#everything in your life is unfolding exactly as it needs to for your highest path

[boyczar]

[tarotinapinch]

Messages for the Signs

Virgo: You are overwhelmed at what you have to do. Don’t put too much on your plate at once. You can get everything done that you need to, just take things slow and let them unfold naturally. You will get everything accomplished that is on your list. Rushing things will not help the situation. Relax and indulge in self care while you wait for your manifestations to come in. 

Libra: You have such a strong sense of empathy. This is not a bad thing, but make sure that it does not stand in the way of you making the decisions you need to for yourself. While caring for others is important, know that you are not responsible for anyone’s feelings besides your own. Continue to make the choices you need to to get yourself comfortable, to get yourself further down the path of healing and self love. Now is a time of new beginnings and great opportunities for you. Even if you feel scared, know that you are fully supported by the Universe to go after these goals that make your heart sing. Know that true happiness awaits you on the other side of the door, you only need to let go of the past and walk over the threshold to the future.

Scorpio: You are extremely well grounded at this moment in time, and this positive energy reaches many people around you. It helps them to see where they need grounding within their own lives. Because of this, people may come to you for advice. Use your discretion on who you want to help and what information you give out. Your gut instinct knows the difference between someone who truly wants to heal versus someone who just wants to ride off of your own high vibrations without doing any of the work themselves. Don’t be afraid to set boundaries. Protect your inner peace and you will always be able to find your personal happiness.

Sagittarius: Whatever structures and boundaries that you have built with others, and especially the ones that you have built with yourself, are very important. They show how much you have grown as a person, how much you care for yourself and your current path. They show how solid you are in your authentic truth. If you have been worried lately about where you are going, know that all is well. You have chosen with great wisdom, using your inner guidance, and now is not the time to reevaluate or change your boundaries. If the choices that you made feel right to you, then they are correct. No questioning needed. You are the only person that you need validation from.

Capricorn: You are such a loyal and protective friend. This is both a strength and a weakness. Stay kind to those around you, but be firm with your boundaries. Don’t do anything that goes against your personal ideals. Feel through and heal your emotions so that they do not get in the way of your decision making. Above all else, stay true to your authentic self. 

Aquarius: Use your passions to guide the way. You are a unique individual and may have made some decisions that are quite different from others. Let this fact be an inspiration to keep going forward. Not everyone has the strength to pursue things that go against the “societal norm” the way that you do. You could very well be starting your own business, leaving a job of many years to start something entirely new, moving far away from your childhood home, getting into a study or practice that your friends and family may have never heard of, breaking family traditions, or even just doing a total reevaluation of the self so that you can truly understand who you are at a soul level. Whatever the case may be for you, know that you are doing the right thing! Keep making those unique choices that lead you closer and closer to your authentic self.

Pisces: Now is the time of karmic justice, it is time to reap what was sown. Know that rewards are coming for your diligence, that hard work you put in is finally paying off! And oh, the sweet rewards that are coming are unimaginably radiant and joyous. Also know that whoever has done you wrong in this life are going to get karma served to them as well, there is no need to take action on these matters. Let karma work itself out, just focus on you and your own. Keep working on bettering yourself and attaining your inner peace and the abundance of the Universe will continue to flow to you.

Aries: No matter how you may be feeling now, know that the worst of it is behind you. You’ve made it through the toughest part. This is a sign of exactly how strong you are. Look at how far you’ve come from where you used to be. I bet the you of the past never thought that you’d make it as far as you have. Be proud of yourself for all of the things that you have accomplished. Because, frankly, they’re amazing. You’re amazing. You didn’t make it here by accident. This is a result of all that hard work you put in. You truly have a deep inner strength that nothing else compares to. Keep up the good work! You’ve almost made it to the finish line and the sweet rewards are calling your name, cheering you to victory!

Taurus: You’re feeling very curious about something right now. This curiosity could be leading you down paths unknown to yo. This can be scary, but let your intuition lead the way. The unknown is feared by almost everyone, so know that it is okay to be scared, even when you have already put your faith and trust into the Universe to guide you. It’s only human nature to fear the unknown. Let yourself feel through these emotions, but don’t let fear dictate where you are led. Stay true to the paths and options that you want to explore. You’re going to gain so much knowledge and wisdom about yourself through these times. Release and truly let the mind expand as you traverse these new pathways.

Gemini: Now is the time to push ahead and lean into progressive energies. Any choices you make now that you feel are for your highest truth, in line with your authentic self, will be hugely beneficial for you and pay off in the near future. Just remember that if you want something, you have to put the work. The Universe acknowledges when you get serious about living your truth and creates your reality with you. Some may call you a rebel, but you thrive in this energy. Use it to propel you even further forward!

Cancer: There are changes coming your way! They could be big, they could be small. You may be aware of them, you may not be. But trust that you have all of the tools and knowledge to handle whatever comes your way. This is a sign from the Universe that you are ready to take the next steps in your spiritual journey. You’re leveling up, so to speak, and have received all of the increased stats and items that you need to proceed further along the path. You’re going to crush this next level of life with ease and grace, attracting all of the amazing opportunities for abundance along the way. 

Leo: This is a sign that all of your dreams and wishes are being manifested now or in the very near future! You are surrounded by people who love you for your authentic self and fully support your goals and dreams. What a wonderful energy to be in! The only thing that is needed from you at this time is to let go of any negativity that you may still be holding onto. This could look like negative self talk, limiting beliefs, people who don’t support you or your dreams, harsh judgements, etc. You know what it is that needs to be released in order to heal. Once this is done, your manifestations will be able to come in full force. Rejoice and celebrate your accomplishments. You’ve come so far and now is the time to open your arms and accept the abundance that you have attracted. 

[the-faeryqueen]

hello dear fae!! I hope you are doing well ♡ my name is Wilmot, but the name I use irl is Hannah. ✨💕😊 may I please have a fairy door reading, for my question "what is the best course of action from here?" ? I'm in such a rough spot :< my signs (sidereal first and tropical after) are: ☀️♏♐, 🌘♊♋, ⬆️♍♎ thank you so much!! 🥰

Hi Wilmot! I'm doing very well, thank you! 🥰

For your fairy door I decided to add an Oracle card as well, but we will get to that later.

Here's the door I intuitively chose for your question:

Now this door is closest but let's get to the actual symbols I saw for you. (Unfortunately I cannot always find a fairy door that includes all of the elements I see but the one chosen above may have elements that are meaningful to you regardless)

The symbols I saw for your fairy door were:

- a music note with a sword through it

- a star

- a woven rope design, reminiscent of something celtic-like to me

- A black and red Victorian choker

Interpretation:

The sword and the music note:

The first symbol I saw was a music note with a sword through it. To me this tells me that there is some sort of inner truth or knowing being shown to you. Music may be of importance to you at this time as well. The sword to me also speaks of action. You must decide what this inner truth is and contemplate how you want to act upon it. Cut through the obstacles that are in your path. You have everything you need.

The star:

The star speaks of hope in a time where you may not be feeling terribly hopeful. Look for the light in the darkness. The darkest nights often show the brightest stars and while you may feel you are alone in the dark, know that their is still a light shining through for your current situation.

The woven rope:

The next thing I saw was a rope of some kind, reminiscent of Celtic designs. To me this represents that there are many things being woven together at this time. You may not even understand fully what is being effected due to the circumstances. This can also be a message to take a look at what connections are around you and how they effect you. Take note of what people cause strain to you and what people strengthen you.

The Victorian style choker:

The colors I saw for this choker was a black collar with red gems, looking very similar to the photo above. To me this speaks of elegance and restrictions. You may feel restricted or as though things aren't going your way, but hold your head high and step forward with grace. The best course of action involves poise and patience. Black to me reminds me of transformation and red reminds me of passion. While this transformation may feel restricting at first, know that it will actually help bring shining jewels of passion, energy, strength, and love. Think about what you desire and then go for it!

Your Oracle:

22 She Feels, She Knows

(Taken from my Sacred Rebels Oracle Deck)

This insight will assist you and you are asked to honor it. You will know which insight it is at the right time. Your heart will tell you. You are therefore being asked to rely upon the clarity that is coming to you now, or has just recently come. Gently, but firmly, from that place of knowing, intend to act and take your next steps forward.

An illumination is erupting from within you as a vision that is bringing what was once obscured into clarity. This is not likely to happen as a blinding, shocking insight, but as more of a softer, gentle knowing. It is like knowing something without understanding exactly when or how you came to know it.

This Oracle comes to you with guidance, particularly about long-range or long-term developments. Something that is far bigger than the immediate situation, issue or moment is of importance - although you will only have a dim sense of that possibility, at best. The situation you find yourself in right now may not be one of joy, but in time you will understand more of the bigger picture. You will come to see why things are happening as they are,and how you are being helped on to the next stage of your path - even though it may look like an obstacle right now.

You're being asked to think in terms of long-term happiness. Sometimes this warrants change or even temporary restrictions in the short-term. If you can't see how the present can possibly become what you sense the future to be, this message is especially relevant: "Through the natural process of transformation, great leaps are indeed possible." You simply must be prepared to surrender into the process with absolute trust.

This Oracle brings you specific guidance. The situations in your current life are particularly geared towards a more significant manifestations that is coming to you, according to your Life path and purpose. This is the stage of preparation and of building a foundation that will hold you strong and centered as your creative journey unfolds and your life path becomes ever more brilliant and luminous. so keep plugging away, remain patient but most of all, be hopeful and trust in the light you sent ahead of you, for it is the light that is within you, simply revealed more fully. And all that is happening now is happening to that end.

This beautiful deck comes with a healing process which I find to be very helpful for when you aren't sure what to do! The exercise will help you integrate the wisdom of the card and its guidance.

Don't worry if you can't understand what the healing process is supposed to be doing or if you are doing it right. Even simply reading through it will do something positive for you. It will still work even if you are uncertain. The healing might unfold at a deeper subconscious level, but the imagery, words and guidance of the healing process will help trigger the release and shift of energy within you. If you're extremely sensitive to energy, you will feel the effects, but even if you are not, even if you can't feel a thing, the healing process will be doing it's work. You will just have to be open to its effect rather than the process of it.

Your Healing Process:

Stand with your feet at hip width and your arms loosely and comfortably at your sides, slightly away from your body.

Say it loud, "I feel the light of all that I am, and will be, unfolding from within me now."

Stand still and rest your eyes on one point, or lightly close them if you can do so easily without compromising your balance. Feel, sense, imagine, or perceive that there is a pure light switched on inside of you, almost as if an internal light switch was flipped on. Perceive or feel that the light is growing brighter, bigger and wider, and more radiant. Allow it to shine outwards, from within you, as if there was a vibrant Sun at the center of your being with its rays extended outwards in all directions. You are a radiant, glowing being. Can You feel the joy and uplifting happiness of this?

When you are ready say, "I surrender what is, into the loving fire of transformation, the light of which illuminates the present and manifests the future, in the highest creative expression of unconditional love."

Be with that inner light for several moments and then place as much of your intention as possible into your feet, feeling the connection to the ground beneath you. Feel the present moment by being aware of the physical sensations of your feet. Feel the coolness or the warmth. Are they tingly, cold, or stiff and in need of some flexing and stretching? Move your feet as you wish, and in your own time, simply open your eyes, move around and return to your day or evening. You have completed your healing process.

I hope this answers your question! Please leave feedback if you can and I really hope this gave you some useful guidance for your current situation!

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Sending lots of love and light your way! 🧚💖

-Áine

[examiningmormonism]

Divine Perfection and Presence in Christian Theism and Mormonism

The Mormon doctrine of God claims, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, that Mormonism holds to a being of far greater reality than the normative view of God. When a Mormon says “God exists” its defenders argue, they don’t invent esoteric meanings for the word “exist” so as to show God as “wholly other.” God exists as you and I exist. The traditional view of God, Mormon apologists have claimed, is so esoteric that it’s not clear that such a being can coherently be spoken of as existing in the first place. Latter-day Saints are very fond of quoting an Egyptian anthropomorphist monk after the teaching (that God the Father has a physical body essentially like our own) was condemned: “they have taken my God away from me, and I have none to rasp, and I know not whom to adore or to address.” 

C.S. Lewis in “Miracles” pointed out the pitfalls that our theological language can slip into when we subconsciously associate a set of visual images with a particular concept without recognizing the association or unpacking its implications- which would allow a person to see misconceptions driving questions or criticisms about a particular point of view. In defending what I am calling the normative view of God, I emphasize that this view of God is not the provincial view of Hellenic metaphysics and Abrahamic traditions under Hellenic influence, but constitutes the view of God prevalent among countless and widely varied cultures who preserve their memory of the God of Heaven. This is true for cultures as far flung as ancient India and ancient Africa- see an interesting survey of indigenous African views of God in “African Origins of Monotheism” by Gwinyai Muzorewa. 

In launching this discussion, I will quote a small bit of an attempted satire of the normative view of God by a Mormon in a (quite old) email thread. This person, in trying to conceive of God as historically conceived, began with the following:

“Once upon a time there was this ethereal essence that roamed around somewhere in the cosmos...”

A couple problems immediately stick out to the person familiar with normative theism and its associated philosophical traditions. 

-The terms are not well defined. What is “ethereal” and “essence” in this context? It appears that the terms are not chosen for their conceptual significations, but because they relate to an image in the author’s mind. It is this image which dominates his understanding of the normative view of God- the words are haphazardly chosen to capture the sense of this vague image. Lack of definition is a consistent recipe for philosophical disaster.

-If this being is “roaming around somewhere in the cosmos”, clearly we are not dealing with the normative view of God. This being exists in relation to a larger preexisting cosmic background. Because this being’s mode of existence is described in terms of that preexisting cosmos, the latter is more ultimate than the former and defines its existence. 

—

What is the image driving the critic’s dismissal of the normative doctrine of God? Clearly, it is something like a thin gaseous substance, spread over a wide area of physical space. This is what most Mormons understand the doctrine of divine incorporeality to entail. And it must be admitted that many Christians have been theologically sloppy in talking about incorporeality as if the “incorporeal” is a distinctive property had by certain substances, one of which is God. 

—

In fact, it is exactly the opposite. Words like “ethereal” convey a sense of a being who is thin, hard to see or get a sense of, spread throughout a wide space but only very subtly present in any particular point in space. In reality, the normative view of God is that God in His divine perfection is far *more* “thick” and “concrete” than anything which we experience. Next to the infinite God, the embodied life in which we exist is barely present. C.S. Lewis describes the heavenly places as a world of intense thickness and weight. A human creature in an earthly body could not so much as move a blade of grass in that world. God is, in Lewis’ words, “so truly body that He is no body at all.” When we think of something ethereal and gaseous, we are thinkin of a failure of presence. By contrast, the Christian rejection of anthropomorphism is rooted in its declaration of the totality of divine presence in and through all things. 

Consider how Joseph Smith framed the notion of divine embodiment. For Smith, the Father and the Son each have a glorious, resurrected body. (contra consistent LDS misconceptions, Christians believe that Jesus has and will have forever a glorious body- before trying to use this teaching in an attempt to disprove classical theism, Mormons need to study the precise theology of the Incarnation articulated by the Fathers and Councils. Otherwise, they will have arguments which sound decisive to each other but deeply shallow to a person committed to the traditional doctrine.) Why does the Holy Spirit not have a glorious body? Smith’s answer is striking- so that the Spirit can dwell in us. This underscores a very serious problem, to my mind, in Mormon theology. Attempts to raise arguments against the Mormon doctrine of God by vaguely waving at texts identifying God as spirit are doomed to fail because the terms are not well defined. It is clear that, even prior to the Incarnation, God reveals Himself to the children of Israel in the form of a glorious man. 

But the key texts- the ones which decide the issue- are texts like Jeremiah 23:24- “Do I not fill the Heavens and the Earth?” Or Psalm 139:7-10: “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to Heaven, you are there. If I made my bed in the grave, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.” Or 1 Kings 8, where Solomon proclaims that “Heaven [the starry skies] and the Highest Heaven [the throne-room of God] cannot contain” the Lord.  For Latter-day Saints, embodiment is an essential step on the path to exaltation unto divine glory. Even for those Mormons who take the non-traditional (and I applaud this, which I believe comes from a grace-inspired pious instinct) view that God is God from everlasting to everlasting, the Father’s glorified body is understood to be one of his divine perfections. But it is precisely this embodiment which constitutes a *limitation* for God. For Smith’s view of God, glorious embodiment restrains the modes according to which God can be present to all things and through all space. As such, at least during the time of the human family’s mortal probation, there must be a kind of “compromise” in the Godhead where the Holy Ghost refrains from taking a glorious body in order that he might dwell in the saints. 

The classical view of God is that His all-suffusing presence is a divine perfection intrinsic to what it means for Him to be God. To say that He lacks “parts” is simply to say that all things true of Him come as a package. If God were made up of parts, then these parts would be prior to the whole- God would exist as a being within a larger cosmic order. This is, after all, the traditional Mormon view of God. And His lacking passion means that He is “impassive”, not that He is cold. He is active in all things, and no creature can impose its will on the Creator. The creature endowed with freedom who uses that freedom in rebellion finds, immediately and unavoidably, that his rebellion is assimilated and integrated into divine providence and will which is acting at all times through all things for the realization of God’s purpose to sum up all things in Jesus Christ the Incarnate Son. No act of God is “reactionary.” He is infinitely and gloriously serene, unfolding His wise purpose without stress or question of defeat. If you needed immediate heart surgery, you wouldn’t want a doctor who was so “moved” by your plight that he was too broken to operate. You would want a doctor who is genuinely and utterly committed to your healing but is in perfect control throughout the whole surgery. His fingers do not shake or slip. His mind never wavers. His next step is always clear in his mind. This clarity and purposefullness is the means by which his fingers nimbly stitch up a heart which would have stopped beating without his skill and calm. 

Rather than being an “ethereal” gaseous presence distributed thinly throughout space, God is so intensely thick and concrete that everything else- from the most solid diamond to the thinnest layer of hydrogen gas- exists by His free constitution of the creation out of the superabundance of His own glory.

Biblically speaking, this perfection is signified in the symbolism of the “Rock.” God is described as the Rock of Ages. The word “glory” is very closely related to the word “heavy.” And this association exists in English parlance, too. A person of great authority and influence, who immediately communicates a sense of presence and sovereignty is said to be “weighty.” God in His glory is infinitely heavy. He is infinitely heavy because there is an infinite “amount” of God to put on the scale. He’s the Rock which is never moved but always moves. He’s the Rock which gives birth to a creation taken up into His glory- a creation described as a stone Temple with a “cornerstone.” We become glorified in Him- we are little stones and bricks in the temple of Christ according to 1 Peter and Ephesians. 

[devinclaire]

Sparks in the Night: Aries New Moon Horoscopes

This season you are the warrior who stands their ground. We often think of the warrior as someone who is running toward adventures, rescuing others when duty calls, and looking outside themselves to decide which direction to go. The Aries New Moon always carries a warrior spirit, but this time around the warrior remains grounded in their power. Fiery chaos swirls all around and you remain calm in the eye of the storm.

