Last night at the coven meet I got yelled at by the High Priestess. They all wanted to know why I was so silent. I said I didn’t want to talk about it at that time but after some pressure I began telling the story of yesterday afternoon. The drive, the ugly, self hating thoughts, and then the song. But I didn’t get the first knee jerk reaction part of the story out of my mouth, the end it all reaction, when she burst into anger. At the end of it I said, “I wasn’t done with my story.”

After circle I took her aside and told her the rest of the story. And then we started talking about our beliefs surrounding suicide and the afterlife and karma and judgment. It appears I have a very, VERY different point of view on these matters than my covenmates. My “daddy” got into it too.

He told me that a friend was a devotee of Chango and invoked Chango all the time. And that Chango said that suicide was the most evil and wrong thing you could do and it would destroy your good karma. He also told me to live in love and not fear. That is his mantra and it’s a good one. I try to use it as often as possible, it’s hard to do that when I’m in great pain but it tends to be where I end up most of the time.

I don’t believe in karma. I do believe that what you send out returns to you stronger. I don’t believe in a great universal energy that keeps score and that attaches judgment to actions. I believe that judgment is an earth based concept. It is part of why we choose to reincarnate here. It is not the easiest place to choose to reincarnate. It is not the most difficult either. It just is what it is. Our Higher Selves, when living in pure spirit, decide where they want to go, what they want to experience, how they want to play with being in a body, and if there are any experiences they think will be enlightening.  It is our Higher Selves who decide what we want, not some judgmental being.  It is we ourselves.

I know some folks won’t like this but a lot of this came from my experiences of visiting a channeler who works with Jeshua. Jeshua ben Josef, Jesus. Yeah, I’m a witch who works with the deity of Jesus amongst others. He is Lord of the Dance and a Hanged God after all.  And his answer on suicide and other things like murder and terrorism and other things we on earth find heinous is that there is no judgment. There is no scorecard. There is nothing, not one thing, that any of us do here that is judged on a scale of good vs evil. Not One Thing.  It is all good. It all serves a purpose.

Every single person decided before coming here that they wanted to experience that thing, whatever it was, and that some chose to sacrifice a life of fun and play so that others could experience a life of horror and death and murder.  They all release the body and they all come back.  It’s all good. Ted Bundy and Mother Theresa. Just Higher Selves experiencing life in all it’s forms without judgment. And that once we release the body, because he says that every death is a choice, we decide where and how we want to play next time and how soon.  Jeshua?  Says that all deaths are suicide because we simply don’t have to die.  The fact that we are convinced we must makes it so.  That we can renew our entire body every day if we like.  But be careful to age a teeny bit or folks will get suspicious.  Heh.  And it is a matter of belief.  If we can believe, we can do it.  Our problem is that we don’t believe, not that we can’t believe.  He said that he released his body at the age of something over 600 years (after fleeing the resurrection  site and sailing to France.  He said he did resurrect but then he came back to continue living with his wife Mary.  He says France is where he and Mary knew me as a friend, that I also knew Mother Mary as a friend. Which might explain my very strong attachment to the Mary’s and why the pilgrimage to see Mary M in France was so powerful too.)

Think what you will but you weren’t there.  And it was an experience I will never forget. I went once a month for over two years because my first experience, and trust me I was a complete skeptic, blew my mind.  And what really struck me is that he’s very PAGAN, very Witchy.  Without the rituals. He says rituals are unnecessary.  He’s right.  We do it because we like it, not because they are necessary.

Atonement.  At One Ment.  There is no separation.  Everything is connected, everything is love. There is no judgment. It is ALL good.

The reason I don’t believe Chango and I do believe Jeshua? One is an earth based deity and the other is an ascended master. But the real reason? Chango’s statement is a fear based statement, it is a statement of judgment and it is an easy place for us humans to go and an easy concept for us to wrap our minds around. Jeshua’s statement? Is love based. And I would never have come up with that on my own. Which is part of why I do believe I was listening to an Ascended Master and why I think that it wasn’t an earth based teacher.  And I’m having the gravest of doubts about the path I’m walking with these folks at the moment.  I love them all so dearly, what I really wanted was to work with them specifically, not BTW or the like.  But I sure as hell don’t need to be walking with a punishing God. Been there, done THAT.  So I don’t even know what I’m going to do there.

On the drive home I remembered my all time favorite quote. It’s from Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love is not the answer. It is the ASSIGNMENT.

Judgment is easy, love is hard.  Choose love every time and you’ll never be disappointed.  It’s so hard for folks to see that letting them go is a loving act.  It hurts to let go and to be let go.  But it doesn’t mean it wasn’t done with love.

This morning I woke up thinking I need to change the name of the blog. What do I want it to be? I can’t use the old one because I might be findable. I don’t like Hiding in Plain Sight because it is not what I want to manifest. I’m working on it, it will change perhaps over the next few days. But it got me to thinking about the conversation of last night. Embrace Love Not Fear. Wait. That’s it. That’s the new name for the blog.

I have a 2pm appointment on Saturday to get my 50th birthday tattoo. I’ve been trying to figure out what I want it to be. I thought about making my tattoo be the blackberry bag (see the textiles pages). I thought about it being my sigil.  The sigil seemed wrong because I am having a crisis of religion at the moment. After last night I now know what it is going to be.

The Martin Luther King quote. With a little leaf right below it. Centered above my bicep where I have my other tattoo.

I’ve also been looking for a new piece of jewelry to mark my 50th year. I wanted a bracelet as I have a lot of earrings and rings. I also have a few silver bracelets which I wear every day.  I decided on the bracelet. So as I’m tossing some trash I see the newest Pyramid Collection catalog.  I think, hey, maybe it’s in there.  And there it is, a sterling mobius bracelet.  A symbol of eternity, a very ancient mathematical symbol.  But what did this sterling mobius bracelet say?

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not rejoice in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Well then. Guess that puppy is mine.  After searching around for a cheaper price, guess who won?  The Christians. 1-800-Christian.  *snorfle*  I got it for $15 less and free shipping.  What do you know about that.