I never did read the series of books called by the above name. I have a vague recollection of the titles and, I think, a documentary about the author, Neale Donald Walsch. I just didn't have any interest. Certainly, at the time it was 'the thing', I'd not decided on the existence of God, a belief or disbelief in the same, or if I cared at all one way or another.
What I have read and remember was this quote from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: "There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand." Of course, when I read Shelley it was in an AP English class and hadn't the foggiest care if there was such a thing as a soul, either. However, as I knock around the idea of 'a'--as in a solitary, single soul--being a foreign concept as any, that quote comes into the fore; more as practicing an explanation for others, just in case someone would care to ask, than anything else.
Because, the thing is, I do understand. I understand a) that I carry more than one soul and b) why we're all gathered in this particular combination of sinew and brain-goop.
And, it's unfolding includes conversations with God: pointed ones that are not dissimilar to a parent providing a finger-shaking. I never did publicly share the first one from the early summer of 2022 (though I have now). I did privately once and was ashamed enough of needing to feel received and not feeling that at all, that I shut myself down--even though echoes of it were heard from others.
However, I've been directed to share last Thursday's conversation. What follows is the transcript and annotations from my most recent conversation with God. I don't know why I'm directed to churches for these conversations because I hear the same voice all the time in different contexts. Perhaps it's because on a church pew there's little to be distracted by or doubt is harder to reach in that setting. Maybe, one day I'll know. Until then, maybe, I won't wait ten weeks trying to 'figure out' why I keep seeing imagery related to church (which I did. Every time I saw a stained glass window in vision, for weeks, I thought I was being redirected back to my notes from July 2022 when I was last sent to have a conversation at the National Cathedral.)
These directives and suggestions are responses (mostly) to questions I repeatedly ask to myself and the ether. Almost all of them are related to how, exactly, am I to be this thing, this prayed-into-existence and poured-into-being thing that lives and moves and breathes as One but struggles mightily to do so.
"These are extraordinary times and times for extraordinary choices. Why are you so impatient?" Because I'm exhausted and feel unsupported and profoundly alone and can't see how any of this can be beneficial to anyone, especially me. And the constancy of danger-messaging and exhaustion keeps me at the knife's edge of things.
"You're their blessings. They're your burden." This is in reference to the painstaking attempts at patience and letting go and pushing through and deep hope and grief related to my work surrounding Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. As well as the deeper, farther-reaching work related to changing the world's relationship to girls that comes from this current emergence.
"There is more than one way to heal. There is more than one way to love. There is more than one way to see. There is more than one way to Know." This was preceded by my questions related to going back to the healing work in my preferred manner--hands on. I'd had hoped that the healing work with one particular woman was a signal that I'd be going back to the healing work I love: hands on, face-to-face entanglements with the deepest expression of love. It is not to be
"Your choices can't be wrong but choosing wisely....is wise." I'll leave out the snark with which I responded and say that this, too, is related to my impatience. Nothing I do is impetuous because the stakes are high; high enough that grand errors on my part effect my capacity to stay alive. However, despite that, when I think it's time for a reminder that all of this is real, I lean toward poking The Lion in the eye, wanting to create a response that will lead others to believe and support me. I'd been considering doing just that for a couple of weeks. This was a kind suggestion to perhaps choose differently.
"You like the dramatic and it's necessary. You're a warrior for a reason and a peace-bringer for a reason." Two summers ago, around the time I was sent to the National Cathedral, I had a conversation with Shayhk Nazim Al-Haqqani. He's been active in my world and work since 2014 and, in response to something I was in the midst of said, "You like the dramatic, don't you?" "Yep. No need to lie about that. Beats the alternative." And recently, as I practice being impatiently patient in the midst of waiting, and wanting to poke The Lion in the eye, this has arisen again as a theme. Both the desire to 'get on with it' and the befuddling nature of these two dual natures: a warrior who, this past spring tried to encourage a bullet, and the thing that Is Peace. "Seasons don't last 3 months and what you're doing is not 'code-switching'. It's switch hitting and related to the "go to the lightness when appropriate, go to the fight when appropriate" two years ago...You are all these things but can't be all these things at once." Again, patience and not understanding why I'm pulled out of, shoved into circumstances while struggling to feel remotely graceful in it all. I feel like the used car-sales lot dancing blow-up-boogie-things only exhausted as the wind keeps on blowing me around.
"Trust that I will care for you." Because I don't feel cared for or about. Because I've been created to be this thing for which there isn't support that I can see, taste, and touch (mostly).
"Discomfort is part of destiny, it's unfolding now and doesn't last much longer." It's very difficult to explain to anyone what it is like to live with this kind of sensitivities to what others call 'subtle' energies in the midst of 'regular-life' energies; how hard it is to maintain some semblance of health or 'normal' in the midst of anything but. My body hurts and the cumulative effects every week directly impact my ability to speak, stand, walk and think.
"The speed with which things unfold will make you spin if you're not centered. Make that a priority--your way." My response, much like that related to the possibility of snow is, "I'll believe it when I see it."
"Quit the job. Don't quit the job. That's not the point." Because I consider quitting daily but rent...
"Your hardness, soften it" I have no idea what this means.
"You are the force of nature your paint." This? I know exactly what this means but it would require a few hundred more words that I don't have the energy for right now.
"Your loneliness is also foundational. It will change."
"You have admirers you can't see. They do know and will be out of the shadows soon."
"Move your body. Ignore the things that say otherwise, you need fluidity of mind and body. Strength of body like heart, not hard." There are those in my world (and body) who are adamant that particular types of movement impede progression of their ideas of 'awakening' or 'enlightment'. They encourage me to literally be still and not exercise in my preferred manner. Here, I'm being told to follow my preferred method.
"You want surety but that's not going to come; it's the nature of belief and faith and relearning trust in that depth you've begun tapping into. Where that intensity of depth and the openness of the paint meet is your balance point. Get familiar with it." Super. Fucking super.
"You may get hurt but imagine the fluidity within martial arts and baseball's greatest." "You're not fighting upstream--you just think the stream should be going in a particular direction and rate of flow. All the future is beyond your reason right now until it shows up. When it does, act. You are without imagination purposefully; don't try. Ask, move."
"You are still heard and seen. This is bigger than you but, yes, your needs matter. Ask, move. Trust in the sacrifice of the moment and know it ends with a bang; figuratively at the moment, perhaps literal later."
"You know your ego. There's no judgement around that but that's not the depth of you." "Don't force The Voice. There is a method to the direction; it's not madness. It comes from a different perspective." "Allow your needs to be met when others offer. The scraps are given with love and you will have more."
"Be still. Be still. Be Still. All things circle back in a different way."
"Maintain key relationships, nurture them without effort."
"Your change in presentation is a fluid as everything else--for a reason."
"Wonder more. Paint more. Bitch less. Ignore those other voices when they're not necessary and they're mostly not necessary. There's not an internal adversarial relationship if you don't make it one. All these things are true. You've only been lied to once and you made your choice to engage fully. Call it ignorance or call it courage--no matter. It is the catalyst for this emergence."
"The reach is immeasurable and unknowable now. Don't try to be Jesus. Be Ingrid-beyond-Ingrid. Don't defend, don't argue; flow. Only flow."
"Accept gifts in the same way you accept (maybe expect?) the challenges but maybe with less noise. Thank you works nicely but isn't necessary. [Social] conventions aren't all they're cracked up to be."
"Be still and know. Be still and feel the depth, the love that courses through you."
"Come each time I call you. Come here."
"Your wants matter but not as much as The Other, the Bigger. Things get easier, though, soon."
"You're smart. Figure it out. Start taking chances: evaluate ego, fear, opportunity at each opportunity. You already know but forget so easily. There's nothing wrong with what you're doing now but how do you make things worse for yourself in the between time, or, do you? Is strategy stagnation?"
"Your art is your way through. It's as intercessory for you as it is for others. but in a different way."
"Trust your reach. Trust your withdrawal. Trust, trust the absolute goodness of the earth. Nothing is permanent. Nothing is permanently lost."
"Hold your own space with grace."
"Fear nothing, observe everything; let meaning unveil itself."
"Ummah is in the making, creating of your Self. Go to Pir."
"From grace, go forth. From ground, go forth. From faith, go forth. Like others see you and your work diffferently than you see or experience it, the same with faith. You don't think you have it because you don't know what it looks like."
"History only shows the pretty parts; the parts often aren't 'pretty' but they're shiny so they inspire. Show it all--including this--so it cannot be rewritten. Write more, not just your notes. Write the story the right way. Your way, Our way."
"That dream? Yes, you're going to do some shit. Maybe without others in the way you want but there are others." This is about a dream I had a few weeks ago. In it, I was in a room with the almost-finished Buried Justice and four other women. They were faceless but I knew who they were (women who've been woven into my world to help with Fuckery but won't engage). As we sat in this room, I said in quite the annoyed voice, "All That Is says we're doing some shit, so we're going to fucking do some shit!"
"There is a partner. Don't look, wait or watch. He's as strong as you and can hold it all with loving power." Uh huh.
"Go now and know that what comes might look like war but war comes with resources. There is such thing as a "good fight" and you'll be in it."
"Go. In joy."
There are some things here that could be universal but in this conversation, they're not. They're focused on me, as an individual being, created for a purpose as the result of a single global prayer and not having the foggiest idea of how to do that or be that thing. This is guidance to help me do just that.
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