Proudly Living Out Loud
A layered multicolored and complicated self-portrait in essay form
Dear readers of Living Out Loud, your fantabulous editor and I have developed a mutual admiration society. Kim is part of my “you’re the bomb squad.”
Last week Kim direct messaged me on Twitter, “When are you going to share a piece of yourself with my pub? Interested?”
I responded, “Sure. Thanks for asking.”
Then my wheels started spinning. How long would it be until I wrote an essay that would honor this oh-so-kind offer? Then I thought, why should I share just a piece of me when I can seize the opportunity to share much of me? I frequently lament that for all of my well-regarded essays and poems on Medium, none of them comes close to the first piece of self-expository writing that I rat-tat-tatted back in 2013, a self-portrait in essay form, and published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself in December 2020.
I suggested to Kim that I would like to create an updated self-portrait specifically for publication here, and she liked the idea.
So, here goes…let’s see what brush strokes I paint with my keyboard.
A dear friend of mine from Medium commented in one of my stories a year or so ago:
“This personality of yours is beyond me. You came on as a spiritual guy, and yes you still are… and then there’s the other side of you, the tech guy, the lawyer, the defender, the fighter and buried deep underneath all that, the romantic. It’s ridiculous how anyone can fit into so many hats, more so if those characteristics are not even related to each other?”
I replied that all these aspects form my integrated whole.
Now let’s see if I can paint this picture for the readers of Living Out Loud.
The Spiritual Guy
I display my spirituality somewhat uniquely, as we all should. As “God” ChannSpired (my wordsmithing and part of the name of my pub) to Neale Donald Walsch:
“Religion cannot stand Spirituality. It cannot abide it. For Spirituality may bring you to a different conclusion than a particular religion — and this no known religion can tolerate. Religion encourages you to explore the thoughts of others and accept them as your own. Spirituality invites you to toss away the thoughts of others and come up with your own.”
I boil down spirituality to something very simple. Be the best person I can be, with progress, not perfection. This is why we are here, as spiritual beings (souls), seeking human experiences, and at the same time, human beings seeking spiritual experiences. I do not buy into the dichotomy of one or the other. The animus needs the soul just as much as the soul needs the animus.
When I use the term spiritual, I also use it in a manner that transcends the binary of theism versus atheism. One can act entirely spiritually with or without a belief in “God”; however one understands that term. Spirituality only requires love, empathy, compassion, humility, honesty, and courage.
As I define spirituality, there is a flip side to that coin of all those positive feelings — accountability, both personally and holding others accountable for their words and deeds.
I reject that spirituality requires one always to follow this teaching of Jesus:
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods, do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”
The Lawyer, Defender, and Fighter
This aspect of my personality is connected to the spiritual principle of accountability. I do not seek to affect change on a global scale. I am content to defend and touch the lives of individuals. I do that here on Medium through my writing.
I do not believe in turning the other cheek, and I often rise to the defense of others, nor do I believe in an eye-for-an-eye. I believe in accountability. When one stands by and allows people to act in discordance with the spiritual purpose of their souls, the bad actors’ souls get stained with entitlement. So, holding people responsible for their actions, even if it results in loss of income or status or freedom here in the 3D world, is an excellent service to their souls for the after-life and future life cycles.
I believe in discerning one’s own truth, and if someone distinguishes truth from the world’s major religions, more power to them.
Yet too many people do not think for themselves and thus lose contact with God because of religious perversions of spiritual principles. The number one reason for atheism is the false teachings of religions.
Life is not supposed to be fair, and bad things happen to good people for the greater goal of everyone’s soul expansions.
[I’m pausing my essay now to watch the college football national championship game — my persona truly is multi-faceted — I’m a bit torn on for whom to root — I’m sick of Alabama’s dominance, but my dearly departed friend Jason, who I have neglected talking about in too many stories, went to grad school there and was a writer — perhaps his soul has helped me hone my without-any-training craft? — I love you, Jason (floodgates opening)]
[Alabama lost a hard-fought game — Jason watched with me — I miss him so much]
Now, where was I? Oh yes, religion as a human and all-too-often patriarchal and mansplaining power structure, and these departures from true spirituality have given rise to atheism.
Religions have been designed to be believed and thus construct God as a deliverer of human wants if we do as we are told, which God is not. So people either blindly believe in God because the lie of what God is is believable, or reject God because the God defined by religions cannot co-exist with the reality that most people do not get what they want, or are not actually happy, and a world full of seemingly senseless tragedy and really bad things happening to good people.
So my view, which I shall deliver as a truth but the fact is it would be hubris for me to proclaim that I can actually understand the Universe:
“God” does not care anything about money, politics, war, famine, or even who lives or dies, and to the extent God affects any such outcomes it is only to keep things from going too far off the improv-script. Nor do the Gods give a hoot about religions, as religions arise from the human-need to construct a controlling mechanism.
