Coming out of the matrix, the ouroboros loop of conspiracy culture as well, is quite a journey! I recently heard a podcast where this was used as an analogy about the trap of constantly seeking the latest news on what’s really happening in the world, and investigating all the shenanigans played on us that get more ridiculous by the day. It’s like chasing breadcrumbs in the woods to discover a wicked person at the end of the trail, who led you there for their own nefarious gain.

But no doubt, there is definitely something happening here.

The release of the Epstein Files demonstrated on a mainstream level that Hansel & Gretel wasn’t merely a “fairy tale,” but in fact an old world documentary. The modern version of which might be in the horrific human hunting stories from Bohemian Grove or estates in the UK, or Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, or the island that the Lolita Express carried many politicians and entertainers to.

Lately, I have been feeling that I am not myself in any of the ways I used to be. It’s as though I was born into a new life and only some of the real player characters are still here, not all of them, but some. Yet, we are all very different now and have adapted to new roles. I feel like I am in an alternate reality or different incarnation, in this very lifetime.

I am doing my best to keep up with the speed of it all but it is moving so fast. It really feels like we are losing facets of reality, a Mandela Effect, but on multiple levels. As though we are in a new timeline, with familiar faces, but something is slightly different. Of course, we have changed as time has passed, so there is that. I wonder if all generations go through this or this is something special to our time.

As a young GenX-er/old Millennial cusp person, my perspective is that we shared a mass hypnosis and it’s shattering in real time before our eyes. It’s difficult not to try and cling to some shards of our former reflections in the broken mirror pieces of this transformative moment.

I am weary of collapsing into realities that feel tight, or not quite right. Whenever we believe firmly in anything, matter solidifies to match our expectation. This has been proven in physics, and is evident to one who is willing to shake off the cloak of any collective narrative for a moment. But the weight of the collective pressure to participate is heavy. It isn’t easy to loose yourself from.

So, allow me now to digress into describing the latest full moon, and its effects on me. Restlessness would be an understatement.
My dog, Cecilia is coincidentally in heat;
tormented and barely consolable. She nests with her toy as though it’s a puppy, and cries a very unique cry that is designed to attract males and simultaneously torture me. I always feel a little more intense with the full moon, even since receiving Jesus as my personal savior. So, I accept this is my fate as a denizen of this mysterious domain, that we are affected by the power of its luminosity and pull on us, even if not actively summoning it.

The last few days have pulled me into a vortex of deep insights that wake me at 2am. I have resisted writing them down, due to my desire to keep regular daylight hours, but I haven’t been able to ignore it.

Have you been feeling it, too?

I borrow moonlight for this inner journey to disentangle all the knots that have been trapping my life force. Now, I have embraced a whole new lifestyle that demands no real sympathetic nervous system response from me. It’s wild to consider how long I survived in fight or flight without realizing it … How disassociated one can spend their life, traversing across the world to India, for example, or witnessing psychotic episodes of fellow travelers in this human experience and learning how to hide within in order not to feel the whole experience and appear calm. A tempest is at hand, and yet my personal plot of land on this terrain is peaceful. Where is the tempest occurring you may ask…

Why, it’s in the supernatural realms.

The spiritual battle is real, and is so close to us that we can almost sense it with hairs raised on arms in electrified anticipation. Despite my active resistance to mainstream programming through much of my life, perverse programs still got in. I have had to accept the fact that many anti-life programs entered my consciousness through my quest for enlightenment. These teachings led me to consider celibacy during the prime of my reproductive years and to go inward instead, trying to master my personal evolution. As well as the repeated billionaire-class imposed narrative of an overabundant population that would create disaster if numbers didn’t decrease. What is interesting now is that birth rates - especially of certain populations - have plummeted, and we don’t have the sufficient replacement numbers to continue to embrace this promotion of culling of population in general.

Having a husband has helped me to commit to life in a way that I haven’t ever before. This responsibility to show up consistently for this relationship has been a missing link in my life that I couldn’t fathom in years prior. It’s a mirror of my relationship to the Divine, in the sense that he shows me where I still want to hide from life. It demands I speak up for myself, rather than run away, like I might have done in the past; believing programs that convinced me there was no other way, and were in fact, agitating constantly for my demise.

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Having a dog has also helped me to get back into the flow of life as that I needed to fully embrace to tending to a dependent living being. Having plants, too, has helped, especially in the last year that I stuck around in one spot long enough to sincerely support their lives. I was talking to a friend yesterday and we joked about how real “plant anguish” is, which we defined as the acute pain of losing a plant due to our own neglect or seeing a plant suffer on account of our forgetting to water! Both of us being childless, and seeking places to put our nurturing energy.

I have shared a glimpse of my plight here. I am not trying to condemn anything or anyone or myself certainly, and life ain’t over yet. But I look at the data now, the facts that I am seeing, and can’t help but hypothesize about it all. I suggest only to refine one’s discernment and be wary of looping in conspiracy culture matrices just as much as mainstream hive-mind narratives.

I suggest we continue our storytelling and find ways to express our art. When one commits to an artistic pursuit, so much is revealed in the process alone. God is talking to you when you can free yourself of the narrative, the spell of certain worldviews and inflated points of view, and art also is a means to release programs. The consciousness found in the creative process is expansive and calls forth all sorts of revelations. Clues from your life come to the surface of the subconscious undercurrent fabricating “reality” and symbols, images, impressions speak to you in ways that although abstract, are understood. I feel it when I sit down to write you here or when I dance, sing, play music, paint, restore a piece of furniture, or garden. Where do you find that expansive part of you that the Creator can minister directly within?

I have heard something like, “If you are depressed, ask yourself when you stopped dancing?” When we stop allowing spontaneous movement, we get stuck more easily in programs or paradigms, thought prisons of our own willing enslavement. The way out is to insist on moving in your own rhythm and listening to the inner song. It’s a paradox in that we constantly balance between embracing outer costumes of belief to frame a suitable reality, and letting go to something that is beyond all that. The purity of heart and the singleness of mind are the weapons needed to slay the outer spells of delusion. Supernatural help flows in when we become like children again, as Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)

To be childlike is to be innocent and to be freed of the memories and shame of living with self-seeking motives. We have the opportunity to be repentant adults humbled by our own sin in chasing self-glorification or self-reliance, and through that sincere admission, transformed into a temple where we are then able then to commune with the Most High. We are then moved by the Holy Spirit in a fashion that enables us to express our most authentic selves, not the depraved version that ignorantly promoted anti-life agendas. For we are all made in the image of our Creator.

When I began this Substack, I named it “Art of Liberation” because I knew I wanted to share creatively about various liberations we can all experience. I have recovered from multiple mind control efforts in this life that interfered with my potential, and I am finding my way now on new ground, where I have never stood before. I am still removing their tendrils and uncovering new ones that I didn’t see before I had the supernatural help to recognize them.

I hope this finds you and inspires you to create and breathe life into the version of a new world that resonates with you. The relics of the old world are there to remind us of how far we have come, but at some point, we need to cease clinging to them and just use them as iconic representatives of a world that is either being destroyed or fully transformed. Into what precisely, I do not know; but I do have hope it could be far better than all we have known before, including all the good stuff too! Imagine that with me, will you?

With love, Tamara

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Stand up
For what you believe
Stand tall
For all you love

Stand alone
For your courage
Will guide you Home

Indulge practices that support
Your foundation
Fuel your transformation

From limited perspectives
To vast understanding

A tree is rooted and the mycelium under its height
Passes knowledge to its seeds
Carried far in the night

The web of interconnection is nothing to deny
Mother Nature knows
It's all been recorded in the akashic record
The Book of Life
Every deed
Every movement
Every thought
You ever made
We ever did
Every time

Time to face your own demons
Stand brave in their temptations
Mara doesn't stop
Until you are done playing with her

She is so seductive
Her manipulations make you weak
When you are not yet fully home in your own form
Accepting fully its temporal reality

Your skin is not the enemy
Your thoughts about it are

Your attachment to an identity
That denies the intersection
Of every living being on this planet

Watch her with the eyes of mahamudra
The great observer

God within, looking through your eyes
At the plight of the world
The storms of this season

For history repeats as long as we are unrooted
Ungrounded in the consciousness of eternal love
Everlasting No Thing

Yes there are beings seeking dominion
Beyond their need
Motivated by evil and greed
But that need not diminish you
When you know your worth in the eyes of creation

Root down in faith
Live by faith
Not by sight

And you may just make it through this dark night

With love,
A message from a Standard

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As we accelerate into transhumanism, I feel a sense of urgency to represent my humanity and broadcast that message here, if only for the record. I’ve been seeing so many writings online now bearing obvious marks of AI assistance that it’s been making me doubt my own ability to write, as a real human! Human writers don’t just list data points, rather, they take you on a journey, sharing the inside of their own thought processes illuminating new ideas in the readers’ consciousness. It’s a symbiotic relationship, a conversation, a meeting of minds, a communion if one is willing.

Lately, it seems that only those who have the energy to constantly self-promote are moved into positions of power, or to play the game of conspicuous circle jerking and stroking egos, condoning evil for the sake of being of being seen. I feel like puking out all I have seen in the last decade of the debauchery of what is promoted by the media. Did you know the etymology of the word media? It comes from Latin, the word “medium.”Interesting to consider that in the bible it says: “’Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them.” (Leviticus 19:31)

To be defiled, is to become dirty, polluted, or desecrated. To be separated from what is sacred; it is the opposite of consecrating! And to think, this medium has influenced so many minds! This energy that doesn’t seek to remind you that you are holy, but instead to lure you into looking at and potentially analyzing all that is foul and profane. That trick snares you down to their level making life seem mundane.

My heart’s mission has always been to remind people that they are sacred. I used to use yoga to do that, but now, I am exploring how following Christ and accepting His grace gives one the ability to know one’s true heritage, or nature. It’s all so difficult to talk about and put into words, but people can’t help but try. For if we don’t, then our energy is harvested by selfish types who seek prestige and to be venerated while they offer nothing of value in return. It’s easy to fall under their spells, and difficult to discern the true from the false.

The truth of existence is far too grand to fit into words. We are forced to communicate with mythos and stories. I have been graced to see more than I can express in any limited way, as we all have most likely. But these thought traps hold us captive in limited vernaculars, and ultimately, worldviews. I see us all as beautiful bright lights literally with umbrellas we hold over our glow, in order to fit in. It creates some sense of order, I suppose. Perhaps existence would be too blinding otherwise!

We can connect under our umbrellas, hiding this light and agreeing on worldviews, politics, or other boxes to be inside of together. But is that true connection? I have squeezed myself into countless thought/culture containers, but I always end up missing what is contained… The infinite essence that is beyond form, beyond binding, way, way beyond.

It feels like life now is demanding the dismantling of all these securities for the foundation is collapsing in real time. Any box you stood in is up for scrutiny, any umbrella you held for protection is suddenly malfunctioning and either not opening, spouting leaks, or outright blowing away in the wind of wisdom’s not so merciful insistence on being heard. Wisdom had almost been completely lost and with AI’s warp speed advancement, we are on a trajectory for its utter annihilation. Yet, she continues to reveal herself whenever you turn off the noise for whatever length of time.

Wisdom surfaces when all man’s theories, the chatter of soothsayers attempting to predict the next terrible reveal are silenced. There is an inner knowing, that technology would have you forget. These little Babylonian boxes we type or speak into, share information with, when given too much power, become idols. We consult with personal algorithms which become our personal sorcerers and then share our findings with others in webs of attempted connection.

Life wasn’t always like this.

I just want to say that, because I can remember when I didn’t toggle this much information in my mind at once. When I had to sit and read a book to fully digest a new theory on life. It was a different pace. There was time to reflect and integrate and decide if a certain worldview really held up for you. But, in the last decade it has felt like there was a rush to know and whoever knew first, won. We traded our time with God, with the infinite mystery of existence, for time with whoever had the power to capitalize our attention online. It cheapened the search, the soul’s journey was funneled into a competition for quick words and pushed up boobs. Con-artist charlatans took global stages and set in motion incredible spells.

Not to say that con-artists haven’t had power before and led people down paths that may not have been in their best interests, but it happens so fast now and on such big scales. Was it always this way? Some say it’s better now because you can research people or organizations online and avoid pitfalls that may have been hidden in the past, but the problem is we our outsourcing our intuition. There is something to be said about going through being duped yourself and eventually realizing it and turning away from it. You learn from that, and you develop discernment.

In today’s milieu however, you find “influencers” to “follow” and trust, and in that maybe you let go of the critical thinking skills you would have had to use more in the past. You may not have reached conclusions as quickly about things, but at least they were yours.

