ARE YOU LOST? Do you dream of nature, forests, trees, overgrowth? As you you’re your eyes and fall into the moss, does the forest speak to you, become your friend?
DEFEATING NIGHTMARES – In your terror, the forest is a hostile place, determined to punish you for invading its magnificence. Fear is a reaction, but courage is a choice. Speak to the forest, apologize for the cruelties of the past, and promise to listen to its song in future.
JOURNALING – You need to find yourself. Your own map is the only way through. These dreamspulse with an energy that is gathering within you as you ready yourself for some great task.
YOUAREAPOWER– You struggle to find your force. You feel the power and strength of undefinedwishes and the longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you willhave to map this forest yourself. Be brave.
CHALLENGE–There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow ofenergy pulses with your every heartbeat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willinglyseek to smooth your path.
DANGERS – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your setcourse. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” Weare all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If youaren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss. When the forest loves you, you must love it back.
OPPORTUNITIES–We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate among them– for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult other maps indesigning your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Open your Dream Journal. Close your eyes. And draw your future. Salut!
Where we explore our dream together, uncovering meaning and enhancing psychic and spiritual growth.
YOUAREASEEKER– You are self-defining. You are on a quest. You wish to experience to the fullthe nature of having a self. You are becoming alert to the possibilities inherent in your particularmomentary incarnation and you wish to explore them.
DANGERS – The danger of self-regard is that in turning our eyes inward we miss important signalscoming from other people and the world around us. Yet “retreating inward” is a vital path to self-knowledge and growth.
CHALLENGE -The solution to this challenge is to set a Spirituality Schedule to reflect our needs andinterests. Appoint time to be absolutely alone, for meditation and reflection. If you cannot find a room toyourself, a closet will do. You can sit in the meditation position or assume any position that allows youto be comfortable enough to become physically forgetful. Concentrate first on building a life that allowsboth inner and outer growth. Surround yourself with people who respect this decision.
OPPORTUNITIES– This is a journey. Accept it. Begin a journal with 1. “I” and write down yourmeditation thoughts and desires. Tis can be a poem, a fantasy, a checklist – whatever pattern occurs toyou as supportive of your desires. Make a list of goals. Push shame away. This is about YOU. Of courseas you evolve, your goals will evolve, and your journal will reflect that. When you have completed yourTime Alone – ten minutes to an hour – whatever works for you – pat yourself on the back. What anachievement! You are started on a path of making changing Nightmares into Dreams and making dreamscome true.
Get a notebook. We are starting our Dream Journal.
Jung tells us that in your dream, you are everyone. You have dreamed of an Eye. The Eye is You. YourEgo is under threat. What does this mean?
STUDY YOUR SURROUNDINGS – Who? What? When? Where? And Why? We will begin mapping the people around you to determine whether you are in a growth or destructive environment, and building better patterns. Open your Dream Journal.
WHO? List the people around you and try to capture their chatter, their effect on you. It isn’t necessarily what they say directly to you, it is how they feel entitled to speak, it is what you are forced to hear. Sometimes we “correct” these oppressive effects with the conversation of dramatic personae in screen, literature & song. We flee into art to protect ourselves from the cruelties of existence. List these characters also – your heroes and villains – and what you like and need about them. We are going to assemble a ragbag team of defenders and collaborators for Dream Group.
WHAT? When you list what they say, note how that makes you feel. We are going to assume control over these emotions.
WHEN? At what time of day or night do these characters attempt to assume power over you? What is your state or rest or readiness?
WHERE? Where are you when this is going on? Work? Home? Friends’ place? Café? Bed? Inside your locked heart? Where do you feel safe? Where are you most yourself?
WHY? How did you get here? What was the plan? How has that changed? What’s the plan now?
CLOSE YOUR BOOK – Close your eyes. Let’s end with a meditation.
The Fire Goddess Forgives – But it hurts. Because true forgiveness transforms.
What Is Forgiveness? There are two kinds – dismissal (i.e. handing over to God) and actual forgiveness. Actual forgiveness is a re-birthing process, where a relationship starts again, building and growing, just like a person. And that hurts, not just because of all the little cuts and scrapes that come with growth but because it risks recurrence of the disaster that required forgiveness in the first place.
