-shift, as a new timeline seamlessly inserts itself.

It’s happening all the time. Your own experience of yourself is one of continuity, even as a timeline reality rearranges itself. (Which is probably why we tend not to notice.) That your experience of yourself is continuous and unbroken with nary a blip, despite your epic rearrangement and re-creation of your personal self and universe, is one of those inexplicable divine mysteries of existence.

But like I said earlier, universal love is entirely neutral. We’re also free to create in less beautiful ways, which, in our current world, we’re always being invited to do. The mechanics of it are exactly the same. We are seductively invited, from within and without, to forget oneness. To attack and condemn ourself and others. Each time we do it, we pull a lower frequency timeline out of its latent potential state, and into tangible physical form.

We are the ones, in other words, who are ultimately responsible for creating that hellish handbasket.

That we’re being herded, pushed, manipulated into doing so…? Sure, yes. Very true. But at the end of the day, despite all that extra unwanted interference from within and without, we ourselves are nevertheless still responsible for our own creations.

And there you have it. Universal divine love: Neutral as hell. And we all therefore reap as we sow, bless our beautiful, fallible human hearts.

Universal and local

The world made of love is fully, completely, dazzlingly here. Loads of us get transcendent glimpses of it, every time we choose to briefly turn our backs on the world of separation consciousness, and instead remember the universal truth of existence.

A few are living its magnificent radiance fulltime, permanently anchoring heaven on earth...but they’re only doing it in their immediate sphere of influence. Because that’s how it works.

These days, you don’t get one lone figure, no matter how special or gifted, no matter how good he or she looks in their floaty white robes. It’s not gonna be one solo being who rises up and saves the whole world, while the rest of us kick back and watch disturbing tv news.

Because heaven on earth can only occur, as all beings come to know who and what they really are in truth.

One or two or fifty extraordinary figures might pave the way forward. But then it’s still up to each one of us to align with heaven, by choosing to align our minds, hearts and daily actions with divine truth. Over and over again, until that becomes our predominant habit. This is what pulls heaven’s higher frequency timelines into our own daily local environment. This is what brings the juice. And the love. And the healthy cauliflowers and the abundant ripe tomatoes. Or whatever it happens to be.

What it really brings, in truth, is the end of that agonizing poison splinter of separation consciousness, that’s lodged in each of our minds and hearts. Honestly, whatever goodies show up on top of that, are just cake.

Anyway, when enough of us are choosing to align with heaven in this way, it tips the balance toward a permanently anchored world made of love. A world where divine truth is upheld by all; where oneness is a self-evident no-brainer; and where the earth itself and all its inhabitants (even the slimy caterpillary ones) are held as sacred. A world where our societies are structured around this wisdom of the heart, and all beings are free to live in peace.

The world made of love is not, as I’ve said so many times, a fantasy world of unicorns and rainbows. No disrespect to unicorns and rainbows, but what’s being born during these momentous times, is simply a world where divine truth is the underlying architecture upon which our civilization is rebuilt.

How many conscious choosers does it take to screw in a lightbulb of divine radiance? Well the good news, of course, is that divine love is infinitely more powerful than anything attempting to oppose it. So the actual number of consciously aligned humans needed, to reach that tipping point on behalf of the entire world? It ain’t all that many. Comparatively speaking. Certainly nowhere near the 51% (picture a teeter-totter in action) that ‘real world’ physics would predict as being necessary.

Heaven on earth is characterized by an endless flow of miracles. Its power is exponential, unlimited and joyously unpredictable in its non-linear expression. The stodgy laws of Newtonian physics simply don’t apply.

So. It’s each one of us, choosing to align our hearts and minds, as best we can, with divine truth. That’s the ‘how’ of the world made of love, not only showing up, but permanently anchoring heaven to earth.

As for the ‘when’?

Well that’s down to you and me.

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