Art: ‘Oshun’ by cehfaz

The post Intentions for the New Cycle 2024 appeared first on Venuskind.

The states I am being initiated into are not as earthbound, or linked to ancestral traditions still known to us. They are ancient in that they have been present on this planet in times before – before the forgetting and atrocities of separation consciousness. The states I am being led to carry in them the frequencies of earth, our galactic origins, as well as the dark formless that preceded all form.

The much glorified and centered rewilding has been a part of my journey, a part that was given to my thirties and which played a part in my liberation. Looking from where I am now it becomes obvious that it was but a preparatory stage, not an end or climax of this path. My Soul calling me to walk further, to remember ancient knowing of *all* my lineages planetary, non-planetary, and all the way back to the source of all form – the numinosity of the void.

One piece of this becoming is the lesson of stripping off all human identities, identifications with personality, body, and mind, to immerse into and know the formless essence of being. In stripping off the aforementioned I find myself no longer beholden to them, seeing them as mere constructs, artificial to the boundless nature of being. Realizing how being human has been limited to repeating patterns and limited possibilities of expressing and being due to the great forgetting and the rule of stark unconsciousness. Our being knows that there is another way of being human and exploring this dimension, and this knowing is calling ever so loudly for embodiment. To do so we have to take off the heaviness of unconscious patterning, and distorted perceptions, only then will we be truly receptive to and have enough spaciousness to call in expanded possibilities to flow through our being and rework our collective field.

Another aspect of this becoming is to wholly embrace oneness. It sounds simple but experience shows how much our mind body system resists it. It will accept it here and there but in the next moment it will hold on to separation consciousness in order to differentiate itself from ‘others’, which it holds in some form of judgement or dislike. So deeply ingrained are these conditioned distortions that we find ourselves once again split within, some part vibrating with the frequency of oneness and others clinging to separation consciousness. 

And I am learning that a nervous system which has been dysregulated by complex trauma is slow in releasing the fears and automated responses it has created for survival and open to the deeper meanings and ramifications of oneness. This is where deep compassion and skillfulness are needed to help integrate and heal with the guidance and grace of Self energy. It is a very slow process and yet it is a crucial part of this journey, it is the most important key to unlocking our full potential, expanded knowing, and full alignment with consciousness/life.

While working on the previous a third aspect is being learned and gently entrained in our body: To drink of the poison cup without sickening or dying. 

What I mean by it is the capacity to be present with the most harrowing aspects of human doing, with the oppressions, injustices, and violence our plant, animal, and human kin are suffering without resorting to denial, repression, numbing, or acting out. To be a vessel large enough to feel and hold it with compassion and perceive with eyes of consciousness, witnessing it fully and honoring the experiences observed, and act where it is in our power with love and care to alleviate and balance what we can. To feel and know the suffering of all – victim, perpetrator, bystanders, and saviors alike – knowing the underlying distortions and conditioning that keep recreating these experiences across millennia. 

Being, seeing, feeling, reflecting at the same time, side-stepping explanations and resolutions of the conditioned mind, and  opening to the mystery while leaning into not-knowing with trust. Letting the love at the core of our being call to the mystery to reveal knowing, a path to change or healing, and support us in holding it in a way that doesn’t poison us to be a(n unwitting) part of it. 

This is what embodying a different frequency and holding it in a dissonant field is to me. 

Being a change agent on this dimension of being is not about external activism but about internal depth work. The kind that stays invisible to most eyes, the one you cannot carry like a banner for the ego to feel good about itself or get acknowledgement for, not the kind where it suffices to do some mental work and change some of your behavior, nor the kind that wants to change the other. This activism has no external opponent that needs to be fought or won over, it is all about changing the parts in us that are unconsciously aligned with the narratives, roles, and patterns of the past, to awaken and integrate all parts in us to firmly anchor in the present and in the timeless wisdom of consciousness. It is from this inner work and its fruits that our actions in the external are being born, showing up in ways that express and manifest oneness, love, compassion, and wisdom beyond current human knowledge. 

It takes a great deal of consciousness and alertness to walk such a path with integrity, without allowing the powers of conditioning and trauma to reassert themselves in subtle or egregious ways. It takes a great tenderness and self love to forgive ourselves our many shortcomings, and failures along the way while gently striving to do better. And it takes a persistence and discipline to keep at the inner work and not let ourselves be distracted by things that call from the inanity of media. There has to be a consistency to our intentionality, a depth of commitment that will not flinch at obstacles and pain along the way but keep gently returning to the work. And it takes trust. A trust that has to be reclaimed from the murkiness of pain, trauma, and false beliefs. Trust that has to be chosen and then slowly rebuilt and reaffirmed with every experience until it becomes a default way of engaging with life/consciousness.

To the eyes of unconsciousness we will look passive, selfish, or any other manifestation of a lack of care. Which is understandable as they cannot see how their conditioning and trauma is pushing them to play the savior role in the narrative. Blinding them to the fact that it too is part of the dysfunction and distortion we all feel and know deep inside in engaging with this infinitely rebirthing suffering. 

Equally to other unconscious minds this may serve as an excuse to keep themselves disconnect, numbed, apart from the suffering in the world. Their mind remaining unconscious of how their mind is still playing out their trauma and keeping them from being present in their wholeness, regardless of how spiritual or conscious they pretend to be.

And yet regardless to how it may be judged or perceived this is a path that will not be denied, a call of the Soul that cannot be side-stepped without causing tremendous harm to self and possibly others. There is a sense deep in my being that we have to hold these frequencies and dimensions of consciousness as a way of opening the gateway and preparing the field for the ones who are to follow and initiate the next wave of consciousness evolution on this planet. Just like our illumined predecessors prepared the field to create the space that allowed us the level of remembrance and evolution we are blessed to experience and bring to the collective. 

This is what I experience on my path, in becoming a crone, an elder, a wise woman. 

In gratitude and honoring of ancestral wise women who walked before me, the ones I am privileged to have by my side, and the ones that shall follow us in ever new paradigms of life unfolding in the loving embrace of this beautiful mother planet.

Maybe this speaks to your experience or maybe you feel some resonance but also a difference that allows you to know your path more clearly in its uniqueness? 

Whatever it maybe, I hope it serves your soul path and becoming.

Blessed be.

Art: ‘ATMA – The Guide of Souls’ by Autumn Skye

The post Becoming a Crone appeared first on Venuskind.

What once used to be an unspeakable horror I would not even want to entertain for a moment, now has become something I feel curiosity and gratititude for. What I once was conditioned to perceive as a grim thief, now is a misunderstood liberator and midwife for the next stage of the conscious journey to me.

The things that can fill me with apprehension, no longer fear really, are contemplations of less palatable variants of future timelines. But that only lasts for a bit before the Self reminds the parts that regressed in old conditioning that none of the experiences ever felt the way they had been advertised by cultural narratives and conditioning and reality has to be embraced as it is. Which always manages to bring a smile to me.

