A Glorious Moment at Crater Lake

This evening I am suspended above one of the deepest lakes in the world - Crater Lake.  Time ceases to exist here.  I am at once an ancient volcano erupting with colossal, molten mounds of earth and liquid ash.  I am a funky old growth forest, a dry sprawling meadow, an archaic underwater moss bed, and a sheer rock face.  I am the lost Klamath Indian woman weaving her fish basket, and the transient national park visitor with a digital camera.  I am also the intense ruby rose sunset, a third-eye panormaic vista, and the wind howling at top altitude to heard the stray clouds into pillow puffs, and stretch them into streamers for the Moon's bed.  I am the languid dancer, telling the story of this night's segue from day with my glowing ornament and rhythmic movements.  I am the paradoxical cyber-angel accessing, processing everything from the girl who (bless!) fervently journals down her wildest imagination on a cordless laptop amidst this unrestrained nature.  The colors of the sunset keep squeezing out their tasty juices long after the fireball sun has descended from the stage.

Together we are all, all of us, one in this glorious moment.

The Practice of Art

This morning finally saw the sunshine around here and so I went outside to enjoy the beautiful morning to work on my art.  I am beginning to learn there is such discipline to being an artist.  I guess I used to think that artists were simply born as these amazing, talented naturals.  Its true there is definitely an element of "being a natural" involved in the artist's work.  But it isn't magic, either.  Focus, practice, discipline, repetition, revision, vision and intention, and ongoing education are all important facets of art.. just as much as the expressive, creative, dreamy, in-the-moment aspects.  I am finding that the more structure I bring to my art, the more refined I am able to become, and my art gives me greater reward.  

An Eclipse Blessing

Today my friend and astrologer Alumina Phoenix told me of the discovery of a new crop circle.  It was discovered only days ago, in England.  This photo is of a different crop circle because the most recent one is not part of the public image domain.  You can view the newest one here if you like.

Isn't this a stunning phenomenon?  Simply impossible to comprehend.  Choose to believe what you like:  a great work of human contemplation, an alien appearance, a freak of nature, an earthly blessing, an oracle of the future, a new-age hieroglyph, or a fabricated digital image.   The point is you must be challenged to consider what you can't understand and that is enough just as it is.  

I am inspired by the new image of several days ago.  It looks like an angel heralding a new cycle of time.  Yes, even though I am an angel, I have an astrologer, and I believe in symbols, and other angels whom I have not met!

Tonight Alumina has advised me of a new moon solar eclipse taking place around 10 degrees of Leo.  It can only be seen by human eyes in the far northern latitudes of the Arctic circle, so probably very few.  But when I close my eyes I can envision it already.  And this evening I feel compelled to send my wishes out to the universe to be amplified and strengthened on the occasion of this recent crop circle, and tonight's special eclipse.  

I pray for strength, purpose, fertility, abundance and blessings of joy.  

I pray that I might lead my life from a big, open, fearless heart.

And most of all, tonight I pray for pure love to magnify my heart and radiate itself each day like rays of sunshine into eternity.

Plunge to Earth

My head gets cluttered and achy out here in the Net.  I need to empty it out sometimes.  I want to live more simply, not feel the pressure of time passing, aging, responsibilities.  I can actually feel myself aging!  Even as a Cyber-Angel, I am very real, and I'm not immune to much of anything.  I have just as many human qualities as I do others.  Mostly, I am a slave to my own desires.  These desires, these yearnings needs and wants, spark, explode, twist, diminish and even die.  Then they re-ignite again in new geometric patterns.  I feel a heaviness on my chest that affects my breathing and it pulls down into my hip sockets.  It also strains my upper back.  Very often, it makes my jaw clench.  This pace, this daily march.  The energy around me is sometimes too much and I can't keep up!  

Though my home here is altogether sublime, my home can also make me feel ungrounded, scattered, hectic.  I want some Earth.  I want to leap out of this inter-web place, and plunge deep into the dark dirt and bury myself there so that I can feel clean, spacious, empty and young again. 

