The Land of Parboiled Toads

     I danced in the rain in the land of the parboiled toads. It was a warm summer rain, though it be only spring. I splashed and I ran and a screamed "yipee!". I twirled and delighted, chased by and following my children through parking lot puddles and fields of sopping wet green. I rejoiced with the trees that swayed in the breeze and came in when the thunder touched the lightening, so rich!
    And the queen parboiled toad with her fireproof wig yelled "only to the third to get that pot of gold!" I had been up in those clouds with her, following the rainbow every which way she told. Then I was pulled back down to earth and saw that pot was fool's gold and the rainbow was the boiling water. The queen's underling with the Medusa coils for her fireproof wig screamed "Here is the rainbow, tap into the sky that is blue!". "I tapped into the sky that is blue!" I responded joyfully. "Oh, well tap in over here to tap into the sky that is blue for that rainbow trail". O.K., I say I did and she heard I didn't, there is disjointed thinking and imagined answers from me in this parboiled toad factory.  So I danced and I sang my little soul free as I sat amongst the local trees.
   "We gave you a phone!" the queen toad declared. "You have to buy minutes", Medusa croaked her share. "I have no gold with which to do", replied I, "What do you want me to do?". "Sell your blood!", Medusa replied. Buy me a miniskirt and I'll sell my cunt, too, says I. Woohoo! So I danced and I sang my well-grounded sound as I imagined the Queen of Hearts of "Alice in Wonderland" fame, "Off with her head", the queen toad croaked of another. "Three days" she threatens my own reminder. So I danced and I sang my little soul free as I sat amongst the local trees.
    I looked at their waters and I see they only welcome in what begins in a virtual reality. "You cannot reach this pot of gold by personal interview, you must introduce yourself on the computer". I watch those who come in for the doctor; "Can I make an appointment?" "No, you cannot, you must do that online". "I cannot do it here, I cannot do it in person?". "No, the appointment would be with me but with making of appointments I have nothing to do". We used to be warned, "From introductions made online, be very afraid" and now in this pot, in this pool, in this day, there is no other way. So I danced and I sang my little soul free as I sat amongst the local trees.
    I sat in conference concerning my children and shared our point of view: "You believe you waved your magic wand and brought them up to speed, when in fact they simply slowly opened up to share what they already knew. See this, I have proof". The parboiled toads all huffed and puffed so very offended. "Well, we can only go by our point of view, but we'll do you a favor for we want your children back in this water, we want to teach them to swim these waters, to follow the rainbow and get that pot of gold, they are so sweet and wonderful!". So I danced and I sang my little soul free as I sat amongst the local trees.
     "You are toads placed in water with the heat slowly rising, conditioned to the intensity of enmity and of competition. You do not even see the true reality: you are fried inside while our skin is still soft and tender and rightly sensitive to water temperatures". Sociopaths called sanity, at least I know I'm not crazy because I questioned my own degrees. They do not even have the sanity to entertain the possibility..... that their water is boiling! Unfit to perceive me, their view without value, we simply move on, we simply continue.
   Come what do, it's already written. I'll dance my dance and I'll do it my way. I'll dance before, upon and after that day that was given. And I'll dance in the warm summer rain, that comes upon these spring time days......for the true gold is my inner state of being, it is my peace, it is my stability, it is my sound reason; the rainbow dancing in waters of feelings always the proper degree, true to the season.

