I have a secret closet
with some goodies stashed inside...
You may open my fine closet
and take anything you find...
You really should play dress up
and try on everything...
When you're finally finished dressing
You'll look totally divine...
Now peek into my closet
and see what makes you shine...
- -- --- = O X O = --- -- -
love, compassion, empathy, sincerity, devotion, cheerfulness, trust, humor, caring, passion, smiles, creativity, joy, love, nurture, honesty, tenderness, feeling, sharing, laughter, acceptance, confidence, merriness, sensitivity, wonder, love, etc.. and more love!
Remember, Dress for Success!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Meryan Meets Alice
Meryan slept fitfully her first night in the lounge and rose early the next morning. She gathered up her things and found a hole in the side of her duffle bag where someone must have begun to cut their way in with a knife. Perhaps her restless sleep had scared them off or one of the members of the gang running the protection racket here had stopped the thief. It would be difficult to mend the bag as it was fully packed, the clothes inside protecting her small wireless deck. The deck was a gift from the resistance, her pay for the last job she had performed. It had been a good trade; she would not have wanted to carry her larger heavier PC on this journey and had been able to barter the bulkier laptop to her former boss for some spare clothes, goodwill and a little cash. Her old boss’ goodwill would be the most valuable; he had been well connected and had given her the names of three people in Peoria whom she might be able to count on in a pinch.
While Meryan waited in line for her turn to use the lav she thought about what might have happened to her old friends in Peoria. Other than her sister and her goodwill contacts, Meryan did not think she had any friends remaining in Peoria. She hoped not.
Meryan had been far more involved with the resistance movement when she was younger. It was a kind of thrilling adventure then. Her first lover had been a full member of the ALF like her dad, and she had naturally been drawn into their circles of friends and had only avoided taking their membership pledge because she had been too young then.
Ten years ago the Bizgov had sent a group of Army engineers and conscripted laborers to Peoria to begin raising the domes. The domes were made of cheap prefabricated plasglas panels with steel rims that had interlocking teeth along the edges. The panels snapped together and pins or eyebolts were inserted at the interstices to secure the panels from slipping away from one another. The top of the dome was constructed on the ground around the base of a tall crane.
Cables through the eyebolts lifted the top of the dome so that the next pieces could be snapped into place. When the dome reached the size of the clearing in which the crane stood it was hoisted to the top of the crane and a series of cables suspended the workers below the skirts and lifted new panels up to them in a steady flow. The dome was then constructed from the top down to cover a large section of the city. Buildings along the perimeter where the dome would meet the ground were cleared away to lay a foundation and any buildings which were too tall to fit below the dome were either razed or cut down to a suitable size to fit.
In this manner the domes were quickly constructed. Concrete arches were built wherever two or three domes intersected following the interstitial arcs to allow the intersecting domes to rest firmly against one another.
Due to the swift pace of the job the work was very dangerous; laborers were maimed or killed on a daily basis. Anyone suspected of either membership in the resistance or any affiliation with the resistance was conscripted to replace the casualties among the original labor force. Meryan had lost most of her older friends to the pressers who came to drag them off to the labor pools.
Meryan’s older sister Pama had broken their mother’s heart then by going underground. Pama was old enough to be conscripted and had she stayed home the pressers would have come to snatch her. During her years in the underground Pama had carefully built a new identity for herself so that when the domes were done she would have an apparently legitimate identity and could remain safe from the pressers. Pama had paid for her new identity and her life in the underground with the only coin a young woman with few skills and no one to protect her had to offer, her body. Meryan had never wanted to know anymore details than that.
Meryan and her mom had managed their lives precariously from that point on, her dad was missing and presumed to be either dead or conscripted. It wasn’t safe to ask questions of anyone connected with the Bizgov who might be able to discover what had happened to her dad. None of her dad’s close friends in the ALF could be found and it was presumed his entire unit had either been wiped out or conscripted.
When Meryan’s mother finally admitted to herself that she was dying of heart failure she had sent Meryan to live with her brother in Westwood. Meryan reluctantly abandoned her mother and went to join her uncle’s enclave.
She knew in her heart when she had said her goodbyes to the last of her friends that she was the lucky one and that few if any of them would remain either free or alive much longer. They had few options. They could join a unit of the ALF working the countryside to disrupt Bizgov projects and raid for survival or they could try to go underground as Pama had done. But it was difficult to make contact with the underground and virtually a death sentence to join an ALF unit or cell. Either way you lost your freedom and were constantly at risk of being killed or conscripted by the pressers.
Meryan’s turn to use a lav arrived and she slipped down the hall to a reeking stall. She placed a hook over the edge of one wall near the back and hung her belongings there. She placed a second hook below the edge of the stall wall and then cinched her duffel down. No one could now reach over and steal it while she was indisposed.
She finished with the toilet and then stripped down to wash and change her clothes. The tiny sink over the toilet did not provide more than a thin trickle of water but with a washcloth and towel she was soon feeling refreshed and more relaxed as she changed into clean clothes.
The fresh taste of toothpaste in her mouth helped to reduce the reek of the lav stalls. Next time she would start brushing her teeth while waiting in line as she had seen some of the other people in line doing. Stowing her damp towel and washcloth in their outer mesh pockets Meryan recovered her belongings and set out to look for breakfast.
There were a number of different eateries to choose from and while all would have the same bland ingredients to work with, their specialty cooking styles promised to make her meal a reasonably tasty one. She selected an Indian eatery and chose a bowl of congee, a sweet spicy porridge made with rice and eggs. She was surprised to see small bits of genuine cinnamon sticks crumbled on top of her congee. The eatery was fortunate to be able to use fresh spices.
Meryan decided that she would have to try some of their other fare. She thought about her aunt and uncle as she ate her congee. Her uncle Jim was her mother’s older brother. He had married his high school sweetheart Suchhaya before being drafted into the Bizgov Corporate Army of America. Meryan had called Suchhaya Aunt Sushi for as long as she could remember. Uncle Jim and Aunt Sushi had no children and Meryan had always thought this had often made her Aunt Sushi seem sad. Sushi’s face would always light up with joy when Meryan and Pama came to visit. Aunt Sushi was a reformed Hindu and cooked everything in the traditional Indian styles. By choosing congee for breakfast Meryan had made herself feel a little bit at home in her strange surroundings. The warm congee settled comfortably in her stomach the flavors of honey and spices lingering on her palate reminded her of the years she had spent living with her aunt and uncle.
Meryan missed her aunt terribly; Sushi had become her surrogate mother and always treated her with great respect and love. But Sushi had been murdered last year by an angry bigot who mistook her for a Muslim. Meryan could never understand how someone who hated with so much passion could know so little about the people he hated that he did not even know the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim. The murderer’s connections within Bizgov allowed him to escape justice and her Uncle Jim had then taken the matter into his own hands by arranging an opportunity for the bigot’s car to break down on a lonely stretch of highway where Uncle Jim was quickly able to find and murder him.
Bizgov looked the other way. Uncle Jim was a war hero who was well respected among the local Bizgov soldiers who understood the need for justice and approved of their fellow soldier’s dutiful vengeance.
Now the soldiers were gone from Westwood. Bizgov had withdrawn them in response to unpaid taxes. Westwood lay nearly defenseless against the marauders, with only the ALF remaining to protect them. Protection money paid to the ALF was cheaper than taxes, but the town would soon be unable to pay even that pittance for protection and then there would be no one to hold off the marauders.
The last of her congee licked away, Meryan considered her next move, she had nearly two hours to report to work and considered finding a public storage locker for her duffel bag and her other articles. The block captain had shown her the stairs to a basement where the public lockers could be found and Meryan headed off to investigate.
As Meryan descended toward the ground floor she paid attention to those she met, particularly what they were carrying. Many people were laden with what might be all of their worldly goods and she surmised that the fees for storage would be steep or that too may people were too poor to be able to afford storage even at reasonable prices. Meryan wondered which would turn out to be the true case as she found the steps and descended into the basement.
The light at the landing was out and the light from the hall behind her was inadequate to see clearly. Meryan hugged the outer wall as she cautiously made the turn around the landing. She heard whispers and a slap and turned back.
Meryan's intuition told her that a gang of at least three people were laying in wait for anyone who might come along with anything worth stealing. Meryan and her friends had waylaid Bizgov workers and supporters in a similar way in dark alleys using a bait and beat operation. She and her friends had taken turns coming on to Bizgov loyalists to tease them into dark alleys with promises of sexual favors in trade for money. Anyone who witlessly followed one of their gang into a trap had triply deserved their beatings for being stupid perverted loyalists.
Below Meryan the waiting gang heard her footsteps turn back and quickly rushed to attack her but Meryan charged up the stairs ahead of them and won her way to the relative safety among the throng of people in the corridor above. Perhaps all her ruminations had been wrong and people carried their belongings with them because there was no safe alternative. As Meryan turned to find an exit to the street she noticed a group of people sitting along the wall near the stairs. She instinctively knew they were waiting to gather enough people together to brave the stairs to the storage lockers as a group. Meryan joined them and after a few minutes a tough appeared and accepted a small fee to accompany the group down the stairs.
As they made their way past the four people lurking below the landing one of these addressed the tough calling him George. George appeared to be well known and despised by the gang for they spit at him and feinted attacks towards him, but were careful to keep their distance. George appeared to be a tough customer indeed.
In the dingy basement Meryan followed those in her group who seemed most familiar with the place to where a small kiosk stood locked away behind a steel security mesh. The party queued up and exchanged credits for keys to access their belongings. Some had only come to pay another week or two of storage fees, and apparently had not left anything in their locker that they might need today.
Meryan sorted out her belongings, choosing her backpack to keep two sets of fresh clothes, her toiletries, a towel and her light blanket. When she received her cardkey to a locker she was admonished to return the cardkey when she was done and was gruffly informed that the cardkey would do her no good if she kept it was programmed as a one time only access card to make it useless to thieves.
Right! Meryan had thought; the thieves were behind the grill charging for every access anyone made to their stored belongings on top of the steep weekly fees. But paying for storage was just one more way to live more safely. The fewer things you carried on your person the less attractive a target you made for potential muggers and thieves.
Meryan allowed her articles to pass through a scanning conveyor belt to allow the operator to search for weapons or bombs. Meryan had no weapons and her new her deck would not be harmed. The scanner made a permanent record of her belongings which would safeguard them from being stolen by any employees of the locker company. A copy of her scan was downloaded to her PDA.
Meryan selected a locker from among several which were empty and waived her access card by the lock sensor next to the wire mesh door. She had chosen the smallest locker that would fit her duffel and two hand bags and crammed them in tightly before pressing the door home. When she felt the distinctive click of the lock engage she released the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Her day would now be far easier with less to carry or to worry about.
Meryan headed to the party of people who were waiting for George to escort them back upstairs. A young woman in the group, softly spoken introduced herself as Alice.
Alice and Meryan talked awhile trading stories of their memories of Peoria before the domes and the events in their lives since then. Meryan remembered Alice from the lounge where she had spent the previous night. Alice too had been alone and had been frequently molested by strangers who sensed her timidity and tried to take advantage. In spite of her fears Alice had driven them off and wanted to learn from Meryan how she maintained the calm disdaining attitude with which Meryan seemed to ward off any trouble.
As George escorted them back to the ground floor Meryan and Alice agreed to meet for dinner and team up for mutual protection. Meryan was delighted to have made her new friend’s acquaintance and looked forward to a more pleasant evening than last night had been.
It was now twenty minutes to eight and Meryan had to hustle to be on time for her orientation interview with her new boss, E. Edwards. In spite of many changes to the city since Meryan had last seen it she had no trouble finding her way to work. The building was only five blocks away from her dorm; her dorm had been assigned to her with this convenience in mind.
She arrived in time to fill her water bottle from the office dispenser before going in for her interview. She was feeling very good about herself as she walked through the door.
Her new boss was a woman. Meryan had assumed E. Edwards would be a man and was slightly taken aback but recovered quickly enough to give her new boss a warm greeting. Her new boss’s name was Evalina and it was quickly clear that Evie, as everyone was to call her informally, would be a reasonably easy person to work for. Meryan’s new duties would require data mining and analysis. A breeze! Meryan thought, she was a natural at such simple chores.
Evie’s department was affiliated with security and Meryan would be looking for anomalous network activity that may represent potential security breeches which may require investigation. Meryan began to suspect that her old boss had pulled a few strings for her here because the job fit her to a tee and put her in exactly the position she needed to be in if she chose to continue to help the resistance. Wheels within wheels Meryan thought as her new boss introduced her around and showed her the facilities.
Toward the end of the tour they wandered through the break room to a rear area where there were showers! Evie noticed the delight that lit up Meryan’s face and gave her twenty minutes to take advantage of the refresher. A schedule was posted on the wall in half hour slots and Meryan signed up for a vacant early morning slot. She could avoid much of the unpleasantness of the dorm’s lavs thanks to this helpful benefit. She wondered how she would feel about herself now that she was joining a Bizgov management team and working with the very people that had once been her father’s avowed enemies.
She brushed the thought aside, knowing it would return to haunt her. She had made her choices for her survival; she could deal with her loyalties later.
That evening she met up with Alice and invited her to the Indian eatery where she had eaten breakfast. Alice had never tried Indian food and was clearly somewhat prejudiced but was game to try it at her new friend’s insistence. They walked past the serving line where a buffet offered many tasty dishes to select from and Meryan chose Alice’s dishes for her as they passed down the line carrying their trays. The servers notice the experience and delight with which Meryan made their selections and offered advice on house specialties or warned her off from dishes they considered to be inferior that night, serving the two young women generously and joyfully. Meryan selected chapattis and rotis from the breads at the end of the line to complete their meals and the girls were given small servings of cardamom sweets.
They paid with chits from their coupon books and then sat together in a narrow booth meant for only two people. Alice and Meryan shared their food and Alice seemed delighted with the wide variety of new flavors which had been heaped upon their plates. The girls lingered a long time over their meal enjoying the shelter of the eatery with its sweet spicy atmosphere and carried on swapping stories where they had left off earlier that morning.
Alice was also an orphan. She had lost her mother to lung disease four years ago and her father had died the year before of complications related to pancreatic cancer. She had no relatives to stay with and was taken in by an elderly neighbor who needed someone to help care for her in her declining health. Alice had accepted this role easily it reminded her of the years she had cared for her mother before her mom had finally passed away, and she had felt somehow closer to her mom by caring for her elderly neighbor. Her neighbor had secured her a good job in a university library and her career as a librarian was a happy one. Her neighbor had finally passed last week and Alice was forced to leave the tiny apartment they had shared. Her neighbor had been living on a reverse mortgage and the property had defaulted to the credit union upon her death. The remaining equity had been left to Alice but it was not enough to allow her to repurchase the apartment or even to be able to afford a rental on her own for very long. Alice had decided to apply to the public dormitories to allow herself to save money until she could find a more suitable arrangement.
This gave Meryan an idea. Meryan explained her own situation and what was going on with her sister. If her sister could be trusted to quit her business dealing drugs the three of them might be able to find a small apartment together. It would be safer than the dorms.
Alice agreed and they decided they would look up Pama this weekend and feel her out about inviting her to share an apartment with them.
Meryan and Alice returned to the lounge with plenty of time to find a good place on the floor behind a group of computer kiosks. They settled in and made themselves comfortable and continued to talk into the night until Alice drifted off to sleep. Meryan said a silent prayer of thanks for the gift of finding this new friend and then smiled as Alice snuggled up to her in her sleep. She held Alice closer to her and fell into sleep gently full of contentment.