I realize that I am somewhat rambling, but I am trying to articulate so much, all the changes that have occurred in a relatively short amount of time. This leads me to the topic of relevance which is something else I have been pondering lately. How subjective it is, and how what is relevant to one person may not be to another. How sometimes people are shamed for being irrelevant with their topics, yet there is a necessity to omit information when trying to focus down on one particular issue.

Sometimes, it seems that what is relevant today in the collective conversation is dictated by the behaviors of psychopaths, because their actions and the consequences in world events seem to dominate the discussions. How could they not, unless you truly separated yourself from that world. But one can only handle so much of it…

So, again, I must advocate for taking time to separate oneself from the world of man and find your holiness. To be sacred is to be set apart. Remember there is a part of you that is sacred, in a world that would have you forget that and fall into a group narrative that leads only to automation and death.

I am not sure if it’s even freedom that we are forgetting, but maybe authenticity. We are up against controlling programs on steroids combined with voices clamoring to explain them all. Propaganda pushing constantly and voluntarily consumed by many uncomfortable with sitting alone with the mysteries. I, too, have succumbed to a lot of it, and found comfort in others conclusions on what’s going on. But, I think we are being asked to dig deep within to the core of whatever this existence means to us and bring it into the light.

May this message remind you of your holiness and light and let you know that there are others out there seeking to know that part of you, that part of us.

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I saw these trees the other day, attempting to pick up their roots and make a run for it.

I can understand. Being rooted on the shores of degeneracy and almost inconceivable levels of deception can be a painful vantage point. Even a tree, might find itself trying to pull up anchor and run to a distant horizon, where life feels less painful.

But what a blessing to be alive to watch the fall of Babylon!

I felt the urge to write something, to lend my voice to a song of hope maybe… I know I am barely heard in the chorus of destruction and dystopian theorizing, but maybe if each of us shares some of the beauty of humanity, God will amplify us. At least to those with ears to hear, eyes to see and hearts to believe and receive.

There is something so beautiful about the human plight and all the tragedies we must face alone. Our unique challenges, when shared, build community and that thread of connection creates incredible designs like the fractal patterns underlying matter. Snowflake mandalas, cohesive friendships, me connected to you through this thread, and you to another and another and so on, weaving this web of love.

I must remind myself over and over again, that I can place weight or meaning on anything I observe, or I can let a program do it for me. I’ve spent the last few years, cleaning up old programs from my human hard drive, so to speak. Seeing how I was forced to perceive things because of my loyalty to certain worldviews. Racing to be in the know about the working of evil, so that I could outwit it.

But I don’t think it ultimately works that way.

I have been tracking a lot of what’s going on in the world lately which has made me feel quite depressed. A feeling of defeat or impending doom pervades every piece of news I see, no matter the source and it seems like there is no escape. The inevitable outcomes are predicted, in motion and it’s a struggle to see any alternatives, other than a total reset. I used to think I was made for precisely times such as this. When I was younger, and Y2K was a thing, I was ready. Then, nothing really happened. I went into my first 10-day silent meditation retreat at a Vipassana center in Texas to ring in 2000. Later when 2012 was predicted as a turning point, the end of the Mayan Calendar and all, I was already 1 year into a 3 year, 3 month, 3 day Tibetan Buddhist retreat in Arizona. If anything happened, I didn’t know. I abstained from communication with the ‘outside’ world and took refuge within, seeking timeless wisdom.

Now, we are on the precipice of something. The ground feels shaky, yet still we carry on. But there is this inner knowing that things are changing very quickly. Accelerating now, this snowball of accumulated life is rolling recklessly down the mountain, picking up speed with each roll, and the unavoidable crash to come looms ahead grinning like a snowman grim reaper.

Is my mind playing tricks on me? Or is the lack of shared truth or common narrative pushing humanity into personal mazes of epic proportions? It’s like we are all running through our personal labyrinth, based on the belief systems we subscribe to, and only those in similar ones can see the puzzle we are individually trying to solve.

It feels like utter collapse on the inside, even though life continues outwardly. Can power built on exploitation really endure? People are realizing collectively that the system in power right now does not love them; evidence continues to demonstrate that even to those who want to believe in reformation. It is a disorienting time, producing anger, grief, fear and strong feelings of nostalgia. I see fellow Gen X-er’s sharing memories from the nineties as the last ‘real’ decade, and I find myself reminiscing times, that were actually quite hard personally, with a longing for the simplicity I felt in those eras despite my acute personal struggles. I still had this shared bond with my peers at the time, perhaps because information was limited and there were less stories circulating about reality. We weren’t arguing about what the narrative was, rather we argued about how we personally chose to adapt to it. There wasn’t this extreme walking on eggshells, or fear to voice an unpopular opinion that appears in today’s hostile world.

There were no cell phones, no instant replays of murders of people living in America taking place in public venues in broad daylight. Not that murders didn’t occur - in my own childhood, my mom’s abusive cocaine dealing boyfriend ‘accidentally’ killed one man that she sought to escape from him with. That was not televised, but had a huge impact in my understanding of how the world works. He got off on manslaughter charges, as that there was no witness willing to testify, and I internalized then that bad guys win, when I watched my mom return to him.

There was no ability to scrutinize and view such horrors repeatedly, nor mock behind the safety of a screen and use as fodder for arguments. Now, people cheer when the person killed symbolized something they hated, taking the humanity out of it all. Just in the last six months, we’ve seen more than a few collectively, beginning with Iryna Zarutska in August of 2025. Not to mention, genocides being carried out with American resources, that no amount of protesting could end.

It’s a hard world, yet there was a promise of something different when I grew up. I may have chosen to go against it, but it was still there as a life-affirming lighthouse in the distance: A good life, with a family and community with common values. The ability to offer a meaningful contribution to your fellow man, but now that is gone as an option en masse. What world are we leaving the future children now? What are the shared values? What one person deems heroic, another vilifies.

The only way I can see at this point to find peace is to do your best to create the kind of world you want to experience. Even if those around you, don’t share your values. Lead the way, be the noble maverick. Let God work through you to be evidence of the benevolence possible in the human heart, whatever that means to you. Bring beauty back, add value to whatever group you find yourself in, do a little extra for somebody struggling, think of all your ancestors sacrificed for you to be alive right now! Don’t let their lives be in vain. Honor the blood coursing through your veins and the breath breathed into your lungs!

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” (John 18:36) and “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables.”(Mark 4:11)

Thank you again for taking the time to read and encourage me, it means a lot. And I know that every time we do that for another human - bear loving witness to their humanity - we are pleasing God and it is enough. Every time we say, “I see you,” and acknowledge them, however they may be tangled within assemblies of deception, we strengthen the tethers leading back to the Creator. We remind one another of the transformative power of repentance and the hope in discovering the kingdom through inner obedience.

Here is to us enduring
And God returning

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This year has been a whirlwind for me in many ways, but I managed to whirl into safety, just in time, it feels. The world is full of so much deception, I barely can even think what to write about anymore. I start an article and if I don’t finish it in one setting, it becomes old to me in a day or two and feels no longer relevant. That is how fast my mind is being expanded, as more and more layers of deception are peeled away.

I honestly feel now that we are living in Satan’s little season. It is referenced in Revelation and it’s the time when Satan is let loose, after the millennial reign of Christ. This is perhaps a wild theory to some, but in light of all that I have been investigating lately, it really makes sense. It explains the “reset’s”, the mud floods and all the technology and architecture that came before and that somehow has been lost today.

It explains all that is allowed to go on.

I spent most of my life seeking the sacred in the most profane places, but now I feel that I was meant to see how easily corrupted anyone can be without God. It’s impossible to not fall into some level of sin, if self-seeking is lurking, even behind good intentions. It’s actually a relief to simply admit it, instead of try to be good on one’s own power.

Coming up on Christmas and I sincerely wonder what it’s all about. Santa Claus, a story told to instill faith in the magic of the season to children ends up giving them their first understanding of how adults will lie and spin yarns about beings with supernatural powers. I have been contemplating how this can then make it difficult to believe in a creator who actually is actually supernatural at all!

Without children in my life to pass a tradition onto, I have freedom to reflect on them more deeply and weigh what is worthwhile to hold onto, without the pressure to conform to any particular societal norm.

Some of my happiest memories on the holidays as an adult, were spent in recovery rooms with practical strangers having a laugh about the heartbreaking circumstances we found ourselves in, yet finding gratitude for a sober mind to consider it all with. Giving some consolation to a weary soul in the world, maybe a little comfort in the form of mere compassion, is perhaps the best thing I could do on a day such as Christmas… with all its expectations, pomp and celebration that is destined to lead to potential disappointment or morbid reflection. I’d rather just hang with those who are able to admit defeat instead of pretend.

Christmas lights bring illumination and cheer to the darkness that surrounds us for longer in winter. I do appreciate them and their symbology, and there’s nothing quite like the smell of a Douglas or Noble Fir in the home. Although, the evergreen represents immortality and was brought inside originally as a pagan tradition, and I recently learned that the angel at the top of the tree could represent Lucifer. It’s quite clever how hidden nefarious meanings can be found in seemingly benign ‘traditions.’

Of course, one could also say that hidden beauty can also be attributed to anything as well, even things which seem “bad,” which is the view I chose to take most of my life. The creases of worry and time worn into the faces of those I loved and who may have even hurt me etched into my memory with merciful benevolence. The carnage of all that a life well-lived can bring, the stories of wild adventures and daring escapes from harm or death. The way the character who was an arch nemesis in one’s life, can be reduced to an old feeble man at some point who has no power to hurt you anymore. The alcoholic Christmas atmospheres where nostalgia brings tears easily and overlays the current moment with all the unprocessed emotions from the past producing some of the best storytelling….or the most exciting dramatic events.

The miracle of life and redemption is what soothes my heart most of all. We all have our unique challenges, and to compare them is futile. The gift of salvation is the greatest gift I’ve found, whether or not Jesus was born December 25, which he was most likely not.

But, it was the day that people living long ago decided we would establish to celebrate his birth, coinciding with solstice and all the celebrations that many cultures around the world have for this shortest day in the year.

With so much cultural decay, I think perhaps a part of me wants to cling to these traditions out of familiarity and a feeling of comfort in the repitition. I apologize this isn’t a simple feel good holiday essay; it’s not that I am not extremely grateful for my circumstances this year! In fact, I am so comfortable that I can give free reign to my thoughts without trying to manage them to promote anything specifically. I have no need to self-promote anymore and that is a gift! I have tasted most all that a self-seeking life can offer, the vain glory, and found it extremely distasteful after all. Thankfully, I didn’t rise to far, so the fall was not so devastating, but it was enough to know, that the meaning of life, is not anything material, or in any chase for satisfaction of the sense doors. Chasing pleasure only leads to pain, whether you get it or not. At least, for this pilgrim.

So, on this solstice, I sit in peace and wish that for all. Watching the world and all its antics from the comfort of a home with my husband and dogs is a delightful place. I can hibernate now and in the cave within, rest in my creator’s love. I know no one “out there” can give it to me, hence I don’t feel any need to perform, in the way I did in the past. It’s wild, I really have NEVER been HERE before.

So, in true modern fashion, I will leave a few quotes and memes as a parting gift or as virtual stocking stuffers for you to maybe, have a laugh, a smile, or share with your friends. Season’s Greetings from the land of Bigfoot…

Everything is getting revealed, all the dirty motives hidden behind the fake and sometimes pretty facades… Happy New Year!

Until we meet again, my friends…

May this season bring you much love, deeper connections with your friends and family, time spent in holy places and with that which brings you peace ~

May we meet on this road of life, nodding wisely to one another in recognition of all that we have survived and all the beauty found, even within all the tragedy.

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I have a love affair with small towns.

It all started from the living room of my Portland, Oregon home growing up watching Northern Exposure. As I sat transfixed on the couch watching my crush character Chris (who’s character was the town radio DJ) wax poetically or spontaneously riff on an esoteric idea, I dreamed of living in a little town just like the fictional Cicely, Alaska.

As some of you may know, it was actually filmed in Rosalyn, Washington, which was a pilgrimage I found myself on in my early twenties. Before I got into yoga, I pilgrimaged to movie, book or TV show locations that had had a profound effect on shaping my mind, with a feeling or archetypical character I wished to emulate or experience proximity to.

The thing about Northern Exposure was it captured the feeling of being part of a community. When you live in a bigger city, this can be harder to feel ironically. There are more people, but you may not have a role that feels meaningful to the people around you. It’s much easier to slip through the cracks and be invisible. Yes, there can be tight communities within big cities, but I wasn’t raised in that type of situation, so I longed for it. By the time I reached high school, I saw that there were too many of us for my teachers to really care if I was slipping away. PTA was only really called to help kids whose parents had lots of money or prestige. While I smuggled alcohol into my honors classes, the rich kids were shuffled into rehabs and given attention or support for their downward spirals. I simply dropped out, unnoticed.

