Notes on the Illusion

Everywhere you look, people are busy. Even in the midst or maybe even because of a worldwide pandemic people are busy. And if they are not busy they are anxious to find something, anything to do. I can sometimes be among them. I confess I am writing this blog for something to do. But what happens when we slow down to a stand.still.

I’ve heard that this can be scary. Being alone with ourselves. Not building anything and not taking anything apart. Not seeking that thing that brings you joy or that thing that brings you solace. I find so many challenges to finding stillness. The tv is always on and if the tv isn’t on then I hear that clock ticking so loudly. How to find silence in all this noise of living?

Sound of Silence: How to Find Some Quietude in Your Life

That is a nice blog with some good tips but not the answer I’m seeking.

You can focus on the silence between the ticks of the clock. The gap between thoughts in your mind. I am going to say you can do this any time. The noise is not possible without silence.

Today my goal is to focus on silence.

Early Memory

There are some things I was told but that I don’t remember. Like being abandoned and neglected by my mother. Being placed in foster care. Not speaking for around 2 years. Being analyzed by social workers and decided that I was not developmentally challenged but that I chose not to speak.

My first memory is sitting close to the TV in my blue disney pajamas. Grandpa and grandma were there (my foster parents). The front door was cracked open and a breeze was coming into the house. I can’t remember if it was morning or evening but I think it was evening. The overall feeling was that I was safe. I think that is why I remember this, I think I was 3 or 4 years old, and this was the first time I felt safe.

Intuition

Intuition. In Women Who Run With Wolves, Estes says that intuition has a matrilineal aspect to it. It is passed down from mother to daughter. Maybe a message to trust this inner voice. Intuition doesn’t disappear but becomes harder to hear the less you listen to it. I am looking back at my childhood. The first mother figure I remember was grandma Nord my foster mom. I don’t think she taught me to listen to my intuition. As I remember she relied heavily on other authority figures to teach me how to live. Mostly the church. She sent me to Sunday School every week. I learned about morals and the ten commandments. I don’t think I even heard of intuition until I was an adult.

Now at age 42 I learn about intuition from my birth mother who I was reunited with 3 years ago. My mom teaches that I can trust my inner voice. I can’t recall any specific instances when she taught this other than times when she confirmed the things I said were coming from my intuition. My mom is very good at affirming me, even when I am being a little out there. In the past she has conspired with me to say that we are angels. Sent here to help other people. I am thinking about the divine feminine. I think having this relationship with my mom is helping me to access the divine feminine that is in my lineage.

When I want to access my inner goddess what I really love to do is to take a long luxurious bubble bath, dress in comfortable clothing, and then be, just be. While I am bathing I visualize myself as a nature goddess. Arising out of the deep. Inside there is a dance between masculine and feminine. Sometimes It plays out in my outer world as my husband and I do our dance.

Lately his attention is elsewhere. I can’t really blame him as my attention is often elsewhere too. I am trying to figure out how we can come back together. I ask for his help running my bath. He likes to participate in this way. There are miles to cover. I need to go inside and discover how I can assist in us coming back together again.

Manic Memoirs Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I just finished talking to someone who reminded me that our experience of God is subjective. I imagine nearly all of reality is subjective, that is, except for Reality. But reality with a capital R, I don’t know much about that. I am a lucid dreamer in this thing called life. I am dreaming and I know it. I have yet to figure out how to take advantage of this fact. Subjectively, I believe in God (Source, Creator, Higher Power, or what have you). Maybe its because I was raised Christian and it is so ingrained in my conditioning that I have no other choice.

Grandma sent me to the Presbyterian Church every Sunday. Every once in a great while she would take on this massive effort to shave her legs and she would go too. Most of the time I was sent with her daughter. Just to clarify my grandma was my first foster mom. Her biological daughter was almost 40 years older than me yet I sensed that she was jealous of the attention I received from her mom. At church I would go to Sunday school and learn fun songs like Jesus loves me or Jesus loves the little children. I felt very loved by Jesus. We would read watered down Bible stories and sometimes play act scenes from the Bible.