Dismissal is an acknowledgement that no relationship is possible. The offender is handed over to God, and never thought of again. The wounded work on processing the harm with disaster specialists.
Forgiveness Hurts the Forgiven and Forgiver – It hurts to forgive and it hurts to be forgiven. But God requires us to forgive so that we can be forgiven. This is a serious charge, we need to work on it as long as possible.
Do you need to forgive? Or be forgiven? Most of us require both! Ask your dreams. Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. “Home” represents “unconditional love”, the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and forgotten.
Goddesses Create the Future – We commit to the ultimate compassion that we are all in this together. Jesus suggests that understanding doesn’t arrive until we learn to be “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.
Goddesses Create Heaven – Such forgiveness helps us achieve the state of spiritual lightness that allows a goddess to float through time, history, even the universe.
Goddesses Are at Home In the World – What’s your “dream home”? A goddess’s training emphasizes understanding and managing the fragility of the human body and the objective world, and accepting our healing and unifying mandate. Once we have scoped out the terrain and the inhabitants, Goddesses are at “home” anywhere.
Goddesses are About Justice – But not the kind that leaves more brokenness behind. Goddess achievements and physical selves display the triumph of thought, will and love.
What Does It Mean to “Start Over”? –We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we are all contributing to frees us from painful rumination and helps escape and explain the prison of blame. “I did this because you …” Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves.We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.
It’s All About You – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. The question for Christians is, which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? In what group – or even in what “moment” can you detach from the mess?
Goddess Danger – We can’t afford to get mixed up about right and wrong. “By their fruits shall you know them.” Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error”. The threat is NOT coming from inside the house. Martin Luther King Jr. made the wise comment that our specific brand of capitalism tends toward is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they demand absolute freedom.
What Is the Bigger Picture? Health and safety for all living things to achieve their growth potential as part of a harmonious, non-exploitative whole. It is key that our resistance – which is necessary and life-giving – not embitter us.
Forgiveness Is Our Armor – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is a request, not a demand. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party instead seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change – that’s the way I am” — that’s toxic – a recipe for dismissal. “Home” is not re-created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, (because of safety) only to yourself. “If I’m not willing to try giving up my participation in this suffering because I think I’m not able to, then this pattern will continually get worse.” Time to construct a better – more intelligent map.
Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry
“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world”
– Marianne Williamson
“The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi
“To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman
“Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes
The future weighs on The Crystal Goddess, and she will not be found wanting –
The Number One question people have about dreams is, Are they prophetic? And the answer is of course YES. The Crystal Goddess knows the “truth’. She knows many truths. Others may fear the truth. People don’t want to face the truth. The continuing “losses” of age present as accretions that are hard to see.
But The Crystal Goddess Sees. She is an Artist, and art – especially good art – is as mysterious, meaningful and forceful as any living thing. It is predictive and presumptive. It changes as you change, and it changes depending on who is looking and how they look.
Goddesses Understand Truth, Goddesses Accept Revelation – Visions tell us when to be afraid, Dreams warn when something is missing, Reverie uncovers all the secrets we keep from ourselves, Meditation forges pathways, Imagination rockets us heavenwards. If the first obligation is that the truth is a predisposition of freedom, the second, equally terrifying, is that truth is the lens of history. Goddesses spurn the hiding, lying, misrepresentation, that substitutes for truth.
Goddess Can Handle Truth – We are human, we are imperfect, and we need each other. Humans require governance and law to regulate our natural blindness and selfishness (which some would call original sin) into peaceful, productive accord. The truth is also that humans who lust only for power will eternally angle to get themselves into positions of control, exclusion and punishment. These impulses must be identified and weeded out and it is courageous, difficult, and really unwelcome work, because we creative, loving, generous goddesses also have our own lives to live.
Goddess Danger – Intuition notifies us when one of these lethal persons is in our midst. Maps & models offer a variety of plans for confrontation and escape, and a recipe for courage. At the time of writing, Lethal Persons are banding together and hoarding weapons to give themselves even more guarantees for power and more opportunities to enjoy our despair.
