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No Better Day Than Fool’s Day To Write About the Spirit of Carnival in Maastricht and The Weirdo In Me
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No Better Day Than Fool’s Day To Write About the Spirit of Carnival in Maastricht and The Weirdo In Me

Including the Voice and Vision of Okeko Art Spirits Out of the Woods Introducing Radio Okeko Season 2
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Okeko Art of Spirits Out of the Woods “Tableau Vivant Out of the Woods”©
Okeko Art Spirits Out of the Woods “Tableau Vivant”©

What’s this?

Radio Okeko Season 2... when the First Season isn’t even fully published?
28 Podcasts in a folder waiting to get out.

Who would have thought I needed to become The Weirdo to turn the control-grid in my community upside down? Driven by anger and grief, letting the fun flow in the spirit of fools, supported by the sounds of Carnival I reverted what was done to me into seeing what was done for me, I realized my power to change my world happens inside, and gets inevitably expressed in a refrain to do as I always did, which later on automagically fuels the transformation of what I do and what I allow in my environment. The detrimental pattern left me, proving what I’m about to tell in this newsletter works.

Yep ☺

My resolution to keep publishing what I recorded was done for in the winds of change. So much is happening in and around me that I can’t keep up with resolutions when I want to allow healing in me. I‘m more determined to go in a flow of love, healing and the rise of consciousness, which means that falling and letting go is part of the journey I’m on, which will come back later on in this newsletter.

Pff… Resolutions
Creativity Doesn’t Need To Solve
It Was Never Bound

While publishing the episodes of Radio Okeko, I realized that a deep ingrained pattern hinders my progress. The drive to record was fuelled by curiosity about the way people around behave. It became clear to me that I live in an environment (in Scotland) that resembles the dynamics and flows of energy where I was raised as a child in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

I saw that I was still caught up in a struggle to fight the control-grid on the middle-ground between the heavens and the lands, and I noticed how I welcome the information coming from above and below, but I’m struggling with what’s going on with the dynamics and exchanges on the middle-ground with people around.

I’m not willing to bypass struggles, so the obvious choice was to dive-into them, meaning the struggles and the information I’m getting from people around. The Art Spirits Out of the Woods came to help me, and because of this help I found what I’m avoiding to feel, to think, and notice the rather awkward beliefs I still held dear and with the support of trees, hills, animals and honest people around I found that by letting go of and moving away from Maastricht, I’d cut myself off from my roots.

At one point I had to, it was just too painful to be me over there, the entanglements with people too strong to allow myself to grow, the control-grid on the middle-ground too powerful for me to ‘just be’.

But by cutting off my roots, I was also cut off from the joys in my roots, and the funny wisdom it brought. Eleven days from the start of carnival, the reminder came to me. It was hilarious to think about it, since eleven is the number of the spirit of carnival in the town I called home for three decades. I remember telling a fellow teacher in Amsterdam five years after I moved away from Maastricht: “I live for Carnival” and how I was laughing at his face full of surprise and his inability to grasp what Carnival meant for me and to me.

Traditionally, the Spirit of Carnival in Maastricht is connected to a mingling of both Greek and Roman festivals, where people roll play in self-made costumes to express (letting pressure off) whatever is been held inside for a whole year. Young and old go out of their minds to allow the body to play, sing, dance, make loud noises with and without instruments, fool around, drink too much alcohol, hide behind a mask, tell their truth and mock authorities.

Dionysus, Ancient Greek god of wine (making) is the Son of Zeus (who’s the Son of Saturn).

“In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus (/daɪ.əˈnaɪsəs/; Ancient Greek: Διόνυσος Diónysos) is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus (/ˈbækəs/ or /ˈbɑːkəs/; Ancient Greek: Βάκχος Bacchos) by the Greeks (a name later adopted by the Romans) for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia.

As Dionysus Eleutherius ("the liberator"), his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful.

His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.“

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus

Saturnalia were ancient Roman festivals and holidays honouring the god Saturn (Latin: Sāturnus) in both religion and as a character in Roman mythology, and described as a god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, wealth, agriculture, periodic renewal and liberation.

“The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves as it was seen as a time of liberty for both slaves and freedmen alike.