The Bible is a point of contention for me now. I understand that some men were inspired by God to write it but I don’t  think it is infallible. I think God still breathes wisdom to various people and if you really wanted to know what God had to say you would have to do mor reading than conceivable. Or you could boil it all down to love. Love is all that matters. My second foster mom, I will call her Y, is a devout right wing fundamentalist Christian. She is the kind of Christian that makes me embarrassed to claim Christianity. She spent a lot of time and energy trying to force her Bible doctrine on me. When we try to convert people, I think that is where we get into a problem.

If I have learned anything over time it is that it is all alright. No matter your beliefs, no matter where you come from or where you are going it is all okay. Have you ever come close to dying? It is in these intense moments that we really can see. We see what is really important, what really matters. There are only a couple times when I felt that I was close to death. The first time was driving on the freeway in the snow, on my way to pick up our next fix. At first I was going slower just to be safe because it was snowing but then all of a sudden visibility dropped to zero and I put on my brakes. When the snow cleared I saw a multiple car pile up in front of me. It took me a minute and some jerk behind me honking his horn for me to realize that I was okay and that my car could still move. I felt saved by angels that day.

The second time was also a near miss car accident. I was turning around a round a bout when I was nearly crushed by a semi truck. It was then that I felt that someone or something else took over my body, looked out of my eyes, and drove my car for me. I assumed it was Jesus. Do you know how amazing it is to have Jesus look out of your eyes? Wow everything looks so absolutely beautiful with that kind of vision. I wish I could see that way all the time.

Maybe it is possible. When you look at something really closely, and you really appreciate it for what is is in this moment you can have Jesus vision. I practice by looking at my hounds. I have 2 bassethounds, a dark one and light one. The yin and the yang. To me they are proof of God. They are like little big Buddha’s. If you are lonely or suffer from anxiety I highly recommend getting a dog. If we would only emulate our dogs behavior the world would be a better place.

Right now the sun is shining in my eyes. I love it. My husband Chris is watching Ridiculousness on Mtv laying on the daybed with the hounds Flash and Willy. Flash is dark and fat and squishy. Willy is the sage. The elder. The light haired one who loves to kiss on his mama.

It’s a chilly October morning. I didn’t sleep as much as everyone thinks I should. I spent a lot of time online chatting with strangers and then one of these strangers gave me the inspiration I needed to make an attempt at writing this book. I don’t know who will read this and I am okay with that. I am writing as a form of self-healing. I don’t like to focus solely on the past because I think often times the past just serves to bring us down. The clock is chiming and its 10am. But what is time. Time is useful tool so people can arrange meetings or track how many hours they did something. I agree with Echart Tolle when he says the present moment is all we really have.

Still we all carry baggage. Stories from the underground. Our life experience. I once read that our personal truth is all that matters. I think this might ring true because how can we even know anything else? Even if we read someone else’s wisdom we tend to only carry what resonates with us and fits into our paradigm. I am going to do my best to share my life experience with you so that you can see what its like to be a reality surfer or someone diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features.

Manic Memoirs Chapter 1

Life is interesting when you are a reality surfer. One moment you are swimming out towards the waves and the next you are riding high. Riding high is a thrill but eventually the wave crashes and you just hope you make a smooth exit. Otherwise you crash and may even fight for your life. I can’t tell you when I began surfing reality. It could have been as a young child watching whales flow through my darkened room. My skeleton wasn’t hidden in the closet. Instead, it liked to manage things in plain sight. Is it any wonder that at times I became overwhelmed and I walked across the hall to crawl into my grandma’s bed. The only problem with that was that often upon stepping out of bed in the morning I would step right into a pile of dog shit. That was our border collie shepherd mix Brandy’s favorite place to take a dump. So I would start the day rinsing my foot under the faucet in the bath tub.

Water is a magical thing. Have you ever imagined washing all your cares away beneath the stream of a hot shower? I do this thing where I try to stay really present throughout my bath or shower. Okay now I am putting soap on the loofah. Now I am scrubbing my feet, and etc; I try not to think about outside drama. I focus completely on myself. Sometimes I will say a prayer. When you are doing self care you really have to care for the self. Ultimately, caring for the self is as good as caring for everyone else.

I never planned on writing a book. However, the universe compels me. I told my friend I couldn’t think it through from beginning to end. He said don’t think it just write it. Channel it if you must. So I’m giving this my best and I hope that you will find it readable even if it does skip around the way that my mind often does.

