Omen of Liberation

[glance left]

This morning's I Ching brought hexagram 40......Liberation.
I received this immediately upon awakening from a dream in which I was a waiter in a fancy restaurant.  While I was waiting tables, the maître d' came up to me escorting a gentle giant of a black woman who was apparently a prisoner just released from prison.  She was still dressed in her dark blue prison jump suit. At first, the maître d wanted me to help find a back way to escort her through and out of the restaurant.  It seemed he was worried that the VIP clientele would be ruffled by her presence.  Plans changed though, setting up all the components of the omen. 
Something beyond the dream directed us to have a seat, right in the middle of the restaurant....VIP clientele be damned.  I was a bit uncomfortable, at first, with all the disdainful glances we were getting from those seated around us.  That soon disappeared as our gentle giant guest began to show us her stuff....what she learned in prison.  She had apparently mastered the art of repairing small but high tech devices.  Someone else had joined us at the table and handed her his pair of VR glasses, which were malfunctioning.  She handled them expertly and opened the hidden cover/door which protected the CPU within.  Once open, she popped out a small circuit board, about a centimeter squared, which was the source of the malfunction.  She put on her special magnifying loops, with small spotlights on either side, and got out her tool kit.  I marveled at what she was doing...and asked her how in the world she was going to figure out where the circuit short was.  She smiled at me and said, "Watch"  My awareness then became very small....or, alternatively, the circuit board became very big....and I flew down within the circuitry, which was now as big as an engine room of a ship.  All the individual nearly microscopic threads of the circuitry looked like a complicated network of plumbing pipes.  She then said, "Now I run temporary power through the board and look for the changes through the circuits as power illuminates them....to find where the breach is"  I watched as the dull copper-like pipes began to light up with this golden glow flowing through them as power ran unimpeded...until the flow came up to the point of obstruction.....several dull areas through which the flow of power could not pass.  I was delightedly commenting on seeing this as I emerged from the dream.
The dream omen involved many facets for me, revolving around the general motif of Liberation.  Prisoner being released from prison.  Letting go of social impedance....or that feeling of isolation/obstruction/discomfort when interacting with others.  Finding obstructions of flow, like social impedance among many other things for me, and resolving them. 
Unimpeded flow, both within the "self" and outward into the world at large allows for fluidity.  Being able to expand and contract....become big or small....to interact and merge with the dream....both the tonal dream of daily reality and the second attention dream at night, I'm thinking.  The pivot point is the substance of the power which flows....awareness itself....or intent.  Something like that...
Stepping back, I have to marvel at Infinity and how it interacts with each of us, when we turn towards the intention of paying attention to Infinity.  It begins to speak...and guide...in the most wonderful ways!

[Guest]

Glance, I have been staring at your immense beauty ever since we spoke on black magick. I've been drawn to your awareness like a moth to a vibrant golden flame. I've even been commenting on your beauty to others, in private. You've been on my mind and I have much to learn from you. You have been inspiring me to grow in beautiful ways, during a time when I've been feeling very heavy under the weight of what I'm expected to do. It's a struggle to keep walking under the weight of such tremendous internal pain. In the few moments where I look up to ensure I'm not walking into a wall, I've been seeing the most beautiful souls along the way. You have been one of those who inspire me to continue putting one foot in front of the other, even when I have no clue where it is I'm headed.

I'm grateful for your presence and your willingness to place yourself in a location to be seen. You offered me a moment of reprieve as you showed me such beauty and connection with a source greater than the nagual thank you, Glance, for being that golden flame within such vast darkness.

[glance left]

Wow, Kao....I'm speechless! So happy something that's being brought in to me from out of the blue (much of which I feel I don't deserve, honestly...given my capacity for indulgence) was an inspiration to you. It's certainly an inspiration to me....my earnest hope is that I can follow through and live out this stuff to honor what's being brought in. It would be a shame not to....follow through.

In that regard, I can learn at least as much from you (and others), trust me. I know how to open up and let go (or I'm slowly learning this) to allow power and intention to do its thing in my awareness...but I really don't know how to explore...to venture forth in that feeling of freedom. To give range to the potential that that letting go engenders. You and many others here are consummate explorers, I feel. I see awesome courage in that respect, and that's encouraging.

Once I'm firmly rooted in that fundamental state ("the well" you talked about in the black magick thread) then exploring will have a center, I'm thinking. Balance Balance, as you say, while putting one foot in front of the other, even though all kinds of horrors, darkness, intensity, "heaviness" insist that to keep going is impossible. I've been there, believe me, on my own level. It seems an almost daily thing. But, as you say, I look up and see that we are supported all the way, by the source of that golden light...even though I have no clue where I'm headed, either

Anyways, thank you for your kind words. Encouragement to press on, to say the least

[Julio Juliopolis]

Kao is lying to you Glance. It's an easy lie to fall for. We all want to think we're special, we've inspired others, we've made a difference in someone else's life. It's something we so rarely get to hear and a nice change from all the "you're not good enough" messages that we usually get bombarded with. The idea that someone who tells us we're special and an inspiration to them is lying is border-line offensive, and the natural tendency is to become defensive upon hearing such a claim.