In this current state of being, I look out at the unfolding of life in the human dimension and feel no desire to partake or invest my energy beyond what is of utmost necessity. Having realized the futility and hollowness of most of human doing and striving, I no longer can uphold the pretenses the social contract and systems that govern our experience of reality ask of us. 

The more I witness, and the less I allow for things to remain in my blind spot, the less desirable or palatable the human dimension is.

What keeps me anchored in this life and dimension is nature. Nature expressing through the plant kingdom, our animal kin, in meaningful encounters and relationships with fellow human beings, and Self. Most of what humanity has constructed as systems of belief or governance, which hold all of us in a life-averse chokehold, has revealed its ugly, unnatural, and hateful nature. And yet the majority of humans squabbles, fights, and kills over these as if they were treasures while simultaneously suffering from the toxic effects on their own being. As they cannot detach from identity constructs or misperceptions of self, they remain bound to the infinitely repetitive and destructive sub-maya of human making and breaking.

There is not much to be desired in this time and world, not that there aren’t infinite possibilities of savoring the bounty of Gaia and the joy of communion with all of existence, yet none of the previous comes without the taint, pain, and struggles overlayed by the collective shadow and karma. Unless we choose unconsciousness and denial of reality.

Today, as I contemplate last night’s passing of my best friend’s mother, I am reminded of the grace and mercy that is death to us soul wanderers. I see her liberated from the strictures of existence, being pure awareness in infinite peace and bliss. And us, who are left behind, gifted with a reminder of the thankful impermanence of a lifetime, and the knowing that that liberation’s door is always nigh.

What strange and forgetful beings we are, fearing what gives us life and freedom while loving what oppresses us and creates suffering. Nonetheless it is a strangely beautiful experience to observe the multidimensional complexity of the Earth plane and how Consciousness explores existence here. 

For a few years now these words have been deeply resonant with my felt and embodied experience, as I witness my being walking towards the level of desirelessness and timelessness Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj lived and expressed:

I am dead already. Physical death will make no difference in my case. I am timeless being. I am free of desire or fear, because I do not remember the past or imagine the future. Where there are no names and shapes, how can there be desire and fear? With desirelessness comes timelessness. I am safe, because what is not, cannot touch what is. You feel unsafe, because you imagine danger. Of course, your body as such is complex and vulnerable and needs protection. But not you. Once you realize your own unassailable being, you will be at peace.

May we keep meditating on the true nature of our being until realization upon realization anchors it deeply in our embodied experience. 

May this supreme knowing liberate us before the great liberator of death comes our way, so we may truly live free, playful, powerful, and at peace in the knowing of our unassailable being.

May we embrace death and honor it in its rightful meaning and nature and go happily when our ‘time’ has come.

Art by Unknown

The post Death appeared first on Venuskind.

To be confronted with decisions that take me to the edge of my comfort zone and beyond, having to learn about a diagnosis I have not been familiar with, and listening deeply to hear the voice of my body and consciousness in deciding on treatment plans, and more has been monopolizing on my bandwidth and time.

The past months have granted me novel insights into my psyche as well as the strength and resilience of my body. Some aspects of my relationship with my body and the way I care for it were illuminated and required some changes and a stepping up of my integrity and discipline. I have learned a lot about the people in my life, their capacity to engage with a me who is navigating health issues or not, their willingness to be present or not. 

A new level of self compassion was initiated, softening me, expanding my perception and discernment of the challenges we face on a health journey and the varying needs for support and being seen and heard beyond assumptions and projections of others. It was fascinating and at times overwhelming to be faced with other people’s struggles and worries, and their inexplicable persistence in holding to distorted fears and perceptions no matter how much facts and data I offered to allay these. 

There were painful disappointments in how people distanced themselves, went unusually silent, or decided not to engage at all. Which I took as a welcome invitation to inquire into the nature of our connection and my vision for the future. Realizing that these connections have outlived their welcome and alignment with my life, I have been in a mourning process to prepare their release, when the time feels right.

Above all though I have savored the feeling of being surrounded by caring and loving beings who attune to my needs and express theirs confidently in navigating this chapter in our relationship story. I feel deeply grateful for the forbearance, spaciousness, and joyful way my friends and family stood by my side as I figured things out and treatments happened.

And of course it also served to create more clarity as to how I wish to live and organize my life, what I feel complete with and can let go, and what I would like to invite and create for myself.

With all that thankfully behind me, I am moving into the dark months of this year with the gifts of this experience, focused on nurturing the health of my body with the support of aligned health facilitators, and charting a new path for my being. Celebrating a freeing up of my mental and emotional bandwidth which allows for a return to mystical inquiry and reflections on life.

With gratitude for the bountiful gifts of Life along this winding path of mine.

Photography by Unknown

The post Silence appeared first on Venuskind.

With it the process of detachment is progressing into more dimensions of my experience and being. Internally detachment can sometimes feel akin to a total loss of interest in something I was passionate about. And in the process of integration the mind tends towards taking a stance of opposition or rejection of what once was its delight. Underlying this move is a feeling of betrayal, a betrayal experienced due to the false promise of fulfillment that all vacuous things come with. As I observe the processes of the mind, listening to Self reason with it light-heartedly, I sense a slow, and at times halting, uncoiling and release of tension in the body as it opens to embrace a different way of being with reality.

Being with reality or life without numerous lenses of conditioning distorting it one way or another is challenging at first. It feels almost ungrounded and the mind restlessly grasps for some kind of foothold or tether to hold on to. What a strange play of desperation and ignorance it offers the observer. Eventually mind and body come to some form of rest within the unknown, the first in being observant and open, the latter in learning to hold the tensions with compassion and gently inviting relaxation. And with every moment experienced in this form the old conditioning is being released and over-written by the novel experiences available here now.

Eventually there is a realization of the unnecessary and ‘artificial’ heaviness and struggles old conditioning foisted upon the being. From a new vantage point of lightness, reposing in equanimity, and playful kinship with existence the mind is led by the heart-mind to the vastness of possibilities available now.

In this transition from what once was to what will be there is a pause. A pause for rest from the energy-intensive alchemical processes that precede and enable the shift, and a rest to gather energy, discern a new direction and path, and attune to the new frequency calling to my being.

Working at this depth/or height of consciousness necessitates a certain level of awareness and energy to be invested in this and only this. Though profoundly resilient and indomitable, this process comes with the invitation to protect it from dissonant and distorting energies, directing awareness towards what is supportive and useful, open to light-hearted and nourishing playfulness and creativity in service of well-BEing, and fiercely deflective to misaligned energies.

I am fascinated how people are being kept at a distance, friendship ties loosened to allow more spaciousness and prevent disruption, negative energies recognized and diverted so early they do not even feature as a blip in the experience. To gain glimpses of the wild wisdom at play in and around my being is awe-inspiring. 

