Metaphors in nature: Mirrors

Many things in my life can be a mirror of what is going on inside of me.

Trying to fix the mirror can turn out to be a fruitless attempt.

Metaphors in nature: What do I focus on?

When I walk around the nearby lake, there is a little bench in the shade unter the trees, but unfortunately, the view on the lake is partly blocked by a fence.

What do I focus on? On the fence or on the background?

It is the same in life. Do I focus on the many different forms of separateness? Or do I focus on the silent background of awareness which shines through everything?

Metaphors in nature: Growth

Sometimes, I find metaphors in nature. Here is a picture from my walks around the fields.

Sometimes growth isn‘t straight. Keep growing anyway.

A little announcement
Currently, I’m involved with video and audio editing for an online version of the divine guidance workshop. While I do appreciate that there are so many free tools for nearly every technical challenge and also many youtube tutorials, it feels as if I am taking the class ‘Learning how to do 1000 new things you never really cared to know about‘. And learning how to use all the new tools and the editing process is so time consuming that I don’t have time to write new blogposts weekly anymore. If I want to get anything done regarding the online class, I have to focus more.

Therefore, I would like to inform you that I will attempt to still post something on this blog, but I might resort to reblogs of old posts, just sharing some pictures, or maybe posting far less frequently than once a week.

Guidance coming in on all input channels

Recently in this summer in August 2022, I got signs that I should get ready to speak. One of the signs was a mosquito bite on the right side of my neck which got a bit inflamed from scratching and made a long, thin, pointed red line which looked like a sword pointing to my throat chakra. And after this one was healed (which took several weeks!), I got another mosquito bite on my throat. But fortunately, this one didn’t get inflamed.

Then while sitting on a bench after a sightseeing trip in Erfurt, I saw a woman walking by with a bag with the word “SPEAK” stiched on it. It looked like a brand label. But I had never seen it before. Both of these synchronicities together (mosquito bite pointing to the throat and this word) seemed to point me to speaking.

On August 21, 2022, a rat got trapped in our basement shaft. After thinking back and forth for a while what to do about it, I got the idea from a youtube video to make a small rope and tie it to the grating of the basement shaft so that the rat could climb out by itself. It worked!
What to make of this incident? Was it just a normal occurrence or was it a message to pay attention to

The next day, on August 22, 2022, I had a dream that I was on a sailing boat and the sailing teacher took a sharp turn and accidentally poured some coffee over me. And afterwards, I became aware of how much I had to do and how tight my time schedule was, and I felt upset about this.
It turned out that this dream was precognitive.

In the evening of the same day, I participated in a zoom call of the Channel Higher class of the channeler Lisa Wechtenhiser, which is a follow-up group of her channeling training of spring 2021. And not only was there a painting of sailing boats in the background (which was unusual), but the topic of the call was about how we were holding ourselves back, the cost of that, and what we can do to free ourselves. Freeing ourselved seemed to fit with the message of the day before of freeing the trapped rat from the basement shaft. Like the coffee in the dream, that whole mix of the talk and the synchronicities with the dream and the freed rat was stimulating and motivated me to get going the very next day.

Since I have started working on an online version of the divine guidance workshop which I held back in 2017, signs keep dropping in that seem to signal that this is the right path. On various input channels of words and images on t-shirts, songs in the mind, blogposts of other WordPress bloggers, dreams, emails, and a voice in my mind, I get messages of confirmation, support, encouragement, and further direction.

I wanted to create an audio file (or audio-only video) and started out by taking my old blogpost Many forms of divine guidance, pasting it into the Descript app, and then choosing one of their stock voices to read it. I used a stock voice at first because I feel uneasy speaking into a microphone if there is nobody on the other side. I even have trouble sounding normal in intonation when I speak some message for my parents on their answering machine, for example. So, using a stock voice seemed convenient. I did not publish this, though, because it was just for testing and proof of concept.

And then afterwards, the signs kept coming:

The beautiful song “Who’ll come with me” from the Kelly family played in my mind with reassuring lyrics which I interpreted as that spirit walks with me and shows me the way.

In my WordPress feed, a channeled blogpost appeared with the message that it should be satisfying if one touches many people with their work. That sounded like it was meant to be motivation for me.

During a walk around the fields, I saw a guy with a t-shirt which had “Gimme some more” written on it. Like encouraging me to do more audio production.

Then, I got an unusual email from academia.edu with the title “See the rank of “The Experience of Divine Guidance”[…]” . I had downloaded Mark Allan Kaplan’s PhD dissertation The Experience of Divine Guidance from this website several years ago. And now they sent me this mail to suggest that I could look up the citation rank. That seemed like more than a coincidence.

Then I got another email, a tutorial from the Descript software, with the title “Write for your own voice”. That was like a message that I should not rely on the stock voices of Descript but rather speak in my own voice ( – I had suspected that already).

The inner voice of guidance also spoke. It said something along the lines that they would work more closely with me when I work on this divine guidance project. But with the inner voice, I am still never really sure whether I am making this up or not ( – I can see my spirit guides rolling their eyes as I write this; but wait – maybe I am just making that mental image up??).

Then I had a dream where I went into town but was walking around in underpants only. I knew I needed to go shopping and get new pants. My interpretation was that I am about to slip into a new role (- pants is something like a role we are playing).

So, guidance was coming in on all input channels with encouraging messages. And I want to emphasize that I have seen this several times. Whenever I stop procrastinating and finally surrender and commit to a new guided endeavor, then I get these signs of confirmation and encouragement. Sometimes theses signs can become so intense and pushy that they feel annoying or even threatening. But mostly, I find them comforting. Good to know that I am on the right track. It is also good to know that there really is something behind the veil – some intelligent, orchestrating force, and guiding force.

