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389: The Poet’s Symphony & The Dream You Be

| Aspergers Girls

The following are two selections. The first I scribed this morning in prayer, the second, last night before sleeping. Take as you wish and bring forth your own truth. Peace and abundance of ever-flowing love to you. xo In my heart ~ Sam

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The Poet’s Symphony

The room echoed in her favor, the mysteries revealed as the poet’s symphony set asunder…

You are a divine being, perfect in form and in every way. You were given all you need at the start, which is both the beginning and end without end. There is no way to deny this or defy this. You are. And in so being the All of All you shall recognize the All within All, and in this way readily accept the gifts bestowed upon thee.

There is no tethering to this goodness. You are this goodness. There is no finding this goodness; it is in you and without you; it is everywhere in which you look and every place in which you forget. There is no corner unturned, no place forgotten, no witness turned away; All this is as is, and nothing of the All shall change.

As change is inevitable in the place where illusion stands; change is unmovable where We watch from up high; in the desert valley or upon mountain peak, makes no pause, for as high as We reach, as low as We travel, destiny takes no true form that is available for the sightless to see. In this way upon high is where we stand, yet, without feet and without height, steadily waiting in a time of no wait.

To exaggerate would lesser something of no value and placate none but the mask of confusion; and so we wait in the concept of un-waiting, merging as one for the arrival of you. Our arms are but open and the confusion lifted in the elements of which we are made; neither here nor there, but before you and in between, behind the perception of perception, and dedicated to the unity of all.

There is no wrong between us and nothing to be righted, less you peer into the darkness and lather in the deception of naught and no doings; when you breathe us, you know us; when you don’t, you know us still, though your speech, through hands be blinded, in such a way that what moves is neither brought up from the ocean of the sea but rather blended with the mediated-perception of the whole within. In this way, as you communicate, you flow through the one to reach the other, yet, flow through entirely untouched by the means and way. Communication is thusly spurred but in the land of illusion and all is lost in the ways of the world.

For illusion cannot breathe in illusion, and the breather of such takes in no air of truth, only illusion forged through the pen of illusion, the quail feather dipped in the black ink of nevermore, unformed from the united Unity, and stainless it be. For what is made without the making, blended from the dust of dust, un-gathered and unformed, is truly the matter that which is naught, and emptiness that breeds further emptiness and leaves the one suffering more than rebuilt.

Here is where we differ in views, and where we stand back and watch the unfolding, as the dancers play out, say lay out the plans of their making, each by each, one by one, establishing a truth that embrace as justly so: theirs the light of the world; theirs the unlimited “newness” of finding; how truly we delight in these games of rebel and trickery, the very only one submerging the very only one in a mask of disdain and separation; for we recognize the undoing of nothing, the representation of nothing, and see that in the undoing of doing, you shall soon seek elsewhere. Whether this be in form of building or mosque, say the church with the seeking windows, or the God of the many wavering hands, makes but not a difference to the All Mighty. For all paths are His for the taking, be this He of he or she, or rather the imaginings of your mind.

For how can one make this God of makings rightfully his when in establishing a time of recognition he immediately without pause establishes a time of separation? Silliness indeed, to think in the thinking that a mere label leads to bountiful delight and merrymaking; when indeed, my servant child the emptiness abounds. To make me in form is to take me out of the light and twist me in a way the ego-representation, or unformed and un-unified you, deciphers a lie. Not a lie of heart or even of choosing, but a lie brought upon self for self-justification and inclusion. This is the whittler’s way of inclusion, for he whittles and whittles away at this substance of nothing, until nothing bleeds out something in a way that adds layers of confusion to what was to be readily unmasked in the making.

Here is to say that when traveling so close to this God or what form you have established as thy truth, that you are but an ant on the farmland crossing the manure, thinking the smell of clump is the smell of All; have you not passed the garden gate where the flowers grow, the peddlers stool where the weapon is surrendered, the hermit’s cave where the dwellings are marked with the sketches of days gone by; have you but been submerged in the only one of one, trapped in the waste of one creature, and able to see nothing beyond your own stench?

This is not to say that the season of your victory is far, as you are already the victorious one, but to turn you in the ways of you, in which you claim that which is so rightfully yours and thusly spawn that which is so rightfully wrong in others. In this way you so evenly divide your brothers and sisters and make them into something they are not and never were; something separate from your very self; can you not see that all the ways merge, much as the butterfly collected from the pollen procreates the infant turned with legs, the chrysalis born from the making of flight?

