Just Imagine

[mandyjw]

I never really appreciated what a beautiful word universe is.

uni- one

verse- writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 

My son keeps asking who first invented words, which we can't give a good answer to, and just now said he thinks he knows how. He said that people said the word as they did it. And I said "like talk?" and smiled. And he said "dance" and started dancing. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

Yesterday something clicked about making intentions, focusing on what's wanted. Becoming more aware of anxiety and depression as it arises, connecting with the body more to slow the thoughts, check in with how the body feels about thoughts, so that there's space to watch and turn them around is the only way to make (allow?) intentions. The negative thought/feeling is a desire wanting to be born. There is resistance and fear, connection with feeling/meditation, is what stops the freight train even though it first seems as if it's stepping out in front.

Just stay.

Then figure out what is wanted. The connected mind is there, ready and willing to figure out what is wanted and how to get it if you just point it in the right direction. It'll usually come up with something really creative you wouldn't have thought that you would have been able to think of.  Because you didn't. The mind wants a job, and it wants creative license to do it. We're sometimes like slave drivers who think its only potential is repetitive, useless work. 

Listened to this. It helped me make a lot of connections. God, I love him. 

Focus is imagination is creation. Intentions seem like going against the stream but counter intuitively are actually going with it. 

I've cleaned my diet up in the past couple days, didn't eat much before bed and last night had vivid dreams and trouble sleeping which is what sleeping on an empty stomach does to me. I had a vision of something like an hour glass only the point in the center was a point of light filtering out in a triangular shape at either direction. The feeling that accompanied this vision was indescribable. I recently read that the G on the masonic symbol stands for God and Geometry.

It always seems lackluster to remember and contemplate these dream/visions afterwards. The only interesting contemplation I got from it was that it's a much better way to understand time than to picture it linearly. The point of light is the now. We can choose to look at the past from any angle we want, and choose to envision the future from any angle we want, but all angles are the same light of awareness, now. Eh, writing it out maybe it's a better insight than I thought this morning. I suppose that even now, I'm comparing the insight from some chosen angle in the past. I should probably make a drawing of this. 

[mandyjw]

My husband saw my drawing and I asked if he wanted the esoteric meaning behind it, and he said it was too early in the morning for that. So he ate his breakfast and then went on a parody spiel about the profound meaning of x, something about how x negates but X marks the spot, and then,

[mandyjw]

OMG!!!! Husband asked if I appreciated his esoteric insights, and I said yes, and I said that I really felt like the word esoteric should have an x in it. He said he thought that might be a word but didn't know what it meant. 

I looked it up. "OMG it is!"

"x gon give it ya" he replied

ex·o·ter·ic

(especially of a doctrine or mode of speech) intended for or likely to be understood by the general public.

Somehow didn't know that exoteric was a word. Feeling stupid, asked him if he knew it was a word. He said no because exoteric must be more esoteric than esoteric itself. 

 

esoteric 1650s, from Greek esoterikos "belonging to an inner circle" (Lucian), from esotero "more within," comparative adverb of eso "within," from PIE *ens-o-, suffixed form of *ens, extended form of root *en "in." 

exoteric (adj.)

1650s, from Late Latin exotericus, from Greek exoterikos "external, belonging to the outside," from exotero, comparative of exo (see exo-).

 

[mandyjw]

 

[mandyjw]

embody hahaha

Rupert (name) ... The Old High German form of the name evolved from Germanic Hrothi, "fame, glory" + Berht, "bright"; thus, Rupert and Robert mean "fame bright."

Spira A thing that is coiled, twisted, or wound. A coil, twist. The base of a column. A kind of cake; a twist.

When your metaphors go off the rails and get misunderstood.

"What are you going to do to get rid of the snake?" -Rupert

"Shoot it. I'm from America."  

"You cannot shoot the snake... it's a stick."  -Rupert

Lately, I've become conscious that the things that make me laugh the hardest are a type of shadow work or energy release. I laughed SO hard about the quoted scene above in this video, and then I realized how much fear, pain and reaction I actually have around the "shoot it. I'm from America" culture. 

Maybe people who laugh at people's pain and shame aren't evil. Maybe they actually just want to laugh at their own. 

