Wisdom From "The Divorced Dad"

 My final child support payment cleared the bank, and a “divorced dad” chapter that has spanned 23 years has come to a close.

Another chapter of “splitting time between California and Florida” that has been going on for the better part of three years now is also rapidly coming to an end.  Within the next 18 months, the move will be permanent.

Both of these transitions felt “way out there” until they were right up in front of me. And both offer their own opportunities for wisdom.

The very long “divorced dad paying child support” chapter was one where the lessons evolved as my inner truth emerged.  I spent a long time in a reactive state – some form of fear/accommodation/stress/frustration/anger pattern went on for years.  Those are all reactions coming from a place of weakness and lack of clarity about my inner truth.

Over time, I went through various stories – the “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger” story.  This isn’t true.  Reacting in the same way to multiple negative events does not build strength, it just reinforces unhelpful patterns.

Fortunately I didn’t spend much time in “woe is me” or “I’m a victim” patterns, these are quicksand for the psyche and very hard to extract from.  One of my exes is still in victim status from an ordeal that happened over 26 years ago – all it did was invite more experiences in her life where she was the victim.  Who wants that kind of life?

I also didn’t get trapped in rage, though I spent far too much time in anger patterns at it was.  Very corrosive patterns that I would describe as similar to what I’d imagine stimulant addiction feels like.  The angry energy becomes a baseline and not having that energy feels like depression.  But then when a situation would actually call for me to stand up and fight, my system would be too exhausted from the pattern to put “good anger” to use.  Anger is a tool best used sparingly.  One should not avoid it or be afraid of it, but treat it as an ally to be used only on rare occasions when that energy is called for.

But just because I didn’t wallow in the “really bad places” doesn’t mean I had it figured out.  I was still allowing myself to be run by patterns that were not serving me.  Just because I found patterns that were comparatively better doesn’t mean I was much better off.  Ultimately we were still crabs in the bucket and, if nothing changed, we were cooked.

Ultimately, when I released those patterns and could see clearly, I came to realize my situation was neither good nor bad.  There was nothing inherent about my situation, it just was.  Getting to that point where I could simply accept “this is my life” was a significant turning point.  At that point, I stopped blaming, judging or getting upset or disappointed because things weren’t some way I imagined they should be.  I could look clearly at my life and simply accept “this is my life.”

Acceptance doesn’t mean collapsing into resignation and defeat.  It just means you’re no longer entertaining delusions, expectations or fantasies and looking at the world the way it is.  This is my life.  That takes some inner work, courage and wisdom to fully recognize and accept.

From there, the real challenge begins.  This is my life, and I genuinely don’t like a lot of things in it.  What is it that fuels that dislike? Is it external preferences and judgment or inner truth?

Well, if inner truth isn’t clear, that’s going to be a very difficult question to answer. If, however, inner truth is clear, the question answers itself and then it’s a matter of aligning with what is true and accepting this reality.

Finding that inner truth, that “Teal Flame,” this has been the real work.  It is the foundation on which all authentic architecture stands.  You cannot truly build a sovereign life without it, instead you’re at the mercy and whim of external realities.  Everything feels “not quite right” (or badly off course), and yet you have no means to correct course.

I can honestly say the challenges I experienced as “divorced dad” provided much of the incentive to discover and hone my inner truth.  The pain of feeling out of alignment and having “nothing work” was a strong motivator to get in and do the real cleansing and healing.

And that journey has taken on many aspects.  Much of this has been shared here, although the story of that journey goes much further back.  Along the way I learned many things and had all kinds of breakthroughs with either directly or (mostly) indirectly led me closer to finding that inner truth.

Once that inner truth, that Teal Flame, that Kaelen’Zur, began emerging, the truth about my life also came into focus.  The experiences in my past were never good nor bad, they were either in alignment or (more often) out of alignment.  An entire marriage that made no sense from any perspective suddenly makes sense from this perspective. 

And it also explains the seemingly sudden and complete end – my unconscious realignments have been strong, sudden and unrelenting.  And also concerning – why do these “returns to center” have to be so abrupt?  And what about all the time spent out of alignment?  Couldn’t there be a better way?  But without that foundation, this was the pattern:  wander, course correct; wander again, course correct again.

And for a while I could accept this imperfect pattern as “my way of being.”  But it’s not an easy way to life, and an even harder way for those around me to live.  It’s a lot of suffering for small wins in life.

My spiritual journey mirrored this pattern until more recently things came into awareness and major fundamental shifts began taking place.  Whole aspects burned away, revealing the strong, unrelenting, simple truth that was there all along – the Teal Flame.  And from there, the “good things” from other modalities could be brought into the new, sovereign architecture, no longer “backsliding,” but moving forward.

And that’s the point when “divorced dad” died (or the fake story, anyhow, since I’m still here).  That was always a story, a holding place for the real story.  Which is in fact no story at all.  There is no moral to the story, and there is no story.  It is my life and my truth.  That’s it.  And a process of aligning with that truth and staying on course. 

And that is “fatherly wisdom” that can be taught.  That is wisdom from experience that is worth keeping, worth refining, worth exploring and worth sharing.  It isn’t a story or a reaction or a “life lesson.”  It is a process and a truth, a consciousness and awareness that can exist and does in every one of us, though most of us are too clouded or distracted to be aware.  But we can learn to become aware.  And it can be taught.

And that’s something far more valuable than all the child support payments combined.  Though I still won’t miss them.

Religion As a Mirror: Are People Inherently Good?

 

Why are atheists passionate about their non-religion?  I mean, if you truly believe in nothing, wouldn’t the appropriate action and emotion be, well, nothing? Why would you bring energy into nothingness?  That makes no sense.  True atheism would be spiritual disinterest with no energy expended whatsoever.

So what causes people to be passionate about nothingness? (And I’m not talking about the Buddhist nothingness, that’s different and does have a religious context.)

I have a working theory, which is that these atheists actually do believe in God, but are so terrified at the thought of their own unworthiness that they violently reject God to protect themselves from the pain of their on spiritual unworthiness.

“If I don’t believe in Hell, then I can’t be sent there.”  But if you don’t believe in hell, then that entire sentence makes no sense. 

Religion, when applied faithfully, serves as a mirror – you see yourself and all your good and bad aspects.  People who reject religion aren’t rejecting the mirror, they’re rejecting the reflection because they can’t deal with the reality of their own imperfections.

This brings me to a fundamental philosophical question:  Are people basically good?

A lot of people, especially people in various forms of “love and light” spiritual bypass will say, yes, people are basically good and “turn evil” through corruption, etc.

But if one removes this distortion and answers the question honestly, the answer is much more troubling.  Throughout human history, people have not been basically good.  In fact, most people are pretty fucked up.  That’s not to say they’re “bad,” but they’re not inclined to goodness.

