Mar 2021 – Mine Quick Voice of Aquarius

To Be… or not to Be

As many of my correspondents know, I’m a healer and have been so for well over 50 years, I have run a complementary health business, am the life long president of the JCPF charity; https://www.jcpf.co.uk/ , which is dedicated to healing, and currently applying my energies to assist people get the best out of life, whilst restrictions imposed by the government to curb the spread of coronavirus have given rise to all kinds of health problems. Self-healing is my major theme. For many the need to do the right thing, what best actions should be taken, are prompted by fear -or in the very least worry about what is best to do.

Does the constant keep safe messaging in the media reassure, or does it make you resentful for loss of liberty?

The UK government is telling you it is guided to make decisions by data -as most other governments dealing with virus are also doing. Statistics -or as some would say damn statistics are formulations of data which can be presented in different ways to voice ‘truth’. For instance, recent week’s news show France, Italy, Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, have joined a growing list of European countries suspending or restricting the rollout of the Oxford Covid vaccine. The ‘data’ response in the UK from Prof Andrew Pollard is the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is safe, and that “safety is clearly absolutely paramount” but about 3,000 cases of blood clots occur every month in the UK from other causes.

What are you to make of that? Are European leaders being fed ‘bad’ data?

Personal awareness of vaccine side effects are not ‘data’ driven, and of course largely don’t feed into the statistics we get given. In my position I get to hear of peoples health problems as and when they reach out for help. Some people have had the vaccine and not experienced any side effects affecting their current state of health -but some have. For example, a lady in her late sixties who has ongoing leg problems which give her pain noticed the pain has increased significantly since having the jab, a lady in her nineties, generally healthy and a keen gardener, experienced dizziness and fell heavily, smashing the upper part of the humerus arm bone and chipping the wrist only days after receiving the vaccine. Previously not subject to dizzy spells. Another woman, much younger -a key worker, suffered hallucinations whilst negotiating stairs -another became so ill, she had to take sick leave from work. Persistent headaches and gut issues have been reported in the belief their un-wellness occurred or was exacerbated after having the jab. And I’ve also been informed of the unexplained death of a young man who had no underlying health conditions -who died 7 days after getting the vaccine.

By and large vaccine side effects are not life threatening on their own account, and medical diagnosis can and does in the majority of cases identify and record ‘other’ causes. The current range of Covid-19 vaccines have all been produced for rollout within a year -setting new records on vaccine development. The FDA, for example, have only approved the vaccine for emergency use at present, the EMA has given it conditional approval and are currently being lobbied by European countries who have suspended use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. In the past vaccines had a profile of development ranging from 3 to 15 years, and no doubt these new vaccines will continue to be in development for years to come. There is a body of informed medical opinion which states it’s too early to decide if the vaccines are safe and effective -equally there are strong voices in the pharmaceutical industry and Healthcare services who are adamant it is safe, though they are not unanimous on the degree to which the vaccine is effective.

So, who do you believe?

The vast majority of people can only express faith in accepting, or in some cases for refusing, the vaccine. We (the majority) are not technically competent to evaluate it. Much of our life is influenced by knowledge we ourselves do not possess. If your phone stops working you might get a knowledgeable person to repair it -you might dump it and buy another. If you shop for something and they don’t have it -you go to another shop. You don’t ask yourself can I make it myself, you assume the need can be met by someone skilled in that service. And when someone you care for, or a pet for that matter, is unwell -what is your first question you ask? Have you seen a doctor? What treatment are you receiving? If not why not?

If you are unwell -what is the first thing you do?

Interdependence is good -the sharing of skill, the sharing of service, and the giving of care, but if that interdependence is faith driven, it means you live most of your life on the assumption ‘everything will work out fine’. And I don’t need to tell you it doesn’t -do I? this post is not about me making a case for or against taking the vaccine -it’s your choice. It’s about having you realise when all things are taken into account, be it about your lifestyle, your passions and work interests, or your health -you and only you are the final arbiter.

My interest in promoting self-healing is to restore and strengthen your identity, advise ways in which your own voice can determine need without being dependant upon the ‘voice’ of others, be they campaigning you to engage, or its your voice seeking out answers to strengthen personal security. We can -and we do -refer to our mind and body as separate entities. The way we think causes us to do that, but in reality they are one and the same. Mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. Your identity is not the product of a composite -separates with the need of one another. No.

