Today I reflected upon how much I genuinely and consistently love working with one of the teams I get to volunteer with this year. Realizing that it is only twice in my life that I have experienced a level of consistent joy and delight in working as a team: once when volunteering in Bangkok and right now with my colleagues at Why Not Integration.

Both have 3 marked and important-to-me aspects about them: 

1. The causes or goals which unite us are social and have a clear humanistic foundation.

2. The teams are not only diverse in terms of ethnicity but also made up of people who live inter-culturality (thanks to years of residency in one or several countries outside of their home land).

3. There is a playful and compassionate way of engaging and working with each other.

The latter being one of the most fundamental reasons I struggled when I returned to Hamburg and felt the loss of that treasure. Being surrounded by people who share a lived experience, or at best an embodied experience, of inter-culturality has been one of the greatest and healing gifts my Bangkok years bestowed upon me. To be without has been painful and drained much of the color and joy out of life for me. Not because anything about my German friends is lacking but because it nurtures my being to *also* be surrounded by people who share this qualitative experience and engage with it with playful awareness. And no, this isn’t limited to people of my skin color or ancestral heritage.

What a joy to enter, weave and co-create spaces and communities, which are built on these deliciously generative qualities and delight in the way ’my people’ come alive and sparkle with inspiration and kindness in them. It constitutes a another kind of sweet home coming to my home city and keeps giving me life and fuels my passions with a welcome sustainability. Which is why my nomad soul has settled happily in being here.

With deep gratitude for the way life keeps unfolding for and through my being. 

Photography by Alisa Suwanrumpha for Santa Cause 2014, Bangkok

The post Teams appeared first on Venuskind.

Your visit promised disruptions and changes but I would have never known how profound they would be. What is more I could never have foreseen or dreamt how much better, happier, more whole, at peace and vibrant your lessons would make me.

And so I am bowing in gratitude

for gentleness and support wherever needed,

for making me experience and own more of my strength,

for a stronger foundation of trust in the goodness of the universe,

for a changed perception of self,

for more confidence and equanimity,

for the deepening of self compassion and love,

for teaching me to be a good and consistent caretaker of my body and health,

for changing my relationship with money,

for teaching me to set and assert healthy boundaries,

for teaching my protective parts to surrender to Self-leadership,

for leading me into healthy forms of community,

for honing my intuitive knowing,

for demanding I declutter my relationships and heal my relational system,

for teaching me to dance more gracefully and joyfully with the distortions of everyday life,

and most of all for teaching me to anchor in bliss and joy regardless of outer circumstances!

I am almost sad to see you leave now that I have attuned to your sparkling and disruptive energy but I wouldn’t want to keep your blessings from anyone else.

May you bless Gemini kin, and all others, as you transit their sign transforming them and their energetic set points in preparation of yet unwritten chapters of human history.

May we stay aware and walk our unique Soul paths with grace and ease as you keep remaking the world in and around us.

Blessed be.

The post Uranus appeared first on Venuskind.

Though not having been totally isolated from socializing, my past years have been spent in a calming and healing retreat by keeping my circle small and interactions with strangers transient, short and sweet. In the past six months I have been following the call of my Soul to engage more with others locally, invest my time and energy in exploring spaces of community and service.

One of the surprising insights was how comparatively easy it was to handle the rise in energy expenditure and that I managed to stay mindful of my boundaries and needs throughout most of it. It was quite challenging to step back into the intensity of contrast that a multitude of consciousness level gift us with. Which deepened my gratitude for the privilege of having been granted the privilege of engaging with a beautiful group of Souls who afforded me diversity without the burden of low vibrational drama while I focused on integration and healing. 

Towards the end of this cycle of tinkering with engagement in various communities I found my awareness being drawn to prune and purge until only that which felt aligned and life-affirming remained. Inducing me to walk away from things lacking in integrity and a healthy flow, from people with whom I did not want to work anymore, from relating that was too draining and of little benefit.

I am grateful for the shift in energy that brought a lot of novelty, movement, community and joy into my experience. Though only few external changes would be visible or accessible to another, my life feels completely changed and transformed. The one I was just months ago would be surprised at what I have done, achieved, learned, discerned, the clarity gained and the state of being I get to savor today. 

I release some of the things I welcomed into my life with my heartfelt gratitude for the joy, experiences, lessons and growth they afforded me and hold on with gratitude to the things that have enhanced my wellbeing and brought local community back into my life. My awareness is gently focused on the path that is calling me and revealing my next steps and challenges as I walk it in trust and playful glee.

The veils that had shrouded my vision have been lifted, and I am patiently attuning to the new melody weaving itself into the symphony of my Soul and embodiment. The past decades have sensitized me to the subtleties and delights of moments of transition, the complexities of infinite threads being in the flux reweaving and reconnecting within the All That Is as we collectively evolve and embody new and expanded expressions of consciousness.

This new melody necessitates new levels and acuteness of discernment to uphold a new vibrational harmony and protect it from falling into a less helpful or even harmful dissonance. A knowing and acceptance of new boundaries and a call for higher integrity and accountability towards my Soul and the service to Life I came here for. An easing away from attachments to individual needs towards flowing in harmony with the flow of the field and Soul community I am meant to serve and evolve with. 

Old storylines and narratives have been illuminated to make their emptiness and lower consciousness limits visible, old dreams and desires are losing their shine and attraction. I learned that some people come into my life to help me see that a dream has served its role and needs to be buried. Buried so that it can fertilize the field from which a higher dream may arise and manifest in harmony with who I am becoming.  

I know that the way I live my life now must feel callous, cold-hearted, or unloving to those whose path is one that is beholden to the phenomenal world and reductionistic narratives. And I accept their perceptions, judgements, and vitriol as par for the course. An invitation to lean more into the teachings of the void and formlessness to help this body weather the contrast triggered by disappointing other’s expectations rooted in old paradigm storylines. But I cannot return to living such a small, limited, and painful life as I used to live while living in the old stories, my being longs for the freedom, spaciousness, subtle luminosity of emergent storylines and the co-creative play of presence.