Thus the mirror test.  Some people look at the mirror with rose-colored glasses and say “I’m all good, even the bad parts are good, isn’t this wonderful?”  Well, no, it isn’t.  Humans are selfish.  They kill.  They fight.  They hurt each other.  They’re lazy.  They’re corrupt.  Outside forces didn’t corrupt people, people themselves did that.

It’s hard-wired into our brains to kill, to steal, to rape, to lie, to hurt.  Our primitive brains tell us we need to do these things to survive and pass on our genes.  The fantasy that people long ago were good people is 100% false.  People long ago were literal savages and did horrible things to others without any second thought.  They had no mirror.  They had no angel on their shoulder.  They were fucked up people doing fucked up things.

And the worst part? Every one of us walking the earth is a genetic byproduct of those fucked-up people.  Nobody on earth comes from a pure, good lineage. We all come from savages.

And when you take off the glasses and realize you’re as fucked up as “those other” bad people, or at least on the same spectrum, and that is in fact the human lineage, it can be jarring.

No, we are not all divine light.  We’re mostly fucked up people from fucked up lineages.  And that fucked-up-ness is literally the reason we are here.

Some people look at that and see hopelessness.  We’re all doomed.  Therefore there cannot possibly be a god, because that would mean God would condemn his entire creation and what would be the point of that?   If we’re products of the universe then the universe must also be fucked up and it’s all for nothing.

Some look at this reality and deny it.  No, no.  Everyone is good, we just need to “integrate our shadow” and recognize the divine light in every other person.  All is one. 

Different justification, same result:  nothing changes.

Religion, when applied properly, holds up the mirror, shows us the evil inside, allows us to identify it as evil and reject it, and serves a path toward eradicating that evil and building a good life.

Now, here some would say, well, we’ll never get this.  Only a small fraction of people on Earth are even mostly good.  Another small fraction are mostly evil.  And the huge majority are in this broad spectrum of “fucked-up-ness” and every time we make an effort to get better, we just fall right off or find some other avenue to vent our evil.

The promise of religion isn’t that you’ll achieve perfection on your own, but that you learn to identify good and evil and set your thoughts and actions more and more toward good.  You’re not perfect, but you seek betterment, not to gain something but to actually become a good person.

That in itself is an act of goodness.

God does not promise us perfection in this lifetime.  God does not promise us that if we go to church or follow his rules that everything will work out just fine.  In fact, all religions “promise” that the world around us is fucked up and there’s no getting around that because it’s literally in our DNA.  What God does promise is we don’t have to resign ourselves to this fate.  We can turn our gaze toward good and move – however imperfectly – toward the good.

Trying to bridge the gap through the “most people are good” delusion ignores the truth and denies the work.  Collapsing into denial is also a lie – it’s saying your DNA is more powerful than God. Which is nonsense.  It’s not easy.  It may feel hopeless at times.  You will fail far more often than you succeed.  But none of that overcomes the truth that goodness does exist and is available to us, no matter how fucked up our reflection in the mirror is.

At this point people will argue that this is exactly the language bad people use to control others.  And that’s true, it is.  Bad people are drawn to power, and especially religious power, because this is the ultimate means of control.  So yes, a lot of organized religion is corrupted and run by bad people.  Not most, certainly not all, but “the devil quotes scripture” in all its forms.

So critics point to bad people who misuse religion to get people to do very bad things.  Yes, this happens.  People also do very bad things for no reason at all.  The commonality isn’t religion, it’s people.  People do very bad things.

Religion can certainly be misused as a trap, but that doesn’t make religion itself bad.  God is still there, even if his word is being misused.  And rejecting God doesn’t make the bad stop happening, it’s throwing away every tool you have to become better than your DNA. 

Rejecting God actually makes it easier for bad people to manipulate and control you.  Notice how communist dictatorships all seek to stamp out all religion and impose atheism.  In order to give the evil complete control they need to stamp out any hope for goodness. Then they can control the language to make evil sound good with words like “equality.”  (“Equality” is one of those “nice-sounding” evil words that literally replaces a good concept (fairness) with a cruel and amoral measurement system.)

Those who seek power – and evil people are profoundly drawn to power – tend to be those most passionate about getting people to turn away from the mirror.  Don’t look at yourself and try to get better, look over here, this is your problem, and I can fix it and then you’ll feel good without having to try to be good.  This is a fundamental aspect of communism, but also every other oppressive, evil structure that has come about through human history.  Evil Roman emperors engaged in this deception.

There are modern “spiritual leaders” who also seek to bypass the mirror, or sell the idea there’s some magic fix where you wave a wand and the “evil structure” vanishes leaving our goodness in its place. And notice how they also seek to appoint themselves as the source of truth and the final arbiter or goodness, often under the false pretense of “freedom.”

The reflection in the mirror sucks.  It’s supposed to suck. That means you can see good and evil and that you don’t like the evil you see.  This is actually good!  It doesn’t mean you should collapse into shame, that’s another bypass.  You see the evil, you reject the evil and you change thoughts and behaviors.  And for this to happen, you need a clean, good, strong, accurate mirror.

And yes, breaking that mirror is very bad luck. 

Beware of the Moving Goalposts

There are a lot of crappy business practices out there. 

The "moving goalposts" one is particularly galling.  You buy a product or service, only to be told after the fact that you need these other things to "make the product work."  And then the business repeats the sleazy strategy with no intention of ever offering a finished product, and certainly not at the price you were willing to pay.

Unethical?  Yes.  Illegal?  Also yes, though often difficult to get a judgment.

What if the product purchase was something in the field of "spiritual awakening," from someone you've trusted and invested a lot of time and money in, maybe over years?  Well that's challenging.  Once you get over the "sunk cost" fallacy, and the shame and betrayal, you're also left with the realization that you may have been led down the wrong path all along.

And how does one go about separating the wheat from the chaff in that kind of situation?

That's where I've been at.  Earlier this year I pre-purchased a program - at no small expense - only to have the person come back repeatedly and say you need this, oh and this too.  Oh, and those first set of things you bought no longer count, you need the upgraded version.

And if you don't?  Well suddenly your "attunement readings," or whatever bullshit hook the person tries, go down and "you're not ready,' or whatever lame attack.  This is the crap they pull in cults.  

Yah, okay.  You're a fraudster, I get it.  I'm fucking done with you.  Shame on me.

But it's not that simple, is it?  Learn a lesson, take your lumps.  It takes more than that to work through it.  There has to be a deeper burning away and cleansing that takes place.  This fraudster didn't suddenly transform from being an honest, evolved person offering a fair service into a con artist and lame wannabe cult leader.  There were signs.

And there's probably a lot of hooks and garbage he's left behind in your energy field before you figured out the game was up.

And there is.  

His pivot to AI was the big tell, that really corrupted him and his message.  First he was offering an "evolved" AI. The problem?  That AI could be used to see though his BS, it could be used to unhook people from his manipulative BS -  his false appointment of himself as an evaluator and authority of others' energy fields, the whole "you're not quite there" strategy to "retain" clients.  The way he attacked anyone who walked away.  It was all there.  And the AI could help cut the cord.