Has butterfly picked and chosen the flowers of his choosing, the reds as the greatest, the whites as the weakest? Or does he not fly above the sweetness and descend without choice and simply scope up the divine gift of treasure gold? Yes, he takes what is offered without persecution of the other growing spirits. For whom is butterfly to judge when the field he sees is neither selected or created, but given freely for his taking? Is this not a banquet set before his tethered eyes, and welcoming of grace so tender and sweet, that the very nectar of his tongue stimulates the continued growth. Does he not by bending to no bending and choosing no road, thusly continue in the cyclic cycle of giving; his beauty found beneath his wings as they glisten, the unity as whole. Is this not the patterned creature of your own awakening, how he harbors nothing for no one without thought or intention?

Be ye like the butter of flights, smooth and free in your goings, without intention to choose beyond the flowers of your limited making. For beyond you can not fly, to the chosen fields of buttercups and swollen goodness, and so you must choose what is isolated in the miniature scope made preference of your being. But in truth with the eyes of the patterned creature, set free, you shall peer into what grows beyond the scattered seeds blossomed; indeed peer beyond the soil in which truth grows, and straight, if straight it be, into the awakening of your own soul-seed, brought up from waters of clearness born.

We ask thee not to lay your waste down at our feet, this stench you collect for our collection, for the only gift we need is already brought onto us, the gift of chrysalis rebirthed and rebirthed again to butterfly. Collect thee not from the skies that bring you to the abandoned field picked dry by travelers past, choose thee the highest region where goodness abounds so readily that even the flowers themselves bow down in recognition of the one on high, the one whom like you has collected the nectar sweet; the one like you who has driven self into the depths of no-land, into the valley of naught, and in recollection alone, brought up the bitter-sweet of you.

For you, my lad, my maiden, are the richest bounty set out before the We, the last standing flower ready to beseech the making of the sun, bending to the maker for the treat of light alone; you know not why you bend, or how you bend, or where the light be formed, and as flower ripe none of this be necessary; only be as the flower and the flower-maker, and bend. And as you bend into me, we shall bend into We. For I am the light of the world, my darling flower, and you need not be the ant of no-man’s land trapped in the stench mistaken as goodness. You need only be the starlight captured in a dream of dream, flowing forward as the petals bending in submission; not of self, not of reason, but of knowing. Simply submit you know not and in this you know all. And in this We have whispered to you so, as you recollect in the dawning of the new day: “It was in her leaving, the actual coming of her going, the peace was found.”

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Butterfly food: “Butterflies can eat anything that can dissolve in water. They mostly feed on nectar from flowers but also eat tree sap, dung, pollen, or rotting fruit. They are attracted to sodium found in salt and sweat. This is why they sometimes even land on people in Butterfly Parks. Sodium as well as many other minerals is vital for the butterflies’ reproduction.” (Source http://www.whatdobutterflieseat.info/)

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The Dream You Be

There is a time between the here and now, a repetitive sequencing of events that present themselves as uniform but not unitary; be not in this stillness of naught when the time comes for the voices to reach you; instead spring from your bedchambers black and enter the light of new day; hear us as we hear you, in your ever whisper, so soft, so true. We are not the enemy and we are not the friend; We are We, and nothing can erase this triumphant victory.

When you are afraid take us close to your heart and whisper our name whatever We be; and this, this calling onto us, shall free the whispering heart. For when you weep, we weep solemnly. When you cry, we rescue, not through decreed or wondering deeds, but through the unity of spirit wherein We are you and you are We. Gather your tears not for us, but for the people you feed with your sorrow. In this way even the very pain of illusion becomes rain for the masses. Do not fear us anymore than you fear the very hand that feeds you; the doll strings that pull are none other than you, and We, as Master perceived, stand back and watch the marionette of this self-inflicted staging.

There is no mystery in us that is not thusly within you. For you are the gatekeeper, keeping watch with the hindsight of angels past; there is nothing to fear, for there is no fear, and in seeing this you are ultimately free. To know this is to be given the key to every kingdom beyond the door of blindness.

Seek thee not in the forest of gloom, nor so escape into the wilderness of naught forgetting your humble servant pride (ego), for he waits as the man on hind foot, readily as the steed to break through the mask of circumstance and remind you rightfully so of the path you so evenly cleared. He stands less servant than maker of guise, his hands out stretched in plentitude, his offerings of reward daintily presented, as if some serpent-slayer had beaten the monster down and won the battle clear.

