Come on, Debra! This can’t possibly be true, right?

I guess this calls for a bit of explanation...

The Aunt Lorraine and Aunt Irene stories raised a few eyebrows….

I get that.

(there may be more eyebrow-raising to come…)

So I’m going to back up and share a bit of background so you can see inside my process… I’m pretty sure many of you can relate to parts of this…

And, if not, that’s perfectly alright.

Sometimes I look at the world as a great big, mixed-up one-room schoolhouse.

We’re all here, learning at our different levels, studying worlds of subject matter. We have differing interests and aptitudes, abilities and trajectories. As in that traditional school, the older ones help the younger ones…

But we exist in a variety of other classrooms, as well.

We are in our family-of-origin classrooms, our professional classrooms, cultural, national, racial, and sexual classrooms. We have our friend, our personal and shared interest classrooms, partner or spousal ‘bubbles’ and our highly individual personal classrooms.

We are souls on journeys (or so it seems to me). There’s plenty to learn and experience…dig in wherever you like.

Peeling back the layers here…

As an infant in the crib, I had early guidance (this is likely true for many little ones…until we succumbed to the commonly-held belief that we were blank slates, knowing nothing).

I called it a ‘sense of God’ and a few other things along the way, when language begins to confuse the issue.

But recovering the bare bones of it, there was simply a voice in my ear at rare times that gave important information and guidance. At other times, I just ‘knew’ things.

Although it had been sublimated and had to be excavated from the rubble and given credence again, I remember it well…

The voice was kind, androgynous, yet slightly feminine and it was tinged with knowing and authority.

I am past trying to label it in any way…

The first thing I remember clearly was this-spoken in a simple, matter-of-fact way:

“You will not be having children. That is for other people. Your life will be about other things.”

And then I was shown little snapshots of the potentials. Far-flung places conveying a global inclination. The sense of it was compassionate.

(my family background, orientation and circumstances did not lend themselves to anything like this)

The words and images marked me…an early imprint. They bent my life-or inclined it, if you will.

As my life played out, the message was accurate. It fit..and it fit me.

Later in life, when ‘it was time to marry and have kids’, I was fine with my arrangement…mentally prepared and excited about my life’s direction.

What would have left another young woman lacking a husband and children feeling grief-stricken, left me feeling just fine…free and available for other pursuits!

I thought in adult sentences early on. I HATED baby talk and all that nonsense with a passion! I somehow understood my surroundings, the intents of my parents, sensing their missteps, their good and their evil (which was pronounced at times).

The next clear message was a good deal more serious…and needed at that young age, but let’s just start here.

So you grow into your environment…the soil that is furnished to you…with that little backdrop of guidance. And you try to fit things together as best you can.

Here, I will allow for one label that is useful…that of a ‘sensitive’.

(Normally I prefer to leave things more fluid. Many things exist on a fluctuating continuum. Labels trap people, limiting growth and experience.)

My best way of describing a ‘sensitive’ is to compare humans to horses. In the world of horses, there is a range of breeds.

At one end of the spectrum, you have a heavy, plodding farmhorse. At the other end of the spectrum you have the sleek racehorse. Both horses…but very different animals. The heavier, slower, placid draft horse can haul heavy loads. They can thrive in various climates, work long hours, and eat a rough diet. The gift of this horse is strength.

A racehorse, on the other hand, is a highly sensitive animal, requiring specialized conditions…the right temperature, environment, exercise, rest, and diet. Even when a high-strung racehorse is standing still, it is never still. Eyelids and tail are twitching, muscles are rippling under the skin. The gift of this horse is speed.

So too with us. Our natures run the gamut…and that is a good thing.

The problem that we run into in our culture is that we want everyone to be ‘normal’…with the resulting judgement and damage that comes of it.

As a sensitive, my experience of the world was that it was a noisy, cruel, demeaning insane asylum. Sorry…I know that’s a bit strong, but that was my experience of it.

I sought peace, preservation of innocence, kindness, aloneness at every opportunity. It was hard growing into the brutality of this life.

That degree of awareness is quashed at every turn and a ‘sensitive’ is made out to be ‘crazy, TOO sensitive, NOT Normal’ and all the rest of it. You are bludgeoned into self-doubt, smallness and instability.

Maybe you possess some degree of sensitivity… Many of you stay hidden.

Awareness is giftedness…a difficult gift, to be sure, but much-needed.

It often goes underground to survive.

I used to call it “Secret Me”-that nucleus of one’s original self kept alive through it all. The “Me” that is almost never divulged throughout life…not to parent or spouse or societal contact. You might have a bosom friend who, for a time, can be trusted, but that can blow up in your face, too. You learn not to take things too far…not to reveal very much. Sound familiar?

And then along comes the ‘over-culture’ to show you the way…

It fits you into a family ethos, a gender role, a religion, an education system, a job or profession, a societal role.

The ‘over-culture’ believes it is right… It is not.

You try to maneuver yourself into the ill-fitting costumes or uniforms that are pressed upon you for life. You will be beaten/rewarded/coerced into various submissions until you stop resisting.

But your inner life beckons now and then…

Will you murder it, too, or will you begin to question the alliances you have made with so-called ‘life’?

At points you realize how phony, aggravating and exhausting it is to maintain these disparate personas, each with their opinions, judgements, expectations and all the other rot.

