Magic fireplaces
are a real thing.
The goblins that live in them
mess with downdrafts,
and blockages,
and soot,
so that you will sit up and take notice
of your sources
for the means of your survival
on a planet that is teeming with things you've been told are scarce,
such as food,
water,
heat,
peace,
and above all,
safety.
Safety is not scarce.
You need only believe in all this and your world will shift.
All of our worlds will shift.
Seven billion governments will be born
and all because of a goblin
in his magic fireplace.
Your magic fireplace.
Go light your fire.
As I said just yesterday:
once you see through
clouds of your own illusions
the hard work is over
This is my entry to @mariannewest's daily freewrite challenge. Today's prompt is magic fireplace. As @maxigan says, let's reclaim our world.
OOOOOH I like this one. It feels so well ROUNDED. Not, we are not unsafe - except from the forces that tell us we are.
By believing them, we make ourselves unsafe. They exist only because we believe in them, that they have any power. I think about this a lot.
This is so good @owasco (and very much true)!
It takes one to know one, my friend. Thanks for your participation in the creative imagining of a different world, one in which humans are sovereign beings and only love reigns.
It's a beautiful thought isn't it? No fear, only love and living in complete freedom and relative autonomy. That's the world I prefer to inhabit.
Yes - a gorgeous world is possible. It is actually here. But if and only if we can, and do, see it.
I had a panic attack yesterday (very very rare for me), which, instead of trying to shake myself out of, I allowed myself to delve into. I then imagined my fear and anxiety leaving, and soon felt elated. I had one of the best nights of sleep in a long time. Our minds are much more powerful than we have been led to believe.
That part is very important to remember, it's actually here. There's so much power in realizing that.
Ugh, anxiety is such a pesky thing. I was largely free from it for more than three decades but it's rearing its head again for me too. They say the only way out is through and that is very much true for me. If I try to avoid it or suppress it it only gets stronger. It's great you were able to use visualization to process it. When mine was really bad I would put myself in situations that triggered it and I was eventually desensitized to it. Your way sounds better!
I think there is plenty to be afraid of right now. But allowing fear to guide our actions, only leads to more human fear, which is nourishment for the dark forces, whatever those are. There is no doubt that those forces exist and are now experiencing their death throes. They are afraid, but their fear is as poisonous to them as ours is to us. It won't be pretty for some time now. That's terrifying!
I'm freewriting here. You do that to me.
It really does feel like the end of an era, doesn't it? Like the age of cronyism and corruption is being exposed to the light of day and withering. These next years will be tumultuous, to be sure, but it feels like something better is being born.
If dark and evil forces really do operate (sentient! willful! knowing!), how do we thwart them? Who will listen if we say "Look!" as we pull back the curtain, and "Hear this" --
So I just listen to Latin chants (it's well and good that I don't understand the words, sometimes - I trust they're saying good things, and I say ditto that). "Evil" supposedly hates and fears Gregorian chants. Of course it sounds laughable. Of course I say "Challenge Accepted!" and fill the background with this beautiful noise. (But I'm switching back to the male voices. Can't get enough of that bass!)
YES - " If I try to avoid it or suppress it it only gets stronger."
What you resist persists
Sounds like you were trying "exposure therapy," which did not work for my OCD friend who lives in utter isolation for fear of touching a door knob touched by other humans.
@owasco, I'm not sure I understand how you can "delve into" the anxiety instead of resisting it (which doesn't work) and then work your way into a state of ecstasy. I keep hearing about Lion's Mane mushrooms (!!??) but herbal remedies can be risky and supplements are unregulated and the prospect of choosing which bottles to buy is about to induce an anxiety attack... NOTHING from a bottle, thanks, better to find it straight from the source, in nature, but billions of us live in cities surrounded by concrete (another cause of all our anxiety and despair), not in forests, where we can forage for ginger and ginseng, or meadows all a glow with St. John's Wort.......
A panic attack - you! Somehow I imagine you are so far above the rest of us in your ability to cope, to find beauty, peace, joy, and solace in nature -- and to express it so well in poetry. For you to feel panic may be shocking to me, but no surprise, you work it out without medical intervention. You delve into it, instead of "shaking myself out of it," and imagine the fear/anxiety leaving, and - this is the amazing part - you're not just at peace. You're elated! And you sleep well!
Lately I've been awake half the night.
