How often have you heard “Pride comes before a fall,” or “Swallow your pride” or similar phrases? Sometimes, being overly prideful can be a problem – it’s usually accompanied by a whopping big ego – but sometimes we have actually achieved something that it is worthwhile being proud of.
For example:
You’ve studied for years and finally achieved the qualification you were aiming for.
You’re no cook, but you wanted to make a special dinner for a special person – and the meal was fantastic.
You’ve always been afraid of heights, but you took your courage in both hands and did a tandem skydive.
There are a million other things – big and small – that you have every right to be proud of achieving. You worked hard, overcame obstacles, and you succeeded.
And sometimes we can be proud even when, to the outside world, we fail at something. Many people dream of achieving something, but never go any further than dreaming. We can be proud that we actually TRIED even if it didn’t work out quite as we expected.
Do you have something you are really proud of? I’d love to hear about it.
Just prior to settling down to writing this Journey I had been thinking of a number of people in my life, and I decided to draw for myself an Oracle card as a way to get focus about today’s writing. That card was titled “Thinking of You.”
Thinking of the people in my life that I am not constantly interacting with, doesn’t happen too often. It’s one of the effects of having SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory). When people, places, or memories are not right in front of me, they just don’t exist, which can, to those others, make the person with SDAM seem as if they are uncaring. Nothing is further than the truth, we care deeply – once we remember.
When we do remember, it is like a lightbulb going on. It’s beautiful. It’s like the sun shining through a break in the clouds. All that hidden caring comes up to the surface, and if we are lucky we can remember certain times. Of course, that gets even tricker for those folk who also have aphantasia or prosopagnosia – we don’t have pictures in our minds to remind us of you.
What the serendipity of the appearance of this particular oracle card brings for me on the Journey, is to ask that you sit down and think of those you know and love – and those you have known and loved. Think of the wonderful times you shared, the love and the laughter and if you are so inclined – why not reach out and say hello. Just because.
Bring some sunshine into your life and into someone else’s.
Who has never gone outside at night and looked up to the moon and felt the tug of connection? Yearning even. Yearning for what, you might ask? This is very much dependant on each individual person who bathes in her light – and where they are in their journey through the ebb and flow of life.
She represents wisdom, she is grandmother. She reminds us of the cycles of birth and death – the cycles of life that we are all bound to follow in the same way as the oceans also follow her cycles.
She is mystery: she sails, serenely, above us, but will not share all that she is. She keeps one face firmly turned away from us. She tells us that some things are meant to remain mysterious until we have grown enough to understand.
She rules our bodies and our emotions through our subconscious mind. That can be understood through quantum physics which explains that everything has an operating frequency and that the full moon’s frequency pulls on our subconsciousness allowing information – memories for example – to rise to the surface. For some that can feel like a glorious pull of connectedness although for others it can be quite uncomfortable and emotionally hard.
For some, the moon represents romance and love; for others she opens their world to possibilities and potentialities. For me, I feel the connection to her very strongly. She brings to me a feeling of stillness, of quiet calm; a deep cleansing of the soul; an immersion in the waters of life. And if I can float in water under the glow of a full moon… that is my place of peace.
The bridge I am talking about is the energetic link we all have with each and every person we interact with. In contemporary spiritual beliefs we think of this as a thread that connects us to another person, place or event, and when that bridge feels stretched to the limit, all knotted up, or maybe even leaves you feeling drained of energy after each encounter, you need to decide what you want to do going forward. If you stay where you are without making any conscious changes in the relationship, it could end up being a bit explosive!
You need to look into the energy of the relationship – not all the stories. You have to look honestly, and without trying to fluff around your part in whatever has been playing out. What you really need to do is to be able to move consciously forward with no regrets, in whatever direction you chose to travel.
Maybe you once had the same goals in life, but one of you has changed course.
Maybe the other person has been leaning heavily on you for support and you feel worn out.
Maybe the other person is taking advantage of you or bullying you,
Is the relationship balanced, or does one of you dominate the relationship.
Maybe it is you that is doing these things to your friend.
Listen to your heart and your gut. Be honest. Don’t be fluffy. Notice how you feel in your body when you think of these things. Do you want to maintain the relationship? How does that question make you feel in your body? For example, if you say “Yes, I want to remain in the relationship” does that make your body relax, or stiffen up, or something else? If you feel tired and drained when you’ve been together – is there a reason? Is that reason something you are willing to help with or does it feel as if you are being taken advantage of? If someone is leaning heavily on you for support, maybe you could learn how to freely give that energy without allowing yourself to feel drained.
When you decide what is your course of action it is time to implement it. Are you going to mend the bridge – the link between you – or is it time to burn that bridge and each travel independently. Maybe you can see a different alternative?
Either way, think carefully before acting. Make sure that the way the bridge is built back up, or allowed to fall apart, is done with respect and love for the journey you have made together. Don’t just burn that bridge and stomp off angrily into the storm.