Awe is the new fuel component to surrendering to what is and holding back from interfering with the unfolding of reality by asserting willpower. Curiosity is another, as I long to see how things unfold without undue interferences by the small self. Trust is the main motivator and effortlessly anchors surrender in my being and doing.

On reflecting on it all I realize that I have shifted from hearing my intuition speak to me from time to time to living in a more sustained communion with Self. Intuition is a powerful guide along the path and yet it also is vulnerable to conditioning and ancestral fears and superstitions, therefore it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Self is consciousness beyond time and space, it is not bound by the superstitions and limited scope of human knowledge, its light is untouched by the ages and existence, as those are born out of Self/The One. 

The language of Self is found in stillness. To invite Self into my experience means to find myself in a still and witnessing state, detached and disidentified with what is observed, seeing the light and darkness in all, deepening in awe of the eternal dance of yin and yang in the phenomenal world. And to learn to witness from an individual localized as well as a non-localized holistic perspective, switching and concurrently perceiving through both.

On the surface layer of experience I keep immersing myself into learning more about our bodies, nutrition, health, and experimenting with all I am learning to see what truth they hold about this body which has been a joy to experience life with. I enjoy select social engagements and their lessons in energy and human psyche as I observe my responses to them.

If it was up to my heart of hearts I would live in a time where I could be a priestess delving into the mysteries of consciousness, existence, and being human, while giving myself to devotional practices (think bhakti) and offer my knowing as service to those who seek or need it… and not worry about or be distracted by material needs. Living with both eyes turned inwards as the third eye perceives para- and meta-conscious dimensions. Only blinking them open to the external to relate and communicate adequately with those who live a wholly externally focused existence.

Art by Romany Soup

The post Introspective Being appeared first on Venuskind.

I get to see how they love

and then choose if I want to participate.

~Iyanla Vanzant

I feel this is one of the most important lessons on boundaries and choices I have been learning in the past years through contrast and divine discontentment.

My long years of investment in emotional maturation enables me to be ruthlessly and radically honest as to how emotionally content and fulfilled I am in any given relationship. The practice of self love, which has become second nature, strengthens and heals wounded parts enough to let go of their ‘healing fantasies’ and hopes for change through leaning into behavioral patterns of old that have proved their ineptitude for decades. Self love also changed the way I take responsibility and care for my being, and deepened my self compassion enough that I no longer mindlessly foist avoidable pain, suffering, disappointment, etc. upon my experience and being. 

The last pieces to this learning are based in love of All That Is, which of course includes the other. No longer does my mind have to follow the conditioned pattern of pathologizing the other in order to release myself, instead with eyes of love I perceive with compassion the struggles and pattern playing out in them and have a knowing of them as ‘perfect as they are’ as I am too. With that I can accept the incompatibility with graciousness and ever more lighthearted humor. 

I have the deepest reverence for the connections that move through this challenging experience to rebirth themselves into a new form, which can not only be ‘effortlessly’ sustained but also delighted in. Love relationships that can transition into loving friendships with deep emotional intimacy and a playful knowing of each other are incredibly soul nourishing and delicious to me.

The older I get the less I am willing to abuse myself by entertaining unfulfilling relationships falling short of what makes my heart happy, nourishes my soul, my body-mind system feels safe, and keeps me mentally engaged. 

Anything that is stereotypical, superficial, unconscious, and strictly controlled by fear or trauma is no longer of value to me, unless called to it by spirit. I empathize with and remember having made such choices or lived in such states, when I hadn’t put in self work and lived more unconsciously. I no longer desire to spend time engaging in those dimensions of relating as I have explored them more than I like and find no joy in them, only sadness. I still am called from time to time to engage in those dimensions, when in a growth cycle, in order to integrate layers of unconscious distortions and misperceptions. And I will do so gladly and willingly as long as growth and change happen. Once it gets stagnant, or everything that could be learned has been learned, I will want to return to a healthier and more fluid form of relating. Should it become apparent then that the other is not willing or ready to journey there with me, I will respect their choice and gratefully move on.

Having the privilege of sharing magical connections that are deeply intimate and fulfilling is not only healing but also entices me to lean into trust and courage to keep stretching and expanding into the juiciness of the relational unknown. This is my most exciting and delicious growth edge I choose and am committed to keep exploring and playing at now.

I choose to keep a circle of friends who inspire and invite growth, who share the journey towards more embodiment of love, whose sharing expand my horizons and gives me tools for my own journey, whose essence is more and more embodied and not willfully blocked by conditioned ideas of self and woundings, friends, who no matter of their age, are becoming and unbecoming, living from the knowing of being an ‘energy being in flux’, exploring this human experience with curiosity, humor, appreciation, and playfulness.

My heart is open to love, hold, connect, relate, know, play, tinker, and grow in various kinds of relationships. 

And my heart has clear preferences as to how it wants to be met, as has yours too, so let us choose to honor their choices with love and compassion to infuse our experience and the field with infinite love. 

Let us keep exploring with glee, loving better, and playing joyfully at this thing called human, journeying together as long as we are in alignment. Should our vibrations fall out of harmony let us be grateful for the beauty we shared, bless each other, and, if need be, part in the knowing of our eternal oneness.

Photography by Unknown

The post Choice appeared first on Venuskind.

In the beginning of my non-monogamous journey I would spend endless hours with fellow adventurers trying to verbalize the nature of attraction I experienced with different people and the qualities of connection available with them. Ever since these early days I have observed and explored these further in encounters, engagements, and moments of relating that had the feel of meaningfulness. 

And I celebrate every new nuance or version I am experiencing. Appreciating the gift of novelty and variety life presents me in its unceasing generosity.

You become just one more thing screaming for attention; your attractiveness will pass unless you spark the more enduring kind of spell that makes people think of you in your absence. ~ Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction

A Recent Experience

As I came across the above quote the mystery of a recently experienced attraction began to reveal more of its occult nature.

I had felt an intense attraction and feeling of peaceful and blissful alignment in meeting someone, inciting a desire for intimacy and connection. Which they only sparingly allowed for, never opening enough to allow me to feel truly connected and in flow with them. That masterfully played into and triggered old patterns created by neglect, rejection, and abandonment in my earliest years.

And I am aware that it is these inner dynamics that make walking away challenging, not the attraction or a deeper feeling of connection and fondness for the complex beauty of them. In reflecting and gently liberating myself from this ‘disconnect’ I am gaining awareness of subtle layers to the attraction that had drawn me into it.

Once I shone the light of awareness the faux overlay on reality aka projection, created by this pattern to keep me engaged, starts fading and makes the emptiness and potential for harm embedded in it visible to the mind. It no longer blinds me to their turning away from bids for connection or cold/frozen facial expressions (rejection), their self absorption and lack of regard for me as a sovereign being, the manipulative nature of their sparing expressions of care (control), their discomfort with emotions, repression of them, and the tell-tale oscillation between aloof numbness and powerless over-identification with emotions, resulting in victimhood and feelings of (misdirected) resentment. 

