Getting older

When I wrote my 50th post about this time last year, I had pretty much completed documenting my passage to the theological place that I inhabit today. It was a catharsis for me, as I examined the chronological steps of my journey; a real examination of the events and environment that had shaped how I look at the myself and the world around me. While I recently took some time away from the blog to set the path for the next phases of my life, I've now come back to muse again. Not so much about my religious beliefs this time, but about the person I've become and the convictions I hold, both of which have their basis in the foundations of my core beliefs.

In just a few days from now, I'll celebrate (??!!) my 55th birthday. There's something about birthday years that end in 0 or 5 that seem to make me reflect on life a little more than the other birthdays do. Fifty-five. The number rolls around in my mind - 55 - the "double nickels"; it's all downhill to 60...

Often in the midst of a conversation with one of my younger coworkers (and they all seem to be younger than me these days)I realize that I can remember things that happened more than 40 years ago. How can that be? I look in the mirror and see someone older and heavier. The skin is still good, but the hair is heavily shot with grey and there's an extra chin or two. I've traded heels for sensible shoes and I wince when I stand up due to the arthritis in my left knee. Yes, I'm slowing down and beefing up, but inside - inside I don't feel any different.

The one thing that has changed, is that more and more often I'm moved to speak up about Western society and its inevitable progression towards tomorrow. My opinions have been formed by drawing upon experiences from a long past. I'm no longer seduced by platform shoes, new radical music or a recently awakened social conscience. My views of the world are tempered with more cynicism and skepticism because I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt. The wrappings may be new, but it's the same old package. By now I've been hearing about global annihilation for 50 years. I'm one of those children who took part in bomb drills in the early 60s, dutifully crouching under my desk with my little arms over my head, waiting for the bombs to drop. Nope, the Doomsday Clock is not a new concept to me.

So, it's my intention to shift my focus from this point forward and begin directing my posts to my thoughts on matters of current interest. I'll be blogging about global warming; holistic medicine; political unrest; natural disasters; just about anything that catches my attention. I'm pretty sure you won't always agree with me, but I'm hopeful that you'll find at least some my musings thought provoking and even join me on my way.

Two Sisters and More Wine

Yes, we're at it again. It's time to sit back, relax, eat whatever we want and open the wine. This time it's two sisters and three bottles of wine, 1/2 a chocolate cake (it was a toss up between chocolate and carrot but chocolate always wins), nachos and fajitas.

We've already been out this morning to pick up the groceries and liquor but not before hitting the local pawn shop to cash in some broken jewelry. Yes, new math here. It turns out that two broken 10k necklaces equals two sparkling bottles of sauvignon blanc; and if we run out of wine, we might just need to break more jewelry!

How long since we've had a girl's weekend? Our last post was in November so we're due for another bender. No kids, no men - just three yapping budgies in the background and a blanket nearby if they get too loud.

So what do we talk about? The disaster in Japan? The way our parents raised us? The men in our lives? Our kids? Our ages? Oh yes, our ages. Those two little girls who loved to play in the garden at the greenhouse back in the early 1960's are now in their 50's sitting here drinking. Maybe there's more than fat arses in our genes. Our grandfather would be so proud to see us now! We come from a long line of winos.

And now we're asking why men are so damn stupid? Is that in the genes too? How many times did I hear from some far corner of the house "Now that was stupid" mumbled under my husband's breath? I never knew what to expect. Would it be another burn in the sheers because he reached down behind he sofa with a cigarette in his mouth? Would it be soap bubbles streaming from the dishwasher because dishsoap was substituted for Cascade? Maybe the ladder had fallen again when he was clearing the rain gutters and he was hanging from the eaves by his fingertips. Or what about the time Debbie's husband dropped his watermelon in the wood bucket because he couldn't carry a plate and turn off a light at the same time. Is this normal? Are our expectations too high?

Can anyone out there not understand why we need to get together and drink, even if only a couple of times a year?

