Month: March 2021 (Page 1 of 2)

I have finished Chapter 12 of this latest story. Unplanned, the story took a strange twist in Chapter 9 which I have decided to bring forward here. What was surprising was the shift into a nude alter-reality, a mythological setting with a Turkish god and goddess.

*****

“You need to follow me,” Zuhre told Meghan and Bruce.

As she took a step through the moon gate, Bruce saw the framed space begin to shimmer in the darkness. Meghan followed Zuhre while Bruce hesitated. He saw Meghan shimmer and then disappear. Taking a deep breath, he propelled himself forward using the crutches.

He felt a tingling and found himself in a dark space where he couldn’t feel the crutches in his hands. Discomfited, he looked at his hands and found them empty. The crutches had disappeared. He looked down as he felt his feet contact the surface. Though he couldn’t see his feet, he knew that his cast and his shoe had disappeared. A tendril of fear had him pause for a moment. Yet knowing that Meghan had gone ahead, he was more concerned about hurrying forward in case she needed him.

There was a change in the darkness. Bruce was able to see. The black had shifted to a rich, deep blue that was iridescent. It was as if he had emerged into a pocket of air beneath the surface of a sea. That thought was challenged as he saw a shoreline with water lapping at the edges. Hearing his name, he turned and saw Meghan.

“Bruce! I’m over here. Where are we? And where is your cast? You are walking as if you never had broken your leg.”

Bruce answered, “I don’t have a clue. Where is Zuhre?”

Almost at the same moment they saw a beautiful young woman who was nude. She looked as though she was a fairy without wings. The cast of her skin was bluish, likely having to do with the iridescent blue light that filled the space.

“Welcome. I am Su Ana, the goddess of water. My consort, Su Ata will be here shortly. My father sent you to us. There are lessons to be learned. Welcome to my world, Meghan and Bruce.”

“She’s naked!” Meghan exclaimed to Bruce in a whisper that was meant not to be overheard.

“Yes, I am without clothing,” Su Ana remarked, telling both Meghan and Bruce that there would be no secrets in this world. “The world of water does not agree with clothing. You will see that you are unclothed as well. This allows us to move fluidly in the water.”

Meghan and Bruce looked at themselves and at each other. Su Ana was right. Neither of them had on any clothing, not even a thin veil to protect modesty and decency. Both immediately covered their genital region which appeared to be shaven of even the finest down of hair. The hair on their heads was the only body hair that remained.

“This is my world,” Su Ana said. “Here there is no false modesty, no shame. There is no authority or social morality other than transparent honesty. The core of who you are is all that is allowed to exist here.”

“But what if someone should see me undressed,” Meghan protested.

“There is no someone to see you and remark upon your state of undress, Meghan. In this space, the camouflage of clothing would quickly put you at risk of being isolated and removed. Here there is no reason to hide.”

Su Ana’s words did not do much to alleviate the sense of vulnerability and unease that both Bruce and Meghan felt at finding themselves nude. Bruce made it a point not to stare at Meghan, a favour that she reciprocated. Both focused on the goddess that spoke to them.

“My mate will be here momentarily. Together we will take you on a journey through our realm.”

Almost as soon as those words were spoken, a nude male appeared approaching Su Ana. He was unlike what Bruce assumed a god would look like. Su Ata had the body of a male, but his head had the strange look of a frog. It was jarring to say the least. Bruce then noticed the god’s feet which were wide and webbed. Curious, Bruce looked at the goddesses’ feet and noticed they were webbed, though not as evident.

“Ah,” Su Ata spoke, with a smile lighting up his face. “I see you have taken note of my appearance, my feet and my face. Like my feet, my hands are also webbed. Both are necessary for ease of movement in our realm. As for the anura features of my face, that too serves a purpose in the world of water.”

Bruce caught the reference with Ata’s use of anura, the scientific name for the amphibian family of frogs and toads, a word that states that these amphibians lacked a tail.

Su Ana then spoke, “Let us begin. Follow me.”

She led them to the shoreline and entered the water. Her movements were graceful, as if she had been walking through water to reach the water. Both Meghan and Bruce found themselves feeling the resistance which caused them to move the same way. Without her body disappearing below the surface of the water, which would have been natural once in the water, Ana began to swim.

