On Abandoning Friends - Stephen Ross

Photo created by h.koppdelaney

Who are friends really? 

That at first treats us so keenly, 

Even dearly for maybe a year or two. 

Initially when things become confusing, 

They find me quite amusing.

At second, they ask for assistance 

So I drive at speed across distance. 

But often they keep truth from their partners, 

Whose eventual suspicions are garnered.

Rightly I might add, not because I have done wrong! 

Regardless I get the blame, always the same? Yes, usually.

At third looking for shelter from said partner,

Ask me to meet their own heart’ner.

A sister, a brother the friend of another? 

Who I dutifully spend time with, both for them and for myself.

At fourth with solutions presenting, 

I allow their husbands some venting.

And friends’ wives come a running 

With child inside now expelled, who's exiled?

Not the child, well, at least not for a while.

At fifth with explanations extended, 

My very life becomes united or blighted. 

Depending upon the mending requested, 

Yet once assisted and tested, I’m jested? 

He's just full of it darling! They say.

At sixth attacked by some husband, No fear! 

I have reflected his disgusted, disgruntled trauma. 

 This! is the true healing. Now cast me down until I’m kneeling 

Underneath Gods own ceiling. For I have found the meaning, 

To life, the universe, and everything.

At seventh banished and mistreated, 

Abandoned and requests all unheeded.
At eighth in happy delusion, I’m now the subject 

Of their this time, dis-respectful confusion.

At ninth I ask for assistance myself, 

But find my apparent friends refuse.

Have I been used? 

Why am I the subject of their refused re-used personal abuse?

At tenth my sacrifice made, 

I wonder when I might get paid or laid.

No? Too slow or too fast, die cast, they now hate me?!

So give me money instead, for my wise council, 

Cheats and thieves of Steve!

At eleventh, it looks like you really find out who your friends are when you need help, 

And no-one comes to you.

At twelfth, siting alone I glance at the phone 

The tears in my eyes are from happiness. 

In gentle amusement I know I have acted with honour. 

My true friends will emerge having understood this verse. 

And their husbands and wives will not like it.

Why is it I wonder are the people who plunder 

My tender and slender resources, 

So unable to be as gracious to me? 

As I have acted most bravely.

I love everyone and they can only love one?

Trapped or wrapped or raped or escaped, 

I wonder in thunder when the lightening, so frightening, 

Can release them to peace and the fierce become deceased. 

And I, who has done nothing but act in the best interests of love, integrity, respect, and honour, am discarded.

And so thirteen is now seen. Unlucky for some, 

at least I still have my mum, my father and sister. 

They will always love me even when all my friends, literally, 

Every single last one of them have abandoned me. 

Who said the world was fair? It hurts when you care, 

And find out that actions speak louder than words.  

Be kinder to each other, written with the intent for love and goodwill to all.

Connect to your genius

Dr. Carl Gustav Jung - Photo Credit: The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology

One of our principle responsibilities as individuating individuals is to become aware of and understand our relationship to divine energy. In so doing we begin to enable and allow a conscious conduit to creativity, wisdom and joy to open up and become established.  Once this conduit or connection to the divine has been established and can be felt continuously, you are then in a position to act as a projector of the light that comes into and through you. By light I mean the wisdom, joy, understanding, insight, love and creative expressions that are the very substance of the divine connection within SELF.

Recognition Ignition

It is with great pleasure, and a not insignificant dollop of pride, that I write this post.

Earlier this week my poem 'The Ceremony' won first place in the inaugural Tir Na Saor International Poetry Competition. This bestows upon me the greatest of poetic honours and affords me the privilege of being formally named the Tir na Saor Poet Laureate, until such time as a new Laureate is selected and certified to replace me by way of collaborative event or competitive competition.  I wish to thank everyone involved but I especially wish to thank Morgan Freeman, for organising and Kev, the owner, principle founder and force for good behind the entire Tir na Saor community. Tir na Saor is the Irish chapter of the World Free Man Movement. Keep the faith and thanks for your appreciation...

 May the sun shine bright upon you all day long, 

For so much to go right and so little to go wrong. 

May those you love bring that love back to you, 

and may all the wishes you wish come true! 

(developend from an old Irish proverb)

Poe Redtree (also known as St.Eve)

  

Revised, ammended and edited on the 28th August 2016.

This Poet Laureate Award is received with gratitude, love, honour, respect and humility. With the purest of intentions to be the best Being I can be (as being human). To do the best Doings I can do (as human person) and to LOVE each and every man, woman and child as inalienable and well reasoned equals, in harmony and without malicious harm or intent. In so doing I seek to become an instrumental and orchestral living, being human, instrument through the use of my gradually emerging and eventually developing talents, arts and sciences. Skillsets to be used for the purposes of dispelling the most dangerous and ancient (and therefore most potentially Evil) of collective illusions and delusions. As a seeker of truth, stability and fair and tolerable equal rights for all living beings. 

