Rejected for Reviewing

I am a professional reviewer, having worked for AuthorLink for nearly 10 years, and a consumer reviewer since nothing is purchased without someone emailing to know what I thought of their product, service, or opinions. I have reviewed several books for NetGalley over the years and haven denied access to books to read and review, but this is the first time I have been rejected and specifically asked to apply for access again. No such option is available to me on the NetGalley website. The FAQs mentioned that I could request the book from the publisher, which I have just done, but I thought I'd put my opinions out in the world for everyone to read, learn, or comment about. Why not? Is this world not a connected world where all opinions are debated, denied, calumnized, and laughed at by everyone? I might just get my wish to read an advance copy on my Kindle reader to see whether or not I will enjoy The Rules of Magic as much as I enjoyed Practical Magic or the numerous other books I have read by Alice Hoffman, even books I didn't think I would like and discovered I thoroughly enjoyed.

Hoffman is a consistently good author and her subject matter of practical magic for the characters in her books is endlessly fascinating without the over hyped sexual aspect of paranormal books and authors dabbling in the paranormal genre over the past few decades. In spite of my personal views of PDAs and the avoidance thereof, Hoffman does not go that route with her books or her characters and I do like that.

Simon and Schuster is one of the Big Six Publishers that many indie and Big-6 published writers deal with when they decide to enter the publishing world, but I will have to wait until some unknown publicist for this book here in the USA decide to read and respond to my query regarding an advance copy. Until then, I will continue to plan on reading the book when it is published in October or contact one of my contacts to do me a favor. Either way, I will of course get the book, read it, and review it here or wherever (Amazon, Good Reads, newspapers, magazines, or here on my own blog) and whenever I may. That's life and the way the pages fall.

This rejection is not the end and I still have other authors to fill my time in the meantime and beyond until this 3rd density existence is either upgrade by the Cosmic Sneeze or the Grim Reaper comes for me at length.

I wonder. Will I be able to read books -- or care about them -- when I have ascended?

That is all. Disperse.

Growing Pains

Does a butterfly know that as a caterpillar it will spin a cocoon and emerge as a beautiful butterfly? Probably not. We don't realize as babies struggling with unsteady legs and immature eyes and tongue that we will emerge in command of our legs, eyes, and tongue and become adults, at least not when we open our eyes on this bright and painful place far from the warmth in our floating womb. Even as we struggle through puberty beset with longings and rebellious determination to fly free into a world without restraint and rules do we begin to realize the struggle is not over, merely just beginning as we fumble and strain to find our place in the grand design, constantly struggling to figure out where we belong and where we go from here. Then it all ends without ever having known what it all was for. We are born. We live. We die. We are gone. In between each phase, we struggle with growing pains, stretching for more, for beyond, for the purpose to our struggle and to our lives.

Throughout history it seems others have it all figured out. They eventually die -- or so we believe -- and it is too late to ask them what they saw we did not. These magnificent butterflies may leave stories or words, parables or truths we did not experience through our senses and so we are told to believe and have faith. We will understand some day, but do we? Do we truly understand or are we still wobbly-legged toddlers taking our first steps or babies kicking the air and eventually rolling over onto our bellies to wriggle our way across the ground? We are all caterpillars struggling to spin cocoons from which we emerge butterflies after great pains into the light of the next phase of our lives.

Is this what Francisco of Assisi learned when he emerged from his fever to spend days in the fields and eventually cast off his finery to walk naked through the streets to the ruin of San Damiano to rebuild as one by one his young friends cast off their families and possession to join him as humble beggars living as the poor, walking barefoot from place to place to spread the message that peace and hope were not to be found among the distractions of the accepted way of life? It was not the perfect understanding of an ascended master like Yeshua bar Joseph, merely a glimpse of the change that awaits us all as we struggle for understanding in a world gone mad where hate, greed, and entertainment divert us all from what is right in front of us. We have not even the glimpse that Francis saw before following what he saw as the way to take in his grasp and to follow what he knew of the enlightenment of the Holy Roman Church. That path is still open for those who choose to believe, but it is not the final destination merely a way station on the road.

I've begun to see reports and videos of followers of Islam who find peace and a better way than obedience or death in a set of beliefs that run counter to the peace and limited enlightenment of Christianity or even Judaism. Those systems of belief were forged during a time when mankind was ignorant of other beliefs, other methods of finding enlightenment -- at least in the Western world. The Eastern world follow Buddhism toward enlightenment for the same message offered in those teachings echo Christianity and Judaism, both of which sprang from a different well. Though nearly extinct, the New World followed the path of the Incas, Maya, and Aztec, among others and what remains after the conquerors from Europe raped and pillaged a way into and among the First Nations of the northern territories of the New World also held a seed of enlightenment eventually shared with the newcomers and their descendants where seekers found a spark or a glimpse of enlightenment. Nowhere on this planet, not even in the vast reaches of Australia, have seeds of enlightenment not been spread, some codified in organized religions and the rest as whispers in the dark promising the light.