Two Sisters and Two Bottles of Wine

The other night my sister called and asked me what I had planned for the weekend. I hadn't seen her in over a year and if she was calling because she wanted to visit, it didn't matter to me what I'd planned, because nothing was more important than seeing her. Sure enough, she said she could manage a couple of days away from her hubby and young daughter, so she made the 3.5 hour drive and arrived at my door around 8:00 p.m. It was not long after that we had a glass or two of wine and remembered that we'd been threatening for a while to write a post together. We decided then that this might be a great time for me to re-open my blog after a 4-month hiatus.

Once we cracked open the wine and started refilling each other's glass, it wasn't long before the stories of our upbringing surfaced. As we strolled down memory lane, we couldn't help but compare the childhoods of our children to what we had considered normal 40 years ago. So much has changed in such a short time. We remember the simple games and toys we had compared to the computurized and electronic gadgets and must-have toys of today.

We laughed hysterically about the day our Mum had noticed that Deb had been in her room and very quiet for a while. Mum called out "what are you doing Debbie?" to which a little voice answered, "oh, just sweeping up my bangs!" We didn't have a lot of store bought toys, so we made our own fun. Deb's experiment with cutting her own hair or sometimes wearing a clothes basket on her head that was adorned with clothespins, was actually a precurser of the days to come when she would grow up to be quite the fashion plate in the New Wave and punk movement of the 80's.

I spent hours learning to walk on homemade stilts that our father had fashioned from a couple of 2x4s. We played in the fields near our home all day long with only our imaginations, our faithful dog and a couple of dolls. No one worried if we were gone all day because they knew we'd come home at suppertime, tired, a little dirty and browned by the sun. But this lack of supervision had a down side, like the time we redecorated the wallpaper in the spare bedroom of the rental we were living in with our brand new set of "Paint Wheels"!

At one point we had to give up our bedroom to our visiting grandmother, so Dad moved our bunkbeds out into the landing on the second floor. We would lie awake for hours watching out the window at the big semi-tractor trailers going by lit up like Christmas Trees, making up stories about what they were hauling and where they had been; and don't forget that vent in the floor that allowed the heat to rise up into our room. We'd lie on the floor peering down into the room below and wait for our parents and their friends to order pizza. Then we'd make our way downstairs for a drink of water or some other trumped up reason, to beg for a piece. Eating out was a rare treat and we relished every bite as we polished off that little wedge of pizza between us.

Deb & I talked late into the night about the things we'd done and we realized that we could probably write for hours about the family members who had put the 'fun' into disfunctional (which would fill another post!). In the end, we couldn't decide if we were really disadvantaged by our childhoods, or if maybe our own children in this world of cell phones, computers and video games are the ones missing out.

What do you think?

Post #50

When I began to post to this blog in September 2009, many of my family members were already blogging away about their day to day experiences. I found it was a great way to stay in touch with what was going on their lives. At the time, I was just beginning my second year of coping with a difficult and unexpected change in my life direction and I was feeling out of touch with myself. For many months I'd been reacting to what was happening in my life instead of being proactive. I think it was instinct that lead me to choose the title Theological Musings and begin documenting the spiritual path that brought me to today.

After my first post, my youngest daughter, who was 28 at the time, asked me how I was ever going to be able to blog more than a few times on my chosen subject. I hadn't really thought about it.

Today marks my 50th post.

Last night as I was reading some of the older posts, I realized that I've begun a personal spiritual healing. Reliving and writing about the events that molded me into the person I am today has reminded me that I somehow wandered away from my core beliefs. Without consciously realizing it, I've begun to take back control. For the first time in many, many months I'm living life proactively - again making my own reality. I'm currently in the process of buying a new home. At the same time I'm spending many of the summer days with special friends and family, once again connecting with my core circle of beings. For the next little while I expect my posts, if there are any, will be sporadic at best as I make all the arrangements and do all the tasks associated with a major move.

But, I'll be back with many more theological musings before you know it and I hope you'll drop by and check them out. I love your comments and discussion points and I always try respond to them. Bright blessings.

~Bev

Taking responsibility

Assuming responsibility for your life and your environment is a thread that keeps running through my posts because it's such an important component of the entire reincarnational belief system. Yet for some reason, it's the one thing that many people cannot or will not accept. It's so much easier to blame someone or something else when things don't work out than it is to carefully examine the outcome that did occur and try understand why and how you made it happen.

