Messages

GAH, some pretty boys!!!   :spoiled:

Greetings, APers!  It's been a while, hasn't it?

Just wanted to pop in and say hey to all you lovely people, and let you know I'm still here and doing pretty well for the most part.  Currently, I am enjoying the quiet season of Lent, and using it as a period of discernment for myself... reflecting on my life and my faith, and discerning where I may be headed next and what I should do with myself.  I feel like I'm at a turning point.  I feel there are many possibilities and many things to do... I need to set some priorities.

No remarkable astral activity to speak of, although I do half-remember a talk I had with Patrick the other night.  April 28 will be a year since he passed.  I got the impression that he was gently, lovingly giving me a push forward, telling me not to worry about him any more, and to make the most of my future.  I felt a very gentle, but unmistakable separation of some kind.  Not a real separation, but... more like a release.

I'm fine with it.  There have been so many positive changes in my self and my life.  I finally escaped a nearly-year-long horrible work situation (did I ever mention the work situation?).  It can be summed up as new widow + new mother = worst seating arrangement possible!  Almost a year of constant distress... while trying to work.  BUT it's over now!  I'm a free woman, surrounded by wonderful, loving coworkers.  I can't tell you what a burden has been lifted from me!

That plus a new and rather intriguing relationship with God has given me many nights of utterly peaceful sleep.  And some interesting mental activity that I really can't describe... I just seem to be doing an awful lot of thinking in my sleep lately.  But I wake up feeling like a million dollars every day, so whatever it is, it's a good thing!

Well, I probably won't be around here much for a while longer.  But I hope everyone is well, and if anything really cool happens, I'll let you know!  

You can visit my LiveJournal if you want to know what I'm up to... I try to update it at least once a week.  Em, but it's not very interesting, really.  *sigh*

[choose]

I'm not a scholar on war, but I do think about it a lot.  I think it is one of those things we all have a deep need and desire to understand.  It's such a primal, universal phenomenon.  

Also, quite a few of my recent ancestors have been career soldiers.  So part of me wants to understand them too.  Especially my grandfather... a well-educated, well-bred man, a devoted husband and father, gifted at writing and cooking (!), a practicing Catholic and a natural-born psychic... I wonder what it was that led this man to choose to fight wars?  What compelled him?  And what was it like going from a fairly nice, comfortable, civilized life to Normandy and into the Bulge, jumping from airplanes all the way?  And then back home?  

I know for a fact (based on letters and writings, and my relatives' recollections) that he was deeply troubled by his experiences with war.  But that was the life he had determined for himself.  And I honor him and what he did, don't get me wrong.  I just want to understand it better.  Unfortunately, I never got to know him; he died before I was born.  Three Purple Hearts, and he died from lung cancer he likely contracted from his later job in building (asbestos exposure).  Ironically, he died from a very civilian circumstance.  

Thanks, Staceyc--I still get chills (in a good way) whenever I think about it!  Sort of the same "buzz" I get after going to Confession!  

Yeah, God is definitely mysterious... trying to comprehend God generally leads to big headaches.  The concept of the Trinity alone is impossible to fathom (I've tried).  

:poh:

We can and do perceive God in many ways.  But we have to understand that it is in very limited ways, due to our being limited creatures.  My concept and perception of the Spirit as a feminine form stems from the roles and graces that I (and my religious tradition) attribute to the Spirit--roles and graces generally identified in our culture as "feminine."  

The roles and graces are real and true---but my perception and personification of them is not necessarily real and true.  The only way they could be, in a way, real and true is if the Spirit Itself generated them for my sake.  Which is possible, but who can say for sure?  

Sorry, didn't mean to ramble on like that. :redface:

[take over the world!]

What a beautiful experience!  Thanks for sharing!  I love the plant/seed imagery.  And the voice--how awesome.    I get some pretty strong images sometimes, but never get the voice to comment on them.  Maybe I just need to learn to hear/listen to it.

Adam, you're going to take over the world!  Or at least try to, hehe!  

GreatOutdoors, one thing that helps me "tap into mythology" is Tarot.  Basically the cards represent the universal mythical symbols.  They always tell a story and/or present a nugget of truth that anyone can recognize and identify with.  You just need to get a deck that "speaks" to you.  

The closing credit song sounds familiar, but I don't know what it is, sorry.

I'm almost positive that the intro/menu screen song is the opening credits song from Final Fantasy X-2.

Like many of us, I'd like to hear from Frank just to know he's OK.  I guess he's still out of commission from health problems or whatever he's been dealing with.  It's been a long time...  

That is so sad.  This is what got me:

Of course, many illnesses go away on their own or are psychosomatic. And I suspect that's why many of Trudeau's customers say they were helped. But the Internet is filled with complaints too. Many of them sad.

