Refining Ourselves
The Chief Features—3 & 4
Inspiration Axis
Self-Deprecation
Self-deprecation is, for better or worse, a favorite among Old Souls. A tendency to recognize the immensity of the universe can cause Olds to shy away from putting themselves forward. While this Chief Negative Feature helps hold people back from creating karma, it can also keep them from developing relationships or manifesting their true talents. As a result, it can restrain them from moving into the tranquility they seek.

Self-deprecation can manifest among people of ethnic groups that are held in disdain by other groups and in the poorer classes of third world countries, as well. It is adopted among those who are downtrodden in the political systems that create large disparities between the haves and the have-nots. Women in those countries in which they are kept behind the veil often use this Chief Feature. It helps them not call attention to themselves in situations where it could, potentially, be dangerous to do so.

In the positive pole, people who use this Chief Feature are humble about their achievments and feel no need to grab the limelight. They aren’t afraid to admit their shortcomings or lack of knowledge about a given topic. A great modesty is often manifested. This is a gentle overleaf, generally speaking. People employing it are usually unassuming and comfortable in the background.

In the negative pole, constant apologizing, self-abasement and a full-blown inferiority complex may show up. These folks don’t feel sufficient self-worth to allow themselves to manifest talents, wealth, relationships, or spiritual growth. Self deprecation may bring forth sloppy habits in dress as well as diet, exercise and, as a result, poor health.

Generally speaking, this Chief Feature can interfere with reaching out for fame. Woody Allen has based a career on Self-deprecation but he is the exception that proves the rule. Dudley Moore also managed it and George Harrison’s difficulty looking at the camera showed his Self-deprecation in action.

Self-deprecation, though it looks innocuous when compared to Self-destruction [see post of 12/21] or Martyrdom [to be profiled next time], can be extremely self-blocking. In order to loosen its grip, people need to learn to perceive themselves realistically— and recognize their own self-worth. After that, they might get hold of some self-help books and practice self-esteem enhancement. This makes it possible to slide into Pride, the positive pole of Arrogance [see below]. Making this change takes persistence and can be scary—but the exercise is worth it [having practiced self-dep, myself, for a number of years, I can attest to that.]

Arrogance
Often taken on at a young age, people with this Feature, tend to think they are a superior breed of human, not subject to the same imperfections as those other "common" people. They have an exaggerated sense of their own importance, perceiving themselves as noble and grand, and feeling they are beyond the average. They believe they will make a significant contribution to the world, and they have an unrealistic evaluation of their own abilities, talents, intelligence— they see themselves as better than they really are.

Ironically, the person in Arrogance may shy away from attention after spending years and enormous amounts of energy courting it. That’s because the fear that drives Arrogance is the fear of vulnerability. Arrogant people will not admit to themselves that they are imperfect and are terrified others will discover that they are. They are likely to avoid situations where they aren’t sure they will excel. They perfect themselves in private before stepping onto the public stage. They’ll stick to the things they do well, and continue to polish them. They tend to look down their noses at others—both literally and figuratively. Fearing the judgment of others, they tend to pass judgment on others first.

In the positive pole there is lots of pride and self-esteem. They dress and groom well. They do good work. By and large, they are comfortable with the image they see in the mirror. When living in the positive pole, there is no comparison with others, just a feeling that they are good people, doing well. They expect a lot of themselves, and work to live up to their self-image

In the negative pole there can be such a fixation on making a good impression that they can never let their guards down. They can’t simply relax and enjoy themselves.
Vanity and snobbery can crop up with the automatic assumption that others are lesser beings than themselves. Everything they do is geared toward proving their superiority. They belittle others and treat them as inferiors. They won’t be caught dead complimenting another person. To do so would acknowledge the other as an equal or even superior. They treat other people in a highhanded way they that says "I'm better than you, I know better than you and don’t you forget it.”

They don’t apologize for their mistakes. In fact, after making a mistake they will look you in the eye and deny it. If another should point out a mistake or some other imperfection, they will find a justification or excuse for it or even turn the tables and claim that the other person is mistaken in his or her judgment.

The way out of the negative pole is to contemplate the positive pole of Self-deprecation—humility, and strive to achieve it.

Despite the push-pull of the Feature, Arrogance can still propel people forward. People with the Role of King will often use Arrogance to help them achieve their goals and you’ll find it in large measure in the fields of law, politics, medicine, acting and other highly visible occupations.

Refining Ourselves
The Chief Negative Features—5 & 6
The Action Axis
Martyrdom [15%]
Heavy users of this feature generally have difficulty with positive feelings because they interfere so much with their suffering. They tend to draw to themselves more catastrophes and misery than the rest of us do. But, wallowing in desolation and blaming others tend to drive people away— so they don’t even receive the sympathy they seek. About the best they can often do is to try to get others to feel guilty about the wretchedness they’re experiencing.

