Why Should I Respect You?

I posted this to my public network just awhile ago:


For the first time ever, I feel a real fear for the future of humanity. I have never felt this before... but now I fear that we are all looking towards an Islamic future. Wherever I go online, all I see are "Convert to Islam now" adds, everywhere. There's terrorism carried out by Islamic radicalists... I fear that in the future, we will all be forced into Islamic beliefs and this scares me, because the Islamic lifestyle is one that I could never hold as my own. I am afraid for the future, because I do not want to be forced into anything. I am afraid for the future, because I see that the methods for persuading people to abide by and to respect Islamic beliefs, are very violent in nature. I have a message for everyone right now, and that is— WE ARE NOT OUR RELIGIONS. You are not your religion, I am not my religion, none of us are our religions. Nobody in the world should force anybody else in the world, to conform or to respect, their religious beliefs or absence of religious beliefs. I pray that everybody realise that we should STOP trying to persuade ANYONE of any spiritual belief system. And more than that, the only reason why anyone should believe in anything spiritually, is if that spiritual path has invited them in with love and with beauty. Apart from that, there is no reason to follow any spiritual path, whatsoever. Do you really know which religion works? Because you will only know for sure after you are dead! And any other sign while you are still living, is any amount of beauty and love that a religion or a belief will be able to bring into your life. And that's all I have to say, in addressing this fear of mine. Please think about it, everyone. It's time to rise above religion.


       And I want to take the conversation even further down the lane of the concept of respect. It seems that everyone these days wants everyone else to respect them just for believing in something (or for not believing in something). You have to respect a Muslin for being a Muslim, you have to respect a Christian for being a Christian, you have to respect an Atheist for being an Atheist... so what does respect even mean, really? Here is the etymology of respect. Okay, so let's say we demand that others be civil towards our beliefs; but if we make such demands of others, does not this first require that we demand the same of ourselves, in relation to others? You have as much right to believe in something as someone else has the right to beleive in something else! You have as much right to believe in nothing at all, as someone else has the right to believe in every single God of the Pagan Myths! So where does this leave all of us at? This leaves all of us at the fact that we are 100% equally worthy of respect for whatever beliefs we choose to hold or not to hold! So what does that mean? That ultimately means that nobody on Earth is required to show an outward honour towards anyone else's beliefs! Nobody has to honor another's belief system, because everybody has the right not to believe in anything, or to believe in something totally 100% opposite! That's the truth right there!
       Futhermore, what do we think of, really, when we think of respect? Well, we think of giving honor to someone on behalf of something great; a great achievement, a great victory! So what the hell is the great victory in simply believing in something? Why the hell should I show outward honor for you just because you happen to believe in something? Did you work hard in order to be able to believe in it? Did you persevere over obstacles all your life, in order to be able to adhere to your beliefs? No! And most of the time, you were just born believing those beliefs just because your mom and dad and aunties and uncles told you that it was the only true thing to believe in! So what the hell? Why the hell is everyone going onto Facebook Pages and Youtube channels and demanding everyone respect that they are Atheists or that they are Christians or that they are Muslims? Nobody needs to respect you for anything that you don't or that you do believe in, because it's too easy to simply believe or not believe in something! It's too easy to believe that an apple is the creator of mankind if you were told since you were born that the apple is the creator of mankind! Sure, you can believe in the apple as God, but I don't need to revere you for that. Nobody needs to. And nobody has to revere anyone's disbelief in the apple, either! The truth is that, when it comes to spirituality, nobody needs to be thinking about what anybody else is doing, so long as the other person is not harming anyone! We only need to start thinking about what others are doing, and stepping in between the lines, when there is evidence that a religious belief system is the fuel in the suffering of other human beings! Because what we really need and must respect, is human life, is the right of all human beings to have freedom, to be free! No man was born in chains; it is their fellow man who has put them in chains, and at any given time, every single man and woman has the absolute right to break free from those chains of any nature and of any form! It is not God who has put you in any sort of bondage! It is your fellow man who puts you in bondage in the name of God!
       I suggest that everyone, everywhere, see that it is time to rise above religion! It is time to be more than what our religions or lack of religions dictate us to be! It is time for all of us to quit trying to convert anyone else into our own belief systems or lack of a belief system! It is time for every human being on Earth to start seeing that we are not our religions or lack of religions; but we are the humanity or the lack of humanity, in us! If you lack the beautiful empathy for your fellowman within, then you are not worthy of respect. If you have the beautiful empathy for your fellowman within, only then are you worthy of respect! You are worthy of respect because of who your soul is and because of the things that you do to achieve and to have victory in life! We do not achieve anything by trying to convert anyone to become as our own! There is no great abode waiting for you in Heaven depending upon how many people you converted into your religion! None! That is just a story to get you to convert more people onto your side! God is the God of everyone! Not of just them or of just they!
       Why are you living your life for death? Why is death the greater obsession here? Are you not given this life and what are you going to do with it? Are you going to create beauty and are you going to love? Or are you going to be a useless mistake by living your life for what happens after death? People live their lives now in fear of the afterlife, and in the process, they forget that they are still alive! And for as long as you are alive, my friend, you have the chance to break free from any bondages whatsoever, that your fellow man has put you in. Your passion should not come from any one religion; your passion should come and should be fueled by, the fact that you are human and that you have been given this life to leave your stamp of beauty and of progress upon mankind!
       We are living in a time wherein we are either going to rise above religion, or we are going to fall underneath it. I believe that we are living at a turning point in mankind's timeline, and the future of our species is going to be dictated by how we handle this now, by how we choose to change, now! What direction are we going to steer ourselves into, right now? Because destiny isn't what simply happens to us! Destiny is what we make happen to us! The people who know that, are the people who are going to win and who are going to be able to turn the direction of our ship into their current! So the key is that we all know this, so that we all look towards a direction that benefits all of us as a species, and that is the direction that leads us above religion and onto the unity that we have in all of us— the unity of the soul, the unity of the beauty that lives within us.

