I Don't Take Sides: Here's Why....

 First of all, if it's in my life I alone put it there....

Nobody has done anything "to" me that I didn't allow to happen on some level. That is the most freeing realization for me. It shifts my perspective so drastically it's almost hard to explain. By making myself the creator of all my experiences it stops my whining and I'm instead asking myself why would I choose this experience and am I ready to be done with it?

I know from my own experiences that whatever kind of relationship I get depends on what I bring to the table. Period. I could change the face and sex and name of the person, but I'd still get the same type of relationship unless I started creating from a different perception and viewpoint.

The Woman Behind the Man

In the not-so-distant past, the old consciousness energy had women playing a more subservient role than men. Most of the men in my life were the providers, they were physically stronger, and they handled the major purchases and legal matters. My mom was a beautiful, strong and gentle and wise person who supported my dad in a manner few other women would have been capable of. She was like the best supporting actress to the star of the show. He got the validation while she did so much of the important work that went unnoticed. This is not a disappointment in either of my parents, who were lovely, amazing imperfect humans. This is just the status quo of the era in which I grew up.

I remember getting the valedictorian position the year I graduated from high school. It actually just pretty much fell in my lap. I wasn't competing for it. But I still never saw myself as equal in intelligence to the guys in my class. Actually, I rationalized to myself and others that I only got it because I didn't take some of the more difficult math courses. I wasn't trying to get a grand GPA. I just wasn't interested in taking more math courses.

I grew up in a family with six brothers (five older and one younger than me) and one sister five years older than me, so I was accustomed to the male viewpoints. I love men! My brothers were basically very good to me and I had great appreciation and respect for them, yet I was always aware of putting myself second to them in my sense of worthiness in being. Again, it was the consciousness of the times. 

No one actually told me women were second-rate. Most women I knew were taking care of the family and home. They were just beginning to go out more into the local job force as I was growing up, but the men were usually most often the main breadwinners in the relationships around me. Including my own later on.

Then I put an event in my life that torpedoed me even further into that sense of subordinate, Less-Worthinessville. I had my first boyfriend, my brother's best friend, die in a motorcycle accident. And I thought I was the one that caused it to happen. Yeah--on this more expansive level I can see where I did pick the story for my human part to experience, but I, the human, didn't actually have anything to do with causing the accident. 

I hit a void-like chasm where I didn't know how or even if I should go on with life, yet I kept waking up morning after morning after morning. I was basically just passing the time, hoping and praying some god out there would finally end it all and just take me while I was asleep.

In my book, fighting and conflict--having to be right--no longer were worth the cost...

I thought he'd been taken from me because I was angry with him for not going with me to a movie I'd wanted to see. Twisted, I know, but, you see I was seeing myself as this silly girl who was mad at a guy for choosing to do the honorable thing like help the family harvest the crop instead of doing something I actually wanted to do with him. Normally, it was my custom to just let him come up with things to do and I'd go along with it.

But that night, angry with my boyfriend, I went off with my cousin, had a drunk hit on me in a bar, and couldn't wait to get back home to him, only to discover my dad and mom and brother and sister waiting on the back steps to tell me the news that he'd been killed.

After that night I associated my being angry with him as being what caused me to lose him. I saw myself as having been a selfish little twit. But the funny thing is, a few decades later, I realized I'd actually offered him another path that night....one where he might still be here....

Fighting feels ridiculous to me when weighed next to other possibilites....

While I'm still uncomfortable feeling it, I've  realized that anger also has its place in my life. I got really passive there for awhile and I suppressed my truth and viewpoint. I muffled my voice in my own created world, the one where I should be the star of it, having been its source and center. I basically just existed in it--I was something of a walking corpse just ambling down a path I let others choose for me.

Thankfully, I've had a few loving souls play the bad guy for me. They got me so pissed off, I finally found myself blurting forth all manner of things--and it was pretty funny!

She said, "You don't know what it's like to be the victim of an abusive relationship." 

Nobody can know our pain, right? My pain is worse than you or anyone else can imagine. 

Competing for the "I Suffer the Most" award is an actual thing in human consciousness. I see it all the time, and it causes me to shake my head, yes-smirk a bit, and roll my eyes. I think, all that time and energy wasted on being miserable instead of CHOOSING to open oneself up to the possibility of something more.

I just think it would be more fun to step off that I'm Such a Sorry SOB train, but I observe people enjoying playing the role of being miserable. Nothing changes.

