#i mean EVERYONE knows and understands the concept of the heart-soul-mind trinity

[1loer]

also i always think about an AU where they bring Nanami back, but not Nanami from Hope's Peak, the Nanami from the NWP.

In Kingdom Hearts (BARE WITH ME), everything can have a heart (metaphorical/metaphysical. not the literal organ, but is vital for something to be fully alive). It's formed from your connections to others, and the experiences you have. Even digital beings grow hearts if they're put in the right conditions and form enough connections to others.

I think that right at the start, Nanami would have been a blank slate, simply a stand in for code, just a representation of the therapeutic software of the NWP (like how Miku is just a representation of her Vocaloid sound package) but designed to be someone so intergral and important to their lives, someone they all loved, possibly to boost the potential for success within the program. But I think that as their time within the program goes on, as her relationships with the others expand and deepen, she became more and more 'real'. I think she grew her own heart, one seperate, original, and her own. One unconnected to the girl she's supposed to be a copy of.

If this heart could have been saved from deletion, just like the rest of the Remnants were, and been brought back into the real world, made physical, put into a vessel, Nanami could have been resurrected.

But the implications of this.

Everyone has their memories back of this girl that she isn't, wasn't and never really could be. She's someone different now, forged by different experiences, colder, jankier. What would this mean for their grief? Kamukura grieved Nanami, even if he didn't know why. Hinata grieved Nanami, repressed as he was by the Project. The whole class turned to despair watching her die. Some watched her die two times over. Now Nanami is back, and she's everything they remember and she isnt. Nanami is back and she has to live up to these expectations of who everyone thinks she should be, and who she really is. Would the Remnants still greive? I think they would. I think she'd feel that. Where would the therapy tool she was built around end and a real girl, a newly real girl, who has never lived before start? She didn't even ask to be brought back. Would it be selfish to force such an existance upon her?

I think, as hopeful an ending as it would seem on the surface, Nanami coming back to life would be a whole new form of despair.

[lilmajorshawty]

The Signs Vs The Houses Sun Edition 🎇

Sun In Aries Vs Sun In First House: 

(Pantheon God Ares Vs Lucifer Morning Star.)

Sun in Aries: Pantheon God Ares

Song: _By. Alexander - Trumpets Ft 070Shake

These Natives don’t readily showcase their independent traits outright but their intensity is actively expressed in different ways from one another almost like reverse parts of a long mirror. Sun in Aries natives are actively nonchalant, impartial and seemingly low energy to those who don’t know their outward appearance is merely a facade. Aries suns aren’t readily expresses of their more generic traits, their impulsive nature is often hidden underneath their calm demeanor. unlike sun in the 1st housers Aries suns are good at playing into a more watered down version of themselves if it serves to aid the type of reaction they will get from the audience of their choice. They much like Pisces can be deceptively charming, disarming and tremendously jovial but underneath this lay a impulsive, reactive and swift minded individual. Aries suns are more observant than they are open warfare types, meaning that their darker side is something revealed in quiet privacy. They are in actuality very polite and keep much of their outward passions in check as to not alert others of their intentions before the Aries sun native has already assessed the consequences their potential action might bring. They are tactitions  in nature much like the war god ares, much of their actions are weighed and planned. much is done in secrecy or in the safety net of a desired outcome for them. They naturally seem disinterested or bored by their surroundings but can also have a testy, or rather flighty energy around being in spaces for longer than they intended. Their frigidity nature is a reflection of mars needing to be in control but the rather prideful way of the sun itself not liking to seem overly brash in order to seem regal. in this sense the sun and mars are in conflict for sun in Aries so they in turn prefer to keep their shadow face a bit more slow burn than people can perceive it to be. Aries suns are sweet and ardent but they can sometimes struggle with telling the truth, unlike their moon counterpart. Aries sun in a more masculine spirit Tends to be the most immature with their desires, mainly being self invested. Aries sun in feminine spirit tends to be most immature with their sexuality, readily wanting to claim the sexual limelight due to their appetite for admiration. on two sides of the coin underdeveloped Aries suns within masculine energy can struggle to see the world beyond “their” needs and “their” wants, the feminine can struggle to separate their over identification with physical gratification making them seem jealous and gluttonous for attention to those looking from the outside in.They are passionate but narcissistic. They care about those closest to them but they also battle between love for others and love for the self. Aries suns are in a never ending battle with the concept of I and how the I relates to Others. Aries sun signs definitely live by the “apart of my tribe” mentality and usually have a hard time dealing with outsiders. That being said they are a thousand times more tame then most give them credit for and only those who have been around the natives for long can ever really see their darker nature that they prefer to keep under raps. Aries suns are very loving nonetheless and dare i say the most emotionally affectionate of the fire suns. They genuinely do try for those they carefor and they honestly live by a strong code of right or wrong. despite what they might want they always recognize whether or not the action they plan on committing is morally correct or morally incorrect.

Sun in the First house: Lucifer Morningstar

Song: _By.Alexander - Stalling 

Sun in the 1st Housers are quite different in terms of their immediate personality traits, because unlike Aries suns they are not under the space of just mars depending on what their sun sign is already in. rather they are swimming in the pool of mars while wearing their sun sign. Sun in the 1st house natives can be Intense, cynical, Dark and brooding. They have this perceptiveness about the world around them that can seem unnerving. People are in their eyes to comfortable with stillness and it bothers them, as they are mentally just as much as physically always moving, 100 steps ahead of everyone. To many this may seem like a blessing but it’s a curse for these natives as it creates a constant inner and outer need for chaos in some way. They want to maintain a certain level of opposition and transformation in themselves and in the environments they find themselves in. For them things could always be rearranged and redone and the more stagnant the view things the more unhappy they become as they see peace as a reflection of “lack” in themselves. in those with a masculine spirit sun in the 1st house can make them impatient, aggressive, aloof and cold in its worst but brave, perceptive, kind and generous in its healthy state. In those with feminine spirit it can make them cutthroat, rigid, blinded by the self and confrontational in its worst but vibrant, childlike, bold, and sharp of mind in its healthier state. Unlike sun in Aries these natives aren't impressed or worried about how they interact with others.  These natives can seem dismissive or uninterested in people mainly because they are only impressed by people with “strength” in the manner of which they perceive strength to look like. much like Lucifer these natives live in the dark and admire those who have suffered or experienced the trenches of life only to rise from its ashes without a single complaint. to them people who can fight without seeking coddling or attention for those struggles are attractive and relatable. people who are attention seekers, overly emotional or dependent are typically what these natives avoid or tend to be the coldest towards. The reason being is that these natives underneath their cold and rather independent face are deeply sensitive and receptive to the feelings of others, but when they were young this receptiveness was often taken advantage of by the world around them. people ate these natives up and forced them to build their own personal hell to build themselves in, because in their eyes the only hell scarier then the one someone makes for you is the one you make for yourself. These natives are ambitious but also deeply full of life and vigor but to those who don’t know them deeper you may never know that beneath this light lay very serious and steady individuals willing to do whatever it takes to survive. these natives are constantly interchanging between Life and Death.

Sun In Taurus Vs Sun In The Second House:

(Artemis vs Higher Angel Metatron.)

Sun in Taurus: Artemis

Song: Ama Lou - Wires 

sun in Taurus natives often represented by the bull are deserving of their steady and rather slow moving personality traits..Though in conjunction one might add in their mental gymnastics that put even the mighty Aquarius, Gemini, Libra Air trinity to shame. These natives are tremendously intellectual, they see and feel everything out just as much as they add a thick layer of rationality and logic to it. To them anything and everything can go wrong and most likely is so they tend to present themselves in a more compartmentalized way as to prevent this. on one hand they are solid and sensual in their approach to life, on the other they are distrusting and closed to outsiders. they value a certain level of work ethic in others and that is typically what softens their heart as opposed to be overly nice or suckups. they tend to be intense and insatiable but these traits are hidden underneath their polite and soft toned Venus haze. For Taurus, Venus serves merely as a cloudy ethereal presence rather than a solid body like it does for Libras which is genuinely why the two are so similar yet so deeply different. Taurus suns value a calm serenity but they value an authentic air to cultivate such serenity whereas Libras value the serenity that is without to much heaviness or demand. Taurus suns are naturally stable and patient folk, not much moves them out of character and once it does all of the magma and debris flies into the sky like radiating solar flares. These natives are insanely aware of themselves and the actions and motives of said actions of others. to them intimacy through the physical realm is the only real way to see someone and in a sense for them touch is their language. these natives are lovers of sex but contrary to belief Taurus suns just like Scorpio sun see sex a soul transaction rather than just “sex.” to them being able to meet every individual layer of a person beyond what they present is true understanding. Scorpios suns look to sex as a emotional collaboration of wounds and vulnerabilities whilst Taurus suns on the yang side of that spectrum look at sex as a Physical collaboration of involved and aware relinquishing of the self in its physical form to another. For Taurus suns they find themselves trapped between the concept of “what do they mean to me vs what do i mean to them.” this mentality often creates a emotional nature that causes them pain in life as they never really know when to let go of people, they hold onto people out of a fear of losing something important to them on a mentally materialistic plane. The men tend to handle the Taurus sun the worst as it often brings out a vain and rather expansive nature that is centered around using their possessions as lay way for their self worth. to them in their worse state their material possessions and their bodies become nothing more than tokens to scale their level of self worth which they ultimately base in the opinions of complete strangers. Taurus women/feminine energy folk tend to handle the energy well, mainly embracing their sensuality and sexuality although sometimes falling prey to their bullheaded and rather single minded advances towards life at times. in their best they can be captivating, preserving, and deeply empathetic of the woes and demons of others taking them on fearlessly. Taurus suns greatest foe as well as their biggest give away is their single-minded nature, once something catches their eye it becomes a mission, a life purpose and at times an obsession.

Sun In the Second House: Higher Angel Metatron 

song: Ama Lou- This Town

For second house sun natives their similarities can often times shadow them after Taurus mainly due to the very calm and rather steady disposition they naturally posses. That being said much like the angel metatron as mentioned in text they have a far more raw energy that ensnares people to them like a spider web. They often times maintain a cool distance emotionally from those around them as to never reveal their inner thoughts but this at times gives them a much darker shade then Taurus suns as they are not as nearly well meaning in their observations of others. these natives are insanely perceptive but they tend to use this perceptiveness to read the crowd so to speak. many of us may struggle to adapt to every personality in the room or shift personas as a means of getting from point A to B in an unwanted interaction where as Second house sun natives can shift personas as will due to their gift for micro analysis. They can read a room, the people and the energy of each individual from mere glances and that makes them incredibly charming but also a tad unreadable as much of what they are showing is far away from what they truly feel. These natives are powerful in the sense that they have a vision that Taurus suns are themselves afraid to truly use. You see second house suns are often in control of their environment because they alter themselves in the necessary form needed to gain the upper hand.Many of them do well in performance art like acting because it allows them to convey their inner world without letting on its source. They often times shy away from commitments as they require the natives to be the real self vs the self they cultivate. Unlike Taurus suns who operate authentically these natives operate in a way that fits the authentic need of the people without having to give up any of their real ego. These natives also aren’t as caught up in the materialistic side of life rather they are obsessed with their self esteem and how that self esteem is equated in the real world around them. For them their biggest fear is being misused or taken advantage of and very often so life puts them in a situation where this happens to teach them a level of boundaries between themselves and that of the people who surround them. They tend to be highly passive when it comes to loss in their life. they factor the loss of people whether by death or by them leaving one another’s life as just another one of the misfortunes of the world, in their eyes it can’t be avoided and is an eventuality but even so they must continue to move forward with or without others. This trait alone separates them from their Taurus sun counterparts. They value people who are gentle and preserving but these people albeit their perfect match tend to scare sun in the second house natives the most as the idea of someone who will love them fully disgust them in a way, mainly because deep down these natives don’t truly identify with their need to be accepted and loved because it is devoured by their need to move forward at all cost. these natives teeter between the collective vs the self and often find themselves inevitably choosing the self yet resenting the loneliness that follows suite

Sun In Gemini Vs Sun In The Third House:

(The Devil Vs Satan)

Sun In Gemini: The Devil

Song: Kendrick Lamar - U

These Natives often receive much bad mouthing and malice as their traits are normally misunderstood or mis-identified as Gemini itself being a mutable sign makes it a sign that mirrors energy that is given to it onto the person sending the energy. Gemini Suns on their own are outwardly controlled and restless but internally they are a landscape of thoughts, that multiply and divide like the cells in the human body. They are like compact computers in this sense because their mental scape at times is carrying Gigabytes upon gigabytes of thought process.They are living in a busy head-space often so much of their day to day involves them tussling with their voices and which side to listen to, which one to ignore, which to dive into and so on. This is often why these natives Live for interaction and communication, the less mental release the darker the head-space and the darker the head-space the more dangerous the Gemini. The lack of stimulation can present itself as addictions, self destructive behavior and outright hatred that seems to have no source. these natives more than most feed of human contact, it provides them a way to see beyond their mind and peer into another’s for a moment of relief. Gemini suns are very tender and affectionate, often loving physical sensations as they bring new understandings and mental curiosity to the native. they often adore sex but not for the act itself but for the many sides of sex, the control, the lack of it, the passion and the lack of it, the intimacy and the lack of it, the desire and also the lack of it, to these natives they all swirl around like aspects of a cocktail. lying and creating chaos is an aspect of their two headed serpent like nature but often times the shadow self of the Gemini is the most damaged version of themselves hidden away to maintain a level of sanity for the Gemini twin in charge. Gemini sun tend to have this dualistic side to them that can sometimes present itself as real bipolar disorder but this is not something that can be applied to realism as all astrology really is, is a map for better self understanding. These natives at times fluctuate between moments of peace and moments of chaos depending on which twin makes it’s appearance.  Much like the Devil these natives can carry a sharp and mischievous tone but they can also have an angelic and rather childish youth to them that is so promising and inviting like white wine underneath dying autumn leaves as summer turns to fall. They represent a deep darkness in humanity whilst also representing the angel the devil was before he fell out of grace. Gemini suns are radiating with knowledge and tid bits that could unsettle the world but they never read the whole story, the whole scripture, they hang on to the small details and create a world around it. Gemini suns tend to struggle in their early years due to the push and pull dynamic of the angel and demon complex and at times a state of passivity is reached where they could care less either way how and what is effected by their actions. These natives despite their struggles are enterprising and gifted with an intellect beyond comprehension. They masculine and feminine energy tend to struggle with this placement as it naturally represents both in both energies. much like the devil they have a rather gender less energy when it comes to the world around them which is often why many Gemini suns are bisexual or pansexual as their desires are often times less about the physical and more about the mental. they can seem to be a chameleon  due to how easily they can shift in and out of personalities but ultimately they aren’t so much so becoming someone else, they’re becoming the other twin. The secondary Gemini face is unlike the devil it is angelic and curious, innocent and loving but it’s pitfall is wrath and spite. As im sure these are traits you would apply to the devil no? well in this case the angelic Gemini twin wears them as a means of not handling their wounds properly. Gemini suns unlike most people put their hurt away by passing it on to the other twin who soaks it like a sponge, as a result over the years whenever the twin rears it’s head and is mistreated as a defense mechanism it reacts in these darker toned ways that can at times be devoid of humanity due to that twin being so lacking in interaction with people. Gemini suns often struggle with the inner and outer mind. for them they desperately search for a mental release of some form and often times it takes precedence over all things no matter how grounded the Gemini Sun. a never ending therapy session full of broadness and intellectual depth is their dream as in their most vulnerable state they desperately want to be seen, not just as one face but both faces.

Sun In the Third House: Satan

Song: Kendrick Lamar- Untitled 07(Levitate) 

These natives can only be described as isolated princesses & Prince solemnly watching the world circle around their creations and crafts like moths to a flame. They are so vastly different from their counterparts in the sense that for them the world is more like a game then it is a cage. They are savvy, quick of wit and naturally street smart. Many of them prance through the world as if they’ve lived in the projects, the ghetto, or the slums as it is what allows them to use the more scarce methods, having very little and even in some cases building from ash and managing to create whole empires in the place of it.  To them the concept of “lack” fuels their desire to expand the concept of having nothing. To them the world is built upon fallacies and they wish to unsheathe them by playing into the role of the underdog, the follower or the easy going lover and friend until they ultimately get to the place they had been dying to reach only to sever ties, turn on, vilify or in some cases tear down those who helped them get there. Now to many of you this may sound like an evil way to get by in the world but you must understand unlike Gemini suns these natives don’t live solely in the mind rather they live in the minds of others, to them their life’s purpose is understanding the patterns and desires of others so they themselves can mold themselves into those desires, so they can predict those patterns..all of it is like chess. For them to have the higher ground on the world at large plays into their need to remain ambiguous and Elite. The masculine and feminine much Like Gemini sun present themselves as the gender or energy type that suites them at the moment. You need them to be passive? they already closed their mouth and you haven’t released you already called all the shots..you want them to be passionate and aggressive, they’ve already controlled the day, they’ve changed the way they grip you, the way they lock eyes with you..these natives can be anything, anyone..because for them the art of playing to an illusion is a survival tactic one the learn at an early age to cultivate otherwise the world will defeat them and that is something they just cannot allow much like the concept of the world peaks Satan curiosity he must constantly venture, among the people to understand them as a means of never losing, never falling short or missing a step at watching the creations of the man he despises so dearly evolve. These natives are alluring, sweet, loving but in many ways they can seem missing, far away and sometimes unavailable both emotionally and physically. the reason being is that unlike Gemini suns these natives do not need to be heard, they need to be ahead and once they feel tied or held down by something they’ve already fleshed out and had their time with their restless need to be ahead comes out and they soon gravitate their focus elsewhere. Their constantly at war with the concept of Do i understand it all vs do i understand enough at all?