[mandyjw]

Why is this so fascinating? Why is it a meme? It's funny, but also mesmerizing. The guy is so connected with himself, so expressive, so feeling the music, and so... unexpected. It draws you in. You want to judge it and dismiss it but it's too mesmerizing and catchy not to get sucked in. All you can do is dance along or laugh or both. 

[mandyjw]

Last night I had an annoying dream that made me think I was avoiding doing something. I got up and made a list of a whole lot of stuff I've been avoiding and did all of it. Almost everything seemed to have been already done for me. My estimated taxes had been extended, I found that the hotel reservation I made was canceled already at no charge, the bounced check I received has bead recleared by my customer, I just had to actually contact her to find that out. The items I was afraid I had run out of for the order I have to send out were found easily. Then it turned into a snowball effect and I planted the lavender and sage seeds mom just offered me after I had wrote "herb garden" on my dream board and did a bunch of other stuff really quickly. 

Then spend the rest of the morning in my studio and listened to a lot on youtube that just really clicked and blew me away. Abraham Hicks sounds like I'd never heard her quite so clearly before. Teal Swan's video had a perspective on trauma that was an answer to a question I had after talking with my sister about trauma. And Rupert Spira... The analogy about whirpools and vortexes explains so many things. 

 

[mandyjw]

Yesterday's productivity, seemed to be preceded by me flipping open Dr.P's book and reading something about his motto being business before pleasure, which I thought about because that's not how I've been living lately, and it doesn't feel great either. It doesn't feel good to have a duality between the two, and yet for sake of planning and intention, separating them out isn't something that can avoided. 

All my life I loved the feeling in my body and chest after a good run, but thought of it as a reward for my effort. Lately I feel like I can tap into that very easily. Let's go for feeling effortlessly. 

Looooove yin yoga. 

Feels like...

 

[mandyjw]

Weird dreams last night, I don't have any idea what they mean.

I was walking through a small building and Esther Hicks was there and I made eye contact with her, and it was just odd. I wondered if she could see something in my eyes, if she knew something about me. 

I was eating at a table at a public super and this creepy looking older man sitting across from me took the last bite of something (ice cream) off my plate and ate it. 

I keep dreaming that I'm at large parties and events, that I don't want to be at. There's this huge sense of relief I feel about being quarantined. I had made all sorts of plans to come out of my shell, to travel, to go to stuff, and this pandemic has given me the out and opportunity to further turn inward that I didn't know I really wanted. 

 

[mandyjw]

This morning I went for a run instead of getting groceries, and I followed my intuition about it, and felt and assured myself that I was right where I needed to be. I watched Leo's video with breaks in between over the day. At the start of the run I heard these ungodly animal screams and saw the source of them, eventually which was a black cat, that seemed unharmed.

That was the start. I had an insight, knew what I had to do and had no doubt about it. Then there was this profusion of signs and symbols and connections that had meaning for me, they came so fast it was like fireworks, with the finale at the end and even connected back to prophetic dream I had months ago. The last thing was the bald eagle that flew over. 

I feel crazy. You think you're crazy. There's such joy, and profound beauty in these connections but my mind is still fearful and adapting. They come on really hard after I meditate and connect deeply, and then they throw me out, because they are so fascinating that they cause me to stay with the mind. I am practicing holding that connection. But it's like stretching. It's like yin yoga. You stretch and you feel the pain and the (block), you go past your comfort zone and what was tolerable and there's that "point" that you only know by feeling where you should stay to challenge and love yourself at the same time. 

Angles of a pyramid, angels peeramid. It's not a watermelon, Leo, it's a fucking pyramid. You built the pyramids, and you chose the eye of providence and eagle as a symbol for the US. You resonated with Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid for a reason deeper than you think. What does it mean?

Nothing. That's the "point", of the pyramid, it's where a massive structure turns into nothing.

Really nothing? No, everything comes together at the point and connects, so well, it's love.

 

Edited April 19, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

manifest. ... Coming from the Latin manifestus, "caught in the act,"

Rupert... spira, god fucking damn it a spiral, a vortex, and his metaphor about where we come from and come into being spiritually in the video, "Where did my soul come from?" 

I went on a hike to literally go watch whirlpools, form dissolve and merge with each other today. 

It seems so real. It seems so real. 

Phew.

Sigh.

Take a breath.

I was doing so well!