So I've taken up listening by day to some peaceful background sounds, namely, one particular Gregorian chant, because, THE BASS omg. Tim had to explain to me that, no, one man does not sustain that note for an hour. Another man comes along and picks it up (seamlessly), perpetuating my illusion that one bassist can hum that note for all eternity. Sorry to derail as always on some weird tangent, but I'm doing the work (kinda, sorta) to achieve clarity and tranquility without Rx meds (my middle child tells me to get medicated to get chill and I continue to resist).
Oh, if you get caught up in cutting carrots in the kitchen and have nothing else you really want to listen to, give the chant a chance - I am seriously addicted to the "one man" (is it really more than one?) sustaining this awesome bass note. (I forgot to ask Tim what this voice would measure in Herz - there's a topic for a whole thread on these gazillions of music videos claiming the "God note" is 999 Hz, or 963, or... which is it? Tim says they're blowing smoke and to pay no attention.) Well, I say "the God note" is this bass line in this chant:
Dear me! I have quite the image you have of me to live up to! But it does give me warm and fuzzies to know someone thinks all this of me. I'm doing something right.
But I, too, am up half the nights lately. I've tried just about everything but Gregorian Chants. My sleep problems have gotten a bit better, but I still have a sleepless night every third night. The other two nights, I wake every two or three hours but do manage to get right back to sleep. I get up when I wake fully up, which is often as late as noon! (The two things I have kept of all the stuff I've tried are Vitamin D3/K2 2000 iu in the mornings, and epsom salt foot baths before bed).
Thanks for the music, I'll give it a shot. I did recently begin down the path of becoming a homeopath, and have ordered a remedy that might help. Another that helps with intractable grief. I think you and I could both use these, and I'll send you some when I know more about how to use them. I think the one for grief might even help a great many of your health issues. Maybe I'll get you started on that right away.
Maybe that note is your note! Keep listening to it!
love
Oh, you live up to it, my exulted image of you - you really do!
(I have this unshakable conviction that Niko is nodding in agreement)
How kind of of you to offer to send this herb for grief. My niece happened onto a field of St. John's Wort one day while feeling alone and bereft. She also sees eagles (often, anywhere!), and rainbows and waterfalls and God light, and dreams of baby panthers which represents her being liberated and free to pursue her bliss. Meanwhile, her cousins all work full time and wearying jobs, or they might have the leisure to wander in the woods and find their bliss among the flora and fauna.
A friend sent me a link (yesterday) to some NATO announcement that was code for World War III being imminent. Meh. On the bright side, I can just not tackle my paper clutter and let the A-bomb take it all away.
The bass note is "my" note - LOL - reminds me of wine experts noting citrus and floral notes (no thanks, I like my red wines really really dry). New dating app question: What's your note?
---Wait, what? I should start decluttering?
Perhaps it was the thought of it that gave me this headache (which is to say, a worse-than-usual headache). Or maybe it was the female version of Gregorian chant. As one of five daughters, I developed an aversion to high-pitched female voices (even in unison, not in discord)....
Words words words
This, I think, is the understory of a headache.
Safety is not scarce indeed. We are limited by our thoughts. Beautiful read💕✨
We sure are! Thanks for stopping by and reading my deepest thoughts.
The pleasure is mine🙏
Great work my friend, everyone seems to be awaiting an awakening without realising that the change they seek resides in the eternal moment. Like the quest for the holy grail - as soon as you search for it, you've forgotten that you already have it.
Perceptual Flaws! Hello there! How nice to see you her
Thankyou my friend - hope you've been keeping well. :)
haha I've been told that I am "aging well." I wasn't sure whether to feel complimented or insulted. I went with complimented.
I hope the same for you. You've been quiet on the fronts I encounter you.
Like a fine wine? :D
All good here thankyou, I've just taken some time away from all the drama of social media. lol Enjoying time in nature and taking a chilled approach to life. I've continued writing as and when I feel like it, and I've been working on a book. Debating whether to jump back into the fray and share a few edited chapters - alongside loads of posts I've written but never shared..
like a piece of meat.
Glad to hear you are still producing, whether or not I get to read your writings. Although I wouldn't mind!
I suspect this is an important and impactful as jumping into the fray, perhaps even more.
Good for you, enjoying time in nature, and writing a book!