Your identity arises and develops from the harmony of the BodyMind -and dare I say it, designed to be self-sufficient.

Hamlet’s famous soliloquy reflects the agony of not knowing the true self.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to?

… and so it goes on, to end in this fearful proclamation

….. conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o’er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action.

In future posts I’ll further this theme of self-healing -ways and means which maybe have never occurred to you.

The Path of Self Discovery

Before I introduce my self-healing crusade, I must make a mention about scams. Over the past year the number of phoney emails, texts, and phone calls has gone through the roof. Often repeating hour on hour, day after day their scary messages. Media providers appear unable to prevent -never mind stem the flow of these opportunistic thieves. If it were simply a case of pressing the delete button we might simply write them off as annoying –but that doesn’t undo the damage they do to our well-being.

In some instances, so carefully presented they appear only to refer to you, they cause anxiety, fear, and distress. They also make you hesitant to answer the phone and maybe cause you to miss genuine calls for help, family and friends communications, and necessary updates on genuine commitments you have. And of course, if you link into social media sites –again you can be subject to unwarranted abuse.

Spare a thought for the seniors in our population, often having to battle with daily demands in order to sensibly live, who get caught up in this endless flow of scamming demands. It’s not just money we can lose -mental and emotional confidence in self can be lost also. People can become generally distrustful, less than willing to open up and share concerns and care –in short their identity is submerged and troubles of other kinds, seemingly unrelated, characterise their waking and sleeping hours.

Self-healing is not only practises to boost your well-being, but also the means of restoring awareness of your identity, an acceptance of change which alters behaviours;

it is a process to regenerate purpose -without which we are vulnerable to an ever-changing reactive world. In this post I want to make you aware, whatever you believe in, or not, whoever is important in your life, or not, self-healing can only begin when you realise the environment you occupy is a game-changer.

Environments directly and indirectly influence our behaviours -physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’m not simply talking about the mood of the sky we walk under, the appearance of welcome sun, the feel of natural places, or for that matter the closed in areas we can occupy, be they home, shops, places of work etc.

Environments are living entities -they breathe, give and take, characterise our responses on many different levels.

There’s no such thing as a ‘clean’ environment -they comprise many influences, some of course are human, some are nature generated -some positively healthy, some not. But what we must understand environments are not static -they are forever moving and changing. Because we are influenced by the space we occupy it points to the fact we are not walled-in containers of energy -quite the opposite, we are instrumental of living forces 24-7.

You wouldn’t think so given how we mostly define our wants and needs rationally, which if they do account for our environments -it’s in acknowledgement of our need of place, like or dislike. Whereas the reality is our entire nature -be it the manner of thought, expression of emotion, or our insight of purpose, is integral with the space we occupy.

If you’ve had a personal reading with an astrologer, they will advise on strengths, weaknesses, opportunistic trends, and periods of time when the going can get tough -and when best to action your intentions. And you will also know you can’t get the personal reading unless you can advise time, date, and place of birth. Planetary forces are yet another level of environment that influence our BodyMind character. The astrologer can advise on these planetary force influences uniquely configured at the time of our birth , which you take with you throughout your life. It’s another way of recognising environments are not pick and mix options -they are part of us and we are part of them.

So, to summarise -self-healing can only be effective when we actively acknowledge, accept, and implement the influences we give and receive from the environments we occupy. To do that harmony between our conscious, unconscious, physical, emotional, mental nature has to be our purpose. In short we must develop BodyMind consciousness.

And why is this self-healing development especially important right now?

The world is in the grip of a pandemic -the virus that is causing lockdown, innumerable deaths, and other health issues is not going away. The science of vaccinology not only cannot keep up with the spread of variants, the means by which it combats the virus development is only partially (time bound) effective. Which is why next week I’ll be talking about defence -how YOU can mitigate -even defeat the virus.

The poem I’ve written for this week can be interpreted in two ways -a call to someone you love, and as an invocation to the undiscovered Self.

If I could be

If I could be where you are found
when night gives way to day
beyond the boundaries of my sense
then this all too busy mind
would rest and I would simply be,

where the crocus stamen imitates the sun
leaves grow green and branches stretch
and a thousand sounds I cannot hear
form a circle where you are found
there I will rest and simply be.

