Gina

People are often curious that I have several "named parts", and that I named my car, phone, laptop, music player... The things in my life that "do something". Some of the names for aspects of my psyche are past life memories, so that makes sense. But I also named some personality facets that I developed (made up). I can't work with a psyche that is like a messy office: I have to have things organized in to tendencies and situations. So, I created facets based on the Archetypes. My other web sites are where they write their thoughts. The facet that I mention the most and which puzzles people is Gina.

2013 Birthday Card to Myself

Gina is modeled on a 17 year old girl. She is impulsive, energetic, enjoys driving fast, complains about boring things, and likes to go shopping. Gina represents my Basic Self. This is a concept from Psychology which refers to the border of the unconscious and conscious minds. (Note the plural.) The Basic Self "owns" the body and the things that go with it (but not sexuality, which is a higher function.) So Gina likes comfort, exercise, colorful accessories (note my purple phone, steering wheel cover and keychain, and all the hot pink things in my apartment) and things that smell good or taste good. She has little patience for delay or things she does not understand. So, I rely on Zulaikha Mahmud (Sovereign with some Mystic) to explain things to her. The Higher Self is said to emerge through the Lower Self, so that is appropriate, and R'Tah (Klingon Warrior) works with her at a visceral level of understanding: persuasion like getting a horse to cooperate in doing something. All this works great for me. Sorry if you don't get it.

I figured it all out by myself, and it lines up with what I have read in descriptions of Transpersonal Psychology. Aren't you proud of me? Discover your Basic Self, because you surely have one. And if you do not bring it to awareness, as Robert Bly says: your inner child will run your life!

oops

Last night I went out to the long hallway lined with glass to watch the sunset. It turned out to have few clouds and so not be very enticing, but I was trying to sit and see it anyway, having nothing better to do. The couch-like thing is joined at a 90 degree angle to a set of chairs, by a piece of table with magazines on it, and more chairs connected in a line by another piece of table. In other words, I could not move a chair to face the sunset. So I did what I did yesterday, plop down on the end-table part of the assemblage, sitting on the magazines.

That lasted about 10 seconds, until I suddenly fell to the floor, bashing the side of my arm. What a surprise! It worked yesterday. So I realized that having a very high level of anti-coagulant in my blood, I was due for a massive and possibly dangerous bruise on my arm. I am an Energy Healer, and have been for over a decade. I immediately began giving my arm a clearing, then some healing, more clearing, then got up and sat down and did it some more. It always works. I have never seen it fail. The major hurdle is just knowing that it WILL work and not doubting. I can do that easily for others, including animals, but it is harder for myself. Guilt, I suppose.

Leaving the scene of the crime, I went back to my room without telling anyone. This morning, I can feel that I banged my arm, but there is no visible mark, and only a tiny perceptible knot inside. It DOES work. First Aid should include clearing your Energy body. I have been giving lots of healing to that arm anyway, because it has bruises from blood draws, and a massive one from the day of surgery - I was not available to give myself a clearing that day. (That one is set, because the time to correct it is long past. You must move quickly before the energy body communicates injury to the physical body.) After giving healing to my arms, most days, I use them to give healing to my whole body. It helps.

glut

Glut is a spiritual term for an overload of sensuous input that warps one's perspective. But in this case I wanted to use it humorously as a follow-on to my previous post, to say that sometimes "the universe responds" - as people are fond of saying - and you "get what you want" even if you didn't really ask for it. Like a big dog that rushes up and licks your face.

This morning I had slept in to about 7:30, quite late for me being in the hospital, and people started to come in - the Doctor, nurses on the shift change, etc - and I was laying there disheveled but correcting some of the things they said, which is normal, and planning to get out of bed, which involves moving my IV, pushing it in to the bathroom, etc, and later calling to order breakfast. I was asked if I wanted anything, so I said the usual, after Katy Perry: Ginger Ale. Got that.

I then walked to the microwave oven down the hall, pushing the IV and hoping my gowns were somewhat staying around me, and the mystery nurse grabbed my arm and asked if I wanted coffee from downstairs (I had gone on my own yesterday and was not supposed to walk unattended) so I said yes. Got that. Somehow that incident reminds me of the movie Brazil, not sure why. Now I am sitting here with a laptop I don't own on my table, hot white tea, coffee and ginger ale, and breakfast is on the way. There is a bag of chocolate chips in my drawer. (The one thing I would ask is a $4 bunch of flowers from Bi-Lo, as I always have flowers at home, and take them in to work every week also.) I find this amusing. How about you?

Is it... Love?

