Reclamation

 Would we ever value anything "real" again?

~ Susan Larison Danz, Extinction Level #3

 

I never really know when another story will arrive.  Perhaps the one that arrived just a little while ago is a story that doesn't quite feel like a story.  And yet it very much is.

Extinction Level #3 by Susan Larison Danz

There came a point, and it seemed to happen very quickly, when innate authenticity was no longer valued (at least by those who didn't value it).

Even that word "value" seemed misplaced.  It was reminiscent of what we had been taught about the Gold Rush.  But the desolation was worse.  And the "Fool's Gold" was rampant.

Would we ever value anything "real" again?  Just to speak about it was to know that some of us would - and perhaps more than ever.

I was writing a story, a very simple story, using words so very preciously my own.  Its value was intrinsic to itself.  

Meanwhile, the production factories were doing what they were doing.  They were utterly sterile, whirring endlessly.  It really didn't matter what they produced through their projections.  All they generated was noise.

The people who genuinely cared about the process of creation knew what it was really about.  It is a process, not just a product.  It was seeable, though others would say it was not.  The very product in which the factories had a part was inferior to anything that was authentically created.  It was so very seeable, one could even call it obvious.  

A child could see it.  (Of course.)

I was writing a story, a very simple story, and appreciating the process, without a crutch, or an artificial catalyst, not a word or an idea.  I intended to write it as it flowed.  It didn't even need to take a lot of time, though had it taken a lot of time, that would have been just as fine as less.

When you know it, you truly feel it.  Authenticity is who you are.  It demands no artificial ingredients.  

It is simply you.

What about the theme?  And what about the title?  Oh yes, it is entirely possible to go extinct, to choose or be fooled into choosing.  It's a poison that is every bit as effective as arsenic.  It happens rapidly or a little at a time.  It's when you decide that you are "less" and the alternative must be better.  

No, it's not better, and it will never compare.  

You are more than enough.  You can even reclaim yourself and come back to life. 

 

Clouds photo by Susan Larison Danz on December 10, 2025

Awakening to Reflect About Extinction

In all their 'knowing', they don't know. 

~ Susan Larison Danz, Extinction Level #1 

 

It is truly time to awaken this blog, with an influx of inspiration and creative energy.  The awakening begins with a short story I wrote in the last few days, the first in a series.  

I also invite you to listen to today's episode of my podcast The Frontier Beyond Fear, now in its 16th year (available on multiple popular syndicates):  

AI, 3I/ATLAS and Extinction

Reflecting mindfully about our extinction as human beings is highly relevant to our explorations regarding interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, as well as the dehumanizing aspects of AI. There is an assumption that even talking about extinction can only be based in fear, but it is actually the opposite. Extinction often doesn't happen all at once. Looking through the spiritual lens of The Frontier Beyond Fear, we observe what it is we need to see.

Included in this episode is the public debut of Susan Larison Danz's new short story "Extinction Level #1", which will be a part of an ongoing series. Susan reads her brief yet meaningful short story (created entirely by a genuine human being) as a part of the show.

Extinction Level #1 by Susan Larison Danz  

I somehow found my way down to the meadow.  A meadow with real grass.  I've tried to tell people it really is different.  "How could it be different?  We have every variety here."  Because it is.  I have said it many times - you can't predict reality.  And when everything is available, it feels like nothing is.

It was Tuesday two weeks ago when the notification arrived.  They were ready for me.  I hadn't signed up, but they finished with all the people who did.  Now they were getting around to the people who didn't.  Even that word "people" feels obsolete.  What is a person?  And how many still exist in this province?  Or anywhere, really?

They took away our connection, so we can't see things so clearly.  It's no longer possible to connect.  Until you are "connected", that is. 

I wouldn't accept the words when I was younger.  You couldn't avoid them coming your way.  But I never really used any of them.  I made it a bit of a game, coming up with ways to avoid using the words we were given.  Even when I pretended to use them, I didn't.  

It feels impossible, somehow, that I would be one of the last.  Here, anyway, it seems.  "There" is no longer seeable.  

"Soon you will see everywhere!"  

They say the meadow will be gone soon.  It is extraneous.  There are more efficient things to be done with the land.

I somehow found my way down to the meadow.  I feel grateful to know it is genuine solid ground.  I am here while "here" exists. 

In all their "knowing", they don't know.  In all their "seeing".

"Everywhere" is nowhere. 

 

Clouds photo by Susan Larison Danz. 

The Grace of Human Dignity

 "One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless surrendered." ~ Michael J. Fox

 

The month of August ends with reflections on human dignity - the grace that dignity offers those who are blessed to know what it is - and the sadness of realizing not everyone does.  

 

 

Photo by Susan Larison Danz. 