Goddess Promise – Jesus said evil will not win. The challenge is to explore what ELSE he said, indeed, what is the message of all the great teachers? People who tell you to hate one another and seek reasons for war are agents of evil. The first challenge is to create peace in our own hearts, peace in our own lives, peace in our own homes, and then start developing compassion for those who are not so lucky.
When Brutal Tactics and Empty Promises are Exposed as family destroyers, peace destroyers and community destroyers, we see clearly that efforts to spread and share despair come from a desire to surmount despair, also that it has never worked and is not working. It allows the torturer the briefest respite. Only when the goal of increasing world suffering is given up can we welcome penitents back into the community of Sharing.
Models & Mentors – “We write the future moment to moment” – Pema Chodron
“The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and leave you to peer through for yourself” – Frank Herbert
“The greatest thing a human soul can accomplish in this world is to see that poetry, prophecy & religion all are one”
– John Ruskin
“The best way to predict the future is to create it”
– Abraham Lincoln
“Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not come, let us begin” – Mother Teresa
The Goddess’s Greatest Gifts – Do you dream of restoration, of nostalgia, of lost youth? Magic? Let the healing begin.
Goddesses Believe in MagicBecause They Have Seen It – It’s a magical world, where flowers push upwards through cement, the wounded rise and entanglement theory alchemizes quantum computation. Bravely, we put ourselves in the way of harm, and harm is done to us. But we believe in the magic of perfecting through transformation. These scars, these wounds, these experiences make us smarter, harder, brighter and as beautiful as the universe itself.
Understand the Meaning of Your Scars – These are life’s tattoos, which have ennobled you. It is your honor to embody the story of the universe with your blood and your bone. But It is the Goddess’s Brain that brings us closest to God. The mystery of suffering is that it educates us into the greatest mystery of all –that God is willing to suffer with us because Love means holding each other through pain and infusing our strength into another’s sadness.
Bow To Each Other – Show Respect – We are each other’s masters, we are each other’s pupils, we are each other’s lovers, siblings and rescuers. Drinking healing ginger tea from a translucent porcelain chalice, we lift our cups to one another. We bathe together in steaming pools. I release you as you release me. When darkness falls, we touch one another’s hands before departing. To fulfill our yearning, we may blend bodies.
Goddesses Recognize That We Cannot Diagnose Ourselves – We offer ourselves for the universe’s good and so it takes a world to cure us. Healing and diagnosis alike will come from the welcome lips of another. It has been scientifically proven that even plants respond to kind words. We yearn for the laying on of hands, for the gentle rituals that pass us from one stage of life to another.
Goddess Challenge – Paradoxically, no “medicine” can succeed unless we “accept” our healing spiritually. We must feel “worthy” of restoration, deserving of transformation. What truth do we embody? Think deeply. We are not self-punishing but state as clearly as we can that life is valuable in all its forms. If you are only as “young” as you feel, are we only as “healthy” as we allow ourselves to be? Forgive yourself. Accept change. Contrary to our fears, it is change that keeps us young.
Goddess Danger – Healing cannot occur in an atmosphere of self-hatred and self-blame, but many of us are STILL “blaming” ourselves (and others!) for twists of fate, for unlucky genetic, social and medical outcomes. “Fundamental attribution error” consists of blaming individuals for group effects. We are all caught up in the machinery of temporality. Never forget that we are souls who happen to have bodies, not bodies who happen to have souls.
Goddess Opportunity – “Restoration” is such a glorious promise that early Christians found themselves ensnared in decades of argument about PHYSICAL resurrection. How would it work in cases of burning and dismemberment, exactly? It is easy to laugh at these painfully ridiculous theological conflicts. One is reminded of St. Joan of Arc’s response to interrogators at her trial who asked if angels appeared to her naked – “Do you think God cannot afford to clothe his angels?” Accept the power accorded to you by the universe. Accept the strength of your own mind, the control given by your chosen attitude. Healing is not just possible, it is a life-force in which we can all participate. Jesus came as a healer.
Models & Mentors – “Healing yourself is connected with healing others”
– Yoko Ono
“What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.”