Once upon a time, while neither condemning nor condoning the ridiculous actions of the two individuals involved, I tried to communicate my love for, my unconditional acceptance of, all parties affected by the broken relationship--him, her, their children, me. Instead of being open to hearing my viewpoint, one of the star players was vehemently shaking her head at me, glaring at me, telling me that I should have heard the awful things he'd said about me. She was royally pissed at me for not taking her side. I couldn't possibly know what it was like being in their relationship....

Oh, Honey, yes, I do know what it's like to be the victim--and I put myself in that role WITH YOU!!!

....and, frankly, so did you in yours....and you are loving every minute of it because you are not open to even hearing me out, much less choosing to take responsibility for what you have going. You just want to play "Poor Pitiful Me." So have at it....I'm just done listening to that same old, same old Sad Sack story. I don't want to hear about his latest and greatest trangression...and....

I know I still love you and I always will, no matter what....

I didn't get the chance to say that before she slammed her car door on me and drove off in an offended huff. It would have been wasted breath and energy at the time or I would have had my say. I'm learning to honor whatever does or doesn't pop out of my mouth in the moment, and not look back with any doubt.

I didn't hear from this person for a long time afterwards, and I didn't miss that old icky relationship she and I had going either. It was rather manipulative, and once I realized what we were doing together, it was easy to say to myself, No more. 

However, I'm keeping myself open to something new and better for the two of us, and even if that doesn't happen, I still wish her the best....

and....I know we're both just acting and having a great time being a couple of drama queens....

One key comforting realization I've had about myself is the fact that I don't wish any ill will on anyone, no matter what may transpire between us. 

I've discovered I'm capable of telling someone to Shut the "eff" up if it's appropriate, and, to be fair, maybe even when it's not the best choice of potential comebacks. I have this imperfect (and proud of it) human thing going, after all.

However, I still wish us each and all a joyfully abundant life....I don't need us to be together if that doesn't work for us, yet I always have hope that we can both choose to have a more honest and authentic and open way of relating with each other. Yes, I realize I always have hope,,,,

Marriage is overrated....

I honestly would not get married again having realized what I know now. I would probably still choose to be with the person I'm currently married to, just without all the strings and conditions and expectations of one another that we had in the past. I don't need governments, lawyers, family members and religions to mediate how we relate with one another. I don't need a middle man. I just need to love--accept--myself unconditionally, and any other relationship after that is easy.

I don't want someone staying with me because of some vow we made. That feels like forced affection. I want someone to be with me who loves our time spent together, yet can be apart when we each need that time alone. I want someone who honors and respects themselves and myself in our relationship.

Our relationship is ultimately our responsibility--not the responsibility of any kids we might bring into it. I remember one of my college classmates, a divorcee, ranting on ad nauseum about her ex, and telling me how she talked about him and what a loser he was in front of their kids. I didn't say anything at the time--it was a long time ago--but even then I thought, Do you realize that you are attacking them when you are verbally attacking their father? Where's your common sense and sensitivity, oh high-and-mighty lady?

Human relationships should not be the business of any external entity like a government or lawyers who make a darn good living off divorces. 

And when I put an external authority figure in charge of my relationships (like a god other than that one within me) then it's too easy to push responsibility for myself  and my actions and reactions off on someone else. I don't have to forgive myself or anyone else if some god out there is doing it for me.

I don't need a marriage certificate or a ring to conduct myself in a manner that has integrity. I don't care to date or flirt with other people out of respect for myself and out of sensitivity to the person I'm with. If I should change my mind, my partner should be the first to know, and vice versa. 

If we're at war within our own heart and home, how can we expect our outer world to be at peace?

I learned long ago after diving into the old conspiracy tunnel that my world change starts right here at home within me and with the daily relationships I have closest to me. Protesting and standing on street corners, barking and thrashing at perceived enemies, and trying to convince uninterested passersby that I have all the answers for the world? A load of whoo-ey.

I'm not much for taking sides--it used to hurt too much. When my dad and his dad and siblings were at odds with him it tore me up. I loved them all, but it put me in a position of having to choose one over the other out of a misguided sense of loyalty. My dad was just as responsible for the crappy relationship that was being nurtured by the rest of them. He was the victim only because he made himself out to be that way. I can actually feel him cheering me on in admitting this....and he's smiling and laughing at himself , too....

And then there's the big war between Russia and the Ukraine

It feels so obsolete and barbaric to observe two or more countries destroying the landscapes and lives of their people....all for....what? The thing is, those engaging in the drama and trauma all must be enjoying themselves on some level or they'd be making other choices for their individual selves, and the war would just peter out.

