20 lessons learned at 20.

1. Do not move from fear.
2. Move from love.
3. Be yourself.
4. Embrace your weird.
5. Want the things that want you.
6. If you want a real teacher. Look at nature.
7. Darkness is there to purge. Do not run from it. It will only allow you to give more light.
8. Combat fear with bravery.
9. Invest in yourself. Not just financially but by claiming your own space and time to cultivate your talents.
10. Go out to places and events of interest. Even if it means going alone. Youll make friends.
Trust me.
11. Do your part. Show up. Let what is meant for you meet you half way.
12. Love never runs dry. No matter how hard someone hurts you. Real love is truly forever. Even in absence. Even in silence.
13. Your weaknesses are your strengths.
14. Your past is your past for a reason. Under divine guidance you have been built up for today.
15. Self- Reflection will save your life.
16. Damn, You really love yourself, dont you.
17. Remember what you’re here for. Never forget.
18. Dedication. Devotion and determination. Dont stop. Dont count.
19. It takes nothing to dream but everything you have to manifest a dream.
20. Girl. You good.

Faking The Burn.

My heart cannot hold space. 
For the weight of a person running away. For the vision of a love lost. 
Or that summers day where it rained,

relentlessly.

My heart has no time for such memory. 
Heart ache was removed from feeling, and a feeling became sentimental.

'Hold onto what hurt you so you remember how the wounds took shape.' 
Hands in broken glass as you invision the face of the past.

It doesnt hurt. 
The pain is sentimental. 
Been with you so long engraved in your mental.

You dont need it anymore. 
Or want it at that. 
You have simply become attached. 
Youre simply just attached.

Something says. 
The time is now. 
To let the old things go.

Our souls, they know spring. 
Our minds, will they follow?

Is It Dangerous.

Is it dangerous. 
To be this comfortable with silence?

To be perfectly okay. 
With waking up. 
And going back to sleep. 
Without the urge, or fight. 
To see the day. 

How healthy is it,
To want nothing?
And embrace nothing wanting you.

- A state of freedom

Being Your Own Oracle

An Oracle, in ancient Greek times, was a woman or a host of women, believed to have divine insight, sacred knowledge, which had been appointed by the gods. People would travel to seek divine help from these Oracles pertaining to actions they should or should not take in the future.
An Oracle can also refer to the temples in which the knowledge was given.

(It is speculated that the Oracles were not infact 'appointed by the gods', and rather were influenced by a gas, which would send them into a frenzy like state and make them appear as if they were channeling some kind of spiritual force.
However, this is not about the legitimacy of the Oracles, rather about what they represent.)

To be your own Oracle,  is to be able to 'come into' yourself and seek your own help. Rather than looking for answers outside and guidance from external sources.

These people will never follow anything that they, at the core, do not believe for themselves. Someone who is their own Oracle holds their own opinion of themselves over any other opinion and takes pride in creating their own blue print to 'success'.

This is not the same as someone who is too proud to take advice from other people. Someone who is their own Oracle understands that just as they are a teacher, so is everyone else, and openly respects the wisdom others have to share. But does not take this wisdom as truth, unless it resonates with them.

This is everyones right.
To trust themselves enough to value their own inner voice.

Gurus, Masters, or whatever respectable title we give people who have decided to make it their life purpose to assist others on Earth. All must have been aware of being their own guru, alone before extending their help to others. 
It is important to realise the inner 'guru'.  That, I believe, must be the central message of all external help you recieve.

Being able to give yourself the advice you would give to another in your position.

These people understand their own power, and how to turn moments of darkness into light.  They reflect on their actions and through this are able to see themselves in a raw state, to be honest with themselves, to understand their role in relationships,  and not just the role of others. These people know and accept responsibility. And thus give themselves the responsibility and power to turn around a situation.

Everyone has their different ways of coming home to themselves, even someone that does not realise. Some people may listen to music. Go to the gym. Sit in silence. Light candles or take a long walk or pray/meditate. All these things, when done with the awareness that they are being carried out for your well being are ways of self healing and self mastery, understanding what works for you, the way you cleanse best.

An Oracle trusts their discernment and intuition, ofcourse as humans, we all have moments of denial or confusion, but ultimately someone who respects their own way. Goes with what they feel at the core of them, it is easy to ignore the inner voice that guides,       
The point is knowing that it exists and respecting it.