Sun In Cancer Vs Sun In The Fourth House:

(Arch Angel Gabriel Vs The Deity Tsukuyomi)

Sun In Cancer: Arch Angel Gabriel 

Song: Daughter - Amsterdam 

These natives contrary to belief are not as lacking in emotional awareness nor are they as gullible as other might like to believe them to be. One of the most frightening traits of cancer Sun’s is their ability to emotionally detach from people and situations in a rather abrupt manner. These natives are emotive but in some ways the emotions aren’t always backing the action. Cancer suns fall into the behavior of sometimes being nice for being nice’s sake and often times care more about the feelings of others than they do themselves. In more underdeveloped masculine energies this can rear it’s head as emotional narcissism, thinking the whole room revolves around their feelings and their feelings only, leaving everyone else to have to play pick up the pieces for someone who refuses to take accountability. in some of the even lesser versions this can cause manipulation of the emotional variety, using someones vulnerability as a weapon  are sometimes tactics of masculine energy cancers and Feminine energy cancers who failed to acknowledge the skeletons in their own closet. Cancer suns often remind me of Gabriel in the sense that they carry his will of doing what is needed rather than what is wanted. Cancer Suns understand the difference between need and want and often times center their life around such inclinations. To them everyone no matter where they come from desires things they don’t truly need and fortify things they want only for a moment. As a result cancer suns tend to prioritize people, things and places under the laws of what they need and what they want and often times they can turn a cold shoulder to the things they feel are momentary even if it’s a person. Cancer Suns can be powerful, enigmatic and divinely feminine no matter their gender due to their inner desire to nurture and care for others, no matter how underdeveloped or developed these natives are the desire to protect and care for others is their base setting. Many as they age become more and more like their mother, often adopting the qualities they admired most and showcasing the negative ones when under stress or moments of trauma. These natives are deeply loving and caring and at times this gets taken advantage of but only briefly as Cancer suns are almost Demonically vindictive. The natives see colors on people and tend to be highly spiritually perceptive of auras and presence within people without even exchanging words. They tend to be closed when it comes to their feelings and contrary to social media cancer Suns do not express their inner feelings readily, much like a crab they withhold and protect their underbelly often coming towards things in a side to side manner much like a crab Even more so when they are a Cancer Rising. They tend to only really open their souls to those precious to them and often times when Cancer Sun’s feel they’ve over shared they retreat and often times disappear unless reassured that the person is kind and honest. Cancer Suns despise fakes and those who are emotionally careless and rude so often times they can become dismissive and down right aggressive in an almost warrior like way when confronted by rudeness or self centered behavior. Cancer Suns have a pronounced sexuality, as they represent femininity in it’s motherly form they often embody it’s glow and sway whilst remaining Innocent and seemingly unknowing. Cancer Sun’s often become more balanced as they age as many of them see their progressed sun move into Leo which aids with the confidence and the ability to balance out their darker head spaces that arise emotionally. They can have Strong emotions and because of this in some cases some people with this placement can struggle with such things such as depression and and or manic depression, that being said this is not a product of having sun in cancer, this can happen to anyone. Cancer Suns do have fluctuating emotional states that can fly between happy weeks and months to times of solemn and lethargic states and this is often more so seen in all cancer Suns no matter whether they are in a good place or bad. the key for them is to learn identification so that way they can deal with the emotion when it comes and let it run it’s course without submerging themselves in it. Cancer suns often battle with the concept of Nurture Vs Nature. To them they feel as if it’s their divine purpose to care for others, and they feel like people should be caring enough to consider more than just themselves but in truth the world isn’t always like that and some people are indeed selfish and often times this realization of self motivation perplexes Cancer suns because on a deeper level they don’t know how to disconnect from their need to solely focus on the well being of others whilst also worrying about their own health and emotional well being.

Sun In The Fourth House: The Deity Tsukuyomi

Song: Daughter - Numbers

Ah These natives are truly a never ending Dream starting so pleasant and continuously transitioning like phases of the moon into A nightmare, a sunset, a wet dream, a night terror over and over.These natives are Vague in their difference From their sun counterpart. They seem Emotional and Actually are just as emotional as their actions give way for them to be. But in reverse order these natives do sentimental actions in seldom as they prefer to hide their softer side and present a more aloof front. Unlike Cancer suns the idea of being nice for the sake of it isn’t their forte, rather niceness that is earned is more their language. they admire a certain level of genuine feeling but despise it at the same time due to the roller coaster it sends them on. They often remind me of the Japanese God Tsukuyomi for their tenacity, their often proud and pious nature that dare i say is more Leo archetype than Leo is itself. These natives are proud of their home, to them home is a castle but oddly enough a castle they can’t stand to stay in for to long. They are not homebodies and in many cases tend to see a desire for exploration outside their home towns and often times the countries itself. These natives suffer from emotionally impulsive streaks, often entangling themselves in situations without guarding their heart because unlike Cancer suns these natives have no emotional awareness, they play everything by ear including their heart and that often throws them in an inescapable abyss that tends to devour them. Though these natives are kind at times they are also pompous, they are loving but they’re selfish about how this love is expressed. They want everything on their time often forgetting about the emotional side of things for other people and this is where they get in trouble and why people at times find them overbearing or unreachable. These natives are passionate and insanely creative, often the magnitude of this creativity as limitless as their reservoir of emotion. They wear everything loudly but also hide parts that they need when it’s convenient.  these natives are rather childlike in their personality due to the fact that they don’t care much if their blatant about their disinterest or lack of concern and dare i say this is one of their worst and best traits. They don’t fake it and love or hate them they don’t give a shit. They can be tremendously spiteful though which is even more so pronounced in the feminine energy than it is the masculine. Their struggle lies in the concept of To Have and Not to have, they often times fall prey to the desire to feast and never end never once realizing that once it’s all gone they’ll have nothing. They also fail sometimes to except that just because they want to have something the other person or people in question do not also have to want it and this at times is where they minds clash, because they genuinely do not understand why people are not seeing it their way. Their moods are worse than cancer suns due to the fact that they are not aware of they are having them, this means that they can fly into a mean state without realizing they’ve shifted and this at times can make them seem far more unpredictable then they mean to be. These natives are so loving and genuinely do mean well but their ego does get the best of them with this placement quite a bit.

Sun In Leo Vs Sun In The Fifth House:

(The Sun God Ra Vs The God Of Destruction Shiva)

Sun In Leo: The Sun God Ra

Song: Empress of - Should’ve 

In Certain Ways one can always find themselves confused at the hands of Leo Suns, As direct, Honest and bold as they may be parts of their personality are layered in rather elusive undertones. Leo suns are typically Vibrant, confident souls who march to the beat of their own blazing chariot and drum to match, but much of this bravado is burning so fervently as a means of hiding the softer and in many ways more docile side of these native. They pursue life in a zesty and at times rather emotionally flighty manner as to not ruffle the feathers of those who can’t keep up with them though they can’t help but relish in the fact that they themselves create energy and disperse it where ever they go and not one person can take that away from them. Despite this though Leo suns battle with their Ego on a daily basis and it’s a battle they don’t show the world. Much to their lament their heart at times has a goal of it’s own and no matter how hard they try to live by the flame eventually their flames seethe and reveal their true nature which is much more unsure, much more sentimental and compassionate. Leo Suns are deeply feeling and them being a fixed sign makes these emotions hit like an entire solar system when it happens. Though they hate to admit it they are sensitive, they want to be loved and seen authentically but are also scared of this vulnerability. For the masculine energy this can cause a flighty nature especially in the realm of the heart. Many masculine Leo’s will brake up or pull the “it’s a little too much for me” “ i think maybe we should take a brake” “i want to keep things casual,” approach with romance and things can be going great, marriage worthy and suddenly they pull out. Why? well Leo suns in their masculine spirit are deeply fearful of their feminine side, to them the idea of submission in any form even if it’s to their own heart is a weakness and one they would rather avoid. When this happens they trick themselves into becoming more sexual, more in need of the bachelor life style when in reality they know deep down they want your love, to be loved and accepted whole beyond the meaningless ass kissing they receive. This back and forth nature of their’s does continue sometimes but once they truly open their heart their love is that of a thousand burning blue suns turning the most tremendous white. For them love is their weakness and they seek to present this strong and rather disconnected stance for as long as they can because to them maintaining that powerful and free energy is their soul and to give up their soul for love is their destiny albeit one they detest. These natives are insanely willful and will fight tooth and nail to create, explore and build no matter the obstacle but that being said these natives battle their need to “escape” which can often lead them into addictive behavior as they need to run away from the feeling especially once the flames start to die down. These natives tend to be emotionally unavailable and give everyone the most calm and yet sincere showing of love but underneath i promise their is a depth and well of passion. In the feminine Leo energy is calm and proud but it is also more in-tune with the need for emotion and softness despite the universal Leo energy need for emotional tightness as to not show the world their hide. These natives often struggle with the Theme of Acknowledgement vs Rejection. For them the idea of acknowledging a weakness, a love or a vulnerability is death for them so as a result they reject it for as long as they can however they can and in this process they destroy themselves and the relationships they hold dear. they spend much time wrapped in the concept of accepting the way the feel and not running away from the side of the selves that isn’t shrouded in those glamorous flames. They are caring beyond belief despite the way those flames may fool the world, And dare i say out of many of the signs Leo Sun’s genuinely have hearts of gold in every way. Though Much Like Ra these natives are seen by many under many guises and faces many of which are farther away from the true kinded hearted soul underneath that truly is as radiant as the sun.

Sun In The Fifth House: The God Of Destruction Shiva

Song: Empress Of - Need Myself 

These Natives are quite the storm of Passion and at times this can be the very damning thing in their life. These natives live by the code of fire and tend to burn and burn never realizing their flames are eating up those they care-fore just as much as their foes. They tend to be Patronizing, Domineering, Physical, animated, Passionate and driven Though at times they loose sight of those who marched with them once the goal is reached. They Adore gratification but also don’t believe others deserve it out of their idea of what it looks like to dig fingers in the dirt for something. They believe in fighting for the just things but in saying this they themselves resent people who need to feel honored for doing such a thing. See these natives despise yet love praise, to them praise feels like honey and milk but has the after taste of cleaning solution and dirt. They want to feel needed but despite co-dependence. they want to feel it all but get lost in the feeling. for them their world is one big cyclone of events they just happen to take part in but they also don’t enjoy the drama that comes along with it though it secretly fuels them. to them life is to be tamed and those who are tamed by it are simply unlucky. They value intimacy above all else because in their eyes real intimacy cannot be faked, but they have a tendency to over identify with sex and intimacy almost using it as a bargain when in reality sex and intimacy are simply a pleasant moment between people. These natives can at times be addicted to the chaos and the negligence though they try to mask it as a pursuit of fun and liveliness. Much like Shiva these natives Believe that in order to create things must be tore the fuck up in order for them to really ever be real. The arguments, the tears, the ups and downs make it real for them and usually the lack of it can drive them mad. They prioritize their romances because that’s in a sense their focal point, their sun, their divine purpose but as you can imagine it is also their worst trait as it makes them incredibly insatiable for love but it also damages them greatly when they are alone without love in life. in Feminine energy the pursuit for love isn’t as all consuming and many focus more on their art and the beauties of children and theater many times over these natives live in the club as if it is some gorgeous ballroom whilst others paint and dance as if they where in a room with all the may gods. Masculine energies tend to be on the hunt for something, be it sex, be it themselves, be it a mighty battle to delight in they constantly pursue their own ideal of the sun no matter the activity in question. These natives tend to show all their rawness even their heart because unlike Leo suns they are not fearful of their deeper emotions which is a blessing and curse at times. They tend to battle against Wrath and Happiness. For them a constant state of turmoil is their fuel but the idea of happiness in its all scares them as they fear it will bring stagnancy and boredom along with it. they want to maintain their circulation of storms and tribulations and at times happiness intimidates them as it represents completion and often times completion is not yet what they desire. 

Sun In Virgo Vs Sun In The Sixth House:

(Death God Iku Vs King Yan God of Death, Of The Ten Kings Of Hell)

Sun In Virgo: Death God Iku

Song: Brent Faiyaz- Make Luv

Sun in Virgo natives aren’t so much as something you can readily identify, they are not necessarily a thing as much as they are a what. They feel good, but they also surround you like a presence rather than a physical being. They often times feel like something carnal and ethereal but at the same time gravitate away from this by their realistic and rather internally discontent energy. They seem like they are just moving through the world, like a child who found out Santa was nothing more than a fable.They want and need to be needed but this desire is rooted in their early understanding of relevance being tied to usefulness. To be relied on is better than sex for them as it feeds their inner desire to be needed. Though we say this one might also call this their greatest weakness as their dependency on being needed swarms their lives into situations that allow them to be used and rather than be sad about it they seek out more situations until these woes mount a rather steep hill deep in their psyche. They often suffer from their fair share of demons because of their blind ignorance to their own pain, to them the pain is merely a small price to pay for those small moments of being needed, being useful in that moment they are seen more than any hug, child, parental love or sexual liaison can provide. Much Like Iku these natives live amongst the shadows as a presence, fading in and out of situations like a black smoke. They love the idea of being around others but they secretly loathe it as deep down they feel the attention is swirling away from them. most feminines with this placement suffer immensely as they struggle to separate being needed from being used and separating love from hate.To them the occasional grips outlast the major ones but in reality the small ones are the ones that leave the deepest wounds, while the big ones just leave a gaping hole that was already their to begin with.They admire work ethic and creativity in others as its something they too seek to connect with but they often burn out constantly due to their lack of emotional focus. they often jump in and out of happy and down periods with the down periods out weighing the happy ones due to them not genuinely pursuing their own vices of their own free will. though they care for others they don’t really love themselves which is many times over why they purposely play the game of how long can i rip myself apart subconsciously as they systematically replay the same scenarios with the same ending. Sex is another dimension to Virgo suns, they much Like Gemini Suns see it as a curiosity but due to their earthy component the curiosity instantly dies as soon as their sensual mind catches up with what is really happening. They want and need mental as well as true physical compatibility which can only happen when they align themselves with their emotional self. This circus act tends to continue as the biggest struggle for this sign is My pain vs your pain dynamics. They never know when to draw the line and ultimately they get eaten up by it. The masculines suffer the greatest as they are prone to holding on to their past hurts and using it as justification for mistreatment of people that come after. in their eyes the world was cruel to them so why can’t they be the god and return the favor and this is often why they endure the worst as the universe punishes them tend fold.

Sun In the Sixth House: King Yan, Of the Ten Kings Of Hell

Song: Brent Faiyaz - Insecure 

As many of you may Know we look to the sixth house as the house of structure, day to day activities, routines and health yet for a native with their sun here the health and the health of others can be an ongoing theme in their lives.They Are constantly running on an internal schedule one that can seem to make all of the minutes in a day pure agony. They tend to be meticulous in some cases whilst in others they seem to be following some sort of silent bell that tells them the when and where. Time management, organizing and even planning are their hidden talents mainly because when it comes to other people they are like death itself, constantly waiting, passing the time almost excited at the idea of putting everything together. They can seem detached but down to earth, their hallmark is their humility and bluntness but in some lower cases they can seem condescending and emotionally daft. They say and do things according to their mental comprised list of do’s and don’ts. most people fall in reaction and action types for them and they tend to formulate their actions and reactions in response to these but much like life itself many things are unexpected including people and this is often where these natives malfunction, they assume actions before they take place and are totally unprepared for the off chance things operate outside of that box. To them there is a steady cause and effect momentum that life runs by and often very little does life operate off this agenda. For them life can be stages and every stage represents different levels of turbulence for them, at times things are well and other times they seem unstable or at times they can seem rather abysmal but thats much like life no? things can shift in and out of focus. well you see for these natives that shift of focus can be earth shattering as they tend to revolve their life around specific situations at times which can be highly discombobulating for them when they hadn’t the time to prepare counter alternatives. These natives are quick mentally and typically love the idea of nature and it’s animals, many loving to surround themselves with lively animated pets. they tend to care for their pets and plants more than they do people at times as they naturally see nature and animals as their happy place and area of grounding. Work is also important to these natives so they can often be very proud and intense when it come to the job hunt as their job is often what they want to be known for, how good they do is always important to them. In the masculine energy this can make the men rather messy/earthy looking as they pick up their features from nature in a quite literal way. for the feminine energy types the mercurial influence gives that gender less tone once more whilst also adding a soothing and innocent beauty. these natives are often dealing with the theme of Time Vs Place. For them Time is always an issue, when is it the right time? they never know how much time to alot to moments in their which ends up creating states of drain in them, but the place has much to do with this as well as these natives fail to realize that the places they trap themselves in is a cause of their lack of time, very rarely do they set themselves in situations that give them enough time to exercise free time yet they find themselves wondering where all the time has gone when it was never there to being with.

Sun in Libra Vs Sun In The Seventh House:

(Loki The Trickster Vs Dolos/Dolus The Spirit Of Trickery)

Sun In Libra: Loki The Trickster

Song: King Princess - Back Of a Cab

As an outsider looking in it may seem like Libra suns are impartial, Sweet and charming in a way that is both fleeting yet inviting, but among their well meaning disposition lay a certain anticipation of the camera cutting into the more grotesque scene. These natives Live almost as though they were a celebrity, their minds and energy go into the upholding of the idea they present. be it that they are a punk rock don’t need a man type, or maybe they are seen as a high ranking and family oriented politician, or mayhaps they are seen as the athlete or the singer with the smile of a cool summer evening. They wont ever showcase what lay underneath due to the real self being far more ominous then people are ready for. Libra suns are in reality stoic, serious, and unenthusiastic, this may sound bad but its in reality meaning that they aren’t as wrapped up in your shit as you may think. Libra suns present themselves as more caring and more involved then they really are as in all truth being cardinal their real focus at the end of the day is their own independent well being and whether or not anything is serving the purpose it needs within their lives. They are incredibly independent and dare i say even more than Aries suns. Libra suns really go through all the effort of seeming dependent and unknowing because it allows for people to see them as less of a threat, this in term gets them leighweigh in cultivating beneficial situations for themselves without a hassle. That being said they can get into trouble when the mask fades as people begin to realize their true nature. Libra suns are caring and gentle to those around them and this part is honest as they do have an appreciation for the sensual and often the beautiful aspects of relating to others. Though that being said they have a limit of to how much interaction with others they can stand for, to much of seeing someone can bore them and depending on the nature of the continued interaction they’ll often begin to wear their mask more fiercely as they are now beginning to fight their real self from telling you to leave them be. Libra suns are well meaning but at times they do find themselves caught between the mirror of deception, this shows itself as them getting caught up on past performances they’ve up-kept coming to bite them in the ass. They rationalize things here and there but for the most part much of what they may feel is felt deeply as they tend to see emotions as a gift and something they hold onto. The reason being that Libra suns seldom stay in a moment to long so often when a strong emotion catches them off guard they welcome it though if it’s a negative emotion they tend to retreat from it especially if it’s a romantic emotion that is moving along faster than intended. They are uplifting and selfless most times but selfish and rather clouded by their romances when they do come around. Their greatest struggle tends to be The real me vs the Me everyone Thinks is me. These natives play so deeply into their roles that they often times fly so far away from their own inner world that they forget what or how to identify their own feelings apart from the ones they have made everyone believe they are experiencing.