There used to be a song where they sang that line. We know what Love is, the definition is in the Catechism: "To Will the Good of Another." 6 words. In some languages, it could be 3, I suppose. So, there is no reason for confusion about what Love is. But perhaps we can be excused for not understanding from whence it comes.

This morning, still stuck in the hospital, I was talking with the Main Voice that talks to me (since childhood) and it seemed at one point that it might be revealed what / who / whatever the Voice really is, and I said, no, wait, I don't want to know. Why? Because when I don't know, I can visualize a sort of unlimited source of love, with no labels, or criteria or anything, it is open-ended. I don't want that reduced to a particular. What would happen then? Particulars can fail. I see. That makes sense.

So I was then thinking, is this really what I want in receiving Love? Unattached, non-exclusive, unlimited, unlabeled, not of any time or place or circumstance? Yes. And so I thought, this is what a Hetaira offers: an interchangeable, non-attached, caring but anonymous source that can be relied on, because it is not particular or personal. I want to give that. It is my nature. Because that is what I want to give, I want to receive it also. It is the only proper way to love that I can comprehend. When I see people with their spouses or children, I am kind-of put off, because it seems icky somehow - so personal and loaded with expectations and hidden possibilities of hurt. If people didn't have needs, then I suppose we could all go around this way, idyllic, handing out Love to whomever it seemed could use it at the time. But needs seem to nail everything to the ground, and your children cannot be put off, and your spouse has to be indulged. To me, some indulgence and one-sidedness is normal, I don't mind, but what if the source is inadequate? What are both people to do then? There is a need that cannot be met. Love is thwarted by the limitations of its agency. Ugly.

Krishnamurti talked about "Love without the image." I think that is what the Catechism definition gets at: it is not about the source. God sends light from the sun, he does not parcel it out differently to 'good' and 'bad' people. Love just happens. So when I try to explain the Hetaira perspective and people are put off, it is them, right? I actually want to do things rightly. I actually want to receive love in that impersonal, non-exclusive way. The Main Voice then said, You are in the hospital, and here it is all around you. Enjoy. Bliss

"... and a few lilies blow"

I find it interesting when people say that "God is silent", or the famous quote, "God's one and only voice is silence." How perplexing. What if you enrolled in a school and found that they gave no textbooks, or assignments, and said nothing. That, grades were assigned by chance and could make or ruin your life for no discernable reason? What sort of school would that be, what manner of teacher? Is it one you would send your children to?

I find that God talks to me at times, and is sometimes directive, but never in a way that makes me feel compelled or judged. More like a good friend who takes a great interest in my life. Today God was saying that I am His Child, and I was finally beginning to understand. I really do understand, at least, in a new and more comprehensive way than ever before, and such that I could never explain it to anyone. You are on your own with that.

However, God is silent as to motives, reasons, understandings, explanations, or any means of telling what the school of life is about, why we are in it, who is managing it, what we are meant to be learning, or if we should stay in, give up, tear the damn thing down, change our minds or just yield to inertia. In all of the ways which could properly be said to give any meaning or purpose to life, there is no word, not from God or any religion. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool. Because:
A) we have free will and responsibility
B) I have become convinced that there is no reason whatsoever for anything that happens, in terms of a larger picture: it is just experience.

Paramahansa Yogananda said that "God wished to enjoy His Being through many selves." That includes no notion of purpose, goals, morals, values, ideals, or anything else like them. God simply wanted to Be, as Us, at any cost and with no expectations whatsoever. We are here to enjoy Being, as not only God's children, but as God incarnate, each and every one of us, fully. Amen. Let us add nothing to the silence.
Consider Vivekacudamani #515

e pluribus unum

" 24 Hour Recovery "

"The naive picture of the self is wrong!" OK, got that out of my system. If that was all I had to say, I would be happy now. But I need to add some explanation. Over several years, I have developed an "expert friendly" model of my psyche which serves most purposes, even in a crisis. So, the test of truth is what works, except we know that things can work for centuries and still be wrong. Given this already, I am pleading with you to realize that your ideas of the self, whatever they are, are necessarily wrong. Give them up and start the search anew, naked, empty-handed, with no expectations whatsoever. But realize that at the end, you will have an armload of nothing, because "you are not your mind, but it is yours to use" as Krishnamurti's Master said. What sort of picture will allow us to think of the mind as merely a capacity of the self, like a foot, or teeth? What then, is the self?