My Soul longs to repose with others primarily in fields of aware ease and grace, with honesty, compassion, care and infinite love for the mystery of life. Where the playing out of unconscious archetypal scripts through egos in their grandeur and victimhood are minimal and can be observed, known, and laughed about by all. And yet I know we live on a planet where the majority lives deeply entrenched in the death culture arising from separation consciousness, domination and exploitation systems, and trauma-fueled unconsciousness. Which is why I make space for engagements on other dimensions of consciousness, offering a shoulder to lean on, a few uplifting words, gentle invitations to awakening and small ways of alleviating suffering where possible. 

Knowing that being embodied comes with the limits of the state of our nervous system and physical resources, I choose to be a loving steward of my body by honoring her boundaries and limits as to what I can expose myself to and what needs to be avoided. It is a strangely messy and beautiful dance to be consciousness embodied as a human.

What a joyous and expansive new field of experiences my being has been guided towards. 

With thanks for the abundance I get to experience, the beauty of the beings I get to witness and support, the insights and expansions I get to have and the deepening of trust and surrender I am savoring.  

Art by RoseloverStudio

The post Retrospection appeared first on Venuskind.

The winter solstice illuminated a vast shift in my energy, which ripped through some veils of perception that had been created by childhood adversity and survival strategies of my psyche. The shift in perception and the fact that several aspects of my being were activated and fueled by this new energy let me enter the new year as a new me.

New in the way I perceive, value, discern, choose, act, and express my being. So in fact this year ‘New Year, New Me’ is not a statement of an intent or goal but an observation of my current reality.

One of the most fascinating moments in learning about this new way of being had to be the moment my more machiavellian parts and Self energy agreed on a strategy, though from wildly differing perspectives. Which amuses me and makes this new chapter of life even more intriguing and a source of daily delight.

Old iterations of me would have handled ending connections which I realized had been underwhelming, disloyal, and unworthy of my time and energy in a decidedly different way. None of them would have gone over without an undercurrent of resentment, desire for justice, and anger of varying degrees. And I would have had a hard time holding back from giving them a piece of my observations and judgements of their behaviors. 

New me, couldn’t care less about them and how they showed up. She zeroed in on my part in the dynamics that led up to this point of realization:

Why did I blind myself to the truth of the relationship dynamics and the person? What part of me, and beliefs I hold, drive that kind of behavior? How do I make sure this doesn’t ever happen again? What need did I try to meet by holding on to mediocrity or unloving dynamics? How can I redirect inner currents of energy and awareness to fulfill the need and avoid self-harming by holding on to the wrong energies and people?

And when it came to ending the connections new me chose to take the higher road of communicating my desire to end the connection without going into the reasons beyond pointing out that our paths are diverging or our definitions of the relationship or desires for it are not aligned. Which, in the past, would have incensed my darker aspects and protectors who would have wanted things to be communicated with the sharp edged words of a queen of swords to cut at the lies, illusions, and BS experienced in the connection. 

The new way of being has no need for another to understand and share my perceptions of the past, nor do my perceptions matter as much. There is no need to express how parts of me recoiled, lost respect, or feel utter speechlessness at the way the other showed up. That is only of interest in introspection and as a means of learning about where my work lies and which boundaries I need to honor better in times to come. It is considered feedback for further inquiry, not some sort of sacred truth to be upheld.

Once I realize that someone’s time in my life has run out they no longer need an insight into my perceptions or reflections – they would probably neither understand nor respect them anyway. Only when intuition or spirit nudge me to share will I invest energy in the emotional labor of sharing and entering an exchange with another, otherwise I see it as a waste of time and energy for both that is bound to create more distortions and harm. A futile expenditure of precious life energy by a hurt ego or mind, which only perpetuates the dysfunctionality of the dynamics observed. When I am called to share it is because shared growth or transcendence are possible but if the nudge is absent it is a sign of the pointlessness of such an attempt.

Interestingly and surprisingly my machiavellian aspects agreed to the way of detaching the Self energy chose. When I inquired into their acceptance they shared their reasoning as follows: My non-combative, gracious, yet firm exit opens the gateway for their mind to offer up potential reasons why I may have chosen to let them go. And their mind would go to explanations that would sting and hurt them more deeply than my words, or truths, could ever have. Which makes me chuckle and shake my head while celebrating that they won’t sabotage or rail against the higher road, even if their reasons are less luminous.

I am enjoying the new playful spaciousness in which my inner tribe of parts are being united and led by Self energy with little to no friction. A spaciousness that allows for all parts to be who they are, express their needs and thoughts while trusting that the Self will not only consider them but meet them in the most surprising and nourishing ways. There is less to no internal judgement, and wherever it comes up it too can be integrated in the spaciousness while making all parts feel safe, heard, and cared for.

It is a magical paradox to be more open, and therefore more vulnerable, and yet be more resilient. Hello antifragility!

Well met, new me, I cannot wait to see what else you will be teaching me about existence!

Photography by Unknown

The post New Year, New Me appeared first on Venuskind.

And yet in its disruptive, and expressly impermanent, nature it has rooted me more deeply into earthy qualities like grounding, stability, fertility, abundance, nurturing, and more. 

Home

In looking back on the lessons and challenges I faced, the overarching themes can be subsumed under:

• Close relationships as a form of home for the heart.
• The body as the vessel and home of all experiences.
• The land, and city, I live in as a home to being.
• Nature as home to the body and human consciousness.
• Community as a home of sharing life and reciprocal care, support, nurturance, and delight.

I was called to look closely at my experiences and how they made all layers of my being respond, feel and think. In contemplations I was made aware of how I allowed, enabled, or invited unhappiness, imbalances, and disease into my homes. Fueled by self compassion and love the Self energy began to correct and calibrate perceptions, approaches, habits, and thinking for better alignment and healing.

A new multidimensional definition of home blossomed in my awareness allowing my body to release tensions and stuck energy held around it. My new understanding/sense of home is less sticky, attached, and emotionally charged than earlier versions have been. 

Anchoring the perceptive vantage point in the formless field of consciousness allows me to perceive everything and anything vibrate with some degree of frequency of home. From that point I no longer attempt to connection and get a sense of home ‘human to human/matter’ but connect on the energetic and spiritual dimension – where oneness is an eternal reality. In keeping my inner gaze fixed on the energetic/spiritual dimension of oneness my heart is held in a field of interconnection, love, and benevolence – regardless of outer circumstances. Which teaches it to let go of looking for connection on dimensions fraught with lack and volatility.

