mandyjw

The first time I felt like I was really slipping, I gave up and engaged with life more, let myself do things I thought were low consciousness. By doing this I ended up accidentally becoming conscious of the law of attraction and at the same time it felt like it was becoming conscious of me. Then everything blew up and came together in a really freaky/cool way, and after I could see that the low consciousness activities I had chosen were strangely prophetic and deeply spiritual in their own way. I just thought (prejudged) that because I enjoyed them and there was no real "purpose" that they were a waste of time. If I were you I'd re-examine how you define spiritual "work", and your dedication to it. Spirituality doesn't want to just sleep in your bed with you like you've had an arranged marriage with it, it needs to be a passionate love affair. Powerful attraction to it must overcome the mind's trying to make sense of it.

True shadow work goes after your deepest "pain points" but from a place of expansive love and understanding. We think of death as a loss or a ceasing to be "you", but in order for death to occur at all there must be a you to die. Death is more of an experience of finally accepting (with love) the things you had always resisted that were always a part of you. This is what is meant by there is no death. Death = Self Love = the truth of no self, you include everything. Paradoxically on the path there is stuff that is experienced that is seemingly"not it". If there was not stuff that felt like it was not it (ie felt bad) there could not be the experience of discovery, a path or a transformation at all. Regarding the life purpose stuff, your purpose of exploring can be expanded to include exploring which living options leave you the most freedom to explore, it's all exploring in itself. I live in a rural area and I'm pretty amazed how easy survival seems in comparison with more developed areas. You can live in a trailer, camper or small home with your own well and electricity, even have a good bit of land and be completely free with very little savings or regular income. So many of our needs and wants are far from basic but assumed as such. So many peopl are so used to assuming that this is what poverty looks like that they miss the freedom that comes with it, as long as it is by conscious choice and not default. My parents lived in the middle of the woods with no electricity in a log cabin they built themselves with a dug well for a few years. My sister and her fiance built a yurt in the middle of the woods and lived there a few years. Eventually they also opted for electricity and running water. Give yourself freedom to let your desires change and clarify over time. Have you seem Nahm's thread about having a dream board? I highly recommend it.

LOVE your photos.

In my experience the only thing that works is to get really sensitive to how the food effects you after eating or appears/appeals to you before eating. Hearing other people's ideas and suggestions and experiences is helpful to motivate us to reexamine an unconscious diet, but we can never adopt someone else's rules to follow without having backlash or dealing with repression.

I just have to say, that sweater though.

Favorite song right now for whatever reason.

I love this. I believe it with my whole heart but also needed the reminder. Thank you.

Last night the stars were stunning, it was one of those nights that I had to go out in the cold and just look at them. I saw an obvious star cluster for the first time. Today was a great day of hedonism. During the awakening, that did not happen in the past and never stopped, but seems to have happened to a me in April of last year, I had a ton of Christmas references coming up. I guess because everyday is Christmas, everyday is your birthday, there is no time, but only love. Today I went to the stone foundation at Pomroy's where I left the red Christmas bow at that time in April. Today I left some winterberries there. There were a couple woodpeckers and the squirrels that always chatter at me, they are a permanent fixture in the winter it seems. I went to the stone platform. The giant spruce tree that grows on the corner was covered in spiderwebs that glowed in the sun. I immediately remembered a legend I had forgotten about, having to do with spider webs on Christmas trees. "The Legend of the Christmas Spider is an Eastern European folktale which explains the origin of tinsel on Christmas trees. It is most prevalent in Western Ukraine, where small ornaments in the shape of a spider are traditionally a part of the Christmas decorations. A poor but hardworking widow once lived in a small hut with her children. One summer day, a pine cone fell on the earthen floor of the hut and took root. The widow's children cared for the tree, excited at the prospect of having a Christmas tree by winter. The tree grew, but when Christmas Eve arrived, they could not afford to decorate it. The children sadly went to bed and fell asleep. Early the next morning, they woke up and saw the tree covered with cobwebs. When they opened the windows, the first rays of sunlight touched the webs and turned them into gold and silver. The widow and her children were overjoyed. From then on, they never lived in poverty again." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Christmas_Spider

Awakening can make you extremely prone to believe in "nonsense" because you realize that there isn't anything at all that is nonsense, which is incredibly freeing and leaves an entire worlds of possibilities in front of you waiting to be discovered. Although that also means there's nothing to believe in at all. Previously you were of the assumption that there were things that were true and things that were false. Bahahaha! I guess there are things you can seemingly choose to focus on, and that's all. If that's a certain deity, or crystals, or a life situation, etc, it's because you made it your focus and in a way you made it your "truth".

