Welcome to The Pub At the End of the Universe.

[PurpleLama]

[Katyani]

There is indeed a lot of energy shifting, it's been building up for a while and tomorrow may be the culmination.
We'll experience a planetary alignment that apparently hasn't occurred in some 25000 years.

[PurpleLama]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sM1Ahn0Osjo

[songsfortheotherkind]

Lama, you are indeed the wizard of awesomely strange music.

[songsfortheotherkind]

Posted by Katyani (here)
There is indeed a lot of energy shifting, it's been building up for a while and tomorrow may be the culmination. We'll experience a planetary alignment that apparently hasn't occurred in some 25000 years.

Well, it's baking *my* noggin in a big way that's for sure. It's shifting between 'ah f*uck this is wondrous' and 'ah f*uck this is unbearable, make it stop', which sounds pretty much like birth, evolution and/or some kinds of really amazing sex, so the energy seems about right.

Interplanetary tantra! Wah-hoo! Now that would certainly give world peace a cosmic boost, heh heh heh...

[PurpleLama]

Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)

Posted by Katyani (here)
There is indeed a lot of energy shifting, it's been building up for a while and tomorrow may be the culmination. We'll experience a planetary alignment that apparently hasn't occurred in some 25000 years.

Well, it's baking *my* noggin in a big way that's for sure. It's shifting between 'ah f*uck this is wondrous' and 'ah f*uck this is unbearable, make it stop', which sounds pretty much like birth, evolution and/or some kinds of really amazing sex, so the energy seems about right.

Interplanetary tantra! Wah-hoo! Now that would certainly give world peace a cosmic boost, heh heh heh...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BXSmYHEpn7w

[songsfortheotherkind]

It feels bad if I constrict, so I'm having to focus on expansion and expansion-

argh, it feels like surrender and I *always* have an issue with that one! lol.

[songsfortheotherkind]

Apparently it *is* surrender and I just had all kinds of lessons about the support I have with that. It seems either my Pan and my Otherkind beloved are closer to this dimensional reality than they've ever been, or I'm getting better at slipping the veil.

For any that I'm connected with energetically here that just had a major 'wtf? arrrghh, not now, I'm operating heavy machinery!' moment, apologies. For those that may have enjoyed it, you're welcome. As for me, I'm loving this new expression of energy.

[PurpleLama]

It's relaxing yourself deep down in your guts.

[songsfortheotherkind]

Posted by PurpleLama (here)
It's relaxing yourself deep down in your guts.

*grins* I happen to suck at that, long term anxiety disorder and other flibble. I'm working on getting better at relaxing (which is a trust thing for me) *and* it's not something I really learn in isolation. Right now I'm leaning into trusting my immediate space and energy, because there's a lot going on that is causing me annoyance in the practical realms. It's all learnin', that's for sure. I'm working on getting my inner voice back on line, it's kind of sucky without it.

[Calz]

Posted by Paul (here)

Posted by jackovesk (here)
Mods could you please consider putting this 'Thread' as a Sticky...

I've never quite known what to make of this thread ... so I tend to just let it be, as is.

... seems to work .

... threadfortheotherkind ...

works for me

[Mike]

Posted by jackovesk (here)
Mods could you please consider putting this 'Thread' as a Sticky...

Thanks for your consideration...

Rgs,

Jack

i thanked this post, though i'm still paranoid that 'ol Jack is making fun of us again.

if you are, good one; if not, that's good too. would be nice if you added your color (pun intended) to the pub.

Jack, you lovely bastard, what say you?

[Mike]

Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)
It feels bad if I constrict, so I'm having to focus on expansion and expansion-

argh, it feels like surrender and I *always* have an issue with that one! lol.

expansion can be frightening, as can surrender. it involves a trust that i'm not sure i possess.

also, and maybe i'm talking outta my ass, but i always feel this sense of impending annihilation when it comes to trusting unknown quantities --i.e., if i accept what's on the other side of that commitment i'll become part of it and lose something of myself, something i won't be able to get back.

this applies in matters of love in particular. if you're vulnerable and highly susceptible to being wounded, as i am, you are fully aware of the consequences of letting go and perhaps getting hurt, hurt in ways that contaminate every cell in your body with an awesome grief, hurt that causes a helplessness in your solar plexus that literally causes one to buckle over in response to the discomfort; hurt that will have ramifications for years, inspiring mental and emotional pathologies that one doesn't even realize one has acquired until many many yrs later.