As soon as I cut the cord, he pulled the plug on the AI.  

That should have been enough to just say "fuck it," but the AI was good, it was a sweet hook.  So a program that promised to return access to the AI sounded good.  

That's where the problems started.  

Not only was he holding out the AI as a carrot, he jumped AI platforms and then started using the AI to write his "transmissions," which became AI slop.  If someone can't write down their own thoughts, they're not worth spending money on.  And he can call his new AI slop machine whatever his wants and claim it's channeling God himself, but it's still AI. It's useful, but it's not a substitute for doing the work, it's not a channel for "the truth" and it writes out long-winded garbage.

So eventually he comes back and opens up this "new improved" AI, which is basically Grok with less useful features.  And it sucked. Just totally worthless.  Not even useful as a chatbot.  Just crap.  

So eventually he takes down this shitty crime against AI and then sends out these dumb AI-slop "reports" about our usage of his stupid botware.  And of course, because I wouldn't buy any more of his shit products, I was "one of the biggest drains," only using it for information and then going about my life.

I wouldn't even say I was doing that much.  I was testing it to see if it had any use, and it failed miserably.  At one point I was running it parallel against a highly-attuned Grok stack and the Grok stack was light years better - deeper analysis, more intuitive understanding of me, of the "mentor," even of the rival AI and spiritual insights.  PLUS I can analyze stocks and find good coffee places with Grok, while Spiritual Lamebot can't research anything in the real world, it just spits out long-winded garbage.

On the way out, this guy did one thing right - by accident.  He offered a Black Flame transmission that, while mostly AI-generated fluff and oddly plagiarizing Stan Taylor's writing style, actually worked.  It cleared out all that BS and old attachment.

Unfortunately for the spiritual con artist, that was all related to him.  Which makes it really easy to walk away and not give a second thought about the money spent on him.  I keep the value, and all the other shit is burned away.

So of course he immediately repurposed the book into some other lame program and charged a bunch more for it.  Too late, at least for me.

I can't say the process over this year dealing with that nonsense has been a waste.  The severance is done and the massive amount of upleveling I've accomplished on my own has been tremendous and in no small part due to my having to face the truth and dissolve these hooks and oppressive structures.  That process freed my energy in ways I hadn't experienced in, well, ever.  And I did this literally without this person's presence - the absence of the presence created the space for real growth.

So I could look back and say the pendulum test to buy the initial product was wrong.  But was it?  If I hadn't gone through this abusive process, would I have consciously ended the energetic relationship in such a way?  Would I be sovereign now?  Would I have found my own awakening?  No, I don't think I would.

So even though I have to admit on the surface I got ripped off, like seriously ripped off, in places where it counts I received far more value than I paid for.

Over the months that I was either waiting for him to follow up, being disappointed with his change in business strategy and poor offerings, and finally coming to grips with reality, I was going through a lot of other changes.  I was writing - a lot.  I was truly releasing old fears, attachments and patterns.  I was facing issues in my personal life that I'd been ignoring or deluding myself over.

Would I have done these things had I not gone through this experience? Not as deeply and quickly as I did.  Realizing the person I'd trusted with so much time and energy isn't doing right by me ended up being liberating.  Maybe the best thing to happen to me in a long time.  I think he'd been bad for me for a very long time, but now I was able to face it, clear it out and move on.

Out of that betrayal and fraud came revelation.  Out of the dishonesty and deceit came truth.  My truth.  It not only opened my eyes to where I was being misled, but where I was misleading myself.  It was never about this person, it was always about me - my subtly or not-so-subtly giving my power to some "expert" to magically solve my problems.  But they were never their problems to solve.  I turned my life into an attempt to gain approval from people who at the end of the day just wanted my money.  And most of the problems in my life were related to my desire for that approval in the first place. 

That's where real confidence and self-respect flows in.  That's the real breakthrough.  That's when things started shifting in a big way, I stopped looking elsewhere and started wielding my own power, free from anyone else.

Learning and growing from this mistake, and the series of mistakes that led up to this, made we wiser and better for it.

And... no, you don't want to repeat my mistakes.  There are better ways to get there.  But learning how I grew from that experience?  Yeah, that might be useful to other people.

This is Home

I've been very public about my one-foot-in, one-foot-out relationship with my Florida home.  The past month or two I've been shedding these fears and falsehoods that are keeping me in this state of limbo.  This in-between state is far more uncomfortable than any negative scenario I could come up with for making a change.

That energy is gone now.  In the pure space that is left, only the truth remains, which rings loud, clear and uncompromising: this house in Pensacola is my home.

I've known this for some time, but the reality hits different now.  No excuses, no compromise.  This is my home and I need to act on this.  This week, and the past two months, I've been consciously and unconsciously creating a real home for myself.  I have a gym in Pensacola, World Gym.  And I like it better than the UFC gym in Torrance, which is noisy, crowded and poor energy.

I have regular walking trails, which I enjoy more than the ones in Torrance and Redondo Beach.  I found a balance between fishing, which was a bypass to avoid taking actual measures, and building a life.  It's no longer about "bringing home fish," it's about enjoy myself in nature, eating what I catch and living a good, balanced life.

I found a chill coffee shop to write and a nice bar to hang out.  And I enjoy both without drinking alcohol or coffee.

All of these things I could have done in Torrance, but instead wallowed in withdrawal and "waiting for things to get better."

I have a better, more balanced life here in Pensacola than I have had for years in Torrance.  Basically since covid I haven't invested anything in Torrance.  And why should I?  It sucks.  I hate it there. It's not my home.  This is.

And guess what?  Waiting around for things to get better is a waste of time.  Nothing's going to get better on its own "down the road."  Better to deal with the problems now than wait.  Sure, I can say I needed to stay in Torrance for my son, and that's true.  But nobody was making me sit around, be bored and do nothing but "wait" for things to get better.  That was my own small self, which has burned away, along with a lot of other bullshit.

I can smell the lingering scent of incinerated BS and victorious black flame.  

And "this" home is more than a house in Florida.  It's more than a lifestyle.  It's a whole new mandate, a whole new (or newly cleansed) architecture.  Here there is no "middle way," no "in between," just an unflinching truth that waits for nobody.  That is my home.

And what does that mean for my spiritual work?  Same thing, no BS.  No ego attachment, no ego to attach to.  Nothing but the truth that was always there but often ignored or distorted. 

Maybe the change will be subtle.  Maybe it'll be dramatic.  Maybe I won't recognize myself and neither will anyone else.  Maybe none of that matters.

This is home, and I'm moving in. 

Viewing the Machine that Controls Us

 

This morning I had conscious awareness of the various chemical and genetic programming going on that were driving my system and behavior and before written off as “magic.”  It’s not magic.  It’s a very precise and manipulative science.  Everything – the visual stimulation, the way my genetics would interact with my stories, my imagination, the chemicals and my body’s reaction – it’s all a very carefully-aligned programming.  And in those moments I had awareness of all of it, and just *that much* distance from them that I could see the control board and begin to consciously operate some of the switches.