That aside, it doesn't look like a lie. There's no obvious benefit to Kao here. She's not asking you for anything. Why should she lie to you about it? How does she gain from telling you this? I'll answer those in a moment.

From another standpoint you have to admit her claims are a bit... grandiose. You acknowledged that your posts and your actions here probably don't really merit this level of praise, (and they don't. They are fine posts and your presence here has been pleasant, but not to the degree that Kao is saying so.), so the question is then "Does Kao really feel you have earned this level of praise she's given you here, (which, no offense, you and I know you really haven't), or is she lying?"

As you probably know, Hitler infamously said that the bigger the lie, the more likely the people will fall for it. Consider Kao's statements....

1. "I have been staring at your immense beauty ever since we spoke on black magick."
Do you think that's true? I've seen Kao highly engaged in many activities over the last few months here on the forums that have had nothing to do with you. Not to mention all the activities she gets up to in her non-here life. I don't think she's had any time to stare at your immense beauty, let alone to have been doing so ever since you had that conversation whenever that was.

2. " I've been drawn to your awareness like a moth to a vibrant golden flame."
She told me nearly the exact same thing less than 2 weeks ago. She's said the same to others here. This one might be true. She might just be drawn to awareness period.

3. "I've even been commenting on your beauty to others, in private."
I did see her mention that she approves of you, but that's about the extent of what I've personally seen. Maybe someone else will come forth and say "Oh yes, Kao keeps telling me how wonderful she thinks you are". Maybe that won't happen.

4. "You have been inspiring me to grow in beautiful ways, during a time when I've been feeling very heavy under the weight of what I'm expected to do. It's a struggle to keep walking under the weight of such tremendous internal pain. In the few moments where I look up to ensure I'm not walking into a wall, I've been seeing the most beautiful souls along the way. You have been one of those who inspire me to continue putting one foot in front of the other, even when I have no clue where it is I'm headed."
So, here she's basically claiming that you've been her knight in shining armor. Only your near-divine example has kept her going through these desperate troubled times. She's been a damsel in distress and you may have, just by being so wonderful, saved her life. Boy, I bet hearing that makes ya feel good! No shame to be had in that for sure, it would make any man feel good. But is it really true? Have you, Sir Glancealot, really been the beacon of all that is proper and good behavior? Or have you just posted some stuff trying to explain your views and asked others for their own? Which is more accurate?

Ok, I've likely shown you that her claims are grandiose, but I still haven't demonstrated that she doesn't believe them. Proving what someone else actually believes is a pretty difficult task. The best I can do is suggest you pay attention and watch for patterns. I've seen her say these same kinds of over-the-top things to others, who also really hadn't justified such comments, myself included. When someone is telling everyone how unique and special they are, and how only that someone can see their real beauty, it's not terribly convincing.

Still the question remains "Why would she lie about it?"
Well, that's part of the reason why this type of lying is so clever. We don't know yet exactly what she's after.

Let's pretend, just as a hypothetical that she's trying to get some money from you. If she'd ended her post with "Oh by the way can I have $500?" you'd have seen it all as a bunch of BS, (and of course, kept your money). Any two-bit con artist knows that. So what needs to happen, is the con artist needs to allow some time to pass before asking you for the money. During this time, they would try to put you into the proper position to be conned by them. In Kao's case, she might continue to flatter you on occasion, try to put you into sort of a "protector role", and get you emotionally invested in her. Eventually, she might casually mention having just loaned a friend a large sum of money. She could spin it so that she hardly knows this person, then when you predictably ask her if it was wise to lend her all that money she'd say that real friends should be willing to help each other out and besides, she can afford it. This, again, would seem like something she has no reason to lie about. After all, she still wouldn't be asking you for anything and besides, she just told you she's unlikely to ever need any money from you right? So, maybe there's no reason to be suspicious that she's just fed you a rule saying real friends lending money when asked. By now you might be able to guess how this con ends. Of course, eventually she would come to you for money. The way I imagine a good con artist going about this would be to first confess that she hates asking other people for money even though she's always lending it out. At some point, she would then tell you that a financial crisis has struck her. She won't ask for money the first time she mentions it though, and would refuse it if you offered. Instead, she would tell you that she can do it on her own, she'll just need to work 2 jobs for a while.