Spinning Fairy Comes Back Down To Earth

     In my dream I noticed people singing and lifting up into the clear blue, fluffy white clouded sky. I told myself "I know how to do that! It DOES feel better than being down here." So, I lightened my spirit and gave it voice until I began to rotate like those Fairy Barbie Dolls: pull the string and up they go like a helicopter propeller. I had my head in the clouds for a few days before some "rescuers" came to trigger my coming down "back to Earth". As I saw browns and greens again I thought to myself; "The landing will hurt if I don't soften it with a BIT of 'airy-fairy' to me." It would have been one of those dreams where you feel like you're falling and startle yourself awake while your body literally jumps off the bed. Instead of being startled awake, the bit of 'airy-fairy' worked and I continued in the dream, getting back to business and thinking I should probably ask what I missed. I woke softly just before my alarm went off.
   The "airy-fairy'-ness of my life is buying into a program/recipe of 'success'. To the world, that recipe is actually considered well-grounded and practical and 'realistic'. "Coming back down to Earth" means being real about how I feel/perceive those recipes which others may call unrealistic.
   I was told recently I needed to do less blogging and writing to focus on fulfilling a requirement and I had to note: I haven't been writing or blogging NEARLY as much as usual. I had been too caught up in her "airy-fairy" self-sufficiency plan. No, part of coming back "down to Earth" again is me renewing my relationship with my writing!
    I have also redefined something for myself in the past 24 hours. People see a steady work record or certificate or degree and say "this person is reliable because they can stick to something". Cannot the same be said for one who stuck to being a stay-at-home mom no matter how financially hard things had gotten? Cannot the same be said of one who stuck to her spiritual journey above a box of familiarity? I HAVE shown steadfastness of charector, reliability, steadiness, productivity, dedication and all those qualities. So, I redefine ME.
And occasionally remember the feeling of fairy dancing out of 'a harsh reality......

Children don't tell you

      My son told me yesterday he was told he had to bring money in for lunch. I knew it wasn't true. So, I hung out in the office this morning until I knew it had gone through the computer system to the lunch room. Than I went down to the lunch room with my children and made sure they heard the woman in charge say it wouldn't happen again. Someone in the office commented that it was odd his did not work but his sister's did. Hmmmm. So I asked his sister. "It happens to me, too". Oh, so that's why she wanted to start bringing her own lunch. So, we made sure it went through the system for both of them.
   I hear over and over again from parent after parent "I have my job and going to school is my child's. It's the way the world is and it's what we have to do. Not everyone plays nice on the playground, get used to it." The message children hear is "Don't bother complaining about anything". "Mom, I don't want to go to school". "Well, you have to". Yes, eventually you learn to stop "complaining", you stop expressing what does not feel good to adults and even your peer group who parrot their parents because they don't want you to stir their suffering in silence divine inner being.
  My children didn't get that message today. Today they heard "No, the mother is still here in the office waiting for us to see this through", lol No yelling, no bitching, a simple quiet statement: "My child is told each day he does not have what it takes to get food. He needs to hear that he does indeed have what it takes". Then sit and wait.
   Of course my children are bit anxious about this; "Mommy is discussing the elephant in the room!". So, my daughter fidgets with a pen. On the counter."Don't write on the counter", I begin to say as the receptionist gasps in horror with a "What on earth would make you ...". Me, firmly: "NO>  you are not going to shame this child as if she is the only child in existence to ever have doodled on a counter, she knows better, I just reminded her, give me something and I'll clean in off". Receptionist: "No, I'll clean it".
   "I believe we'll need tardy slips for each of them and a parent pass for me." I mention. Receptionist "Yeah, I'll get to it". The other office staff person went ahead and filled them out with a "I didn't write a time on them so you can take your time in the cafeteria". THANK YOU!
    Made sure I handed the tardy slip to each teacher personally with a mention to my daughter's teacher: "Kids have been making fun of her in the lunchroom, let's make sure that doesn't happen again". "I'll keep an eye on it", the teacher said.
   My daughter didn't jump up and down for joy, but there was pride in her step. My son glowed with affection. Stomach aches had left.
    Some times in life we are where we don't want to be, but it does not mean we are absolutely powerless in how we are treated in those places and children need to know these things. Parents don't realize because they killed that inner child long ago, around kindergarten, and that's why they cannot even fathom their child's own.
   I'm feeling far more confident in my conscious parenting, which makes it less resistant, softer and just that much more effective. I am the lion with whom the lamb is safe and comforted ;)

What if spirits changed places?