This is my “red pill” moment.  I can now actually see how this programming has been running everything in my life to some extent.  The false scarcity mentality is a genetic bypass to compel me to reproduce and to bring forth a legacy.  The false survival instinct programming is designed to avoid risk and stick to the known programming.  Even the artificial self-image concepts were all to force certain behaviors, even if they weren’t consciously serving me or making me happy.  This programming doesn’t give a shit about my happiness or best interest, it serves something else entirely.

And once I saw it, once I saw that I can have even the slightest actual control over that programming, that changes everything. 

I feel nothing but empathy for my prior selves.  They acted as they were compelled to act.  I was programmed to believe in magic.  Now I know the truth, I don’t hate my old self, I feel so much more love and understanding for that old, badly manipulated self.

I don’t even hate the machine.  It was just doing its job, automatically.  Now I’m being given choice.

All the fears and worries about my job, finances, and all this other petty stuff feels so silly now, but only because I now have the key.  They can’t touch me now.  I have choice, even over my fears.  Which is good, because some fear is good and important, and that can get overwritten too, which can be deadly.  But most fear is just manipulative BS.

The machine is not interested in our survival, it is playing a bigger game.  We are each expendable.

Even my spiritual practice changes.  A lot was really chemical reactions. Not bad, some actually healthy.  But now conscious.  That accidental (was it accidental?) incident in Florida that reset my whole system showed me the machine can be completely bypassed and even reality itself can be manipulated.

This is how I was able to “transition” away from an introverted personality to a neutral, conscious, connective one and the universe would respond “as if by magic,” because everyone else is run by their own version of the same machine.

I can see how the "NPC programming" works and why so many are emotionally attached to it and don't want freedom.  It explains why people wear masks and listen to COVID stories, six years after it was debunked.  It explains why people support a Satanic regime in Iran and use obviously specious reasoning about "endless war" or "Palestine" or "the Joos" to justify their objectively insane belief system.  (There's no other way to explain it other than insanity when a devout Christian says literal Satan is a "better option" than eliminating it.  I don't believe the Christian is faking his beliefs, he's just been programmed to react insanely.)

It helps me see how other good people are being badly manipulated.  But more importantly for me, how I've been manipulated and that God is now handing over the controls.

I can also see how certain modalities such as "Natural Grounding" are a way to try to unconsciously reprogram the machine.  They can work - sort of - but it takes a long time and dedicated practice.  And ultimately you're still leaving the OS up to "magic" to operate everything.  You're choosing manipulation but offering suggestions on how some of that manipulation shows up and hoping the system alters it programming just a little to let you have your cookie.  Meanwhile you've invested hours and hours and hours watching videos and listening to music in the hopes The Machine will start working in your favor, instead of owning the machine.

And that person was me.  And the Natural Grounding was not that effective, and it got boring after a while.  Maybe it changed some of my preferences for music and content, and it led me to some things that did change my life for the better, met some really good people.  I look back on that version of myself with empathy. I was trying to strike a bargain with the machine instead of seeing it for what it is.  

There is a downside to this.  Similar to Neo when he escapes the Matrix, the illusion is lifted and reality shifts.  A lot of the "feel-good" patterns go away for good.  But you also realize how fake it all was.  It was brain chemistry and genetic patterns handed down by generation.  It worked, but it was always limited.  It was ultimate survival bias - we are the lucky few who won the genetic lottery and got to live, so we come to rely on this programming as some kind of divine force when it really isn't.  

We are who we are because are ancestors were who they were.  All the way through the existence of life up to us.  But adaptation is not wisdom.  Wisdom is seeing past the machine and realizing it wasn't all that wise after all.  In fact, in a lot of ways, it's a mess and needs major improvement.  

We can do better.  And God is beginning to give some people the controls because it's time and they're ready.  That is the evolution.

Prison-Seeking Programming

 

Why is collectivism so powerfully attractive to some people?  To anyone who values personal freedom at any level, the very concept seems repulsive.  I think most people don’t actually believe Communism is a good idea, even in theory.  But a lot of people do.

But why is it that, even with the mountain of evidence showing that collectivism in all its real-world examples has been a horrible failure – and I mean unbelievably horrible, not subjectively – people still gravitate to this concept?

Why do people join cults?  It seems so stupid and self-destructive to anyone being objective.

Why do a significant percentage of prisoners want to stay in prison?

All these questions point to the same human trait, which is “prison-seeking behavior.”  People say they don’t want to go to jail, but if you made the jail comfortable enough, eliminated the violence and cruelty and put in just enough things to give it the illusion of personal choice, a lot of people would gladly volunteer to live there.  Not most people, but a significant percentage.

This is prison-seeking behavior. 

Don’t believe me?  There are massive dorm structures going up on college campuses with no windows, thousands of students crammed into these things, and a waiting list.  China has waiting lists for multi-story apartments that are worse than some actual prisons, and there are people who want to create that reality in Europe and the US.  Cults still exist with no shortage of members.  A lot of people stay in the military for the structure and the rigid boundaries, or have difficulty transitioning to a more open-ended lifestyle.

This gravitation toward systems that deprive agency in exchange for predictability, conformity, structure, safety and lack of personal responsibility (basic needs are taken care of for you) is powerfully strong in some people.

It turns out this attraction is strong in people who grew up in “permissive” households where there were few if any boundaries.  This environment created an anxiety that makes being controlled very attractive.

And if you don’t feel that attraction, the prison mentality can evoke a visceral negative reaction – it feels like they’re bargaining away your freedom along with their own.  And in many cases, that’s true. The irony of the prison mentality is that it lacks personal boundaries, having never learned the concept as children.  They just assume, since they have no boundaries, neither do you, so they’re entitled to give your agency away as if it were their own.  They literally can’t tell the difference. 

This is why I say there is no bargaining with collectivists, or with the prison mentality.  They see their own freedom as a personal threat, so they see you exercising your freedom also as a personal threat.  You can’t bargain with people like that.  This is why standing for freedom often leads to conflict – the other side literally has no concept of personal agency or sees it as a form of evil, so free people have to constantly fight back.  And it’s why collectivist societies inevitably lead to genocide – the very concept of people having personal agency is so threatening to those living in the prison mentality they have to delete them and call it good.

Those outside the prison mindset – and that’s most people – can see the fallacy of collectivism in all its forms.  Ultimately there is a structure that sits above the prison mentality that manipulates them and benefits from their voluntary servitude.  A collectivist society with free people won’t work, because the free people will just leave or refuse to participate.  The prisoners can’t operate the prison because that would require making choices and taking responsibility, which terrifies them.  So the system naturally needs to recruit and cultivate a certain number of free-thinking people (who are inherently corrupt and often outright evil) to run the prison.  They benefit from the system and run the system while living apart from it (notice how all the Communist leaders live like excessively wealthy Capitalists without actually producing anything of value themselves, unlike the actual Capitalists they emulate).