Summer reflections: blessings, challenges, and underlying themes

It’s Sept 1st, 2022, and I am looking back at how the summer has been for me. I had set the intention that it be an enjoyable and joyful summer. Because in the past years, there was always some kind of trouble in the summer. Something usually happened which made me think, ‘Yeah, the weather may be beautiful, but life sucks.’ I am thinking about events like the too strenuous hike in 2016 which screwed up my right foot, the subsequent dismissal of a negative spirit guide and the accompanying feeling of betrayal in 2017, and the vaccination damage to my left knee in 2021. So, I didn‘t want this to happen again this summer and consciously set the intention that I wanted to enjoy this summer.

Counting my blessings

Here are some of the good things I got to enjoy:
-) I got many opportunities for travel and seeing friends and family (in contrast to the past two years).
-) Plenty of yummy food.
-) Some swimming. (Hadn’t been swimming in 2021 at all due to the knee pain)
-) The first vacation with travel (to the Thuringian Forest) after the Corona break (2020/2021).
-) Grateful that I was able to take slow walks during the vacation even though my left knee is still a bit inflamed after the COVID vaccination from the summer 2021.
-) I am very thankful that we all stayed Corona-free and none of our travel plans had to be canceled.
-) At home, daily walks in the evening sun.
-) Relaxing from the stress and overwhelm of the channeling class of 2021.
-) Long warm summer evenings on the patio mostly without mosquitos, but sometimes with a lovely visit from a hedgehog.
-) Plucking fruits on the fields in Walldorf and even raspberries on our vacation. (I love raspberries.)
-) Taking pictures of nature and playing with the photo app. So much fun!
-) Reading John Foster‘s mindblowing UFO books Eminent Discovery and To Earth From Heaven.
-) I am thankful that our two young adult sons are taking good care of their life.
-) I am still working in the home office.
-) I enjoy the luxury of a nap almost every day.
-) The summer was hot and way too dry. But even though we rarely watered our garden, the plants survived it.
-) And recently, there was heavy rain. Several houses in our street had flooding in their basements, but we and our neighbors didn‘t. So grateful that we were spared and the garden is watered now.
-) I find it joyful when spirit shines through the mundane from beyond the veil in little synchronicities like when I find little gifts (- found a white flower on the grocery store floor at our wedding anniversary day).

So, it was a relaxed and beautiful summer. And I am grateful.

Challenges

Of course, there were also less pleasant situations:

-) My aging parents welcome some support and I traveled to Berlin more often which is a 7-8 hours ride one way. At times, the situation at my parents’ can be difficult and stressful for all involved parties.
-) The constant bickering of our kids (- yes, even grown-up children can ruin lunchtimes).
-) My rheumatoid arthritis. I live with pain every day. Sometimes I wake up at night with pain.
-) Then there was additional annoying paperwork to do this summer related to our real property tax. But I didn’t procrastinate this too long and was even able to help my dad with his real property tax form.
-) I got a painful wasp sting and had to take antibiotics with side effects. Luckily, all is healed now.
-) Bringing our budgie to the pet sitter for our vacation was unnecessarily complicated because the sitter gave us wrong information and also because the sitter needed to shift the time of our appointment on short notice due to an accident.
-) The vacation home in the Thuringian Forest had no sauna (even though it was advertised) because they had had a water damage a month earlier. Again, this was not communicated to me beforehand. But, the weather was too hot for sauna, anyway. But I would have loved to go to the sauna. Since the Corona lockdown, I miss it.
-) And oh, the constant feeling of overwhelm with just the normal obligations I have of part time work and family duties.
-) The comparatively frequent travel this summer started to feel a bit overwhelming, too. Several times, I had to spontaneously shift plans in the last minute. Also, it felt as if I was constantly looking at maps and timetables of trains for all the travel planning and constantly thinking about what to pack into which bag. Not so much fun.

So, that was the summer. Some challenges and yet much to be grateful for.

Schmiedefeld am Rennsteig, Thuringian Forest, Germany. (Picture was taken by my younger son Jonah)

The Merchants‘ bridge (Krämerbrücke) in Erfurt, Germany

Are there underlying common threads?

When I try to find the common threads, what jumps out at me is the topic of travel and meeting people. In contrast to the Corona years 2020 and 2021, there was much travel this year.

And also the topic of spontaneously shifting plans last minute. That’s about practicing flexibility, I guess.

Poor communication or miscommunication is also a thread that comes to mind. Maybe that is mirroring something in me? Mabye mirroring my procrastination with getting on with my tasks given to me from spirit?

Another underlying theme was not to worry so much but rather have faith and trust that things will turn out well. Whether it was at work, in the family, or in politics, there were several situations which looked like threats but which turned out well during the last minute. That is a recurring lesson for me.

Meeting people in crisis/breakdown/breakthrough situations and also giving back to people what they have lost continue to be underlying themes. For example this summer, I found a credit card wallet and was able to give it back to the person via his employer.

What also came up with a couple of signs was the nudge by spirit that it is time for me to speak. I guess I have to get serious now about producing the divine guidance workshop in an online format. I have put this task off since 2017 when a voice in my head announced that I should put the pdf of the divine guidance workshop into an “internationally available online class” – whatever that means.
So, I started to look at some new software tools to create and cut audio and video files, mainly with the Descript software and am playing around with that now.