Part 1: Lessons whilst sitting on a bench: "What if you just let yourself be?" he asked

And I am sure my eyebrow raised a bit in disdain, or consternation, as I wondered to myself, "Well, what if I did...?"

That’s the moment I am going to write about, but I have been dragging my feet.

Dragging my feet means I look at my computer and say to myself, “I want to write ahead a bit, and it’s time to do it. I always feel better when I don’t wait until the last minute.”

Then my mind says something like, “Well you have nothing important to say, so you’d better wait.”

My mind doesn’t point out that I have been highly focused on the topic of Resistance and Resentment or that I have been knocking my head against an invisible wall in subtle frustration as I wonder about my own and find it difficult to do what I have been trying to do. I am trying to just get rid of it. Even though I know that it never works or helps to try to get rid of things.

My mind doesn’t like me to write anything that might not look clean and pretty, which is a problem as often, I feel I live in a normal and messy turmoil of what I chuckle to myself is what I happen to call, “my life.”

And it’s also not that I don’t have anything to write about.

I could think of things. So many things. I just hadn’t figured out what they all meant and how to tie them into something tidy and helpful.

How does one write about magic?

Sometimes, despite my growing aversion to sitting at my computer or scrolling through my phone after my two stays at the garden which offered me a taste of what it feels like to take a break from it all, I still spend some time scrolling through X where I see various people I follow talking about El Salvador or Bitcoin. I feel a bit like I do whilst watching a movie. Sometimes these little dives into X feel like moments when I would enjoy, literally enjoy, munching on popcorn as the Tweets and comments stream through my awareness.

I don’t watch anything anymore…I don’t know what the newest series on Netflix or Amazon Prime is. The last time I watched anything like that was with my Uncle. And at times I did have a bag of leftover organic jalapeño cheddar popcorn from the movie theater sitting in my lap. I love spicy things and my uncle doesn’t, so I didn’t have to feel self-conscious over hoarding it all to myself while we watched the most recent long awaited episode of Julia to evoke the next belly laugh from us both. (Thankfully, my uncle has a similar sense of humor to my own and sometimes at family gatherings or unexpected church services we find ourselves in, we both laugh quietly with one another like little school children trying to hide their snickers behind their hands from the teacher, as our eyes fill with tears and we both know, as we whisper a glance at one another that no, certainly, we should not be laughing at this. And in case you are wondering what “this” is, I will tell you despite, like I said, the disturbing aspect of it).

My uncle used to have a friend in school who became an undertaker and at times, we have had conversations about death. Really, the conversations have to do with what to do with one’s body.

My uncle is a man who cares about people and the environment. And I am pretty sure he is not a man who believes in reincarnation. But despite that, he cares about the world and what happens to it even after he is gone.

I, at one point, purchased a book on end of life ceremonies that I thought would offer more beautiful options than what I had experienced so far. That’s when I learned about how bodies are normally “prepared” for viewing, in contrast to the other alternatives the book offered.

I was discussing it with my uncle who finds the topic both interesting and entertaining for some reason. (As far as I know, he plans to be cremated).

“Eeeewww,” I had just said. (And a particular funeral I went to as a child came to mind as I remembered seeing the lifeless, formaldehyde-infused hand of the corpse of the man in the coffin. And the man had not been easy for me to be around when he was alive.)

My uncle, not knowing the part about the funeral, laughed at my aversion to embalming.

(You see what I mean about the inappropriate things that can make us smile and laugh?)

Soon after, I learned at a workshop at the mushroom festival in Telluride of another, much different funeral which may have been conducted covertly. At least I think it was covert as I don’t know that one is allowed to bury loved ones themselves and these people did. The presenter spoke of the early death of his friend, and how they made a shroud out of linen with tiny pockets sewn into it. All the friends of this person wrote messages and tucked them into the pockets.

The shroud was infused with mycelium (which turns, in the right conditions, into mushrooms which I am sure you know, help with the process of decay).

Then they buried their friend’s body in the earth and planted trees over the top. Since he was a nature lover, adventurer, and mushroom enthusiast, I don’t think there was a question that he would have found this all quite acceptable and likely a lovely send-off from his friends.

I mentioned to my uncle that a linen bag infused with mushroom spores appealed to me, which led to him asking questions and telling me stories about his undertaker friend, who he mentioned, always seemed interested in death. He mentioned his friend’s father was an undertaker as well and that the business was passed down in the family.

At times, my uncle and I both laughed.

And yes, this story is leading to the topic in the title of this post…I am getting there slowly, as I grapple with my mind and it’s criticisms. The temporary nature of life does tie into it.

And in case you forgot by now, we are getting to the question that was presented to me: “Terra, what if you just let yourself be?”

I will avoid it a moment more to mention JK Rowling. And yes, I promise to tie this in too.

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Books, in a tweet on X, confirmed again that she doesn’t believe in magic.

After I saw her tweet, my mind busied itself wondering about that.

You see, I am sure JK Rowling has studied about Magick, even if she doesn’t believe in it. I don’t think it is possible to include so much about Magick in those books without diving into it a bit.

I know this because there is that large bowl of water in the books, she calls a Pensieve, that Dumbledore drops his memories into and then he and Harry are able to experience them together.

This reminds me of two things.

It reminds me of a crystal ball, one of which my Grandmother owned and I think was made of glass. She was the Grandmother who told me not to step on the faeries in her garden.

She never pulled out that crystal ball and rubbed her hands on it to tell me what she saw. And I don’t think she ever tried to use it for that.

I just think Grandma liked magic like that. The little glass “crystal” ball was a testament to it.