In the morning they woke together in each other’s arms and the peace and joy they found in one another’s eyes was enough to assure them that everything was going to be ok. Meryan wondered whether she and Alice would be lovers and decided it didn’t matter, either way she would be happy.
Meryan and Alice spent their morning together looking up apartment rentals online and trying to work out a budget. Meryan also looked up her sister’s dorm address and discovered it may be too far away for them to be able to share an apartment with her; it would depend on how Pama felt about commuting as well as whether she could be convinced to quite dealing drugs.
Meryan decided to call Pama this evening and just see where things went from there. Meryan and Alice could consider looking for an alternative candidate for their plans if Pama was not interested.
Meryan walked partway to work with Alice and they parted company with plans to meet for dinner. Meryan then ran the remaining 3 blocks to work and up the stairs to the third floor where her offices were located. She was plenty early to use the shower and no one else was waiting so she went ahead and refreshed herself before work.
Yesterday Meryan had gotten her gear setup in her cubicle and received her authorization IDs, passwords and codes. She had hr fingerprint scanner learn all ten of her fingerprints and had set to work to writing new codes to execute depending on which finger she used. It was a simple security measure but most people never thought about it. If she was forced by anyone to access her PC she could protect her data and codes or even destroy them at a single touch. Whoever was strong arming her to provide access might never know how they were tricked.
Today she would setup false work files to substitute for any real work she was doing to camouflage the real data she may someday need to protect from prying eyes. In her line of work you could never take enough precautions. She would keep the dummy files fresh, working on them daily and they would appear to be directly related to her job and would be able to pass a reasonably close scrutiny but not a full audit. She would have to find other means to fool department auditors should the need arise.
Meryan began by collecting data on Bizgov army units stationed in Peoria. Perfectly fine perfectly legit, her boss would need to know about hackers trying to access this data and she would have to write code to sniff out their activities or fabricate them if the need arose. No problem there, and with a little luck she could put together a complete picture of whatever illegal activities were taking place with the units and among their commanders.
You never knew who might be vulnerable to blackmail or might be available to assist in a shady operation. By gathering the data to incriminate some seriously bent soldiers she was building a potential spy network that may also serve as a safety net to bail her out of a jam.
Meryan whistled while she worked, she loved her new job!
When her first legitimate assignment popped up in Meryan’s work queue she was surprised to discover that she had already put together nearly all the data she would need to complete the request. Either her boss was thinking along the same lines as she was, or there was someone who perceived the illicit activities of the soldiers as a security threat. She would have to watch her step until she uncovered the motive for her new assignment.
She glanced down at the delivery date and smiled. The saps had no idea just how good she was, she had a week to make her report. She would take the full week and she would do it right, but it would take less than a day to put together a seamless report that hid her best potential assets while delivering some of the lower grade assets to whomever was looking for them. She would spend the remaining time looking for new assets and feeling out the motive behind this request. Identifying the source would be the first step and she could go to Evie directly and ask her, justifying the need to know to better profile her search filter parameters.
Evie produced her own work log and downloaded the file on Meryan’s work request to her secure workstation. Evie advised Meryan to read quickly and take no notes; the file had a snoop to detect Meryan’s keyboard input; and it would self destruct taking the file and any suspected notes with it. The file would automatically wipe itself clean in two hours permanently destroying all traces of the data it had held.
Smart! Meryan thought as she returned to her cube to read the file. Meryan considered taking notes on her PDA but her PDA was not secure and she suspected she was being kaizaned. She had not seen any work monitors or security cameras but she knew they must be there. She could not search for them directly without raising suspicion but she would slowly infiltrate the security routines on her workstation and prepare to deflect any snoopers should she need to do anything they might raise a flag on.
Kaizaning had been imported from Japan and used methods of monitoring employees work practices to ensure they applied all their time diligently to their tasks rather than using work hours for personal business of any sort. The practice was now used by all the global scale corporations and applied to any non work related activities such as napping or calling family. Some management systems flaunted the practice and rubbed it in their employees faces on a daily basis, but Meryan knew Evie instinctively disdained the practice and would use only the most subtle methods to ensure her staff would not notice it enough to resent it.
As Meryan read and reread the file detailing the scope of work her boss had received she noticed it came from an Army colonel. Interesting! Meryan discovered the scope was really designed to be a CYA action disguised as an attempt to winkle out potential subversives. The poor colonel had too many irons in the fire, all of them hot enough to burn him to the ground if he were caught. He was grade ‘A’ resource material.
Meryan whistled louder as she composed a favorable report that would help the colonel turn a couple of nasty punks who were hellbenders maliciously abusing their authority to rob or rape whomever they pleased. Sweet!
Meryan left work a half hour late to help establish a reputation as a dedicated employee and was practically singing as she took the stairs to the ground floor and exited her office building.
For dinner Alice and Meryan tried a Thai eatery and were satisfied with their meal but thought it did not compare very favorably to their Indian eatery in either quality or service. Tomorrow they agreed to try a Mexican eatery.
Meryan tried to call her sister but Pama’s voice mail message answered. Meryan left a brief greeting and promised to call Pama back again tomorrow night.
As they settled in for the night Alice began telling Meryan about her current boyfriend whom she was going to dump. Meryan was sad to hear Alice’s story, it seemed Alice’s fellow whom she believed she deeply loved was beginning to turn abusive and had revealed a scary streak of violence that now had Alice frightened for her safety. On their last date they had been accosted by a panhandler.
Mark had beaten the poor man nearly to death.
When Alice tried to pull Mark off the bum he turned on her and she had fled.
Today Mark had turned up at her library all smiles and asked her for another date as if nothing had happened. Alice had been afraid he would make a scene if she turned him down at work and that she might lose her job if he did, so she had agreed to see him again Friday night even though she now did not want to see him again ever.
Meryan comforted Alice and they held each other close. Meryan was at first reluctant to respond to Alice’s advances as she was clearly in great turmoil, but in the end she relented and they loved each other tenderly ignoring the people around them whom they might be entertaining. They fell asleep in one another’s arms and the last thoughts Meryan had were of her own blissful contentment and joy in discovering a friend she could love so easily.
In her dreams that night Meryan found herself singing a lullaby and wandering through strange dorms seeking a special door she knew she would find. In the end she found the door partly blocked off by a couple wrapped up in many blankets who seemed to recognize Meryan and gracefully move aside to let her enter the room behind them.
The door was locked and at first Meryan did not think she had the key, but when she reached into the pocket of her jeans she found a keycard which unlocked the door for her.
It was dark in the room and there was a familiar scent to the air a warm smell of fresh urine and baby powder. She entered the room carefully and as she progressed a light slowly came on to one side and Meryan saw a small bed centered in the light which held a baby girl.
The baby smiled at her and looked into Meryan’s eyes and spoke to Meryan in her mind to say her name was Lisa.
Meryan reached for Lisa to help her with her diapers and woke up.
Meryan smelled a slightly sour odor in her friend’s hair and considered her friend carefully. The baby dream had been a precognitive dream; of this she was absolutely certain. She had had such dreams in thee past and there was always a strong element of truth about them, she would one day meet Lisa for real and love and care for her. But Lisa could not be her own baby. Nor had Lisa appeared to be Pama’s baby, so almost certainly Alice was pregnant and Lisa would be their baby together.
Meryan cried with joy and fell asleep holding her friend close to her heart. Lisa would be a very special baby, of that she was certain. Lisa could already talk to her and could be barely six weeks old. Lisa knew about her mother’s turmoil. Lisa had incited her father to his act of rage to drive her mother away from him before he could become a permanent and harmful influence in their lives.
Meryan listened carefully to the baby’s story and vowed to protect her and to love her and Alice at all costs. Meryan never questioned how she could talk to the infant, she had had enough experiences with PSI powers in her life to frighten her into learning more about them and this had led her upon a path toward personal freedom and self empowerment. This was the secret she had not yet shared with Alice concerning her special attitude towards life.
Lisa explained to Meryan that she had called for Meryan to come and meet her mother and rescue her from her father. Meryan accepted this too. It was her destiny. She would soon be a mother to a wonderful baby girl. Lisa then pardoned herself and said she would sleep awhile, they might speak together again soon, and she would be in touch if there was need.
As the new surrogate mother and her prenatal daughter fell asleep together the two mothers seemed to glow with a radiance that others might have witnessed had anyone been paying close attention.
While Meryan waited in line for her turn to use the lav she thought about what might have happened to her old friends in Peoria. Other than her sister and her goodwill contacts, Meryan did not think she had any friends remaining in Peoria. She hoped not.
Meryan had been far more involved with the resistance movement when she was younger. It was a kind of thrilling adventure then. Her first lover had been a full member of the ALF like her dad, and she had naturally been drawn into their circles of friends and had only avoided taking their membership pledge because she had been too young then.
Ten years ago the Bizgov had sent a group of Army engineers and conscripted laborers to Peoria to begin raising the domes. The domes were made of cheap prefabricated plasglas panels with steel rims that had interlocking teeth along the edges. The panels snapped together and pins or eyebolts were inserted at the interstices to secure the panels from slipping away from one another. The top of the dome was constructed on the ground around the base of a tall crane.
Cables through the eyebolts lifted the top of the dome so that the next pieces could be snapped into place. When the dome reached the size of the clearing in which the crane stood it was hoisted to the top of the crane and a series of cables suspended the workers below the skirts and lifted new panels up to them in a steady flow. The dome was then constructed from the top down to cover a large section of the city. Buildings along the perimeter where the dome would meet the ground were cleared away to lay a foundation and any buildings which were too tall to fit below the dome were either razed or cut down to a suitable size to fit.
In this manner the domes were quickly constructed. Concrete arches were built wherever two or three domes intersected following the interstitial arcs to allow the intersecting domes to rest firmly against one another.
Due to the swift pace of the job the work was very dangerous; laborers were maimed or killed on a daily basis. Anyone suspected of either membership in the resistance or any affiliation with the resistance was conscripted to replace the casualties among the original labor force. Meryan had lost most of her older friends to the pressers who came to drag them off to the labor pools.
Meryan’s older sister Pama had broken their mother’s heart then by going underground. Pama was old enough to be conscripted and had she stayed home the pressers would have come to snatch her. During her years in the underground Pama had carefully built a new identity for herself so that when the domes were done she would have an apparently legitimate identity and could remain safe from the pressers. Pama had paid for her new identity and her life in the underground with the only coin a young woman with few skills and no one to protect her had to offer, her body. Meryan had never wanted to know anymore details than that.
Meryan and her mom had managed their lives precariously from that point on, her dad was missing and presumed to be either dead or conscripted. It wasn’t safe to ask questions of anyone connected with the Bizgov who might be able to discover what had happened to her dad. None of her dad’s close friends in the ALF could be found and it was presumed his entire unit had either been wiped out or conscripted.
When Meryan’s mother finally admitted to herself that she was dying of heart failure she had sent Meryan to live with her brother in Westwood. Meryan reluctantly abandoned her mother and went to join her uncle’s enclave.
She knew in her heart when she had said her goodbyes to the last of her friends that she was the lucky one and that few if any of them would remain either free or alive much longer. They had few options. They could join a unit of the ALF working the countryside to disrupt Bizgov projects and raid for survival or they could try to go underground as Pama had done. But it was difficult to make contact with the underground and virtually a death sentence to join an ALF unit or cell. Either way you lost your freedom and were constantly at risk of being killed or conscripted by the pressers.
Meryan’s turn to use a lav arrived and she slipped down the hall to a reeking stall. She placed a hook over the edge of one wall near the back and hung her belongings there. She placed a second hook below the edge of the stall wall and then cinched her duffel down. No one could now reach over and steal it while she was indisposed.
She finished with the toilet and then stripped down to wash and change her clothes. The tiny sink over the toilet did not provide more than a thin trickle of water but with a washcloth and towel she was soon feeling refreshed and more relaxed as she changed into clean clothes.
The fresh taste of toothpaste in her mouth helped to reduce the reek of the lav stalls. Next time she would start brushing her teeth while waiting in line as she had seen some of the other people in line doing. Stowing her damp towel and washcloth in their outer mesh pockets Meryan recovered her belongings and set out to look for breakfast.
There were a number of different eateries to choose from and while all would have the same bland ingredients to work with, their specialty cooking styles promised to make her meal a reasonably tasty one. She selected an Indian eatery and chose a bowl of congee, a sweet spicy porridge made with rice and eggs. She was surprised to see small bits of genuine cinnamon sticks crumbled on top of her congee. The eatery was fortunate to be able to use fresh spices.
Meryan decided that she would have to try some of their other fare. She thought about her aunt and uncle as she ate her congee. Her uncle Jim was her mother’s older brother. He had married his high school sweetheart Suchhaya before being drafted into the Bizgov Corporate Army of America. Meryan had called Suchhaya Aunt Sushi for as long as she could remember. Uncle Jim and Aunt Sushi had no children and Meryan had always thought this had often made her Aunt Sushi seem sad. Sushi’s face would always light up with joy when Meryan and Pama came to visit. Aunt Sushi was a reformed Hindu and cooked everything in the traditional Indian styles. By choosing congee for breakfast Meryan had made herself feel a little bit at home in her strange surroundings. The warm congee settled comfortably in her stomach the flavors of honey and spices lingering on her palate reminded her of the years she had spent living with her aunt and uncle.
Meryan missed her aunt terribly; Sushi had become her surrogate mother and always treated her with great respect and love. But Sushi had been murdered last year by an angry bigot who mistook her for a Muslim. Meryan could never understand how someone who hated with so much passion could know so little about the people he hated that he did not even know the difference between a Hindu and a Muslim. The murderer’s connections within Bizgov allowed him to escape justice and her Uncle Jim had then taken the matter into his own hands by arranging an opportunity for the bigot’s car to break down on a lonely stretch of highway where Uncle Jim was quickly able to find and murder him.
Bizgov looked the other way. Uncle Jim was a war hero who was well respected among the local Bizgov soldiers who understood the need for justice and approved of their fellow soldier’s dutiful vengeance.
Now the soldiers were gone from Westwood. Bizgov had withdrawn them in response to unpaid taxes. Westwood lay nearly defenseless against the marauders, with only the ALF remaining to protect them. Protection money paid to the ALF was cheaper than taxes, but the town would soon be unable to pay even that pittance for protection and then there would be no one to hold off the marauders.
The last of her congee licked away, Meryan considered her next move, she had nearly two hours to report to work and considered finding a public storage locker for her duffel bag and her other articles. The block captain had shown her the stairs to a basement where the public lockers could be found and Meryan headed off to investigate.
As Meryan descended toward the ground floor she paid attention to those she met, particularly what they were carrying. Many people were laden with what might be all of their worldly goods and she surmised that the fees for storage would be steep or that too may people were too poor to be able to afford storage even at reasonable prices. Meryan wondered which would turn out to be the true case as she found the steps and descended into the basement.
The light at the landing was out and the light from the hall behind her was inadequate to see clearly. Meryan hugged the outer wall as she cautiously made the turn around the landing. She heard whispers and a slap and turned back.
Meryan's intuition told her that a gang of at least three people were laying in wait for anyone who might come along with anything worth stealing. Meryan and her friends had waylaid Bizgov workers and supporters in a similar way in dark alleys using a bait and beat operation. She and her friends had taken turns coming on to Bizgov loyalists to tease them into dark alleys with promises of sexual favors in trade for money. Anyone who witlessly followed one of their gang into a trap had triply deserved their beatings for being stupid perverted loyalists.