And as my internal glamour fades and wounded parts of me try to fervently to hold on to the illusion of connection, their system responds by revealing more of their coiling darkness through more starkness, coldness, absence (the opposite of presence in a spiritual sense), and the lack of attempts at kindness (end of manipulation). Until it eventually express in casual abject cruelty (feeling defeated and angry).

That being the final wake-up call alerting even my most delusional and wounded aspects to the fact that love is not available here, just more pain.

“One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.” ― Alain de Botton

My mind is drawn back to the initial feeling of attraction, dissecting it, over and over, to lay bare its nature. Reminding me that to understand means to begin to transcend. To name means to disempower. To analyze its pattern means to know the weaknesses to be exploited in service of healing. Yet it leads to not much but the most superficial avail, this experience is born out of the subconscious, which the waking mind cannot enter nor ever truly know. It is awareness alone that can enter, illuminate, and transform unknown rooms within the palace of being.

As the relating was happening and I was mesmerized by trauma, I had wondered why this attraction never had the power of creating a gateway for love, and why it ceased to be present in the physical absence of them. A phenomenon that baffled me and yet managed to get lost in feelings of exhaustion and a need to reenergize after encounters. Why did I feel good in their company and only became aware of serious depletion after encounters? What malarky was at play here?

“I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute. Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I liked that certain undefinable something directed my way by members of the opposite sex. For want of a better word, call it magnetism. Like it or not, it’s a kind of power that snares people and reels them in.” ― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun 

Attraction of Deprivation

There is a type of attraction that is more powerful and blinding than any other, one that pulls me under into the realm of unconsciousness and trauma. The entrancing toxicity of the sirens call of deprivation changes the state of mind and body, the familiar feel of one, who gladly withholds emotional flow and vulnerability, controls relating, and avoids intimacy is an embodied invitation to healing to me. A heady attraction meant to render all shortcomings in the other, dysfunctionalities of dynamics shared, and the poor way it makes me feel and show up – though visible and known, confoundingly inconsequential, i.e. until it has done its work and I have entered the process of awakening and liberating.

It has been a while since I have encountered this dark gem of an attraction, enough time to let me forget its pattern and nature to a degree that made me susceptible enough to its lure.

And it is the foundation of deprivation and its function as a blesson (lesson and blessing) that rendered this attraction incapable of rooting in love. The lack of emotional flow, which felt painful and confusing, was at the core of the blessing ensuring that extrication from this would be easy and gentle on my heart. After all it generally is the emotional bond that makes it hard for my heart to let go, in its absence my heart aches in a different and less harrowing way. It ached with the pain of exclusion, letting go of an illusion, anguish over the legacy of pain inflicted long ago, and the sadness about the abuse being visited on the one armoring and hardening their heart as well as others. 

The Hidden Seed 

But this time had something special, a spin if you like, to not only draw me in but make me stay long enough in the experience to dislodge and purge more of the old pain and confusion while seeding something unexpected. A little treasure hidden in midst of the murkiness, the seed of a lotus meant to grow and transmute this mud into beauty.

A ‘usual’ wound-mate or trauma bond would not have made me stay long enough in the encounter, a novelty had to be thrown into the mix to keep me coming back in curiosity and fascination with this unknown dimension of experience. 

And what could be more powerful than initiating the unlocking of a dimension of physical connectivity I have never experienced before. Not lust, not emotional connectivity, not spiritual highs but a clear and expansive sense of total physical safety and openness with another. Something that has almost an addictive quality to the parts of me, who lived thanks to early sexual abuse in an ongoing protective stance and vigilance until this encounter.

It is hard to let go of the first one feeling safe enough to let these guards down, open up, breathe, and open to pleasure as I have never before. To let go of the opportunity which allowed me to open up and play where the most painful abuse of innocence and pleasure had happened has been a feat for this wounded aspect of me. Especially as it did so without falling into the darkness of victimhood.

But this is a moment that speaks to the level of integration, loyalty and love in my tribe of selves. Their compassion and love for each other allows this wounded aspect to let go, trusting the guidance and love of the other selves who seek disconnection on the basis of self compassion and love. The other selves commiserate with the aspect and its feeling of loss, while being committed to creating new experiences of this flavor in healthier and more loving connections to come.

I sense the activation in this experience, the beginning of an unraveling of this aspect of my embodied experience. An opening of what had been contracted in fear and self protection for decades. An opening that allows awareness and mind to work in connecting these aspects with my core, the core that lives in indelible trust in and alignment with life. To strengthen inner reconnection and enlivening of what was once severed. 

Well played dear universe, I see what you did there!

“If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

This is But a Beginning

I know there are many layers and blessings in this experience, much more than my mind can make sense of or put words to right now. As time goes by, and the transformative and expansive effects alchemically change my perceptions, more insights and revelations are sure to follow. This is one of the gifts that keep on giving when met with open-hearted awareness.

A new cycle of unlearning and learning has begun with the ending of this encounter. Walking away activated the process of rebirthing and reworking deep inside, it has summoned a network of beloveds to come closer and share in this journey, and opened the floodgates of love and emotional flow. It took a conscious choice to open wide, counter-instinctively, and intentionally create more present, vulnerable, and raw exchanges with beloveds, new connections, and random encounters. 

And I keep hearing my indifferent self remind me ‘what is wounded in relating, heals in relating’ whenever I feel like contracting. She is reminding me to choose flow over protection, authenticity over playing to social scripts, and heartfulness over cold intellectuality.

I am hearing the clear call of intuitive guidance as it directs me towards new adventures and experiences while awareness is redecorating and making some of the unknown rooms of my palace of being conscious. I shall joyfully follow the bread crumb trail of Soul and Self in our magical game of embodied mystic adventures.

I bow in gratitude and promise to keep opening myself to novel attractions. 

Art by Unknown

The post Alchemizing appeared first on Venuskind.

Years back, I have been guided to step away from generosity and taught to painstakingly observe, witness, and analyze the dynamics of giving and receiving in my relationships.
Learning to differentiate between healthy flow of generosity and the ‘faux generosity’ of over-giving, and to notice when and why the first is turned into the latter. Realized how draining and withering lack of reciprocity, and giving to the wrong people, are for my heart and being, and to become aware of the high cost incurred to my body-mind by experiencing and healing this. Reflected on the heartrending devastation experienced in the emotional realm when giving from an open heart to an imbalance in giving, attention, awareness, care, or love.
Learned to hold myself accountable for that pain I caused myself while being compassionate with the parts that replay this pattern. Practiced releasing the ‘other’ from the blame my protectors and wounded parts would put on them by expanding their perceptions and leading them to embrace accountability.

