Song to Jung (detail) by Nancy Wait

Mental hospitals, prisons, and the graves of suicides, are filled with the betrayed. With those who got left out somehow. Those who were born into the light and found only darkness. Or found too little light to keep them going. Or didn’t have the tools to spark the flame of their own inner light.

For those of us outside of institutions who are dependent upon psycho-pharmacology, we are just as imprisoned.

I believe it all starts with the feeling of having been betrayed somehow. Maybe it’s by your parents. Or maybe it’s by the bank, or the government, or the system itself. Or your lover, your spouse, your child. The weather. TV. The media.

Whatever it is, it’s not the way you thought it would be. It’s not the way you expected it to be. You feel led up the garden path, as they say. Duped. Betrayed.

This is your wound. This is where it hurts. But there is another way. There is seeing the wound as a gateway. An opening. An opening into more Light. More understanding.

The other way is a path into hopeless or revenge. Into anger or destruction. Into more darkness.

My book, The Nancy Who Drew, The Memoir That Solved A Mystery, is the story of how I turned around my own experience of betrayal. It is the story of finding the sacred in the betrayal.

Through opening up my heart, and never losing hope, not completely.

Today I am beginning a new show on Blog Talk Radio on the theme of Sacred Betrayal, and finding the Blessing in the Wound. LINK TO SHOW

I cannot think of any more important topic than healing our wounds and letting go of everything that has held us back in any way, from being the true Divine selves that we are.

I begin, and will carry on with my theme of Sacred Betrayal, finding the Blessing in the Wound. We can go to all the healers we want, but in the end, we have to be willing to heal ourselves.

“What people actually need is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of them.What they need is not the discharge of tension at any cost,but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by them.” Victor Frankl

Welcome to The Nancy Who Drew pictures. Pictures that pointed the way to her soul story.

Watercolor by Nancy Wait 1987

The other day I posted a painting on Tiferet Journal representing sort of the ultimate in balance. I called the picture Portal because I have found that when I am in perfect harmony – or as close as I can get to it, another door seems to open. It’s like I have to come into complete harmony and balance with something in order to be ready to move onto the next level, the next thing. In other words, being in balance with myself and the world around me, even if it’s only my apartment – or a room in my apartment, clears the way for the next step. And there’s always a next step. 

Today, however, I am seeing the importance of being off balance from time to time. When I am off balance I tend to see with new eyes. I tend to see things fresh.

I used to become very unbalanced when I fell in love or become fascinated with someone. My whole being felt upended. I hardly knew who I was anymore, and sometimes I struggled to think where I was. This was understandable, as strong emotions have always sent me into another realm.

I am thinking about this now because the other day I became obsessed with – a gadget! I didn’t want to go to sleep until I figured out how to use it. 

Staying up all night or not getting enough sleep, straying from my ‘healthy’ routines, upsetting my status quo – these are the things that can put me off balance. But sometimes this is good! Eating dinner in the morning instead of breakfast – anything to mess up the schedule. Because it’s when I’m off balance that I make new discoveries. A little more light might filter in from unexpected places. I know from experience there’s a price to pay if I stray too far, but with the passing years I seem to have grasped that law.

Nowadays, I take care to make sure everything is in order before I retire for the night. I put things away and hang up my clothes, don’t leave dishes in the sink, make sure the cats have full bowls of food. Because how do I know how long I’ll be gone? How do I know where I’ll take off to? And how do I know who I’ll be in the morning – or if I will even be the same person? Because tomorrow – what is that? 

These are perhaps the things someone does who is a little unbalanced – and knows it. But I know from experience that when my psyche – my soul – thinks it’s time to move to another level, it will put something in my way. Love, or maybe only a new gadget, but I will have to change somehow – and find a new balance – to accommodate this new thing. And that’s why it’s good.

This painting, Balancing in the Moonlight, is for sale on my art website or as prints or cards. LINK

Watercolor by NW 1987

The mindless place. Oh, I know it’s all Mind, but off with our thinking head, because we are going to the Inner World. The inner world of thought and being and intuitive knowing.

Inner knowing. Poetry. Art. A different patterning of words and images that catches us off guard. Takes us past the barriers of conditioning, of programming, to see differently. Hear differently.

Inner awareness. Meditation. Dancing.

