I've Been Terrified, Too

I've been afraid of life, too. I've got stories to share. Back in the mid-nineties, I played with conspiracy theories and plots. I was bored with my factory job, my seeming to go no where interesting life. I knew deep inside that there was more to me than an insecure line-up of dead-end jobs that paid me barely just enough and provided an insurance plan that really did nothing to guarantee my well-being. I set out to prove I was worthy of being alive. My dad played with conspiracies so it was rather natural for me to take up the gauntlet of trying to save my loved ones and the world.

I've also been through the school programming that taught me to be ashamed for being a human whose very existence polluted my beloved planet, when, basically, I was simply afraid of dying and just trying to survive on it. And then there's something of a self-righteous element in those teachings as well--some believe that means shaking fingers at others and trying to get them to see and do as they do, when that isn't the only solution or approach. Shaming someone into getting them to do what you want--that's manipulation. Period. And even I knew then that pointing a finger at someone else was only a roundabout way of ultimately pointing at myself.

I know what it's like to go to my mailbox trembling at the possibility of it holding an intimidating and harassing letter from the IRS--and sometimes it did. I know what it's like to contemplate being put in jail because of refusing to follow someone else's rules--refusing to fund people who were using the taxes I paid in to harm others. Some of my friends from those days actually did end up serving jail terms.

I even tried to document and file a claim to my sovereignty--but I did it from within the system--so all it did was get me the attention of people I didn't want to even notice me in the first place. I was essentially trying to use power to get out of a power game, and that just reinforced the construct even more. I ended up returning to the old system and continued playing my old game of just barely enough abundance in the form of money--and freedom--to get by. Because that was easier and less scary than dealing with those powerful monsters at the top of the game.

I didn't know then what I know now--freedom and sovereignty over your own life isn't something another person or being gives you. It's something you claim for yourself--no paperwork or filing in your local courthouse needed. You live it out, moment by moment, always asking oneself, "With this choice am I creating the kind of world I want to be in?"

I attended some Freemen Education gatherings in the Twin Cities. At one of the first meetings, I saw a film about abducted children being used for sexual abuse and snuff films by corrupt public officials. This was shortly after the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling--a story that touched me deeply. I was an aunt several times over, and didn't want that kind of world for any of our children. I remember bawling on my drive to work at the packaging plant the next morning.

Through those seminars I was exposed to all kinds of plots and awful things humans were doing to one another--from banking schemes to twisted court experiences, and innocent people being terrorized in order to take their land and property. Alternative healing methods were being attacked and suppressed.

I saw there was one story covered by the media, and then there was the other side of the story few heard. For instance, watch all the agendas placed within the writings of TV sitcoms and dramas, movies and commercials in the months leading up to April 15th, the last day to file and pay your income tax--it portrays anyone who questions the current taxation system as a fraud and a criminal. It scares a kind-hearted, trying-to-be-a-conscientious citizen into signing a one-sided, UNLAWFUL agreement that is composed of coded words in a language not understandable to most. To unknowingly take responsibility for something which is basically extortion of oneself. The system needs to be looked at closely--and allowed to balance out. And in order to do so, every single person needs to look at their own abundance issues instead of expecting someone else to lose in order for them to get their way and have the things they desire.

We play-acted a Common Law Court where I was one of the jurists. An older gentleman next to me told me to ask the defendant a question I would have never asked, but I did it for him, not wanting to upset him. Penny the People Pleaser. He was feeding me lines, a viewpoint based in judgment that I did not resonate with.

Afterward, I felt ashamed of myself for going along with it, and I made the clear choice, then and there, to speak my own mind and heart, and to no longer allow someone outside of me to tell me what I should think and believe--no matter whether others liked me for it, or not.

That moment was also a clear representation of the sexual energy virus at play--it was all off balance to the masculine, patriarchal aspect. As much as it highlighted how submissive I was playing the role of a woman who saw herself as secondary to a man in intelligence and decision-making, it also showed me that men are as wounded and enslaved by it as women. In our culture, men aren't aware of the Divine Feminine within themselves--to be anything feminine is perceived as a weakness--so they aren't tapping into a treasure trove of empathy (imagining themselves in the role of another person), intuition and compassion that would balance their lives and allow them to relate more gracefully in their interactions with others.