Forward -into the Present

Photo by Domen Mirtiu010d Dolenec on Pexels.com

In last weeks post I talked about the power of nature, how we ourselves can be stimulated to rediscover the child within. I guess like myself you will have childhood memories, some good, some not so good -but on the whole we recall the good. These memories come back into consciousness in a number of different ways -they can be awoken by children, things they say and do, reminded by something we read or view, and they can also return when we feel oppressed or restricted causing us to retreat from the impersonal expressions of life. And during the past year for many social restrictions have disordered routines -had you think aimlessly, wonder what day it is, had you bed late, fill hours with TV you would otherwise not watch -and in general lose the forward looking nature previously common to the order of your life.

What happens now?

As of this week children return to school, care homes relax some of their restrictions, outdoor meeting can tentatively begin. What is actually happening is a shift of consciousness. People are beginning to look forward, visualising more interactive socialising, anticipating normal working hours. Expressions of frustration, injustice, and anger will find voice -and for some the child within will behave badly. Yet for most ‘picking up where you left off’ will be acts of joining together broken ties, reliving purpose, strengthening the bonds of love. What will happen, however we express, is a forgetting.

Many have had weird and wonderful dreams -some that frightened, some peopled by strangers -who somehow we knew, and some suggesting long lost feelings were yesterday’s experience. Youthful expressions of movement and change -desire and need having the same meaning. Yet, as you know, such remembrances most often retreat and disappear before breakfast is done. And do we remember to remember them? We try of course, particularly if they gave us good feelings -even the best of effort fails after 24 hours. Now ask yourself this question -how much of your past can you remember?

Not a lot -is it?

Even autobiographical writers struggle to remember their past. As honest as they maybe they will be selective -some parts of experience will never see the light of day. Critics of the self-confessing famous will take a stab at their recollections, inferring intentional memory is recorded to express their desire to be remembered, for posterity to benefit from their life’s purpose. And personally? Give it some thought -some efforts, achievements, expressions of thanks received. Are they forgotten -are you taken aback by recall, and you did more than you are currently thinking you did? The stark truth is we forget more than we remember.

Why are we so forgetful?

The reason why is because our BodyMind is not designed to be a repository. It’s not a bucket that fills with life’s experience, growing heavy as time passes -finally to plunge into the abyss of death. No. We human beings may be complex creations, but in essence we are no different to all other forms of life -we are instrumental by design, or to put it another way, we in common with every other form of life are borderless beings.

As I write this I’m listening to music on the radio. Just happens to be of the kind of music I like. As the songs come and go I get a strength of like feelings -when the DJ talks between tracks I ignore what they say. And do I remember what I had good feelings about, maybe also tapped my feet to -10 minutes ago? No I don’t. Are those experiences available somewhere for me to re-experience? Yes they are. In this technological world we now live in I have choice ways. I can record -I can hear those same songs again because someone else has recorded them -or I can simply wait until I hear them again on another station at another time. And what about the DJ’s annoying chatter I blanked out because it didn’t interest me to listen -has that been recorded by me, whether I like it or not?

The answer is yes, but in same way my like of songs are not stashed into a bucket of experience -they, like all memory good, bad, indifferent, and ignored, are available but rarely brought back into present consciousness. You don’t need to be psychologist to know that we are selective by nature, yet be reminded we are not the choosers we like to think we are. Life’s experiences are mainly caused by reacting to conditions of life about us at any one time. Our rational minds in most instances will label reactionary knowledge as chosen to know.

Man’s conceit is his undoing. He assumes he has (or can have) control over his own experiences. In reality he does not.

As you look forward to a return to ‘normal’ life, do not be regretful of opportunity missed, of expressions you did or didn’t make, or wish you had. Life has not been shortened –time is not a measure of values, be it by years or nanoseconds. Memories should not define you. If you are brave, moments will fulfil -they alone will forward you, engage and satisfy. Life so lived is a great adventure and will forever keep you young.

As I’ve been talking about memory, about time, the poem today is not mine, it’s the first verse of ‘Burnt Norton’, the first of the Four Quartets by TS Eliot.

Burnt Norton: Verse 1

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

Stimulating the Child within

An unexpected mild sunny day in the last throes of winter has raised the spirits of many -young and old alike. People flocked to the countryside and the beaches, and bright sunlit faces were much in evidence. The young in shorts and tank tops sprawled on the ground intent on starting a summer tan, children on beaches making sand castles, and the brave swimming in the sea! Selfies on phones, picnics in progress, and no worries for the morrow. The government propaganda machine still whirled away pasting its keep safe messages in the Sunday papers and news bulletins, but from what I could see no one was taking a blind bit of notice.