I no longer *need* people, places, or my body to show up in a certain way to feel secure, safe, connected, heard, loved, etc. and instead live from a knowing of safety, connection, unconditional love, being valued, and so on. Which allows me to engage with all kinds of people and places as expressions of the one from a sense of wonderment, and little fragility or dysregulation around how they show up. 

Once the human need for safety is fulfilled it is easy to get into playful exploration of the possibilities that open up with this inner shift: How can I connect to this land and city in new ways? What will I see and experience when I tune my energetic resonance with it? 

And with these recalibrations of my energy and mind old blockages melt out of the way, letting in more insights, joy, delight, and a pervasive belonging that spans all dimensions of being – mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. Gone is the density and heaviness that underlay experiences as more lightness and luminosity flow through these experiences making may for more diverse and colorful moments of connection and belonging.

With the shifts and changes happening internally I find myself in a wholly new home in terms of body, relationships, land, community, and nature… without having moved or changed much on the external. Whatever changes happened in the external have only been in response to inner changes, not their cause.

My energetic base tone in engaging with life had been set for a couple of years to yin (receptive, inward) while my yang (directive, outward) energy was cleansed from overlays of conditioning. This year I felt the shift to a balance of yin and yang. And what a delight it was to be in yang energy again and experience how easily I could shift out of it and back again, how well both energy played with each other now. 

Insights and Lessons 

Through dancing with the above themes I have gained new insights into my workings, capabilities, limitations, boundaries, preferences, and tinkered with more sources of joy and contentment. 

Here are some of the insights and lessons this year gifted me:

Life

The incredible, spaciousness, ease, and bliss that are born of surrendering to reality as it is and trusting life implicitly.

To embrace the fundamental role of impermanence in life, to integrate it into my thinking, planning, and engagement with life.

To concurrently perceive from eyes of consciousness and eyes of humanness.

To focus on the blessing, gift, and benefit in sudden shift or changes, and release attachments to outcomes trust life.

To see, acknowledge, and appreciate the beauty in all experiences beyond mental judgements of good or bad, aligned or unaligned.

To keep flooding my being with beauty and heartful experiences to anchor and nurture awe, gratitude, and playfulness into my current vibrational set point.

To practice doing hard things.

Relationships

To engage with life from an expanded self value/ self love – as I value myself more things are rearranging to either level up with me or move out of my experience if they cannot. 

To set strong, intentional, and conscious boundaries. 

It is OK to bow out of a relationship or friendship when the other is traumatized to a degree that is beyond what I am willing, or able, to hold space for. 

To release connections, which are dear to me thanks to history shared, when they have persistently lacked attunement, reciprocity, or vibrancy. Focusing especially on ‘legacy’ male friendships which do not meet even the most basic standards of relating.

That it is not only possible to end a connection in ‘incompleteness’ but to derive sweetness from the process even if tinged with bitter or sad notes here or there.

My aligned and healthy relationships have a new quality of tenderness, openness, and playful exploration that gives rise to sweetness and deeper intimacy my heart relishes.

Self

To embody more responsibility for my experience and being, and decisively act as my advocate, caretaker, cheerleader, and handy woman.

What a good caretaker I am for myself, while also being present for beloveds.

How lovely it can feel to acknowledge ‘not knowing’ and let others take the lead in their expertise. Receptivity is a gateway of nourishment to my being.

My ability to stand in the ‘fire’ of emotional flashbacks and remain open hearted and compassionate with self and other has expanded beyond what I thought was possible for me.

The joy in witnessing and being present sans any, however subtle, attempts at controlling the situation.

How good I am at standing up for myself, making my needs and boundaries clear, so clear I rarely need to enforce them. (Though there still is a part of me that is ready to fight for it with almost any means necessary if the boundaries are crossed)

There are some areas where I slacked off, turned a blind eye, to not being in full integrity with Self. An invitation to come back into integrity and holding myself accountable and to be less indulgent as my inner tribe growth and strengthens.

That I still underestimate my abilities and worth, just to be surprised and proven wrong by the way I keep showing up.

To listen more closely to the wisdom of my body – following it as trustingly as I do my inner guidance system and to curb the mind’s habit of second guessing her.

When I calmly surrender to an unexpected change or plot twist, focus on why it may be better and what blessings and possibilities it might bring with it, and adapt my plans and activities to it, life meets me with unexpected gifts and manifestations of wishes that are supportive to this new trajectory.

Love helps me meet challenges in ways that are gentle on my being and allow for more growth and integration than else wise.

Closing 2023

With the solstice a new year and energetic slip-stream began calling to my being to attune to a new year and reality and I feel excitement as more and more spiritual fire flows through my being. I am at peace with 2023 and can let it go graciously and gratefully. Honoring it as the year that taught me about home, integrity, and accountability where I had been lacking in it.

And so I close out this year in humbling awe of the great teacher and in amazement of the infinite ways we can experience a moment or life. I bow in gratitude to Self and Source for all the love and support along these winding and heart-wrenching moments. 

My heart is full with gratitude for family and friends who journey and share this wondersome life with me, and gratitude for those who no longer walk by my side as they have left this plane or my experience. I know this year would have been a lot harder without having my soul tribe and beloveds to lean on.

I am especially mindful of and grateful to my body for her poise, wisdom, and guidance along a path of facing off with the specters of death and mutilation. I bow to my body for her strength and indomitable alignment with Spirit throughout it all, for choosing healing and thriving over resignation and surrender to others beliefs.

This has been an important and hard year in my journey and I am grateful for the privilege of living and experiencing it.

Art ‘ensorcell’ by Joshua Mays

The post Things 2023 Taught and Gifted Me appeared first on Venuskind.

Illness, especially one that is connected with a potential for death, has a way of triggering existential fears. Fears as old as our ancestral lineages, fears embedded in every cell of the body, fears arising from a lack of knowing and trust in true nature. One of these fears is fear of death, the fear that still holds the majority of humanity in its stranglehold. Another fear is the fear of mutilation and/or disability. Both fears are worthy challenges to the mind as it faces its extinction or diminishment in them. 

To a mystic or conscious person who has walked a spiritual path to some depth death no longer has a paralyzing or irrationalizing effect as my perception of it has transformed. In my experience death has been illumined by the light of consciousness to reveal its true nature of a liberator and gracious energetic gateway that transports us to the next dimension of this journey. Due to that I do not fear but actually welcome death, whenever it may come. I love life and the experiences I have in this current embodied form but have no desire to resist my Soul’s call to move on. I deeply trust and know that whatever happens is for my benefit, even if that benefit cannot be fathomed initially it has always revealed itself in time.