I probably just offended someone. Just so we're clear here: If it's in my life--my world--I take responsibility for putting it here, and this war is currently happening in my world, though not in my country. We have other kinds of wars and battles going on here in the United States. 

Whatever the chaotic mess it manifests as--I put it all here. I am allowing it....and....I feel it's a temporary state of being that is helping me build a bridge out of the old and obsolete ways that no longer serve this more expansive awareness I have into something newer, freer, more reflective of who we all are. Every new perspective I have, every different choice I make, or maybe it's a choice I decide to stand firm in--it's all a stepping stone towards something more....

The way I see it, we're not just Little Humans trying to achieve perfection and who are at the mercy of some judgmental authority who's pretty inconsistent about the rules. I see us as spiritual awareness having the human being experience in order to better understand oneself.  And to discover how our own energies serve us--how I manifested the reality I'm perceiving in the moment at hand. And how can I apply this understanding to create something I really want?

The wars could end in the blink of an eye

I can imagine each person, no matter the age or status, suddenly deciding within themselves, No more. I'm done. And as one-by-one they turn away from playing the game, the whole battle falls apart because no one is feeding the fight anymore. Either that, or like a cancer--its own self-hatred, which is pretty much at the core of any power game illusion, just eats itself up and the entity that is war dies.

I've come to the realization that all humans, though it may be buried deep within them, couldn't commit the atrocities we do with ourselves and each other without knowing on some level that it's just a Let's Pretend act. If we actually believed an eternal horror or hell awaited us or that this one lifetime was all there was to us--we wouldn't be messing things up the way we do. On some level....we are all having fun playing the parts....

So I'm done taking myself so seriously....

When it's all said and done, ya just gotta laugh, don't ya?

I've been reading through all this, editing and asking myself what's your point, Pen?

I'm realizing how funny all of this has been. Every conflict I've been involved in--no matter how serious I felt at the time about whatever was going on--it's pretty hilarious when I view it from a bit of distance. Most of the time, I don't even remember what the original disagreement was about. There's a lot of He said/She saids--finger pointing at someone or something other than myself. How many times have I written in this blog about how that ol' finger always does a 180, and points right back at me, the originator of all I put myself through?

As I feel back into some of those moments, I remember now, more often than not, that I was like a film critic deciding how much I was buying into the scene we were all acting out. How believable were the actors and the situations?

Often it was just the hit of exhilaration from having a bit of drama in a rather stale day-to-day life. An "Ah! I actually am alive!" realization....and....Oh! What a fun story this will be to tell.........This will really make them laugh....

Swapping stories

At some point I see all of us who've realized who we truly are sitting around a huge table, telling stories about the predicaments we put ourselves through in the Grand Old Earth game--and having a rollicking great laugh at ourselves....

And there I am again, that little second-grader who vomited in the school cafeteria lunch line with the high schoolers I idolized so much looking on. I was so embarrassed, felt so stupid and mad at myself.

But after listening to my brothers tell their own stories of embarrassment and hearing them being able to laugh at themselves, I thought I had a recovery plan. I tried to be funny and entertain my family and my brothers' friends while eating dinner. I presented them with my new take on the story. 

I clutch my stomach and I groan, "Ugh! I think I'm going to throw up." And I look through my peripherals, ready to hear a roar of laughter from around the table, but the only reaction I get is from my dad, who's sitting next to me. He says in a low, shame-on-you tone, "Pen, we don't talk like that at the table." 

Lol! Sometimes the attempt to entertain others backfires....and that's funny, too....

The Revelations of Dreams: My Human Dance with My Divinity

The Song of Solomon

In the Old Testament of the Christian Bible is a story referred to as The Song of Solomon. The gist of the story is about a bridegroom searching throughout the lands for his one-and-only true love, the other half to make him whole, his beloved bride. In the end, he realizes she was with him the entire time--he'd just been looking in the wrong places--places outside of himself. His bride had been with him all along, through everything he'd experienced.

The core energy of many of my old recurring dreams was similar to King Solomon's experience: 

The Dance of the Asleep Human with Its Divinity....

I've written about some of my most puzzling recurring dreams in previous posts. One that often left me feeling so alone upon waking up in the mornings was where I was waiting for this man that I so loved to notice me and want to be with me. 