in other words, falling in love, especially for a neurotic mess such as myself , is, ironically, one of the most dangerous things i can do. and the question becomes: is it worth it? you know intellectually that you lose if you *don't* take that risk, and yet that is still balanced by the danger that one knows exists out there for a hypersensitive, soft-bellied and emotionally distorted individual such as myself.

what to do? what to do?

i'm not even sure where you were going with that Songs, and i'm going to stop now because i've begun to ramble...

i was in love once, many many moons ago, and it ended badly; just heard this song on the radio and it always reminded me of this wonderfully enchanting woman that crushed me so...



https://youtube.com/watch?v=3_AmlbJazok

[Katyani]

This is where I am today.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LMvBAAir4Fw

[Curt]

Hey Songsy,

Here's a silly little thing I wrote a few years back. I hope it gives you a smile and a tickle....

The perfect poem blooms like a rose,
then bowls 300,
all while cracking a walnut
in its gleaming white teeth.
It drinks only caffeinated beverages,
eats Applejax three meals a day
without brushing.
It never washes, yet smells of sun-dried linen.
The perfect poem finds missing persons by reading the seeds
of a pickle, while whistling the opening sequence
to Twin Peaks.
It collects Bavarian beer steins.
It is liked
by children
and animals.
The perfect poem invites you inside,
offers you its very own easy chair,
butters you up a Corn Toasty, and
asks for permission to bed your wife.
It borrows your pen, fires off a suggestion
for a tastier cream cheese,
which it presents to you
like a prescription.
When the perfect poem is done
it darts off into the night,
leaving fleshy, cuddlesome images
in its wake,
followed by a vague feeling of Christmastime,
then the taste of cherry pie.

[Mike]

Posted by CurtisW (here)
Hey Songsy,

Here's a silly little thing I wrote a few years back. I hope it gives you a smile and a tickle....

The perfect poem blooms like a rose,
then bowls 300,
all while cracking a walnut
in its gleaming white teeth.
It drinks only caffeinated beverages,
eats Applejax three meals a day
without brushing.
It never washes, yet smells of sun-dried linen.
The perfect poem finds missing persons by reading the seeds
of a pickle, while whistling the opening sequence
to Twin Peaks.
It collects Bavarian beer steins.
It is liked
by children
and animals.
The perfect poem invites you inside,
offers you its very own easy chair,
butters you up a Corn Toasty, and
asks for permission to bed your wife.
It borrows your pen, fires off a suggestion
for a tastier cream cheese,
which it presents to you
like a prescription.
When the perfect poem is done
it darts off into the night,
leaving fleshy, cuddlesome images
in its wake,
followed by a vague feeling of Christmastime,
then the taste of cherry pie.

awesome Curtis!

truthfully, when i started i was worried for you, thinking this would be a rhyming poem of some sort, one that i would have to thank and pretend to like just because i'm fond of you.

however, i was pleasantly surprised and have already read the thing 3 times and it's frickin great. no pretentious sh!t, no rhymes, no flowery-ness. thanks for sharing it Curtis!

about a yr ago i began writing poems in the style of charles bukowski, simple things that sort of read like short stories more than anything else. i forgot i had them until i checked my 'drafts' a couple weeks ago. though most of them caused me to blush and sweat in embarrassment, i was pleasantly surprised to find a few gems. i may post later if i develop the courage.

[Curt]

Posted by Chinaski (here)

Posted by CurtisW (here)
Hey Songsy,

Here's a silly little thing I wrote a few years back. I hope it gives you a smile and a tickle....