This is definitely not a fun Chief Feature to have or to watch.
When people feel out of control— wretched and wanting someone else to blame —what they elicit from others is disgust.
Martyrs may have their crown of thorns but they’re a thorn in everyone else’s side. Spouses desert them, children leave home asap, doctors give them drugs just to get them to shut up, neighbors avoid them, this is definitely a case of misery NOT loving company.

If the person with this Feature manages to remain at the positive pole, he can call attention to a cause or complete difficult karmas. A person in martyrdom may appear selfless— helping others without seeming to give thought to his own needs. This is the soldier who throws himself on the hand grenade.
Mother Theresa, who claimed to want to ‘die on her feet’ carried this Feature to its highest level.
As with most Features, however, staying in the positive pole is difficult and rarely achieved.

The negative pole of Martyrdom does not bring about popularity or even much sympathy. To be sure, when a new acquaintance first witnesses the myriad of problems experienced here, they may offer to lend a hand. But, the person in Martyrdom’s negative pole will “Yes, but,” every suggestion put forth by those who may try to help— and they’ll soon leave to seek out folks who are actually interested in getting out of their miserable existences. Then, when the Martyr whines, “Why don’t you call or visit me any more?” [the finger-pointing, guilt-tripping aspect of this Feature] they’ll break into a run simply to get away.
Self esteem falls below zero as no one’s needs get met.

Not many Martyrs become well known and, for obvious reasons, those who do are managing to stay in the positive pole of the Feature.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King both used this Feature to fulfill their complicated life goals of bringing Blacks forward in this society regardless of the costs to either of them.
John Kennedy, Nelson Mandela and Dian Fossey are 3 others who used Martyrdom to further causes.

Impatience [15%]
This Feature is the product of time-worry. The person using it is frantic that there just isn’t enough time to finish the current project, to get to where she needs to go, to climb to the top of her corporation. It’s difficult to be in the present if the person is constantly worrying about the future. And as for relaxing— fuhgeddaboudit!

As the person in Martyrdom tries to control people by using guilt, the person in impatience tries to control time by becoming frantic. She is the first person to loudly call on the cashier at the supermarket to request that another line be opened.
Impatient folks often feel [and look to outsiders] a little frantic. They always feel as if they’re having to run to catch up— even if they’re out in front of the pack.

In the positive pole, overconfidence is the norm. The person is daring and audacious in chasing down her goals. She’ll plunge ahead making decisions on the fly. The Impatient person can look bold and unflinching.

In the negative pole, she’ll constantly switch lanes on the highway and, in extreme instances, will play ‘leap-frog’ in traffic— thereby putting everyone on that stretch of road at risk.
Unfortunately, these attempts to get ahead of the clock often result in cut corners. Cut corners often lead to sloppy work and disasters can occur. Everything from bridges that collapsed before their materials should have worn out to failed nuclear plants could well be the result of folks with the Feature of Impatience hurrying through the inspection processes.

Refining Ourselves
The Chief Negative Features— 7
Stubbornness—[20%]
Stubbornness aids in persistence and drive. It makes it easier to get where you want to go. You can pierce through barriers and shout down your opponents. This, by itself, makes it one of the most commonly used Features. Furthermore, this Feature has the ability to slide to each of the other six— another benefit of Stubbornness —I guess.
In the positive pole, this Feature leads to fortitude and determination. It’s users will slog ahead letting nothing get in their ways. Stubborn folks will find their ways through bottlenecks and plow through obstacles. Not much will stop their forward motion.

In the negative pole, however, they find it difficult to change course. They’ll put on the brakes when moving forward would benefit them far more. They can look prejudiced and obstinate, digging in their heels. Being unable to listen to suggestions or advice put forth by others, “I’ll do it my way, myself.” Determination and grit become obstinacy and mulishness. Inflexibility becomes the order of the day and the individual puts on blinders seeing only one possible outcome and doggedly slogging toward it— even if an alternate goal might be better in the long run. Folks in negative Impatience tend to get stuck. Growth can, as a result, grind to a halt.

There are lots of Stubborn politicians. On the positive end, these folks can push their agendas and find the fortitude to plow through the required paperwork. On the negative end [as we’ve seen too often, lately] Stubborn people can refuse to see anything positive on the other side of the aisle and absolutely refuse to work with people who aren’t marching in lock-step with them.

Essence Twins

This morning, lying in bed, I realized that I missed a spot—in fact a couple of them. This is a continuation of stuff I’ve gotten from the Michael books and is related to how we develop our personalities—and goes a step further.