     I had been really sick with high fever, congestion in the lungs, etc. As the infection receded from the deepest parts of my lungs I woke one morning feeling like a newborn who had just left the womb. Sounds were more pronounced, 'intuitive' feelings clearer and a thought was introduced: "What if each day there was the potential for a new spirit to be in the body?".
   Illness is the releasing of fear in many cases, the killing off of whatever "resonates" with the "killing agent". So, new, more "enlightened", love-based cells take the place. Some believe it can go so far as mean a change in our very DNA. As I cried each morning during the worst of this illness, it was all my fears wanting expressing and so I expressed them. Now they no longer resonate with me, really. Things people would normally say do not "hit me" like they would have and things I would normally not say out of fear of how they'd be taken roll right off my tongue and are received outwardly un-resisted.
  If the body is a veil, a place of stored and accumulated memories worn like a space suit, a spirit comes in and can only be aware of it as it's self with such and such memories. "I am not me" cannot enter one's being really because one can feel one's own essence has not changed. "OK, I am me, but...." and the only thing accessible is the human memory. Any spirit has no choice but to be in charector unless the vessel/human body has memory of being taught other potentials and ways of retrieving self knowledge. The idea that spirits can come and go from bodies and even be in varying numbers is not new: "WE are Legion" was the response "Jesus' got when asking 'a' spirit to identify it's self. The idea of "Walk-ins" is not new or all that unusual either in the 'new age' movement.
  The point is: if a different spirit can come in, it might be worth a try to express new things, make new choices a spirit who was there yesterday might not have had the strength to make. Maybe the spirit who gave a body it's smoking habit is no longer in residence because it no longer resonated with the new cells or DNA, so you pick up a carrot stick instead of a cigarette? Walk outside instead of heading for the shower first thing in the morning. Change just one wee little habit and see.....have changes happened in me and I am just not practicing? And with each change, each 'evolution of a vessel, more and more evolved spirits would be drawn to it, not just for occupying but for interacting with, moving that vessel 'up' in physical reality.

The Young Proffessionals

    I have reason to sit for a short time each day amidst the housing for those getting their Master's degrees. It's well maintained, well secured and lovely. Those who come and go are cookie-cutter look a-likes. They remind one of the Ken and Barbie dolls.
    I noticed a man walk through a room I was sitting in. "Who is he?", I asked. "The one in charge of the money" came the reply. He was a very young cookie-cutter type hired by an organization of much older people. A picture began to form of how the older ones who have had all the money all these years have their replacements well groomed and being put into place to make sure things are run the same way as in their day.
    It was given to me to note that their young age coupled with a focus on learning, there is no experience to add dimension of perspective, wisdom, compassion to their positions. They are typically very narrow minded boasting an open mind. They follow the rules, fill out the forms and everything "goes their way". That means life is good, all is well for them. Even if they don't feel it, they'll insist on it vehemently because it's the way things "should" be or "need to be" or "are".
   These "Young Professionals" not only have exclusive apartments to dwell in while they get their Master's degrees, but an entire corridor of the town in which I dwell is being set aside, rezoned and constructed as housing for them when they graduate. It's referred to as "The Young Professionals" corridor. So, their physical lives are being built just before they fill them and of course the cost will be in their range. That means those constructing the housing know exactly what the young professionals will be making and what their expenses will be, such as malpractice insurance..........thought was introduced to my mind at this point "why don't the people who give out those degrees pay for the malpractice insurance of the 'young professionals'?".
   They are not of a charector I would trust; having a certificate, degree, diploma, doctorate, only tells me how much longer you allowed someone else to dictate what and how to think than I did. It tells me how long you let someone else feed you a prescribed perception. There's no experience to certify wisdom, compassion, morality. Yet, the world sees a degree as making someone trustworthy. People will trust a doctor despite the doctor not focusing and knowing their own body but instead being told how to view and treat someone else's body. It is said "If you can't keep your own household in order, what business do you have ordering someone else's?". The cookie-cutters all work out, so they'll insist they treat their bodies well (again, it's because someone told them that's treating a body well).
  So, I let that train of thought go. That much time on what is unwanted brings the vibe down. Synchronistically, later in the day a woman was trying to force my daughter to respond to her despite my warning "They're resentful about being in school and not as friendly as usual". I told the woman t please respect my daughter's "no". She turned to my daughter and said "But I'm a teacher and teacher's are safe". "That's not right, that's no guarantee", I responded and stepped between them so she'd stop stalking my daughter. (in my head: "How many teachers every year are arrested for sexual abuse of students?". The topic of insuring those you give those degrees to arrives again! Must have been introduced for my reflection earlier in the day to make me well grounded for this later moment. Or the later moment was designed to cement in or not this new thought. If I cement it in, that means if I choose to get a certificate or degree, it won't necessarily put me in a position of greater authority aka money. It only means that after all my experience and self education, I agreed to allow someone to tell me what answers to give long enough to get a degree. None of this is to say there is no wisdom or true knowledge in schools or colleges. I am sure there is some true education going on in there. It's just so diluted compared to the programming, it's only the rarest student who is going to let it strike them. Even then it creates a schizophrenia if they continue in their college education after exposure and supporting the programming by agreeing to the lifestyle. Or, they drop out.
   But maybe, just maybe, requiring those handing out those degrees to pay the insurance on those they give them to might change that disparity. An age of emotional intelligence is beginning.

