Escape

She lay face down in the grass breathing in its scent. Her exhalation was dry and scorched, her throat raw making her sob. The dark fire still burned in her chest, it's heat heavy crushing her heart.

She swallowed, drinking the moisture from the air.  She rolled over and gazed upwards. Relief permeated her as the sky above entered her eyes and filled her with blue light. The burning abated and she sighed in gratitude as her heart expanded. A minute passed and her mind cleared.

She must move.

Move away from the black hole in the earth that she had come through moments before. She didn't have long.

Her body tensed ready for movement but she did not stir. What was it that kept her pinned like lead to the earth?

Fierce colours clouded her eyes once more. Incandescent white hot yellow, blistering red brown and black, seductive and so dark it swallowed her whole. The heat in her chest flared, her heart jumped as she sensed the shadow return. She tried to push it away. She must run while she still could. She had fought so hard to get this far that she couldn't give up now. Panic rose up her throat and her mouth filled with a sour taste.

With a great effort she sat up and then breathing heavily she stood upright.  She glanced around her and saw she was in glade of cypress. White flowers grew among the grasses at her feet. An endless sea of pale asphodel flashed across her inner landscape. She blinked to erase it.

Time to move.

She turned and headed away from the hole in the ground to follow a clear path through the trees. The sun overhead lit the scene around her and showed the colours, shapes and textures at their most striking and vivid. It was her first view of her beloved Earth for many months. But she didn't feel joy. Why was that? All she could feel was the heavy weight on her chest and a dragging, pulling sensation from her solar plexus as though she were attached by a cord to something behind her. Attached to what?

She knew what it was. Her mind's eye was again covered with shadows, this time moving, blurred, gradually becoming more distinct. Ghostly figures wandering through the fields and along the banks of the river, stooping to drink the amnesic waters.  Fine, transparent sails swelling with a silent wind propelling the boats and their passengers through the waters to the islands of Elysium.

Her mind flew to another scene; three roads converging, at that place where the shades received their final judgment. Beyond that, a vast field of crimson poppies through which a granite grey road wound its way towards the palace on the horizon. Her mind covered that distance in an instant and stopped in front of the adamantine gates. The palace towered above her, obsidian black. A deafening grinding noise began as the gates slowly lifted. Her heart leapt into her mouth when a deep bellow came from within the walls and she heard the sound of powerful hooves and a thundering roar as the chariot came hurtling through the opening towards her. She froze suspended from her vantage point as four black horses bore down upon her at full gallop. The driver stood erect, black hair and cape flying around him, holding the reins in one hand as he drove his beasts on with a savage whip. She gasped as he passed through her, his blazing amber eyes boring into hers as though he could see her stood before him in her flesh, blood and bone body.

She tore her mind back to the sunlit world.

Her swift pace faltered then stopped. She couldn't breathe. The burning in her chest had grown stronger again. It spread to her throat, heat rising up her neck to her face as sweat broke out on her upper lip. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes and she let out a high-pitched moan as she sank to her knees.

She couldn't bear it. The pain was too intense. She was sure she was going to die from it. No one could tolerate this agony. She had to get away from here. She had to get away before he came for her. She hated him, loathed him with all of her being. He had taken everything away from her. He cared nothing for her. He saw her as a trophy, a prize and she despised him for it.  He was evil, manipulative. He had tried to trick her into eating the succulent pink seeds but she had seen through his sweet deceit. She would not surrender to his desire to keep her with him.

She stood once more and began to run but she stumbled as exhaustion crippled her and her head span. Nausea overcame her and her vision filled with expanding black circles until she could no longer see. She dropped to the ground and lay face up, breathing heavily until her sight returned.  

Her inner voice was silent as she recovered her strength. Eyes closed, her awareness extended outwards into her tranquil surroundings. She listened and gradually sounds became more distinct. Birds chirping, insects humming, a soft breeze moving the leaves of the trees. The peace around her seeped through her pores, caressing, cooling, softening. She felt the tension release as she exhaled the heat from her lungs.