The perfect poem blooms like a rose,
then bowls 300,
all while cracking a walnut
in its gleaming white teeth.
It drinks only caffeinated beverages,
eats Applejax three meals a day
without brushing.
It never washes, yet smells of sun-dried linen.
The perfect poem finds missing persons by reading the seeds
of a pickle, while whistling the opening sequence
to Twin Peaks.
It collects Bavarian beer steins.
It is liked
by children
and animals.
The perfect poem invites you inside,
offers you its very own easy chair,
butters you up a Corn Toasty, and
asks for permission to bed your wife.
It borrows your pen, fires off a suggestion
for a tastier cream cheese,
which it presents to you
like a prescription.
When the perfect poem is done
it darts off into the night,
leaving fleshy, cuddlesome images
in its wake,
followed by a vague feeling of Christmastime,
then the taste of cherry pie.

awesome Curtis!

truthfully, when i started i was worried for you, thinking this would be a rhyming poem of some sort, one that i would have to thank and pretend to like just because i'm fond of you.

however, i was pleasantly surprised and have already read the thing 3 times and it's frickin great. no pretentious sh!t, no rhymes, no flowery-ness. thanks for sharing it Curtis!

about a yr ago i began writing poems in the style of charles bukowski, simple things that sort of read like short stories more than anything else. i forgot i had them until i checked my 'drafts' a couple weeks ago. though most of them caused me to blush and sweat in embarrassment, i was pleasantly surprised to find a few gems. i may post later if i develop the courage.

Thank you Chinaski,

I'm glad you liked it. And I definitely dig Bukowski in a serious way. He's one of the greats. What I love about him is he's got so much great material out there. I haven't even touched 90% of it. I figure if I pace it right, I'll be an old man before I run out of his stuff.

By the way, I'm glad to hear you're writing, man. I knew you would be, somehow, but it's just good to know you've carved out time to do it.

Have you ever read a guy called Richard Brautigan? I read one of his poems in the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and it blew my mind. He's a lot like Buk, but totally with his own style. If you haven't read any of his stuff, google him and read a few things of his and see what you think.

When you've got some material you want to share, as and when you feel like it, I'd definitely be interested to read it, either via PM or here in the Pub.

[another bob]

Posted by Chinaski (here)
falling in love, especially for a neurotic mess such as myself , is, ironically, one of the most dangerous things i can do. and the question becomes: is it worth it?

Don't rob yourself of what you're feeling, but don't hold too tightly to it either.

Abiding at the matrix of perception, the stillpoint where all suns and moons begin and end, stable in the thoughtless state of no anticipation, no regret, gently lift the Bride across the threshold of space and time -- heart steady, yielding, serene.

There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, but quietly unfasten the seven buttons as carefully as the night requires, humbly unveiling an innocence no stain of memory could taint, a presence towards which every creature's face thrusts forward from the same neck in speechless awe.

With senses drenched in the honeycomb nectar cycling as pure luminosity through the limitless space once thought of as this momentary body, it's easy to forget that everything changes.

In the western sky, a scarlet ribbon of vanishing light lingering long after sunset --

these words, and what they try to express, are all timed to the waning of that light, until even the night frogs fall silent in the fading velvet glow.

Some things need to be seen through tears, to finally come clear.

When I fell in love, I knew I was doomed.

The heartbreak of impermanence is always stalking us, testing us with what we can’t imagine living without -- gauging our reaction when it’s taken away.

Standing together in late winter light, she once held me close and whispered true,

“This sunlit moment streaming through is all that’s left of me and you."

[Mike]

Posted by another bob (here)

Posted by Chinaski (here)
falling in love, especially for a neurotic mess such as myself , is, ironically, one of the most dangerous things i can do. and the question becomes: is it worth it?

Don't rob yourself of what you're feeling, but don't hold too tightly to it either.

Abiding at the matrix of perception, the stillpoint where all suns and moons begin and end, stable in the thoughtless state of no anticipation, no regret, gently lift the Bride across the threshold of space and time -- heart steady, yielding, serene.

There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, but quietly unfasten the seven buttons as carefully as the night requires, humbly unveiling an innocence no stain of memory could taint, a presence towards which every creature's face thrusts forward from the same neck in speechless awe.

With senses drenched in the honeycomb nectar cycling as pure luminosity through the limitless space once thought of as this momentary body, it's easy to forget that everything changes.

In the western sky, a scarlet ribbon of vanishing light lingering long after sunset --

these words, and what they try to express, are all timed to the waning of that light, until even the night frogs fall silent in the fading velvet glow.

Some things need to be seen through tears, to finally come clear.

When I fell in love, I knew I was doomed.

The heartbreak of impermanence is always stalking us, testing us with what we can’t imagine living without -- gauging our reaction when it’s taken away.