Before our first birth, we choose our Essence Twin. This is usually a spirit [fragment] from another entity [entities are groupings of fragments, usually about a thousand or so.] More often than not, our essence twin is of a different Role than our own. This adds depth and breadth to both personalities as we unconsciously draw on each other’s energy and diverse experiences as we return to the physical plane again and again.

The very first time we’re born, our essence twin is being born—within a few minutes and just a short distance away. As a result, we will share a great deal of our earliest physical experiences with her/him. As time goes on and as we experience more and more births, this need for close proximity of time and place decreases and we become less and less dependent on each other—though the close bond between us continues for as long as we continue to take on physical lifetimes and beyond.

Over our numerous lives, we take on more and more characteristics that are similar to those of our twin. And, in fact, when our essence twin chooses to remain on the astral plane while the other twin ‘solos’ on the planet, there is even more bleed-through from the astral twin into the physical twin’s personality than when both are on the planet and concentrating on the complications involved in living on the physical plane. During this situation, our twin beams its energy at us and acts as one of our spirit guides—this is, so I understand, a fairly common scenario during our later lifetimes.
Right now, for instance, my twin is off-planet. It is a Sage and that might be one reason why, although I’m a Scholar, I’ve spent a pretty substantial part of this lifetime teaching others about psychological matters, the environment, etc. etc.
And Sam’s [see the entry regarding the Role of Sage] essence twin is a Warrior. This gives her a more solid, grounded feeling than if she were a pure Sage. It also helps her be more organized and practical.
When both twins are on the planet, they’re usually more different than they are alike especially when you take into account all their shared experiences both here and astrally.
First, their Roles are usually different from each other. And, most commonly, they’ve chosen different [possibly vastly different] overleaves.
There are other characteristics I haven’t covered here, so far, like frequency and male/female energy. These, too, may be similar [easier to handle but more boring from the astral plane’s viewpoint] or they may be polar opposites of each other [astrally, more interesting— as they cause a lot of push-pull between the two souls.]
So, despite their common earthly experiences back when both were very young souls and their deeply shared experiences on the astral plane, they’re hardly identical twins. One illustration I’ve read is that of tearing a sheet of paper in half. The two pieces may look similar or very different from each other but, either way, they are a perfect fit.
As a result, of all this, getting together on-planet is not likely to be a bed of roses. Woe betide the fragments who meet their essence twins and try to have intimate relationships on the physical plane. Despite [or maybe because of] their closeness and many common characteristics and experiences, this makes for an overly dramatic and often chaotic relationship. Your essence twin knows you too well, gets inside your skin and doesn’t let you off the hook.
I’ve read that John Lennon and Yoko Ono are twins. We all know how deep that relationship was/is and how much drama it evoked both between the two principals and among the other members of the band.
Even so, when they can pull it off [as John and Yoko did, despite the drama] the bleed-through phenomenon is almost as strong as when one twin is on the astral plane. Looking at the two it may be difficult to determine who is the Artisan and who is the Scholar [fwiw, John was the high-frequency, female-energied Artisan and Yoko was the much lower-frequency, male-energied Scholar.]

Repost 3

I'm posting this at intervals throughout the blog in hopes that those of you who log in where you left off last time will see it - even if you don't often visit the top page these days.

Just so you know, Blogger booted me off - A SECOND TIME.
At least that finally got me off the dime and I've finished transferring everything I want to keep over to WordPress.
So - again - here's the link:
http://twocrows1023.wordpress.com/
Please drop by.
Hopefully, that site will be more stable and you can continue without further interruption.

The Task Companion

[Again, I took this from the Michael Teachings. Almost the entire post came from Joya Pope's The World According to Michael.]
Like our Essence Twin, we choose our Task Companion before we come to the planet for the first time. Unlike the Essence Twin, our relationship, should we meet on-planet, will be much calmer and less chaotic.
Task Companions agree, before a particular lifetime, how they will work together to achieve a common goal, usually a long-standing and probably pretty complicated one. They may start a business together. Or push to accomplish a major task such as desegregation in the U.S. Or a less visible, more personal goal may be undertaken—an increase in self-esteem, say, or self-control.
Or, if one of the pair has a preferred sex, male for instance, and is coming back this time as a female, it’s nice if the Task Companion is along for the ride to help overcome the difficulties encountered in a culture that gives men more breaks than it does women. In this case, the pair may meet and marry in order to carry out this task.
Generally speaking, if they’re going to get together during the lifetime, Task Companions tend to meet later in life. If they come together too early they may become frustrated because they’re simply too young to undertake their agreed-on task, yet. They need to wait until they’re ready to take on the job and the wait can be irritating.
While you choose your Task Companion before your first birth, by the time you’re an old soul you’ve probably picked up a number of minor task companions along the way. These folks are old friends who will help you with other, possibly less long-term, missions you’ve set for yourself.