Below Meryan the waiting gang heard her footsteps turn back and quickly rushed to attack her but Meryan charged up the stairs ahead of them and won her way to the relative safety among the throng of people in the corridor above. Perhaps all her ruminations had been wrong and people carried their belongings with them because there was no safe alternative. As Meryan turned to find an exit to the street she noticed a group of people sitting along the wall near the stairs. She instinctively knew they were waiting to gather enough people together to brave the stairs to the storage lockers as a group. Meryan joined them and after a few minutes a tough appeared and accepted a small fee to accompany the group down the stairs.
As they made their way past the four people lurking below the landing one of these addressed the tough calling him George. George appeared to be well known and despised by the gang for they spit at him and feinted attacks towards him, but were careful to keep their distance. George appeared to be a tough customer indeed.
In the dingy basement Meryan followed those in her group who seemed most familiar with the place to where a small kiosk stood locked away behind a steel security mesh. The party queued up and exchanged credits for keys to access their belongings. Some had only come to pay another week or two of storage fees, and apparently had not left anything in their locker that they might need today.
Meryan sorted out her belongings, choosing her backpack to keep two sets of fresh clothes, her toiletries, a towel and her light blanket. When she received her cardkey to a locker she was admonished to return the cardkey when she was done and was gruffly informed that the cardkey would do her no good if she kept it was programmed as a one time only access card to make it useless to thieves.
Right! Meryan had thought; the thieves were behind the grill charging for every access anyone made to their stored belongings on top of the steep weekly fees. But paying for storage was just one more way to live more safely. The fewer things you carried on your person the less attractive a target you made for potential muggers and thieves.
Meryan allowed her articles to pass through a scanning conveyor belt to allow the operator to search for weapons or bombs. Meryan had no weapons and her new her deck would not be harmed. The scanner made a permanent record of her belongings which would safeguard them from being stolen by any employees of the locker company. A copy of her scan was downloaded to her PDA.
Meryan selected a locker from among several which were empty and waived her access card by the lock sensor next to the wire mesh door. She had chosen the smallest locker that would fit her duffel and two hand bags and crammed them in tightly before pressing the door home. When she felt the distinctive click of the lock engage she released the door and breathed a sigh of relief. Her day would now be far easier with less to carry or to worry about.
Meryan headed to the party of people who were waiting for George to escort them back upstairs. A young woman in the group, softly spoken introduced herself as Alice.
Alice and Meryan talked awhile trading stories of their memories of Peoria before the domes and the events in their lives since then. Meryan remembered Alice from the lounge where she had spent the previous night. Alice too had been alone and had been frequently molested by strangers who sensed her timidity and tried to take advantage. In spite of her fears Alice had driven them off and wanted to learn from Meryan how she maintained the calm disdaining attitude with which Meryan seemed to ward off any trouble.
As George escorted them back to the ground floor Meryan and Alice agreed to meet for dinner and team up for mutual protection. Meryan was delighted to have made her new friend’s acquaintance and looked forward to a more pleasant evening than last night had been.
It was now twenty minutes to eight and Meryan had to hustle to be on time for her orientation interview with her new boss, E. Edwards. In spite of many changes to the city since Meryan had last seen it she had no trouble finding her way to work. The building was only five blocks away from her dorm; her dorm had been assigned to her with this convenience in mind.
She arrived in time to fill her water bottle from the office dispenser before going in for her interview. She was feeling very good about herself as she walked through the door.
Her new boss was a woman. Meryan had assumed E. Edwards would be a man and was slightly taken aback but recovered quickly enough to give her new boss a warm greeting. Her new boss’s name was Evalina and it was quickly clear that Evie, as everyone was to call her informally, would be a reasonably easy person to work for. Meryan’s new duties would require data mining and analysis. A breeze! Meryan thought, she was a natural at such simple chores.
Evie’s department was affiliated with security and Meryan would be looking for anomalous network activity that may represent potential security breeches which may require investigation. Meryan began to suspect that her old boss had pulled a few strings for her here because the job fit her to a tee and put her in exactly the position she needed to be in if she chose to continue to help the resistance. Wheels within wheels Meryan thought as her new boss introduced her around and showed her the facilities.
Toward the end of the tour they wandered through the break room to a rear area where there were showers! Evie noticed the delight that lit up Meryan’s face and gave her twenty minutes to take advantage of the refresher. A schedule was posted on the wall in half hour slots and Meryan signed up for a vacant early morning slot. She could avoid much of the unpleasantness of the dorm’s lavs thanks to this helpful benefit. She wondered how she would feel about herself now that she was joining a Bizgov management team and working with the very people that had once been her father’s avowed enemies.
She brushed the thought aside, knowing it would return to haunt her. She had made her choices for her survival; she could deal with her loyalties later.
That evening she met up with Alice and invited her to the Indian eatery where she had eaten breakfast. Alice had never tried Indian food and was clearly somewhat prejudiced but was game to try it at her new friend’s insistence. They walked past the serving line where a buffet offered many tasty dishes to select from and Meryan chose Alice’s dishes for her as they passed down the line carrying their trays. The servers notice the experience and delight with which Meryan made their selections and offered advice on house specialties or warned her off from dishes they considered to be inferior that night, serving the two young women generously and joyfully. Meryan selected chapattis and rotis from the breads at the end of the line to complete their meals and the girls were given small servings of cardamom sweets.
They paid with chits from their coupon books and then sat together in a narrow booth meant for only two people. Alice and Meryan shared their food and Alice seemed delighted with the wide variety of new flavors which had been heaped upon their plates. The girls lingered a long time over their meal enjoying the shelter of the eatery with its sweet spicy atmosphere and carried on swapping stories where they had left off earlier that morning.
Alice was also an orphan. She had lost her mother to lung disease four years ago and her father had died the year before of complications related to pancreatic cancer. She had no relatives to stay with and was taken in by an elderly neighbor who needed someone to help care for her in her declining health. Alice had accepted this role easily it reminded her of the years she had cared for her mother before her mom had finally passed away, and she had felt somehow closer to her mom by caring for her elderly neighbor. Her neighbor had secured her a good job in a university library and her career as a librarian was a happy one. Her neighbor had finally passed last week and Alice was forced to leave the tiny apartment they had shared. Her neighbor had been living on a reverse mortgage and the property had defaulted to the credit union upon her death. The remaining equity had been left to Alice but it was not enough to allow her to repurchase the apartment or even to be able to afford a rental on her own for very long. Alice had decided to apply to the public dormitories to allow herself to save money until she could find a more suitable arrangement.
This gave Meryan an idea. Meryan explained her own situation and what was going on with her sister. If her sister could be trusted to quit her business dealing drugs the three of them might be able to find a small apartment together. It would be safer than the dorms.
Alice agreed and they decided they would look up Pama this weekend and feel her out about inviting her to share an apartment with them.
Meryan and Alice returned to the lounge with plenty of time to find a good place on the floor behind a group of computer kiosks. They settled in and made themselves comfortable and continued to talk into the night until Alice drifted off to sleep. Meryan said a silent prayer of thanks for the gift of finding this new friend and then smiled as Alice snuggled up to her in her sleep. She held Alice closer to her and fell into sleep gently full of contentment.
In the morning they woke together in each other’s arms and the peace and joy they found in one another’s eyes was enough to assure them that everything was going to be ok. Meryan wondered whether she and Alice would be lovers and decided it didn’t matter, either way she would be happy.
Meryan and Alice spent their morning together looking up apartment rentals online and trying to work out a budget. Meryan also looked up her sister’s dorm address and discovered it may be too far away for them to be able to share an apartment with her; it would depend on how Pama felt about commuting as well as whether she could be convinced to quite dealing drugs.
Meryan decided to call Pama this evening and just see where things went from there. Meryan and Alice could consider looking for an alternative candidate for their plans if Pama was not interested.
Meryan walked partway to work with Alice and they parted company with plans to meet for dinner. Meryan then ran the remaining 3 blocks to work and up the stairs to the third floor where her offices were located. She was plenty early to use the shower and no one else was waiting so she went ahead and refreshed herself before work.
Yesterday Meryan had gotten her gear setup in her cubicle and received her authorization IDs, passwords and codes. She had hr fingerprint scanner learn all ten of her fingerprints and had set to work to writing new codes to execute depending on which finger she used. It was a simple security measure but most people never thought about it. If she was forced by anyone to access her PC she could protect her data and codes or even destroy them at a single touch. Whoever was strong arming her to provide access might never know how they were tricked.
Today she would setup false work files to substitute for any real work she was doing to camouflage the real data she may someday need to protect from prying eyes. In her line of work you could never take enough precautions. She would keep the dummy files fresh, working on them daily and they would appear to be directly related to her job and would be able to pass a reasonably close scrutiny but not a full audit. She would have to find other means to fool department auditors should the need arise.
Meryan began by collecting data on Bizgov army units stationed in Peoria. Perfectly fine perfectly legit, her boss would need to know about hackers trying to access this data and she would have to write code to sniff out their activities or fabricate them if the need arose. No problem there, and with a little luck she could put together a complete picture of whatever illegal activities were taking place with the units and among their commanders.
You never knew who might be vulnerable to blackmail or might be available to assist in a shady operation. By gathering the data to incriminate some seriously bent soldiers she was building a potential spy network that may also serve as a safety net to bail her out of a jam.
Meryan whistled while she worked, she loved her new job!
When her first legitimate assignment popped up in Meryan’s work queue she was surprised to discover that she had already put together nearly all the data she would need to complete the request. Either her boss was thinking along the same lines as she was, or there was someone who perceived the illicit activities of the soldiers as a security threat. She would have to watch her step until she uncovered the motive for her new assignment.
She glanced down at the delivery date and smiled. The saps had no idea just how good she was, she had a week to make her report. She would take the full week and she would do it right, but it would take less than a day to put together a seamless report that hid her best potential assets while delivering some of the lower grade assets to whomever was looking for them. She would spend the remaining time looking for new assets and feeling out the motive behind this request. Identifying the source would be the first step and she could go to Evie directly and ask her, justifying the need to know to better profile her search filter parameters.
Evie produced her own work log and downloaded the file on Meryan’s work request to her secure workstation. Evie advised Meryan to read quickly and take no notes; the file had a snoop to detect Meryan’s keyboard input; and it would self destruct taking the file and any suspected notes with it. The file would automatically wipe itself clean in two hours permanently destroying all traces of the data it had held.
Smart! Meryan thought as she returned to her cube to read the file. Meryan considered taking notes on her PDA but her PDA was not secure and she suspected she was being kaizaned. She had not seen any work monitors or security cameras but she knew they must be there. She could not search for them directly without raising suspicion but she would slowly infiltrate the security routines on her workstation and prepare to deflect any snoopers should she need to do anything they might raise a flag on.
Kaizaning had been imported from Japan and used methods of monitoring employees work practices to ensure they applied all their time diligently to their tasks rather than using work hours for personal business of any sort. The practice was now used by all the global scale corporations and applied to any non work related activities such as napping or calling family. Some management systems flaunted the practice and rubbed it in their employees faces on a daily basis, but Meryan knew Evie instinctively disdained the practice and would use only the most subtle methods to ensure her staff would not notice it enough to resent it.
As Meryan read and reread the file detailing the scope of work her boss had received she noticed it came from an Army colonel. Interesting! Meryan discovered the scope was really designed to be a CYA action disguised as an attempt to winkle out potential subversives. The poor colonel had too many irons in the fire, all of them hot enough to burn him to the ground if he were caught. He was grade ‘A’ resource material.
Meryan whistled louder as she composed a favorable report that would help the colonel turn a couple of nasty punks who were hellbenders maliciously abusing their authority to rob or rape whomever they pleased. Sweet!
Meryan left work a half hour late to help establish a reputation as a dedicated employee and was practically singing as she took the stairs to the ground floor and exited her office building.
For dinner Alice and Meryan tried a Thai eatery and were satisfied with their meal but thought it did not compare very favorably to their Indian eatery in either quality or service. Tomorrow they agreed to try a Mexican eatery.
Meryan tried to call her sister but Pama’s voice mail message answered. Meryan left a brief greeting and promised to call Pama back again tomorrow night.
As they settled in for the night Alice began telling Meryan about her current boyfriend whom she was going to dump. Meryan was sad to hear Alice’s story, it seemed Alice’s fellow whom she believed she deeply loved was beginning to turn abusive and had revealed a scary streak of violence that now had Alice frightened for her safety. On their last date they had been accosted by a panhandler.
Mark had beaten the poor man nearly to death.
When Alice tried to pull Mark off the bum he turned on her and she had fled.
Today Mark had turned up at her library all smiles and asked her for another date as if nothing had happened. Alice had been afraid he would make a scene if she turned him down at work and that she might lose her job if he did, so she had agreed to see him again Friday night even though she now did not want to see him again ever.
Meryan comforted Alice and they held each other close. Meryan was at first reluctant to respond to Alice’s advances as she was clearly in great turmoil, but in the end she relented and they loved each other tenderly ignoring the people around them whom they might be entertaining. They fell asleep in one another’s arms and the last thoughts Meryan had were of her own blissful contentment and joy in discovering a friend she could love so easily.
In her dreams that night Meryan found herself singing a lullaby and wandering through strange dorms seeking a special door she knew she would find. In the end she found the door partly blocked off by a couple wrapped up in many blankets who seemed to recognize Meryan and gracefully move aside to let her enter the room behind them.
The door was locked and at first Meryan did not think she had the key, but when she reached into the pocket of her jeans she found a keycard which unlocked the door for her.
It was dark in the room and there was a familiar scent to the air a warm smell of fresh urine and baby powder. She entered the room carefully and as she progressed a light slowly came on to one side and Meryan saw a small bed centered in the light which held a baby girl.
The baby smiled at her and looked into Meryan’s eyes and spoke to Meryan in her mind to say her name was Lisa.
Meryan reached for Lisa to help her with her diapers and woke up.
Meryan smelled a slightly sour odor in her friend’s hair and considered her friend carefully. The baby dream had been a precognitive dream; of this she was absolutely certain. She had had such dreams in thee past and there was always a strong element of truth about them, she would one day meet Lisa for real and love and care for her. But Lisa could not be her own baby. Nor had Lisa appeared to be Pama’s baby, so almost certainly Alice was pregnant and Lisa would be their baby together.
Meryan cried with joy and fell asleep holding her friend close to her heart. Lisa would be a very special baby, of that she was certain. Lisa could already talk to her and could be barely six weeks old. Lisa knew about her mother’s turmoil. Lisa had incited her father to his act of rage to drive her mother away from him before he could become a permanent and harmful influence in their lives.
Meryan listened carefully to the baby’s story and vowed to protect her and to love her and Alice at all costs. Meryan never questioned how she could talk to the infant, she had had enough experiences with PSI powers in her life to frighten her into learning more about them and this had led her upon a path toward personal freedom and self empowerment. This was the secret she had not yet shared with Alice concerning her special attitude towards life.
Lisa explained to Meryan that she had called for Meryan to come and meet her mother and rescue her from her father. Meryan accepted this too. It was her destiny. She would soon be a mother to a wonderful baby girl. Lisa then pardoned herself and said she would sleep awhile, they might speak together again soon, and she would be in touch if there was need.
As the new surrogate mother and her prenatal daughter fell asleep together the two mothers seemed to glow with a radiance that others might have witnessed had anyone been paying close attention.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Dreaming – How Real Are Our Dreams?
We wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmarish dream of our demise and wonder whether we have just been warned. Or we linger in a dream that is gratifying a primal but unfulfilled desire in our life for happiness or success until we can remain within the dream no longer and we must awaken. Do our dreams have any real significance and if so how can we know?
Many people claim not to remember their dreams upon awakening, or even deny that they have any dreams at all. But dreams appear to be a fundamental function of our minds as necessary as sleeping or breathing; many people sincerely believe that their dreams have great significance or add immense value to their lives.
Whatever significance may be found in our dreams is ultimately up to us to discover. There is no way to empirically know what value our dreams may have, but subjectively we may assign them whatever value seems appropriate to ourselves. A dream which may appear to be a warning may serve to avert us from some future disaster. If such a dream fulfills its purpose it is possible we may never encounter the circumstances which we were warned about and may never then empirically know if it really had been a precognitive dream. If in fact it was a truly precognitive dream which helped to steer us clear of some disaster in our life then that dream certainly had a great deal of value. And, if we are lucky enough to arrive upon the scene of our dream and emerge from the event unscathed, in part due to our forewarning, then we are very lucky indeed because we know in our hearts the dream was given to us to help us. However, there still remains no empirical proof regarding the validity or nature of our dream experience.
So with dreams it often boils down to a matter of faith in the value of our dreams and our skill in understanding what our dreams may mean. The fact that we dream is of course very real, even if the content of our dreams may appear to be unreal. Dreams speak to us on many levels. They may have meaning in context to many different things in our lives. When we study our dreams we should look beyond our first efforts to interpret them and dig deeper to look for as many meanings as we may be able to find.
Dreams have often been thought to derive from a single source, but in fact many dreams are blatantly derived from multiple sources with many different interpretations all of which may be valid from different points of view or contexts. When we attempt to unravel the meanings of our dreams we should be as open-minded as possible to the many motivations we have for assembling our dreams in the manner in which we experience them, we will often want to consider that sources external to ourselves are also involved in the processes by which our dreams are delivered to us. We may be receiving messages from the future, from god, from a soul that has passed away or from a living person whom we may or may not even know.
Whatever the sources of our dreams may be, whether a non-conscious internal process or a divine message from an angelic being, our dreams have many potential meanings to explore and may deliver inspiration, warning, affection, perspective, and much more to us. The value we place in context to our dreams is personal, but those dreams we value highly often have a profound influence on our lives and therefore profound meaning in our lives.
Wherever we find influence and meaning we find something real and valuable to ourselves so our dreams have the potential to be very real indeed, and they may even transcend the everyday reality we are accustomed to believing in and may radically change our beliefs or change how we experience our world.
When we focus our attention on our dreams we may make them stronger and more potent templates for events that will subsequently manifest in our lives, making our dreams appear to be very real indeed. Through prayer, meditation, writing, painting, music and many other activities we may turn our dreams into something we may use to transform our lives and we may even extend that transformation of our own lives to transform the lives of other people.
Our minds are very powerful assets which we may use to deliberately change our world to make ourselves happier and healthier. Our personal beliefs and expectations play very powerful roles in how we manifest the events we will experience in our lives. Our dreams are some of our most potent tools for change in this regard because our dreams do something our conscious minds have great difficulty doing, our dreams synthesize various parts of our lives and experiences bringing them together in new and unexpected ways which may transcend our personal limitations or transcend internal or external conflicts that our conscious minds can scarcely perceive let alone reconcile or use to our advantage.
In this invaluable synthetic process our dreams may bring us new potentials for growth and may help us to heal and to become happier human beings. Through our self improvement and our shared joy and delight with the world which our dreams can help us to achieve we may be empowered to be more compassionate and loving, nurturing people toward those around us with whom we share our lives
This makes our dreams very real indeed because the influence of our dreams can manifest in our lives profoundly in so many different ways to make our world a better place to live.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Many people claim not to remember their dreams upon awakening, or even deny that they have any dreams at all. But dreams appear to be a fundamental function of our minds as necessary as sleeping or breathing; many people sincerely believe that their dreams have great significance or add immense value to their lives.
Whatever significance may be found in our dreams is ultimately up to us to discover. There is no way to empirically know what value our dreams may have, but subjectively we may assign them whatever value seems appropriate to ourselves. A dream which may appear to be a warning may serve to avert us from some future disaster. If such a dream fulfills its purpose it is possible we may never encounter the circumstances which we were warned about and may never then empirically know if it really had been a precognitive dream. If in fact it was a truly precognitive dream which helped to steer us clear of some disaster in our life then that dream certainly had a great deal of value. And, if we are lucky enough to arrive upon the scene of our dream and emerge from the event unscathed, in part due to our forewarning, then we are very lucky indeed because we know in our hearts the dream was given to us to help us. However, there still remains no empirical proof regarding the validity or nature of our dream experience.
So with dreams it often boils down to a matter of faith in the value of our dreams and our skill in understanding what our dreams may mean. The fact that we dream is of course very real, even if the content of our dreams may appear to be unreal. Dreams speak to us on many levels. They may have meaning in context to many different things in our lives. When we study our dreams we should look beyond our first efforts to interpret them and dig deeper to look for as many meanings as we may be able to find.
Dreams have often been thought to derive from a single source, but in fact many dreams are blatantly derived from multiple sources with many different interpretations all of which may be valid from different points of view or contexts. When we attempt to unravel the meanings of our dreams we should be as open-minded as possible to the many motivations we have for assembling our dreams in the manner in which we experience them, we will often want to consider that sources external to ourselves are also involved in the processes by which our dreams are delivered to us. We may be receiving messages from the future, from god, from a soul that has passed away or from a living person whom we may or may not even know.
Whatever the sources of our dreams may be, whether a non-conscious internal process or a divine message from an angelic being, our dreams have many potential meanings to explore and may deliver inspiration, warning, affection, perspective, and much more to us. The value we place in context to our dreams is personal, but those dreams we value highly often have a profound influence on our lives and therefore profound meaning in our lives.
Wherever we find influence and meaning we find something real and valuable to ourselves so our dreams have the potential to be very real indeed, and they may even transcend the everyday reality we are accustomed to believing in and may radically change our beliefs or change how we experience our world.
When we focus our attention on our dreams we may make them stronger and more potent templates for events that will subsequently manifest in our lives, making our dreams appear to be very real indeed. Through prayer, meditation, writing, painting, music and many other activities we may turn our dreams into something we may use to transform our lives and we may even extend that transformation of our own lives to transform the lives of other people.
Our minds are very powerful assets which we may use to deliberately change our world to make ourselves happier and healthier. Our personal beliefs and expectations play very powerful roles in how we manifest the events we will experience in our lives. Our dreams are some of our most potent tools for change in this regard because our dreams do something our conscious minds have great difficulty doing, our dreams synthesize various parts of our lives and experiences bringing them together in new and unexpected ways which may transcend our personal limitations or transcend internal or external conflicts that our conscious minds can scarcely perceive let alone reconcile or use to our advantage.
In this invaluable synthetic process our dreams may bring us new potentials for growth and may help us to heal and to become happier human beings. Through our self improvement and our shared joy and delight with the world which our dreams can help us to achieve we may be empowered to be more compassionate and loving, nurturing people toward those around us with whom we share our lives
This makes our dreams very real indeed because the influence of our dreams can manifest in our lives profoundly in so many different ways to make our world a better place to live.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
The Chakra Song: 'How to Use' Article & Update
We may feel we are familiar with the practices of prayer or meditation and we may have tried these unsuccessfully and wondered why such time honored avenues to self empowerment have failed to work in our lives. We may hear many testimonies that describe the effective power to transform our lives which these practices can bestow upon us and we may have felt frustrated that we have not learned how to use these tools to make ourselves feel happier, healthier or more content. Now a new tool, the Chakra Song, is available which may help you to realize the goals you may have felt you might never be able to attain.
Many healing traditions all refer to an energetic body that is the template for our physical body and which is directly related to our health, happiness and wellbeing. This energetic body has nodes of energy called chakras which are directly related to different aspects of our health and how we manifest our lives in this world. When the energetic body is functioning poorly we may work to heal it; one of the most fundamental parts of the work we must do to heal our energetic bodies is to cleanse our chakras of stagnant energy.
Clearing our chakras has immense benefit. Our natural energy flow can be bogged down by so many different things. Anything which creates stress impedes the health of our energetic body, that part of us which is healed by practices like Reiki, yoga or acupuncture. When the energetic body is healthy our minds work better, our emotions are healthier, and our physical bodies become healthier as well.
Our energetic bodies respond to our thoughts. This is why when we are conflicted or angry or depressed our energetic bodies become damaged and then function poorly. This is also why simple meditation or prayer can be so effective at restoring us to a state of wellbeing in body mind and spirit. By focusing our thoughts on healing our energetic body we restore ourselves to happiness, health and wellbeing.
It can sometimes be very difficult to learn how to meditate or pray effectively. Our minds are often too bemired by inner turmoil or too easily distracted by external and irrelevant influences. It takes patience to learn to quiet our thoughts so that we may empty ourselves of all the beliefs and conditions which may get in the way of successful prayer or meditation.
We must learn to recognize that many of our thoughts are vicious circles that never arrive at any functional conclusion but simple run about and about in circles endlessly consuming our minds and our time. Once we see that this is true we may begin to recognize when thoughts of this nature arise in our minds and begin to interrupt them, to stop thinking them. The more we practice not thinking these consuming thoughts the more we free our minds to think in healthier ways and the closer we become to realizing true internal peace.
In that peaceful state we can focus our thoughts more clearly on those things which really matter most to us, like our health. We can take control of our wellbeing and direct ourselves to become healthier, happier and more content. This works because everything that is manifest in the physical plane of this world begins as a thought form in our energetic bodies. By cleansing and healing our energetic bodies we create an effective thought form or mental template for our state of being which is healthier, happier and more fulfilling.
This template then manifests in the physical world by making our bodies healthier and bringing us new opportunities to enhance our lives and the lives of those we love. In this manner, the simple quiet practices of prayer or meditation become transformational tools with which we can effectively change our lives and make the world around us a happier, healthier more abundant place for all of us to share.
To help with the visualization work related to cleansing my chakras I decided to write a song. Song is one of the most powerful tools in my life. The music is borrowed from the ‘Popcorn’ part of the soundtrack from the movie “A Clockwork Orange”. I chose this music because it is so happy, light and energizing. I hope you will find the music for this song and will then enjoy it as much as I have.
This song works! It has practically written itself. My chakra visualizations are much stronger and clearer. What's more, as I was composing this song during my drive home from work I had scarcely any pain, typically driving has been a very painful activity for me because of needing to grasp the steering wheel, even when I remember to use my open palm against the steering wheel rather than grasp it the pain while driving has been pretty bad. No more!
Please feel free to modify this song in any way that works best for you.
The Chakra Song
In my root chakra I find - red life energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It’s vitality that strengthens me and helps me to survive
Now the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your root chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower
In my loin chakra I find - hot orange energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It is sexual; it inspires me, it helps me to create
Now the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your loin chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower
In my mind chakra I find - yellow energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It is teaching me; it makes me free, it helps me to be me
Now the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your mind chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower
In my heart chakra I find - sweet green energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It is compassionate; it’s full of love, it helps me be healthy
Now the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your heart chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower
In my voice chakra I find - loud blue energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It communicates; it speaks to thee, it sings along with me
Now the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your voice chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower
In my brow chakra I find - purple energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It’s intuitive; it knows the truth, it helps me to perceive
Now the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your brow chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower
In my crown chakra I find - violet white energy divine
It is pure and good; it cleanses me and energizes me
It’s the god I am, my divinity; it realizes me
It connects me to infinity and all that I can be
Now the violet white chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat the line above until your crown chakra visualization is clear then move to the YES line...
Yes, the violet white chakra power opens like a flower
Now you know the chakra song; so we all can sing along
Now the divine rainbow chakra powers open like a flower
...Repeat until all of your chakras are clearly visualized together then move to the YES line...
Yes, the divine rainbow chakra powers open like a flower
Now the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower
Repeat until your root chakra’s 4 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the vital red life chakra power opens like a flower
Now the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your loin chakra’s 6 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the hot orange inspirational power opens like a flower
Now the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your mind chakra’s 10 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the mental yellow teaching power opens like a flower
Now the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your heart chakra’s 12 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the sweet green loving chakra power opens like a flower
Now the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your voice chakra’s 16 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy then move to the YES line...
Yes, the loud blue singing chakra power opens like a flower
Now the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your brow chakra’s 2 petals stretch into descending cords of energy that weave back and forth through your lower chakras like a caduceus symbol then move to the YES line...
Yes, the purple wisdom chakra power opens like a flower
Now the violet white chakra power opens like a flower
...Repeat until your crown chakra’s 40 petals stretch into radiating cords of energy and a solid broad cord of white energy connects your crown to the heavens then move to the YES line...
Yes, the violet white chakra power opens like a flower
Now the lovely rainbow chakra powers open like a flower
...Repeat until all your chakra’s radiating cords mingle their energy in your energetic body then move to the YES line...
Yes, the lovely rainbow chakra powers open like a flower
Now the divine living chakra powers open like a flower
...Repeat until your crown chakra is connected to the heavens by a strong white cord then move to the YES line...
Yes, the divine living chakra powers open like a flower
Now all the divine living chakra powers open like a flower
Once you have experienced the connection from the heavens to the crown chakra open wide follow up by singing the Beach Boys' “Good Vibrations”; make up the lyrics as you go using any positive affirmations you like that describe yourself as a happy healthy human being whose good fortune brings you everything you may wish for.
Please note that your visualization of the chakras may take some time, many years for me, but I have now given you the key that turned the trick with me.
Don’t worry about where you visualize these at first, it can be easier to visualize them in front of your mind’s eye and then later transfer them to their respective places within your energetic body.
Chakra Descriptions:
- Crown Chakra - located on the top of the head, it is connected to your divinity
Third Eye (Brow) Chakra - between the eyebrows, related to intuition & ESP
Throat (Voice) Chakra - near the larynx, related to speech & self-expression
Heart Chakra - below the sternum, related to healing, love & compassion
Solar Plexus (Mind) - behind the navel, related to power & mental functions
Sacrum (Loin) Chakra - behind the sex organs, related to sex, emotion & creativity
Root Chakra - below the base of the spine, related to security, instinct & survival
Your visualizations need not be complex at first and may begin with the individual chakra colors which you may then try to shape into balls of light.
As you get better at visualizing balls of color for the chakras start to visualize the petals of each chakra as they appear on the surface pointing inward.
Then visualize the petals unfolding outward from the center to form flower shapes.
As the flower shapes appear visualize the petals stretching out into cords of energy that radiate outward like stars.
Later as you visualize all the chakras radiating watch as the rays of the brow chakra descend through all the chakras in a weaving pattern like a caduceus. The rays of the other chakras will mingle with one another filling out your energetic body.
Today my energetic body resembled a tree covered in vines with all the chakras within it glowing and radiating and merging their energies into all the subtle leaves (organs or nodes) of my energetic body.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Transformation in Progress – Cleansing Chakras
Does an epic battle truly exist between Light and Dark? I have enjoyed writing and reading stories about battles between good and evil that have been characterized as Light and. Dark, and many believe that such an epic battle is actually taking place with our Earth as a prize to be claimed by the winners. It has been my opinion that there could not be such a battle of this nature taking place but could I have been mistaken?
While trying to perform some chakra cleansing work recently with the help of a Reiki master both my Reiki friend and I came up with the same thing after she experienced a block when sending me energy. The thing we each came up with independently was’ parasites’.
