The Lake Within
When rage transforms without permission, when Grace moves through division, when one truly listens, all things assume position:
There may be separations, but things get through the cracks, don’t they?
Something surprised me in the last year.
I am no stranger to darkness, but this was not that. Far from it.
I thought I might be going insane…
The Lake Within
The first time I felt compassion I didn’t recognize it. I thought I was delusional or going insane or… I must be high, except I haven’t used drugs in years, so… what the hell is happening here?
What is this suspension, this stillness, this thing that has arrested and dissipated my rage?
If I didn’t feel so peaceful, I’d say, how dare you.
How dare you take my rage, the power I have come to be most familiar with. The thing that kept me alive, the thing that nearly kills me every time, rage.
I must be insane, right?
I had prayed, I know that much. And I hadn’t prayed in a while. I had gone ice cold, and was barely hanging onto life.
The situation I was presented with surely justified rage, and the burning down of the person guilty of this fuckery.
I was processing the situation with a friend, and as I heard myself speaking, and telling the situation HONESTLY (this is always important, otherwise how can we get clarity?)
……
I didn’t even need feedback, I answered my question before I knew I had one:
I saw the other person’s suffering.
I realized the expectations I had for them to behave any other way was insanity. They were behaving exactly as a person would, given the set of circumstances they were in.
It wasn’t personal.
Not only was it not personal, and not only did it make sense…I could relate.
I too had been in those circumstances and responded the exact same way.
I was a mess when I was in their shoes. I didn’t want to be. I was drowning. And I had no idea how to ask for help, nor could I navigate the power of that savage ocean I was sinking in.
I was at sea for years, metaphorically speaking. There are no words for the suffering that was, but it shaped and changed me.
It deepened my capacity for love. It also primed me for a REALLY weird reaction when someone else’s suffering collided with my expectations: Love. Forgiveness. Understanding. Calm.
I understood what compassion was prior to this, I’m not a sociopath, but I never felt it on that level.
I looked out my window. Before I went to reproach the person who I basically deaded from my life, and to amend my angry words and such, I prayed, gave it time, and noticed something outside:
A large body of water.
Over time, and every time this strange compassion would kick in, I would connect with that body of water more and more. I began to feel it, as if it were within me.
The Lake Within.
I think the word we use for that feeling is fulfillment, because I felt FULL. I felt content. True peace. This was something I never had before.
Did it just show up, or was that always there?
“God breaks the heart over and over again, until it remains open.”
When chaos grew stronger, so did the Divine…
It happened again. Another bout of mayhem and deception.
I do not recommend being around chaos to find compassion, this just happened to be my path.
I wasn’t even searching for compassion. It wasn’t a goal of mine, ever. I was just trying to survive and not blow my head off up until this point.
Funny, the things we find, when we aren’t looking for them…
But it happened again. I thought I was about to lose my mind.
Suddenly, I was struck with the same feeling.
Everything was still. I went outside to look at the water. It was still.
So then?
I listened to music. I cooked food. I saw the body of water and felt it again with me. I began to recognize it now. The lake within.
What was going on around me didn’t matter. I was full and okay on my own, for no apparent reason.
I did not try to manifest this feeling, I didn’t pray for it, I didn’t meditate on it. It just showed up and took over.
Or.. was it always there.. and being pushed to my limit led to me somehow accessing an internal power source I forgot existed?
Eventually I left that situation/person, as it was starting to kill me.
However… with chaos and the shattering of connection that deception and human dis-ease creates, something greater can get in.
That thing is most commonly referred to as God.
There’s something else here besides us and our ideas, emotions, desires and reactions. And thank God for that…because that force is greater than our conscious minds, and has way better ideas, in my opinion.
I do not believe it to be separate from us, but I believe through our collective and individual amnesias, we are separated from it.
These strange experiences are connecting us back to it…even if for a short time...just to remind us:
The shit we perceive on the daily and think we know.. that ain’t it.
Ketu
The wisdom of that which so many fear, Ketu, is very much a teacher of detachment. Karmic indicator? Sure. It is also a roadmap to that which we must release.
Sometimes, great wisdom comes at the cost of great suffering.
Some would rather not have the wisdom, if it means they have to bleed for it.
But life doesn’t give us a choice. We’re going to bleed either way.
Do we want the wisdom, or do we want to repeat this incessantly and develop a victim or narcissist complex?
Choose your own adventure.
I found that detachment also leads to compassion, but not the cold type of detachment.
It can lead to a strange love, a released love, but something remains in us… and that which we perceive as remaining… is not actually a residual.
It is the revealing and awakening of what has always been.
Farewell Is Never Forever:
Musical interlude
I often forget this song exists.
I wrote and recorded it a year ago, and when I released it, didn’t say much about it, and moved on.
It’s a bit different than the norm, but it’s a soundtrack to navigating real time detachment, for those of us who aren’t so naturally inclined toward it:
Holy Shrapnel
I must remind myself that we are all microcosms of God.
