Kiyan’s second Sounding

Kiyan begins by saying `` The re-Casting of Second Sounding within the refined Lantern Matrix supports the impression of others that you are independent and can offer ‘pure’ advice, but that they will often fear your confidence - Actually, the danger they sense is that you may become consumed by an idea or dogma, which can lead to self-delusion. .”
I have often been consumed in this way, caught in the grip of obsession from which I have finally freed myself more because it became `old’ rather than a conscious, sensible decision on my part. I saw it for an illusion long before it lost its hold on me, but continued to cling to it. Why? Because I could not admit to myself that I had thrown away my time and energy.
Am I wiser now, and past that obsessional trait? I hope that I can recognise the signs of it, and step back before I get lost in the maze of my own emotions, but like a recovering alcoholic, one can never say one is truly free of it. It does make you question the certainty that `fate’ has a hand in it, and that you are at the mercy of forces greater than yourself, because that proves not to be the case. In the end, it is by your own motivation that you step back from the edge.

Of great interest is that the perceived qualities mentioned above are grounded in the INNATE plane rather than the more common CONCEPTUAL level. This could indicate that the ‘uneasiness’ others feel around you is because your thoughts appear to relate to unknown and even spiritual concepts, but are in fact based in ‘tribal memory’ and knowledge of ‘universal rules’.

Ah, now I feel completely at home with this piece of information. As I am required to examine what I would call my personal `code’ here, I would say `tribal memory’ has a lot to do with. I feel as if I am carrying some knowledge within me that comes as part of my basic equipment, and that it is this knowledge I draw on to know how to act or react in certain situations. It works in many ways – if you present a tribal person with some technology they have never seen before, they react as if it is magic – but it is only out of their experience. Confront the techie with some of the things the tribal person deals with calmly every day and you would see the same reaction.
So I feel instinctively as if this knowledge I draw on doesn’t always fit the situation – because much of it is out of my experience, or out of the experience of where the knowledge comes from. I used to think I was alone in this – but now I realise there are far more of us than I thought.

As I have worked through this extraordinary process I have been called upon to examine what I really feel, not what I believed I should feel, and to say what I mean, not what I think people would like to hear from me.
One of the most important discoveries, to me, is that I am not this thoughtful, measured, responsible person I hoped to become – I am an impulsive hothead who has dived in where angels fear to sink, who draws on something inside that even I do not fully comprehend, and no shining example to my children, but instead the instigator of their rebellion.
Of course, they have already told me that several times, but I ducked the responsibility of owning up to it. I pointed to a long line of rebellious souls in their lineage – I, I believed, was the one to bring order out of the chaos. Instead I have been one of its disciples.
Maybe now I am beginning to understand that it is not up to me to create this perfect hideaway from the world that I have envisaged. I offered myself as a channel to bring these people into the world to change things in their own way, not in my way. As I watch them scatter and go about their lives, I hurt inside, but I have to understand that I cannot keep them forever in the protection of the nest. Just a couple of nights ago I stood with my daughter and her family and said goodbye as they started the trip back home. I hugged my grandchildren and I felt as if my heart was being torn out of me. With the night sky above, and the diesel engine of their vehicle chugging, I was reminded of my youth, and the many night journeys we took as travellers. Always moving on, always saying goodbye to friends and family – but always carrying ties that have never broken in spite of the distances.
Just a day or so before, my own mother discovered she has a brother – she was adopted as a child and never knew him. Their joy at being reunited has opened my eyes and my heart to hope again – she will never meet her own mother (the adoption was not the fault of that poor lady) but from what my newly discovered uncle has said I think I know at last the identity of the angel who looks after this family. I have always felt there was an angel `riding on our shoulders’, a loving presence around us.
Faith has always been the bedrock of my existence – not a faith that relies on temples, churches or paraphernalia, but a simple belief in the rightness of things and the beauty of nature (all beauty, all love, has a wellspring, whatever name we give it). But it has been a shabby little thing trying to wave its ragged flag at half mast lately.

