Category: Gaia / Environment / Collapse

The Cries of the World (a prayer for our times)

Published on by Kasha RosaLeave a comment
Heart-Hands

 

By Kathleen Calder

 

Acid rain tears fall down the cheeks of a thousand broken surfaces
the cracks and voids of where life was
is bringing about its fiery end.

 

The learning curve is steeper now
carved out to be so from our necessary faults.
         How else can we learn?

 

In death we learn to respect life
In hindsight we see what we could have, should have done
               but didn’t.
And perhaps the greatest self-punishment of all
         Is that we are destroying ourselves.

 

Great Mother, your arms offer safety but not from ourselves.
You shelter and harbour the changes to make
in order to not make the same pathway alive again.
To ask for more time, well, that doesn’t seem fair
when for thousands of years, with tears and longing
have you watched us scramble ourselves into a lopsided labrynth
          collectively created
by our authentic lack of authentic selves.

 

In this dimension and all dimensions
may we learn the respect you teach us
the love you hold for us
and the longing you have to be one with us once again
like in times of old, when snakes were once your Druids
and porcelain dolls your Priestesses.

 

How do we bridge All That Is with all that is now?
They connect already, I know.
It’s the acceptance that there is nothing more to do
          and only more to be
that gets hard to be with
and is the toughest mountain to climb in this ever-churning industrial world
soon screeching to a halt.

 

How do your children feel to you now?
Do you feel much hope for more than that we may try again someday?
Could it all be healed in a sudden swoop of an upswing of Divine ecstasy felt in all hearts?

 

I am done with the humanness of humanity to the degree in which most inhabit it.
To the degree in which I have inhabited it.
And I want more
and I feel more
and I will live to be more.
To give more to myself
so I can give more to others
and learn to live in your light, your fire, your passion and your connectedness
to us
and to all things.

 

Amen.

 

Kathleen Calder is an initiate at the SoulFullHeart Sanctuary and you can read more of her writing here on this blog. Please visit SoulFullHeart Sanctuary for more information about staying with us and virtual sessions.

 

Diary of a HeartMan: Brotherhood of Sacred Power

Published on by Gabriel HeartmanLeave a comment

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I see and feel a picture in my heartmind. There are machines that have cords attached to the brains of men who are nothing more than slaves sucked of their essence. Above the machines are other men who are the creators and controllers. They have a sinister yet pained look on their face. In the background there are men hunting and killing other men. In the whole scene there is a play-out of control and powerlessness. In not one place do I see men in their full power together, creating and leading.

This feels like a painting of the collective masculine condition. Everyone feels alone and isolated, detached from their humanity and nature. What is missing is an authentic and sacred brotherhood. I used to call a close friend of mine a ¨brother¨ and even my brother in-law a ¨brother¨. What did that really mean? Our desire to call each other brother was based on a need to feel a deeper connection that we weren´t getting from other men. One that we couldn´t get from the women in our lives because there is a uniquely male ache, just as there is a uniquely female ache that we cannot relate to as men. And this ache isn´t satiated just by playing sports, fixing or building things, complaining about politics, or going to bars and trying to get laid. So what the hell is it?

Raphael and I attended a men´s group in Canada to get a feeling for what other men were talking about and feeling together in these kind of circles. I had never been to one so I had no idea really what to expect. The men in the circle were processing an issue that had been effecting them as a group and was centered on one man in particular. What was refreshing was that I was around other men who were actually being more real than I was used to experiencing outside of my relationship with Raphael. However, in the end it was really nothing more than a place to off-gas frustration, letting it permeate the space without actually getting to the heart of the issue so that there could be movement and healing.

In the circle there was a sense of brotherhood but it still didn´t hit the mark for me. Not by a long shot. Relieving frustration is not enough. I am certain not all men´s groups are like this. I don´t want to generalize by my one experience. One could say, ¨Well, at least they have that outlet.¨ I guess so, but why stop there? There is collective ache out there that is so desiring to be felt by those that feel the same. In all the expressions of ¨brotherhood¨ from the dense to the more porous, I feel you, I, and all of us are searching for love and a reclaiming of our authentic male power.

I feel ¨man-love¨ deserves its own dedicated blog space, so I will get to that on a later post. The loss of our natural power as sacred masculine beings has occurred over history. Our separation from our spiritual essence, I feel, has led to a collective experience of fear and isolation. The male psyche, without feeling its divinity, needed to gain some sort of control in order to cover over this existential terror. Over the centuries, many men, and women, have tried to direct us back to the source of our real nature as spiritual beings, but only to be rebuffed by the empirical, the tyrannical, and the industrial.

Men in days gone by gave their lives for ¨freedom¨. Men, and women, are still doing it today. I put the word in quotes because it feels like a loaded term. Whereas a kingdom is the domain of a king, freedom is the domain of the free. It represents power. The ability to live in your fullest expression. But what is your fullest expression? Is it to be able to digest all the entertainment you want? Is it to be able to buy all the coolest technologies that complicate rather than simplify your life? Is it to be able to work your ass off for 30 years only to find out all your savings disappeared because the fuckers in charge shorted all the stocks that were in your 401k? Fuck no!

The Tyranny of Industry has put more men in slavery than any other despot in history. Is that an over the top statement? Do you want me to find the ´facts´? If that is the case then you are in the wrong room. I want you to feel this on a soul level. Look around you. What do you see and feel when you observe other men going through the motions every damn day? What has this done to our sense of power? Are the men and women overseas really fighting for ´freedom´ or are they handing over their power to the grim reapers of the corporatocracy?

All of this makes me feel a sadness in my heart. We have allowed ourselves to be divided and conquered. However, to make this an us versus them only puts us in the realm of victims. We are not victims. We are powerful beings who desperately desire to remember what we have forgotten. Even the men who are ¨in control¨ are no different than you and I. We are all brothers in need of a community of love. Individually, you need to feel your own responsibility in continuing the story that I mentioned in my last blog. What part do you play? Only then can you see what choices you can make to move from slave to sovereign.