Holy Shrapnel, if you will.
Divine fragments of the never-ending fractal of The All.
Holy Shrapnel, seeking to become Whole… if only we could REMEMBER.
It is the amnesia that causes the confusion, which causes the disorientation, which causes the seperation… and thus… conflict and division ignite.
We find our way back through the fires of war, living in a house of mirrors, thinking we’re looking out a window.
What happens when the mirrors are shattered?
To remember…
“Curiosity breeds compassion.”
This is what I mean by detachment leads to compassion.
When bearing witness to either our own suffering, or the suffering of someone else, we can only truly be present when we transfer OUT of our ego state and into our soul.
This is the state where we do not make it about ourselves, we do not try to fix or change or hide, we do not explain or argue, we do not get triggered.
We are witnessing. We are curious. We seek to understand.
“Lord, grant that I may seek to understand, rather than be understood.”
The St. Francis Prayer has some solid gems, that line just came to memory. There are different translations of it, but that’s the one I remember.
Quan Yin.
The Goddess of Compassion. Associated with the number 33.
I drew her card before I began writing this. It was all about compassion for self and others, for curiosity being the bridge to compassion, to recognize suffering in all forms and allow it to be heard, with steadfast witness, that it may be released.
When I looked up at the tab on my internet browser, notifications for Substack were flashing. There were 33 of them. As soon as I start writing this I see (33) flashing at me right after reading and reflecting on her.
Her name translates to “The one who perceives the cries of the world.”
She is associated with 33 because her name appears 33 times in the Lotus Sutra.
(Fun fact: Did you know Mary Magdalene is only mentioned in the bible 13 times? I don’t say “only” because I think that’s a low number, I say ONLY because… do you know the real meaning of 13?)
It is always the missing piece. The number of completion. A number of God. A number connected to Wisdom. Funny how the matrix has people associating 13 with evil.
Shuniya
I learned about listening when I got sober and was in what some people would say a very “aggressive” treatment program. I think it was exactly what we needed.
No one is there on vacation, we’re there to not die, so if we get a new asshole ripped and called out with ZERO sugar coating on our bullshit, day in and day out, for months—that’s what it takes.
And that’s what it took, to make a beginning at least.
When someone in group would share, you were not allowed to respond AT ALL when they were talking, meaning no body language, no nodding, no saying “mhmm”, not even facial expressions.
You were not to validate what the person was saying in any way. ZERO reaction. Complete silence and stoicism.
There are two reasons for this.
One is so the person can feel what they are saying ENTIRELY, without the crutch of validation, reassurance or literally ANY reaction from those bearing witness to what they say, which was usually some pretty intense shit.
No one was to be a numbing agent for ANYONE. We were there to feel everything fully, with no crutch.
Even the subtlest communication cues can take someone out of their process.
Silence is golden in many cases. Not appropriate for everyone or all things, but it was understood in this scenario.
So I learned to be a stoic listener.
To this day, when friends are talking to me on the phone, they often stop and say, “are you still there?” And I say, “Yeah, I was just listening to you.” And they say, “Oh, you’re so quiet!”
Well yeah, I’m not interrupting or thinking about anything else — the floor is yours and I am listening.
It’s funny how that trips people out. We’re so accustomed to noise, we feel naked in silence.
Shunia. Listening. Meditate on Zero if you want:
The other reason?
I think I explained it, but it’s to LISTEN.
It was our responsibility to give the most blunt, to-the-core feedback, when the person was done talking. We could not reflect an accurate picture if we were not present.
Lives were on the line. Delusions had to be shattered. We did not have much time.
We were all running on borrowed.
We had to truly see that person. We had to see through the veil of delusions, and we were uniquely qualified in doing so… because we all were master weavers of our own.
It’s how we survived and played that game for so long.
If we want to truly see… we must listen. We must be still. We must feel the experience of whomever is being witnessed. Not to take it on and make it personal, but to understand.
We will not know, until we drop our show.
We cannot see one another if we are running circles and banging pots and pans in our minds.
Our lives depended on it. Some of us are still alive, some are not.
But we’d all be dead if that would have never taken place.
HOLY SHRAPNEL.
We are fragments, or microcosms, of God.
Holy Shrapnel, seeking to be Whole.
Whether a Cosmic School of Love, an Earth Prison, or maybe a REALLY over the top game of Divine Hide-and-Seek…
Whatever it is, we’re here for it.
Now, to Remember…
I will be retreating into my own glorious darkness to shed energy from the week and reconnect with Source.
But you… if you’ve read this far…
What will you do to Remember?
What is one of your most notable experiences of Remembering?
I know you’ve experienced it before… or you wouldn’t still be reading.
I know you’ve experienced it before, or you wouldn’t have incarnated on the planet during this time of great tyranny, great tragedy, great awakening, great transformation, and great revolution.
So… what’s your story? Please share in comments. You never know who will read your experience and who it may help. Please never doubt what is inside your heart and spirit. It is the medicine someone else needs, or you wouldn’t be carrying it.