Courage and Clarity

"So is the danger a danger still; so is the fear worse." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Listen to today's broadcast of The Frontier Beyond Fear program here, now available in the archive:  Courage and Clarity

How do we work with our fears so we can find greater clarity?  We reflect on why this is so very important for our unfolding paths.  When we allow our fears to dominate our thoughts and decisions, not only is life unpleasant - we are unable to make clear, productive and authentic choices.  Why is Spirituality at the Center of finding our way?  It has everything to do with Clarity.  But it will ask something from us:  Courage - even as Spirituality is our greatest Resource in finding it.  What greater Resource could we have than our awareness of and conscious relationship with the omnipresent Divine?  Once we discover expansive, open, honest and authentic routes to Clarity, we will also find within us the Courage to freely explore our paths forward. 

A brief passage on fear and exploration written by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1837 is shared during the program.

 

 

 

Sunglasses in the Dark

"Fear always arrives with an 'opt out' option." ~ Susan Larison Danz

A number of years ago, this guidance came to me in a time when I really needed to hear it:  Dwelling in fear is like wearing sunglasses in the dark.  Take them off and behold the Dawn.

Sunglasses are so very stylish these days at night, and have been for a while.  

How is wearing them helping? 

Note:  I will be broadcasting live at 1 PM PDT/4 PM EDT on The Frontier Beyond Fear Blog Talk Radio program on Saturday.  Listen here:  Courage and Clarity  

Mt. Hood Dawn photo by Susan Larison Danz.

 

Fear and Existence

"Fear is the mind-killer . . ." ~ Frank Herbert, Dune

It might be even more appropriately said that "Fear is the Heart killer." - but yes, it can certainly extinguish our minds as well.  That's why it is so very important to be in a conscious relationship with our fears.  A long time ago, I created an online radio program about moving beyond fear, The Frontier Beyond Fear.  And yet, we are human. It's a process.

What I can say is that it absolutely is possible to over time, make significant progress in calming your fears.  I know this because I have lived it.  Calming does not imply "completely".

When fear dominates our lives, we can neither think nor feel clearly.  There is a further quote from Dune, which was a favorite of my teens, worth reflecting on: 

 "Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration."

Why?

Because when we allow it to dominate us, we are diminished piece by piece, and eventually our freely expressed authenticity, which is a fundamental spiritual concept, is crushed.  We lose sight of ourselves and our choices.  When our choices are gone, we are too.

 

 

Winter Tree photo by Susan Larison Danz.

And Grander, too...

 "The Universe grows smaller every day..." 

~ The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 

I looked out to the patio as I awakened this morning, observing an eerie glow, the music from the original The Day the Earth Stood Still in my head - I had watched it, again, just on Friday.  It's a classic, for sure!

 "Gosh, the moonlight is Magical," I thought, not having quite seen this kind of an effect.

And then, with a smile, I realized what I was looking at, utterly unpredicted, newly arrived since I let the dog out at 5 AM.

Snow!!!

How wondrous a thing can be when you see it anew!  It has not snowed here in 2 years (or at least while I've been home).

The pilot light was out yet again on the hot water heater this morning.  It can be a bit unpredictable every once in a while.  I had notes on how to light it, though I hadn't done it before by myself. 

At first, it wouldn't light, because I had forgotten a step (exactly when to turn the thing to "On" when you prime it!). Then after a very short while, I was washing my coffee pot, feeling the heat of the water in my sink with a kind of a glee. There was just something to it, this business of having a hand in heating the water. Even the water felt new! 

And that's Planet Earth. That's why we are here. "Pilot", indeed...

(And mentioning eerie glows in the night and expansive ways of thinking about movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, I'm delighted to welcome Stephen Bassett, executive director of Paradigm Research Group and The Congressional Hearings Initiative, on my The Frontier Beyond Fear radio program to usher in the New Year!  You decide for yourself: Science fiction or real?  (If you listen closely, you will hear Truth.)  Join us this Tuesday, January 5, at Noon Pacific/3 PM Eastern, or listen to the archived podcast afterwards - visit The Frontier Beyond Fear for details!)
 

Transistor Radio Summer #10: Born Free

"Live free, and beauty surrounds you, the world still astounds you, each time you look at a star." 

~ Born Free by Don Black

The other day I read a post on Facebook inviting us all to spend 5 minutes per day on a dream, suggesting that if a dream isn't worth spending 5 minutes per day, then it must not be all that important to us.  It's one of those posts we might tend to see one moment, forget the next.  Yet every once in a while, the simplest of instructions actually takes hold. 

You see, like many people, I have all sorts of projects in progress.  Some of these projects in progress have been in progress for years.  It might be months between visits to some of these projects.  And I asked myself:  Can I spend 5 minutes?

It wasn't long before I realized 5 minutes isn't necessarily enough, though in some cases, it is.  5+ minutes works even better.  I have made a few compromises too - not every project gets my attention every day, but I'm finding the 5+ minute rule invites me to at least visit some of them every few days. It's a very simple thing to do.