A common custom was the election of a "King of the Saturnalia", who gave orders to people, which were followed and presided over the merrymaking. The gifts exchanged were usually gag gifts or small figurines made of wax or pottery known as sigillaria. The poet Catullus called it ‘the best of days’”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia

Okeko Art of Spirits Out of the Woods “Wood Watchers”©
Okeko Art Spirits Out of the Woods “Wood Watchers”©

Through the Spirit of the Carnival festival in Maastricht, I reconnected with the cherished flavours of my upbringing, and allowed healing of my roots by bringing the joy and fun to where I am in Scotland. It all coincided with the clowns and jokers creeping up the world-stage proposing to invest billions upon billions in the war machinery, but taking away benefits from people they’ve disabled and blaming them for a deficiency in the accounts.

I’m Entitled To Be Called Weird!

I told my friends “I’m THE Weirdo here!” (just to get it over with) and “if you want to be called a weirdo too you’ll have to apply for this entitlement, because I’ll challenge you first”. I became a ‘stand-in comedian’, written half a paper-notebook full of conference worthy of ‘acte de présence’ on a stage where I envisioned to bring an ode (tribute/homage) to Toon Hermans (Dutch comedian, singer and writer (1916-2000) whom I call a legend and master of bringing brilliant art to live-on-keys to his big audiences in the Netherlands.

He was the first in the Netherlands to perform ‘one-man-shows’. Fired up by watching his video’s till deep in the night because I couldn’t bring myself to pause, I almost choked to death from laughing as I reconnected to both the horror and pleasure of growing up in Maastricht. Guided by Toon’s wisdom I remembered our normalized cruelty that seeps through the way we are with each other and that our reluctance to respect (look at our ways again) hinders us to acknowledge that our normalized ways are an inversion of natural flows that help to allowing healing and the rise of consciousness. With more respect, I’m sure we would also be more open to allowing the changes we crave for.

The Turning (The Power Of Fools And Weirdo’s) Of Cruelty Into Love

As I said before, I had to cut entanglements with Maastricht, family, friends and traditions to allow healing, growth and expansion. Quite shockingly, I realized that the culture where I live now in Scotland is similar to Maastricht, although I feel more space on the middle-ground to live, be me, just be and let live, nevertheless my struggles to point out the cruelty in the way we are with each other were real and similar to my attempts in the past, although this time with less emotional entanglements because of the severed family ties and thus less intensive triggers of childhood trauma to deal with.

Of course, because of my move away from my roots I did grow, heal and expand, so that the emotional triggers of childhood trauma gradually let go of me and I became more free to move in the direction of my true desires. My dream is not accomplished yet, I didn’t find a place thus far where people love to grow, allow flows of healing, the rise of consciousness, and are able to love each other and work towards a common goal that benefits everybody in the community and environment.

Maybe I dream too big and ask too much, or maybe it doesn’t need to be ‘a place’ or one place; maybe the wave of my wants is already manifesting among many people and doesn’t need to get centralized somewhere. This decentralized vision is part of what I want to achieve with my Okeko project as well. Just gather online with people who intend to allow the universal flows of love that empower us to become aware of our choice in what we want to pass on to others, just be okay and investigate where streams of cruelty go unnoticed with a willingness to challenge and get challenged so that our basic choice to be love becomes crystal clear again.

Music is An Ingredient in My Life I Can’t Do Without
It’s Food to Live-On To and For Me

Singing, dancing, playing, and enjoying myself for 15 days non-stop (11 days before carnival plus the 4 days during the festival), sharing the sounds of joy and laughter with all bodies around, even those in the local supermarket, I discovered once again the control-grid on the middle-ground that has dragged me down so many times and acknowledging the inconvenient truth of allowing it to stop me celebrating live, forgetting the simple fact of being alive and allowing the joy and fun of it I realized that I’m not dependent on others to celebrate. I call the people who say they don’t have time or energy to sing, dance and play ‘love disabled’.

My Stand-In Comedy Worked
Maybe It’s My Final Act
Every body loved it!

BUT… I also saw that no-body around has time to sing, dance, play and enjoy or is too afraid to show up as ‘me’. I saw a friend ‘freeze’ when I vigorously sang a simple Scottish melody ‘Hy a Ha’, possibly also because I hit an ancient note and triggered some flavours in her upbringing that needed to surface; I saw her struggling to keep her tears deep inside when I asked her to sing it too, telling me ‘I’m afraid somebody sees me’, but I saw her and told her so.

Eye-opening yes, and to cut the full story short, my planned one-woman-show was cancelled because two hours before the act, my pre-arranged audience messaged me… sorry sorry sorry… can’t make it… got the date mixed up… I’m not around, and so on, and so on…. Deeply disappointed, I gave up on everybody around.