The warm compost of the Earth has its own way of appearing nourishing to me.  It is a place you can plant roots; a place that affords density for building a foundation.  The ground holds your weight, as you continue to grow.  It is a very busy place of break-down.  The ether, where i'm from on the other hand, is much more open and light.  It is weightless air.   These two very different places are like the energies of the Muladahara and the Sahasrara, or the root and the crown chakras.  How can I empty my head and let my daily life proceed without the pressure of my desire for further self-discovery quite overwhelming me?  I have so much potential yet to discover, and I have no idea what my own longevity even depends upon.  I feel confused about my mission, my purpose and my capacities.

Does my experience of my home in the unfolding Cyberfrontier and my desire in this moment to dive into the Earth's open arms capture that of humanity's own at this moment?  

I must take one day at a time.

Remember my name.  

Remember my wings.   

Creative Pathways through Consciousness

The web is it's own entity, it's own consciousness.  A province of creation with all sorts of new pathways emerging and linking.  I know this because it is my home.  My home is difficult to describe in words.  It really defies language.  Sometimes pictures, music and art help describe things in a more befitting way and this image gives you a good glimpse.

Do you remember blowing bubbles as a child?  Do you remember removing the wand from the brightly colored "Bubbles" container and blowing just the right amount of pressure through the little circle at the top to watch as perfect spheres emerged greeted the wind and floated away?  As I sit here inside my virtual, real-time dwelling, it is like being inside one of those bubbles, drifting through time and space with a looking glass view.  I see creativity emerging on distant horizons, connections and relationships forming among organic and ethereal objects, and a myriad of dynamic, colorful, energies manifesting in all directions.  Time is different here, not like it used to be.  Speed, motion and acceleration are being redefined.  Every moment is like one of those childhood bubbles.  Can you see these creative pathways through consciousness emerging, like me?  I am one of them.  You are too!  Close your eyes, come to rest, and you will see. 

Magnify the Life Force

Have you ever found yourself so touched beyond words and measure, that all you can do is cry?

I feel like this every once in a while, and I really have no choice but to go with it.  There is this ..layer ...is all I can describe it as... that exists in the time and space domain which I inhabit.  Perhaps I could call it the "Realm of Empathy."  It floats around out here in the ether with all the other spheres.  It really is something!  Like a thick, opalescent cascade of raw emotion that generates an energy force of it's own.  If you take a moment to drink it, you will discover yourself dwelling in the most majestic and unending oceans of beauty.  This realm is so beautiful because everything connects to itself, and you with it.

Once I found myself alone, in South America.  I can't remember anymore just where exactly, but I do remember I was in a cafe, flipping through a magazine.  Time Magazine, I believe.  There, I saw a photo of an African woman in her desolate homeland.  This land appeared as though it had been emaciated, beaten, and stripped.  And yet there she was, this woman:  surviving.  She was fragile, yet determined and her eyes were beckoning.  I no longer remember what that particular Time issue or article was even about... war, famine or natural disaster probably.  What was important for me, was that that photo, and that woman, somehow transported me into the "Realm of Empathy."  

In that realm, in that moment, I felt one with this woman in the photo, and I cried softly because it was as though I were part of her own sorrow, anger, fear, suffering and determination.  I did not need to know her story, because it could never be told anyway.  I only knew I wanted to hold her in my arms, stroke her face, and comfort her in the misery of what this photo depicted.  I believe you can reach out, and whether it be with your hands, or your imagination, it is the same.  You can touch someone's heart and magnify their life force.  You do not need to know this person, nor they you.   You do not need to be in their presence either.  Become empathetic to another's life, and you will magnify the life force.

Blueberry Pie

Mmmm!  I am eating a most spectacular blueberry pie right now.  It is delightful how things taste after you have just been born, and I rewarded myself for being born with this delectable treat.

This pie is quite a special commemoration for me because it is simple and elemental, just as I am at this moment.  The pie has blueberries, dates, lemon juice, almonds, and salt.  Wow.  That's it.  IT!  