“Bruce!” exclaimed Meghan. “The shoreline is an illusion. We’ve been under water the whole time. How is that possible? How can we breathe under water?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce admitted. “But I do see that we both now have webbed feet and hands.”

They followed the goddess and god further into their realm. The appearance of life in the watery depths was gradual. As they appeared to ascend into a paler blue world, the varieties and numbers of life forms multiplied. It was as though each life form was paired with mates moving within each others’ orbits. It reminded Bruce of the image of two koi fish circling each other in an eternal mating dance.

“This is amazing, Bruce. Everything is paired. And the closer to the surface we get, the closer to the light, the more pairs we see.”

The goddess swam toward the two guests.

“Not everything in the water realm is like this. There are solitary monsters deeper in the depths where it is darker. It is not the purpose of this small journey into our realm to teach you about the dangers lurking in the depths. The task is to show you the relationship between opposites who are yet the same, the union of masculine and feminine energies. And you are correct, Bruce, in your comparison with the koi fish, a yin-yang symbol in your world.”

‘Even the water, considered to be feminine energy, itself teaches us that two separate entities must dance together, hydrogen and oxygen – hydrogen as feminine energy and oxygen and masculine energy,” added the water god, Su Ata. “The two elements bind together to be the source of life, while still unable to fully become one element.”

“None of this is new,” Meghan was quick to state, feeling as though the god was talking down to her. “If this is what we are supposed to learn coming here, it has been a complete waste of time.” Meghan did have issues in listening, especially when it came to men.

Su Ana quickly picked up on Meghan’s irritation which was making it impossible to learn, to hear, to understand.

“Watch those two,” the goddess said, while pointing out two strange creatures swimming alongside each other.

As Meghan and Bruce watched, the two creatures separated and came back together from opposite directions, separated again to be side-by-side while going in the same direction. They then took turns swimming one above the other. Then at one point, it was obvious that the two, for an instant became one in some sort of intimate moment. Within moments, one of the two expelled what appeared to be eggs. New life had been created. Two had become one, though the two were still trapped within their original forms.

“These are our children,” the goddess proclaimed. “In our children, we become one. It is that thirst for each other which sparks desire, which in turn fills us with a need for each other.”

“I understand!” exclaimed Bruce, “Life force, libido.”

~

With those words spoken, it was as if a spell had been broken. Bruce found himself back in his garden beside Meghan. His crutches were on the ground beside him. He expected to see Zuhre, though he wasn’t sure why he had that expectation. Turning to face Meghan, he could see confusion on her face.

“Bruce, what are we doing in your backyard?”

Bruce didn’t have an answer. Zuhre spoke, drawing attention to her presence. “And there is the constellation for Pisces. Now, let’s go back inside where it is warm. Hot chocolate?”

There is a shadow side to being nude, wanting to be nude, even needing to be nude. Nudity isn’t a simple thing for most of us. There are a few who have found themselves private, gated communities where it is possible to live nude indoors and outdoors without having the eyes of of a disapproving community ready to pass judgment and likely call the authorities. Yet for most of us, this is not a scenario that is possible, and it is very difficult to change where we live because of a host of real-life situations. By necessity, being nude is carefully timed and placed. And, when we dare to be seen, we often are conscious about what is seen and what is left to the imagination of those viewing our nudity.

Emma, as she often does, gave permission to use this image for this particular post. The image captures exactly that sense of need and the complexity of having that need presented to the world. The risk of vulnerability is always present. “Others” are not always accepting.

One of the realities that most of us live with is that neighbours, work places, social outing venues [when the reopen after Covid19] such as pubs, restaurants, theatres, shopping centres, campgrounds, lakes and beaches, even walks through parks is the real world prohibitions about doing any of these things while nude. Nudity is not a natural or accepted state of dress. And in most locals on the planet, it is illegal.

Life in our own homes is navigated with care, especially if nudity makes a partner or housemate uneasy. Going out into one’s own yard is fraught with tension that is partially relieved only if a high privacy fence is put in place. Yet, a privacy fence is only useful if the neighbouring houses can’t see into the yard. With taller homes, windows on upper floors make the privacy fences useless. For those living in apartments or condos or other variations of lodgings, there is almost no opportunity to be outside, even on balconies, while nude. The best that can happen is to be able to look through the window, longingly, without being spotted by a person on the outside.