Reflecting on personal evolution, I realised I had become my own Oracle or atleast given it a stronger voice when, I realised that I valued my own knowing over blind belief. I grew to respect my perspective, to come in tune with myself to know, that if a message does not resonate with me, then I do not need to hold it up as my truth, but that does not make it a lie. It just means I am not ready to recieve it at this time, I may never be.
This is okay.
It doesnt matter who it is coming from. It could be someone whom I admire, a scholar or a parent.
I have to completely understand (which means to have a learning experience) until I can say, I know.
Before that its simply a theory.

In a world where we wake up, and access our social media accounts almost intantaneously, we are bombarded with external feelings, thoughts and emotions. 
It makes sense for someone to broadcast  their opinion as if it is factual, if from their perspective it is truth. But that does not mean however beautiful the quote it has to be believed or adopted.

For example.

'Never let an old flame burn you twice.'

Lets create two characters, person A and person B.

- A may read this and agree. It may be beneficial at that moment in their life to close doors on whoever has hurt them. To be strong enough to learn from the past rather than repeat a mistake.

But this particular saying may not be as appropriate for B in B's unique circumstance, if B must learn the beauty of forgiveness.
(note: this may not mean making the same mistake twice, but being open to potentially being hurt again through letting in the person who has hurt them in the past). 
No one can decide for B, if this is the right thing to do. Only they can, but if B follows A and applies the 'wisdom' exactly in the same way A does, by shutting out someone completely, they may miss their own unique lesson or blessing.

One mans lie is another mans mantra.

It is extemely important to figure out what is our truth in the present moment. And how to apply others peoples truths to our own unique situations.

- Self Reflection. To look upon yourself and actions from a raw and honest perspective.

- Self Help. Understanding that ultimately no one can 'heal' you but yourself, people can only assist and give advice. Valuing yourself as the number one care taker of your own life.

- Self Healing. Doing the things that reguvinate you. Mentally. Spiritually. Physically.

- Self Respect. Respecting your inner voice. Intuition. Discernment and perspective, what resonates with you may not with everyone. What does with most people may not with you. Different people with different experiences will speak of different truths.
Respect theirs.
Walk in your own.

It is always important to realise that as we give our "words of wisdom' we are constantly reminding ourselves. 
This blog post is just as much for me as it is for anyone who stumbles across it.
Find your way.
Love at all who read
And all who dont.

- Hermenia

We Are All Born To 'Make' It. (Planet Earth Revolves Around Manifesting)

Planet Earth is one of manifestation.
Almost everything is tangible. You can see the outcome of thoughts to literal feeling as you look around, where ever you are.
Humans are always dreaming, thinking and then creating.
The more you know how to do it.
The more valuable you are perceived to be.
We are all born professional dreamers.
The challenge is, how do we turn the intangible into matter? 
Material.
How does one materialise?
And not only that., How does one acquire profit from their ideas to prove they have mastered the art the planet revolves around?
How do we balance our handy work with how fast our brains move?
Personally, I find my brain is always moving. Always layering thoughts over one another. Always expanding, always thinking up new ideas and concepts.
It takes almost no energy to think up an idea, and could take half a life time to manifest it.

The problem is wanting to prove ourselves as creative beings. Through having something to show for. 

So, is there really anything wrong with wanting things? Or wanting money? Or wanting to consume? Or create for that matter. 

No. I don't believe so.
We are here on such a planet to do this very thing.

But something inside me wonders if our value is being placed solely on the physical. 

How much room do we give for the value of emotion, mental health. spiritual growth?
If everything we do, revolves around accumulating a piece of paper, if we need this thing to prove our value at what cost does it compensate for our growth outside of the physical realm but as infinite beings (energy) passing through a material world temporarily.

If you take notice, you will find duality in all things. The relationship between opposites exist everywhere. In this case, its about that of which we can see, and that of which we cannot see. As our planet, with its inhabitants, thriving on that which we can see, feel and taste to survive. 

We place the value on things that only have these elements present. In order to for us to acquire visual wealth, to appear more important we will go the distance- selling parts of our souls in order to be richer.
The transaction I'm writing about doesn't take place in some underground stairwell, hidden from the rest of society due to shame and embarrassment.

Its out. Its open. And it happens both subconsciously and consciously. 
    .
- At the cost of self esteem, our peers (the other humans that work for the brands that feed off of your insecurities) will sell us cheap dreams to look and be something other than ourselves. 