The Industrial Age has had a huge impact on us as men in regards to our balls and our hearts. We are in a time of great change and upheaval. The control structure will try to hold on as long as possible but inevitably will collapse. This is where a vacuum is created. What will fill that empty space? Fanaticism or grounded, human leadership? A despot or a king? Looking at the world today it is hard to find a single example. We have a destiny together, you, I, and us . Rome is burning and what comes out of the ashes is totally up to us. I hope you will join me in creating another picture more humane and beautiful than the one I started out with.

Brace for Impact: Life at El Rancho

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

 brace for impact

By Jelelle Awen

“The most difficult thing we have to do in order to survive the coming crash is to renounce the life of artificial luxury that has been the temporary product of the systematic destruction of our life support systems.” – Brace For Impact, Thomas Lewis

Renouncing a life of artificial luxury. Yes, I can relate to that. And especially the word, ‘artificial’. Artificial luxuries compared to natural luxuries. Artificial luxuries need to be attained, maintained, and possessed. Natural luxuries arise to be experienced and cannot really be owned. Artificial luxuries are temporary while natural ones are enduring. Maybe it’s as simple as artificial luxuries are man-made and natural ones….well, they are natural.

Systemic destruction of our life support systems. In every way that is imaginable, humans are indeed destroying the very things that are vital for our survival. That we can do this for so little reward or benefit (beyond the very artificial and temporary luxury of money attainment) would be baffling without the picture of the false self and its evolution. The false self, in a way, is an artificial luxury, created by modern, egoic circumstances that require a strategic, self image-based, money-focused, and non-vulnerable way of relating to the world. The false self developed as a core defensive structure that is a product of an industrialized environment.

I recently read Brace For Impact by Thomas Lewis again. Thomas Lewis has a beautiful generalist mind, able to analyze and present information without mentally getting bogged down too much in the details or needing to ‘prove his case’. He presents a compelling and inspiring argument for inevitable collapse of industrial society due to the areas of water scarcity, peak oil production, industrial agriculture and meat production, global climate change-related weather events, political corruption, economic unsustainability and much more. Reading this book is to have your eyes opened, your heart hurting, your gut aching, and your initiative charging. The last chapter about the urgency of finding an off grid, rural, safe sanctuary and learning ‘back to basics’ homesteading skills was particularly validating to me related to the choices I and three others have made recently moving to an off-grid ranch in Mexico.

While it was immensely validating, I felt there was a missing piece in the writing. Thomas Lewis talks eloquently about what is happening, but less succinctly about why it is happening. He offers a picture of addiction to money and to greed that feels true, but without a specific sense of why this addiction has been necessary. We feel that all addictions have unfelt emotional congestion at their roots. The addiction is an outward manifestation of an inner need going unmet and unfelt. If money subconsciously represents love and how we feel about it (which I feel is true after coaching and facilitating people around their ‘money issues’), then the need for love is the biggest one that is going unmet in all the money accumulation that is leading to so much destruction of our planet and ourselves. It is our disconnection from our deep need for love that manifests into acting without love toward other humans, animals, and the living planet.

In my experience of the last ten years of healing my own false self and others, I ultimately hold the false self with equal parts love and challenge. Love invites the false self into authentic expression through nourishing and real experience of the love it never knew that it always needed. Challenge holds the false self accountable to keep being vulnerable, surrendering to the growing authentic self, and letting go of things (such as artificial luxuries) that keep it falsely powerful.

The loving challenge our false selves are being offered at this time in modern history is to shift very significantly our lifestyles to sustainable, authentic, and love-based ones. If our false selves are unwilling to shift or to even see that there are very compelling reasons to shift, then there is little to be offered by me or anyone else about the coming collapse and how to survive it. For those that are ready to shift and also see that there is an absolute necessity to do so, I invite them to feel how it is their false self that has feelings of resistance, doubt, trepidation, and fear of change. It is the false self that is attached to artificial luxuries and it takes a lot of natural luxuries such as love and the bounty and magic offered by nature for them to let it go.

The first time I read Brace For Impact, I was still living in Canada in a fairly comfortable life, although I had already started letting go of many things. Reading the book inspired me greatly to keep going with my search for a sanctuary and to actually make the move to living off grid in Mexico. There was little to no resistance inside of me (no real false self protest) to letting go of the artificial luxuries that I’ve known my whole life. And, I am now experiencing in my daily life that I can not only survive without them; I am thriving in deeply nourishing ways that bring me back to the luxuries that only nature and living an authentic life can bring.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Go here to connect with Jelelle on facebook. Visit the SoulFullHeart website  for more information about virtual sessions with her.

Building The Ark: Life At El Rancho

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

By Jelelle Awen

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The ark is about learning what I don’t know; remembering what my soul knows; and using my intuition to feel out the rest.

I have felt like Noah at times; holding a prophecy of a big storm coming and making plans and taking actions to survive that storm. Like Noah, with some foresight and surrender to the Divine, doing something for which most of the culture is not understanding or seeing. My version of the ark was my passenger van and the human and dog companions that came along with me on the journey from Canada to here in Mexico are as treasured as the pairs of animals saved to repopulate the earth. We landed here in our ark on the shores of what feels like our safe sanctuary. A place where water flows not from city taps but from natural springs. A place where exotic fruit grows year round from trees. A place where no insulation is needed on homes or on bodies. A place where having no electricity or refrigeration is not a big inconvenience but a manageable work around. A place where many people ride horses to get around and cars are just another option. A place where traffic slowdown is caused by a swarm of cows not frustrated commuters.

The storm is growing, building strength in the skies of the world. These are dim skies to me right now; they feel far away from the daily realities here on the ranch. But, I can feel the thunder rumbles of war in ISIL occupied areas and the Ukraine; in the economic contentions of European nations faced with growing debt that can’t be repaid; in oil price fluctuations due to diminishing reserves and bubbles bursting fracking empires; in the diminishing fresh water resources around the world and especially the southeastern United States. And maybe the lightning from these events is still far off and hasn’t charred the ground and struck near or in your world. But, as so many people have foretold, the storm that will end this industrial age as we know it is coming. Whether in ten days or ten months or ten years, the world as it being run and experienced right now just isn’t sustainable in any kind of long term picture.