One woman said she stopped using her drugs based on Trudeau's advice, and suffered a terrible seizure. A man said his tumor grew larger after he relied on Trudeau's book.

Veronica Krammes says she has had spinal surgery and suffers constant pain. She and others complained about Trudeau's book on the infomercialscams.com Web site. "I bought the book because I wanted to see natural cures that he promises to give me and there's none in here. It's to me, a total waste of money. It was a scam," she said.

Joyce Ball's sister is dying of cancer and is too ill to appear on TV. Joyce bought her Trudeau's book.

She said her sister felt cheated. "She felt betrayed, and she felt she was a fool for believing what he had to say," she said.

Those poor people!  Having relatives who have lots of health problems, part of me would be willing to do or try just about anything to make them well, so I really feel for those who have bought into Trudeau's claims.

I think this sums up pretty well what Trudeau is about:

Trudeau keeps saying the Food and Drug Administration and drug companies only care about money. But many of his past customers say money is all Trudeau cares about.

 I think your positive outlook may help you as much as any technique!  Go for it, good luck, and good experiences!  

I've heard of many people having success with the frequent awakening technique.  I've never been able to bring myself to do it... I detest waking up in the middle of the night!  I need my beauty sleep too much!

[our lives]

This is a great topic, and one I've thought about my entire life.

I've never related to or believed in the idea I often heard as a child--that God is some distant being in some distant Heaven, vastly separated from humanity.  Even as a child, that didn't make sense to me.  We had to be integrally connected to God, and vice versa.  I've always thought of my soul as a part of God--and every single living thing is its own part of God.

So as God is concerned, what if He is really a higher level of our own selves. What if God is all perfect and all knowing simply because he has made every mistake, or learned from every mistake, that our universe has to offer? He may have destroyed Himself in some lives, grown as a result in others, and now, in the scheme of eternity, he has made, learned, and grown from every mistake there is to make, and thus, in our dimension of the physical universe, is incapable of making the same mistakes as we do, because he's made them and knows the solution without hesitation?

I like this idea, but I believe the process is ever ongoing, and that is the entire reason for our existence--to contribute to the experience, learning, and evolution of God, and hence ourselves.  All those lives God lives--I believe they're our lives.  God is a "higer level" of us in that God is the collective spirit from which we each come and to which we each return.  But not higher in a value sense.  There may be a hierarchy of "size" but not of worth.

Basically, I don't consider God a perfect being.  If God were perfect, I don't think there would be any need for Creation.  You know, I don't see Creation as a one-way street.  God didn't just create us.  God is not the Creator and we the Created.  God created us so that we could create ourselves and ultimately create--and re-create--God.  God created us to be creators as well.  

I think its a big shame that so many people resist being creative and resist using the minds they were given--these are usually people who cling to outdated religions, outdated versions of God, and who are terrified to see God (and themselves) in a new way.  They think that to do so is to challenge God--but in reality, the only thing they challenge is old and very human notions about God.  People always mix up God and religion!  And I think that's a major obstacle for God and humanity.

But, it's part of the process.  Eventually, we'll work through that obstacle too.  The more of us who work through it as individuals, the more we as a whole will work through it.

Sorry if I've rambled on too much... this is one of those things I could probably talk about forever!  I look forward to hearing other thoughts about this.

I would like to make an update and say thank you to everybody who has been putting her and I in your thoughts/prayers.

You're very welcome, and I'll keep on keeping you both in my thoughts and prayers!

Personally, even the act of writing this post and accepting my need for help instantly made me feel so much better. I no longer feel anxious about it at all...

Writing is marvelous therapy, and I always recommend people to keep journals, especially at difficult times in their lives.  The act of writing diverts energy away from anxiety and negative emotions.  It is a distinctive thought process which often helps one to think differently about issues.  Also, a written record allows you to see the progress you've made.  Sometimes, I feel like I've gotten nowhere, but then I read journal entries from 6 or 9 months ago, and I realize I've come a long way!

Take care, and best wishes!

Thanks for your usual good insight and support, everyone!

:thankU:

This week has been pretty quiet as far as projection activity.  However, I am currently working on creating a good run-down.  Thanks for posting that excerpt from Frank, TPM!

What Frank described is quite what I experienced, only I didn't create the scenario.  It was such an amazing feeling, making "the switch"--I definitely want to achieve that again, and be able to induce it!  I think it would be especially fun for it to occur in an environment/scenario of my own creating!

I think I go overboard with my imagining, though, instead of focusing on the essentials--I get more engrossed in the scenery and design, as if I'm creating a scene in a book or film, rather than immersing myself in the sensations of the environment.  I'm working on simplifying it and making myself a part of the environment, rather than holding myself apart as the "creator" of the environment.  I hope I'm making sense!

:poh:

[this post]

Hi,

It sounds a little like what happened to me a little while back -- see this post.