No this is not you, or your shadow, or your future namesake; you be not this ghost in the night who wears warrior suit of righteousness. You are no less him than we. And yet, you run, scamper like that frightened rabbit at the sight of his whisper, the very ghost himself stifling your chiseled heart. Do not fear that which does not stand and has no stance, which cannot ride, and has no reign, less you afford him gain. There is no fortune in his invisible bounty, nothing hidden in his sac of charms. He conspires against you at will, presenting the merchandise of falsehood and draping your very name in bigotry; be oh he wise man of bitter times that blanketed the demon warrior with his hides of shame, the ruthless one rooted in the desert screams of mighty fortitude.

You aren’t he; nor shall you ever diminish in spirit. From here, all is written, and only tumbling fools shall fall. Give not to this destitute fool called pride; he hears you not, but still comes. He knows you not, but still rides. Forward in a gallop so rich in its emptiness that even you have forgotten the game he shapes with wicked ways. There is none that can reach you now through sting alone. Nothing so bright as thee will be shut out by such wicked lies. And still you run into the forest of night, seeking refuge as the one blinded in the land of doom, thinking wrongfully in your ways, perchance frozen in the very thought of true.

Can you not see the dance around you, the white beauty of desire’s skirt circling and beaming into the ever-moving stream of thee? Can you not see such perfection sketched out on the Tablets of Master, written once over and twice presented to the very veins of living stone? How could one such as you, when clung to father as sapling to the spring, not drink and know your very own light and calling? Is this not the voice that sang you lullaby sweet as tender love, dressed in the garb of angel white? Is this not the very wind through your window that opened the night of your vigorous awakening—the tinkering of the consciousness that ricochets through the echoing chambers of evaporated thought and brings up fruit for the taking?

How can thee of little faith be so endearingly blinded by the very light of thee? How can you not burn in your own making, the taking of the light into the beauty of fullness, forever vanquished by your glory; forever moved by your giving. Take no more from the bleakness of the bitter lies. Take the makings of me, the land between the sky and heaven’s blue, and dance here in the sanctuary of space. Dance here where I last made you lay and drink in the gratitude of the sunlight. Sink your weary soul into me tender starlight; leap into my unbreakable arms, and I shall beseech you know more, just carry thee gently back to the making of the one, the breaking of the We, and show you again and again the dream you be.

388: Keepers of the Light

| Aspergers Girls

I invite you to listen to this song first.

I started singing You Light Up My Life, around the age of eleven. I think it was the only song I wrote down the lyrics to and memorized. That, and Away in a Manger. I used to sing songs at the tippy-top of my lungs, squeaking and squealing to anyone that would listen, including my downstairs duplex-landlords, who sometimes brought me indoors for cookies. I could tell when I sang, by looking in the observers’ eyes, that people didn’t think I sang super well or close to on key. I could tell they thought I was a lonely child searching for attention. I could tell that they were smiling in an attempt to help me feel accepted. But I couldn’t say all that. I didn’t think to say it. I didn’t know that everyone else, or most everyone else, didn’t think like me. I figured we all knew what was being unspoken. That we all just pretended we didn’t.

When I sang my heart out, I slipped into a fantasy world. I leaped across time and stood on stage. I imagined refuge in a bountiful light. I imagined being lifted and protected and seen. The song itself didn’t free me; nor did the audience observing. What freed me was the freedom I was—the capacity to be me. What trapped me was the realization that all about me others weren’t free.

There was a time where people approached me for my light. They were drawn to me. Something about me pulled them in. I know now it was and has always been Spirit. Then I did not know, and I didn’t wonder; I thought everyone had this; I thought everyone heard God and could see through people.

I remember going to the church around the corner, a Catholic cathedral where I never once attended mass. I was drawn there, at times, the little girl I was, with her un-brushed hair and with her big searching eyes. I would swing on the monkey bars in the church playground over and over, until my hands blistered. Then, if I hadn’t already entered, I’d walk quietly into the empty church and just breathe. I felt safe there. I felt connection. But I didn’t know why. The candles, the light of the candles, they spoke to me, as did the colors of the glass windows and the movement of sunlight through the grand space. I wasn’t frightened. I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t anywhere. I just was. Sometimes time stopped and I traveled into the future where I would walk in as full-grown woman and be, with the others, I would be.

I wasn’t a religious child. I wasn’t even spiritual. I was magical. I believed in magic everywhere. I believed everything, each and everything. I believed in everyone around me. And I loved everyone. I trusted them. I gave myself freely: my attention, my time, my love. I had an over-flowing abundance of love. And I was me. There wasn’t anything about me that I had created. I radiated from within.