We’ve become so out of touch with our intrinsic nature as hunters and gathers and growers. Becoming so out of touch has made us disconnected about where our food comes from, how it is grown, how it is treated (in the case of animals), how chemicals are used on it, and how synthetic or natural it is. Becoming so out of touch has made us easy victims for the storm that is coming. Rather than being able to tough it out relying on ancient instincts of survival, so many people will be unable to respond in any way that is beyond feeling helpless, hopeless, and immobilized. Many people, sadly, will simply end their own lives rather than have to find the will to survive in a world without all the easy conveniences that they are used to.

This last week has felt like another phase of ark building. The ark this time isn’t about transport to sanctuary; it’s about reconnecting with my human instinct and imprint for feeding myself. The ark now, for me, is about growing my own organic food and incorporating what grows here on the ranch already into my diet, even if I’m not familiar with it. The ark is about learning what I don’t know; remembering what my soul knows; and using my intuition to feel out the rest.

We have all been building this ark with dedication, getting up by the rooster’s call at six am to work at Tranquila, our third garden space here at the ranch. Tranquila is described in much more detail here. We’ve put in five or six hours a day during the hardscaping and shaping of earth phase that is required to sculpt raw earth into a garden space. This is the laying out of floor and wall boards, pounding in of nails process of building our ark. And inside of the ark, instead of just animals, there are beans, tomatoes, quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth, and much more. Inside of the ark is true self sustainability and connection back with a primal instinct that has been numbed by easy living.

As I watered the gardens in Tranquila for the third time today, I felt how I don’t resonate with the idea of being a gardener. For me, it’s not about being something outside of who I am just because I am growing seeds, tending them, harvesting them, and eating them. I am not a gardener; I am a human. A human reclaiming the inner gardening abilities inherent in my soul and embraced by my heart.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Go here to connect with Jelelle on facebook. Visit the SoulFullHeart website  for more information about virtual sessions with her.

The Gifts Of Being Off Grid

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

By Jelelle Awen

All of my life I have been plugged into the grids. These grids provided in an anonymous way, all that I needed of electricity, water, food, and gas. I flipped the switch and currents coursed through. I turned the tap and water flowed out. I squeezed the handle and gas pumped out. I cruised the aisle of supermarkets and food was harvested. Flipping and turning, squeezing and cruising, that was all. I never thought much about this process until a few years ago when I began to increase my awareness of the environmental consequences of our modern lifestyles. Connecting the dots from resource allocation to resource acquisition to resource exploitation, awakened me to how all of these things came to me and the impact on the world. Also, I became more convinced that a major global collapse of easy access to these finite resources is inevitable. Therefore, becoming conscious and self sustainable related to these resources became crucial to me and led to the decision to move to an offgrid ranch in Mexico.

I think there can be a romanticism related to becoming self sustainable. A romanticism that can lead to inaction fueled by overwhelm and denial. What I have discovered after living in a sustainable way related to these resources is that this lifestyle offers many gifts, both sentimental and pragmatic. Once the crucial paradigm shift happens that separates us from our fusion with the grids, our adaptable and resourceful human instinct for survival can kick in. We have been greatly separated from this instinct by the insular reality of our industrial society. In order to truly live sustainably, we have to reconnect with both our gut and our heart.

Here on the ranch, we live without city water and city electricity. But, we get to live with wonderfully nourishing water from underground springs and any electricity we need is provided by the sun’s rays. We live without internet and cell phones. But, we get to live incredible sunsets, hikes in the woods, cleansing dips in the river, spontaneous horseback rides, evening bon fires, encounters with many creatures both wanted and not (scorpions-not, geckos- yes). We live without grocery stores and restaurants. But, we get to live with fresh bananas cut in a bunch from the tree; papayas prodded down from their lofty birch by bamboo poles; incredible superfoods noni and morenga harvested whenever we want to; lemons and limes picked from organic trees. And, we get to live with crafting and alchemizing our own organic garden spaces with a combination of book smarts and soul retrieved knowledge.

There are still things that feel challenging to give up, but we are finding our way. The most difficult for me has been refrigeration. My whole life I’ve had access to cold food, another thing that I never thought about. Open the fridge door, and there it was. We have one solar panel and four good batteries, which allow us to charge our devices (kindles and computers), use some appliances (blender, crock pot, hot water kettle), and light some twinkle lights and lamps. But refrigerators take a lot of juice, so, we decided to see how it would be to live without one. We are vegan, so our refrigeration needs are lower than people who eat meat and dairy. We’ve been using two zeer pots(evaporative cooler pots made out of clay) that were already here on the ranch and we find that they keep leftovers, beers, and wine somewhat cold. But it’s been an adjustment for sure.

I didn’t use the internet regularly until I was in my 20s. I grew up without it and my imagination flourished because of it. I was outdoors most of the time and when I couldn’t be, I would create elaborate play worlds out of basements and bedrooms. Like most everyone else in western culture, I got deeply into the internet and even most recently spent many hours online creating and keeping our blog and website up to date. It had become my creative playground and I have moments for sure where I miss that outlet for my creativity. But, also, I feel that the internet becomes yet another grid that we connect to, that we plug into without being conscious of it and that there are consequences to it, especially doing it as often as so many do. The internet is an alternative reality. It encourages us to leave our present, physical reality to engage in a surreal and alternative one.

I have been online once in the last few weeks and that was for only a couple of hours. We have to travel two hours into town right now to get online. There are rumors that satellite internet connections are coming to the area where the ranch is located. I am hoping actually that it doesn’t, at least not for a while. I have been living without internet. But, I have living with much more awareness and connection to every present moment and more engagement with others, the incredibly nourishing natural setting around me, and other venues for my creative expression.