Others may want you to react, to show emotion where you hadn’t felt you needed to, or encouraging you to become distracted and wander off your path. Know that in staying firmly rooted you’re living your highest truth. It doesn’t mean you don’t help others, that you’re not compassionate, it just means that you act from a place of inspiration. You’ve already made sure that your cup runs over with goodness so you don’t get thirsty when you serve others.

Also remember that you’ve recently experienced a very intense release with Pluto and the South Node coming together. Answer the call of what your meant to do next, but this time do it on your own terms.

On to the horoscopes! Remember to read your Sun sign and your Rising sign.

Aries- Happy birthday New Moon to you! The vibe of this New Moon will stay with you throughout the year. It’s a beautiful energy that is going to take you on a very interesting ride. At the time of the New Moon, you’ll be very, very clear about who are your true ride or dies. You’ll have this discernment with you for the entirty of the Sun’s trip around your chart this year. You’ll be glad you did as there is a secret admirier in your midst, and there’s a very good chance they’re right in front of you, in your group, or having a strong connection to your core bunch.

Taurus- Lately it’s been a wild ride. This New Moon encourages you to seek spiritual guidance for these interesting times. While you feel like you may be holding on for dear life, it is a good idea to pause and get clear about what you really want out of life. Just as it feels like lightning bolts have been cracking opening different parts of your life, the same energy can be used to suddenly give you exactly what you want. Imagine beautiful things and watch them appear. This is also a good time to start a business. Consider going in with someone who will help balance the enterprise. You’ll handle the money, and they’ll come up with the money making ideas, or vice versa.

Gemini- Recently you’ve expereinced some surprising shocks to your system, and this may have brought up some old wounds from your past. Know that this New Moon is a time of action for you after a time of reflection on old pain. You have a very high level of discernment, and know which friends and love interests are best for you at this time. Once you’re clear on who and what you want, dance into your new reality. Your natural curiousity will bring you clarity on how to move forward. What you do next is going to change everything.

Cancer- This year is about changing your destiny, and this Aries New Moon marks a new beginning in your career and the overall direction of your life. If you’re feeling intense unhappiness about the current state of your affairs it’s okay. This is a golden chance to reroute. It can be as simple as speaking into the fire during your New Moon ritual: “I want this, instead of that.” It’s important to not only say what you don’t want anymore, but what you want instead. Remember, the Universe is breaking things down so it can build something new, something beyond your wildest dreams.

Leo- If you’re not taking a trip over the next two weeks, now is definitely the time to plan and book a far off adventure. This is important because you want to ride the wave of Uranus being in your House of Destiny with as much ease as possible. For you, travel always lights the match of change for your own well-being. This is a fated time to embrace a new direction. While you’re at it, crack open a book about something you’ve always wanted to learn about- new ideas are crafting the way your life unfolds over the next 2 1/2 years.

Virgo- A time to truly listen to your soul’s calling, to watch it ignite in a way you’ve never experienced. As a healer you’ve been a warrior for many causes. This Aries New Moon invites you (ok, let be real, it really gives you no other options) than to be a warrior for yourself first before you sound the call for anyone else. This Moon also invites you to be more protective with your soulful nature. Be mindful of those who take and waste the pieces of your soul that you offer, shift away from them and towards those who build you up and value your gifts.

Libra- Love and commitment are igniting in your life, but it may feel like it’s going against everything you’e ever known. If it feels scary to step into the unknown, know that this is a necessary part of your soul’s journey toward true commitment. Also know that your fairy godmothers are guarding you, and that you will be OK, whatever happens. The tension in the chart for you right now creates this amazing balance of cause and effect. An example of this positive domino effect- you know you need change in your life, you make the difficult decision to let go of old family bonds, a new romantic partner shows up, one who truly supports your career goals, thus changing your destiny and bringing you to the next level of reality. This is the hero’s journey.

Scorpio- Sometimes, things seem so wrought with complications, subltities, and pscychic meaning that it’s hard to even act, and get started on something new. Well during this New Moon the energies are in your favor, inviting you to start something new surrounding your daily routine, your day job, and your health.Also, don’t be surprised if a small bundle of fur ends up on your doorstep, this New Moon is happening in your House of pets as well! Remember, at this time it’s in your best interest to hold what you value dear, and to expand toward what makes you feel lighter. This is not a time to be closed off.

Sagittarius- Let the good times roll! You’ve been working on some major pain points in your life, and been talking freely about why certain things are no longer going to work for your mode of operation. Now is the time to set the spark that will carry you into manifesting a creative endeavor the world is longing to see. This may also come in the form of a new love interest. These next two weeks- it’s time for you to socialize! Remember, if it’s not joyous, don’t touch it.

Capricorn- Recently you experienced what may have been the biggest releasing experience of your life. While New Moons can be seen as a time to start a new project and get out of the house, home is exactly where you need to be right now. Don’t falter if you find that you’re re-navigating what home looks like for you. This is the time when you’re lighting the match and deciding what type of fireplace you want to throw it into when you do find a place to rest your feet.

Aquarius- There’s a fire of discontent stirring within you, and it’s about to be ignited with this Aries New Moon. Maybe you’ve been holding back, observing, and trying to get enough information to make an educated move. Well the time is here, you know exactly the nature of the situation. There’s a lovely flowing energy inviting you to make a break for freedom over this next month. No one is the boss of you. This can be aided by partnering with someone creatively who is your equal, and by making a smart pivot in your industry that no one saw coming. Where can you add that extra level of convenience no one else offers? It’s also time to speak your truth loud and proud. Feeling angry, and not sure how you’re going to say the words without screaming? The key is to strategize. Something of money and value will come to you after you get this off your chest, choose words that align with this desire.

Pisces- Things are moving forward for you nicely, and with this Aries New Moon definitely money and value will be coming into your life over the next two weeks. See this as the start of a new money story. Be intentional in where you want to go with this narrative, how it will serve you, and how you will use it to serve others. Also be very conscious of who you’re letting into you life at this time. Only those who cheer for you, and are happy for your new found abundant outlook on life. Those who are trying to drain you of your resources need to be thrown to the fire.

Interested in a longer horoscope for your sign for the New Moon (starting in May with the Taurus New Moon)? Look into the New Moon Horoscope Membership.

[havcns]

𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴𝚂 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙺             𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚆𝙰𝙽𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝙳𝙸𝚂𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙴𝙰𝚁, 𝙱𝚄𝚃 𝙰𝙻𝙻 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙻𝙻𝚈 𝚆𝙰𝙽𝚃                             𝙸𝚂 𝚃𝙾 𝙱𝙴 𝙵𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙳.

runaway tw, homlessness tw, mentions of: child neglect, child abuse/violence.

SAN FRANCISCO

THE DAY WAS NOVEMBER 9 AND THE SUN WAS AT ITS HIGHEST POINT IN THE SKY. The buzz of the city around him was both overwhelming and enticing — it brought a sliver of hope to the situation he placed himself in. It had been hours since his arrival to the city and he began wandering around aimlessly, unsure of where to go or what he was supposed to do. Perhaps that would be a problem for the next day to come, but for now he sought the distraction that the city so easily offered. It was his first time there after all, there were plenty of places that he wanted to see before putting together his plan moving forward. The frigid air was rather surprising to the lad, this early on in the season especially; he would have dressed much more appropriately had he known it would be as cold as it was turning out to be. Even with the excitement that coursed through him at the offerings of the city, there were still doubts that made his chest ache to return home — would they even realize he had gone?

He came across a small motel just as the sun had disappeared from the sky, the cold air tempting him toward the warmth it would offer. However, he knew he had to save the money he had for more important things. So he kept moving, arms swinging at his sides to attempt to keep warm while the snow fell around him. The breeze made it difficult to do so, which he knew meant he’d have to find some place to nestle into that would protect him from it. It would be hours until then though, eventually passing through a very short alleyway with an old dumpster rolled up against a wall at it’s backside and a fence on it’s side. Luckily for him, it seemed to have been empty for the most part — so he crawled in behind it, cautiously and scanning the ground around him, before resting down in the tight space. It wasn’t an ideal place to spend the night, but it would simply have to do until he got on his feet.

PENELOPE OSBORNE

SLEEP NEVER CAME THAT NIGHT, INSTEAD DRAWING OUT THE MORNING OFNOVEMBER 10 EVEN LONGER. There were bags already shaping under his eyes and the strength drained from the rest of his body. The side of his head found comfort against the brick wall that he was curled up so closely beside. His body heat was barely enough to keep him warm but it did the trick, the unfortunate snowfall made his plans much more difficult to follow through. The city was beginning to wake despite the darkness that still fell over it, which only made it more difficult to fall asleep as time passed. The fear that he felt in laying there, tucked behind an old dumpster, brought him back to his past. Instead of his bag pulled tight to his chest, it was the still and sleeping body of his younger sister.

☁️ → They had taken refuge behind some old boxes stuffed into his bedroom closet, nothing but a small blanket draped over them. There was explicit shouting and booming laughter, shattering glass, the echo of music and the television, items clattering to the floor — a  crowd of people flooding the small house. His parents didn’t even think to check on their well-being, far too intoxicated in just about every sense of the word to have that idea in their minds. With the errands placed under his responsibility, the boy learned to plan ahead. Baby food was stored in a small trunk on the shelf in his closet, diapers, wipes, sets of clothes — even at such a young age he understood what he had to do to survive, and that always meant putting PENELOPE first. That was what he was doing, right? TWO DAYS until his father’s release and as long as he was far away from her, she would be safe from HIM, right? ☁️

THE DAY HE LOST IT WAS THE DAY HE KNEW SHE WOULD BE OKAY. All that mattered was her future was set in place, and what was to come of him would be decided once the moment ended and the next began. That’s why he hid her behind those boxes in that closet, his blanket tucked around her trembling body — she was only eight at the time and he still sheltered her from their reality as much as a thirteen year old boy could manage. How he survived that night was no mystery, SHE kept him alive — SHE guided him from that moment and to the next. Which was why, as he lay there trembling from the cold and tucked behind an old dumpster, he knew he would get through it. Penelope would lead him on the path he needed to SURVIVE.

BRYCE ARCHER & ELODIE ABERNATHY

A YOUNG COUPLE SMILE TO EACH OTHER AFTER ADMIRING THE LIGHT SNOWFALL ON THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 11. Her blonde hair flows over her shoulders and down her back, and it bounces every time she skips in her steps. The tall male at her side adjusts the toque on his head, then pulls the hood of his jacket over it — his bare hand immediately searching for hers clad in a mitten. The male nearly slips on a small patch of ice below a dripping tree branch, her arms wrapping his middle to keep him from tumbling to the ground. Then she swats his chest and they both laugh at the near fall, their eyes scanning their surroundings in hopes that no other person saw what had nearly unfolded. The eyes of the blonde, lock on the boy who sat with his back against a small ledge dividing the street and a park, and there’s a knowing shift in her previous content. The boy looks elsewhere — the echo of their feet on the paved path growing louder and rising heat to his cheeks. Had his clothes been clean, he knew they would have passed but hiding away behind a dumpster didn’t help his hygiene.

“ WHY DO YOU SIT OUT HERE IN THE COLD ? ” her smile was radiant and his stare was curious. She shifts the weight between her feet and digs through the bag draped at her side, a small bill extending his way.  “ YOU ARE AWARE OF THE SNOW, RIGHT? ”  The voice was deep, and his blue eyes turn up to the taller body, “ GO ON, TAKE MY GIRLFRIEND’S MONEY AND BUY YOURSELF A WARM DRINK. THERE’S THIS CAFE JUST AROUND THE CORNER WHICH THE BEST HO— ”  her elbow jammed into his side, then her hand reaches down to lightly rest against the boy’s damp shoulder,  “ OR USE IT TO GET HOME. ”  Then, with a smile, she leads the two of them away.

His chest is filled with a warming comfort, eyes locked to the money she had placed in his hand. There are only two things on his mind; his kindness in conversation and her kindness of charity — just like BRYCE and ELODIE.

GRIFFIN PRESCOTT

THERE WAS AN OLD MAN FIXING HIS HAIR IN THE ALLEY IN THE EARLY HOURS OFNOVEMBER 12. Mateo sat staring down at an image of his friends just beside the space where his bag was tucked away, an old man sitting opposite of him and playing with the phone in his hands. The man was a cop and he was often on patrol in this neighborhood, coming across the boy for the first time since he arrived. When he was asking questions, his eyes were locked to the screen of his phone and messing around with something, but the boy knew by the way he’d tilt his head and move around pieces of his hair, that he was really just staring down at his own reflection. Mateo was nervous for the first little bit of their getting acquainted, in fear that he knew who he was and that there was a possibility someone had noticed his absence back in Halston. The questions settle his nerves when they make it clear that he was simply just trying to understand and help the boy.

“ WHERE’S YOUR FAMILY? ”

        “ HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN OUT HERE? ”

“ ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT ME TO TAKE YOU TO A SHELTER? ”

        “ I CAN BUY YOU SOME FOOD AND CLOTHES, IF YOU WANT? ”

“ DAMN, ARE YOU ALWAYS THIS QUIET? ”

        “ WHAT THAT’S PICTURE YOU’RE LOOKING AT? ”

“ HOW OLD ARE YOU? ”

        “ WHY ARE YOU OUT HERE? ”

The man searched for control of the situation, but he didn’t have the desire to pressure him. Yet somehow it seemed like he knew why he was there, and was just waiting for the correct answer. Almost like he could read and predict his entire life by one long look at the boy’s face. Then Mateo looked to him, eyes studying the other pair across from him and pushing everything else the man worked to show aside, he could see that the man had once felt exactly what he did. It was an immediate switch in his features that sent him to his feet, pacing away from the boy before pausing and glancing back — it was his most peculiar interaction since arriving.  “Whatever your reason is, just remember take care of yourself, kid. This world you’re walking into is a tough one, ”  then the man was gone without another word, leaving no room for any response or question from the boy. He was confused by how pressed he was for an answer but even more confused by his sudden exit — then it all pieced together in his mind, either for how it really was or simply by his own imagination. The man knew the exact answer because he had once been the young boy sitting on the other side of the alley, and he urged him on to test his strength — to uncover his courage. Did he really even have any of those things, if he was sitting there rather than back home?

He thought of Griffin when he thought of the man. In some strange, unspoken way they understood each other. Griffin dealt with things in his own life that were either not known at all by any, or at least known by very few. That’s the strength that he looked for while he was out there, the only difference in this situation was, whether or not that strength would push him onward or take him back home.

TEDDY MAGUIRE

TWO BOYS SPRINT DOWN THE EMPTY STREET WITH THEIR HANDS CLASPED TOGETHER ON THE NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 13. They were young and certainly had the world in their hands, and not just because they were laced so tightly with each other. One boy shifted his path toward the curb and immediately jumped right into a puddle, the other paused to watch, smiled, and then followed to do the exact same thing. They were in love but it was clear that the love was something far more than romance — they were best friends and what existed between them was LOYALTY and the early signs of a blossoming first love. Perhaps it was strange for his mind to immediately drift to TEDDY — they were never romantically linked to one another. What Mateo did understand though, was that Teddy really had been his first love, only that was manifested in a completely different sense of the term. Without him, his mind wouldn’t have been consumed by the memories and thoughts of his other friends, because without Teddy, love would be a word with no real meaning. They were the boys who needed nothing more than to feel loved, regardless of how much fear it could strike in their hearts. Which was why, as he stood there watching those boys run and disappear around a corner, his mind drifted to Teddy. If only he could have brought him along with him, things would have been much easier — they would have made it work. Mateo needed Teddy back home though, for Penelope — she saw him as just as much as a brother as she did Mateo, which was the final reassurance he truly needed before leaving.  

ALEKI LANCE

ON NOVEMBER 14, A YOUNG BOY CLUNG TO HIS OLDER BROTHER WHILE THEY WAITED IN LINE AT THE SHELTER. They stood before him in line, an entire family of them (they were the only family there ) waiting to receive a meal. The younger boy hid his face in the coat of the older one, arms wrapped around his thigh. There was clear annoyance that presented itself on the older brother’s face, shaking his leg every once in a while with a desire for personal space. With some time passing, his hands reached out to the boy and lifted him up into his arms, his hand very delicately rubbing his back in an attempt to comfort his nerves. Just before they reached the front of the line, the younger brother settled completely and embraced his older brother, finding no difficulty scanning the faces around them now. His brothers comfort implemented trust and with that trust, he felt more at ease in their environment.

AJ was the first member of any foster family he had been apart of to show him patience and, without fully realizing it, teach him how to trust. Settling into a family was never something he felt was possible, but the Lance-Hill’s had a way of drawing him in and, AJ especially, helped him feel like he belonged as a brother — they were brothers. Now more than anything did he ache to return back to them — to look up at the red-head and beg for him to help him feel that trust again. All he ever really needed was for someone to look at him and tell him that everything was going to be okay — why did he have to make it so hard for them?

ANNABELLA WHITLOCK

THE SKY WAS A BRILLIANT RED AS THE SUN SET THE NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 15. The shelter he stayed at the night before assisted him in putting together a resume, though it took them a lot of convincing that he was actually eighteen years old. Soon he would be ready to move further, placing more distance between himself and where he presumed his father would stay. His journey outside was immediately hit with the beauty of the evening sky, longing for the camera that was broken in the drawer of his desk. His entire week had been spent in some form of meditative state, finding reason in each captivating moment to keep on with what he had to do. Only now, it seemed, what he had to do had changed from his original plan. To his right were a group of girls, all holding their phones to the sky and chatting among themselves. “ … WHAT SORCERY… ”  his head snapped in their direction, eyes searching for the owner of the voice because he had heard those exact words before. This moment that he allowed himself to dawdle in, was the most gripping of them all — because the sky was so beautiful and yet, despite his every attempt to not give in to the one person he knew would change his mind — the one person whos beauty outshined that of any rising or setting sun — had crept back into his mind.ANNABELLA WHITLOCK.

☁️ → “ PENELOPE, just — i have s-s-some grapes for y-y-y— i’m sorry, we can’t— please s-s-stop crying — i j-j-just don’t have enough f-for ice cr-cream— ” his small hands run over his face, listening to his sister cry while she watched the other kids line up at the ice cream truck. Then, in a final attempt to get her to calm down, he reached into his school bag for his cookie and broke it into small pieces, handing it out to her. It took her a few moments to settle completely, but it did the trick — he just hoped the truck would leave before she finished. His eyes slowly scanned the park, observing the other kids at play with each other, he longed to join in but penelope was far too young for it. One particular interaction holds his attention, his curiosity rising when his eyes settle on a girl he hadn’t seen before. Distracting her hadn’t been his intention when she met his stare just as the boy she was with yanked on her ponytail. The way her eyes grew when she looked back to him and then took off brought out a quiet laugh from the boy, and he immediately jumped up to his feet whisking penelope along with him. He peeked his head around the tree she stood behind, a small smile curving his mouth. “ a-are you alright? M-m-my s-sister wanted to m-make sure, ” the look of surprise he received elicited another little laugh from the young boy, but it immediately faded as she ran off again. She remained on his mind and he longed to know her name, but why would she always smile at him and then immediately run away? ☁️

They were always so cautious around each other when they would meet again in the summers, and his heart would race with excitement every time he saw her. Knowing Annie had always been a bit confusing but finally understanding her was the most powerful feeling he ever experienced. Perhaps that had a lot to do with how understanding her succeeded in magnifying his love for her, and even there beneath that setting sky, it continued to grow. The thought of her broke him down completely because of the promise he gave to her only days before he left. And though he did leave without a word, the promise in his mind had never really been forgotten. Every single day since he left was spent thinking about those who have impacted his life the most, but as soon as he let himself think of annie? That was the end of it all.