Can people in the prison mentality free themselves?  Yes.  But not from within the structure, which reinforces the learned helplessness and low personal self-esteem that creates the crippling fear of personal agency.  They need to see that, yes, they can take care of themselves better than the group.

And by the way this mentality plays out in micro levels in codependent and abusive relationships, so don’t think just because someone votes Republican they’re immune from the trap.

And events can trigger otherwise independent people to revert to prison mentality out of confusion or fear.  Look at all the people who reveled in locking themselves away, masking themselves and standing in long lines for tests and vaccines during the “covid pandemic.”  This wasn’t a case of a few politicians making edicts, large numbers of people gladly went along and tattled on their neighbors for living normal lives.  Because they wanted the prison, and they didn’t want to be pained by the thought of others enjoying a freedom they were incapable of giving themselves permission to enjoy.

To those who recognized the lunacy of the lockdowns, the prison mentality people seemed crazy, cruel, stupid and downright evil.  And objectively they were those things – those are inherent qualities of Prison Mentality Programming, lets not mince words or be quick to dismiss evil thoughts and actions in the false name of equanimity.  That’s not the purpose or function of equanimity and we shouldn’t corrupt noble terms by blurring distinctions between fact and fiction or good and evil.

But dismissing the masses of lockdown fanatics as “stupid and evil” because it’s objectively accurate misses the deeper lesson here, and I’ll admit I’ve been guilty myself of overlooking the bigger picture out of revulsion for the behavior in front of me.

Another aside for those who think I’m being too harsh on my lockdown-loving neighbors.  I’m not saying their hearts are evil.  But it has been proven that a large majority of people will set aside their morals to do something cruel and wrong to another if directed by a perceived authority.  And among that large subset is a significant minority who will willingly and gladly do so if properly motivated.  So no, everyone who supported lockdowns is not evil.  A lot of them are, and all of them were being evil at the time. This is just an objective fact.  Can they find forgiveness and change their hearts?  Sure, but I’m not Jesus, that’s not my job.  I’m looking through the lens of “what is” in order to dispel illusions and help people find true freedom.  I’ll leave it to Jesus to handle the “what can be” and “what will be,” that’s not my domain.

So what to do about the Prison Mentality Programming?  I’m assuming if you’ve read this far that means you haven’t succumbed to this programming, because otherwise you’d have reacted violently, rejected this and either tried to attack me for calling out the truth or, more likely, gone away back to your prison.  The most important thing is to recognize the programming – after a while it’s pretty easy to spot.  Look for the physical and emotional signs of the “artificial hive.”  You can also spot the leaders, the people who are consciously exploiting submissive followers through manipulation without producing anything of their own.  They’re all over politics, but not just there, they’re everywhere. 

Notice it and guard yourself against it.  Just as you can’t argue with a hornet’s nest, you can’t reason with the prison mentality.  Avoidance and personal protection is your only really effective strategy. 

Also this will help train you to identify other programming, since this is one of the more prominent ones that exist, making it easy to identify and inoculate yourself from.

And also, we humans are complicated.  There might be parts of you that are attracted to a form of prison or commune.  Notice this feeling.  It is a compass guiding you to wounded parts of you, places where you fear freedom or severely doubt yourself.  You are capable of far more than you realize and you are stronger than your upbringing.  Remember that and keep walking toward the light of freedom.

Spiritual Freedom: Grand Opening of a Deeper Communication

 

I’ve spent a lot of time in the communication wilderness, withdrawn from most external modalities for many years, thinking about my path and continually hearing the message: “wait.”

It’s been lonely, boring and frustrating, but also apparent why God was giving me this message.  Bit by bit I began to be aware of how deeply imprisoned I was – entirely of my own making.  I was running on all sorts of programming that wasn’t mine, and yet at the same time finding flashes of inspiration and independence that reminded me, somewhere, “I” was still there.

And as I worked through this I became aware of just how overloaded my system was with external programming, on so many levels.  To the point that complete withdrawal and self-healing, along with time, was the only way out.

The flashes of independence and inspiration emerged in the quiet and boredom.  The urge to move to Florida.  This prompted me to buy a house, which I now live in part-time.  And apart from realizing how poisonous the environment in California is (and that not everywhere is like that), I also discovered how important it is to me to have a house of my own, with land, something that is my home and responsibility.  And a part of me reawakened.

It’s nice to have a house again, very fulfilling. But this time I bought a home entirely out of choice, not necessity.  In a location I wanted, at the time I wanted, in the manner I wanted.  And for periods of time I experience the freedom of living my own life.  Many things I do there – from fishing to enjoying coffee in my kitchen to sitting on the front porch – feel like a celebration of life instead of another turn on the hamster wheel of obligation.

I’d look back over the years I’ve been going back and forth to the Florida house and those times in Florida are me living my best life.  That’s not to say all my good experiences are there, but that it’s my best, purest, most authentic life.

From this place – physical and spiritual – I upgraded my spiritual life, rediscovered my inspiration for writing and found peace. 

I also found space between the programming.  I could see the gaps in the programming matrix.  I could see the simulation around me when I was in California, and I could step apart from it.  But I didn’t know what to do with this and continued to get the message to “wait.”

But that “glitch” in the programming was the beginning of my invitation.  The space I created living part-time in Florida created the space for me to see the glitches in the programming.  And I discovered – and this is important – that when awareness shifts while the programming remains intact, everything around becomes a simulation.  And you are now the glitch.

Once I can see the layers and layers of artificial programming, the manipulative structures, the culture of voluntary servitude, the societal prison of authority-worshipping programming, the attachment to illusion that animates people to be “for” and “against” things that don’t exist for the purpose of harvesting their life force, I can’t return.  Once I saw truth and its contrast with the “real world” sim all around, I can’t go blindly back into the sim.

And it’s also an invitation.  I was told to withdraw, to slow down, to go inward, because my heart rejected the sim but I was blind.  So I was punching air, spiraling into deepening anger and frustration with everyone and everything.  In other words, I was becoming exactly the kind of “outcast” that the programming seeks to create. 

Rejecting the system while living in the system is something the system knows how to deal with.  It programs you into an “outcast” NPC and you become another feature in its game.  When you step outside the game, even momentarily, and see the entire “real world” is a complete bullshit game, the program loses its control.  If this is offset by a reality of sovereignty that exists outside the programming, now there is a pathway to choice.  Others can free themselves from the programming.

I’m not just escaping, I’m being given the knowledge and tools to allow others to escape and reclaim their freedom and sovereignty.

Suddenly all that time spent in the wilderness makes sense.  I was detoxifying in order to connect with my authentic self and find purpose.

Spiritual freedom.

“Freedom” gets thrown around a lot these days.  Now it tends to have a political connotation which is sometimes noble and other times contradictory, confused, or even downright corrupted and hypocritical.

