Divergent Paths (dedicated to my earth angel, Donna)

There are two ways to follow in life, divergent paths that occasionally cross and in the end always bring you back to the beginning. Follow a path of “self” denial and pain and you will probably end up back there sooner than you would expect; follow the path of your heart and there will be untold bliss along the way together with some challenges that stretch you and make you grow, ultimately bringing just more joy.

I have chosen the latter path after decades of struggling along the former. Led to a crossroads some years ago by a painful series of life-altering experiences, I made the choice to change my path and commit to it and since then a butterfly of unexpected proportions and untold beauty has come to light where before there lurked an unfulfilled caterpillar too scared to venture off his path and into the chrysalis from which to emerge as was always intended.

Each and every one of us starts as a caterpillar in life and the path we choose decides whether or not we survive long enough to pass through the challenges of our chrysalis stage and emerge as that unique, gentle yet radiant butterfly whose template is indelibly printed on every cell of our being.

So, now watch me fly and as you do so, decide whether you are ready to choose a new path for yourself to a glorious if uncertain future.

Nought but Harmony

I have to document what just happened before my tiredness gets the better of me.

I was watching a fascinating video about sound and vibration and how it even appears in biblical texts through numeration of the original scripts. Forget the biblical implications but it had already struck me that sound would be important in my retreats in the last 30 hours or so and I knew I needed to receive guidance on the appropriate level for the retreat’s musical sounds and here it is...432Hz. I haven’t even finished the video, so no doubt more will become clear on this but in the interim, my incredibly attuned dog, Lucky insistently made it clear to me that he needed a walk, a perfect space for me to think clearly in a calm state akin to a sort of meditation during which time many enlightening things occur to me.

So, as I walked I began to think about the retreats and I asked my guides whether the 432 Hz was indeed the vibration to facilitate connection with nature and I was told that indeed it was. No surprise there with the synchronicity of the subject of this latest video with what I had ascertained just 30 hours ago!

Please with this synchronistic awareness, I continued my walk, by this time extending it beyond the normal length just so I had more of this blessed creative mental space that seemed suddenly to be so effective. As I walked I contemplated the importance of “hitting people on all 5, nay, 6, senses” during my retreats.

And then as the extended walk became extended again and again it struck me that harmony and balance are the key to everything, indeed that they are the power behind everything...OMG, they truly are everything...they are the consciousness that we call God and so many other names. OMG again, harmony IS true love, the state of harmony IS true unconditional joy and love and THAT is God and that IS everything. Harmony and balance are the only true power! Oh shit, what an awakening!

So, herein lie the roots for the power of the retreats. More is no doubt yet to be revealed but in just 2-3 days so much has emerged from what appeared to be the tail end of a state of desperation and disappointment in a ruinous friendship. This is nothing short of a miracle for me.

All the Silly Doubts

Amidst the challenges of waiting for past suffering to leave me and clear the way for my true role in life, I doubt myself so often and frequently feel the pain of past rejections and put-downs, yet it took a friend who reached out to me in fear and frustration to open my eyes to the real me whom I need never have these silly doubts, for deep down and beyond the illusory Maitland, the ego-personality version of Maitland, is this, an uncanny gift to both my friend and myself all at once that comes from trusting myself to say precisely what someone needs to hear without even realising it...

Hi Maitland,
 
I feel like I’m falling hard for [John Doe] – and I’m scared. I’ve been meditating on opening my heart throughout the day – and each time I do It feels like he’s wrapping love around me.
I’m practicing being open to receive but what if all of this is in my head. I know I’m supposed to just let go and trust and yet I really don’t want to spoil [our] relationship if all of this is just a fantasy.
The more I open my heart and receive the less control I have over how deeply I want him – not emotionally but like a heart connection.
I think I’m going crazy – and I can see you grinning and laughing as you read this. Of course I know the answer and soon I’ll be in so deep I’ll be a lost cause...shit I’m falling in love!
 
Sorry for the rant – I’m sure it will amuse you!
 
Happy Easter
 
Love
 
[Anon]

Hi [Anon]

No I didn't laugh either literally or in my heart. I felt a mixture of concern and the very gentlest form of amusement, not laughter but more love and compassion.