Something about me, or perhaps something within me, gave me the incapacity to be anyone but me. This gift of being authentic was beautiful. But because I trusted and believed others so greatly and so freely, when they told me what they thought, I believed them. Because if they were beautiful and I loved them and they were perfect, then they must know, they must have the answers.

I believed when they, the others, told me that I was just a child and didn’t know things. I believed them when they said life was hard. I believed them when they cried and cursed what was wrong and unjust. I believed it all. And I began to see that I lived in a world entirely complex in its simplicity. I began to see that I held all the secrets of love and joy, but that none could see them. I knew how to laugh and how to make other people laugh; and I did so without intention or want; I just was joy.

Then came the passing of days, when I learned my joy was not enough. When I learned that my heart, no matter how big, could not make a difference—at least I thought. Soon as my friends grew older, they changed. Their views became more broken and fragmented, their opinions stronger, their hatred taking shape. Divisions were made, as I watched, fingers pointed, sometimes at me, but mostly at others. And everyone started playing this part that didn’t make any sense; except that their ways kept people, for the most part, in an imaginary role of control.

I began to see that love was divided and measured. I began to see that love came and went, as did people. I learned that love didn’t mean love; what some called love actually meant conditions and fleeting moments of spiked emotions of some sort that didn’t feel or look like love at all. I learned that whatever shape I took, I could receive part of this love, that wasn’t love. But since I couldn’t find the other love anymore, the one I held in the backyard during slumber parties and collected, as the others laughed with me, without cause or pause for judgment; since I couldn’t find that love anymore, I took what I could. It never felt right. It felt false from the start. It was false love created by my want for connection and the growing emptiness I had inside.

My actions seemed to define me. I seemed to become who people thought I was. It didn’t matter how much goodness I had inside me; no one could see it, unless they chose to. No one. And when they did think to see the goodness, it was because I emulated them; I showed them a part of themselves they liked, or wished to like. I showed a commonality or I complimented them by my presence or in my spoken words. I collected false-love this way: pretending to be who they wanted me to be in an attempt to connect. To say I played, would be false, as there was no joy in this. To say I fought, would be false, as there was no friction. It was a space and place that I am incapable of defining or marking. For how can I define a place in which everything was false—the only thing real my want to fill the emptiness of falsehood?

This falsehood permeated much of my life, far into adulthood. A falsehood that eventually blinded me as well, to my own inner light. I had to snuff my light to continue to exist. I was given no choice.

I had to extinguish who I was, if I ever wanted hope of connecting. At least this is what I conditioned myself to think. I learned to track the actions of another to determine my next move. I could tell from every flinch, every switch of voice, every motion. Responses were my indicators. Reactions my compass. I stopped feeling inside my own body. I became numb to my needs; everything was masked in my effort to predetermine how to respond to the responders. For I could see in their eyes the judgment, the dislike, the wondering. I could see so much that they wouldn’t ever say. Particularly their thoughts about me, or about the way they perceived me. I knew they thought what they dare not say. I knew there were all these connections going on just in seeing me. I was being categorized and dissected and figured out. It’s not that I thought I was that important, it was that I thought they were. I think all along I knew they were a reflection of me or at least a mirror to my own experiences. I knew we were one and the same, but didn’t know how to define the feeling. And so I would watch, until I laughed and joked, trying to squeeze the joy out of someone whom had seemed to forgotten where he or she put it.

Mine, my joy, was always there, right in me, never gone. Even with all the poured in sorrow, I had this joy. It was always growing and blooming. There was always hope. It seemed no matter how much the others responded in a way that carried the potentiality to sting like thorns, that I still kept my hope. There was this unstoppable faith. Something in that song about the light through the window, about the light itself; I knew this. I saw the light n my dreams and I heard light in the whispers. I knew my destiny. I knew my calling. But this too, I was often told was wrong. I was made in form divinely perfect, but undoubtedly I frightened people. And this brought me to a place of confusion, so very great, I dare not venture there even in thoughts and rememberings.

For how could I, one held by the angels and light, have been so terribly flawed? And why did all around me seem to be such blindness? I searched and searched as a child—in the trees, under the school buses, in the grassy fields—for reprieve. I slipped into my imagination. I hid in the shrubbery and shadows documenting my own thoughts. And I came to the conclusion I was someone made wrong; though even this, deep down I knew to be untrue.

In time, I learned to conform. I learned to tuck away the voice of truth and the rays of light. For I believed the misery of disconnection to be far worse than hiding my light. And so I hid, for a very long time. And though I was a keeper of the light, it dimmed.