Merry Christmas! There are gifts within gifts, so that you can experience giving and getting gifts. But the whole thing is the gift.

I think an awakening is like God being like, "ok, you wanna know so much, here you go. It's all for you. It's all you. It's all perfect, manifestation of love and beauty, happening for you." My poinsettia died, and I don't know why. I looked at it and appreciated how beautiful the forms of the curled up leaves were and thought about the silly ways in which we make ourselves miserable by preferring things like live poinsettias over dead ones, when the poinsettia we are looking at is already dead in that moment. I went for a run today and it's really cold, but the mood boost I get from going out in the cold for a short time is amazing. I watched a pair of crows chase a hawk off, then I came out on the water and saw the seagulls, so many seagulls circling in the air. Cold be damned I just stopped and watched them and then one of those thoughts that you know are more than thoughts but messages came and said "Merry Christmas darling, it's all for you." I thought about continuing on but I knew the right thing would be to turn around and when I did they changed course and escorted me back. The sun reflected off them in a beautiful way, in that way that I've only been conscious of within the past few years. And as I went further and they flew higher they each had a glowing ball of light in the center. There are gifts within gifts, so that you can know which are gifts. But the whole thing is the gift.

The "blood of the lamb" is the same pointer as the meaning in the line in the Lana Del Rey Gods and Monsters song. "Innocence lost" In the land of gods and monsters I was an angel Living in the garden of evil Screwed up, scared, doing anything that I needed Shining like a fiery beacon You got that medicine I need Fame, liquor, love, give it to me slowly Put your hands on my waist, do it softly Me and God we don't get along, so now I sing No one's gonna take my soul away Living like Jim Morrison Headed towards a fucked up holiday Motel, sprees, sprees, and I'm singing Fuck yeah give it to me, this is heaven, what I truly want It's innocence lost Innocence lost There is nothing that has to be done on an external level, no acting out, no sacrifice of anything, but accept oneself as the Devil on a psychological symbolic and spiritual level. I have met plenty of people who I suspect would need to travel a path quite opposite to this one. It's what you won't accept about yourself, that when accepted becomes intense love and release.

Isaiah 6 6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 9 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.[a] Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” 11 Then I said, “For how long, Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, 12 until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. 13 And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”

LOOK at that comment, LOOK at it! It could not be more creepily encoded, from myself to myself.

I attracted this, I attracted all of this. All of the interactions on the forum, the story line of Leo himself. The admirers, the random and blatantly disrespectful "admirer" in real life who has finally left me alone, this recent comment on a youtube video of mine, "Awww. Aren't you cute?. Society says that masculinity is toxic and I say that society is toxic and terrified of masculinity. Masculinity is an untamed force while femininity is easily controlled and manipulated. Women give advice to men on how to be men. Only weak men accept that advice. Only weak men are feminists. The thought of being feminine in any way is sickening." All of it. I wrote that comment, I wrote all those messages. I think these things. I believe these beliefs. I believe I'm less than. I believe I'm not worth listening to, not worth speaking. We have dramatic tides here. There are areas that are stunningly beautiful when the tide is high and ugly, and the become stinking mud when it's low. And I thought about how sick it is to judge the beauty of it depending on the presence of the water. When the mud is the earth and the earth is the same that you are standing on as you look out over the water and appreciate its beauty.

It's hard to reconcile the fact that my awakening was an event or rather coincided with an event of shadow work occurring on it's own, of my life flashing before my eyes in an appreciation of contrast. The shadow work happened within the vortex as Abraham Hicks put it. I feel a need to do some shadow work, and while these thoughts cause emotions to rise and cause me to cry and release emotions, they do not in any way feel bad. This is a kind of magic. If it starts feeling truly bad, I know I've gone off into ego land. Doing this is definitely an experience of blurred lines. Last night I had an odd dream in which my father and husband interacted in a way that made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I said nothing. Before that I had a dream that I was in car accident and me and some random older man got our hands burned and at the ER he loudly complained and was treated, while I said nothing and stood around on the outskirts. The odd thing was that I knew my hands were burned too but they didn't hurt. The evening before this I had gone on a walk with my father and the dogs and one likes to run off when we get back and this time she ran off and didn't come back. I wanted to go look for her but I had to get my kids home and the entire time I felt awful and mostly only extremely concerned about how my dad was feeling, blaming myself for not taking her collar sooner, feeling responsible. I'm understanding lately that I've spent during and after my awakening trying to cope with being female, after learning that I am not a woman. You'd think coping with being human after learning that I'm not human would be more difficult, but maybe this comes first? I put other people ahead of myself. I put their own feelings ahead of my own. I consider their perspectives and forget my own truth. Being on the forum this past year has been hard at times, it feels like an abusive relationship and I'm always coming back for more because there's something I want out of it, some kind of resolution or freedom. But the truth is that I am responsible for how I feel. My being mad at men for not giving me what I think it proper credit is in actuality, my own giving my power away to men. I am the resolution and freedom.