After all that work, energy, and love flowed into this ongoing process of understanding and integration I still find myself slipping back into this distorted pattern of hurting myself by inviting misaligned people into my experience and replaying old scripts with their ‘generous’ help.
I cannot express how much it tires me to find myself in these repetitions, how much energy is spent on going through the whole process with gentleness and care for subtleties. And yet, what else is there to do but to work towards integration and liberation?

Thus, I find myself contemplating, once again, how to teach the parts of me, who give generously without keeping an eye on reciprocity and equality, to be more discerning and moderate their giving. How do I ensure that powerful feelings and the overflow of love and affection do not manage to disrupt awareness and alertness to the replay of old patterns?
Maybe it is also about accepting the humanness of forgetting and awakening in-midst of a replay, and embracing it as a humbling experience and reminder to stay aware and alert?

It is still challenging to engage with above mentioned helpers in this pattern in the aftermath of awakening to the pattern, to protect them from the immensity of anger and rejection triggered, from expressions of the deep-rooted dislike for the stingy and miserly in perfectly honed daggers in word form, and any other impulse to make them feel the pain their actions translate into for me.
The parts in me that hate them are powerful and sly and I still haven’t mastered our dance, finding myself taken in by their rationalizations and emotions more often than I like. I have a lot of growing to do in this…

Which is why I choose to step back from engaging in any deep or intimate way with those, with whom I find myself in patterns of giving and withholding, emotional openness and unavailability – if they cannot or will not step up and work with me in diffusing the activation and emotional charge.

Here is an interesting thing my reflections have made me become aware of: Those who have the skills and emotional intelligence to move between states, self reflect, and retain access to meta perceptions and exchanges on relating, are only rarely in this dynamic with me. And if they are it plays out in a different and more mellow way (regardless of the intensity of emotions or heated exchanges), as we can talk about it from different dimensional perceptive points (identified/detached, mine/theirs, human/consciousness) and open to unknown possibilities, negotiate compassionately to have our needs met, and navigate the challenge with humor and playfulness.
These are my people with whom I can fail better, grow, and thrive.

Now how to teach my parts to direct their healthy generosity and affections towards my kin, decline invitations to over-give, and be more discerning and reserved towards those who cannot meet me on an even playing field of consciousness that is on the level that serves our wellbeing.

Work in messy but gratitude-inspiring process…

Photography by Caroline Tran

The post Generosity appeared first on Venuskind.

With changes to my cosmology, the way I make sense of existence and my experiences, a lot has changed in my perceptions and being on this journey. I have reclaimed generously loving and caring aspects of me which were locked away for protection from a culture which tended to run rough shod over sensitivities and emotional realities of those who did not align with the mythical norm of ‘normal’ that was upheld. Being unable to live from these loving and open-hearted aspects has cut me off from my aliveness – to the point of clinical depression. Which is why I am committed to living and loving from the abundance of my core, even if it incurs pain or conflict.

It lies in the nature of the human state that we adapt to a given circumstance as other skills and abilities adapted to absent circumstances begin to fade. But on the spiritual path another dimension is added to this as the journeyer rebirths new versions of their being by integrating what was split off and changing internal hierarchies of aspects to move from egocentric to Self-led being. As the shifts are usually quite subtle we only realize the nature and form of changes when confronted with novel experiences and observe our capacity to respond and spaciousness in the moment. Old skills will be called upon to manifest in a new form, letting us stretch and strive to find a more fluid and adaptive way of embodying them. We learn to embrace a pause between trigger and response while internally redirecting the reactive response of old, should it come up. In time we taste the sweetness of the void space of the pause, connecting more deeply and joyfully to its innately creative energy. And if we look more deeply into the subtleties of it we can see our spirit revel in the elixir of potentiality every venture into the void offers. But I digress…

This year has led me to interact more consistently with people more aligned to the usual way of relating. It was interesting to observe how ways of behaving, speaking and being, which wouldn’t have fazed a younger version of me, suddenly felt starkly brash, cold, and lacking in empathy for self and other. In a sense it felt as if I had become more raw and fragile to it, when what I was experiencing was aspects, once protected, were now exposed to the behavior and expressive habits of the other. A need to translate these behaviors into a calming reframe for conditioned responses and to attune to a new reality of relating arose. Eventually leading me to teach tender parts to be with this kind of human manifestation in equanimity, while being mindful of the awareness levels they point to. Unlearning reflexive protectivity to give the tender ones repeat experiences of their new capacity to meet the harshness and egocentricities with kindness and compassion in ways that have not been available before, is very challenging as it feels counter-intuitive but the rewards are sweet beyond imagination. The grace of watching what once was wounded and weak remember its true nature is magnificently beyond words… and well worth the pain and struggle on the path.

I choose to make sense of this experience by perceiving it as an opportunity to heal the conditioned mind-body reactivities in areas, where it is prone to feel vulnerable and victimized by the way another shows up and expresses or doesn’t express. After all a sovereign or whole being is not disrupted in its flow of being and self-worth by the way another chooses to express, they take note of it and meet it from grace and compassion. That which is fragile and easily rendered insecure cannot be Self but an expression of the distortions I hold due to earlier incarnational experiences. 

In my case it is the imprinted memory of the little girl who anxiously listened to most nuanced shifts in tones, visual expressions, and behaviors of her parents to preempt and prevent experiencing devastating pains of rejection, abandonment, and neglect. Now I am strong enough to hold space for the gentle recalibration and integration of these memories and parts into the fluidity of my being. That in itself is a miracle given where this journey started.

Nonetheless my preference for relating, especially with close and beloved people, clearly lies in a more verbally expressive, appreciative, and loving way of relating. Especially in the face of German culture, which traditionally leans towards limited emotional expressivity (most defined as too mushy, weak), and operates on the misconception that making expressions of love and praise scarce renders them more precious. Which of course makes for rather cold and austere relating, devoid of most emotional warmth, starving the heart and emotional body. I do not care to perpetuate, nor participate in, this distortion and rather practice being a source of a different frequency set point and relational baseline. Living in this field, though, has a way of affecting and making me regress into these patterns, whenever I fall into unconsciousness. That is the dance I signed up for when choosing to leave behind the culturally conditioned norms and contracts of relating and communicating. I consider this to be one of my juiciest current growth edges.

It is a strangely empowering experience to intentionally show up, in what feels more warm and generous to me, by being verbally expressive of genuine appreciation and words of affirmation, when most people choose to be morose, aloof, or to express their negative biases and discontent. 

An even more tender and overflowing gratitude arises for all the beings who showed up in my path to teach and support me in the unlearning of unlove, and especially for those who journey with and are interconnected with me in a web of love. Thank you for being radiantly loving, kind and compassionate companions, friends, and beloveds in my experience!

What a dance of multiple dimensions and experiences this life can be, when lived with growing awareness, lessening attachments and identifications, and growing trust in the benevolence of life! 

I bow in gratitude to life and its endless teachings and expansive humor in guiding me along the path.

Photography by Unknown

The post Expressing Appreciation appeared first on Venuskind.