The challenge I faced was to dance with the fear of disability and mutilation. To observe compassionately how deeply ingrained it is in the body, to listen to the body and discern its voice of wisdom from its voice of fear. To hold the fearful part with love while using knowledge and conscious knowing to entrain trust and surrender to life. And do all that while navigating everyday life, decisions about next steps that are true to my being, and other people’s opinions, mindsets, and energies externally.

A rewarding challenge, which once again left me in awe as to the strength that is available to me when I meet life head on and anchored in present awareness. Something of a milestone as I observed myself interweaving seriousness and clarity with playful awareness of a larger picture to life, which made it all feel lighter and at times even magical.

Towards the end of my journey, along the standardized path doctors prefer, I heard the call arising from my body and knowing to veer back onto a purely Self directed path. Which meant making choices that the doctors would not like or understand. And I felt genuine compassion for them, trying to make it easy on them to accept my choices by underlining that I take full responsibility for my life and choices and free them from any responsibility of their consequences. On the other hand I offered to keep them in the loop with a view to upcoming test results and developments.

And this is where I realized that the path of the Self I am called to walk is a high stake gamble to those who live from a cosmology of separation consciousness and total identification with the body. My choices induce fear in them while they feel empowering and aligned to me. In my cosmology of oneness and centering true nature beyond the body, what I am called to do feels like sidestepping the pull of distortion and inner dissonance to step back into the slip-stream of consciousness and the ease of its harmonious flow.

It is an invitation to understand health as consisting of two seemingly contradictory realities, who are one nonetheless. Like the seeming contraction of Quantum Physics and Newtonian Physics, there are different rules and systems at work in our body and *all* have to be honored where they apply.

My body and intuition have been in alignment with the first recommended treatments, which surprised and intrigued me. And which is why I wholeheartedly embraced these treatments and immersed myself in receptivity to the goodness that came with it. 

Then my body and intuition signaled that we are done walking this path and another is needed to integrate and heal fully. 

The inner guidance system has been leading me to delve into more research on current medical knowledge, insights, and research and concurrently synchronistically lead me towards the path that is mine to walk. I have opened myself to feel as fully as I can, to allow all voices within me to speak and know they will be heard, to take a lot of alone time to contemplate and digest it all, and lastly keep asking my intuition for guidance and clarity.

In hindsight the contours of a subtle lesson begin to take a fascinating form. What I have been guided to do was moving between two dimensions of consciousness on all dimensions of experience (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual) and to know their oneness in the process. Knowing them as one heals any rifts, or resistances, that arise from separation consciousness which lies at the core of dis-ease of the body and loss of wellbeing.

Now I am focused on Self healing, which to me means letting the Self heal all that disrupts the health of the body and bring it back into balance wherever it has been out of balance. Addressing all layers ( trauma, metabolic, genetic) with an energetic, nutritional, lifestyle, and consciousness approach beyond words. 

I know that fasting, be it in the form of intermittent fasting or 3 day water fasts will be part of the next step as is the focus on creating a state of hyper nutrition for the body. Though usually meant in a nutritional sense, I got the nudge that it applies to all layers of experience, which need to be intentionally curated to be extra nurturing and abundant in goodness. This is how my body wants to be supported in healing itself and that is what I shall do to the best of my abilities. 

And of course I will be making sure to be seen and tested by my doctors. Thankfully I have doctors who support this journey and will keep an eye on my health and provide helpful nudges and recommendations where necessary. It is a privilege, and the result of a lot of self work, that I get to be supported on all dimensions of health and healing.

Not many will understand, nor concur with, what I am pointing to in my reflections. As what I am pointing to is hard to verbalize and be understood purely rationally but easy to be known, sensed, and felt. I trust those who are ready or need to will resonate with it and be led inwards towards new insights and clarity on their experiences and perceptions of health.

Life is more complex than our current human knowledge, as expansive as it is, can quite grasp nor explain. We do our best with what we have, and sometimes our knowledge holders forget to be mindful of the not-knowing that parallels each knowledge they have gained. And from that forgetfulness of the gatekeepers of knowledge many of us derive misperceptions of reality, or assume limits to our possibilities that are born of fear and a lack of knowledge and understanding. It is human and understandable, but we no longer need to be beholden to such ignorance. 

When we shine the light of consciousness on current knowledge we allow consciousness to gift us knowing, knowing beyond human horizons and in service of life. There are more ways of knowing existence than our reductionist western conditioning acknowledges or values, nonetheless they are as valuable and trustworthy when used discerningly and applied where they are most useful. Just like a hammer cannot do a screw-drivers work ,nor vice versa, forms of knowledge and knowing have their time and space where they shine or fail.

Keep inquiring into your guidance systems, keep feeding your mind knowledge from all sources, dare to hold contradicting theories and ideas, and let that wise inner voice direct you to what is true to your path.

Let us never cease praising the treasures we are gifted by the great Beloved as we surrender to life.

Blessed be fellow journeyers of the mystical path.

Photography by Unknown

The post Health Lessons appeared first on Venuskind.

Safety has for the longest time been on the forefront of my mind, though it referred to physical safety from potential harm through violence. But that attachment and focus born out of a protective hyper-vigilance ended years ago. Thankfully. 

Emotional safety was something I did not actively and consciously look for, as I had rarely experienced it consistently nor (un)consciously believed it could be a ‘normal’ to strive for. Predominantly experiencing emotionally volatile and often unsafe relating  had impressed on me the importance to get better at protecting myself, at taking hits, and fighting more effectively. Habituating me in time to facing high level of distorted and combative energies without even giving myself the opportunity of exiting or becoming skillful at averting them. Awareness of the cost of such energies to my mental and physical health and growing self compassion have motivated me to focus more on listening to my body’s feedback, and being gentle with myself and others while moving away from such dynamics. Yet having gone through countless experiences of unsafe emotional relating has had an interesting side-effect: the knowing that I can and will not only survive but also use it for my growth. 