There are some things that aren't exactly dreams, but they bring us Joy.  Playing the piano is like this to me.  I am a highly imperfect piano player and was a reluctant student through most of my childhood, with a very strict, unpleasant teacher at the start.  I can save my childhood piano stories for another day.  Imperfect or not, even as an adult, playing the piano freely brings me Joy.  And it's easy to use the 5+ minute rule with the piano.

And so I just did.

And I discovered a song in a very old stack of music many of us have heard (far too many times in elevators in the 70's) and ignored or forgotten.  It gave me astonishing Joy to rather imperfectly play this on the piano just now, while dinner is cooking. 

I'd like you to listen to this song very closely. 

Listen to what it has to say. 

Don't tune it out.

Listen . . .

It can set you free.  In less than 5 minutes...

Transistor Radio Summer #9: Open Your Eyes

"Open your eyes..." ~ Asia

I write in the midst of an intensely busy week, a day surely too busy to write.  Still, I am here, because this song is going through my head, and my Heart.

Asia generally wasn't considered a "good" band of the 80's, or so I tended to hear. Still, some of their songs really reached out to me, and a few were definitely popular.  This one really wasn't "known", but it carries a message.  It did then.  It does now.  It does always.

Whispers

Quietly the mountain
whispers, whispered
carrying the Winds
A child she was
Knowing
A woman she is
Remembering
Reclaiming the wisdom
of the Winds

~ Susan Larison Danz

The Frontier Beyond Fear: Freedom from Chronic Pain with Dr. David Hanscom

Monday's live broadcast of The Frontier Beyond Fear on Blog Talk Radio at 12 PM Pacific / 3 PM Eastern will feature Dr. David Hanscom, an inspiring, brilliant orthopedic spine surgeon in Seattle with an innovative, enlightened approach to freeing patients from chronic pain.  Recently featured on the Dr. Oz program and the author of the new book Back in Control: A Spine Surgeon's Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain, it is a true delight and an honor to talk with Dr. Hanscom on The Frontier Beyond Fear.  The broadcast will be available as a podcast at the same link where you can listen live.

The medical world often overlooks the powerful mind-body influence of our thoughts on the functioning of our nervous system. Through many wonderful success stories, Dr. Hanscom has demonstrated that pain can be mastered through greater mastery of our minds, awakening and recharging our lives in a world filled with hope. By clearing our minds of anxiety, dealing with anger, moving out of reactive mode, exploring our creative potential and taking back our lives, pain can become a distant memory.

David Hanscom, M.D., is a board certified orthopedic surgeon in Seattle specializing in complex spine problems. He is the creator of the DOCC project ("Defined, Organized, Comprehensive, Care"), a structured rehabilitation protocol for chronic pain. He also founded the Puget Sound Spine Interest non-profit and co-founded the "Awake at the Wound" process, which brings athletic performance principles into the operating room.

I know I will bring some of my own experience into the discussion, and I'm sure many of us can recall times when we encountered situations with pain enduring far too long.  I know many of the listeners are in pain right now, and it is my every hope this broadcast will help a great many people find an empowered way out of what so often can be one of the most challenging situations in life.

In my own case, I was in a serious automobile accident in my 20's.  A truck in which I was a passenger was completely totalled when an elderly couple turned in front of us deep in the Colorado mountains.  In the 80's, there were no cell phones, so we had to wait for help.  But it was quite amazing how other drivers and passengers who quickly came along immediately took control of the situation, bringing quite a bit of amazing experience to the scene while someone went to get help.  Though thankfully I did not experience any sort of life threatening injury at the scene, I ended up with a more subtle kind of injury to the nerves under the seatbelt, as well as severe whiplash.

I was in physical therapy for a year after this incident and along the way learned the pitfalls of pain medications and muscle relaxants, especially if you rely on them to get to sleep at night.  There was a point when I wondered if I would ever feel the same again.  Thankfully I did heal, but it took a very long time, and no doubt the kind of enlightened wisdom Dr. Hanscom has to offer would have been of great value at the time. 

Chains

An illusory embrace
In the guise of binds
An unanticipated instant
I watched them fall
In their fall was rising

Photo from Wikipedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Pedaling downhill

When I was a child, I lived on a hill in Colorado, but it wasn't just a hill - it was a gateway.

In that neighborhood, when you learned to ride a bike, halfway up a hill already, it wasn't long before you were riding both down and up hills.  I was surprisingly adventurous as a child, while sheltered too, a unique mix of a person even back then, a person who was and is me.  I gave a glimpse of this already in my rollercoaster post.

I'm not sure how long it took for me to realize that one could actually go very fast on that hill.  Climbing the hill was not easy.  I pedaled very, very hard, standing a bit as I pedaled, weaving back and forth, just to keep going.

