The Shores of Galilee

(A Study in Oils)

..........Below me lie the dark waters of Galilee, deep and brooding. Overhead an umbrella of silent, stormy-looking, grey clouds stretches to the horizon. I drift to the west to where the waters lap gently against a beach.  And there stands the Cross. It stands at the boundary of darkness and light, inner and outer, spiritual and material, real and unreal..........and death and life. Here on the shores of Galilee we, the Cross and I, stand at the boundary between the unconscious Foundation of my being and the Kingdom of my consciousness. The Cross also stands at the boundary of what is and what is only perceived to be, an infinite universe approaching the threshold of interpretation by the personal, finite mind.

          The Cross stands erect, its foot floating deep in the Earth's core beyond my consciousness; seemingly on fire but remaining unconsumed. Far above me beyond the clouds of unknowing, the Cross reaches upwards into the heavens towards the lighted Crown of creation. The Cross..........yes of course..........it stands over the boundary between one state and another. Truly, it stands at the Crossover point.

          Where the vertical crosses the horizontal, at the coexistence of all opposites, the point of paradox, hangs a Rose. At its very heart is darkness, dark matter, dark energy, a vortex of darkness. And I sense an uneasiness, as if trying to face the awful possibility that the observed universe is nothing more than a projection of my mind, an image that hides another reality that I can never know. How can I know what is, by gnosis? A dangerous, exciting idea. A way of knowing that requires the deepest awareness of doubt and uncertainty, as well as humility.

          But the nature of the Cross is changing. No longer is it a Rose Cross, but a Calvary Cross. At the point of paradox hangs an ancient skeleton, long dead and partly obscured in a mist of uncertainty. Yet one living Eye remains in its socket and watches me as I move and survey the watcher. What is it that I see? I see that it is only that it is. Yet that also is what I am!..........Sacrifice?..........A sacrifice, or  a continuous sacrificial act that reaches back to the very dawn of creation?

          The Dark is closing in once more, and I must leave..........

(Images from my meditations on the Rose Cross)          

The explanation of this meditation is proving to be rather more difficult than I had first imagined. To begin with it appears to be a combination of two meditations with the Cross appearing in two different guises. The meditation began as an inner investigation of the Rose Cross, and therefore it is natural and expected that an equal-armed Cross should appear. The fact that a change takes place, and a Calvary Cross replaces the Rosicrucian image, is significant. That is one of the unexpected events which must be investigated. The other is the appearance at the centre of the Rose of a black vortex.

This apparent combination of meditations can also be seen as an 'interference' or a 'contamination', both descriptions to be seen as being non-pejorative. But how and why would such contamination occur? Whilst not knowing how, I see three possible answers as to the why of it. The first reason could be an invitation to psychological denial. I will discount that on this occasion because the sublety that usually accompanies that invitation is missing. The second reason could be that the higher realm of the self has something important it wishes to communicate. On balance I suspect this is the case here. The third reason may simply be that further meditations and thought have clouded, or clarified, the existing recall of the primary meditation.  In effect this reason changes little, if anything, about the investigation.

It will be recalled that in a previous post, "L'Abbaye de Boquen" (posted 27.4.2013), I was told that I had not even scratched the surface of Christianity. Although I do not interpret that message as an invitation to pick up a religious thread in my life that I discarded decades ago, there is implicit in that earlier statement a call to uncover something that I have missed, something that is worth researching. There appear to be three interlinked strands in this meditation. The first strand, which I do not intend to develop, is the allusion to the mystical Qabalah through the terms Kingdom, Foundation and Crown. It is the two remaining strands which are of prime interest, the Rose Cross and its contained vortex, and the Calvary Cross and its skeletal image.

One final point must be made before an analysis of this meditation is attempted. In my experience, when my unconscious mind seeks to communicate with my consciousness or ego, it does so with images that have some meaning for me. That is to say, the images carry certain meanings and also consequences. This is why Christian symbolism as well as images relating to physics and astronomy play such a large part in my meditational life. On occasions, even ideas from favourite books and films/movies have a role to play. It's all language after all, and language is about symbols.  

The Rose Cross.