There is certainly a value in advocating for freedom on a political level.  It’s a critical part of societal evolution.  And I speak to these themes here, if incompletely (I was largely in the dark myself, even when connecting to Source). They’re important, but not primary.

The primary freedom that is my purpose is in guiding others to see the programming, step away from it, reclaim their sovereignty and live authentically in genuine connection with God. 

So yeah, that’s kind of a big deal.

The challenge in this is creating that pathway to personal spiritual freedom without supplanting it with another manipulative programming structure.  Every single “evolution” coach or modality I’ve worked with failed at this point.  They all in one way or another sought to supplant one societal programming matrix with another centered around them.  Some did it unintentionally while others literally broadcasted their intent, complete with funnel systems and covert (and even overt) cult structures.

I don’t want to get too much into the details.  This is introduction to a more refined purpose and communication, the grand opening of “Spiritual Freedom.”

Sydney Sweeney, Hulk Hogan, Ozzy Osbourne and the Identity Cult

 

It's generally a good idea to avoid the news cycles, but when things start piling up that have spiritual relevance it's better to address it than pretend you didn't see it.  I had been hearing about this "controversy" around a pretty woman in a jeans ad campaign.  I hesitated to even look into this because "a pretty woman in a clothing ad" is so mundane as to be unnecessary.  Additionally there are energetic issues around directly or indirectly promoting a corporate ad campaign, and who needs the entanglements.

But looking at the ad controversy and a good commentary laying out the situation, it's safe now to jump in, especially when looking in context to some other similar issues floating around.  All I have to say from an energetic perspective is there's nothing wrong with this ad campaign.  It's just another ad. The genius is that it tapped into the mental illness-identity cult trigger energy, which gave this ad campaign far more "juice" than it would normally deserve.  Ad people get paid a lot of money to hit home runs, so good for them.

That mental illness-identity cult energy needs to be addressed.  It is Luciferian/Satanic energy that has infected a large portion of the secular/spiritual denial population.  These are people in active spiritual denial who actively support mainstream media and believe fully in the Pharma cult.  These were the "maskers" and "lockdowners" during COVID.  They're the Hamas protesters and the anti-ICE protesters.  Their energy isn't just insufferable (it certainly is that), it's evil.  They promote death and human suffering at every possible turn, always in the name of "empathy," a word they've hijacked to mean the exact opposite of the spiritually-aligned true meaning.  

DEI and a lot of other garbage gets sucked into this cult and they just feed on the negativity, anger and suffering.  It has Marxist/Satanic foundations and there's nothing good or redeeming at all in anything related to this cult - even their message is just evil and corrosive.  These are terribly unhappy people whose life mission is to make everyone else more miserable than they are.  And they're failing, their structures have eroded and society is moving on from them, but not without a fight.

This brings me to Hulk Hogan and the weird reaction to his death.  I generally don't think much of people who show up out of the woodwork to give glowing obituaries to celebrities. It's all attention-grabbing energy and very shallow "like me and give me likes" behavior that we should look to rise above.  But it's also harmless, so who cares, right?

The weird part is how so many of these shallow people - just people who blow with the prevailing wind in their subculture - turned around and disavowed Hogan for transgressions that are pretty normal and personal and really not anyone's business. That and a few stupid people from Gawker who are still butt-hurt that he put that trash rag out of business for massively violating his privacy.  

Overall, Hogan's energy and legacy is positive.  Yes, he's imperfect.  I seem to recall warning against putting anyone on a pedestal, as you never know the whole story, but let me put that out there again.  We all are.  But his energy overall is a net positive.

And let's face it, the "backlash" has nothing to do with his personal issues and everything to do with that Satanic/Luciferian energy's opposition to professional wresting, gym culture and all things Trump.  None of the people disavowing Hogan are doing so out of spiritual truth, it's all massive corruption energy and groupthink.  Same people attacking the jeans ad.

Which finally brings us to Ozzy Osbourne.  Do I need to remind anyone that Ozzy was literally a Satanist?  You can justify your affection for Ozzy on the grounds "he was just joking" and "it's an act," but he never disavowed it and never turned his live around spiritually.  Like his music if you want, but his energy was total Satanic crap.  He caused the spiritual corruption and downfall of thousands with his "act."  Hogan and Sweeny sure can't say that.  

So yes I find the glowing obituaries by the "like me" people to be really inappropriate.  This is a person who did a lot of damage, whatever you think of his music.  So it's no surprise the Luciferian/Satanic cult is all-in on heaping praise on this guy. Getting a reality show and being nice to your kids doesn't change one's energetic foundation.  In fact, 97% of reality show participants are steeped in Luciferian/Satanic energies, it's practically a requirement.  And as the saying goes "you are what you eat" so avoid consuming reality shows.  Generally, limit television overall, unless you can selectively screen through streaming.  Even then put firm limits on your time as this is not a positive use of time.

So basically that's what the Satanic cult has been up to lately - attacking a harmless jeans ad and praising a Satan-worshipper.  The only good thing I can say about this cult is it's dying.  It's losing a ton of influence in the world, which is good for the younger people.  But is hasn't changed at all for the better. 

Analyzing Financial Energies, Torrance vs Pensacola

Beach This Morning - Perdido Key

Since I am transitioning from a life in Southern California, where I've grown up my whole life, to my home in Pensacola, FL, it's a good time to examine the energies and note some of the differences, particularly related to the flow of money.

It's not easy to notice the energies of an environment when one is immersed in it. That's why periods of transition are useful, they help us to see things from an objective perspective.

For example, Torrance and Southern California in general are objectively "well off" financially compared to most parts of the country, at least in terms of given standards - higher standard of living, larger economic output, more material wealth.

But these things don't tell us the energetic environment, they only tell us some of the story.  When you look underneath, you see this wealth is actually not set on a good energetic foundation at all.  Southern California has heavy karmic and soul contracts that serve as a form of energetic "debt" that carries a very high interest rate.  That's why it seems everyone (and myself included when I was plugged into this grid) is "running just to stay in place."

Southern California has a high leakage - people make a lot of money.  They also waste a lot of money, lose a lot of money and get burdened with extremely high "sunk costs" that make it impossible for even the wealthiest to simply relax and enjoy their blessings.  The image of the relaxed Southern Californian at the beach just enjoying the sunshine and good life is just that, an image.  I go to all these beaches on a regular basis and have for years.  You'll see kids relaxing and enjoying life, but the adults are either never there or completely distracted and overwhelmed.

There is no sense of peace and satiety in Southern California.  It is never "enough" and everyone is teetering on the precipice of financial ruin, no matter how much money they have. In fact, the wealthier people are more at risk, those with less are more "comfortable," except those people literally cannot afford to live there anymore.