My focus is not on emotional safety because I know from experience that disruptions are sometimes necessary to break me out of entrenched patterns and therefore gifts of healing and growth, when received appropriately. And I am aware what a privilege it is to be able to say that emotional safety is no longer the focal point of awareness to me. It also means that I have reclaimed enough internal balance, integration, and harmony to focus on more subtle and creative aspects of relating. 

These days my measure and focus for the kind of relating I desire to co-create, experience more, and which is my current growth edge, is sweetness. Sweetness, not in the sense of the saccharine artifice many mistake for it or try to present but as a quality arising within me in certain relational moments or in connections. 

Sweetness is a softness of spirit, fragrant and sweet to the heart and being, it symbolizes to me a drinking of ambrosia from my own cup. Sweetness can have incredibly healing, nourishing, grounding as well as liberating and inspiring effects on mind and body. There is a shimmering warmth and timeless quality to her. An experience of being without or few overlays of persona and conditioning, where spaciousness is equally present as is a sense of being held in (a welcome) containment. 

Sweetness is a state where oneness and being an individual co-exist in awareness. And from this awareness and fascinating embodied experience the self expression, energy, and needs of an ‘other’ are perceived with awe, embraced, and met in a spirit of loving generosity.

Being met with sweetness in another when I feel distress or dysregulated is still an incredibly magical and tangibly transformative experience to my system. Some aspects of me still need time and a slower pace to allow it in as the specters of facsimiles of sweetness and their poisonous sting are still very present to them. It is lovely to observe them allow it in with more and more trust, as they remember the delight they feel at being met by sweetness from the Self. It is one of the most precious gifts of love the Self offers aspects/parts/exiles/shadow. 

There is no judgement, hierarchy, or harshly contrasting duality in sweetness’ golden shimmering luminosity. Sweetness is a healing salve to wounds of separation (abandonment, rejection, neglect) and disablingly stuck emotions (shame, guilt, fear), a healing frequency emitting ceaselessly towards the inner tribe, an invitation to attune and thrive in the harmonious and joyful resonance it co-creates with them. 

Sweetness does not need the other to be a certain way, she might offer other perspective vantage points as a gift of her spaciousness and to support an easing of contractions and tensions held in the other. Sweetness is effortlessly giving with his warm conscious gaze and welcoming embrace to all that arises and is present. 

Sweetness embraces all things, knows them to to be the One in the many, and honors everything and its role in the unfolding of reality.

Sweetness is the gateway to novel relational co-creative explorations I am open and drawn towards in all relationships. A gateway to walking and exploring unknown lands as the trusting and playful golden children we truly are at heart. 

Safety is a given, when sweetness is present.

Photography: ‘Father and Son’  by Steve McCurry (1980)

The post From Safety to Sweetness appeared first on Venuskind.

I am becoming gratefully aware how blessed I have been in my life to have preserved and protected the fertility of my inner landscapes and to be surrounded with glorious gardeners of their inner scapes. Not only glorious in their landscaping but also as knowledgable guides and co-adventurers in exploring their and my inner world. 

Thankful for friends, soul kin, and select family members, who generously shared of themselves and their rich inner lives and magical lands. For loving beings generous in their heart’s flow of emotional and affective energy, who express words of affirmation and appreciation with ease and grace.

Living in this abundance and free-flow blinded me to the degree of importance and value which words of affirmation and an unencumbered flow of emotional energy, self revelations, and sharing hold for my wellbeing. And it is in their absence or stark limitation that I realized more about my state and deeper needs for emotional fulfillment and wellbeing.

Holding space for an ever expanding silence in relating, for cumulating reductions or cessation of emotional flow, I experimented with my nervous system and its ability to adapt to a state that was akin to what wounded the child I once was. And to my delight I realized that I can handle this silence, which once would have triggered abject existential fears of abandonment, and be with myself with love and nurturance. An unexpectedly great opportunity to teach my inner child that I am stronger and more capable today and no longer need to fear these experiences.

Once these lessons were learned and the child adapted to this new self state my thoughts turned to the question if I am willing to be in relationships with a minimal and controlled flow of emotional and verbal connection.

I could balance the lack by anchoring deeper into inner abundant flows and by releasing the wish for another to share the opulence and abundance I have cultivated and am habituated to share. It could be an interesting way of relating that may show me colors and textures never gleaned before, which would be a lovely gift.

Inquiring into my heart I felt a deep sadness and feeling of lack which drained it from being the vibrant and joyful portal it usually is. Making it clear that my heart NEEDS to be in a free flow of emotional, spiritual , physical and mental energy to feel balanced and thrive. It has lived through so much neglect and scarcity in the first half of my life that it doesn’t deserve to enter that field of suffering again. My heart deserves to thrive in the love and flow we have created within and cultivated with other aligned souls.

I am very protective of the wounded aspects in me after having unconsciously abandoned them for way too long. I promised myself to be a loving mother, father, protector and guide to all of myself, no matter how hard it may be or how others might feel about it. I will no longer abandon or neglect myself for another’s comfort or wellbeing.

Sadly there are barren landscapes in others, forbidding and reduced to stark rock and ice formations, which induce in me a deep sadness at the intensity of isolation and painful feelings of coldness. They may be not of their (conscious) making yet these can be weaponized and deployed against others who ‘dare’ to seek connection, intimacy or closeness. And regardless if these patterns play out consciously or unconscious they rarely miss their mark and hurt an open heart, especially one that has been traumatized with the same tools of unlove in its early years.

No matter how much I love you I will not allow my heart to be cut by your unconscious icy landscapes, which is why I will boundary up and step away from engaging. 

Like our wise green blooded kin, I shall turn towards sunshine, towards warmth and everything life-affirming. I will joyfully thank you for redirecting me and turn my awareness and energy towards connections rich and juicy with aliveness, flow, affection, transparency, and consciousness. There is no need to dabble in scarcity or impoverished life-averse spaces when lushness and abundance are what I bring to the table and  what my heart desires.

I bow in gratitude to life, the great guru, for illuminating another subtle dark layer in the subconscious and for gifting me corrective experiences to cultivate embodied knowing.

Art: ‘Let’s Dance With The Dark’ by kelogsloops

The post Choosing Flow appeared first on Venuskind.

As memories birth ever new feelings, thoughts, and sensations my present awareness observes it all, while engaging with the beloved friend. Observing the layering of memory born sensations, watching feelings and thoughts scoring initial moments of reconnection, like music enhances and colors a movie. 