I feel even more appreciative of the gifts being offgrid have brought me and what it will mean when and if the grids collapse altogether. There won’t be much sense of that here as all the systems that we have created self sustainably will not be affected much by a global industrial collapse.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Go here to connect with Jelelle on facebook. Visit the SoulFullHeart website  for more information about virtual sessions with her.

Lighting Your Fire And Taking Action Before Collapse Comes

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

fire

By Jelelle Awen

Seeking knowledge about current world conditions that contribute to an overall sense of impending collapse is important. It’s a necessary phase that provides a growing sense of urgency, like putting kindling on a fire before you light it. The kindling could be scouring the internet for alternative news sources, reading social critics who provide a more radical and controversial viewpoint such as James Kunstler or Thomas Lewis and connecting with like-minded people in online and local transition communities to receive validation for your growing certainty about collapse coming. The sticks pile up and grow as your mind deconditions from cultural conditioning and seeks to separate from the group mentality that is so pervasive in our culture.

But, then what? You’ve got a nice pile of kindling going but it isn’t actually keeping you warm. When are you going to light the match? When are you going to start throwing logs on to get your fire really going? Lighting the match is about actually taking action, doing something in response to all that you’ve learned about collapse and are digesting with others. For us, lighting our match was about initially assessing if where we were living was going to provide us with the four essentials of survival: the logs of our fire, if you will, and then, taking action to find our sanctuary. We asked ourselves some hard questions, including if where we were living in British Columbia, Canada near the city of Vancouver on a coastline that is only accesible by ferry was really the sanctuary we wanted post collapse? Due to its high cost of living pre-collapse, short growing season, cold winters, and the significant impact that post collapse life would have on the people there (we imagined a lot of looting and panic), the answer was ‘no’. There is fresh water there and perhaps more chance to survive related to climate change, but, for us, the need for warm climate that provided a long growing season and less reaction after collapse from local people outweighed all that.

Once we decided that we weren’t staying in the same area and needed to leave as soon as possible, the match was lit to begin researching a place to go with a warmer climate. We decided on Mexico because we could drive there by car; we were more familiar with it; it has very fertile land; and the infrastructure collapse will be much less jarring than in western cultures. Quite quickly we found the ranch here, a 700 acre ecovillage about two hours from Puerto Vallarta with hundreds of fruit trees already planted there and multiple natural spring water sources. Solid infastructure has been built there for many years, including extenstive water pipelines to every house and trees. There is a community kitchen and bathroom/shower building, plus two large palapas which would allow us to host groups, couples, and individual retreats. We also liked that it wasn’t a community based on a guru or religious belief system, but was about individual lot and home owners living in a community that offered the potential of collaboration without a set expectation around it.

The ranch provided the most essential logs for our survival fire post collapse: shelter, fresh water, fresh food (the fruit trees plus organic food we would grow ourselves), and safety (being in a remote location that has good challenges in traveling easily to it.) With the potential of being at this ranch and feeling the logs of survival taken care of, we lit the match and began our exodus journey from Canada to Mexico, which I describe here.

The point of this article is that it feels as if more and more people are becoming aware of collapse and are in the kindling gathering stage. But, if they do not take action and light that fire and find those survival logs, all of their knowledge won’t mean anything when collapse happens and, sadly enough, they will perish along with those who never saw it coming at all.

Taking action is scary. Very scary. This is why parts of people debate endlessly about which place to go to without actually going anywhere, (if they decide that they can’t stay where they are, which is of course the ideal decision if the four ‘logs’ of survival are available). We feel strongly that the winter of this year and going into spring of next year will bring some major changes to the industrial world, economic and political systems especially. This is based on research but, also, it is based on our own intuitions and guidance from the Divine. For those who don’t feel or experience Divine guidance, I imagine that it’s hard to get what I am saying. But even if you don’t, I am urging you to take action based on your own instinct then. And start taking action immediately, way before collapse makes it so much harder and maybe even impossible to do so. Basically, stop talking about it and do it.

Yes, there will be fear and anxiety. There was and still is for us, even as we are now in the final stage of moving onto the ranch and hoping to begin planting seeds in the next few weeks. We’ve spent many years of focus on our emotional and spiritual healing, which I feel does make it easier for us in some ways. But, even with that, I feel that anyone can move forward from where they are and begin to find their sanctuary and making their way there or creating it out of what they have. Living ‘as if’ collapse is coming brings a purpose and momentum to life even if it is years before the ‘official’ collapse of industrial society actually happens.

We have already experienced so many gifts from making this life change, from living ‘as if’ collapse could happen any moment. We have left a cold and dreary climate to a warm one that doesn’t have frost or snow. We have increased our knowledge immensely of native plants, edible weeds and flowers, making our own soups and cleaning projects, living off of solar, etc. all of which makes us feel more empowered rather than dependent on the ‘grids’ to provide for us. As a community, we’ve increased our sense of collaboration, trust, and love with each other- even as we’ve had issues to sort out at times along the way. For me, as a healer and teacher, I feel a renewed sense of dedication to what I feel I am here to bring the world because I am even more deeply living my message with integrity. I am ‘walking my talk’, which is rare in the world of spirituality and emotional healing. I also feel more surrender into accepting that my form of service may come more in growing vegetables than in serving others.

We have thought of our own survival first, and yet, as healers for many years, we want to offer what we’ve experienced, learned, and drawn to ourselves with others.

Jelelle Awen is co-creator and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Go here to connect with Jelelle on facebook. Visit the SoulFullHeart website  for more information about virtual sessions with her.

Living “As If” Collapse Is Coming

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

mexico

By Jillian Vriend

Today, finally, I feel somewhat settled. After more than a month of travelling and short stays in various places, we are landed in a place that feels temporary yet stable. We repeat to each other, “We are renting an apartment in Mexico,” just to let in the reality a bit deeper. It feels like we are parked at the mouth of the river, waiting to (literally) begin the journey down it to hopefully claim our piece of sanctuary at an ecovillage located on 700 acres about one hour from here. There are still some unknowns about how it will all unfold, but inside of me it feels like we have found home. We have been claimed by life and by others here in a way that feels warm and welcoming.