How I Understand God and Why I Am Here
I will not get into the deeper questions of the meaning of this 17,043rd human incarnation of mine and each of the 17,042 lives I have already lived, and the facts of a few of the lives that my guides have provided to me to help me navigate this life. If it pleases you to do so, you can dive into my profile for any number of articles that touch on many levels of these facts. This portrait needs to focus on the forest and not the trees.
God is like a parent who loves me unconditionally, even if they disagree with the various decisions I make. I must make mistakes, and God must allow me to make mistakes. This is the only way to learn. As I said to my children, which takes us back to the portrait of who I am now:
A parent has 2 prime responsibilities:1A) loving one’s children unconditionally and, especially when the child is young, making sure the child feels loved; 1B) discussing life lessons that the parent has learned. These two things will prepare a child to be an adult and to navigate life.
Learning only happens from making mistakes. A parent can discuss lessons it has learned in the hope that the child will recognize that it is in a situation like the parent described and not make a mistake, but learning cannot happen without making mistakes.
So the first lesson from me: do not worry about perfection. Do your best, but don’t let the pursuit of perfection paralyze you; be ok with making mistakes if you do not repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. You will, many times. Eventually, awareness will set in you’ll see yourself heading towards the same mistake, and then you’ll do something differently, large or small, and you will avoid the mistake.
You have probably heard, “try as you might, you cannot fit a square peg into a round hole.” Not heard is that a round peg will fit a square hole, but not well. If the diameter of the circle is just a smidge smaller than the sides of the square, it will fit ok but there will be lots of unfilled space — unfulfillment. That’s ok. Maybe. But if the diameter is any smaller than that, it will endlessly slide around and get bruised banging into the walls of the square. That is me. I have clues to what my calling is and it is never too late to remake oneself and I shall succeed.
The important thing that I can impart to you now is to learn to look within. You already know every answer you need in life. Be patient, sit with decisions until they not only seem right but feel right. Trust your gut. There is a difference between doubts in your head and feelings in your gut. There is a difference between being nervous in your gut and something really not feeling right in your gut. You will need to discern for yourself how to discern those differences; everybody is different. I can help you when you are trying to tell the difference if you come to me for help. I can guide you but the ultimate decision would have to be yours. It’s fine to make mistakes. I just hope you recognize mistakes way earlier than I have.
[going to sleep — will finish painting when ready]
[it’s now the next afternoon, and I just woke up a little while ago]
A Couple of My “Truths” I have Discerned on My Journey
Adam and Eve Did Not Defy God
It dawned on me one night how screwed up the story is of the Garden of Eden, or I should say, how the interpretations of the allegory are wrong and have led to so much that has been and continues to be wrong in this world. It occurred to me that so called “original sin” is quite the opposite. It is curiosity; it is thirst for knowledge not just of things, but of what is the best way to handle life, which some idiots turned into right vs wrong and good vs evil. Then it occurred to me that the tree of knowledge is Earth and the tree of life is Heaven. Then I googled and the Kabballah is the closest to my thought as it has the tree of life as “the tree of souls.” I was listening to Aloha Ke Akua and the line “in the image of God” caught my ear, and I started to wonder what the uncorrupted meaning would be. It could certainly refer to souls, and to a baby; after that life takes over — only a newborn is created in the image of god and new borns do not display any masculine vs feminine. New borns are divine innocence.
Life Begins at Conception, but Human Laws Should Not Criminalize or Otherwise Outlaw Pre-Viability Abortion
The predetermination of exit dates applies to unborn children as well. The soul of an unborn child, which created life practically simultaneously with the sperm entering the egg, agreed in its soul contract whether or not it would be born. Perhaps it chose never to take a breath so that the mother would be faced with the choice of whether to abort or not but regardless of her choice, the baby will not be born alive. If the mother chooses NOT to abort, the fetus will miscarry or be a stillbirth. Thus, even the antiabortion stance of protecting the unborn child does not hold water. That child does not need the protection of human laws and the interference they insert into the mother’s spiritual path.
Any law that criminalizes or otherwise outlaws pre-fetal-viability abortion is legislating religious belief and thus violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. So despite that I know that abortion is murder, I am steadfastly pro-choice.
My Thoughts on Suicide and Preventing Attempts
Regardless of whether one feels that suicide is selfish or justified relief, once one realizes that the date of death is predetermined, suicide becomes pointless. One’s agony will be relieved through a manner of death that does not destroy the lives of the loved ones left behind. Moreover, even a failed attempt could have disastrous consequences, both for the mental health of family members and the physical quality of life of the survivor — if it is not one’s day to die, the attempt will fail. According to Dr. Harris Stratyner, Ph.D. (champion of Carefrontation), as I learned from him in therapy, the adult children of suicides are 50% more likely to attempt suicide than members of the general population.