The Nothing Song

Hey wonderfuls. I have something deep to talk to you about today... so it starts off like this... yesterday, I posted this to my personal network and to my public network (my writer network):

I have made an important decision, and this is to no longer allow myself to be affected by the state of the nations, the peoples, the world. There are too many terrible things happening everywhere, and if I am to think about them, then I will only know heartache. Too much empathy is very difficult to carry around in the soul and I suppose that a bit of apathy would do wonders for the mind and body. Goodbye to all things terrible in the world, terrible presidents and terrible terrorists and terrible cunts. Goodbye. I shall hereafter dwell on things like the beauties of nature, music, and cake and cupcakes. My little winged heart cannot take anymore of the terribleness. And so, I shall bit ti all adieu! Ta ta, so long, au revoir, farewell, retreating into my very own renaissance of the mind now! Zen.

I said this yesterday, only to break down in tears today, and to fall deeper into the turquoise lakes that I am made up of. So I want to talk to you about that because it's a turning point in my life, and since you're on my journey here with me, I guess you would like to know when I turn somewhere? So in case you'd like to know, I've just realised that I simply can't be the person that I described above in my post, it only lasted a day. Actually, just about ten hours before I couldn't do it anymore. And that's okay, because this is me, and I'm so tired of fighting myself. I can't change the colours of the lakes that I am made up of. There is a depth within me that I can't alter... the forests in me are violet and vast... you could roam in them for a lifetime and still not come to the end of them! I know, because in my dreams at night I walk through them and they go deeper and deeper... forests filled with living things and with fields of lavender!

I'm not going to be able to be the person whom I've described above. Because the person that is me feels deeply, thinks deeply, knows deeply. I realise that the key to soothing the pain is not to change my nature; but the key is to stop bordering at the edge of what is in between. I can't keep teeter-tottering at the edge of what is shallow and what is deep... like so I can save myself in case I go too far into the forest... because the key here is actually to just go in deeper, go totally into that place, because when I give myself to who and to what I am, that's when I can become the powerful me who will be able to choose what to feel and what not to feel. Then and only then will I be in the powerful position to say, "I'm not going to let this cause me pain, I'm not going to let this burn within me, I'm going to turn away from this person (or this thing), because this person/thing is not good for me." But I know that I am only going to be able to do that when I fully accept how deep those lakes, oceans and forests are! I'm going to have to learn how to dance with the beautiful, illuminated creatures within me, because they stay in the deep places, I'm going to have to want to be there. And that doesn't mean that I can't run away! I can always run away from anything; but I can run away from anything outside of me, if I need to, while inside me, I still know who I am!