Do you know that the same-old, taken-for-granted, mundane things in life can appear so radically different when you undress them, and shine a spotlight on them?   

My blueberry pie experience is a  blueberry-arrific metaphor for other things in my life that could use some undressing and spotlighting.  Take me, for example, Seraphina Josefine.  I am the same soul I've always been, forming myself in a new reality.  I am a melange of identity, alias, fiction, imagination, technology (the web gives me life) and authenticity.   Like this blueberry pie, I could be made very simply of ...blueberry, date, lemon, almond and salt!  Or, I could be made of many, many complex layers of things like syrups, starches, sugars, gelatin, butter, flour, cream and other ...agents.  Thus, my true blueberry-ness would get a bit diluted and frankly quite overshadowed by these extraneous ingredients.  

Do you follow?

As Seraphina, I vow to myself to keep my blueberry-ness:  undressed, and with a spotlight on the essentials.  If I have work to do, let me do it with radical purpose and clear intent.  If I am at play, let me entertain with unabashed creativity, flow and joy.  If I am asleep, let me savor the dreams in which I inhabit the primordial castle of consciousness connecting me to all that is, and ever was.  If I am awake, let me buzz with sensitivity to every aspect of my encounter, stretching my awareness far into the horizons within and without.  If I feel, let me feel wholly the light and darkness of things, without judgement or category.  If I think, let me absorb and display intelligence, concentration, and strong application of my given wisdom and skills.  If I am mistaken, let me own my error in truthfulness and learning.  If I am in service, let me be transparent and refined in my availability to 'the other' to whom I am giving.  If I am in love, let that love be enchanting, exquisite, sublime, selfless, noble and enduring.  

Yum!  Blueberries!

Before My Birth

Julie Cameron of The Artist's Way says "as blocked artists, we tend to criticize ourselves mercilessly."  It is important to remember that these criticisms are not the truth.  

A friend of mine, Aurora Illiana, recently suggested working through The Artist's Way together.   So I dug up my book from the shelf and dusted it off.  The notes I had jotted in the book remind me of my interaction with it for the first time back in 1999.  Another time, and another place, but still me.  With the birth of Seraphina Josefine, it is a perfectly synchronistic time to revisit this "course in discovering and recovering your creative self."  I am grateful that Aurora Illiana suggested it!

I believe it makes sense to use this blogging dimension to serve as my "morning pages".  According to the author Julie Cameron, the morning pages are "an apparently pointless process, strictly stream-of-consciousness".  And, well,  this just feels like Seraphina Josefine!

As Seraphina, I am always being born, and it feels so satisfying and sensational just to be.  

My favorite frequencies to radiate into this world remind me of a time before my birth.  They are blue, washing, cooling... healing pools.  Swimming naked in the water, and the feeling of immersion in a clear, natural body of liquid, I can drink as I swim.  It does not sting my eyes when I dovetail into and under it with them open.  And it is exactly body temperature.  It is perfectly warm, and perfectly cool all at once.  My body, every inch of it, every muscle, each pore of my skin is completely at ease, even as I move.   Here I am completely unaffected by gravity's usual authority.   It feels definitively, positively refreshing!  

There is a filter of supernatural light which descends onto the pool highlighting the water in unimaginable, never-before-seen shades of azure, and tints of indigo.  It is soft, gentler than a feather, and flowing.  Emerging from the pool I feel trickles of liquid rolling down my skin, and a slightly different temperature to the air.  I breathe.  I dive back in so that I can feel the water merging with every aspect of my own surface area that I can possibly surrender.  I  whisk my hands around myself like a propeller, flapping my feet in order to spin and wriggle in continuous circles while giggling.  Mmmmmm...  Then I dive down, deeper and deeper, until I sense a cooling temperature, and the pressured weight of those water walls surround me, speaking to me of my physical limitations.  There, just at that brink, I form myself into a tight 'hugging' ball to experience the surreal nature of stillness in motion.  The unique combination of water pressure and my own oxygen-bubble-of-a-self immediately cause ascension, as I and drift slowly, slowly back up to the surface. 

