Been thinking to post about some stuff, in no particular order and with no particular intent....
Thinking how, several years ago, i studied with a woman here in santafe who gave me spiritual teachings.  Lot of practical stuff, like the importance of keeping agreements, that seemed quite useful.  And other, more esoteric teachings.  It took me some time to see, that this work actually perpetuated my victim mentality because what she taught was, essentially, live by this code of honor, or you'll get "taken out" by negative forces which are constantly seeking to sabotage those who are "in the light"  Ouch!  That's not goddess.
Now I can see, the code of honor is optional, and nobody can take me out, only i can do that. Energy is energy and it flows and those who know that can affect the flow whether their intentions are good or bad. No moral judgments on energy....and whatever result of that flow on me, is because of me alone.
Thinking how, i missed a plane today....first time in my life, and I've traveled a whole lot.  I know to bring my passport....what did I do? someone suggested, photocopy it in  case of emergency, and i left it in the  damn machine.  Ouch Ouch!  And boy, did i resist. Airports: not a good place to be in resistance.  Why did I resist?  Because I felt, goddess had given me the trip, and stupid useless me messed up goddess' plan.  What a ridiculous notion but there you have it.  Needless to say once i  got out of that resistace I was somehow able to reschedule my departure for 2 days later at minimal cost rather than the totally out of reach $1000 the airline initially wanted. And,sure enough, turned out something good happened that wouldnt have occurred leaving today.  Thank you goddess. Ouch!
Honestly, I am really not a masochist 
Thinking how, it felt so bad, i really hated myself for making that stupid mistake, and i went into my pattern.
My pattern is  i get all upset, lose sight of the world around me and become embroiled in selfhatred, want to die.   Yuck.  Been like this my entire life.
Finally, I know why.  Lately I have been in intensive therapy.  It's been good. helped me to see and surrender a ton of stuff.
Other things, have not changed.  One thing that has recently been revealed to me through psychological testing and with which i strongly agree is : I have no core self.  How is that possible?  Well I think I developed a strong personality/ego to hide the fact that i have no core self.  Dont know if I came in that way or if its a result of early childhood abuse. Doesn't matter.
The tests showed that my self esteem and self respect is situational.  So, when things are good, I feel good about me, and when something goes wrong, hello destructive death pattern.
This mental state guarantees  suffering for obvious reasons.
Goddess please take that, it is a gift for you it is yours.  And please take my resistance too and help me to surrender more fully, all the time. and help me learn how to keep you inside me and not sever in pain,
The death pattern  is a defense mechanism, trying to escape from this hurtful world, victim mentality.  Started as a neglected/abused infant. Very deep for me.
I still struggle with the victim thing all the time.   I forget....nobody can hurt me.  I forget a lot, and then i remember.  Sometimes I make the mistake to push someone away who really loves me, because they brought me something threatening and   i overreact, playing victim again. That always sucks.  There's  not usually a second chance.
Recently I experienced a fall from grace.  Took on, by vamp training choice, some really sticky old abuse group karma from someone. Reeeeally sticky sticky stuff.  The person felt a lot better after, and  so I..... Felt great, until.....I crashed. Crashed hard.  Freaked out, went into my pattern.  Told a spiritual friend, I don't know what to do.  He said, what if i   told you you dont have to do anything? and ahhhh, i breathed, and began to heal...feeling better now.
There are times when "goddess has it handled" feels like an excuse to me.  An excuse to be passive or something. That's my own ego, resisting i guess, because in reality  that is not a pat answer it is the truth.
goddess always has it handled
nobody can harm me
all energy is grown from shakti love
get my "self" outta the way!
gonna build myself a new "self"
somehow, some way
asking You, goddess, to help me build
and sharing my own "personal and messy" stuff here
just in hopes someone else might find it useful or interesting
thank you for this beautiful fst community
in the time i wrote this somehow, my little son has managed to get the peanut butter and rub it all over himself
so.....i go now.
namaste
Jen

I have recently started to look at stuff this way:

*Judas Ischariot*
*Good morning heartache*

(Sorry found no song by J.I. )

I had the impression i must become a traitor toward stuff; i imagine it, that free will is turning away from ego in the same degree as it turns to Divinity.
And this is not just an event, like signing a bill or glueing a stamp on a letter.
It's a tedious wrestling with relapses, like in the song.
In my evaluation Judas is right and knows he is right, but Jesus is also his guru and maybe his buddy, so treason is not easy. Psychology speaks so fondly of conflicts and here is one.