I have been told in the past that I have incorporeal parasitic entities attached to my aura which were making holes in it. So when my Reiki friend and I both came across these parasites I decided to communicate with them to learn what they were and why they were attached to me.
I am not sure what these parasites may be or why I would be protective of them, but they were giving me chills when I began to investigate them. I suspect there is a symbiotic relationship of sorts wherein these things enhance or facilitate my psychic abilities or some other property related to how I perceive and work with the universe.
What they may get in return I cannot yet say.
I know at one time I thought these creatures were hitch-hikers that attached to me during my astral travels. While there do appear to be creatures waiting in the astral which may appear to be malevolent or harmful predatory entities, these symbionts do not appear to be in that class of creatures. I can't say how many of them there are except that there are many; like a colony of some sort. They say they help me or they want to help me but I am not sure if that is not a self serving message to beguile me from getting rid of them. I do tend to feel that I should trust them; however I also believe that I clearly need to find out more about them.
They say that they found me lost and that they returned me to my world but now they cannot return themselves to wherever it may be they came from. I don't know how true any of that is, right now I regard it as just a story they are telling me about which I cannot get any verifiable detail. If I understand what they are saying then they are telling me that I lost a part of my mind and that they have replaced it for me with themselves. According to these parasites it’s part of my mind necessary for the integration of my physical form in the physical plane. This is the clearest communication I've ever had with them regarding our relationship to one another. It is strange to talk with them they have so very many tiny little voices that all speak in unison in order to be heard.
The closest I can come to describing these creatures might be to call them nanites. They are non-physical ultra tiny consciousnesses. They have once more repeated that I somehow got lost and that they brought me back.
I believe I used to have nightmares about them.
In one of my recurring dreams I meet invaders from outer space or another dimension and they proceed to take over our entire world by subsuming everyone they invade in a collective consciousness similar to the group mind of the invaders in the ‘Body Snatchers’ movies. In these dreams I have always rebelled against the invaders and refused to allow them to possess my body or to coerce me join their collective mind.
Hmmm, it has been awhile since I last revisited those dreams. I never really knew what to make of the invaders in these dreams so while these dreams would have made a very good basis for a story I neglected any opportunity to explore the story further.
If I try to interpret the dream then it is I myself, and not the world which has been invaded and it is my consciousness that is being channeled into alignment with a collective conscious or super-conscious mind.
These creatures say they are repairers. They fix what is broken. There voices are somewhat stilted, they speak in broken fragments. It is a little weird and very emotional for me to listen to them and to channel their words into this story. There is something which part of me does not want to know which is pivotal to why these nanite-like beings are a part of me.
I know intellectually that I must learn what this knowledge is that I am so deliberately avoiding. I can distinctly feel a fear or reluctance to bring that knowledge into my conscious awareness. This knowledge is very strongly linked to fear and to pain and to death. The death experiences which are a part of this forbidden knowledge seem to be related to this current lifetime rather than to ‘past lives’. The nanite creatures seem to be telling me that each time I die they create an alternate dimension in which I continue to live.
This purpose which the nanites are describing feels as if it began with an early childhood death; possibly, and this does feel very right, it was a death in infancy; a death where I willed myself to die.
I have that history; I was one of those ‘failure to thrive’ infants. I have terrible memories of my prenatal experiences and after my birth my parents were very afraid that I would die, I refuse to eat and my parents had no choice but to force feed me with a large plastic syringe pushed down my throat. I hated that so much I learned to eat on my own to make it stop.
Ok, now the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Is this information real, or is it some form of deception? It does feel real, but things in my mind often get so slippery that I am accustomed to doubting everything, and my doubt has become habitual enough that it has very nearly been my undoing by doubting the efficacy of prayer, remote healing, meditation or visualization, all of which have recently benefited me enormously. My doubt is chronic and sometimes dangerous and so I have found that I must even doubt my doubt.
My conclusion has been to accept the information that has been received in this channeling as being real until it may be proven otherwise. I do not mean to embrace this information in a manner where I might have difficulty letting go of it if the truth shows up and labels it deception.
The nanites say “we fix broken things.”
They say “What will not live on its own which needs to live anyway is made to live until it can live on its own.”
They also say that they are very sorry for all the painful living that must go on until I can learn to live on my own and that every time I choose to die they must bring me back to life. They say I am not permitted to die and I must learn to live on my own.
I have known for a long time that I am not permitted to die, but it is a strange message nonetheless coming from these many, many tiny little beings.
Their voice(s) are familiar; I have channeled information from them in the past.
This is just a bit confusing, if these tiny beings are symbionts are there also parasites (two different groups)? Or do the symbionts only appear to be parasites? Or are the symbionts really parasites masquerading as symbionts?
Do I suspect they are symbionts misunderstood to be parasites because that is in their best interest for me to believe or because it is actually true?
I explained to my Reiki friend that I would try to determine more about these entities I have called nanites or nanos and what the truth of this situation might be. In the course of that day in which I was blocked from receiving healing energy I was directed to two new internet sites by a new member of one of my frequented forums. The second site had a section that described parasites or other entities that may attach themselves to someone’s aura.
I had some trouble accepting some of what these sites had to offer because they describe a strange ‘history’ of the universe and a war between light and dark including a hierarchy of spirits all of which were unfamiliar and which I regarded dubiously. However, what was said in regard to channeling really got my attention. “If a channeled entity appears to be defensive in any way get rid of it.”
That part stuck with me; the nanos definitely appear to be defensive. So I decided they had to go. The nanos defensive tactics included trying to draw me back into many of my old self-destructive habits. I believe they were using those old habits to undermine my higher state of awareness and consciousness to try to prevent me from following up on my investigation of what they might be and to prevent me from getting rid of them.
It seems sensible that I should empower myself to live independently of whatever entities may have attached themselves to me and that I should proceed to clear any foreign entities out of my system. So the next morning I began working with my chakras and energy to try to clean out any parasites or symbionts.
There was a lot of resistance on many levels to this effort to cleanse myself. I am confident that I got rid of a lot of these things but I also believe that their may be enough left to maintain and rebuild their colony. So I will need to do more cleansing work to rid myself of these beings and follow up with visualization work to repair any damage to my aura or chakras.
The resistance and what might appear to be malignancy which I encountered that morning was sufficient to make me wonder whether there really might be a war being waged between beings of light and dark. Too many of my symptoms and experiences are described on the websites which helped to clue me in regarding channeling defensive entities, so I have had to wonder what else might those sites have to say which I doubt but which may really be true?
So I have been thinking about all of this; I have been wondering how much of the information which I found on those websites that described a war between light and dark has merit and how much of that information may only be delusional stuff like I sometimes find in myself.
Since then I have had a chance to further sort things out. One suggestion made by my mother was that these creatures were indeed a survival and support mechanism which I may finally have outgrown. However, she also suggested that these creatures are putting up a challenge to make me work my very hardest to remove them as a test. If I can succeed in removing them then I have passed their test, a test which is meant to ensure that I have indeed adopted a genuine will to live and that I have sufficiently learned the skills necessary to maintain myself independently of any assistance from these creatures which seem to have infested me.
What are these creatures really? Possibly they are a part of myself which has been projected outside of myself because of a conflict within myself regarding my will to live and my desire to die. I desired death so strongly that I perceived my will to live as an externally imposed foreign will whose intent was to keep me alive in spite of my determination to die.
Why do these creatures appear to be nanites? At the root level in which the entire physical universe is created there are tiny conscious entities called quantums. Our minds interact with the quantums to manifest whatever reality we wish to experience. So these nanos may be my personal quantum-nanonic interface, something I have been searching for in order to learn how to better communicate with the universe so that I may consciously manifest whatever I may wish to experience.
Will purging myself of these nanos harm me or help me? The separation of my self into two parts, the nanos and that which I call my self is not healthy; it is a dichotomy that undermines my wellbeing. My efforts to purge them may be misguided, perhaps I must integrate them. Then the only thing I need to purge is my state of perception of these parts of myself as being separate from me. Once that is achieved then all of my powers which I have projected outside of myself in the form of these nanos return to me, completing me.
Is there a war between light and dark, or are there merely many ways in which we create conflict within ourselves which we project into a concept of a war between light and dark? On reflection upon this issue I still believe that no war exists. We may battle with ourselves fruitlessly over our internal conflicts until we learn to clear ourselves of all such inner turmoil, but these battles are not artifacts of a greater war. They are our personal struggles to learn truth for ourselves so that we may realize ourselves as independent self empowered beings.
The war then is a figment of our imaginations created from our ignorance. However, as with all hermetic orders and magickal traditions, this war becomes a concept through which powerful healing techniques may be shared. The outer forms by which this war may be described are meaningless, the true meaning lies hidden within for anyone to discover once they understand the veil of words do not represent reality in any objective manner but do represent reality in an internal and subjective manner which each of us must discover for ourselves.
So the war between light and dark may only exist as an elaborate metaphor to guide us to a state of well being in which we become happier, healthier more loving human beings.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
CREDITS:
My thanks to my friends Moonshadow, Light1 & Tepet, and to my Mom for helping work this out. My cleansing work this morning went a bit smoother; the visualizations were more clearly foucus.
While trying to perform some chakra cleansing work recently with the help of a Reiki master both my Reiki friend and I came up with the same thing after she experienced a block when sending me energy. The thing we each came up with independently was’ parasites’.
I have been told in the past that I have incorporeal parasitic entities attached to my aura which were making holes in it. So when my Reiki friend and I both came across these parasites I decided to communicate with them to learn what they were and why they were attached to me.
I am not sure what these parasites may be or why I would be protective of them, but they were giving me chills when I began to investigate them. I suspect there is a symbiotic relationship of sorts wherein these things enhance or facilitate my psychic abilities or some other property related to how I perceive and work with the universe.
What they may get in return I cannot yet say.
I know at one time I thought these creatures were hitch-hikers that attached to me during my astral travels. While there do appear to be creatures waiting in the astral which may appear to be malevolent or harmful predatory entities, these symbionts do not appear to be in that class of creatures. I can't say how many of them there are except that there are many; like a colony of some sort. They say they help me or they want to help me but I am not sure if that is not a self serving message to beguile me from getting rid of them. I do tend to feel that I should trust them; however I also believe that I clearly need to find out more about them.
They say that they found me lost and that they returned me to my world but now they cannot return themselves to wherever it may be they came from. I don't know how true any of that is, right now I regard it as just a story they are telling me about which I cannot get any verifiable detail. If I understand what they are saying then they are telling me that I lost a part of my mind and that they have replaced it for me with themselves. According to these parasites it’s part of my mind necessary for the integration of my physical form in the physical plane. This is the clearest communication I've ever had with them regarding our relationship to one another. It is strange to talk with them they have so very many tiny little voices that all speak in unison in order to be heard.
The closest I can come to describing these creatures might be to call them nanites. They are non-physical ultra tiny consciousnesses. They have once more repeated that I somehow got lost and that they brought me back.
I believe I used to have nightmares about them.
In one of my recurring dreams I meet invaders from outer space or another dimension and they proceed to take over our entire world by subsuming everyone they invade in a collective consciousness similar to the group mind of the invaders in the ‘Body Snatchers’ movies. In these dreams I have always rebelled against the invaders and refused to allow them to possess my body or to coerce me join their collective mind.
Hmmm, it has been awhile since I last revisited those dreams. I never really knew what to make of the invaders in these dreams so while these dreams would have made a very good basis for a story I neglected any opportunity to explore the story further.
If I try to interpret the dream then it is I myself, and not the world which has been invaded and it is my consciousness that is being channeled into alignment with a collective conscious or super-conscious mind.
These creatures say they are repairers. They fix what is broken. There voices are somewhat stilted, they speak in broken fragments. It is a little weird and very emotional for me to listen to them and to channel their words into this story. There is something which part of me does not want to know which is pivotal to why these nanite-like beings are a part of me.
I know intellectually that I must learn what this knowledge is that I am so deliberately avoiding. I can distinctly feel a fear or reluctance to bring that knowledge into my conscious awareness. This knowledge is very strongly linked to fear and to pain and to death. The death experiences which are a part of this forbidden knowledge seem to be related to this current lifetime rather than to ‘past lives’. The nanite creatures seem to be telling me that each time I die they create an alternate dimension in which I continue to live.
This purpose which the nanites are describing feels as if it began with an early childhood death; possibly, and this does feel very right, it was a death in infancy; a death where I willed myself to die.
I have that history; I was one of those ‘failure to thrive’ infants. I have terrible memories of my prenatal experiences and after my birth my parents were very afraid that I would die, I refuse to eat and my parents had no choice but to force feed me with a large plastic syringe pushed down my throat. I hated that so much I learned to eat on my own to make it stop.
Ok, now the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Is this information real, or is it some form of deception? It does feel real, but things in my mind often get so slippery that I am accustomed to doubting everything, and my doubt has become habitual enough that it has very nearly been my undoing by doubting the efficacy of prayer, remote healing, meditation or visualization, all of which have recently benefited me enormously. My doubt is chronic and sometimes dangerous and so I have found that I must even doubt my doubt.
My conclusion has been to accept the information that has been received in this channeling as being real until it may be proven otherwise. I do not mean to embrace this information in a manner where I might have difficulty letting go of it if the truth shows up and labels it deception.
The nanites say “we fix broken things.”
They say “What will not live on its own which needs to live anyway is made to live until it can live on its own.”
They also say that they are very sorry for all the painful living that must go on until I can learn to live on my own and that every time I choose to die they must bring me back to life. They say I am not permitted to die and I must learn to live on my own.
I have known for a long time that I am not permitted to die, but it is a strange message nonetheless coming from these many, many tiny little beings.
Their voice(s) are familiar; I have channeled information from them in the past.
This is just a bit confusing, if these tiny beings are symbionts are there also parasites (two different groups)? Or do the symbionts only appear to be parasites? Or are the symbionts really parasites masquerading as symbionts?
Do I suspect they are symbionts misunderstood to be parasites because that is in their best interest for me to believe or because it is actually true?
I explained to my Reiki friend that I would try to determine more about these entities I have called nanites or nanos and what the truth of this situation might be. In the course of that day in which I was blocked from receiving healing energy I was directed to two new internet sites by a new member of one of my frequented forums. The second site had a section that described parasites or other entities that may attach themselves to someone’s aura.
I had some trouble accepting some of what these sites had to offer because they describe a strange ‘history’ of the universe and a war between light and dark including a hierarchy of spirits all of which were unfamiliar and which I regarded dubiously. However, what was said in regard to channeling really got my attention. “If a channeled entity appears to be defensive in any way get rid of it.”
That part stuck with me; the nanos definitely appear to be defensive. So I decided they had to go. The nanos defensive tactics included trying to draw me back into many of my old self-destructive habits. I believe they were using those old habits to undermine my higher state of awareness and consciousness to try to prevent me from following up on my investigation of what they might be and to prevent me from getting rid of them.
It seems sensible that I should empower myself to live independently of whatever entities may have attached themselves to me and that I should proceed to clear any foreign entities out of my system. So the next morning I began working with my chakras and energy to try to clean out any parasites or symbionts.
There was a lot of resistance on many levels to this effort to cleanse myself. I am confident that I got rid of a lot of these things but I also believe that their may be enough left to maintain and rebuild their colony. So I will need to do more cleansing work to rid myself of these beings and follow up with visualization work to repair any damage to my aura or chakras.