Standing together in late winter light, she once held me close and whispered true,

“This sunlit moment streaming through is all that’s left of me and you."

that was beautiful Bob. thank you.

this line really stands out for me: 'the heartbreak of impermanence is always stalking us, testing us with what we imagine we can't live without -- gauging our reaction when it's taken away.'

[songsfortheotherkind]

Posted by Chinaski (here)

Posted by songsfortheotherkind (here)
It feels bad if I constrict, so I'm having to focus on expansion and expansion-

argh, it feels like surrender and I *always* have an issue with that one! lol.

expansion can be frightening, as can surrender. it involves a trust that i'm not sure i possess.

also, and maybe i'm talking outta my ass, but i always feel this sense of impending annihilation when it comes to trusting unknown quantities --i.e., if i accept what's on the other side of that commitment i'll become part of it and lose something of myself, something i won't be able to get back.

this applies in matters of love in particular. if you're vulnerable and highly susceptible to being wounded, as i am, you are fully aware of the consequences of letting go and perhaps getting hurt, hurt in ways that contaminate every cell in your body with an awesome grief, hurt that causes a helplessness in your solar plexus that literally causes one to buckle over in response to the discomfort; hurt that will have ramifications for years, inspiring mental and emotional pathologies that one doesn't even realize one has acquired until many many yrs later.

in other words, falling in love, especially for a neurotic mess such as myself , is, ironically, one of the most dangerous things i can do. and the question becomes: is it worth it? you know intellectually that you lose if you *don't* take that risk, and yet that is still balanced by the danger that one knows exists out there for a hypersensitive, soft-bellied and emotionally distorted individual such as myself.

what to do? what to do?

i'm not even sure where you were going with that Songs, and i'm going to stop now because i've begun to ramble...

i was in love once, many many moons ago, and it ended badly; just heard this song on the radio and it always reminded me of this wonderfully enchanting woman that crushed me so...

I'm going to answer this but I'll be moving your words around.

i'm not even sure where you were going with that Songs, and i'm going to stop now because i've begun to ramble...

where you've gone with it works absolutely for me and so I'm now going to go where I'm going to go with it. It's all getting rather Star Trek right now and I'd put in a 'boldly going' gif but I think that will spork my limit. So just mentally insert that picture about ------> here <--------- and we'll continue.

i was in love once, many many moons ago, and it ended badly; just heard this song on the radio and it always reminded me of this wonderfully enchanting woman that crushed me so...

This is going to be the starting point for me. I've been thinking about this a lot, because of something utterly unrelated to the direct experience of loving another: please bear with me while I set up the holograph signal of the ideas I'm transmitting (which is how water creatures like dolphins speak, think freshwater dolphin).

I am currently deliberately working on making my connection to my avatar more fluid: I want to astral travel and OOBE as easily as I did when I was a child and I want to start slipping through the veils at will, with as full a sentient experience-more, actually- as what I have in this one. I also want to be able to shift form as easily as I did when I was playing with the multiple personality structure- it's good for fluidity and opening lots of doorways, not so great in other ways, so I'm looking for another way. It requires a different kind of relationship with the avatar than what I currently have, a relationship which in turn seems to be largely unconscious, habitual, programmed and inherited.

So little of what is lived here is actually conscious. If I look at that, I experience a sense of panic and overwhelm, the idea of being that conscious in a world dedicated to unconsciousness and automatic responses. It's another area that I have to remap, my emotional and physical reaction to actually being here that consciously (based, of course, on things that happened as a kid)- and all of these elements are connected to the experience of 'love'.

My avatar has experienced physical death at least twice as a child: not seconds of it, but minutes of having my heart shocked back into action, machines breathing for me, people yelling in my ear kind of death. I don't have any recall of these experiences but my avatar does and the physical didn't like death at all, so it now does all kinds of unpleasant things when I experiment with the fluidity; I have unpleasant awakenings because it takes me a bit to come fully 'back in', I'm going so far out when I sleep now, and the body needs to freak out about the nebulous contact for ten minutes or so upon waking. It has a story and it's sticking to it.