So, look, I know I'm the person who, when I cry, a single tear down my face feels like burning oil; a single breath feels like I'm reaching up for Heaven's hands to reach down and to hold me— I feel so much. But I'm going to be strong and fortified from now on, because I'm going to accept myself and I'm going to go even deeper. Because you know what? I am helluva beautiful! And if I weren't who I am, I wouldn't be able to write the things that I write and be the person that I am right now.

I am turquoise and I am violet.

Love you, wonderfuls! Thank you for putting up with me, through all of my ups and my downs, I can't thank you all enough! And now I want to leave you with a music video that I always come back to, through the years, no matter who I am and who I've become and what I've done— I always, always come back to this song, because it moves with the rhythm of my heart... this is the song that I would sound like... wordless. I'm not a pop song, and I'm not a rock song... I'm a song that's literally entitled "The Nothing Song" because the words are made up and it's all about the melody and the feeling, it's not about the words (they don't even mean anything.)

The Chant

       I am convinced that Gregorian Chant is a spell-casting type of music and I feel like this is the music that I should always be listening to! When I listen to Gregorian Chant, I feel protected and safe, swathed in arms wrapping themselves around me! I feel like I am within an impenetrable blanket of divineness and safety! I can't seem to find any writings on the matter, like writings from ancient times ascribing the chants to some type of protection spell or anything like that, but I am fully convinced that, at least for me, it functions as such!

       The very interesting thing is that I have learned, from a musical course that I am taking from Yale, that Gregorian Chant is the only music on earth which does not possess a beat. A beat is what humans naturally ascribe to/look for, in musical listening experiences; so looking for Gregorian Chant is not a natural action to take; it is in fact an unnatural choice for music. You definitely don't see a million teenagers screaming out the chants like they would scream out modern-day pop music! So I find this fact to be fascinating and highly intriguing! 

        I feel like the fastest way to cast a caim (circle of protection) around one's self, is to listen to Gregorian Chant. But that's just me, and you don't have to believe that, I am just one to share the things in me that try to fly out of me, at times, and this just so happens to be one of those flying things! 

xoxo,

C. Bells

What Status Is Your Mind?

       I have noticed that there is something, a way of seeing and feeling people, that cannot be categorised as a question of intellect, nor a question of socio-economic and cultural background, nor a question of current social standing. Usually, I can predict and/or categorise how a person will react to something or understand something or deal with something, based upon the factors I've just mentioned; but sometimes it's simply not a question of either of those factors and I struggle to grasp for the right word to describe it, or the right term to describe it. But I think the right term to describe it, would be, "status of the mind." There is a social status, a financial status, a marital status, and now I think there should be something called, status of the mind. I have observed that an individual may have intellect but no common sense; common sense but no culture; culture but no class; class but no heredity to account for it; good bloodlines but no intellect; and so on and so forth! But then a person can have all of those things and still fall short of a certain area of perception and understanding that just leaves them so... so very mortal! But then there is one trait that supersedes them all, I think; or that at least pulls a person into that area which simply feels like a better place, a place where we can reach an understanding, and I hereby dub this as the, status of the mind. One can be born of high social status but have a low status of mind. One can have a high status of mind and, with nothing else, be able to peer into the things that are veiled from others, the things to be seen that others cannot see! This is the status of the mind. People of this status want something better, they want something that is not mainstream, that is not understood by the masses, they don't put themselves into that current which flows with the times that everyone else is in; they are elite in the mind! They are of an understanding that is higher, that sees further, that feels and perceives more, that dreams bigger and that reaches beyond! There is a different kind of hierarchy now, and that is the hierarchy of the mind.
       And that's all I want to share with you, today. But I also want you to check out the new videos I've made on Youtube! :) I think that I will not be posting every video that I make, onto this blog, so if you're keen on keeping up with the latest ones, please check back directly at my YT channel: www.youtube.com/c/cjoybellclovescake and you will be able to follow all my latest creations there! You can also browse through other playlists that I've put together, consisting of different types of music; there's also ballet videos, travel videos, inspirational videos, basically just a bunch of videos that aren't mine, but that I enjoy! So you can check those out to, if you're at all interested. Anyway, here are my newest latests and greatests, below! Do enjoy them, I worked hard on them for you guys so I'm happy for you to be enjoying and sharing them!