Novel Observations and Insights

What I am now learning is that I read said energy primarily off their words and tone of VOICE and only at a small percentage from their energy and body language. In the absence of spoken conversations the ‘data’ I perceive and read feels vague and inconclusive to me as it lacks the clarity and brilliance of what my ‘other sensory channel’ conveys to me. Of course the differentiation is quite subjective and owed to habituation and the nature of past experiences.

I am observing my dislike for not-knowing and feeling blindsided in these encounters, it throws me off my flow. A humbling of my ego is occurring here, as I experience myself in a powerless position and need to meet to the unfolding without a sense of precognition and knowing. Trust and surrender are what are asked for as I am invited to grow past this contraction. Trust primarily in Life and Self, not necessarily the other.

In deeper inquiry I have realized how much of my love languages are fed through this channel of feeling-knowing of the other. It is only in the markedly lessoning or absence of this flow I am now able to make this discovery, as it was hidden in plain sight before. Experiencing a limitation of the flow of energy through this channel and less self-initiated verbal expressions of care and love (not cued by mine) I find parts of myself reeling with insecurity. Struggling to feel or hold on to a feeling of being loved and cared for they are in greater need for love and care from other parts of me. Again asking for more trust and a lot of self love and holding of younger and wounded aspects as they shake and shiver through this experience.

My preferred approach to meeting new insights and challenges is to go within to explore and get to know them and their effects, then to decide how to manage my selves and meet the situation as I keep these tender processes protected from the energy and sights of others. Walking a path of healing and integration in the absence of a partner has ingrained a reflexive retreat into self and default to self reliance. No one to share the process with or consult, apart from sharing of experiences and tools with friends and fellow journeyers.

The Urge to Share

I do not know how to share this process with another. Especially if they do not walk a similar path and know from embodied experience what I am doing or on which premises and cosmological perception these intuitive actions are based. 

I find myself speechless and struggling for words that will translate into their reality and be understood as I mean them. It makes me feel vulnerable, raw, isolated, and in mute sadness as the gap between consciousnesses reveals itself. Nowhere is distance more painful and disheartening to my selves than in the inner workings and pathways of spiritual self work. 

Which of course only points to an attachment and fragility to be observed and transmuted in divine time. First, though, I shall sit with my sadness and disappointment at not being able to share this in a meaningful, fulfilling, or expansive way with a beloved.

I am aware that the hope or wish to be able to share all with the one my heart chooses is an amalgamate of the Soul’s longing for union with the One and romantic narratives of patriarchy. And I know from experience that when I enter the core of my being all separation and otherness falls away as delicious all-encompassing oneness is the absolute reality.

The Wise One Speaks

A wise inner voice reminds me of the insight gained years ago that the innermost sacred hall of my inner temple is only to be entered alone. And only in entering their innermost sacred hall can beloveds ‘meet’ me there. They either find their way or they don’t -this is not a domain of human willfulness, it is in the realm of Spirit and Consciousness.

Surrender little girl, yield to the wisdom expressing in your experience and trust the magnetism of Love. What you seek, seeks you. Breathe. Trust. Practice. Be. Show up best you can. Tinker. Laugh at and learn from your failures, get up and try it again, and again. Until you get to the gift hidden in this challenge.

Remember, little one, life is to be experienced, not mastered and understood (right away). 

Mastery lies in allowing the Self to lead you on the path of your Soul in the knowing of its eternal and boundless love and care for you.

Whereto Now

My intuitive guidance is to start a new sadhana (ritualized practice) to expand the flow of Self/Source energy in support of these processes of recalibration and meet these new experiences on a higher vibrational ground. A sadhana to help my body rebalance the health issues that have shown up in the past months, address blockages to chi and keep it moving better through my beloved body, and thereby give consciousness a better home to fill. A sadhana to invite higher consciousness into my being to remake what needs remaking and build what is needed for what wants to be expressed and experienced through me. A sadhana to invite, make room for quality time, communion with the great Beloved, and to soothe my heart’s longing for union.

And though it might seem to some like it is a flight or bypass, to me this inner retreat is very intentional and meant to address the obstacles to experiencing and engaging with reality in less obstructed and distorted ways. It is fueled by love for my beloved and self, as well as my wish to find a better way of meeting him and myself best I can. To burn away the hold of conditioned narratives in the fire of Spirit, to wash away the hold of memories (mine and ancestral) that stand in the way of being present as an undefended and fully connected being, to fill my own cup and keep it refilled as I pour it out in greater quantities than before. Intending to open the inner channels of love to flow unhindered and with conscious aliveness to feed my selves to their contentment and joy, as well as the selves of others I encounter and relate with.

I welcome the process of birthing of a new version of my being who is more integrated, less contracted and beholden to the lies, misperceptions, and distortions of the past. Grateful for the strengths and resilience acquired along my path and experiences, which allow me to step into this new cycle of learning with courage, confidence, and trust. And welcoming all cooperative, supportive, and co-creative energies which want to be part of this experience and process of unbecoming and becoming.

It is a blessing to be alive and experiencing the play of consciousness in the nourishing and inspiring web of love, of soul kin, physical and non-physical.

Art: ‘Entwive Yavanna’ by izuniaaafoto

The post In Alchemical Process 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.

These are some of my reflections at the end of this adventure in humaning.

Men of my age and older

Having been surrounded for more than a decade by very aware, caring and spiritual people has upped all my baselines for communicating and relating. And engaging with mainstream ‘normal’ men gained a surreal retro feel thanks to the evolution and growth shared in various communities. I caught myself over and over in surprised and speechless moments of “People are still doing this and not aware enough to see it for what it is and change or grow?”

Habituated to fellow growth-minded people the slow pace of progression and learning in others, coupled with an unadulterated and unapologetic rigidity in holding on to dysfunction felt not only alien but put me off, even if the man had other good qualities.

A history of immersion in psychology, communication sciences and being part of the polyamory community has taught me early on about communication, consideration and respect for another’s needs and feelings. So much so that it has become second nature and my world is primarily populated with people who are eloquent practitioners of it. Therefore the disjointed communication styles, absence of consideration of my needs and feelings, unabashed egocentricity, unconscious mind games, ego tantrums and other manipulative attempts felt jarring and alienating. And I realized these block communicating and relating so much that even the most basic levels of these are repeatedly or permanently unavailable with these men. Though the reasons for said blockages are amalgamated by individual unaddressed patterning and wounding the general dynamic was quite repetitive.

Overall I observed the immensity of emotional and spiritual poverty rampant in men of my age, the ways they try to compensate or flee it (sex, status, money, etc.) and the suffering, fragility and loneliness underneath all their striving or posturing as they have achieved enough of their goals to be confronted with their fecklessness in the face of the hole within they tried to fill with them.
I am saddened by how few of them are courageous and willing enough to face their shadow and integrate it now. Too many messages and conversations had men acknowledge that they probably should address this or that and then giving me rationalizations and excuses why they won’t just now or ever. Of course change and healing is impossible, shouldn’t I know?