The resistance and what might appear to be malignancy which I encountered that morning was sufficient to make me wonder whether there really might be a war being waged between beings of light and dark. Too many of my symptoms and experiences are described on the websites which helped to clue me in regarding channeling defensive entities, so I have had to wonder what else might those sites have to say which I doubt but which may really be true?
So I have been thinking about all of this; I have been wondering how much of the information which I found on those websites that described a war between light and dark has merit and how much of that information may only be delusional stuff like I sometimes find in myself.
Since then I have had a chance to further sort things out. One suggestion made by my mother was that these creatures were indeed a survival and support mechanism which I may finally have outgrown. However, she also suggested that these creatures are putting up a challenge to make me work my very hardest to remove them as a test. If I can succeed in removing them then I have passed their test, a test which is meant to ensure that I have indeed adopted a genuine will to live and that I have sufficiently learned the skills necessary to maintain myself independently of any assistance from these creatures which seem to have infested me.
What are these creatures really? Possibly they are a part of myself which has been projected outside of myself because of a conflict within myself regarding my will to live and my desire to die. I desired death so strongly that I perceived my will to live as an externally imposed foreign will whose intent was to keep me alive in spite of my determination to die.
Why do these creatures appear to be nanites? At the root level in which the entire physical universe is created there are tiny conscious entities called quantums. Our minds interact with the quantums to manifest whatever reality we wish to experience. So these nanos may be my personal quantum-nanonic interface, something I have been searching for in order to learn how to better communicate with the universe so that I may consciously manifest whatever I may wish to experience.
Will purging myself of these nanos harm me or help me? The separation of my self into two parts, the nanos and that which I call my self is not healthy; it is a dichotomy that undermines my wellbeing. My efforts to purge them may be misguided, perhaps I must integrate them. Then the only thing I need to purge is my state of perception of these parts of myself as being separate from me. Once that is achieved then all of my powers which I have projected outside of myself in the form of these nanos return to me, completing me.
Is there a war between light and dark, or are there merely many ways in which we create conflict within ourselves which we project into a concept of a war between light and dark? On reflection upon this issue I still believe that no war exists. We may battle with ourselves fruitlessly over our internal conflicts until we learn to clear ourselves of all such inner turmoil, but these battles are not artifacts of a greater war. They are our personal struggles to learn truth for ourselves so that we may realize ourselves as independent self empowered beings.
The war then is a figment of our imaginations created from our ignorance. However, as with all hermetic orders and magickal traditions, this war becomes a concept through which powerful healing techniques may be shared. The outer forms by which this war may be described are meaningless, the true meaning lies hidden within for anyone to discover once they understand the veil of words do not represent reality in any objective manner but do represent reality in an internal and subjective manner which each of us must discover for ourselves.
So the war between light and dark may only exist as an elaborate metaphor to guide us to a state of well being in which we become happier, healthier more loving human beings.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
CREDITS:
My thanks to my friends Moonshadow, Light1 & Tepet, and to my Mom for helping work this out. My cleansing work this morning went a bit smoother; the visualizations were more clearly foucus.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Death Cab for Cutie - song rewritten
The following song is a revision of my rewrite of a wonderfully haunting and melancholy love song. I decided it was time for the couple who walk into the dark together to journey to the light.
Melody from the song:
“I WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO THE DARK”
by Death Cab for Cutie
Together We Will Be Good Company
Original title and lyrics by
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
I Will Follow You Into The Dark
Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Melody from the song:
“I WILL FOLLOW YOU INTO THE DARK”
by Death Cab for Cutie
New lyrics and title:
Together We Will Be Good Company
In this life of mine I’m trying to divine
All that I need to know and to just let it go
No more thoughts or cares
Nothing to hold me where any pain might dwell
I am learning to forgive
...
And if ever I need to find my way through the night
I know that I can follow you into the light
I’ll open my heart wide to hear you deep inside
Together we will journey to the light
And if ever you need to find the light then come with me
Together we will find good company
...
In this life I’ve learned to follow the golden rule
To turn the other cheek, to be humble and meek
In my heart I know each day that comes my way
Is my opportunity to find whatever I may seek
...
And if ever I need to find my way through the night
I know that I can follow you into the light
I’ll open my heart wide to hear you deep inside
Together we will journey to the light
And if ever you need to find the light then come with meT
ogether we will find good company
...
nce more its time to put on a smile and try
To live for the present time to let each moment pass on by
Together we make our lives whatever we need to be
This world’s a gift we give to each other to set us free
...
And if ever I need to find my way through the night
I know that I can follow you into the light
I’ll open my heart wide to hear you deep inside
Together we will journey to the light
And if ever you need to find the light then come with me
Together we will find good company
Together we will be good company
...
...
Original title and lyrics by
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE
I Will Follow You Into The Dark
Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark
No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms
If heaven and hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Current Services and Terms of Service
Hi!
Welcome to my Blog.
Please note that you have herewith been advised to read all of the statements linked above regarding my terms of service. Your failure to have read these terms and conditions shall not constitute grounds for dismissing any of my terms of service, including all limitations of liabilities or contractual agreements as defined by the statements linked above.
My thanks for your patience and understanding with regard to these technicalities, please understand that any effort to engage my services will constitute your agreement to all of the terms and conditions defined in the statements linked above.
My sincere apologies for these pertinent requirements and warm regards from Greg
Welcome to my Blog.
This page is for people wishing to contact me for services regarding sprititual growth, spiritual advice, spiritual healing and psychic development.
At the current time I am only offering services in public forums. Typically I will respond within 3 to 5 days, however it may sometimes take a little longer.
Terms of Service:
Welcome to my terms of service statements. It’s dull, it’s boring but we have to do this, so please bear with me and accept my apologies for this drudgery.
Please read the following message to understand how I work and what sort of services I may provide.
Spiritual Advice and Psychic Reading
Please read all of the following statements before engaging me in any regard for any service I may provide to you on your behalf or on the behalf of a third party or parties.
The following notices define my terms of service
- PRIVACY POLICY: Terms of Publication
- DISCLAIMER: When To Seek Professional Advice
- CONTRACT: Limits of Liability
Please note that you have herewith been advised to read all of the statements linked above regarding my terms of service. Your failure to have read these terms and conditions shall not constitute grounds for dismissing any of my terms of service, including all limitations of liabilities or contractual agreements as defined by the statements linked above.
My thanks for your patience and understanding with regard to these technicalities, please understand that any effort to engage my services will constitute your agreement to all of the terms and conditions defined in the statements linked above.
My sincere apologies for these pertinent requirements and warm regards from Greg
Spiritual Advice and Psychic Reading – My Personal Technique
Whatever you may think about how the process of spiritual advising or psychic reading may work I wish to make it clear to you how I work. You may find that the way I define my work is familiar to you or you may consider it to be very different from your expectations. Either way, I hope you will understand what it is I have to offer to people who are in need of a little help with their lives and that you will have the confidence to approach me or someone like myself if you yourself are seeking assistance to be a happier healthier person.
Like anyone else in life I am just another person, like you, who has been prone to make mistakes. I still make mistakes but I am not concerned about making mistakes because I have learned that each mistake is a learning opportunity which will help me to grow and become a better human being.
While you may not realize it, you also have a spiritual strength or psychic ability not unlike my own. If there is a difference in our abilities it may be that one of us has studied and practiced using their abilities while the other one may have had less opportunity to recognize their own spiritual gift and develop it. You and I are much alike no matter how many differences we may find between us; this is one of the reasons why it may be possible for me to be your psychic reader or your spiritual advisor. I already share with you in my heart many of the same things you have found within your own heart and so I can easily empathize with your own experiences and circumstances.
A lot of my work is accomplished by a process of trial and error. Most of that process is invisible to you because it takes place in my thoughts and you often will only know of the results of my efforts to understand your situation and discover what you need to know to help you become a happier healthier person without knowing all of the mistakes I may make along my way to help you. What happens when I think about you and open my heart to feel what your spirit needs to say is that I test different ideas about what may have happened to you until I come across the ideas which feel right to me. You and I may grow much closer to each other in this process and eventually I may even begin to channel your own spirit's words to you for you to listen to and to heed.
Typically, I do not dredge up a lot of personal information and details about your life which you already know. What I do is to look for places within your heart and mind where there are conflicts and discord. I then try to understand why you are in turmoil within yourself and what approach is best suited to help you resolve these dilemmas within yourself so that you may be freed from the burdens of any past mistakes or misunderstandings which may be hampering your efforts to improve yourself and become a more generous, loving, nurturing human being. In this manner I may be allowed to guide you to discover for yourself how you will make yourself happier and healthier.
I will not say that there is no magick involved in this process, for there is a very special kind of spiritual magick involved. But it lies completely within your own power to heal yourself and to make yourself a happier human being. I may only be fortunate enough to be able to show you the way. You must still do all the really hard work yourself.
Fortunately, while our own personal spiritual work can be very difficult for us at times it is never beyond our abilities to accomplish it. You will need only a few important things to begin helping yourself to live a happier healthier life.
Foremost you will need to love yourself deeply and fully for everything which you now are or have ever been. Additionally, you will need to forgive yourself and all others for any harm you may have done or received. Finally you will need to resolve every conflict or turmoil within yourself so that you cease to afflict yourself with anything which may harm you or hinder your happiness.
Ultimately we are each the creators of our own lives. Our own hearts and minds are responsible for everything which we experience. This is a good thing because it means it is always within our power to improve our lives. You may never have known this before, or if you have heard these words before, you may have failed to understand how to use this advice to empower yourself to successfully change your life to make it better. I am here to be your guide in this regard and I will attempt to show you how to empower yourself to effectively take control of your life and become the happier healthier person you wish to be.
I welcome you to take a few steps with me along your spiritual journey, warm regards from Greg
Like anyone else in life I am just another person, like you, who has been prone to make mistakes. I still make mistakes but I am not concerned about making mistakes because I have learned that each mistake is a learning opportunity which will help me to grow and become a better human being.
While you may not realize it, you also have a spiritual strength or psychic ability not unlike my own. If there is a difference in our abilities it may be that one of us has studied and practiced using their abilities while the other one may have had less opportunity to recognize their own spiritual gift and develop it. You and I are much alike no matter how many differences we may find between us; this is one of the reasons why it may be possible for me to be your psychic reader or your spiritual advisor. I already share with you in my heart many of the same things you have found within your own heart and so I can easily empathize with your own experiences and circumstances.
A lot of my work is accomplished by a process of trial and error. Most of that process is invisible to you because it takes place in my thoughts and you often will only know of the results of my efforts to understand your situation and discover what you need to know to help you become a happier healthier person without knowing all of the mistakes I may make along my way to help you. What happens when I think about you and open my heart to feel what your spirit needs to say is that I test different ideas about what may have happened to you until I come across the ideas which feel right to me. You and I may grow much closer to each other in this process and eventually I may even begin to channel your own spirit's words to you for you to listen to and to heed.
Typically, I do not dredge up a lot of personal information and details about your life which you already know. What I do is to look for places within your heart and mind where there are conflicts and discord. I then try to understand why you are in turmoil within yourself and what approach is best suited to help you resolve these dilemmas within yourself so that you may be freed from the burdens of any past mistakes or misunderstandings which may be hampering your efforts to improve yourself and become a more generous, loving, nurturing human being. In this manner I may be allowed to guide you to discover for yourself how you will make yourself happier and healthier.
I will not say that there is no magick involved in this process, for there is a very special kind of spiritual magick involved. But it lies completely within your own power to heal yourself and to make yourself a happier human being. I may only be fortunate enough to be able to show you the way. You must still do all the really hard work yourself.
Fortunately, while our own personal spiritual work can be very difficult for us at times it is never beyond our abilities to accomplish it. You will need only a few important things to begin helping yourself to live a happier healthier life.
Foremost you will need to love yourself deeply and fully for everything which you now are or have ever been. Additionally, you will need to forgive yourself and all others for any harm you may have done or received. Finally you will need to resolve every conflict or turmoil within yourself so that you cease to afflict yourself with anything which may harm you or hinder your happiness.
Ultimately we are each the creators of our own lives. Our own hearts and minds are responsible for everything which we experience. This is a good thing because it means it is always within our power to improve our lives. You may never have known this before, or if you have heard these words before, you may have failed to understand how to use this advice to empower yourself to successfully change your life to make it better. I am here to be your guide in this regard and I will attempt to show you how to empower yourself to effectively take control of your life and become the happier healthier person you wish to be.
I welcome you to take a few steps with me along your spiritual journey, warm regards from Greg
PRIVACY POLICY: Terms of Publication
Please be advised that no details specific to your identity or the identities of anyone you may disclose to me will ever be published outside of whatever forums or email clients are used to contact me. However, at my discretion I may use a generalized form of our work together in other contexts including but not limited to published articles or books for the purpose of serving the general public by providing valuable lessons or insights into spiritual issues. In doing so please be assured that due care will be taken to ensure your identity and the identities of other individuals you may have disclosed to me are not revealed in the context of any subsequent or derivatory work which may be published independantly of the work we do together.
Finally, by seeking my service you grant me the free right to use whatever material is developed in our dialogues for republication and you shall receive no remuneration for your part in developing this work unless expressly and specifically agreed to by myself in writing.
You will have been advised to read this Privacy Policy and your failure to do so will not constitute grounds for dismissing the terms within.
Your efforts to engage me for any services I may provide shall be deemed acceptance of the assignation of any and all derivatory work to my sole ownership with full and exclusive rights to publish at my discretion.
My thanks for understanding this neccessity and forebearing the tediousness of this agreement.
Best regards from Greg
Finally, by seeking my service you grant me the free right to use whatever material is developed in our dialogues for republication and you shall receive no remuneration for your part in developing this work unless expressly and specifically agreed to by myself in writing.
You will have been advised to read this Privacy Policy and your failure to do so will not constitute grounds for dismissing the terms within.
Your efforts to engage me for any services I may provide shall be deemed acceptance of the assignation of any and all derivatory work to my sole ownership with full and exclusive rights to publish at my discretion.
My thanks for understanding this neccessity and forebearing the tediousness of this agreement.
Best regards from Greg
CONTRACT: Limits of Liability
Any work I may do specifically on your behalf is regarded as a free service. Donations are welcome but are never required. You hereby agree to be fully responsible for all actions which you shall take and that you will not hold me responsible for any loss or harm regardless of whether you may subsequently believe that following my advice has caused you any damage.
Where issues of your mental, physical or emotional health may require you to see a doctor or counselor it is your sole responsibility to seek out appropriate proffessional help.
It may be my opinion that you may not need to see a doctor or counselor in circumstances where you appear to be unduly concerned about a problem with your wellbeing. If, however, in your own opinion you have due cause to seek professional help from a doctor or counselor you are always responsible to do so independently of any opinion I may offer you for the purpose of being supportive or understanding in regard to what may appear to me to be an irrational or ungrounded fear.
You hereby agree that I can not be held responsible for your failure to be entirely or accurately truthful where such failure may mislead me into offering you inappropriate or unacceptable advice.
You will have been advised to read this Contract and failure to do so on your part can not be be found to be grounds for dismissing the limitations of liability defined in this agreement.
Any effort to contact me for the purpose of seeking my advice will be considered to be your acceptance of these terms and conditions. Any remuneration offered to me with regard to my work on your behalf will also be considered to represent your approval and appreciation of my service, and shall be deemed sufficient grounds to exonerate me from any responsibility for your subsequent actions or behavior.