No one said that this was ever going to be easy, yet still we persist.

We often hear about normalising nudity and how natural nudity is for naturists and nudists and other folk who plain enjoy being clothing free. Yet, the question remains, just how natural is nudity in our modern world? We hear responses such as “we are all born naked” and “we are all naked beneath our clothes.” However, that still begs the question. More responses come about bathing and showering while nude. There, we can safely assume that this is a truth, at least for most of the developed world. In the shower or in the tub, it is normal to be clothed in our bare skin. There are no sexual connotations about taking a shower when solo or without an audience. Yet, should one post an image such as this one, the radars of the nude police are activated and knee-jerk reactions kick in. Regardless of the naturalness of the scene, it is too much for many people to cope with.

That unconscious response is nothing new. I remember an image from the late sixties of Frank Zappa sitting on a toilet. Though we all sit on toilets, the image wasn’t taken to portray a natural life scene, it was taken to promote Zappa’s first concert in 1967. If anything, the poster was a protest of disdain. It definitely had nothing to do with sexual titillation. The poster was in my home along with a number of his albums with the Mothers of Invention. I did get to see him in Edmonton in the winter of 1970-71. At the concert, Zappa pulled down his pants and urinated on the front row of the audience, much to their joy. I think everyone attending was stoned.

Another album in my collection was the Two Virgins album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Like Zappa’s image, the album cover had no sexual intent. It was a daring to be vulnerable. The two risked almost everything in their lives by daring to do the unthinkable. The record sold well, but it had a brown paper bag hiding the album cover on the record racks. People didn’t take well to the image. It may portray a moment of naked trust, but that wasn’t and still isn’t, something that is acceptable.

Nudity is not normal in our world. For too many, even the thought of sleeping while nude with blankets hiding one’s nakedness, is too much to cope with. In our world, paradoxically, it is more acceptable to be nude in a porn flick [soft or hard porn] than it is to be nude during one’s normal day. Is the scene getting better as the years go by? Yes and No. The use of social media to attempt to normalise nudity has met with limited, but promising success. Yet, more and more social media platforms are banning images that depict nudity even with all of the “sexual” bits unseen. For FB and its ilk, just the hint of nudity is enough to be banished from the platforms. Yet, in what can best be described as the “Internet Underground” there is a growing trend featuring images that are deliberately showing just how “natural” nudity can be.

For the foreseeable future, natural nudity will remain in the realm of deviant behaviour, with deviancy being defined as outside of normal societal behaviour.

What is it about a “selfie” that has so many people taking them? I turned to Psychology Today to see what they had to say about the selfie phenomenon. Here is what the author, Mark Griffiths, had to say, “the selfie is much more than a way to show your friends and family what you’ve been up to, or your new haircut or a celebrity that you’ve met, and it’s also the most efficient form of self-expression.” Also found in another article written by Griffiths was the reference to selfitis, which was also referred to as me, myself-itis:

“… the American Psychiatric Association (APA) had classed “selfitis” as a new mental disorder. According to the author, the organization had defined selfitis as “the obsessive compulsive desire to take photos of one’s self and post them on social media as a way to make up for the lack of self-esteem and to fill a gap in intimacy”.

Now, to be fair there are a number of positives posited which Griffiths points out:

• Self-confidence (e.g. taking selfies to feel more positive about oneself)
• Environmental enhancement (e.g. taking selfies in specific locations to feel good and show off to others)
• Social competition (e.g. taking selfies to get more “likes” on social media)
• Attention seeking (e.g. taking selfies to gain attention from others)
• Mood modification (e.g. taking selfies to feel better)
• Subjective conformity (e.g. taking selfies to fit in with one’s social group and peers)

What does that mean for those who take nude self-portraits or selfies, a distinction that I need to clarify before going on? A self-portrait is an image taken by a photographer with the intent to convey a message. Though selfies are usually taken with a smartphone, they can also be taken with a DSLR, so it is not about the camera. The image above was intentional for the purpose of this blog post. There is a message imbedded in the image. Yet, most would call the image a selfie because it was taken using a smartphone and a mirror. The lines between selfie and self-portrait become blurred.

I can see and understand that there is indeed, subjective conformity as suggested by Griffiths. I post images here [rarely anywhere else] knowing that I am in a community comprised of readers who are choosing to come to this site and read my blog posts. I am sharing links to these posts on Twitter as well. There is a naturist community on Twitter that doesn’t focus on the idea of nudity equating with sexual activity.