– Haruki Murakami
Your body cannot heal without play. Your mind cannot heal without laughter. Your soul cannot heal without joy.”~ Catherine Rippinger Fenwick
“We are healed of suffering only if we experience it to the full – Marcel Proust
Uh oh. You’ve become too attached. Remember, Goddesses Rise Above – Investigate. To … what is the addition exactly? Take it slow. How is your attachment harming your principles? Values? Relationships? Carefully map it out.
The Goddess’s Fiercest Battle – Do you dream of imprisonment? Blank walls? Chains?Our neurocircuitry mandates habit-making behavior, but our intelligence recognizes entrapment, and our dreams send out distress signals. If you’re human, there is no way to avoid addiction. Welcome to the Club!
We Are Wired for Addiction – If there’s no escaping it – that means you will have to fight this battle. But the good news is, this is exactly how you become a Goddess, and Goddesses are Free. Anyone who hasn’t done investigated and broken the chains is still a slave to “factory settings” – hormones, instincts, patterning – just as animals are. Here’s the very challenge you became a Goddess for – your best chance to develop a free will and a free soul.
Study Your Opponent – Turns out we have tremendous choice over what we become addicted to. Some addictions are less corrupting than others. Visit an AA meeting and the consumption of sugar and tobacco is outright alarming. Are you addicted to gambling? Do you work in sales? Were you raised in a ritualistic faith? We easily become dependent on praise, on safety, on gratification, and our brains (and our general health) show our dependency. These very brains threaten and panic when the “treat” is withdrawn.
Goddess Challenge – This parasite doesn’t care if it kills the host.If you fear you are approaching a cliff-edge, you probably are. One test is to go on a “retreat” where your customary gratifications are not available, and attempt to form new, healthier gratifications, like sleep, prayer, meditation, the arts, cooking, sports, friendship. See what happens! Is your personality threatening to disintegrate? Good! Let’s build a new one! High time to ask yourself: who am I really? This is such a good idea, we should build it into our lives, periodically. Just to keep us recognizing that recurring cliff-edge where Soul and Self are lost.
Goddess Danger – Free Goddesses live with the possibility that we will lose our autonomy. Most people want to evolve, know they SHOULD change, but fear they CAN’T. There’s no shame in needing outside help. As we pointed out under “Cooperation” and “Alliances”, Goddesses need teams. This is the purpose of interventions, to demonstrate to our eyes and ears that we are harming ourselves and our relationships. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, especially when we think we’ve finally found a substance/process that “magically” allows us to live on our particular cliff-edge – a dangerous job, risky sexual behaviors, risky recreational behaviors.
Worst-Case Scenario – is that an addiction becomes our identity. We always have the choice of refusing to change – giving up focus, goals, principles and relationships to keep up our self-abuse. Some hardened wretches will tell anyone who listens that life itself isn’t worth it without their life-threatening self-abuse. They are choosing to die as slaves.
Goddess Opportunity – You not only CAN free yourself, you MUST to deserve and preserve your Goddess Status. It is your spiritual obligation to live this territorial existence as an enlightenment opportunity. Familiar with the saying, “Live simply so that others may simply live” ? That mandates sharing. That means ALWAYS studying your consumption, NEVER allowing yourself to turn into a greedy pig and scheduling time to be alone with the universe and with God. To check on the hardiness of your Soul.
Models & Mentors – “You can’t defeat the darkness by keeping it caged inside you” – Seth Adam Smith
“All addictions are ways to not feel our feelings”
– Ellen Burstyn
“Sometimes you can only find heaven by backing slowly away from hell”
– Carrie Fisher
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”. – Robert Collier
“The most common way people give up their power is thinking they don’t have any” – Alice Walker
The Tulip Goddess Masters Magic – the Art of Illusion. Much illusion is the art of Misdirection – allowing the credulous to deceive themselves. The Goddess of Magic has noticed that the development of Maturity is NOT popular with everybody, because it prevents the Narcissistic Acting-Out so gratifying to the determinedly undeveloped. Unfortunately those who pursue power, instead of self-development, often achieve their goal. The Goddess is always being governed by her inferiors. We aren’t in heaven yet.