It can also be interpreted as cuckoldry, because it is not easy to be upfront.

The singer doesn't get along with her problem she is haunted by it, as is expressed in the lyrics. On another level of consciousness(chakra) represented by her Divine voice,  it seems to me she has already solved it out.

Of course the song is autobio or bio-reflecting, and in this life she lost that fight, being not a heartless enough bitch toward stuff, being too sentimental, which is also reflected in the song(melody, instrumental arrangements;  the whole mindset of that piece is tuned to 'looser'). However,  a certain vibration in Elenores voice, is miles ahead of loosing. Listening for the 3rd time it was incredibly strong in my head, with everything else than a looser touch: Goddess rocking!

So it seems "only" one connection has to be made between that(head-)buzzing domme-energy and undecided free will.

I think indecision is a great blockage and a source of *relapses*, which are so frustrating for us.
We hate ourselves for the relapses, but if the "we" expands(we let"we" expand) we can see light in them and it(the relapses) all makes sense(Shadow work).
I think in those lyrics is expressed, what Mystress calls "the reasons why not(enlightenment)".  I think frustration and resignation about relapses is the chief theme of the text. The protagonist of the song fails to arrive at: "Welcome heartache".

Today i had a lot of phone calls with exi-wifi, about some computer problems(we have done this several times in the past, and of a emotionally charged nature because of certain patterns we can mutually hardly accept from one another).

This time i approached it differently i saw the patterns coming, watched them, felt the emotions, but this time with the Judas on the mind. I suffered as usual, but recovered faster and avoided to add fuel to the fire, and it went all much more agreeable than usual. This time the enemy was not she, but my stuff. Last but not least got some support by "Master Death", who made me the connections clear by the suffering. Gave me the insights that there is nothing to yell at, though it hurt.

At the end of the day all problems were solved, "she" was happy and nearly speechless and arrived at thanking me in a way that hadn't happened for a long time. 

So i think that cuckolding ego stuff has a lot to do with relapses/old patterns.
The relapses are gifts from Death The Shaman Healer, so that stuff comes into relief and can be aimed at.
Giving ego the cold shoulder!  It's one step further than Judas went, as he acted indeed on the quiet.  However what I mean by cuckolding is,  a *naughty cuckolding*, something which is beyond the trained Christian-cultural values,  feelings, and the discrete charme of Judas Ischariot. Not infra-Judas, but trans-Judas!

Time to have a break and read eventually Your post
hope this was not too off-topic though

Now I can see, the code of honor is optional, and nobody can take me out, only i can do that. Energy is energy and it flows and those who know that can affect the flow whether their intentions are good or bad. No moral judgments on energy....and whatever result of that flow on me, is because of me alone.

  Optional... yes, but still wise.  It is good she taught you about the importance of personal integrity, even if the motives she offered were not the best.

   The simpler version is, what you put out comes back multiplied. The laws of karma are like the laws of physics, action > reaction. 

  Try these ideas out with your discernment:
   Everytime you lie, you give away a little piece of yourself.
  When you cheat or steal, you show the universe you do not believe you are worthy to recieve.  You show that you think the universe will not take care of you.
  When you disrespect another, you lose a little bit of self respect.

My pattern is  i get all upset, lose sight of the world around me and become embroiled in selfhatred, want to die.   Yuck.  Been like this my entire life.
Finally, I know why.  Lately I have been in intensive therapy.  It's been good. helped me to see and surrender a ton of stuff.
Other things, have not changed.  One thing that has recently been revealed to me through psychological testing and with which i strongly agree is : I have no core self.  How is that possible?  Well I think I developed a strong personality/ego to hide the fact that i have no core self.  Dont know if I came in that way or if its a result of early childhood abuse. Doesn't matter.
The tests showed that my self esteem and self respect is situational.  So, when things are good, I feel good about me, and when something goes wrong, hello destructive death pattern.
This mental state guarantees  suffering for obvious reasons.