In a previous post, "Into the Abyss" (posted 22.6.2013), I described a journey into an inner, black hole vortex. It is this that lies at the centre, at the heart, of the Rose. In the material universe, according to current thinking, nothing can escape the pull of a black hole once the event horizon has been crossed. Even stars cannot evade their fate inside that presence. Nothing can come back to tell us what lies beyond the event horizon, any more than can anyone return from beyond the death event to tell what lies beyond. As the ego cries out in terror,

"Fly!  Do not jump!  It is too dangerous, and I will be lost!  I will surely die!"

Yet it is a journey that must be taken by each one of us, at some point in our lives. To experience that journey in virtual reality may be one of the greatest gifts the unconscious mind can bestow, particularly if in the end, we do in fact fall into the safety of no-where, of no-when. It is a state which the ego will never reach, any more than Moses was ever allowed to reach the promised land. One can only look beyond, and hope to get a glimpse of the far country.

The Calvary Cross.

This particular image of the Calvary Cross has given me much uncertainty as to its possible meaning. In fact it wasn't until I dreamed a dream very recently that I finally understood. Here is a very brief extract from that dream:-

..........She walked towards me, her arms outstretched. "May I remove your face, Dad? Do you look bizarre behind it?" I backed away terrified. "No you may not!" But I knew what lay behind my face, an inability to hide or influence with appropriate use of facial muscles what I truly thought and felt. She grinned.  "Okay Dad."..........

Thus, finally, I realised that the Eye, the inner "I", is what this is all about. Beyond the flesh, the face, the mask of the persona, lies the True Self. It is that Self which is the beneficiary of the act of sacrifice of the domination of the ego. Yet at a much deeper level I suspect that there is something about the concept of sacrifice, perhaps relating to the Higher realm of the Self, that I have yet to understand. And I fear to probe lest I lose that intuitive experience amongst a collection of words. For words can kill just as easily as they can draw forth understanding. 

Yet one thing more is apparent. If I have not yet scratched the surface of Christianity, then I must strip away any preconceived religious notions I have have been taught about Jesus the Christ; rid myself of any Jesus-personae images I have collected from the Church. I must go further than the scriptures or art, particularly Victorian art, and begin again to try to see the historical Jesus as he really was. An impossible task? Perhaps, but to dump all preconceptions about that man is better than having wrong perceptions. A correct 'not this, not that' is better than an incorrect 'he was this, and that'.

I would be surprised indeed, if I discover at some point in the future that I have plumbed the full depths of this composite meditation. All I can do is wait and watch, and have faith in the process. Whatever answers there are to be had lie deep inside me. I need to exercise patience. It is the Calvary concepts with which I need to deal, because they are more personal than the Rosicrucian material.

What Am I?

..........I become aware of my awareness, yet am nevertheless subject to random thoughts and a slight feeling of frustration.  Now and then I feel  physical discomfort.  In some way all those sensings are connected to my state of awareness, a massless, formless awareness.  There comes a moment when it seems as if all I need to do is to stop concentrating or focusing on anything.  In an odd way that leaves me in a kind of limbo where I am 'concentrated' almost by default on a nothingness.  I give up 'trying', at least for a series of momentary-nesses.  The links with the material world are still there in potential, but much weakened.  It isn't until the stillness moves that I realise how deeply I have travelled..........

                                                                              (An excerpt from my diaries)

How do I know that "I" exist, that is to say to exist as a reality?  I tacitly assume that I exist for two reasons. The first is that everyone around me assumes that they exist, although they may have no real existence at all. They may simply be holograms projected from data encoded on the boundary of the universe for all I know. On that basis, therefore, my assumed existence rests on very insecure foundations. The second reason that I assume I exist is that when in a state of meditation I am able to observe and become aware that there is that which is called the ego, false or virtual self which acts from its own consciousness. There are even occasions when I watch my actions, as if I am an independent observer. However, that status, independent of a virtual and therefore unreal self, may simply mean I exist but only relatively. Whilst this second reason gives a firmer basis for the assumption of existence, it is by no means entirely secure. The fact appears to be that I do not know myself, do not have enough information on which to form a firm conclusion.

