Children of the God’s

This has been a good week in terms of friends challenging me on various topics, yet these topics have had a couple of themes running through them: what do I actually believe and where is my place in the Universe? Good challenges to have and challenges that demand a response. The more that time passes the more uncomfortable I find it to live in a place of fuzziness. Increasingly I need clarity and anything else just seems to land me in a place of treading treacle.

I have become more convinced than ever that as human beings we are indeed Children of the God’s. I say this as I am really beginning to appreciate that we are souls on an evolutionary journey, choosing to rake this incarnation in humanity as part of our journey back to the Godhead. We don’t just have a spark of the Divine within us; we are a reflection of the Divine, part of the One Divine Life. We are Divine. We will one day, from one lifetime, travel home to the Godhead, or we may live as Ascended Masters, this I don’t fully understand as yet, and this is also many lifetimes away. At this point, for me, suffice to know that we are on that path, on that journey and that our own and our fellow human beings evolution is what actually matters, in the here and now.

Growing up in a Christian family and as an adult spending a number of years living within what I today openly and confidently describe as various Christian cults I was taught to think nothing of myself. I was taught to see myself as a doormat. Indeed, at a Bible College I attended for a number of years we actually had lectures on ‘being a doormat for Christ’ from a man who was an esteemed Christian speaker called Campbell McAlpine. I was taught that we had nothing of ourselves as whatever we did have was evil, worthless and of no consequence.

I now see that what we actually have is everything, yet this everything is housed in a body that has its own desires. These desires are not evil, they are not wrong, and to indulge them is neither evil nor wrong. There is, however, an issue of control, of who is in charge, and this is another subject I guess! Suffice to say that the answer lies in knowing ones true will and experiencing ones true connection to the Divine. When one is clear on ones path and ones connection then the issue of who is controlling who ceases to be relevant as all becomes clear.

But this entry is not about the body and the soul, I’ve talked about this before. This is more about the soul and my relationship with the One Divine Life.

I have been raised to see myself as nothing, as something small and insignificant, but now I see that I am indeed a Giant! I am a Giant because of I am part of the Whole, part of Source, not just an aspect of, but integral to the Divine. I am from and as my God’s. My soul cries to the heavens as my body celebrates this world and this life.

Key to this, I am convinced, is understanding our own true will. This is more than understanding our calling; this is more than understanding our purpose. I think it has to be about knowing and understanding, at a profound and revealed level, the will of our soul in this moment in time in this incarnation. It’s about our dynamic relationship with the One Divine Life. It’s about our God Self, our individuation, our encounter, even, with our Holy Guardian Angel. I can’t claim to have experienced that level of initiation as yet, but increasingly it’s a level to which I am drawn. This experience has to be central to fully moving from the small to the Giant experience.

I was before. I have lived many lives. My soul has been on and is on a journey, not just of education, but an evolutionary experience, bringing in that which needs to be and must be and my time in this incarnation is but one aspect of that journey. Discovering my true will is intrinsically linked with knowing who I was before name and form, discovering my truth before I took this form, before I chose to spend this incarnation within this body.

Within our physical is our spiritual self. This spiritual self, this God Self, this person we were before name and form is from and of the God’s. It is this aspect that needs to assume supremacy and it is from here that we create our own reality. The things we feel, the thoughts we have and the words we speak all have creative force and create our own reality. This happens on a solitary all the way through to a national and even international level. We are the masters of our own destiny because we create that which we experience. As Children of the God’s we create our own experiences, our own reality and we can affect our future.

I fall into the trap, all too often, I am learning, of allowing experience to create my own reality as opposed to creating my own experience from my own reality. If I am a Child of the God’s then I create, I do not allow my reality to be created for me. I’m in charge! You can see how this is a complete reversal from all that I was taught when I was a member of various Christian Cults.