She realised something was different. She felt quiet, tranquil. The pain had diminished, the fire no longer burned inside her. Why was that? She contemplated the question for a while and then she knew. She had surrendered the struggle. She had stopped the battle that was raging inside her.  

It was then that she knew she was in control. She could choose to feel the pain or not. She could choose to suffer or to be well, to resist or to allow, to hate or to.....

At that moment a huge tremor shook the earth beneath her. There was an almighty crack as the earth split open, gaping like an enormous mouth. From its dark cavity came four horses snorting with effort as they dragged themselves and the chariot behind them into the sunlight. The driver called the horses to a halt as he saw her now sitting a few yards away from him.  Amber eyes met hers, at first furious and accusing then softening, beseeching, beckoning.

She waited for a moment, then she stood up and walked slowly towards them.

A man confronts Abraham over the misery in the world

If you are not familiar with the teachings of Abraham, I will give you a quick explanation. Esther Hicks is a channel of a non-physical being who goes by the name of Abraham. If you are not familiar with channeling you might well be skeptical that such a thing is taking place. Therefore, I would recommend you put those doubts aside and just listen to the information and the wisdom that is communicated by Esther. The main idea that is put forward by Abraham is that we are the creators of our own reality, without exception. That most of us are completely unaware of how powerful we actually are and that each of us possesses the ability to create the life we have only ever dreamed about. I would imagine that most people would not be open to believing this. Those that do believe it have a personal process of re-learning or, some would say, remembering to go through because the world around them that they have grown up in has programmed them with a belief system that is very persistent, not least because it is being reinforced every day by the society in which they live. But when you open your mind enough to begin to allow this view of the world, you start to see evidence of the truth of  these teachings. Of course, this information is not new. It has been known about and passed down by the spiritual masters for thousands of years but is only now having a wider renaissance.

During this process, many questions arise. One question that is frequently asked is, "If we are creators of our own reality, why would anyone ever choose to be tortured, abused or murdered? Why would someone choose to live a life of poverty or pain?" These questions are very valid and I have asked them myself many times. The answer lies in the fact that we live in a world of polarity, of opposites. Happy, sad, good, bad, fast, slow, hot, cold, dark, light and all the shades in between.  Abraham calls this contrast. Our world is one of contrast and Abraham tells us that we chose to come here to experience this contrast for the expansion (evolution) that it would provoke in us. From our limited perspective this might sound incredible and difficult to integrate into our own belief systems. The following video is of an Abraham seminar where a man is asking these same questions and having the same difficulty accepting that this could be true.

In my case, I do not believe nor disbelieve it. It is one explanation that fits better than any other I have heard. I have asked many times why, if there were a God who loved us unconditionally, would he allow us to suffer? Why would he abandon little children to a fate worse than death of starvation or abuse? I asked myself if I believed that we were loved by a God or higher power and the answer came back as yes, unequivocally. Every cell in my body answers yes. And that love is who I am and what I am made of. So if I believe that there is a benevolent God, Creator, Source from which all else comes, why doesn't s/he step in and save us? That's where free will comes into the equation. We need to save ourselves. We've had some guidance in how to do this by individuals that we have sanctified and revered but often their message has been distorted or in some cases lost completely. Free will implies that we have power over our own destiny by virtue of the choices we make in our lives. For me it's not such a great leap to believing that we create our own reality.

So returning to the question of why people would create such awful awful experiences if they could choose, the answer may lie in the fact that the majority of people don't know they are creating their own reality and even if they did, many would not believe it. By not choosing consciously, they create by default. They are then subject to the will of others who have an agenda or they are swept along by the group or mass consciousness of their environment, carried along by the tide.  

Temperance

Divination is an ancient art that people have used for thousands of years. People have always sought answers from beyond the physical. The Egyptians used scrying, the Greeks used oracles, the Romans augury and haruspicy. The Chinese used the I Ching and feng shui, a form of geomancy . In Africa they used bones and runes have been used by the Germanic peoples. Only during the last 900 years has the use of divinatory arts declined, mainly due to the spread of organised religion and the widespread suppression of anything that might challenge the authority of those in charge and their positions as intermediaries between the common man and God.