At some point, I couldn't pedal at all.  I had to get off my bike and walk.  It was tempting to stop at that point, stop just part way.  I remember thinking sometimes "Maybe this is enough."  But I quickly learned after stopping a few times, it generally wasn't enough, so I learned to keep going, even if it was hard, walking my bike as high as I could go.

In this moment, I am there, at the top of the hill, a beautiful Colorado valley below, surrounded by mountains.  If I was wise (and I wasn't always), I would stop to catch my breath and appreciate the view, even if somewhat obscured by the houses.  But that wasn't the reward.  It was just the space to launch. 

And so I would start on my descent, a bit slowly at first since the hill was steep at the top, and I had to find a way to my balance.  This took practice.  I did this day after day.  The longer it took to find my balance, the less of a reward down below.  As soon as the wobbling stopped, I would start pedaling.  Not coasting, pedaling.  Pedaling not up hill, but down.  This too took practice, to know how fast to pedal, to know how much was too much and how little was too little, both in duration and rate of speed.  If you pedaled too fast, it was dangerous below.  If you pedaled too slow, it was pointless.

For some reason, I didn't worry about obstacles.  They didn't even cross my mind.  This is surprising since I wasn't always this person, this person on the hill, and I'm not always this person now.  Some people would say I'm never this person, and this story may surprise them.  That's why I'm remixing her today, remixing me, remembering who I am, pulling just enough forward, simply by remembering...

At some point, and I'm not quite sure when I knew it, it was time to stop pedaling.  If you did it too soon, that would lessen the impact.  If you did it too late, you had worked yourself out of the reward.  It was quite a narrow window.  Once you stopped pedaling, though it was possible, it was generally difficult to start pedaling again, as the transition could scuttle your balance, a very bad idea as the rate of speed increased.

There were no bike helmets.  No parental figure, my own or otherwise, yelled at me to stop.  I never crashed, not once, never on the hill.  If I had, I might have stopped altogether, forever (I sense that happened later, in a different way).  At one point, around the age of 12 or so, I did this almost every day in the summer, like a kind of meditation.  Nobody seemed to notice at all, as if I was invisible.

If I quiet my spirit and listen, if I quiet my spirit and feel, she is with me, this person, the person on the bike. The threshold - when it appeared - it was like breaking through a barrier, the speed of Light within reach.

The view from the top of the hill was nothing in comparison.  The freedom, the joy, the elation of flying - it was a glimpse of heaven.

The Depths

And though I attempted to evade it, here is what was really on my heart to write tonight...(even better, it's now the next day, so I can post two blog entries, two days in a row...)

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean." 

~ Arthur C. Clarke

How often do we find ourselves splashing around in shallow waters, like children playing a game, when we are fully capable of exploring the hidden depths of the sea?  The shallows have their place of course, yet I yearn to know the depths.

I have toyed with this notion of learning to swim all of my life.  I used to be so afraid of the water, I avoided walking by the deep end of a pool.

I just happened to go to one of the only high schools in my city with a pool, a kind of curse for people like me.  In earlier days, they used to force every gym student to learn how to swim (an unpleasant memory of one of my sisters).  By the time I got to the school, you could take Dance class instead, so I managed to dance my way out of the requirement (though not the most coordinated, I actually enjoyed that quite a bit).

Most terrors are born in childhood when our trust is torn away.  I remember floating in a Colorado lake, right at the edge of the mountains at the age of 6 (Soda Lake it was called - I was told anyone could float in Soda Lake, and I believed them).  Not from a swimming family, a neighbor took us out one day.  It was absolutely wonderful, I recall, not frightening at all, floating looking up at crystal Colorado skies above.

Another day that summer, we went to a pool instead.  Soon I was floating again.  Then taken by surprise, someone splashed me with water and pushed me under (perhaps it was an accident, I feared it was a bully).   I can't really remember all that happened next, but I know it was scary.  No, I didn't drown (obviously!), though I thought I might.  I don't think the water was actually that deep.  But for whatever reason (and I always did have breathing issues), that was it.  One violation of trust and that was all it took.  I still occasionally splashed in shallow pools, but I didn't dare to float, not for many years.

In high school, ironic as it seems, I was a swim team assistant, though I escaped the pool in Gym.  Friends were on the team, including at least one I quietly admired a bit more over time.  I silently sat in an office above, behind the glass with scores in hand, typing away, rarely daring to even venture near the depths.

Then a day came in my 20's when I forced myself to swim.  My teacher was very, very clever, gently coaxing me into the water.  It took literally weeks to learn to float.  Nearing retirement, she had taught many frightened children and I suspect quite a few frightened adults.  First she held me in the water completely like a child, then as she slowly moved towards letting go, gradually handing me smaller and smaller inflatable objects, one day I found myself clinging to a single empty milk container floating in the water.  And realizing just how silly that was, I let it go.  Floating was easy!  And eventually I started to learn to swim...mostly... I was beginning to get the idea in the shallows, until I had to breathe - so still I feared the depths, as mastering my breathing eluded me.

