Sometimes things trigger me, and that's a gift

or it can be

This journey of love, to love, and living from love…Is. Not. Easy.

You know this.

And Love and I have been grappling this week.

If you feel you are a Warrior of the Light, then I am just pointing out that forging a sword is a fiery process that involves a lot of pounding. And then as you finally come to a state of completion, and look at the shiny thing you have made, and realize the thing you are going to do with it is simply hold it vertically…well, that’s not easy to see either.

In addition to being deeply triggered, I am happy to say that this week has been filled with love and blessings and as I mention that, a part of me at my shoulder is shouting that I am writing on Wednesday…so this is going to be rough…and I have things to do so don’t start going down rabbit holes of other stories.

She is telling me to be brief.

A few minutes ago, she suggested I simply post this serene picture I took yesterday and take the week off. Give myself time. Stop putting this pressure on myself to write to you every week.

And here I am and here we go because it still feels like this has some meaning and is worth a morning of my time.

And I will do my best to be brief.

But I have to tell you about Dr. Doolittle aka James Herriot aka Dr. A because the story is just so entertaining.

You see, I always have my radar up for people who can teach me something and when I heard about a wholistic vet and then met him briefly, I put him on my list of people I would like to meet. So I managed to connect with him and invite him for coffee.

Mr. A happened to take care of the pets of the so-called elite and I heard they prefer natural medicine to allopathic things, at least when it comes to their pets. That in itself interested me.

After Mr. A agreed to meet me, he wrote that he no longer drives, so could I please pick him up?

Of course I said yes.

Then he asked me to bring some older apples from the farm where I am staying…for the deer he likes to feed.

Ok I said.

Sure.

So I told his friend who owns the farm where I was staying and a few hours later, saw a small plastic bag of sweet smelling apples on my porch.

I picked them up and headed off. I felt a bit busy as I had to leave the next day and packing is always a bit daunting.

It was a drizzly day as I rolled up a steep driveway that was soft from pine needles. I realized Mr. A lived in a house with a beautiful view. It was stunning through the trees.

I couldn’t figure out where to park, so I pulled my little Corolla off to the side near a gate and went hunting for the front door and that’s when I saw it.

A large stag stood near the house. One with sharp antlers… He was not fully grown and the tips of those antlers looked rather shiny.

He stood like a guard dog, eyeing me up and I looked back at him, uncertainly.

I realized he wasn’t going to run away as deer usually do and I was unclear how to proceed. So I walked back to the street to see if I could see where the front door was from there…

I had missed the actual driveway as I saw it then with plenty of space to park my car and in front of me appeared to be a front door…and one large, unmoving deer.

Right then Mr. A emerged, with his large wooden staff someone had carved for him, clucking a bit and laughing as he saw me staring at the deer and keeping my distance.

“Oh,” he chuckled. “He imprinted on me…you see his mother died…buried her over there somewhere…and he was such a little thing…”

Meanwhile, Mr. A took the bag of apples from me as the brown eyes watched intently. I was standing closer now and I was still quite aware of the glistening antler tips a few feet away.

“Can I give him an apple?” I asked. (As this seemed wise for many reasons).

“Oh, well, you can try but he likes them cut up first, usually,” said Mr. A. Then he tossed an apple toward the stag who took it and munched it thoughtfully, his dark eyes still on me.

“Can I pet him do you think?” I asked, having given up on the idea of actually feeding him.

“Well, you can try…” said Mr. A.

And as I said it, and mustered up all the skill I had learned from my weekend horse whispering workshop as I slowly approached, I realized it was not going to be a good idea. The stag and I moved away from one another rather quickly.

“I think I would need more time to get to know him,” I said. “I don’t want to be pushy,” (again, for many reasons).

Mr. A chuckled in agreement and followed me with his large staff towards my little car.

It was then that I realized this coffee idea had really been good on my part. I couldn’t have picked up anyone who seemed more Wizard-like in that moment than the man with the Stag guard dog outside his door.

As the thought went through my head, a large, fluffy cat wandered by and Mr. A pointed out she was another of his pets.

“You remind me of James Herriot,” I said. (James Herriot wrote many books about his experiences as a vet in the hills of Scotland and I had devoured them as a kid.)

“It’s not the first time someone’s said that to me,” laughed Mr. A, as I tried to back out of the driveway without letting my tire go over the steep cliff on the side.

And we were off.

So there. That is one lovely thing that happened this week. And I could keep going with that story. I could tell you how we talked about death and the transition of it, as it was Mr. A’s comment about my friend’s cat and how it needed to go through the process of dying, even when it looked uncomfortable to the cat’s caretakers, that had prompted me to go out of my way to try to meet the man. He knew something about the process of dying and it seemed important to me.