Thank you for reading this blog. I do hope it gave you something to think about and I welcome any comments you would like to make. If you want to read more of my work, may I suggest that you sign up for email notification? And don’t forget to hit Like.
We are all travellers, together. Travelling through the multitude of things that make up our world – our universe. We travel through the hard times, the tricky times, the times when you just want to bury your head in the sand and hope that it will all disappear and you can wake up in a bright new tomorrow.
Bu why wait for tomorrow? Your hardships might not disappear overnight but you do not have to live in them for all time. Start by seeking the beauty around you. Look for the beauty in everyday things. Look at your tea cup, or a fork. Tell me what you see.
Then, when you grow to understand the beauty that can be found in every simple, ordinary item – look wider. Take your view to a bigger arena. That might be the street where you live, the face of a loved one, an old motorbike, or a single blade of grass growing up between the flagstones.
Look bigger. Watch the clouds, seek out the mountains and rivers. Talk with the trees. And when you can feel that beauty, and strength and functionality in your heart – go bigger still and get out where you can gaze up to the Milky Way.
That is where you can gain perspective. That is where you can come to realise that you are but a small mote of dust in the immensity of the wonderous universe.
And with that perspective, your troubles won’t seem quite so large a burden.
If you are gaining something that aids you in your life journey – knowledge, recognition, guidance – or just something to ponder, and you would like to see more – please hit Like and subscribe to having this delivered straight to you . I thank you for taking the time to read this – see you next time! Auri’An
In many ways, re-starting regular contemplative “readings” right now is a little strange, and although the topics I am discussing are for the Collective Consciousness of Humanity as a whole, they also sing loudly for me personally. But then – I am a part of the Collective. Just as you are. More than 8 billion threads of life, each contributing to the gigantic tapestry of humanity. Imagine what that would look like from space! How beautiful it must be in its diversity. And its singularity. We must never forget that although we can often feel alone, we are just one tiny – and very essential – piece of the whole pattern.
Sometimes that aloneness can be hard. We forget that outside our own protective bubble, there are others who also feel as if they cannot see past the walls around them. We can feel hemmed in, able to see the unreachable sky, but not able to reach beyond the barriers we have allowed to grow around us.
When we feel like that, we have a choice. There is always a choice, but sometimes it is hard to see. We can sit in our field of choice, surrounded by the high walls that we have either fallen into or allowed to grow around us, or we can do the work we need to get out of that and see what is beyond. We have all the tools we need to dig ourselves out.
The person in this picture is using a sledgehammer to break through the barriers he has around him. Breaking down walls doesn’t have to be so hard if you hit it in the right place, with the right tools and the right mind-set. My personal tools are strength, resilience, belief, trust, and knowledge. I often forget that I hold these tools, especially when I get overwhelmed. Sometimes I need another person to hold me up when it gets hard and remind me that I am not alone.
Things happen – sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes they creep up on you and just about knock you off your feet.
Things happen – sometimes they are just embarrassing or awkward; sometimes they make you want to curl up and hide from the world.
Things happen – that confuse you, or makes you question everything you know about yourself.
You are a human, having a human experience, and it is impossible to escape ‘things happening’. The thing is, how do you react when they do?
For me – I sometimes get overwhelmed. I cry. It sometimes seems as if I will never stop crying. I can’t think. My mind turns to mush and I literally cannot remember anything from one minute to the next. Other times, other things, and I suddenly find a strength I had no idea I owned and I jump in and deal with whatever it is.
When things happen we are faced with a choice. In this card, is the rider holding a flag of surrender? Is she racing away from danger? Could she be riding into danger?
Whatever the ‘thing’ that is happening turns out to be, there is one thing it is so very important not to forget. We are strong. We are valiant, and we are courageous.
In this card, the rider has no saddle or stirrups, she has only one hand on the reins because the other is holding the flag – which could be of surrender or of peace. It makes no difference if she is running from or to her ‘thing’, she has trust in her companion and guide, even as, in the form of a horse, it is taking a leap over a wall. She is not only strong and valiant and courageous, but she also has trust and faith that whatever direction she chooses – it will be the right one.
We are all on a life journey and sometimes we can look ahead and wonder what lies around the next corner. Sometimes it’s enough to simply hope we get through the day; but the past is where we often focus most strongly. It is our history. It is our Story. It is what made us who we are now.
Our story has many twists and turns: some good, filled with joy and laughter and sunshine; some not so good. And how often, when we look back through our lives, is it the hard times that stand out most strongly?
What is good to recall is that without those hard times to challenge us, to encourage us to understand Self and see what makes us who we are, we would never have built the strength we need to be able to step into the unknown future.
We are here. We stand in strength and clarity precisely because of the past times we have lived through – the good times and the hard times. And it is that knowledge that helps us stand tall and proud.