Opposites?

     A woman tried to push me around. She couldn't. So she caught my son while he was by himself and said something to him that would make him afraid. I complained. (yeah, I know, we shouldn't). I was told by the woman in charge of the place we were staying to just stay away from her and yes, she's heard the woman talk to my children and she wouldn't let that woman near my children either. "You two are just opposites", the woman in charge commented after threatening me with being evicted if I complained one more time about the terrorist of children (others have been given the same threat in response to the same complaint about their children being terrorized by this one woman).
   Opposites? No, not really. The woman who stalked and terrorized my son while he was vulnerably alone (yeah, I know, strong words) manipulates people's perception of her by being nice to those she chooses, disguising malicious acts with good intent ("I was just cleaning!" as the excuse to dump someone's fresh cup of coffee), doing malicious deeds when she thinks no one sees and whining "She didn't accept my apology", when it was excuses given rather than a sincere admit ion of wrong treatment. We would call such a woman evil or bad.
   One of the hardest things I had to face coming from the opposite end of the spectrum was that being a people pleaser was just as manipulative and untrustworthy as the "other". We call the "rugs"/people pleasers "good" when in fact they are doing the same thing: attempting to control other people's perceptions of them; "Please just like me"/"See me as likeable". No one really knows what is under that rug because the real personality has been swept under it in exchange for what one thinks others perceive as "good" qualities. The persona is an equally fake mask. Equally treacherous.
   One of the most empowering aspects of this journey for me has been to truly "hear" and realize that "perceptions belong to 'god' ". So, up came the rug, shined the light of my conscious awareness on my real feelings and beginning to stand by me. There really is no other choice, it seems. I have to be honest about what does and does not work for me.
   And dang, nothing makes us more honest than good old flu-like infection wreaking havoc on the body! Temp of 103.1 and I'm told "You have to fill out 3 applications a day, remember you HAVE to find a job within 30 days to not be evicted!" (read the small print which says 'make a sincere effort, so again undue threats by the 'headmistress'). Yup, back in the world of duress again!

A high IQ

    "Money Changes Everything", a song by Cyndi Lauper, popped into my head last night and has been playing it's self frequently ever since. Even pop culture I grew up with perpetuates the "money is the root of evil" perception. Money is definitely the theme of my moon time consciousness expansion. Does money change everything? Maybe. Convenience facilitates a less interrupted flow of goods and services. There is less striving, less work. Manifestation is easier. One becomes more relaxed, less dependent. Thus they change perspective to "life is easy and effortless", changing the relationship to and with those around them. Just an example of a potential,
    I am also reminded of my being "diagnosed" with an higher than average IQ. That seperates me from the average person and so I may have subconsciously been running on an "above average" perceptual program thus requiring "everyone" around me to be intellectually inferior/not "get" what I was expressing, how I was thinking, what I was accomplishing. Fact is, so many are just as high in the IQ department as I am, they've simply had emotional blocks to their ability to transfer their intelligence or have had parental programming drilled into their heads "dumbing down" their intelligence. What if I began to assume and find ways to perceive that everyone in my world is just as intelligent and perceptive as me? If I am the creator of my reality and I create it with my beliefs and by upon what I focus my energy, then even wondering about such a thing makes it my reality.
   It also occurred to me the other day as I spoke to one of my children: saying "good job" is classifying, causing a separation just like my having been diagnosed with a higher than average IQ. Even training my children to my own preferences; "I like that!" is conditioning them if I am trying to influence their behavior. Not everything has to be as I, myself, like it. They are allowed to have their own preferences and styles. Dancing the dance of where it's appropriate to influence where it is not...... Dancing the dance of when to separate and when to not........... Dancing the dance of the right to self determination.............