First there are excitement and the apprehensive question: how much they will open to engaging and how deep they will choose to go in sharing and bearing their hearts and souls to me. There is a fear and tinge of sadness at the thought of them maybe choosing to be defended or evasive. 

Then there is the warmth of joy at meeting their openness and affection for me. As threads of affection and soul bonds, are enlivened, and light up joy, expands into ecstatic elation. The intensity of elation coinciding with the opening of boxes of forgotten and unintegrated feelings of the past…

And past pain reminds how we fell into unhealthy relating patterns and wounded each other in the past, admonishing me to be especially mindful and compassionate now that I know better. 

Open questions of a past self present themselves to awareness. 

Conscience speaks of how I expressed in an unhelpful, or even harmful, way towards them and initiates expressions of acknowledgment and heartful apologies. 

Old desires, attachments, and longings return to be remembered, known, honored and given a new place or form in this new adventure in relating. 

There is grief for all that could not have been, the unattainable dreams for this connection, and the time and life not shared or journeyed together. 

And making peace with uncomfortable truths and reality as it was and is. 

And as we share where we are in life, what we have learned and unlearned, all is in a gentle flux, seeking to attune to the relating that wants to unfold for us. There are no definitives or set points beyond our reciprocal love, affection, and choice to relate… All else has to grow into a new form, as time shared waters all that had gone underground in months or years of silence or no contact. A fertile void embraces and ambiguity suffuses this renewed relational meeting of souls. New intentions, agreements, and commitments slowly begin to define the bandwidth and intensity of the flow of relating and energy.

Meeting in reciprocal appreciation, playfulness, and engaging in deep soulful exchanges is more than nourishment on all levels of my being, gently washing away distortions and pain from hurtful relating and misperceptions in past relationships, ours and others. 

The gift of reconnecting with special souls goes beyond returning their unique frequency to my experience, it also induces an integration of relational disruptions and hurts. And feeds the knowing that repair is not just possible but also an opportunity for rebirth and renewal in magical and unexpected forms.

Photography by Unknown

The post Reconnection and Renewal appeared first on Venuskind.

There are many layers and subtleties to its gifts of insight into my unhelpful beliefs, forgotten pain, behavioral and thought patterns, and my sweet little girl‘s longings that remained unfulfilled. Illuminating attachments in need of attention, transformation, or release. Alerting me to contractions, stuck energy, and tensions alive in my body. 

Inviting me to become intimate with the complex ways I create experiences which are unfulfilling and fall short of meeting my needs and wants, to gently coax out the parts who due to invisibility and neediness sabotage my ability to perceive all of the layers of an experience, to be still and listen to their pleas and complaints. Inviting me to observe the gentle and playful reparenting my inner father and mother bring to these voices and my little girl. Inciting and honing my creativity in finding means of fulfilling my needs internally with more skill and playfulness. 

An invitation to lean into a bigger YES to life, to gently melt tensions, apprehensions, and resistance, and reminder that ‘resistance is futile’ and unloving when the Universe is teaching me lessons in receptivity to its abundance and unconditional love. 

Becoming stronger and clearer thanks to disappointment, the light bringer and liberator.

Art: ‘I Have Finally Arrived’ by José Cacho

The post Disappointment appeared first on Venuskind.

May the heart, which chooses to love you, be experienced in generosity, spaciousness, forgiveness, and wise.

May the mouth, which speaks to you in kisses, know to speak words of awe, truth, magic and love with compassionate tenderness and fluency.

May the eyes, which set upon you, softly gaze at your beingness with the healing light of love and the fire of the lover.

May the feet, which choose to walk their path by your side, know to walk with integrity where you are needed and towards shared expansion, service, and bliss.

May the being, who chooses you as their beloved, hold and match you in awareness, unlearning, learning, growth, and in being.

May the relating, which you co-creatively weave, be healthy and warm in its flow of kindness, reciprocity, honor of sovereignty, and commitment to love.

May the love, which you embody and express, mirror the depth and beauty of the love each has for themselves, and deepen as you expand.

May the soul unions of your choosing be blessed on all dimension, in all ways, and always.

Art: “All We Want To Be Are Dreamers” by Cameron Grey

The post Lover’s Blessing appeared first on Venuskind.

The more I retreat from socializing virtually
The more I am unavailable
The richer my remaining encounters and relationships are

A lovely paradox to live, navigate and experience.

That is one way of putting my latest experiment in relating in a nutshell, of course the experience itself is much more nuanced and the insights gained multidimensional and manyfold. Retreating from social media and its temptations in staying connected with those, who in times before internet would have been lost to my experience until our life paths crossed or aligned again, has been a source of deep contemplations, emotional and mental integration and a fundamental reset to my relational system.

There is beauty in the possibilities of virtuality, the multitude of information and knowledge available to us in our increasingly digital realities. And in the glaring light of infinite possibilities, distractions and temptations it is easy to remain blind to the costs of living our relational lives to a high degree within digital instead of analogue realities. Which points in part towards the loss of exchanges in form of tones of voices, micro-expressions, body language, chemistry and energy and goes much further than we are aware of until we make ourselves change our experience.

There is a massive loss our relational system encounters in engaging too much in the virtual and not enough in the real. A loss in nourishment, calibration, and co-regulation with others, which are essential to our wellbeing and health. Unfortunately the habituated behaviors and communication styles that arise from being too much in the digital have a way of bleeding over into the real and disconnecting us further when we remain unaware.

Have you noticed how little REAL encounters you have with others these days? 

In a real encounter all participants are present, open hearted, ready and capable to attune to each other, listen, share and express from their essential nature. There is a marked absence of the machinations of the ego, mind games, automatisms, and mindless chatter or replay of patterns. No matter if people are spiritual or not, the majority do not take the time to be fully present and attuned to an exchange as their being is way too exited, vigilant, minds racing, emotions chaotically overflowing or ebbing – which only allows for personalities and minds to meet but no deeper meeting of souls and beings to be possible. 

The engagement in the virtual has furthermore robbed many of several layers of trust, which once arose from feeling safe to express who they are in contexts of friendship or acquaintanceship. The experience of safe spaces where everyone gets to express freely and healthy discourses on the matters shared (not on the validity of another’s feelings, experience, or worse person) is possible, has become a luxury hidden behind paywalls of therapy, workshops and retreats. And even there the corrosiveness of current trends is undercutting a true and prevailing acceptance of ALL that is present by only allowing for what aligns with the given groupthink. If we do not consciously create such safe spaces for each other we are becoming part and enablers of this toxic patterning that cuts us off from each other and renders egos ever more fragile, violent and dangerous.

