magic & mystery

throughout my childhood, i was torn between the Rational way that my dad {and the rest of NL} operated, and the Emotional person that my mum was. despite my dad being a very sensitive, introverted, gentle person, he was doggedly sticking to the Rational, the Intellectual, the Proof, the Material, the Brain. if you can't touch it, or see it, it isn't there... my mum, on the other hand, was one ball of anger and passion, lived from the heart, believed in faith and giving her powers to a force higher than herself, one that wasn't visible or touchable. she believed in Jesus & Mary, my dad believed in Newton & Edison...

obviously, it's not that simple - my mum prided herself on Knowing Stuff, and Learning, and my dad, ultimately, got in touch with his feelings, started to trust the Universe, slightly... but on the whole, it was divided this way for most of the years i lived in their house. i lived in my head, mostly, cos it was safe there - nobody bullied me. i understood my head - most of the time - and figuring stuff out, analyzing, thinking, became a way of life. there was Right and there was Wrong, there was Black and there was White. my feelings were weird, unpredictable, overwhelming, and i did my very best to keep Feeling to a minimum. or at least, paying too much attention to them, cos Feeling goes on, regardless of whether or not you acknowledge it or not... oddly, i also enjoyed going to church. mostly for the rituals, and the notion of belonging somewhere, rather than Believing in God... i didn't like the thought of submission to another force/person {as God was seen}/force, and being deemed okay as long as you follow the rules, though.

i even tried to intellectualize childrearing... moohahaha!! being a mother freaked the hell out of me, and all the weird feelings that came along with it made me feel {...} incredible insecure, and reading about sensible ways to being a mum helped me to get a grip on my overwhelming feelings that this little person brought out in me... but somehow i started also reading books on how babies connect to mums on a very prime and spiritual level, and that sleeping with them helps this process of bonding, and some more things that started to slowly getting me to stop being over-rational. 

living in England at the time helped this process as well. England has {for me} many more ways of connecting to the spiritual/natural side of life. not in a regular religious way, but with Paganism, Witchcraft, Druids, Celtic origins of the country that go back many centuries, it was {to me} a very rich source of possibilities, as well as {to me} UK having a less rational life-view {not to say Brits are irrational and unstable, but the over-rational way people are here in NL was not so prevalent when i lived in UK...}, so the notion of connecting to my intuition was something that slowly was gaining ground. 

but it wasn't until we moved to NL and i found a Waldorf Steiner School for the kids to attend, that the spiritual development that i had been dipping my toes in, really took off. to me, Anthroposophy comes fairly close to the Paganism i had gotten to know in East Sussex over the years, although there are enormous differences, as well, but it gave me a feeling of familiarity {Germanic orderedness meets Celtic natural free-form... to put it incredibly simplistic...} i could live with very well, and while the kids learnt how to knit flute bags and count while jumping & clapping, i joined every possible group and course that the school had to offer. and i learnt to connect with my Feelings... 

and while i learnt to understand my Feelings, i had less and less time for the Rational side of things. the more i was in touch with my feelings, and my intuition, the less i wanted to be stuck in my head. i wanted to move away from condemning, from having an opinion on everything, from seeing things from one side only... where i would've once thought that the spiritual teachers i mentioned in my previous post were mad, and anybody who believed that were idiots, i learnt that there is so much more than what we can see or touch or explain... the phenomenon that what i wished for, would happen {which i kind of noticed and used to my advantage without knowing what it was or how it worked} had a name: Law Of Attraction... i had been manifesting all the things i had wanted when i was a teenager, and that stopped once i became Rational, once i analyzed too much, once i convinced myself that i needed to have opinions, judgements, proving how wise and clever i was... and now it feels {...} like an uphill struggle to get back to a sense of naive Being, and just Be. 

so when i read Harry Potter, i understand why so many people feel such a deep connection with the world they experience, why the Wizarding World is so much more appealing than the one we're supposed to live in. it is so very tempting sometimes, to flick the world a very loud 'Expelliarmus!"

happy place

one of my teachers in the spiritual realm is a woman called Esther Hicks, who channels an entity called Abraham, and the one thing i keep taking away from them is this notion: only happy things can happen in your life if you feel happy... you get what you give out to the Universe. and since we are supposed to be happy Beings, this is a natural state for us to be in. Happy should be Easy. 