I'm reading one now via NetGalley - The Understory
It was this line that reeled me in:
That's the invitation to readers -
I'm trying not to be overly critical and judgmental but the author grates on me even though her book is praised as "Part Wendell Berry, Eugene Peterson, and Madeleine L’Engle".
Walk with me ....
Those are some of my favorite words as I begin my own daily hike through the meadow and the woods. I call upon spirits of lost loved ones -- not just my dad and three sisters, but the loved ones my friends have lost. Niko and Bruni, walk with me... Grandma and Grandpa, join me as I commune with nature and seek to connect with The Great Something, the tie that binds....
@perceptualflaws I'd be happy to beta-read anything you care to share.
I'm a backslider of a writer.
It's gone beyond "I write but do not share" -
I simply DO NOT WRITE -
only in fragments here and there,
too much for anyone to piece together into a journal.
I quit.
I just quit.
Let me just disappear into the Great Beyond and mingle with others.
Yeah, ok, I need to keep working - every day is a ceaseless game of Wack-a-Mole as I knock down all the awful pop-ups telling me to go silent and retreat from the world. Hey, I'm here - baby steps!!
So, about this book you're writing... KEEP WRITING... and please do share.
Absolutely right, and as always, well said. If we believe ourselves powerless we are powerless. Our assumptions of the truth become the truth. What our minds most contemplate is what we become and thus we are kept in a perpetual state of fear, hurtling from one imagined crisis to the other.
Imagined is the key here. Check this guy out, I wanna be him:
You'll own nothing and you'll be happy:)
There may be some truth to that.
Happify Your Life by Laura LaBrie
This author went into third-world countries aiming to lift them out of their poverty, only to find hers was the impoverished life, and ...
So she wrote a little book! Only three dollars, self-pub, with typos (proofreaders are good, people, they really are).... but with a message we would do well to hear.
She wrote a book.
I should write a review now (she has none yet at goodreads)....
Do the work, Carol.
Write the review. I've written so many already and who ever reads them
Persist...
I do! Read reviews I mean. Indeed I read your review of The Poisoned Cup, but it didn't sound like my thing. Though I do like a good Who Dunnit, world-building leaves me cold....I've little imagination I suppose.
As to owning nothing and being happy, I've always lived by the maxim 'the more you own the less you live' collecting very few possessions along my lengthy journey. I've been rich and I've been poor and it's made little difference to my state of contentment, though the digs are a lot more comfortable when you have a few quid.
Our goblin in the magic fireplace - LOVE this image!
And our world will shift, if we believe.
When we see through our illusions, our hard work is over.
Is it?
Herbalists (Sajah Popham, Matthew Wood) sound as spiritual as any gospels of Jesus.
Electromagnetic fields emanating from the human heart.
Yes, it's all way over my head, but I persist in trying to fathom, to claim the "blessings" at least.
The work however has only just begun - right?
Because once we do see through the illusions and find hope, joy, love, all that Jesus promises, all that other mystics across the ages have told us can be ours - Job One is to find it. Job Two is to share it. Right?
Poets "speak truth to power" -
We have heard the wisdom of the ages, we keep hearing the truths others have discovered.
And we still find ourselves surrounded by people who RESIST and persist in their illusions and fears and anxiety, and instead of acting out of love and compassion, the norm seems to be reactionary and defensive --
Oh man, I need to shut up and go declutter the house.
Eep! Instead of going off to declutter, I called up another chant.
Because, anxiety attacks, and people seeking tranquility.
And because EVIL -
Call it what you will -
@owasco mentions the dark forces seeking to pull us down and demoralize us.
The Biblical view of demons is the stuff of fairy tales (to me) but I pray away the demons of despair and anxiety, calling on whatever God or angels may take up the cause.
Gregorian Chant - "evil spirits hate it. When they hear the chant, they tremble and are desperate to leave while it is being played or sung. Listening to Gregorian Hymn helps remove evil thoughts, especially when praying. It also assists in calming your mind and making you at peace with your surroundings, and you will feel disconnected from those negative feelings of anger, frustration, sadness, helplessness and despair. It also improves focus and concentration while studying or reviewing for an exam, or finding a solution. You can also play this hymn to drive away negativity from your home or place of your abode."
Well, no harm in that. I trust it's not like that urban legend of playing a Beatles record backward to hear Satanic messages....
Don't ever shut up!!! I love your words. I love you.
Awww thank you!
I LOVE YOU