Kiyan in the second sounding points to a choice of outcomes -

Surprise! Nothing is static – there is no, “just sit and do nothing.” Within this range of comfort, you can either work to accentuate existing beliefs and skills; or work to shift from a belief base to a knowledge base.

The first offers a greater sense of soul and beauty, including discoveries of hidden beauties, sensitivity and power. However, the gain in `happiness’ may be balanced by a loss of `contentment’ and some relationships.

In the second case you are actually seeking ‘wisdom’. This will require you to re-evaluate your goals, value systems and ‘gut feelings’ on which you rely. The purpose is not to change them, but to put them in proper perspective as ‘working tools’ in your arsenal.

The major obstacle is the you were taught (and still believe) that spiritual solutions must be found in either greater belief in the ethereal or divine, or gaining some control of the Conceptual zone of magick, prayer, clairvoyance , etc. In truth, such spiritual answers can also be found in searching your 'tribal knowledge' and the basic Covenant between God and Humanity.
You must find WISDOM, which can only come from applied knowledge to PRACTICAL situations. As long as you remain grounded in believing instead of knowledge, such a shift cannot happen.

In truth, I had some time back realised the futility of trying to control the unknown through such applications as astrology and tarot and other forms of divination. However I still felt that my real problem is that I don’t believe enough, or have enough faith. I have always had conflict with the concept of manifesting, or asking the universe to deliver something specific – to my way of thinking its like the kids only turning up to see you when they want money. Aha, I thought, it doesn’t work for me because I don’t believe it enough.
But perhaps that is my innate knowledge making itself known – that way is not for me. My own simple faith is the way for me, with no strings attached, and no conditions of gain (give me this and I’ll believe in you) and evaluating again my skills of endurance, problem solving and acceptance.
I have not come to the end. What Kiyan has opened up is possible roads, not just one, and what he has done is remind me of who I am and why I do the things I do. I hope others who meet this wise man in the glade will feel encouraged to talk of the experience as well.
I feel the wind at my back. I am closer to knowing who I truly am, and I ride the wind.


Gail

More on the Sounding part 1

This observation by Kiyan is quite startling in its truth and clarity:

Yet you do not trust your abilities in this 'magickal/prayer' level, and have lost your trust in PRACTICAL methods that used to work. You used to enjoy gentle competition and even 'battling wits' with friends and enemies. Now you are not sure it is worth the effort. Generally, you 'like' yourself, but do not like what you may have to become to deal with 'reality'.

The comment on `battling wits’ with friends and enemies and feeling that now it is `not worth the effort’ really resonated with me. Quite often, I feel that way now, and yes, at base, the reason for most of my unease is that I have reshaped myself to `fit in’ to be able to deal with the world the way it is – what I perceive, or have come to perceive, as `reality’.

How will I deal with this insight? What can I draw from it?

When my children were very young I made the decision to send them to regular school rather than home school. I had been home schooled and felt that, while I had learned to read and write better than any regular school student, I moved into the adult world with no real experience of what it would be like – lacking social skills, I believe is the phrase. Not lacking social skills in my own traveller world, you understand, but in the settled world, where I was to spend the rest of my life. I brought a traveller’s consciousness to the settled world, and it was very much like trying to fit a piece from a different jig saw puzzle. I remember once visiting the house of one of my daughter’s school friends. It was completely devoid of furniture. The family had a huge loan for the house and had no money left to furnish it. So they were waiting for the bank to agree to lend them more money so they could buy furniture.

More than anything, this was descriptive of the difference between my world and theirs. My father built our homes – our first home was an ex army ambulance that he converted into a motor home. Travellers didn’t deal with banks. They made things themselves. My husband was no carpenter, but he managed to craft up a pretty decent set of shelves and a coffee table when we needed them.

We taught this self sufficiency to the children, but we also needed they needed to understand the world they were growing up in. Our world was gone – they needed to learn to live in the world the way it is.

Another snapshot flash – my son at school sports day, talking to his teacher. Mothers in sneakers were running alongside their children, screaming encouragement or abuse, depending on whether the kid was in the lead or not.
``Where’s your mother?”
My son: ``Oh, she can’t run, she’s the one in high heels.”
My son loves this story, he laughs with affection at his crazy mother who turned up to sports day in high heels. This is the same son who likened me to a wild horse – with the same pride and love. A wild horse in high heels – how well he knows me!