when i first came across this phenomenon, i felt quite dubious {even apart from the notion that an entity was being channeled...} - surely we can't be happy all the time?!! it's just not realistic... this is coming from the way of thinking that we have been encouraged to do, from childhood onwards - to be Realistic. to be reasonable, and sensible, and above all: rational, and accept that chunks of your life are lived in unhappiness. unless you're lucky and all the choices you make are ones that fit your Inner Being, but i haven't met many people who go through life this way. so, hearing this school of thought that claims that we are not supposed to live a life of slog, and suffering, and sadness, and whatever else pulls you down, having been surrounded by people who have lifted Suffering and Melancholy into an art form, it took quite a few books and clips on youtube and chats with Mo and writing in my journal, and crying buckets, to even consider this to possible. 

in order to feel happy, i now know that i have to accept it as my birthright. all the other stuff that makes me sad is learnt throughout childhood, and can be unlearnt. it can take a while to get there, but it's so very worth it...

so, what makes me happy?

* walking in the woods, here in Breda & surrounding areas

* watching a film like this one or this one, or this one... 

* reading a book that i click with {not always obvious...}

* seeing my kids being daft with each other

* taking photographs of beautiful things in nature

* coffee places in older buildings {like this one, for instance...}

* interactions with certain customers in the shop where i work

* chats with Mo, or other friends

* meditation, or just staring into space and calling it daydreaming

* writing a story that flows

* Saartje nestling agains my tummy underneath the duvet, or Molly tucking in with Polly

* the smell of coffee in the morning

* vegan chocolate truffles from work

* singing in a choir

* dogs

* traveling to another country, and getting to know new places

* certain songs

* letters in the letterbox

* my Pinterest boards

to name but a few... and yes, they are things that can be taken away from me - and real happiness should be found within ourselves, not from something outside of us - so really, these are just token things... but the thought of them can be a quick fix back to a state of Happy. until the real thing kicks in again.

what makes you happy, what can get you out of a funk?

testing, testing...

back in 1998, when i lived in England, i decided to start doing an A-level course in Psychology, in the college down the road from where we lived. it was a secondary school, for teens, but they also had courses for adults, and previously i had done an O-level Maths, for some weird reason {to prove to myself that i wasn't entirely useless at it, and that i could do it in english...?!}, so i was familiar with the place. the course was done in the older part of the college {it consisted of a big Victorian building, and a really ugly modern 70's build, which was thankfully hidden from view by loads of trees}, and my fellow students were a strange bunch of mature students, from all walks of life, and some fellow-foreigners. i think we all did the course for our own interest in the subject, rather than need it for jobs. i also think, sadly, we left England before i could finish year 1...

i recall a few things from this course, mainly that i'm not very food at writing academic essays, another that psychology is both immensely interesting as well as immensely complex, and that one school of thought about a psychological illness can vary vastly from another, and both can be right... 

one of the first things that we talked about was the - apparently famous - Stanley Milgram experiment on obedience, where he got subjects to administer shocks to others, in the name of research {much better explained here} and found out some interesting things about how vulnerable we all are to obeying others when we know we don't have ultimate responsibility over what we are asked/told to do. how far we can go. how this can - kind of - explain that humans can be 'persuaded' to do atrocious things, evil things, once Final Responsibility has been taken away from them. 

it shocked me, as i had never heard of this experiment, and the teacher stressed that this kind of research would not be ethically allowed these days, but in the 1960's, this wasn't the case yet. in a way, it's great that we have his result, as it explains so much of our own behaviour {and yes, it would be interesting to see what the result would be if repeated in this day and age}.

another experiment was how conformism works. quite a few experiments were done, less shocking - literally - in their methods, but similarly impressive in the results they produce - being in a group of three and more people who believe certain things, makes us more likely to adopt those beliefs, even if they are things we don't agree with, or we know to be wrong. the method Solomon Asch has used is the most familiar of this, and is as simple as it is perturbing... it also shows that as soon as one other person in the group has a different belief, we feel more freedom to express our own contrary belief. 