I was already in sleep paralysis when my eyes started going wacko.  It did vaguely occur to me that REM must feel something like that.  It did bring on some wacky visuals.  And I too felt a very strong pressure build up around my crown.

It wasn't a very pleasant experience.  But apparently pretty normal. :dont-know:

[really]

Yeah... i tend to get that alot it seems.  :giggle:   Guess I wont be making any money off my music...     Some people just cant appreciate my energetic violent powerful crushing grooves... it happens.  :headbang:   I'll get over it!  :hug:

I thought it was awesome!  :applause:  Ah, your kind of music it reminds me of some crazy but fun times... I was never expressly a metal fan, but in New Orleans at that time, all of us "alternative" types had to hang together.  It really broadened my musical horizons, to say the least.  I'm really intrigued by your jazz/metal fusion project...  Even if you don't make $ from music... you've got the gift, and that's more than lots of people can say (including a large majority of people who do somehow make $ from music  ).  

Cripes what am I doing single???  :doh:   Maybe its the fact that most people think im completely insane?  :laugh7:

It's the curse of being both intelligent and good looking!  If one doesn't scare people away, the other will.  

Ah, true love... it's never easy, from my own experience and what I've heard from others.  But it's oh so worth it!

I'm sending some prayers your way in hopes that you and your love can be reunited soon!  

I know how it feels... my beloved and I spent lots of time living in different places.  You know you've got a great relationship when the old adage proves true: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Alas, my beloved has already gone to the afterlife now.  But in a way, we're much closer now than we were when we were living apart.  I know he's with me all the time.  And I also know we'll be reunited someday!  

In the mean time, let's do our best to hang in there!

:spoiled:  It's so awesome to see all you pretty people!!!  I hope everyone else will post pics soon!!!  Don't be shy!

It's strange that everyone looks pretty much as I pictured them!  

When I was just a child around 7 or 8, in my waking life I would look at my hands and think, "how did we get here on earth, how did it all start?" I swear I would go into some kinda of trance and all these answers, feelings, and emotions would start just coming at me....hard to explain..LOL it would always end up with me not being able to handle it because there was just too much info.

 Yes, that always happened to me as a child.  I would ponder those questions long and hard, and like you, I'd eventually get overwhelmed and bewildered by the response!  Now, I just get the occasional brief strange feeling.  It happens most often when I look in a mirror, and for a brief moment, I don't recognize myself.  I start wondering why I've got this strange organic structure around me!  

I felt really strange about having these thoughts, until one morning, Patrick and I were standing in front of the bathroom mirror, getting ready to go out somewhere, and he was staring at the mirror with this perplexed look on his face.  He said, "Do you ever feel like you're looking at someone else?"  I thought that was an uncharacteristic thing for him to say, but I agreed wholeheartedly, and we both felt quite relieved, and I think, closer.

Hi and welcome! :wave:

You can turn the spell check off if you go into your profile -- there is a link to your profile up in the top banner.

Synchro:  You're right that we have different interpretations of the same thing, and that darkness is a necessary ingredient.  

The difference is between externalizing and internalizing the source of that darkness--when someone says it comes from a demon possessing them, they put the source of their problems in an external force.  I just don't understand that way of thinking, and I can't help but consider it extremely unhealthy because I've seen what happens to people who think that way--their problems and their pain consume them and never get resolved.  Because they regard it as some kind of force beyond them, they feel powerless--and thus they become powerless.  

Incidentally, people do the same thing with God, whether with good or bad things--the good things are blessings or miracles, the bad things are just part of some ineffable plan we're not meant to understand.  Let me say that I do believe in God and do believe that He has a hand in some things.  But people let it get out of hand, attributing every little thing to God, belittling the consequences of human will, human action, and human nature.  Usually it's about these people rejecting every bit of responsbility and control they have over themselves and their lives in favor of their religion--it's not really about God at all.  I find it just as confounding and just as unhealthy as when people attribute things to demons.

[I was "inside" her]

Oh my gosh, the most exciting thing just happened to me while I was doing the noticing exercise!  

I was just lying here noticing, and I started seeing snatches of imagery and scenes.  Then, I saw this one beautiful scene--it looked very Venetian, very Renaissance.  There was a beautiful large building, very ornate--a kind of palazzo, I guess, and in front of it was a big wide open plaza.  Both the building and the plaza were of red and white stone.  And along the perimeter of the plaza were decorative pillars.

I was looking at this place from above.  I saw it, and I felt a strong desire to take a closer look, and to my amazement, rather than disappearing as most images do, this one stayed.  And it was like a camera zoomed in on it.  And as it zoomed closer, I saw a young man and woman walking side by side across the plaza, toward the building.  I realized it was me and Patrick!  I had on a white short-sleeved blouse and a light blue skirt.  Patrick was also wearing a white button-down shirt, and black slacks--looking dapper as always. :desire:  

In a moment, I was no longer watching from above, but as if I was walking right beside the "other me."  "She" and Patrick were talking about something--I couldn't really hear what.  But there was such an air of happiness and excitment, as if "we" had a big day planned.  We went inside the building, which turned out to be some kind of shopping arcade.  It felt very cool, and was very pretty in there... everything was white and grey marble, and there was a fountain in the middle, and above the fountain was a glass dome, streaming with sunlight.