Then the car wreck happened, the little truck utterly totaled on an isolated mountain road.  There were no cell phones, but people arrived to help.  I wasn't driving and it wasn't our fault, and we were mostly ok (a woman in the other car almost died, and that was where everyone's attention was).  I thought I was mostly ok anyway.  Or so it seemed.  Just to realize a day or so later I really wasn't ok, and I was in a neck brace, sling, muscle relaxants at night for way too long and physical therapy for a year.  The insurance company brought that to a rather abrupt halt (a story in itself).  The pains in my neck and shoulder and tingling in my hand eventually went away.  Many things heal in time.  But I used it all as a convenient excuse to stop the swimming, the depths out of reach once again. 

Around the time of my divorce, not long after my spiritual awakening, I decided to confront the depths again.  The only pool nearby was a scuba pool (surprisingly in Kansas), as deep as pools can go, pictures of lavish adventures at sea on the walls as you approached it.  My son was taking lessons there.  One day I decided to take lessons too.  It was a time of bold adventure, a time of facing fears.  This teacher was more demanding, not quite so gentle and patient as the first.  But I listened.  I finally learned to swim, mostly (even better than before).  Unfortunately, I never quite mastered my fear of the depths before we moved, though he made me swim over that gaping hole of darkness several times.  I did it as fast as I could, the breathing still elusive.  I could swim in other ways of course and breathe all I liked, but I didn't like swimming over the deep in the blind, always silently fearing something would pull me under, as it had long ago.  Even so, I did learn the joys of peacefully floating in the shallows.

One day, my teacher tried to get me to dive under the water from the surface (not from the edge, he knew I wasn't ready for that).  I literally couldn't do it, I was so buoyant (ironic to discover).  I think it might have made it easier to dive, to actually go there, to see it, to explore it, then it wouldn't be so dark.  But I couldn't.  Not in that pool.

Another day very near the end of my time in that locale, a substitute teacher assumed I knew how to tread water.  I didn't.  She coaxed me to attempt it anyway.  And I was amazed that I could!  It was easy.  It was much like dancing.  I defied the depths that day, laughing, dancing over the dark I feared - it was like a miracle.  The depths would never be the quite the same again. 

Soon my days in Kansas ended, and though I took just a few more swimming lessons by the ocean far away, the depths await me still.  I am a master of behind the glass...a window is open, the ocean breeze freeing me to breathe.  So I sit here typing while I look out to the waters...the depths call me to the Dance.  It's up to me to listen...

Video Evasion

"Video killed the radio star, 

video killed the radio star...

pictures came and broke your heart...

we can't rewind, we've gone too far..." 

~ The Buggles

Be careful when you put something out to the Universe - it may come back to you in a way you didn't quite expect.

From my perfectly pixelated video in L.A...

I'll be honest.  I have been in video evasion mode for quite a while.  I could have started putting out videos of at least portions of my conference talks from at least 2010, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.  I had all kinds of excuses, some of them actually true - you can't hear that one at all, this one was filmed at an absolutely horrible angle, oh yes, and that one too, and that one - and then there's the one where a friend and I artfully set it up in Los Angeles to be as flattering as possible, right after a New York image consultant had astonished me with how she did my makeup and hair, and I was wearing a rather expensive, quite honestly awesome dress - even so, I asked my friend to zoom in to make it as forgiving as possible - the zoom didn't work right on my "on sale at Kmart for 70% off" camera (before I had an iPhone), and it's so pixelated, you can barely make me out at all, plus there is hardly any sound.


Ok women out there, you know it, many of us are intensely uncomfortable on video.  And it's true, video is unforgiving - it's unforgiving because we are bombarded with images of Size 2 women on video, and so that's how we think we are supposed to look.  We simply can't forgive ourselves for not even coming close to fitting the illusion.  And ironically we actually perpetuate the illusion within our society by not participating in video at all.

I'll be honest.  This surfaces some real issues I'm working through.  I used to be one of those Size 6-8 women who could eat anything, anything at all.  I remember going out to lunch in my late 20's with a friend who was watching her weight, mystified as she explained counting fat grams to me - I had never heard of doing that.  I had not just whole milk in my refrigerator at home at that age, but the extra creamy whole milk (not even sure they make that anymore), and I could drink a lot of it with virtually no impact on my weight whatsoever, even with relatively limited exercise.  I could basically eat anything I wanted (though I tended not to eat many desserts) in whatever quantity I chose.

Then a day came when that changed drastically during a time of health challenges.  One of the medications apparently changed my metabolism (or it was just a coincidence of entering middle age or having Dairy Queen next door during a divorce ;-) - and that was the end of that.  The weight came on, to an uncomfortable degree anyway...and it wasn't "me" at all.