My apologies for the unpleasant neccessity of relying on a 'terms of service and laibility contract' but I have accepted wise advise regarding this matter and I have agreed to act responsibly in regard to that advice. In regard to this advice I would be unable to provide any service, free or otherwise, without first securing your agreement to these terms.
My thanks for your consideration and understanding, best regards from Greg
Where issues of your mental, physical or emotional health may require you to see a doctor or counselor it is your sole responsibility to seek out appropriate proffessional help.
It may be my opinion that you may not need to see a doctor or counselor in circumstances where you appear to be unduly concerned about a problem with your wellbeing. If, however, in your own opinion you have due cause to seek professional help from a doctor or counselor you are always responsible to do so independently of any opinion I may offer you for the purpose of being supportive or understanding in regard to what may appear to me to be an irrational or ungrounded fear.
You hereby agree that I can not be held responsible for your failure to be entirely or accurately truthful where such failure may mislead me into offering you inappropriate or unacceptable advice.
You will have been advised to read this Contract and failure to do so on your part can not be be found to be grounds for dismissing the limitations of liability defined in this agreement.
Any effort to contact me for the purpose of seeking my advice will be considered to be your acceptance of these terms and conditions. Any remuneration offered to me with regard to my work on your behalf will also be considered to represent your approval and appreciation of my service, and shall be deemed sufficient grounds to exonerate me from any responsibility for your subsequent actions or behavior.
My apologies for the unpleasant neccessity of relying on a 'terms of service and laibility contract' but I have accepted wise advise regarding this matter and I have agreed to act responsibly in regard to that advice. In regard to this advice I would be unable to provide any service, free or otherwise, without first securing your agreement to these terms.
My thanks for your consideration and understanding, best regards from Greg
DISCLAIMER: When To Seek Professional Advice
Spiritual advice or psychic readings should never be substituted for consulting with a doctor or counselor when you have a problem which requires urgent care. You are always responsible to do anything and everything in your power to make yourself well; seeing a doctor or counselor is required whenever you have concerns regarding your physical, mental or emotional wellbeing.
It may sometimes be my opinion that you may not need to see a doctor or counselor in those circumstances where you appear to be unduly concerned about a problem with your wellbeing. If, however, in your own opinion you have due cause to seek professional help from a doctor or counselor you are always responsible to do so independently of any opinion I may offer you for the purpose of being supportive or understanding in regard to what may appear to me to be an irrational or ungrounded fear.
When seeking my advice on any matter you hereby agree that I am not to be held responsible for your failure to seek appropriate professional help, nor can I be liable in any regard for the choices you make with regard to my advice. Additionally, by seeking my advice you can not find me at fault where my advice is based on a failure on your part to be entirely or accurately truthful where such failure may mislead me into offering you inappropriate or unacceptable advice.
Finally, you will have been advised to read this disclaimer and any failure on your part to have done so will not be grounds for dismissal of the conditions of these limitations of liability.
If after reading this you wish to pursue my advice on any matter please be advised that by seeking my advice you hereby agree to the terms and limitations of liability expressed herein.
My thanks for your consideration and understanding and my sincere regards to you from Greg
It may sometimes be my opinion that you may not need to see a doctor or counselor in those circumstances where you appear to be unduly concerned about a problem with your wellbeing. If, however, in your own opinion you have due cause to seek professional help from a doctor or counselor you are always responsible to do so independently of any opinion I may offer you for the purpose of being supportive or understanding in regard to what may appear to me to be an irrational or ungrounded fear.
When seeking my advice on any matter you hereby agree that I am not to be held responsible for your failure to seek appropriate professional help, nor can I be liable in any regard for the choices you make with regard to my advice. Additionally, by seeking my advice you can not find me at fault where my advice is based on a failure on your part to be entirely or accurately truthful where such failure may mislead me into offering you inappropriate or unacceptable advice.
Finally, you will have been advised to read this disclaimer and any failure on your part to have done so will not be grounds for dismissal of the conditions of these limitations of liability.
If after reading this you wish to pursue my advice on any matter please be advised that by seeking my advice you hereby agree to the terms and limitations of liability expressed herein.
My thanks for your consideration and understanding and my sincere regards to you from Greg
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Homeless People – Some of the Best People on Earth
CREDITS: Written in my own voice, partly channeled from an unknown source…
Our cultures reward competitiveness and make those of us with the strongest competitive traits the wealthiest people on our planet. If we examine some of the poorest people in society, our homeless, we see a distinct lack of a competitive spirit in many of them. Our culture is predisposed to perceive this as a flaw but what if it is a virtue?
Too often we may find ourselves confronted by the plights of a homeless person and shrink away with a silent prayer that they will not approach us or bother us for money. We shirk our responsibilities to these people daily. But we are part of a world which has created and maintains a large homeless population and we have some obligations to share our good fortune with them, even if it is only to smile and greet them warmly and share a kind word with them.
A kind word and our acceptance and appreciation for who these people are may often be of far more value to a homeless person than the dollar or two we might give them or our cast off clothes. Instead we shun the homeless, we attempt to ignore their presence among us, and in this way we degrade them and devalue them making them less than ourselves in our own eyes. But truly we are all equals on earth; our accomplishments and wealth do not make us better than anyone else. The regard we give to those of wealth and power is a reflection of our own avarice, we wish we ourselves could be that powerful or wealthy and we idolize those that achieve that level of success because we want to achieve as much for ourselves.
Also, the winners get the best publicity and have the most influence on our cultural values, so they make sure that they are perceived in the best possible light and that the competitive streak which got them to the top is worshipped as a great virtue.
But that competitive spirit can go too far. It can rend our society with its values as it drives the division between the wealthiest and poorest people ever deeper. More and more of our wealth is flowing into fewer hands which is driving the middle class deeper into poverty. So what is accepted as a virtue, a strong competitive nature, may not be virtuous.
One other reason we accept the notion of a strong competitive nature as being virtuous is because it is the bread winners of our families who support us and whom we personally venerate for their success and their ability to care for us and to give us our comforts.
What would be the consequence of failing to have a competitive streak?
If we were to look into another person’s eyes and see their need to succeed and step aside because we are not so driven as they are because we hate to win and to make some other person lose then we may naturally migrate to the bottom ranks of society and accept marginal lifestyles that at best may be barely subsistent and at worst can make us homeless. Why should we characterize people like this as bad people if they do not have the spirit to compete? Such meek people often feel as if they are hurting others when they compete with them; they feel that they are taking food from someone else. In consequence the meek may care less for themselves than for others around them to whom they defer their own needs.
This meek quality seems to me to be a virtue. To feel for others so deeply that you would automatically sacrifice yourself at every turn for their benefit no matter how this will affect you seems to me to be a noble character trait. Too many of the homeless are like this, souls rich in kindness and humility that cannot bear the cutthroat atmosphere of our economic world and decline to participate, not out of laziness or moral turpitude, but out of generosity and an inherent will to put other people’s needs ahead of their own.
These people should be our heroes.
We should learn from this example and embrace this ostracized population and take them into our homes and care for them. Instead we characterize them in ways which frighten us and make us more inclined to shun them. The homeless see the world through vastly different eyes than our own and we fear contamination from them. We fear what would happen to us if we shared their world view and understood them. So we distance ourselves from them at every opportunity rather than embrace them.
This is a great injustice to these kind people. Certainly, some among the homeless do not share these virtues and may have unpleasant character traits such as being substance dependent or thieves, but we allow our perception of those among the homeless who may have such unpleasant character traits to color our perceptions of the homeless so that we characterize the general homeless population as being a dangerous group of people whom we must avoid. But those who hide among the homeless to enable themselves to do harm to themselves or to others are not representative of the larger group of homeless people. Many of this class of people who appear to be homeless only camouflage themselves among the homeless and have homes to return to at night. These predatory types who adopt the coloration of being homeless to engage us for their own benefit by panhandling or robbing are only a minority and are often not homeless themselves but only use the disguise of being homeless to their advantage. We should not characterize homeless people as a group with the negative character traits of a minority of that group. We should not shirk our social responsibilities and shun our homeless neighbors out of fear and misunderstanding; we should instead open our hearts to them and show them our love and acceptance.
We often may characterize homeless people as insane or psychotic or schizophrenic, but even in this regard, those with true and serious mental disorders are a minority. What appears so irrational to us is their failure to compete in our society. This is the thing we actually fear the most about homeless people for we are conditioned to compete and to trample and defeat our competition. It seems scary and unnatural to us to see someone who fails to exhibit a strong competitive nature.
One consequence of being homeless is that homeless people often do not have many good opportunities to communicate with people who have stable lives in good homes. They may gravitate deeper into that marginalized portion of society where people are more like them and may share their world view. Consequently they learn to communicate in ways which are poorly understood by people outside of homeless populations. Within groups of homeless people communication skills often break down or evolve into forms that frighten us because we may be unable to understand what a homeless person is trying to say to us. This often causes us to perceive homeless people as being crazy when they are not. Some homeless people may be genuinely crazy but even those homeless people who have adopted the habit of talking to themselves or to people who are not visible to us are not necessarily crazy. Many homeless people who exhibit these behaviors may only be very lonely or may be gifted with a psychic perception that allows them to talk to spirits whom no one else may see. We may perceive these people to be lunatics, but this is because we are afraid to risk understanding them for we fear we may be contaminated by their beliefs. We do not wish to risk becoming like them.
Once upon a time there were more roles in our society for such meek people. They were our home servants, sweeps, gardeners and so forth. Such people were employed by the middle class in large numbers and they lived among us, perhaps not always as equals, but as friends and helpers. But as economic pressures drove more competitive people to take those jobs once held in low regard, and as those same economic pressures made domestic help unaffordable to more and more of the middle class those roles that once were open to people of a less competitive spirit have gradually disappeared and left fewer opportunities for meek people to find a worthwhile role among us.
Consequently, there are more homeless people among us and we face a dilemma. So long as we allow these people to remain marginalized we create an environment within which criminal elements may hide and among which those in need of urgent medical care may die neglected. We make our own world shabbier and more dangerous and our own spirits more filled with guilt, grief and anger by our choices to neglect and ostracize those people among us whose economic fortunes are less than our own.
We owe it to ourselves, to our world and most especially to the homeless people among us to do better for them, even if all we have to give them is a friendly greeting and our warm words.
And somehow, I suspect there is far more that we may give them than our encouragement or a bowl of soup. So do not let your fear of homeless people stifle the humanity in your soul. Open your heart and find something more to give them than your discourtesy or neglect. Not only will you make another person’s day much brighter, but you will feel a satisfying sense of joy and wellbeing in response to all you give to those around you who most need whatever you may have to offer them.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Our cultures reward competitiveness and make those of us with the strongest competitive traits the wealthiest people on our planet. If we examine some of the poorest people in society, our homeless, we see a distinct lack of a competitive spirit in many of them. Our culture is predisposed to perceive this as a flaw but what if it is a virtue?
Too often we may find ourselves confronted by the plights of a homeless person and shrink away with a silent prayer that they will not approach us or bother us for money. We shirk our responsibilities to these people daily. But we are part of a world which has created and maintains a large homeless population and we have some obligations to share our good fortune with them, even if it is only to smile and greet them warmly and share a kind word with them.
A kind word and our acceptance and appreciation for who these people are may often be of far more value to a homeless person than the dollar or two we might give them or our cast off clothes. Instead we shun the homeless, we attempt to ignore their presence among us, and in this way we degrade them and devalue them making them less than ourselves in our own eyes. But truly we are all equals on earth; our accomplishments and wealth do not make us better than anyone else. The regard we give to those of wealth and power is a reflection of our own avarice, we wish we ourselves could be that powerful or wealthy and we idolize those that achieve that level of success because we want to achieve as much for ourselves.
Also, the winners get the best publicity and have the most influence on our cultural values, so they make sure that they are perceived in the best possible light and that the competitive streak which got them to the top is worshipped as a great virtue.
But that competitive spirit can go too far. It can rend our society with its values as it drives the division between the wealthiest and poorest people ever deeper. More and more of our wealth is flowing into fewer hands which is driving the middle class deeper into poverty. So what is accepted as a virtue, a strong competitive nature, may not be virtuous.
One other reason we accept the notion of a strong competitive nature as being virtuous is because it is the bread winners of our families who support us and whom we personally venerate for their success and their ability to care for us and to give us our comforts.
What would be the consequence of failing to have a competitive streak?
If we were to look into another person’s eyes and see their need to succeed and step aside because we are not so driven as they are because we hate to win and to make some other person lose then we may naturally migrate to the bottom ranks of society and accept marginal lifestyles that at best may be barely subsistent and at worst can make us homeless. Why should we characterize people like this as bad people if they do not have the spirit to compete? Such meek people often feel as if they are hurting others when they compete with them; they feel that they are taking food from someone else. In consequence the meek may care less for themselves than for others around them to whom they defer their own needs.
This meek quality seems to me to be a virtue. To feel for others so deeply that you would automatically sacrifice yourself at every turn for their benefit no matter how this will affect you seems to me to be a noble character trait. Too many of the homeless are like this, souls rich in kindness and humility that cannot bear the cutthroat atmosphere of our economic world and decline to participate, not out of laziness or moral turpitude, but out of generosity and an inherent will to put other people’s needs ahead of their own.
These people should be our heroes.
We should learn from this example and embrace this ostracized population and take them into our homes and care for them. Instead we characterize them in ways which frighten us and make us more inclined to shun them. The homeless see the world through vastly different eyes than our own and we fear contamination from them. We fear what would happen to us if we shared their world view and understood them. So we distance ourselves from them at every opportunity rather than embrace them.
This is a great injustice to these kind people. Certainly, some among the homeless do not share these virtues and may have unpleasant character traits such as being substance dependent or thieves, but we allow our perception of those among the homeless who may have such unpleasant character traits to color our perceptions of the homeless so that we characterize the general homeless population as being a dangerous group of people whom we must avoid. But those who hide among the homeless to enable themselves to do harm to themselves or to others are not representative of the larger group of homeless people. Many of this class of people who appear to be homeless only camouflage themselves among the homeless and have homes to return to at night. These predatory types who adopt the coloration of being homeless to engage us for their own benefit by panhandling or robbing are only a minority and are often not homeless themselves but only use the disguise of being homeless to their advantage. We should not characterize homeless people as a group with the negative character traits of a minority of that group. We should not shirk our social responsibilities and shun our homeless neighbors out of fear and misunderstanding; we should instead open our hearts to them and show them our love and acceptance.
We often may characterize homeless people as insane or psychotic or schizophrenic, but even in this regard, those with true and serious mental disorders are a minority. What appears so irrational to us is their failure to compete in our society. This is the thing we actually fear the most about homeless people for we are conditioned to compete and to trample and defeat our competition. It seems scary and unnatural to us to see someone who fails to exhibit a strong competitive nature.
One consequence of being homeless is that homeless people often do not have many good opportunities to communicate with people who have stable lives in good homes. They may gravitate deeper into that marginalized portion of society where people are more like them and may share their world view. Consequently they learn to communicate in ways which are poorly understood by people outside of homeless populations. Within groups of homeless people communication skills often break down or evolve into forms that frighten us because we may be unable to understand what a homeless person is trying to say to us. This often causes us to perceive homeless people as being crazy when they are not. Some homeless people may be genuinely crazy but even those homeless people who have adopted the habit of talking to themselves or to people who are not visible to us are not necessarily crazy. Many homeless people who exhibit these behaviors may only be very lonely or may be gifted with a psychic perception that allows them to talk to spirits whom no one else may see. We may perceive these people to be lunatics, but this is because we are afraid to risk understanding them for we fear we may be contaminated by their beliefs. We do not wish to risk becoming like them.