With men who are spiritual and have their own self work journey the fault lines lie along similar lines though in a more tempered and less obvious way. They also strive and posture by displaying their spiritual practices, jobs, achievements – the more integrated have a humorous awareness of it when pointed to it while others will react with the same fragility to be found in other men. I cannot help but see a lack of decisive actions and investment in things of value due to the ease of being distracted or too sluggish to leave the (spiritual) comfort zone. A lack of ability to slay the Buddha on the path and progress beyond on the one hand and the inability or unwillingness to marry spirituality with the mundane on the other.

Conditioning is truly strong and finds ways to operate in new ways along old lines, the spiritualized ego is just one of the more visible ways this shows itself. If we do not keep alert, sharpening our awareness and consciousness our human affinity for comfort and consistency will limit our progress and insert unhealthy stagnation and calcification. A valuable reminder to be honored.

Power differentials

The most fascinating experience I made for the first time in this intensity and across all encounters is a dynamic power differential which put me in the stronger position without any intent or effort on my side.
All the disappointments, heartbreaks, and subsequent ongoing self work that emotional unfulfilment has brought into my experience has blossomed and is bearing a magical fruit. Said fruit is twofold as it manifests as the ability to fill my own cup by having a variety of ways and flexibility to fulfill my needs independent of a singular other. Sitting alone and dropping inside already washes away all burdens, worries, and needs in the luminosity of presence and equanimity. Taking full responsibility for my experience has grown and transcended me beyond the strangling grip of trauma and conditioning into a state of compassionate self love that allows me to navigate life with awareness, trust, playfulness and inner strength.
The second manifestation is the curated life I have been slowly building from the inside out, rich in connections and relationships that can nurture me more than *enough* and which evolve and grow steadily and healthily. When filling my cup internally or from Spirit doesn’t quite hit the point there are cherished friends and acquaintances who will do it. And often it takes only a word or sentence here, a hug, moments of shared laughter or commiseration. Even little things are superfoods to my heart and Soul in this web of love that lights up around and in me.

Having worked on my childhood trauma and with my sexual desires and energy has shifted my relationship with sex in ways I haven’t had a chance of being so acutely aware of in the absence of viable sex partners. I realized that the past years had taught me to transform the dense, sharp, burning imminence of sexual desire into other forms of energy in service of my spiritual practice or into a gentle, encompassing, warm, expansive erotic energy that is more akin to a wide flowing river than the intensity of burning fiery sexual need. My urges no longer hijack or control my being, I can feel, sense and take pleasure in them without having to act on them right here and now, frustration, or loss of the energy. There is no enslavement nor opposition to sexual desires, just an allowing, awareness and loving intentional engagement. Which is very different to the way it dominated and drove the decisions and action of the men I encountered, even the spiritual with a few exceptions (true tantric practitioners). This dominating drive was often the reason why connection was impossible as their system had concept of relating and connecting outside of sex. Not only a mental poverty but also a terrible pattern of starving the emotional body.

I enter every encounter as a whole being open to new experiences, cognizant of the goodness and abundance of life, while these men act from mindsets built on scarcity, competition, domination and neediness. A power differential asserts itself as I am less driven than them, moving at the pace of my awareness and intuition, my desires for the encounter being for it to be respectful, kind, and interesting/expansive. While on the other side they are under pressure to fulfill their burning needs and desires for ‘the one,’ sex, admiration, alleviation of loneliness, filling the emptiness in their life, etc. The exception being that spiritual guys have less of a pressure and more of a desire and the best of them meeting me in a similar openness to mine.

This calls for extra mindfulness and compassion in my words and actions in order not to enter into the dysfunctional patterns this power difference might invite and to be kind and caring towards the tender aspects of the man. Gifts always come with new responsibilities to keep relating balanced and fair.

Take away for me

All the work to disempower and dismantle romantic conditioning and be more spacious about relating and loving has changed how I perceive relationships, my visions and needs in relating with an intimate partner or friend, and lastly me. I can smile at my inner romantic when she starts going off creating Hollywood movies in her future projections, and still stay anchored in awareness and act from my higher senses and mind.
No longer a slave to these narratives by blindly following them nor by rebelling against them, I have learned to allow life to write an authentic and healthier narrative into every encounter with potential while practicing detachment from outcomes and surrender to the way life unfolds.

And so here I am in a state of awe of the wholeness this path has gifted me. Grateful for the expansion of my awareness, the learning of skills that help me navigate challenging feelings and pains of the past with tender compassion and firmness in service of the wellbeing of all. Grateful for the lessoning of the selfishness and self absorption of the ego which used to blind me to the needs, wants, desires, and feelings of others in the pursuit of my emotional fulfillment. Thankful for leaning into interdependence, allowing vulnerability, honesty and tenderness to strip me to my essential nature and truths in the face of worthy beloveds, learning and practicing how to keep filling another’s cup while keeping mine full *enough*.

I bow in gratitude for my teachers in the past months for the insights and learning they co-created with me. Grateful for them helping me realize that companionship and friendship are fundamental to me and my vision of an evolutionary and fulfilling relationship and that many fail to meet the basic skills and awareness needed for that starting point, let alone the evolutionary trajectory I see as intrinsic to my life and loving. Grateful for making me realize how unique and special a man has to be to co-create a relationship and life with me that would be worthwhile to surrender my aloneness for. Laying the foundation for the proper appreciation and gratitude for the one that will take this role in times to come. Grateful for making me more committed to my path and consciousness work to avoid the pitfalls of conditioning, rigidity, and stagnation which render us lifeless.
Hoping from the bottom of my heart that our encounter was in some little way enriching and nourishing to them and that their Soul flourishes and delights along the path she choose.

Last but not least I bow in gratitude and awe to Life/Self/Source for the playfulness, love, creativity, care, and challenges they pepper my life experience with. And for the blessed and indomitable knowing that what is mine will never pass me by!

Photography Karen Williams by Paul Innis

The post Online Dating appeared first on Venuskind.

“It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self discovery,
rather than to choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness
that would last the rest of our lives.”
~ Marianne Williamson

For a long time I have been perceiving things along the lines of this quote, believing it to be a primarily a question of individual courage if someone walks a path of self discovery and self work.
But the years of the pandemic have illuminated this and allowed me to perceive and reflect on it in a more detailed way.

There is a lot more to this ongoing choice of self discovery, and there is a distinct difference between those who will keep choosing this path and those only willing to follow it up to a point, until it causes too much discomfort or begins to undercut too much of the beliefs and desires of the ego.

Paths

Sure it takes courage initially to follow the call of the soul, to listen to the voice insisting on change and a different way of being. That could be already achieved by comparatively small and superficial lifestyle changes, changing our diet, choosing yoga and mindfulness practices. This is how far most will take it, and they will benefit in ‘functioning’ better in a sick and exploitative system. And that is all they wish for.