i was reminded of these experiments a few days ago, when someone pointed out how society at this moment in time seems to be one huge worldwide test lab, with our obedience and conformity tested, and how well we respond to the propaganda methods used on us obedient citizens. we don't really question, we put our faith into people who we have no idea of knowing how trust-worthy they actually are, while people with differing opinions or ideas are ostracized, or made to seem mad/anti-social/dangerous. which is what has happened always, and society needs to have 'weirdos' with different opinions, people who question and critisize - healthy societies can handle this fine. but the state of the world at the moment makes having a different opinion, displaying non-conformist behaviour, almost dangerous. people become angry, violent often, because they're scared, and their fear of the opposite, the fear of being questioned, but also, simultatiously, the fear of being oppressed and lied to en masse wins it from the usual not-being-bothered, or engaging in conversation. tensions mount about the conviction - thanks to the media - that there is only one way to solve what's going on, and everybody conforming to get there seems to also be the new normal... when then things erupt, and tensions escalate, the media laps it up and forms opinions on this, making us citizens chose sides - are we like them, or like them? are we 'good' or are we 'bad'...? are we decent or are we rotten...? do we conform, and stay in the group, or do we question, and fall outside, stand alone? who do we side with? where do we stand? what do the people who we admire say? 

conforming comes in many shapes and sizes. these times are very strange, and to shout one opinion can seem to be strong or 'right', but who are we really trying to convince...? others? or ourselves...?

that little house in the middle of nowhere is looking more and more attractive!!

oddities

the list of Liked Songs on my Spotify is steadily growing. mainly thanks to the french radio station -Fip- i enjoy listening to {even more than Spotify}, as Shazam steers me nicely to the app whenever i make it recognize a song that's played, which i want to know the title of. this way i've gotten to know the names of bands and performers who i would otherwise never have heard of. or forgotten about.

to name a few:

* Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders... {brilliant name, lovely music...} - Les Rita Mitsouko {anyone remember Andy? classic from 1986...} - Rodriguez {beautiful song that reminds me of a time i wasn't even around...} - El Michels Affair {sultry...} - Strawberry Alarm Clock {cos why not.... Insence & Peppermints, from 1967} - C.W. Stoneking - Hot 8 Brass Band {Sexual Healing indeed...} - Keola Beamer {funky yet mellow} - Al Bowlly - Vitamin String Quartet - etcetera... 

finding Odd Songs By Odd Bands has been a kind of hobby that has been made a lot easier now, with either youtube or spotify, so i don't have to go out and buy the singles. when we lived in England, my ex had a friend called John, who also had an Odd Song/Odd Band peculiarity, only, he had the music on countless singles, and whenever we saw him, he'd pass us a cassette filled with those weird, odd songs, which we kind of knew, or just sounded familiar, and the tapes became the soundtrack to our life together for many years. John also had the tendency to write very long letters, talking about certain artists, or an episode in his life where that particular song featured largely, and ex would sit at the kitchen table, reading those letters out to me, and we'd giggle, or look confused, and we'd know a weird nugget of info about an artist we'd never heard of and would probably never hear from again... 

Strawberry Alarm Clock was one of them. i have no idea what bit of lore was told about them - he'd probably seen the singer on a bus somewhere, in Eastbourne, where he lived, or did the caretaking in an apartment where the bass guitarist lived... i have no idea, but the name of the band stuck, and hearing them on the radio brought back memories of sitting in the kitchen in the apartment in Hastings where we lived, with little Max pottering about, 25 years ago. music can do that so easily - take you back to times gone by, events that happened in your life, moods can shift. even songs that you don't actually know, but sound like songs that you enjoy... 

what songs have you {re}discovered on Spotify?

catfulness

i can hear her purring a mile off, usually, in the quiet of my bedroom. i'm either sat on my big wooden spindle chair, or on my bed, leaning against a cushion, against the wall, and i've just started to drift into the meditation, with the heater on a little, so that the chill has gone from the space. a small light is on, an onion shaped thing i bought in Ikea, years ago, and had to slightly adapt, so the light wasn't glaring anymore, but soft, and suited to the atmosphere i wanted to create in the room whenever i use it to meditate. but my quiet, still position attracts Saartje, after a while, as i must seem like ideal seating to her. so i hear her purring, in the otherwise silent room. 