The most important people in his life each guided him without even knowing. Perhaps that was the reason for the tears that streamed down his face while he stood there staring at the bus depot, coming full circle in under seven days. They were the people he couldn’t see, but the ones he could feel. His purpose, his energy, his heart, his courage, his loyalty, his trust, and his destiny; they were all embodied in the people he surrounded himself with. And yet despite it all, he stood miles away blinded by his own immature and self-guided stupidity. He was still a prisoner to the fear that drove him away, but facing it was much easier when he knew he wouldn’t have to do it all alone.

HALSTON

ON NOVEMBER 16, HE WAS ON THE 3:00PM BUS BACK TO HALSTON.

[wrestlewriting]

31 Little Wrestling Fics Challenge (October Wrestling Challenge)

Tagging: @running-ropes @tyferbebe @chasingeverybreakingwave @thegenericluchadora @theprestigious0ne @alexahood21 @castielscamander @spine-buster @heelturn-timesten @crookedmoonsaultpunk @nickysmum1909 @morgunsilver @wrasslin-rollins @morgancorbin @reigningambrollins @bbmbabe @allhailthe-demonking @rebelfleur22 @im-indestructible @heelstarla @sixdegreesofsamson @vixxyvampire @ihtscuddlesbeeetchx3 @valeonmars @pjanina13 @bolieve-that @therealfivefeetoffuckingfury @thewriterformerlytaggedas @fan-fiction-galore @songsofasirenqueen @sleeplessandcynical @thedeboniardevistation @thebadchic @cfloyd776 @spooky-spot-of-bother

Quote: 19. “Just focus on me. Everything will be fine.” 

Location: 1. Haunted House

Situation: 3. Trick or treating.

Supernatural element: 23. Stupidly accurate horoscope app

Finn Balor (this was my choice)

This is fluff. For not all spooky things need to be scary.

I hope you enjoy!!!

“A rapid change is taking place in your life now, and it may be causing you some stress and worry. But isn’t this precisely the kind of change you figured you would need to resolve a few of your more pressing matters? Although this feels sudden and out of control, it will all fall into place rather quickly. And yes, this is exactly what you sought from the universe. It just seems to be taking place all at once, which can seem overwhelming. Just trust what you requested of the universe is unfolding, and let that be your comfort.”

Bennett was a smart girl, honestly. She didn’t believe everything she heard or read, not before doing her own research on the matter. She trusted science and knew better than to think her viewpoint was the only viewpoint.

That said, just for laughs, she always read her daily horoscope on an app on her phone. She didn’t put any faith in it, didn’t live her life by it, and if somehow it ever came true she just said ‘huh’ and moved on about her life. Most of the time, Bennett read it and decided it’s vagueness was a safe method to make it true for everyone.

The app she had downloaded was the highest rated. To her, that just meant it was the least-glitchy to use. The program, which included things like daily horoscopes and Chinese zodiac interpretations, was fun to flip through when she was bored.

And that’s how she found herself that morning. Well, not bored necessarily. But alone in the living room, a cup of coffee in her one hand, the TV on quietly projecting the local morning news. She’d already been through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…the usual suspects for mindless morning activities before getting ready for work.

Her horoscope for the day made her smirk. What rapid change? This was the steadiest her life had ever been, ever. Six months ago, she had married Finn. He was regularly on the road wrestling, but even that had settled into a routine. He was gone, typically, the same days of the week, unless there was an overseas tour. And Bennett worked Monday through Friday at one of the local elementary schools as the secretary.

Everything was smooth sailing for them at this time. She knew it probably wouldn’t last entirely, because life, but she was going to enjoy it while she could.

Finn didn’t like her ‘horoscope commitment’ as he called it. He thought it was all hokey and cheesy, a true waste of time. Even though she wasn’t taking it seriously, he still felt she could do without it altogether. It probably didn’t help that she regularly read him his own predictions without prompting.

Putting down her phone and coffee, she stood up and stretched out her body. She needed to start getting ready for the day. Heading back upstairs, she quietly went back into the bedroom, where Finn was still partially under the covers, asleep. She went into the attached bathroom, shutting the door after herself.

By the time she’d finished showering, did her hair and makeup, and put on the clothes she’d laid out for herself the night before,  Finn was no longer in the bed.

Downstairs she found him in the kitchen, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He was dressed in just low-slung gym shorts, his hair messy. Just-woken-up-Finn was one of her top five favorite versions of her husband, honestly.

“Morning babe,” she greeted as she walked past him, her hand gliding across his lower back, a short kiss going to his shoulder.

“Mornin’,” he mumbled, clearly still trying to come to terms with being up for the day. Bennett smirked to herself, going into the living room to retrieve her phone and cup from earlier. Back in the kitchen, she went about putting her lunch together and getting her work bag from the nearby table. By the time she set the items on the counter, Finn appeared more awake.

“Horoscope today told me big changes are coming for me. So today should be momentous,” Bennett solemnly said, before a wide grin took over her face. She knew exactly what she was doing.

“You, need help,” Finn declared, shaking his head briefly, before sipping at his cup.

“Let’s see what you need to be focused on today,” she decided happily, her attention going to her phone.

“Benn, baby, please, no,” he all but whined.

“AHEM,” Bennett dramatically cleared her throat. “‘You are finally about to get something you have wanted. But now that it is close, you may feel another option that was less desirable is actually the better choice. Sometimes making a difficult decision can be as easy as seeing the best choice taken away. Only then does desperation kick in, and you recognize what’s really important to you. That may be the case now, Leo, and you must act quickly if you want to change direction. It is not too late to change your mind, and your path,’” Bennett read from her phone. When she was done, she looked up to meet Finn’s gaze. He was leaned over the counter now, his mug between both his hands. Neither said a word at first until Bennett raised her eyebrows and made a ‘what about that’-type face at him, which caused him to laugh.

“You got any big decision to be makin’?”

“Not that I can think of, no,” Finn humored her. “And even then, it would be ‘bout work most likely.”

“…mmhmm…” Bennett replied suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at him briefly. Finn rolled his own, not suppressing a bemused smile to go along with the action. “Well, whatever it is, I guess it’s out of your hands now.”

“Apparently,” he chuckled. Bennett came around the corner, leaning over to meet him in a kiss. “You’ll be home ‘bout 4, yea?”

“That’s the plan,” she confirmed, kissing him again, before going to pick up her bags from the counter. “I told Harper to bring the kids here around 6.”

“Got it.”

“Did you decide on your costume for the night?”

“…sure.” Bennett leveled a look at him, to which he raised one hand in a pacifying manner. “It’ll be sorted before the night, I promise.”

“It better be. The kids are super excited for this,” she said.

“Never done somethin’ like this before, so it’ll be interestin’ for sure,” Finn agreed.

Sometimes Bennett forgot that many of the US traditions and customs weren’t world-widely accepted and that Finn didn’t do these kinds of things growing up.

Which made the plan for the night even more fun, honestly. Getting to see him experience new things for the first time, sharing things with him that Bennett loved doing, was cool, to say the least. And Halloween was her absolute favorite holiday and they didn’t get to spend it together often.

Bennett and Finn had arranged to take her niece and nephew to a local shopping center where the stores were doing trick-or-treating for Halloween. Also in the plaza was a pop-up haunted house, which had five separate ‘houses’ within it.

Bennett adored her niece and nephew, of ages 9 and 11 years old, respectively. Their younger sister, only 5 years old, wasn’t coming on the excursion.

Jessa, in true middle child fashion, was the most vocal. Jordan, he played the stoic big brother role perfectly when he chose to.

They were both smart, intuitive, honest. It was sometimes to a fault, but endearing, after the fact.

And they loved their Uncle Finn. When Bennett had initially said she wanted to take the kids to the event, Finn had been the one to point out Halloween fell on a day he’d be home this year. After clearing the matter with her sister, who was honestly more than happy to not have to handle the two rambunctious kids on a holiday made for chaos, the plan had been set.

Both Jessa and Jordan had shrieked and tackled them when told they’d be doing trick-or-treating with their Aunt and Uncle, and also going to haunted houses. Honestly, Bennett couldn’t remember seeing them so excited before. And she was beyond ready for the awesome night to happen as well.

“OK, well, get your rest today. Chasing those two around is gonna be a lot of work,” Bennett advised, kissing him once again as she took out her car keys.

“I’ll consider it my cardio for the day,” Finn decided, making her laugh. “Love you, beautiful.”

“Love you,” she echoed before turning and leaving the house. Now all she had to do was survive Halloween in an elementary school for the day.

Bennett finally made it home, almost an hour after the time she had intended to. There had been two car accidents, and general bad traffic, holding her up on her commute.

She hated feeling rushed, but now she had no choice but to be.

While in traffic, she’d called Finn and told him to start getting ready and she would be home as soon as she could. Finn had been calm and relaxed about the matter, assuring her it would all be OK and they had plenty of time for the night.

He was, as always, the calm to her storm.

Bennett didn’t even spare a glance as she tossed her bags onto the kitchen counter, set on getting ready in her costume. She had less than an hour, and she knew her hair alone would take up half that time.

“Babe! Where are you?”

“In here,” Finn’s voice came from the living room. Bennett walked quickly in there, prepared to see him not at all ready for the night.

What she found standing before her, however, was anything but.

“Oh…oh…my fucking…FINN.” Bennett couldn’t finish a thought as she was having a hundred of them at once as she took in Finn’s appearance.

Starting at the top, his dark hair was gone, covered by a bald cap. He had on a black T-shirt, the large white lettering on it proudly displaying ‘Gallows & Anderson’ among other words. And his bottom half was adorned in black tights, the strange face-mask-with-swords logo clear on his thighs. His right arm even had drawings across it, imitating tattoos.

“Hey,” Finn greeted her with a nod of his head.

Her laughter was immediate and loud.

“Come ‘ere, and Too Sweet me,” he requested, holding his hand up, his American accent something special to hear.

Bennett was holding onto the back of the couch, shaking with hysterics, definitely unable to do anything he had just requested.

“Finn, oh…what the… hell?” She finally got out words between her laughs. Finn was just smiling brightly at her, clearly proud of himself.

“What? Told ya I had a costume worked out,” he stated, speaking back in his normal voice. Bennett managed to take in a few deep breaths, her laughter subsiding, but the bemused look on her face still just as strong.

“You look ridiculous,” she declared. Finn dramatically gasped, putting his hand on his heart.

“How dare you! I’m tellin’ Karl you said that,” he replied.

“Oh, I didn’t say Karl looks ridiculous. This look works for him. It’s you that this is a special kind of special for,” Bennett explained, waving her hand to indicate the costume. Finn looked down at himself, before shrugging his shoulders and looking back to her.

“It’s actually kinda nice wearin’ clothes.”

“I’m gonna have to strongly disagree with you.” Bennett wiggled her eyebrows, which made Finn laugh. “OK, this has been entertaining, and I know the rest of the family will say the same. But now it’s time for me to go get ready.”

“Can’t wait to see.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” she teased, before turning and quickly going upstairs.

Bennett had decided on her costume just last week, but it had been easy enough to put together, given a couple of the items were already in their house.

As she had predicted, doing her hair took the longest, followed by her make-up. The outfit was simple enough, something she could just slide into.

By the time she was done, her sister had texted stating they were on their way. As her family lived only a town over, she knew they would be there rather quickly.

Glancing over herself once more in the floor length mirror, she fluffed her hair and headed back downstairs to where she’d left Finn in the living room.

Bennett’s red heels clicked along their wooden floor as she came around the couch and stood in front of it, allowing Finn to take in her whole look.

And he was definitely taking it in, his eyes widening as they scanned over every inch of her. Her legs were encased in leather-look skintight leggings, her upper half covered with a black leather jacket. Her red-tinted hair was partially pinned up, but full of curls.

With a rehearsed confidence, Bennett trailed her hands down the lapels of the leather jacket slowly, before pulling it open, revealing her torso, which was covered in tight black material as well, a belt high on her waist.

“Tell me about it, stud,” she purred out, shifting her weight to one leg, cocking her hip just a bit.

“Damn, baby,” Finn finally spoke.

“Wanna see the best part?” He nodded quickly. Bennett smiled, and with a purposeful step, turned herself so her back was facing him, revealing the Balor Club logo embroidered on the back of her leather jacket.

“That is…amazin’,” he confirmed, with an awed-sounding laugh following his words. “…shit. You’re so hot.”

“If you’re good, maybe tonight you can meditate in my direction,” Bennett offered cheekily, turning back around to face him. Finn laughed outright, standing up to come to her. His arm slid around her waist, his hand pressing into the small of her back, bringing her body against his.

“I love you, ya know that?”

“Heard it a few times. Always nice to hear it more,” she whispered, as he came closer to put his lips to hers. “Lipstick.”

“Don’t care.” And he didn’t apparently, as he kissed her thoroughly.

The doorbell ringing, followed by the door opening, and little feet hitting the entrance way broke them apart quickly.

“AUNT NETTIE!” Jessa’s voice carried very easily through the house. Bennett and Finn stepped back from each other, turning to watch as the small zombie came barreling into the room. Dressed in a tattered and shredded black shirt, which was over equally tattered leggings, she looked like she’d been through the wringer. Her hair was in frizzed out pigtails, her face made-up to appear paler, with various bloody cuts and scrapes on her exposed skin.

The costume didn’t surprise Bennett one bit. Her niece was into gore and horror, as much as any 9 year old should be allowed to be. Her sister and brother-in-law did their best to not expose the girl to anything too terrible, but Jessa was a fearless little soul and found it all fascinating.

It took her a moment to realize the beat up t-shirt was a Bullet Club t-shirt. It made her grin internally.

“Look at you! You look amazing!” Bennett praised her niece as she came over, hugging her to her waist. “I love it, Jessie!”

“You look so pretty,” the little girl told her aunt. “And Uncle Finn, you look silly.”

“Thanks, kid,” Finn replied with a laugh, as Jessa giggled going to also hug him in greeting. “Nice shirt.”

“Hey everyone,” Harper greeted, entering the room.

“Where’s the other one?”

“Oh, you mean your husband?”

“What?” Bennett questioned, confused and almost concerned.

And then Jordan came into view and her jaw dropped.

He was Finn. Well, dressed like Finn Bálor, essentially.

On his head rested the headdress of red and black dangling fabrics. His face was painted, blacks and reds and whites, the illusion of teeth over his mouth.

Instead of being in wrestling gear, however, he had on one of Finn’s t-shirts, which had the simplistic design of also the white fangs. He was in black shorts, but his legs were mostly covered in shin pads. The pads had the teeth design on the knee, with red flames coming up his calves.

Bennett was truly speechless at first.

“Did you…did you know about this?” she finally questioned Finn.

“Where do you think he got some of the stuff?” Finn retorted with a laugh. “We have had this planned for weeks.”

“Yep,” Jordan confirmed, as he and Finn Two-Sweeted one another.

“Time. Out,” Bennett demanded. “So you’re telling me, you planned all of this with him? And Jessa’s shirt? Also on purpose?”

“Exactly,” Finn concurred with a wink. “It was actually Jordan’s idea that started the whole thing.”

Bennett looked down at her nephew, who was just staring back at her straight-faced. She assumed he was trying his hardest to play the part of ‘The Demon’.

“But…you didn’t know I was gonna be wearing your jacket? You didn’t know my costume!”

“…or did I?” Finn challenged, his tone mischievous.

And at that, it all clicked into place. Bennett’s eyes flashed to her sister’s, who was already grinning cheekily.

“Harper!”

“Oh come off it. This is adorable. And I know how excited you were for tonight, and how much you love Halloween, and I thought it would just be really special for you to have your family together as a unit.”

Bennett had no argument to that. And in fact, she was trying her hardest to keep the tears at bay, touched deeply at how much her family did for tonight to be so memorable.

“Alright! Let’s get some super awesome pictures that I’m highly tempted to use as my Christmas card, and send you all on your way!” Harper proclaimed.

The following half hour felt like a professional photo shoot. Pictures were taken of every possible combination of person; some serious, some silly. Bennett’s favorites she already knew would be of her and Finn with both the kids.

Bálor Club, represent.

“Is it time for the haunted houses?” Jessa asked for what felt like the hundredth time. From the moment they’d arrived at the shopping center, it was all she had been excited for. She enjoyed getting candy, as any kid did, but she really wanted to go see the horror show up close.

“Let’s first put your guys’ stuff in the car, and then yes, it is haunted house time,” Bennett explained, causing the little girl to cheer.

The trick-or-treating had been fun, and their group had received many looks and comments. Most of the comments came from little kids and their fathers, but some of the women present also understood the reference. That made Bennett happy.

After dropping off their items in the car, the group headed over to the haunted house storefront, standing in line to pay their admission. Once inside the large space, it was sensory overload. There were people everywhere, many in costume, and it was hard to tell who was visiting and who worked there. Along the perimeter were the entrances to the various houses, all having different themes.

“Where to first, guys?” Finn asked. Jordan just shrugged.

“I want…that one!” Jessa finally decided, pointing to the entrance that was directly in the middle. The outside façade of the maze was decorated with a large Crystal Ball, tarot cards, and glittering silver lights throughout. As they walked closer, there were also hands palm up painted on the wood, along with actual fake hands hanging. A couple swords were also present.

“Let’s do this then,” Bennett declared. “Before we go in though, you two need to stay with us, OK?” Both of the children nodded in understanding. Bennett wasn’t very worried about them wandering off, they’d been great about it all night. But she also knew how excited Jessa was, and sometimes excitement overrode common sense and safety.

As they wandered through the house, there were some jump-scares, and some creepy scenes to look at. But Bennett knew there was going to be the big thing at some point.

What she hadn’t expected was to be stopped at a room by a ‘guard’, who told them to wait. After a minute, he told them to enter the last room and “behold the wisdom of the woman prophet”.

The room they entered was dimly light, with fabrics draped all along. There were various objects tacked to the walls, creepy pictures, actual skulls, bloodied tarot cards. Candles were flickering throughout the space.

“Welcome, my children.” The woman was seated a table in the dead center of the room, dressed in typical ‘fortune teller’ fashion. Her clothes were flowing, various bits of jewelry on every part of her body possible. The table in front of her was covered in a rich fabric, a ball sitting in front of her. Beside it sat a clean deck of tarot cards, and on the other side, crystals and small vials of unknown things.

“Please, come closer,” the woman requested. Jessa didn’t even hesitate, and Bennett followed her. Jordan, who had repeatedly declared throughout the house how ‘dumb’ he found it, remained to the side with Finn.

