I’m doing some videos to introduce special energies and entities in and around Aberfoyle, Stirling, Scotland in connection with retreats and meditations I’m offering in my new work, NatureMyTemple. The first one is an introduction to a favourite nature tree character of mine in Aberfoyle, Stirling.
Spirituality
Nature My Temple
I’m organising a nature retreat in the Trossachs area in Scotland for Sept 29th – Oct 1st, 2017. For the past few days I’ve been immersed in writing and re-writing about it. It’s simple, yet it’s been a big deal for me to move into being okay with the simplicity of it. Workwise, I’ve gone through a huge transition since pulling back from the tantric work I was offering. This has not just been about trying to find the write words; it’s been about moving into a deeper part of myself, leaning into the Lynn-ness, integrating and embodying (interesting that the word ‘dying’ is within the word embodying) and becoming less of me in so many ways, and in the process, becoming more.
This is my first offering of this kind and it will launch a new endeavour I received a few months ago when meditating at Bracklin Falls in Callander. A new chapter of healing started after I returned from living in Ireland; a very deep process, and central to that was Nature and elemental beings. I started taking even more time in nature, alone, walking, sitting by waterfalls, communing with trees, taking in the beauty of nature, slowing down into stillness and allowing my mind and emotional space to be less complex, divesting myself of deeper and deeper layers of conditioning and fears. I felt called to do this, an essential thing my soul insisted upon. My experiences, and photographs, of nature changed, they became more alive, more multi-dimensional. I found a new term, multi-sensual, which describes perfectly the wholistic nature of life of experience and experiencer.
At Bracklinn Falls that day I received the first insights into a new endeavour, a body of work, part of which is offering retreats for groups of people and elementals to come together in magical, playful, creative collaboration with each other and the elemental beings. This information is part of the story of my whole life expression – I could say it’s the result of all the years of being interested in nature, metaphysics, mysticism, tantra etc etc, yet the truth is that I cannot separate things anymore into cause and effect, so I see the information that came through simply as another chapter in the story of my life expression.
Some years ago, I realised that we (elementals and humans) each hold the key to each other’s fulfilment of potential (growth) – this now became a reality for me. They are our missing piece as we are theirs. For us, they can help us in areas especially where we have most fear; death, sexuality, other realities/dimensions, duality, spirituality, self-sovereignty. And how we help them? Well, that an important thing and what we get to find out in due course will be enlightening. Their story is not separate from ours, just as on a coin, heads is not separate from tails.
Later on I received further information which expanded on the original vision and gave an overall plan for the ‘Body of Work’ which is to explore and develop an organic, multi-sensual, multi-dimensional connection and multi-media collaboration with Nature. In seeking a name, I later consulted my favourite Oak Tree (as you do) at the Doon Hill Fairy Walk in Aberfoyle. I was guided to another tree spirit who brought forward the name “Nature My Temple”.
It’s taken months to integrate these experiences and it’s been very challenging to write about it, and even more so to try to put into words the non-teaching, non-hierarchal nature of these interactions and in turn, the new retreats. How could I offer an event that wasn’t based on teaching or guidance or suggestive of some sort of shift in consciousness, some sort of ‘reward’ or some solution to a problem? How would that be appealing? I’ve been advised that people want to know what their investment will give them. Well, the truth is that I don’t know, and more so, that having an agenda cannot yield realisation. Over and over again I’ve caught myself trying to solve the problem of having an agenda on having no agenda. Lol. Thing is that any reason for doing something, adding any ‘because’ to anything will only push ‘First Cause’ away. Because, there is no ‘because’, there is only ’Be Cause’. (Lol. Did you see that? Using ‘because’ to talk about the untruth of the word?)
Sometimes, it is easier to say what somethign is not than to say what it is. I always found that to be the case when trying to describe what tantra is for instance. About this new work and the retreats/events, I can safely say that it is most definitely not about trying to fix, or solve a problem, or add to anything or anyone.
So, I have done my best to describe the event without adding agenda or raising expectations, though inevitably that will happen and divesting ourselves of such does take practise and persistence. I think though that the best way for me to say it is in the elementals own words:
“We come here and be. We open to stillness and spaciousness in space, thought and time. Join us here where realities intersect.”