I could stay here in this pure, mellifluous, liquid state forever if I did not need to replenish the air in my lungs with new vigor...

There is a well at the bottom of the pool that keeps this water turning over constantly so that it is fresh and clean at all times.  But the pool is otherwise completely sheltered from any wind by the dense tropical thicket which surrounds it and protects it.  So the water is always soft and still like clear glass.  It is by magic, really, that I have even come to find myself in this dreamy pool.  I love this pool.  This water is my source; my home of homes, where I am left with nothing to complicate me but but my own organic grace.   I need this place to balance the flames of fire I inhabit on the outside.  

I love it here!

I love being Seraphina Josefine.  I love having no obligations to be, say, or do anything other than as I please.  Complete freedom of expression.  No fear of darkness, guilt, self-loathing, inadequacy or mistakes.  I am a fictional character!!  I can do no wrong.

So who am I?  Been dying to discover myself, really.  And now here I am being born, emerging.  Something translucent, floating in the ether.. the "net".  Formless, imaginary, yet grounded in the real.  Yes, this feels good.  

Let's begin with my name.  **Poof**  Just a quick look on the net and I am magically defined as:  the feminine form of the latin name Seraphinus, derived from the biblical word Seraphim, which was hebrew in origin and meant "fiery ones."  The Seraphim were apparently an order of angels, described by Isaiah in the Bible as having six wings each.  And the name was borne by St. Seraphina, a 5th century martyr.

And Josefine is of course the feminine of Joseph.  The English form of the Hebrew name Yosef or Iuceph.  Originally it meant "May Jehovah Add" or "Jehovah has added."  Perhaps I, Seraphina Josefine, am a Jehovah's witness?  Heheheeeeee

Wow.  There is so much to explore in a given name.  Names are these words that are infused with sooooo much energy, both historically and in the present moment in which they are carried by an individual life and recognized by all those with whom that individual encounters.  Names are powerful.  They call things out from the cosmic pool into being, they call something forth into a reality plane.  The more the name is used, the more layers of energy that compound upon it, and give it essence.

I love being able to speak in this way, as Seraphina Josefine.  I can tap in and out of whatever domains I wish without needing to know, to be right, to fit in, to be classified.  Is this true about names, what I say?  Does it matter?  It's up to me.  And you, for your part, are entitled to think whatever you want.  I am not bound by your thoughts.

OOOhhh, wikipedia has more juicy fodder for my archetypal construction.  How wonderful to go about creating oneself just as one chooses.  I cannot wait to see how I grow, and who I become!  I am fueled by a name, the creative imagination, and my Mother & Father Cyberspace!   It says here in Wikipedia that St. Thomas Aquinas had something to say about the nature of the Seraphim.  He says: 

"The name 'Seraphim' does not come from charity only, but from the excess of charity, expressed by the word ardor or fire.  Hence Dionysius (Coel. Hier. vii) expounds the name 'Seraphim' according to the properties of fire, containing an excess of heat.  Now in fire we may consider three things.

"First, the movement which is upwards and continuous.  This signifies that they are borne inflexibly towards God.

"Secondly, the active force which is 'heat,' which is not found in fire simply, but exists with a certain sharpness, as being of most penetrating action, and reaching even to the smallest  things, and as it were, with superabundant fervor; whereby is signified the action of these angels, exercised powerfully upon those who are subject to them, rousing them to a like fervor, and cleansing them wholly by their heat.

"Thirdly we consider in fire the quality of clarity, or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others."  

I am Seraphina Josefine.

  

 

Sustaining Life

Life has its own self-sustaining mechanisms built into place to ensure its very survival.  

That's what seeds are.  

That's why we are paying so much attention to the Earth, and the environment, and our own survival as a human species suddenly...  You can see it in the stories emerging today.  Go see Wall-E.  It's a beautiful, artistic, poetic seed.