Thinking back on all this now, I realize how worried I was that I `fit in’, that we all `fit in’ – just turning up to sports day at all was indicative of that. And I realize that it never worked. Today my kids say they are thankful for the self sufficiency lessons, not the algebra – for our encouragement – nay, our insistence – that they be accepting of all cultures and people who are `different’. Those are the friendships they still treasure.

For all my talk, I have never accepted the world `the way it is’ if the way it is is loaded with racism, violence and facist control of creativity. What I was actually doing was saying to my kids, `this is the world the way it is, we are here to change it’, something they clearly understood better than I did.

So thank you, Kiyan – I here and now firmly state that I have never, will never, don’t WANT to `fit in’, it’s not me and I don’t like the person I have to be to do it. All my problems about life are `fitting in’ with it, not understanding that I have to like who I am and what I do and have faith in my ability to make the right choices. I set that moment aside until I am pushed up against the edge and have to jump – and why is that? Not because I am an unfortunate soul who gets pushed around, but because I LIKE it – I like the reckless leap into the unknown, I continually put myself in situations where I have to do it. I have to know that about myself, embrace it and work with it.

Kiyan goes on to discuss the way I am perceived by others – as more powerful than I see myself. As I said before, that relates to the way I was brought up. We did solve our own problems, we did come up with solutions. That was how the people I come from lived their lives. It never occurred to me that people might see this as some strange `power’ and I was always disconcerted by the reactions – years ago, when I was doing astrology charts for people, I had one woman ringing me up all the time, saying things like, ``I’ve been invited out by someone, what sign’s the moon in, will it work out?” Oh for Heaven’s sake, just GO to the movies! I would tell them over and again that it was all in their own hands, that all I did was `speak’ astrology, like translating something from another language, and that it wouldn’t always make sense or be what they wanted to hear, and in the end I stopped. The woman I spoke of studied astrology herself and interpreted her findings the way she wanted them. That’s the problem – wanting a certain outcome and manipulating the information to fit. That again, is setting aside the responsibility for your own choices - `fate made me do it’.

Then, as they perceive (hope) for more that you can provide, they are sometimes disappointed and become withdrawn -- often for extended periods.

My pride may also be a factor here – when I was younger and more energetic, I tackled everything head on and refused to give in. Now I am older and often feel fed up with the fact that life is still unfair and I still have to pick up my cudgels against injustice, I also find it harder to come up with solutions. I am becoming, I fear, one of those annoying older people who think the young can’t figure it out for themselves. I must take a moment to stand back and let them take up the baton as well. Some of them have already done it and their frustration may be due to the fact that I don’t see how much they are doing on their own. Ouch, Kiyan, that one stings. But wasn’t that my mission all along – to pass it along. I laughed at my husband because he is an old lion grumbling about the younger ones not heeding his advice. It’s their world, I said. But I must stop sucking on my own paws.

FOLLOW -- the main thought to be gathered at this point from these Casters is that you will have a far greater impact on people than now and in the past.

I am a great fan of David Suzuki – I am taken with his concept of eldership and hope to attain that in my third age – there is so much to learn from animals and nature, I feel as if I am beginning again to appreciate and respect the natural world. Today I watched a white and a yellow butterfly dancing on the breeze – The elder tree outside is in full bloom and covered in white butterflies. When I was young my father would take me fishing and point out things in nature that I hadn’t noticed – a rabbit in the grass, a broken thrush’s egg. I did the same thing with my children, and now with my grandchildren – pointing out to them the small miracles around us every day.

I seem to be rambling but this is the train of thought this first sounding has set me on – that as an elder I have more to offer than advice, that it doesn’t matter if the kids know better how this thing works than I do, because I still have the ability to open their eyes to the small miracles. I sense a purpose and a mission here, maybe one I have had all along, and didn’t know it, but followed it anyway, by instinct.

Kiyan, I am going back outside to watch the butterflies. I will be thinking of you.

Gail