Not having done diet plans my entire life like many women do - in fact, I had never even thought of doing one - I had absolutely no idea whatsoever how to deal with the issue.  Thankfully I halted the ramp-up by, yes, shifting my diet (and walking the hills around my home), though that's still a work in progress.  Plus my health is much better now, thankfully, and I can't even remember the last time I picked up a prescription at the pharmacy.

Perceived perfection...my miracle day.

It's always something though, isn't it, these flaws which torment us so.  I actually had a different problem when I was young - not my weight, but issues with my skin (one wonders if all that heavy dairy had something to do with it!)- and I did all sorts of things to hide it.  I prayed, prayed, prayed my skin would be perfect on my Wedding Day, and miraculously, it was - and eventually, the entire problem mostly went away.

My sister warned me a while back "You know, it comes back in your late 40's."  Great!  Wonderful!  And yes, now I'm dealing with that too, to a degree, though not quite like in the past.

So fast forward to today...and back to unexpected responses from the Universe...and yes, this is a blatantly honest, "I just can't take caring about this anymore, so I'm putting it all out now" kind of free flowing post.   I actually told a friend just last week I was going to start doing videos.  My plan was to artfully do the videos of course in as flattering a way as possible.  The Universe had other ideas, thank you very much.

I just got home from a fundraiser for the local medieval festival I'm a part of.  There is only one costume they have given me to use, and quite honestly, some of the styles are not particularly flattering for most women, and this one is not the best - I really could use a different size or style. And to top it off, my skin is breaking out a little, and that always makes me a little uncomfortable.

"Can I take a picture of you?" the festival Facebook community guy asked.  "Sure, I said, but be sure it's flattering." (I sensed he really wouldn't know, as he gave me a rather puzzled look.)  And then I realized he didn't want to take a picture - he wanted to take a VIDEO, and indeed he did...I wasn't at all prepared for it, rather stumbled over my words.  Then I was asked later to do the presentation representing our group, very spontaneously - and I saw him filming that too.  What is so ironic about this is that I really have no significant issues with going up and talking in front of people.  I don't think about my perceived shortcomings all the time.  And I can generally look in the mirror and smile, even today.

Today.

But video.  It just "kills" me, quite honestly, I can't take it. 

I have no choice now.  It's done.  We can't rewind.  I will be on video quite soon on the internet (almost certainly) in one of the last dresses I would choose to wear...and imperfect in more ways than one.

And so the real work begins.  If I really don't feel so self conscious when talking to people in day to day life, if I really can look in the mirror daily without cringing, then what's the problem?

It's perception.  It's what I have allowed the unspoken "norms" of our society to do to my own feelings of how I'm "supposed" to look to be accepted.  I may not be a "radio star" exactly (though I'm doing quite well in the minor leagues), but I have allowed my evasion of video to "kill" a great many things.  It's my choice to change that.  It will take a bit of courage.  Did I mention I have some videos going all the way back to 2010?




P.S.  The answer to last night's riddle?  I'm sure you probably got it.  A table.

A "Talent which is Death to Hide"

"And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless" ~ John Milton

I first read John Milton's words in high school.  And ever since, these words have haunted me, echoing time and time again throughout my life, my own eyes blind to their true meaning.

Over and over and over again in this blog and in my life, I have been berating myself for hiding a talent.  So many promises, so many excuses, while I felt like a coward for running away, like a traitor to everything I always wanted to be.

Long ago, when I first read Milton's poem, I was afraid to write, even then.  There was no mystery to it really, as it's a rather common trap.  I was afraid to try, afraid to discover I just wasn't good enough, when various people were telling me I really was quite good.  It was far easier to partially succeed in a weakness than risk failing in a strength.  I pursued two degrees and half a career in the process. 

I can hardly write three words in this blog without stopping and judging "my talent" in some way, and yet ironically by hiding the very thing itself, it has just buried itself deeper, partly rusting from disuse, and all the more difficult to retrieve every time I seek it out.  And then when I do dig it up, much of the time I drop it, afraid to expose or handle it at all.

"They also serve who only stand and wait." ~ John Milton

When I was young, I didn't understand the purpose of any kind of waiting - ambitious young people rarely do.  Yet wait I did, or so it seems, half a lifetime.  I found every possible reason to pursue just about everything except that thing I had buried, all the while scolding myself for standing and waiting.  It seems we die a little each day when we bury the desires of our heart, yet perhaps perfect timing serves its purpose.

God is not the judge.  You are not the judge.  A phantom publisher is not the judge.  The most relentless judge is me.

I have decided to expose the rust or the shine, whatever they may be.  It's going to require a kind of discipline to make it so, to stand and not wait.  It's the only way I can begin to bury the judge and not the talent, one word at a time. 

God's Will, My Will...or Our Will?

Many of us grew up with the concept of God's Will, a will completely independent of what we as individuals might want. If someone became sick, died suddenly or suffered any kind of loss or hardship, it was God's Will, the Will of an external, transcendent He.