My objective is the dispellment of the most harmfully excessive and irrational, collective human illusions and delusions. Created primarily through the largely unconscious implementation and  execution of false but effective paper fictions and word spellings. Spells and spellings that no longer serve humanity as originally intended. Formaly and formerly written upon papers and then cast as initially mild, developing into intensely irrational, methods of control and division upon all the rationally existential common lands and inalienably reasonable real persons and peoples who live within the jurisdictions of those fair and abundant lands. So help me GOD, the multi-verse, the uni-verse and all natural and unnatural Peoples and Persons within as well as all benevolent conscious entities and light workers without, both to infinity and beyond for the rest of my natural life. Or until such time as I am reasonably and justifiably asked to stand down by a jury or executive panel of my peers.

I am most largely in sevice to both rational and moderately irrational collective creation as well as my own personal creative process and creativity. This power has an equivalence to the orthodox concept of God. So I do here now make this pledge, in sound mind, body and spirit, so I may be held to account by my peers, should I ever lose my way and stray from these, my true, honest and transparent, freely created commitments and responsibilities. With hand on heart and on single bended knee. I offer to you all my open, transparent and unlimiting 'bond', (rather 'bring thing'), my gold and diamond encrusted ring of engagement.

e 13 = Love thee.
Not unlucky, merely very often misunderstood,
I love you all, it's lovely to receive it back! *grins, giggles and hugs*

I do this in the hopes that we may All one day be uplifted and illuminated together as a primarily harm-on-ious (goodbye debt), Spirits Being Human community of loving creation. To be recogonised as truly free and independent. Indebted to no one or no thing and so sovereign people upon and within (y)our own collectively shared physical lands and virtual spaces. To be both personaly responsible and collectively accountable, respectfully, for all of (y)our behaviours and choices in the exercise of Human Free Will, Intention and Focus. Not withstanding and standing-over (overstanding) the exorcisim of all inhumain, demonic, improper and unwisely issued false gods, documents, irrational demands, possesions, limts and restrictions presently in place either within, without or upon our living and loving consensus reality. Space-Time Will Focus Divine Intent.

So help me GOD, God and gods. Which is, THE ALL THAT IS, The Universe and whom are all men, women, and children. Which I now extend to include, all animals, all plants and all living planetary beings, for I do love you all as equals without predudice or division. As such I claim for myself and my Kin to be always reasonably answerable, not only to GOD but also to God and to each and every one of YOU, You and you who wish to acknowledge my Vision and Presence and therefore join my Kin (or Clan; or society; or Tribe; or Community; or extended Family; It is thankfully no longer soley, or soul-ly, a human race) to become an extended equal member of my patiently compassionate and loving Kin.

I do this here openly and witnessed in public, without swearing but with firm commitment. In loving memory of my recently departed Grandmother, Mrs Helen Ross (née Layng) and with purely divine loving and reasonable intent for respect, honour, joy, good humour and collective harmony between all peoples, upon all planets and in all dimentions, onto and into infinity and beyond. This is my word and this is my Oath, Amen.

Mrs Helen Ross (née Layng) 29/11/1915-31/07/2016

What that means? Essentially, Be excellent to each other! (Bill and Ted's most excellent adventure)

With all my Love and Faith for the future,
Stephen David Ross Esq.
(signed digitally)


Known also as:-

• Muru Huni Kui : meaning 'Ancient Enchanted True Person' - Bestowed by Ninawa Pai De Mata, Chief Shaman of the Huni Kuin (True People) tribe, Novo Futuro, Amazonia, Brazil.

• The Tir na Saor Poet Laureate : bestowed by the Tir na Saor (meaning 'land of the free') Community, Irish Chapter of the Global Freeman Movement.

• Poe Redtree the Poetry Pirate : for his own rational and moderate irrational fictions and performances. As well as for the PLAY, Play and plays and entertainments of his Kin and to his excessively irrational, legally fictitious enemies (who were all merely and mildly imagined creatively at the start) and are essentially pure make believe. Just as was Captain Hook for Peter Pan and Peter Pan is for most of us, but particularly so for Wendy, who is also ficticious. How deep does the rabbit hole go Alice? 'How deep would you like' Replied Alice. "As deep as it goes" said the magic goose called Mr. Robinson, you might know him better as Neo, me as Morpheus and, well figure out that last bit yourself or you'll never value me nor give me credit! Much Love xx)

• Stephen Ross : to his business networks and aquaintances

• Steve Ross : to his friends.