and just as i feel myself slipping into a state of calm and tranquility, she jumps on my lap. the purring sounds like a drill in the distance, but her soft paws in my legs give away her definite presence. rhythmically they kneed into my skin, gently mostly, sometimes piercingly. her claws are sharp, and Saartje is determined. now she also decides i need to be woken, or she at least snuggled, and her head finds my hand, which she rubs carefully first, then - when she doesn't get the effect she's after - a bit more insistent. i find myself stroking her, mid-meditation, and i smile.

earlier on tonight, when i dropped the daughter off at the station, we saw a Golden Retriever, and how overjoyed it was at seeing the {probably} daughter of the man who was waiting by the dropping off part, and we both sniggered at how enthusiastic the dog was, how it was not going to be stopped from showing it's affection to the young woman. and almost together we said how Saartje was so much like a Golden Retriever...

my meditation carries on with a cat sitting in my neck, or curled up on my lap, purring away, and i have to hold my arms less ideally for the mega-relaxed state i'm after, so that she doesn't slip off my legs. strangely, though, having her there is an added bonus, cos the feels she gives me, usually, are very conducive to the state of heart coherence, which i've found to be very beneficial... 

cats are weird... 

i am mine

The ocean is full 'cause everyone's crying

The full moon is looking for friends at high tide

The sorrow grows bigger when the sorrow's denied

I only know my mind

I am mine

a recurring theme in my life seems to be Finding My Own Self... finding my own authority, the voice in my head that's mine, not all the other people's, all of the people i've allowed to overrule my own voice, my own inner Self. for many years, this has been a frustrating journey, figuring the hell out what belongs to me and what belongs to my mum or my dad, or either of my grandmothers, or relations that had more sway over what i thought than even my parents did. teachers, friends, my ex, bosses - all somehow authority figures i sought out to give me the clues i thought i needed in life to live it, as i'd never learnt to listen to my own voice. 

And the meaning, it gets left behind

All the innocence lost at one time

Significant, behind the eyes

There's no need to hide

We're safe tonight

the song from Pearl Jam always touched a nerve. well, most of them did, but this one was one that speaks to me, every time i hear it. EV always seemed to be such a self-possessed person, someone who had himself figured out, and it came out in his lyrics. i liked his stance on things - he seemed to be both intelligent and feeling, an ideal person in my eyes. as ever, what you want to see will come to the forefront, and he was as flawed and insecure as most of us, but we all need ideals to work towards, or just admire, idolize even... it's easier to put your faith in someone else than it is to find the strengths you seek in yourself. less painful. 

And the feelings that get left behind

All the innocence broken with lies

Significance, between the lines

We may need to hide

so we hide, behind the assumed wisdom of others, the authority that we don't want to have over ourselves, and leave the consequences for them. they said x so i followed... it's not my fault, they said that i should... doctors, politicians, teachers, church leaders, parents, therapists, elder family members - how many people have we given away our Selves to, in order to avoid the pain that comes with making our own decisions? to avoid the feeling of not belonging to the group you thought you should fit into? to feel ostracized, even, cos inside you feel something completely different than the majority of the people around you display...?

And the meanings that get left behind

All the innocence lost at one time

We're all different behind the eyes

There's no need to hide

this morning, i felt that the time has come to trust my own voice - i think i know what it sounds like. during a meditation i felt like i had come home. finally, i am mine...

I know I was born and I know that I'll die

The in-between is mine

I am mine

star men

when 2016 was just under way, news came of the passing of David Bowie, an artist i'd previously known a bit for the countless different tunes he'd made over the many years he was around {though not enough of them, really...}. i remember sitting in the car, having just dropped youngest at school and intending to get some shopping done, when Let's Dance had finished playing on the radio, and the presenter was chatting with someone on the phone. i thought it was about the play Lazarus that had recently premiered, and his recent birthday, which i had somehow remembered from years back {it coincided with Elvis Presley's}. but their voices didn't sound chirpy and up, they sounded glum. i decided to carry on listening, and then it dawned on me that Bowie must have passed away... shit... 

in the days and weeks following the radio item, i educated myself on his music, learnt of his many persona's, his interesting early years, before the fame he so desperately searched found him, and i became a hindsight-fan... the Bowie Is exhibition in Groningen that i visited became a weird personal, internal process, partly cos it was the first bit of traveling i'd done away from the kids since my divorce, exploring a part of the country that i'd never been to - on my own. 