Real encounters are also more prevalent when people have enough time to themselves, to integrate experiences, to self care and nurture, to know themselves and their inner universe and have the spaciousness and willingness to open to the vastness of another in their unique complexities. They cannot be easily had by a relational system that is being drained and exhausted by non-stop information overload, emotionally manipulative content, and the rise and intensity of fanatical and manipulative language, and disappointing social encounters and experiences in the virtual sphere.

They can happen wherever one person is willing and ready to hold space for realness and invites the others into presence. It takes only one person to open the door, and equally only one to bar real encounters. I sense there is more here that wants to be explored and known by us…

The past 3 months have been incredibly nourishing and delightful to me as I had more real encounters in that time than I recall having in years. My awareness was focused on the quality of relating, energy exchange, reciprocity, and my body’s responses in order to learn anew what works for me and serves my wellbeing. It was surprising to realize how important fairly short exchanges with strangers or near-strangers can be whenever we are fully present to them and the others follow our invitation into it. Amazing how a short conversation, smiles, and meeting of beings can uplift and nurture the relational system for days to come – if experienced and reflected from a space of open hearted presence, playfulness and gratitude.

What a gift to reset to the real and get new insights into my relational system and its workings.

~ August 2022

Photography by Tatsuo Suzuki

The post Resetting to Real appeared first on Venuskind.

And yet the internal experience and quality of life and aliveness is very different to what I once experienced at earlier points of this lifetime. Life has dramatically shifted from something to be lived and shaped out there in the experiential or ‘material’ world to something that is wholly internal and energetic. In my experience all of life is ‘internal’ and not reliant on what the mind deems as ‘external’ and all is One, interconnected, interdependent, cocreative.

Even when engaging from the conditioned personality the observer in me knows that I am not just that. Any Identifications with body, personality, and mind have profoundly weakened which allows for a different kind of engagement with life. An engagement liberated from the fetters of attachments to narratives, concepts, opinions, preferences, and what is key: free from enslavement to separation consciousness and duality. Creating a more peaceful flow of experience, and more sustainable presence.

Being less identified with the personality/self liberates me from futile strivings for status, validation, and other vacuous ego fodder. It fades the need to consume, distract, avoid, or assert the will in other ways on external realities that seem unacceptable or inconvenient.
Normalized obsessions with cultural conditioned values (fame, wealth, looks, success, etc.) are transparent in their futility and emptiness while the desires and delights of my soul are illuminated in their value and nourishing quality (community, kindness, cooperation, creative play, love for knowledge and knowing, etc.). Knowing that I am an expression of the Self – unborn, undying, all-encompassing and yet empty – releases any need to prove my/self, be special or different from ‘others’ as they are equally part of the One/Self.

And from these shifts in experience and knowing new questions and quests beg to be explored and lived:

Which role and path is given to this expression of Self?
How do I best balance receptivity with creative participation?
How do I participate in life in a way that turns my knowing and abilities into a service to All That Is?
Which residues of conditioning and misperception are holding me back from harmoniously and joyously flowing with life? And how do I release them?
Which mysteries of existence are waiting to reveal themselves through my experience?

I still experience triggers that regress me into states of forgetfulness and blind identification with the conditioned personality and her narratives about life. Experiencing my/self as struggling to find my way out of these immersive dream states, yet I thankfully remain a lucid dreamer, equanimous in the knowing of the true nature of being and the impermanence of experience.
Years of self work and shifts in consciousness allow for more trust, patience, and compassion in engaging with aspects of trauma and shadow expressing through this body-mind and other body-minds in my experience.

I can see and laugh at the absurdities the conditioned self creates and shadow boxes, while being compassionate and loving of all being and experience. Which in turn cultivates deeper and more encompassing compassion, kindness and understanding for others.

Being a mystic to me means being a student of existence and life, observing the human state with all its psychological dynamics and limitations, living in awe of the mysteries of life, in the joys of moving between consciousness levels, having a playful and creative approach to life, and delighting in the magic unique to embodiment.

Art by Unknown

The post Being a Mystic appeared first on Venuskind.

I am fascinated how hard it is for the tender and longing aspect in me to let go of the hope that existing connections can change and take a form that is mutually nurturing and expansive. The naive rationale that where there is sympathy or love there has to be a way of connecting deeper and finding the flow that nourishes and makes our hearts come alive. I have sat in contemplation of what it is that keeps our repetition compulsion going when our behavioral patterns never bring about the desired or needed outcome. How young and vulnerable these aspects within are that engage with life from the limited and magical thinking of a young child.

Teaching this aspect that the connection, flow and love it seeks is already available in my life, even if not in the connection it is focused on. Learning to redirect her focus on where love and affection are always available and flowing, making her realize that she no longer lives in scarcity and can let go of the grasping pattern. Showing her that focusing and fully opening to and engaging in the connections that naturally and effortlessly take to depths and heights more than fills all our cups of love, wellbeing, and joy. No need to make other connections be anything else than what they naturally are.

One of the most challenging lessons is teaching these young and tender aspects within to let go of their grasping, their asking for reality to change, for others to be different to who they really are instead of accepting reality as it presents and finding creative ways to fulfill needs and find joy in circumstances as they are. On a mental and cognitive dimension this is a simple thing to understand but the emotional and physical are slow to embrace changes in perception. Maybe this is the reason why it takes long and repeat periods in the ‘hanged man’ position, to speak once again in tarot, for us to shift out of old survival or adaptive patterns. There is something to these periods of suspension in the in-between that works on the subconscious and emotional body in healing and integrative ways.

Nothing compares to the massive feeling of relief and peace that take hold when said aspects embrace reality as it is and find they not only survive in doing so but begin to live and thrive for it. Even though it is accompanied with a depth of grief that may surprise and challenge us to be present and gentle with ourselves as it makes itself felt and known. Yes, there is a deep sadness, a feeling of loss and deprivation that wants to be felt as a message from years long gone and a self not allowing and capable of feeling these truths of experience.