The Road to Enlightenment – is long and painful and currently has a bad press. The Tulip goddess understands the human desires behind wishing and subjugation – handing your soul over to a “collector” for “processing” feels like a relief. A magic dissolution of “the rules”. But the Goddess recognizes that mirages – especially those we close our eyes to believe in – are illusions. Falsehoods. Clinging to obvious fantasies triggers willing surrender of our ability to discern fact from fiction.
Illusions are Powerful – The seventeenth century Dutch needed a desirable luxury exchange item the privileged could trade back and forth for status reasons. Yes, that was the tulip bulb. It was a bubble – of course– the bottom fell out – of course – and left a whole lot of previously comfortable people bankrupt. We don’t have anything like that, these days, do we? Or do we? People are rushing to invest in crypto because of its complete lack of regulation. But without any rules, it’s laughably easy to steal people’s money.
Some Illusions Are Life Strengthening – Others are Life-Depleting. The Goddess knows the difference. Goddesses avoid fantasy thinking. Goddesses traffic in absolute reality. We create worthwhile magic, the kind that protects and enhances – so we can’t be deceived by the “magic” that punishes and stigmatizes. Your map must represent actual ground, not pie in the sky, or you won’t be able to maneuver across it. We understand the attraction of The Mirage. The problem with mirages – especially those we long to believe in – is that they evolve into illusions which create delusions.
Illusions Become Delusions – The Buddhists say life itself is an illusion. But they mean that metaphorically, to keep you from become “attached” to the “ephemeral.” The physics, gravity, chemistry and hydraulics of everyday life are hardly illusive. Above all, we should avoid clinging to fake food and pushing away nutrition. When goddess end up battling FOR falsity – it’s the worst of all possible situations.
Goddess Challenge – Face facts. Learn to recognize the difference between believable experts and carnival barkers. Learn to enjoy reality as a bracing polar dip. Are you trapped by anillusion that you used to need but now is killing you? You can identify this by increasing suffering throughout an increasingly problematic life and your diminishing pleasure over things that once were reliable joys. Is it a relationship? An activity? A belief? Look at the problem honestly. Find others going through the same experience and generate honest discussion.
Flying Monkeys Abound – When group members rush in defensively to shame and discourage you, to convince you you’re not feeling or understanding what you KNOW you ARE feeling and understanding then realize you’re being gaslighted. What you’re trying to exit is a “cult” that is NOT devoted to the health of its members but to their diminishment. Stop communicating with those flying monkeys and find somebody who supports the truth of your actual experience AND your desire to feel better.
Goddess Danger – The path to re-making yourself is fraught with danger and you will require all sorts of help. Don’t be discouraged if your feelings are volatile and transitory and you are confused about their reality. Move slowly, consulting Models & Mentors – kind others who respect your autonomy, individuality and with whom you feel safe.
Goddess Opportunity – Relax! Goddesses become adept at shifting vision from night vision to day vision, forward and backwards through time, manifesting others’ auras until we can all see possibility and love.
We Transform Illusion Through Skill – The impossible takes longer, because language is not as flexible as reality. You are embarked on an exciting growth challenge where you leave a constricting carapace behind. Sometimes the “shell” was protective and served for a time to keep you safe while you matured. You don’t need to disparage the old you, or the old relationship; it served its purpose. Often people who have been through a trauma say afterwards they wouldn’t change the past, because they treasure and embrace the person they’ve become.
Models & Mentors – “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours” – Richard Bach
“The world is an illusion we must take seriously.”
– Aldous Huxley
“The light at the end of the tunnel is not an illusion – the tunnel’s the illusion” – Alysse Aallyn
“Separation from each other is an optical illusion of reality” – Albert Einstein
‘Limit, like fear, is often an illusion” – Michael Jordan
GoddessesUpgrade their Definition of Success – A surprising number of remarkably successful people aren’t “happy”. I put happiness in quotes because happiness wasn’t their goal, they were just hoping it would be a gratification of widely acknowledged success. But here’s the shocker; it isn’t. And that shouldn’t surprise anyone because the conditions of success – the eternal busyness, the ruthless ranking, the endless competition – crowd out both peace and bliss. So – do you give up on Success? Or do you give up on Bliss?
Goddesses Redefine – they don’t allow others to tell them what to think. A pat on the back is nice, but goddesses are removed from the crowd. It’s awkward telling a wild orchid “you’re doing a great job.”