We did discuss that along with many other things. Turns out Mr. A had parents who barely escaped Nazi Germany… “99% of my family died in the Holocaust,” Mr. A, who now lives alone except for the pets and God, told me.

“Well, my question about death and how to embrace the painful process is getting pretty deep,” I replied.

Mr. A nodded his head. Of course he agreed with me.

And in the end, I left with a deeper knowing of what I already knew. That death is like birth in a way and sometimes, it takes time and sometimes, it isn’t comfortable. Since Mr. A had also had two times in his life when he physically died, he seemed like a good person to confirm all that for me.

So, I wanted to include that before I go into what I have really worked on this week, which is my sense of feeling outraged by something, realizing if I was that outraged perhaps there was something in me that might need to be seen…etc…etc…

It isn’t often that I pull out my sword and start stomping my feet and this was one of those times.

In fact, it has perhaps been years since the fiery part of me was this angry and ready to go to battle. Perhaps the last time was that letter I wrote about that I got from the Catholic Church and that had been years ago.

And now, I imagine you are curious to hear what got me so riled up. And I will tell you. I promise I will.

But first I want to say, as I do write this blog with the intention of offering something to you, sometimes covertly and sometimes not so covertly through my musings here…that getting fired up about anything is usually a sign there is something inside oneself either waking up and/or touched by the situation it sees.

It is easy to skip over the part of how and why things hit us deep sometimes.

There are SO MANY things to get fired up about in the world at this time. So many things that don’t resonate or feel wrong in so many ways. I know you know just what I mean. And the news tries to get us all fiery and then wants us to pull out our swords and flail them around.

That’s what I mean.

And that’s why I don’t watch the news, at least the mainstream news, at all any more.

“So why this thing?” I eventually asked myself. “Why is this upsetting me so much?”

And when I asked those two questions it became quite apparent to me that it was resonating with a painful past experience of my own.

I could have stopped there.

I could said, “Of course! and I don’t want to see that happen to anyone else and no one gets it the way I do and I am going to DO SOMETHING with this sword…I am going to call every famous friend or wise friend or friend with any kind of say and ask them to do something…! Now who do I have in my contacts who hasn’t been addressing this yet…and who do I know who can explain this to me?”

And I did do that…mostly I sent a few emails asking for clarification to be sure what I imagined was true. And once I got it…oh my.

I didn’t want to be right. But now that I felt I was…

Still fiery, I left a voice text with a friend who I know would care. I just couldn’t understand why more people were not doing SOMETHING about this TERRIBLE THING.

But then, on day two or three, and after yet another psychedelic journey, I asked myself why this was hitting me so deep? And I remembered, that similar thing that had happened to me as a child and how I felt about it at the time and how much shame I lived with for so many years… and I could see why it was triggering me.

When it came to the MeToo movement, I never participated. It felt fraught with victim energy and never felt right to me. I have studied trauma now for years and if there is one thing I know, it is that everyone mixed up in it is dealing with distorted, wounded energy. And everyone can heal from it. At least that is what I believe. Sometimes one needs to ask for help. Sometimes it may take more than one lifetime. But at the core, everything is love and it just needs untangling. Victimhood has always felt like a trap to me.

So, now I will get into this thing that hit me so hard. It is a bit hard to explain and I will do my best to keep it as simple as I can as the trigger itself is quite a simple thing. It is what I want to tell you I am doing about it that puts me here at my keyboard. Not as some kind of saint. Not at all. Just as an update on a journey.

I feel we are all here on a journey to untangle distorted energies and I believe some of us have come to go through difficult things on purpose, so we can demonstrate how its done.

I am in the middle of it right now, which may be a messy place from which to write. And I am determined to not spend all day on this so it is going to be rough.

But there are some key things I feel are helpful to note. For myself as I write and perhaps for you as you do similar things.

The first thing is to notice the trigger.

Many things could be triggering me right now and they aren’t. Not to this extent.

So it is helpful to note when I get all fired up about something.

Then, I looked for why it resonated so deeply in me?

Next, I started working with that part of myself. You know, the part that had gone through the difficult thing. The part that I thought I had already held and healed and was doing just fine thank you very much… That part.

The next level was available to me, or upon me…no, available to me…(I am not going to go into victim energy here).

So, that is what you too can apply. And that is where the prayer and love comes in. I am sure you will have your own modalities and techniques to see what those parts of you need and I am sure that you can hold them and offer them care and perspective. That is key.

Ok. Now for the issue itself.

I don’t watch the news. That is true. But I am highly entertained and interested in what is happening on the Bitcoin scene and I keep my eye, as best I can on things. X has me when it comes to this as I do find myself scrolling along for little updates like a sports fan at a game. And I never liked watching sports. But watching all that is happening in the world when it comes to the monetary system and Bitcoin in particular has kept me interested and engaged for quite sometime.