The Final Straw
An Outburst of Anger and Grief

Nobody listens, nobody cares, nobody wants me, nobody needs me, but I need everybody. My singing, dancing, playing and enjoyment, my stand-in comedy, acting like fool, weirdo, doesn’t work if nobody joins me. The messages here and there were hard to swallow. One day a guy tripped me and I said: “fff off, I’m going to find a new group of people, nobody listens to what I say, so be it”.

But then it came to me. Great news! I don’t have to pay heed to what’s going on around me. I don’t need them to join me. I know where they are going. I saw it with my eyes closed and have seen it so many times in the past in other places and countries, especially in Maastricht. It’s going nowhere, other than giving the unseen conductors free rein to stop the fun for most people.

Free again from investing and acting, it freed me up to keep doing what I love; just be and feel what I want to do, or do nothing.

Which is what I have been doing; drawing the Art of Spirits Out of the Woods, re-energizing connection with nature, the bonny hills, trees, animals, stones of Scotland, and of course with lovely Gem, my dearest canine friend, who doesn’t always love the music I play in my temple, as it’s sometimes definitely too loud as well. But yeah, she’s OK and so am I. We got through the upheaval together again and this morning I was up with the first birds, seeing the road ahead, which lights up for those who dream, and wrote what follows below.

As a side-note, I just rephrased a quote from the song ‘Those Who Dream’ on the album “Ancestral Spirits” of the Scottish “White Wolf” Musicians, Glen and Dawn Lindsay: “The Road Ahead Lights Up For Those Who Dream” www.whitewolfmusic.co.uk
I wish I could let you hear this lovely music and read the lyrics! The song ‘Hy a Ha’ is also part of their album.

Okeko Photography “Gemini in the Woods”©
Okeko Photography “Gemini in the Woods”©

Back to Weird
Turning of the Tides Again

The turn to look at detrimental patterns and ask what underlying force keep them ruling life in repetitive mode in order to find what I’m supposed to stop doing.

That’s what I did, I stopped doing what I always did and that’s weird, not only for me but for everybody around. That’s how I found the automatic behaviours of others as well and started pointing them out, questioning them, challenging them, playing with semantics, using words more in their truer meaning backed up by etymology, started fooling around, dancing and singing, really having a play-day every day and found out that I was caught in a pattern that took a lot of joys in life away, and turned life in an insistent dull day-to-day chorus where the conductor of the orchestra seemed to be missing.

Till I found out that I could become a conductor. When I took the reins I saw the people who lost control around me better and was confronted by a lot of angry faces, which reminded me of my dad when he got the feeling he wasn’t in control. Underneath his anger I saw despair and fear, and with enough alcohol the tears were always flowing.

The past was always roaring its ugly head but I wasn’t suppose to notice that. Instead, I was forced to take on-board unreasonable excuses for his sudden outbursts that were painful to me and other so-called bad behaviours that instantly prompted me to forgive cruelty, deceit and stupidity. I wanted him to grow-up and become aware of his same old attempts to stop our enquiry and his efforts to silence my suggestions to a mental, emotional and spiritual update.

“One Life, this is it and then you die, you’re gone, and it’s over”.

Really?

How come my deceased mum, granny’s, granddad’s, grandaunt, aunts, the brother of a granny, a cousin and a few friends, all help and guide me so much ‘in spirit-world’? They are in and around especially when I’m lost or fall flat on my nose. They let me cry, kick, scream, make mistakes, fool around and joke; run in circles like a headless chicken exhausting myself and getting headaches nevertheless, they somehow know how to reach me, and tell me they love me, sometimes even laugh out loud, showing me to see my own theatre and when I call for help at the end of my tether, it just comes.

Automagically It Comes
As It Always Did

Whether it’s an insight, a realization, a kind word from a stranger, a friend sharing a keyword I didn’t find yet, a helping hand, a sequence of events that leads to a solution I was eager to find, a book that tells me a story I need to hear, beneficial incidents, coincidences, chance meetings, somebody willing to hear me out, meeting people who actually listen to what I’m saying, seeing children who intentionally smile at me, a dog that seems to acknowledge me for what I’ve learned, a deer that nudges, and so on… it’s a long list.

Okeko Art Spirits Out of the Woods “What I Feel Facing You”©
Okeko Art Spirits Out of the Woods “What I Feel Facing You”©

“The world was always ruled by the same people, it is what it is, you’re not going to change that”.

Really?

What if the world can become my world? What if I just changed my world and the ripple effect is still rippling? How does it feel when I tell you that people around have stopped doing what they always did to me? Does it change you perception if I tell you what I see? That by stopping the doings I always did I discovered why I was doing what I always did? It hurt not to do what I always did and I didn’t want to feel it. But by feeling my hurt I was able to allow healing, and able to let go of my repetitions.