2016 became a weird year. with so many more passings of names that meant something so me - Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Black {Colin Vearncombe}, Caroline Aherne, George Michael, Pete Burns {singer of Dead Or Alive}, Leonard Cohen, Elie Wiesel, Glenn Frey, Johan Cruijff, Victoria Wood, to name but a few... the list seemed endless. the year i dreaded seeing impressive photo's of well known folks, cos it could so easily have the date of birth + date of passing underneath it... by May nothing would've been surprising anymore... 

of course, for myself, none of this meant much anymore when in October it was my dad's turn. the death i dreaded the most, the person i least wanted to say goodbye to {bar my kids, obviously}, the 'event' i had feared for so long, doubting my ability to cope, became a sad reality, and the weirdest thing happened - i coped... i had never been so sad in my life, but i coped... quite quickly, my father became a happy memory, a guardian angel, a spirit i ask for guidance..

Bowie's music helped, somehow. as if the newness of discovering his songs was needed to pave a new path in my life, without a relationship, without my father. 

of all the stars that joined the firmament that year, they shine the brightest...

★ 🌟  ☆

tales of the {small} city

now it seems weird to me, but when i didn't live in Breda yet, it felt quite intimidating to even go here for a day... the people who lived here seemed so self-assured, so full of city confidence, and i was really just a small village girl, plonked into a couple of fairly small towns, twice over. one town was in England {also quite intimidating, at first}, the other about 20 kms away from my ancestral home. 

Breda was like a Holy Grail of Cities when i was growing up. some family members lived there, my dad's mum was born there {and spent the rest of her married life yearning to be back} and i went to college there {i had wanted to go to the art school, but settled for something my mum didn't get nightmares from - being an activities companion for elderly and/or sick and/or disabled people, which was only suited to me in the brilliant artistic and creative subjects we were taught at the school. i was very ill equipped to actually do the accompanying of the activities back then...}. this used to lead me daily through one of the most pretty parts of Breda - het Ginneken - and i vowed to move there as soon as i had the wherewithal, and guts...

that last bit didn't happen until i started working at the organic supermarket that is now my place of employment, and only once i gotten over the shock of how assertive most of the customers were. jeez!! the shop in the small town where i worked before seemed like a sweet, doddery old lady compared to the brash, cocky bloke that the average customer here appeared to be. and this included my colleagues... it took me a while to get the hang of this, and find in me what was required, was i to hang on to my job there. but something must have shifted in my perception of this place, cos very soon i set my sights on finding somewhere to live here. 

to my amazement, i feel so much more at home here than i ever have done in the previous place i lived in. sure, there are parts i'm not completely at ease in, and i tend to avoid them, but on the whole, i love discovering new areas, new streets, new parks, new side streets, so often showing the rich history, the lovely buildings, the mad architectural feats... in a weird way it reminds me of the town in England i lived in... 

just now i dropped some shopping off for a customer who lived in a newer constructed part of a very old area here, streets designed in the 80's, narrow roads, which my car was navigated though by my google maps {thank the lord for that!!!}, and i found the house - somewhere i'd never have known was there, if it weren't for this delivery... a stone's throw from the {usually} bustling centre, with it's ancient as well as newly reconstructed canal, many restaurants... a disgruntled resident grumbled at my car being parked so annoyingly, and i didn't even flinch. i had my hazard lights on, i was gone in a bit, keep your hair on!! 

seems that Breda's city confidence has rubbed off on me already... 