3D moves along particular tracks – the grid of the physical plane. Our minds are the exception. Our minds are free from Time and Space. Inner Knowing enables us to Jump the Tracks of the Known.

I created this painting many years ago, and at that time, I was off in my head a lot. I think that is why I gave the diamond in the center so much heaviness in the lower half, and left the higher half lighter. I needed to stay in my body. Have that awareness of being in my body. Use my intuitive inner bodily knowing.

Some paintings are created for the viewing public, others for a client. And some, as this one was, are created for the artist herself, as she needs to see what the idea might look like, should she attempt to make it into an image.

I wanted to get out of my head. I began with a photograph of myself standing in a stream, and I cut off my head with some scissors and placed the head in the stream. A year or two went by, and I found myself painting this image of a head cut off. It was one way to tackle the dilemma of thinking too much – picture it! And while I was at it, I also pictured an enormous diamond shape right in the center of the body, which was certainly a reminder to stay centered, and possibly also a reminder that my riches were in my ability to stay centered. Headless, maybe, but whole, all the same.

This watercolor is part of a series I am in the process of posting to a new website. I will keep this blog updated as to when the new painting site is ready.

Years ago when I suffered setbacks (of my own making) (out of ignorance), and was ready to chuck it all in (i.e. my life), my Higher Self whispered, ‘Well, then you’re just going to have to come back and do it all over again, and it will be harder next time.’ So that was the beginning of my Surrender. And in that process of surrendering came the realization that I needed to become my authentic self. To take off the masks and stop pretending to be someone other than I was.

Sometime after that, I took a course called Showing Yourself that involved standing up in front of the group and being grilled by the teacher in such a way that you found yourself admitting your heart’s desire, your heart’s longing, and because this confession was now being witnessed by forty or fifty people, there was a sense of obligation to follow through in fulfilling my intention.

So I manifested getting commissions, quitting my job, and becoming a painter full time. It came down to having the courage to identify myself as an artist in the eyes of the world.

Time passed, and after fulfilling my goal as a painter, I took up writing memoir. And then I found it had been much easier to paint a feeling than to write about it. Paintings can be interpreted numerous ways, but words, not so much. Words stick. Words are specific. Sentences need to be clear, otherwise the reader is left wondering. And that is okay too, as long as the writer means it that way. But what is being served if I skirt around an issue with half-truths?

Memoir writing is cathartic. It can also feel dangerous. I had an instructor in grad school who told me I needed “to scare myself.” To be myself, and show myself, as I really was, as I really felt. It took a lot of drafts, a lot of revisions, and long periods when the manuscript just sat in the drawer while I worked up my courage again.

I published The Nancy Who Drew last June, but it was only the beginning of the story. Now I am working on the tough middle. And I’m finding I have to screw up my courage all over again, as if I’d never done it before.

A new set of stories, episodes and scenes, wait to be revealed. The life they describe has already been lived, but in order to relate it, I must relive it again. Yet I know how inspiring it is to hear another person speak their truth. We say to ourselves, well, if so-and-so can do it, so can I.

And so it is.

Besides (I say to myself), why should I be fearful of telling you who I’ve been or what I’ve done in the past? Will you think less of me?

So this is what I wish for myself – no, scratch that. This is what I intend for myself. I intend that I will have the guts to write unashamedly about the life I had the guts to live in the first place! This is not a story I want my family to read, and that is alright. They don’t have to. I am entitled to have my own life. I’m allowed to have the life I’ve already lived. And what I’ve done has led me to here, this beautiful place where I am now. In owning that life, I’m also owning myself. I am willing to be a sovereign individual. Let the chips fall where they may. Maybe no one will even read it! And if they do, I am curious as to what they will think, but I also like to think I am enough of a writer to steer them into thinking the way I want them to think. And in the end, what others think is more a reflection of who they are, than who I am. That’s what it’s all about really. Being who I AM.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011, I will be talking with Anora McGaha, poet, author, essayist, and editor of the online magazine Women Writers, Women Books  as on Blog Talk Radio as we discuss ways of moving beyond the small self and releasing fear.

Does the battle never end? Do the fears ever stay away permanently? Have you ever wondered if, in this imperfect, impermanent life, you will ever be released from the fears holding you back from being all that you can be?