Still I have the unanswered question before me, "What am I?" for I do not know. With effort I can know, through my intellect, much of what I am not. To all the statements that I might make as to what I am, I can answer, "No! Neither this, nor that!" Such statements of what I suppose myself to be merely describe my relationships with others, the many roles I play in life, my gender, my sexual orientation, the emotions I feel, and so on. Not one of those statements defines what I AM. As the Old Testament God said, allegedly, I AM THAT I AM! Take it or leave it! I offer, can offer, no explanations; nothing!

An inability to define myself, to know what I truly am, does not remove the urge to know. For so much of my life I have felt incomplete, two dimensional, like a cardboard cut-out. Now, I feel more complete. What has changed? What has happened inside me? Am I closer to knowing what I am? Is the consequence of all that I do, all that I seek, a growing sense of Being? Is what I am somehow a part of all that? Yet still I find myself at the mercy of powers I cannot control. Events occur within my unconscious mind of which I have no knowledge, much less understanding. Is it even possible to know what I am, the reality of what I am? 

And life passes. I do not. Oh yes, my body ages and tires. It almost seems as if my energies are steadily becoming converted into experiences and memories. But deep inside my being I am aware of that which does not seem to age. It is not so much everlasting, which implies time, but eternal, timeless, outside time. How can that be? If I, this tacitly assumed presence, could answer that question I might just get closer to knowing what I am, and maybe where I am.

The deeper I slip into meditation, the more I disidentify from all that would falsely claim to be my "I"-ness, the more I pass into a state of nothingness; no-thing-ness. Thoughts, emotions and senses come and pass on, but I remain. Images pass away and I am left behind. Do I sense fear? Maybe, or something like it perhaps. I sense an approaching state of ultimate emptiness, of a profound stillness that goes far beyond what my ego chooses to allow me, when it chooses to indulge me. I cannot force the pace of this new discovery, that I am nothing that I ever thought I was, or would want to become. I do not know what I am to be, because I first need to know what I am.

The Great Darkness of unknowing, of not understanding, steadily approaches, but I do not wish to turn away. This inner expanse of nothingness, this remnant of "I"-ness, would not wish to turn from the Presence that approaches, that somehow seeks me. Something else begins to tug at my attention. That something else forever seeks to dull my awareness of what is, my awareness of a new kind of freedom. That something, so full of its own fear, tugs again and again.  

"Do not leave me!" And I am held back;  my strength begins to wane. "I cannot face annihilation!"

That is not the real fear. To be left alone, to be lost, to be annihilated, implies I once Was and that I can remember. In that memory I am aware of a state of Having; I have a virtual being-ness. However, that is not true Being-ness. It is an illusion. I sense, but cannot know, that true Being-ness is having the slate wiped clean, to be nothing and nowhere except before a detached state of eternal presence; to be at one with the Reality of Eternal Presence.

And the Stillness moved........

A Fantasy Desert Island

The purpose of this post is to demonstrate how a guided pathworking can reveal some unsuspected incident, attitude or relationship information that may be lying in the unconscious mind.  In this instance, what is being sought is something about the relationship that existed between a child and its parents, in particular me and my parents.  Because it is a guided pathworking, sometimes called a fantasy journey, and not a freely flowing journey, certain key points need to be included and observed.

Before moving onto the details of the journey, perhaps I should describe my preferred meditation technique.  I am fortunate enough to have my own meditation room, which I darken almost completely, with just a single candle burning.  This enables me to be aware of some kind of presence, and also to stop me falling asleep.  If the room were too well-lit, that would interfere with the process, allowing too much light to penetrate my closed eyelids.   I sit in an almost upright chair, keeping my spine straight but not necessarily bolt upright, which can cause strain.  (If you do have a slight tum, a slightly leaning back posture helps to achieve unforced breathing. Meditation after a large meal is not advised.)  With eyes closed, I travel around my body slightly tensing and then relaxing, each part in turn starting from my feet (one at a time) and finishing with my breath and scalp.  At the same time, any slight discomforts are dealt with.  (Incidentally, I have never achieved anything like a lotus position, and frankly never try.  This is not an exercise in contortion olympics.)  By the end of this procedure, my breathing rate has decreased to around six natural breaths a minute, thus allowing certain rhythms in the brain to come into their own.  