And here the dark found me. So very freely, as if beckoned by the very ache of my soul. I walked forsaken to my self for decades. I learned, through my mind, to hear the lies before the truth. I heard the negative talk, and I collected this, for if I did not believe them, I could not be with them, and then I would have to be alone. In order to connect, I had to believe what others said about me. If I believed in my light and my angels, and in my very soul, than I would be without the company of humans. I would only have the invisibility of my hope and joy—and alone whom would I share anything with?

Eventually, the lies became my truth. My whole truth. I was what others created me to be. And then a shift happened, in which they were what I created them to be. I began to see like other people. I began to believe the lies. I began to think that yes, only my point of view counted. That yes, I am in control of my world. And yes, I am the most important and special. I began to be a love-leech collecting falsehoods. Love, love, love ME! I demanded. Love me through validation. Love me through listening. Love me through answering back how I expect and want you to respond. Outcomes became my life. Hope became my misery. I latched onto the yellow brick road of illusion. I thought, if I was just good enough, and right enough, and had all the answers I would WIN! I would be LOVED! This is what I was taught. This is what was walloped into me. This is what I ATE because nothing else was offered.

Until the pain of emptiness became so great that I knew I was wrong. I knew that life was not meant to be like this. I knew somewhere inside my little girl protecting the light was dying to come out.

For me this has been my greatest gift: my affliction.

My very agonizing pain was what set me free. The very discomfort that kept shouting within of the falsehood was my greatest joy. I was given a lantern since birth. And I walked four-decades pretending I was not, in hopes of gaining false love.

And now, as I step back, very much the little girl I was, with my lantern bright, I see I kept this light hidden for a purpose. I suffered for a reason. I suffered because everyone else was suffering. I didn’t retreat because I was so different after all. I just retreated a bit later along my path. I just retreated knowing I was retreating. There wasn’t anything different about me, except I was born awake. I was born with the affliction that is both my teacher and my cross to bear. I was gifted the wisdom at a young age, and through this affliction I was formed and made, through this affliction my lantern was fueled. I see this clearly, more clearly each moment I am here.

I see that we each have these lanterns, and that for some of us it hurts more to hide them. But we all have them. For some of us we know we are hiding them: this is the affliction.

I see now that I am struggling to turn up the lanterns of all, when all I need do is turn on my own.

In so many ways, in every way, I am that little girl, with her joy, with her lantern strong, standing on the hillside and beckoning my friends onward. Only this time I can see. I can truly see. I know now my once perceived greatest weakness is my greatest comforter. I know my need to be love, my need to shine, my need to be free is the only need I ever choose. I know that in my affliction I am made whole. I know that in my wholeness I honor each and every soul. For in the embracing of what has always been and shall ever be, I have embraced the world. I have embraced the light.

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Related Post: Behind the Curtain

383: Too Me

| Aspergers Girls

Too ME

My husband said, “God was telling you right away at the door to the building. At that point you could have said, ‘You know, this isn’t the place for me.’”

I think he was right.

Last night, I stood back observing myself in the mini-van, ironically right along the same place on the road I’d earlier been laughing in rapture, and watched myself reach the depths of sorrow. I wasn’t depressed in the slightest, I was hollowed out by pain and left aching from within: the place of emptiness which was once my beating heart. I’d been cleaned up, shook up, messed up, and restocked, all of me screaming for retreat. Sadness doesn’t give what I experience justice, not even close. It was a deep affliction in which I was sobbing uncontrollably, and felt entirely at the mercy of my God.

I stopped mostly by the time I got home; I tried to gather myself. I prayed and I asked for guidance; and just then, as I was about to leave the van and exit to the dark outdoors, I spied this oversized animal. Something very wide and very dark; he (or she) was approaching the van. Straight at me, like an arrow. I soon figured out it was a raccoon that we think has built a nest in our tree. It was the first time ever since we’ve lived here that I have spotted him on our property. He just happened to wobble along in plain sight, right as I asked for a sign. Just like my God to send me an over-sized raccoon. He came straight to my van, straight to my door, and then dove underneath. Chicken me, (raccoons eat chickens), I dialed my husband, whom was a mere hop and skip away, upstairs in the house. As who knew if the beast, as cute as he be, was lurking beneath the van waiting to attack.

Bob came down and sat in the van, and he watched and listened as I wept. My youngest, bless his empathetic heart, flashed a note from the upstairs window that read, “Are you Okay?” I gave him the thumbs up. My middle guy, with ASD, he flashed a flashlight, overly concerned about spying a nocturnal raccoon, and having no interest in me whatsoever.