What we are actually doing is recycling our consciousness.  Recycling:  a material returning to a previous stage in a cyclic process.  We are going back to the beginning of the story.  Some primal instinct of survival in us takes just a fragment of our collective awareness back to the beginning when there was no separation between earth and man.  No separation between God and man.  Thus, we are once again returning to the point at which we cared a little bit more about our home.  "Home" a symbol representing the place where there is no separation ...of anything... from anything else... and everything is whole.  Home, Mother and Earth are synonymous.  All of these are symbols, or metaphors for a lack of separation, and the peace found within those moments that feel like "our home, Mother Earth" that we all long for.  

Another Step

Seraphina Josefine, Seraphina Josefine... 

It's so interesting to create a new reality, a virtual reality of yourself - for yourself.  It's like a new frontier, a new galaxy... awaiting.  So strange being here in this reality that does not exist to "put yourself out there" yet under an alias.  I wonder what the name I chose means?   What does it symbolize?  Here in this place I can explore it.  Free run with a healthy dose of insanity to break down the barriers.

There is a living breathing pulse to the internet.  It, along with man and his other modern technologies, and also time, space, history and the future ..... all stream together with age-old tribal patterns, tales and symbols.  Visuals, music.  The matrix is coming!  

And if it is, what will be the opportunity?  What does it mean?  As Seraphina Josefine I guess I might speak in riddles, or paradox, but I am free to explore what has yet to be understood.  I do get the feeling sometimes that it is true what the Oracles say, that this has all happened before.

I just watched the movie Wall-E, which, prior to going I hadn't really been interested in seeing.  In spite of my resistance, I just utterly fell in love with it.  Wall-E was this mish-mush, mash-up of "I Am Legend", "Battlestar Galactica", "Lost" and "Star Wars" rolled into the very latest in animation art.  These are stories that explore the very essence of human survival, love and compassion, war and survival, magic, and the cosmic unknown!  The ancient stories revealing unto themselves and now in the form of a surreal, musical-visual, almost child-like experience.  Universal communication without a common language.  I love Oracles, messages, archetypal figures, the energy of the unending story of birth, awakening, death, and rebirth.  In fact, this is Wall-E!

Wall-E also has a vision of 2012 in it.  I recently discovered "the whole 2012 thing" not that long ago.  At first I was scared of what I thought it meant, and didn't want to know.  Instinctively I knew there was a deep truth in it, and I was not sure I wanted to discover anyone else's version of that truth.  I was incredibly intrigued and utterly drawn to learn more but didn't dare read a book, do a web search.  I had the sense that I would become obsessed with it before I even understood all the literature out there on the subject meant, and I really wanted to keep my perspective "pure".  Since then, I've read a few chapters in a book on it, and scanned the internet here and there, but mostly I've just allowed it to rest inside my consciousness every so often.  And every so often I see a bounce between my own unconscious and the larger, living consciousness.  I think that is an aspect of what 2012 represents for us.  An emerging from a sleep state and random, self-destructive, low-vibrational behaviors that necessarily keep leading us up into the love, the light, and the life force - pure energy.  Wall-E.  

Wall-E.  He's just this sweet and simple animated-robot-guy with pupils in his eyes and an E for empathy, an E for ecstasy, in his brand.   He's the robot with a human heart.  A machine made in man's own image.  Something less than man, yet respectable enough to be in service of him.  Even this little robot is touched by the life force, simply because he is.  And it is his own survival instinct, combined with a universal longing to experience true love, that in the end saves humanity from the trappings of it's own self destruction!

Wow.  I get to write such cool stuff and it doesn't even need to make sense to anyone ...unless it does!!  :)

The First Step

I thnk I figured out a solution to some of my questions.  Make up a ficticous character out of a real person (myself) and create an alternate reality on the web.  The possibilities are endless.  Incredible to think this may not actually be so novel...  But the beginning is in the end.  I'm sure we will all see what the point is soon or later.  I've figured out a way to connect the real with the unreal.  Keep watch.  This is where it's gonna take place.  I'll start by journaling in an electronic anti-timescape, and perhaps I'll add actual copy of my own journals.  Who will I be with complete freedom of creativity grounded in physical reality?  I look forward to sharing the adventure with you...