God's Will wasn't really discussed too much in my home growing up since for the most part, we had a good life. Generally God's Will only comes up when things go wrong. But I certainly heard about the concept in church. And yes, there was also this notion of the Power of Prayer, but God's Will was paramount even then.

In my mid-teens I began to learn about the New Age movement gaining steam in the early 1980's. The New Age movement then and now was more about MY will than God's will. It accomplished that by expanding the definition of God, such that the two were inseparable. This was not an external God imposing "his" will. This was the God within Me.

On the surface, MY will alone sounds very attractive (note the pun ;-), but there is a problem. It may no longer be all about "HE" (as God was usually portrayed back then), but it can quickly become all about ME - conveniently forgetting that concept of the WE.

When we forget the reality of WE, we end up focusing on a much smaller concept of "god", not the much Greater Reality of GOD.

What if the truth is to be found somewhere in the middle?

I posted a conversation in this blog a while back regarding my questioning the Law of Attraction. Then in a rather impulsive move about a month ago, I deleted it. Yes, I'm guilty of deleting a post from this blog!

I have pondered whether to restore it, but an interesting thing happened when I first posted it. It actually began as a "rant" one day on Facebook, and I didn't necessarily intend to publish it at all. I hit the wrong button and it published itself.

Immediately I honored what seemed to be the Will of the Universe, publishing my post without my permission, and I allowed it to stand.

It was a rant that I truly wasn't ready to share, as this topic requires much more careful, thoughtful exploration. Whether "the Universe" chose to publish it or not, I chose to take it back. And maybe that was part of the point.

Yes, we do have the ability to choose on this planet, but the nature of choice is not so easily explained.

Whose will is actually in control?

Some will tell you it's all about ME.

I have come to know it's all about WE.

Yet so often when we emphasize the WE, we forget about the ME. Could it be that balance is the key?

I happen to be a believer in co-creation, as a huge part of that WE is God, Spirit, the Multiverse, the Creator, however you choose to phrase it. A huge part of that WE is also All of You.

There are going to be times when no matter how focused you are, things won't go the way you plan. That's because focusing on the day-to-day matters of Me can blind us to the higher purposes of the WE, whether that WE is a small group of people in your life, the entire planet, or the Multiverse. We exist and evolve as WE, not just as Me. We CO-create as WE, not create in a vacuum alone as Me.

Bury your head in the sand if you choose, but this planet is undergoing a major transition. If you are playing the "Me blame game", that transition is going to be uncomfortable for you.

Many of the familiar things we might think we would prefer to perpetuate are collapsing. Any number of things we might prefer not to happen are happening.

The old must pass away for the New to be born. The latest and greatest class on personal abundance being offered all over the internet isn't likely to halt the higher purposes of the WE.

So if you find yourself frustrated that your intent or prayer just doesn't seem to be working so well these days, relax. It's not all about YOU after all. Be comforted. Stop playing the blame game, especially if you have been told to entirely blame yourself.

Instead, how about embracing what we are co-creating as WE (with plenty of ultimate benefits for the ME)? It takes faith, trust and an empowered form of surrender to consciously participate in the WE.

Life on Planet Earth may not be quite what you've been told to expect in the moment, but it is generally evolving towards what WE have always planned it to be. Some of the personal details may be up to you and you alone, but not ALL of it, unless you think you live in an insulated box all by yourself.

And yes, there is indeed an empowered form of surrender, not quite the type of surrender we may have heard about as children. It too is all about WE, in conscious partnership with every Me.

(If you are troubled by the "blame game" occurring in so many circles on this planet, whether said to be due to lack of prayer or intent, listen to Healing the Wounds of Fear on The Frontier Beyond Fear radio program.)

The End of Doublethink

I recently felt compelled to reread George Orwell's powerful novel 1984. Though it was a rather dark exercise, I was amazed at just how prophetic many parts of this 1949 novel have proven profoundly to be, particularly for the Old Earth, that fear-based, power-hungry world which is no longer sustainable.

Of course, Orwell didn't envision a happy ending, and I had forgotten the novel's raw brutality, not the sort of reading material I typically choose these days. I may speak of other themes in future blog entries, but what I want to focus most upon today is the concept of doublethink, described by Orwell as:

"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them"

Doublethink is not at all new, but it is alive and well in our modern world. And today I find myself reflecting upon the concept as I ponder the impact and "spin" of the growing nuclear emergency in Japan.

In so many parts of the world, people have been quelled into believing that nuclear power is somehow "safe", yet I believe we can assuredly say that never has this actually been the case. The problem with nuclear power, as is being so vividly demonstrated in Japan, is that it may appear to work well when it's working, but when it spectacularly fails, the effects are so very catastrophic that it becomes abundantly clear why playing with fire is precisely that: playing with fire ~ even when the fire is contained 99% of the time.