“Please, tell me, what do you wish to know about?” But instead of waiting for Jessa to speak, the woman held up one of her hands sternly. “No, never mind. I do not need you to tell me, for the universe is telling me what you must know now.” She looked down at her ball, moving her hands around it. It lit up at her action, and Bennett had to appreciate the effects.

“Your existence is about to change,” the older woman stated, her gaze going from the crystal ball to Bennett’s face. “You’re going to bring more into this world.”

“OK?” Bennett laughed out.

“You, my dear, are made of the stars and the seas, of the heavens and the lands, and you are powerful in your finite existence. You are made to make, to extend, to expand, to create.” The women paused, making sure her eyes were with Bennett’s. “You are made to make something within in you that will change so many lives.”

Bennett looked at the woman for a moment longer, before turning to look at Finn who was already looking back at her with eyebrows raised.

“I bet you have a part in this, somehow,” she said, with a crooked smile. “You’re always involved in my biggest moments somehow.”

“What can I say darlin’, I’m here to assist,” Finn replied, with a short smirk.

“Wait, you have something in you? Like a baby?” Jessa asked, and Bennett’s head whipped around, her wide-eyes meeting her niece’s. “‘Cause that would be kinda cool.”

“I hope it’s a boy. I’m sick of being outnumbered in the family,” Jordan declared, crossing his arms over his chest. “Right, Uncle Finn?”

“Uh….” Your husband seemed just as surprised at the turn of the conversation as you were.

“Alright, cool, thanks,” Bennett diverted everyone’s attention, nodding towards the woman. “I think we are done here. Cool house. Nice work.”

“…this is not something to be ignored or belittled,” the woman replied sternly. “Embrace this, enjoy this. You are about to be everything you should be.”

“…wanna go to the next house?” Bennett didn’t even acknowledge the woman’s words, focusing only on Jordan.

“Yes, please,” he replied. And with that, she and Finn ushered the children through the last door, coming back out onto the open floor of the building.

“Aunt Nettie, are you pregnant?” Jessa asked directly.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Bennett answered flippantly.

“Can we help name the baby?” Her niece further questioned.

“There is no baby to name.”

“But what if there is? That lady seemed pretty sure,” Jordan argued, outnumbering Bennett in the conversation. She looked to Finn for help, but he too looked at a loss as to what to say.

“Listen, that woman, she is paid to act and spook us. That doesn’t mean what she says is real.”

“…OK.” Jordan conceded.

“Alright, so next house?” Finn finally spoke up, clapping his hands together. Jessa agreed enthusiastically, and Jordan chose for them to go through one that looked incredibly dark and gory.        

They went through the rest of the houses, which were far more outwardly scary, full of clowns and serial killers and weapons.

But for Bennett, that first house remained the most memorable and jarring.

Four days later, Bennett found herself feeling like total junk, spending her Saturday in bed. She’d been sick early that morning but hadn’t since. She just felt tired and achy and unhappy all around.

When her phone rang, she threw an arm out to grab it from nearby.

“Yo,” she grumbled.

“Still feeling crappy?” Harper asked.

“I’m just…tired and I hurt and I wanna sleep but I feel like shit so I can’t fall asleep.”

“Sounds like the flu.”

“Great,” Bennett sighed, readjusting her head on her pillow.

“OR maybe you're pregnant.”

“…shut up.”

“What? The symptoms are similar, and that fortune teller did tell you…”

“Stop,” Bennett demanded. “You are ridiculous.”

“Don’t ignore that woman’s wise words. She said you are to make something within you.”

“Right now all I’m making in me is more barf probably.”

“Gross, Bennie.”

“You started it, Harpie.” Her older sister just sighed.

“Listen, I’m about to go grocery shopping. So I’ll bring some stuff over for you, ginger ale, Pepto, all that stuff, OK?”

“You are the greatest.”

“I know.” They said their goodbyes, and Bennett put the phone down beside her again. She curled into the pillow, letting out a long breath as she closed her eyes. She just wanted to sleep away this awfulness.

Bennett woke up, confused in her groggy state. The bedroom was darker than when she last remembered it being. After a moment of blinking and coming around, she grabbed around on the bed until she picked up her phone. The time read several hours from the last she saw.

She had a few texts from Finn, and one from Harper.

The ones from Finn were sending her love and well-wishes, telling her to sleep and rest and call him when she had a chance.

Harper’s was a bit longer. It explained she had stopped over but Bennett had been asleep, so she had let her be. She detailed the food and drinks she’d left downstairs. It stated she had left medicine on the bedside table for her as well.

At that, Bennett looked up and did find various stomach and digestive aids.

But amongst all that was a very obvious box, a picture of a stick clear as day across the front.

She texted her sister back, simply writing ‘Really?”. Harper’s response was just an emoji thumbs up.

Bennett stared at the box for many minutes, eventually getting up and grabbing it. She realized there were three tests in the box. It was like her sister knew she’d need several attempts at this, almost like she’d done the same thing with Jordan.

She reread the simple instructions several times before taking the first test. She needed to know exactly what to do, what to look for. Bennett wouldn’t chance doing this wrong or misinterpreting the results.

After taking the first test, she waited ten minutes and took the second.

And then she waited several, jittery, anxious, stressful hours, before taking the third and last.

By that time, it was well into the night. And in the darkness of her bedroom, she finally called her sister.

“They are all positive!”

“I KNEW IT!” Harper exclaimed. “Man, you need to go back and tip that fortune teller lady or something.”

“Harper, shut up,” Bennett commanded, her feelings keeping her from seeing any lightness in the moment. “…these could be wrong though, right?”

“That’s rare anymore,” her sister disagreed. “The first time I got pregnant I said the same thing, but my doctor told me typically positive is positive for at home tests. There’s always a chance but if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck….”

“It’s a dog in disguise?”

“Nice try,” Harper replied with a laugh. “Oh, man Bennie! You’re pregnant! I’m finally gonna be an Aunt!”

“…I’m not…sure what to do? What to feel? What to say? Oh god, should I tell Finn right now? We weren’t planning for this! OH SHIT. This is gonna throw so much out of whack.”

“Hey, breathe,” her sister advised. “You both want kids, and that’s what matters. You’ll figure it out. Yea, it’ll probably be a bit harder given his work, but there is nothing the two of you can’t get through together.”

“…I just…”

“It’s a lot.”

“SO MUCH,” Bennett corrected. “Shit. Fuck. I’m probably pregnant.”

“Most likely definitely.”

“I just…I’m gonna eat something and go to bed, and handle this tomorrow.”

“OK.” Harper offered no argument, knowing her sister’s usual style of handling large changes involved time for her initial emotions to subside. “Call if you need anything.”

“Will do.” After saying their ‘I love yous’ and ‘goodbyes’, Bennett sent a quick text to Finn telling him she was still feeling ill and was gonna sleep more. She knew it was a bit of a coward’s move to not tell him right away, but she wanted to make peace with the matter before telling him.

Finn had wanted to wait until he was off the road to have kids. Which was OK, in some ways, as Bennett was five years younger than him. But she had no desire to be a 40 year-old-first-time mom, either. Biological clock, and life logistics, and all that.

She knew he didn’t want to miss things, wanted to be a truly present father. But she saw how things were managed by Karl and his family, and knew it wasn’t necessarily needed to be a good family.

Of course, Bennett also knew she was not really like Karl’s wife, and she wasn’t sure she could handle raising a baby the majority of the time on her own. She was far more high-strung than Finn was, and she knew she would need him to be around to be the level-headed parent. Because if there was one thing she knew from watching her sister and being an aunt, it was that things tended to get naturally crazy with kids.

Bennett decided it was time to just put herself to bed. She didn’t want to overthink the situation anymore and decided she needed to tell Finn when he was face-to-face with her.

Sleep didn’t come easily, so Bennett found herself doing her usual; mindlessly playing around on her phone. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter…the same routine as always. And eventually, she came to the horoscope app.

“Something wonderful is beginning to bloom for you now, Gemini. You may be wondering if this is a quirk of fate or a coincidence. But don’t start questioning and dissecting this gift from the universe. If you become cynical or doubtful, you won’t get the full effect of this auspicious happening. If you are receiving a blessing, then the universe has deemed you worthy of it. So enjoy the hopeful, positive vibes you are feeling, embrace the goodness, smile, and be grateful.”

Bennett shut her phone off without a second thought and tossed it away from herself onto the bed.

There was no way….

It was Tuesday morning, and Finn was due home sometime that afternoon after his usual travel and work days.

Yesterday morning she’d called her doctor, who had told her the same thing her sister had, that at home tests were incredibly accurate. He made her an initial appointment for that Thursday to get an idea of where she was at in her pregnancy.

Bennett had chosen to take the day off from work, her emotions far too amped up about Finn returning and the situation for her to be at work.

Every conversation she’d had with Finn from Sunday until now, had been odd. She knew it, and she knew he knew it. She wanted to tell him, she did, but she also thought it would be nice to have him come home to the surprise.

Bennett had scoured the internet, accepting and rejecting ideas every minute on cute ways to tell him about their expanding family. Finally, she’d settled on something fall themed and cute. So she’d spent all Sunday going to stores and pumpkin patches until she was able to secure two large pumpkins and a tiny one to her liking.

The plan was to hollow out one of the bigger pumpkins, then cut a heart in the front, placing the smaller pumpkin in it. It was meant to allude to a ‘pregnant pumpkin’. The saying that people usually used with it was ‘We’re adding another pumpkin to our patch’. Bennett loved it. But now came the task of actually doing it.

Bennett had never been as good with art and creativity as her sister. Harper could easily create things: paintings, gifts, crafts. Bennett, though, had to put all her concentration and focus possible into the task at hand, and even then, they never looked as good as they should.

Making the little sign with orange paint about their growing pumpkin patch was easy enough. Her writing wasn’t the greatest, but even she thought it was cute.

It quickly became clear, however, that her bad luck streak of craft creation was going strong. She’d managed to hollow out the pumpkin just fine, but she’d messed up on cutting out the front. In an effort to correct the heart, it had become lopsided. And then in an effort to correct that, she’d essentially cut out the entire front side of the pumpkin, with barely the top part of the heart obvious.

It was more like a…blob. It looked weird. It did not look like the picture she was using for inspiration. It looked dumb by comparison. She knew upon seeing it Finn would not know what it was supposed to be.

Why hadn’t she bought more pumpkins? She knew she wasn’t great at this stuff, she should have gotten backups for screw-ups. Looking at the clock on the microwave, she realized she didn’t have time to go out and get another pumpkin. Finn was due home soon. He had texted her before she’d started carving that his plane had just landed.

She tried really hard to not let the tears welling in her eyes fall down her cheeks.

Feeling defeated and frustrated, she just sat at the kitchen counter, staring at her pumpkins. There had to be a way to salvage this?

It was a frantic internet search later when Bennett realized she definitely wasn’t saving face here. But she could at least hopefully, maybe, still use the sign to tell him? 

Better than nothing.

Except when she heard the garage door open and watched Finn walk into the kitchen with his bags minutes later, she hated every idea she had. This was supposed to be something big, magical, meaningful…and a little crappy painted sign wasn’t that.

“Oh hey, pumpkin carving? Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked, putting his bags down near the wall, coming over to her. He put his arm around her waist, kissing her temple, securing her against his side. With Bennett sitting on the stool, she just about at his height.

“This wasn’t for fun,” she explained.

“…OK?” Finn’s confusion was evident in his tone.

“I just…I wanted to surprise you and have something cute and memorable and I just…I fucked it up so bad. This was supposed to be this really cool, special moment, and I just ruined the most important pumpkin!” Bennett was trying to keep her emotions in check, but she was failing miserably.

“Hey, baby,” Finn stated, his fingers squeezing her side, his other hand coming up to turn her face towards his. “Just focus on me. Everythin’ will be fine. Whatever this is, it isn’t that big of a deal.”

“YES, IT IS!” Bennett argued, turning from him abruptly, causing his arm to fall down to his side. “You literally have no idea how big this is!”

“…ok?”

Bennett pushed off from the counter and got off the stool, walking around to where the other pumpkins sat, picking up the sign and the tiniest pumpkin. She kept the sign facing her, and with a deep breath, she walked back towards Finn. He was just watching her curiously as she stopped a foot away from him.

“Surprise,” she whispered, turning the sign around, holding the little pumpkin beside it in the palm of her hand.

Bennett waited with baited breath as Finn read her writing. At first, he seemed to not have any reaction, which made her feel even worse that her entire idea had fallen apart. This whole cute, sweet moment was ruined, and now she would have to explain to him everything.

But then, his eyes got huge and he looked directly at her.

“Benn…we…you…” He seemed unable to form words. “Bennett, oh my god. We’re having a baby?”

“Looks that way,” she replied, smiling slightly.

And the next thing she knew she was in his arms, her feet off the ground as he lifted her up. She barely managed to get her arms out to the side so as not to smash the sign or pumpkin against him.

“We’re having a BABY! Oh my god, this is awesome! I love you so much, you know that?” Finn was basically rambling as he held her against himself, causing her to giggle.

It was amazing how her failed plan no longer seemed important given his reaction. What mattered wasn’t how she told him, but them, their relationship, their family.

“This is, like, for sure, you know?” Finn asked, leaning back as he held her so he could see her face.

“Three tests positive,” Bennett affirmed. “We have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday to get the official word on the matter and how far along I am.”

“You, you are gonna be an amazing mum, ya know that?”

“Says the man practically molded to be the coolest dad alive,” she teased in response, causing a small blush to come to his face. She loved getting that kind of reaction from him. “This is…gonna be hard.”

“It’ll be work,” Finn corrected, setting her back on her feet, loosening his hold on her but not letting her go entirely. “But it’ll be the best kind of work. There’s no one else I would do this with than ya. I know my job doesn’t make it easy on ya…but I will be here every single solitary second I can through everythin’.”

“I know,” Bennett assured. She wanted to reach up and touch him, but her hands were still occupied with the sign and pumpkin. “…you’re gonna be a DILF.” Finn’s laughter was instant and loud.

“OK, then you’re Queen of the MILFs,” he replied, making her grin more. The humor fell to the wayside as they just gazed at one another, smiling. “Shit, I love ya, Bennett. Love ya more than anything.”

“I love you too,” she repeated back.

“Does anyone else know?”

“Just Harper.” Bennett went on to explain to Finn the events of the last few days, how her feeling ill had turned into pregnancy. When she mentioned Harper’s comments about the fortune teller from the haunted house, he huffed a laugh.

“Ya know, your silly horoscopes have been pretty in line with this too. Maybe you’ve been on to something all along. Maybe the supernatural does exist and the universe has been telling you all along what’s goin’ on.”

“…shut up,” she replied to his teasing, even though inside she was realizing how right he was. The more she thought about it, the more weirded out and amazed she became, so she stopped thinking about it.

“Can we tell my parents?”

“Well, yea,” Bennett answered coming out of her thoughts, as Finn finally released her. She immediately set the sign and pumpkin down on the counter. “I mean, we could wait until the doctor on Thursday to be sure. But that’s up to you.”

“…we have to tell them now.” His decision didn’t surprise her one bit. “And let’s use this stuff,” he motioned to indicate the items on the counter. “It’s cute. My mum will like it.”

Bennett’s heart swelled a bit at that. He was so sweet to make her think her little surprise wasn’t stupid.

Using the wonders of the internet and FaceTime, telling Finn’s parents about their news was super fun. They’d started the conversation normally enough, but Bennett just happened to pick up the tiny pumpkin. Finn had followed suit holding the sign.

His mom had cried, and his dad had beamed. They weren’t first-time grandparents by any means, but given this was their first grandchildren from Finn seemed to mean a lot to them.

After all of that, Bennett was exhausted. Today had been a rollercoaster of emotion. She wasn’t at all remorseful at deciding to go to bed by 8PM. Finn came with her, but she knew he wasn’t tired, and instead just didn’t want to be far from her.

He was going to be the most protective husband throughout this pregnancy, and she wasn’t complaining.

They went through their night time routines, before finally settling into bed together. Bennett decided to wind down doing her routine on her phone. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. It was always the same.

And then came the horoscope app.

Given her current situation, she was almost hesitant at opening it. But curiosity won out, and she found herself scanning the words on the screen almost hungrily.

“You may be so focused on making something perfect today that you are missing out on all the magic that already exists. You are like an artist who just can’t walk away from a beautiful painting without putting on a few last brush strokes. But if you go too far, you may miss the forest for the trees. Take some time to quietly observe what you see, and relish what you already have. You are very lucky and very blessed, and recognizing that is the final step in finding true perfection.”

Bennett sighed, and with a small smile, closed out of the app.

Stupid horoscopes.

But not really.

Thank you to @thewriterformerlytaggedas & @fan-fiction-galore for allowing me to be apart of this and believing in me!

Thank you so very much to @chasingeverybreakingwave & @running-ropes & @spine-buster& @therealfivefeetoffuckingfury & anyone else who has provided support/love/inspiration/comfort/a-listening-ear-as-I-had-breakdowns/ideas/etc. over this story. The struggle got really real, but we made it.