Healing the past doesn’t always mean digging deep into the wounds. Sometimes it simply means accepting those wounds as part of who we are.
It is a journey that allows for the individual to seek knowledge, to experience, to learn and to grow. It is something that every being throughout the Cosmos is doing – travelling the path of life.
My life path has taken me – much like anyone else’s – on a journey that has ups and downs: mountains to climb, rivers to ford, meadows to dance through, and every now and then you reach a point where the path forward diverges. A place in your life where you are faced with a choice – do I carry forward on the path I know so well and feel comfortable travelling, even if it hurts, or do I follow a different route, seek the unknown and the possible expansion of consciousness.
Last October, when my spiritual teacher, Essence Ka tha’ras, asked me a question: Who are you without your wounds? I found myself at one of those cross-roads in life, although I was not really aware of the choices I was about the make. Choices that set me on a path into the unknown resulting in my first book “Hidden in a Dark Place”. I thought I’d answered my question in that book, but in reality, I had only peeled back the first layer of the onion.
In my research for this book, I discovered that I am not neuro-typical, I am neuro-divergent. At 67 years of age I discovered a whole list of ‘labels’ that apply to me: Autism, Aphantasia, SDAM, and a whole heap more. Many people discovering these things in later life see them as a bane to carry. I choose to see them as a gift.
At the same time as this research was occurring, I was doing deep work on Self from a spiritual perspective and I have also taken a big step forward on that journey. When I look at the new path I am following, I see that it too has its ups and downs, its mountains and valleys, but now I can see that instead of it just marching forward as my earlier path did, it meanders. I am able, on this new journey pathway, to take side trips to check things out – like studying the Tao Te Ching, reading The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot; listening to a recording by Baba Ram Dass, or working out how to make gluten-free, sugar-free pancakes that don’t taste like sawdust. And winding through, crossing over and under the main journey of spiritual seeking, are the pathways of my neuro-divergency.
Krone Auri’An: I will always be Krone, even though my path has changed direction.
Am I a wise woman? As always, that is up to you to decide.
Right now though, I invite you to come with me on my Journey through spirituality, neuro-diversity, meditating, cloud-watching, animal messengers, fidget toys, and whatever else turns up in the sunshine and the rain of life. I will, mainly, be writing these things for me – so I do not lose the memories, as happens with SDAM – but if just one person gains information, support, joy or anything else they need in their own journey – then I see myself as truly blessed.
Yesterday was a beautiful day here in the Far North of Queensland, and I was sitting at my desk, with the patio doors wide open onto my balcony, with amazing views of water, ringed by mountains, when a cheeky little fellow came to visit.
He walked across the balcony, stopped, and looked inside my lounge room and then calmly walked in. He totally ignored me and proceeded to explore. He walked into the kitchen, came out, did a tour of the sofa, inspected the coffee table had a good look at my meditation cushion and then just as calmly walked out. Obviously his dinner was not to be found in my house!
Who was my fearless little visitor? One of Australia’s most gorgeous, cheeky, and gregarious birds – a Willie Wagtail.
It’s common where I live, to see one of these little fellows when I go for a walk, hopping along, wagging that gorgeous fantail across the grass in order to disturb the insects and find his dinner. And as you keep walking you often become convinced that it’s the same bird that you see just a little further on. I rather think that Willie Wagtails like play games with you to make you think you are seeing the same bird when you are not!
Let’s remind each other how wonderful this world is!
Whatever their game is, it is guaranteed to make you smile. You just can’t help but grin. These little birds lift your spirits and let you know that life really is worth living. They are just filled with positive energy that they are so very happy to share with you, and all they ask is that you communicate that energy to other people you meet.
But it’s not all fun and games with a Willie Wagtail. They are very territorial and, like any fierce warrior will take on threats that are huge in comparison to it’s small size. These little birds will even have a go at a crow or a kookaburra if they think their territory is being attacked!
What is the message from Willie Wagtail? It doesn’t matter how big your problems are, you’ve got this. If you have something to resolve, something that makes you angry or anxious – especially if it’s something that has hung around for a while, then it’s time to look into it and see what you need to do heal. He brings good luck and the knowledge that the karma we carry can be resolved.
Willie Wagtail also reminds us that we are here for the long game and we need determination and hard work in order to achieve our goals and our dreams, and if you find the going tough, if you feel alone in your struggles or need help in protecting what is yours – call on Willie Wagtail for help.
Life isn’t only about hard yakka – be curious, learn new things, and share Willie Wagtail’s sense of fun by smiling at everyone you meet – including yourself!
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it helps in some way. Please hit Like and if you’d like to see more Animal Medicine and Krone chatter, please subscribe to receive email notification.
My book, Hidden in a Dark Place is now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats. It’s also available as part of Kindle Unlimited.
Also – Please check out my You Tube channel. New meditations have recently been released. These are suitable for those with Aphantasia as there are no visualisations.
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