Whether you work on your fears or play with your fears or read about how to let go of fear or attend workshops or pray or plead to the powers above, fear is something that can be overcome, and in all sorts of ways—or not overcome, but lived with, dealt with, as best as we are able on any given day, from moment to moment. It is up to us.

F for Fear. F is the 6^th letter of the alphabet. How does fear relate to the sixth sense? Take away the F for fear and we have the word EAR. All we need is a T-H at the end for it to spell Earth. Is Earth the fear-planet? Or is it the Love Planet? What does your EAR tell you? What does it say to your sixth sense? The word EAR – when you add up the letters in numerology, equals six. All these sixes! Hmmm…..

And six, what does the six mean? In the tarot it’s the card for the Lovers. It’s the card of Union. Divine Union, union of lovers, union with self. Three plus three, the Divine Triangle come together with itself. The Holy Trinity coming together with its earthly reflection.

How can love overcome fear? By opening up the heart, opening the heart chakra, we rise above the solar plexus where the ego resides, where the power of the personality resides. There’s a reason why the lower three chakras are located below the waist, and why the heart, throat, third eye and crown chakra are located above the waist. Above and below. We live in a world of duality of Above and Below. Of Night and Day, of Fear and Love. A world where energy rises, and the sun rises, and the moon rises. A world of openings and closings and endings and beginnings. Of new and old and everything in between. Because it’s all impermanent – in this world of matter in time and space and 3D.

We also live in a world of ritual and ceremony. And now, as we move into the calendar of shorter, darker days, and into the festival of lights, let us take a look at our fears. Let us dissolve them, even for a moment, or only in our imaginations, and set the tone and pace for the new year ahead. Dissolve them, love them, own them, let go of them. See their value. See if they have outlived their value, or not…

On Tuesday, December 6^th on my blog talk radio show Dancing in the Shift, we are going to look at the ‘f’ word, F for FEAR. I invite you to submit your fears to me either publically in the comments box below, or privately message me. Because I am going to read aloud the list of fears we know so well, and then I am going to burn them in a symbolic ritual.

'Floating' by NW 1985

‘Willingness to Shift’ is the title of my blog talk radio show today, (LINK) and these are the paintings I have chosen to illustrate the Shift. They are all watercolors. The first one I did back in ’85. I remember the feeling of being ‘cut loose.’ Being free to float. Feeling myself unanchored, in a new space. An unbelievably rich new space!

The second and third paintings illustrate the sense of shifting from one plane to another, or shifting to different planes,

watercolor by NW 1989

spaces, states of mind. I was very intrigued by angles at the time, and what angle I was looking at a thing or judging a thing or perceiving a thing. I had the sense it was all about invisible yet very real angles of perception. I felt ‘out of time,’ out in space—a new kind of space.

Then, just as suddenly as these images appeared to me, they disappeared. Shortly afterwards I got pregnant by choice, and entered into Time again. The kind of time that all expectant mothers and new mothers enter into, counting days, weeks, and months. Then counting breaths, then counting and measuring baby’s progress.

watercolor by NW 1990

But a few years after baby popped out, I popped out again too, into the Timeless once again. Into the more Universal sense of Time and Space I had become used to as a painter. I spent the next dozen or so years trying to meld the two states, Local and Universal. It wasn’t easy being ‘here’ and not here. I tended to go off somewhere and get a bit lost at times.

I see now that I was going through the integration process, integrating the different energies within, in order to clear my passage.

Living the dichotomy of being ‘here’ and not here can be tricky. It takes practice. And most of all it takes a willingness to receive directions from one’s co-pilot, whoever that might be. The designated driver, as it were. Someone outside oneself, or a being within. Or it can shift between the two.

I’ll say it again. Gaging the layout of this new land can be tricky. There isn’t a map, or at least not the kind we are used to. I think we have to create our own. Through expression of where we are now, where we are now. Now. And then let the moment go….

I recommend The Emerald Alignment. I have been using this meditation from Rainbow Light Foundation since the summer, but now I need to step up my practice so that it becomes automatic.

Here is a description from their website:

All healing is light transmission. The Emerald Alignment is a simple, safe and effective method of releasing anxiety and aligning the subtle energy of the body through the emerald ray. It is important to understand that the alignment exercise is not simply a visualization technique but rather a transformative process based on scientific principles. The visualization process is helpful in sustaining focus to enhance effect; however this also initiates an actual metaphysical process, which we may or may not be aware of. While many of us place great emphasis on maintaining physical fitness most remain unaware of the need to stabilize and maintain the subtle energy which is the source of life. The result is that we are running on empty drawing upon limited available resources which are not replenished.