Ok, Rupert Spira, it's a circle. You think you're a circle. You become conscious of stuff in a larger circle, archetypes, the story beyond the story of "you", the ancient, primordial story. Then you want to evict yourself from your smaller circle and stay out there. This is dangerous waters for a whirlpool who honors her whirlpool existence. The eye of the storm, the center of the whirlpool, vortex is still. 

Just fucking stop thinking already! ow, ow, ow, breathe, breathe, insight, insight, insight, ow ow, ow

 

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

 

“Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'

`If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's him.'

`I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.

`Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'

`Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.'

`Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. `He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”
― Lewis Carroll

On that note, I have to go make dinner. 

[mandyjw]

Last night I dreamed that I was swimming in a hot spring in this desert setting and Leo was there. I was surprised and in wonder of it, and he explained how it worked even though in real life I know how hot springs work and have alwasy wanted to go to one. Under the water was the foundation of some old building. I was amazed by how warm the water was, and grateful. Then it started changing. I started to notice all kinds of dirt in the water, and it got dirty and disgusting as stuff grew in the waters that were getting warmer and warmer as summer came closer. I told Leo that we should move. It was almost warm enough to swim and to the right, somehow, magically, was the swimming hole at the river where my mystical experiences started. Yesterday I went there and thought about swimming, but it would be a Wim Hof type experience. Then I thought about how awakening has given me the courage to do what I never would have done.

The dream changed and what the building had been turned into a mystery we really wanted to solve. It made me feel like the start of digging up the history of Dr.P. That sense of mystery. It was huge and spectacular and... had something to do with ice cream.  WTF with the ice cream dreams? What does ice cream symbolize? I'm trying out going vegan. An entire shelf fell out of the fridge door and spilled yogurts all over the floor just now. 

There were lots of reactions and insights and feelings from Leo's latest video. When he said towards the end, how do you know you're done, what if there's a level beyond and a level beyond, my mind went immediately to gambling. 

We don't think our thoughts.

We are susceptible to our surroundings until we purify/discover ourselves. That's why people long after solitude for this work. If you are what you eat, if diet is so important to spirituality, then does it make sense that we would ignore our surroundings? Or that they would be just as important? As the inner so the outer, as above so below, is within so without. It's a fractal universe. 

My friend sent me this message a week or so ago.

"Did you know that the GI tract can be considered OUTSIDE THE HUMAN BODY because it is just hole that passes all the way through? Watching Ask a Mortician while doing dishes and thought you'd like to know."

You are a vortex, a whirpool, spiral as Rupert Spira so elegantly describes. His words just makes me want to curl up and die in the bliss. I digress. 

There's nothing in the center, like the metaphor that came in the vision of light, of source, you are that but also this stuff swirling around. You are, verily I say unto you, a toilet bowl ever flushing. Beautiful isn't it?

You are what you eat. You are the people you hang around. You are what you give your attention to. Garbage in, garbage out. Also you are not. You transcend all that, you're already pure, you're the calm eye of the storm at the center of the spiral. If you greatly honor food choices and spiritual shouldn't we greatly honor where we choose to live?

Ramana Maharshi worshiped a place. It's beyond worship, it's dissolving, becoming. 

"The Maharshi called Arunachala the spiritual Heart of the world. Aruna, which means ‘red, bright like fire’, does not signify the mere fire that gives off heat. Rather, it means Jnanagni, the Fire of Wisdom, which is neither hot nor cold. Achala signifies hill. Thus, Arunachala means ‘Hill of Wisdom’."

https://www.sriramanamaharshi.org/arunachala-hill/

I don't believe in taking this too far, just like with diet. There's a careful balance of neither worshiping nor demonizing the choices we make, of not prejudging alignment and locking it in via the mind in an effort to avoid feeling, sensing, intuiting our way to true alignment. 

I've tried to let go of this feeling, thinking it's crazy and not wanting to think about it too much because it has such pull, but it keeps coming back. The metaphor of water and whirlpools doesn't stop appearing and connecting. Last night I had an impulse to look through my memory box and I found a project I made years ago. It's a tiny vase, a vessel that's made of blooming flowers on a watery background. Dr.P had a large Rebecca at the well sculpture surrounded by a fountain and at the talk on him an old man recalled memories and said how they never were able to get a well dug at his mansion. There was no water on that hill. It's ironic. 