This led me to take on jobs that provided money for college down the road, like the Washington Conservation Corps (WCC). I did eventually get the credits needed to graduate and while working for the WCC, I was en route to one of our assignments doing salmon restoration work with the Department of Transportation in the Yakima River Canyon one day. My crew boss agreed to make a stop in Rosalyn when he learned of my love of this ‘promised land’ town and what it would mean for me to get to set foot in it, and see the iconic town mural.

The WCC was an adventurous time in my youth where I worked mostly with men and the few wild young women, like me, who would choose a job of physical labor in order to be close to nature. I remember being on crews of hardworking youths crammed together in trucks headed for a myriad of assignments. In those roadtrips we swapped stories of traumas endured, recited raps memorized, sang love songs, cried tears, nursed hangovers, and laughed our asses off. It was a great time to bond with other mostly working-class kids who fulfilled archetypes I was familiar with.

I was strong and did my best to keep up with the guys, be it swinging an ax, chugging a forty, digging a French drain, or smoking a spliff. I remember puking in the woods in the mornings of the nights that I had pushed myself a little too far, and coming up for air to the trail, picking up my tools and carrying on.

It was a good job for an aspiring young alcoholic. The physical labor kept you in shape and helped you to sweat out the toxins.

But also for the writer in me, it provided a plethora of material, which I scribed about nightly in a journal. I have been revisiting those now, and learning a lot from my younger self. This was wisdom handwritten, before the flurry of phones and digital documentation of life had become the norm. I wrestled with all sorts of deep questions and detailed the quirks about my coworkers that I found annoying, as well as attempted to analyze their psychological profiles to understand them better.

We often got contracted by the Forest Service or National Parks and were assigned to locations far from big cities. I was able to peruse the small town life in various work areas whenever we had time off. We went to work for a week at a time, or sometimes 10-day increments with days off either back in Olympia, where we were stationed, or we could stay on location and explore.

I passed through Wenatchee on ‘spike’ as we called it (overnight job assignment) and really enjoyed both Wenatch’ and its northern cousin Leavenworth.

Some towns just feel like home.

Wenatchee is one for me.

I was led back to Wenatchee 7 years ago, through my own heart’s folly, hopes and dreams and I returned again last winter to reacquaint myself with its distinct home-cooked flavor.

Wenatchee claims it is the apple capital of the world, or at least the nation, but I am not sure the numbers actually support that, although they do export a ton of this seminal fruit. They definitely take pride in their apples though, which they should, for Washington apples really are the best.

It’s the kind of town where people still say hello and there is strong community. I think when towns are founded on an industry like apple production, then there is a camaraderie arising from the orchard culture that spills over into the way the people interact. There is a level of trust there that I found comforting. I speculate it came from a time when if one person’s apple crop went south, they might need to ask their neighbor to provide apples for an account they promised. There is this value to neighbors and getting along with them, which carries over into the culture of the town.

It also is incredibly scenic with mighty rivers and mountains, sweeping valleys with perfectly placed orchards anointing hills. There are wild wooded patches with rolling golden hills bordering manicured orchard laced vistas there, appearing as if painted in a beautiful storybook.

Peshastin is another town just north of Wenatchee, very tiny, and village like.

Towns like this make me want to disappear into them.

Perhaps because the world is so big now that it feels easy to get lost and when you come into a small town, it feels like you can escape from the bigger world…

You can be nobody on the world stage, but be assigned a meaningful role in the lives of a few in the tiny drama of a small town.

Is it any less significant? I think not, hence the appeal.

The TV Show Cheers showcased a similar energy, although it took place in Boston, a big city. It showed how you can have that intimacy we all crave, through frequenting a neighborhood bar and interacting with the same bartender/barmaids/customers on a regular basis. I have had that at times in coffee shops I frequented or grocery stores. When I used to buy cigarettes there was a drive-thru store in Cottonwood that I became quite friendly with the store clerks. They would give treats to my dog, whenever I pulled up, along with my pack of unfiltered American Spirits.

The Cheers theme song included lyrics speaking to the joy of going to a place “where everybody knows your name…”

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you’ve got
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot
Wouldn’t you like to get away?

Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came
You wanna go where people know (Ah)
People are all the same (Ah)
You wanna go where everybody knows your name

I guess it’s consistency that I didn’t realize I missed in all my moving around. Consistent interaction in a play that I had a role in, where I was wanted and included… where the noise of the world dramas didn’t overshadow the smaller, yet significant human interactions.

And a feeling of family. Once you have spun yourself out in the wild world and been everywhere, done all the anonymous shenanigans, gained and lost your reputation a few times, and moved on, it’s nice to find a place to settle and stay.

Especially one with beautiful murals… like small towns often have.

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As always, thank you for taking the time to come into my storyland, where I continue to integrate a life lived double time from my now peaceful perch way up north. I spend my time now writing about current events for the local paper, and at home sorting through all my old journals and photos of the many lifetimes lived before arriving here. It’s been a process, an unravelling of the identities I once clung to and discerning the valuable lessons learned within all the costumes worn.

Highly recommend.

Please like and share of your small town experiences in the comments or anything else this inspired in you…

with love, Tamara

ps. this past examination is furthering my memoir writing, memory re-activation which is far more exciting than any movie or psy-op that could distract me now!

I can remember when AOL came online and the first form of email was made available. Whenever you got a message, it would say in an upbeat voice, “You’ve got mail!”

It was a nice feeling.

To get mail from your innermost heart, beloved inner muse, is a special delivery that comes more often than you may realize.

It gets noisy sometimes when keeping up with the news or nonsense that the world wants you to pay attention to. You have to remember to check your inner mail.

But how do you check it?

Well, sometimes you have to go on a quest up a mountain to find it.

Sometimes, you just have to take a day at home in retreat mode, turn off the screens and maybe even fast. Sit with an open journal and pen and see what shows up on the page. Listen, make space to really listen.

Sometimes, you need to tell your significant other that you aren’t available, or your friends and relatives that you are offline, for a moment. You have to turn away from the outer to give priority to the inner.

Or you might find it when losing yourself in a project or a task that demands all your attention. Could be hunting, playing an instrument, remodeling the house, gardening, tending to animals or children.

I used to get a lot of inspiration from my attention to divine messages, but sometimes I’ve let myself get distracted by survival strategies, and I reasoned it was better to save it for later, because I needed to attend to something more important, like the current state of world politics.

But what could be more important than a message from your soul?

When you stop prioritizing those messages, they get returned to sender unopened and you are left with an empty mailbox, when you finally get around to checking.

( *pictures taken at my symbolic heart’s mailbox … as discovered on a hike recently in NE Washington state)

~ This is just a short reminder for now, my Substack friends. I've been busy lately working as a freelance writer reporting for a small paper in the sticks where I live, which has taken a lot of my time. I am starting to get the hang of it, so I hope to be sharing more personal stories again. It’s been a learning curve learning how to write as a journalist, rather than a memoirist!

It’s really not for the money, as that I make 7 and half cents a word. Rather, it’s helping me to refine my writing skills and learn that I do, in fact, have the discipline needed to write a book! By keeping focus on an article for a few days solid, I have been strengthening my attention span and experiencing moments of euphoria from the sustained focus. According to the 8 Limbs of Yoga, it’s called dharana,(the 6th limb: most easily translated as concentration) which is when you can be single-pointed on an object for a period of time. But the feeling of euphoria, is found more so when you slip into dhyana,(the 7th limb: meditation) which is when you become absorbed with the object, and this unity provides a sense of bliss.

I have discovered that writing is my yoga! All those years of contorting myself into all sorts of configurations has led me back to the simple pose of holding a pen and paper, (or a laptop in my lap!) which was my love way before I attempted any yoga poses.

May we all find that which we most easily become absorbed by and are able to then touch the mystery of existence, not through words necessarily, but a feeling, or the indescribable delight of witnessing puzzle pieces all falling into place in the mind.

What takes you there?

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Winter’s coming, they said
You can feel it
like a quilt Grandma Time is about to spread over you
a weighted blanket,
the kind you can’t easily kick off
an ominous feeling above
thick clouds, gray covering
smothering yet espousing love

Winter’s coming, they said
yet we still stand in fall
freefall and technicolor transformation
surrounded by a dazzling display
on a Persian rug of oranges and yellows
a magic carpet of leaf liminality
the psychedelics are about to kick in
you can’t fight them,
you won’t win

Winter’s coming, they said
like your friend whispering, “I am starting to feel it”
Reality is beginning to bend
to the increasing distance from sun
the only way now is to surrender
Embrace the pressure
Welcome the weight
You don’t have to hold it,
but you can’t outrun it

Winter’s coming, they said
I think maybe winter scared me before
that’s why I fled to sunny places
hiding from the reminder of death
Autumn gives us a little dance
before everything goes dormant
just trying to make it through
this burgeoning, bleak time
to welcome the frozen informant

Winter’s coming, they said
and I didn’t fight it this time
It’s real, it’s intense
this forced hibernation
impending illumination
of inner mysteries and memories weaved
into the homemade quilt nature made us
to review the seasons past perceived

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Leave a like, a comment ~ it helps a lot ~ share your thoughts on winter’s approach wherever you abide 💕

Portland, Oregon
Summer 2001

The house was one of those sort of dark and dark ones that you find the Northwest. The kind where moss eats at the roof and siding; black spots of mold leave their marks in Japanese brush strokes of what appears to be a drunken calligraphy attempt. Nature offers her haikus in the overrun morning glory, in the gutters and weeds growing through the cracked slats of wood on the porch. This place of refuge, so simply and unashamedly surrendered to nature’s evolution was where I sought relief that summer. The pain of my failed attempt at sobriety earlier that year was now a constant murmur in my head, forcing me to hunt for stronger and stronger escapes.

I arrived that day in the early evening as the temperature was cooling and felt sweet on the skin.

“Hey where are you going?” my friend called to me as I left the earlier party. Too ashamed to admit that the drug selection there was too mild; I had graduated beyond the socially acceptable ganja and trendy hallucinogens long ago. Not to mention, I was bored with these peers who inhabited a ‘normy’ life that felt so unrelatable to the demons I was forced to face on a nightly basis.

These childhood peers hadn’t lost it all, still managed to keep jobs and appearances. They hadn’t flirted with total disaster as I had, which left me feeling isolated in their presence. I had no connection to their financial success, charming and controlled lives. I danced on the edge of insanity and this estranged me in a way they couldn’t understand, even though they repeatedly tried to offer me a role in their storyline.

Instead, I left their party in SW Portland and came to this outpost in SE Portland’s “Felony Flats” neighborhood, where I knew I could find something more, anything more.

It was nice to have somewhere to go that one didn’t have to beat around the bush and be polite, you could get down to business right away. I walked up the sagging porch steps and noticed their dilapidated appearance only briefly, so intent was I on the mission. Taking a breath, I knocked on the door.

Victor let me in, of course, he was the perfect host. His immense size often intimidated people, but not me, not anymore. There was a willingness in me to do whatever I needed to get what I needed, so the wall to him had melted somewhat compared to when we first met.

The drawn shades and dim light only from a lamp in the nearby living room hid his pock-marked face and grey shade of skin. I again, only briefly noted how he looked worse for the wear, for I really couldn’t afford to care. To entertain such thoughts would’ve just slowed me down, and the window of compassion might have forced me to reconsider. I hated my sensitivity in moments like that. It was my weakness and I was so tired of it. I wanted the armor, the protection, the feeling of invincibility.

There was a low table in the room and few chairs, although I chose to sit on the floor near the table. An ashtray, whiskey bottle and bottle caps littered its top. He wasn’t alone, which I was pleased to see. There would be less awkward tension between us. After he had made an advance once before and I resisted, his ensuing anger was quite scary. I could relax now in the knowledge that he would be pacified with this other girl, who was sitting on one of the low lazy boys smoking a cig. The girl was a stripper who Victor adored. I forgot her name.

“Hello,” the rough-looking, yet pretty lass murmured from the chair. Victor had left the room to fetch the gear. It was great how he immediately left to prepare a fix for me, without making me ask. I had come to appreciate that tremendously in him, especially after some experiences I had with other dealers who weren’t so considerate. This was the one benefit of his crush on me that I didn’t oppose.

“Hey,” I replied, lighting up a smoke as well.

“I’m Valerie, do you remember me?” The stripper offered, which was a surprise. There was a softness, a vulnerability in her voice and in that question.

“Do you remember me?” that almost made me cry, if I let my heart open to that. No, fighting the waves of compassion instead, I exhaled a long drag, cleared my throat, desperate to let it go.