Kathleen writes vulnerably about our experiences during the last five weeks in her two exodus journal entries here and here. Ups and downs. Ebbs and flows. Moments of joy and goodness. Moments of pain and constriction. The joy moments seeming to be impossible to occur without the constrictions and vice versa. For me, always there has been a deeper trust that everything would be all right and that we had been guided by the Divine to journey this far. Even when those around us were doubtful, critical, and, in one case, even cruel about expressing their skepticism about the way we were responding to our decision to come here….I still felt a sense that our trust and surrender to follow guidance would draw everything we desired.

We didn’t take years to plan the move here. Christopher and Wayne especially had been feeling the rumblings of industrial collapse coming for many years, yet our trajectories in the last several years have been around focusing on our emotional and spiritual health and deconstructing our false selves. When we gave up our residence (and the $1600 a month rent associated with it) and moved into an RV in January of this year, we felt we were on the right track. It was surrendering to Mother’s flow, but it wasn’t known what would unfold for us after that decision. The campground felt temporary with an energy of inflow and outflow of visitors with even the permanent residents feeling like they could move on at any moment. We liked this energy for awhile; it was freeing after committing to year long rental leases and feeling the noose of mortgages around so many people’s necks.

In June, I felt clear guidance that it was time to feel into leaving the campground and Canada altogether. I just didn’t feel like I wanted to go through another Canadian winter and I asked Wayne and Christopher, “Where would you go if you could go anywhere?” A rhetorical question, for sure, yet also, for the first time we really could go anywhere. Our daughter was an adult and completely independent. The painting contracting business Wayne had run for 30 years felt that it was at a completion. We hadn’t drawn new people to SoulFullHeart on the Sunshine Coast despite our efforts to hold talks and connect with local people. We could go anywhere that our desires would lead us.

Their answer was clear and quick, “Somewhere warm. Somewhere in the southern hemisphere. Somewhere we can get to by car.” These answers were fueled by desire for warm weather, yet, also, our sense of impending collapse was growing. I felt very clear guidance that in the next year major events would most likely take place that could make it impossible to leave Canada. Canada itself didn’t feel sustainable with its short growing seasons and deep reliance on fossil fuels and false self-based infrastructure. We wanted to live in a place where the local people lived more simply, more sustainably, and where there was a long growing season. We felt into various places in Central America and finally decided on Mexico, mostly because three of us had been here before and were somewhat familiar with it.

Mexico. I am falling in love with Mexico. It is a dance, just like in romance. It feels so foreign in moments- the concrete homes, the Spanish language, the accordion-heavy music, the dogs that wander free, the lack of self image.Yet it feels like home too. I love the way that life comes first here and work comes second. Every business seems to be run out of someone’s home so that the gap between the two is even less. They inhabit every square inch of their homes here, no matter how humble the dwelling is. Home is where the heart is here, yes. There are moments of culture shock, where I feel a rub inside of me after searching for anything comfortable or familiar and finding nothing. Dimly lit and un-air conditioned grocery stores. High heat plus humidity that seems almost hostile in its relentlessness. There is the challenge of being vegan, saying ‘no queso or carne’ over and over and getting confused looks back from waiters. Just like romance, the back and forths provide depth to the lust, to the desire that brings us here.

One desire, our desire for land, is strong. To grow seeds. To harvest and to eat of our own labors. This is the one thing that feels sane in a world that has become insane from fossil fuel addiction. Even here, in a state where so much produce is grown, many locals go to the grocery store still. Then comes the truck driven by local farmers full of watermelons or papayas or lemons…announcing over a loud speaker their price….and affordable freshness is in your hand and soon in your belly. Still, now, we are buying our food but soon, we hope, in the next six months or so, we will be eating mostly only what we grow. Is this a naive vision? Have we not planned well enough? Are we fools?

What feels naive and foolish to us is those who do nothing to become more sustainable, those who continue to live fossil fuel dependent lives without awareness, those who dream but do not follow their dreams because they need to earn money to keep their disatisfying lifestyles afloat, those who stay so busy that they cannot let in joy and breathing. Those who will most tragically and certainly die in the coming collapse if they do not change their lifestyles very soon.

And, even if we are wrong about the timing of collapse, why not live ‘as if’ it is a real possibility? Why not make changes to live more sustainably, including growing your own food, living off the grids of city electricity and water, living in community providing support and connection, letting go of false self attachments, healing your heart and soul? Why not truly experience your life in every moment rather than medicating with false food in so many forms?

We have jumped off a cliff into the unknown…and found that there is a river at the bottom that catches and submerges us. A river that is made of love and trust and surrender and courage. A river that has an unimaginable depth and a steady current…taking us onward and around the next bend and the next toward a destination where anything is possible.

Jillian Vriend is co-creator of SoulFullHeart, parts work facilitator, author of a  book about connecting with the Divine Mother and on this blog, and sacred humanity-Divine Feminine teacher.

Freeing Yourself From A False Life And Claiming Your Soul Purpose: Conversations With Divine Mother About Global Collapse

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

burning-heart

By Jillian Vriend

Jillian: Hello, Mother. The camp is quiet in the moment and I felt a desire to connect with you.

Divine Mother: I’m glad, Jillian. I feel a desire to connect with you as well.

J: I’m surprised that I’m not feeling more overwhelm and anxiety right now, considering that we are leaving in four days. Just four days and we’ll on our adventure to the States and then heading into Mexico in about a month. We’ve been planning this for what feels like forever and now it is finally happening.

DM: You’ve not just been planning, you’ve also been feeling. Feeling reactions of yourself and parts of you during this time of adjustment and transition. This is why you feel less overwhelm and anxiety.

J: I get that and, also, it just feels so right. I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life than I am that this is the right move for me and for those coming with me. It’s not so much about an absolute knowing as it is a feeling of being held and supported by you that makes it so clear and easier to navigate.

DM: For people who are not in surrender to Divine guidance, there is a feeling of uncertainty and lack of direction to their lives and the decisions that they make. They are in reaction rather than in response. Because you have been open to connect with me and, most importantly, accept guidance from me, you’ve been able to benefit from the clarity of purpose that brings.