I am pleased you have opened yourself up and I get that this is scary for you. Now you are open to it and allow yourself to feel for him, the very normal and human fear or rejection kicks in. I don't know what is best for you to do right now but if you would just breathe, I am confident that you would know. My request is that you stand back from yourself and see yourself as I see you now, with a loving heart and with compassion for your reaction and focus on the love, for yourself for now, fill yourself with love for the girl who has been so hurt that, now open to love, she is terrified. Really focus on it (and as I type hairs are standing up on my aims) and be that love for yourself and all else will flow from this. You need nothing more. Don't think, just do this and then relax and again don't think. Let feelings come and let actions flow when and only when they feel right as always. Be love, be love, be love. How can he resist that?!

Love

Maitland

Thank you so much Maitland. You’ve got me in tears again J

I’m being and feeling love and letting go of the thoughts. I hadn’t really acknowledged the fear of being hurt or really how deeply I had been hurt. I mean I knew, but I hadn’t acknowledged it.

Thanks you so much for this Maitland. I wish I could hug you with all my love right now. Feel it anyway J
 
Love

[Anon]

My Real Motivation

In tonight’s meditation I had a conversation with God, Allah, the Universal Consciousness, the One, the Source of All Things and in this conversation I first asked for what wisdom it might wish to impart to soothe my temporary suffering as I shed the past and free myself of its shackles.

And it replied simply that anything I can conceive will be mine and not to trouble myself with fears from the past. So it led me to describe to it exactly what it is I want for myself. Far from all the things I may “own” as part of my journey, beyond recognition for my work I saw the real me, the real motivations for my life and they are these: to see mankind develop so far beyond the 3rd dimensional paradigm that anything is possible. Even ambitions for a car have little meaning: if I must use transport it I want it to be durable and hovering, maybe even flying, and not damaging to Mother Earth in any way but then I saw that I really wish to fly - not astral travel of my spirit but actually teleporting by thought as well as the ability to manifest on demand, to put out my hand and have before me the delicious orange of my mind’s eye. I saw that I wanted to experience these things, not just observe them from spirit after my departure from this realm. I saw that I wanted a home as a beautiful haven, an example of man and nature in harmony, to witness the sunrises, the sunsets, the rain pouring down, natural beauty in all its forms, but not to show off or create a mini empire of wealth.

These are the things that ignite my soul and give me a reason to live, not the outward manifestations of success that so marked my past aspirations born of fear of being worthless. When there is no fear, anything becomes possible, or, as God said in my meditation, anything that you can conceive and believe in shall be yours in time. Why waste such awesome power with mere material possessions? So much better to strive for experiences that lift the soul beyond the stars.

Goodbye to Expectations

While I go through this protracted period of "cleansing" I am rarely inspired to write, though I miss it a great deal. Last night, after meditation and during much needed reflection these words came to me:

"Expectations harness the soul and do not expand it: have no expectation of yourself; simply be free and do whatever comes to mind and do whatever feels right for YOU. There is NO other rule by which to lead your life. Put simply, follow your heart always."

The Darkest Chasms of the Mind

I see before me a blank page, a welcome friend so rarely visited in recent times as I undergo a metamorphosis from less than to more then most, from fearful and betrayed to bold, then loving and free, a cathartic exercise to relieve my darkest suffering.

No more the old me of yesteryear whose darks chasms were filled with self loathing born of another era when, rejected, forlorn and hopeless, life had no meaning or purpose and every desire remained thwarted by the underlying doubt and insecurity forced upon myself when I decided I was somehow less than I ought to be, a disappointment in the eyes of others. The pain ran so deep and so dark, its veil of reinforced steel thought impenetrable until now when, awakened from deep slumber, I slowly emerge to find my true heart and soul.

Now surfacing from the depths comes much buried pain, all that dark steamy breath suppressed for so long, denied by myself and thereby putrid, out it all pours in doses I can manage and as it does so I am teased with what once was the pain I cried whilst I slept as it gnawed away at me day by day and so on for 47 years of my 52. So painful was it that it was hidden from view even to myself for so long and hence my sudden and rude awakening causing so much pain now. Strange feelings, ugly doubts and fears, strip away all the hope I felt so strongly but 2 months ago.

But I am told all will return and more once the golden light pervades the void where these once dark feelings sought refuge. For now I am curious, uninspired and not at all full of life’s joys as I normally am, these parting feelings excreting their poison on the surface before they leave and die once and for all. I wish I could say I feel the better for it but so far that bonus has yet to be granted to me and I take it all on faith if also sometimes ungraciously as I thrash about in the rough seas of departing sorrows.

“I am you, I am me, I am everything”

“I am you, I am me, I am everything”...these words spring from nowhere to haunt my thoughts for the moment and as they do so I ponder and reflect on what they mean. They are the perfect statement of factual truth that omits only one fact, that we are love and therefore I am love too.