- We are sold the lie that there must be some kind of hierarchy, the constant power struggle, there must be a top and bottom right? Two things cannot shine at the same time.. there is not enough room for diversity. There must be a standard, and unfortunately the consumer has not fully realised their power, that the 'standard' is whatever the hell we say it is. 

- 'Good news does not sell'. Why not? If people decided that they would rather hear about positive movements that are improving the standard of peoples lives, rather than celebrity gossip. Then that is what magazines would give, because no company would release a product, knowing it will not gain any profit. 

Money is physical energy, this is why people feel good when they have it, because we are told that there is value in it. Which is fine, but what you feed grows. So every time we allow ourselves to give into the pressure of trading our energy for products which preach they are a necessity, we feed a system that thrives off of human insecurity. 

- We are pressured to adhere to ideals. 

Ideals. 

Ideals. 

Someone else's idea seeps through our skulls. We are left with the residue of belief systems that do not belong to us. At tender age. Our young, impressionable brains adopt these ideas. We spend the next twenty years trying to unlearn what we did not even need to realise as children before. 

To just be. 

And be okay.  

With whatever that looks like.
Damn. 

Now we go round and round needing constant reminders.

We sell each other to a system of hurt for profit.

Suppress our inner being so we don't stand out too far. 

Have the humans become so self indulgent that they have forgotten how to share?  

Have they become so obsessed with what can be seen. They only value the tangible.
They have no real respect for human suffering. Emotion.
Killing animals for no good reason. 

Consuming more than creating.
We cannot sustain our habits. 
Selling the idea of the ideal human.

Selling our true souls to be easier accepted. Allowing the self esteem of both men and women to be crushed under the force of media.
We kill our mental to feed our greed.
We kill our spirits and the parts of us that make us unique to appear 'better' on the outside.
But what is the internal self esteem saying?

In this generation, we are moving towards a time of being self made. To making a living out of just being authentic.

So. Perhaps it's time for a shift in paradigms. 

Where seeing is no longer the only way to believe it. 

Where receiving sincere love, a smile, is also profit. 

Where we give room for more than one kind of transaction. 

Where we do not lose ourselves in material wealth.
Where we do not forget that there are two sides to life. What we can see and feel and that of which cannot be seen.

The other day this hit me hard. As it was not already so obvious. 

This is what we do here. 
Think. 

Make things.
We have exercised how to use our brains. And then use our bodies to work for our brains.
But there is still one side of us that goes thirsty and uncultivated. 

Our hearts. Human empathy.

For a long time we have asked, why? 

Why do we do this, why were we so ready to use fellow humans as slaves to build empires. 

Why do we still do this?
Why are we so ready to slit the throat of a stranger and to sacrifice our own sanity to climb the invisible ladder of 'success'?

In our thriving to achieve. To dream. To create and REAL-ise our thoughts and ideas. Let us no not forget our inner well-being. That we will not trade true friendship for cheap fortune. That we will not trade true love over things that whither and burn. That we move for the feeling and love for whatever craft we wish to 'perfect' and not just to be seen. So we care more about what we know than what we want others to think we know. So that, as we have, so greatly, created a world of amazing technology and manipulated material in such a way that we can live more abundantly. We should also respect the other side of ourselves that cries for growth. 

So we do not place material profit over emotional health. 

A shift in priorities is necessary.

Planet Earth is one of manifestation.
I cannot say what the other planets revolve around, I've never been there. 

But our Earth, with its obsession with things that shine.
Has done a great job of shining from the outside.
However, on the inside... there is a lot of discovering, cleaning and cleansing to do.

Never leave hope breathing.

Never leave hope breathing. 

It has a way of seeping gas through the cracks of a torn chest. 

Giving breath to the concrete.
Filling a heart up with 'maybes'.  
You Find a faith in your bones. 

In the soil grows the seeds. 

'what if' is conceived. 

Before I lost the tiny device which encapsulated the core of my emotions. My sadness, my happiness. That was practically a portable part of me outside of me.

I wrote my whole life story.  Almost. I talked to myself about who I was before, how it's made me all I am now. 

How what I thought were my weaknesses are my strengths and how it takes time to be able to hold all your gifts and use them to your benefit. 

How our divine inheritance of talent will work against us and as a child to adolescent and beyond, until you learn how to accept yourself. You will sell yourself cheap in the desperate hope of being appreciated. 

