From an Upper Floor

There is a world of difference between privacy and secrecy.  One can ask for privacy and choose it for  one’s life but secrecy is another matter altogether.  It is drawing a cover or placing some barrier between what one does on one side and with explicit orders not to be viewed by the other.

Yet privacy is simply asking for sacred ground around oneself.   And granting it to others should they request it.   Secrecy says it is none of your business what I do and privacy says you know what I do and I ask that you protect me from those gaping stares.

Privacy is when you close the bathroom door and secrecy is when you delete or hide the computer screen when I arrive at the door, so I will not be party to what is going on.  When a discussion cannot be open between partners, whether married or not,  in business or not, then it is secrecy on someone’s part that fails to disclose  heartfelt issues or commonly held issues.  But we know that all secrets eventually will be revealed.  Our characters,  our honor,  trust,  our word rests on these two words, privacy and secrecy, when we are  in a relationship with an other.

Privacy is a courtesy we extend to each other in those matters where our wellness is secured.   We extend this courtesy because we are in a human family.   And that includes everyone,  not only immediate family.   Secrecy is a two edged sword.   It harms not only the other but us too.   Whether it is on a personal level or otherwise, it is not a world I am comfortable with.   It means I need someone to watch my back.  Why would we choose to live in such a world?

Painting by Claudia Hallissey

Because their responses to the question of who to take with you to answer your puzzling questions on this hero’s journey were succinct and well thought out,  both Lois and Mark will have the chance to name their choice of rewards .  So when they  e mail me with their choices, I will be happy to get them into the mail as soon as possible.

As I have been told many times,  because I give thought to these kinds of questions,  it does not mean the rest of the world does.   There had always been a running argument with a very dear departed friend that this world was not to be taken personally.  Life was simply to be gotten through the best means possible and  enjoyed as much as one can.   I did not see the purpose of life not being taken personally.  How does one do that I often asked.  Simply,  I was told,  one just allows the unanswerable to run like water off a duck’s back.

It never worked that way with me.  Not even as a child.  Words held meaning for me and I cringed in my young heart when I heard arguing between my brothers,  my favorite people.   I was always aware that arms would swing and someone would be hurt.   When feelings were thrown out into the air to be caught by someone with ill intent,  I knew trouble resulted.  How was one supposed to react to life on this Earth when emotions were the coin of the day?  One had to deal with them and one had to react to make peace.

Her argument always was that you let these things pass and they are soon forgotten.   It did not work that way for me.  I knew when arguments brewed that the past was always brought up to sting again.   So how to make this journey through life,  this hero’s journey,  to understand the so called slings and arrows,  the ancestor’s anguish,  the wars that make dust of yesterday’s masterpieces?   You take someone with you whom you honor and cherish and whose life you would like to mirror.   Then you pull every thought and action through your heart to see your response to be as more nearly like your hero’s.   After much practice you find that your response will be one of  ‘judge not’ and you do the life giving thing.  Because its opposite would be life taking.   It will be a divine response to life because that is the shining Spirit within each of  us.   What we do for one, we do for all.   It is called Evolution.

It is a way to make a difference.

art by Claudia Hallissey

When I wrote the post for my blog entitled ‘I Would Teach’  it was about how I came to the conclusion that the reasons for our lessons,  if they can be called that, are logical consequences of our inadvertent or knowledgeable actions.  And the underlying basis has Intelligence and that Intelligence evolves as our intelligence does but in greater leaps.  Unimaginable leaps.   And whether we call this Intelligence God or Father or simply Life,  it is the primary factor of all the Universes.

It sounds like a simple conclusion to come to but I included also what I call the most minute as well as the largest explosion of life,  the God Participant.   For a more detailed explanation,  the post can be brought up.  But what I did not mention was that this conclusion with all of its ramifications has taken a lifetime to reach.   It doesn’t sound like much, but when a lifetime of steps are taken,  literally the footwork done,  and it is integrated,  along with sifting and sorting all the dogma that has been shouldered throughout however many lifetimes,  the footwork and head work is immense.  A humungous work.   To do it while raising a family and living a life with its own responsibilities, is a difficult endeavor at best. It has stymied many a stronger and bolder human than me.  Was  it necessary?  For me it was or I would continue on my knees to the bridge.    When one tries with all one has to make sense out of life and only nonsense was seen,  one must do something.   When my knock was not heard,  I crashed the gates of heaven.   And it was a put up or shut up kind of overture.   If what I was taught and learned did not work where I was,  it made little difference that it might work elsewhere.  Heaven took me at my insistence and for most of this lifetime,  I have been shepherded.   Everything teaches I was told.  Everything.  Including the heartbreak.

I have spoken of my Teachers in the previous weeks’ posts,  and I thought in writing about this underlying intelligence of the universes,  I would now include the response from them.   It has been a difficult thing for me to speak about,  but since my years are less in front of me, I want my understanding of this cosmic experience to be voiced.   We have had lifetimes of science doctors giving their understanding about what is normal and what not; I wish for all of us to recognize that mankind is more than psychology.   We have and are a spiritual entity.   And we are more than test tubes and litmus papers.  We are more of who we were when earth rolled into being and we were co-creators in the world of gods.   We were long before the world ever was.

I do not wish to be part of a world where those who wield power do so because of street smarts.   I wish to be part of a world where the hearts of men meld with the greater heart and we have each others’ well being in our hands.  And we wish to do good.

The Teachers Speak. . . .It is a good piece of work.  Primary but in its substance of value some good thinking.  You see where it is you come from.  You see where it is that your thought springs and you cannot ever from this point on say that you don’t know from where it is you come.   You have at your fingertips the knowledge of what years of schools and instruction has stymied many a scientific mind.  There will be those who scoff at the simplicity of this page but you know how many years went into its creation.  You have those now who no longer scoff at what life presents nor prevents.

You have on these pages that beneath the life or the worlds, there is a substance or an Intelligence.   There is nothing that would stop the ever growing list of wonders to say  how did this Intelligence come into being.  Whether it is the big bang theory sending molecules into form, what we do know is that intelligence and common sense are its virtues.  We know we are not incidental to life’s picture.  There are other forms and other life cycles and we participate in all of them.  How we know of this intelligence is by observing the work of those whose business it is to improve life.  To lift the burden of existence to a tolerable level and to wave the spirit of triumph to what has been endowed to the minds that would not stop learning.   This is what it is to be alive.   This is what life is about.  We are placed in this environment to learn.   We are given the heads with its propensities to accomplish what the heart desires.  It is up to parents of these minds to grasp their importance and for themselves to learn the consequences of their actions.  You were right when you warned people to pick up their mistakes.   Their names are attached.  The sages will no longer say I did what I could and did I not have fun?  This is a classroom and this is what we do.  This is our work.   And we only begin.

artwork by Claudia Hallissey