This is difficult stuff, and I don’t claim to have any answers at all at this moment in time. All I am writing about is the revelation into which I am entering at this moment in time; the reality that is hitting at this moment. As ever on my own spiritual journey it is for me to take this deeper and further in my own life and in my own experience.

I know that this is about meditation, spending time with my God’s, my Guides and my Ancestors. This is about my God Self getting bigger and truly learning to speak my truth as I stand in my true Power as a Child of the God’s. This is about me recognising my place as someone who stands between and travels between the worlds.

This is about me standing firm when the shit of everyday life is flying in all directions. At this moment I allow these experiences to derail me, to send me off course, to spend a few days or even weeks out of kilter and I lose all sense of connection. This is one negative aspect of walking a solitary path, but this is more than made up for in many other areas.

But all of what I speak comes not from physical effort or striving. It comes not from activity as such, but more from simply knowing our true birthright. It comes from really knowing who we were before name and form and who are. Who we truly are. It comes from that moment of revelation and living in that revelation. Staying in that place is both simple and complex. It also demands a choice and in a sense it does come from a place of surrender.

We can influence and steer micro and macro life events, but we steer in connection with our own true will. Knowing our true course and the course we travel, just as the stars of the heavens travel their own course. They stick to their course, just as I should remain with mine, fulfilling the truth of my own true will without deviation. It’s a tough call! As we all play our part, so we inform the greater human consciousness and as such we can bring the One Divine Will to bear on international events.

The reality is that as Children of the God’s, we create. I guess the question is what am I currently manifesting? I think the honest answer to that is that I’ve probably been creating too much negativity in recent times. I need to remedy this. But this remedy is way above that of simplistic affirmations, it’s about affirmations that come from a place of depth, a place of true Divine revelation and spiritual reality that flows from a genuine connection and expression of my own true will.

We see, we feel, we think, we speak, we make it happen. My words bring forth reality; they create my own reality and lay before me my own destiny.

I may have been raised to see, think, feel and speak as a dwarf, but I am in fact a spiritual Giant.

We all are.

The Question of Suffering

I still have to type in font 28 and then copy and paste this into my blog – and I can’t focus on this that clearly, either! I am so sorry that this means I am currently unable to read and comment on your blogs – please don’t think me rude! Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments.

I have been experiencing many emotions during what I have been referring to, both ironically and humorously, as my ‘time of confinement’. However, whilst said in jest, there is also some truth in there; as ever, ‘many a true word spoken in jest’. It is true, I do feel incredibly frustrated, and I do feel confined. There is so much that I am currently unable to do and as such my frustration with self, as well as my situation, grows and as these emotions grow so does resentment. I resent the fact that this situation has been foisted upon me. (False) guilt then comes along as my situation is not life threatening and will pass in a few weeks, so who am I to be feeling these things anyway?!?

But there is learning in all this. I am now wondering where my responsibility lies in this situation. How and why did this happen? Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way whatsoever thinking ‘why me’ in some kind of melodramatic ‘poor little me’ way, but what I am wondering is; have I somehow allowed a chink in my spiritual armour or a leak in my aura to develop and grow that has allowed this to happen, and if so, what can I do about this? Is there a lesson for me to learn in all this, or should the only lesson that suffering can ever teach be how not to suffer any more? Or, as I am spirit housed in this physical vehicle for a period of time in this incarnation, is suffering of the physical vehicle inevitable as it is fragile and weak and prone to fail – or is this something one can rise above?

As you can imagine, these questions are doing my head in! However, these are questions I am pursuing as I have never been given an answer to the thorny issue of suffering that I have found satisfactory from the pagan/magickal perspective.