   Hmmm. Not questioning your experience, and certainly it is probably illegal for me to disagree with a phd professional opinion... but that diagnosis does not feel resonant, and "core self" does not appear on my list of aspects of consciousness.   Could be I do not have one either, to be able to write about it... but the whole idea is just not resonant to me. 

  Do not want to go too far into the whole nature-nurture debate, but every enlightened person is uniquely themselves despite having nothing to idenfify as "self" beyond the infinite.  Yet, within every person is a set of basic needs and fulfillment comes of identifying them and finding a way to get them met. The basic needs of every person are unique and do not change with age or even much, with enlightenment.  Nobody but you can find out what they are, but what you have already discovered is that if you do not meet them consciously then your shadow will arrange to get them met anyway. 

  You have already recognized in your grad essay, how your shadow takes care of you, and part of its script is your basic needs. You got them, so you must have a core self.  What might be missing, is your soul... which is your real core self. Your essential spark of consciousness. The nature of the soul, is Joy.

  I seldom really tune in on my soul spark because I do not have to, its energy field is a radiance of joy from the top of my power chakra to just below my heart, and even if I am so down it seems to have gone out, the energy of my attention will stoke it back again, and the pure bliss and joy of it is a state of surrender.  It also really helps to keep me from taking myself too seriously.

  It is funny, we talk about, my soul, my body, my foot, my mind, my ego, my house, my car, ... but if all those things are possessions, who is the "I" that owns them?  There isn't one... the Self is infinite nothing, the ego is a bag of fear, ... but the soul.. is your seed of consciousness and it holds your life plan or purpose.  It picked your parents and your DNA. Your body knows that its job, is to be a vessel of that.

    Soul leaves the body in times of trauma, or if the body gets too energetically polluted to be a temple.  "Gain the world, lose your soul." Acting without personal integrity gets the energy body muddy with karmic feedback, dims the life force... the soul appears dim like a candle in a fog.  The soul is supposed to leave the body before death or trauma to spare you some suffering, so if the body gets muddy enough the soul parks elsewhere.

  Your soul cannot be harmed, but it can take a hike... but it will always come back when you call, it is yours.  I joke about people leaving it on the bus.. but usually it is to be found nearby, hovering near their shoulder or somewhere within 8 meters or so.
   People who are soul less though usually do not have your sense of direction about the future. They are weathervanes though, turning in the wind of the emotions of the people around them. 

  Calling your soul back is easy, just imagine a tiny bright star near your solar plexus, and give it love.

Recently I experienced a fall from grace.  Took on, by vamp training choice, some really sticky old abuse group karma from someone. Reeeeally sticky sticky stuff.  The person felt a lot better after, and  so I..... Felt great, until.....I crashed. Crashed hard.  Freaked out, went into my pattern.  Told a spiritual friend, I don't know what to do.  He said, what if i   told you you dont have to do anything? and ahhhh, i breathed, and began to heal...feeling better now.
There are times when "goddess has it handled" feels like an excuse to me.  An excuse to be passive or something. That's my own ego, resisting i guess, because in reality  that is not a pat answer it is the truth.


   We both have a reactivity disorder.  Stuff does not stick if you stay out of resistance, as you discovered with your friends advice.
  Having a little dose of "oppositional defiance" in my ADD mix means a part of me  resists with a knee jerk reaction that I am conscious of but cannot really control.  What I am finding with the ugly mirror bubble, is that my reactions do not go anywhere.  I cannot stop the reactivity but the outgoing energy of reaction bounces off the ugly mirror and dissolves in my heart with barely a ripple,  *before* it has a chance to knock me out of my body.  I am quite fascinated to watch it.
  However, my intensive testing discovered that one gets a little crazy and obsessive after about a week, so the previous warning label still applies: use it for a few hours, or a day but remember you have it up and take it down before it makes you loopy.   

  Blessings!! 
 

When you cheat or steal, you show the universe you do not believe you are worthy to recieve.  You show that you think the universe will not take care of you.

Unity cannot be a relation with Goddess, in the mafioso style: godchild and godfather(godmother); but You see, i need not invent those words, they are already there, which sheds a light on mainstream religion or who we think we are or karma.