Detail of Watercolor by NW

Until last Saturday at Occupy Brooklyn, I was quite excited about the thinning of the veil, the dimensional barrier separating us from the inner worlds. For a long time I have been hearing about lifting the veil, piercing the veil (of illusion), and lately we find we are living in a time when the veil is ‘thinning,’ as they say. I didn’t see how there could be anything negative about it. My personal experience with seeing beyond the illusion has only been positive, only shown me more ‘light.’

Yet now I am becoming aware how it is important to be ever more diligent in focusing on the light, because not only is more light coming through, but more darkness is free to come through as well. I did not think of this until I attended the large October 5^th Occupy Wall Demonstration. and while the police presence was huge, they were not intimidating as the crowd clearly outnumbered them and the mood was celebratory. (I left shortly after dark and before the violence happened later.)

Then, on a sunny, cloudless Saturday morning, I went to the first Occupy Brooklyn rally which was quite near my house­—how convenient I thought! Yet despite the small numbers, there was an enormous police presence—at least it seemed that way to me. And then they began penning us in, which was a weird experience—as if we were somehow contaminated, and had to be set apart from the general public. But of course I knew that it was really in order that it would be easier to round us all up once we were contained in a small space.

I kept to the fringes. I am an older woman with a slight build and perhaps overly cautious when surrounded by large beefy men in uniform whom I have seen on videos carting away or pepper-spraying innocent unarmed females. Now, I hate admitting this, but I was exhausted for the rest of the day. (I was also exhausted after the October 5^th day, but I had done a lot of walking after all.) It took me a few days to realize the difference between ‘psychic’ exhaustion and physical tiredness. They are not the same at all!

I think most of us know how the Law of Attraction works, in that we attract to ourselves

Detail of Watercolor by NW

whatever we’re focused on. So if I am in fear (doesn’t matter what of) then I will attract to myself the very thing I am fearful of. I know it’s not fair, but that’s how the Universe seems to operate. I do not want to be fearful. I do not want to feel intimidated. I want to feel safe and protected while I am in alignment with the highest good for all. So this will be my new practice. I will notice what is happening around me (that’s common sense), and while I am doing that, I will also be focusing with equal measure on what is going on within me, consciously letting go of fear as I visualize the Emerald Alignment.

My friends at Rainbow Light Foundation are familiar with methods for psychic protection, and will be updating us with more information soon. I look forward to sharing their links with you.

Meanwhile, let me leave you with the words of the founder, Carol Lamb:

Please know that for every individual who stands in Brooklyn, on Wall Street, or in any other city to raise their voice, there are hundreds, thousands worldwide, unseen, who are standing with them in their light bodies, including us! It is this physical and subtle energy which weaves together to create a force-field of light. No opposing energy can stand against a collective energy of peace.  This is how Martin Luther King achieved his objective of course—Heaven was on his side!

Pegasus (watercolor 11x14) by NW

Here we are, almost at the end of time, as the Mayans would have it. Yes, in case you haven’t heard, Time ends week after next! October 28,2011. After that, we enter into the Timeless Zone. Not the Twilight Zone, the Timeless Zone. The Twilight of the Gods is already done and gone. I have no idea what October 29th will be like, though perhaps the numbers say it all: 1:11:11. That’s according to Numerology where we don’t count the zeros and ‘29’ equals 11.

I have done a couple of things to celebrate this change, but before I get to that I need to mention that I have not been catalyzed by numbers or by calendar dates (at least not consciously), but by what I have seen and experienced at Occupy Wall Street and then at Occupy Brooklyn a short walk from my front door. One of these things was a sign: “Welcome to the Paradigm Shift.” Now, I have been hearing about this famous paradigm shift for the last thirty years, and in the last few years the Shift has become part of everyday lingo in certain circles. It’s all over the web. But until recently I haven’t seen it on the streets. This made a huge difference to my psyche.

Read this great article from the New York Times Sunday Review section today, In Protest, The Power of Place. Here’s a quote:  “We’re so distracted these days, people have forgotten how to focus. But the ‘mic check’ demands not just that we listen to other people’s opinions but that we really hear what they’re saying because we have to repeat their words exactly. ‘It requires an architecture of consciousness,’ was Mr. Gaussoin’s apt phrase.”