J: That doesn’t mean that I don’t have moments of fear, anxiety, doubt, etc. Accepting guidance from you doesn’t shut down my feeling capacity, as you won’t allow it to be used to not feel.

DM: Yes. Rather than using ‘surrender to God’s will’ as a way to numb out with bliss or conviction or evangelical zeal, I offer the frequencies of my love with a complete respect for your sovereignty and an invitation to feel all the reactions that parts of you have to this love and guidance.

J: This is difficult to describe in words. I’m struggling to take what you are vibing to me right now and put it into words and concepts that people can understand.

DM: Don’t try to help them understand. Help them feel. Help them see. Help them heal.

J: Is that still my purpose here? It feels sometimes like I am just about practical matters and content-based living.

DM: Responding to practical matters has been important and it’s a grounded place in you that allows you to do that. You’ll need that to establish your gardens and shelters in your homestead and to remember many practical skills of survival that you’ve forgotten in this modern age. Yet, you are more than that too and your consciousness provides the context for the content.

J: I was reading last night a book by David Icke and he describes the sense that an awakened soul is aware that they are infinite awareness having a human experience. And that they are in the world but not of the world. That deeply resonated for me.

DM: Yes, and that can be a painful reality at times as most people are in the world and have mistakenly come to believe that they are also of the world. I believe that you call this being, “fused with content”.

J: Yes and with self identity supported by the false self and conditioning received from our birth family, society, friends, educational systems. Most people feel like slaves to me in a deep way. Slaves to content and to the medications and drugs they use to remain numb and asleep. Slaves to following the rules and conforming to others. Slaves to money and the contracts it binds them to and the meaningless jobs they undertake to keep it all going.

DM: The false self has imprisoned the heart, mind, soul, and body of most people. As you said, made slaves of them. Yet, ultimately, they are slave and master both. They hold the keys to their own freedom. All they have to do is see and feel how they are in a life that imprisons them, but that they are not of that life. They need to begin feeling the essence of their sacred humanity and the goodness of their human heart.

J: When we’ve told people about our plans to go to Mexico and live there off-grid in an eco-village, many people have expressed an envy at our ‘freedom’ to do this. As if we had some key or secret formula to liberate ourselves that they do not. And while it’s true that we’ve been blessed to get very good paint jobs lately that will fund our trip and buy our land, we’ve had to make very tough choices the last several years that have led to where we are today. And we’ve had to feel our way there, negotiating as we go. Letting go of all relationships that don’t serve our higher purpose and self. Letting go of most of our material possessions and, soon, letting go of modern conveniences to move into a more sustainable and off-grid lifestyle. So while it seems simple what we are doing, it has taken much emotional and spiritual healing to be able to do it. Much extracting ourselves from the false self world and the conditioning grip it holds on us.

DM: Yes! I’m glad to hear you declare that as it advocates for what others will need to do to become masters of their own authentic lives.

J: It seems rather hopeless, Mother, that many people will want to do this.

DM: They will be given ‘no choice’ in the matter with what is coming very soon. It will feel like no choice as circumstances ‘force’ them to give up their old life to embrace a new one.

J: I feel like many people would rather kill themselves than do that.

DM; That will be a likely outcome for many, yes.

J: Whew…that is heavy. I feel the heaviness of that in my heart.

DM: The contextual piece here is that every person that is alive on the planet earth during this time has chosen to be here during this time of great transition and death and rebirth. The questions for them to feel into that can provide a lifeline for them are: Why have I chosen to be here? What purpose do I have in being here? If they can feel why they are here and connect with a meaningful purpose, then whatever they are giving up of their old life will feel false in comparison. It is highly unlikely that their ultimate purpose is about ending their own life.

J: But maybe some people are just meant to not make it through what is coming. I have a fairly strong picture of what is coming with your support and I can barely stand holding it at times, wondering how I will bear it all.

DM: But you aren’t meant to bare it all, Jillian. This is the gift of foresight that I give to you because you have done the inner work to be awakened before there is ‘no choice.’ You will bear and witness what you are meant to with a trust that this is so.

J: Well, at times a trust and at times not so much.

DM: Of course, this will ebb and flow. For others who have foresight about the future and the very obvious consequences to unconscious actions that the human race has engaged with for many, many years…..for these people, they will have a sense of navigating the waves rather than being crushed by them.

J: Thank you, Mother, for the reminders about connecting with soul purpose as a means to navigate the coming changes. I’m going to go bake some oatmeal cookies now.

DM: Good, enjoy the simple things while holding the complex ones and you’ll be fine.

J: Thank you.

Jillian Vriend is co-creator of SoulFullHeart Way Of Life and currently on an exodus to an ecovillage in mexico. You can read more about connection with the Divine Mother in Jillian’s book, In The Arms Of Mother.

 

Exodus And Finding Sanctuary: Conversations With Divine Mother About Global Collapse

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

burning-heart

By Jillian Vriend

Jillian: Hello, Mother. I felt that I wanted to journal with you again in public with so much shifting and changing in my life and in the world. It feels like things are happening fast now.

Divine Mother: Hello, Jillian. I welcome a public dialogue with you. As you know, I enjoy talking with you this way as it reaches your heart and has the potential to reach others. It doesn’t matter to me whether people reading this believe that it is me you are talking with. Only that the message goes into them.

J: What is the message you’d want them to take in, Mother?

DM: Well, it’s getting more urgent, isn’t it? The message is that time is running out on the false self created world of industry and unlimited growth. Time is false, yes, an idea created by the mind to hold hostage over arising reality. But, time in the sense of playouts coming in the immediate future is real. These playouts are consequences for a disconnected and wounded relationship that the human species has had with the earth, with animals, and with each other.

J: We are feeling a sense of collapse coming strongly this fall and winter. I wanted to go over some of the conditions that lead me to feel that way with you, but, also, I wanted you to offer guidance for people around what they can do and feel personally.