Below, you will find music that may be of use to you on your journey, wherever you are, and wherever you are going.
Here’s some vibes for you.
This one… really gets me. If compassion or some sort of beautiful state of being had a sound.. this would be one of them:
As far as “living in a house of mirrors, thinking we’re looking out a window” and coming to realize that we’re all playing the same fuckshit game.. and touching the TRUTH… that thing that lives within us all…fear.. that thing we fight in one another, but really we’re just fighting it in ourselves… well I suppose I’ll share one of my older songs with you:
Myself and another artist by the name of NuBorne wrote and recorded this at my old apartment in Oregon, using a coat closet as a vocal booth. It’s called The Lie We Live.
Bonus extra track…. or rather playlist… of some pretty epic, slow Jazz vibes:
I did a training once, taught by Jim Mitchell. He talked about three lakes within. The first is a lake of anger. You have to swim in it sometimes, just don't linger or make it a habit. The second is shame. Do not ever dive in. Ever. Dip a toe in if you have to be reminded. Shame is a cesspool and if you dive in you might never climb out. The third lake is joy. Dive as deep as you like, as often as you can. Linger.
Some pieces have particular resonance. In the Christian numerology the number 33 has association with Jesus Christ because it is widely believed by Christians that he was crucified, died, was buried, raised himself from the dead by the power of God, and ascended into heaven during his 33rd year of life. In anatomy the number 33 is the number of vertebrae in the human skeleton. In the pursuit of the Christ seed oil the number 33 is associated with the lunar cycle that begins the descent of the oil and is fulfilled when it has risen back up.
The number 13 is associated with wrongdoing by the freemasons and the Gnostic heretics because the Templars were arrested on "Friday" the 13th of "October" in 1307. So we hear about their tradition that "Friday the 13th" is an ill omened day.
In Christian numerology the number 3 is "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," and the one who sits at the right hand of Jesus Christ in heaven is Mother Mary. So we associate Mary with the number 4. In traditional numerology or "gematria" the number 13 is a representation of the number 4 because it is the tradition to add together the two digits if they are not identical, so 1+3=4. Also 13 is associated with the 12 apostles plus Mother Mary who were present at the time of the events of the Passion. It's important to note that because he betrayed Jesus and chose to end his own life, the Iscariot was replaced among the apostles to deliberately keep their number at 12. Yet, because the Iscariot was not a sincere apostle as evidenced by his betrayal, the number 11 is also associated with the apostles, being their number present at the resurrection.
I mention these ideas in connexion with the associations you mentioned in your essay. But you requested the stories from my restoring recollection, of which there are many. Perhaps I shall begin with one.
Between age 7 and age 14 I had a particular dream five or six or seven times a night. I should probably mention that 7 is associated with rest, completion, and creative fulfillment. It is also the sum of the Trinity and the Mother (3+4). Fourteen is a representation of 5 (5=1+4) and is the next step after the Trinity plus the Mother. (These 5 are also God, the Word of God, the Power of God, the Love of God, and the Wisdom of God.) I attach significance to the dream from its repetitive context.
Sometimes it was the first dream that night and I would transition to another dream. Sometimes it was the last dream before awakening. I had it about a thousand times more or less.
In the dream I am in a beautiful place. I am standing on a balcony on the top floor of a palace. It has an architecture appropriate to the way people are in that place. There are no railings or walls around the balcony. I am standing next to another person of my same age. When I was 7 she appeared to be 7. When I was 14, she appeared to be 14. The two of us join hands and step off. We fly. People in that place fly. We don't have wings or a machine. We don't flap our arms. We simply fly, even and level, out over the garden.
Below us are flower beds and statues and fountains and hedge mazes. Then we pass over some trees of an orchard. Then fields of crops. Then pastures with herds of animals. Then wilderness. There is a long time over wilderness.
Finally we approach our destination. We fly over the house where I lived from age 3 to 18 and which my parents owned until 2014. We land on the front lawn and immediately walk across the street. The house was on a dead end street facing a vacant wooded lot and a bird sanctuary which was bottom land the developers couldn't build on and which flooded often. On the wooded lot side of the street is a low stone and mortar wall.
She would sit on the wall. I would stand in front of her facing the woods. She would sit facing me and my family home behind me. The season was always close to the season at the time of the dream but it was never raining or snowing and the ground was always clear and dry except if there were Autumn leaves on the ground.
She would look me in the eye and say the words, "You were sent ahead. I will be joining you later." As we got to be 13 and 14 there would be children at her feet and the words became, "...we will be joining you later."
Always there was a feeling of peace and comfort. After she said the words, I would transition to another dream or wake up or I would stay there and we would talk, but none of our conversations are with me today. And I always knew that the dream was for me, so it was many years before I ever spoke about the dream or began to sense that she has come into this world.
After she and I meet in person, everything changes. That day approaches as God wills. Praise God. Amen.