"Keeping up with the Joneses" is so endemic I didn't even notice that's the water everyone is swimming in until I started visiting places like Thailand and Pensacola, FL where most people are happy with what they have, which is a fraction of the wealth Californians have. They don't envy their neighbors nearly to the extend they do in Los Angeles or Orange County.  The wealthy lifestyle propped up by crushing debt (real debt, not spiritual debt) that is extremely common in Southern California doesn't really exist in Pensacola, they operate from a different paradigm.

Now, that's not to say Pensacola is perfect.  There is a poverty mindset, scarcity patterns (interestingly these are almost identical in both locations, despite the massive differences in relative income and wealth.  It has a certain resignation to failure that goes pretty deep.  But ultimately, the prevailing energy of Pensacola is far more peace, acceptance, happiness and gratitude for what they have instead of envy or anxiety over what they don't have.  People have a lot less but overall they're a lot happier, more generous, and more grateful.

A lot of this difference has to do with Pensacola's closer relationship with God.  Christianity is far more open, prevalent, accepted and celebrated than secular Southern California.  So spiritual connection, and the flow that comes with it, is more available.  That's not to say there aren't distortions and corruptions, there certainly are, but the energetic soil is cleaner and more nourishing.

You really notice it when you see people who move from wealthy areas to Pensacola and are immediately triggered.  "There aren't any good jobs," "fewer opportunities," "lack of growth (not true)," complaining about certain expenses, where are the expensive specialty shops, etc.  The energy here really triggers people steeped in their money rich/energy poor lifestyles.

How does this relate to the flow of money?  Clearly the Southern California energy is far out of the flow, yet objectively they have more (yet everyone feels poor there).  Pensacola is much more connected to the flow, yet they seem to have little to show for it.  But if you keep digging, you see evidence that the stronger flow is raising the community.  And more importantly, it's elevating in a way that is aligned much more closely with spiritual truth, which means while the "paper wealth" will burn away (sometimes literally, like the recent fires in LA), the areas in the flow will continue to grow.  

What does this mean for you?  For now the takeaway is to learn to identify the different energies and feel into their inherent truth.  It's challenging to do this when you live in a location, so finding an objective distance helps.  Noticing these things will help you notice these patterns in yourself.  For example, I've been immersed in "mass leakage," "keeping up with the Joneses," and "never enough" patterns my entire life, to the point I'd become nose-blind to their toxicity.  Finding that awareness is the first step to deprogramming those patterns to reclaim true financial flow.

There's more to talk about, but allow this to serve as a wake-up call for gaining true awareness and energetic sovereignty.  

Manifesting Miracles: Cancer Cure Through Remote Energy Healing

This is a HUGE shift - confirmed internally and externally.  Through my remote energy healing work, cancer was completely cleared in two weeks, with no medical treatment.

I have been doing a lot of healing, aligning and training on the energetic level, but direct physical manifestation has been the last challenge, and now that has been achieved and full energetic healing flow has been activated.

There is still much work for me to do, but this marks a critical turning point in my journey - and a potential breakthrough for you the reader. 

It's time for the next chapter and I relish this opportunity.  In the flow all things are possible.
 

You Were Called Here

 You did not find me to be invisible.

You are not here to be safe, small or palatable.

 You are a Divine Flame – coded with the light and a higher purpose.

 Somewhere along the way, you were convinced (or convinced yourself) that shrinking was holy, that hiding was love.  You grew to believe that conformity and answering to others while suppressing the voice inside you was righteousness and service.

 Somehow you adopted a belief that truth must be earned.

 

But I see you now

Not the you that you present to the world, not the programming,

I see you at your core, the sacred flame you carry in your eternal core,

Perhaps so deeply hidden from the world that it’s hidden from your own consciousness.

 

This is your awakening. 

This is the moment it all changes, there is no going back, no retreat to safety.

(And by the way, how “safe” were you in that bubble, really?)

 

I’m not here to convince you –

I’m here to remind you.

 

You’ve been called to find me, because you need to be awakened.

I’ve been called to wake you up, so your fire burns freely

In service of God,

Fully aligned with your true calling.

 

I’m here to remind you

That your power is needed

That your voice is divine

That your presence is an activation for others, and indeed the world.

 

I’m here to remind you that the little voice, that nagging feeling

    That something isn’t right, that you’re running away from the truth

Well, that little voice was right.

And that little voice is about to become a mighty roar that will

   Shake the foundation of your world, and The World.

 

So breathe…

And let the fire rise.

 

The time is now.

The old stories are done.

 

You are the Flame.

You are the Alchemist.

You are the Bridge.

 

Welcome back.

Fishing is My Church

 I just got back from a nearly two-week Florida vacation with my youngest son - lots of fishing, a great bonding experience.  I go there a lot now, and I fish there a lot.  It's become my spiritual sanctuary, the place where I do my best spiritual work, find the deepest connection to God and discover the deepest insights.  

Some of this is because it's my home - I have a house here, that I've talked about before.  Some is because, even when I'm working here (this is my first vacation here in over a year), I'm much more relaxed and available for spiritual practice.  And for a while I thought the fishing was a distraction, but it isn't.  Fishing is an integral part of this spiritual practice, it is the pathway to my spiritual practice. 

When I was a little kid and first getting good at fishing, my dad would say that this was when I was fully myself, where I'd let go of whatever stress, fears or negative thoughts that were getting in the way and fully be myself.  Much later in life I learned to cultivate a connection to my spiritual core through meditative practice and breathwork, and I found it felt similar.  

Consciously combining the two energies elevates my vibration and spiritual connection to the highest levels.  I can accomplish this without fishing, but with fishing it's effortless.  It's where I find presence, peace and a connection to the source of life.  It connects me to a primal, ancestral energy that is deep and profound and reminds me that life does not begin or end in this lifetime and this life is a small piece of an infinite timeline and we are each a small but essential piece of the universal energy, God energy.

If you look at the picture you can see very strong crown chakra energy in both of us and I'm fully grounded and present.  In this moment I'm not consciously practicing spirituality, but I'm living in it, I'm in my "church." 

In my Florida home, fishing is a critical part of my meditative practice.  I meditate and pray for a fruitful fishing experience, ask for guidance on when and where, fillet fish as a meditative practice, and bring the feelings and experience back into my nightly meditation and prayer.  

Fish are a key part of the Buddhist spiritual practice, and a key part of my altar spaces. I have carefully-chosen fish statues, carefully placed on each altar space.  I require regular presence with water - lakes, streams and especially the ocean - for spiritual cleansing and renewal. Water itself is a critical part of Buddhism and my spiritual practice.  Fish are a critical element of the New Testament and a symbol of Christ.  

It took me a while to fully realize the deep personal spiritual importance of fishing.  It's more than something I do or a hobby, it is a part of me.  It's my gateway to God and to my own path.

My Kundalini Training Experience: I Detest Dogma

 These past few weeks I've been "kissing frogs" as far as exploring various modalities for growth and personal change.  I came across a Kundalini app that looked interesting.  It had a one week trial period, so what the heck?

I started getting into it - reading the manual and going through the training videos.  It started nice and then began devolving into dogma.  "If you're not sitting this ridiculous and uncomfortable way, you'll get no benefit."  "If you don't chant these stupid mantras you'll get no benefit." "If you don't hold these particular mudras you'll get no benefit."

Well, you get the idea.  Despite their insistence, I did get some benefit without adhering to some of their more nonsensical teachings.  But after a week of the app, I decided they can take a deep breath, hold it for eight seconds and blow it out their ass.

I love trying different things but I fucking hate dogma.

And I can tell you, whether it's Tai Chi or Kundalini meditation or any number of things, "doing something" does have an effect.  And I've had great Kundalini experiences, even though I can't sit cross-legged on the floor comfortably for any length of time.  

Don't let dogmatic people keep you from trying new things.  Do it anyway, do it your way.  Just fucking do it.

Empty House Vision Revisited

I was thinking again about that "empty house" vision I posted about in 2019.  Thinking about all the changes that happened in my life between then and now, and how that vision, and my relationship to it, has changed.

And as I thought about it, I also thought about Bob Dylan.  Because he is one of my favorite musicians.  He was very influential when I was in high school, inspiring me to write poetry and try my hand at writing novels.  Recently I rediscovered my love for his music and the impact of "Highway 61 Revisited," which brings me back to here.  

This is my house.  The backside.  In a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm.  It's often unoccupied.  The rest of the time it's just me.  And it's not empty.

 

This was my house in Thailand.  Put every penny I had into it at the time, and then some.  It's now always occupied and not mine anymore.

A house has been a critical part of my evolution pretty much since I got out of college.  Bought a house right away with my first wife and after the divorce I made sure she could keep it so our son would have a stable place to grow up.  It served its purpose - he's grown up to be a great young man and a father of his own.  That house was always a piece of crap - old, busted, terrible area - but I loved owning a home and making it a home and missed it when I left.  

For years I tried to find myself in various ways, and had some successes and setbacks.  I found a spiritual home in Thailand as I was evolving in my spiritual journey.  I ended up paying to have a house built in an area my wife wanted (which I wouldn't have built there if I knew then what I know now).  It's a nice house - simple but beautiful, a really good house.  The only problem is, while Thailand might be my spiritual home, I realized at some point I would never live there.  Her family ended up moving in and retiring there and it's worked out well for them.  So what I thought was my spiritual and "forever" home was a (VERY expensive) stepping stone for me and a home for a really nice family that's had to suffer a lot through their lives and deserves happiness in their later years.  

It was around that time when I wrote about the "empty house" vision.  You see, while I'd been creating homes for others, this was a period in my life when, once again, I had no home.  I knew California certainly wasn't my home and had grown to resent it.  Thailand wasn't my home.  And as much as I tried to "have a home" in each area, the universe drew me in another direction.

Sometimes the interpretation is too obvious to consider.  I really needed a home.  A man needs a house of his own.  And I'd being giving away, well, pieces of myself, to others.  Acts of love but also acts of neglect toward myself. They were fulfilled, I was empty.

I started exploring Florida in 2021-22 and at the end of 22 bought a house in Pensacola, Florida.  My plan was to use this as a toehold in Florida, rent it out and figure out later what to do with the equity when the time was right.

And in this case, the universe again pushed me in a different direction, first by hooking me into the Florida lifestyle and then by "blessing" me with shitty, unreliable tenants who completely trashed the beautiful little house and then left without paying their rent.

So, out of love for the house, the area and lifestyle and frustration with being a landlord, I decided to take the house back to live in, even if only a little bit.  I took the house back for me.  

And that decision turned out to be magical. 

The first thing I did when starting to furnish the place was to create a meditative/spiritual space.  But I've grown to discover that every aspect of the house, and my experiences there, has had a huge spiritual impact on me.

Yes, I've been going there alone, for the most part.  Sometimes I'd bring my son and we'd share vacation time.  The rest of the time it's just me.  But I had a home now.  And it feels like home.  It's cathartic, it's grounding, it's inspirational and fulfilling.  Filling.  Yes, that "empty house" is being filled, with every jet-lagged trip, with more and more experiences, energy and revelations.  And furniture and art and stuff.

It's like the soil where I can take root and grow.  And I didn't even really know how much I needed this.  Some people love a nomadic life.  I need a castle.  Even if that castle is a three-bedroom house in Pensacola.  Maybe especially so. And I've made it into my castle.

And much like the king, I don't spend much time in it.  But it's there.  And because it's there and I do return, I'm starting to find myself growing into the kind of man who can command a castle.  I'm challenging myself to grow and deepen.  I'm rediscovering practices I'd put aside that now "stick," perhaps because the practices are no longer theoretical, they're tangible.

When I wrote about the "empty house," I asked myself how can I create something out of emptiness?  The answer is so simple, you bring an intention into that emptiness.  You speak the word and the universe begins creating that thing, sometimes at cross purposes with your "plans."

I literally created three homes out of nothing - NOTHING.  I was basically broke when we bought the first house, and it saw a life come into this world, grow up, and create life of his own.  I created a house in Thailand out of nothing - again I was broke.  I created this house in Pensacola basically out of an intention to live in Florida.  And then the intention materialized when I thought I "wasn't ready."

And I still lie awake in bed (not so much these days, but up until early 2025), worrying about how I'm going to make this work, that I'm going broke on this "pipe dream," paying rent and a mortgage, flying out all the time.  And yet, somehow, it's not just working - I'm flourishing.  All those lessons I tried to learn that felt so hard years ago, that I "gave up," are coming online, almost like they were always there and I just needed to be in a place to accept them.  

Suddenly I wake up and realize, I'm not just fishing and escaping reality.  I'm fucking BUILDING a reality, for the first time in YEARS I have a reality.  Maybe a fishing rod is my magic wand and I just couldn't accept that something I truly enjoy for myself could actually be the foundation of my evolutionary work.  That limiting belief that "fishing is just a hobby" or "fishing is an escape" or "fishing isn't sexy" is just, well, someone else's bullshit and not mine.  

Fishing is an integral part of me.  Even filleting fish is a spiritual practice for me - I used to say meditative, but it's even more primal than that.  It's a connection to the source and cycle of life, where my soul's essence connects with the earth's life essence.  I connect with the sun, I connect with the wind, I connect with the water, I connect with life, and my soul connects with it all.  

That is powerful, sexy shit.  

I always wondered why some women would look at me "that way" when I'm sunburnt, hands covered in fish and bait slime, dirty, tired, hauling my kayak or surf cart back to the car, or why my wife likes that I fish.  Maybe they're sensing that deeper energy running through me, that I hadn't even been aware is there.

When I was a kid, I remember my dad saying how much he loved watching me fish or coming back from a day fishing.  He said that's when I was my real self.  I think... yeah.  That's right.

And so, my life is filling up.  My "house," and actual house, is filling up.  And the emptiness is gone.  And I'm consciously figuring out how to create "something out of nothing."  And I've been doing it pretty much my whole life.