There's still quite a few people here who don't appreciate this or think their study of Buddhism has checked the "I understand the purpose of religion now" box. Studying a religion and taking wisdom from it is not religion at all. Religion is a catalyst for knowing and experiencing love and devotion so strong it burns up the ego. Without individual empowerment and understanding that purpose has been used and abused in history. It looks like weakness, like surrender looks like weakness to those who don't understand it. But that function itself is necessary for enlightenment. The function itself is unavoidably created whenever someone starts teaching and gets a following. Just like a candle flame serves for a point of focus and fascination in meditation, the teacher itself becomes a point of focus just as Jesus became. A lot of people find this horrifying, but if you came to earth to teach yourself, how you you ever recognize yourself if it wasn't through love?

No one knows what "enlightened" actually means. It's so creepily inexplicable that it seems like it can be experienced and plotted on a map. WTF? It seems that people use the term for someone who has had an awakening where they ceased to exist, or they realized the truth of no-self, an experience so beyond mind that it includes and encompasses intellectual understanding. Mind patterns are not completely resolved by it, it takes integrating in mundane ordinary life. Everyone has to get along in "ordinary" life, or survive, so they continue to have opinions about it, and are asked by their students who are also trying to navigate "ordinary life" in different cultures and societies so they use the topics to share an opinion which may or may not be their entire understanding of the subject, but rather points the student to letting go of something or understanding something deeper than the subject at hand. Or it could just be their opinion. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, even if they are awake.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." I figure if Wim Hoff had to raise 4 kids alone and found his solace and relaxation from them in the extreme cold training that he did, then if I can learn to tolerate my kids during meditation, I'm gonna be like the Buddha squared. If you can't meditate and listen to "Baby Shark" on replay in the background, then just get the fuck out. I'm kidding, sort of, if you can get time for yourself do, if not, you needed the exact kind of experience or challenge that you got.

@Unjigorjigor Intellect gets in the way of faith, faith gets in the way of intellect, until through love you see they are not what you thought, but instead are the same thing. If you believe that faith will save you, you will be too afraid of what it's supposed to save you from to surrender to what real faith is. Atheists, skeptics and agnostics, too, ya devil.

I try to get up earlier than them but occasionally getting enough sleep takes priority. Often they get up pretty early, so then I do the best that I can with them running around, climbing in my lap. The thing about having kids is that you truly appreciate the time you have to be present and are greatly motivated to bring presence into the chaos. Seems like they are slowing your progress down, but really they're there just for you to wake up. Remind me of my own words in 10 minutes. lol

The strange thing to wrap your head around is that Christianity, even misunderstood, did a lot of good and played an important role in the evolution of consciousness. At the time Jesus came, a handful of people were ready for that kind of teaching. He intimately taught his disciples, with not that great of a success rate, and Mary was not just some random woman that gave birth to Jesus, but rather she was chosen to be his first spiritual teacher. He did not become who he was without intense study and meditation. That's why he gives Mary and John to each other as he dies on the cross, and that's why the book of John is closest to the true teaching of Christ. Christianity became a fire escape, a hope of life after death just through saying the right words and thinking the right thought, and gave purpose to suffering. It could not have spread so much if the true teachings were understood and preserved. Some people got a fire escape, some people weren't satisfied and went deeper. It was the will of God that Christianity, at least for the time, become a cheap and easily accessible invitation of hope to everyone. Instead of a quest for enlightenment only available for the chosen few with the drive and ability, it became a watered down, democratic religion for the masses. You have to admit, there's a kind of beauty and grace there in that. I think Paul played an important role in that.

ac·tu·al·ize /ˈak(t)SH(o͞o)əˌlīz/ verb past tense: actualized; past participle: actualized make a reality of.

Happy Winter Solstice. "A long time ago, the raven looked down from the sky and saw that the people of the world were living in darkness. The ball of light was kept hidden by a selfish old chief. So the raven turned himself into a spruce needle and floated on the river where the chief's daughter came for water. She drank the spruce needle. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy, who was the raven in disguise. The baby cried and cried until the chief gave him the ball of light to play with. As soon as he had the light, the raven turned back into himself. The raven carried the light into the sky. From then on, we no longer lived in darkness." http://eattheplanet.org/spruce-edible-evergreen-tree/