Often, a mentor who comes along to show a youngster the ropes in a new job or school setting or how to get started in a new community is, all unknowingly, a Task Companion helping to pave the way for getting started on some long-term chore they agreed on before they were born.

This book was written long before Barack Obama became a household name. But it's a pretty safe bet, by now, that we all know that Michelle was assigned to him as a mentor at his first job. And look where they've come to. Makes me wonder if they're Task Companions.
Just sayin.

Seth Vindicated

Back in the 1960’s, I was reading—um—Seth Speaks, I think it was. Or it might have been The Nature of Personal Reality. One of those Seth Books, anyway, I’m pretty sure.
I read about a sentient species that preceded us on the planet. Well, they didn’t exactly precede us. We were on the planet, too—at least the Homo Erectus model was.

But, this other group was here as well. They were humanoid, I think. They lived underground. They were very advanced and were getting ready, on a species-wide level, to graduate completely from the planet. So, as a species, they had reached the late Old Soul developmental phase.

This relatively small number of individuals [only a few million still existed at the time] had skills humans currently lack. For one thing, they could see auras. So, they could ascertain, without verbal communication, where other people were coming from: the motive behind another’s action. That made lying futile, I would imagine. [By the way, Michael says we’ll reach that level of evolution sometime in the next couple of hundred years, jfwiw.]
They could also see, taste and smell sounds and had entire art forms based on such skills. Likewise, they could hear colors and shapes. Etc.

These people were also capable of flight in ‘hanging baskets’. Using only their minds they could, on the occasions when they ventured to the surface, fly in conveyances designed to hold one to several dozen people at a time. And they could teleport objects—again using only their minds to do so.
xxx
At that point, I hit ‘TILT!’ on a fairly profound level, put the book down and, I think, haven’t read it since. My idea at the time was that Seth had gone into deep waters where I was unable or unwilling to follow.
It didn't shake my belief in the core system, though. After all, I've had the same experience with the books by Stephen Hawking—but I still believe in science.
xxx
Then, during the early 1990’s, I think, I saw a program on The History Channel. A scientist was studying the Sphinx. He determined that it had been carved far earlier in history than the Egyptian period—at a time when rainfall far exceeded the amount the area has seen during the historic period. In fact, according to his observations, the Sphinx had been created at about the time when Homo Erectus was developing in Africa. How could Homo Erectus have carved the Sphinx? [fwiw, the current head and surrounding temple complex were added during the Egyptian period, according to this scientist.]

I was put in mind of Seth’s humanoid species that preceded Homo Sapiens. It was just a fleeting thought, though, and I didn’t pursue it.
In fact, I put this Scientist’s ideas down to the innate bias I’d encountered before: ‘Those Africans couldn’t have created something so beautiful or intricate. So, let’s look for another explanation.’ I thought he might be going to some pretty absurd lengths to feed his prejudice.

Most scientists dismissed his ideas out-of-hand—which led me to keep an open mind about them. We've seen that pattern before—first by the Church and later by the scientific community. And we all know what can follow such refusals to even look at the evidence.
xxx
Then, tonight, I saw yet another special on the Science Channel.
It seems there are people on the planet right now who have abilities I, for one, had never heard of: the program profiled a woman who sees sound. She can listen to a rainstorm and see the color each raindrop makes as it hits the surface.
All music is accompanied by a light show. [In fact, she doesn’t attend rock concerts because the lights in the auditorium don’t match the ones she sees—which causes a cacophony in her brain.] And, each sound has a taste and a texture, as well. Some are crunchy—others are creamy—others are sand-papery—or sour, or fruity, or bitter, or sweet, etc.
As a child she, of course, thought everyone had these abilities. As she grew up she discovered that her sensations were unknown to everyone around her. She felt isolated. But, during the course of the program, she was studied by scientists who mapped her brain and, finally, were able to help her get in touch with a couple of people who had abilities similar to hers. She is no longer alone.
xxx
And, I’m going back and see if I can find those old Seth Books and read them again.
This is one of those times that I love: when science catches up with something my ‘religion’ has been saying for years and years.

Spirit/Body Dyad

I'm still slow off the mark here--
I have been glancing through Seth Speaks and have one bit to add-- though it's probably not news to anyone who studies these things:
The spirit creates the body -- not the other way round.

Even though, here on the physical plane, we tend to be more aware of our bodies than we are of our souls, when you come right down to it it's worth noting: rather than being a body with a soul inside it, we are a soul that has assumed a body for a short while.
jfwiw.
====
OK, I've been busy what with the inauguration and some community stuff.
I'll be back, I promise.