She also enjoyed praying to her husband’s grandmother for guidance and support, so she may have been a bit of a medium. But I don’t know. She never said she got “messages” from Great Grandma Eva. Just that she talked to her sometimes.

“And that’s magick that is?” right?

Magick seems like anything one can’t explain or understand. Many things now, would be considered Magick and sorcery a few hundred years ago.

An invisible chip implanted in one’s hand that lets you pay for things? “Magick that is!” (and leaves me with a sense of revulsion…but I won’t go there today).

A face from far away appearing on a blank screen?

“Magick!” once again.

Those things are obvious to you I am sure.

But I was recently reading a lengthy, and for me, fascinating post on mitochondria and photons.

In the post, the author explained how the mitochondria make new elements using photons. One example was calcium in the shells of the eggs of chickens.

The chickens were put on a calcium-free diet for a good amount of time. The sterile-I-am-sure environment was also clear of anything resembling calcium.

Yet the shells of their eggs continued to be filled with it.

Where did it come from?

It seems it came from their mitochondria and some photons.

Some of my mitochondriac friends from El Salvador have been posting about supplements and saying that we don’t need them.

Since I take them, and my various bottles and tinctures are heavy to haul around with me, I wondered about that? I know at times, supplements have helped me feel better. And some of mine are simply capsules of dried herbs…like the anti-parasite one (I imagine my uncle smiling at that while others say “Eeeewww” as they imagine various worms they hope they haven’t picked up in their intestines. I take it as a preventative…just so you know and in case you were wondering. But back to topic at hand which still does not exactly have to do with the title of this post…which I am still getting to).

When I read that mitochondria make new substances using photons, I smiled to myself. It felt soothing to be in a body that could do that.

And those light-blocking chem trails I have been seeing sprayed in disturbing unnatural grid patterns across the sky here?

Well!

Now I had another reason for them to get under my skin.

Here I am on a planet that uses photons to create new things in God’s divine plan and there are airplanes, right overhead, trying to block them.

I told Dave, the gardener at the Chalice Well, that I felt I had a problem because I was resenting them and I knew it was doing me no good.

He had initially introduced himself like this:

“Yes, I’m Dave. I’m just a gardener here.”

I knew he was more than that as I had already heard he was a dowser and I had never in my life seen anything like the garden I was in.

I looked at him and said, “You are not just a gardener.” Because I knew he wasn’t. He didn’t push the point and ever since I often refer to him in my mind as “I’m-Just-A-Gardener” because every time I do, it makes me laugh.

When it came to the chem trails, ‘I’m-Just-A-Gardener’ said “I just don’t pay them any attention. They aren’t something I can change. You know Terra, I don’t even see them.”

“But, there is a way to use the dowsing rods to clear ones aura of energy…” but right then something came up and Dave, ‘I’m-Just-A-Gardener’, had to leave to take care of it, which left me still wondering about my Resistance and Resentment and how to deal with them both.

I wanted those rods to come out right away and simply remove it from my system. I was getting tired of feeling it.

But I certainly wasn’t going to wait for Dave. I am a proactive woman and I got to work.

I tried what my Grand Master Teacher, Beverly, had taught me in chi gong. I simply took my hand and felt around for what I sensed as dense energy that had to do with those chem trails. At first, I felt a wave of grief arise as I fingered around for “Aversion to Chem Trails” and I realized my aversion, seemed to have to do with more than what my mind was aware of. That was interesting to me.

Gently, I removed the energy with my hand from my aura and handed it to an “imaginary” angel, just like Bev had taught me to do.

I noticed I felt a little better. “Well done,” I told myself. That was easier than I thought.

Then I started wondering about my energy field. I was sure things like this were distorting it, like a smear on the lenses of a pair of glasses and although I am aware that no matter what I do, I will always, like any star in the sky, see things from my unique perspective…when it came to my lenses…well, I was determined to get them as clean as I could.

So, for the next few days, as I spent hours in the garden listening and talking silently to it, I asked for help.

“Please help me release my Resistance to what has been and my Resentment to what is,” I said.

I walked through the pool barefoot in the King Arthur courtyard and asked that question, one step at a time, over and over again. I breathed through the sensation of the fifty degree water against my skin and relaxed as I felt it. Then I wrote it as a prayer in my notebook.

And the garden gave me a helpful and simple suggestion:

“Take a breath.”

I let that settle in.

I continued to talk to the well when I sat next to it, to a great Beech Tree, and to the general energy field there that vibrates magically I imagine, since it is something I cannot yet see.

And more answers came to me and I wrote them in my book and took them in.

Simple things like this:

“There is no Death.”

It is hard to explain, and some of these things that I have felt in my own way as truths, were landing in my soul in a deeper way. I realized the plants were all coming and going. So were the rocks and trees. The insects too would only be here for a short time. And me? Well, I had recently discovered than I am more delicate than I like to believe.

Yet in the garden, I could feel it was more the forms that shifted and changed and not that all the beautiful things I observed were actually gone. Just the 3D version of them.

I gazed in awe at the beauty before me and despite my incredible realizations and conversations, I found there were still things arising in me, such as past memories, that triggered Resentment and Resistance in me.

They were feeling like a stiff, spiky plant I noticed.

What I really wanted was “I’m-Just-A-Gardener” to show up so I could ask him how to get rid of it with his dowsing rods.

I wanted to feel soft again. I touched plants that reminded me of my wish.

And like Magick, the moment I really wanted to track him down, he disappeared and for the first time, I didn’t see him for days.

And I knew what that meant. I needed to look inside and go direct. But I still kept looking for him.

To be continued…

(in the meantime, what would it be like to let yourself just be?…responses/resistance welcome in the comments…)

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