DM: Let’s start with what is happening right now and put it into a larger context together. There is much content available in your ‘news stories’, yet there is very little context to allow the heart and soul to digest it.

J: I guess the big one to me, besides ever looming climate change crisis, is the intensity of the wars that seem to be springing up at an increasing rate. I find that I don’t have a lot of energy to understand the facts behind the wars in the Ukraine or the Middle East, yet they feel out of control in a new way. Maybe I’m just so weary of ‘dropping bombs’ as a means to end war. More violence to end violence makes no heart sense to me.

DM: War is a manifestation of unhealed inner violence. It is the false self’s outed expression of an inner sense of powerlessness. This sense of powerlessness and unworthiness has led humans to resolve conflicts with increasingly sophisticated and devastating weapons. No one ‘wins’ in this scenario. Empires that have been built on the spilled blood of men and that need more blood to maintain them cannot be sustained.

J: Wow, that so goes in. The other increasingly alarming situation is the growing numbers of people dying from the ebola virus in western Africa. Our human history is full of virus epidemics although it is frightening to imagine one now.

DM: Viral bacterial are natural and nature’s way of maintaining balance. This is difficult to say and my heart strains as I say it, but the human population has expanded to numbers beyond what your planet can sustain. This has to be corrected in some way and, unfortunately, all the means of doing that lead to the deaths of many people.

J: That’s the aspect of collapse that is so hard to digest. I wish it could be different.

DM: Me too, my daughter. As you know, I have not interfered with the course of human evolution as it would have been going against your sovereign choice to do so. Yet for those who connect with me and surrender to my guidance, I offer them that death and rebirth are natural and inevitable cycles. I don’t offer protection from necessary death, yet I do offer comfort during the process.

J: There are other things happening too, yet I also wanted you to talk about what people can do in response to what is happening.

DM: There are two possibilities for people right now: immediate exodus to find sanctuary or create sanctuary out of where they already are. Sanctuary is a safe place where they can practice self reliance, ideally within a conscious community.

J: I feel self reliance has a practical aspect to it and an emotional and spiritual aspect to it. The practical aspect is about meeting for yourself, or within community, the four keys to human survival: food, water, shelter, and safety without reliance on the government to provide it for you and in balance with nature. Examples are growing your own food is an environmentally conscious way through permaculture practices. Finding natural drinking waters sources from fresh water springs or lakes. Creating shelters out of naturally sourced materials that meet your basic needs with minimal impact on the earth. Moving to less densely populated areas with opportunities for all four keys to human survival to be much more likely in a self reliant way. I wrote more about that here.

DM: Yes, these practical considerations are actually about going back to the roots of your species when your survival was held by the sovereign heart of each individual and you were more in touch with your animal nature and its impulses toward self reliance.

J: Going back to our tribal roots yet retaining the maturation of our egoic consciousness?

DM: Yes, exactly. The evolution of your egoic consciousness has been as natural as a seed growing into a plant. Yet, the egoic consciousness has also developed a falseness that to the degree it goes unconstructed leads to so many of the issues that your species has now and that we’ve been talking about.

J: I offered that there is an important emotional and spiritual aspect to self reliance. Deconstructing the false self and healing our emotional bodies is what I feel is the emotional aspect. And, you’ve already mentioned, surrender to and connection with you as the spiritual one.

DM: Deconstructing of the false self can happen to some degree by choice through the process you offer with SoulFullHeart and by other practices. It also happens when the construct falls away and the false self is ‘forced’ to give up the things it has become attached to.

J: I feel like that is a lot to digest for today, Mother. I look forward to connecting with you again soon. I feel that I need to and that others do as well.

DM: Yes, Jillian. I have more to say, of course, but I respect your need to breathe and digest. Until next time, my daughter.

J: Yes, until next time.

Jillian Vriend is co-creator of SoulFullHeart Way Of Life and currently planning an exodus to an ecovillage in mexico.

Related Writing:

60 Days With Divine Mother: Message Of Real Love From A Feminine God

Actions And Consequences: Conversations With Divine Mother About Global Collapse

Published on by Jelelle AwenLeave a comment

 

heartburn burning-heart

It is my compassion and deep love for humanity, for my human children as you said, that urges me to do what must be done even if it means the destruction of you all. I do not WANT that, Jillian. But my desires are secondary to the free will sovereignty that you have all been gifted with. And, many humans DO want to die and DO NOT feel the consequences of killing other species, each other, or the living planet. I feel compassion for these humans entangled in social and cultural conditioning and weighed down by emotional and spiritual wounding. But THEY do not feel compassion for anyone else, themselves, or the planet. And there are consequences for living in this non-living, non-loving, fear-based, unconscious state.

Jillian: Hello, Mother. I feel a sense of urgency on this rainy day in June.

Divine Mother: Hello, Jillian. Yes…I can feel that in you. Digesting what you’ve been reading and learning recently?

J: I feel like I have so much to ask you about related to the very real threats to the survival of the human species..yet I know you won’t give me reassurances, false hope, or specific timelines.

DM: Ask me what is in your heart to ask, Jillian, and I’ll respond with what I feel you need even if it isn’t what you think you want.

J: Mother….is the human race doomed? Are we looking at near term extinction in the next decade or even the next few years?

DM: I feel your tears and pain as you ask me that question, Jillian. I feel your despair and compassion.

J: As much as I can be frustrated by the actions and choices of unconscious people, I feel pain at the suffering and loss coming to us as a consequence for our short sighted and false self-based actions.

DM: So, you do feel there will be consequences?

J: How can there not be? That’s how the natural world works. Cause and effect. We have lived blindly so long to this basic principal…drugged by access to easy oil, easy food, easy water, easy shelter, easy life. Even as everything being easy has still made most people miserable.

DM: Cause and effect is the rule of nature. Yet as humans have removed themselves from nature by seeking to dominate it, they have delayed the consequences of their actions. Delayed, yet not ceased.

J: One of the consequences of our actions could be the end of our species.