A Fantasy Desert Island

And now to the journey itself.  It is helpful if the imagination is used to develop as realistic a setting as possible.  If the participant finds that they are beginning to drift upwards so that they are observing themselves on the inner journey, efforts need to be made to rejoin with their participating selves.  This tendency is not uncommon in the early stages of pathworking. So, first of all, the participant or traveller having entered a full state of meditation, begins the journey from a desert island.  Second, the traveller enters the surrounding sea or ocean, symbolic of the unconscious mind.  Third, having entered the water, it is necessary to continue the journey as far as the participant desires.  (In my experience, the deeper the better, so long as one can 'see' what is going on in the vicinity.)  Fourth, having arrived at some stopping point, the participant turns to face in the direction of the island, and waits.  Fifth, some image will manifest itself from the righthand direction, the father image.  Another image will emerge from the lefthand direction, the mother image.  What those images are, how they arrive, any interaction they may have between themselves, and with the participant either singly or together, is for the unconscious mind to decide.  In fact everything about this journey, other than the steps set out, is for the unconscious mind to decide.  Sixth, when any interaction is complete, the observing participant travels back toward the island, leaving the water as the end of the meditation approaches.  The key to this journey (as well as any journey involving imagery) is to observe what happens, without interfering with the unfolding story.

Below, I describe my experience of this particular journey.  If a reader of this post chooses to try this experiment, it must be remembered that this is my path, it isn't yours.  Your experience may well be very different from mine.

..........I began to walk towards the ocean, leaving the trees further and further behind me. Overhead the sun shone down from a perfectly blue sky.  To my right, the gently sloping beach stretched unbroken as far as I could see;  I was unaware of the beach very far to my left.  At last I reached the water's edge, the sand still remarkably firm underfoot.  There seemed to be very little, if any, movement in the water so that as I walked further into the ocean, the water rose steadily up my legs, over my trunks and up to my waist and on until it reached my throat.  For a moment I wondered, then the water was over my head and I found that I could breathe without any discomfort.

          Shafts of light shone down into the water producing a strange but beautiful sparkling effect. There was also some movement of shadows as if clouds had suddenly appeared in the sky.  I continued to walk out into the deepening ocean until the water around me began to take on a darkened, gloomy aspect.  I noticed that the sand beneath my feet was beginning to be swallowed in darkness.  It was time to turn and face the direction from which I had come;  back towards the island, and await events.

          I noticed some slight movement in the darkness off to my right, but closer to the island than me. My retreat was effectively blocked.  As the movement became more pronounced, a large, white shark swam into the light.  It swam this way and that, with a sideways undulating movement, one of its eyes continually watching me.  Once it made a lunge towards me, but at the last moment veered off to my right.  It was at that point that I became aware that I was completely naked and vulnerable.  If I could have felt anything, it would have been an uneasy watchfulness on my part, and a coldblooded disinterest on his.  

          After watching the shark for some while I observed the arrival of an indistinct shadowiness from my left.  As it swam into the light I realised that it was an equally large, black octopus.  She swam much closer to me and seemed to confront the shark.  They each made lunging movements towards each other, but no real contact was made.  Then she slipped behind me, grabbed me with her crushing tentacles, and turned me to my right so that I directly faced the shark.  I was trapped between them, unable to throw off her stranglehold, or defend myself from the shark.

          The waters around us, whilst not stormy, became agitated.  Then the shark lunged at me and struck.  He was overwhelming.  He had struck me somewhere below my waist, yet my legs remained firm and untouched.  She lashed out forcing him to withdraw.  But she would not let me go, neither did she choose to adopt a position between me and the shark.  Steadily she crushed me tighter and tighter. I had to do something to save myself.  I looked up.  High above me, how deep the waters had become, appeared a great sword hanging vertically, hilt upwards like a Calvary Cross.  I reached up in desperation and down it plummeted.  Somehow I managed to grab the sword with both hands on the hilt, reached upwards and backwards, then thrust the sword with all my strength into the octopus. There was a shudder through the water, and she released me.