Only after all of that would the other shoe finally drop. By then, if you're a fairly normal person and she's been careful in how she's guided your emotions you would be emotionally invested in seeing her happy, proud to be in that protector-of-her role, and probably completely unaware of how you got there. Even if you did remember all of the steps involved, (which would be quite a feat!), you'd probably find it hard to believe that way back when, perhaps a year prior to this, when she wrote "thank you, Glance, for being that golden flame within such vast darkness", it was just the start of her plan. So when that 2nd shoe comes down it might begin with her telling you that you're the only man she can trust to ask for money, or that you might be the only real friend she's got. This could be followed up with a story about how she needs $2000 to cover the expense of fixing her car so that she can keep working her two jobs and recover from that devastating financial blow she suffered. But she refuses to borrow it all from you. She insists that she's going to sell a family heirloom, indeed the last thing she has to remind her of her mother, to cover $1,500 of it. She tells you she won't let you talk her out of it and only asks you for the $500, which she'll repay as soon as she is capable of it.

Would you deny that hard-working little trooper? A little different than asking for the $500 at the end of the first flattering post she writes about you isn't it?

Ok, so there's still one major reason I see for you to object here. That sounds like a lot of work for $500. How many people are really going to put in the effort to attempt that scam?
There's two things to keep in mind regarding that. The first is that Kao has publicly claimed to be a sociopath, and I believe she really is one. This means that she doesn't empathize and is not investing any emotional energy into this. When you take the emotions out of it, it doesn't look that hard at all. Write a few flattering posts, have a few chats with the person, maybe send a few emails. A clever person might write them all up in one day, then send them out at the appropriate times over the next year to any number of "marks".

The second thing to keep in mind regarding the apparently overburdening amount of work involved in such a scam is that it isn't necessarily 1 scam. We don't know that Kao is going to ask you for money at some point. I doubt if she knows that yet either. That's only one thing that she might end up doing eventually. But whatever she might ask you for would start the same way, with a flattering post designed to get you emotionally invested in her. It grants her a degree of flexibility as well. That way she's got you already primed for whatever she might decide to use you for.

People who keep lots of people primed like that are what I call everyday cult leaders. Whenever they need support for anything they just apply the next part of the con to whichever one is most suited for the job. I recently saw a situation where one of these everyday cult leaders saw another person enter their group whom they felt posed an obvious threat to their power. The cult leader attacked the newcomer viciously for months in what would appear to any normal person to be completely unprovoked lashing out. But this cult leader claimed to be able to see more layers to what normal people see, and that the information proving the attack was justified was contained somewhere in these additional layers. When this was questioned further, the cult leader turned to one of the group's members and said "I did it to protect him, as he was being attacked on these layers. My seeing told me it was necessary, or has my seeing been wrong all this time? Have I been so wrong in so many ways?". The man, obviously to appease the cult leader, then agreed that the cult leader's random attacks on the newcomer had helped him in some way which was completely invisible to everyone else. My guess is that this man had previously been primed for a long time by this cult leader, who may have begun by telling him of his own uniqueness and special light, which was only visible to the cult leader because of their ability to see into this other layer.

I hope you consider my words carefully Glance, regarding any potential everyday cult leader you might find in your life. If you're interested, I'd also suggest you have a look at my thread on this subject at http://sorcery.yuku.com/topic/6704/mast ... LEOuFfaub8

[Guest]

Forgive JJ, he's been very upset recently and since RF is closed it seems I'm at fault. He's also feeling hurt, angry, and betrayed. He wouldn't be the first to behave this way toward me. He's one in a long line of people who feel I'm a devil worshiper, cult leader, or something else entirely creative. I suppose I could be and it might even be fun for a while. I've never tried those roles on, but I've never had the chance either.

Anyway, about my compliments toward you Glance. I'm almost certain you don't put much stock in what I think of you as you're focused on what you think of you. In the event you want clarification, WG and I have exchanged PMs where I've indicated a strong preference for your presence. She asked what I had to learn from you and I told her you're capable of bringing in joy to RF. You're very heart centered and it shows in how you engage people. I appreciate those qualities particularly when some have been less than friendly. Feel free to PM her should you require external validation LOL! Never thought I'd write a sentence like that.

Hey, maybe one day I'll ask you for money or to join my cult it's entirely within the realm of possibilities. If I do, please say no and don't encourage me. In fact, if I ever ask you for personal life details or for any sort of personal connection, please stop speaking to me entirely. Though, I see Im surrounded by turbulence so it's still likely a good idea to keep a safe distance from me. In that respect JJ is right.

Conversate at your own risk, Glance. Watch your soul, seems I might attempt to steal it xD Your soul or money, I'm bound to go after one of those xD

[Pixie Dust]

Reading this uplifting thread reminds me of a silly thought. We can't be lost if we don't know where we're going. How do we know we aren't exactly where we're supposed to be

[glance left]

Pixie Dust wrote:Reading this uplifting thread reminds me of a silly thought. We can't be lost if we don't know where we're going. How do we know we aren't exactly where we're supposed to be Remember this, for me, is the essence of being found....from moment to moment.  "This is it", a wise man once said   So, again for me, there's this interplay between the lost and found.  They revolve around each other in this weird dance, opposing yet giving each other gifts in the opposition.

[Guest]