Some will take the path of psychology and delve into certain aspect of its insights, get help and work things out to the degree that they feel balanced and well enough to engage with life in a new and less painful way. Some adjustments are made to beliefs and perceptions with the focus being predominantly on helping the personality better navigate life.

Others will move into esoteric and occult teachings and belief systems, incorporating those beliefs into their daily lives and practicing relevant rituals. They might also strive to be more loving and compassionate, molding the personality, without delving too deeply into spiritual self discovery and the work and changes arising from it.

And then there are those whose soul’s are willing to immerse themselves more fully into self discovery in this incarnation. Who will seek many different sources, or maybe just one, and utilize them to go beyond the personality, to touch on the Self, to let it rework their being. Those who will go through all the challenges, pains, and losses it takes to make the personality and mind take the backseat as the Soul/Self take the lead. Those who learn to ‘step out of the way’ as the forces of life change them and their life, who are willing to unlearn all that they have been taught, to experience the mystery of life unclouded by the misperceptions and deceits of ancestors and the cultures and conditioning handed down to them.

Insights

From where I am at in my journey and knowing I realize how little these paths, and how far we are capable and allowing in walking them, are dependent on the traits of the personality or the resistances of the ego. That which is decisive lays at the core of our being at the Soul level of our being. It is there, where the choice of experiences and learning for this lifetime are made, not in the mind or personality – those only get to rationalize them after the fact.

The complexity of factors that have to come together to create an ongoing and truly evolutionary trajectory of growth is more aligned with the mystical teaching that separate and individual agency is an illusion and that as ‘all that is is affected by all that is’ life, including personal choices, is a collective unfolding.

Which has taken away the wish to ‘help others know and understand’ and replaced it with a knowing of their understanding perfectly well for their soul path and intentions. No need to interfere or wish for change. And if it puzzles me, I may try to inquire into their perceptions and inner trajectory to make sense of their beliefs and behaviors, but it no longer is necessary beyond teaching me lessons needed to for my own becoming.

With it the burning desire to find others, who know more than me or have explored differing paths, in order to expand my knowledge has mellowed out. I still enjoy deep and expansive exchanges on philosophical, cosmological, energetical aspects of our experience. But exchanges focused in awe and delight in the mystical unfolding of life have taken their place and leave me charged up with delight and joy like the earlier never could.

There is no longer a need to judge another’s path or confront them about it. Instead there is an experience of a loss of interest and willingness to engage with certain dimensions of consciousness. To engage with these feels like constricting into a limited and painful way of perception and engagement with life, a form of self abuse, and wasteful of my energy and time.

You would think that it makes for a lonely existence but in fact it has made being rich in what feels like another dimensionality. Which in turn seems to feed a sense of wholeness and wellbeing I have not yet felt in this level of calm imperviousness. And it seems to open to a kind of encounter with the being, or is-ness of others, which provides a reciprocal level of luminous nourishment for the Soul which is very different to what used to feed the ego or heart.

Emergence

What is emergent is what I call Self-sufficiency, being whole unto Self, deriving everything needed from Self – regardless if through this being, another, or cooperative energies. To rely solely on the Self means releasing all attachments to things perceived as a security in life (jobs, homes, family, friends) and leaning into the spaciousness the detachment creates. A spaciousness that can be mistaken for emptiness and therefore scary to the personality/ego. In time and with persistence the fears eventually melt away and so does the interference of the personality with experience.

What follows is what we can taste in a lesser form in moments of ‘flow’ – pure being. Zero point consciousness in embodiment. Which in turn is but a beginning of another multidimensional adventure in embodied consciousness and experience.

Art by Unknown

The post Self Discovery appeared first on Venuskind.

I am in a newfound and visceral awe of this archaic and arcane instinctual wisdom, its no nonsense attitude, and the sense of uninterrupted connection with all of life and experiences on this planet it opened up to me. What magical gifts we carry encoded in our genes without ever fully appreciating or hope of knowing them until they choose to open themselves to us?

It is a special kind of magic when this old one deems me deserving of more direct and interactive exchanges. Opening my mind to a dimension of consciousness which was not available to my awareness, though it strongly affected and formed my everyday life since I incarnated into this form. 

This novel opening of the primal is helping me understand the relationships and power differentials between the primal (instinctive, animal), vital (emotional), mental (intellectual, cognitive), and higher mind (consciousness). 

I am aware this is possible only thanks to the higher mind having all mindbody systems focusing for years on dispersing illusions and releasing blockages to oneness and wholeness. There is grace in this as well as a reward for commitment to the path, work done, and surrender to higher consciousness through all the twists and turns of my path.

Using a recent experience I was shown that my primal mind dispelled a sticky enchantment of the vital (emotional), which was vulnerable to it owing to old wounds, said disruption ushering in more clarity of perception and realignment of my being. Allowing me to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the primal, its strong medicine/wisdom, and dispel my misperception that what obstructs knowing and alignment with greater mysteries of life lies mostly in the primal. I stand corrected and bow in humble gratitude for the gift of knowing and liberation from distortion.

Art: ‘Safia’ by Marcel van Luit

The post The Primal appeared first on Venuskind.

I have been celebrating a new milestone in my journey as of late. The shift in how I respond to contrast from close or intimate relationships. Instead of trying to make them align or harmonize with me, I have finally taught myself to simply accept reality as is. My rebellious and willful aspects have come to see and embrace the futility of fighting or distorting reality.

True power begins in the moment I see and accept reality as it is, when I abstain from projecting on it my fears or wishes and instead ‘dare’ to let it be what it is. This acceptance is the ground from which I can most effectively and powerfully pivot and act without wasting my energy and time on useless efforting.

I might ask questions to gain a better understanding of the terrain I find myself in with someone, yet do not fight for things to be different. My gaze lifting and wandering over the terrain, assessing, and reflecting while making intuitive judgements if it is conducive to growth, fruitful exchanges, and transformation or if it is too barren to support a connection.

No longer do I believe that everything that could be brought to back to life needs to be. Sometimes the most loving thing to do is to let things die and compost in order to make space for the birthing of new and aligned life. Sometimes things have to die off into the void. Sometimes the best thing to do is laugh about the contrasting views and delight in the love and joy of the connection which supersedes them.

Coming from the intensely traumatizing black and white programming of the cult I grew up in, this is an amazing achievement. Acceptance- not avoidance or numbing to contrast- goes completely against what has been entrained into me as a child. I was taught to ‘fight’, ‘take out with the root’, try to ‘convert’, distance, ‘hate’, or ‘shun’ contrast within and without.

What a gift to release more layers of the cult conditioning from my subconscious mind and liberate my being from its toxicity.

My inner peace and wellbeing are becoming more valuable and precious to me as I keep reclaiming them from layer upon layer of distorted beliefs and conditionings.

Art by Nicolas Obery from the “Fantasmagorik” series

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