So, if I am love, then anything less than who I am is not true. Why do I allow thoughts that are less than me, less than who I am? If they are true, these statements, let me be who I am, profoundly and without question. No longer able to deny the truth, I am then catapulted forward to being something altogether more powerful and forgiving, loving and whole.

What would I do tomorrow that is otherwise denied me if I own who I truly am? How different would my day be and the thoughts I process as a result of the realisation and actualisation of the truth within me?

I don’t know...so I will try it and see!

My Teacher, the Snake

Over two years in Thailand and until just now I have never seen a live snake except in a zoo. My ever growing love of nature in all forms means that I watched in horror as a well-meaning neighbour came to help and bashed it to death. I am wanting to cry even as I type these words. I doubt it was even poisonous. It was horrible.

On later reflection, the lesson for me from this comes in the form of not standing by and watching a death, thinking you can be free of responsibility while someone else does the bludgeoning in your name. Furthermore, it lies in the awareness that in the absence of a clear and direct life-threatening attack, we all have a right to live and to be respected, both me and the snake. I may be a little scared of snakes but I am pretty sure that this one was not poisonous and, even if it was, it could have been removed calmly and without loss of life. Should I kill all the animals in the jungle where I will soon live, lest they harm me? What kind of jungle, what kind of natural haven, would that then be? A very sterile one, one diametrically opposed to the one I seek.

I feel the snake gave me its life to teach me this important lesson and I apologise to it and offer it my gratitude. If I am to teach a deeper and more fulfilling connection with oneself through a profound connection with nature, such lessons are vital. Through this understanding I may now enjoy a deeper connection with my true self as well.

An Ever-Expanding Awareness

The universe consists of an endless stream of consciousness that stems from the core of everything and this consciousness exists to experiment with itself, to test what it may do and experience as a result and to let advanced awareness within its constituent parts flow through everything, reaching even its outermost corners as it is happening. There is an illusion of time and distance but in reality it is all one place and time. An elaborate mirage set up to expand its self awareness fades as we wake up and see it for what it all is: a game, a challenge, a show.

Viewed this way, we can see new truth, reality beyond the illusion, and it is this veil that is now lifting on humanity for the first time in a very long time. I have experienced growth in awareness at this time and through it I am free of much of the burden of the illusion, the seemingly eternal suffering of human existence. Once you can see it for what it is, there is no reason for anything other than playing the game as it is meant to be played, freely, with an intent to win through and emerge victorious, awakened to a new level of awareness and experience.

There is not much more I can say: simply do what comes to mind and feels right in the moment, as this is the prompt of life, the eternal force of the universe seeking ever greater fulfilment for itself, expansion by another name.

Endless Awakening

Tonight I have woken up, woken up to a still deeper level of understanding about myself and the poor decisions I made based on a hurt little boy whose sister didn’t love him. I have started to realise how my desperation for love and approval by her has had such a deep and negative impact in my life, an impact that was greater than I ever suspected when I first woke up to this reality 10 days ago.

First came the pain, the anger and the hurt that I could have been so foolish, so blind. Then came the realisation that nothing I could do would change it and I was numb for a while. But after that came the awareness that I wanted more; I wanted me, me free of the burdens of this decision that I was somehow to blame for my rejection by her. And as it came slowly and I released the anger and pain and the body slowly healed itself, then came a new level of consciousness, a new level of self awareness and love.

Now that is where I am, as I slowly see the many ways it has impacted me, the acceptances of abuse by others, the tolerance of hatred or disrespect or even jealousy in the desperate hope I would be forgiven for whatever it was I must have done wrong in the first place that was deserving of my punishment.

And from this place of freedom, of self awareness, comes unconditional love in the form of an angel that I drew to help me at this difficult time, my dog, Lucky, that ultimate animal of selfless, unconditional love, bounding down the stairs as I shed my tears, to offer me love, comfort and loyalty in the space left by the void of questioned love.

How can I deny there is a god, a consciousness that pervades everything in the face of this? I cannot and in the wake of this, my stand for myself and the new real me, comes a new awareness in the man I love, an awareness that I will no longer tolerate things that stem from an old me, an old paradigm to which I am no longer betrothed. The love that flows in its wake it real, unconditional and without parallel in my life. The universe has indeed heard my pleas, my cries for help, my promise to be true to it always and replied to me loudly and repeatedly, even when I would not listen and not appreciate its voice it shouted loud and clear. And its voice heard at a whole new level by us both allows a new beginning, a new promise for the future, a future not possible until now.