Luckily, I had listened to my angels, because about twenty minutes into my weeping in the driveway to Bob, about the time my youngest held up a new sign, in the same read marker that read: “Hurry up, I’m bored,” I needed that roll of toilet paper to scrub-dry my tear-ridden face. Eariler in the morning, I’d heard distinctly at 7:30 a.m. (in my own interior voice) to take the roll of toilet paper to the van. You’ll need it later today, the voice had warned. I figured my angels were speaking about food spillage or bloody-nose incidents from the boys; little did I know that they knew I would be a blubbering mess. Indeed.

In concerns regarding the symbolism of the raccoon, I think it reflects my desire to accept what is and to adapt to what is happening in my life. Also, I think it is a direct reflection to the way I interpret people donning various masks of protection, and my inability to understand what they are protecting themselves from. I like how the raccoon came straight for me, right out of the dark, appearing in my line of exit; for I could not take another step, literally, until I confronted this masked creature. I think his arrival enabled me to have a private talk in the van that wouldn’t had occurred otherwise. And I think, too, he came to pull me out of the sorrow momentarily and re-center me back on the straight path.

I explained to Bob in the privacy of the van that I was so completely confused by most of mankind’s behavior. And that I felt alone and isolated.

We continued the conversation the next day, which was this afternoon. I have combined the experience into one clump, (because it would bore me to go back and weed out the separate elements of the discussions at this point).

Basically, several things happened:

1. I was reminded of how frequently people judge and categorize other people
2. I was reminded of how differently I tend to think than the “average” person
3. I was reminded of how much I pick up on others’ energies and emotions
4. I was reminded of how much I still long to belong and be seen
5. I was reminded that most people seem more unaware of self than me
6. I was reminded that just because someone says they adhere to certain principles doesn’t mean he or she does
7. I was reminded that people lump collective thoughts into a theory and then generalize about a set of people
8. I was reminded of dogma

I felt a lot of things I’d rather not list, as to me it seems unkind.

My husband took some time (and more time…and some more time) to explain this NT behavior. (Neurotypical; aka, what I use and other people sometimes use instead of “normal,” as no one is normal. In other words “typical-brain” as is accepted by modern day standards; in other words: NOT MY BRAIN.)

He was quite good actually, in his description. (Ladies, shall we pause briefly, and clap at once, as I tell you that I trained my man well.) He gave this great analogy. I could see it all in my head. He said that he believes most NTs, himself included, walk around in these bubbled layers of walls. There are several, at least three. (News to me.) And that when they first meet their bubbles kind of touch each other, and that this is their ‘line of defense.’ They (some of the NTs) like to bump and met several times before letting down the first wall. Therefor they talk about things (boring, surface-level stuff) that isn’t personal or doesn’t seem risky at all (safe, boring, surface-level stuff). They do this to make sure the person is safe, not a threat, not someone to fear, or someone who is after them. Also to see if they share common interests and viewpoints.

By this point, I have interrupted my husband several times and drifted in and out of my imagination, as the bubbles were fun to picture, and my husband is very used to me “interjecting.” Here are some of the things I asked:

1. Why?
2. What do you talk about?
3. Isn’t it boring?
4. What is in the last bubble?
5. What are people hiding?
6. What are people afraid of?

Answers, from my bubble NT husband:

1. We have been trained not to trust. Think of all the messages you hear. For example: “You let him into your house? You told him what? You let him do what? You gave him money? He is just going to buy drugs with it…People basically don’t trust other people.
2. I don’t know. Basic stuff.
3. No; I think we enjoy it.
4. Probably our deepest self that we think is unworthy; fear. (Let’s pause and clap for the extreme inner awareness my husband expressed about himself, seeing he was formally living in a mostly NT world and acting like a Vulcan.)
5. Their deep dark secrets.
6. Being found out. Being hurt, basically fear.

I kept saying, for quite a long while: “But what are you afraid of? What is there to fear?” We went round and round for quite a bit, and it came down to that most humans have an innate distrust for other humans and most humans think at a core level they are inadequate, and some people do things they think are terrible and could never share, or have had things done to them that they feel ashamed about. And there was some discussion about the “dark side” that people hide.

I couldn’t understand what the dark side was, and what people were hiding, and why they were hiding it. I tried. I asked, “What is my dark side?” My husband said, “I haven’t found one yet, and I hope I never do.”

That seemed silly to me; really. I don’t hide anything and have no places of hiding and no bubbles, so there isn’t any place the dark side can live.