• Deed : to his intimate family.

 And

• St.Eve : to his Soul, his Spirit and Spirited Spiritual creative collborators (Holy Spirit) and GOD, his creator. Although his father (good god!) and mother (good godess!) do sometimes call him Stephen! When he's been exceedingly naughty for eating too many of Mr. Kiplings peculiar cakes! Try Fresh Erics Cakes instead, they're much better, well they are at the moment anyway. Hurry or you might be late!! *giggle* :) ♥

The Ceremony – Stephen Ross

The medicine drank clearly, the journey afoot
Down into my belly, I gladly partook
Mystical voyage, from under the sea
And up to oblivion, my soul be set free

In delicate dances, the rhythms abound
Swimming through music, the spirits were found
A song to my sister, in absolute bliss
Dismissed relative madness, with the tenderest kiss

Stared right at my demons and gave them a hug

 Expelled from my system, aboard voluptuous chug
Through rapture forthcoming, this voice from the heart
My wolf bellowed wildly, tearing weather apart

Then low as a river, guiding splendid refrain
And out the forgiver, once fully explained
Dear loving survivors and gliders of love
These vessels so special, when steered from above

Dipped once into heaven, and twice into me,
Third time into honey, released victory
Intentions becoming, through gentlest embrace
Manifesting the blessings, a smile on my face
 
That panther inside me, rested easy on hearth
An owl prowled outside Lee, perspective so smart
Guided back to my person, rebirth started anew
Earth spurted deep visions and through them I grew.

Conducted the weather, energetic symphony
Through channels forthcoming, our world be set free.
Together in kindness, administered plain
Come back now together and call out my name

Beautiful hue, man!
hew-man-be-ings,
be-u-tee-full-hu-mans.
Being means dreams

Painting by Mira Jempe - Shaman, Artist, Musician and Friend

How I see myself as a therapist

Society for Psychology & Healing

MA in Psychotherapy & Healing Practice/

PG Dip. Analytical Psychology & Healing Practice

Validated by Middlesex University.

Group 18:

April 2013 – March 2015

Student: Stephen Ross

Title: Assignment #3 How I see myself as a therapist

Word Count: 1615

          

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

This assignment is intended as a personal reflection to include:

-           How you see yourself developing as a therapist, including thoughts

about your theoretical/spiritual ethos in terms of client-work.

-           Some thoughts on how you wish to develop client work over the next

            two years. 

 ..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..

I have been struggling for some time with this assignment for several reasons, the most obvious being that I am not presently a therapist. To see myself as a therapist seems to be at odds with the reality of the situation and somewhat presumptuous. That is to say, I don’t see myself as a therapist because I am not in fact a therapist.

However, that being said I am training to be a therapist and there was a process that lead me to be on this course. Some of that process did involve me seeing myself as a therapist with my own practice and therapy rooms. The trouble is that my main motivations for undertaking this course were not because I wanted to be a therapist but because I wanted to protect and educate myself as the result of a particularly unfortunate series of encounters with the psychiatric industry.

That process of engagement with psychiatry included threats to my liberty and autonomy and quite considerable pressure to take pharmaceuticals that I knew to be unsuitable for me. It ultimately resulted in causing significant damage and pain for me personally. Initially for my social standing, by way of the respect of my peers diminishing but I was eventually made homeless and became quite unwell. I lost confidence in myself and my ability to Be successfully as well as my faith in people generally. The irony of the situation was that I had engaged with psychiatry as a whole and happy person experiencing a period of enlightenment and curious to understand myself more fully but came out the other end both mentally and emotionally disturbed. Psychiatry caused me to become mentally unwell.

It appears to me that society is still not completely comfortable with the field of mental health and dis-ease and is somewhat wary of psychiatry. In my experience people tend to hold the profession at arm’s length concealing their relationship to it, for good reason as I was to discover. Rather than expanding and enabling the mind, body and spirit to seek its holistic potential, as do many therapies without recourse to pharmaceuticals; psychiatry seems intent on closing down the potential of the individual and restraining it. Be under no illusions the field of psychiatry, whilst purporting to be caring, is a judgemental and punitive rather than reparatory enterprise. To support this assertion I submit that, in our present society, a judge may choose to sentence a defendant found guilty of a serious crime to incarceration in a prison or to ‘psychiatric care’. Those are the options make of it what you will. 

So, my primary motivation in undertaking this course was to prepare me should I ever have to ‘do battle’ with the world of psychiatry again. It may sound rather melodramatic but for me it is as much a case of ‘know thine enemy’ as it is ‘know thy self’.

