Awake in the Dream

  "Let the body think Of the Spirit as streaming, pouring Rushing and shining into it from All sides." Plotinus My dad recently sent me this picture of myself. "A charming picture of your girlhood." he called it. "I like your alert expression. It indicates that your beauty and strength have always been there." I have no conscious memory of this photo being taken. The doll in my hand with the matching dress is not something I ever recall having. And yet, looking past the details and feeling into it, I see my eternal self in my little self. Before social conditioning had taken full hold. Before my personality was something to be identified with. I see myself mirrored back to myself and I smile. "Spirituality is what is left when you stop performing." Maryam Hasnaa As I slowly untangle from the collective web, I find the quiet time alone unnerving and also exhilarating. Forever chasing that desire to merge with the Divine (Chiron in my 12th house y...

I’m ditching my smartphone. After 8 years as a user the negative affects on my mental well being and my life at large are enough that I want to make a change. In the year 2021that change is no small thing. It’s oddly comical and equally frustrating how trying to simplify can be so complicated. My favorite texting phones from a decade ago are no longer supported by my provider and intentionally simplified options like the light phone II are TOO simple ($300 for a phone that can’t receive picture messages and won’t let me access my voicemail? Um, no).  I’m looking at cameras (the feature I will miss most about the addictive super computer I carry around with me), and gps devices for my car. I’m listening to people’s reactions (“that seems a little drastic!” “Are you sure?!” “I could never do that”). This move is something I’ve been considering for the past six months. The familiar feeling that I had when I began  the long journey to quitting alcohol is back. It feels a bit daunt...

  “The instinct for beauty and the instinct of truth are similar. They are like our floating collarbones that are connected by the awakening of our heart. The heart brings them together, relieving them from separation.” Mikael Jibril My thirst for knowledge and information can seem insatiable at times. Whether I am reading ancient texts, current blogs, listening to the tenth podcast of the day, reading scientific literature (admittedly my least favorite), my mind is always swimming in information. There is a side of me that wants to hole up in a library for the rest of my life so great is my desire to know more.  What is missing from this drive to consume more and more information is integration, and a conscious effort to balance the mental energy with heart energy. For this is where true integration occurs.  In the age of information I know I am not alone in this thirst to know and never has it been easier to consume information. Couple that with a culture that priz...

 “ People will never rebel against a system while they’re being successfully propagandized not to. It will never, ever happen.” Caitlin Johnstone “The extent to which we’re all policing each other’s voices right now shows how much we’re still operating within oppressor consciousness in which manipulating others to maintain safety and control is expected and encouraged.” Aaron Rose There are times when I find the mainstream narrative around our current situation so insufferable that I want to scream. Last weekend while attending a memorial for a dear friend’s mother I was talking with another friend about how she was doing and she talked about the virus, how both of her parents had contracted it and how much better things will be “when everyone gets vaccinated an d we can just get back to normal again.” I stared silently at her, my full facial expression hidden behind a mask. When I told her husband I have no intention of receiving the vaccine he stared at me with the same quiet j...