[queenlizzyxxxx]

QUEEN LIZZYS ASCENSION

ITS QUEEN LIZZY BABY!!! I’m QUEEN LIZZY and my new album LIZZY just dropped!!! xxxx THANK YOU FOR ALL THE LOVE FOR MY NEW ALBUM LIZZY. THIS MEANS SO MUCH TO ME. I MADE THIS FOR YOU GUYS!!! THANK YOU TO EVERY COLLABORATOR. THANK YOU FOR TRUSTING ME. THIS IS THE BEST ALBUM EVER. I LOVE YOU ALL!!! 💕💓 [1] Another light o’ love! [2] Polish! Polish! Polish! [3] Baby, i’m candier than candy more chrome than chrome will [4] love you [5] more [6] than your [7] girl! [8] (than your girl) i will bring you home (bring you home) im more sparkle than sparkle im lovelier than love come on baby, i will get you off (get you off) Another light o’ love! [9] And i will sparkle when broken [10] absorb the glaze! [11] You see it shine? [12] absorb the glaze! [13] you’re so damn fine! babe, i’m all sugar for you [14] I am polished [15] I am polished [16] I am polished [17] I will make your head go swirl! Baby, i’m candier than candy more chrome than chrome will [18] love you [19] more [20] than your [21] girl! [22] (than your girl) i will bring you home (bring you home) im more sparkle than sparkle im lovelier than love come on baby, i will get you off (get you off) Another night o’ love! [23] CHAMBERS Alexis was listening to his favorite Popstar QUEEN LIZZY’s new single „Candy“ as he saw the notification in his inbox.  „MY PRETTIEST ANGEL! YOU’VE BEEN SUCH A LOVELY BOY! YOU EARNED YOUR SPECIAL PLACE IN MY HEART AND I WANT YOU TO BE THERE AT THE BANQUET BEFORE MY CONCERT TODAY! XXXX YOUR LIZZY“ „you are now in posession for an exclusive access code to QUEEN LIZZY’s ceremony“ Alexis was rapturing in joy. He closed the doors to his room. After all this time, he could finally be there as well. Be at the ceremony with everyone else. See the things he only heard myths about. Alexis put on his glasses and scanned LIZZY’s gift.  Alexis wanted to see her for real this time. While the livestream was loading he hummed along the refrain of LIZZY’s newest single „Candy“ and joy filled his soul.   When he opened his eyes he instantly felt, that, when standing outside the stage, aura is affirmed absolutely. [24] Alexis sensed, that life inside this building is fractured to the extent that it could not conceivably be part of a single scenario: on the 82nd floor a donkey shrinks back from the void, on the 81st a cosmopolitan couple hail a plane. [25] The expected pyramidal composition was reversed; the center, a void between the masses on either side, which became a “split pair.” [26]One could speak of this pair as a diamond. [27] Inside the stage, a void that is not a nothingness but a virtual, containing all possible particles and drawing out all possible forms, which spring up only to disappear immediately, without consistency or reference, without consequence. Chaos as an infinite speed of birth and disappearance. [28] But These dynamical models unfolded the Baroque void, or infinite determinism, into specificity. [29] All sensation is composed with the void in composing itself with itself, and everything holds together on earth and in the air, and preserves the void, is preserved in the void by preserving itself. [30] The absolute emptiness of the absolute plenitude that fascinates from the outside, to be the circular, voluble vertigo of that nothingness and that being, to be at once the total abolition that is an enslaved consciousness and the supreme glory - that is a stage for QUEEN LIZZY. [31] When Alexis slowly walked forth, with his back turned to Notre Dame and facing QUEEN LIZZY’s stage, an entrance as pulchritudinous as a Sirene, emerged itself out of seeming nothingness.He entered a great, radiant space, with diffuse light that is slowly revealed in it and that reveals that easy simultaneity of distinct perfections, synthesis of the vague with the precise. [32] The Baroque fold unfurled all the way to infinity. [33] Countlessness was part of the point: he was dizzied by infinity. [34] Alexis stared Into the void. [35] Looking for holes, looking for openings.  But“Holes” only indicate more subtle foldings. In that instant, he started to understand the principle, that there are no voids, that here everything is included in a single expressive continuum. [36] Alexis felt, that the myriad of things started to project themselves into the evolving space around him. He started to feel space. In the beginning, there was only darkness. But out of the darkness a light emerged. He felt, that it was her - but not yet. Slowly the light emerged and it got brighter when she slowly moved through space. He started to see silhouettes. He started to see colors.  It was the queens’ most baroque fantasies of glamour and stardom. [37]Light crystalline notes seemed to emerge out of the silence which accompanied the Queens glide. Somehow out of nothingness a choir as perfectly clear cut like colorful marble in the most beautiful patterns emerged. Alexis saw her gliding along the ground from far away, although he felt like he saw one short glance of her eyes going to his direction.  He glared at the fabric falling down upon her like a thin, ultra light continuous skin—clearly visible. What was especially miraculous was that especially from inside he saw the building move towards a "textile like" definition of architectonic space. [38] The ornament felt like folded embroidery encapsulated in astonishing ecstasy of colorful marble and indistinguishable textures of golden and platinum figures illuminating the fabric upon they seemed to be appended. Everything seemed like it was flickering. Flickering like a soft but strong candlelight, giving the structure a pulse. All colors seemed enhanced and the details exaggerated which made it even more dazzling in Alexis’s eyes. In the midst, his queen.  Adjacent to her path there were two banquets, with shining pearl-white layers of fabric. Filled with all the plenty of things. She seemed to be absorbing the banquet, while Alexis now knew. These heavens do not proclaim the glory of God. [39] But the heavens of his Queen.  QUEEN LIZZY.  He listened closely and let these heavenly halls enter his heart while he witnessed her, slowly vanishing the chamber. She seemed to have ingested everything she needed for todays concert, as she ascended into another chamber. For the next chamber, Alexis knew, he was not worthy enough yet. He could only imagine the things that lied beyond these magnificent gates. Alexis knew, that he needed to see her again tomorrow. And now he finally had the access code to the banquet, so he knew it was possible to see her whole ceremony, to really get to know her. And maybe. Maybe he will see her on stage someday. The magnificent stage next to the Seine, seemingly born from one of Bosch’s paintings seemed to set everything around into a dreamlike state of exuberance. Leaving even the most polished buildings around it appear to be rusted. United with all his fellow Angels, Standing in front of Notre Dame. See his QUEEN LIZZY face Notre Dame, while he, Alexis faces his LIZZY.  And perhaps, he longed. Perhaps one day. One day i might meet her in reality.  „THIS STREAM HAS ENDED! WITNESS QUEEN LIZZY AGAIN TOMORROW!“ Somber but ecstatic, Alexis takes off his glasses and puts on his favorite music, while leaving his flat for an evening stroll at the Seine. Queen Lizzy is breathless at the bacchanal  bewitched, senses submerged, her image mirrored, her mind  magicked, her emotions  modulated magnified unmoderated and maybe  immodest, herself  multiplied [40] Music sprays an anaesthetic cloud over things and drug used to spare us the terror of the real. [41] It is these traits that enable it to go anywhere, to go everywhere, into site and psyche alike, to appear ever fascinating yet ever harmless even as it plies its undermining subterfuges and sly deceits [42]. Forces come and go, from and in all directions. [43] Where do we want to go? [44] Remember: Icarus flew away, toward the sun. [45] One sees the burning heat of the sun scorch the wings of the wretched young man, as the blazing fire smokes, and one can almost hear the crackling of the burning feathers, while death can be seen sculpted on the face of Icarus, and on that of Daedalus his emotion and sharp pain. [46] Historically, thousands of subjects have done so, suffering, killing themselves, dressing, perfuming themselves, writing as if they were Werther. [47] The baroque dramatist clings fervently to the world. [48] We are expecting a move toward a falling in sync with the architecture of the Baroque, but on different levels of abstraction. [49] Contemporary time, however, can sustain these baroque illusions. [50] Today, Maximum is the ultimate ornament, the most self righteous crime, the contemporary Baroque. [51] the whole building is the decoration. [52] And Delicate bronze allegorical figures adorn the case. [53] We have seen roofs made of copper, glass, and gold, and elegantly decorated with ceilings gilded or coffered in gold, and picked out with sculpted crowns and flowers, and even statues. [54] We are in excess. [55] And excess produces virtuality. [56] By the early twenty first century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology. [57] Whereas the musical call rises from noise to meaning while avoiding both.  Vibrating softness and the hammer’s hardness. [58] Life is excess. [59] This surplus of absence, the place of nothing, when exaggerated threatens all meaning with indifference. [60] But the lights have to go on again. [61]Exactly, In indifference, the excess becomes manifest. [62] A modern ritual, a modern Bacchanalia, escalation, excess. [63] So here we go. [64] This is Queen Lizzy. If you want sex, why not go get it? [65] If dolphins go extinct, why worry? [66] If we’re all going to drown, why not jump from the highest heights and feel the rush of adrenaline? We’ll learn diving eventually. And  The point turns into a baroque pearl. [67] flashes of inspiration  fascinations colours, glitter  decadences balls: exuberances  festivals and  congregations, close  communions travel at the speed of sound, lightspeed  communication instantaneous pools of commonality the vibe and exultation, the  euphoria the sharpwit razor of precision, the  ingeniousness the shared experience the climactic joy, the sacred orgasm of life [68] When will we stop apologizing for being romantic? Why not now? Here and now? Right now. We populate the desert with singing trees and unruly blackbirds. We leave the cynical laughter behind and no longer hesitate to be naive. The cliché is not kitsch, it is simply beautiful. [69] Let's follow the hedonism creed, kick the whole world off, get out of work, go to bed, and join together with your "great Louis XIV" to shake this hypocritical world into a bright sky. [70] Ah, bless the very “false windows,” so valued as decoration and so useless in a building of artificial light and ventilation! [71] This possible world is not real, or not yet, but it exists nonetheless: it is an expressed that exists only in its expression — the face, or an equivalent of the face. [72] Then, we built churches in excess for a common belief in an artificial persona. God. Tomorrow, we will build in excess because it represents living in a world where the power lies within the plenty. The plenty is excess and she give birth to it by giving it a face in physical space. From nihilism, hedonism emerges and they will dance together in euphoria like Dionysus did with his followers.  She will acquire the plethora and give the acceleration a purpose. It is time to stop holding on to flag poles standing in the current. We should start to accept the drowning, to then be fulfilled by the current teaching us how to swim.  Excess is accepting. Excess is giving the power a face. She says: Come, live with me. Watch me exist. Because, we are part of it: we are a part of everything, every thing is part of us we were made by gods, but we create them we were made by the universe  we were created by energy we were created by code we are the probability we are the failure and the hope and the despair  we are the triumph of existence and that is what she is: she is Queen Lizzy [73] [1] Charli XCX Reddit AMA [2 ] Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris [3] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755 [4] Cicero, Tusculan Disputations [5] Sedlacek, Economics of Good and Evil [6] Aristotle, Poetics [7] Leibniz, Theodicy [8] Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra [9] Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris [10] Bacon, Novum Organum [11] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988 [12] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [13] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988 [14] Bacon, Novum Organum [15] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755 [16] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755 [17] Alberti, 10 books of architecture 1755 [18] Cicero, Tusculan Disputations [19] Sedlacek, Economics of Good and Evil [20] Aristotle, Poetics [21] Leibniz, Theodicy [22] Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra [23] Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris [24] Purdy, On the Ruins of Babel Architectural Metaphor in G [25] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968 [26] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968 [27]Harman, Towards Speculative Realism [28] Deleuze Guattari, What Is Philosophy [29] Hovestadt Buehlmann, EigenArchitecture [30] Deleuze Guattari, What Is Philosophy [31] Foucault, History of Madness [32] Blanchot, The Book to Come [33] Kaup, Neobaroque in the Americas Alternative Modernitie [34] Moore, Why We Build [35] Deleuze Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus [36] Rajchman, Constructions [37] Goldsmith, Capital New York Capital of the 20th Century [38] Acocella, Stone Architecture Ancient and Modern Construction Skills [39] Tsoukala, Intersections of Space and Ethos Routledge Resear [40] Buehlmann Hovestadt, Quantum City [41] Serres, The Incandescent [42] Sykes, Constructing A New Agenda [43] Spuybroek, The Sympathy of Things [44] Serres, Hominescence [45] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968 [46] Vasari, The Lives of the Artists [47] Barthes, A Lover s Discourse Fragments [48] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968 [49] Buehlmann Hovestadt, Coding as Literacy [50] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968 [51] Sykes, Constructing A New Agenda [52] Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968 [53] Saunders, The Art and Architecture of London [4] Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books 1988 [55] Zizek, Less Than Nothing [56] Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture Vol 2 [57] Haraway, Cyborg Manifesto [58] Serres, Statues [59] Negarestani Mackay, Collapse Volume VII [60] Doyle Savic Buehlmann, Ghosts of Transparency [61] Hays, Architecture Theory since 1968 [62] Doyle Savic Buehlmann, Ghosts of Transparency [63] Serres, The Birth of Physics [64] Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop [65] Spuybroek, The Sympathy of Things [66] Morton, Hyperobjects [67] Buehlmann Hovestadt, Symbolizing Existence [68] Buehlmann Hovestadt, Quantum City [69] Camille de Toledo, in: Goodbye Tristesse, 2005 [70] Louis XIV Show [71] Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology [72] Deleuze Guattari, What Is Philosophy [73] Buehlmann Hovestadt, Quantum City

[elipodda]

“They say in the moment before you die you see your life, a spat of film strip, the bad and good, nightmares and dreams, unfolding before you. Your first dog. Your first cigarette. Your first love. A friend who became a stranger. The tree you planted when you were five. These moments come up and grab you. Live and steady. And then they let go. Receding into the past. Before parting ways, your body is weightless, hovering in place for what feels like an eternity. This is so you have enough time to say goodbye. But you don’t realize it. Because it’s all of a moment. A speck in time in which you exist. And then not. Just a moment. Before it’s all over.”

 I guess if Mary Kills People has its fatal flaw as a show, then it’s a passionate, fool love for what makes life meaningful.

This season finale, astoundingly poignant, pulls the strings of both seasons’ tale, links by hand all characters encountered on the stage. Actors and extras of a higher story of which maybe they were unaware. All gathered together like Brendan’s friends saying his goodbyes in the woods, each one with its verses, each one with its fragment of life lived, to build the message, the legacy of this wonderful show.

Why Mary Kills People is a show captivating for the audience, involving intimately things we do not know or want to talk about. What we know is only something that has involved intensely in its genesis, can involve in turn. What we rather want to highlight is how every single component, every single detail contributes to compose this valuable tapestry, the more precious, the more rare.

So let us stand up to applaud anyone who took part in this show.  The 3 fantastic, surprising directors – the level to which Holly Dale had left the bar last year seemed unattainable – to the writers, poets of intimate feelings as ancient elegies rather than just simple screenwriters.  To musicians, able to tell with notes and songs what could not be said with words.  To photographers and editors leaving us speechless.  To costumes, make-up, prop department, location scouts, who set them up, to the guy who brought them  a cup of  warm coffee in the cold of  Ontario autumn… All those who helped make this show true, above all others. True but at the same time, poetic. Thank you.

To the actors, all of them, generous interpreters of characters and personalities. Soul donors. Their talent second only to the devotion with which they have been committed to make Mary, Des, Ben, Nicole, Jess, and Olivia, Brendan, Germaine, Heather, Noemi , Betty …all true. All of them: Caroline Dhavernas, Richard Short, Jay Ryan, Abigail Winter, Charlotte Sullivan, Rachelle Lefevre, Salvatore Antonio … All.

To those two brave women who have defied the custom, ignored the easiest way, choosing as the first project to link their name to a story so out of the box, challenging, revolutionary… Thank You from the heart.

If Life were a person, Mary Kills People would be its epitaph. The love verses telling the meaning of an existence.

The season finale did nothing but confirm feelings and emotions that kept us company throughout the whole season. As in the procession in the woods, protagonists  marched for us with their fragment of story as their legacy. They marched for us and for Mary.

The entire season was designed as a path of awareness for each one of the characters, from Mary to Des, to Jess, Nicole and Ben. The patients who we saw dying in the episodes made their farewell a testimony of values, leaving to Mary and Des but also to Nicole and Ben and finally to Jess, a message as a sort of responsibility, arousing not only emotions but deep reflections in each character’s inner being.

During this last day in the finale, we see all protagonists committed, in one way or another, voluntarily or involuntarily, to make life-changing choices, deciding how to fill, frame by frame, that footage that will flow before our eyes in the last moments, choosing how to give worth to life. It is all in choices and awareness in the path that brings everyone together in the end, in a clearing in the woods, in the light of candles surrounded by marigolds.

Jess, with the delicate but intense touch of Abigail Winter’s talent, surprises us positively, confirming an esteem that is unlikely to be questioned. She finds out the nature of Mary’s clandestine work. She finds out it in the most brutal way yet she does not bat an eyelid. Her acceptance, which reminds us once more that nature of love is to love, not necessarily to save or understand, is second only to Mary’s candor in opening up to her. When the situation is desperate and you put a lot on scale, it is not worth wavering and holding back. So Mary can be sincere and honest and true in confessing her daughter that there is all of herself in what she does and she does not know why nor can she be different – Bravo at the poignant artistic moment of Caroline Dhavernas that goes beyond stealing us a tear. Beyond acting, beyond  awards, beyond TV or maybe giving a new definition of TV entertainment just as the whole show did. Jess does not need anything else. Nothing more than to know who her mother is, to be able to love her completely, to understand that she is really  loved in turn. Jess and Mary choose without fear of being themselves and their choice leads them to stand side by side to face together what happens.

Nicole has not always understood Mary’s motivations. Quite the contrary. Not just because Mary had kept them hidden at first. There, Nicole had been quick and ready to get a clear idea of ​​her sister’s actions but why the reasons, she had not always been able to share. Embracing enthusiastically Des’ project of the hospice, Nicole too takes her position beside Mary, choosing in turn. If to be Mary’s sister, if to have the only family left in Mary means to be part of Mary’s life as much as you want her to be part of yours, Nicole is there, she does not hesitate anymore. With enthusiasm, positive inclination, involvement and “vibes”, Nicole’s path leads her to look forward enriched by her experiences thanks to Mary.

Des … Des is the person who has changed more since the first season. Eight months of reflection and rethink have given him a great advantage on the way to the  awareness. He has the clearest ideas and the deepest doubts. He knows exactly, in every moment of his adventure with Mary, what he is doing and why he is doing it. His awareness gives each of his actions a more meaningful and deeper value. We must bow to Richard Short, so extraordinarily the Master of this eclectic and multifaceted character, to give him nuances that in the writers’ room they dared not even imagine. The choice of Des, therefore, with the greater awareness that the events had given him, is more a confirmation than a new choice. A confirmation linked to a discovery. The confirmation that he does not need a painful, intimate past to embrace with passion the choice to do what’s good, in a way perhaps still illegal, perhaps unconventional but with no shadow of doubt or fear, right, noble, appropriate. Choosing what he believes is right inevitably means choosing Mary, is his own fatal flaw. Because Mary is not always aware. Mary is not always fearless. Mary does not always proceed with straight and understandable trajectories. On the contrary…

Mary is a whirlwind of emotions.  Her apparent coldness is just the garment she uses to cover, protecting herself, an unthinkable vulnerability that comes from an extraordinary emotionality. Mary is passion, strong and generous in everything she does. Getting rid of Olivia while staying with Ben, who she loves, seems like a possible goal rather than a mirage. Mary throws herself all without hesitation. She risks and is terrified, not by Olivia, but by what she herself put into play in that operation. However she does not hold back.

When in that car with Olivia’s words, the microphone records that Mary has let Grady bleed to death, it is not the failure of trying to indict Olivia without incriminating herself to tear Mary’s heart and to deliver the knowledge there is always a cost to be paid for the choices made. The bill comes when you least expect it. Mary, in the car with Ben, is annihilated by pain with no hypocrisy of wanting or being able to justify, because when two people who have pretended and hidden so much from the beginning do decide to be sincere, they change and do it to a true and deep level with no limits. There is no space, therefore, to drown the truth that brutally tears away what was between them, as the tape that holds the microphone is torn painfully and abruptly from Ben. Could Mary have chosen differently? It does not matter.

Planning with Ben in the woods, she chose knowing how much she was putting at risk, though trusting if the plan had worked, so many questions would have been silenced, so many shadows gone, maybe forever. Wearing the wire in Olivia’s car, she realized at the highest price that the only way to dispel the shadows is to turn on the light, as she had done with Jess. How she did not succeed with Ben. If she was ready to pay the price for such a high risk. If she was ready to face such a loss, we believe not. On the contrary, we believe that the story has still much to tell precisely because it’s Mary who has still so much to say, to understand and to achieve.

So generously committed to helping others give meaning to their life or death, whether one wants it, (fantastic how the two terms express the same concept when related to value and meaning), so taken by sublimating the meanings of others lives, as much as the right to choose how to die can be read as a compensation due for having to separate from affections, Mary unfailingly overlooks her own meanings, wishes and emotions that would enrich with softening tones, that final footage flowing in front of their eyes in the last moments.