 

 

 

Edited April 21, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

 

"Oh! I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! In the land of ice and snows Up among the Eskimos, There's a college known as Ogiwawa! You should hear those college boys, Gee, they make an awful noise When they sing an Eskimo tra-la-la! They've got a leader, big cheer leader, Oh, what a guy! He's got a frozen face just like an Eskimo Pie! When he says, "Come on, let's go!" Though it's forty-five below, This is what the Eskimos all holler: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Rah! Rah! Rah! Tuesdays, Mondays, we all scream for sundaes, Sis-boom-bah! Boola-boola, sarsaparoolla, If you got chocolate, we'll take vanoola! I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Rah! Rah! Rah! I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Rah! Rah! Rah! Frosts and malts that are peppered and salted, Sis-boom-bah! Oh, spumoni, oh, cartoni, And confidentially, we'll take baloney, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!"

Sundays?

Oh Jesus. 
 

Edited April 21, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

I'm so glad I'm here to pull myself out of Crazyland! 

"But MOM, I'm not ready to leave yet!"

[mandyjw]

 

1 hour ago, mandyjw said:

I'm so glad I'm here to pull myself out of Crazyland! 

"But MOM, I'm not ready to leave yet!"

I gotta be cool, relax, get hip
And get on my track's
Take a back seat (ah hum), hitch-hike (ah hum)
And take a long ride on my motorbike
Until I'm ready (ready Freddie)
Crazy little thing called love

This thing called love, I just can't handle it
This thing called love, I must get round to it
I ain't ready
Ooh ooh ooh ooh

[mandyjw]

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.

Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it. -Rumi

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Last night I dug up this thread again.

 I had the thought later that I want to closer observe my beliefs about implications. When I was reading a lot of old Faceless posts I understood that a thought of other creates a thought of myself, immediately, and so it is with certain instances of future, past or objects. But even saying or understanding this is not grasping it, not in the least, because some of the thoughts of I or people or objects are sheer appreciation, a kind of focus that is not from ego, and some are gone along with as suffering. The thought itself is not the problem. 

 I also recognized that thoughts are tried to feelings and that when you start observing your thoughts it's only the blatant ones you're aware of at first, even then it takes practice to watch them, then to get at them, then to dig for the roots, to connect the whole. I'm loving the metaphor imagery lately of the universe being like a skeleton, or a net with threads, everything is connected, so everything moves and adjusts in unison as every other part moves. So becoming conscious of this, feeling it, seeing it, becoming it, is to lose the separate self, while also honoring its "own" existence and function. 

Thoughts of others, self or implied comparisons are a frequent occurrence. I notice that I often feel threatened by seeing someone else succeed. I don't choose to feel this way. my self concept does not want to feel this way. My self concept guilts itself for feeling this way. And so a thought that feels bad if often owned and followed by a thought that feels bad. Love, self love, Self Love, is the only thing that can break the loop. When unconscious, a person just feels threatened and accepts it as ok, and truth and feels bad. When love is turned into a thought or ideal, it says "i" should love the "other" not feel threatened, and it feels bad. In the moment none of these things exist of have any pull. In the moment, there is unconditional love for whatever. 

Also last night, I thought about how I feel a bit "lost" like I'm losing time and identification with my life, and therefore the implication is that I'm mismanaging my life. There is this belief that there's some sort of ideal way of keeping track of such things, of holding on to them. These feelings started happening years before I found Leo or Eckhart Tolle, just an affect of what I wrote off in thought as being an adult or the sense of time going faster, or being busy with being a parents, etc. But maybe it was just a sense of truth shining through, that's there's nothing to grasp at so you can stop trying, relax and watch the beauty unfold. 

I look at myself in the mirror sometimes and I watch what sort of characters my mind likes to play out and project on what it sees. I like the Women Who Run with Wolves Book, and it helps me further integrate the witchiness I've become conscious of. Accepting myself as the "hag", is key to loving my form. It's easy to love older women, I think my mother's gray hair is beautiful, I think she is beautiful, but when it comes to my "own" body, there are lots of old patterns and beliefs and standards to dissolve. It's easy to love a tree, it's unsymmetrical, random, haggard, weathered form, and it's purity itself, as it is the temporary and fleeting flowers and fruit that it bares. The same perception is true about the human body, about one's self. It's a new practice for me, to watch my diet and what I eat, to pay attention and also love my flaws at the same time. In the past the more attention I pay, the more judgmental thought I pay. 

There's no doer. No standard. It's complete freedom.