Though it seems impossible that light is visible in the turmoil and darkness of our modern times, we all struggle, weakly or with increasing power, toward the light, moths to the brightness that flares in the darkness drawing us forward, ever onward to the promise of enlightenment. Maybe that is why at this time we find everything changing and a man like Trump at the helm promising a return to better times, more profitable and peaceful times, but we will not find it by following another flawed demagogue for truth and the path ahead does not go where Trump or Obama or Clinton or leaders around the world are going. The light that fills our minds and brings peace to our hearts is all around us, visible when we cast aside the distractions that make it oh so difficult to see. Enlightenment fills the planet, the trees, the animals, and everywhere we look when we refuse to be distracted.

We need not be beggars or follow the paths carved out before us. Some few may glimpse the light, but not enough of us until we shed all that hampers us from embracing what has always been freely given. We are racked with the aches and pains of turning away from the distractions that beset us, the bright, shiny objects that pull our focus on what matters most -- the light. Flashes of brilliance blind us temporarily and yet through the blinding glare the clear pulse of true light remains.

We are no longer children, but teenagers tortured as we fight free of our cocoons. Like the butterfly, we must free ourselves of the confines of our cocoons, the fight for freedom strengthening sinew, sending blood pumping to new wings that change as the wrinkles of confinement disappear while the blood forced by the effort to escape the confines of our previous existence, raise blood-filled wings, test the air, and finally leap into the sparkling air into the existence that has always been right there in front of us. With each beat of our wings, we move closer to the light and closer to the real change we could not see or even glimpse while distracted by sparkly bits and bright flashes that obscured what lay before us. The growing pains will subside with each beat of our wings. As we move forward into the light we will shed the rest of the shreds and patches of the cocoon, leaving a drying husk to mark our metamorphosis and to point the way for the butterflies and moths to mark the path for all willing to test their wings and accept enlightenment and realization that we were and are meant for more. In our wake we lead the way into a brighter and more peaceful reality where we can exercise the wings carrying us to the phase of existence where we will no longer be hampered by earthly constraints. That is our destination the future, growing pains and horrors, hate and aggression behind us, as we move into the light.

That is all. Disperse.

Control Through Fear

I had just queued up End of Days when it hit me. The Roman Catholic Church and the end of the Mayan Long Count are the same thing. The Roman Catholic Church and Christian traditions about the end of the current age of man paint a horrific picture while the Mayan long count is the end of the current age of man. Christianity controlled people through fear and the impending judgment of god while the Mayans, at least as far as we in the 21st century know, announced the end of third or fourth age. Christians have feared the last days as though hell would be unleashed on earth and only the good people who have followed faithfully the teachings of their ministers, priests, popes, and preachers would go to heaven. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If there were the first, second, and third ages of man and mankind still exists, the end of the long count would be no more catastrophic than December 31st before the next year's calendar page is turned. There is the expected end of the current reality where humans/earthlings/mankind is anchored to the 3rd density, but with the coming of the next age of man all people will be (for lack of a better phrase) upgraded to the next highest density and will exhibit the same powers as the ascended masters, performing miracles, levitating, and free from the masters and overlords who have kept all humankind mired in the 3rd density where fear is the defining factor and the emotion that controls us all.

The reason the Roman Catholic Church and Christian teachings got the date wrong is because of the switch to the Julian calendar that throws all dates off. Had we maintained the old calendar the date would not have become the time of Satan/Lucifer and the minions of hell in 1999, or thereabouts, but on December 21, 2012 as the Mayan long count showed. Then again, we would all have missed out on the fear and creativity of writers and leaders of the Christian churches that gave us literature and movies like End of Days starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I see the creativity contained in the dark specter of Armageddon and the return of Satan from the pits of Hell to run loose upon the world, but we could all have done without the sword hanging over all our heads by an eroding thread and the pronouncements of religious adherents and zealots doing their best to make their last days as spectacular and frightening as possible. I've no doubt the Mayans had their zealots and religious nuts making the end of the long count as frightening and spectacular as possible, but I'll bet such fear mongering was less pronounced among an enlightened people who had devolved to celebrating death in their games. Then again, maybe that is what has come down to us through archaeologists and historians who have conflated Mayan reality with Christian reality, destroying all semblance of a calmer and more peaceful reality and view of the future. The Roman Catholic Church held out eternal damnation and the hope of heaven to the faithful using fear as the barbed goad to herd the masses toward a future that continued to give the Pope and his clergy the upper hand over the masses willing to sign over their wealth and future for less time in purgatory and eventually a stairway to heaven. Where fear rules and is fueled by God's displeasure and impossibly high standards for entry to the highest heaven mankind will always come in last.