At this stage I should like to make it clear that I hold a very firm distinction between the field of psychiatry and that of psychotherapy. While both deal with the psychology of human beings, their approaches to healing disturbances of a psychical and mental nature are very different. One group take time to hear the disturbance giving adequate space and sufficient attention for it to work itself out, being focused on the individual in need. The other group, it seems from my own experience, would rather supress the perceived disturbance chemically, being primarily focused on keeping up societal appearances. This is often accomplished by locking the perceived problem away and drugging vulnerable and unsuspecting victims both for the benefit of those people closest to the individual and the coffers of the pharmaceutical industry.

Having given some background and insight into where I am coming from, I would now like to describe that time when I did actually see myself as a therapist. It was not long before the events described above and prior to my becoming unwell. I was experiencing a very joyous period of my life and was being highly productive. My life had become so much easier and there was a lightness to everything both internally and externally. For the first time since I was a youth I had rekindled my relationship with myself spiritually, as well as physically and emotionally. I was once again appreciating myself and I loved everyone and everything around me and for this I was extremely grateful. I often refer to this period as my enlightenment because that is the word that best describes my experience of it. For the first time in several years I felt really happy and as a result I was engaging with life. I was actively involved with several projects, some quite ambitious. I had started to write creatively both poetry and prose and was being engaged to perform my work at music and arts festivals and literary events.

As a creative artist and performer I was in contact with and meeting lots of other similarly creative people. Some of whom were well known and highly successful. Some of whom who had been well known but were so no longer and some of whom were connected in some way to those successful individuals but who had never managed to break though. All of these people, it seemed to me, were talented in some way and had significant ability and potential. Some were joyful and happy, others were not. The difference it seemed was a belief in themselves and certain amount of faith in the people around them.

Those people with both the belief in themselves and faith in those around them were experiencing life positively regardless of how successful others perceived them to be. Conversely, it seemed to me, those people lacking in confidence and/or who were uncertain about the motivations of those around them were having a negative life experience. This usually related to a lack of perceived success in their lives. It occurred to me that I might be able to help facilitate closing that gap by helping people to let go of their fears and come back to themselves, to regain their confidence and faith. It also occurred to me that there was a real need for this sort of work. I was meeting quite a lot of unfulfilled and miserable people who appeared to be struggling. Conversely I felt I had some potential solutions for people to try.

So that was one way in which I saw myself as a therapist. Helping talented individuals get back into their groove. It was however not the only way I saw myself as a potential therapist. During my search to understand the enlightened state of consciousness I was experiencing I sought to engage with anyone who had an experience of or view on mental and psychical anomalies. One person I was introduced to was a schizophrenic man we will call Ryan. Ryan was a quite predominant advocate for mental health and social acceptance having appeared on television to argue the case for successfully integrating people with his condition into society in a productive way. After spending time with Ryan I started to see a potential for him to relieve his suffering and designed an experiential programme to test my theories.

My theory revolves around the assertion that the enlightenment experience I was having was in a sense caused by the very same mechanism that had produced Ryan’s schizophrenic experience. Whereas mine was a loving and joyous experience, his was a fearful and hellish experience. It seems to me that there is some sort of energetic maturation process at play that opens us to a sort of spiritual emergence. For those people who were sufficiently supported as children and had a predominantly positive life experience to the point of awakening, the spiritual emergence may be akin to enlightenment, or they may not notice it at all. For those people who had a predominantly negative life experience and maybe did not receive the tools and support with which to deal with those traumatic events the spiritual emergence becomes a terrifying emergency. This is especially true if it is unbidden and unexpected, which may be the case for some recreational drug users.

I believe people who were, for whatever reason, unable to deal with their specific trauma at the time the trauma occurred often bury the experience in their unconscious for processing later when they may be better placed to deal with it. However, sometimes the trauma never gets dealt with or there is so much trauma that the person is unable to process all of it and so portions of it remain in the unconscious. The process of awakening spiritually involves peeling back layers of what was once unconscious. This process of awakening can be facilitated or accelerated using many spiritual practices and also by using psychoactive drugs. For those of us with unresolved issues sitting just under the surface when the awakening begins those traumatic remnants and entities can begin to manifest into perceived reality as monsters and demons or voices in the head telling the person to harm someone, for example.

During my period of enlightenment it seemed like I was being guided towards a potential solution to help people overcome schizophrenia. It felt like extremely important work and something that if I could help people to correct for themselves would be of massive benefit. This is also how, for a time, I saw myself as a therapist or rather a theoretical researcher who was attempting to explore a theory that came from my own personal portion of the collective unconscious. I became somewhat derailed when I took Ryan’s advice to enquire of psychiatrists about my experience of enlightenment…