Perhaps you, like me, have grown used to having two identities—your physical life and your virtual life. It was only ten years ago that I was in a play where people in an internet chat room were looked upon as losers. They were lonely, they were ‘relationship-challenged,’ etc. But now with Face Book and Twitter – the whole web feels like a chat room – and now the entire world with it. In other words, I am feeling a merging of identities. And this indeed is what the End of Time is all about – it’s about living in the Now every moment.

Cut to the chase, on Tuesday at 5pm EST I am having my last show on Art and Ascension at Blog Talk Radio. It will be short, because at 5:30pm EST I am beginning a new show called The Shift is a Dance. on my new channel Dancing in the Shift  which will also be a short one that day! After October 18 the new show will be at 5pm, my regular slot on Tuesdays. Not only that, but I will be hosting under my new name, NancyGo. I think explanations for that would be superfluous at the moment, don’t you?

I hope you will tune into Dancing in the Shift, and call in as well, to talk about your experience in this New Age, this new era, this SHIFT. Meanwhile, don’t forget to keep dancing. To dance is to be in rhythm with the flow ~~~~

That we’re all ‘in this together’ was true before September 17^th and will continue to be true as long as we draw breath on this beautiful earth. But we forget. It usually takes a 9/11 or any one of our other national tragedies for us to come together and step beyond our individual parameters of family, friends and colleagues.

What I saw and experienced last Wednesday, October 5^th when I joined the march #OccupyWallStreet down at Foley Square in New York City, was a gathering of New Yorkers in all their rich variety who had come together in a common cause. The mood was one of exhilaration and celebration. There was no anger, only joy.

When I left Liberty Plaza to head up to Rector Street and the subway back to Brooklyn, I immediately felt the difference between being part of the group and being just another pedestrian on the city streets. When I came down onto the subway platform to wait for the train, the difference was even more pronounced as the crush of commuters resembled a group—but it was only in size. It wasn’t as if there was any feeling of commonality or camaraderie (like on the march).

Down on the subway platform and then on the train, we were all separate individuals, vying for a seat or a spot to stand in while the train rumbled through the tunnel. This is nothing unusual, in fact it is so taken for granted that we don’t stare or look at one another on the trains, that it seems out of place when a spark of our humanity suddenly erupts, snapping us out of the self-induced trance most of us retreat to during these public rides where we guard our private space as best we can.

Yet, how wonderful to be shaken out of it—those walls we put around ourselves!

Whether or not this ‘new’ movement will have any effect on the powers that be is yet to be known. But one thing is already known to all who have gone down to Liberty Plaza or merely watched it on the screen—we are powerful when we come together. We make a difference when we come together, letting our voices be heard. Because we are not strangers to one another! In fact, we are all ONE. United in a Common Cause, to make this world a better place for all.

Listeners? That would be my blog talk radio show, Art and Ascension.

Readers? That would be my memoir called The Nancy Who Drew,  published last summer. I read some excerpts on the air HERE.

Now I am writing the sequel. And for some reason, best known to the gods of story-telling, the narrative begs to be told out loud.

Episode One begins tomorrow, Tuesday, October 11th 2011 at 5pm EST.

The words refuse to sit quietly on the page, and indeed have refused to come to me in anything that resembles freshness and frankness unless I am going to be speaking them into the ether, into my microphone, perhaps even into your ears.

Perhaps this particular narrative needs my expressive story-telling voice, with relevant music breaks, much as in the beginning, the story refused to reveal itself other than by mute but expressive and colorful paintings.

You see, as much as I feel that this is my story, the story has a mind of its own. The creative impulse must be obeyed, lest it dries up, packs up shop and goes home.

Episode One is ready to go tomorrow. Episode Two is almost finished and I’m looking ahead to the third. My goal is at least two, and perhaps three episodes a month, for as long as it takes. At the end, I will publish the text, and I’m sure I will be very glad to. Meanwhile, I intend to enjoy this process of letting the river flow in the way the river wants to. It’s the only way to keep the words coming. Trust me on that!

Meanwhile, thank you in advance for listening, for reading, and for any comments you might care to share. I can only hope that your experience is as enjoyable as mine as been, preparing these shows for you.