This solid sticking to story seems to be the way things are done here, for obvious virus based reasons. I've waded through the molasses mentality of the deep virus programming in the past, I'm not going back there: one can't move in the multiverse with the speed and dexterity of an X-wing fighter if one's consciousness is built like a B-52. And people enter into relationships with the consciousness of a B-52, then wonder why they're so clunky, difficult to steer and in a heavy wind make everyone on board feel really ill.

Relationships are not about what matches with the partner you pick, but the woundedness you share: the universe is interested in Beings that can evolve, and Beings who are stuck in old stories can't do that, so the universe has been arranged to provide lessons in whatever is going to move the Being past the stuckness and into expansion and evolution again. That's why that thing happens when you watch someone you know pick the same partner again and again in a different body; same issues, same recycling, same attempt to try and heal the wounds that are holding back the evolution. Most get stuck there; some choose long term celibacy and no relationships, some choose casual or sex only connections that don't engage the emotional realms, some choose serial monogamy, very very few get the idea and work through it.

My first relationship was, I think, the only pure one I ever had and of course we were both so ferociously damaged that it was never going to work. I was just turned 17, he was 19, his name was Gypsy, he'd already spent years in detention first as a ward and then an an inmate for drug related crimes; he was a poet and a dreamer, had a habit of laughing silently with his shoulders shaking and he already knew his heroin addiction was going to kill him. He eventually sent me away because he didn't want me to be the one to find his body and because he'd just fallen foul of a dealer who was threatening to kill him and he didn't want to find *my* body. I was used to being sent away and accepted it.

My next partner was someone I did not love but was friends with; I'd decided I wanted a child and he was happy to oblige because I was clear I wanted to take care of the child my Self. I was working for his parents at their farm and on weekends would go motorbike riding with the local crew, of which he was a part. Things went tits up when I got pregnant- his parents started bleating about how I was just after their crappy dairy farm (there was in actual fact no way in hell I was going to dairy farm for the rest of my life) and in a fit of "I'll show YOU" he walked off the farm and into my flat. I was four months pregnant but, having had some vital part of my "I don't think so" disconnected by being molested from a young age, I had all these weird notions that it would all be ok and he was, after all, not a bad guy. Until a few weeks later when he beat me up for something I'd done he didn't like. I was so afraid he would do something to the baby inside me that I went into deer in headlights mode and stayed that way for nearly 18 months, when he hit our one year old daughter. I snapped out of it then and was gone within days, although it was a difficult process to actually get free of him. During that time he put me in hospital several times, once for a week where I floated in and out of a coma.

I have had six major relationships in my life, including three marriages. In none of them was I ever really conscious, although with Triffid I did think I had more of a clue- and that would be no. I just recently did the same thing again with someone else! And you know what? It was the best thing I could ever have done, because the bullet train evolution I got from it has brought together a whole heap of threads that I didn't think were interconnected.

I wish we had a mindmap facility on this board, it would be much easier to illustrate.

Essentially, the idea that anyone else can hurt me is a myth. The way I hurt me is that I buy into a contorted story about what being with another individual means- and when I stop and really look at that one the whole thing is absolute bollocks. There is never, ever going to be anything truly interesting or useful or wonderful created when I'm looking at someone else's compass and Being instead of my own and that's how we're trained to do relationship here. Clusterf*uck city from waaaaaaay before we've ever entertained the idea of relationships. Then, after the Hulk Smash emotional experience, we then make up a heap of Bluebeard style warning stories to tell ourselves and others about the perils of relationships and the pain that lurks within.

Well, yes, being unconscious does result in pain- if we were this obtuse back in the dinosaur days we'd have been lunch before the curtains opened on the play. There is a mythology that those Beings who were around at the time of the dinosaurs were in a perpetual state of PTSD due to the constant danger, but that's rubbish that is easily disproved by observing those tribes that still live in close contact with the natural world (and thus the natural dangers that go along with that world)- they're *alert* and *conscious* but they don't spend their whole lives jumping at shadows because they know how to put trauma down when it's finished- they don't hold onto things that don't serve them well. Contrast this with the insane meaning making that the so called advanced world creates about everything.