Event Details
Over many years now I’ve been having shamanic experiences in nature. It’s taken me to now to be ready to offer this as a Body of Work, Nature My Temple. I’ve written about some of my experiences over the years on this blog, and have added them to the NatureMyTemple category here in my blog so you can find them if you wish to know more about my nature orientated organic shamanic folding and unfolding journey.
Here are the details of the first event in the Trossachs, Sept 29th – Oct 1st. I’m calling it the first even as it was the first one to come to me, and even though I most likely will be going to The Cathar region in France and offering an event there in early September, this one still feels like it will be the first one. That’s the rather strange experience of living in a multi-dimensional reality. At least it is strange until I get used to it. The event is on Facebook and you may also contact me via email at NatureMyTemple@gmail.com.
Waterfalls and Tree Spirits
Sept 29th – Oct 1st, 2017, join Lynn for a retreat weekend that honours the sacredness of Nature and the sacredness of Self. In communion with Nature we may remember our own true nature, our own unique role, and how that contributes to the whole. This is a journey with many dimensions, many destinations and many diversions! The elemental beings are inviting us to ‘weave a living myth with nature’ – a creative collaboration with them and Mother Earth in conscious evolution.
In coming together in Nature we will weave this living story and our own myth will emerge from the symbols of individual experiences. For each person they will be both the whole story and part of the group story at the same time – as above, so below. Each may know themselves as a unique and essential part of the collective. The Elementals will help us to find and honour our own role and presence whilst at the same time, not putting any pressure of performance on ourselves.
“We come here and be. We open to stillness and spaciousness in space, thought and time. Join us here where realities intersect.”
The theme for this retreat is Waterfalls and Tree Spirits, and that in knowing ‘samenesses’ and ‘differences’ we may know, grow and appreciate more of life. The essence is yin; water, wood, inner space, emptiness, silence, stillness, spaciousness, softness, sharing. The intention is simplicity and that less is more. The outcome may be a gift for self, and/or something to share; a symbol, an insight, an image, a word, a story, a tale, a joke, a song, a movement, a drawing, a sign or silence. It is part of the vision that our sharing will be put online in a simple presentation format.* In this way, it will stay alive, weaving a living myth of our time together, and being the foundation of many to come, more multi-sensual retreats/presentations will join it and as each new person interacts with it, it will become more, as they will too. This is how Weaving a Living Myth works.
*Nature changes and adapts all of the time. It is not a given that sharings are put online, though it is part of the overall vision for NatureMyTemple to publish online. It’s my intention that each feels free to contribute without judgment or the need to validate one’s sharings, and the vision to share online forms a testimony to this. I will always seek agreement prior to publishing online. This could be anonymously if desired. Anything shared remains the property of the experiencer. My intention is to eventually use the ‘Prezi’ application, and I’d love to hear from anyone who has experience, or feels they can assist in working with this. This is a work in progress and will continue to develop in creative collaboration.
©Lynn Paterson July 2017
Does the shamanic nature theme speak to your heart? Do you want to connect and share more with me? I’m daily on Instagram and my personal Facebook page, weekly on Facebook NatureMyTemple.
Deadwood
Consciousness doesn’t leave you when you die. Consciousness cannot die. The physical form may cease to be as it is, yet even that is consciousness in another form, and it may change its form so dying is simply a rearrangement of consciousness, form-in-motion. In-form-motion. It is forming and unforming in every moment. Living in the physical is a choice in every moment: An “informed” choice. That we don’t see or know it this way is simply down to our beliefs. The dead wood is made of the same stuff as that which lives on it: consciousness. Consciousness is energy that is aware of itself. So how could the wood be dead? Only if we are unable to see what it is will it look either dead or alive. It is been eaten now by a bug, digested in the stomach… at what point does it become the bug?
Not Now
Looking through my journal for some notes, I came across this little piece I wrote a few months ago. It speaks of the experience of contraction after expansion. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, as Jack Kornfield put it.
Not Now
The dawn was grey and unpromising
Another one like so many before
Heavy was the first wave of weariness and with pain fast on its heels, it crashed once more onto my heart.
How much more I wondered.
How much more before I can take no more?
Following my plan for the morning, I went about my business not allowing complete despair to root in me again.
Reminding myself of that which I knew; it’s okay, just be with it, I sang to alieve the pain of dread. Could I ever hope that the shift would last?