Brendan’s farewell ceremony, his death, is almost a warning to Mary – we allow ourselves a standing ovation as deeply as Salvatore Antonio has let the character penetrate within himself to become so intense and extraordinarily touching – a standing ovation to Vlad Alexis too, for making his Germaine intense and truthful, so to highlight Brendan’s character details and nuances.

A warning…

to remind Mary that death is not always or entirely serene. Not just about marigolds and candles.  Sometimes it can be painful and unfair. Betty’s death was fair and desired, her life had been full and in her eyes, done. Brendan’s death is right and serene, since he cannot avoid it, he chooses how to live it, filling it with the richness of his affections and fullness of what he has experienced. How fair, how serene, in comparison, Cho-cho San’s death, on the stage of Madame Butterfly which so surprisingly moved Mary? Cho-cho San does not want to die. Cho-cho san should not die. However when the girl’s life had emptied of what gave her meaning, she had no choice. Because a life without meaning, it is not life. Cho-cho san challenged her society, the conventions of her world and questioned her belief… because of Love. Lost her love, she can die. She chooses love to give meaning to her life. Like Betty. Like Brendan. Like Ben.

It is surprising that it’s Ben the bearer of the most important message for Mary. Ben, who for so much time we had difficulty to place. Maybe, or maybe not. Ben who was there in the shade, uncertain whether to jump to the middle of the stage. Ben who pretends so well that you never know how much you can trust him. Ben who does not seem to understand fully and then surprises you by accepting everything at once, redesigning everything because of Mary. Because he loves her.

Love is worth it being on Mary’s side and we faint every time we see him telling her at that table between a mismatched cup and a doubtful Des, with an intensity that only Jay Ryan could put in that look, overwhelms words saying much, too much more. Ben fell in love and love gave a different meaning to his life. Love for a woman, not just for what is right and fair Love made him accept so much, indeed love made him understand so much, accepting was a consequence. Because of love he chose to live with little doubt that there is not necessarily white and black but also a little grey, as all the voices kept whispering on each side of this stage, Love is acceptance.

But in that car, from that cold wire, what Ben heard, went beyond doubt, stained grey of an indelible black. Ben heard that he has been used. There is no other way to say it. Used and betrayed. Love that fills life is not a love that uses. It does not betray you.

On the squalid patio of his camper, Ben – he will understand us and excuse us, Jay Ryan – is Cho-cho San. While in a clearing they celebrate love that makes peaceful the farewell from life, in the unreal silence of his own clearing, Ben shouts louder than words of Brendan’s poem: death makes no sense if you have not filled your life with meaning.

It matters very little that there is his bourbon or Olivia’s pento in that bottle. Of course it counts for Mary. It will count a lot for her because the pento or the bourbon will decide the colors of many frames of her footage in her future.

For Ben, however, when he chooses to overflow the content of the bottle, there is no difference.

There is no tomorrow if there is no love.

Pento or bourbon that it is, in that bottle Ben chooses to drown.

Federica Edited by Lisa

"It's ok, babe. I'm only dying" For its season finale #marykillspeople invites you to a heart rending edition of Dia de los muertos. Our Fatal Flaw review. “They say in the moment before you die you see your life, a spat of film strip,

[acertaincritic]

Let’s analyze! “Truthwitch” by Susan Dennard, Chapter 1

“Truthwitch” is a book that let me down on many different levels - at its (nonexistent) worldbuilding, at creating interesting, likable character (there’s maybe a couple of those, but far away from the main cast), and at providing exciting plot (mostly it seems to consist of cheap fight scenes). However, this post isn’t about my overall feelings - I already wrote a review on another website. It wasn’t enough to satisfy my salty self, so I decided to do more, and take “Truthwitch” as my first subject of a series I meant to do for a while: “Let’s analyze!”. Here I’ll do a line-by-line commentary on “Truthwitch’s” chapter 1, pointing out what works, what doesn’t work and why, and also how to improve it.

I don’t intend to cover more than chapter 1 of this book, but there might be slight spoilers to the next chapters; however I won’t spoil anything major, or even anything further than 1/3 of the book (which is as far as I made it).

Everything had gone horribly wrong.

First line and I must say - it’s a good line. While I don’t know many readers who would put a book away after reading only one line, I know of lots of agents who would do that. So especially to the aspiring writers here - you must make your first line something strong. Something that immediately draws the reader in. This one is a good example. It tells us that the main character is - or soon will be - in trouble, which immediately provides conflict. It also raises several questions: what had gone terribly wrong? Why? How? I had a lot of hopes for this book, and the opening line only added to them.

After all, what can go wrong if the writer knows how to write a decent opening line?...

None of Safiya fon Hasstrel’s hastily laid plans for this holdup were unfolding as they ought.

First, the black carriage with the gleaming gold standard was not the target Safi and Iseult had been waiting for. Worse, this cursed carriage was accompanied by eight rows of city guards blinking midday sun from their eyes.

Ahh, things are going downhill with the next couple of sentences. First off, referring to the main character by her full name at first just to use simple “Safi” later is a bad move. “Safiya fon Hasstrel” scares the reader off. It’s also unnecessary. We have no idea if the MC’s surname is significant or not; we don’t need to know it to understand the plot at hand. Further more, this sentence says exactly the same thing as the first line - only it uses different words.

Then the second paragraph is even worse. We are told that Safi and Iseult (whoever she is) were waiting for a carriage that they wanted to rob, and that the one that arrived is not the right one. However, for some reason the fact that its black and with gleaming gold standard is important. Why? What does the standard mean? We don’t know. We also don’t know why Safi and Iseult were targeting a carriage in the first place. Are they simply robbers? That doesn’t build sympathy for them.

[Later we learn that actually yes, they are simply robbers. They targeted the carriage because they wanted to move to a bigger flat. This is the level of entitlement that I simply cannot comprehend, and pretty much made me absolutely dislike both the main heroines for the rest of my short, but painful read.]

Now, how to fix it? Cut Iseult out from this paragraph - she only confuses the reader. Have Safi (no “Safiya fon Hasstrel”) focus on the carriage, also tell us what is her position. Is she on a tree? On a mountain? Somewhere else? Then, when she sees it’s the wrong carriage, have her turn to her friend - and then introduce Iseult’s name, with a brief explanation of who she is. Just like I did in that sentence ;)

Second, there was absolutely nowhere for Safi and Iseult to go. Up on their limestone outcropping, the dusty road below was the only path to Veñaza City. And just as this thrust of gray rock overlooked the road, the road overlooked nothing but turquoise sea forever. It was seventy feet of cliff pounded by rough waves and even rougher winds.

Ahh, so we are given their position. Cool. It’s a shame we still don’t know who Iseult is, and why they should even be going somewhere in the first place. Do they have to run? Why? Is standing on an outcropping a crime in this setting?

And third—the real kick in the kidneys—was that as soon as the guards marched over the girls’ buried trap and the firepots within exploded … Well, then those guards would be scouring every inch of the cliffside.

Oh, OK, I see. So there is a reason why they have to run. See how the author is giving the information backward? First we learn that Safi and Iseult have nowhere to go, but we don’t know why they should - and then it’s revealed why. It’s a sign of unedited discovery writing. In other words, it’s very likely that the author was thinking up these details while she was writing, and didn’t come back to change it. So her thought process would be:

the carriage is surrounded by guards and that’s bad! -> that’s bad because the heroines have nowhere to run! -> and they must run, because they have hidden explosives under the path!

And this is what we’ve got, instead of the other - the logical - way round.

This also explains how the heroines came up with such a dumb plan that required that no one, but absolutely not a single person, walks up the path before their target, from either of the sides.

“Hell-gates, Iz.” Safi snapped down her spyglass. “There are four guards in each row. Eight times four makes…” Her face scrunched up. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen …

“It’s thirty-two,” Iseult said blandly.

“Thirty-two thrice-damned guards with thirty-two thrice-damned crossbows.”

At this point I began to worry about our MC. She threatened to turn out another “all-action, no brains” type of a ‘stronk’ (don’t mistake for strong) female character. Also, I’d think they should be in a hurry rather than stand there and count, trying to sound witty. Is it important if there’s 32 guards, and not 30? No, hell, it’s not! My ladies, get going!

Iseult only nodded and eased back the hood of her brown cape. The sun lit up her face. She was the perfect contrast to Safi: midnight hair to Safi’s wheat, moon skin to Safi’s tan, and hazel eyes to Safi’s blue.

Hazel eyes that were now sliding to Safi as Iseult plucked away the spyglass. “I hate to say ‘I told you so’—”

“Then don’t.”

“—but,” Iseult finished, “Everything he said to you last night was a lie. He was most certainly not interested in a simple card game.” Iseult ticked off two gloved fingers. “He was not leaving town this morning by the northern highway. And I bet”—a third finger unfurled—“his name wasn’t even Caden.”

So now we get description of Iseult. It’s rather deftly intertwined with Safi’s description - not bad. However then we get a good old “I told you so”, but executed poorly. It only brings more confusion. Who is this ‘he’? What has a simple card game have to do with the carriage? Oh, so his name is Caden... which tells us nothing. It feels as if the characters were referring an event that the reader already knows - just that, it’s not the case, and instead we’re forced to pause and reread to glean out as much information as possible.

And what about those 32 guards coming your way???

Caden. If … no, when Safi found that Chiseled Cheater, she was going to break every bone in his perfect rutting face.

Safi groaned and banged her head against the rock. She’d lost all of her money to him. Not just some, but all.

Last night had hardly been the first time Safi had bet all of her—and Iseult’s—savings on a card game. It wasn’t as if she ever lost, for, as the saying went, You can’t trick a Truthwitch.

Plus, the winnings off one round alone from the highest-stake taro game in Veñaza City would have bought Safi and Iseult a place of their own. No more living in an attic for Iseult, no more stuffy Guildmaster’s guest room for Safi.

But as Lady Fate would have it, Iseult hadn’t been able to join Safi at the game—her heritage had banned her from the highbrow inn where the game had taken place. And without her Threadsister beside her, Safi was prone to… mistakes.

Particularly mistakes of the strong-jawed, snide-tongued variety who plied Safi with compliments that somehow slipped right past her Truthwitchery. In fact, she hadn’t sensed a lying bone in Chiseled Cheater’s body when she’d collected her winnings from the in-house bank … Or when Chiseled Cheater had hooked his arm in hers and guided her into the warm night … Or when he’d leaned in for a chaste yet wildly heady kiss on the cheek.

I will never gamble again, she swore, her heel drumming on the limestone. And I will never flirt again.

Great. Now we’re getting long paragraphs of explanation and exposition. Shame we still don’t know why Safi and Iseult are trying to rob a carriage in the first place. Also, if Safi is supposed to sense any lie, how the hell could that Caden deceive her? It should be impossible. Especially since it’s implied that he simply told her his name, and the route he’d take - Safi should be able to see through it. But no, apparently her power didn’t work for some reason; for the plot’s sake, I guess.

And the 32 guards are marching, marching, marching...

“If we’re going to run for it,” Iseult said, interrupting Safi’s thoughts, “then we need to do so before the guards reach our trap.”

“You don’t say.” Safi glared at her Threadsister, who watched the incoming guards through the spyglass. Wind kicked at Iseult’s dark hair, lifting the wispy bits that had fallen from her braid. A distant gull cried its obnoxious scree, scr-scree, scr-scree!

Safi hated gulls; they always shit on her head.

“More guards,” Iseult murmured, the waves almost drowning out her words. But then louder, she said, “Twenty more guards coming from the north.”

Oh, no, 32 + 20 =  52! Those calculations are so important at the moment! It’s more important to count the guards than to run for our life, hurray! And noticing how Iseult’s hair was ruffled, and how a gull cried in the distance is even more vital in this situation! We absolutely cannot do without it!

*swears silently for a minute or so*

For half a moment, Safi’s breath choked off. Now, even if she and Iseult could somehow face the thirty-two guards accompanying the carriage, the other twenty guards would be upon them before they could escape.

I was amazed that she even thought about facing 32 guards. At this point, I actually assumed that Iiseult’s magic was something powerful and perfect for killing, as I couldn’t see another explanation. However, later we learn that it’s not.

Also, if they could face 32 guards, then why would 20 more scare them? It would be less than what they would have already dealt with.

Safi wastes more time on being irritated. Then:

“We’re down to two options,” Iseult cut in, scooting back to Safi’s side. “We either turn ourselves in—”

“Over my grandmother’s rotting corpse,” Safi spat.

“—or we try to reach the guards before they trigger the trap. Then all we have to do is brazen our way through.”

Eventually, they decide to go with the latter.

I was still clinging to my hopes at that point. They would come up with something clever, I thought. Something more clever than hiding explosives under the path to kill whoever happens to come across them first.

Well, not really.

“Wait, Iz.” In a flurry of movement, Safi swung off her cape. Then with a quick slash-rip-slash of her parrying knife, she cut off the hood. “Skirt and kerchief. We’ll be less threatening as peasants.”

Iseult’s eyes narrowed. Then she dropped to the road. “But then our faces will be more obvious. Rub on as much dirt as you can.” As Iseult scrubbed her face, turning it a muddy brown, Safi wound the hood over her hair and wrapped the cape around her waist. Once she’d tucked the brown cloak into her belt, careful to hide her scabbards beneath, she too slathered dirt and mud over her cheeks.

In less than a minute, both girls were ready. Safi ran a quick, scrutinizing eye over Iseult … but the disguise was good. Good enough. Her Threadsister looked like a peasant in desperate need of a bath.

Ah, another fancy, incomprehensible word - “Threadsister”. What does it mean? I admit I still don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be anything more than just a supposedly cool (not really) way of saying “my best friend”.

Also, two points.

1. I don’t believe that ripping their clothes, rubbing dirt into their faces, and the rest took less than a minute. I also don’t believe that it would make for a convincing disguise. It doesn’t help that I have no idea what they are wearing - I didn’t even know that they both had capes until now, when it suddenly became relevant.

Note to aspiring writers: If you want to make your characters appear clever, you shouldn’t do so by withholding information from the reader, or giving the characters extra resources that weren’t there in the first place. It doesn’t work.

2. Meanwhile the 32 guards are marching, marching, marching...

Well, eventually our heroines made their way down, and approached the soldiers.

Then the mustached man—clearly the leader—raised his own crossbow. “Halt.”

Safi complied, letting her feet drag to a stop—while also covering as much ground as she could. “Onga?” she asked, the Arithuanian word for yes. After all, if they were going to be peasants, they might as well be immigrant peasants.

“Do you speak Dalmotti?” the leader asked, looking first at Safi. Then at Iseult.

Iseult came to a clumsy stop beside Safiya. “We spwik. A litttttle.” It was easily the worst attempt at an Arithuanian accent that Safiya had ever heard from Iseult’s mouth.

“We are … in trouble?” Safi lifted her hands in a universally submissive gesture. “We only go to Veñaza City.”

Iseult gave a dramatic cough, and Safi wanted to throttle her. No wonder Iz was always the cutpurse and Safi the distraction. Her Threadsister was awful at acting.

“We want a city healer,” Safi rushed to say before Iseult could muster another unbelievable cough. “In case she has the plague. Our mother died from it, you see, and ohhhh, how she coughed in those final days. There was so much blood—”

“Plague?” the guard interrupted.

“Oh, yes.” Safi nodded knowingly. “My sister is very ill.”

Iseult heaved another cough—but this one was so convincing, Safi actually flinched … and then hobbled to her. “Oh, you need a healer. Come, come. Let your sister help you.”

The guard turned back to his men, already dismissing the girls, already bellowing orders: “Back in formation! Resume march!”

Seriously, it’s so dumb that almost funny. Iseult’s awful, but clearly not enough to stir the man’s distrust. The two wandering girls are in no way suspicious, coming across with just the perfect - too perfect - excuse, and the poor execution (”Come, come”? “Let your sister help you“?). Also, plague? What plague? And they’re going to the city, shouldn’t the soldier stop them? There’s plenty of people to infect there. 

And yet heroines are given a pass. But, it’s not the end of their trouble!

Safi was just towing Iseult past the black carriage when its door popped wide. A saggy old man leaned his scarlet-clad torso outside. His wrinkles shook in the wind.

It was the leader of the Gold Guild, a man named Yotiluzzi, whom Safi had seen from afar—at last night’s establishment, no less.

The old Guildmaster clearly didn’t recognize Safi, though, and after a cursory glance, he lifted his reedy voice. “Aeduan! Get this foreign filth away from me!”

Why the man opened the door of his carriage if he wanted nothing to do with the “foreign filth” is unclear. However, what’s worse, are other terms thrown in as if we’re supposed to know them - “Gold Guilt” and “Guildmaster”. And the Guildmaster apparently should’ve recognized Safi, but we have no idea why. It’s irritating and distracting, and overall adds to the impression that it’s a book two, not a book one.

And while the reason is later kinda explained [Safi’s a noble, so presumably she had a chance to meet another VIP], it happens after such a long time that I dare say no one would come back to this scene with “Oh! I get it now!” Unless it’s me rereading just to bury it under salt.

Then, there’s Aeduan:

A figure in white stalked around the carriage’s back wheel. His cape billowed, and though a hood shaded his face, there was no hiding the knife baldric across his chest or the sword at his waist.

He was a Carawen monk—a mercenary trained to kill since childhood.

Well, at least this time we get the explanation immediately. Shame it required another fantasy name, and I don’t even know if it’s the name of a place, or of an organization. Nor what powers this guy is supposed to have.

Basically, I know nothing.

Safi froze, and without thinking, she eased her arm away from Iseult, who twisted silently behind her. The guards would reach the girls’ trap at any moment, and this was their ready position: Initiate. Complete.

Initiate. Compl- WHAT??? Is this saying clear to native speakers, and just something that my non-native English cannot comprehend? I get the meaning, but it sounds just so... off. Awful. And it is repeated over and over throughout the novel.

“Arithuanians,” the monk said. His voice was rough, but not with age—with underuse. “From what village?” He strolled a single step toward Safi.

Clearly he didn’t notice that the girls are now standing in a ready position, whatever that position looks like (how exactly did Iseult “twist”?).

She had to fight the urge not to cower back. Her Truthwitchery was suddenly bursting with discomfort—a grating sensation, as if skin were being scratched off the back of her neck.

And it wasn’t his words that set Safi’s magic to flaring. It was his presence. This monk was young, yet there was something off about him. Something too ruthless—too dangerous—to ever be trusted.

Apparently the ability to tell truth from lie is somehow also able to sense a person’s magic. Because reasons.

He pulled back his hood, revealing a pale face and close-cropped brown hair. Then, as the monk sniffed the air near Safi’s head, red swirled around his pupils.

Safi’s stomach turned to stone.

Bloodwitch.

Well, at least the term sounds appropriately fearsome.

This monk was a rutting Bloodwitch. A creature from the myths, a being who could smell a person’s blood—smell their very witchery—and track it across entire continents. If he latched onto Safi’s or Iseult’s scent, then they were in deep, deep—

Pop-pop-pop!

Gunpowder burst inside firepots. The guards had hit the trap.

All right, so this intro into a fight scene wasn’t that bad. The reveal of a scary Bloodwitch followed by the explosion is quite good a way to speed things up.

Safi acted instantly—as did the monk. His sword swished from its scabbard; her knife came up. She clipped the edge of his blade, parrying it aside.

He recovered and lunged. Safi lurched back. Her calves hit Iseult, yet in a single fluid movement, Iseult kneeled—and Safi rolled sideways over her back.

Initiate. Complete. It was how the girls fought. How they lived.

Ahh, I really hated this “Initiate. Complete.” thing since this moment. And the picture of Safi rolling over Iseult’s back is just so... She wouldn’t have time, alright? The Bloodwitch should be able to at least cut Iseult down before she straightened up, if not slash Safi in flying. It’s just so ridiculously hollywoodified fight, that I can’t....

Not to mention, a fight without stakes - and a fight is such when the reader doesn’t care which side wins - is a boring fight.

 The duel continues for some time. In the meantime the Bloodwitch heals his wounds - which is cool for an antagonist. Then...

But Safi didn’t have time for another strike. The guards were doubling back. The Guildmaster was screaming from within his carriage, and the horses were charging into a frantic gallop.

Iseult darted in front of Safi, scythes flying fast and beating two arrows from the air. Then, for a brief moment, the carriage blocked the girls from the guards. Only the Bloodwitch could see them, and though he reached for his knives, he was too slow. Too drained from the magic of healing.

I have no idea how the carriage blocked off the guards.

Yet he was smiling—smiling—as if he knew something that Safi didn’t. As if he could and wouldhunt her down to make her pay for this.

This is a good set-up for later.

“Come on!” Iseult yanked at Safi’s arm, pulling her into a sprint toward the cliffside.

At least this was part of their plan. At least this they had practiced so often they could do it with their eyes closed.

This had me completely lost. They practiced jumping off the cliff? How, why?...

Just as the first crossbow bolts pounded the road behind them, the girls reached a waist-high boulder on the ocean side of the road.

They plunked their blades back into scabbards. Then in two leaps, Safi was over the rock—and Iseult too. On the other side, the cliff ran straight down to thundering white waves.

Two ropes waited, affixed to a stake pounded deep into the earth. With far more speed and force than was ever intended for this escape, Safi snatched up her rope, hooked her foot in a loop at the end, gripped a knot at head level…

And jumped.

How they managed to hung these lines up there is not explained - and beyond me. It also contradicts their previous statement that they had no way to go. Clearly, they had an escape route prepared beforehand.

This concludes chapter one. Honestly, I considered dropping this book at that very moment. However, I still thought that perhaps it would get better. That maybe once we get to the proper plot, the world building details will become clear, the characters suddenly become more likable, the actions will suddenly start to make sense...

They don’t. 

So eventually for all my goodwill, I still ended up like this:

[mubal4]

A Letter to Yourself

 If you’ve been following me the last week or so, I’ve been a bit obsessed with Marie Forleo’s book, Everything is Figureoutable.  Once again, get it, grab it, listen to it, and get connected to her https://www.marieforleo.com/.  She has these exercises at the end of each chapter, I shared one last week in the blog here.  I tried a couple more but the one from last week, and this one today, really got me out of my comfort zone.  Therefore, I wanted to share them with you all and maybe encourage you to do them too! This morning, I just finished the book and the last exercise is to write a letter to current self as your future self. More specific, as Marie puts it, “your future self (the one-hundred-plus-year-old you) is going to write a letter to current-day you.  Her intent is to have your future self share wisdom with the current day you.

 So, in today’s blog, we are going to have some fun with this, and I am going to share my letter to myself.  Disclaimer here, this is the first, and only, edition.  I didn’t write this, proofread it (never do with my blogs 😊), and then post.  This is pure, unadulterated me 😊.  It will be interesting to see what comes out of my head; hopefully you enjoy it and, I don’t curse too much.  Keep in mind, I am talking to myself here 😊!!

 Here we go.

 Dearest Michael,

 I would love for you to know that, life is a wild, crazy, fun, exciting, difficult, emotional, fulfilling, joyful, and challenging journey.  It has so many ups, downs, and all-arounds that it could make your head spin.  As you are likely figuring out, we do only have one shot at it. 😊 Oh yeah, and here is the kicker, there are many, many things you are going to screw up and suck at!!  That’s okay because you know what, none of us that are living it are perfect.  However, EVERY ONE of us has a special gift, a treasure, that we are supposed to uncover and share with the world.  Since I am your future-self, many years down the road, I know at this current moment, you are deep within the throws of uncovering that special gift.  You are close; you are getting to that grand unveiling.  I know there have been moments recently, you thought you had it, and, you took great action in developing that treasure.  However, it wasn’t fully baked yet; you had to continue down the path that you are on and very soon, it will be shown to the world. You’ve done a great job with that. Sure, you f$#%ed things up a bit along the way, but that is normal; you figured it out.  Or, at least you are well on your way to figuring it out.  

 As you are realizing, everything to this point, you have been able to figure out.  How do I know? Because you are still around 😊!!  I also know that you are realizing that a lot of it is tough as balls.  Much of it might be simple, but it sure as hell is not easy.  The great thing is that we have so many others that have come before us that have figured it out already.  Additionally, they have been so willing to share that wisdom.  Sort of like you have been wanting to do for the last several years; especially with that wonderful wife and two, amazing daughters of yours……well, ours since this is old man Mike writing this to you 😊.  I think, maybe this is odd but just realizing this now, maybe Robin and the girls are your greatest treasures?  Pretty interesting thought, right?  As the relationship with Robin continues to grow and nurture, as you both continue to do the same, we find out more and more about each other as our needs, desires, and dreams evolve too.  Same with the girls, right? Two different mindsets, desires, ambitions; both still searching for themselves and figuring things out along the way.  So many dynamics.  You and Robin focus on raising them to be great adults and be ready to leave the house.  Oldman Mike won’t spoil the future, but you are doing a bang-up job there.  I know! I know! It ain’t easy is it? You can talk to your mom and dad and they will say the same thing about you! But and I know you have been working and practicing it, I’d love for you to let go of them. You know what I am referring to here and that is protecting them and shielding them.  Even though they are teenagers at this time, Robin and you have shared much wisdom with them and, just like you both, they are not perfect, and they are going to screw things up.  Have faith in them!  And, have faith in the lessons and wisdom you’ve embarked on them.  

 Also, I’d love you to start being kinder to yourself. Forgive yourself more, and damn man, have fun. Don’t take this life so seriously.  Listen, I get it and I know you want to do everything in your power to create the life you feel the family and you deserve.  But dude, you have it. You don’t have to try so hard. Yeah, sure, maybe things are not exactly the way you would like them to be, but you are making changes toward creating that life you want to live.  It takes time, patience, and peace along the way.  It takes being kind to yourself, loving yourself, and mentioned above, letting things go.  That means letting go of the bullshit that you let influence you sometimes. You love the saying and it is incredibly true………...

 “People don’t think about you as much as you think they do.”

 So true man, so who gives a shit about what others say, do, or think about you and your treasure.  What do you believe? What do you want to chase after? Who do you want to spend your time on this journey with? And, who do you want to join in the fun? I know three people and can sure come up with a bunch of others!  

 I’d love you to remember that you are not going to do things right.  Actually, when you start things new, you are going to mess them all the F$%# up.  That’s okay.  You are not going to say the right thing to Robin and the girls sometimes. That is okay.  You are not going to act the right way in certain situations sometimes. That’s okay.  You are going to get angry, emotional, sad, disappointed, and pissed off at Robin and the girls, your profession, your businesses, your running and races, your ventures, and many other things.  All okay.  But, remember to find peace along those valleys.  Be patient and kind…….to others and YOURSELF.  Love from your heart, your soul, and share that love with others, even strangers at moments.  Sometimes the person sitting next to you just may need a smile or a hug; or, just someone to listen.  Remember to have compassion for everyone. I know, there are just some people that piss you off; don’t judge, they may be serious need of a hug or smile 😊.  Let them have it!  And, those folks that you are just shaking your head at and it just seem like they are purposely trying to make your life miserable, kindness and compassion there too buddy.  They won’t know what hit them 😊.  

 One last nugget, remember you are exactly where you are supposed to be at this moment of your life.  Everything prior led up to this moment, where you are, and…. WHO YOU ARE!!!  How do you feel about that? I can look back at you, you know, old man Mike, and say that I am proud of who are becoming.  Sure, can you have done things different? Better? I am sure but then again, would Robin and the girls be part of your life? No regrets brother!!  The great thing though, as you know and as you are working at, YOU, you have the ability to write your story. YOU get to determine how the story ends.  It is in your control.  

 You still have a long journey ahead of you; how do you want it to unfold?

 “I am now receiving what is for my highest good from the highest source.” – Marie Forleo

[thestarseedvisionary]

The entire Universe is supporting you and showing you the way. Are you paying attention? Are you tuned in? Be vigilant to the synchronicities, connections & messages the Universe is throwing down in your path. This is a very important trust exercise with the Universe & your Higher Self! You have to know in your heart that you're being guided and led. Knowing this truly in your heart & mind will give you the confidence to move forward with your soul's calling. • Your soul has it's own Universal Code, a blueprint & map of your life that you directed (to a degree) before your incarnation. Paying attention to synchronicities is like peeking into the computer program of your existence and noticing the patterns that are leading you to a certain outcome. Beyond our Code, we do have free will. Should you choose to ignore what the Universe is showing you, you may end up with a different destiny. If you want to stay true to what you have always felt and been shown is YOUR destiny, follow that. The Universe paired with your heart compass will ALWAYS lead you to exactly where you need/want to be. • Trust your path. Trust that everything is unfolding for your highest good and leading you to the destiny that was perfectly designed for you. Enjoy the journey! Know that you are supported in seeking out your true calling - What will you do, create and be? ✨💞 • Decks: #StarbornOracleCards & #WorkYourLightOracle • Check out the link in bio to book a personal reading with me or purchase Starborn Oracle Cards 🙏🏻🌙 https://www.instagram.com/p/B5YLCJDHuBM/?igshid=12ce0pdf3te3c

[michaelmotorcycle2]

My solution for my variation of OCD. Revised 11/2. Part 1 & 2

         A narrated version can be found here:

       https://youtu.be/oKpu-UlktW8

    My Solution for my variation of OCD               Oct,    2019 last rev 11/2/19           

            Part I

When I have had OCD bother me the sensation is like having a 150 decibel siren sounding next to my ear. I can't tolerate the feeling nor can I tolerate letting it eventually attenuate on its own like an oscillator that is not given feedback, but otherwise keeps running. Nor can I tolerate placing resistance in the path to lower the amplitude of the siren. I actually don't feel like living at its worst. On the other hand when I am free from OCD's effects; I love living and engaging in all that interests me. For me to survive well I need to have sent the signal that powers the siren to ground much like the method used by an electronics engineer to change a memory location from 1 to zero. 

When I was at the university I found that for certain there are others like me and on some occasions I highly suspected a few were stronger than I; its hard to say because strength can be realized as speed like a high speed drill or torque as seen in the power of the tractor. Regardless all my mates were more or less very adept with respect to using the tools of formal logic, critical thinking as well as detecting hard to see but significant differences such as converging point wise compared to convergence in measure or convergence in probability. 

A sketchy illustration of a line that converges point wise can be seen by visualizing one yard-stick moving towards another fixed yard-stick until it rests upon the fixed yard-stick after some nth movement. Convergence in measure has the same two yard-sticks, but after some jth movement all but a finite set of points, which can be countable infinite in size but still a finite and measure zero set, are resting on the fixed yard-stick. However, which points are not resting on the fixed yard-stick are not necessarily the same for each subsequent step beyond the jth movement. Were you to watch the two examples unfold in a computer simulation you would in a sense need to use an electron microscope to see the difference because they appear without high resolution to be identical. The difference may at first glance seem to invoke 'why bother' to even classify or make note of the difference. However, there is a significant need to note the difference and many of the mathematical tools and theorems you rely on or engineers rely on would be absent without the distinction.  

I related the preceding two paragraphs because I know there are others like me and that some almost surely have the same issue with respect to OCD that I have. The OCD issue is due to subtle but important differences that our common language makes no real attempt to distinguish; hence, in general language has served as my trigger. If we multiply the relative frequency of each attribute I am sure the size of the population having both attributes pertaining to me is very small. Some might even say it is not worth investing the money in finding a solution for the siren activator. I don't say that, and it is those like me that I am writing this for.

For the longest time I sensed the trigger like I sense something in a song that triggers dislike without being able to actually verbalize the issue itself in everyday language. At times I had tried to ascertain exactly what the issues were, but through the act of examination I triggered the siren and did not get far. Roughly two years ago by using the tool of abstraction and letting harmless symbols stand in for disturbing concepts I was able to start making headway. Given my field is pure mathematics this was more than a comfortable fit for me. I looked at everything involved with the same depth I would use while looking at the Complex numbers and all its subsets such as the Real numbers... and all the different classes of functions that would transform one set of numbers into another set in the setting of formal logic and deductive proof. As time went on the more I began to realize in simple terminology, what I had. Indeed this was a job that must have hundreds of hours associated with it and I am very thankful for the tools I acquired while at the university for they made the endeavor possible, for it could not be achieved without.

I will not share in this essay every thing but primarily the triggers are taking or envisioning the subjective as being objective which is easy to be mislead into thinking given our common language that is very poorly well-defined in many cases. Often in spite of only a few generalized meanings there are countless specific meanings that a phrase can mean where not every meaning is accurate or without being, for me, disturbing. I realize that, if one can not see they have a flat tire then they don't feel the need for having a jack in their hand, nor are they uncomfortable without having the jack. I also realize people tend to behave like a CD player that has human emotions in that since it does not see the data on the disc and returns a blank disc message, then the DVD player which returns a message indicating the disc is full must be broken or delusional or just nutty. You can think of the preceding metaphors as a warning that suggests the language issues that disturb me very well may be unseen by the reader.  

The first thing and biggest issue that triggered my OCD was resolved when I showed that attributes presented as objective properties of the object that is being addressed, as in the Islamic fundamentalist saying, "Americans are worthless infidels worthy only of a long suffering death", are not objective. Apparently, it seems evolution thought the animal with minimal of anything else would more likely survive to copy if they viewed subjective attributes associated with the object as objective. Evolution seems to have given us this trait much like the green of grass that most people will swear is a constituent part of the grass as opposed to an internal attribute added to their model of external reality. Showing my self this was as another said, pure gold. Why? Because I could stop trying to prove what was un-provable and only accepted as true through essentially want-to-believe such as seen in those that continue to see emotive attitudes as somehow being objective attributes of the referenced object. Why could I stop? Because when a state does not exist, neither does the complement of the state where in the complement the state is real, thus, both the state and not-state are imaginary just like the unicorn and not-unicorn. For example one will never find a unicorn for anything to be outside of; hence, it is in fact the imaginary not-a-unicorn. If you falsely believe a state and its complement are real and use analysis better than 'I-feel-it-is' to show validity then you can never form a conclusion, never, never ever!

OK, that was wonderful to find and show, it helped a great deal, but I still had the language issue. What do I mean? There are two symbols that are very problematic for me because they are not well defined at all. One is the symbol 'is' where it has four general meanings one of which happens to be seen in, "The sheet of paper is rectangular". Here (is) is indicating the paper has the state of being rectangular as a constituent part of the object that = the sheet of paper. However, "The painting is good." has the identical sentence structure, but the meaning in reality is: whoever made the statement has the emotive attitude good regarding the painting or another way of indicating reality is that he or she has the emotive attitude or emotion good directed at or associated with the painting. 

Identical sentence structure is seen in each sentence shown above, but the realty pertaining to each is neither identical nor isomorphic. They are as close to the same as Bug's Bunny and your neighbor. What had happened for me and manifested as OCD is the following: When ever I heard a similar sentence that suggested an emotive attribute as being an objective property; when the suggestion resonated negatively with me the 150 decibel siren began to sound. Until I had showed with rigor that these were emotive attitudes as opposed to objective properties of the object being referenced I had tried with unrelenting effort to show they were false in a manner that was consistent with objective attributes. To let the reader have a feeling for how intrusive this was to my emotive well being ask your self the following: If something was extremely critical to you; enough, so as to actually go to war with the threat, then how long could you stay awake so as to carry on the fight if the situation continued to persist? Would you fight without sleep for your child's life if needed? I would, and with respect to specific issues I was equally determined.  

I conjecture that we interpret language indicating emotive attitudes differently than language indicating or suggesting an objective attribute or property. The emotive attitude we see/interpret like a sketch a kid may draw of ourselves and therefore we are not bothered by the offering. When the language suggests or purposely indicates property of an object we then often interpret this like we are being offered a photograph of the object as opposed to a rendering of an others subjective view. In general everything is an emotive attitude in spite of our speech patterns and even when we are dealing with strictly the objective our speech that represents an internal model that then represents reality is without doubt lossy. 

How lossy? What is the poorest resolution digital image you have seen? What is the highest resolution digital image you have seen? Reality has more detail than the highest resolution you have seen and our concepts or internal models contain less information than the poorest digital image you have seen. Therefore, lossy is a bit of an understatement. 

In my exploration the past few years I found the following, A & B, interesting and later built a mathematical model to explore the concept which I will shortly introduce:

A: On the one hand the trait of  viewing reality through our emotive lens as though it was objective reality as indicated by our speech patterns assists in more likely to survive to copy; but, it also assists in more likely to not survive. How does the latter manifest itself? There is a young man on his way to prison and perhaps the electric chair because he interpreted the emotive attitude seen on the face of another regarding himself as indicating or reflecting an objective view of himself as opposed to an emotive attitude regarding himself. This young man then got out of his vehicle, dragged the other out of his vehicle and beat him to death. 

B: How many verbal or physical fights began by 'you are' that would have been avoided by "my feeling regarding you is"? A good example is the riot that resulted when several hundred recruits from the backwoods of Virginia were insulted with jeers and phrases such as "you are worthless" as they joined the Continental Army's encampment. Washington had to physically intervene. Had Washington not been so pig headed, like myself, he would have quit. This might have been avoided simply by either recognizing that "worthless" is just an emotive attitude that is tolerable when it is not being dressed in misleading language suggesting "worthless" is a constituent part of what is being referenced. In this particular case: "You are worthless" started a fight & "I do not have the emotive attitude represented by 'value' associated with your presence" would have probably lead to, "and why do I care; for, what is important to me is how I feel regarding what I offer."   

Before I carry on with my specific issue, I would like the audience to share in an interesting concept. Do you think the world would be a safer place if animals and humans in particular stopped being assembled to view emotive views as objective models of external reality? I do, but for the same reason fearing all snakes is a good scheme when the animal can not process identification quickly enough to actually save itself when the snake is poisonous; so is the emotive/objective scheme, because not all animals would be intellectually suitable for the alternative methodology.                                                                                                                      

In pursuit of understanding related to this concept I created a mathematical model involving traits being passed from generation to generation and assumed some givens so as to create the model. I then programmed a computer to execute the model although one needs not extend too many generations to see the pattern emerge and could do with out the computer simulation. Regardless, I was a bit astonished to see that if reality and evolution matched my model then in a group of like creatures evolution will favor a protecting-trait, with respect to survival, even when the protective scheme is actually needed by very few. Why? It's just due to the attributes of probability. You have to realize my model did make assumptions, but it gave a darn good reason why we still continue to have vestiges of organs that are no longer needed in our current configuration. Simply stated these essentially no longer useful traits are just hard to remove from the genetic pool because nothing is killing them off. In a very real sense what I found was an oh-wow moment for me, but I can't say for sure my model was entirely what coincides with reality which surely always is in a state of flux.       

Back on topic and asking what do I do? I don't try to desensitize my self to the notion of (the emotive attribute presented as objective) is indeed an objective property of the object and then in the words of some, "get over it." Why should I desensitize myself to what is not real? Not only that, but I want to desensitize myself to the trigger as much as you want to desensitize your self to having a sex change. I'll tell you what I do after I identify the other symbol that is even less well defined.

The symbol 'not' is horribly absent of being well defined. It is like 'number' where number has a general meaning and zillions of specific meanings, since number can stand in for any number from the set of all numbers. The issue with 'not' is that while it has a general meaning of 'outside of' it acquires a specific meaning from the space it is used relative to. Thus not-state can have many meanings where real or not depends on the space not-state is respect to. Its absolutely crazy that common language put in place such a word for its as poor a choice as using 'stuff' for everything associated with sports or the arts.... An example of 'not'  being spread too thin by its ubiquitous use is seen by using 'not' with respect to the Natural numbers such that you have even and not-even and then ask, what is Pi? Here what you need to do so as to maintain understanding is create another logical operator for the new space that includes the Natural numbers and the the Rationals and Irrationals where Pi is somewhere within found. Thus you can say Pi is not-bar even and not-bar not-even while preserving "not" with respect to the Natural numbers. 

Another example is seen with the rock and emotions. With strict respect to the rock, emotions do not exist. Like unicorn where unicorn is real and not-unicorn where in not-unicorn, unicorn is real; each of (sad, not-sad) is imaginary with strict respect to the rock. To be clear one should really be saying he is not the imaginary unicorn nor the imaginary not-unicorn. Here with strict respect to the rock, both the rock feels sad and the rock not feels sad are imaginary. It is not until you expand the space that sad is relative to so as to include all existence that, "The rock not feels sad." has some valid meaning or is it too lossy and misleading to even be considered meaningful as a valid meaning? For now it is suffice to say the trouble is, "The rock not feels sad" suggests the other meaning equaling (the rock not-feels sad, where sad is a real possibility for the rock), is valid as opposed to imaginary. 

Our use of 'not' is in general very poorly defined. Often its meaning is very lossy in meaning or concept much like a 1 mega-pixel photograph is lossy as compared to a 20 mega-pixel photograph. Given the phrase "The rock not feels sad" were to mean  "The rock is not realized as the possibility that is imaginary for rocks and only real for other elements of reality, where this possibility is the emotive sad" then its meaning would be fairly loss-less. However, the phrase directly or indirectly standing in for the state shown above has so many meanings it may as well just be saying "stuff." I doubt that the meaning I just gave the phrase is often thought of and that more likely if the phrase's meaning is thought of one will say the phrase means, "The rock is not what is real somewhere in existence." Compare the two meanings and my meaning contains like a high definition photograph information such as the attribute is not real for rocks that the other meaning lacks. Again, one meaning is lossy and the other is far less lossy.

Before I continue, I think what we all need to make note of or remember is seen in this comparison: I am tone death. I can't tell a middle C from the note immediately above or below middle C. I would never be able to recognize middle C was being played flat or sharp. A good musician listening to what appears to me as a perfect rendering of a song could be disturbed by what I don't even notice. On the other hand I sense or hear what are to me disturbances created by the use of poorly defined language as easily as the musician detects the sour notes. Compared to the musician I am the CD player; compared to others with respect to the language issue I am discussing, I am the DVD player and others are the CD player. When I say we all need to make note of... I am not suggesting that any of us patronize the characteristics of the other any more than I would suggest to the hunter to become a vegetarian nor would I suggest to the deer for it to make itself easier to be killed. I am actually suggesting that often there is not a universal solution, and we should all at least be aware that these differences are real. 

                                Part II

Before we continue things to note are:

1:Symbols/words/phrases are subjective in that they are not objective properties of either the concept or the object they stand in for. OK, we can always disassociate symbols/words/phrases from objects and concepts. The same holds true for the meanings equaling internal concepts that the symbols/words/phrases often reference. These concepts are like photographs that attempt to model reality where some are better than others. Using any is a matter of subjective choice and none are actually reality itself, rather, they model for us reality to some degree of accuracy. 

2: Symbols and phrases don't refer to nothing when used, rather they refer to some object/concept/model by acting as essentially a name for the object as in "I am Mike" or as a verbal representation for an internal model of external reality as in "raining four days in a row." 

Sad, even,... etc are symbols that represent or stand in for concepts where the concept is the internalized notion of a state that in the big space of existence is real as either a possibility for some elements of reality or as a realization for some objects in reality. When we say, "The rock not feels sad." This sentence stands in for an internalized concept and the concept then stands in for reality. I already indicated concepts are not always high definition in that they are often minimal in the information they convey. Not only this, but if you think of the concept as being isomorphic to a photograph where the photograph/concept stands in for reality; as previously stated, that they stand in for reality is subjective. OK, we can disassociate lossy concepts too, why not, do you want the five year old's sketch of you to be your Facebook mug shot? 

3: If concept then real, is in general true; but, If real then concept, is not true. This second implication being false tells us concept is not needed for reality and the first implication is telling us reality is needed to have concept. OK, the universe does not fall apart if we not only disassociate concepts that are lossy and trigger the siren in my head, but also the universe does not fall apart if nobody was dumb enough to use lossy concepts that are misleading; so essentially they can go in my trash bin and yours too should you elect to do so. 

To answer, what do I do with our poorly defined phrases, misleading representations, and lossy concepts that trigger the siren in my head? My answer is that I disassociate meanings where applicable, I disassociate concepts that are lossy or misleading such as subjective views being projected as objective traits. All these things that I disassociate I place in the trash bin of does not exist either from my perspective or with respect to reality. For those who emotively object to my means I reply, were god shown to be non-existent with precise deductive logic that left no doubt there are many that would still choose to believe in a god that suited their emotions. I can't blame them because it makes the world tolerable for them and without they would simply not function as well. Likewise, my doing as indicated makes, for me, the world an honest rendering, bearable and allows me to be productive.

So, if need be, by taking a page from Martin Luther and invoking a belief as strong as faith: I may in a sense just choose to believe that everyone can only be smart enough not to create misleading and poorly defined symbols, lossy phrases and lossy internal models at all and rather than just for me, they exist nowhere. Why? Because, I'd rather live without the siren that causes me to feel death is a better option than live with it and have to wait until I forgot about the trigger that keyed the siren. Who would not? Not only the preceding, I don't want to desensitize myself to the emotively disturbing trigger anymore than those that believe in god want to desensitize their self to the concept of a reality without. Incidentally, my method is essentially the same structure as the device the engineer created that changes the memory value at an address by sending the signal to ground such that it never reaches the memory address. It is a beautiful methodology in its elegant simplicity and is much like diverting a river instead of building a dam to restrain or attenuate it during periods of heavy rain. I am not an engineer, but I think I'll send them a thank you card with very warmest regards for the idea.

[truthandlove]

You were MEANT for the Kingdom of God

Human wisdom, human strength, human status and human power is all a trap. An illusion. It is a shabby substitute for the supernaturally empowered life you were designed to live. And yet, that is exactly what this world tells you should absorb your time and energy in a vain chase.

Our goal is the free flow of God's Kingdom Agendas through our lives - his heart, his will, his wise and glorious work. The highest calling we have is to be vessels of and doorways to His Presence - making God's goodness and restoration tangible to the needs around us.

Let us abandon our ego notions of what we imagine we need, and how the natural mind attempts and devises strategies to get for itself security, belonging, acceptance and so forth. These are all our own attempts to make our HEART SAFE in a dangerous and selfish world, after all. But truth is that our heart is only safe in God's hands.

God's lavish and divine love is a love that knows what is best big picture and every detail along the way. As such, it is millions of steps ahead of our consciousness. God’s love is what we would want, were we to have all the information beyond time and be utterly pure.

God's love is weaving together the tapestry of free will and circumstances in our heart relationship with God into something that glorifies him the most. It does so despite our mistakes, our shortcomings, and our rebellions. God's love is so far out head of our human kind of love, that his commands often don't even look like love to our eyes. In other words, in our limitations and hardness of heart, we don’t recognize true love as real love. We need to remember that every time we resist or run from God, we are betraying that which is the most loving and good.

This is the time to trust God's heart. This is the time to seek his good purposes. This is the time to draw your life from God so that his perspective and his wisdom and his strength can fill you.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" - Proverbs 3:5,6.

This exchanges our brains for the divine wisdom of God leading and directing the specifics of our actions day-by-day. We surrender the “good” us we were trying to be (from an Earthly perspective) in favor of the real and true us that God originally designed us to be.

Because of his love, God’s plan for our lives in so much more glorious and beautiful than our own plan, because our own plan was distorted by wounds and compensations (coping strategies) from past wounds and anxieties about potential future harm.

In contrast, God's plan for our life is based on an infinite unfolding of us drawing us up into the LIFE of God himself, the mind of God himself. (The divine empowerement and the divine perspective) The New Testament apostles spoke of “being filled with the fullness of God”! This is something that philosophies of men cannot do. This is something far beyond the prettiest religious aspirations of humans.

“I pray that from the treasures of his glory he will empower you with inner strength by his Spirit, so that the Messiah may live in your hearts through your trusting. Also I pray that you will be rooted and founded in love, so that you, with all God’s people, will be given strength to grasp the breadth, length, height and depth of the Messiah’s love, yes, to know it, even though it is beyond all knowing, so that you will be FILLED WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD.” – Ephesians 3:16-19

God dealt with sin at the cross of Jesus Christ – that opened the way for restored relationship with us. As God's life fills our spirits, and overflows from our spirits into our souls, and overflows from our souls into our minds and behaviors, we align with God's heart This is the entire point of life. This is the relationship that Adam and Eve lost when they fell into sin and rebellion.

So, at the Cross of Jesus Christ, God extends his lifeblood to us thereby opening the doorway to intimacy and to harmonious alignment with and participation in ALL that he is.

I know this might sound vague and abstract, but suffice it to say for now, it is the meaning of always been longing for. It is the relationship you always yearned to have. It is the belonging you've always needed. It is the purpose and vitality and meaning that makes life truly alive. If you're still alive to read this, today is the opportunity to seek God -- to discard everything that's not in alignment with his voice, and to ask for his perfect will be done in your life. Being humble and ready to act on what you hear from God in trust.

[ladypen19-blog]

Trust The Process

Greetings Beloves,

Happy New Year to All. Time to trust the great source within.  Its to have faith, which is a deep sense of trust in what cannot be seen.  But inner knowing that all is in divine order and happening lovingly on schedule.  Knowing how much you are loved and provided for every moment, because you are.  When you are trusting that all is well within.

When you believe you activate blessings in the future.  Blessings are set up for you and favor is on you forever.  Know that you are victoriously made and awesomely connected to the divine order of a wonderful blueprint that GOD has setup with you in mind.

Trust that this is your best year ever, get excited about your dreams,  let in all the good by getting out of your own way.  How?  By relaxing, by smiling and having fun.  This sends a clear vibration out into the Universe that you are trusting and believing that everything is being carefully orchestrated.  Love yourself more and then life will love you back.  

Keep being your authentic self.  Think of all the great and lovely things you want to happen and see yourself doing them.  “Speak what you seek until you have seen what you have said”.  I love that quote, exactly why all day everyday, I speak “ I AM” quotes.  I am safe, secured, loved, blessed, prosperous, happy, peace, loving, confident, fun, bliss, harmony, elated, in alignment, clarity to my highest and greatest good.  I am the best version of me.

Your subconscious is listening to your words and thoughts and it is creating your now and your future.  So be extremely mindful, kind and loving to yourself.  Speak only loving words over yourself.  Do nice and beautiful things for yourself.  Celebrate life and it will reward you forever.  What you are putting out you will be getting back.  Stay Focused.   To trust the process, wholly, completely, is to not need to know what is unfolding or why, but to simply be here in the present to experience it.

Meditation is a good way to stay in the NOW.  Yoga is also a great way to flow with life.  I do both of them daily.  I am always looking for ways to better myself.  I am so proud of my 5 month mark of no red meat.  I am eating more veggies and fruits.  I am drinking more water.  I am feeling better and better daily.  A great affirmation of mine is “ Everyday in everyway, my life is getting better and better”.  Hooray!!!! I celebrate everything and I am thankful and grateful for everything.   To trust the process means to know and have faith that there is a divine plan moving through you and your life in any moment.

Make peace with where you are and then you free up yourself to move to new levels, new paths, new directions and for new blessings to flow in abundance.  When you change the way you look at things, then the way you look at things change.  Inner change will yield terrific outer results. 

Today’s Affirmation:  I love and approve of myself. I trust the process of life to bring me my highest good. I deserve the best, and I accept it now.

Love and Light to All!  Namaste!!!!!!

[underthebtree]

When you wave, does your shadow wave back?

Walking home from the Carols by Candlelight last night, holding hands with my daughter, she suddenly lets go and excitedly exclaims – look mummy, I have a shadow.  We then went about playing with our shadow and I asked – when you wave, does your shadow wave back?

Reflecting on this this morning, I thought to myself:

Is this the kind of relationship that you have with your shadow?

Do you see the shadow and get excited, knowing on a deep level that under the right circumstances, you can fully trust and know that the shadow will show up?

And that you can trust that, when the shadow does arrive, that it is PERFECTLY RIGHT and that you can wave and say hello – invite in this relationship – knowing that it serves a purpose and is actually intended to support your

Growth

Learning

Self-development?

How when the shadow appears that it is actually an opportunity; supporting and allowing 

A true and deep connection with what is

For you to KNOW yourself that much more

To explore the deeper layers, the ones that we so often want to avoid and run from

UNLESS you can fully trust that when the shadow does appear, it is always under the right circumstances and is here for a reason that is ACTUALLY for your highest good

And if you CAN choose to wave, that you will see you shadow wave back, and it is then that you will know that this shadow part of yourself is ACTUALLY your friend, not your enemy!

 There are always surprises!

It is so interesting, or at least to me, that the personal growth journey is NEVER what you predict.  It is always a surprise and I never cease to be amazed; the depths of the soul one can explore if there is a preparedness to be open, willing and INTERESTED!!

If you watched my livestream on Saturday, you will know that the focus was on forgiveness.

Forgiveness of perceived hurts happening in the present moment,

And a CHOICE to open up to forgiveness – choosing not to take roads well traveled that involve others – but to truly step into my power and say – this is something that I choose to take ownership of and decide to release, let go and FORGIVE

As this is where there is true personal power – that no one has control over me and my reactions – they are things that I choose – and forgiveness opens up this door

To allow others to be as they are

To be truly able to look after myself and give myself whatever it is that I need in the moment

To free others of my expectations of how they should be – so that I can be truly free

Therefore, forgiveness is something that is done for the SELF infinitely more than it is done for others, although it can have this effect as well.

 Choosing forgiveness

So this is the point at which the universe offers up a surprise – woo hoo – I am now enlightened – I have chosen the high road and chosen to forgive

Enlightenment, here I come baby!!

No

Disappointment,

This did not occur

In fact, what felt like quite the opposite occurred

In letting go of what I was holding onto, it revealed

ALL the areas in which I

Hold on

Cling

Brace

Toughen

Stand strong (read weak)

Hardening myself to LIFE – how I resist and push life itself – to PROTECT myself

To keep myself safe (or so I think)

Revealing all the experiences that have contributed to this TOUGHNESS came rushing to the surface

And this was NOT what I was expecting or hoping for, but it is exactly what I needed!  To actually deep dive into the VERY ORIGINS of why I hold onto hurts and the reasons why I brace myself emotionally and toughen to life, rather than live in flow, ease and grace.

 So what is below forgiveness?

Depression

Sadness

Hurt

DISCONNECTION

And all of this came rushing to the surface – as I let go of the grip that I had on life and my emotions, chose to open up and soften when everything inside of me said to toughen and brace. No. A decision was made to soften and 'go with', unleashing a holy emotional shit storm of emotion and memory!

But this is one that I am quite used to traversing by now – one that I can see the shit storm for what it is – I can see the shadow and say, hello old friend, what have you got for me today?

And so instead of feeling like I was on a rollercoaster, I could feel that I was driving the rollercoaster, and feel a sense of pleasure and enjoyment, knowing that if I directed this well, that underneath would be an amazing discovery

Another layer off the onion

Deep healing and learning

That DOES bring about shifts on a cellular level – as I break down multi-generational cycles of unwellness.

And for me the TRULY rewarding part of this is that it is truly breaking down the cycle, as with any shift that I make, these patterns do not need to be passed on to my children – where the genes that create the holy shit storm actually NEVER GET SWITCHED ON IN THE FIRST PLACE!!

So if that does not give purpose to the work, I don’t know what does!

So deep down, underneath it all I find the origins of my lack of forgiveness and FIND a deep knowing that

I give thanks to myself for all that I have overcome and endured before I knew any better

I am open to things being easy and in flow

I appreciate all of my efforts that have allowed me to get to where I am now

I love and appreciate myself for all of my efforts and give thanks to the younger version of myself for trying so hard, before I knew that it could just be easy!

I give thanks to my strength of character that has allowed me to endure, before I knew any better.

I love and accept myself.

I love, accept and APPRECIATE myself.

Directly out of my journal, intensive as the practice was yesterday to support and navigate myself through the storm – to arrive on the other side with a deep knowing that this is true.

That this is all I will ever need

That, without this, there is nothing.

That love, acceptance and appreciation is all that is ever needed – as from there it flows outwards into the world and brings goodness and light to wherever it goes.

And this is a gift – Beyond expectation. Beyond hurt. Beyond the personal defences that work to protect rather than connect.  This is what is left to have and to give

Love.

That is all there is

That is all that really matters.

And so it is

 Remember that Bodhi starts with you

Toni-Anne

  PS: If this connects with you in any way, and you would like to learn how to wave to your shadow, to know exactly how to navigate your way through anything the shadow might throw up to you for healing and forgiveness, contact me today.

If there is anything that I have learned, is that the personal growth path involves a process that unfolds over the life course, and it would be an honor to travel this amazing journey with you!

tonianne@underthebodhitree.life

 PPS: Please share along if this has resonated with you and you would like other to benefit too!

PPS: Remember that you can choose to join us here Under the Bodhi Tree and receive your FREE GIFT - Love your way happy!

 Disclaimer:  This information is in no way intended to replace psychological treatment should you be suffering from clinical depression and anxiety and be in need of personalised, individual therapy.  This information can be used as an adjunct to your therapy and you can feel free to raise it with your therapist should you have one.  If you are in any way suicidal, please contact your therapist or emergency support services.