It’s currently 4am and I’ve been awake since 1am. I do this every other night or so. I just love the night time. I try to make up for lost sleep during the day but that doesn’t always happen. I’ve been this way as long as I can remember. My doctor probably attributes it to my having bipolar disorder. I think I am just a night owl.

I just unmuted the television. I’m watching Gaia TV, a show about extra-terrestrials. I’ve never personally encountered and ET but when I was in high school my crush gave me the nickname ET. I was crushed by my crush. I was expecting a cute nickname. Instead the popular people walked down the halls pointing their fingers at me saying “ET phone home,” whenever they saw me. I asked him why he called me that. I forget what he said. Something about me being weird.

Back then it really hurt my feelings but now I take it as a compliment. Who wants to fit in, in an insane world. Why join the insanity? So many ego’s run wild. So many dreamers and sleepers. Is it easy to be awake in times like these? I guess it is effortless. Reality surfing can be more like wake boarding at times. The best time is when you are laying on your board looking at the sky trying to name the shape of clouds.

I have a strong memory of watching the clouds when I was in preschool. The clouds were moving and I was in awe. Have you ever een the clouds part suddenly and show you blinding light from the sun? I want to be like that blinding light. So bright that you are going to need shades.

The flames are dancing in my candle. Why are they dancing? Why are we dancing? Oh you sat this one out? I used to be a wall flower. My high school sweetheart rescued me from the sidelines. He ‘accidentally’ sat on me thinking I was someone else. It reminds me of how I met my husband. He came up to me introduced himself and bopped my beer. Causing it to spill everywhere. I think he helped me clean it up. So many shots of jagermeister later I thought we were having a one night stand. Eighteen years later I’m not so sure.

I have a lot of respect for him being with me through all the stops and starts. Through all the times I crashed so hard. Through my dark night of the soul. He has been my rock through it all and I just want for him to realize how much I love and appreciate him.

Sometimes people don’t understand on the outside looking in. My brother thinks my husband is abusive and it is really my fault that he thinks that way. When I got super manic in 2011 I went across the country, first by bus, then by train and I landed at my brother’s door. I told him many things from my jacked up perception that would make anyone think my husband Chris was a bad, no good, terrible guy. So even though it is 2020 now, my brother still thinks about what I said back then. In a drunken stupor he said he never wanted to see Chris again. So I guess we won’t really be seeing each other.

Still that makes not much difference. My brother and I were separated when I was 5. He got adopted and for inexplicable reasons I did not. Instead, I was destined to live with my controlling foster mom until I was 13. At that time I was disowned at my foster father’s funeral and I knew I needed to make a change. I told the social worker I wanted to move and they were all over it. Then I moved in with my new foster family and that is when I lost my faith in God.

Has that faith really returned? At times I can give that an astounding yes. I have experienced God in so many ways in my life. I almost feel blessed by having bipolar disorder because it helped me see from the highest vista’s. I am fortunate that I don’t usually crash too hard. A month of bliss is followed by a few months of no motivation and lots of sleep. I think it is a worth while trade off. However not everyone with bipolar experiences it the same.

Most people are afraid of the psych ward. I used to be too, but now I’ve found a ward where I can feel safe enough to grow beyond myself. There are nature scenes on the wall and pictures of sky on the ceiling. There are also globular mirrors on the ceiling. I used to lay on the floor and stare into these mirrors until I could swear that I saw Jesus. He was always administering to the other patients in the guise of a friendly nurse.

One time there was a synchronicity. Outside the hospital I had been studying Course in Miracles. Once inside the psych ward I met another patient who was studying the course. He had some printouts of some of the lessons. We sat in the cafeteria together and he read the lesson to me. As he read tears came to my eyes and I could see Jesus’ face before me. It was a mystical experience for sure.

Sometimes it’s the synchronicities that really get to me. There are so many of them all at once it makes me feel like I am losing my mind. Once I feel like I am losing my mind it doesn’t take much before I literally am out of my mind. There have been times I went to the psych ward like that. There have been the voluntary times when I was more aware.

I find the ward to be a real learning experience. Here you are, not having it all together, surrounded by others who are also not quite themselves. They put us together in groups and it is supposed to be like a mental health milieu. But sometimes it is more like expansion of craziness.