In my long and distant Christian past suffering was also referred to as one of the consequences of humanities fall from grace – it was a consequence of sin. I was actually told that when I lost the sight in my left eye that I “clearly had sin in my life and that I couldn’t expect God to heal until the sin was dealt with and removed.” You can, I am sure, imagine how such a comment affected a 23 year old coming to terms with such a loss at such a tender age. This only added to my sense of guilt at being gay, as it felt that it had to be this fact that was preventing God from healing me. Whilst I moved in these Christian circles I saw many, many people in the most desperate and even life threatening situations come forward for healing, and leave as sick as they arrived, but with condemnation, guilt and rejection added to their issues and problems because, as it would have seemed to them, God chose not to respond to the cry of their heart. In my own personal experience I went through a period of profound depression as it seemed to me that the God who at the time I believed to be the creator of the Universe, who I thought I had a personal relationship with, had chosen to reject me. Being rejected by the creator of the universe takes some getting over!

Clearly, this was not the case and obviously I have moved on from something that happened 23 years ago – but you get my point. Christianity offers an answer to the question of suffering, unsatisfactory as it may be.

Buddhism teaches that all is suffering, that existence itself is suffering and that this is caused by desire and attachment. The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eight-Fold Path deal with this, I over simplify, I accept this, however, what I am simply attempting to show is that Buddhism places suffering at the very heart of its teaching.

So, as a Magickal Being, how do I respond to the very real issue of suffering? As I deepen my relationship with Source so I enable the Divine to operate more actively and positively in my life. This isn’t about sin at all, rather it is about exploring the inner planes more fully and deeply and experiencing the manifestation of the Divine within me at ever increasing levels of reality. As my Higher Self manifests, can there be room for suffering?

Clearly there can. Leading occultists whom I have the deepest and most sincere respect for have died through contracting serious disease. Is this a reflection upon their spiritual development? I think not! To think otherwise is to imply judgement, and I don’t see how that is appropriate or necessary.

So what is the answer? Why is suffering so evident? How is it possible to have ones Higher Self manifest and then contract disease that threatens ones physical existence? Women and men of spirit, down through the ages, have cried out to their Gods with this question and it would seem there are as many answers as there are people asking the question. I don’t think I have an answer at the moment and I really would value the thoughts, ideas, and feelings of those further along the path than myself.

I wonder whether it really is a simple case of the divine spark within each of us being capable of a process of evolution through meditation, ritual, pathworking and encounter with Source, whilst the human vehicle is frail and susceptible to aging, pain and suffering and death as experienced by all things on this plane of existence, Suffering, it would seem, as Buddhists discovered long ago, is at the centre of everything and is maintained by our buying into dependence upon that which we experience through the limited human senses. The answer lies, it would seem, in the evolution of our soul, and our commitment and dedication to this process.

What A Week

What a week it's been! Following my lovely week of annual leave, this week I have been thrust back into a working week that was 'full on' in every sense of the word. Not only has there been the usual work that needs to be done, there's work resulting from significant organisational change, work resulting from local change and work resulting from the forthcoming Local Government strike. The planning that it takes to ensure live and limb cover continues to be provided to vulnerable adults is both stressful and time consuming. Work that nobody sees or appreciates, so it's been a tough and tiring week and one that has had me starting early and finishing later, resulting, pretty much, to a week away from the blog, unfortunately.

Together with all of this, work is starting in earnest in relation to organising the Bower Hinton Bike Ride. It never ceases to amaze me just how much work a one day annual event takes!

What has been wonderful, considering all of the above, is that although my spiritual practice has taken something of a backseat this week, I have not felt a sense of distance between myself and Spirit at all. Far from it, I've been aware of that real relationship, and following the revelations and events of last week, I've been in a place where I can move into (walking)meditation far more easily and meaningfully during the working day. I've noticed that my spiritual awareness of time and situation is also more acute, and meaningful, resulting in an intuition that is more keen than it has been, which has been a personal desire of mine for some time. I've been able to see beyond that which is immediately presenting itself to me - not all of the time, but more of the time than usual. This is a real joy to me.