Sun In The Seventh House: Dolos/Dolus The Spirit Of Trickery 

Song: King Princess - Ohio 

These natives Unlike their Libra Sun Counterparts Exhibit traits that i can only describe as seemingly disengaged yet deeply engaged at the same take. They can seem as if they are wandering, mentally shifted in another place yet almost like a trance they heard every word, saw every movement they were analyzing you yet how could you tell? These natives are observant and often times the silence is their way of capturing the moment. They prefer talkative types as they reveal more and make that part of the interaction easier for them, but people who are overly mysterious or quiet tend to offset them as it gives them very little to work with and puts the balancing act on their back. They try to make others feel understood mainly because they themselves resonate so deeply with the process of finding oneself and understanding ones own true inner workings.These natives seem tricky and deceptive but rather its more or less the spirit they give off. They seem deceptive because they don’t reveal much, yet unknown to others they just don’t identify as heavily as most with the things in their life well enough to reveal much. The seem like tricksters because they know the right time to speak and the right time to act which can at times seem like they’re planning or scheming when in reality they are simply good readers of body language and social ques. they often times trail along a sadness that they can’t seem to attach a reason to but this sadness is often the shadow. unlike Libra suns these natives can’t pretend to be something mainly because they don’t really know who they are apart  from their immediate interactions with others. they have an idea but at times they feel like a shadow of something. The shadow self often tries to convince them to play roles, play into things that could possibly be them yet in actuality they know deep down that would only further the disassociation with themselves. love is a big thing for these natives but it always seems fleeting, as if all their good graces are wasted on individuals who never deserved their love. in an ironic twist though it is actually wonderful that these people come into their lives as they aid their journey to self discovery. These natives are genuine and kind hearted despite their rather quiet and too themselves nature. Their greatest battle is between The Loud Heart and The Quiet Heart. Often times these natives play into the feelings they can see but never into the ones they feel but cannot see, to them the emotions need to have a logic behind them and if not they shrug it off as a irrational emotion. They often times are terrified by their own depth mainly because it belongs to a side of themselves they are not yet familiar and this is the shadow.

Sun In Scorpio Vs Sun In The Eighth House:

(The Mighty Marques Aamon Vs Arch Angel Michael)

Sun In scorpio: The Mighty Marques Aamon

Song: Tove Lo - Are u Gonna Tell Her?

ah The mighty Scorpio sun, Riddled in the darker parts of human nature where they themselves seem to find a sense of curiosity and compulsion. These natives tend to be easy to spot, rather not for just their physical attributes but for their ominous and rather soul inquiring gaze. They see right through you and have already dressed every aspect of you soul a million times over as if it were a pull over scarf. They more often then not have an early look into the nastier side of man due to the influence of Pluto and Mars throwing down their intense calamity. See Pluto and Mars are not necessarily on equal grounding and often times Pluto ruffles Mars in just the right way for mars to gear up in aggression which then cause Pluto to polarize and become calculated and manipulative in order to gain the upper hand. due to this these natives tend to express the inner conflict outwardly as a hot and cold/off and on demeanor and approach to all things be it love, family, and even career’s. Scorpio Suns do not want to draw attention to their actions or their inner workings so much of their ego goes into sharing just enough to get what they need from others whilst revealing almost nothing of themselves. In lesser versions of Scorpio suns this can be problematic behavior as they soon become controlling, Gas light heavy and emotionally abusive to those close to them as a means of furthering their need to be in control. Make no mistake though Scorpio suns are typically battling their own demons the main difference being what part of their journey of healing they are on. Scorpio in feminine types tends to be the most afflicted as the overly competitive masculine ruling signs clashes with the more submissive or passive feminine energy. This clash is apart of what makes these natives so alluring and sensual, you can almost feel the war steaming over their skin, the pain in their eyes, the intensity, you feel all of it as if you where there with them. They tend to be very loving and loyal souls but can struggle with opening their hearts to real love, the kind that heals and extends it’s hand. Scorpio Suns have a bad knack for going after their mirror, and this in turn is apart of their journey but also a habit that must be broken. The reason is linked to the fact that Scorpios Suns are drawn naturally to people that force them to Acknowledge their trauma, darkness and inner instability which sends them on emotional benders that can last years if they are not careful. Often times the Scorpio Sun natives are in a constant flux where they must deal with Ex’s, Family dramas and at a deeper level mental brakes but this is all apart of their grand story despite how heavy the lows are. Scorpio suns as a whole struggle with the concept of Destruction and Rebirth. For them everything in their life has a life expectancy and once the time comes all things fall to ruin, only Scorpio suns obsess with the idea of rebirth leading to a form of longevity a way to ensure things never cease nor ware down..But in reality this continuously vicious cycle of Devastation and second life are draining for their spirits and their soul. It’s ok to let go and it’s okay for things to be at peace, just because there is no war at hand it is no cause for worry of an impending ending and often times these natives in their fear of this manifest their own endings. Much like the Mighty Demon Aamon these natives are compassionate and understanding but also careless, wild and wouldn’t hesitate to impose their will no matter the consequence to others. They have a hard time with the white Pickett fence lifestyle and often times find themselves craving the unknown, the unstable, the misfortune..they are drawn to it like mosquitoes to blood.

Sun in The Eighth House: Arch Angel Michael

Song: Tove lo- Passion& Pain Taste The same(Extended Version)

Sun in the Eighth house Natives are Emotionally adept, but noticeably scary in the sense that they always seem as if they are sizing you up, writing in pieces and parts of you personality so they themselves can further dig into you psyche  in a way that prevents you from pulling the wool over their eyes. unlike Scorpio Suns these natives aren’t a walking ball of tension rather they exude a mysterious and rather deceptive energy as if they are a black mist eroding away at the walls silently beyond your sight. They are just as Black and White as Scorpio suns but more dangerous due to the fact that they see the grey area clearly and choose when they’d like to include it in their perceptive analysis. They can have a military like energy to them, seeming authoritative and closed, while also having a rather shady nature to them even if they are not personally out to get anything at all. Often times people around them perceive them in a rather untrustworthy light even if they are the most honest person in the world, the reason being the eighth house squaring the energy of the Sun, it creates a Leo meets Scorpio Dynamic that creates friction in the outside world but not the bedroom. Sex is where these natives feel they can truly glow and shine, where they can truly unwind and express their true nature. Often times sexual addiction or sexual obsession can become apparent if the natives listen to their lower vibrations. They often times see people in a way of value and have a hard time letting go of them due to the bountiful potential they see in them. to these natives everyone on this earth has meaning no matter how small and that makes them irreplaceable. They often struggle with the idea of growing up Vs staying young. They often hold on to their youth, and even sometimes surround themselves by a younger audience as a means of ignoring father time who often forces them to confront the harsh realities of life. They often times battle with their mature side as it represents confronting their rigid more disillusioned side. they want to be optimistic but deep down they recognize the serious rather proud nature within themselves though they may try to shrug it off. They want their darkness to be excepted but simultaneously detest it as if it where a violent storm or pack of hounds set loose. despite this they have a rather intense nature but one that is more calm and mischievous then its Scorpio sun counterpart. Much like Michael these natives are dutiful but ruthless, if it gets them what they need they’ll execute it without issue no matter who is effected. They tend to follow orders and expect the same from others. they have an empress/emperor like energy which can at times seem intimidating and cold.

Sun In Sagittarius Vs Sun In The ninth House:

(Norse God Odin Vs Pantheon God Of Olympus Zeus)

Sun In Sagittarius: Norse God Odin

Song: Cinnamon Chasers - Speeder 

These Natives do live up to their expansive Ruling planet, They at times are so high up in the sky that they forget there is a whole world around them. They are often distracted, Blunt, Mean, Cut throat, Philosophical and open minded whilst also somehow managing to be vibrant, Sincere and very hard lovers for those they hold dear. They can have trouble holding back their opinions and their ideas and once that mouth of their’s gets going it tends to be a real sucker punch. They adore adventure but tend to find adventure in their day to day life just as exciting. The traveling generalization is often true but for Sagittarius suns it’s not so much foreign cultures as it is experiencing something outside of their immediate normality. they can’t stand someone who doesn’t have any idea what they’re talking about and will dig your grave for you via words if you waste their time, every second is precious to a Sagittarius sun no matter how minor you may think it is. They are often very straightforward in their approach to all things which can be a good or bad thing depending on how strong willed you are to deal with such a strong force. They tend to live in their minds but unlike Gemini these thoughts and desires find their way into the real world which often time can lead them into some sketchy or bad situations due to how little thought or consideration went into the details of the thought itself. They are insanely willful folks and will fight anyone who intends on placing them into a set standard of expectations and rules. They are often creative and fair very well with bringing in their own unique spin to the things they create. certain emotions some of us spend years or days mulling over these natives typically pass through relatively swiftly. Nothing really is that serious to these natives, after-all in their eyes all that could be done has been done. They tend to have a rocky relationship with their emotional hemisphere and thats often where the underdeveloped lot of this sun sign seek out their flighty and or venomous tongue to defend themselves. they often are quite sensitive and loving but struggle to apply this as its a foreign concept to them. Their flightiness is also deeply rooted in their need to chase, to constantly be on the hunt for their divine pleasure. The masculine and feminine both fall prey to this. Similarly to Odin these natives are creative, expansive in their mentality, leaders, explorers and deeply intellectual beings bent on understanding the world and all within it too it’s fullest extent. Their greatest struggle tends to be between the Should i stay vs should i go dynamic. They are always leaving the people and things they have no business leaving behind yet sticking around for the nonsense that truly serves them no other purpose but sex, false validation or presenting a sort of illusion. 

Sun In The Ninth House: Pantheon God Of Olympus Zeus

Song: Cinnamon Chasers -Luv Deluxe 

For these natives the differences can be a little harder to tell, though if anything they stand out even more so than it would for a Sagittarius sun. These natives have a inspirational mind, Dexterous, and very good at micro-managing their own energies. They do suffer from a horrid resting bitch face and cannot hold their tongue when it comes to most things as they prefer to say exactly whats on their mind but this happens more unknowingly for them than it does for their sun sign counterpart. these natives share Zeus’s promiscuous nature, finding it relatively easy to move on from person to person due to the way they look at relationships being stepping stones that further them along to their perfect match. Not very often do these natives find themselves in one position for two long as they suffer from restlessness more than any fire sign or other fire house combined. to them The day is meant to be explored and often times these adventures are completely random as their desire to expand can come suddenly like a blast of cold air. They tend to also enjoy their fair share of tattoos, body augmentations, and hair dyes. Anything that allows them to heighten their experience which in many cases also includes drugs, as the natives love being able to awaken the parts of themselves unattainable during the day. They are partiers but also at times very studious. many are very dedicated to the idea of college while others drop out due to feeling they can find other ways to expand and create on their own. This native is often dualistic in the sense that they can pursue one path for some time and then completely fly off the rail and start a new path abruptly and this personality trait is something that continues as time goes on. They are very giving souls nonetheless and willingly sacrifice and support those they care about with ease be it paying for their food, letting them stay at their house or borrow their clothes. The thing is these natives are good at assessing the boundary and can very easily tell you to leave or that they want to be alone, because although they are kind they also still know their own personal needs matter just as much at the end of the day. They often inquire much about the emotional side of things because they often don’t understand the emotions of others nor what motivates their actions which is their greatest source of frustration. Their main struggle much like Zeus is Abundance Vs Accumulation. They often crowd on things for the sake of having it, but fail to find the the value or usefulness in the very things they are allowing into their life. They must learn to value the things around them otherwise it just ends up being a bunch of furniture with plastic wrap, unused and wasted. They are just as tenacious, gallant, charismatic and strong as Zeus but in hindsight they are just as rude, Oblivious and insatiable as him in their worst.

Sun In Capricorn Vs Sun In The Tenth House:

(Hades Vs Buddha)

Sun In Capricorn: Hades

song: Delilah- Touch me 

If i could describe these natives in a sense i would say they are gifted with a great curse and a Mighty Blessing, and that would be their ability of seeing exactly the deeper nature of an individual without any actual spoken word. They are people readers plain and simple and a great many of them gorge themselves on their hobby of people watching. To them humanity is a big social project and one they are endlessly applying their vast many of skills in decoding. They have an inner earthiness to them that can energetically make them seem slower in their reactions but overly abundant in spirit when it comes to the more physical aspects of life. They have a very emotional relationship with success and money so often times they tend to neglect the other meats of life in favor of money which at times can leave them lonely in the midst of their success. They can have an intimidating aura, one that reaks of sadness and woe in the masculines or one that reaks of intensity and confidence in the feminines. The sun in Capricorn natives have a naturally polarizing emotional state, at times seeming calm, happy or at least passably content to more stoic, lost and emotionally unavailable the moment Saturn’s gloom sinks his teeth into them. they often times find themselves trapped in a current of weight, often times softer things like relaxation, vacations, and even moments of idle are very rarely enjoyed by these natives as often very deep within they feel intense guilt at the experience of any pleasure for too long. to these natives there is a constant nagging voice telling them to “move” and push ahead, the moment they stop the voice becomes a vicious void that can often times give these natives their well known devilish energy. These natives practice restraint subconsciously and often times limit themselves as a means of a deeper rooted paranoia that if they are truly at their best, truly free, everything will come undone. These natives have a life based upon hidden fears that have no real face but often times are tied to Saturn who nurtures the idea in them that things could go wrong at the drop of the hat and that letting ones guard down even for a moment can lead to a very painful lesson. They tend to be loving, and deeply sensitive souls but very hardly ever do they show this face. Masking and false advertising is their forte, pretending to be malicious, cool, aloof, and empty if often easier then showing their bubbly, talkative, and rather softly romantic and tender nature. Love can be a source of pain for them due to the fact that much like all who have Saturn in a prominent place, a lesson is always to be had. these natives tend to learn that love is something that is seldom on par with the level of dedication and patience they exhibit towards their own life, often times fueling their cynical view towards love as a whole. They love intently and with all of their soul, never leaving the side of their lovers but at the same time this love and loyalty comes after years upon years of work and foundation as these natives loathe intimacy or love that seems to flighty or ungrounded in it’s intent. they tend to be spiritual but this is something they grow more intune with the older they get. They tend to be caught in the struggle of maybe it'll be different this time vs already knowing the outcome. The harsh part for these natives is that they deep inside want to give people the benefit of the doubt, they want to be whimsical and naive but it is something to riddled with consequence which they already know and often times they are trapped in a tug of war of was i right to give up on this, to shut down, to close off, was i to harsh, was i to fast to do it? but often times the moment they ignore their intuition the pain is often a violent reminder that they should’ve listened to their gut. these natives much like hades understand the depth of their commitments and find dedicating themselves to things a rigor to be expected but one that is earned not just jumped into head first without proper caution. They live in the dark, ominous and heavy seated parts of life but because of them everything is in order, everything is collected and well placed as it should be. 

Sun In The Tenth House: Buddha 

Song: Delilah - Love you so

Sun In the Tenth housers are drastically different from their fourth house sun counterparts in the respect that where one is Pious, emotionally erratic and arrogant the other is cold, emotionally distanced and humble. These natives prefer quiet as opposed to a loud obnoxious display of the self. To them your work and actions should speak more for your character than some inflated actions or stories. They love intense encounters and often find themselves at the center of powerful people be it bad or good. they enjoy a certain level of unpredictability in thought rather than actually carried out in reality. if i could describe them i’d say they are the emotionally aware bad girl/boy. they enjoy the discretion of the social norm but also have a longing for more structure in their lives. for these natives people are only so interesting to them, once they figure them out the concept presented in getting to know the individual goes out the window. The only real intrigue to them is an ever changing situation, person or thing, anything with a predictable end is often a source of contempt for them. Emotionally they can run HOT like a supernova but then suddenly cool as if all the suns across multiple galaxies vanished into thin air leaving a stark, rigid cold. They tend to adore darkness in others only until this very darkness starts to lose it’s luster. a preference for being a savior for others is present but once again the back and forth nature of this placement and it’s obsession with the idea of disharmony yet simultaneously needing peace. they have a rather neutral perspective in life due to their fluctuating taste, and much like the Buddha they live by a strong law of what you give is what you get, what you do comes back to you and that for every action done, their is an effect waiting for it. Despite this these natives tend to be on the more mischievous side of things seeking a sort of imagined excitement that never ever seems to come. Romantically they are the type to fall hard but also the type to run from anything that is to emotionally saturated. they don’t care for love yet it always finds them anyways, the key with them is that they need it to be paced, anything rushed, anything impulsive or quickly proposed tends to push them deep in their hole. they love sensual affection and touch and often love to place their hands on everything and anything, to feel it in their palms, on their skin, in their hair...they eat up the environment like it were the sea making waves around them. Often times they can have a melancholic sense of humor and seem rather out of touch with their surroundings at times. They prefer loneliness as opposed to bad company and at times the bad company in their eyes is the entirety of human society. They can seem pretentious, Mean, and wildly judgmental with their sharp tongue but if you listen closely at times these natives speak truths you yourself know are true but are not ready to accept. i often call these natives fortune tellers as they speak in foreshadowing tones that allude to future happenings. They often struggle with the heart vs the head. at times they live so much in their mind that the longings of their heart feel like weird wire entanglements that they are not familiar with. They know their heart longs for things but their mind for the life of them can never really make sense of it, to them its all a bunch of gibberish but it often is why they always feel that internal and eternal missing in their lives, as if something should be there but never really is. 