Once upon a time there were more roles in our society for such meek people. They were our home servants, sweeps, gardeners and so forth. Such people were employed by the middle class in large numbers and they lived among us, perhaps not always as equals, but as friends and helpers. But as economic pressures drove more competitive people to take those jobs once held in low regard, and as those same economic pressures made domestic help unaffordable to more and more of the middle class those roles that once were open to people of a less competitive spirit have gradually disappeared and left fewer opportunities for meek people to find a worthwhile role among us.
Consequently, there are more homeless people among us and we face a dilemma. So long as we allow these people to remain marginalized we create an environment within which criminal elements may hide and among which those in need of urgent medical care may die neglected. We make our own world shabbier and more dangerous and our own spirits more filled with guilt, grief and anger by our choices to neglect and ostracize those people among us whose economic fortunes are less than our own.
We owe it to ourselves, to our world and most especially to the homeless people among us to do better for them, even if all we have to give them is a friendly greeting and our warm words.
And somehow, I suspect there is far more that we may give them than our encouragement or a bowl of soup. So do not let your fear of homeless people stifle the humanity in your soul. Open your heart and find something more to give them than your discourtesy or neglect. Not only will you make another person’s day much brighter, but you will feel a satisfying sense of joy and wellbeing in response to all you give to those around you who most need whatever you may have to offer them.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Thanks to my Readers - Updated Avatar
It requires a short URL to update my avatar; the best I can do in this regard is to create a URL for my preferred avatar by posting it here. So that's all this post is, a method to udate my avatar.
My warm regards for all my readers, thanks for stopping
by! I hope you will return to read more.
You are my inspirations and I would be delighted to hear
from you if you would like to leave me
a comment or email.
It's not the path it's the steps we take...
Long live the garden!
Spiritual Contracts – There are no Victims
If you have ever wondered about the apparent injustices of life you may have reflected on how unfair some things appear to be, especially for people who have been through great hardships. We may often feel we are the victims of circumstances beyond our control and the injuries we are dealt in our lives may make us feel as if god does not care about us or we may decide that god does not exist because a good god would never have allowed these things to happen to us.
There is a popular philosophy among people who explore spirituality which is often discussed by Sylvia Brown and which appears in her written work that describes a spiritual contract we enter into when we begin our various incarnations. In that contract we agree to accept and experience everything which will happen to us in our lives.
This concept of a spiritual contract gets very complex because in one sense it suggests that all the events of our lives are pre-ordained. But a belief in predestination can sometimes be a crippling thing if we choose to disown our responsibility to make choices in our life based on a belief that everything is pre-ordained and therefore we are powerless to change anything.
The concept of fate or predestination seems to fly in the face of the concept of free will. How can we have both? Our free will is a fundamental belief regarding our existence, a tenet so vital and empowering that it seems impossible to reconcile it with the concept of destiny.
Without free will there would be no purpose for our lives, and while many people may feel that it is true that our lives have no purpose, the majority of people believe their lives do have a purpose even if they are uncertain about what their own specific purpose in life may be. So if we do have free will and our lives are purposeful, what happens to the concept of fate?
The concept of fate, destiny or predestination is predicated upon an immature understanding about the nature of reality. Our understanding of space-time and the universe we live in has evolved over time and it is important to understand that this understanding is still evolving. Time only appears to be a linear track moving from the past to the future. That appearance is a limitation of our perceptual and cognitive skills. As our understanding of reality matures we may begin to understand some of the deeper aspects of space-time and we may discover that our universe is not alone and that our universe actually exists as a member of an infinite set of universes described as parallel universes or alternate realities.
If we think of fate as the result of what has happened to us in the past, rather than as a pre-ordained condition that our lives will inevitably meet, then we may see that in an infinite number of alternate universes we have an infinite number of fates, all different from one another to some greater or lesser degree. The concept of a contract which details the events of our lives in each incarnation then seems unlikely because it would have to include an infinite set of events to encompass every possible outcome of our lives.
This does not mean that there is no contract; instead it suggests that the contract we make must be vastly simpler to encompass such enormous complexity. The contract remains the same as it was initially stated; we agree to accept and experience everything which will happen to us in our lives. Only the context in which we consider this contract has changed; we are no longer agreeing to any specific things which may happen in any given instance of one of our many lives, we are instead agreeing to accept and experience everything no matter what those experiences may be.
We can agree to this without qualms because that part of us which makes this agreement is eternal and can never be harmed. So we know that regardless of what happens in our various incarnations we will always exist in an inviolable state beyond reach of any harm that may befall us in any of our lives. Ultimately no harm can ever come to us and all of the actors, regardless of their roles in the dramas of each of our lives, are our friends and family in the larger sense of the spiritual world from which our incarnations are initiated.
Murder, maiming and rape are some extreme examples of the types of experiences which might be considered harmful to those who are considered the victims, however, these only do harm in a limited sense. The bodies and spirits we have in each incarnation are just a tiny infinitesimal part of our entire infinite being in the context of our lives in the spirit world. These terrible things only appear to be harmful in the limited context of this world and these different forms of harm appear to serve a purpose to provide a life lesson or balance our karma.
It is important to remember that the universe is infinite in scope and we ourselves reflect this infinite nature for we are, in each of our incarnations, also infinite. For every situation in which we find ourselves in conflict two or more resolutions occur so that each party in a conflict gets whatever they may need or want. The universe accommodates the resolutions of our conflicts by cloning itself; in one universe we get our way while in another universe the party we are in conflict with gets their way, in this manner no matter how many different ways a conflict may be resolved, all of the possible resolutions are realized, each in its own alternate reality or parallel universe. Pretty nifty eh?
Thanks to the infinite nature of reality all of the people who died in 911 are still carrying on their lives in alternate universes and are still living with their families and friends. Only an infinitesimal part of themselves accepted the role of a 'victim' and died in that event in this universe. It may seem hard on the families and friends of those who died here, but that is only true in the limited context of this universe. In alternate worlds they still have there loved one with them and their lives go on unmarred by the tragedy we have experienced in this world. The friends and family, like the ‘victims’ have agreed to accept and experience this tragedy, and they have agreed to it because in the context of their spiritual lives they know it is only a small thing of no consequence to themselves in the greater scheme of things. They have experienced this tragedy in one aspect of one incarnation, but with infinite aspects to each incarnation they continue to experience their lives in different contexts where the tragedy did not impact them personally and may even never have occurred at all.
Ultimately, no one is really a victim in the sense that everyone has agreed to accept all the experiences of their lives whatever those experiences may be. Legally in the laws limited to this world certain classes of felonies relate to particular classes of victims and many people choose to see themselves as victims of their circumstances rather than take responsibility for their situations to address whatever is wrong and to fix it. We may choose to see these people as victims in the context of this world but their spirits, like our own spirits are the architects of all of their experiences.
Herein is the crux of the matter as related to what we experience in this world. We are indeed the creators of all of our experiences. Nothing happens to us except those events which we ourselves cause or allow to be caused in our lives. We are in control of all of the events in our life and we may choose what we wish experience. So a person who has experienced something we may consider to be terrible has chosen that experience and brought it upon themselves. They may not be consciously aware of having made such a choice; their choice may have been a non-conscious choice made in a subconscious, unconscious or superconscious part of their minds. Quantum physics has demonstrated our minds have a direct influence upon the quantum events which are the bedrock foundation of our physical world. We are in control of all of our experiences and it behooves us to learn how to consciously direct the worldly manifestations of our desires free of any inner conflicts.
A person bemired by inner conflict is incapable of manifesting a satisfactory world for themselves. The consequences of this are that they will have many unsatisfactory, unpleasant or harmful experiences as their inner conflict warps their will in ways that fail to serve them as well as they might be served if their will were not interfered with by their inner turmoil. The only good thing that may come of these experiences is that each unsatisfactory experience, if reflected upon, can be linked back to some part inside of us where there is a conflict. By tracing back the cause and effect relationship between our inner turmoil and that turmoil’s outer manifestations in the world we can learn where within ourselves we need to heal in order to grow happier and healthier and manifest a world that is full of experiences in harmony with our best hopes and expectations.
By clearing ourselves of inner turmoil and establishing peace within our hearts and minds we become the conscious and conscientious masters of everything we experience.
It is up to us to learn this for ourselves. Many people may point the way for us but we are the only ones who can set forth upon our private spiritual journeys of self discovery and self empowerment, no one else can take our steps for us.
Until then, if we perceive ourselves as victims it behooves us to remember that we are the only ones who can victimize ourselves and that it is our own ignorance and failure to learn our life lessons which cause us to feel victimized.
Ultimately, there are no victims.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
There is a popular philosophy among people who explore spirituality which is often discussed by Sylvia Brown and which appears in her written work that describes a spiritual contract we enter into when we begin our various incarnations. In that contract we agree to accept and experience everything which will happen to us in our lives.
This concept of a spiritual contract gets very complex because in one sense it suggests that all the events of our lives are pre-ordained. But a belief in predestination can sometimes be a crippling thing if we choose to disown our responsibility to make choices in our life based on a belief that everything is pre-ordained and therefore we are powerless to change anything.
The concept of fate or predestination seems to fly in the face of the concept of free will. How can we have both? Our free will is a fundamental belief regarding our existence, a tenet so vital and empowering that it seems impossible to reconcile it with the concept of destiny.
Without free will there would be no purpose for our lives, and while many people may feel that it is true that our lives have no purpose, the majority of people believe their lives do have a purpose even if they are uncertain about what their own specific purpose in life may be. So if we do have free will and our lives are purposeful, what happens to the concept of fate?
The concept of fate, destiny or predestination is predicated upon an immature understanding about the nature of reality. Our understanding of space-time and the universe we live in has evolved over time and it is important to understand that this understanding is still evolving. Time only appears to be a linear track moving from the past to the future. That appearance is a limitation of our perceptual and cognitive skills. As our understanding of reality matures we may begin to understand some of the deeper aspects of space-time and we may discover that our universe is not alone and that our universe actually exists as a member of an infinite set of universes described as parallel universes or alternate realities.
If we think of fate as the result of what has happened to us in the past, rather than as a pre-ordained condition that our lives will inevitably meet, then we may see that in an infinite number of alternate universes we have an infinite number of fates, all different from one another to some greater or lesser degree. The concept of a contract which details the events of our lives in each incarnation then seems unlikely because it would have to include an infinite set of events to encompass every possible outcome of our lives.
This does not mean that there is no contract; instead it suggests that the contract we make must be vastly simpler to encompass such enormous complexity. The contract remains the same as it was initially stated; we agree to accept and experience everything which will happen to us in our lives. Only the context in which we consider this contract has changed; we are no longer agreeing to any specific things which may happen in any given instance of one of our many lives, we are instead agreeing to accept and experience everything no matter what those experiences may be.
We can agree to this without qualms because that part of us which makes this agreement is eternal and can never be harmed. So we know that regardless of what happens in our various incarnations we will always exist in an inviolable state beyond reach of any harm that may befall us in any of our lives. Ultimately no harm can ever come to us and all of the actors, regardless of their roles in the dramas of each of our lives, are our friends and family in the larger sense of the spiritual world from which our incarnations are initiated.
Murder, maiming and rape are some extreme examples of the types of experiences which might be considered harmful to those who are considered the victims, however, these only do harm in a limited sense. The bodies and spirits we have in each incarnation are just a tiny infinitesimal part of our entire infinite being in the context of our lives in the spirit world. These terrible things only appear to be harmful in the limited context of this world and these different forms of harm appear to serve a purpose to provide a life lesson or balance our karma.
It is important to remember that the universe is infinite in scope and we ourselves reflect this infinite nature for we are, in each of our incarnations, also infinite. For every situation in which we find ourselves in conflict two or more resolutions occur so that each party in a conflict gets whatever they may need or want. The universe accommodates the resolutions of our conflicts by cloning itself; in one universe we get our way while in another universe the party we are in conflict with gets their way, in this manner no matter how many different ways a conflict may be resolved, all of the possible resolutions are realized, each in its own alternate reality or parallel universe. Pretty nifty eh?
Thanks to the infinite nature of reality all of the people who died in 911 are still carrying on their lives in alternate universes and are still living with their families and friends. Only an infinitesimal part of themselves accepted the role of a 'victim' and died in that event in this universe. It may seem hard on the families and friends of those who died here, but that is only true in the limited context of this universe. In alternate worlds they still have there loved one with them and their lives go on unmarred by the tragedy we have experienced in this world. The friends and family, like the ‘victims’ have agreed to accept and experience this tragedy, and they have agreed to it because in the context of their spiritual lives they know it is only a small thing of no consequence to themselves in the greater scheme of things. They have experienced this tragedy in one aspect of one incarnation, but with infinite aspects to each incarnation they continue to experience their lives in different contexts where the tragedy did not impact them personally and may even never have occurred at all.
Ultimately, no one is really a victim in the sense that everyone has agreed to accept all the experiences of their lives whatever those experiences may be. Legally in the laws limited to this world certain classes of felonies relate to particular classes of victims and many people choose to see themselves as victims of their circumstances rather than take responsibility for their situations to address whatever is wrong and to fix it. We may choose to see these people as victims in the context of this world but their spirits, like our own spirits are the architects of all of their experiences.
Herein is the crux of the matter as related to what we experience in this world. We are indeed the creators of all of our experiences. Nothing happens to us except those events which we ourselves cause or allow to be caused in our lives. We are in control of all of the events in our life and we may choose what we wish experience. So a person who has experienced something we may consider to be terrible has chosen that experience and brought it upon themselves. They may not be consciously aware of having made such a choice; their choice may have been a non-conscious choice made in a subconscious, unconscious or superconscious part of their minds. Quantum physics has demonstrated our minds have a direct influence upon the quantum events which are the bedrock foundation of our physical world. We are in control of all of our experiences and it behooves us to learn how to consciously direct the worldly manifestations of our desires free of any inner conflicts.
A person bemired by inner conflict is incapable of manifesting a satisfactory world for themselves. The consequences of this are that they will have many unsatisfactory, unpleasant or harmful experiences as their inner conflict warps their will in ways that fail to serve them as well as they might be served if their will were not interfered with by their inner turmoil. The only good thing that may come of these experiences is that each unsatisfactory experience, if reflected upon, can be linked back to some part inside of us where there is a conflict. By tracing back the cause and effect relationship between our inner turmoil and that turmoil’s outer manifestations in the world we can learn where within ourselves we need to heal in order to grow happier and healthier and manifest a world that is full of experiences in harmony with our best hopes and expectations.
By clearing ourselves of inner turmoil and establishing peace within our hearts and minds we become the conscious and conscientious masters of everything we experience.
It is up to us to learn this for ourselves. Many people may point the way for us but we are the only ones who can set forth upon our private spiritual journeys of self discovery and self empowerment, no one else can take our steps for us.
Until then, if we perceive ourselves as victims it behooves us to remember that we are the only ones who can victimize ourselves and that it is our own ignorance and failure to learn our life lessons which cause us to feel victimized.
Ultimately, there are no victims.
BIO:
Fledgling author Greg Gourdian has worked with the general public as a psychic reader for a little over four years from 1981 to 1986. Much of his written work is channeled, although he will admit that he has no idea who many of the sources for his channeled work may be. He has many strange tales to tell regarding his spiritual journey and he attempts to tell his tales in a humorous or entertaining manner. While not an accredited teacher, Greg has taught classes in psychology, sociology, metaphysics and parapsychology.
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