Regardless of our gender--each of us has both a Divine Feminine and a Divine Masculine facet (physically manifested as an intuitive Right Brain and mental Left Brain hemisphere), and when those two are allowed to express and dance together in equal partnership, magic happens.

There were fundamentalist Christians who were touting ideas of hell and eternal damnation--and when I listened to them and tried their beliefs on for size for myself, for three days straight, I found myself in the deepest, most depressed, and dark tunnel of the soul I have ever experienced. I felt like an unworthy piece of hopeless human shit, and I didn't want to wake up on this earth ever again.

Sometimes I even entertained the thoughts that if only my enemies were killed off, then my troubles and fears would end. But I knew, deep-down, that that wasn't how it would work. There would just arise another enemy in some form to take his place.

I also saw my own fear-laced fanatical gleam reflected back to me by my fellow compatriots at those seminars. I realized that my feelings of terror had me acting just as dangerous to myself and others as the enemies I thought I was nobly fighting.

I was essentially feeling cornered and blind with no power or control over my own life. I was feeling attacked by things I didn't understand or couldn't control, so I was lashing out at whatever moved. I was scary crazy.

I got to a frustrated place of not knowing what was truth and what was a lie.

That's when I started my search for God. That's when I threw away whatever anyone outside of me had told me about right and wrong and truth and what the Bible or Jesus said. I threw it all away. I read the Bible for myself. I quit watching politics and news and commercials. When I saw that authors of the fiction I loved to read had an agenda that nauseated me, I quit reading the book. I wrote down the insights that had me tingling, that came to me whether I was out walking, or whether I was doing something really ordinary like washing dishes. I started asking my own version of god (who was actually my own "I am that I am" self) questions--and clear answers were coming to me. I separated out the chaff from my life and discovered the me, the clear and compassionate master that was within me all along.

You know, there are true gems of wisdom in the sacred scripts--for me, that was the Bible back then. But it's been twisted and distorted through the years by power playing kings and popes who muddied up some key words in there, and some especially liberating, enlightening texts were cut out. The book of Tobias is one of them.

The Greek word "aion", means for a TEMPORARY frame of time--an age--which could be anywhere from a single second to millions of years. But it DOES NOT mean forever--which is how it was translated in most of our current editions of the Bible. And that is key, my beloved humanity, to all of us.

And the eternal hell concept that's preached as a possible destination in so many churches did not originate from the sacred texts. It simply came from a poem called Dante's Inferno--by a poet in love with a woman he couldn't have. The word "hell" in the Bible can mean anything from a dump or graveyard to simply that which is hidden from clear sight--like a skeleton in one's closet, or a personal demon one just can't seem to forgive about oneself. It's not an eternal place. It's a potential experience that can last for a length of time--and most of us have experienced it at least once in our current lifetime on Earth.

As for the word "eternal"--surprisingly to me, I only found it used twice in the current King James Bible--and both times it was in reference to our Original Source.

Look some of these words up for yourself in a book called a Concordance for the Bible. It lists the Aramaic, Hebrew or Greek word it's translated from (preferably the old Greek vs. the new Greek), the place in scripture where it's used, its meanings, and a description of the context in how it's being used. The context will be more relevant and applicable to the culture of the time it was written--about 2000, or more, years ago. Some truths transcend time, and some change and evolve over time. You are the ultimate choice-maker as to whether or not it resonates with you.

So, I KNOW exactly what it's like to be terrified of all the things that might happen to me, my loved ones, my country, my planet. Those were quite the days, and for several years afterward I regretted having taken that journey. I felt a bit foolish, and once I'd stepped out of the old system, I wasn't sure if I could return to it with some dignity intact. That's a huge thing for us singular-feeling Little Humans. What if I was all wrong?

Today, I have no regrets because I gained some valuable wisdom from that experience. After a few years of playing the conspiracy game, I came to the most freeing conclusion:

I realized I couldn't change other people, much less the world; but I could change myself and I could choose how I interacted with the people around me in the moment at hand. 

That realization led me to another question, "Who am I, really?"...



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