Just as I complete the longest note on my phone that I would have loved to read back. Go over. Edit. Release. 

I lose it. 

The whole thing. 

But writing all those words, thoughts and feelings made me strong. 

Now.  I outline the lesson in all losses.

- There is a force pulling me to walk into something new. What better time to do that than spring. 
- When I was away from home. I was having so much fun, enjoying life... absorbing a fresh environment. With that I lost all the feelings that weighed me down. So do things that make you feel good more. 

- You will lose it all to learn protection. 
- You will lose it all to learn to guard your treasures with your life.

- People will care as much as you do.
- Make no apologies for the words of your soul.

And although it sounds like common sense. To always back up everything you do. I've been thinking about why I never did that with all my words. Even some of the ones I loved, maybe because deep down.  I thought, 'I probably won't be sharing this'. I wish I did now. It goes to show how important it is to protect the things that mean a lot to you. 

I still remember, a lot of my words, they come back to me in fragments, some in full- those are the ones I would read over in order to memorise them. 

So I'm writing it all down      again. 

(Atleast what is engraved in my brain.)

I do believe, we are given what we need to move forward, even if it's the minimum. 

I am not waiting

When we finally get what we 'want'. Who's to say we will not have lost the things that we 'need by then'? Like some friends and family. And yes I mean this literally, Of course... 'God Forbid' and this is certainly not something we want to think about or fathom. But as much as we are in control of our lives, as much as we are life. We are actually moving within spontaneity. There is so much out of our hands. In a later post. I definitely want to talk about something more personal, about my own personal realisations about what I 'want' for myself.

But who's to say I'll be blessed enough to have it all at the same time, my loved ones and my version of 'success', I pray I do. I pray when I'm 25 and I've got some things checked off the list by then and I've manifested a lot of my dreams thinking. 'Hm. Well done Hermenia'. I've got all the people I love sharing love, happiness and joy with me. But whether my future will play out this way is not in my control. So then, is it not foolish to anticipate the day you will 'glow' and lose the present?

In this world of social media, it's easy to get caught up in wants and 'goals'. It's easy to get lost in the hustle and the chase. It's easy to rob yourself of priceless wealth which is sincere love from yourself and others, and begin chasing replaceable material wealth.

At any moment in time. The ground can be snatched from underneath us and our realities turned upside down. 

If I had everything I ever wanted. If I was a 'successful' illustrator, writer, designer and all the other things I want to be that are too abstract for a title. And didn't have my mother. Of course, with time I'd gather the strength to keep going. But love does not die. And this fact is what keeps you in heart ache and also what heals you. It is a void and a feeling which can never be filled. So, this mothers day, I'm thankful and grateful she is here, beautiful as ever and healthy. Here to share life with me in the physical form.

It's so easy to imagine the perfect future. But it is merely a dream that will never be realised, because, if us humans had our way. We would have it so that we hardly ever or never endure pain. And pain is necessary for purging and evolution. We would make things too easy.

Life as it is, is already perfect. It is already divine. The present moment is this way for a reason and to be appreciated. And I have been constantly reminding myself of this.

So whatever,

I am everything I want to be right now. I am all that I need right now. I have all the tools to build and bridge between my dreams and reality right now. And as I'm working. I'll definitely be stopping to have conversations. To fall in love. To watch a sunset. Because there's no point building the future  to realise the view you had in the past was awesome. There will be no real bridge to walk over to see what you missed when your head was down.

My last post was. 'Negativity is inevitable'. Well so is success. Whatever that looks like for you. Whatever that looks like for me. You know what let me talk to myself. Because I always am anyway, I'm actually thinking of making a YouTube channel under a name like that.

As long as I continue to fall in love with myself.
To practice using my body as a vessel for a message to uplift the world.
To love others.
And give light for growth.
As long as I meet God half way.
Then the universe will respond to my frequency and energy I'm giving out.  

That's not saying I'll never get stressed. but, I will stop pretending I'm not already all the things I wanted be once upon a time. 
Oh and a little bit more. :) 

There's a song by 'Nuages' called. 'Dream'. It's a trip. Cos it really takes you on a journey. There's a beautiful instrumental. And over it.

Is the voice of philosopher Alan Watts:

"So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could for example have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have.

And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfil all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great”. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn't under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be.

And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn't it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today."

I'm back to blogging if you haven't noticed. 

- Hermenia