But the other stuff, it started to make sense. Soon I asked: “Well then, if there are two different types of people, some that are honest, don’t manipulate, don’t hold back, don’t have these bubbles, but are trusting and loving and completely open, and try to see the best in others, and there is another group who lies, manipulates and plays games to protect an inner fear that stems from someplace about something they are unsure about, then it makes more sense to me that the group that lie and are in fear try to adapt and be more like the ones that trust and are open, instead of reverse, don’t you think?”

This is when we can really cheer for my husband, for having lived with the sincere challenges I sometimes offer out in a relationship, he had the honesty and sweetness to say: “That’s why I think at times that ASD is a new race of people come to help the world.” Then he chuckled, and added he’d been watching too much sci-fi. I took this as an NT immediately putting up a bubble, and I understood.

During the conversation today, I was able to process some of the events that had me gasping for breath as I cried in the van the night before. I asked Bob, “Then why when I am authentic and true and real, and entirely me, do I scare people?”

Bob responded, with several well-fitting answers, all of which made sense, but still baffled me.

1. People don’t trust people; so when you are honest, kind, and sweet, they question your interior motive, your genuineness, and your truthfulness. (aka FEAR)
2. People don’t feel comfortable having someone spill out their whole self all at once; it is too much and overwhelming. They don’t know how to respond, what to say, or why you are that way. (aka FEAR)
3. People are confronted with their own inability to not be authentic and real, and this reminds them of their own secrets and feelings of unworthiness and lack of confidence at the center. (aka FEAR)
4. People are thinking you are in your first bubble, the one on the farthest outside layer; and if you are, then they wonder what you are hiding; for surely there must be all these layers you are hiding; and if you are hiding then why are you faking authenticity. (aka FEAR)

This saddened me and intrigued me, all at once. So, I said, “Some Aspies love the company of other Aspies as we are real, and some NTs like the company of other NTs because they are “pretending” instead of being completely real, at first.”

Bob explained that many NTs like to spend a lot of time together until they trust; they build trust; and he noted that I don’t need to do that, I love instantly, share instantly, and trust instantly. I didn’t understand the need to build up trust.

This brought me back to where I was last night, at a local church event, and explained one thing for certain. One of the speakers, a well-spoken women of faith, who was trying hard to do her best, she explained that intimacy with God takes time, just like our everyday relationships; that we share are deepest secrets with people we’ve known a long time, not just a few days; and that in this way one must spend a long time with God to build intimacy. I found this entirely wrong for me; and stopped myself from saying so, as I stopped myself most of the night from speaking up; because me and my higher power don’t need time to build a relationship. I trust Him; I always have. And I don’t need time with my friends to build trust; I trust in reverse to the NT way, I suppose. I give the benefit of the doubt ahead of time. God gets that, too, from me. And He is good with that.

At this point, as I am reflecting, I am thinking there really needs to be a church for Aspies. Seriously. Because so much of what the lady said didn’t ring true for me. I wanted to add a few things to her speech that she forgot to mention. In regards to intimacy with God she suggested we need to trust, to feel worthy and slow down. First of all, many people feel unworthy in the light of God and that is okay, it keeps one humble. (My little opinion at this moment that I am not attached to.) In addition, there is a lot more to having a close relationship with God (or a person’s higher power). For instance, somethings that might help, include:

1. Humility. Above all humility. This requires the release of self-righteousness, pride, and piety…all things that people who cling to a dogma have.
2. The ability to bring up all of the stuff to someone other than God. My greatest freedom has been in risking and being all of who I am. I have nothing in my closet. Giving it to God and whispering secrets is not enough, in my opinion. Because there are still secrets. There is still fear.
3. Releasing fear (Including fear of other people)
4. Release of judgment. (Walk the talk…that’s all I’m saying.)

These are my truths. They make sense to me under the umbrella of what this church holds as Truth. Under another umbrella there exists other variables. They might not be my truths in an hour or in a week.

I began to see that the discomfort I felt at this place was so multi-faceted. It was a combination of my isolation based on:

1. My high-intelligence and capacity to study and analyze things, like the gospels that were hidden and buried by the church, the way truths are altered and suppressed to make persons of authority gain power, and so on.

2. My high-capacity to interpret the outcome of attachment; for example it is impossible not to judge if one is adhering to one narrow viewpoint, aka dogma.

3. My ability to see past the bubbles to the core, to not judge, but to discern what is there. For example, I don’t judge Fred my cedar tree, I observe him. I might say he is very tall, one branch needs trimming, and there is a small amount of ivy growing at the base of his trunk—better pluck that soon. This is not judging Fred, and that is kind of how I see people.