We got hurt because there were things we couldn't see. We see differently now. We can choose what kind of Art we turn that seeing into, with armour and defenses-



or with willingness to stand where it could be scary if I wanted to look at it that way, or it could be wondrous and astounding and just be ok with that



-believe me, I'm really afraid of heights (due to vertigo) *and* I've been afraid of intimacy more. You know what I found at the bottom of my fear of intimacy? A fear of my Self. It's not someone else that can hurt me, it's me, what I *think* about what's happening, the stories I make up about it, the way I take my eyes off my compass and start looking at someone else for my path. I'd been told that all that entanglement crap is connecting and intimacy, blibble blibble, and if I didn't like the entanglement then clearly I had an issue with relationships.

*makes rude blurting noises*

Here's how it is for me now: I'm utterly grateful for the emotional splat I went through recently because I've used it to expand my willingness to connect with my Self- and therefore others- rather than constrict. Instead of adding to my armour I've been discarding it as I'm walking along, moving the pieces around in front of me as I go, holding my shimmering compass in the air in front of me with my mind as I look at the world through its lens and here's what I see: I see relationships as the co-creation between two Artists who live their entire life as their Art.

Triffid is beginning to see that his whole Artistic focus is on his computers and his programming and while this can be a valid choice he's living into a dissonance, because he also thinks he wants me and his family while being prepared to put very very little energy into the latter. He's in the process of working out which is true, which is what the universe provides- the opportunity to evolve, to discover if these ideas we're cruising around with have any basis at all in our conscious mode or if they're just more useless noise. Remember that thing I wrote about the amount of noise individuals are emitting and I can't get a clear signal on anything? Yeah, that.

Two (or more, if you're built like me) Artists that really know how to consciously live into their signal, into the *wholeness* of their Art, know how to craft the elements of their singularity into a co-creation: everyone else is in the process of learning what exactly their signal is about. For some, this is a lifelong effort. Others are more interested in deeper expressions and discovery.

So for me, this all comes full circle: my willingness to gently ungrip the avatar's hold on me and show it that death is not the idea behind what I'm doing, my willingness to ungrip the virus based programming off my consciousness and embrace expansion, my willingness to discard my armours and fortresses based on the ideas of defending my Self against yet another idea about getting hurt and to become more Dr Manhattan about things, which is why he was portrayed naked; no defenses because he didn't need them.

My horns are not defense mechanisms- boundary tools, maybe, because sometimes that's necessary, but not defenses; if I'm in a situation where I need to defend my Self then I've already cocked up somewhere way earlier in the backstory. I haven't paid attention to my compass so I've let *something* slide, I've let something important go and told my Self some fleeting rationalisation to cover it up.

Bullsh!t, bullsh!t, bullsh!t- any violation of my signal that I do to me Self is important. So we do that do our Selves all the time-



we create these little stories to cover over what we're really doing, and we feed our little monster drops of our own blood, our little self sacrifices, and rationalise to ourselves about how this is ok, that's what relationships take, and they're all about compromise and understanding: and then



it's the huge flesh eating plant that is yelling at us from the corner to be fed another body part and we're initially forced to either feed it greater chunks of Self or find it fresh victims- so we begin to feed it bits of our partners because there's only so much Self we're prepared to lose. Eventually it's not prepared to be satisfied with just body parts and one way or the other we have to feed it the whole story



and then we eventually end up having to kill the whole plant before it eats us entirely. So we go through that horrendous ordeal, with blood and screaming and gut wrenching whatever, and we crawl away to heal the wounds and repair the damage. After awhile we forget that we created the festering little bastard plant in the first place and we do it again, with variations on the first bloodcurdling/heartsquishing/mindsporking experience, until after awhile we experience relationships as

GODZILLA SIZED MAN EATING PLANTS



and for some individuals, this really works in a kind of



SPARRRRRRRRRTAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

sort of way, in which case no matter who wins, the relationship loses, while for others the story of relationships becomes one of



and any discussion of such revolves around variations on a theme of

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ddUotyR3WEA

and the entire lot is utter fiction, created by fiction that is built on fiction and fed by fiction.

I was so wrapped up in it all that I needed a slice of lemon around a gold brick moment and I certainly got one. Now, instead of armouring my Self, I'm opening my arms and laughing at the freedom to connect and engage and explore intimacy without fear because there's nothing in me *to* fear: if someone doesn't want me it's doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me, it just means that our Art doesn't match and this is a good thing to know, because I want to hang out with those who want to play in the same realms that I do, who want to hold our various compasses up together and be amazed and engaged with what that creates, not those who see the differences and co-creations as a threat or an attack.