agenda settings

this past year i've finally started reading the Harry Potter books. after having stopped somewhere in book 3 many years ago, finding it all a bit too much aimed at youngsters {in it's simplicity, the boo-hiss-baddies and the easy to spot goodies}, i decided that i ought to at least give them one more go. and i'm glad i have. this afternoon i finished The Goblet of Fire, book 4, which was about the size of the first three combined. but i couldn't put it down, at some parts. it gets quite dark, this book, and there were chunks that had me feeling quite uncomfortable. no idea how 13 y/o kids deal with the fact that Cedric dies, or that Wormtail sacrifices part of his body so that Lord Thingy-ma-jigs can come back to life... but the thing that had me almost hold my breath was when Harry has to duel with his lordship - a 14 y/o lad, who has just been hoodwinked to another part of the country & saw a fellow student die in front of his eyes + witnessed the rebirth of his lifelong nemesis, holding his wand for dear life, concentrating with all his might, not wavering in his determination to do so, and a pretty amazing thing happens when he does - he gets 'help' from beyond the grave. 

i know this is a made up story, meant as entertainment, and i know this comes from the fantasy and research of the author, but it also comes very close to the things i've been learning about in the past 20 years. about the way the Universe works, how the world we have been made to believe to be Real, and the Only Truth, is way more complex and intricate. it's not silly mumbo-jumbo, stuff for weirdo's and hippies, but easy and brilliant, and life-changing. it also requires to let go of the World Around Us a great deal. 

which is what i've very much been having to do this past year.
to stay sane, partly. it's never been something i've been good at, despite all my attempts over the years. Letting The World In, letting others set my agenda, is something that is as ingrained in my Being as Liking Pearl Jam, or Wishing To Be In England... i can do it, set my own agenda, do my own thing, but just as easily, i'll allow someone else's mood to overrule me. a look, a tone of voice, a change in someone's body language - all can drag me away from how i wanted to live my life. {why this happens, and the fact that i know that i'm prone to affect others too with this, is another matter, will delve into that at one point as well}

something i've had to learn, and am still learning, is to stay with my agenda, stay with myself. not get dragged along with what i'm being told is The Right Way To Do Stuff. i guess that's why i love being on my own - nobody telling me what to do, or discouraging me from doing things i want to do. as soon as i'm with others, my inner alert begins. especially in new situations, or when i'm surrounded by very confident {or just loud} people. i'll budge to what they want, cos it's easier. afterwards i'll hate myself for this. i should've stayed with myself... i should've said this or that... i should've... or i'll spend ages feeling crap about myself, and my inability to stop the words or actions, or even perceived meanings of others from hurting me. 

using the Law of Attraction {beyond the things that The Secret talks about} consciously requires - for me - a need to exclude The Real World, to some extent. to live in a world of make belief. fantasy, like Harry Potter's world. a world that i prefer to the world around me, or at least, the world i see on the news or in the media. a world that i could cope with up until March last year. i hardly use social media anymore, and tv has become a few programs i can handle. internet has a bit more scope, but i feel myself retreating into a smaller world more and more. maybe that's necessary for now, anyway. and, as a few of my spiritual teachers tell me, faking it until you make it is not only fine, it's needed to get to where you'd rather be. a different Real World, that's more tangible, closer by. 

just plucked The Order Of The Phoenix from my bookshelves. it's even longer than the previous book!! i wonder how Harry will be challenged this time around - and whether or not it sets off another train of thoughts in me... 

Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland
source: this website

Reason & Whimsy

as the new year is gradually feeling more Usual, so might my blog feed. no more daily lists and summing up of stuff that made my heart beat faster. i've been at work for two days running already, and everything that reminded of Xmas there has been tidied up, ready for next year {unless it ended in the bin...}. we're more than ready for a new year. 

my apartment still looks quite Xmassy, though that might also change, after this afternoon - haven't made my mind up yet. it looks so cosy, still, reminding me of the weeks leading up to Midwinter, to the time to revert inwards. some people might call it Not Being Able To Be Realistic And Move On... 

as ever, i'm stuck between two voices in my head, two voices that can be called Reason and Whimsy, if i want to simplify it. Reason is the one who keeps me in check, who stops me from being too far out, who makes sure i eat some healthy stuff every day, and not too much chocolate, that i go to bed on time to get up to do my job okay. Reason is everyone from my mum to my ex, via most people i know. Reason also goes by the name of Sensible One, and Reason is not too fond of my other voice, finds Whimsy a bit annoying and weird. 