Patrick went over to a window in the wall to the left.  On the other side was a clerk, an old man with a mustache.  Patrick turned to the "other me" and said, "Just a minute, I'll buy the tickets."  The "other me" said OK, and wandered into a nearby shop, and I followed her.  It looked like a convenience store type of place.  There was a coffee and soda stand on one side, and various different kinds of merchendise.  The "other me" was in front of a magazine rack, and was reaching out to pick up a magazine.  In the blink of an eye, I was "inside" her!  I was looking at her/my hands, stretched toward the magazines!  All I could do was just stare at those hands--they were my hands!  Exactly!  

I felt a sort of odd feeling... do you ever look at your hands or any other part of your body that happens to be visible, and think, "Am I real?  Is this really me?  Is any of this real?"  That's exactly what thought was going through my/her head!  And I occasionally get that feeling in my normal waking life too--now it makes me wonder if when I get that feeling, maybe "another me" has just "phased into me" and is looking out in amazement!    Is that crazy?  I mean, it really is almost the same kind of feeling you get from deja vu!

Unfortunately, as usual, I got really excited at that point!  And naturally, I lost the phase!    And I guess that "other me" just snapped out of her funk and went on her merry way to wherever she and "her Patrick" were going!

Anyway---so what do you think?  Have any of you experienced something similar to this?  It was strange to me that I started out as just a disembodied, 3rd-person observer... seeing another me... then suddenly becoming one and the same with her.  But maybe that's how phasing always happens, only I'm usually not conscious at the time it occurs.  I have been a disembodied, 3rd-person observer before, but not like this--not seeing "another me."

I wonder exactly where I did phase to... do you think I could have phased into a parallel physical life (if there is such a thing)?  Or was this a parallel life in F3, or wherever?  Ah, wherever it was, it was happy!  I was with Patrick!  And this is the first experience I've had in quite a while that included him!

:hearts:

Also, during this event, I did not feel any of the strange physical sensations I did the other day--the energy, the paralysis, the difficulty keeping my eyes closed.  It was very peaceful.  I was just laying, very relaxed, the images started flashing, and I was very gently phased into this one image.  I wonder if maybe I just got lucky, that I happened to catch a scene that was really connected to me--and that's why I was able to latch onto it and enter it so easily.

I don't know!  I'll see what you all have to say!  :mrgreen:

[messed up]

:locolaugh:  Ah, those were great!

I don't know about you, but I enjoy watching paint dry. I imagine that the wet paint is a big freshwater lake that is the only source of water for some tiny cities by the lake. As the lake gets drier, the population gets more desperate, and sometimes there are water riots. Once there was a big fire and everyone died. Age 13

That's messed up--but I love it!   :evillaugh:

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? Age 15

That kid has the right idea--why didn't I think of this excuse?!  :rotfl:

Yes, I also love InuYasha theme songs.  And the various Gundam series.  FullMetal Alchemist has some really pretty songs too.

I'm in a Groucho Marx mood:


Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.

He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

Ice Water? Get some Onions - that'll make your eyes water!

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

Remember men, we're fighting for this woman's honour; which is probably more than she ever did.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

Thanks for the laughs, ladies!

:rotfl:

I'd nearly forgotten how awesome "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy" is!  

Hm, I'll have to think of some jokes...

[own]

I just think it's so Dark Ages to attribute all of life's problems to demons.

I've been through some seriously deep, dark, terrifying personal Hells in my life--physiological problems, mental problems, emotional problems, social problems, spiritual problems, you name it.  I knew people who blamed it on demons or on other people or things, and I could have done the same--but I intuitively knew it was wrong.  I knew I had to own my problems and all the negativity surrounding them (because, sorry to say, humanity is not all love and light--and we don't need demons to prove that).  I got as much help and support as I could from modern professionals (doctors, counselors, priests, psychics, teachers/professors, etc.)--they could only get me so far, but I also came to learn that I had the ability to carry myself the rest of the way.  

Alot of the time, it involved leaning into the pain, getting through it rather than around it.  And sometimes, it involved being patient and gentle with myself.  And sometimes, sheer will got me through it.  Actually, there have been times when I've felt like nothing less than the hand of God Himself has gotten me through even the most routine of days.  But I've kept on getting through them, and I always will.

And by the way, it's not because I'm special or different in any way.  My story is in no way unique.  I find that people who claim to be possessed or otherwise victimized by negs, demons, etc. are the "unique" ones.