Valerie carried herself as though everyone would remember her. Her large breasts, while obviously fake, were striking on her tiny frame and they protruded through her tight tank top that stopped just above her navel, revealing her navel ring and seductively the tops of her tattoos that came above her short’s waistband. She had the look of someone too hard to offer her name first, even though she couldn’t have been older than twenty. She looked like she knew how to manipulate a crowd and work men in a way that I both disparaged and envied. It wasn’t a look of innocence, to say the least, although Valerie had, in that simple question, let me see a glimpse of her purity.

“Yes, I do. It’s nice to see you, really. What’s up?” I was empowered to do some small talk, the words coming easier now that I knew relief was coming. The room was getting a little smoky with the windows shut and both of us smoking, but I liked it. I might just disappear into it.

Just as Valerie was about to respond, Victor reemerged with all the fixings. He carried them on a tray, like a butler. While the tray wasn’t silver, his arm did sport a white (semi-dirty) towel draped over it. He prided himself on being adept with just about every way to ingest a drug.

“So what will it be dearie?” Victor’s low and commanding voice was a sound I could surrender to. “Would you like a shot of smack or are you in the mood for speed? Me and Val here have been smoking and shooting junk all day, we’ve been on a rolll, rolling joints of course too, hee hee.” He winked at Val and she smiled at him. Suddenly Valerie laughed in response to some joke only she was privy to. It was an intense, loud laugh that sounded a bit maniacal.

“And I have some powerful pain killers: morphine,” He continued. “Just one will do for ya, for now. Sorry, no blow, money’s been a little tight lately.”

“Don’t you apologize to me.” I retorted, rather too quickly I thought immediately afterward. Until I had the drug in my system, I was still at his mercy and I needed to keep my status up in his eyes. Especially with the possible competition in the room.

I managed to regain my poise and thoughtfully said, “I have $20. How about I just join you and Val on your adventure?”

“Of course,” he drawled, ogling Val out of the corner of his eye. What she had done for her share was no secret, but she was so high now as to not really care. Plus, sex really was a commodity for her; it was her business. I had somehow managed not to go there. Never to put a price on it, never to be the obvious whore in the room.

But I was afraid the day that line could be crossed, would be coming soon. I decided to forget about it for now and enjoy the effects of the high.

He handed me a pill first, which I gulped down with the Jack on the table. No coke to chase it; I only winced a little.

Next I was handed the pipe. It was a hollowed out pen shell and under it was some foil.

“It’s that peanut buttery stuff we had before, but it’s good nonetheless.”

He lit the crank from under the foil and as it sizzled and fumed, I inhaled it through the pipe and was flooded with bliss. Why bliss? Not so much from the substance itself, rather the relief that came from silencing the constant chatter in my mind. The running theme of self-abuse and worthless comments that eroded my confidence daily. I took a few puffs back-to-back, without any pause, until he reined me in a bit. He was always good like that with me.

I was only 5’7” next to his 6’11” football player frame. I, who, always tried to keep up with him, and who had fallen into unconscious states more than a few times around him.

“Val, are you ready, babe, to hit it again?” He asked coyly, batting his eyelashes at her.

Meanwhile, I settled into the knowing that I would leave as soon as the drugs ran out, or the money, or as soon as he got too familiar and started pressuring me for more than I could give.

“You bet.” And so the party began.

Hours later found me in the back yard. Sun was rising, or was it setting, I wasn’t sure. I had developed a nervous knot in my stomach that wouldn’t relax. I decided to do a headstand in the grass to calm my nerves. It was something I had learned in my recent sober stint, earlier in the year.

As I lithely lifted up into the position, I saw the shadows of leaves decorating the garage wall in the most magical pattern. I heard the sweet sounds of birds and felt the moisture in the lawn seeping into my hair. I felt safe.

Suddenly, I wondered what I was doing there.

My life loomed above me in the majesty of the sky above and I shirked back in awe a the immensity of it all. The thoughts crashed in my mind, and yet there was an emerging clarity: Grace.

I slowly lowered down and cried, my tears mixing with the dew in the blades of grass. How far did I have to go? When did I get so broken? Was it too late to amend all the wrong choices? The series of self-destructive moves that led me so close to ending it all.

Youth is so deceiving. So many times I had looked into mirror only to see an old woman looking back at me. It is the cunning crudely that tells you, you are old before your time. It is illusions of grandiosity and morbidity rolled into one moment after another. I knew them well.

I felt quiet for a moment resting on the under earth, smelling the fecundity of the soil.

And as I heard the voices of my comrades inside, I knew what I must do. A vision of them as blameless children swept through me and gave me a chill. I loved them for their aching just to be loved like me. Their ignorant reaching out to pills, bottles, each other and other refuges to subdue the terror of the lack of love. And as their delicate little child hands reached out to me, I held them in my heart and promised to keep them there.

Slowly, I stood up and slipped around the side of the house, without a word, I left and walked away from the story of my demise, at least in that particular hell.

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I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through…

I have a perch now above the days and problems of my Gen X youth. I am watching the world with a jaded perspective, a sadder-but-wiser, longing to be hopeful outlook.

Just a reminder - there was a time when digital communication didn’t dominate so much of life’s experience. When, everything wasn’t tracked; for example: you could go to another state if you had a speeding ticket in one and there was no national database to flag you! A time when you took pictures deliberately with *real* camera’s for art or to commemorate a special event, and got them physically developed, like the old ones included in this article.

You could go to a small town and reinvent yourself, sort of like what I am doing now, yet you had no online persona attached.

This was a time when anonymity was a *real* option, and learning was more accessible to people who had the aptitude to actually talk to others. You had to be an investigator: ask leading questions, listen intently absorbing not just the words, but the body language, and other clues, rather than simply research online or ask Google, Grok or Chat GPT.

For the record, there was a world that existed pre-survellience, one where rather than Big Brother watching you, you had only the Father to answer to, or the laws of emptiness and karma to follow, if that was your path. Your every move was recorded in the Book of Life or Akashic record, not also tracked by a digital all-seeing-eye attempting to be a counterfeit deity of omniscience and potential judgement.

The older we get the more wounds we carry, the more programming, and yet the potentially greater capacity for discernment.

When I grew up I was taught to respect my elders, which I usually did, even if they were obviously in the wrong. This approach has both pros and cons.

Some current elders from “central casting” are simply going too far. (Click for video clip with Trump using this phrase repeatedly) They say “truth is stranger than fiction” and in this moment it seems that we are watching one heck of a suspense sci/fi thriller.

Today, October 1st, 2025, I would like to escape the current consuming psyop and focus on my own experiences and interests. Heck, I like to fancy myself a lumberjack, and I don’t care!

Back in the 1900’s, I tested in high school for what my future career aptitudes were and was told:

Choker Setter or Pastor.

For those of you unfamiliar with the business of lumber, a choker setter is a logger who attaches cables to fallen trees for removal.

I grew up in the NW, so it makes sense that a logging job might be a realistic suggestion for a young person liking to work outdoors, especially in the woods. I remember laughing about it, and singing the Monty Python “Lumberjack Song” to myself and friends when I read this analysis.

Watch Monty Python's Lumberjack song

Whistle Punk Pete by Buzz Martin

There is some priceless history from this period that isn’t as well known, also about a man named Buzz Martin who was known as “The Singing Logger.” He was dubbed the “poet laureate of the timber industry” and captured the tribulations of the brave men who logged the forests of the Pacific NW. I love that he was born outside in a tent in a town literally called Coon Holler, OR. With details like this, he was destined to be a country singer! Yet, growing up without electricity in the wet woods near the Oregon coast, he had the additional challenge of losing his sight at age 13. This may have forced him to tap more deeply into his creative nature, and sadly he lost both of his parents while still a teen. Through a surgery, luckily his sight was restored and he spent the remainder of his youth with his older sister and her husband, who taught him all about logging. Tuning into the Grand Ole Opry on the family radio, he followed his calling with music and started entertaining logging camps which grew into bigger venues, as well working as a logger.

He overcame such adversity in his life and did so with a song. It’s refreshing to know these accounts of people who persevere against incredible challenges. I posit that we need more stories like this to uplift our spirits and remember what we are capable of to combat the defeated apathetic energy that accompanies the current globalist, psychological warfare.

Honestly, I would’ve rather been the Whistle Punk, for his job was to communicate when the logs were to be moved through a series of whistle variations. Excelling at communication, and loving music, this would’ve suited me. In a way, I am a whistle punk now, although not about hardwood.

Whistling instead about the log in my eye, to maybe help others see and extract the specks in their own. Whistling hymns of hope in a world broadcasting dystopian despair.

Whistling about the world players accelerating plans of annihilation
whispering prayers supporting creation
calling out the obvious nefarious curation
of controlled narratives and blatant damnation
lamenting the hijacked fixation
on the ridiculous mutation
of my beautiful sisters and brothers
stranded here with me on deception plantation

Growing up in the 1900’s and being educated in liberal Portland public schools, I was taught a revised history that was just beginning to frown on any contributions of my ancestors and elevate all and anyone who wasn’t of white Christian/Pagan European descent. So, over the years, I have needed to be self-taught in order to understand more accurately Western civilization and my roots, rather than be told through a biased lens that my people were inherently evil and solely ‘colonizers.’

Interestingly, in my current research, I discovered logging in the Pacific Northwest was largely done by those of my direct ethnic heritage, those of Scandinavian descent: Finns, Norwegians and Swedes. In 1910 it was estimated that one quarter of Washington State’s residents were of Nordic origin.

It was an incredible industry, and still is, although not to the scale it once was. Now it seems most available occupations are behind screens, for those with soft hands with less hardy genes.

Whistle punks whistle
clever communication
a prudent & sophisticated epistle

So much coded in the word
spells that can be easily heard
sometimes, I just want a vacation

From the noise of occult agenda
the drive of evil-motivated referenda
Could we have a judgment of dismissal?

I drive around nowadays looking at dilapidated barns, American flags and cattle grazing in a picturesque scene. Tall evergreens make shadowed meadows with bright yellow pillows to imagine falling into for a peaceful slumber.

Dreams of less dense times, when everything wasn’t so shady.

I feel the sense of the impending end, the changes that have been set in motion long ago are rolling forward with momentum. The satanic propaganda machine churns out a debilitating taxation on our hearts if allowed to penetrate too deeply.

And, I never actually became a logger, despite my high school counselor’s recommendation.

However, I did take jobs in National Parks & forest lands building trails and pruning second growth trees for future harvest as a young lady. I operated a chainsaw, quite well “for a girl”, but within my male dominated crews was forced to concede the young men were far better suited for the job. It was humbling, but also important. I knew as a woman, I was imbued with different gifts. It took many, many years to appreciate them in a world constantly promoting boss babes and the notion we were equals.

That left me with Pastor, according to my high school aptitude test. Ironically, I was a yoga teacher for years which enabled me to counsel folks and uplift people ‘spiritually’; in a way it was an accurate prediction.

I resisted Christianity for many years, so being a pastor was never on my plate as a sincere option. But, alas, times have changed, and so have I. We shall see, but for now, I study the Bible, focusing on the Book of Revelation for more details on the script I am watching unfold before my eyes.

When’s the last time when you went to a movie? For me, it’s been a long, long time. Life has become a real life Truman Show, genocide served with theatrics of the inane and absurd. Monty Python’s flying circus just seem doesn’t so loony-tunes anymore! I just watched the 1989 movie Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson and it, too, portrays borderline prophecy. I read Orwell’s 1984 in high school and now the UK is both incorporating thought police (jailing people for social media posts) and attempting to roll out Big Brother digital ID’s.

I have joked in the past, to sit back and grab some popcorn, because this apocalypse is gonna be lit! But lately, I have been called to scribe a different ending with a less complicated twist.

My hypothesis is this: If we keep giving their stories so much energy, we empower them. If we instead told our own stories of the ‘shire’ for example and a peaceful life surrounded by loving friends, maybe we could instead amplify those into a tangible reality. If we shared our personal stories and connected over them, we could build relevance on *real* issues and not Hollywood inspired insanity and other divisive distractions. We need to define ourselves through our own value systems, reclaim our personal narratives and histories. Swap stories with song and encourage each other, all the day long.

The layers of beliefs are heavy and disentangling from them is quite a job. Although I read the scripts, I rest occasionally in the space of no script. I have been given a role, but I am not solely the role. If there is no space between, the identity becomes a stranglehold, similar to the foreign chokehold on America.

@joshketry_carnivore_bjj on Instagram recently posted this rally cry:

My warrior poets,
Scribe lines that unite
The world needs your words
To guide us through the night.

And in closing, I will leave you with this,

the anthem that entered my heart recently:

Take time to look for evidence of benevolence

and if you don’t see it:

Make time to BE the evidence of benevolence

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Read more about Buzz Martin - https://1859oregonmagazine.com/think-oregon/art-culture/buzz-martin/ & https://leisureguy.ca/2021/08/27/buzz-martin/

In light of the events of the last month on the public stage, I have been reflecting on what I can actually do in my own life to unite with Truth.