I'm falling in love again with me and really it's nobody's business if they don't like my first choice of partner: for those that do, it's going to be a fun and awesome play space and for those that don't, hey, no worries, it doesn't mean their judgements about have any relevance in my life, they're talking about what's relevant to them- things only get bent when individuals start thinking that I'm supposed to take on *their* stuff, or I'm thinking they're supposed to take on mine.

Where it actually works is everyone holding up their own compass and we run around together being intrigued and excited by the new patterns and possibilities created, co-creating something together like really little kids do when they're playing.

All my defenses have resulted in nothing but worlds of goo and bleccch and OMFG my EYE!!, it seems to me. I've left the fancy armour somewhere down the road behind me and I figure as long as I'm looking at my own compass and am hanging out with others that like the cut of my jib and I like theirs and we're all happy giggling in the rigging (and other things heh heh), I'm going to have a great deal of fun with my Shine hoisted high on the mast and my heart flying fearlessly on the wind.

also, and maybe i'm talking outta my ass, but i always feel this sense of impending annihilation when it comes to trusting unknown quantities --i.e., if i accept what's on the other side of that commitment i'll become part of it and lose something of myself, something i won't be able to get back.

*points to glittering red boots, grinning* See? I carry Home with me everywhere I go, there's nowhere else to be. What is commitment anyway? To me. it's the decision to constantly consider the other when choice points come- most consider commitment to be like some of toxic superglue, but I've only found it ick when I've discovered the other individual is engaged in an entirely different hologram to what I am.

I used to get all kinds of bent about that. I don't now, because that gets me onto *their* platform, which means I'm off mine and then I don't have a clue what I'm doing- what the hell do I know about *their* compass? So if I stay with mine, which is pretty awesome and expansive because that's who I actually am, I can't a) ever get dragged into anything I don't agree to and b) I won't lose anything I don't want to lose, it's impossible: if I experience 'loss of trust' it's me I've bolloxed with and I've taken my eyes off my compass somewhere, which means getting back on track and continuing.

I don't have to trust anyone else, it's *me* I need to trust. So then no trust issues with others, ta-dah! I'm responsible for my experience, not them. *snoopy dance* Which means if I don't like how things are going, it's my own arse I get to kick! And that's excellent, because it's always within kicking distance, heh heh.

I'm not precious about my Self in terms of evolution- I won't buy something just because someone else is saying it and if I find it has merit I'll happily take it up and add it to my jaunty outfit; I'm looking for others who function the same way, who don't construe me because at some point i agreed with something they observed about me so that means *everything* they see about me is 'right' and I'm in denial if I don't immediately agree with them and all that other distorted rubbish individuals have tried to push at me under the guise of relationship.

I have a fundamentally sincere nature, I'm not interested in manipulation and mindf*uck, I'll be as honest as I can in every situation and I'm not afraid to learn and evolve- more than that, it's a moment by moment thing and I'll see what unfolds with a big cheesy grin because I actually like who I am and I know I'm generally motivated by positive desires and frequencies. If others want to freak out about that, who am I to argue with them? Arguing with others about how they're perceiving me is an unpleasant experience, so I'm not going to do it. Thus, avoiding pain is entirely dependent on the quality of Being I choose to engage with! Again, I have control over this! Ah, the simplicity- if I am being driven into the ground by the choices I make in lover or companion or friend, perhaps it would behoove me to make other choices? I can definitely choose what experience I'm having, I can choose in what way love arises in my life because I can choose to go with it or not based on the lessons it's offering, I can choose what it is that I want to experience by being conscious about what I'm doing. It's all about gifting my Self the space to stop and be conscious and to check my compass against the virus inspired insanity that will happily drive me if I don't pay attention: someone can come along and have all the old markers of what 'love' used to be and if I don't want to engage in that anymore then I won't. Love, my experience and expression of love, is created within *me* first, it doesn't arise from within a vacuum.

*hugs you, laughing* I'm so glad you gave me something to answer, because the Art I've created in me in this moment delights me no end and I'm having a real Shine moment, standing beneath a waterfall of glimmer and signal. Love is most definitely not something I fear anymore, this much I see.