          Both the octopus and the shark, as well as the sword had disappeared.  The confrontation was over, and I began my way back towards the beach.  It grew steadily lighter, until my head broke the surface of the water.  On I walked onto dry land.  The sun still shone from a cloudless sky.  The only marks on the beach were my own footsteps.  Yet something had changed.  It was as if an invisible veil blocked something beneficial from radiating from the sun.  I began to feel a sense of shame, of guilt, and of an indefinable darkness.  Thus was I roused from my meditation..........

Clearly, because the shark (my father) and the octopus (my mother) are described as large, this experience relates to a time in my early childhood, even perhaps in my infancy.  The confrontation was apparently very destructive on a psychological level.  It all seemed to be about control and ownership.

What is of crucial significance in this encounter is that on a conscious level (the desert island's beach, smooth under a warm sun in a cloudless sky) everything seemed normal.  Yet my unconscious perception of what was happening was very different.  And it must be stressed that this is all a matter of perception.  That unconscious perception is my only truth.  To attempt to replace those perceptions by some form of 'what-actually-happened-in-the-real-world' could only 'intellectualise' the event.  It would not succeed in arriving at any substantive truth that could claim any greater objectivity than my unconscious perceptions had already revealed.  Such an attempt would only further the ends of psychological denial, and to rubbish the feelings of the participants; most importantly in this event, mine. 

One final point, in the exercise described above, an account of certain happenings has been passed from the beyond-conscious mind into consciousness.  Its real significance can only be measured against a background of such disclosures.  In other words, to arrive at a more meaningful conclusion about one's inner world, to "Know Thyself" more fully, a continual ongoing search into one's inner life needs to be undertaken.  That is what my journey is about, whatever it may reveal.

Footnote:      Readers of Gwynt might be interested to note that I have added an extra explanatory script to my side bar, regarding matters relating to my meditations under the title, "Something Extraordinary". 

An Instrument of Power

From time to time I notice a certain troublesome unease on the periphery of my awareness.  It isn't serious or spiritually debilitating;  it is simply a movement that leaves a certain sadness, and a wanting, in its wake. Most of the time I don't even notice it because my other activities, such as preparing pieces for posting here, produce enough 'noise' to mask the discomfort. Nevertheless, it will still remain, gently haunting me and refusing to go away.  In the more distant past, I would have brushed that unease away with annoyance.  Not any more.  I have learned to trust these discomforts, to approach and investigate them before they develop into something more demandingly uncomfortable.

It was whilst undergoing one of these periods of slight discomfort that I found myself preparing for a morning meditation.  There seemed to be no problems, except that the occasional thought would intrude and distract.  I find that thoughts, however, are obvious when present and can be summarily, if only temporarily, dealt with.  On the other hand, emotions and feelings are far less obvious for me, and cannot so readily be dismissed.  Indeed, it is sometimes difficult to be aware that a feeling is even present. On this particular morning I noticed that now familiar sense of unease, but this time I decided to approach it and determine the cause of the problem. Immediately, I recognised the cause as a pervading sense of spiritual aridity.

My most recent posts have been concerned with my first meeting with my internal Druid, my Voice of Authenticity, and my interpretation of the symbols that arose.  Lying in the background was an awareness that it has been a long time since the Druid and I have obviously travelled together.

"Has he abandoned me?"  I asked myself.  "Am I doing something wrong?  Am I not working hard enough?  Am I being too lax?"  These and other questions of a similar nature, arose to plague my uneasy mind.

Of course, all such thoughts are the product of an over-zealous and dictatorial ego.  The real cause of the aridity is a joyous one, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.  It is the perfectly normal response to an inner journey going ever deeper, a journey which my consciousness cannot be privy to.  Patience and faith are needed.  It just so happens that I am a little short of both commodities.  Once the problem had been addressed, I could once more return to my meditation, and that was when I received a massive surprise.

..........I found myself sitting on a log of appropriate proportions, looking into a fire outside a cave on a mountaintop.  I felt no need to immerse myself in its flames as I had done on a previous visit. To my right, closer to the mouth of the cave and still remaining in the shadows, sat the Druid. Somehow, I had been plucked from the conscious state of my meditation room and brought here to the mountaintop.  We sat awhile, enjoying each other's company, slipping into that familiarising process that floods the heart with joy. Yes, it was good to be back. 