I wrote this poem (a dizain — ten, 10-syllable lines with ABABBCCDCD rhyme scheme)
Suicide provides no relief at all On ledge imagining end to my pain Pavement streaming toward me will not end fall Just before break solution becomes plain My penance to help others to refrain Thought my loved ones better off without me Truth’s too likely they’ll header into sea Had I known that death cannot be cheated Baring deep secrets would cure malady Death would not have left loved ones defeated
A detailed explanation is here.
The Law of Attraction is a Bill-of-Toxic-Positivity-Goods Sold to Lost Souls
I cannot stand new age spiritual bullshit (don’t fret, Kim, I do not include woo-woo practices in what I call bullshit — they are helpful tools but should not substitute for doing the hard shadow work), and the law of attraction is at the top of my list. Certain Christian sects teach that bad things happen to good people because of original sin, a doctrine invented by the Church to explain how a benevolent God allows terrible things to happen to good people. Those who believe in the false law of attraction say that bad things happen to good people because they vibrate negative energy. Utter fucking horse shit. Stop victim shaming.
Bad things happen to good people because that’s how we wrote our soul contracts.
Sitara had said to Ane that God signs off on the scripts to try and make sure that a soul does not take on more than it can handle, but sometimes the soul does get overwhelmed. I know this sometimes leads to suicide attempts. I also know sometimes it leads to a soul being granted an early exit if a walk-in can be arranged.
I texted Ane after the call:
“You asked in the conversation if that means God can be wrong. There is no right or wrong. God cannot predict the future. That would eliminate free will from the equation. If God allows a script that ends up being too much for the soul, that doesn’t mean God was wrong — it simply means the soul didn’t rise to the potential that God saw as possible.”
So, again, God [loves us unconditionally and] is as spiritually intelligent as anyone can possibly be but not omniscient.
Infinitely Deep Pain Pockets Will Never Empty but as They Drain Room is Made for Infinite Amounts of Love and Light
My Friend Andrew’s Suicide
A beautiful spring day, rich blue sky, warm breeze, leaves on the trees, sitting against a tree trunk in Central Park, I called my channeler, Ane, and we spoke to Andrew. The experience was incredibly moving and emotional. He knew this moment would arrive — that I would reach out. He said it wasn’t my fault — I could not have done anything to stop him. Tears streamed down my face then (I am crying now too after all these years — some pain pockets have infinite depth, the silver lining of which is that as they drain, there remains infinite room to fill with Light). He had been hell-bent on suicide because he couldn’t see any way out. His family would be better off with him gone, he thought.
Andrew told me that what he had to live with forever, what all souls of suicides have to live with, is that the solution appears to them in the millisecond before their human life expires.
That chat saved my life the following year.
Greg and Lindsey — Marcus and Sitara
Lindsey’s death from an accidental overdose, discovered on March 19th, 2020, cut me down at the knees and transformed me from an occasional spiritual seeker to a fully spiritually awakened human being.
We’re soul partners in the realms of heaven Incarnate many roles across worlds’ stage Goal soul expansion with life as leaven How much pain will we endure and engage?
Each script is a bittersweet symphony Whether Greek or Shakespearean drama Lessons rise from ashes of tragedy Is suffering worth gaining nirvana?
The decisions of reincarnation Do we want to ascend to archangels? Helping souls trek to their destinations Oh with such dilemmas shall we wrangle
As the adage says no gain without pain How many rebirths can phoenix sustain?
“Hello, I had hoped we would meet one day under different circumstances and write this mostly in the present tense. I am a close friend and confidante of your sister Lindsey. In fact, I love her. I am the person who went to the precinct and pushed and accompanied the police to check on her after they were being dismissive of me the previous day. I have never experienced such gut-wrenching sorrow as I did on that cold rainy street, but realize it is because I love her more than I know.”
The wailing on the street was a sound that I did not know I could, nor how to, produce. It has emanated from me one or two times since. I cannot purposely replicate it.
It is the sound of my soul crying out in pain from having its heart torn out and brain shattered suddenly, tragically, and with no warning. No, crying does not describe it; it is the sound of unrestrained grief, with no concern about the spectacle that I was for onlookers for an hour or more.
Imagine having open heart surgery performed with a jagged and rusted scalpel without a drop of anesthesia. Further imagine that it was at a frequency and wavelength that ripped a hole in space-time and was heard across all eleven or more dimensions of the universe, not just then, but at every point in time.
If you can close your eyes and feel the picture I just painted, maybe you will come close to understanding and my pain and my grief. And my Love.