Sometimes the guy was my first boyfriend who initially appeared angry with me because I had moved on and married someone else after he died instead of waiting for him. Of course, I realized even at the time of the dream that he was coming in that way because I was the one having trouble allowing myself to move forward into living a full and happy life without him. 

In other dreams, it was a different guy who seemed to initially act like he was attracted to me, yet he never noticed me after that first startling connection. I was always on the outside looking in, longing to be seen....

Later, the dreams changed. my old boyfriend kissed me and told me he was proud of me--I had realized some profound life-changing things in my actual life that had set me free of that old survivor's guilt. 

Then the other guy came in bearing gifts and wanting to spend time with me, but I put off allowing myself to receive his gifts and his presence because I was distracted by taking care of other people and their issues--by thinking I had to take responsibility for other's creations.

This morning I finally made the profound connection that these dreams were also making me aware of my own experience similar to that of King Solomon. Sometimes I was seeing through the eyes and feelings of the bride in my dreams--my own Divine Self, and sometimes I was the groom--my Human Self. 

Me as My Humanity in my dreams--

I was never good enough:

I'd had some tough human experiences where I felt betrayed by "god," which was basically my own Divinity, and so I got angry and turned my back on god. I twirled my Divine dance partner out and away to the far side of the ballroom floor. I ignored her, and went about doing my own thing.

Then more difficult things happened where it seemed beyond my human abilities to deal with, so I began my search for god, but it was a god I perceived as being disappointed in me. I'd go to use the bathroom facilities--needing them in the most urgent manner, but I'd have an audience and the toilets would be overflowing with sewage, unusable. I would be a mess--soiled and embarrassed. Showers didn't work either. It was all so revolting and repulsive. I could never get cleaned up. 

In my dreams I found myself actually swimming in disgusting human waste. I wasn't feeling worthy enough for some god-out-there's attention. My own awareness was so densely polluted with the garbage of other's ideas about who, what and how I was that my Divine Self had a tough time staying as close within me as it really wanted to be. She could only handle short amounts of time. 

To the human facet, "god" felt so elusive and slippery. What worked to make that connection one time didn't seem as effective the next. Basically my belief of being a worthless sinner got in the way of my connecting properly with my own soul or my Divine facet. Plus, that whole idea of Jesus sacrificing himself in order to wash me clean just didn't make sense to me--I didn't want someone dying in order to save me. That just felt icky and loaded with conditions and more limitations.

It helped to replace the idea of being a "sinner" with simply being an "imperfect human" whose limitations were actually gifts to its soul, not something to atone for. We were never meant to be perfect here. That understanding has set me free in a huge way and has made me more open to a more realistic relationship with my own divinity.

Mass consciousness and mental processing are extremely prominent features here in the Earth reality, and they get in the way of our more spiritual or pure conscious awareness of oneself.

Mass consciousness is all the suggestions accepted by the majority of people as the truth about the way life is, who and what you are, and how you go about it. 

It is a dense mine field to navigate. It's a cesspool of polluted consciousness--it's loaded with aspects created by humans who have an extremely limited concept of who and how they are in this world. So no wonder my dreams were so disgusting....

Me as My Divinity in my dreams:

In the meantime, my Divine self (the feminine half) ached with such longing to be noticed by my human self (the masculine half), and to be included in his daily life. I'd try to find just the right clothing to fit in, but somehow it would disappear from my drawers or my suitcases. My favorite comfortable, elegant clothing that made me stand out, yet feel a part of things, just vanished. 

My human's perception of himself as being unworthy was blocking me out. I couldn't ask him to invite me in or force my presence on him--I had to wait for my human self to be ready and ask for me to come in of his own free will. I had to honor his free choice. He had to surrender to simply being imperfect--to allow himself to be without any judgment about it. Only then could I--my divinity--show him what a gift he was being for me by playing the imperfect part....all for me....

The Darkness is Your Divinity

We've been taught to fear the darkness--that which lies both within us and outside us. It's the source of evil, "they" say. Humans by their very nature are sinners, we've been taught.

Even as a child, I had a great respect and fear for what was waiting for me out there in the dark, especially when it was my turn to head out into the dark of night to close the door on the chicken coop in order to keep out nighttime predators. However, those earthly entities weren't the ones I was afraid of--I was more afraid of the ethereal things that I could sense were there but couldn't see. I made sure my trusty dogs were with me on the mad dash there and back, and when I'd get back to the house I'd take a few deep breaths to compose myself, and then walk inside to my family and act all nonchalant about it all.