Witnessing the rise in hysterical emotions and cackling applause over violence, or perhaps worse, indifference, I can’t help but agree with others who have said,

“We’ve been played.”

Something just doesn’t feel right about it all.

There is always a narrative that is being pushed and/or organically arising. What that narrative is for you depends on your personal belief system and where you get your information.

We can frame any situation we experience through the narrative we choose if we have autonomy and sovereignty in our minds. But if we don’t then we are easy prey for the ensuing roller-coaster ride that accompanies the consumption of opinions.

There are so many opinions online right now about everything!

People are propping themselves up as experts in world events, dissecting all the details of the Charlie Kirk assassination or the murder of Iryna Zarutska with ‘authority.’

But who can really know?

I have taken events from my own life to propel me in a certain direction or specific outcome in line with my desired experience. That is what we do. We experience life and then put our labels of meaning on the experiences or let others do that for us. Often we consent to what someone else labeled the experience in order to be seen and understood and to feel connected to a larger context or conversation. It’s as though we try on their costume of understanding and see if it fits and we like it. If it’s comfortable, we keep it.

But what I find intriguing now is to investigate how much of that meaning is my own or the prompting of others’ agendas to harness my energy and support for their theories.

Can I actually experience my own meaning, or has it all been programmed?

This is a potentially powerful spiritual crossroads or awakening moment for us, in my opinion.

We can choose how much energy we give to the world script and how much we focus on our personal journey.

Ask yourself, how much does the world script affect your day to day life sincerely?

Would you like to be a player in it? If so, are you playing the role you chose, or one you inadvertently were assigned? Are you in reaction mode constantly stimulating fight/flight/freeze responses or able to process information in a more grounded, neutral awareness? Or, most likely, are you projecting your pain on the world stage and choosing sides based on personal programming?

I am considering all this, and digesting what I can of what I have bore witness to through the little blue screen. When we see violence, it’s a natural reaction to feel sad or overwhelmed. It’s literally traumatic and one would need to be sociopathic to not have empathy for the ones wounded or their families, as well as the culture that would seemingly create these occurrences.

Unless, of course, you don’t believe it’s “real”

or that it is somehow deserved.

Even righteous anger comes with a cost emotionally. For it is anti-life to celebrate “unaliving.” Even that word makes me sick, honestly. It’s a euphemism that got traction due to social media censorship on certain topics. And in some cases, by watering it down like that, it facilitated conversation around the possibility that some deaths are staged/faked and the person lives on in hiding from the public sphere. Which in a way is esoterically the nature of life/death, in that we leave this realm and perhaps go to another.

What I wonder is if our humanity is being manipulated for some other less visible reason?

It has been said Satan wins through deception.

I have no answers here, except to lean into God for the highest understanding and guidance.

There is an urgency to champion what is right and condemn what is wrong. But we aren’t working with all the details. We are seeing through a lens darkly, so to speak. Darkened by our limited perception and yet, there are moments of self-forgetting where the light overwhelmingly flows through.

^“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 COR 13:12

More will be revealed, of this we can be sure.

When, however, is unknown.

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The smoke has settled in this area
drifting in like gypsies in the night

waking up to a wall of white
cloaking the mountain plumeria

Where are you?
the identity I once knew

You slipped out, disappeared
burned while demons cheered

and left me here
without direction clear

The world has changed
been rearranged, leaving me estranged

out the window, I see a blood red sun
beyond my billowing curtains, homespun

I think of you, my ol’ self, long a little
yet I can’t help but celebrate the acquittal

I know you must be on your way
while, restlessly I will pray

Nature abhors a vacuum, I do say
besides I knew I had become passe

So this blood red sun shines
as wildfire boldly takes our beloved pines

redefines storylines
old self wanes into occult

new self is the new terrain
how could rebirthed me complain?

only when clinging to old branches
romanticizing ember ranches

“Winter’s coming” while fires burn
and Father says we must adjourn

I will miss you and your woeful tales
but I no longer smolder in the details

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I live for beauty.

Some live to protect it, some to own it, some to betray it and hurt it, and some to simply exalt it.

Our perspective is so malleable that it’s quite easy to get tarnished when the world show us ugly slides in looping rhythms.

We must be fierce in protecting our perspective because it’s precious indeed.

Of course, how one defines it is subjective, but I find my heart comes the most alive when beauty is a chorus of choice in how I approach my surroundings. It might be that life is quite simple, and I find it in a lone flower on a trail or a soulful expression on a person’s face.

But’s it there, oh, it’s there!

As I have more time on this earth, I am aware of the moments with even more lucidity. Not wanting to waste anymore time in ugly narratives that steal the beauty from my perception, I look for it all the time.

It’s possible I have trained my eyes to see it, or the pain of missing so much of it in pursuit of anything else trained me to turn back to it. Or perhaps it’s illuminated more in contrast to all the heartache endured in this life.

In some of the most bleak moments of my life, I felt incredible awe at the beauty of a kind gesture or a tree silhouette. I wrote the most poetry when I cried and was in agony.

Now, I feel I am living it, in a different way. The utter stillness that can overtake you when you are beset with grief and then capable of witnessing something profound, in something you would’ve glossed over before.

In June, when living in the Yakima Valley, we were having a heat wave. While I bemoaned it slightly, I was reminded there is nothing quite like the desert heat of Arizona. That is the kind of heat that makes you conjure up mirages, of which I have written many a poem. Here is one from 2022:

*The Datura Knows*

She blooms even in the heat
...and the heat is turned up
We are being cooked
Those who resist are fried

It's an intense moment to be alive
To be given so much information
So much bandwidth
But where is the depth?

These moments in time
Hijacked by things that only ask
For a minute
Of your life

But these things add up
And decades fly by
Where has your focus been
My beloved friends?

In blooming?
or measuring your petals with others?
In creating?
or consuming?

The constant conversation online
The narrow focus news
We live in an age where we can take in
So very much

But the results of overconsumption
Can be a form of mental obesity
A sluggush heavy brain fog
Too dense to perceive sweet essences

She blooms and reminds us
Of the nectar that can flow
From your head to your littlest toe
Magnificent, holy creation

The datura knows
and her beauty dazzles the desert
Asking only for your reception,
which requires space to hold

Let the spacious equanimity return
to your weary war-torn soul
The battle is only ever done
When You arrive, in time

Just in time to recover yourself
From the trick that seduced you
Playing on your deepest fears
Promising fruition of your dreams

Through short snippets and pinups
Virtual icons, modern idols
Avatars attending masquerades
You are there somewhere

Underneath the layers of conditioning
Waiting to be found
In the least likely & most familar place
Within the moment You create

So strike a pose, sing a song
Pull out your pen and write something
Dance, paint, strum some strings
Express Your essence, please

Now in the woods of NE Washington, east of the cascades, wildfires take hold of many acres in this late summer heat. I see smoke in the distance evidencing the destruction at hand. Some homes are lost, but mostly many acres of dense timber that have been protected from these natural cycles for many generations.

The beauty of impermanence is most profound.

The beauty of something that will be lost on the ground.

I see it now in the eyes of elderly, and the rapid growth of young ones.

The knowledge that this time here is short and fleeting and because of that awareness, much more precious.

That which is eternal, carries on.

But the beauty of the moment when one is present for it, is similar to beholding the creator’s work without trying to take credit. Acknowledging your role as the witness and your participation limited to your ability to receive and perceive. To decide what to include in the frame is the artist’s job.

And that is perhaps the gift the Creator has given us. Our choice of focus. What to enlarge, and what to leave out. What to focus on and what to turn away from.

So today, I encourage you to choose your scene, like one who has been given a gift. To accept your role as the eyes of God and behold what has been created here with gratitude.

It’s really something worth examining, when you consider the alternatives. You can amplify the beauty before breakfast and paint the tone for the rest of your day.

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I awaken this morning feeling better than I have in ages.

Multiple factors for this, but the main one being the realization that it’s no longer possible for me to continue to interact on Facebook. I have had an ongoing toxic relationship with the bizarre egregore since 2008!! That’s 15 years ladies and gentlemen of gaslighting, misunderstandings, abandonments, and being made to feel less valuable or worthy most every interaction, minus a few that kept me hanging on! It’s pretty much identical to how it feels to be involved with a sociopath/psychopath/meth addict/active alcoholic/narcissist where you never know what response you are going to get from them, or if you will feel good or bad after interacting. When the behavior they show you is indifference, pure negativity or exaggerated positive support when they want something from you.

Wow, when I contemplate this deeply I really can’t believe how deceived I have been and manipulated by this platform.

In abusive relationships with narcissists or active addicts for example, you are often made to feel like your contribution isn’t as important, unless it’s glorifying them somehow.

What a commitment to something that rarely makes me feel good!

As with any addiction, you must ask yourself, why do I continue to go back to this when I don’t like the results and actually dislike myself while I am doing it?

Well, it’s often due to habit, mindlessness, automatic response, familiarity. But essentially, I have allowed FB to syphon my energy like a parasite for many years. This bizarre loyalty I have had because it feels like actually loyalty to the people I know and care about who also use it, has been revealed for what it is:

deception.

FB leverages our loyalty and care for others against us, in that it extracts our attention (vital life force energy) through our engagement in hopes we will see someone we love as we scroll and feel connected more deeply to them through keeping up on their ideas and public declarations. Or if you are masochistic then maybe you are keeping up with enemies, former partners or people you know don’t have your back and it’s equally intolerable.

It’s also a giant distraction from other activities that would actually help one’s life. For me that is writing. Oh! The hours I have wasted scrolling that I could’ve been writing and then sharing more authentically what my soul is here to share in a book or longer form articles! Instead, I let my attention be hijacked by others’ agendas, opinions and dramas and failed to complete my projects. I don’t blame anyone else for my lack of discipline, but I see how I need to narrow my activities to achieve what I want to achieve. That means not keeping up with so many people, so I can actually focus on my own life.

FB also slips in ads and harvests our energy from that. They subliminally advertise to us all sorts of things through our unconscious consent to be connected to this vast network, group-conversation mediated by them. It’s like going to a pimp or madam to mediate your sexual relationships, when you could just directly contract with a lover.

Although, I have seen this for years (especially during my 3 year hiatus from the platform during a silent off-grid meditation retreat from 2011-1014) I have repeatedly fell back into it due to this desire to remain ‘connected’ to thousands of people. Psychologists have shown that it isn’t healthy for humans to try and maintain relationships with that type of volume of people, yet, this desire to do so has trumped this scientifically deduced wisdom.

And now, that I am not selling anything online, there is absolutely no need to be a part of this. For I had also held onto it when I was marketing yoga classes and trainings through my network.

What a relief, to realize that the people that I can honestly sustain true contact with are limited, and can message me directly if they want to share something.

The herd mentality created by FB is not healthy for my mind. Even when curating my own herd! It reminds me of when I have tried to manage and control drug use, and I would try different combinations to elicit a certain effect. It’s exhausting, doesn’t work, and I am done.

Perhaps others don’t have this cycle with it, due to less addictive natures, I can’t really know for sure. But, I can confess I have used it addictively and it’s brought me to my knees. The negatives outweigh the positives in this equation, and I can’t lie to myself anymore about that.

I want genuine connection and relationships with others, and I don’t want those manipulated by some unseen algorithm that isn’t acting in my best interest.

I feel as though I have created a monster with it, and I do know the other option could be to simply delete many people who I am not close to, and just minimize the amount of information being shared with me. But, even the time it would take to do that feels like a headache, and not worth it.

The memories keep you locked into the past; while I thought I enjoyed that for a time, it has become an albatross around my neck that is keeping me anchored in an old identity.

To become new, we must walk away from the past, and not keep looking back and keeping up with people who have no immediate impact on our current lives.

I feel foolish that I let it affect me so much, but it’s better late than never to wake up to what is no longer beneficial in one’s life.

I remember my dad telling me a story of a friend he had that used to drink a lot, and would say, “Let’s go to the bar and BE SOMEBODY.”

It’s the perfect analogy to FB to me now, in that, it’s a place where egos go to collide and mingle. All under the influence of alcohol or self-importance. While we aren’t meeting in a bar online, it’s a similar atmosphere in its chaos and assortment of loud voices and ideas being shared. People who wouldn’t normally mix… a haphazard collection of opinions, memories, meaningful life experiences all broadcast into a dish of virtual strangers, and maybe some long-time friends.

I don’t go to bars now, why would I go online and subject myself to the same type of feeling? Casting pearls out to people who rarely have the attention span to receive them in order to stay ‘relevant’?