The Muslims hold out fear and death for all who do not believe that Allah has the final say on who gets to Paradise and that fear has been counted in deaths, preferably without a head. While western societies use fear to maintain control and reward the faithful with shorter sentences in purgatory, Muslims offer no such hope for anyone who does not convert and praise Allah while submitting to the will of Allah and revere Allah's prophet Mohammed.

No matter what name is held out as the hope of the faithful, fear is the real motivator and not doing good for the sake of good, turning god, heaven, hell, and utter damnation into quid pro quo. If I refused to believe in god in any form I would still reject the quid pro quo because you cannot bargain with a god who was made in Man's image and limited by Man's imagination. I cannot see any god counting up heads and deaths in order to deem a supplicant worthy of Paradise or Heaven or whatever takes the place of reward. That is something I expect from the men who control the flow of information and dole out rewards and punishments like a bouncer at the poshest night club in town. That is not the reality I see and certainly not the reality I am willing to accept; it is too banal, too much stick on one hand for too little carrot on the other.

I do believe there are people who glimpse the future and have seen, or glimpsed, the last days of this reality in the 3rd density. I do not think they have the view right because they are measuring everything they see through their own experiences and their own training, fueled by fear and guilt instilled by whoever was in charge when they were taught. Nothing like filling the well of hope with a big old turd. What may look like potable water from the well is nonetheless tainted by the floating turd in the water. Everything tastes like turd.

That is the position in which we all find ourselves, those who have not learned the truth untainted by fear or control. We are living in the last days of the current age of man in the 3rd density. We have been distracted by the shiny baubles that keep us from see the world as it actually is instead of the world as it has become, tainted by fear and the floating turd. We get a glimpse of the future to come when we ascend, or transcend, to the next level of existence, but the pretty baubles and litany of fears keep us from seeing reality long enough to be able to grasp what is our right as we transcend the mud wherein we dwell, our minds and hearts filled with the fear, guilt, panic, and shiny baubles that catch and hold our eyes. We are caught up in the same old tug-of-war of politics, money, and endless things we can buy if we give over control to the leaders of organized religions weighing us down.

In the end, we will give up struggling and accept the horrifying world we have been fed from our first meal and struggle to follow the rules laid down centuries before and reality will move on without us, though some of those controlling leaders will be gone. Those who remain will continue to struggle to remember how we were taught limping forward without realizing what we make of the rags and tags of that which remains is merely a poor copy of the slavery under which they labored for centuries. The ones who believed and opened their hearts and minds transcend this shattered reality and continue to learn and evolve as we were always meant to do, secure in the knowledge that heaven or paradise or an upgraded existence are theirs forever more. There was never a Hell except the one we made for ourselves and loved ones died because Man was in control. There was no white-bearded god holding out his hand for us to awaken and no Moon god called Allah demanding severed heads and bloody swaths across the known world as sacrifice.

The sooner we put childish fears and guilt behind us, the sooner we can scrape the mud of this 3rd density off our feet and level up. A new age of man awaits us and all we need do to accept our place is to shed childish beliefs, give up the rule of fear, and walk open-eyed into the promised future. A new long count began on December 22, 2012 and we are falling behind. Wake up and accept the waiting reality. I'll be waiting for you on the other side.

That is all. Disperse.

The High Cost of Magic

The main theme these days is that magic comes with a price. Rumpelstiltskin and every show that deals with magic (The Magicians, Just Add Magic, etc.) repeat this mantra endlessly. You can change the world and people around you, but you will have to pay the price. The greater the change, the higher the price.

We are being indoctrinated and manipulated. No matter how the mantra, magic always comes with a price, is repeated the point is to set us up for the high cost of magic, the high cost of change.

I don't know about you, but I am not particularly ready to give up what I value most for magic and that is what we are being manipulated to believe.

This planet, and all planets, suns, and cosmic bodies, is alive as alive as the people who inhabit this universe. Everything is alive. The plants that grow to be eaten and the animals that are found in ever decreasing numbers that are used for their skins, their bodies, and their constituent parts are alive. This Earth is alive, from its surface and atmosphere all the way to its beating heart at the center, whether that heart is magma or a massive crystal chiming and connected to every other cosmic body within this solar system and the galactic center of this Universe. Yes, Virginia, this planet is as alive as you or I and just as vulnerable and strong and susceptible. We are connected, this planet and you and I, in every way. This planet and the Universe are alive and the source of what we poor, ignorant mortals call magic. The only cost is the same price we pay for breathing: mindfulness.