          I sensed a movement from the Druid, but only a slight movement, but it was enough.  I found that I was holding an ebony wand in my hands, a black, polished instrument of great power. It was incredible. Here, in my hands, rested something so beautiful and potent that I could see no way that I could carry it to a lower level of consciousness.  It would have been as if I were trying to live a peak experience for the rest of my life, or manifesting the divine in an environment unsuited to its presence. How different this experience from that of the rock chippings that had turned to amethyst.  On that visit, the rock chippings had been ordinary, run of the mill. This wand was anything but that.

          As I felt the slick smoothness of the gift that had been placed in my hands, I began to feel, to become aware of, something else.  It seemed as if a secondary presence existed within the wand. That inner presence seemed to indicate that it was akin to a stick of charcoal, that it had an inner, hidden purpose, and that I was required to draw with it.  That made no sense to me.  How could I draw a sketch or a picture with something so obviously unsuited for the task? I was receiving no apparent help from the Druid; this was something I had to sort out for myself.  

          Then something seemed to click into place.  I wasn't required to draw pictures with this wand. I was to draw up, or draw down, something, energy or power perhaps, from some place deep within me. Or maybe I was to do nothing, that whatever was needed would, of itself, be drawn from my psycho-spiritual being, for some purpose yet to be disclosed. Maybe that process of drawing on the spiritual realm was already happening.  As that realisation dawned, the Druid stood and clasped my hands in his, and I knew the rightness of my conclusion. 
          It was then that I received my second massive surprise. 'His' hands were unmistakeably female. Even after all the slight hints in the past, I had always imagined the Druid to be male.  I looked up at her, longing to see her face so completely hidden in shadow.  And the thought spoke to me, 

"Why should it be otherwise?  Have I not already opined that there is a spectrum of Truth of which Wisdom, or Sophia, is a part?  Why then should not my Druid also be female?"............

                                                                                      (Extract from my current diary)

Somewhere, deep inside me, I sense a block has been removed, a kink ironed out, ........ and yes, a rough place made plain.  Now the quote from Isaiah 40:4 makes sense for me.

           "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low:  

           and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places made plain."

I have been lifted.  Can unease wear a smile on its face?  I prefer un-sadness to sadness just as I prefer happiness to unhappiness, but I accept the need for both.  Without the one I will never find the other.  I am a living creature, therefore I react or choose to respond to stimuli. Those stimuli do not always need to be severe;  a little unease on the periphery of awareness can be enough. Meditations and contemplations do not always go to plan, or as my ego so readily reminds me, even go very well at all. But I no longer need to compete, to win, or even get things right.  I am that I am.  It will suffice.

To Be As an Atom

When I first attempted to write a first draft of this post, I discovered that uncomfortable feeling of mild panic. What do I write? My deadline was approaching and everything I had tried thus far was unacceptable, either on the grounds of content or of timing.  At the same time, I was aware that this panic was triggering certain other feelings which were acting as positive feedback, thus enhancing the problem I faced.  The only good thing about this script was that, having written the first paragraph, I had made a start on something that might eventually be acceptable.

When I first began Gwynt, I was determined to post every Saturday.  There have been three occasions when I have posted on other days, for reasons that I felt justified their inclusion. Those reasons still hold, but I have still maintained my Saturday deadline for all other posts. My reason for this is quite simple.  It enforces a necessary discipline in my life, without which I would quickly become uncomfortable, and maybe lax.  That laxity would in turn lead to wandering along unnecessary and unproductive paths.  It appears that when I need to deal with spiritual matters, and particularly those which reduce the importance of my ego, that self-same ego fights to turn my energies into the frittering of time and resources on other activities. That is unacceptable. However, wisdom dictates that I must allow some slack in the system to allow space for those spontaneous insights that erupt from beyond consciousness from time to time.