And once you realize the crowd prefers provocative statements to get attention, you might even find yourself yelling too, to keep up! Whenever I talk to drunks, it’s like that. They are all yelling over one another and you might be sitting there quiet not being noticed, and to get noticed you need to do something dramatic!

I swear, it brings out the worst in me.

My tactic for engagement over the last few years has been mainly to share excerpts from my Substack articles with links to them. But I have scrolled and allowed my mind to be affected by so much noise that doesn’t help my mental health. Maybe others are better at simply broadcasting and not consuming, but I am a reciprocal type being; I feel if I want others to listen to me, I should listen to them, too. I like the exchange in relationships, reciprocity. I don’t want to simply offer a monologue and carry on with my self-centered business. I want to know how my “friends” are doing, and see if I can contribute something positive in response to what’s happening for them.

But it’s too much with thousands of friends, met in such diverse times in my life, where the common interest spans from recovery to shared political ideologies or former interests in yoga/meditation etc.

It’s like going to the playground when you are an adult. It’s a substitute fix for loneliness, providing a sense of connection, but the connection is corrupted by the source that is creating it. I would rather meet you on a trail in the woods or on my back patio for tea. Somewhere that we might only be distracted by the sounds of wild turkeys passing through, but not news of everyone’s opinions about current political events.

And finally, anyone who worked to create social media platforms has said that they don’t let their children use them! So, why would I subject myself to them?

Because I am so tough, I can take it?
Why would I want to take it?

So peace be with you, friends and strangers involved in the FB matrix ~

I will be on Substack if you want to join me here, writing more thought-out essays and reading others who write deeper insights that take longer to ingest. I will keep Instagram for now, as that it’s easy to share highlights from my substack articles there, and for some reason the energy of it doesn’t affect me as negatively. Again, maybe because I follow less accounts.

Also, I read a recent article by Landon Poburan, who shared the positive results of his commitment to Substack alone and abandonment of all others.

And I may at some point reactivate my FB if it feels genuinely good to do so, or when I publish a book.

But for now, see ya if I see ya and if not, may you find love, joy, contentment, radiant health and bliss.

And to those of you here on Substack, I look forward to focusing my attention here now and releasing the mediocrity of fitting into immature platforms for the sake of not being ‘forgotten’ nor losing touch with far away figures who need not hold any position of influence over one’s precious mind.

What consolation to be here … unconcerned with being anybody but my most authentic self.

Here’s to creating worlds where we can do that in a mutually respectful way, and enjoy the ensuing liberation from codependent unhealthy group dynamics.

Please leave a comment about your journey navigating social media platforms, and a like to show resonance, if you feel it.

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I have written before about painting. I once applied all my spiritual aspiration to the task and adopted the moniker “Mistress of Paint” in my own personal home painting business.

This summer has been yet another summer of painting.

Only this time, it is my house.

It isn’t just a rental, where I am trading paint work for a deposit, or the landlord is someone using my labor in my desperate situation to get their place remodeled - both I have experienced before.

It isn’t a situation where upon finishing the work, I will be given notice to move for absurd reasons. When after moving, I discover the house goes on the market and their eviction demand had nothing to do with my tenancy and everything to do with their deceitful motives.

This isn’t a job I need to finish in a frenetic push. Often when painting before I was in fight or flight, needing the money or the place to live and trying to prove my worth through work ethic; doing my best to get ‘er done, if you know what I mean.

Now, as I paint my own home, I am singing praises as I go, or taking classes online, chatting with friends on speakerphone or listening to inspiring testimonies. I am taking my time to enjoy the process as much as it is possible to enjoy painting walls, ceilings, doors and trim work.

I think it may be my final paint job, for through this job, I accepted that it isn’t my favorite vocation. Rather, merely something I fell into, that I could do to supplement my income. I found a niche for it was a needed service for people, especially to have a less expensive option with me. Despite my lack of mastery in the craft, for it demands a lot of skill to do it properly, I always gave it my best shot and got it done as professionally as possible, even if I suffered slightly with imposter syndrome. I am a Home Depot Pro though, so I have that going for me, thanks to my brother signing me up as such when he worked there briefly.

I don’t regret that, but I am ready to calmly let it go.

There has been this trend over the last decade or so of signs saying “Keep Calm and ___________”

Finding it amusing and clever at times, I have enjoyed the variations.

But I think the main message is to keep calm, whatever it is you find yourself doing or facing. Not easy, but definitely the way of inner peace and contentment.

So, today may be my last day on this job in the interior of my home and I am giddy at the prospect of not constantly having painting, or condition of paint supplies/tools in the backdrop of my awareness.

Oh My! What will I ever do with all the new space that was inhabited by planning and rolling out that project?

I honestly think that maybe I was a little afraid to arrive here, at the completed job.

For, then I would really need to begin my new life.

Ever notice how sometimes, you stall when you are nervous to do something different? When you’re about to venture into unknown territory, maybe you will choose to linger in the familiar.

Painting and having ongoing jobs with paint trays in the fridge overnight is familiar to me. Having cardboard out cluttering up the space, living in a construction zone is bizarrely comfortable, more so than the unknown order of a space complete. For that might mean I would have no excuse to truly occupy my own life!

Alas, every time I have had a space complete, I have needed to move. Maybe there is a little lingering fear of that outcome causing my procrastination in completion?

But, today is the day I will finish the master bedroom, which is the last section of the house to be done. Here is to finishing the tasks that allow you space to bloom into the unknown. Here is to creating a space conducive to living your most creative life! Maybe now, I can actually finish my book ;)

And if I really want to keep painting, I can start decorating the furniture in my Norwegian cultural heritage’s designs or some version of that.

As always, thank you for reading and supporting this endeavor to share freely my own journey of liberation. Leave a comment if you relate or are struggling as well with completing the known tasks that would remove any excuse to not move bravely into a new experience.

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What if you were lovable even if ______________ ?

Whatever you fill in the blank with is what you must either accept about yourself or change.

If you can change it and it’s something that needs to be changed, then you must find a way to do so, or it will haunt and torment you.

If it’s unchangeable, then in a way, it’s easier.

Except, we all know, acceptance ain’t that easy! It’s probably one of the most difficult things a person can do in this life, but on the other side of it lies peace.

She waits for you, like a grandma, sitting in her rocking chair knitting. Knowing to rush you would be futile and like most, you will need to fight it, whatever “it” is, as long as you possibly can.

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But maybe just maybe, if you are fortunate, you will surrender one day. The fight against “it” will lose significance or you will be too exhausted to continue.

That is a blessed day.

May that day come for you, if it hasn’t already.

The secret to life is to be nobody and accept everything

And when I say “be nobody”- I mean surrender the self-importance, just let it freakin’ go! It’s what kills the joie de vivre!

You will of course always be some-body, you can’t really escape that while you are here in this form.

But you don’t need to be who you thought you needed to be,

to be loved.

That’s the hook.

And accept everything- just accept it! You don’t have to love it, but when you cease fighting it, it gets a whole lot easier.

You guilelessly say, “ok, this is it. This is the reality of the situation. I don’t have to love it, but if I can accept it, it will change, because everything does. “

everything

So, matter-of-factly drop the pretense (pre tense= anticipated tension caused from grasping to a self).

Be nobody

and be-come everything that feels like peace automatically.

Last Friday I took a trip to a Recovery Pow Wow campout near Inchelium, WA. In order to get there I took a ferry across the river, and it was like going back in time. I mean, why didn’t they put a bridge in it yet? Could this be some snippet of reality that escaped modernization and was actually a portal of sorts to an alternate world?

It was as though I was transported to simpler times. Only one man operated the ferry that you drove up unto and hitched your ride across the mighty Columbia. I made sure to bring some cash in dollars and coins, expecting a toll, but it was surprisingly free. And it was easy.

I wanted to have a sage conversation with the ferryman, harkening back to days where men used big poles/sticks/oars to push floating skiffs across waterways and would perhaps somberly share some words of wisdom.

It was a dangerous career for some, especially in Portland, Oregon which used to be called Ferry Town before all the bridges were erected. Often ferrymen drowned or were stiffed and assaulted yet there was this idea as well that you should never pay the ferryman until you reached the other side, else you were at his disposal prematurely, for not all ferrymen were trustworthy. As is the case with all public transportation, many unsavory characters were found crossing the river, only this time if a fellow rider acted out, they could push you into the river, not merely cause a fuss on a bus.

In Greek mythology, Charon was the Ferryman, who brought souls to the Underworld. He was depicted as an old man with a tattered cape and scraggly beard. Although sometimes seen as sinister, he was actually neutral, not judging the souls he ferried, merely providing passage to the afterlife.

And, in Greek tradition, it was customary to place a coin in the mouth or the eyes of the deceased to pay their toll with Charon, else doom them to many years of wandering the shores without rest.

So, somewhere deep in my psyche this story was buried and subconscious relief felt when I wasn’t even asked for a toll for this particular ferry ride. Instead, I was merely directed where to park and signs indicated I was turn off my vehicle and remain inside.

Upon landing on the other side, which was Colville Tribal land, I found myself surrounded by sober folks of all walks of life. There was a sacred fire where I was told not to throw trash or cigarette butts, but I could make offerings of sacred tobacco with my prayers. I didn’t stay too long because there was really only one person I came to see, but it was nice to commune for the time I was there.

It reminded me of a few years back when I went to Woods Canyon Lake in Arizona for a fishing trip.

I used to smoke American Spirits back then, and had trouble accepting myself as a ‘smoker’. I often tried to hide it and on this trip, I just relished it. For I had no image there to uphold, and I could just relax into my only vice. Funny things was, as I accepted myself smoking, eventually I let it go.

Here is a poem I wrote from that moment called Angling for Peace:

Lately, life is incredibly new, even though I am not constantly venturing to exotic (to me) places. It’s a gift I get to open each day.

I think one of the biggest things that changed, like I mentioned in:

was that I finally accepted myself, completely. I saw myself through the ferryman’s eyes, only this time my toll had been redeemed and so no payment was required. I was precious cargo even though I had made many mistakes, for every soul is.

I used to appreciate Eminem because the way he won in the rap battle in the movie “8 Mile” was to boldly claim all the insults that others might use against him, before they could attack him for it. For when you don’t care anymore, you win.

“Yeah, I know everything he’s got to say against me. I am white and I am a fucking bum. I do live in a trailer park with my mom….Don’t ever try to judge me dude, Cuz you don’t know what the fuck I’ve been through…I’m a piece of fucking white trash, I say it proudly. And fuck this battle, I don’t wanna win. I’m outty, Here, tell these people something they don’t know about me.” -Eminem

Link to scene from 8 Mile

I had my own version of this, where I just accepted all the “bad” things about me and was freed of the burden of defending or attempting to hide them anymore.

I retired from teaching yoga and had nothing to compete for in that world.

I accepted my age, my circumstances and changed directions with the things I could.

And the things that couldn’t be changed, I accepted. I grieved them deeply on the shore of Understanding.

And now, my nervous system is at ease. I no longer can amp myself into a caffeine or codependent chemical fear frenzy, even if I wanted to. I had my blood tested in April 2025 and learned I was low in Cortisol, which has explained my inability to fully activate my sympathetic nervous response anymore.

Thankfully, I happen to have landed in a very safe place over all, maybe not as safe as Wyoming: with the lowest population density, highest gun ownership per capita, yet lowest crime rate in the country, but pretty close.

Here in Northeast Washington, my neighbors tell me they don’t lock their doors and the only predator to be concerned about is BigFoot. (Although, moose, bear and cougar are also spotted around these parts.)

A local shopkeeper informed me when I asked if he had experience with Bigfoot, that you don’t really “believe” in Bigfoot, you either know him or you don’t. He shared of a rugged logger who came into the store and was obviously shaken one morning, swearing he had just seen Bigfoot on the job site. It was a believable story due to the source being a man who wouldn’t appear to be easily frightened, nor likely to exaggerate a story that made him look like a scared little boy.

I don’t know; I haven’t seen one yet. But I am also not actively looking!

Life is sure something, between ferrymen and bigfoots, it seems wise to be prepared for anything. And if you want some contentment, it’s wise to not expect that you shouldn’t have to encounter something unpleasant. As my little brother says, you should expect that, in fact, you will encounter many things that are unpleasant.

The time spent trying to constantly avoid them, and behave as a victim when they do strike, takes the real toll on a life. And that, my friends is a heavy toll to pay, especially when you can have a free ride to the Kingdom if you only accept God’s Grace and forgiveness.

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I am very grateful to you who read this and appreciate your thoughts if you care to share. The conversations I have here, on this platform for storytelling are deeply meaningful to me and I hope inspire others.

with love,

your no longer wandering yogini

another nobody, yet somebody

abiding on the shore of Redemption

Tamara

I am living the dream, the dream that I never believed was possible for me.

I saw it in others.