I've been aware of a sense of my place in things, and of the 'bigger picture' above and beyond that of the day to day mundane things. That's not to demean those things, but somehow I had a sense of them for what they really are - stepping stones and not the destination itself, but each being a mini-destination and carrying a special and unique significance. Everything is part of the journey and therefore special and important, but not an end in itself. Somehow I feel less 'stuck' than I have been feeling recently because that sense of movement and flow is increasing.

So in a sense, it feels that this week, in spite of all the rush and frenetic activity, has been something of a time of consolidation. It's like I've been walking through a glade, following the heat and intensity of last week, ready for a new and fresh beginning in the week ahead. It feels gentle, but powerful at the same time.

New Moon

I had my first ever New Moon Ceremony in the Temple Room this evening, and it was lovely. It was wonderful to meet together with people who wanted to work with the New Moon energy. We set intentions, and released these to people and places for their highest good, and the energy felt healing, warm, gentle, nurturing and yet strong.

My intention echoed my post of yesterday, wanting to move further and deeper into the experience and connection of the One Divine Life. As we worked with our intentions, visualising them getting bigger, stronger and more powerful, we lit tea lights, as a symbol of that intention. I felt this was a good way of engaging Younger Self and working with the inner connection between YS, Talking Self and Higher Self. I will relight the tea lights for everyone each morning as I meditate, sending out the individual intentions for the rest of the group.

A dear friend who came to the group read this poem, and I thought it was lovely. Unfortunately I don't know the source, so I can't credit it or provide a link, but I type it out here for you:

Bow To The Moon

I will stand forever firm
Upon two feet, upon ground
In praise of Lady Moon,
Sister of Mother Earth
Illumination.

I will forever raise my arms
Toward the sky
In praise of Lady Moon
The silver One
Hope.

I will chant forever in Her names
My voice full of joy
In praise of Lady Moon,
The radiant One
Inspiration.

I will live forever in Her light
Soaking my core with truth
In praise of Lady Moon,
The awe of my eyes
The secrets of my soul.

I thought this was lovely. This evening was all about illumination, hope and inspiration for me. I set intentions this evening and I look to seeing them grow as the moon waxes and as I continue to work with the energy raised this evening.

It was so lovely to see people in the Temple Room - that in itself is an earlier intention fulfilled. This in itself is a new beginning and I look foward to the way that the Lord and Lady are going to take these monthly meetings.

The Still Quiet Place

I seem to spend so much time 'doing' that I forget to 'be'. It's so easy to get caught up the demands placed upon me, and to spend my time responding to them that who and what I am gets lost in the midst of all this. The working day demands so much, and then there are different things that require attention at home, that before I know it I'm a 'human doing' and not a 'human being'. I find it so easy to think that frenetic activity brings results - and this is simply a trap that has the result of yielding nothing.

This morning I was so aware of entering that still, quiet place. It's not about battle, not even battle for time, it's not about trying to appease opposing forces and it's not about physical energy, or even earnest desire, it's about entering the Temple - the Inner Temple.

I was conscious of the element of water this morning, that deep, profound, still, mighty ocean. It can appear calm, still, almost as though nothing is happening, and yet it contains so much life and it has such strength, incredible depth and such power. This morning I relaxed into this, consciously letting go of effort, of trying and letting all those clamouring voices and anxieties go. Inside, deep inside there is my Inner Voice, my True Self, and there is something about entering that quiet place where my Inner Voice can be heard. It's about making connection with Me and in this knowing myself and my true will. Any kind of magickal work has to start here - with really knowing and understanding who I am - more than that, who I was intended to be, before name and before form.

In some ways it sounds corny, but I did see my true self, my inner self, as a very small candle flame, as something that needs nurture to grow in stature, strength and power. My attention was then shifted to the element of Fire and my little candle flame grew into a pillar of fire, of pure spiritual energy.

What wasn't lost on me was Sulis, my Goddess, who is Goddess of water and also of fire. As I embrace Her, this great Mother Goddess more fully, so I will more fully know my own true self.