I know now that when I stop doing what I always did, everybody around will notice that, whether they try to hide this or not, and has to adjust because I’m not going back to how it was before.

My world changed after realizing (how) it was controlled by an unseen conductor, and this conductor expresses in varies ways through the people around, but I was not having it any more.

Don’t Give Up
It Comes

I asked: “what do you mean? What do you really want to say to me? Is it your intention to hurt me? Do you need to be cruel when you’re angry at me? Shall we sort it out later?”

I said: “I notice…; I want to remark…; Oh yeah, yesterday I forgot to say…; Oh no, Pascalle just left half an hour ago, she’s not coming back; I’m not You… I’m Me. Just me; I’m not kind here, I just tell you what’s true in me and if I need to be rude (if that’s the label you stick on it) I will, to make sure you hear exactly the message I bring to you, and for you, since I see you have a problem being ‘me’ too, otherwise just say it: “I want to be me…” and then I say it too: “I want to be me”, and then we hear we want the same, and are the same; we long to say: I’m just me”.

That’s when ‘our me’ gets born, and that’s what we’ve missed in childhood. We were isolated. ‘Our We’ was not allowed to be born, it had to be suppressed and that hurts all bodies but not everybody is allowed to feel that and know that.”

How Are You?

Technically and Spiritually I’m Not in a Certain Way, but Meeting You Makes Such an Impression On Me, that I Truly Can Say I’m Thrilled Seeing You.

And so on….

When I ‘saw’ my dad, brother, other family-members, friends and former partners in the gestalt of people around in Scotland, something clicked. Questions had to be raised now because people around reminded me of my time in the Netherlands where I was born and other places during travels, moving from one place to the next but also from staying for many years in one place at certain stages abroad.

How is it possible to meet people with the same body shape, mind-set, emotions, often using the same words and gestures, attracting and repelling me in the same ways, distracting and fooling me, toying with me, excite and fascinate me, drawing me in and spitting me out. What’s going on here?

I Had To Live It All Again

That’s why and how I started playing. Weirdly so. There was no other way for me to learn and share, allow healing and therefore the rise of consciousness, allowing myself to become love, by being just me. And saying it to people around changed my world. It all turned around. That’s what we tend to call weird. So I became the weirdo. And most Scots love a good laugh so most people around laughed.

I got even a grumpy one laughing out-loud and hugging me, which is an unbelievable accomplishment, I can tell you that!

Of course there were setbacks. Powerful people felt challenged, so I got to wrestle with powerful people and won and failed, won and failed, until I got it right and had them by the balls; men, women, children, animals, they all have balls to play with. Ball the balls, that’s what I became good at. And it helped to remember the exchanges with the lookalike people of the past.

Less Traps To Fall Into

People can be very cunning. Many dislike fools and weirdo’s and want them to fall flat on their noses to proof that their weird stuff is not working. Underneath the dislike is a sense of ‘if I can’t liberate myself, nobody can’, and ‘everybody has to compromise themselves, because I had to do that too’.
They can’t see a free body, because it hurts to see that, and they are desperate to pass on this hurt, but what if it doesn’t hurt me any more?

Because I Can See Through Them,
And See Me, I See How I Once Was

Then it’s game over. And that happened to me and for me. I’ve invested all I’ve got into this. And I got already so much back in the form of detriments leaving me, people who pass on hurt, fear, stress can’t be near me any more. They left me. I’ve turned my world upside down, or inverted it back to how it supposes to work, reverting it all and the ripple-effect is still rippling. It feels like the ripple has a force behind it and I only need to feel what’s going on in and around me to keep the maintenance up, and don’t slack back too much.

Here and there, I still get challenged and invited, but I get a lot of respect being just me, and it doesn’t mean I know what’s going to happen next, what I’ll say or do or whether I will say and do…. I just don’t know, I stopped preparing myself, or scheming, and think or feel strategic to get what I want.

I gave up so much, and I don’t mean to say everything, because there are still things that I can give up on, that would improve my life, which I haven’t let go yet, but all that I let go, let me go. And that’s proof for me that it’s gone, and it only comes back if I want it to come back. Otherwise, it’s no match to and for me.