I used to look into windows of people’s lives as an outsider, a traveller passing through. Observing the routines, the relationships, the meals, the heartbreaks, the victories as someone detached. Like a ghost almost, I roamed; somehow accepting my plight of existence in perpetual exile.

I participated in other’s graduations, reunions, weddings, promotions and cheered them on. I supported friends buying land, building homesteads, or having kids, yet I had no home of my own. I stayed for a night or two, maybe a week or more, fed their chickens and pretended there was a place for me too. I joked with their children, helped with chores, shared tales of my travels around the fire. Somehow though, be it their volition or mine, it always became clear it was time to move on.

I acknowledged the beauty of other’s lives through writing poetry, taking photos and memorializing moments in life of accomplishment, triumph, tragedy and defeat. I bore witness. Tried to serve, yet also tried to find my position. It was a pilgrim’s paradox.

I was never fully invested myself in anything “permanent” here on earth, except hope in this nebulous notion of liberation.

Each group I got close to, I eventually left. Every attempt in sanghas, or fellowships to create a sense of family, I abandoned. My membership to clubs was scattered throughout the country and my allegiances confused. It became a lot to toggle and the people pleaser in me was trapped in a dance that was getting excruciatingly more painful to keep up with.

I could fit in everywhere, in a way, but I never fully belonged.

But recently, I became *REAL*

Like Velveteen Rabbit real!

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Do you remember the childhood story? If not, let me refresh your memory. It is the tale of rabbit toy who was owned by a boy in England depicting his journey as a new toy to eventually becoming a very worn stuffed animal through all the love the boy gave him.

As a young girl in America, I, too, had a stuffed bunny like that. It was a Bugs Bunny replica, yet I named him Merlin. He was my magic friend that I clutched tightly sleeping next to nightly for many years. Eventually, he too, was let go of as I moved on to different interests.

I don’t remember precisely when it happened, but I have a faint recollection of his existence becoming “not cool enough” for the older persona I was seeking to embody. There was some transition in my development that occurred when I ceased to hold onto the comforting things if they no longer passed the test in my mind of what was acceptable to the outer world. I forsake the things I innocently loved in favor of what the world elevated. I began to self-abandon in order to present my mask to the world.

We all do this, do we not? Some of us worse than others in the sense that we go perhaps further with it and almost disappear.

Humbly, I confess that I am only coming up on a year of continuous sobriety, although I don’t even know the precise date. It was August last year sometime that I was brought back to my senses, after a very brief slip in the summer of my own swan song. So removed, was I, from caring about dates or living in conventional linear time, I didn’t bother to mark it, because “I” didn’t plan it would last anyway. It wasn’t my idea, rather Love moved in me and brought me to my knees. For it wasn’t really about substances, rather it was a lifestyle of living in make-believe that I could no longer endure.

I decided to return to the NW and be close to my family again, who I had been running from my whole life! Those who still lived anyway.

So like the salmon, I swam home…all bruised and beaten and scarred. I landed at my aunts in Wenatchee, WA and prayed and attended meetings again and found a sense of belonging and home I never knew before. I think because I had nothing to hide or prove anymore. Inflated Self-importance was extinguished in the bonfire of my own vanity as I honestly examined my life.

I accepted the fact I was a middle aged woman now, with nothing.

No thing

No real purpose

No long-term continuous sobriety

No kids

No family

No home

No truly sustainable livelihood

And I stopped conning myself with fantasies about it all.

And, I was ok with it.

“I” failed. And it’s ok.

I surrendered the story of “Tamara” and was given a whole new life.

One I never could’ve created on my own! I focused on codependency recovery and sobriety and “abandoned myself to God” fully. Guess what— I got married to a man who had a similar story who I would’ve never even considered before in my old deluded ways!! And we bought a home just a few weeks ago. I am a wife, homeowner and I have amends and proximity to my brother and dad!!! It’s a dream come true! And all “I” did was:

Let Go and Let God

However trite that saying is!!!

I cried out to God and was delivered from this life of constant wandering and wondering why I always felt so left out of *life.

So, this year for my birthday, I gave myself the gift of not interacting with social media at all. Nor did I look at any news; instead I simply soaked in the feeling of blissful presence that was lingering from my weekend commune over 4th of July with my dad, brother and husband.

In past years, I have celebrated my birthday whenever I was in the Northwest with my Uncle Jim who passed early last fall; his birthday on July 2nd, and mine on the 7th. We tried to connect over 4th of July weekends and commemorate the old days and the new nows we lived and we never missed a call to one another or forgot to send a card. This was to be my first birthday without him, so I invited my Dad and brother to come and celebrate life with me in my new home.

See prior article about Jim below:

7/7/25 I cried joyful tears of gratitude gazing around my home and rejoicing in this life I have been given that is beyond my wildest dreams. “Wildest” here is not equivalent to the wild ways I lived before! Rather, life is quite tame actually, but overwhelmingly rewarding.

I chose solitude and contemplation as my gifts and relished them. I have always loved to retreat. But I didn’t retreat out of fear or a need to be different than who I am, rather I was set aside to be with Infinite Love, my Creator.

This year for my birthday I was given the gift of true presence from my father, who drove 6 hours to come see me in my new home and let me host him, for the first time in my life. My little brother also came, driving a few hours to celebrate with us. I was able to host my family finally, living only a day’s drive away as opposed to the 20+ hours in years preceding.

Last Sunday, July 6th, I received the gift of being the one left behind, waving as cars drove out of my driveway!

It may sound strange to say it, but I rejoiced in being left behind, because I have a life I am grateful to be living and no where else to run to, nor any desire to.

You see, I have always been the one driving off and leaving others behind. It felt much easier that way. Both because I felt unlovable at my core, so didn’t want to stay long enough to be found out, and because at least, I was on to something new! My friends or relatives would ask me to text/call whenever I landed where I did, but I often forgot or didn’t understand/value the concept,

until now.

I didn’t know what it felt like to worry about your loved one reaching their destination, because I have always lived so cavalierly. I didn’t know the joy of packing snacks for the road and providing ice from your fridge to your father for his cooler. I didn’t know what it was like to be anchored in this world,

until now.

I am real.

I am loved.

And that is a very new reality to live in.

Then on 7/7, I spent my 49th year anniversary on this planet crying tears of gratitude and reflecting on all the kindness that came to me over the years and especially most recently. How did I get here?

I am learning too, that living life offline provides something priceless. There is a greater sense of connection ironically, because I am fully present for what is before me, rather than keeping up with all the Chicken Little Death Cult prophecies and cute outfits that others wore, meals they had, and other superficial details shared via social media.

Documenting everything is a sign that one feels one’s life is meaningless unless validated by others in a collective conversation.

But is not your own perspective powerful, whether it is seen by others or not?

It can serve as a way to affirm your importance in the world, which is especially deceptive when you realize that you are indeed extremely important to your Creator. But when you don’t know that, then it’s a powerful substitute.

Social media distorts this fundamental human right to BE and be content with what is around you. The increased feeling of importance props the ego and provides a sense of value, which to the insecure is extremely alluring.

Embarrassingly, I knew this before but that didn’t prevent me from the ensuing addiction over the years.

It’s a great escape and like any escape, it comes with a cost. The cost is one’s mental wellbeing and a sense of fragmentation that takes time to re-integrate. Along with various other digital/spiritual energies/entities that attach to you.

Lauryn Hill in 2001 when she evolved out of her hyped music career and dedicated her life to her family and God made an unplugged album where she brilliantly summed it up:

“See fantasy is what people want, but reality is what they need. And I just retired from the fantasy part.”

What if the reality is that life hurts, yes, and there is no where to truly run from the pain? That compassion is the highest form of love we can give one another, so maybe I didn’t fail after all, nor did you. We just failed to live up to God’s infinite mercy and compassion, but that is plight of the human and the work we get to do in this life!

To outgrow self-seeking and simply show up for one another and our unique duties. To quit comparing your station to others, step out of the phantasmagoria masquerade ball, and instead really live it! We are all in this together, and we all hurt at some time.

Showing up for your immediate communities and creating a life worth living that there is no need to escape into an avatar is a great start. Or simply using it sparingly, but not as an idol to be worshipped and to fill any quiet moment with.

Wisdom starts speaking to you directly then and it’s worth more than any ‘like’ or fleeting acclaim found in a sensation of social media fame. Wisdom is found when you stop running from who you are and all your pain, and accept your personal place in this world.

and that’s Real.

I am grateful for any of you who read this and I appreciate your feedback and thoughts if you care to share.

(photos by Vanessa Wingerath taken during a Women’s Beltane Retreat hosted at Mt. Lemmon, AZ 2022)

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“Gave up my girlfriend and my family
traded them in for an M16
Afghanistan Pakistan Yemen Irak
I don't care if I ever come back
From poor families how far we roam
So the rich kids can just stay at home
When I come home with PTSD
The VA hospital won't care for me
I'll probably end up homeless out in the dark
To get played on screen by Marky Mark”

-Mock Army cadence chant courtesy of Key & Peele

Link to Army satire skit by Key & Peele

Recently, I saw this clip of a comedy sketch done somewhere around 2020, although it could still work today with an additional verse including Palestine and Iran. Curiously, it’s been removed from the official Key & Peele YouTube channel and found only on other channels, kindly allowing this powerful satire to remain in the public domain.

I was struck by how sadly accurate it was, which is not uncommon for military cadence tunes. I grew up hearing my Dad sing them despite the fact they were not all made for innocent ears, nor unassuming regarding the realities of war/military life. For anyone unfamiliar with them, please click on the link above to hear the example I introduced this article with. These marching cadences are in rhythm with the steps and are done to boost morale while training. They usually tell a story, in a poetic form, which serves to build teamwork and camaraderie through not only marching, but also singing together about their common experience.

On this day of honoring fathers, I am contemplating the war on masculinity and the family unit that I have witnessed in my lifetime. I reflect back to leadership qualities I saw in my dad growing up, which included things he learned from his military experience. What he demonstrated to me was that men were tough; to be masculine was to be able to endure and sacrifice at a deep level. Yet, they were also sensitive, for I saw him cry a few times when my mother left the family. They had to work, even when they didn’t feel like it, in order to provide for their families. Men were willing to die in order to protect, hence they had to be physically strong and/or mentally equipped to do that. While I admired that, I also feared it, but appropriately so.

Some fathers are also veterans, with or without actual combat experience. In the USA we have veterans of foreign wars as all our military operations are usually conducted abroad. Notwithstanding, their impact on us here at home is felt. What is unsettling is how that impact may not be obvious to the entire collective though. Unlike the countries our soldiers are sent to, our country isn’t ravished by evident effects of physical war which prohibits a unified understanding of the terror that has occurred. Instead, only the soldiers who return home with PTSD and their families are directly hit.

Growing up and being placed in honors classes at public school, I discovered that many of my friends’ parents didn’t fight in wars directly - their generation’s war being the Vietnam War. It was an interesting thing to realize as a teen how they lacked the same values I had been instilled with hearing war stories and brutal assessments of politics from my combat veteran uncle and dad’s discussions.

But the fallout from war is heavy, even if the war didn’t take place on our soil.

My maternal grandpa was a veteran of WWII and when he returned to his hometown in Minnesota after surviving it all, he was a changed man. The small town expectations that he would pick up a family farm or stay in the area and settle down weren’t options for him. He had seen too much by then, and there was no way he was going to be able to fit back in. He left and moved far away to the west coast and married an alcoholic deeply disturbed woman, rather than a small town church goer. This choice affected his life trajectory and led to many domestic disputes and violence, inflicted by her on not only him but her children. Maybe it was more comfortable to be in a battlefield home after bearing witness to what he had seen than try and pretend life could be anything resembling ‘normal’.

Although my own father didn’t actually end up fighting in Vietnam for he was far too disobedient during his stint in the Marines, he carried an energy about him that was patriotic in a way that my ‘smart kid’ class friend’s fathers lacked. Their dads had received education deferments for the draft during Vietnam and were usually physically weaker with careers far from physical labor sector. This perspective gave them an arrogance and distance from the ability to identity with ‘grunts’.

My working class best friend’s father, on the other hand, was also a vet and Native American which made her home comfortable to visit with its familiar atmosphere of alcoholism and need to settle the discomfort that comes with PTSD.

What I have seen is that the effects of PTSD in one generation of veterans affects their offspring as well. It leaves a legacy in families of pride in discipline and warrior qualities, but also a shared sadness for maybe the soldier coming home was unable to fully function and show up for his family obligations, no matter how much he may have wanted to. The children naturally took it personally, and developed their own dysfunctional coping skills.

It’s really only recently that vets have been given counseling for PTSD and its consequences were validated. In prior generations, many men had to come home and stuff all those feelings thereby isolating to deal with their pain, which had detrimental impacts on their families. It was seen as weak to need mental help, but thankfully that at least, has evolved.