As for attention seeking and/or mood modification, that may or may not be part of the rationale for taking and posting a selfie. Not all photos taken are posted. Likely for most within this community, my guess would be that only a fraction of the photos taken ever get posted, especially by those who are legitimately called photographers. Social competition? The race to garner more likes? That is another hard question to answer. It all comes down to the intention. Is the intention to grow the community? To inspire others to adopt yoga into their lives in order to have a healthier life? The intention is important. As my readers soon learn, my intention is to go beneath the skin, to look at the human psyche.

And there is another reason that I find that merits consideration. Those taking these nude self-portraits are creating a record over the years. Photos tell a person a lot about themselves. There is an authenticity with the nude photos that can’t be matched when one hides behind clothing, styles, activities, and locations. The journey of self-discovery is not an easy journey.

With all of that said, why do you take and post selfies? Or, equally as important, why don’t you take and post selfies? What are your motivations? What role does fear play in either path taken? Is there an element of defiance or hint of excitement? The questions are many. It’s your turn to talk.

Most people see the world in glorious colours. Some see the world in shades of black, white and greys. It takes a special sort of mind to enter into a zone of altered consciousness that somehow fits between the normal scenes of life. Other times, it takes a quirk in a camera light sensor to find that flimsy veil that separates normal reality from the unusual.

I had begun the day shown in this image before anyone else in my son’s home had woken. This is the norm as I am usually the first one to wake up. It has been this way for as long as I can remember, even during adolescence. No matter who is in the house, it is my time, especially when it isn’t yet fully day, that in between time separating daytime from night time at both ends of the day. I have to be honest, I am finding this quiet time of day to be my favourite time of day. At least for a while, I escape the depressing insanity that is sweeping our planet.

The veil between realities is thin. What is trapped in the collective unconscious has an opportunity to journey into the world of the collective ego at this time. Nice people become less nice. And for the most part, they are unaware of the shades of darkness that have been awakened in them. Jekyll’s become Hydes – “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde“. Well meaning people become bullies. Mob hysteria becomes a common occurrence. Logic is nowhere to be found. Try to match the conundrum of “prolife” with “stand your ground.” It just doesn’t work. The idea of trying to control women’s vaginas while protesting laws that limit personal freedoms don’t fit together, yet they are held as though sacrosanct truths.

And then there is the other side to acknowledge. At the same time as there is darkness seeping into our collective consciousness, there is a increase in light for a growing number of people. Somehow, an awareness of self is allowing more people to discover the authenticity of themselves. That awareness of self serves to have them become immune to the growing darkness and to be beacons of light for others who are caught at the edges. Naturism is part of the light. I use the word naturism with hesitancy because it has been coopted by too many for darker purposes. Removing one’s clothing reveals a person who has otherwise been hidden. And not always is that a good thing. Removing clothing is only a beginning, one of many beginnings that feeds a person’s psyche to take yet another step to being authentic and self-aware.

Welcome to the twilight zone.

Yes, clothing is a reality in a northern climate. Snow is still on the ground as spring approaches. In reality, spring doesn’t come to the Canadian prairies until sometime in April with the last frost hopefully happening before the last week in May. I know it has been said repeatedly by so many, but we are indeed naked beneath our clothing.

What does our nudity beneath our clothing actually tell us? We all have skin. We all have body parts. We all are imperfect. What else does nudity tell ourselves and others? Firstly, we have dared to be exposed and vulnerable to the world. Yet, even when nude, we hide most of the truths of who we are. We are more than our organs and body systems. Our “self awareness, the core of who we are” is not just a product of our brains, our experiences and our interactions.

We are more than two-dimensional beings. There is a dimension where we exist unknown to our ego, though ego is loathe to admit that anything that the senses can’t validate, is a mirage, an illusion. Most psychological frameworks steer away from what we call the unconscious. If it isn’t scientifically and empirically provable, it doesn’t exist. There is no shadow world. There are no archetypes, there is no meaning for life other than existing, producing and consuming. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Naturism is an end unto itself. Nudity for the physical sensations and cognitive benefits.