Raising Nobility: A Magickal Take on Parenting:




Don't Be Afraid Of Your Fears:




All Things Lit Like Fireflies:




All Things Dance Like Dragonflies:




Broken and Whole:





To Love and To Lust:

Living Through My Skin

       I believe that we are living in an age of information overload and overstimulation. Our brains are functioning as supercomputers, absorbing and divulging information both at the same time, in a way like never before! I can just login to Facebook and in my newsfeed there are about thirty sources of science and technology, spirituality and history, so on and so forth— running through my feed! And these thirty or so sources run some fifty or so articles and images each, for me to see, every day! And I have observed that all of this info can run me over, just like what getting run over by a truck on the street would be like! It leaves you flattened out on the road— like a carcass! It's like we're turning into machines... forgetting how to live... it's only January and we've already forgotten the magic of the holidays when we were greeted by terrorists just a few weeks ago! We forget all our hopes and magical aspirations for the year, when we run into rude and obnoxious people at work, at school... at Starbucks! So what I'm saying is that I think I need to not get run over anymore and I think that you shouldn't, either. I think that I want to cultivate, focus on, and practice, a culture of kindness. What is a culture of kindness? It's a culture of living through the heart, a skill of stepping away from that highway and instead, having a picnic beside the road... or under a tree! A skill of stopping and breathing and living life gracefully through experiencing every divine moment, cultivating thoughts of humility and gentleness all along the way!
       It's easy to forget living in our own culture of kindness, when we are overstimulated in so many different ways. We are frightened by the news, we are rubbed in the wrong ways by bitter and frustrated people, we see garbage on the television and we are always bombarded with the notion that knowledge is better than kindness, that intelligence is better than empathy and compassion. We are taught that our magic is laughable and that we ought to "wake up"... everybody is telling everyone to "wake up" from a host of different things to "wake up" from! Everybody wants everyone else to "wake up" from something! One person will say wake up from magic, another person will say wake up from your daydreams, an organisation will say that you're not good enough until this or unless that, some people will tell you to forget your religions while another group of people will invite you to church and to prayer meetings... everybody in the world is trying to hoard in other people, as if we all need to make little camps of ourselves and give our camps little names and huddle up together and be weird together; but the truth is that we're all weird, anyway, and we can do that very well without secluding others or without having to push our egos up onto platforms of our own makings, in order to make ourselves feel that we have some sort of advantage over the rest of the human race!
       The culture of kindness is a culture wherein people will be motivated not by the promise of being more and better than others around them; but the culture of kindness will encourage people to be motivated by the sheer longing to live life beautifully. What are the things that allow a human being to live life beautifully? That's simple, because it's the simple things, really. It's a forgiving nature, a grateful heart, an attitude of simplicity and magnanimity at the same time... being able to take the time to smile because the sunbeams dance on the wall in a beautiful way— that is the culture of kindness. And it's not about being in a race to be kind and to show and see who and what can be kind to more people and to more things—no— because we have too much of that, already! We are in fact bombarded with advertisements on how we are supposed to be kind to these people and to those people and to this thing and to that thing— enough. It's not about racing towards anything or anyone. It's about being. Being a sentient human being. Being a sentient soul. Knowing what exact moment you are in, right now, and living in it. And that's not about "YOLO", either! It's about breathing, feeling, living life sensuously!
       I live life sensuously. When I am not too busy being a carcass on the road being run over by the trucks in my Facebook newsfeed; I am living life sensuously. Not being chased by doubts and fears and feelings of frustration. I live sensuously and that means living through your skin; feeling the moments in life as you live them. That's what it means to live sensuously. And I invite you to join me, this year and beyond, to cultivate a culture of kindness and to live sensuously.


C. Bells

It Flies Away Somehow

Guess what! I made another video! :) I think this will be the new norm for me, so I do hope you enjoy it! I rather enjoy "filmmaking", as it gives me a whole new way to express what I want to express through my writings! :) Anyway, here goes: