Hi Peter

I love your reflection on the web of being. How poetic! Thank you for sharing your wisdom. ❤️

I agree. As a ex-language teacher, I think it is fascinating how differently words are interpreted. I feel like we mean similar things, but express ourselves in different ways.

I am still learning about human nature! 😊 It makes sense that these things are more complicated to practice than to intellectually understand. It always takes time for my emotions to catch up to my logic. Practice makes perfect.

I feel like life is a balancing act. Both pleasant and unpleasant experiences ultimately have to be accepted. And we have to understand our role in managing our own emotions and behaviour. Maybe that is the stage in life I am at right now. If I don’t do that, I don’t take care of my child properly.

I feel like in a society that focuses so heavily on the individual, now has difficulty accepting other people.

Yes, I think that pathway is necessary to feel a sense of belonging, develop appropriate skills in communication and empathy, then to be strong enough to forge our own path. I wonder if it is possible to teach some of these skills at a younger age… My son is likely autistic. As am I. He will likely have some difficulties with socialising. I hope to teach him to take the difficulties in his stride. I know it is easier said than done though. Time works differently for children. Everything feels like it lasts forever.

I remember watching the first X-Men movie as a child, it was that dark scene with Magneto in the WW2 camp. It lasts about 5 minutes and the rest of the movie was in colour. I turned the movie off because it was a black and white movie and I thought that was boring. 🤦‍♀️ I was wrong, it was a great movie.

I know he will make mistakes, as did I. And it will be my job to support him through it all, as best I can.

I agree with the importance of self-acceptance. I don’t think it’s an easy or intuitive process. It seems to me to happen in stages. Like many things I guess.

It didn’t occur to me until I read somewhere recently that the past occurring in the present should be accepted as part of the present. Something that I have worried about trying to unpick for so long. It’s okay to be there, don’t worry about it! Oh, well no one told me that before. That’s simple! It does sound true. 😊

I dare say that things happen in their own time.

I think that a complexity is choice. Ultimately, we do have to decide our own lives. We are always going to have to be guided by desire as people who live in the world.

Sorry, I think I rambled and got off track! ❤️

🤍

Imagine people holding up lighters, gently waving them at a concert. I wish there was an emoji for that. Then a row of them. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Peter. Sitting with some of your thoughts has helped me to understand some things. So thank you!

Dear Peter:

“Lead us not where shadows lie, Where maps replace the living sky. Deliver us from fear’s cruel hungry thread, The root from which all evil’s bred.”-

This passage, to me, speaks to emotional suppression, self-alienation, and fragmentation—themes at the heart of my recent posts and reflections in the forums. It captures the struggle of being disconnected from one’s true self.

“Lead us not where shadows lie” – Suppressed emotions suffocate in the shadows, buried for protection from pain. But in doing so, we become alienated from ourselves, not truly alive, not truly dead.

“Where maps replace the living sky” – Maps symbolize rigid, predefined paths. Emotional suppression makes us follow a script rather than experience life authentically, cutting us off from spontaneity, intuition, and emotional freedom— cutting us off from the Living Sky.

The Living Sky is about the full expression of emotions, those energies in motion (e-motion). When emotions remain unexpressed, they suffocate—neither fully alive nor completely gone. And in suppressing them, so do we.

“Deliver us from fear’s cruel hungry thread” – Fear is often the force behind emotional suppression and fragmentation. It fractures parts of ourselves in an attempt to stay safe—safe.. in a state of being not quite alive, yet not quite dead.

“The root from which all evil’s bred” – Chronically repressed emotions manifest in anger, resentment, cycles of avoidance, and destructive behaviors. The longer emotions remain buried, the more they distort perception and disconnect us from our true selves, and from others.

To me, this prayer pleads for liberation from emotional suppression and fear-based fragmentation—a call to live fully, openly, and rooted in emotional truth.

Anita