It’s awesome to see the nuance between shutting a door (telling somebody to Fff Off) and locking a door. I closed the door on us and them a hundred times, and still find my-self in between (what I call ‘the middle-ground). Likewise, realizing I don’t NEED people to celebrate life together with me, it still would be awesome if they did, so I better find people who can dance, sing, play and love, and stop investing in those who can’t, nevertheless refrain from permanently shut them out by locking my door, so to speak. If they want, they can knock the door I closed for them (but didn’t lock), and ASK whether they can enter my private playground, or JUST open this door, walk in and see what happens ;)

So What... ‘They’ Changed The Clocks
And It’s British Summer Time Now?

It’s 04:32 while I’m typing this and yes I’m getting tired, but I’m inspired so it doesn’t matter whether it’s 03:32 or 04:32. It doesn’t matter what time it is. Not to and not for me! See? No appointments tomorrow, so… no problem.

Okeko Photography “Gem in the Woods”©
Okeko Photography “Gem in the Woods”©

Gem sleeps and snores and when it’s morning for me I do the same. She wakes up when she hears me turning in my bed, and that’s when she wants out, but not before I start yawning, turning and stretching… it’s a deal between us. Good deal! Works for both of us. And when it doesn’t work, she starts sighing and I mutter until one of us wins the contest of the day-break, and we break- fast or slow- out of the hut.

‘Our We’ has been born, we are in tune with each other, because it works, and we love it when it works. We love each other, no doubt about it. We sort it out when it doesn’t work. It = Spirit. We have spirited bodies, and we speak spirited, we feel and heal, we feel and know, we feel and see, we feel and touch each other, we feel and hear each other, smell and taste each other because we love it.

It works for us, when we are truly we. Gem and I = Gemini; we communicate in our community of two, and respect, and if it doesn’t work, if we’re not spirited, something is not OK, and we need to find what it is. Respect = look back, look at it again and relate… slow down, tell, recount and let go. It’s simple but not always easy or comfortable, but I see it gets easier along the way.

It all happens on the middle-ground between allowing healing of the past and the rise of consciousness and my desires and dreams, not chasing any, not the past and not the future, the middle-ground is where I am me; horizontal and vertical I am between heaven and ground, the ether and four elements, and in my It/Me/I Cosmic and Comic Bubble or Egg, I’m between Us and Them; I’m Me, and allowing ‘Our Me’ that gives birth to ‘Our We’.

That’s my world, my home where I belong, live longer, and life is dear to and for me. I hold it dear. While Gem barks in her sleep and processes her dreams and experiences of the day, she’ll probably stretch soon and shake her experiences off, just like that… amazing. I’m catching up on how she lives life. It works! Growl, eat, drink, sleep, shake, sniff, lick, run, smile, laugh, pooh, pee, immediately alert and awake when a treat or a threat comes and that’s it. What a fuss we make of it in our humaniversity!

Hang on… But But But….

Yeah, I know ‘The Butts’ 😝 are there… but not now, not here,
I’m going sleepy now… beddie time for me! Bye For Now ☻

The Heart is a Vortex
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Thanks!

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PS Don’t permanently give up on the people around; moving away helps but it doesn’t erase the lessons to be learned in life. Don’t avoid feeling emotions, fear, tension, confrontation and challenges, they bring the golden nuggets of insight we long for and replace the thought that the group-mind will always win over an individual’s capability to receive enlightening energies-in-formation. Dare to Play Every Day. The Inner-Child is kicking and screaming to be acknowledged, it lives in our heart. Many spirits help us on our healing journey, even the fools and weird ones, let them play in life, without always knowing why. Insight comes later, when we digest and rest.

Me = same / selfsame / identical to ‘your me’.
It (flow of spirit/soul/heart vortex/self) is ‘our me’ or ‘we’.

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Ian Rankin’s “Black & Blue” Quote from Poet Ron Butlin:
Scots are “creatures tamed by cruelty”.

PPS Since you can call me a slow traveller, I can assure you that it’s not only the Scots, who are tamed by cruelty, it’s part of a cult… i.e. occult part of culture everywhere. Just a suggestion: keep this part for yourself, process what’s been done to you, progress and gradually lose cruelty, let it leave you, so that the flow of life becomes visible, acknowledged, felt, and then let love pass on.

Click ♥ below and flow into my currency of gratitude. You can also organise, facilitate and/or participate in an Okeko Learn & Share Gathering to Heal and Raise Consciousness; invite me for a chat or interview; donate, support free or paid… what else? You can comment and message me. That’s about it ☺ Love, Pascalle

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From 5 participants including yourself you can invite me to facilitate (making it easier to allow healing and the rise of consciousness) a gathering and you (as organiser) participate for free.

Gatherings take max. 2 hours for max. 9 people including me; min. donation £20 pp.

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