Maybe it’s time we protected our men from the tyranny of death for wars far from direct impact to us?

I really don’t know the answer. The scope of the ideas presented already here are too much to neatly wrap up with an optimistic conclusion.

Personally, I want the younger generations of men to be able to express their beautiful masculine traits and be lights in the world. My generation of GenX (of which I am on the tail-end) are the children of men who went to Vietnam (including a few older ones in the Korea War) and/or didn’t, but lived through an era where those wars were occurring. My actual generation’s wars were all in the Middle East, and I have peers who were combat veterans from Desert Storm, Afganistan to the Iraq War.

Essentially, it’s still largely the poor who end up dying as service men/women or living and returning broken and deeply wounded from the experience. Men’s suicide is at all time high, the 2nd largest cause of death for men under 45 in the United States! What kind of world are we living in where that is even possible?

An inverted world, ruled by very dark forces. But judgement day is coming.

I pray we don’t have to send another generation to die for wars elsewhere. But I don’t decide the world politics, nor claim to know the answer. Simultaneously, I pray men find some purpose to live for NOW that inspires them to embrace their masculinity in its healthiest expression and be the strong leaders they are capable of being. Family and legacy seem to be the most fruitful and potentially rewarding avenue. I know it’s hard though to want that when you saw your parents divorce, or were used as a practical human shield yourself as a child in home fire battles over custody of you.

To all the fathers out there, never doubt the power your behavior has on your children. What a beautiful and awesome responsibility! It literally brings me to tears to recognize that. I have friends whose father’s abandoned them, and the repercussions reverberate to this day in their life choices and capacities.

To all the single men out there, try to treat each girl you date as though she could be your daughter, so rather than ghost her or use her, remember she had a dad too … once upon a time. She is a potential mother. Even if she is broken, she doesn’t deserve to be trampled on more, and why would you want that on your conscience? If you can’t step up and commit, then avoid sexual relations. I only caution all that because I have younger single female friends who are struggling to find husbands, and the situation is difficult for young Millenials, and Gen Z’s to find healthy relationships in this current cultural climate.

It’s father’s Day, which is a tough day for folks who have lost their dads or have been hurt or abused by them. It can also be sad for men who have no legacy (yet), but let’s make the most of it, and honor men we know. Compliment them for the talents you see. The feminine used to build up the men. If they fail to get that anymore from women, it’s hard for men to rise up without that positive reflection or even the hope of it.

Thank you fathers. Do your best. If you owe your kids amends, make them. Because the longer you wait, the harder it gets. And sometimes, they don’t get made before the grim reaper calls your number, which is a sad inheritance to leave.

Today, I will be honoring my dad, and more importantly, I will be honoring all men. I invite you to join me. The potential fatherhood in each man is such a beautiful aspect to recognize and water.

And for the men who don’t feel good about being masculine, find a role model somewhere and learn. The world needs your evolved consciousness, not your constant belittlement of women who like you, were daughters raised in this upside down world. It seems ridiculous to need to assert this, but it sadly bears repeating to anyone who makes such broad generalizations about sexes:

Not ALL men are evil
Not ALL women are evil

We are ALL veterans of demonic psychological warfare. There is far more unity to be found when acknowledging that together than separating into MGTOW or extreme feminist movements.

Without the purpose of family, it’s harder to stay on the positive life-affirming course. So, step up, find a wife and get on with it! Preferably, not out of wedlock: commit. It’s worth it.

I only share all this because I have seen the apathy and degeneracy my generation embraced, growing up commonly neglected in broken homes. It doesn’t work. There is no legacy in running away from life and family responsibility. The results are loneliness, resentment and self-destruction. Co-parenting with baby mamas is not sustainable for society in the long run.

That’s what the enemy wants, so don’t give it to them.

Happy Father’s Day warriors!

I salute you and I forgive all the men who hurt me out of their own ignorance. I forgive myself for hurting men out of my ignorance. The stakes are simply too high now to continue to hold grudges. Life moves fast and resentment is too heavy of a burden. Repent and turn away from all that, or it will be your demise. Instead, be the man or woman that God created you to be and share your masculine/feminine qualities boldly for your sake and the sake of others.

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There is a beauty in the cold that is like no other
The fresh cool caress on an exposed cheek
The chill of air facing a frozen lake
The crunch of steps and sense of cautiousness that make one’s movements precise
Poetic in their deliberateness
For there is less room for folly when death beckons the ill-prepared

I honor my ancestors who survived the harsh climates that demanded an accuracy lost
these days
These modern spoiled children we are
Poor circulation
Processed diets
Heated supermarkets filled with junk from China
Who knows the character required to live in lands like this?
Who knows the discipline needed to ensure survival?

I pay homage to those brave ones who came before and passed to me this incredible genetic legacy
Which sadly I failed to value fully until recently
My battles pale in comparison
Raging against a culture based on degeneracy determined to undermine virtue from every direction
But not needing to rise early and tend to the livestock
Or sew my own clothing
Subsist for real with the resources and cycles of the earth

I imagine this wasn’t where you thought we might go with your strong efforts
Oh, Ancestors of the North!
But here we are
Standing in awe in the collapse of it all
Taking our warm showers, staying up late with electronics, fretting over similar tyrannies you stood up against before
Yes we may be physically comfortable, but mentally more insecure I suspect
Knowing of course that in the future,
The foundation has been corrupted
The ice must melt as the season changes
And where will we find ourselves then?

I wrote this poem in 2022 during a pilgrimage to the North, a scouting trip to assess the prospect of returning home. After years in the desert, I wasn’t sure I was still genetically equipped for 4 seasons, especially the winter.

Enduring many moons in exile, I had become weak, accustomed to warm weather and the endless summer lifestyle. A female Peter Pan, was I, or better yet, a Wendy on perpetual swoon, from one hope to another.

Avoiding growing up, I ran from all the pain,
dissociated, dismembered from my own identity.

Tortured by the fallen angels, tricked into thinking I could rescue myself of my own accord.

Yet to re-member is to create wholeness through the integration of IT ALL.

Can we do that now, on this eve of yet another layer to the apocalypse?

Or will we shout stronger, asserting one identity over another,
falling further and further
into the trap that was carefully created

woven by the fallen angels…

A storm is brewing, it’s been for some time.

The battle in the heavens reaches down to earth and how do we carry on?

It’s only in utter annihilation of the self that peace is found.

“He that loveth his life shall lose it; he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” John 12:25

“He that findeth his life shall lose it; he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it.” Matthew 10:39

And, in modern vernacular, the Dread Pirate Roberts states unflinchingly in response to the Princess’s lament, “You mock my pain” in the movie The Princess Bride:

Click to see scene from movie

No one likes their pain mocked, especially nowadays in the climate of competing victim identities. I have never liked it. Eventually, there comes a blessed moment though. Suddenly, you have had enough of idolizing your own pain, or the pain of other demographics with similar stories, that you can finally lay it down.

As the heat gets turned up, the layers of deception are burnt away. You can only con yourself for so long. Eventually, life catches up with you: people you love die, you get sick, or you find yourself alone, a stranger in your own skin.

The one you love, leaves … or worse, stays
and shames you for being a scarred veteran of this satanic assault, that we have all endured. As though, you, somehow should’ve known better, and obviously God has failed because, where was He when you were driven to self-abandon?

But how could you have been helped when you believed that you were the captain, and weren’t even available to receive the help in your own defiant disobedience?

Soon, you really see,
fully comprehend,
deeply internalize,
that everyone has pain.

No one is exempt, no matter how wealthy or good looking they are.

No matter the color of their skin, or the language of their lips.

No matter how much their mommy or daddy loved them, there is no one who manages without suffering something.

It levels the playing field and makes you right-sized. You don’t have to save the world. In fact, you can’t of your own devises. You don’t have to be something grandiose to earn your redemption. It will never work.

It is then, in the awe of the collapse of IT ALL:
yourself included
That the angels of mercy can minister

And maybe, just maybe, you will finally listen.

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Living adjacent to orchards, my life has been about apples lately.

Not just literally, but figuratively.

Allow me to explain, because as I bear witness to the process of tending to the esteemed Washington apple crop, I can’t help but draw parallels to the fruits of living in faith.

You see, a lot has changed for me lately. Including, embracing an identity that I’ve spent most of my life running from: an identity as a child of God.

Instead, I hid under so many false identities and attempts to propel myself to enlightenment through my own wits and “works.” I have been an imposter! No wonder I felt so misunderstood all the years teaching yoga. With all my heart, I wanted to help folks find liberation. Yet, my life continued to be a saga of misfortune, of entirely my own making.

This path is narrow like the aisles between the apple tree rows and I thought I was smarter than that. Perhaps I could leap ahead or above the humble human experience.

What I have been forced to admit though, is that there is no escaping the human experience, no matter how “spiritual” you are. Rather, you might just learn how to desensitize yourself to the pain, or disassociate and wrongly assume in your aloof pose that you are somehow beyond it….

That you understand some greater truth, that maybe others don’t and it sets you apart. It allows you wander and not get too attached. Easy come, easy go… in an odyssey of hedonistic whimsy, cleverly cloaked in modern mendicant robes.

Thankfully, God knows the desires of our hearts. So we don’t have to “manifest” them with Law of Attraction or managing our karmas to attempt to force them to “ripen” sooner. Of course, we can try…

And I did.

But, in this midlife analysis, I am finally free to confess that the branches of all that wannabe sorcery never bore the fruit I longed for. At first, they might blossom and bud, maybe even the apple would begin to grow. But soon, they were filled with worms or pests, or started rotting sadly before they even matured.

Eventually, the tree, that was me, began to rot with all this reliance on self and ensuing inner cognitive dissonance. Evidence of black rot was discovered with closer examination, which is a fungus that attacks the whole tree manifesting symptoms in the leaves, bark, branches and fruit. I was tired, feeling like a blighted wood, in despair about my predicament.

I had to concede that every fruit from my efforts was mummified. The fruit grew, but was sick and it still hung to the branch, stealing nutrients that couldn’t help it. It was rotting from within, no matter how much sunshine or water it received.

The only cure I discovered was drastic. I had to prune all the dead and diseased wood, and either burn it or remove it from my immediate vicinity, so the spores wouldn’t spread. You see, the spores live in infected bark and mummified fruits.

So, it’s been a spring of cleaning like no other. Throwing out all the old relics of dreams I once had, for the contamination was so devastating that to hold onto any of them, would only invite the rot back in. Sweeping out the nostalgia or attachment to a familiar life of wandering outside of the promised land, entertaining demons telling me I didn’t belong there, or would never be accepted. I have bore witness within to how difficult it can be to let go of the past, despite its detriment.

Similar to when Lot and his family were ushered out of Sodom and Gomorrah by angels and told NOT TO LOOK BACK! Yet, his wife did, and turned to a pillar of salt. There can be no looking back, for to ruminate too long on all the failed ventures is to invite the demons back in.

And it goes a step further… for one must also acknowledge the need to sanitize the implements used to prune. With these tree diseases, for example, sometimes using the same loppers between trees can cause it to spread to healthy trees in the surrounding area! You must take all the dead wood, black spotted leaves and either burn them or dispose of them far from the good crop you are cultivating.

You could say, it’s a process of sanctification. Which although painful, is more liberating and fruitful than any vow I took to any fallible ‘master’, or process I once dedicated myself to in hopes of enlightenment.

The enlightenment is recognizing that the fruits failed and to continue to hold them is death.

The enlightenment is understanding that there is an almighty creator who has invited us into the Kingdom, if only we could receive the grace to believe and trust.

To walk forward without measuring it constantly to the past.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 5:7-8

To be transformed rather than insist on conforming to the world.

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:2

There is freedom in truth and in admitting the defeat of living in sin. Those sins don’t define you, once you receive salvation. But if you continue to disobey, they will eat you alive and you will pay for them, subject to laws of the one who rules earth.

The sins that you don’t forgive yourself for are some that allow the cracks to demonic attacks. But there is One who has taken on the karma for all of your sins. What I found, when examining my life under the lens of salvation is that every plague that entered my life, came as a result of me bearing the burden of my ignorant transgressions alone. In my own self-inflicted punishment, I sequestered myself in a tortured tomb of shame trying to redeem myself with acts of merit, but never fully being able to.

I attracted and was drawn to people who either judged the very things I couldn’t forgive myself for or indulged them equally, if not worse. I spent many moons trying to argue or prove them into submission, when they weren’t even the ultimate judge! They were simply a perfect mirror of my inner critic, and a yardstick of determining whether I could be emancipated through outer human validation.

Many of us do this.

But there is a way out, and that is the good news!

It’s never too late to let go and let your Creator claim you.

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