Having a dialogue between those naturists whose worldview is multi-dimensional and those for whom the world is basically “what you see is what you get” ends up in frustration for both sides. There is no listening to contradictory ideas. Rather, both sides engage in word storms that want to “convert” the other side to their way of knowing themselves and the world. How can we even begin to then build a consensus for a naturist worldview?

Naturism is a word with all the limits that go with an attempt to embed a philosophy with a word. To even hope that we can embed varying and sometimes competing philosophies, puts one into a sea of agitated boiling water. The only thing all groups agree upon is the fact that the human body is nude. After that fact, all bets are off. No one owns the word. And now, as a result, naturism has been coopted by a few groups who have worldviews and intentions far removed from even the weakest of definitions. So, where does that leave us when hearing, seeing, and using the word naturism?

Today I want to talk about being a writer, a poet, a maker of alternate universes. And naturally, I will draw on my own understandings, not necessarily truths. First, what is it that drives a person to write? It can’t be the idea of making money, though that is what does inspire works that are more about following templates than allowing what is deep within a person to emerge as art. I say this without trying to demean pulp fiction. Those stories fill a need, a fantasy that steers one away from one’s own depths, something that is too painful for many would-be readers. I want to talk about myself as a reader and writer, more specifically as a writer.

Before I talk about “writing,” I want to talk about reading. As a naturist like Emma seen above, I read while clothing-free. Reading is a solitary event unless one is reading to a young child, or someone who is disabled in some form or other. Why one reads is unique to each individual, and even different from time to time for an individual. It takes a certain frame of mind to read blogs such as mine, or what I will call serious books.

“One cannot compose a poem when one is too involved in life, for outer existence affords too much gratification: there is no need to do or say anything original. … Nevertheless, the experience of solitude is a vital factor -necessary if not sufficient- for artistic expression.”

These words were written by Aldo Carotenuto in his book, Eros and Pathos, in a chapter called Solitude and Creativity. The book is seen in the photo to the right. Solitude is not necessarily a state of being which demands the absence of others. Much of my poetry was written while I was busy with life as a father, husband and teacher. Despite their presence in my life, there were many, many hours when they were in bed when an inner solitude pulled me to plunge deeper into the depths and expose the rawness within. More recent poems, as found in my Naked Poetry series, found a different level of creativity.

Being in a relationship does get in the way of writing, as Carotenuto mentions above. When life is filled with the relationship -hiking, activity, socialising, shared moments- the head is pulled into the outer world. An example from my life would be the week I spent at my son’s home taking care of the two youngest grandchildren. Outer life was filled from morning to night. There was no pull to write. My reading switched to a SciFi fantasy that didn’t demand any thinking. And sleep, filled the rest of my time.

Now that I am at home, there are hours when solitude presents itself. There is space and time for solitude. And with solitude, the journey inward appears in bits and pieces. And, in turn, the story that I am writing takes a turn further inward and downward. I am now beginning chapter 9, where the main characters are preparing to enter into an alternate reality, the world of gods and goddesses. Their mission is to discover the source of soul, the life force that animates. Mother Earth and Father Sky, the eternal relationship that has the two parent the world. Masculine and feminine circle each other for eternity, constantly attempting to unite as one. Though we expend so much of our energy in pursuit of that submersion into “other” we can never escape our skin. We can never become other. The other can never become us. Now, with that said, here are the first few sentences of chapter nine.

The Underworld – “You’ll follow me,” Zuhre told Meghan and Bruce. As she took a step through the moon gate, Bruce saw the framed space begin to shimmer in the darkness. Meghan followed Zuhre while Bruce hesitated.

“Our individual development depends on realizing that others cannot understand our experience.” I chose this quote to begin this post as I have constantly throughout the decades tried my damndest to have others understand me, my thoughts-ideas, and my orientation to naturism. That is a problem with my typology which has me focus on others almost from the word “go!” In an attempt to have others as the focus, I lost sight of what I was trying to do and basically passed on my own, individual development. Now, at the age of 70+ I see that most of us are oriented to twisting ourselves like pretzels in order to accommodate others. This is a problem.

What do you want for yourself? What do you perceive that you need for yourself? How do you take care of yourself? How do you achieve a basic level of satisfaction for being alive and on this planet? If any of your answers include an “other” then you are diverting the focus from yourself to an “other.” An example of this can be found in the photo above. I took this photo for my journal this morning. I wanted to capture the Buddha image and the fireplace in operation with my normal dress code in the morning. No “other” was involved in the image, nor was an “other” considered as a rationale for the image. It was for me, plain and simple.