And when my parents were away, out dancing for the night, I'd avoid looking out the windows--actually not even taking a glimpse in their general direction--for fear of what might be looking in at me. I pretty much felt watched all the time--sometimes it felt good, sometimes it felt sinister. 

One of the first few channels that I read from ascended master, Tobias, of the Crimson Circle, stated that our darkness was our divinity. And that our divinity was connected with our compassionate feminine part that was hidden away within us, but now coming forth at this epic time of raised consciousness on the planet. 

Both Tobias and Adamus Saint-Germain have stated that our darkness wasn't something to fight, like our stories passed down through the ages have told of the grand battle between the light and the dark, where only evil came from the dark. 

Actually evil comes from creative humans who are scared and vulnerable-feeling. Who don't know they are the creators of their own realities so they are trying to get control of their external world by desperate means. Pretty much like a blind person backed into a corner, flailing and striking out at anything it perceives as a danger to his existence. That has a tendency to cause one to fight dirty. All honor and scruples fly out the door.

Instead, our darkness simply contained potentials that we couldn't see yet. It's pretty much the same story as Solomon's. It's hidden away within, and our five human senses couldn't perceive within too well, especially while being distracted with an outer world. "Invisible realm" would probably be a good replacement for the word, "darkness" and take away the common misperception that dark equals all bad.

In short, our human awareness was too limited to be able to clearly and constantly perceive our own divinity within and around oneself....until now....

The Christian fish symbol

In my dream, I watched as he rode away from me on his horse, and, though I knew he had a noble purpose in leaving, I grieved the loss of him in my life as he gradually faded into the mists....

The Christian fish symbol depicts the dance of the Divine and the Human facets. The mouth shows that both the Divine and the Human parts come from the same Eternal One or Source. The body depicts their movements away from the other, and then their paths finally move closer together and finally intersect and integrate together at the tail. It's open-ended from there....

It's a new kind of dance with the two in full awareness of, and companionship with the other....

What is Mastery?

Claiming my own mastery, giving myself that diploma of Embodied Ascended Master was perhaps one of the greatest gifts I could have given myself in this experience. It changed my entire demeanor--how I saw myself, how I presented myself, how I perceived my experiences and myself in them. I gave myself all my experiences--no one else did it to me.

Mastery isn't this thing you have to have an X-amount of schooling in in order to master a subject and earn a degree in, or in this case, a title. There is no set program or a sequential to-do list. Nobody else decides if or when you graduate into mastery--it's all up to you. 

When I embraced my own mastery, I changed, and my world began to follow suit. My old energies began to neutralize and rearrange themselves to match my new consciousness radiation. Please note--it's been a gradual change, often felt and experienced within myself in a subtle way before being manifest in my outer world. Sometimes it feels agonizingly slow-going, but it's happening, nonetheless. I especially realize it when looking back to how and where I was a month, a year, or a decade or more ago.

And there is nothing woo-woo about being a master. It's simply you looking around and within and realizing, "I created this....Yes, I created that....and that....and that, too...all of it...."

The human delights, "What an experience, this being in a human form has been and is and can be now that I KNOW I am so much more than the Little Human just trying to survive! I am not alone. I never have been alone. Thank you, my Beloved Divinity for waiting for me, for being with me even when I didn't realize it, and for coming in to dance with me when I opened myself up to the possibility of you and invited you to join me...."

And your divinity and soul celebrates as the master gifts its grains of newfound wisdom. The master takes all its human stories, perceptions and experiences and burns away the details (pain, suffering, and misery), leaving only polished gems of wisdom. The polished part is that it is a compassionate wisdom--one that only experience as a human being can hone and buff to a loving shine.

Your soul, your I am! self breathes with joy, "Thank you, my Beloved Human, always for being in all your ways....and now that you remember I am here with you, we can really dance...."

And so I dance....

I used to be so worried about how I looked dancing and what others thought of me. I was all stiff and restricted in my movements. I held myself in. And that's exactly the way my life played out.

This dance with my divinity hasn't made me any holier or more saintly-acting, not really. I'm just flowing through my life more freely, more wholly Me....

and I'm perfectly imperfect, and proud of it....

The Dance

By Penny Lewton Binek

Passion and his beloved Compassion

glide a path together--

sometimes breaking apart,

sometimes framing the other, heart-to-heart--

waxing and waning

'round the floor of the Flagstone Terrace.

They dance through the annals of the ages,

the picture book that is my mind,

to the wildly whirling-twirling,

strangely-peaceful dervish

that is my heart,

in rhythm to the song

that is my soul....