"Safe" and nuclear power as we know it are ultimately mutually exclusive terms, and we can only begin to speculate regarding what the effects of this emergency will be. The pundits on TV have many different tales to tell, from alarmist to obediently dismissive.

Corporate beneficiaries apparently fear what a setback this will be for the entire industry, particularly in the skittish U.S. (and rightfully so, many of us more and more strongly believe). So-called "cleaner" forms of energy aren't so clean if their failure carries catastrophic contamination.

I well recall multiple nuclear facilities I observed during my time in the Midwest, and one wonders if they could withstand an F5 tornado, every bit as possible in some parts of the country as a tsunami or earthquake in others.

Clever spin control is unconvincing if you do your homework. As I heard on one network earlier today, telling us that a CT scan contains more radiation than what has been released so far isn't exactly comforting if you have followed the latest news regarding CT scans, a procedure used much too frequently, putting people (and especially children) far more at risk than they realize. Indeed as a recent MSNBC story described, "getting two or three CT scans of the abdomen expose you to the same amount of radiation as people who lived near the atomic blast that ravaged Hiroshima in 1945 but survived".

Even in this very moment as I speak, CNN in the background is reporting a blast and "white smoke rising" from yet another reactor in Japan.

So how are we to respond? Is fear the answer? Or is it a catalyst?

Many of us in the spiritual community have known for quite some time that to awaken, one must often be jarred from sleep. We have experienced this intensely on a personal level. And perhaps now it's finally time for the worldwide slumber to dramatically come to a global end.

Our slumber is coming to an end when we realize unethical, profit-focused corporate interests (not to be confused with the growing contingent of enlightened business leaders) have been taking the utmost advantage of doublethink to introduce any number of wonderful "advances", while paternalistically downplaying the health effects on the general populace or the Earth.

Indeed this includes the medical community's cavalier use of CT scans, repeated mammograms and extraneous expensive tests and surgeries, designer pharmaceuticals with risks far exceeding benefits, and countless products and food items with risks we would blissfully prefer not to know.

Doublethink kept almost everyone asleep as those consumed with greed in our financial sector robbed us blind, even now strategizing loopholes and finding other ways to keep the profits rolling in at the expense of consumers.

And the very term "jobless recovery" is the epitome of doublethink in two words combined, but we would prefer not to know the implications of worldwide economic woes, rising food and fuel prices and growing income disparities in the U.S., beginning to resemble more of a third world Banana Republic than the Land of the American Dream. We would rather not hear that our infrastructure is crumbling and our educational system failing.

Doublethink leads us to ignore the countless deaths due to lack of health coverage and the countless deaths due to over-aggressive, greedy or negligent treatment, quite a contradictory quandary we would prefer not to ponder at all.

We drink doublethink when we daily ingest polluted drinking water, whether from the tap or the bottle, and blithely ingest chemical-laden and addictive food in contaminated containers.

Doublethink has diverted our attention from the lingering contamination and illness in the Gulf (reminding us that other forms of energy production have their perils too).

We have been trained every bit as effectively as H.G. Wells' blissfully ignorant Eloi, dutifully serving our masters every day, not even aware of the slaughter among us, with stunningly increasing cancer rates, not to mention other diseases, telling the tale.

Doublethink has been used by many religions for centuries, somehow making the concept of a loving, yet unspeakably violent God palatable to those who can't see through the contradiction. And the most horrifying type of doublethink was no doubt in play when witches were burned, slaves were kept or ethnic cleansing was speciously justified so many times in the darker parts of our history.

Doublethink keeps us inevitably at war, just like in 1984, mistakenly thinking the often vengeful killing of others will lead to safety and security, with huge corporate war machines financed by doublethink itself, bleeding the very foundations of society into utter oblivion.

Doublethink helps us justify the ever more intrusive security procedures claiming to preserve the very way of life they inevitably destroy.

Doublethink keeps the people disempowered, when in fact the power of the individual is grand beyond measure.

Doublethink is comfortable in a highly contradictory way, indeed invoking doublethink itself to justify the conveniences of our modern world, with selective amnesia whenever it suits us or our overseers. Is doublethink really worth the price?

The darkness of doublethink is coming to an end. That's what happens when the world is jolted awake from its slumber.

There are those who will say that I am engaging in doublethink when I say I happen to have faith that a New Earth is dawning, when I happen to see the signs all around us that the old familiar world is passing away, signs foretold time and time again and becoming more obvious by the day. Faith is another form of doublethink altogether.

There is only one course for us now. A Quantum Leap in Evolution. As the symbolism and eerie reality of 2012 draw ever closer, this is about to become abundantly clear on the planet. Our only path is an expansion in Consciousness so profound that we transcend the old, broken ways forever.

Call this yet another form of doublethink if you like, but more and more of us are in the process of making it happen, no more doublethink than Dawn contradicts the darkness of the night.