Yes, there is a price to magic, but not the price the shows, movies, books, and propaganda would have us believe. The price is being aware of our existence and the existence of the life that abounds all around us.

The price we are being manipulated into paying is not the actual cost of our life or the ability to change the reality we see, but the price we have been manipulated to believe is necessary. All of this manipulation comes from fear. We are being manipulated into believing the cost is our existence, our lives. To some extent it is true that taking hold of magic will change the reality we see -- or it won't. The choice is ours. We can remain in this reality or we can accept change and emerge into a different reality that allows us access to the real magic, the magic of awareness that comes with a higher density, the 4th density.

We have been preparing for ascension during this cycle of existence. We have been told by that a new Age of Man is upon us that indeed has passed us and left us behind. That is at the heart of the propaganda we've been fed. The New Age, the Age of Aquarius, requires nothing of us but acceptance. Religions have characterized this realization in many ways. The realization has been called The Rapture by Christians, Nirvana, Ascension, and so many other names and we have been taught to believe that only by living a perfect life will we be allowed to accept this magic at the cost of everything we are and everything we believe.

What we do not know is that this CHANGE is happening whether we accept it or not. We are ready to ascend to the next level, to the 4th density from the leaden grip of the 3rd density, to be changed, to ascend, to be perfected. All we need do is accept what is coming.

These Ages of Man are accompanied by cosmic changes. Our sun will emit a Flash, a cosmic sneeze, a emission of cosmic radiation that heralds the Age of Aquarius, the next phase of the cosmic cycle. Each cosmic cycle is purportedly 2160 years -- or thereabouts.

According to the lyrics of the song:

When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

Love will steers the stars. This is the second coming of the Christ consciousness, the time when Lucifer, Bringer of the Light, the opponent of God, will be imprisoned for 1000 years and the dead shall rise. I've always wondered how the dead can rise if their bodies were burned to ash.

Maybe we have it wrong, or rather the Christians have it wrong. We are not our bodies, the fleshly vessel we see in the mirror that gets fat and succumbs to the ravages of age. We are not even the images captured as memories in books and on videos. We are the eternal soul at the center of each living incarnation that is born, lives, and dies. Who knows? Maybe we do pay our karmic debts by living as insects or vermin or animals since they too contain the spark of the divine. All existence is life, from the smallest virus and bacteria to the most power -- and most vulnerable -- human. The sun, the planets, the moons, and everything we touch, see, and interact with all contain the divine spark. We are all connected to the Source of All -- the divine spark of the Universe, that which has many names (God, Allah, Buddha, and so on) and is light and dark. We are the Universe figuring itself out. We are extensions of the Eternal I AM bound to the cosmic wheel turning over and over until we become One with the Eternal I AM that is at the center of the Universe. The One Song that unites and binds all in existence.

Too esoteric and religious for you? Try something less difficult to grasp. Read Julian May's Intervention and the story of how humans achieved ascendance. The evil and the good, the sublime and the mundane, are all parts of the I AM. That is the magic. Julian May described the magic as powers of the mind and the guiding force in the Galactic Milieu series where the Remillard Family is the source of evil and transcendent good. Other species assist earthlings in ascending to the next phase of existence. That ascendance, or transcendence, is explained in many ways, just as it has become Magic in this time and this place on Earth during the Age of Aquarius. The Powers That Be, the forces that have controlled us for millennia, want us to fear Intervention and Ascendance, and They have spent ages convincing humanity that the price is too high.

The price is not too high and the solar flash will happen as it should have long ago. Whether we fear it or accept it, ascendance will happen. We will not cease to exist and we need not give up all we know and all we have to ascend. All we need do is accept the reality and leave this 3rd density and walk into the 4th density without fear. The only price we need to pay we have already paid by living life giving to others at least 50% of the time. The down side is that if we are not ready to accept our inheritance we will continue to live in the 3rd density, but without the Powers That Be that have held us down, stuck in the 3rd density but without the negative forces. The Powers That Be will be obliterated and the world we will inherit will be a clean slate. There is nowhere we can hide and nowhere that will protect us from the Solar Flash. With or without our consent, the Sun will flash and all will be changed. Love will steer the stars and guide our way as we are taught to wield 4th density powers. The scales will drop from our eyes and we will see truth without the propaganda and manipulation of the Powers that have distorted our view.

There is a cost to Magic. The price is seeing all with open eyes.

That is all. Disperse.