Goddesses Dream of Bliss – Do you dream of adulation? Applause? The Diamond’s checkered history reminds us that the journey, not the arrival matters, because goddesses say the “successful life” is one long journey to eternal perfection. The tired and footsore goddess needs heartwarming visions to sustain her joy for the voyage.
Success Is a Worse Hazard for Goddesses Than Failure – If the journey, not the arrival matters, battle-hardened goddesses may collapse on reaching Road’s End. Nothing pulls a goddess out of her cloud like subservience to other’s opinions. Future plans are inevitably torpedoed in pursuit of a momentary “approval” fix. If “success” is static and stasis is stagnation, then surely the process of improvement – the Goddess’ Mantra – is what we really want. Success itself is a mirage.
We’re Competing With Ourselves – Abraham Lincoln famously said people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If we define “success” as adulation and approval by others, haven’t we given away the ultimate power over our lives? Most people define success in purely material ways – it’s the only way to explain the salaries CEO’s pay themselves, while they freely admit nobody “deserves” that much money. They don’t seem to be using it very responsibly either, so I would judge them as “unsuccessful.” If the most important standards are your own personal ones then the only person to please is yourself and those you love. Let’s rephrase this challenge: are you content?
Goddess Challenge – When success is “arrival”, a “finish line” is implied. Do you really want to be finished? As we desire constant progress, then reaching the goal is death. But the opposite – endless striving – is just a treadmill. A “rat race”, in point of fact. So the ultimate success must be “contentment”. To be content we must assess our lives and come to terms with our missteps. Sometimes we discovered something even more wonderful that we didn’t even know we were searching for.
Goddess Danger – Success is a drug: be careful. Don’t get addicted. Our society views everything as a competition, and the fundamental danger is you comparing your INSIDES (i.e., how you feel) with everyone else’s “outsides” (i.e., how they LOOK.) You know that’s nonsensical. We don’t visualize each other’s sadness and pain, only display and showmanship.
Goddess Opportunity – is to feel compassion for another’s hurt and struggle. Feel compassion (and forgiveness) for your own hurt and struggle. Assess your place on life’s path. Maybe you’re still on the edge of some great discovery, if so, keep going! Maybe it’s time to take stock of how far you’ve come and have a look at the big map. I like resting, thinking, reading and writing. Retired, I do exactly what I want to most days, surrounded by love. Feels like success to me.
Models & Mentors – “without continual growth & progress, such words as improvement, achievement and success have no meaning” – Benjamin Franklin
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can” – Arthur Ashe
“Rules for success: 1. Believe in your ideas 2. Pick good people 3. Earn Respect 4. Always be a student 5. Enjoy what you do 6. Ask for advice 7. Learn to say No 8. Create the best products 9. Don’t take things personally 10. Create the future”
Goddesses Seek the Light – We are all born in a condition of yearning. As children, we try desperately to understand the world we find ourselves in. Life is a quest for ultimate understanding that will make sense of all the confusion. We know there is a message out there for us, we know we have the capacity to understand it, but we are waiting for the lightning strike of “enlightenment” to put it all together.
Enlightenment is Nothing to Be Feared – Forces of darkness are heavily invested in keeping us dependent and confused. They attempt to imply that “waking up” to reality will separate you forever from everything you loved about your past. This is nonsense. To be enlightened is to be far-seeking and far-seeing while comforted by the Ultimate Love that is the promise of the universe. It is to break the shell of ordinariness with its suspicions and superstitions and see the breathtaking grand plan in which we all have a part to play.
Goddesses Must Constantly Rise – You are coming closer. You are on the cusp of a major discovery that will explain much. Are you dreaming of books, reading, classes, school? Do you often feel you are on a pursuit and the prey is within view?
The Truth Is Simple – Jesus said we have to become children again to enter the kingdom of heaven. This certainly implies that “enlightenment” is more a state of mind than any received, calcified wisdom. The light that pierces darkness is Goddess Oracle’s symbol of the mystical understanding and lightning universal comprehension we call “enlightenment.”