Sun In Aquarius Vs Sun In The Eleventh House: 

(Goddess of Death Hela Vs Moon God Lilith)

Song: SHYGIRL - Freak

So today we speak on one of the most complex and virtually paradoxical sun signs to date, Aquarius suns. These natives are well deserving of their rather multi-layered face, often times seeming like a box with never ending compartments and staircases leading to new basements and by theory new worlds and realities. Often times their level of competency can fly between intellectually dualistic to emotionally dualistic. They can seem like they understand you and at times the depth of this understanding would surprise you despite their seemingly detached nature. Despite this more soft side of their ego make no mistake their god complex is sitting eerily close to the surface. Unlike Gemini suns, there is no second face in the water bearer rather their is only this continuous current that fluctuates between a heavy stream of a light stream and which stream you get depends solely on the level of intellectual enticement the Aquarius sun native can glimpse within you. There is an apparent darkness in these natives but it’s mainly due to their co-rulership of saturn dancing with the erratic demon uranus. These two planets complete each other but they also tug at one another strings in a rather violent and stormy like way, causing a strange ground up and sky to floor motion in these natives moods. One moment they can be rebellious, restless, goofy and rather unbothered and the next moment they can seem stoic, impersonal, detached and down right moody. they love proving others wrong but they also take a great pride in watching a stance someone has held so tightly in pride come crashing down once the sun in Aquarius native corrects them. they take great pride in their mental dexterity but at times can be overwhelmed by the constant and never ending current of thought. They have a tendency to come across as hardheaded and hellbent on their way being the right way as they often despite their airy nature are still intensely fixed. that being said they are deeply curious of society and the world around them, often taking time to learn and study the varying cultures and systems in the immediate environment as well as the environment as others. very many tend to find themselves drawn to humanitarian pursuits albeit a bit shy at first in many cases due to the fact that they themselves don’t always understand their pull to the collective. These natives tend to be loners contrary to belief and find it very difficult at times to cope with their occasional existential crisis as they often find that they don’t really relate or connect to the world or time frame they happen to be apart of. They at times like the idea of being misunderstood while other times they wish atleast one person could peer into their mind and document their beautiful and uniquely grafted mental space but that would be far to available for their liking. Making friends is something that seems like a powerful need for these natives and often times something they struggle with as they often find that they confuse friendship and romance. often projecting more romantic/relationship tendencies on their friendships and projecting more friendship/acquaintance tendencies on their romantic relationships. They do enjoy the idea of being in love or being emotionally connected to others but in a lot of ways they don’t really understand it as much as they’d want to. they tend to in a similar fashion as Hela deem themselves as higher beings who happen to be misunderstood. they view themselves as starving intellects who the world neglects in favor of stupidity and mental stagnancy, a stagnancy that the Aquarius suns believe they can rescue the world from if they listened to them.. Their greatest battle lay in the concept of wisdom vs Virtue. They see these things as separate ideologies, often presented as fallacies rather than something applicable, to them wisdom is unreliable due to the fact that simply knowing something or how it may pan out does not necessarily omit outside factors that alter this variable, and virtue in itself seems like something self assured, but in their eyes something self assured is also prone to change due to the unstable base it is presented upon. so they tend to struggle with letting themselves go to the unknown presented in spirituality, which is often the missing piece to their puzzle. Many of these natives tend to be bisexual, that being said any sign can be bisexual or gay, or so on, the case is that with Aquarius suns, they have such a deeply set ambiguous eternal self that can at times find that it relates more to the energy of others than it does the physical body, especially since for these natives sex and love are not hand in hand as much as mind and body are. 

Sun In The Eleventh House: The Moon God Lilith 

Song: SHYGIRL - Rude

These natives are very unique in the sense that dare i say this is the darkest position for the sun to be in. It creates a tug a war, between the sun and itself as nothing more than a cold white glow. They are charismatic and open, but closed and mysterious. on a hand they can seem welcoming and so entrancing in their approaches, seeming as if they adore the crowd but if you really see them they are intense, perplexed, to themselves and endlessly distrustful. A good word for them is willful and Loudly willful at that. They will not and cannot be moved without their own desire and often times the source of what moves them is unknown to them as well. a complicated requiem of pain swirls within them but the source often alludes them as it stems for a combination of things that have moved around like chess pieces in a chess game with no players in seat. They experience pain but they never claim it rather its seated somewhere and moved around again and again until it origin is blurry to the natives. Pompous at times with their beliefs they are well being, they have an obsessive nature with friendships often deeming them to hold seniority above most things, at times seeing them as extensions of their own ego. the less they understand amongst  their friends the weaker they feel. loving them can be complicated as they are always evolving, changing and dying off ridding pieces of themselves as if they were spring cleaning their souls. They do deal with their darker sides mainly because unlike most of us these natives skeletons never really do go in the closet rather they stand loud and proud in the face of the native so they can face them. They tend to be sensitive but also adaptable so the sensitivity can seem elusive as they tend to firmly glue shut the smallest weakness in themselves the moment it is introduced. They value the feelings of others more then even their own at times but there is often a nice balance between their care for others and the care they have for themselves. They can seem unnerving and captivating as their energy tends to feel like a sultry, in control and rather sophisticated energy though they may not recognize it within themselves. They often times fly in and out of asexuality and this deals more with their emotional state if anything. they at times don’t connect to other people in the way we all do, they see the physical beyond it’s self which can at times cause complete disconnect during moments of intimacy or sex. They often battle the idea of am i complete vs am i incomplete. they never truly know if they have all the pieces aligned and much like Lilith they often times feel an innate need to find the truth, to rebel and quarrel until it all makes sense. they can seem nomadic and ruthless because of this due to the fact that they are willing to do whatever it takes to fuel their desire for self discovery. gender roles and social constraints bore them often times and this makes them feel tense and confined when they are in an overly oppressive or traditional environment 

Sun In Pisces Vs Sun In The Twelfth House: 

( The God Of Creation Brahma Vs Jesus Christ, Son Of God)

Sun In Pisces: The God Of Creation Brahma

Song :Sevdaliza - Dormant

Much Like A dark sea, with waves reaching the clouds and dancing with visible silent but reverberating shocks of light in the sky these natives present a wildly pretty, yet ominous duplicity within their soft and gooey disposition. They can seem rather intangible, yet despite their hard to grasp wetness they can see you, read you and be inside of you like water and dissipate like fog before your very eyes. They are insanely sensitive but unlike the other water signs they are also every other sun sign dressed as one. They have many traits, they carry the impulsive nature of Aries, the sensual and rather harmonious nature of Taurus, the duality and wit of Gemini, The soft and protective nurturing of Cancer, the Amorousness and rather playfully romantic nature of Leo, the Calculated, yet realistic side of Virgo though they fight it.., the Co-dependent yet charming nature of Libra, The emotional intensity and depth of Scorpio, The gun-ho, and rather Flighty nature of Sagittarius, the steady and rigid side of Capricorn, and the Eccentric and rather erratic momentum of Aquarius. thats what makes them so terrifying, they are all things but also nothing at all in theory, a Pisces sun is a reflection of you, their environment, they in theory have no one set manner of being. These natives have a way of seeming completely present, so totally engulfed in you but once reality catches up with them they can seemingly turn into smoke, vanishing into thin air as if they never truly felt anything to begin with. What happened? well Pisces suns are very dualistic in nature, one fish dives in recklessly and the other fish brings them both back to reality and slows things down. Pisces do not readily settle down nor do they readily make any commitments to others be it friends, lovers and even family. everything means more to a Pisces native so they often times need plenty of time to think of the many options, possibilities and outcomes even if they don’t have a clear idea of what they may look like. they tend to be heavily compassionate but can struggle with creating boundaries between their woes and the woes of others. at times they see pain as a shared experience rather than a mission to be experienced solely with the self. in masculines this energy is HARD to handle. it can cause them to get drowned in the Neptune pool, often times making them liars, unstable or emotionally unavailable. in the feminine energy they tend to handle it well though in both energy types the flighty rather slippery side of them is always present, they can seem like they are dodging you or running away but in reality they just shift in and out of feelings like changing currents. they are deeply spiritual and many tie themselves to the unknown as if they were birthed from it. They believe in a higher space, that all things flow in the direction they must with or without intervention. They fear evil in others and often try to save and rescue those who’ve lost their way but many learn overtime that saving is at times not different from enabling. Their biggest fight is flight vs confrontation. These natives much like the god Brahma Are capable of creating and putting together projects and parts of the world in ways that would make all the gods jealous. they have a hand for beauty and making things however they must in a beautifully designed manner...that being said they often shy away from people and things that are good for them due to their fear of themselves and others. deep down they fear the idea of being seen completely as it means all of those 12 faces must fade and the fish must truly present all the parts of itself and thats often when they try to swim away. They fear the concept of being totally seen, totally embraced in the same manner that they do others because then they would have to acknowledge their weakness, Love, receiving honest love scares them as to them the camera is finally on them.

Sun In The twelfth House: Jesus Christ, Son Of God

Song: Sevdaliza - wallflower

We now come to the last of the houses. These Natives have an abundance of mist that shrouds them, much like a cloak or a long blast of light from the heavens surrounding them in its glow. They don’t normally stand out, many times having a rather passive and calm demeanor, seeming polite but not overly open nor connected. Though upon further inspection one can clearly make out their rather attentive eye for human emotion and human desire. they can seemingly pin point the sorrow in others, the dreams, the level of comfort one seeks and once they have scoped it out they often adapt to the particular need in question. See for them it’s more about creating an air of easy peace and the best way to do that is complete neutrality via adaptability. They often times remove all the traits associated with their sun sign and wear a veil, dare is say they become a spitting image of Jesus christ, suddenly they are able to collectively calm the crowd with little to no effort besides a few well placed personality augmentations to fit everyone's individual levels of comfort. They radiate a sadness, a deep sadness that is often glossed over with a false happiness, a ominously passive good natured state of passivity as to not allude to the rather turbulent well of waves and storms going on behind the scenes. Sleeping and a constant state of tiredness often plagues these natives, their energy often always seems half full even if they got a days full of sleep. They never truly feel at 100% which can at times give off a irritable or tired vibe to them. They tend to handle stress well but at the same time they usually can only do one emotion at a time, meaning that much of their inner feelings get compartmentalized into manageable spaces as to not cause them any issue. they like love, but they don’t have boundaries necessary to differentiate being used from being loved. at times they can purposely seek out bad things for them in order to feel needed but in reality they are ensuring that they never really feel happy because deep down they feel it is their fate to take on someone else baggage. They tend to be terrified of good people, stable people, as they represent a missing aspect within themselves. they often push away the good ones in favor of the bad ones because ultimately choosing to be with someone who actually cares about them means they would have to learn to care about themselves which is often something they are not ready to do. Self love is the fear for these natives as it involves uncluttering their inner psyche which is already damaged beyond what they think they can even repair. The struggle here is often do i love me Vs should i even love me? they often times view self love as selfish and deem it as an unnecessary virtue but at the same time they view it as a needed acceptance. hating themselves and self punishment is an easy go to for them because it removes accountability but in the end it always comes back and leaves a wave of carnage in it’s wake. much like Jesus these natives are sacrificing, enduring and deeply of strong faith in humanity but.. humanity always makes endless wounds, and scars in these natives..as they often get to see the worst sides of human nature as they grow mistaking their numbness for compassion. In reality they are kind and loving but this is often a defense mechanism rather than a state of just being. 

Hope you guys enjoy! 

[cxmetery-gates]

OBSESSIVE TEACHINGS - DARK!TOM HIDDLESTON

CHAPTER FIVE: COFFEE AND TINDER

SUMMARY: Lynn and Gabriel have a heart-to-heart talk about her last lover, with Gabe offering barely-legal suggestions. WORD COUNT: 2.45k NOTES: Gabe is probably my favorite character WARNINGS: dark!tom hiddleston, teacher!tom hiddleston, mentions of past relationships, break-up talk, h*tler reference?? never thought i’d write that

OBSESSIVE TEACHINGS MASTERLIST

THE SOUND OF A BELL alerts the classroom that the period is over. Everyone had been already packed and ready to go minutes before Mr. Hiddleston even began wrapping up his lesson. Even when I suffered through chemistry or dragged my deflated soul through finance, I never thought of putting my notes and pens away so soon. I know more than one student saw the icy glare I sent across the room but, most importantly and unfortunately, I also know nearly all of them didn't catch the slight disappointment in Mr. Hiddleston's tone.

I truly despise most people.

From the moment class started, it's been so unmistakably clear how much he loves what he teaches, that he enjoys what he spent thousands of dollars on just to show people how great literature is. I understand that all too well— save the going into debt part. Teachers are often times so mundane with their knowledge, not realizing how the way they present the information affects our understanding and interest in such. This is why high school teachers are stereotyped as people who just want a paid summer vacation. However, Mr. Hiddleston really put effort into his theatrics, like his lecture was a play. People with a teaching degree should teach in this way— why else go penniless willingly? The overall excitement was entertaining. And for that, I have to give the man some credit.

"Alright, guys. We'll be diving into the second part of this lecture tomorrow. Have a good one, you are dismissed." I don't think Mr. Hiddleston needed to announce the last blip of his closing statement. As I said, people are so rude.

Ellie begins to shove her notepad and other items into her bag after our teacher finishes speaking, reminding me of my kind company. I, on the other hand, am scrambling to take the last bit of notes, trying to relay any possible concepts mentioned on to paper. While there might not have been much depth in today's class, jotting down every last tidbit of information could be life or death. Or perhaps I'm just anal-retentive when it comes to note-taking. By the time I finish the note, Ellie is already standing.

"Girl, hurry up. We gotta go!" She drags out the last vowel of the last word humorously.

I wave my hand at her, flipping pages and dodging paper cuts. "Go on without me. I'll be fine," I say, remembering that Ellie's homeroom is on the first floor and the farthest down the hall.

Rolling her big brown eyes, she sighs, walking backward. "I'll miss you poppet. I love you." Her fake British accent is terrible, but I don't bother enlightening her. Perhaps the slight discoloration in her cheeks and how fast she dashed out of the room was due to finding Mr. Hiddleston in ear-shot of her terrible accent. I bite my lip, forcing myself to look away out of sheer second-hand embarrassment.

Once all my belongings are together, I turn to leave.

"That truly was an awful mockery," Mr. Hiddleston says in my direction from the whiteboard. His long toned arms wipe the marker away as I begin to walk past him.

I chuckle. "I'll let her know you said that."

Mr. Hiddleston fakes a groan, placing the eraser on the marker tray then turning to face me with those oh-so-charming eyes. There's no other way to describe them other than mesmerizing. "Oh, don't tell her I said it. I like being liked."

"Being 'liked' is the least of your worries with these girls," I mumble, mostly to humor myself. However, I must have been louder than anticipated. The innuendo is heard and doesn't fly over his head.

A titter of a laugh is heard from the man, and I now regret the words I mumbled. "So I have been told," he replies, making a slightly uncomfortable face. I can't blame him; anyone would feel incredibly awkward if teaching a class full of people who would sell both kidneys just to see them without a shirt.

Not in my dreams would I have imagined having a conversation with Mr. Hiddleston about how everyone wants to nail him. While such a phrase hasn't been explicitly noted, I have a feeling both our minds are in the same gutter. And with that recognition, an awkward heat embraces me. I press my lips together tightly and offer a shrug. "I think the proper thing for me to say is good luck."

Seeming to take my word, Mr. Hiddleston passes me a smile. I can't read what the meaning is, but I'll take it nonetheless with a cough to clear my throat. "Ah, well, as much as I love juicy gossip and scandals, I've got a stuck up prune for homeroom, so I definitely need to get going." I send him a wave, making my exit as awkward as possible.

"Warntz?" He asks.

My nose wrinkles at the name. It eve sounds terrible, almost as terrifying as Trunchbull or Umbridge. "You betcha."

"Good luck, Lynn. You've got two minutes."

I want to give another sassy remark, but the teasing look I find when I look over my shoulder sends my body into another blush. Muttering something close to 'whatever,' I decide that leaving is for the best, even if that means awaiting an angry, shriveled up raisin.

══════════════════

Exiting the high school front doors a few hours before the final bell is like the biggest sigh of relief and 'sucks to be you' to everyone else. An arm wraps around my shoulder, one I embrace kindly.

"So, we've got an hour on our hands," Gabriel reminds me, hinting we'll have to come back to grab Ellie and River. As he speaks, I toss my head back on his toned bicep. I swear he works out too much for an unpopular loser. "What would you like to do?"

I groan, dragging my chin down to my chest. "Why do I have to decide? You know I hate making decisions."

"We're taking second lunch here, Lynn. It isn't life or death, you weirdo," Gabe chortles.

"Can we just go get a coffee? I feel like I'm about to pass out." For effect, I pretend to faint, nearly going complete limp before his arms can hoist me back up.

Rolling his dark eyes, my partner in crime pulls a set of keys from his pocket, swinging the lanyard around his fingers while we head towards a tattered white truck being held together by zip ties, duct tape, and love. "You and Elle with your coffee addiction."

"Could be meth," I retort.

Snorting, Gabe slips a key into the slit on the driver's side. I stand on the opposite, sending a humored smile. "Yeah, as if that's any worse."

We make it to the local coffee shop in no time. Luckily for us, the lunch rush hour in this town ends just as we hit the road if we avoid the main highways that is. Gabe's truck and the coffee shop have a similar aesthetic: crowded, old, falling apart with an overwhelming sense of home and personality. I can't count how many times I've broken down and received well off advice from him in both locations. It feels safe here and being around him. Gabe's like the much older brother (by a month) that I never had. We're both complete, utter assholes to each other about 60% of the time, enforcing the sibling-like bond we have.

"Thank you," I say sweetly to the barista as he places my cold brew in front of me and Gabe's hot chocolate in front of him. Mimicking my gratitude, Gabe gives his thanks as the employee shuffled away, awkwardly patting at his frizzy hair.

We both take a sip and visibly relax. "So, the first day of our last year of high school." Gabe is also the mom friend. "Tell me, dear, how were all your classes?"

"Oh, dearest mother, I feel so content with my choices," I reply with a vintage accent, acting as though my voiced popped in from the 1920s. "How ever will I pick a favorite?"

Wiggling his brows, Gabe replies, "I hear someone landed themselves in the hottest teacher's class."

Prompting to return to my normal voice, I roll my eyes, a huff expelling from my diaphragm. "He's definitely a piece of eye candy, I'll tell you that."

"Took four years to figure that one out? I didn't realize unobservant you are." Taking a pause, Gabe brings to smirk widely. "Maybe that's why you haven't asked River out yet."

My eyes grow wide, my skin goes red. Looking at anywhere other than Gabe's eyes and smirking lips is a must. "I don't know—"

"Lynn, everyone knows."

"Sure, but he doesn't." I pause. "Wait, does he?"

"Dude, no, of course, he doesn't. He still thinks you're heartbroken over Trinity."

Ah, yes, Trinity. Who knew a happy year and two months could be wholly demolished beyond reconciliation in a single weekend? Certain not I, as I have spent the past three months moving on and over the ordeal. An annoyed grunt leads my cheek to rest in my fist. "He thinks I'm not over it?"