Or am I doomed to be teased by Clearsight only to have it snatched away overnight?
Three Types of Love
Eventually it becomes impossible to not remember what One is; no matter which path is taken, the follower will always be taken to the end. And the end is always the end, no matter which path has been taken. There is no where else to go. Indeed there is no ‘where’ to go to, only the illusion of going, and only the illusion of a ‘where’.
The enigma of travel is such that it disrupts the mind by interfering with so called intelligence. Indeed there is no such thing as intelligence, as everything is just what it is, in that moment. No intelligence is actually required for something to appear to occur. There is no occurrence, there is no one to observe an occurrence, there is no ‘One’. For there to be a ‘One’ supposes that there be other than ‘one’, i.e., more than one, or many perhaps. Eventually ‘One’ will see that even ‘One’ does not exist other than as a concept. If there is no other than the ‘one’ then there is no need to call itself the ‘one’. Language itself is the evidence of intelligence interfering with reality. Intelligence interfering with reality is what creates the illusion of physical reality, and of change.
Many times, over and over again, with the appearance of change, is the story experienced. IF there is no agreement to resist, then the story reveals itself for it cannot do otherwise, for it is the story after all. How could it hide what it is? Only by agreement of forgetfulness, yet even then, the story is there, in plain sight, but with forgetfulness it appears to disappear, like a reset button is pressed just at the crucial moment of realisation. There are plenty of techniques and mechanisms in place for this to happen over and over again. Yet once in a long while, an opportunity, a gap appears, a state of Grace in the silence of the Aeons is known, and in that moment everything ceases to be. Singularity is experienced and allows the One to know the ultimate of all senses, a sense of wonder, of awe, of Love complete and whole. This Love devours the experiencer, rendering them into nothingness, they cease to be. Agape you might say.
~~~ *****~~~
Now Nature has no need to regard itself, nor regard another. There is no need for reflection in Nature, for even the still water has no need to reflect anything. That it does, is simply the perception of that which sees the reflection, nothing more, nothing less. It does not concern itself with what it is doing, nor how it is done, nor anything in fact. It’s really quite simple – it is neither too much nor too little in itself.
It takes a great deal of energy and effort to run resistance in the physical body. Denial is a hungry master that eats the very flesh of desire and shits out waste that fouls the very environment of self. Allow Eros to roam freely through the body and the experiencer remembers that the physical form is Love manifested into itself. Without denial, there is no closing the door to Eros when he comes knocking and no waste is experienced. Recycling just became obsolete. No waste disposal. No recycling. No ‘wasting’ energy, or time. That’s already a huge load off isn’t it? Simply put, stopping the practise of resisting yourself is all that is required to be yourself. Rather obvious eh?
What’s more (or rather, there isn’t actually more as everything is complete, there are many ways to see it) is that the experience of experiencing Eros consuming the body is to understand the paradox of being both form and formless as first One is this, and then One is that. The very act of Eros is to Love the self into wholeness and then dissolve it once more, over and over again. Defined and undefined. Bounded and boundless. Manifest and un-manifest.
To the divided, Eros may seem selfish in its nature, yet it is also selfless when fully experienced, when not denied. When denied it is petulant and needy, looking only for its own ‘needs’ to be met. When whole, it is needless, it knows of no needs – the body has no needs when Eros is in residence. Needs become a strange concept that the self has no need of and this is fucking good. Or good fucking. Or both actually. This is one of the most delightful things about the body – it is SO impolite, so rude! You might say a person is in ‘rude health’ when Eros is in occupation.
~~~ ***** ~~~
Soul Love, altruistic in nature, reaches out and informs the other that they are not alone, that there is someone else to bear witness to the joy and pain of being soul resident in physical form, informed by Spirit and Matter. For the soul knows such pain, such sorrow and grief at times when forgetfulness takes it far beyond the edges of reason into the abyss of deep despair. Were it not for the other soul that comes forth and holds out his hand to his brother, then the soul would not see the other in form himself. Compassion arises through empathy and understanding:
“Sister, where for art thou that I might feel your gentle gaze upon my soul, that which awakens the depth of Love within me and draws it forth to share with the world?”
“Sister of my Soul, look, here I Am, in everyone you meet!”