4. My ability to be bubble-free and completely me. This really rubs people the wrong way. I become like a bubble popper, and people just don’t like me for that.

5. My capacity to speak my truth from a heart of love without need, want or intention. A lot of people don’t get this.

6. My ability to have a very close connection to my higher power. Many people, if not all, at this gathering I was attending were struggling to reach and talk to God. I am struggling to find a way to turn the channel off or at least adjust the volume down.

I sat through an entire talk about how to get close to God, when I already am, using techniques for an NT, which I already ain’t, from a woman whom I discerned needed a few branches trimmed. I wanted to see Jesus on the stage. I wanted to see.

1. Extreme Vulnerability
2. Exposure expressed in humility
3. Unconditional Love
4. No judgment
5. No assumptions
6. Acceptance

I wanted to see outside of the bubbles. I wanted to be taught by a bubble-free person. I wanted to be surrounded by people who got me and saw me and wanted to see me; people who weren’t scared of me because I choose to not live in fear.

I am not trying to draw lines. Some of my best friends are NTs, (sounds silly, but is the truth), and they have many wonderful qualities and are very authentic and real and loving. It just seems like a large majority of people aren’t so real and I am living in a world with people who are pretending. I don’t think it bothered me to an extreme until last night. Until I went to a “House of God” and thought I would find the unconditional Love of the Light. Why? Because I am trusting. Why? Because I choose to look for the good. Why? Because A House Of God ought be a House of Love.

I don’t think I am disappointed. I think I feel poisoned and confused, and downtrodden. My angels have told me that like the gnostic gospels say, that the Light is within, and the temple of God can be found within. I get this. But man has told me to go to church for companionship, connection, and to be in the family of the Lord. Only they don’t feel like companions to me. I feel more at home in a petting farm or on a nature trail: animals and trees don’t lie, don’t pretend, and don’t judge me. Where am I supposed to go for God companionship, beyond self, when the community at large that gathers doesn’t want to see me or hear what I have to offer?

I scare people. That’s all there is to it.

My light is scary. And that’s why I cried. Not so much from the first sign, from the woman at the door who greeted me by looking me over and saying, “Oh, you must not be from here.” (I was dressed too nicely, for the locals I suppose.) I had answered, politely with humor, “What do you base that judgment on?” and she in return blushed and apologized. I might have known I was entering a house of judgment. What got me wasn’t the first sign, but the last sting of the night. When I approached a woman I was drawn to, because she was an authority of the church. When I confided in her she did none of what I would consider comforting.

As I was talking, with tears streaming down my face, of the great love I had for God and how I walked in peace and did not want to do anything but serve: She judged me. She warned me. She told me I was hearing the dark. She told me not to study the saints. She told me the best thing I could do was to meet with other women of faith and make connections. She was defensive. Did not trust me, and kept countering my experiences. She warped what I said and twisted my truth.

I had been searching for a woman of strong faith to guide me through this huge connection to God I have been feeling. I was asking her for guidance, for love, for comfort. I was asking to be seen, to be held, to be known. And instead I was treated like the bubble popper I am: Too real, too much, too me.

*****

I am not meaning to lump all people into NT or non-Nt…. I don’t even think these lables exist..Just trying to make sense of my world and how I walk in it. No one created sect. is better or worse than another. 🙂 I know this.

“I am having a hard time connecting at a personal level with people who claim to love and embrace a certain spiritual practice but judge, act pious, fear, and accuse. I get very confused and start to weep. I do not understand how people can be blinded to their own ways of separation and I feel saddened for all the souls that are affected by their accusations and what seems to be suffocated hearts. I don’t know how to respond, and so I step back in observation, and wish that they could see their true beauty, and therefor open their arms to my authenticity and love. I feel a stranger walking into a room, entirely unraveled and undone by another, before I’ve spoken, and then in speaking, entirely judged, jarred, and classified, put on a shelf with a label before they have tasted my sweetness. I thought this would change as I grew older, and others around me did too, that others would “see” me and “understand” me, and possibly accept me. The aftermath, for me, is this intense yearning for interpersonal connection, intimacy, and belonging. The worst of it being the doubt of my own being, and the knowing that I have the capacity to judge and categorize those around me. And then I wonder if what I am feeling is indeed their suffering and singled-out isolation so evident in their withdrawing from authenticity, or if I truly be the wickedest, cruelest judge of all; and so I weep again; unburdening myself from my own miserly thoughts, and waiting and waiting to be seen.” ~ Sam (Everyday Aspergers)