Gabe leans forwards. "None of us do, Lynn."

I stay silent.

"What happened... you didn't deserve that. Hell, Hitler wouldn't have deserved that. Probably."

"Weeeeell—"

"Point is, I know you're still trying to find a way to heal. You've done a damn good job, duh. But River thinks you're still in love with her."

"Ugh. I'd rather eat hairy horse shit than see her ever again."

Gabriel nods, "I was hoping that would be the case."

Knocking my knuckles on the wooden table, I let out an exaggerated sigh. "Man, I'm tired."

"You know we're all here for you, right?" Gabe asks, leaning in just a few inches. I want to roll my eyes, tell him that he worries too much, but I can't. I can't tell him, not because I want him to shut up or to change the topic, but because he knows me. To Gabe, I'm an open book.

I run out of words to say relating to the topic. The breakup is old news, everything following the incident becoming irrelevant memories and irreplaceable time. I'm kidding myself when I say I've moved on entirely because Gabriel is right: I haven't. Sometimes my thoughts get stuck on what I could have done better or what I should have done to convince her to stay. Despite these annoying blips, I know deep down that it was inevitable, that her consistent cheating and the emotional manipulation would only surface for everyone to see in due time. If they hadn't— which I tried to keep from happening— I have a gut-wrenching feeling I'd still be in the situation. I had a feeling Trinity and me wouldn't last, but it wasn't until after things ended did I realize how well she had me wrapped around her finger. It's taken months to find my way out of her web, but I now face the scary journey of recovery. Thankfully, the process has not been as hard as I anticipated. After all, living two cities away certainly helps.

"Yeah, I know. I'm still going through the motions. I just want it to speed up, you know?"

Smirking and pulling his hand back, Gabriel replies, "Maybe a Tinder will help?"

My nose wrinkles at the mere consideration. Hooking up, dating apps, meeting strangers behind a phone— not really my thing. "Nah, I'll pass on that offer, thanks."

"Suit yourself."

"Hmm, maybe I'll look into a sugar daddy site. Money from older men might make me feel a bit better."

Gabriel takes a sip of his hot chocolate, grinning. "Well, you have an interesting way with teachers. If you're struggling in a particular class, maybe that little fantasy of yours will come true."

"Oh yes, I can't wait to hop on Mr. Riley's seventy-year-old dick."

"Mhmm, yummy."

At this, I bark into a laughing-while-painfully-cringing fit. Never being a fan of the phrase "yummy" and having it tied to a man that's so old he's basically decaying, I find every part of this new conversation revoltingly hilarious. I guess my sudden outburst of laughter caught Gabe off guard, staring at me with a shocked grin and fixing the infamous beanie he wears. I couldn't count how many times I've seen him without; you can't count to zero.

"It really wasn't that funny," he says with a small hiccup of laughter in his voice.

I settle myself now that I feel the eyes of everyone in the coffee shop staring. "You're right, but something about it made me crack." I flip my phone over to check the time. "Should we be getting back? They've got twenty minutes left."

Gabe nods and lets out a content sigh. "Yeah, I guess so."

We decide to chug the rest of our beverages quickly— now room temperature and not as satisfying— before heading back out into the world. Away in the parking lot, the truck seems to beckon us to its forty-year-old, duct-tape-bound seats. As Gabe unlocks the truck doors, I let out a content sign and stare up at the sky. Above, the sun beams down on us and, like an idiot, I managed to look directly into it. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust but by that point, a dark cloud rolled over the blinding, distant star.

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

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[spiritualdirections]

Mercy in a time of national anger

Last Sunday, the Church celebrated the feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit made the Apostle’s speech in their rough, Galilean accents, understandable to those from countries all over the region where Aramaic was not spoken. Ever since proud engineers tried to build the Tower of Babel, the languages of the Earth had been scrambled. The miracle of Pentecost is that through the Holy Spirit, the sin and punishment of Babel were set aside, and people began to understand each other. In fact, the Acts of the Apostles describes the early Church as having a miraculous level of unity, in which everyone lived in harmony, “with one heart and one mind (lit. “soul”).” This sort of unity is available to us, if through the Holy Spirit we set aside the sin that divides us.

But a few chapters later, that harmony gives way to jealousy and misunderstanding. The new Christian community in Jerusalem, which includes baptized converts from both Judaism and paganism, starts to divide among pagan-Jewish lines. At first, the problem is one of (alleged) discrimination—one group thought that they weren’t getting treated fairly. Later the divisions become theorized and theological—the Jewish converts wanted to impose Jewish customs and the Mosaic Law upon the non-Jewish converts. St. Paul spends much of his ministry fighting off this theological error. The Letter to the Romans explains his major arguments: Paganism is bad and you converts from paganism should rejoice at having been rescued from that. Judaism, on the other hand, includes God’s revealed truth. But the Jewish converts to Christianity shouldn’t boast about their superior heritage, since the Old Covenant was incomplete; all its religious truth didn’t actually rescue a single person from sin—for that we all need baptism into Jesus’ New Covenant. The pagan converts were apparently bragging that they’d now supplanted the Jews in God’s kingdom, and so St. Paul shut down that argument as well—we have nothing of our own to boast about, but only Jesus, and the fact that we get to suffer and participate in His Passion and sacrifice on the Cross.

Interpersonal animosity is a consequence of Original Sin. The original harmony of man and woman in the Garden of Eden, in which Adam rejoices that finally God has found him a suitable partner in Eve, gives way after the Fall to Adam blaming God for giving him “the woman”. Cain murders his brother Abel, his anger leaving him open to temptation by the devil. And so on, down to our day.

This week, we’ve been focused on how people of different races don’t love each other. Last fall, in the wake of the Jeffrey Epstein revelations and the #MeToo movement, we focused on how men don’t treat women with respect. Before that, we were concerned about how we treated immigrants. And so on. It seems that we get outraged by whatever part of fallen humanity the media causes us to focus on right now, until the next news cycle refocuses us on the sin over there. We can always find genuine, real, interpersonal animosity if we look for it, since we can always find the fallenness of humanity if we look for it.

We can hate people who are different from us. And, as the story of Cain and Abel teaches us, we can hate people who are a lot like us. A few years ago, we were focused on how Irish Christians, racially indistinguishable from each other, were killing each other. We were shocked about how Rwandan Catholics, all of whom are black, conducted a genocide against each other in the 1990s. This Wednesday, we celebrated the feast of Charles Lwanga and the Ugandan martyrs, all members of the Gandan people, who were killed by their own king for refusing his homosexual advances. Husbands and wives, who profess their lifelong love on the day of their weddings, come to hate each other in the wake of the divorce. Mothers kill their own children by the millions through abortion, from some misguided sense of self-preservation (a species of self-love). We can grow to hate or mistrust anyone who isn’t us. That’s the lesson of original sin.

Charity, the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, is the love that overcomes our anger at injustice and the sinful divisions that follow. Without charity, without grace, our concerns shrink: from a love of all mankind, to a love of our tribe (literal or metaphorical), to a love only of those like us, to a love of this family member but not that one, to a love of ourselves above all, even above Christ. Charity is the love that tears down the walls that divide us. Charity is the readiness to give our lives for those we love, in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice.

As the sad examples of Northern Ireland and Rwanda make clear, Catholics are not free of the temptation to selfishness and even to murder. The Church has had and will always have sinners within it. And yet, in the Creed we say, “we believe in one holy… Church.” This is a dogma. It doesn’t mean that the Church includes only those who are without sin, but rather that the Church is holy insofar as we allow the Holy Trinity to work within us. Through the Holy Spirit, we are baptized into Christ Jesus and his covenant with the Father. When we genuinely act and pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are holy. Charity is a participation in the interior life of the Trinity.

In my book Mercy, I talk about how a great part of the difference between Christian thinking and secular thinking about politics comes down to mercy, to how we respond to injustices. The mistake of what I call “justice-only politics” is to have well-developed ideas about how things ought to be (aka justice), but no concept of mercy, no real thought about what to do when circumstances and/or people get in the way of their idea of justice.

I think the national reaction to the killing of George Floyd reveals something like this. Some people think that the right thing to do is to enact reforms of the police; others think that the right thing to do is to kill the police and bomb the precinct. Some people think that nonviolent protests are an appropriate response; others think that injustice justifies robbing the local Target. Some people are satisfied when the bad cops are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted; others want to overthrow the government. Some are just so upset that they don’t know what to do. All agree that something deeply wrong happened to George Floyd, but our consensus stops there, at the level of justice.

Mercy is the virtue that comes into play when things go wrong. Once we decide that something is unjust, we still have to decide what is the right thing to do. Do we “cancel” the unjust persons, breaking solidarity with them and removing them from society? Do we send them to the guillotine? Or do we try to make things better? In an interesting Trinitarian statement, Jesus commands his disciples to “be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). So justice-only politics, or any politics without solidarity for the offender and the sinner, is not a Christian option.

Jesus also commands us to be meek and gentle, as he was, rather than angry. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on the Beatitudes, says that to be meek while at the same time not being a wimp (my paraphrase) is a gift of grace. For most people, to keep their anger at injustice under the control of their reason (so that it doesn’t grow to rage) is a virtue. But for the Christian, we have the grace and therefore the responsibility to go way beyond mere self-control. We are commanded to love our enemies, pray for those who persecute us, hunger and thirst for justice, and not to get angry enough even to call someone names—above all, to love everyone whom Jesus loves, for the reason that Jesus loves them. Jesus, when faced with the greatest injustice in the history of the universe, his own crucifixion, didn’t get angry; to the contrary, he was meek “as a lamb led to the slaughter.” He was strong—he was omnipotent—and could have resisted the injustice with power and caused his enemies to relent and submit. But he revealed to us that to be meek and loving in the face of great wrongs is to be divine.

Racism is a sin, and Jesus conquers sin. It’s a sad fact that most of our thinking about race takes place in a left-wing, Marxist, atheistic context, in which a desire for power and an awareness of otherness crowd out Christian reflections on meekness and solidarity. It didn’t used to be this way. The Civil Rights movement was once led by Christians, most notably the Protestant Pastor Martin Luther King. It appealed to the Gospel to unify people of all races. As in so much of our life, so to with regard to race, it’s a struggle to think in Christian terms. When people only talk about justice, it’s a struggle to cultivate mercy. It’s a struggle to forgive those who have trespassed against us, or people like us. It’s easy to forget what we said above, that mercy is commanded of us.

For this reason, I highly recommend that we Catholics foster a desire for mercy, pray for mercy, and perform works of mercy as much as we can. June is the month devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a symbol of his suffering for us out of his merciful love—the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is Friday, June 19, a time when many people consecrate themselves to the Sacred Heart. Many people find that the Chaplet to Divine Mercy helps realign their hearts with Jesus’, so that they can regard people with his merciful eyes and love them with his merciful heart. Both devotions call attention to Jesus’ Passion, the steep price that he paid to conquer sin and division. We’ll find that we, too, have to pay a steep price to conquer the sin in our own hearts—that we cannot be casual or lazy about our own spiritual lives if we want to help the world to be better.

There are no spiritual shortcuts. To conquer racism requires a conversion to holiness, and a willingness to spread grace and charity to hardened hearts. Only through baptism into Christ’s Ascension can any fallen human being participate in the inner charity of the Trinity. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to transform our lives.

[claudinei-de-jesus]

God's nature

1- Biblical concept (the names of God)

Who is it, and what is God? The best definition is found in the Westminster Catechism: "God is Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchanging in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." The biblical definition can be formulated by studying the names of God. God's "name" in Scripture means more than a combination of sounds; represents his revealed character. God reveals himself by making himself known or by proclaiming his name. (Ex. 6: 3; 33:19; 34: 5, 6.)

To worship God is to call on his name (Gen. 12: 8); fearing him (Deut. 28:58); praise him (2 Sam. 22:50); glorify him (Ps. 86: 9); it is sacrilegious to take his name in vain. (Ex. 20: 7), or to profane or blaspheme him (Lev. 18:21; 24:16). To reverence God is to sanctify or bless his name (Matt. 6: 9). The name of the Lord defends his people (Ps. 20: 1), and for his name's sake he will not abandon them (1 Sam. 12:22). The following names of God are the most common that we find in Scripture:

(a) Elohim (translated "God".) This word is used whenever the creative power and omnipotence of God are described or implied. Elohim is the Creator-God. The plural form means the fullness of power and represents the trinity.

(b) Jehovah (translated "Lord" in the version of Almeida.) Elohim, the Creator-God, does not remain oblivious to his creatures. God observing the need among men, he came down to help and save them; in assuming this relationship, he reveals himself as Jehovah, the God of the Covenant. The name JEHOVAH has its origin in the verb SER and includes the three tenses of that verb - past, present and future. The name, therefore, means: He who was, who is, and who is to be; in other words, the Eternal. Since Jehovah is the God who reveals himself to man, the name means: I have manifested myself, I have manifested myself, and I will still manifest myself.

What God works for his people finds expression in his names, and when experiencing the people his grace, that people can then say: "know his name." The relationship between Jehovah and Israel is summed up in the use of the names found in the concerts between Jehovah and his people. To those who lie in beds of sickness he manifests himself as JEHOVAH-RAFA, "the Lord who heals" (Ex. 15:26). Those oppressed by the enemy invoke JEHOVAH-NISSI, "the Lord our flag" Exo. 17: 8-15). Caregivers learn that he is JEHOVAH-SHALOM, "the Lord our peace" (Jui. 6:24). Pilgrims on earth feel the need for JEHOVAH-RA'AH, "the Lord my shepherd" (Ps. 23: 1).

Those who feel under condemnation and in need of justification, hopefully call on JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU, "the Lord our righteousness" (Jer. 23: 6). Those who feel helpless learn that he is JEHOVAH-JIREH, "the Lord who provides" (Gen. 22:14). And when the kingdom of God has materialized on earth, it will be known as JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, "the Lord is there" (Ezek. 48:35).

(c) El (God) is used in certain combinations: EL-ELYON (Gen. 14: 18-20), the "Most High God", the God who is exalted over everything called god or gods. EL-SHADDAI, "the God who is sufficient for the needs of his people" (Ex. 6: 3). EL-OLAM, "the eternal God" (Gen. 21:33). (*)

(d) Adonai literally means "Lord" or "Master" and gives the idea of ​​government and dominion. (Ex. 23:17; Isa. 10:16, 33.) Because of what God is and what he has done, he demands the service and loyalty of his people. This name in the New Testament applies to the glorified Christ .

(e) Father, it is used in both the Old and New Testaments. In a broader meaning the name describes God as being the Source of all things and the Creator of man; so that, in the creative sense, everyone can be considered a generation of God. (Acts 17:28.) However, this relationship does not guarantee salvation. Only those who have been quickened and given new life by his Spirit are his children in the inner sense of salvation. (John 1:12, 13.)

2- Erroneous beliefs

There are other extra-biblical ideas about God. Of these, some originated in exaggerated truths. Some are disabled; others perverted or twisted. Why take the time to consider these ideas? Since it is very difficult to describe God's being perfectly, we can, knowing what he does not, come to a better understanding of what he really is.

(a) Agnosticism (an expression originating from two Greek words that mean "not to know") denies the human capacity to know God. "The finite mind cannot reach infinity", declares the agnostic. But the agnostic does not see that there is a big difference between knowing God in the absolute sense and knowing some things about God. We cannot understand God, that is, to know him fully and perfectly; but we can learn, that is, have a conception of your Person.

"We can know who God is, without knowing everything he is," writes D. S. Clarke. "We can touch the earth even though we cannot wrap our arms around it. A boy can know God while the philosopher cannot discover all the secrets of the Powerful Toddler." The Scriptures are based on the thought that it is possible to know God; on the other hand, they warn us that for now "we know in part". (See Exodus. 33:20; Joh 11:17; Rom. 11:33, 34; 1 Cor. 13: 9-12.)

(b) Polytheism (cult of many gods) was characteristic of ancient religions and is still practiced today in many pagan lands. It is based on the idea that the universe is governed, not by one force, but by many, so that there is a god of water, a god of fire, a god of mountains, a god of war, etc. This was the natural consequence of paganism, which deified finite objects and natural forces and "worshiped and served the creature before the Creator" (Rom. 1:25). Abraham was called to separate himself from paganism and to become a witness to the one true God; His call was the beginning of Israel's mission, which was to preach monotheism (the worship of one God), as opposed to the polytheism of neighboring nations.

(c) Pantheism (derived from two Greek words meaning "everything is God") is the system of thought that identifies God with the universe, trees and stones, birds, earth and water, reptiles and men - all are declared parts of God, and God lives and expresses himself through substances and forces as the soul expresses itself through the body. How did this system originate? What is written in Rom. 1: 20-23 unravels this mystery.

It may be that in the shadows of the past, the pagan philosophers, having lost sight of God and expelling him from their hearts, observed that it was necessary to find something that would fill their place, since man is always looking for an object of worship. To fill God's place, there must be something as big as God Himself. Having God withdrawn from the world, why not make God the world? In this way men reasoned and thus began the cult of mountains and trees, men and animals, and all the forces of nature.

At first glance, this worship of nature has a certain logical aspect, but it leads to an absurd conclusion. For if the tree, the flower and the star are God, then so must the worm, the microbe, the tiger and also the most vile sinner - an absolutely unreasonable conclusion. Pantheism confuses God with nature. But the truth is that the poem is not the poet, art is not the artist, music is not the musician, and creation is not the Creator. A beautiful Jewish tradition tells us how Abraham observed this distinction: When Abraham began to reflect on the nature of God, he first thought that the stars were deities because of their brightness and beauty. But when he realized that the moon exceeded them in brightness, he concluded then that the moon was divinity.

The moonlight, however, faded before the sunlight and this fact made him think that the latter was the Godhead. However, in the evening the sun also disappeared. "There must be something in the world greater than these constellations," thought Abraham. In this way, from the cult of nature, he rose to the cult of the God of nature. The Scriptures correct the perverted ideas of pantheism. In teaching that God is revealed through nature, they distinguish between God and nature.

Pantheists say that God is the universe; the Bible says that God created the universe. Where is pantheism professed today? First among some poets who attribute divinity to nature. Second, it is the basic philosophy of most religions in India, which quote it to justify idol worship. "Is not the tree, made of the image, a part of God?" they argue. Third, Christian Science is a form of pantheism because one of its foundations is: "God is everything and everything is God." Technically speaking, it is "idealistic" pantheism, because it teaches that everything is mind or "idea," and that, therefore, all matter lacks reality.