I built up my picture of my psyche based on tendencies which had no obvious explanation (Hetaira traits), strengths like programming even though I am not a rational person, my relationships and what they teach me, some past-life memories, and some personality facets that I developed to improve myself. If a simple picture cannot be right, and I am saying that ultimately the mind is not the self, and by the way, neither one exists anyhow, why I am leading you through this elaborate garden? The point is that we have to learn somehow, and the ultimate goal is a unified being. If I know my "parts" and develop them, the hope is that they will all play together nicely and make me a comprehensive, strong, elaborated, powerful adult. People who work in the field of psychology understand this initiative and are enthusiastic to discover someone who undertook this enterprise on their own, without even a book for guidance. It is true not just because it works, but because it is what I built using what came to me.

The title means "one from many". This is a natural concept. So, I have many parts, and they all function in different ways and help me to do a multitude of things, yet I am not those parts. Something is the moving force that exercises them, like a person using their arms and the complexity of them to manipulate the complexity of a piano to make music. A simple arm could not play a complex instrument, and a complex arm would not be needed for a simple instrument. The structure of the psyche matches the structure of "reality". When we come to understand the whole picture well enough, the bell rings, the game is over and we go on to something else. I am intending to become "all one thing", which does happen sometimes, and to be unshakable in that. I cannot give up the idea of what I have discovered, but in trying to live it and represent it, I fall short often. That's OK. Still learning.

Public and Private Answers

In the book "The Right Stuff" there was a bit about answers to questions that public figures (like astronauts) are asked. Usually after the same question comes about 50 times, the person has developed a "public answer", which means it is like a tape, and you will get the same answer every time, and no new, personal info will come to light. However, there might be a story behind it that does not get told.

Having returned to the hospital for a small complication, and having not gone back to work yet, my hair was still dyed purple. People I knew from the previous stay recognized me, and others had sometimes heard about me. I had public recognition (within the hospital) for doing something silly and unimportant. That's fine. When asked, I gave my answer that because I had some weeks off from work coming, I wanted to dye my hair, and I would simply cut it way back before returning, due to the strict dress code. That is basically the whole answer. A private part of it is that I had bleached and dyed my (long) hair red 30 years ago when I was in college. Still, not too earth-shattering.

What was different this time is that I had been home long enough from the hospital to paint my toenails, something I have been doing for over a year. At work, the dress code requires shoes for men (women can wear basically anything) and so I had protested that dressy sandals be allowed, because I overheat easily in the summer. But no dice. If sandals had been allowed, I would not paint my toenails, because that would certainly make trouble at work. So, it is a case where if I had been able to be slightly "non-conforming" (to an archaic "professional" dress code) then I would also have conformed to the usual expectation of men's feet. Ironic, I think. Why do I do it? Well, this is a case where I have come up with about 50 really good and compelling reasons over time, and yet none of them explains it. I do it because I want to. Everyone jumps on me with the example of women having a beard, which I do not understand. Male and female features that are built-in are part of the sexual response system, so that we know easily whom to be attracted to. Many men shave their faces, which to me is stupid and makes them look less male. These men will very vocally offer me their opinion that I should also. Well, you are idiotic, so keep it to yourself.

Nail polish is not an inherent part of being female, it does not spontaneously appear, like large breasts, wide hips, or long, thick hair. So, it is not a sex recognition characteristic. If you ask women why they do it, it is probably NOT to attract men, but because they "want to". I do not do it to attract men, because I have zero interest in them, they look as attractive to me as pigs. The simple answer is that women can get away with 100 times as much visual variation as men in every possible way and still look attractive to men, because men are not really put off by anything. Meantime, it is hard to make men look attractive by any means whatsoever, so it is a waste of time to try. Women are simply not drawn to men by appearance characteristics, at least, not in the way men are attracted to women. It is NOT equal, it is NOT "fair", it is NOT by choice, or in any way rational. So stuff your rational arguments and ideas for me somewhere they will keep you silent. I don't need them.

When I am in the hospital with purple hair, it is my choice. You don't get a vote. When I have a butterfly tattoo somewhere that is not usually visible (and it would violate the work dress code, male or female, if it was) then it is not your business. If my nails are painted, it is nothing to do with you, or men, or history, or any other thing. None of it has anything to do with attraction and sex, which are individual, personal, and concern no one else.

That is my public answer. If I am still a bit embarrassed when I meet a new person I like (male or female) and they see my toenails (like a nurse did today) then it is up to me. Maybe I don't have a self, but I do have tendencies, and I am free to keep or discard them, as I see fit. I extend the same courtesy to everyone I meet. If you do not, all that you demonstrate is your ignorance and pettiness. Keep it to yourself.