It’s amazing what a little sun will do. Nature is a great healer. When the sun is out it’s not just a welcome dose of vitamin D, it’s a power of creation and our instinctual reaction will, without regard to our questioning thoughts, take on a more agreeable state of mind.

In last week’s post ‘Self Discovery -the path to Freedom’ I wrote about how lockdowns have damaged and weakened our ‘bubble’ environments -the threat to our well-being; immune systems compromised, and how defensive attitudes of mind affect our health generally. Traits and behaviours develop as like attract like experiences -our identity is developed by the environments we create within from the environments we associate from without. At birth we trust our instinctual nature -we allow it to guide and protect. As we grow to adulthood we ‘put away childish things and see in a mirror darkly.’

The child within never dies -it is silenced by the rational mind.

In our modern technological world children often grow up too quickly, and by so doing lose the well springs of their born nature. Very young children -from a child in arms right through into their pre-teenage years benefit from being taken to nature areas frequently as they have an instinctual understanding of natural environments. This ‘education’ ensures the instinctual mind can remain active and positively influence the development of the rational mind. The energetic expression of children is naturally give and take -they not only ‘burn’ -give out strongly, they also draw energy from their environments. Often, in pre-school children, that can be from their loving mothers -and what mother has not fallen asleep with a child on their lap, only to be awakened by the resumption of the child’s activity?

If the child’s living environment is restricted -they don’t get out and about, they will quickly deplete it.

The draw of energy ceases to stimulate, brothers and sisters will quarrel, they can become unruly -and the needful pattern of activity of give and take is disrupted. This leads to the child drawing upon its subtle energy body -what we term sometimes as our second breath. This is damaging to the child’s growth. If you add to that the character of activity which often takes place in restricted environments, like the stimulus of game applications and fantasy entertainment on phones and TV’s, the child takes on mental attitudes it has yet to learn how to control. Sleep can be disrupted and its natural healing power weakened. Creative activities which draw upon inner resources should be included to their developing life, this will give them cause to enjoy the connection that only the soul-born nature can give, and positively stimulate the given and take nature of their energy bodies.

As children become youths continued interaction with Nature will help them express and balance the emotional mind better, it also educates by constantly reminding them that life is cyclical; birth and death is a fact of daily life -consciousness should develop with their born awareness tutored by experience of the natural world.

The ego should not develop inwardly-tuned, if it does it will develop insensitive uncaring attitudes towards others.

Adults can rebirth the child within by accepting the instinctual urge is the causal power within whenever we experience the desire to break the pattern of our daily lives, without ‘good’ reason. Often this can be felt when the natural world attracts us -as it does most fulsomely when the sun is shining. Weather of course is forever changing and some days it’s so forbidding we won’t want to leave home -we can’t rely on the frequency of sun bright days, so we must seek the stimulus we need by acknowledging the simple fact that our personal ‘bubble’ of energy moves and activates change when we share it with ‘foreign environments’. Sharing is mostly seen as a people thing, but this doesn’t always help release the child within -too often these are confessional sessions, which whilst they have a relieving effect don’t bring about a renewal of energy.

The only way to release and stimulate the child within is to share yourself with nature.

And so it was on Sunday last walking by the sea, I along with hundreds of others observed a man, naked as the day he was born, walking the beach, entirely unselfconscious with a smile on his face. He paused only once to share a few words with a mother and child -the child playing naked in the sand. Nobody rushed up to him with words of reproof -instead most people smiled -some laughed. I daresay some were thinking he had a screw loose -and maybe, just maybe ….

some could feel an unaccustomed urge to give rein to the child within.

In times such as these if you can restore your born nature and expand consciousness to reunite with its soul-born nature you can positively influence and help the lives of those you love.

As I’ve been talking about the child within, rediscovering the Self through nature. the poem I’ve written today is a reflection on what Nature gives.

Apples are seeds

Where do apples grow, when having hung
their time, leave the bough and mate
with earth their heady juices?
Will the tree’s creation pure
of thinking out its life,
leach away the sun born fragrance
in the dust bowl of dying summer
for no better end than having been
portrayed of life?

Or may I sense with keener eye
having end gives proof.
The apple grows and loses shape
and may never multiply, yet cannot die
for spring may find a rose in bloom
where once there was an apple fair.