I've noticed in myself a tendency to buckle down and forget all else when I get inspired, which works with mindfulness or whatever you like to call it just like it does buckling down on diet. Watching or reading threads by someone with their shit together, (Rupert, @Nahm , etc) is so inspiring but that inspired feeling can be hijacked by thought and often turn into an ideal outside of the "I" which creates the suffering/I-don't-have-it-yet-desire that is that separation in feeling again. I sometimes also think that I must dump all my other desires and pursuits because they are "less important." It's the same exact thing that's was occurring with my diet and fitness, with disallowing anything I want at all, a clean home, etc, that flaws are paid more attention. Then the inspiration is not looked any more, the desire is forgotten and pushed aside and old patterns return. I don't need Nahm to wear a tin foil hat and a lavender unicorn tshirt to make me feel less intimidated and I don't need super models on magazine covers to have imperfections or to go away. I like looking at supermodels and always have. No picture is reality, the picture is its own unique alive "entity" in a way, when it is perceived in the moment, because it is the consciousness itself. Oh...

 

 

[mandyjw]

They're just completely plastic. PLASTIC. plastic. plastic.

 

There's no one to have intuition. 

Edited April 23, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Reading through the thread I posted above again was an entirely new experience, as I understood more and I seem to be becoming more and more aware that every experience is completely new and is both not happening. I've been listening to Rupert Spira's yoga meditations and yesterday this one seemed to have quite an effect fitting it in with everything else. 

The night before last I ended up arguing with my husband. Shortly after a glass that I took from my grandmother's house with Minnie and Mickey mouse fell and broke, cracking with a line straight between them. The next morning a mouse in the wall annoyed me a lot during meditation. I re-baited the traps the next morning. My husband criticized something I wrote on my dream board that morning  and I tried to explain how desires are meant to be let go of, they aren't necessarily goals. I had written "house on the ocean". I understood the next day how I had feelings of being afraid of him which have nothing to do with my actual safety or his character but expectations I've placed on him out of survival based fears and how fear based my lack of connection with him was. A lot of things came together for me to let go of the reactions, and holding the openness allowed me to see things in a new light. 

Last night I had lots of thought come up that I'd consider overthinking/nihilism. Thoughts like, "oh shit, it's REALLY real, that nothing is real."  It sounds hilarious, but doesn't feel funny to think them. 

Meditation has gone from mostly peaceful and enjoyable to somewhat difficult, though because that's a judgement happening after the fact the real judgement that I make is that they have become incredibly "productive". There's a lot of watching thoughts and feelings like "you're not doing it right", "you haven't tapped into that", staying stuck on beating oneself up AFTER a thought that was judged and owned, and surrendering the doer and the illusion of time. The Alice in Wonderland quote above about time has come back to me many times. Toward the end of meditation this morning the sun started streaming and I had this image of a girl from high school I never liked. I ended up offending her in the locker room after gym by saying something I didn't mean to sound mean, and just hadn't thought through but she took it that way. She said something mildly mean in response and I took the whole thing very hard. It was a story or memory that fueled my "I hate people", "I can't deal with people", "I have no social skills", "I'm not worthy of existence and social interaction" stories. I had never thought of her again except in passing, quickly dismissing the painful story behind it and annoyance with her, and had sort of kept her in the box of "people I hate", without considering it since. It seemed so random how the thought of her came up, until I realized that it wasn't random at all.

Then the next thought was of time shortage, "I've gone deep into a meditative state, this is the goal, I don't want it to end, what I want is here, not our there and the alarm is going to go off and break it" storyline.

I have an intention to make up with Time. It's never what you think it is. 

One thing I've been doing is watching the "ugly" feelings come up with thoughts behind them and having a "come sit on grandma's knee" approach to know that they are loved and seen. Otherwise the judgement after the fact exists within time, and resists them because it can't "see" them properly, all it knows is a memory of it and its reaction against it. If I child acts up to get attention, they will continue because it's just an indicator that they aren't getting enough attention. The attention must come, not only in response to the child acting up, but more often than that. The bad behavior has a legitimate cause, there's a root need it's showing.  

Self love, self love, self love, keeps coming up again and again in a myriad of ways, yet always the same answer to an infinite number of stories or scenarios built to veil or hold it apart from what it already is. 

Edited April 24, 2020 by mandyjw