We are situated between Goddess and mundane-religious law; culture and religion are atheism, karma; i think it's important to know in order to not to hang on karma.

The state or the state of the state is also what boots us to search for relief and finally Goddess.

So there is big tension/hysteria to be taken into clear relief.

Another question is how to practically act, and if it's possible to lead a life and wash one's hands in complete innocence. And what is the reference of ethics when man-law is scammy first of all.

Then within this mess, it's true that Goddess takes care nonetheless, which i can observe when i let Her and when i'm honest(the brighter moments ).
So i conclude the searched for reference is Goddess's care, the brighter me or maybe the Higher Self.

You say so much right things and the moments i see it i love You .. and the whole world.
And become a bit less judgemental. Seeing the arrogance in separatistic people i'm looking into the ugly mirror simultaneaously, which is a small price for the love i'm getting from it.

juergen

Other things, have not changed.  One thing that has recently been revealed to me through psychological testing and with which i strongly agree is : I have no core self.  How is that possible?  Well I think I developed a strong personality/ego to hide the fact that i have no core self

What if the opposite is true?
That You developed a strong personality to hide the fact, that You actually DO have a *strong* core self, You chase occasionally away.
Now nothing is as much like skating on thin ice as using words. Most psychotherapeuts have a shrinky origin, and they might have their own "strong personality definitions" of 'core'.
(Iris, i'm excepting You and a few others, ok?)

In a modern culture
My friend you must be careful
They've a million ways to kill you(Garbage)

Ok, "they" is also you and me, and what i'm seeing, is that always some sort of tragic is going on; the geek in the Chicago East Side gang with iq200, yet deems himself a piece of shit even if he eventually becomes the boss. More striking to me seems the lots of patriarchal women who come in the wake of modern feminism. Yelling at men and the same time eager to do it like men, only better, which however translates to "much worse".
Being naturally so full of love that they don't see the forest for the trees ... and acting out life with the sick ambition of "the conscious path". Overwhelming Yourself --the tragic in it being: what is designed to be infinite, is overwhelmed--.  Gruesome piece of art!!!

I'm tempted to call it 'consciousness addiction'; it can show its effect with all kind of tics -- why is this? The conscious mind being chronically overtaxed, taps on its last resort available, the body! When one enters the desperate stage of a lost battle; Ya can see it on the tennis court too(e.g.). Useless sacrifices: melting jewelry for canon-bullets etc. Karma, the last bastion of the consciousness path of addiction.

Consciousness addiction is exactly the reverse order of what works.(Only surrender to the unconscious works, so we feel safe with grounding as soon as we hit the swing).
It's the godchild topping from the bottom against a silly(also childish) godfather.
The sacred girl breaking up Herself -- I call it tragic.

If i'm sending You this song by another girl, artist, i do not mean that You are any tenth of an inch behind Her, or behind anyone else, because You are them All!

not Shirl but this time Grace

I've been meaning to respond to this post for some time, but havent because my keyboard was broken.  Now that it's fixed,  I just want to say that once again Mystress I am blown away by your words of wisdom.  So beautiful, your take on ethics and how our personal ethics affect us internally.  As far as the rest of the stuff, well I feel I have reached a place where I feel my personal struggles are basically just kind of silly, somehow I just spontaneously got over all that stuff I was talking about.  I no longer feel a need to clear anything, shift anything or fix anything.  I feel that if something needs to be fixed, goddess has it handled.  This is in many ways a great relief.  I no longer feel like a victim of empathy or of karma.  It's all cool.  Even the stuff that sucks is cool, cause I know now that pain is really just an invitation to enter more deeply into the Mystery.  Grateful to be on this earth, walking around and experiencing.  That doesnt mean I'm turning my back on spiritual growth, just don't feel the need to fight for my life anymore.  I surrender all that, but I had to get to a certain place to do so....anyway I'm really glad I posted these questions regardless of their current personal relevance to me, because the responses were so beautiful and educational .  Thank you!

Now that's more like it 

In any case Your stuff was a highly valued post!
This late September feels already like Halloween, here is something of that mood milk and honey
enjoy , 

Juergen