Whimsy is easily distracted, likes chocolate and coffee a LOT, dreams even more and has very unRealistic goals in life. Whimsy wants to travel and see Europe, in a red camper van, have morning coffee on a mountain side, looking out over a village in Austria, have lunch in Berlin, where they know a nice vegetarian restaurant in Charlottenburg, cook dinner with stuff they bought in that sweet little organic shop in Sweden... Whimsy wants to enjoy life, cos they know the world is so much more than where they grew up. {Whimsy is my dad, i think...}

Reason and Whimsy clash quite often.  

one of the things i've learnt over time is that Reason is a bit of a scaredy cat. it likes routine, it likes life to be predictable, then things go okay. another thing i've learnt is that life is rarely Predictable...

another thing again that i've learnt is that Reality {something that Reason is very fond of} is not the firm fact - the only truth - that we are presented with. for many years we have been told that there is only one reality, the one that we learn about at school, from our parents, from the world around us. science has told us what it was, Life, dissected the parts, examined,  come to a conclusion, and there you have it - the world as it can only ever be: Proven By Science... 

only, Life doesn't actually let itself be dissected and examined. it's not that simple. it's not that straightforward. it never has been. sure, things can be taken apart, and looked at, and conclusions made about what was seen, heard, touched, sensed, but what one scientist sees and concludes can be different to what another sees and concludes. and if you take a living body apart, for example, and put it back together again, one does not create a new life... what's missing is a vital ingredient, something science has never been even close to quantifying - ?

Reality is only what you perceive it to be...

my reality is different from yours. your reality is nothing like mine. there's that quote that goes around Pinterest/Instagram, which says: some people live in a bitter, angry, hate-filled world, some people live in a friendly, caring, joy-filled world. same world. {or words to that extent} or that thing that Henry Ford said, one time: whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't, you are right... what we consider to be the Real World, the Reality that we should all just learn to live with, is just an illusion. a construct that we have learnt to believe to be the truth. don't even consider questioning this...

but what if we stop believing this truth?! what then...?!

when Mo, my lifelong fellow-traveller on the path to Enlightenment, posed this question to me, i wasn't yet ready to think along those lines. yes but... we live in this world... isn't that what we're supposed to deal with? this truth? this reality? this reality, was her reply, is only true if you think it's true... huh?! how the f^^$ does that work, then?! 

it has taken me years to get what she meant. whatever we believe to be true, is true... all the things we consider to be true, are what we have learnt under the constraints of the society we live in to be True. to be facts. as soon as we let go of this, and start believing that anything is possible, then it will be possible. and another thing: we are not meant to suffer... 

{this is one that especially my mother has elevated to an art form... not only she, but she has been my most consistent challenger in life and my hopes of becoming a Happy-Go-Lucky kind of person...}

we are NOT meant to suffer... ever... life is supposed to be fun, and joy-filled, and easy, and pleasant... we are supposed to have abundance and joy as our default setting. but first the church, and nowadays the government & media, have done a brilliant job at making us belief that we have to suffer before we are rewarded. we have to endure the hardships in life, especially at the moment, not want too much, listen to our leaders, cos we don't know right from wrong anymore. first the church, and now the government & media, have made us doubt ourselves, doubt our inner voices, our inner belief system, our intuition. we have stopped relying on ourselves such a long time ago, that we don't even know what our inner voice sounds like. so we believe leaders, put our faith in guru's, ask teachers - anything but our Selves... or maybe a little bit, when we meditate at times, and put a Buddha in the window - the small tokens of dipping our toes into the well of wisdom that is concealed in our selves. 

but that also reeks of crazy. one of the things that {church/media/government} have been very successful in getting us to believe is that anyone who questions the Generally Accepted Truth is mad. anyone who questions science is mad. anyone who doesn't go along with the Generally Accepted Truth is dangerous... strangely, now more so than maybe 25 years ago... dividing people has never been so easy... {but this is food for another blog post all together, i feel...}

so, Reason and Whimsy keep battling it out... while i'd really like to have them united, of a fashion. something to work on in 2021.