Eyes meeting Eyes is recognition in the moment as the unguarded gaze reveals self in other. (Eyes = I’s) Recognition leads to cognition. ‘We’ are here together; two souls, two bodies, one in Spirit. Such joy in sharing, such wonders and delights does the soul get to experience!
“How may I serve thee?” “How may I be served?” This is the nature of Soul Love. It is that which bridges the rivers of life and death and goes beyond both.
~~~ ***** ~~~
We, are, here. We are here to integrate and live through all three expressions of the one Source, The three lenses of body, soul and spirit. Each may express their uniqueness through the lens of Self. Balance may not be imposed, yet without balance, each one is capable of tyranny, for truthfully, in the Light of the One Source, the Eye of the Eye, there is no balance. In other words, the perception, or belief, that one may outweigh the other is only a limited perception, and this will pass in time. But in the mean-time (and it can feel quite mean and nasty at times too) each aspect is capable of tyranny because simply put, we must experience tyranny if we believe one can outweigh the other. This is of course, a perfect method of realising this. Alongside each type of love, is the shadow which appears when the focus of belief is shone upon anything less than the whole self. Shadow may appear as a high or a low. This is of course an illusion, however powerfully real it may seem in the moment, and it is good to remember that this too shall pass. When all resistance ceases, there is nothing to stop the full flow of Source Self from its perfection and therefore the three types of love, or three lenses of body, soul and spirit, are as One.
©Lynn Paterson 2016
The Opportunity of Intensity
This is another message from The Beloved within. It’s from a few years ago now but still feels relevant. I hope it feeds some souls. Blessings.
Hi….
Did you remember to breathe? Are you breathing consciously now?
Whether our experience of intensity is great or small it matters not – intensity is there asking us to grow to include the current experience. We are not our current experience but usually we believe we are. It is a stage on the cycle of growth… once we see intensity as an opportunity for growth and expansion, the cycle will become a spiral of knowledge as perspective will have changed.
Breath is always the key to integrating in the moment ‘the overwhelm’ feeling that experience becomes when we believe we are not big enough or not ‘something’ enough. When we believe we are only this or that, rather than everything, then experience becomes intense because we perceive there to be a great enough difference between ‘this’ or ‘that’, or ‘self’ and ‘other’. This makes us feel even smaller and less than because we have perceived something as outside of ourselves. So often you hear people saying “this is greater than both of us”… this is a misunderstanding…there is nothing greater than me or you or us. The ‘us’ is the remembering of who we truly are but the part of me that does not yet remember fully is now trying to cope with the expansion it is currently experiencing.
ALLOWING is necessary for this stage plus some breaking down of structures previously created, so you can grow to include this experience.
Intensity is not always noticed when there is a small difference between this or that. Becoming sensitive to the difference is the key, and that means getting used to intensity.
Cycles within cycles are always happening, allowing the expansion, integrating the new experience, creating new structures, re-defining picture of self, breaking down structures… etc. but these cycles are all happening at the same time. It’s not some neat pattern where we only get to see one part of the cycle happening at a time, there is always cycles within cycles happening all the time.
There is no perfect way to do relationship! There is not an ideal way of being or doing. Let go of the identification with your experience – it’s just experience and that is growth. Allow this experience without having to change it or give it marks out of ten. Give yourself space to integrate. Give yourself permission to fall apart as your structures disintegrate yet again. Enjoy the new structures of self-definition that occur to you as a result of your integration… this is called realisation… then allow the next experience without having to define is according to your new definition of yourself!!!
OF COURSE you will struggle with this as you are both human and divine and it is so easy to ‘lose’ yourself inbetween… but really the truth is not that you lose yourself, it’s that you have yet to know WHO YOU ARE. You are already ‘lost’ in Oneness or another way to say it is that on one level, that you already know yourself to be everything. You are here to individuate. But how can God individuate without the cycles of growth? How can we as God know ourselves to be THAT until we are THAT? Only through KNOWING that experience is simply growth, and not who we are. When God (us) redefines herself she then KNOWS she is that, and that, and that over there too… and yet, not just that either because already the next cycle has overlapped the current one because God is always growing and experiencing something new. There is always something new happening, change is always occurring and that doesn’t change 🙂
Relationship is there to help you define who you are, and who you are not. When you already have the innate ability to be at one with everything, then how would you manage to know this to be so unless something comes along to show you that? Your gift is to share with others your ability of being at One with everything – it’s not a curse or a fault.
You describe your experience as an issue, yet you are truly seeing the other as an angel and this is accurate. Yet you cannot see yourself as this! So it’s very one-sided – hence the purpose of relationship because without there being ‘an other’ it would be impossible to be see this. This is just God having a new experience through the gift of relationship.
Yes… so it’s very one-sided when we meet an other because one hand we are reminded of our true nature, and yet as that happens, we do not allow ourselves to believe we are that also. WHY? Because we believe we are not good enough to be that due to shame. Everything after that comes from guilt of not being good enough, so we endlessly try to make up the deficit of not being good enough. Unfortunately this is an endless game because there is no such thing as deficit (debt). Why? Because there is no-one else to be indebted to.
Call on Spirit to help you release all shame from your Being, from deep inside every single cell in your physical body. Give yourself the time to allow your experiences without having to decide what next to do. With one hand, touch/grip the back of your head where it meets the neck (occiput) and with the other, the base of spine (coccyx) and command, “Activate and Integrate NOW”. Say it 3 times. This will help. Do the same for perineum and crown.
Ultimately I would say that you think you are failing at this, yet you are aware of where you have elevated someone above you (made special) and so I must ask the question, how conscious is that? Very.
And because you ‘see’, you will not be making the same ‘mistakes’ you made before; you have grown and are now coming from a difference perspective than before. The unsettledness is simply evidence of your growth stage. You will get to the stage of comfort when you redefine yourself, but that too will not last. We do not like the integration part of the process (the magnetic phase) because that part is feminine and we have decided as a collective not to accept the feminine.
You will never make safe the growth process, and if you did, it would not be growth. You will never manage to restrict relationship even if you were temporarily able to define it. So what does doing it on a practical level actually mean? Where have you become attached to your ideas of that?
Yes, yes, yes to intensity….Breathe and allow it to pass through you as if you are transparent, made of gauze… ripples moving through a beautiful lake, from the core of yourself out through your body and fields spherically.
Lynn’s observations: From my work in helping people to grow to include more pleasure, I see that intensity and our need to restrict and control it comes from fear of it – most people say NO to intensity which doesn’t stop the intensity of course because you cannot stop it. So you still get intensity. Trying to slow it down, or divert it somehow doesn’t work either, so no matter what you ultimately do, you will grow through intensity whether you say yes or not to it, because it happens anyway! That is the joke of free will.
Don’t forget to laugh at yourself too, and to admire and congratulate yourself too – like you were observing a child having experiences.
Song to the Elementals
Water, body of life,
Life of my body,
Love me,
Now.
Distil me,
Do not stop until the well runs dry.
Wait for me at the gates of the eternal moment,
Until I am ready to remember.
I love you,
Earth water, love me,
Love me well, forever now in this moment, until I remember you.
Matter, body of life,
Life of my body,
Elementally yours forever now my love.
I remember,
Earth body,
Body of earth,
I love you.
Light in dark places,
Dark matter,
Coming soon.
Fire, of my heart,
Heart, of the fire,
I love you.
Burn me brazen love,
In passion that scorches,
With a glance that destroys,
Every thing.
Burnt ashes, cinders,
Blow in the wind,
Love me Spirit Fire,
Exhaust my love.
Breath of my soul,
A living breath,
Sacred contract, The Bridge.
Dear soul,
I love you.
Wisp of Self,
Drawn together from all time and space,
Blown together now,
Pulsating Earth breath,
Love me. Remind me.
It is right
That all that is left
May not be known
Only experienced
Intangible
Ineffable
Much sought after
Never found
Hidden in plain sight
Uncovered
Realised
The unbounded
I Am
© Lynn Paterson 2016
Reminiscing…
One day about 10 years ago, I was driving along in my car and an old familiar song came on the radio. It took me back years and in an instant I was once again 17 years of age.
I began to feel immersed in the reminiscing. You know that energy? A sweet sorrow – bitter/sweet… a very poignant feeling of wistfully wishing I was there again because it was so much better back then than it was now… ahh…yes how wonderful it all was then…
Or was it?
Was it really better back then than it was right now?
Because right now was pretty superb actually – I was just in the beginning of a fabulous new relationship, new house, and supremely happy, more so than any other time in my life.
Yet here I was wishing I was in another time and space, convinced by this reminiscing energy that I was better off then. So I asked myself in a no-nonsense way and realised that of course it wasn’t better then! It is just some misperception that makes the past seem better or preferable to the present. In fact I reckoned that in another few years I’d be doing exactly the same thing about this time in my life!
Such mind games!
Perhaps it is unreal yet it is also so believable and real in the moment it is happening. If we just take it a face value and not question, then we simply continue believing it. It stays real for us. So although the experience of reminiscing is not altogether unpleasant it does have a rather melancholy aspect to it and a strange addictive self-indulgent tendency most definitely leaning towards maudlin. Hmmm… I got more curious about the power of this energy and wondered how it worked. In fact, the speed at which my state of mind had changed once the song came on was remarkable and I began to question the reality of this experience we call reminiscing.
So I allowed myself to go back into the reminiscing feeling and very quickly I was feeling less content once more. Having done a fair bit of de-programming of cultural and societal beliefs already, I was equipped to deal with it. I questioned this energy outright: Is this Love? I asked myself. “NO” was the answer. “Well if it’s not Love, it’s not Real and I don’t need to believe it any longer. I let it go now”.
And, it left. Immediately and completely. 100% shift in experience – instantly I felt so much clearer with no energy of reminiscing to be found despite that the song was still playing.
I was left in no doubt that this experience we have of reminiscing is not helpful and is not the truth of who we are. It’s just another way to continue circulating discontent in our life.
This was a simple thing for me to do as I was well used to de-programming and was able to notice the shift in experience very quickly. The whole experience lasted less than the 31/2 minutes the song played. The key here is being aware of what is happening in one’s own experience and being in choice, not being in ignorance of what is going on and blindly accepting it.
Get in touch if you’d like to work personally with me on building up your tool kit to deal with this sort of stuff in the moment.
©2016 Lynn Paterson
Mind the Gap!
This is a realisation, and it’s a conversation I had with myself on 15 August 2015. I’ve written it exactly as I experienced it and have ignored the impulse to make changes to make it make more ‘sense’. It is as I heard and experienced it and in the moment it made perfect sense. Although I’ve used the term ‘you’ it is not directed at YOU, but a conversation with myself. I added a bit of an explanation about the game being fun as I know my reaction can often be how is the game fun when there is so much suffering. Lynn
MIND THE GAP!
We are wave and particle ~ blinking in and out of existence, first one, then the other:
Blinking in and out of existence, forgetting I am one when I’m the other. One moment I am this, and then in the next, I am that. When I am this, I have forgotten I am that. When I am that, I have forgotten I am this. It is in the blink of the I (Aye) that forgetting happens – the gap between this and that. The crack in the paving. Mind the gap.
Let me show you how to remember you are not one or the other; you are I and the other.
The journey into Solace (Soulace) begins by being willing to take the first step. There is really only ever one step. One step is all it ever takes. If you truly believe you have taken more than one step, then there is something you have missed; you’ve either left it behind or sent it ahead of yourself, or shunted it to the side. You’ve fallen out of step. There is only one step – it is whole and complete in itself.
What happens when one is fully cognitive of and in each moment? Well, then there is truly only one moment, over and over again. Peace in fact. When one is not fully cognitive in the moment, the moment is fragmented, and one is in pieces, to the exact degree of not being fully cognitive. The moment when you cannot be fully cognitive is going to have to be experienced ‘again’.
Existence and non-existence is simply about where we place focus. If we are able to focus on both this and that in the same moment, on both wave and particle, then the game of duality is up.
But it is such a delicious game! What fun! First I’m this, then I’m that! How could this not be fun? Have I forgotten how to have fun? Why am I trying to be one thing or the other? Be both. Be the cake, AND eat it too.*
Language is both the separator and that which it is separated from.
You are I, 1, and the other.
*In this world of great pain and suffering, which as an empathic person I feel very deeply, I was made very aware that having a sense of fun, taking oneself lightly and laughing often is indeed a great antidote to the terrible seriousness and suffering of the world. It is not to be dismissed as either thoughtless, harsh, unkind nor flippant. The forgetting of fun is indeed part of the root cause of the suffering. Fun and kindness go hand in hand. People who laugh have open hearts, especially those who are able to laugh for no reason at all. Laughter builds bridges between one heart and another. The message that was imparted to me left me in no doubt that the simple truth is that fun and laughter, a childlike innocence, is the key to self-realization and a joyful and very engaging life experience. It what we were created for.
But Alan Watts says it much more succinctly!
And now some random perspectives on that gap…
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Greetings Beloveds,
A continuation of musings in the same vein or theme as the previous blog, The Hidden Beloved.
The ordinary self is not good enough. So I try to make it other. I try to make other myself. I try to impose a shinier version. I yearn to be this big shining star. I effort to find something that I am. I see an angel and think; maybe I am that still waiting to be discovered! Special, different, better, worse… all impossible. The more I want to be special the further I take myself away from truth. The more I set myself aside from ‘others’ the lonelier I become. I belie I am different in my suffering – no one can understand. I get the pleasure of the martyr which is no more than the pain of separation. Separating myself and negating the self are the same thing/action. That I can be different, special, above everyone else was the promise and lie for I can no more be above than below. But I can choose to experience them separately. By separating myself I can choose to split the whole into two. Or at least experience it as such. But even oneness is imaginary surely? Still, it will do for now as it’s impossible to imagine nothingness, and I need some context for to have no belief also seems impossible. In exploring this unveiling the fairy story of the Emperor’s New Clothes came to mind.
I’ve written a new twist on the story. His story, the Emperor’s. And I cannot quite believe that a brief search just now on the old fairy story of The Emperor’s New Clothes is now all about Russell Brand’s new film which is all over the news today!!! – Seriously, I don’t keep up with the media and had no idea when I started writing this several days ago. Just goes to show there is no separation, though in the case of Russell Brand, I wouldn’t mind the illusion. But onwards with the new take on an old story:
The Emperor’s New Clothes
The Emperor believed he could separate himself and be above everyone else. Despite his ever increasing attempts to make himself special, this always failed to make it so, and he became a bit depressed and sometimes a little angry with himself, and drove himself harder and harder to achieve the impossible. He decided to commission a new set of clothes that would finally distinguish himself from everyone else in the crowd on the great day of showing off. The news spread far and wide. Clothes made, dawned the day.
Huge crowds turned out despite the rather cloudy cool day. Most were wearing their sheepskins to keep insulated from the reality of that. And of course, consensus reality meant all had already agreed to see what they were conditioned to see and forget that they had agreed in the first place, leaving them thinking they had a separate mind from everyone else, yet all happy to act the same anyway.
Except for a young child in the crowd outside the palace where the Emperor paraded. This youngster was not conditioned or socialised, and some might call that wild or innocent. The child saw the truth, that the Emperor was not wearing any clothes. In fact, his desire to transform into someone better created the inevitable –it happened. But not in the way he thought he wanted of course as he literally got naked to others before he was ready to get naked to himself! And it turned out that these clothes did the opposite of what he had tried to do; they did not provide a barrier to oneness at all.
As the child spoke up, the spell was broken and others saw through the eyes of innocence and the lies of better or worse than were exposed, just like the Emperor was. Right there, in that moment, the crowd had a chance to stop the game and get naked too, but instead they chose to continue the game of duality, and chose the ‘better than’ role and ridiculed and shamed the Emperor for his pride. Shame and pride are of course opposites in the world of make-believe.
The Emperor also had a choice in that moment as to continue the ‘make-believe’ game or not. But heck, he was already completely bollocks naked, how much worse could it get???
He too saw through the eyes of the child and through the lies of the game and went to the child and thanked him for showing him the truth. In doing so he simply swallowed and digested his pride which immediately gave him a huge sense of freedom and relief, plus a lot of ‘new’ energy to use. His nakedness revealed his natural humanity which is quite harmless really, and so pretty soon no one was afraid of him being better than they any more. In fact, everyone stripped off as the sun came out, the day became warm, people jumped into the fountains, splashing happily as others rushed off in great excitement to prepare a great feast.
And they all lived eternally ever after. Though as humans, it was inevitable that the next day some were hungover as they were not quite ready to embrace the new and simpler way yet.
Where Angels Fear to Tread? 