DM: Yes. And up to 200 species are dying every day because of the actions of humans. Other species and the earth are bearing the brunt of the consequences of human action or inaction. Yet, nature seeks balance and it will find it.

J: It is difficult to imagine how that balance won’t mean adjusting the overpopulation of this planet by the reduction of many people. I feel your lack of sentimentality as we talk about this, Mother. I feel how much you love your human children, so why does your heart feel almost cold to me as we talk about this?

DM: This is my dark mother face, Jillian. The energy of doing what must be done even if it is painful in order to put things back in balance. The energy of tornadoes, storms, volcanoes. Even diseases. That which is out of balance must be righted again.

J: And yet I’ve experienced the compassion of your heart, the vastness of it, for several years now.

DM: It is my compassion and deep love for humanity, for my human children as you said, that urges me to do what must be done even if it means the destruction of you all. I do not WANT that, Jillian. But my desires are secondary to the free will sovereignty that you have all been gifted with. And, many humans DO want to die and DO NOT feel the consequences of killing other species, each other, or the living planet. I feel compassion for these humans entangled in social and cultural conditioning and weighed down by emotional and spiritual wounding. But THEY do not feel compassion for anyone else, themselves, or the planet. And there are consequences for living in this non-living, unconscious state.

J: I just feel like crying, Mother. I feel what you mean and I accept it but it just breaks my heart.

DM: As it breaks mine, Jillian. Sometimes we need to break our hearts open in order to truly let in and be with love.

J: And, I feel like I want guidance somehow around how to be with this heartbreak and what service looks like now for me and for SoulFullHeart. I feel the ash in the air, burning down of the structure that we created the last two years of sessions, space holding, group weekends, charging a fee for sessions…all of it feels like it is irrelevant compared to the very real possibilities of global collapse that we are feeling together.

DM: You created a form to contain the love and service that you had to offer others. The form is burning away, yes, in a necessary way. But the desire to serve love remains, yes?

J: Yes. I just don’t know the form yet.

DM: Form follows desire. Your desire is leading you to explore your world, to adventure to somewhere warmer and simplier in culture. Follow that and I will bring you connections, synchronicity…I will bring you opportunities to serve.

J: They just might not be in the way or structure that I am used to?

DM: Exactly. As you digest the ash in the air reality of your modern world, you are letting go of your attachments…the few that you had that is. This is the gift of ‘getting real’. Not for what it informs your mind, but for what it enlivens in your heart.

J: I so feel that gift even as it has been difficult to let in what we are facing as a species. Yet, my experience has been over the last ten years that ‘getting real’ is always preferable to deluding yourself, even if it hurts a lot at times.

DM: I feel the flame of your heart and soul being stripped of its form, Jillian, and therefore able to shine all the more brightly as a beacon to those ready to see it. I see it able to catalyze and penetrate more deeply what is authentic and vulnerable in others.

J: I think I feel what you mean, Mother. It’s what I want to be.

DM: And so it is what you are becoming. And it is the invitation from me to all my sacred human children….that their raw essence is one of love. Many of them have too much form, too many layers, to strip away this life and maybe will experience this in another life or even in another dimension where planets like Earth also exist.

J: What is the biggest thing that most people need to strip away, Mother?

DM: There are many answers to that question, Jillian. But I prefer first to ask rather than tell. What was the biggest thing you’ve had to strip away?

J: The first thing that comes to mind is to strip away the conditioning I’ve received. Social conditioning, family conditioning, relationship conditioning, western world conditioning, religious conditioning, mainstream psychology and spirituality conditioning, nutritional conditioning..and on and on. I’ve been in a process of deconstructing my mainstream conditioning and then experiencing what arises from my authentic essence instead to replace it. Lately, it’s been about stripping away conditioning related to unsustainable lifestyle choices.

DM: That is a major de-conditioning process, Jillian. It doesn’t feel like many souls signed up for that. But for those who did and feel an ache to experience how it feels when the authentic arises after deconstructing the false, then I would offer that the biggest stripping away would be of the denial and blocks that keep them from healing their own hearts and souls. Whatever conditioning they received that this was not important would need to be let go and a priority made of their own healing. And an urgent priority at that…

J: Yes, and this going inside ourselves eventually leads to a stripping away of social and relationship conditioning, which I feel is a huge block on the expression of our authenticity. For example, today is father’s day and it just about makes me choke to feel the congestion of duty, obligation, inauthenticity, and nonvulnerability that categorize most relationships that people have with their fathers. Yet, we all receive conditioning around this ‘holiday’ and feel a pressure to reach out or spend time with or appreciate our fathers. The same is true on mother’s day, birthdays, christmas, anniversaries. It is difficult to feel love on days such as these. Days that aren’t real anyway but been denoted as such mostly be greeting card companies. I have said no to most of this for years now.

DM: And so stripping away involves saying no to what most people hold as their reality.

J: A reality that is in general making most of them miserable and unhappy. A reality that creates a slave race out of humans because the conditioning we receive and pass on creates inauthentic actions and choices that lead to more emotional wounding. The conditioning creates toxic and dead relationships, especially marriages. I feel like the topic of dead marriages is a good one for another day though.

DM: Yes, that is fine. Jillian…..I just want you to feel that even during this time of great turning and death, it is being held with love. Death is necessary to free up love.

J: Even if there are no humans left to experience it?

DM: Yes. It is the most real thing there is and your world has been built on a false foundation of fear. My desire is for that foundation to crumble and maybe some of my human children will survive that crumbling. I do not know. But, what I do know is that love will survive. Even if it only exists in the future between the molecules of water and the sun or the blades of grass and the insect crawling on them.

J: Ok, deep breath…going to go digest this now and I do feel your love, Mother, and it does hold the heartbreak, even if it doesn’t alleviate it.

DM: Good, Jillian. Good to go feel now.

Jillian Vriend is co-creator of SoulFullHeart, parts work facilitator, author of a  book about connecting with the Divine Mother, on this blog, and sacred humanity-Divine Feminine teacher-student. 

Related Writing:

60 Days With Divine Mother: Message Of Real Love From A Feminine God