The reason is simple. I see people, who are living day to day, struggling. I see it in their eyes as their portfolios, if they are lucky enough to have one, don’t buy as much as they used to. I see the worry. And I know that in a world, where money represents human energy, the truth is that things should be getting less expensive as technology improves. But they aren’t for them. Their money, their retirement check, buys less not more. And that bother’s me a lot.

And like many of my friends I say and feel that “Bitcoin fixes this.”

There are many reasons for that. But the basic thing is that the supply is limited and can’t be messed with, which I love. And ever since I learned about it I have been cheering it on.

However, that doesn’t mean that data can’t be added to transactions. I guess this would be like handing someone $1 to pay for something and giving them a sticker at the same time. The $1 is there. You just get a sticker too.

What has triggered me is that there is an update to what can be added to a Bitcoin transaction that will go into effect in a few weeks. And after that, some people who choose to run this update, will be adding transactions to the Bitcoin blockchain (as every transaction of Bitcoin is tracked in a ledger that does not get changed), that would be able to include enough data to be, for instance, a photo.

There is another blockchain similar to Bitcoin where things are tested out and when this “update” was tested out there, photos of children who were taken advantage of were posted. Which is certainly disturbing.

What is more disturbing for me is that these photos will be embedded, for eternity, in the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin, its limited supply, the way it can be used as money and sent quickly across borders almost for free, will not change. This is something being added…by some people…that not everyone agrees should be. But they can’t change Bitcoin itself.

However, this little update has triggered me deeply.

And mostly, I realized, because I dealt with something as a young child that was similar and I felt very ashamed. I have learned a lot about trauma and recovery and I have gained an understanding for this difficult event in my life. But when I thought of the actual children who will not be able to do anything about this, or get the photos removed (as it won’t be possible and this gets into the robustness of Bitcoin and ties into why one can’t go back and change transactions from the past) I was angry and grieving.

More than I would have been I imagine, if I didn’t have some skin in the game when it comes to experience of such things.

So I had to stop when I saw that, and take a breath. I had to pray.

How could I possibly hold this? I asked myself. How do I include this, along with the one thing that gives me so much hope for the world.

And that’s when I saw it.

Even if this happens, which I imagine it will to some extent, I can send my love and care to all those involved. I can pray for whatever is there and all those involved (as I mean it when I say that it is only delusion and a lack of connection to love that does such things in the first place). I can do that relentlessly.

And then, I started working on myself. Currently, I have been following Dr. David Clemens and so I did one of his guided meditations from what he calls his Energy Tool Kit Series. I brought up that young part of myself and felt her from the inside again. And then I prayed and asked for help, because she struggled a lot and carried a lot of shame for many years. I thought I was through it all when I had seen the event through my adult eyes, but I wasn’t done yet. I still had a part of me that needed to be felt and held…with care and compassion. And that has been a gift.

Through a higher perspective, this whole issue and journey has been a tremendous gift to me.

When I realized a lot of my reaction had to do with me, I deleted one of the voice texts I sent to a friend asking about this issue.

And despite how busy he is, he noticed, and he asked me about it…which led to a lot of support and perspective coming my way, provided on his lunch break. That kind of care was a gift.

Same with another friend who started to go down a technical rabbit hole in an effort to respond to me.

And then there was Arman, who I hired years ago to teach me about Bitcoin. He is a developer and understands a lot more than me. But after he confirmed that yes, some of these images will be embedded in the Blockchain after these developers publish their “update”, which people are not required to use…he encouraged me to hold tight.

And at the same time, I could see how I can bring love into this and was reminded once again that it is all that is truly real in the end.

I saved his response so I can read it again:

“Stay positive, T.

Bitcoin is our only hope. It brings out our best.

Arman”

I won’t put all my hope in anything. But his words were kind and went deep. And I have to say that even this, has brought out the best in me. It has allowed me to find a part of myself that needed to be seen and held a little more and it has allowed me to figure out how to bring love, to the most difficult of places.

This has brought out the best in me.

It took prayer.

It took noticing my reaction and asking why it was so strong.

And people showed up this week. People like Arman and my other friends who responded to me.

There has been a lot of love in all of it.

And for sure, it has not been easy.

the end

(And I told myself I needed to get outside…I didn’t want to spend more than two hours writing and it is funny as just as I finish, I realize two hours have passed. So I will add some photos and read this for those that listen…and then go outside to commune with the sea, maybe do some yoga on the grass, and get something to eat. Sometimes, I have also been reminded, it is good to go slow. And that’s ok too.)

*if you like this and feel someone you know would enjoy it, then please pass it along or give it a restack

Here are a few photos from this past week for those of you enjoying updates on the travel:

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