the alias I've been living under

It's all just hanging out with cousins. An extended family reunion. Cousins you maybe didn't even know you had. Everybody is somebody's cousin, been knowing them since childhood. Not always, some of us have lived profoundly isolated lives. The bodies wrapped in blankets on the streets, freezing in the cold, the woman with no pants, twerking on the subway platform, calling for someone, anyone to come and get it— they're cousins too. Babies once, born here as someone's child, deserving of all the love and protection.

Some families have had better luck looking after each other than others: resourced, connected, good at playing the games that lead to success here, whatever success is. Just surviving seems like success enough to me most days, never mind thriving. I was always too much of an individual for life to go easy on me under this dominant background frequency. Since jump, since creation. I got called a lot of names for my way of being in the world, everything but a child of god. It's not that I didn't want to fit in and do the things people did, I wanted to, I just wasn't put together the way they were.

If I were a machine it could be blamed on my wiring, on running a different operating system. There are some essential elements to our difference, maybe in our codon rings that keep us separate, different, individual no matter how many people try to convince us of shared belonging. If I belong, my belonging is outside of the group. The frequency has never been supportive, it's been like swimming upstream forever. Hearing things other people don't hear, seeing and smelling things no one else is perceiving.

Since 1615 the energy has been against us. Dates differ, depending on what systems and calendars one follows, but for more than four hundred years, background frequencies have supported tribal structures: the family unit, the social and emotional bargains people make to guarantee their group's security and success. Within this frequency the institutional structures we've always lived with have taken form, gained power and determined the direction of life for most people: schools, churches, governments. All those agreements and backroom deals that held social structures and economies together are ending. Maybe you've noticed the uptick in falling stars, I mean celebrities? Unstable governments, jittery markets. All the broken systems are finally revealing the corruption at their core because the energy that nourished and maintained them is running out. What's being supported, finally, is individuality, differentiation.

I wasn't talking about that though, I was talking about a family reunion. Group activities aren't really for me. It's always been frustrating for me to have to work in groups. Some people thrive in group settings, they find their role, perform and benefit accordingly. I find trying to play to others' expectations exhausting. I hate it. I can't fake it. I always prefer my own company, the company of animals and trees, rivers, mountains and oceans. Anything that's not people and their weird projections and expectations.

The whole point of a family reunion though is being together. All of us in the same space, moving as a group, eating our meals together, joining in activities. Sharing stories and jokes, quality time. I tend to hate it, always feel awkward and uncomfortable. There's no one for me to talk to. They're not interested in what I'm interested in. The capital city relatives are interested in politics and the workings of the capitol. The resourced relatives like to talk about gold and possessions, all the things they can do with their money. The drama-addicted relatives like to scream and shout, create intrigues, fuel feuds, There's always something to fight about, an opportunity to feel self-righteous: somebody looked at them wrong, didn't say the expected thing. There doesn't even need to be a reason, they're just looking to fight.

I've got religious relatives who speak in quoted Bible verses and judge the world around them as not measuring up, never examining their own hearts. I've got junkie and ex-con relatives who are identified with their addictions and crimes. Nobody is ever interested in talking about what the earth is doing, what's happening in the stars. No one notices the clouds or the birds flocking in the sky. They truly couldn't care less about the latest series of earthquakes and floods or the geomagnetic storms that have been blowing through. Nobody's seen the auroras or even went looking for them. They especially don't care about interstellar objects or different levels of consciousness. Literally, none of them.

No one cares about the things I care about. Not only do they not care, they try to demean me for my enthusiasms. Their only interest is if they can use my interests, my passions to belittle me, making themselves feel better about their own life choices. It's almost a game for them— attacking me, mocking me for what's in my heart. I've tried to talk to them about it, to convey how cruel it is, but what's cruelty to me is just a little bit of fun for them. Dismissing me brings them closer together. They tell me to lighten up, to tolerate the bullying and energy theft and interpret it as love.

I don't have to go to the reunion, but I'm always hoping something might be different. Maybe someone's changed. Maybe the latest crisis in their lives has opened their eyes, their hearts to the possibility that life might be more than what they thought it was. Perhaps, confronting end-of-life issues might snap them out of it. A sudden illness or injury, the loss of a job, even an unforeseen victory. Everything in every moment can support awakening.

I was hoping that the cancer might have made my aunt less bitter and nasty to people. It didn't. They all died how they lived. There was no big transformation. Some even seeded more discord on their way out. Sometimes the anger and resentment that had been simmering under the surface their whole lives comes to a boil and they become that patient in the ward that no one wants to be assigned to. Cursing everyone on their way out in an attempt, perhaps, to make everyone else feel as bad, as powerless, as confused as they do. They didn't all go out like that. I'm thankful to also be related to people who were good in the beginning, good in the middle and good in the end.

Maybe it's just me and my preferences. I don't like moving in groups, attaching my next move to consensus and compromise instead of my own inner guidance. We move so slowly as a group, have to wait for everyone to wake up and some of us are late sleepers. Some of us would stay in bed all day if we could. Some of us don't even have the consciousness— I hate to say this, but I have to— there doesn't even seem to be the most basic level of self-awareness present. They can't begin to self-reflect because they don't have the tools. There's no groundwork laid. They've spent lifetimes looking outside of themselves for guidance and approval, jumping through hoops, dressing the part, saying all the expected things. It's as if there is no inner ground to cultivate.

I don't know what to say about that. I'm sorry for you. I don't know how you've lived through whole lifetimes of reactivity and confusion, following the lead of whoever you're with, absorbing whatever energy comes your way. That sounds very painful. It helps me be more compassionate when I understand their behavior as unconscious, but it doesn't make it ok. I'm not going to permit it to continue, not in my field. You don't have to change, but you're not going to continue to have access to me. Call me whatever name you want, you've got to do some work with those shadows instead of projecting them at me all the time. I'm not here to carry that for you any longer. That's your work to do, not mine.

Why did I wake up with Laura Branigan's voice in my head? Is it because she's in the water? Her song, like the sirens', wafting up when veils are thin. According to wikipedia, after her death and cremation, Branigan's "ashes were scattered over the Long Island Sound." You really don't remember?