To turn to another matter, I have to say that I do not enjoy being vulnerable, but it is a necessary condition so long as I continue to write about the subjects I discuss here.  I feel passionately about the issues I raise, and sometimes that extra yard of vulnerability can seem to be too much, too unsafe.  Yet I cannot cover myself with protective plating.  There would come a time when I would be carrying so much psycho-spiritual armour plating that I would be unable to move.  And still there would remain a few chinks where I was vulnerable to a damaging thrust.  I know, I have been there. My preference, therefore, is to play the role of the atom being subjected to the incoming attack by a neutrino, anthropomorphically speaking. Now as everyone knows, neutrinos are very tiny subatomic particles, and atoms behave as if they are almost entirely pure space.  There is, therefore, a very high probability that the neutrino will pass through the atom without touching anything, or even noticing the atom is there.  This is my preferred stance, even if it isn't perfectly safe.  In any case armour plating is what one Has, vulnerability refers to a state of Being, the latter being preferable to the former.

Part of my vulnerability is allied to my choice of subject rather than the depth to which I probe and how much I reveal. This is compounded by the language I choose to use, often because I can find no meaningful alternatives.  Let me try to deal with this latter point first.  I know that people can be put off by such words as God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, spirituality, ego, lower self, higher self, esoteric, occult, alcoholic, narcotic, codependency, and a wide range of other scientific, religious and psychological terminology.  And there is one other word that is so personal to me, and that is the recently introduced 'Druid'.  This image has been my constant companion in my inner world, just as the Inner Christ image has been for many a Christian. But what can I do?  I have no other language that remotely answers my needs.  Yet I feel I continually run the risk of glazing peoples' eyes over by the mere mention of those previously cited words.  And the real rub is that I'm not completely comfortable with most of those words either.  I know that what I write about is specialist stuff, but it's such fun;  it really is.  All inner discoveries and the journey towards Truth, whether it be called God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Ultimate, or whatever expression is your particular, chosen synonym, are worth the effort.  

Quote from "The Red Book":

"My speech is imperfect.  Not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words, I speak in images.  With nothing else can I express the words from the depths."
                                                                                                                    C.G.Jung

Until I committed myself to this great inner experiment and its resulting experience, until I began to try to understand my inner imagery, it was as if I had been two-dimensional.  That inner experience supplies the third dimension.  The dimension of time doesn't really enter into the scheme of things. Something akin to a kind of eternal now, with lapses into time for the sake of convenience, is the usual way that my inner life operates.  And this causes me no problems because no words are involved.  It is only when one tries to verbalise the experience that problems arise.  It is then, perhaps more than at any other time, that I become acutely aware of my 'alone-ness';  not loneliness, never that.  By extension, of course all people are in the same condition of alone-ness. When one adds to that the fact that everything we experience in the outer world, from the mind outwards, is our minds' interpretation of incoming data from our senses, thoughts and emotions, one begins to get some inkling of the extent of our condition.  We can no more directly sense the world around us than we can look directly at the studio or film set from which our entertainment comes. Safety seems to lie in words, and our commitment, even addiction perhaps, to the use of certain words or particular sets of words.  But that safety is an illusion, and all too often words isolate rather than unite.    

The second point I raised earlier, namely the choice of subject about which to write can be difficult to decide on.  This difficulty arises in part because I do not work through my material in a particular time-wise fashion.  There are reasons why I work in this manner, any difficulty arising being offset by the acquired gains.  Sometimes it means that before I can introduce one subject, another preparatory subject must be dealt with.  It is similar to the mathematical process that, one cannot try to prove a concept which uses inputs which have not themselves been previously proved.  Of course proof is not a requirement here.  However, meditational data and realisations honestly arrived at are, for me, a prime requirement.  The sources from which I draw some inspiration will include religion, with all its shortcomings, Christian theology, the Mystical Qabalah, Twelve Step Programmes, the Bible, and in fact any source that seems to offer a way to the Truth.  Nothing is exempt, although inevitably I will choose from sources with which I am most familiar.  One of my most important sources of data is the inner journey I psychologically travelled, almost exclusively dealing with my childhood, in the company of my Inner Druid.  I cannot, in honesty, call her anything else. I will not deny her by even trying to call her something else.  I can only say that this is who I am;  this is where I'm coming from.

Finally, a calm has descended and I sense a small crisis has passed, so perhaps this is the right script to post. It is always my intent to listen for that small, inner voice that decides my next step. Of course I don't always listen hard enough and so I don't always hear.  Maybe on this occasion I've heard aright.