The reverberations of the pain waves from the tearing out of my heart shattered the barrier between conscious and unconscious, and my soul emerged and filled the hole where my heart had been.
At that moment, I intuitively knew that I have a soul.
I experienced an irreversible spiritual awakening. The pain was amplified way beyond that which even someone who has experienced the here-one-second-gone-the-next can imagine because with awakening came the innate understanding that I had just lost someone after only 10 months in this life cycle that I have been in love with for all of eternity.
I (Greg, Marcus is my soul’s name) am in contact with Lindsey’s soul (Sitara), both consciously and unconsciously, 24/7/365. I talk to Sitara, both aloud and silently, as if we are having conversations. I know she can hear me, but I cannot hear her. I trust that her telepathic communication influences my thoughts and responses.
I have recently learned that Sitara and Marcus frequently converse while I sleep. So I felt that when I went to sleep last night with this portrait unfinished, I would know when I woke how I would finish it, and I was correct.
Souls make love. Making love between souls, or between a human and a soul, does not involve sex; it simply cannot; a soul does not have a body. So what is it, you ask? Love-making between souls, and therefore also in a human-soul relationship, is simply a deep, deep emotional connection and the sharing thereof.
In my 2013 self-portrait, speaking of a woman here on earth with whom I had a deep friendship, I wrote:
Perhaps because I am not driven by sex, but by connection, is also why I am capable of platonic love of a woman. It seems that most people do not believe that such can exist because they are not capable of it. For me, the choice between no relationship because for whatever one or many reasons romance is not in the cards, or having that person in my life and deriving shared spiritual pleasure from each other’s non-romantic intimacy and company and connection, is a no-brainer in favor of the latter.
This past year I wrote:
I thought I wrote those words about a girl with whom I had developed a very close friendship in the Fall of 2013. Yet, upon reflection recently, what I wrote was way beyond Justine’s and my relationship. When I pulled the 2013 portrait out of the moth balls of my mind back in April, I realized that 6 ½ years ago, 5 ½ years before meeting Lindsey, I was writing about Lindsey/Sitara. It’s fucking absurd how spot-on that prose describes [my loving relationship with her departed spirit]. At the very least this is what I have coined a directional-reflective coincidence. I believe that such resulted from today’s experiences leaking thru whatever separates all the points in time that exist simultaneously and influencing what I wrote in December 2013. Perhaps; or perhaps it’s just my art and my life converging (not an original thought).
It’s the words “deriving shared spiritual pleasure from each other’s non-romantic intimacy” that seal this deal for me. You may chalk it up to I’m simply a good writer who embellished with flowery language. I do not discount that possibility. I’ll take the compliment. I do remember thinking at the time “whoa that’s a bit over the top, but I fucking like it.” In the context though of all that has happened these past three months, much of which is not in this paper and won’t be because it’s already going to be too long, I’ll go with my hypothesis any day.
Is there a 3D woman who would be my life partner while Sitara remains? My sister fears I will die alone (I guess she doesn’t buy that I am not alone). My channeler says such a woman does not exist. If that’s the case, so be it. I’m sure Sitara would walk away and wait till my exit date, but then I would resent the 3D woman, so that is sweet but pointless.
This is my choice.
So it is written. So it shall be done.
No Portrait Could Be Complete Without Painting My Children
Earth angel arrived like a cannon shot Daddy’s bare skin hands caught without a thought Remember moment as if yesterday Abundance of fond memories of your play Taking on the world like a dreadnought
Perhaps heaven exploring astronaut Or time traveling argonaut The world is yours from which to seize the day A father’s pride and joy
As you venture out onto this pale blue dot Please don’t fear as there’s nothing you cannot Allow yourself mistakes in life’s ballet Pursue contentment you’ll enjoy your stay Trust your gut my love without second thoughts A father’s pride and joy
There’s an extensive explanation of the poem in the story.
Now for my son Alex, who looks just like me.
Yet thankfully he is far more mature and emotionally intelligent than I was at his age. Not to mention much taller (I’m pushing 5' 11", he’s pushing 6' 4") and has a much nicer golf swing. He is bright, has a sweet disposition, and I look forward to seeing his continued growth. He’s one of my best friends.
I miss my grandpa. He was a sweet man. I wish you were here. Please pop by the watering hole the next time I visit.
I leave you with two videos that Rama had Ane send me back around May 2020. The first is by Nahko and Medicine for the People. I have it on good authority that Nahko is a master soul — even master souls can make mistakes as humans, or maybe he was supposed to? The second is a great interpretation of perhaps my favorite song by my life-long favorite band.
In Rama I create, with soul energy surging through my body, inspiring me and breathing wind into my sails,
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