Goddess Challenge – Enlightenment literature recommends two things: a good teacher and time alone. Every night when we go to sleep we enter the alone-time of our own mind. We go to sleep in one world and wake in another. We can prep ourselves in advance with some “good teaching”; Socrates, Plato, Montaigne, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Batchelor, the Dalai Lama – savor these models until you get a sense which one speaks especially to you. Then set aside twenty-minutes or a half an hour for reading (or listening) right before sleep.
Goddess Danger – Zen teachers say that if anyone represents themselves as a Zen teacher they aren’t. Gnostic gospels say prophets asking for money are false prophets. Search for a guru is fraught with landmines. This is why I mention specific names of teachers available at any library who will not be trying to gain any ascendance or dominance over you personally.
Be Wary of Giving Your Spirit into Another’s Care. If they have demanded submission they will be cruel. The sin against the Holy Ghost is the only sin that cannot be forgiven, and it is the sin of running roughshod over our spiritual receptors. Once trust and faith are destroyed, it is difficult to “become a child again” because of the terrible things we have known and seen.
Goddess Opportunity – Broken places let in the light and healing is always available. Even when scarred by false prophets we feel there is a magic of universal love and resilience available to us. A variety of healing ceremonials – my favorite is the “miracle bath” and the “laying on of hands” – will reconnect you to the possibilities of joy, love and the insight leading to enlightenment.
Models & Mentors -. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” – Lao Tzu
“Enlightenment is your felt state of Oneness with Being” – Eckhart Tolle
“The road to enlightenment is long and difficult and you should not forget snacks and magazines” – Anne LaMott
“Suffering is temporary, enlightenment is forever” – Buddha
“Enlightenment does not come from the mind, it comes from just being. You are already enlightened. You have to realize it to allow it into your experience”-
Goddesses Are Vulnerable Because of Heightened Perceptions – You wake up trembling.Are you helpless in your dreams? Do you dream of children, of your own childhood? In Goddess Oracle, the rose represents the soft evanescence of youth when the merest thumbprint of emphasis can leave eternal impressions. As the emblem of beauty, the Rose warns us that this quivering, temporary vulnerability may be the very definition of loveliness.
Goddesses Are Temporal Because Life is Evanescent – We are human, and while we live revel in our humanity. As goddesses we defend and define youth, beauty, and humanity, in order to deserve all three.
We Remember Where We Came From – You well recollect how you were molded. Is it a pleasant nostalgic vision or a horror story? Do you resent all the other actors in this drama? Remember, resentment is a poison only we consume – we are the only ones it harms. Value Your Training – good and bad – as you value your humanity.
Roses Have Thorns – Celebrate Yours – Everyone sees the thorn-stripped rose the florist sells, forgetting that roses were born with protections, just like the rest of us. Contemplate your Goddess Superpowers. Of these, long-distance perspective, serenity and mindfulness will serve you best. Comparative History explains many situations.
Goddess Protections – Our Training, our Mental Agility, our Commitments, our Alliances – and most especially our long multiverse worldview. Others may surrender and fade away, but as we are designed for eternal power, we relish the bliss of Sight, Feeling and Thought. It is the essence of life to struggle, to mentally picture a goal and to design and redesign a gorgeous, life-changing, vision-enhancing map for all who follow.
Goddess Challenge – Can we turn the building blocks of our own past into a constructive, hopeful framework for the future? Can you mentally accept and explore the powers of a hardening maturity?
Goddesses Preserve & Build – We do not destroy. The philosophy of “annihilation” is a psychic snare. Ultimate obliteration is up to God alone. Terrible things happen to ordinary people and they are changed forever. We may wish those things hadn’t happened but regret prevents us from focusing on reality. We need to understand the world we’re in and map it for those who follow after. History and literature explore the coping mechanisms around disaster and the strong people it produces.
Goddess Opportunity – Resilience is the art we cultivate. We soon realize resilience has its own beauty; this rose may be cut down but the plant is hardly dead, in fact it offers an outpouring of constant roses. That is true beauty.
Models & Mentors – “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity”
– Brene Brown
“Being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure”
– Bob Marley
“Sometimes you have to drop your guard so your heart can breathe” – Emma Xu
“The strongest love is the love that can demonstrate its fragility” – Paulo Coelho
Alysse Aallyn 