No matter how many reasons you can think of to convince yourself that what happens is not your fault, the simple fact is:

You make your own reality.

Earlier posts have discussed how we make our life plan and carry it out and how we create the world we exist in. If this is a concept you can't come to terms with, think about how often you've heard a star athlete attribute his/her success to believing they could achieve their goal. There are any number of motivational speakers on the circuit who teach methods for success by using visualization techniques. They tell their students to visualize themselves starting that new job or getting that big promotion. Dozens of weight loss and exercise programs use positive thinking and visualizaton to encourage their participants to make the lifestyle changes necessary to achieve the physical goals they're reaching for. And there are any number of documented cases of physical healings that can't be explained by anything but belief.

If people can apply the concept of making things come true simply by believing, why is it so difficult to take that next small step to understanding that you make the difference; that you create the reality??

Disasters and calamities

As we delve further and further into our connection with each other and with All That Is, it's more and more important that you've read the previous posts that brought us to this point. If you jump in at this point without understanding the building blocks used to get here, it will probably be difficult to grasp the concepts thoroughly.

The last post began expanding on the concept that we collectively create and design our world. If you are a creationist and want to compare this to the biblical account of creation, try breaking it down into the following simple elements.

All That Is created the world; and
Each of us is a component or part of All That Is; so
We created the world.

Again, in order to accept this concept, we have to accept our own responsibility for the world and what happens to it. Just as we are responsible for the events that happen to us in our individual incarnations, we must also accept that we are responsible for what happens to the world at large as well. This now begs the question, why would we subject ourselves to all of the catastrophic events that occur? Why are there floods, tsunamis, droughts, tornadoes, avalanches, earthquakes and all of the other nice curveballs that "Mother Nature" throws at us? Don't we have enough to contend with already?

Actually, there are as many reasons for these 'natural' events that we create subconsciously as there are for the 'human' events such as war or environmental disasters that are created by us consciously. A 'natural' disaster is often a way for one incarnational group to force help from other incarnational groups. Remember that we're all here to learn something. In order for all of our incarnational experiences to be realized, we all have to assume one role or another. Some will choose to be 'victims', while others will choose to be 'rescuers'. So let's hypothosize that the 'victims' are living in abject poverty, and the 'rescuers', for whatever reason, are not responding to that need. The occurance of a 'natural' disaster will very often act as a catalyst to mobilize the 'rescuers' into action by drawing their full attention to the plight of the 'victims'.

This example has been over-simplified in order to get to its most basic structure and components. It's not intended to be an example of any particular or specific event that has happened, but as an outline of why the creation of a natural disaster can actually be beneficial and even desirable to a set of incarnational groups.

Engineering change

I was standing in a spot of forest in the warm spring sunshine today, just taking in the natural beauty surrounding me. There were so many shades of green and gold and brown among the trees and hillside that it was dazzling. It's very hard to imagine that all of that could simply be chance and happenstance.

Of course, to me it isn't.

As introduced in my last post, I believe that reality as we know it is the result of our collective consciousness designing and creating an environment in which our physical bodies can survive and thrive. The myriad of climates, land masses, ocean, flora and fauna provide us with as many landscapes to inhabit as we can create lifetimes.

People have and do live in not only the lush and comfortable climates, but in the cold, dry or otherwise inhospitable ones as well. They migrate to an area and begin adapting to what it provides. They learn to exist on whatever food is available and build their villages and towns out of whatever natural materials are available. In short, throughout the ages and through numerous lives, they gain layers and layers of experience individually and collectively by inhabiting different areas and focusing on different types of society.

We know from studying history that many powerful civilizations have risen, only to fall and disappear into the shadows of some new and even more powerful system. Sometimes they fall to conquerors, sometimes to disease, sometimes to climate change, earthquake, volcanic action or other catastrophic natural disaster. But whatever the cause of a society's downfall, the reason is still the same - it happens because that experiment has gone as far as the inhabitants wish to take it, so they collectively set in motion some happening, or series of events to end that particular line of history so that a new direction and focus can take over.

In a nutshell, the point I'm making and want to leave you with, is that no natural disaster that changes any society is some freak accident. It is always planned and executed by the collective consciousness of the entities who are impacted by it.