But in recent years the use of such methods has once again become popular. Divination with a pendulum or with tarot cards seem to be the most common. These days there are many websites offering to tell people their future with astrology or tarot readings but I'm very skeptical of these as they are usually very expensive and you have no way of knowing how honest or how experienced these people are. I decided I would prefer to learn to do my own readings. I had already tried dowsing with a pendulum with some success and my father had found underground water pipes with the dowsing rods I bought as a toy for my son. But I had never used the tarot myself before because I associated it with the ouija board and creepy stories of light bulbs exploding and furniture moving. So, why did I change my mind? To be honest, it was the need for some answers that made me turn to the packet of miniature tarot cards I had bought as a novelty a few years ago. Without going into personal details, I was confused after a meeting in the autumn of 2011. I didn't really think anyone else could tell me why I was feeling this way, so I decided to use my own resources. With the internet for help with interpretation and the layout of the cards, I began to use the tarot to help me understand what might be happening in my life and how I could best deal with it. The results have been very enlightening and, as time has gone on, I have developed more and more trust in the cards which have given me better results each time.

One card that seems to keep appearing when I do a reading for myself is the Temperance card. This card, as with all the cards in the tarot, has many occult meanings. Each card represents an archetype which means that it represents many different ideas which, as they are learnt and experience is gained, a holistic image of the card develops so that interpretation gradually becomes an intuitive process. One of the  main themes of this card is moderation, the balancing of extremes and finding the middle way, or steering a course through rough seas. In the picture, the angel has one foot on land representing the physical world while the other is in the water representing the spiritual realm, showing the need for balance of these two in our lives. Ruled by the astrological sign Sagittarius, the sign of the teacher and philosopher, the card depicts an angel holding two cups with water flowing from one to the other. This represents the blending of two seemingly irreconcilable opposites such as fire and water. In one's life this could represent the challenge of finding a way to integrate opposing belief systems or to unify the people in our lives who may come from different families or backgrounds. It is the card of synthesis and alchemy, of turning base metal into gold. It encourages us to have patience in this process and to realise that the blending of incompatible elements is possible when we exercise moderation, adding a little of each at a time, so that gradually they are combined into a whole that is greater and more evolved than the two parts. Temperance is a card of harmony, health and wellbeing. Like it's ruler, Sagittarius, it is optimistic and a sign that you are on the right path.

This card has great depth of meaning for me personally and provides some clarification and answers for my own personal dilemma, but it is more than that. To me it seems to be a card for our time. In a world in which the opposing views, political, religious and ideological, seem to be becoming more and more polarised, a need for cooperation and the finding of common ground is essential for the continuation of our species, or we may witness those forces tearing our world apart.  Joining with others and working together to find solutions to the problems that we all face regardless of our different views of the world is imperative. The uniqueness of our worldviews and the way we approach those problems is not an obstacle to our cooperation but a positive advantage. Preserving the original character of each person so that it is incorporated into the whole without losing anything, we can celebrate those qualities and what they offer to our human civilisation. Instead of standing defiant in our separateness, we could reach out to the human spirit within each other and realise we are all in this together and that the new currency of our planet is love not money. In this way, Temperance teaches us that the blending of those unique sparks of creativity that lie within each of us could create a world that is greater and more evolved than the one in which we are living today.

Sacred Geometry - Drumvalo Melchizedek

Drumvalo explains the importance of the Flower of Life, a pattern found all over the world in sacred sites such as temples in Greece and the pyramids in Egypt, as well as other mathematical formulae such as the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci sequence.

12-year-old girl explains why Canada is in debt (and the rest of the world)

A word picture

The man paddles in the clear, shallow waters scanning the surface of the submerged sand for smooth, flat stones.  As his eyes fix upon one he likes, he bends sharply and snatches it up, turning it briefly in his hand before tossing it into the water.  If he has aimed well and the stone is of a good weight, it will skim the surface of the water and leap like a fish two or three times before disappearing beneath the rippling blue waves.