When I typically add one of my images here, I consider “others.” Usually, that means I crop judiciously, or place the watermark in such a position to reduce potential tension in others. In doing so, the watermark becomes something different. Now, all of this is going on in my head. For the most part, no one cares one way or the other about the images I post here, unless they are images of someone else, preferably an image of a woman. Why do I say that? If I post an image of a woman, the page visits go up dramatically. Also, a full-frontal image of myself with genitals fully visible gets a significantly higher number of visitor hits as well. But, none of that has any real meaning. What does have meaning, are the words used in the posts which the images act as visual illustrations. The posts that have something that connects with others receive likes and comments that have nothing to do with the images. Interesting.

So, here I am exposing myself to the world [well, the tiniest fraction of the world one can imagine] visually and ideologically. The screen stares back at me in silence, unmoved and disinterested. I intellectually know that once I hit the publish button, someone will read the words and see the image. Despite that intellectual knowledge, in exposing myself so intimately, I have removed myself from the collective, the norm. In effect, I am left with a feeling of heavy separateness – the focus on self equates with a real loss of others.

Naturists/Nudists – whatever the hell we want to call ourselves, know that in daring to be an individual – transparent, authentic, flawed, scarred, different, unique – we suffer the loss of others. Our social world contracts drastically. And so, we find ourselves putting on clothing even when weather and environmental conditions don’t require clothing, just so that we can be less alone.

Do any of these words resonate with you? I am listening.

I’m back home following an eight-day assignment of grandparenting so that my daughter-in-law could have time to work on her master’s level counselling degree program. Needless to say, I am exhausted. The two-year-old and a four-year-old were so time consuming and needy in comparison to their eleven-year-old brother. It was non-stop child care for the duration. It had been six months since we were last able to see the little ones during that time between first wave and second wave of Covid19.And, I wouldn’t have traded that for the world. If anyone ever wants to discover the ultimate meaning of life, it surely can be found in the hearts of children.

The six-hour drive was done in sunshine with not much wind. Once home, I was able to get a photo in celebration. Nudity is my natural state when at home. Now, back at home, I can once again hear silence. I woke up to a glowing fireplace that was ready for my presence. Coffee was ready and I became like some sort of cave-dwelling hermit meditating in front of a fire. And my meditations turned to what I would say here and the story that I am writing. You, my readers, are not forgotten.

On a different note, the Covid19 vaccine is coming to a town near me in the relatively new future. Before the spring is over, I expect that I will have had both my first and second doses of the vaccine since I am in my seventies, one of the endangered species among the human population [it is a calendar age thing, not a physical reality]. I have to admit that I am looking forward to the idea of being more “social.” Since my neighbours are also in the same age bracket, once we have the jabs, we will be able to once again host each other for meals. It has been more than a year since I gave these neighbour friends a hug and received one in return. But, it has been worth it. Not one of us would have done well should we have broken the rules only to cause one or more of us the misery of becoming Covid19 statistics.

Morning hoar frost. I got up in the pre-dawn darkness, as usual. I love this time of day. It is almost as if I have entered an alternate universe. I own this alternate universe and everything is possible. No wonder dreams come at night time. And what appears to be a paradox, it is as though a light has been turned on to reveal things about oneself that are hidden during the light of day. There is no analysing of what appears. It simply appears and that is good enough. The sights, the hints, the textures, the shadows, the presences. Though often cloaked, they are there and one knows it.

As night becomes day, a different sense of self emerges, one that is in sharp contrast to the blurry possibilities of night time. Unknown to the ego, the night has shifted the self ever so slightly to have one’s conscious self to stretch the boundaries of the known outer world. But, this shift is temporary. It’s as if the door to a revised present has a time switch where one enters at their own risk, risking change.

Should one hesitate at the portal that appears, it fades and is replaced by the “same old, same old” scenes that are less fearsome. Like a hamster on its wheel, we spin through the rest of the day with repeated scripts that keep the unknown at a distance. The night waits for yet another opportunity to have the soul enlarge its cage. And for those, so wrapped in repetitive mantras and habits, those opportunities are often called nightmares.