(d) Materialism denies any distinction between mind and matter; it states that all manifestations of life and mind and all forces are simply properties of matter. "Thought is secretion from the brain like bile is secretion from the liver"; "man is just a machine", are some of the materialists' favorite thoughts. "Man is simply an animal", they declare, thinking that with this they will be able to extinguish the generalized concept about the superiority of the human being and his divine destiny.

This theory is so absurd that it hardly deserves a refutation. However, in dozens of universities, in hundreds of novels, and in many other ways, the idea that man is an animal and a machine is discussed and accepted; that he has no responsibility for his actions and that there is no good or evil. To refute this error we will observe:

1) Our conscience tells us that we are something more than matter and that we are different from trees and stones. A gram of common sense in this case is worth more than a ton of philosophy. It is said that Daniel O'Connell, an Irish speaker, once met an old Irish woman, feared for her scathing language and blasphemous vocabulary. The speaker, at the meeting with the old woman, covered her with a verve of trigonometric terms: "You miserable rhomboid," he shouted, "you, unscrupulous hypotenuse! Everyone who knows her knows that you keep a parallelogram in your house", and so on he continued until he left the poor woman confused and perplexed. In the same way, modern philosophers would try to scare us with ostentatious words. But the error does not become true just because it is expressed in multisyllabic words.

2) Experience and observation show that life comes only from existing life and, therefore, the life that exists in this world had its cause in an identical life. There was never a case where life came from dead substance. A few years ago, certain scientific researchers concluded that they had achieved this phenomenon, but when the presence of microbes in the air was discovered, their theory fell to the ground!

3) The evidence of superior intelligence and design in the universe refutes blind materialism.

4) In the hypothesis that man is only a machine, even then the machine does not make itself. The machine did not produce the inventor, but the inventor created the machine. The evil of materialism lies in the fact that it destroys the foundations of morality. For if man were only a machine, then he would not be responsible for his actions. Consequently, we cannot treat the noble to the hero, nor the bad to the vile man, since he is not capable of acting otherwise.

Therefore, one man cannot condemn another, just as the circular saw cannot say to the guillotine: "How can you be so cruel?" What is the antidote to materialism? The antidote is the Gospel preached with the demonstration and power of the Spirit accompanied by signs. (e) Deism admits that there is a personal God, who created the world; but he insists that, after creation, God handed him over to be governed by natural laws. In other words, he wound the world up as if he were winding a watch and left it without any more care on his part.

That way there would be no revelation and no miracle. This system is sometimes called rationalism, because it elevates reason to the position of supreme guide in matters of religion; it is also described as a natural religion, as opposed to revealed religion. Such a system is refuted by the evidence of the inspiration of the Bible and the evidence of the works of God in history. The idea about God, propagated by the deist, is one-sided. The Scriptures teach two important truths concerning God's relationship to the world: first, his transcendence, which means his separation from the world and man and his exaltation over them. (Isa. 6: 1); second, its immanence, which means its presence in the world and its approach to man (Acts 17:28; Eph. 4: 6).

Deism stresses the first truth too much while pantheism makes the second too expensive. The Scriptures present the true and absolute idea: God, in fact, is separated from the world and above the world; on the other hand, he is in the world. He sent his Son to be with us, and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to be with us. In this way the doctrine of the Trinity avoids both extremes. to the question, "Is God separated from the world or is he in the world?" the Bible responds, "He is as separate from the world as he is in the world." ... A natureza de Deus

1- Conceito bíblico (os nomes de Deus)

Quem é, e que é Deus? A melhor definição é a que se encontra no Catecismo de Westminster: "Deus é Espírito, infinito, eterno e imutável em seu ser, sabedoria, poder, santidade, justiça, bondade e verdade." A definição bíblica pode formular-se pelo estudo dos nomes de Deus. O "nome" de Deus, nas Escrituras, significa mais do que uma combinação de filhos; representa seu caráter revelado. Deus revela-se a si mesmo fazendo-se conhecer ou proclama o seu nome. (Êxo. 6: 3; 33:19; 34: 5, 6.)

Adorar a Deus é invocar seu nome (Gên. 12: 8); temê-lo (Deuteronômio 28:58); louvá-lo (2 Sam. 22:50); glorificá-lo (Sal. 86: 9); é sacrilégio tomar seu nome em vão. (Êxo. 20: 7), ou profaná-lo ou blasfemá-lo (Lev. 18:21; 24:16). Reverenciar a Deus é santificar ou bendizer seu nome (Mat. 6: 9). O nome do Senhor defende o seu povo (Sal. 20: 1), e por amor do seu nome não os abandonará (1 Sam. 12:22). Os seguintes nomes de Deus são os mais comuns que encontramos nas Escrituras:

(a) Elohim (traduzido "Deus".) Esta palavra emprega-se sempre que sejam ou implícitos o poder criativo e a onipotência de Deus. Elohim é o Deus-Criador. A forma plural significa plenitude de poder e representa a trindade.

(b) Jeová (traduzido "Senhor" na versão de Almeida.) Elohim, o Deus-Criador, não permanece alheio às suas criaturas. Observando Deus a necessidade entre os homens, desceu para ajudá-los e salvá-los; ao assumir esta relação, ele revela-se a si mesmo como Jeová, o Deus da Aliança. O nome JEOVÁ tem sua origem no verbo SER e inclui os três tempos desse verbo - passado, presente e futuro. O nome, portanto significa: Ele que era, que é e que há de ser; em outras palavras, o Eterno. Visto que Jeová é o Deus que se revela a si mesmo ao homem, o nome significa: Eu me manifestei, me manifesto, e ainda me manifestarei.

O que Deus opera a favor de seu povo acha expressão nos seus nomes, e ao experimentar o povo a sua graça, desse povo então pode dizer-se: "conhece o seu nome." A relação entre Jeová e Israel resume-se no uso dos nomes encontrados nos concertos entre Jeová e seu povo. Aos que jazem em leitos de doença manifesta-se-lhes como JEOVÁ-RAFA, "o Senhor que cura" (Êxo. 15:26). Os oprimidos pelo inimigo invocam um JEOVÁ-NISSI, "o Senhor nossa bandeira" Êxo. 17: 8-15). Os carregados de cuidados aprendidos que ele é JEOVÁ-SHALOM, "o Senhor nossa paz" (Ju. 6:24). Os peregrinos na terra sentem a necessidade de JEOVÁ- RA'AH, "o Senhor meu pastor" (Sal. 23: 1).

Aqueles que sentem sob condenação e necessitados da justificação, esperançosamente invocam a JEOVÁ-TSIDKENU, "o Senhor nossa justiça" (Jer. 23: 6). Aqueles que sentem desamparados aprendem que ele é JEOVÁ- JIREH, "o Senhor que provê" (Gên. 22:14). E quando o reino de Deus se houver concretizado na terra, será ele conhecido como JEOVÁ-SHAMMAH, "o Senhor está ali" (Ezeq. 48:35).

(c) El (Deus) é usado em especificações: EL-ELYON (Gên. 14: 18-20), o "Deus altíssimo", o Deus que é exaltado sobre tudo o que se chama deus ou deuses. EL-SHADDAI, "o Deus que é necessário para as necessidades do seu povo" (Êxo. 6: 3). EL-OLAM, "o eterno Deus" (Gên. 21:33). (*)

(d) Adonai significa literalmente "Senhor" ou "Mestre" e dá a idéia de governo e domínio. (Êxo. 23:17; Isa. 10:16, 33.) Por causa do que Deus é e do que tem feito, ele exige o serviço e a lealdade do seu povo.Este nome no Novo Testamento aplica-se ao Cristo glorificado.

(e) Pai, emprega-se tanto no Antigo como no Novo Testamento. Em significado mais amplo o nome conhecimentos a Deus como sendo a Fonte de todas as coisas e Criador do homem; de maneira que, no sentido criativo, todos podem considerar-se geração de Deus. (Atos 17:28.) Todavia, esta relação não garante a salvação. Somente aqueles que foram vivificados e receberam nova vida pelo seu Espírito são seus filhos no sentido intimo da salvação. (João 1:12, 13.)

2- Crenças errôneas

Existem outras idéias extra-bíblicas acerca de Deus. Dessas, algumas originaram-se em verdades exageradas. Algumas são deficientes; outras pervertidas ou torcidas. Por que tomar o tempo para considerar essas idéias? Visto que é muito difícil descrever perfeitamente o que ele realmente é, podemos, sabendo o que ele não, chegar a uma melhor compreensão do que ele realmente é.

(a) O agnosticismo (expressão originada de duas palavras gregas que significam "não sabre") nega a capacidade humana de conhecer a Deus. “A mente finita não pode alcançar o infinito”, declara o agnóstico. Mas o agnóstico não vê que há grande diferença entre conhecer a Deus no sentido absoluto e conhecer algumas coisas sobre Deus. Não podemos compreender a Deus, isto é, conhecê-lo inteiramente e perfeitamente; mas podemos aprender, isto é, ter uma concepção da sua Pessoa.

"Podemos saber quem é Deus, sem saber tudo o que ele é", disse D. S. Clarke. "Podemos tocar a terra embora não conheçamos envolvê-la com os braços. Um menino pode conhecer a Deus enquanto o filósofo não pode descobrir todos os segredos do Todopoderoso." As Escrituras baseiam-se no pensamento de que é possível conhecer a Deus; por outra parte, elas nos avisam que por agora "conhecemos em parte". (Vide Êxo. 33:20; Jo 11:17; Rom. 11:33, 34; I Cor. 13: 9-12.)

(b) O politeísmo (culto de muitos deuses) era característico das religiões antigas e pratica-se ainda hoje em muitas terras pagãs. Baseia-se ele na idéia de que o universo é governado, não por uma força só, mas sim por muitas, de maneira que há um deus da água, um deus do fogo, um deus das montanhas, um deus da guerra, etc. Foi esta a consequência natural do paganismo, que endeusou os objetos finitos e as quadros naturais e "adoraram e serviram à criatura antes que o Criador" (Rom. 1:25). Abraão foi chamado a separar-se do paganismo e a tomar-se uma testemunha do único verdadeiro Deus; sua chamada foi o começo da missão de Israel, um pregar de qual era o monoteísmo (o culto a um só Deus), o contrário do politeísmo das nações vizinhas.

(c) O panteísmo (proveniente de duas palavras gregas que significam "tudo é Deus") é o sistema de pensamento que identifica Deus com o universo, árvores e pedras, pássaros, terra e água, répteis e homens - todos são declarados partes de Deus, e Deus vive e expressa-se a si mesmo através das massas e moldes como a alma se expressa do corpo. Como se originou esse sistema? O que está escrito em Rom. 1: 20-23 desvenda esse mistério.

Pode ser que na penumbra do passado dos filósofos pagãos, tendo perdido de vista a Deus e expulsando-o de seus corações, observados que era necessário achar alguma coisa que preenchido em seu lugar, visto que o homem procura sempre um objeto de culto. Para preencher o lugar de Deus, deve haver algo tão grande quanto o próprio Deus. Havendo Deus se retirado do mundo, por que então não fazer do mundo Deus? Desta maneira arrazoaram os homens e assim se iniciar o culto às montanhas e às árvores, aos homens e aos animais, e a todas as cortinas da natureza.

À primeira vista essa adoração da natureza tem certa feição lógica, mas leva a uma conclusão absurda. Pois se a árvore, a flor e a estrela são Deus, logo também o devem ser o verme, o micróbio, o tigre e também o mais vil pecador - uma conclusão absolutamente irrazoável. O panteísmo confunde Deus com a natureza. Mas a verdade é que o poema não é o poeta, a arte não é o artista, a música não é o músico, e a criação não é o Criador. Uma linda tradição judaica nos relata como Abraão observou essa distinção: Quando Abraão começou a refletir sobre a natureza de Deus, primeiramente que as estrelas criadas por causa de seu brilho e formosura. Mas quando engano que a lua as excedia em brilho, conclui então que a lua era divindade.

A luz da lua, porém, desvaneceu-se antes da luz do sol e este fato o fez pensar que este último era uma Divindade. No entanto, à noite o sol também desapareceu. "Deve existir algo no mundo maior do que estas constelações", proposta Abraão. Desta maneira, do culto à natureza, ele se elevou ao culto ao Deus da natureza. As Escrituras corrigem as idéias pervertidas do panteísmo. Ao usar que Deus é revelado por meio da natureza, fazem a distinção entre Deus e a natureza.

Os panteístas dizem que Deus é o universo; a Bíblia diz que Deus criou o universo. Onde se professa o panteísmo hoje? Primeiramente entre alguns poetas que atribuem divindade à natureza. Em segundo lugar, é a filosofia básica da maior parte das religiões da Índia, como quais a citam para justificar a adoração de ídolos. "Não será a árvore, da qual se fez a imagem, uma parte de Deus?" argumentam eles. Em terceiro lugar, a Ciência Cristã é uma forma de panteísmo porque um dos seus fundamentos é: "Deus é tudo e tudo é Deus." Tecnicamente falando, é panteísmo "idealista", porque ensina que tudo é mente ou "idéia," e que, por conseqüência, a toda matéria falta realidade.

d) O materialismo nega qualquer distinção entre a mente e a matéria; afirma que todas as manifestações da vida e da mente e todas as responsabilidades são simplesmente propriedade da matéria. "O pensamento é secreção do cérebro como a bílis é secreção do fígado"; "o homem é apenas uma máquina", são alguns dos pensamentos prediletos dos materialistas. "O homem é simplesmente um animal", declara eles, pensando que com isto é extinguir o conceito generalizado acerca da superioridade do ser humano e do seu destino divino.

Essa teoria é tão absurda que quase não merece refutação. No entanto, em dezenas de universidades, em centenas de novelas, e de muitos outros modos, discute-se e aceita-se a idéia de que o homem é animal e máquina; que não tem responsabilidade por seus atos e que não existe o bem nem o mal. Para refutar esse erro vamos observar:

1) A nossa consciência nos afirma que somos algo mais do que matéria e que somos diferentes das árvores e das pedras. Um grama de bom senso neste caso vale mais que uma tonelada de filosofia. Conta-se que Daniel O'Connell, orador irlandês, certa vez se encontrou com uma velha irlandesa, temida por sua linguagem causticante e seu vocabulário blasfemo. O orador, no encontro com a velha, cobriu-a com verdadeira salva de termos trigonométricos: "Você miserável rombóide", gritou ele, "você, hipotenusa sem escrúpulo! Todos que a conhecem sabem que você guarda um paralelogramo em sua casa", e assim por diante continuado ele até que deixa a pobre mulher confusa e perplexa. Da maneira mesma os filósofos modernos tentariam assustar-nos com palavras ostentosas. Mas o erro não se transforma em verdade somente porque se expressa em palavras multissilábicas.

2) A experiência e a observação demonstram que a vida procede unicamente de vida já existente e, por conseqüência, a vida que existe neste mundo teve sua causa em vida idêntica. Nunca se deu um caso em que a vida procedesse de substância morta. Há alguns anos, certos cientistas cientistas concluíram que conseguido esse fenômeno, mas ao ser descoberta a presença de micróbios no ar, a sua teoria caiu pela terra!

3) A evidência de uma inteligência superior e desígnio no universo refutam o materialismo cego.

4) Na mesma hipótese de que o homem seja apenas máquina, mesmo assim a máquina não se faz por si. A máquina não produziu o inventor, mas o inventor criou a máquina. O mal do materialismo não está no fato de que destrói os fundamentos da moralidade. Pois se o homem fosse apenas máquina, então não seria responsável por seus atos. Conseqüentemente, não podemos tratar de nobre ao herói, nem de mau ao homem, pois não é capaz de agir de outra maneira.

Portanto, um homem não pode condenar outro, como a serra circular não pode dizer à guilhotina: "Como você pode ser tão cruel?" Qual é o antídoto para o materialismo? O antídoto é o Evangelho pregado com demonstração e poder do Espírito Acompanhado dos sinais. (e) O deísmo admite que haja um Deus pessoal, que criou o mundo; mas insiste em que, depois da criação, Deus o entregou para ser governado pelas leis naturais. Em outras palavras, ele deu corda ao mundo como quem dá corda a um relógio e o deixado sem mais cuidado da sua parte.

Dessa maneira não seria possível haver nenhuma revelação e nenhum milagre. Esse sistema, às vezes, chama-se racionalismo, porque eleva a razão à posição de supremo guia em assuntos de religião; também se aulas como religião natural, como oposta à religião revelada. Tal sistema é refutado pelas evidências da inspiração da Bíblia e como evidências das obras de Deus na história. A idéia acerca de Deus, propagada pelo deísta, é unilateral. As Escrituras ensinam duas verdades importantes concernentes à relação de Deus para com o mundo: primeira, sua transcendência, que significa sua separação do mundo e do homem e sua exaltação sobre eles. (Isaías 6: 1); segunda, sua imanência, que significa sua presença no mundo e sua aproximação do homem (Atos 17:28; Efé. 4: 6).

O deísmo acentua demais a primeira verdade enquanto o panteísmo encarece demais a segunda. As Escrituras apresentam a idéia verdadeira e absoluta: Deus, de fato, está separado do mundo e acima do mundo; por outro lado, ele está no mundo. Ele adicionou seu Filho para estar conosco, e o Filho adicionou o Espírito Santo para estar em nós. Desta maneira a doutrina da Trindade evita os dois extremos. à pergunta, "Está Deus separado do mundo ou está no mundo?" a Bíblia responde: "Ele está tanto separado do mundo como também está no mundo."

[ravenmorganleigh]

Their racism isn’t always intentional. Sometimes it is a byproduct of privilege, sometimes it is a deflection, and sometimes it is caused by the vapid, shallow inability to care about or understand anything that they don’t agree with because they are the majority.

The population of not-racists is steadily growing. Not-racists voted for Donald Trump. Not-racists say that kneeling for the flag means you want to slit the throats of veterans. Not-racists believe in Blue Lives, White Jesus and black-on-black crime. So we decided to do a countdown of the 10 most popular phrases so that you can easily identify not-racists, or play a game of not-racist bingo in your spare time:

10. “Why must everything have to be about race?”

One of the most used ideas in the not-racist handbook is that talking about race creates divisiveness. The theory rests on the premise that the more people point out racism, the more ... umm ... I really don’t know how the second part works.

The truth is that talking about race makes white people uncomfortable because it reminds them of the filthy history of white supremacy. That’s why Texas schoolbooks referred to slaves as “immigrants,” and Confederate-flag-wavers have twisted the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history into something about states’ rights, tradition and the North’s hatred of sweet tea ... and declaring human beings to be personal property.

And I get it; it is very uncomfortable for white people to hear about the atrocities of racism knowing that their people are complicit in centuries of mistreatment. It would give me the heebie-jeebies, too. It’s like cheating on a woman, confessing and then wondering why she’s always bringing up old shit when you come home late.

But the only way America will ever cure the cancer of white supremacy is by talking about it and treating it as if it were a disease. If you found a tumor in your left lung and your doctor brought it up every time you lit a cigarette, it would be stupid to respond with, “Why does everything have to be about lung cancer?”

It’s killing you, man. It’s killing you.

9. “I dated a black guy/girl ... ”

A few days ago I received a message from a not-racist woman who genuinely wanted to know why I used the phrase “white people” (and its more hilarious cousin, “wypipo”). I patiently replied to her (I don’t always clap back, but when I do, it’s in the mailbag), and she wrote back that she understood. She explained that she wasn’t racist because her ex-husband was black and she had half-black children. Which left me wondering:

Who are these black men and women dating these clueless white people and leaving them as unwoke as they found them?

You gon’ let her raise your kids, bruh? For real?

Who told wypipo that when a black penis enters a white vagina (or vice versa), the orgasm gives them a special immunity to being a bigot?

If so, where does it go? (The racism, not the penis, stupid.)

Instead of the March on Washington or the Montgomery Bus Boycott, should we have just marched around the country having orgies?

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

8. “I don’t see color.”

Do you stop at green lights? How do you play checkers, then? Not-racists will actually try to convince you that they don’t care about race and that erasing the concept of race from our minds is a self-righteous, egalitarian attribute.

Bullshit.

Here is the thing: The idea of a post-racial society is really the desire for a white society. Even nonracist Caucasians don’t mind this because they don’t understand that whiteness has surpassed the classification of a racial category in America and has become the default.

Black people want to be treated like everyone else. We don’t desire to be seen as everyone else. Most African Americans, Mexicans, Jews, etc., love their race and their culture. It is a large part of who we are. We don’t care that you see our color. We just want you to respect it.

Also, how do you play Uno?

7. “You’re the racist!”

In the September 2013 global quarterly Not-Racists, the executive board decided to introduce a clever bit of trickery into the racial discussion in America. According to the memo obtained by The Root, Caucasians were instructed to respond to any claims of racism, no matter how subtle, with the charge that black people were the racist ones. Since then, according to a poll never conducted by Pew Research, claims of reverse racism have risen more than 389 percent.

I’m not one of those people who believe black people can’t be racist, because I, too, felt racism creep into my heart once when a Caucasian co-worker offered me leftover potato salad. Even though black-on-white racism technically exists, it is rarely injurious.

Because—feeling butt-hurt is not a medical symptom.

6. “I grew up around black people.”

There are people who grew up in the “inner city” or played Pop Warner football on the Negro side of town who believe that they can’t be racist. According to them, growing up around black people—along with Mandingo penis and black vagina—completes the Holy Trinity of racism cures.

When asked why the white boys raised on slave plantations; the millennials who went to integrated schools but carried tiki torches in Charlottesville, Va.; and Darren Wilson, who worked his entire career as a police officer in a majority-black town before he shot Michael Brown Jr., still had remnants of racism in their bloodstreams, white people collectively paused, gazed at their flip-flops for a few brief seconds and replied, “Why does everything have to be about race?”

5. “Not all white people ... ”

Nothing upsets the #NotRacist stomach more than hearing the phrase “white people” used in any capacity. Only the term “white privilege” causes more consternation.

That same woman who wrote the letter I mentioned earlier said this:

First & foremost, many of us “white people” could careless what racial label you bestow upon us because at the end of the day the same loving GOD that created white skin created dark skin ... Why does there have to be a label? Why must we classify as a “color”? When we are all God’s master piece? No one runs from what the classification of one’s skin color reminds them of! What happened years ago is embarrassing. It’s hurtful! And morally disturbing. I am fortunate, my family did not participate in the barbaric behaviors as other whites. And God help our soul had we ever considered using a racial slur at another person! No my family was not and is not perfect but sir not all of us were mentally disturbed. And that is what someone has to be in order to hold another against their will in captivity. And sir, why would you want to write such things that fuel the hatred? Why would you assume that ALL whites fit into one general spectrum? If this is so, does this mean that because you are black sir that you are a gang banger? Do you see the issue here sir? ”

Although this is one of the most interesting uses of the “not all white people” variations, it raises an interesting point: I have a friend who is black and owns a Tesla. When she hears a mechanic advise people to change their oil every 3,000 miles, she doesn’t say, “Not all cars!” My friend is intelligent enough to know that the mechanic is referring to most cars or the typical car. Nothing in this world is 100 percent. Somewhere there exists a cat who likes having mice around, but for the most part ...

People who object to the word combination “white people” do so only because they aren’t used to being stereotyped. When the letter writer considered every black stereotype and decided to ask if I was a gangbanger, it did not bother me. You know why?

Because I am not a gangbanger.

I am also accustomed to living with the knowledge that my skin engenders certain thoughts about who I am. She does not have to navigate a world that presupposes her psyche on a day-to-day basis.

And that, dear reader, is called “white privilege.”

4. “Go back to Africa!”

Not-racists believe that America belongs to them and that whiteness endows them with the power to excommunicate the offenders of their country at will. This, too, is white privilege.

White privilege is believing that you have the right to tell anyone to leave the country they built with their own hands, for free. White privilege is believing that America is in decline and can be made great again only by a billionaire trust fund baby, but simultaneously saying that black football players have no right to criticize America because it made them rich. White privilege is the belief that this country is yours, and anyone who doesn’t like it should kick rocks. White privilege is the belief that kneeling is cause for being called anti-American, but not the actual, unconstitutional mistreatment of Americans.

That’s why I’m proposing that whenever we hear anyone complain about big government, high taxes, Black Lives Matter, traffic, not enough pineapples on their pizza or ask whether something is gluten-free, black people should cup their hands around their mouths and bellow into the world:

“Go back to Caucasia!”

3. “Why must you always be the victim?”

Another not-racist premise posits that when black people play the “race card,” they are blaming the failures of black people on racism. According to them, we want to make white people the villains and ourselves the victims.

They are partially correct. Black people kill too many other black people. The black family structure is falling apart. Blacks should focus more on education. Those things will help black people immensely.

But if black people did all those things and ignored the fact that a black college graduate is more likely than a white high school grad to be unemployed, and on average earns less than one; or that schools with majority-black students receive less funds than white schools with the same tax and income bases; or ignored mass incarceration, sentence inequality, the drug war, the history of redlining, banks giving blacks higher interest rates, disproportionate police brutality ...

... that would be stupid.

It’s like asking someone who was sexually abused to never talk about it or even to keep quiet when the cops ask about it because it turns the survivor into a victim.

We are the victims ... of racism.

2. “I don’t want to sound racist, but ... ”

I have been told, on numerous occasions, to never consider anything after “but.” The oldest sleight of hand in the book of racism magic is to proclaim oneself “not racist.” It is a wondrous trick that never works.

It’s akin to R. Kelly opening up a day care center and using the motto, “I’m not a pedophile, but I’d love to babysit your kids!”

Also, whenever anyone says they “don’t want to sound racist,” brace yourself. Because they are definitely about to say some racist shit.

1. “Make America great again.”

I can’t even ...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Harriot

Michael Harriot is a staff writer at The Root, host of "The Black One" podcast and editor-in-chief of the daily digital magazine NegusWhoRead.

[outrageousloveinc]

LOVE AND JOY, COMPASSION AND SERENITY:

The Way of the Christ and the Way of the Buddha

Deep within your mysterious and bottomless heartmind, there dwells a being of immense love, enormous peace, and limitless joy. this has obtained many names throughout history: the higher Self, Holy Spirit, the soul in grace, the redeemed or regenerated soul, the Love-spirit, the Christ-spirit, the higher nature, the "kingdom within." In Buddhism, this concept is called the "Buddha nature." In spiritual psychology, this perfect core of existence is called the "superconscious," and is a part of the unconscious mind. It is the deepest level of the unconscious, or "God within." In the ancient Christian texts it was called "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Thus, the "superconscious" is also the "Christ-nature."

Its nucleus is universal unconditional love. Thus, Buddhism shares with Christianity the mystical teaching of a higher nature, or "spirit" that exists within the mind. Both also agree that its major constituent is love -- agape in the Christian Greek texts, or "love," and karuna in the ancient Buddhist Sanskrit texts, or "compassion."

In many ancient cultures, the word "spirit" actually meant life itself, or the vital principle of life. This was usually seen as nurturing, and hence, appeared in a feminine form. Thus, many "goddess" traditions are the richest in love-based forms of spirituality. "Spirit" was both the giver and the sustainer of life. It was presented in two forms: an invisible force or energy, and what we today would call a "state" of Mind.

Unfortunately, many lost sight of these important ideas, and began to collect mere concepts, which they defined as "truth." In some ancient cultures, however, the word "truth' was more realistically defined simply as "reality". It was only after the evolution of complex religious, metaphysical, and intellectual systems that "truth" came to be defined as a set of concepts. Paradoxically, by embracing this diluted and deluded definition of "truth", the great truths of existence were often lost in the fray and confusion. Each sect, denomination or religion claimed an absolute and exclusive monopoly on "truth.". This not only prevented dialog, but precipitated the most horrible cruelties, evil, torture, and murder. For what one believed was the only important factor; how one behaved was irrelevant to "truth."

This was the opposite of Jesus' actual teaching, which elevated Love to a supreme place. Early Christians recognized that Jesus was, to use the words of Peter in the Christian Greek Scriptures, "a model, for you to follow his footsteps closely." Jesus was a highly developed, deeply spiritual, and enlightened man, who served as a prototype for others to imitate. He did not say, "Worship me," but, "Follow me." He was sincerely to be emulated by all who would follow his Way. Only those who sought to live as he lived could truly be known as his "followers." He identified the mark of his true disciples when he said, "This is the way that people will know that you are truly following me: You will have love among yourselves."

The difference between Jesus and others was not a difference in kind, but only in degree. He was not a "freak," a "one-of-a-kind" being; while he was a son of God, he said that all who followed him would also become sons and daughters of God. So, he was not a different order of being than are other people; he simply knew God to a greater and more personal degree than did others. He became a perfect mirror of Love, an incarnation of the Love-principle, of God.

The Buddha suffered the same fate; after his death, he was deified, and people forgot that he was a true man. Later church councils declared that Jesus was "true God and true man," in the great ineffable "mystery" of the Trinity. But the Trinity is actually no mystery if we understand that God and Jesus are not two separate persons. (The Latin persona means "mask.") Jesus became God after a mystical illumination in which he awakened to the fact that he was an incarnation of perfect Love. The Buddha, and many others in history, have had similar enlightenments.

About three centuries after Jesus' death, the church evolved into a political and economic empire. Its leaders then pronounced the teaching that Jesus was a model to be "heretical." Why? Because they wanted to cultivate an unhealthy dependence on the church's leaders, and so it became "evil" and "dangerous"for anyone to strive to know God personally--outside of the church.

By fostering the lie that "truth" consisted of church-approved dogmas, the leaders compelled people to support a church that had grown spiritually bankrupt. But unlike this later conformist religion, the early church of Christians resonated with a varied diversity of spiritual ideas, and was anything but homogeneous.

In time, however, only ideas approved by a group of often corrupt and ignorant men called the "church fathers," or "patriarchs," became acceptable. These deluded men went so far as to select some books for inclusion in the official Bible, and to reject others. One of the rejected works was the very ancient and profound Gospel of Thomas. Why? "Thomas" means "twin," and the book implied that it was the assignment of every Christian to work to become the "twin" or duplicate of Jesus Christ. This was considered by later church-approved men to be damnable falsehood.

One of the best ways to imitate Jesus is to remain as widely open-minded as possible. Thus, the wisest people on earth are not bound by something simply because it is written in some ancient book. Instead, they have made the Spirit of love in their hearts their one master, and one cannot serve two masters. Thus, the wise draw good ideas from every positive spiritual faith, including all the world's great major religions. What is not reasonable or in harmony with the highest love, they simply discard. But all that is both reasonable and resonates with love, they accept, whether it is labelled "Buddhist," "Christian," or something else. For they have given up all bigotry.

Someday, most of the planetary population will view things in this tolerant, open-hearted, loving, compassionate pattern. For if ever we are to enjoy a unified global community, it must begin with a common global spirituality; and no spiritual principle is more universal than that of love. And until our world finds the common sense to create peace among the great religiospiritual traditions, it will never know peace at all. For this to occur, all ideas that any particular religion has a "monopoly" on the truth must pass away. Historically, this narrow-minded view has bound people in relentless and merciless slavery to cruelty, violence, and stupidity.

The deep truths of existence are not found simply by accumulating mass quantities of data from old books. Instead, they are discovered in the heart by cultivating an interior stillness from which vantage one can examine the mind and the world-- deep meditation. This is what Western mystics call the "interior prayer of silence." It can lead to true spiritual metamorphosis, but this practice comes only when one realizes that inner silence is absolutely necessary.

Interior awakening aids one to see that everyone is a victim-- even those who appear to be perpetuating evil. This is, in fact, the strongest basis for "Christian "forgiveness. Since this fine quality, an aspect of love, has been so lacking in history, it can be seen that "Christianity", as a political and economic institution, has had nothing to do with spirituality. It has almost never reflected the teaching of the simple love-based Jesus. For the official "Christian" church has never been the collective body of Jesus' followers, for only those who have loved consistently can be said to have been the followers of Christ. Even those who call themselves "Buddhists," "Hindus," or even "atheists, but who demonstrate love, are closer to Christ than many self-styled "Christians."" For whenever love is expressed,the spirit of Christ lives and God comes into our world.

To love, we must be ready and eager to communicate with those of other faiths. Dialog is not a matter of giving up one's beliefs, but of learning to respect those of others. It is not accession or assimilation, but communication, based on self-love and other-centeredness. Only the secure can dialog effectively.

In Buddhism, there are two interwoven concepts that make dialoging with wisdom possible. One is stillness, the other mindfulness. Stillness is quietness or silence in the inner mind, often an act of great humility that does not seek to display itself, defend itself, or prove itself "right." Mindfulness is being fully aware of one's words, thoughts, and activities, lost neither in the past nor in the future, but fully present in every moment. This kind of centering, involving stillness and mindfulness, can be very healing.

In the ultimate analysis, nothing is more healing (wholing) than touching the interior fountain of love. Deep understanding arises from a direct knowing of love.

In loving, people must also love now. That is, we must stop planning and postponing, and begin to live right now; the old saying has it that life is what happens when we are making plans!

Mindfulness involves planning, but does not take the plans as set in concrete; instead, it is more realistic and elastic, and includes evaluation examination, and monitoring the self, without judgment. It also implies an attitude of gratitude; the word "grateful" shares a root with "graceful," and hence means "filled with grace." Grace is a state of stainless forgiveness that originates from the deepest inner Mind or spirit. It also involves the embracing of all living beings into one's own personal field of forgiveness. While Buddhism does not emphasize gratitude to some "big daddy in the sky," it does fully recommend a full cultivation of gratitude towards all living and sentient beings. Again, serving others is the only viable way to serve God. For the entire world is seen as a reflection of the deep interior Mind of God. Jesus pointed out that God, acting through nature, provides both sun and rain for both the good and evil; we must also cultivate such non-judgmental compassion towards all.

And everyone, without exception, requires much tolerance and forgiveness. This applies even to teachers of spirituality. For example, a Buddhist teacher named Tic Nat Han repeats the erroneous assumption that "Christianity is a kind of continuation of Judaism." While this assumption is all but universal, it reflects a deep misunderstanding of the mystical nature of Christianity, especially as contrasted with the legalism of early Judaism. While both religious faiths are fine, and not to be compared as to eternal value, it is a historical and true fact that Christianity does not represent any evolutionary development from Judaism. Christianity appears on the scene of the world as an entirely new phenomenon, the result of one man's direct mystical communion with the Mind of love. So, while geographically and culturally, Christianity grew up in a Jewish environment, spiritually it was a brand-new perspective-- so radical, in fact, that it terribly upset the followers and advocates of early legalism among the Jewish scholars and elders. Thus, if you had told a first-century Jew or Christian that Christianity was a natural out-growth of Judaism, she would have very strongly disagreed.

This is, in fact, the common and popular teaching that has hopelessly confused so many lives, and ruined or wasted many others. For its natural implication is that the war-god of the ancient Hebrew culture, Jehovah, was the same God of peace, love, and forgiveness taught by Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Further, the God of love is internal, while Jehovah was always completely external and transcendental. This is beautifully expressed in the Eucharist or Communion; for when one eats of the bread and drinks of the wine, these foods become inextricably, irreversibly fused with one's very biology. In the same way, the Christ-spirit of love does not simply interact with the transformed being; the Christ actually becomes that person, even as bread and wine become the body. In its highest fulfillment, the mystical words of the Greek Scriptures say it well: "It is no longer I, but Christ in me, who lives." Christ, the interior Love-nature, is "absorbed" or assimilated into one's most intimate mind-structure, fused with the very being of the individual. Thus, Communion is truly a mystical celebration of oneness.

LIVING "IN CHRIST," WITH "CHRIST WITHIN ME." To understand this Christian concept, it is necessary to distinguish between the person of the historical man Jesus and the infinite, everlasting spirit, Christ, of which he became the fullest manifestation and incarnation. There was an ancient Christian group called the Nestorians, who were careful to distinguish between Jesus the man and Christ the inner spirit of love, but they were later declared to be heretical by a corrupt church.

The distinction, however, is not only still valuable, but is crucial. The study of the historicity of Jesus might constitute an artscience called "Jesusology," but spirituality is clearly much more than that. "Christology," at its highest, is a study of the deep unconscious Love-spirit that lives within the soul of every person. An analog to "Jesusology" in Buddhism is "Buddhaology, "the study of the historical life of Gautama Siddhartha, known as "the Buddha." But he is never recognized as the only "Buddha" in the cosmos.

For Buddhism teaches that there are many "Buddhas." Everyone who is enlightened and tries to follow the interior light of compassion can be a "Buddha." For the most real Buddhist teaching is the knowing of the Buddha within--not the worship of an external Buddha. This explains the famous Zen saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." For the true "Buddha" can never exist outside yourself, or "on the road." Similarly, the deepest and wisest Christian comes to know the "Christ within," not just the historical Jesus, the perfect mirror of Christ.

For "Christ" was not the last name of Jesus, and "Buddha" was not the surname of Gautama. Instead, both words are titles that refer to an extremely high level of spiritual development. Both terms refer to the indwelling Holy Spirit or Love-nature. Still, Jesus did not teach that he was the only "son of God," but in fact, that everyone who followed him was a son or daughter of God.

Buddhists admit openly that they all seek to become Buddhas; why,then, do Christians think it such an awful blasphemy to say that they too want to become Christs? If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of praise, what is wrong with making Jesus a role-model instead of distancing him as a god?

Here, both the Buddha and the Christ have suffered similar fates: Both titles historically became associated with particular persons; those persons were then deified, so that others worshiped them. It is fine to worship the everlasting spirit that indwelled Jesus or the Buddha, that is, the Love-spirit of universal Mind. But worshiping the human forms is only idolatry, missing the entire point.

If one does project the divine nature onto another, then one does not have to take the responsibility, or go to all the trouble and hard work, of manifesting the Love-nature in one's own life. Then both great faiths tragically become reduced to legalisms, monopolies, cruel and vicious exclusivities.

But if these faiths are worth anything, it must be realized that both represent exciting, living, practical faiths that actually call for changes in behaviors and attitudes, for aligning oneself with the very highest principles of integrity, honesty, compassion, and love. They both call for goodness, kindness, courtesy, and friendliness; and those who do not meet these elevated standards have not fully lived out the best in faith. The very best in both great faiths is manifested not by beliefs, but by behaviors.

Seen this way, the Buddha and the Christ are both models or teachers, not merely gods. They are brothers both to each other and to all people. Jesus was both man, or fully human, and God, or fully divine. This does not represent an "ineffable mystery of the Trinity," for, if God is not seen as a separate person, the mystery disappears. For Jesus was the truest incarnation of Love, which was God.

Buddhism, although non-theological, recognizes the same great truths. It speaks of the great value, for example, of understanding (Sanskrit, prajna) and love (maitri). As we use these two qualities every day, we come to realize that we are all of the same essence and potential as Jesus or the Buddha; only they were light-years ahead of the average. This implies the great truth that neither was a "freak" or a one-of-a-kind manifestation of God or Love. Thus, to follow either is to find meaningful, practical ways to attempt to lessen the suffering in the world, to give aid and comfort to living creatures. this is to live in wellness. Ideally, one can maximize one's spirituality by an honest attempt to follow both great teachers.

In a telling and symbolic parable, a man went eagerly to visit the Buddha, but was in such a hurry and rush that he neglected a woman in direst need; when he arrived, the Buddha was invisible to his sight. If we are unkind, we are also unable to "see" God or Love in our lives. So, when we neglect or abuse our sisters and brothers, we are clearly not "seeing" or understanding the indwelling spirit of compassion; and that is the very worst of all ways to be blind.

It is precisely because this kind of compassion is the Way itself that to be "hung up" on, or to cling to, any belief to the exclusion or harm of others is to miss the joyful presence of either the Christ or the Buddha.

When Jesus uttered the words, "I am the Way, and no one comes to the father except through Me, "he was in no way contradicting the principle that Love is the Way. For these words can be seen as the Christ-spirit, which is everlasting and dwells in the heart of every person, speaking through the man Jesus. And if that same "Christ-spirit" is called in other cultures the "Buddha-nature, "that is just a matter of words-- no cause for divisions between reasonable, spiritual grown-ups.

Thus, the main agenda and objective of life is love, symbolized and personified in Buddhism by Maitreya Buddha. It expresses practically not only in the way we feel about each other, but even more in service.

COMMUNITY arises from the same root as "communion," and implies that any honorable work can serve the community as a whole and thus act as a kind of holy activity, or karma yoga. Thus, mystics are fully engaged in every form and level of good work within productive society, from teaching to medical practice. Some are house-keepers, others factory-workers. "The illuminated being wears rough and ordinary clothing," said Lao Tzu, "but within, she carries the great jewel." Deep meditative states, realizations, and profound spirituality express themselves most often through "ordinary" work. The true sage is marked by the quality of "extraordinary ordinariness," to borrow from Alan Watts.

All people have come to earth to find and to express God or perfect love. To do this, one must somehow set aside the time to become a "lay monk," or "lay nun," which means simply taking time out for meditation and good, selfless works. It is high time that we transform every home, and every community, into a holy temple of Love. In fact, anyone who lives for joy, wisdom, insight, healing, and positive transformation lives for the entire planet, and helps everyone. Thus, there is real "salvation" and "enlightenment" well outside the bounds of organized, orthodox, or traditional religion. The ultimate "Christian community, "the true "body of Christ," involves all beings committed to love everywhere, in every culture and every faith. On the other hand, the most religious person without union with the inner Love-nature, accomplishes nothing. Thus, the enlightened and compassionate being recognizes all sentient beings as his or her brothers and sisters.

The illuminated being loves not only people of other faiths, but all sentient (self-aware) creatures, and shows respect for all life. Thus, the Way is to do everything permitted by your gifts and talents, according to your personal capacities, to aid and assist other beings. To borrow from Paul, just as an eye cannot do the job of an ear, so in the "body of Christ," each acts according to her talents, gifts, and capacities-- not the same for everyone. Still, they all work together to serve the same "body" of humanity.

People who operate spiritually outside of organized or traditional religion are by no means "lost," if they are living by the Way of love; on the other hand, if a formal church lacks love, there is no true faith there, no holy spirit.

Some teachers do not recognize this crucial independence as the individual moves toward God. Again, the Buddhist teacher Tic Nat Han repeats this common error when he writes," Without a sangha (community), you will be lost." One is never lost when God has found one, when the heart is filled with love.

Thus, life's ultimate solution is not, as this might suggest, the establishment of another organized community, church, or cult; the solution is living individually in harmony with the highest love-pattern that we can come to know. Again, the same teacher writes, "The father, son, and holy spirit need the church in order to be manifested." From the liberationist perspective of free and personal mysticism, nothing could be further from the truth. God does not need the church, but needs only committed, honorable persons interested in serving and helping others. Just as individual birds and flowers manifest the beauty of God, so can individual people, without need for organization, administration, politics, economics,and the burden of a thousand other complexities.

Surprisingly, this same writer asserts," The church is the mystical body of Christ." As already noted, however, the "body" of unification with the Christ-nature is by no means limited to the Christian church, or to any other "church" as that term is commonly defined. The "body" is the totality of beings who have willingly turned over their lives to the service of Love-- whether they belong to any "church" or not.

Those who truly belong to this body of love, this communion of love, are only too happy to dialog with others; they are also the ones actively, consistently engaged in helping and serving the poor and disadvantaged of society. They insist that the suffering, depressed, and ill have equal rights, and that women's rights are equal with those of men. While they might not live in actual poverty, they do live lives of simplicity or non-greed.

They also take an unbending stand for the preservation of the ecological resources of the earth, and against any form of offensive violence. (Many accept defensive violence, but only when there is no alternative.) Being at peace with their own heartminds, they work effectively for peace among others. They often meditate, but do not abuse meditation as a kind of "drug" to make them oblivious, but as a motivator for the expression of social compassion.

They have seen the secret that, before nations can change, hearts must change; and before conflict between people can end, inner conflict must end. To love your enemies, you must first have compassion for them; so, you must try to understand them, to "walk a mile in their moccasins." Seeing them as suffering beings allows compassion to blossom in the heart. Loving your "enemy" neutralizes, cancels, and evaporates the entire concept of "enemy." While another might insist on being your enemy, you will no longer be his or hers. That is a hurtful "game" that you no longer "play."

So, mystics try to make peace everywhere. But does this mean that a mystic must always be totally neutral, that he or she never has any opinions? Of course not; mystics have very often sided historically with the poor and oppressed, crying out for justice, although Tic Nat Han, in his book, makes it clear that, for his own reasons, he will not do so. But the mystic never lives her life so as to avoid offending powerful people; instead, she lives honestly by the direction of conscience and justice, even when that disturbs the rich and powerful. She does not make excuses for them, or justify greed.

When conscience guides one towards non-violence, then, it must be realized that this is different from inactivity, passivity, indifference, or non-action.

The very deepest challenge of the mystic is one of action-- forgiving others, and creating a life of peace. But what if you simply cannot forgive? No one can forgive by an act of will; instead, try truly to understand the one who has harmed you, and that understanding can make your heart ready for the blossoming of forgiveness. See the "bad" person as suffering, and wanting only happiness. That will help to clear your heartmind.

*******

For more information, see Living Buddha, Living Christ, by Tic Nat Han (New York; Putnam, 1995)

[zaraehedderman-blog]

Interview: Loah & Behold - Catching Up With Sallay Matu Garnett

Sallay Matu Garnett has been steadily honing her musical style as Loah, over the last five years. During this time she has collaborated extensively with some of Ireland’s prominent musical figures such as Hozier, Glen Hansard and Bantum. Quickly, critics and audiences became increasingly interested in the music she was writing and releasing as a solo artist. Garnett’s music is informed and inspired an eclectic mix of genres that she was exposed to growing up in both Sierre Leone and Ireland. Where there are traces of traditional West African harmonies you can also hear Western influences throughout her repertoire. Such diversity is what makes Loah such an interesting musician because there is no one defining sound that pins her creativity.

Earlier this month, Loah shared her debut EP entitled This Heart, five songs centred on the female experience set to soulful arrangements. Zara Hedderman spoke to her about finding her identity as an artist, the prospect of an album and the collaborative process of making music.

You grew up between Maynooth and Sierra Leone, how have both these, very different, cultures impacted upon your approach to both the composition of melody and lyrical content of your songs?

Essentially I was exposed to everything someone who’d grow up in Maynooth would be; rock, trad and singer-songwriters and, of course, pop and rap megastars that are popular everywhere. I would have listened to a lot of West African and Caribbean music in West Africa that wasn’t being played on our shore, at all. Although when I moved home in my teens my friend found a reggae dancehall night in Temple Bar Music centre that used to play Beenie Man! Needless to say, I was delighted. How this relates back to my process of making music can be traced to the references I make to the harmonies and sounds that I grew up listening to in my tunes and when I choose to use the languages I grew up with. Also, my mum is extremely passionate about music so I grew up in a household where everything was played.

I saw a description of Loah as being your ‘alter-ego’. Why did you choose to make music with the veil of a character or persona? Was it a conscious attempt to create some distance between you and your art or was it a means to delve into writing about things that are maybe outside of your own experiences and/or personality?

I would say it’s more the former than the latter. I feel like my greatest desire – and privilege, given the wonderful circumstances I find myself in – is to express myself. At present, that means music, artistic pursuit. And so Loah is this apparition of me. That could change. My soul might make different demands of me in 10 years time! It would be remiss of me to associate my entire identity with making music.

I like to be able to step away and be Sallay sometimes, who is much more than music, though music is my current love! It also does give me the freedom and permission within that ‘persona’ to extrovert and express perhaps more than I allow myself in my daily life. I grew up and became someone who has worked in a very ‘formal’ and traditional, non-creative profession, so it also helps to have a cloak that I can put on that acts as an escapist route into my imagination away from the more obedient and routine-centric side of myself.

At a young age you were classically trained in playing the violin and as you entered your teens you joined orchestral ensembles, sang in choirs and learned how to play the piano which led to you writing songs. Did you grow up in a house where music was omnipresent and instilled into you from your parents?  

Absolutely. Both my parents adore it but especially my mum – she is so widely listened, has such enthusiasm and delight for so much of the arts and that rubbed off. She also drove me to innumerable music lessons, concerts and encouraged me to practice with the patience of a saint and the gentle encouragement of a true coach. I really don’t know how she did it sometimes, I wonder if she had one of those Time-Travel watches Hermione gets in one of the Harry Potter books so she can turn back time to fit in more stuff!

Do you think that your constant participation in musical outlets such as choirs and the Trinity Orchestra gave you more confidence to pursue music as a career and perform in front of large crowds of people and also teach you how to work collaboratively?

I would say yes to all of the above. I also fronted a band in college called Jazzberries which helped me explore moreso the kinds of gigs I do now. Still though, when I started putting out videos as Loah I wasn’t very confident – I didn’t fully feel like a lead ‘artist’ or a musician, if you will. I’m still growing into that self-concept because there is always more work to be done, to be written, and I have lots to learn.

But I am more confident in my capacity to learn and change now and that’s where my confidence comes from, knowing that I have it in me to always grow creatively and meet new career and personal challenges.

In the last few years you have done a lot of collaborative work with several esteemed Irish musicians such as Bantum and Hozier. Do you approach how you work on other people’s music differently to when you are creating your own music?

Yes! It’s completely different. I might almost say I prefer collaboration at the moment because I put too much pressure on myself when I work alone. In a collaborative process there is a more clearly defined role for each person, and you’re literally doing half or even a quarter of the work if it’s a band yet you create this amazing thing that has everyone it. Plus it’s often more fun!

That said, sometimes it doesn’t work either. I do think, though, that in a successful collaboration the work can potentially become even more than the sum of its parts because each artist steps even more deeply into their own unique vibe yet totally bounces off something they could never have written themselves, which is innately inspiring.

Following on from that question, how do you feel now that you have launched your debut EP, This Heart, and are alone in presenting your music as wholly individual representations of you? Is that slightly daunting?

It’s less daunting than if I had done it sooner. As I mentioned when I started out I was a little more insecure so launching something would have felt scarier. Now I’m desperate to share work! I’m also surer of myself as a person and a woman, more focussed. I feel I can do both now;  work with others and create alone and that’s a really great place to be. I needed to stand alone and go through that rocky road in order to graduate to this place though.

This Heart has been in the making for a while prior to its release earlier this month. Was there any particular reason why you didn’t rush the release of these five songs?

I was slightly in the public eye from the moment I released my first video, first song online. It got a great reception, way more than anticipated, but I wasn’t as ‘formed’ and secure a performer as the song themselves seemed. Bearing in mind I had literally just come out of studying Pharmacy in college.

Also, during that time I didn’t know how I worked best, how I sang best. There were so many things I needed to figure out. I think an EP was expected of me so I kept mentioning it, but I didn’t really feel like doing one for ages. I just wanted to gig, to be on stage and perform in front of an audience. There were band line-up changes. Most artists hide away and work on their sound and do all this stuff in the background, then release something out of nowhere so it seems like it hasn’t been a long time in the making. Whereas I made the ‘making of’ public, gigging and such and promoting every step of the way very visibly.

Honestly, I’ve been amazed by how interested people have been in my journey, and it has meant that there is a bigger appetite for my work than if I had sprang it on people out of the blue. I’ve taken as much time to grow as many artists I know, but just more publicly. I am confident I can connect with people in any gig setting now which has always been super important to me, and now I’m converting that to record as best I can. Also I did some acting in the meantime which was something I really wanted to explore, which has taken time away from music a bit but has also grown me as an artist. I needed to take the journey I’ve taken and I feel good about releasing now.

Anytime your name is mentioned in conversation people seem to instinctively react by solely saying, ‘Cortège’. What is the significance of this song to you? Why do you think that it resonates so strongly to Irish audiences, especially as the words are written and sung in the Sierra Leone languages Sherbro and Mend?

I often ask myself the same question! It’s definitely one of those songs that I feel ‘wrote me’ rather than the other way round. It came, at first, quite effortlessly and it always dictated that it should be Sherbro and Mende. As a result, I sing it with total conviction and the intention of the song – about feminine energy – is very clear in me, so it rings true to people.

Oumou Sangare is one of my favourite artists, she sings in Bambara (a language in Mali) and that has only ever been beautiful to me, rather than strange despite not being able to fully understand it. Listening to her all along as well as loads of other West African artists whose language I don’t speak actually gave me the confidence to write this song. It was as much written for Oumou herself, who is also a renowned activist for the rights of African women, and for my mum who showed me Oumou’s music, as my audience.

What is the most important thing to you when you are writing a song, especially the lyrics that you are going to deliver to the listener? Are you always conscious of your audience when you are writing?

Never. In times when I’m conscious of my audience, I don’t write at all! It has to be just between me and the song in the initial stages. Then I feel free enough to be honest lyrically. Considering the audience’s subsequent perception and reaction comes slightly later. I have adjusted tunes once they’re written so I feel more comfortable singing them in public. There is also the fact that an emotion you describe lyrically may be so real to you now – particularly darker ones – but it may not ring true in a while and so it needs to be crafted in a way that you yourself can keep connecting to later on and even deliver with conviction to an audience years after the fact. I’ve read Sinead O’Connor say, for example, that she doesn’t sing ‘Troy’ anymore because she doesn’t connect to the energy of it, but she can always, always connect to ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ and sing it with gusto. I am always conscious of that when I am performing.

You have defined your musical style as ArtSoul. What exactly is ArtSoul comprised of and what does it embody?

Artsoul simply means soul music, that incorporates the scope of all the musical art I love. I feel it’s still soul music but it might feature the classical harmony I played as a child, the folk that makes me sing, the blues I resonate with, the rhythms that move me, the poetry and languages that grips me, that my mind pieces together. All of it!

Have you been working on an album? If so, what have been your core inspirations and influences for the material you’re working on?

I am working on a second EP, first. But, I promise it won’t be as long coming as This Heart! I have a better handle on how I work now so I can streamline the process. I know my recorded voice more intimately, what sounds I’m getting into more. The next set of tunes is much groovier and rhythm-driven. Currently, I’ve been listening to a lot of afrobeat and hip-hop and  generally having more fun in life, I’ve been more sociable than I have been in years! So it will reflect all that and the band will be more involved so it’s set to be more collaborative. I’m really looking forward to hearing the finished product.

What are your plans for the summer, will you be playing a lot of gigs and festivals?

Yep! A couple of festival gigs such as Body and Soul, Electric Picnic, Galway Arts, Clonmel Junction. Aside from that I’m going to be writing tunes for the next series and doing some exciting collaborations. After some really challenging months I’m feeling so thankful and so good about life at the moment and looking forward to making more sweet tunes. It’s a really exciting time for me and my music.

http://thethinair.net/2017/05/loah-and-behold-catching-up-with-sallay-matu-garnett/

Originally Published on The Thin Air, May 2017.