The cry of an earlier generation was that they had to go off to find themselves.

And no wonder…

They had been forcibly separated from their authenticity early on.

It is a piece of work to wrestle the false selves off of you. It’s like scraping barnacles off your hull periodically, finding what’s underneath and repairing the damage. Excavating to the authentic self…

This current generation seems more resigned to their fate (with a little help from their school nurses and pharmacists).

I had taken on the surrounding world view, accepted the options made available to us for education, lifestyle, profession and religion.

In my case…to escape having children in the 60-70s entailed becoming either a nun or an academic. A doctor / psychiatrist seemed the role best suited to my desires. Religion offered an opportunity to serve and some shelter from the vulgarities of the world.

On arrival, I soon found the medical system too profit-oriented and fraudulent to work within. A huge disappointment for me, as I had fully expected to live my life within the walls of a hospital. (I do not disparage good medicine at all, but this was not the right expression of it for me).

I found religion to be powerless, especially where it counted. Caught up in all the wrong things. Intelligent questions were side-stepped and evaded. Like many, I did a lot of searching. There was the occasional hidden gem, but the trend was fast-moving into big money church-as-entertainment with some really cheesy frauds at the helm providing cover for unsavory characters of all persuasions. They see their followers as dumb sheep to be shorn. Yes, you…

And people were buying it!

As a friend reminds me, they still are!

Religion produced the opposite of what it should…and the future trajectory was painfully apparent. Having handed my ‘knowing’ to their ‘authority’ cost me dearly.

(a word of advice: Don’t let people hijack all your goodness and manipulate it to their ends.)

They were grandiose, false and unyielding authoritarians…spiritual terrorists.

“Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.”  Tom Robbins

And yet, I knew that something / someone was operative in my life. I had awareness and experiences that didn’t fit their molds…experiences that connected me to deeper, more complex realities.

Just so you know I had a little skin in the game…I married a preacher’s kid (not knowing about PKs), though it is more accurately said that I was coerced. I was in a till-death-do-us-part cult and nearly met my end a few times before sanity overruled, a way of escape opened and I was shoved through the opening.

According to ‘The Church’ I was cut off from God.

I believed that for awhile…

I was still on the run from the murderous PK, when the Real Thing showed up unexpectedly.

I experienced a Connection. It was sudden, palpable, electric, certain. A jolt of power… and recognition…between me and ‘Out There’. (some theology, eh?)

No church could legislate against THIS! This was a Reality far beyond their reach.

My real self was jolted back to life from the stupor it had been in. The blindfold of the false construct that religion had imposed on me was removed.

From there I learned to deal directly.

I started over… All the unlearning that followed… All the accumulated debris that had to be swept away.

The first steps were tenuous.

I told Spirit at the outset ‘If this works, I’ll give it another go. But, if not, I’m outta here!’ And I meant it. This had to prove itself. I could afford nothing less.

(You don’t know me, but I am not a woo-woo type…I’m more of a hard-headed realist that needs answers that work in the practical universe…that can be applied in daily life.)

I was to find that there was no question too outrageous…no demand that was not worthy of an answer. (Surprisingly I was not struck down) My complaints were raw and persistent…

Answers and understanding came. Redress, as well.

“Teach me…teach me… You and only you” my simple request.

And then I waited for answers… Answers that came in a myriad of ways. A lot of theology was turned on its head.

We are dealing with complexity and paradox here…not catechism.

I became Self-referral (a return to my early knowing) and ‘Out There’ referral.

Inner and Outer entering into rapport.

****

There IS a Real Thing and it does engage with us (more expert theology here).

Leaving things open…beginners mind…helps.

Blurring the artificial boundaries between brain and heart, inner and outer ‘worlds’ helps. They are interrelated…like sex and spirituality…not opposed (when used rightly).

Elasticity of mind, courage and tenderness helps,

(as does deep desire according to Tom Robbins).

Your experiences will teach you where humans and books fall short (giving each its due).

Direct engagement…Higher Mind… Conceptual learning in images, not just words.

Engaging Source…or something closer to Source…at a pace that is enlivening, endlessly fascinating and surprisingly sturdy, sane-making and cohesive.

So the stories I share are born in this context.

They are presented as they happened- without explanation or commentary.

They are phrased in a way that reflects my understanding at the time (which hopefully has enlarged since then).

****

What do I believe? I don’t really deal in beliefs anymore.

Believing is suspect. I don’t care for it…or for those who demand it.

I would rather learn and know than believe. I ask, wait, experience, test and Know.

Once you Know, there is no need to believe.

Watching people argue about their beliefs seems increasingly pointless…silly, even. Neither of them knows… They are simply parroting other people’s ideas…

As I said in the early days of covid, which applies here…I am not trusting these knuckleheads with my future.

*****

In closing…from a beloved wordsmith, Tom Robbins:

Early religions were like muddy ponds with lots of foliage. Concealed there, the fish of the soul could splash and feed. Eventually, however, religions became aquariums. Then hatcheries. From farm fingerling to frozen fish stick is a short swim. 

Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished.

As always, thanks for reading! 💖 Feel free to like, comment, subscribe (free), share and restack…

Aunt Irene-Crossing overDebra Robinson·November 17, 2024Read full storyAunt LorraineDebra Robinson·November 17, 2024Read full story