When my adult eyes and mind surveyed my connections from this new inner state of healing I was able to let go of connections, which used to trigger this aspect in me as they ‘starved’ me emotionally for various and individual reasons. I let them go in love and gratitude for showing up in my experience as teachers and healing lessons and with wishes of goodness and blessings to them. 

Similar to the hopeful self-torture of keeping clothes that no longer fit our bodies in our closets as ‘motivation’, my subconscious patterns kept connections in my experience which were not aligned with my being. Now I could see the connections in their emptiness, their anachronism, and incompatibility with effortless clarity and no longer felt a need to stay connected.

Disconnecting and moving on brought on a feeling of ‘rightness’ or better alignment and flow into my experience of my relational field. Though not all connections that remained are connections at the depth of bonding and flow I prefer, they all feel good and aligned with me as they are. 

I celebrate depth where it is available and everywhere else I show up in a mirror of the depth, presence, affection, and care or from whatever level my authenticity wants to engage with them.

Instead of unconsciously trying to futilely deepen connections beyond their natural capacity and form, I consciously accept them for what they are from wholeness and emotional abundance within. Given my acceptance of the reality that what my heart seeks may be rare and not available in relating with the majority of people, I am even more appreciative, grateful, protective and nurturing of the connections which show up in said form.

I remain open to more beings meeting me in the depths and heights of heart and consciousness and the possibility of shared magical and transcendent explorations and experiences. Committed to compassion and acceptance with all the other relations which lack the glitter of stardust and droplets of the water of life.

And I bow to life as it unfolds in it multidimensional form, to the breadth of experiences available to us on our planet, and to the ability of consciousness to direct our path through this wild, magical and messy playground.

I bow in gratitude to the lessons that taught me the sweetness of yielding to life.

Art: Blanc Arctique by Sophie Wilkins 

The post The Unmet Yielding into Wholeness appeared first on Venuskind.

When communicating with people who lack an aligned spiritual background, or who have not delved into it as far, my mind starts translating, explaining, and becoming more detailed in conveying its meaning. Realizing the difference in cosmologies and how these influence the conception and perception of my words and their meaning, and understanding beyond the mind that some of the meaning of my words lies in the invisible which necessitates a listener to have an intuitive or conscious access to the invisible to fully grasp what I am sharing or pointing to.

I catch myself attempting to make that meaning tangible and perceptible for those without access to the non-physical through words, which necessitates more words and a higher level of complexity or communication of interconnected aspects.

Someone called it my ‘branched’ thinking, which amused me at first because that has a different meaning to me, as I conceptualize that as taking an essential or fundamental idea and following it into branches of its meaning and manifestation. Which I do at times but had not in conversations with them.

In my morning reflections today I became aware what they were trying to verbalize by talking about my ‘branched’ thinking. They were pointing to something I had not been mindful of, though I was conscious of in my higher mind: my wish to verbalize my multidimensional perceptions and thoughts.

That was an interesting moment of realizing how the higher mind acts without the ‘human mind’ being aware of it, even if consciousness is utilizing the ‘human mind.’ What I refer to as the higher mind is not located in the brain, and may include what we usually think of as the mind (human mind), yet it exceeds it by accessing the field of consciousness in more subtle or higher layers depending on how you picture it. It is through this aspect that access to the higher realms and dimensions is possible to us. Some people perceive it and conceptualize it as the heart-mind.
A term I intentionally side-step as it subtly affirms to too many their dualistic perception of heart and mind and the rejection of the mind (mental, intellectual), which to me is something I don’t want to feed into. One could argue that ‘higher mind’ might be misperceived as a disregard of the heart but that is easier to address than the other perceptive distortion because it is an effect of mainstream thinking.

Back to my adaptations in communication when speaking with people who are not familiar with relationship dynamics, energetic dynamics, and spiritual cosmologies pointing to the oneness of all that is or the field of consciousness. As my perceptions and reflections of life are based on these knowings they often feel alien, weird, or outright nonsensical to those who perceive life through the lens of mainstream conditionings, which deem the physical and quantifiable the only reality.

Therefore while sharing of myself and my perceptions I am aware of a need to make the invisible and intangibles, which are real aspects of life to me, shine through and become more visible and tangible to the human mind.

It feels like changing languages, and coming up against the limitations of my language skill and vocabulary in the other language, and having to accept my falling short of truly conveying my meaning and releasing the hope for their full understanding. At best 50% or 60% of it is accessible to the open minded but closed bodied/hearted. With people whose intuition is more intact and integrated it can go up to 70% or 75%, which is not too bad.

And how does my being know or guesstimate the percentage of what has been transferred? The feedback is mostly clear and loud in the non-physical, non-linear, and non-verbal. This is also where cues to rephrase, explain, or drop a subject come from even if the other doesn’t communicate their confusion.

Don’t get me wrong I get the same ‘lost in translation’ feedback when communicating with some spiritual people, whenever what I share is from my current growth edge and ‘too far out’ for their cosmology or current grasp. The difference there is a different kind of openness to the unknown, a part of them hearing me and opening to what may lay out of their ken… allowing the meaning to come to them in time, if welcomed.
In a sense a listening happens with with others too, but the part that hears and opens is not as integrated into their waking experience or awareness. Which makes it unclear if that knowing will ever be theirs in this lifetime, depending on their life’s trajectory. It is like a seed that doesn’t fall on fertile welcoming soil, but on a hardened soil in a dry and hot climate, making it a matter of alignment of many factors if the seed will ever get a chance to root and grow.

Becoming aware of my unconscious attempts at and challenges of translating the mystical into the mundane is quite entertaining. On the one hand I cannot help feel a deeper appreciation for the dynamics of communication and its complexities, and on the other hand I cannot stop laughing at this human experience and its countless futile toils.

Making it conscious allows me to stop wasting my energy in attempts which are not going to be fruitful and only end up confounding and mesmerizing another in ways that are not conducive to a meeting of equal beings.

Once again I wonder how subtly my path keeps changing and transforming my expressions and how I live in the meeting point of two worlds. What a gift that I am surrounded with beloveds, who not only understand my mystic’s experience, heart, and mind but also inspire her to travel and explore further.

Who would have thought that a mundane thing like dating could be the source of reaping sweet fruits of insight? But then isn’t all made of consciousness and awaits our attunement and ability to commune with it in playfulness?

What magic this life holds for all…

Art by Robert Cook

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