The last judgement is the day we’re no longer afraid to be alive again, it when we come back to our real state , our divine self, where we feel a communion of love with everything in existence (Don Miguel Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)
This is a far cry from what I grew up believing.
Though I was spared ‘The Left Behind’ series, UK evangelicalism hadn’t fallen for this work of christian cult fiction (or taken it as the underlying influence for US christian education policy) , I still had given to me, from Sunday school and home, a deep worry of what ‘the last judgement’ could mean.
Hades, Hell and eternal damnation, or absence from the love of God permeated in my prayers, behaviour, diligence and attempts to be good christian boy/man – with the requisite states of shame for failings and repeated eradication of sin.
The Last judgement stood as a place of reckoning – appearing even in the Family game ‘The game of life’ . I imagined a replaying of the TV screens in a production room of all the scenes of my life, the good, the bad and the ugly, and everything else. I was going to be judged, and fearing this judgement, and the possibility of ‘going to hell’ featured heavily in my evangelical upbringing as well as further theological studies. The conversations about the end times rattled around endlessly, when a so called 1000 years might occur and how it related to the fires of Hell and end times. No one could even consider that it was more metaphorical than real. That wasnt the question, the question was which.
The heat of hell was to be feared and avoided.
Hell was real……and ….
there were many sermons that would decry that ‘one of the tricks of the devil, is to say that he doesn’t exist, that hell isnt real’ – stoking the fear of disbelieving hell even more – even in slightly more compassionate theological evangelicalism in the UK, this was still a thing said.
As a good christian boy, I believed it all. Every action was seen through a lens of being judged one day.
So in effect I did a very good job of judging it each time myself.
Did I hurt that person? Did I make a mistake? Could I have done better? That was embarrassing James…
The fear of judgement, created my own personal judgement.
Id push myself to the brink, because being self critical was a skill, and being ‘reflective’ was a thing people consider me known for. Asking questions.
None worse than the judgement I gave myself.
Judgement poured inwards.
All questions, and almost no heart. Restless frustration that world should be a better place – whilst im wallowing in an ache of hurt, pain and internal suffering that im judging myself for. Spewing criticism outwards, as an outpouring of my own conditioning.
Hell was what I was living, it wasn’t just in my own mind, it was the drama of all around.
The last judgement. The decision time.
Without question, part of my awakening process has been to see my faith in different ways, and though rejecting some of it, re appropriating other aspects, and so whilst I probably rejected the notion of ‘end times Hell’ a long while ago, realising that I was living in my own personal hell and taking power to change it, has taken a very long while.
Since the moment in 2023, after an emotional breakdown, and undergoing therapy for the 4th time, I saw myself differently.
I felt as if I had been swimming in shark infested water all my life, and now I was standing on an island in the sunshine that I didnt even know existed, I couldnt even see it. I felt light, joyful, whole.
It was a feeling, a sense, a reality that has, with the exception of a few challenging situations, been a place that I have been able to stay in, to return to – because I know now that it exists.
Some might call it awakening, or realisation of consciousness or the moment when I walked through my own personal shadows and hell, to gently loving let these parts of me go.
The last judgement might just be the last time you make a judgement.
I didnt believe it would continue. There was a part of me that would envisage me falling back into the waters, and theres been moments of my toes and maybe knees getting wet again. But these moments haven’t been met with self criticism, or failure, or disregard (you know that voice that wants to disregard the ‘good’ moments as blips, and suggest that ‘real’ is the struggle)
The last judgement.
Is a place thats possible to create- but its a place the finds you. I didnt go after it, there isnt a magic formula, it arrived when I was ready.
Judgement is a place of safety, security and dependence, it’s also a place of fear and lack of self trust – and this stuff is hard to work through. But when it happens, you know, you just know.
It’s like that inner spaciousness that gets bigger.
It’s not just a crack where the light gets in- thats the start – , more an embodied lightness of being, where being is love and light – and its judgements, of self, of the other, of the past, of the future, of the world – that become the blockages in the light tube.
Maybe they were the true ‘sins’ after all. Not the actions, but the judgements.
But 45 years of self critical programming, I realise had to be reorientated. The language I used for myself, in how I spoke to myself – had changed in the preceding 5 years – but the voices of my inner protective dialogue hadn’t been dug out at their roots – and they were my default programming, I was unconsciously competent at beating myself up, for everything I did or didnt do. That was the voice. I didnt need God to do this for me – though deep down I believed in a God that was about to… I did it to myself.
After the moment when my therapist heard my story of taking myself into the shadows, and telling me that ‘James, you are incredible’ and my response, instead of self denial, or reluctant acceptance, was ‘I think I believe you’
I walked down to the bookstore and wrote the positive words of being incredible, down, and repeated and repeated. I bought a blank journal for 2024 and wrote down only positive messages of myself to myself each day, sometimes it was wrestled determination, but most days, using coloured pens, there were stars and hearts and rainbows and words of grace and love and joy and power for myself – from my imagination or the universe to myself……and a re-writing of my inner dialogue – to retrain or to give more practice – or to give more weight to my inner God, my inner heart, the voice of my soul.
Using language to become acquainted with the beauty of love and life for myself. To create on a daily basis a space of the island within my being. Using words of love and not self judgement for myself. Writing it daily embodied my belief in it. Writing it daily fed the loving voice. And where there is love, there isnt judgement.
I get how positive psychology is both derided and believed in – (this could come across as this). This wasn’t a path I chose, it just found me, as I realised that self belief was something that I could make for myself. But I couldnt allow myself to do so, whilst I was in place of self judgement.
Fear of the beyond, where critical judgement wasn’t the dominant voice wasnt a known place, it was a prison of my normal…so it was easier to obey and stay at its mercy.
Faith in yourself is the real faith. Real faith is to trust in yourself unconditionally , because you know who you really are, and you really are the truth
(The Fifth Agreement)
When you find the place of self truth, it will become apparent that the ways of living previously were prisons that you (and I) had made ourselves more comfortable in than we would like to believe. And one of those was the place of judgement – where someone, something, some system, some part of ourselves – is to blame or causes us to blame ourselves.
Judgements are fractures in our wholeness, beliefs to keep us stuck in places of restraint and comfort, they feel easy – they lie easily and are believed easily – especially when we feel we need to belong in the very systems that permeate them (religion, family etc) as moral codes or stated behaviours….until we realise, or start to notice….that to buy into the judgement is to remain stuck, in someone else’s personal hell or even our own. Judgement creates it.
Notice what happens when you stop making judgements.
Notice what happens, when you stop yourself beating yourself up.
Notice what happens when you feed the voice inside that is gentle warm and kind.
Notice what happens when you completely accept yourself. Your body. Your actions. Your past. Your emotions. Your thoughts,
Notice what happens when you let go of being judgemental
Notice what happens when judgement feels wrong and not normal anymore.
Notice what happens when the lie of judgement is exposed.
The last judgement, might be the last judgement you might make – before life actually begins.
Beyond judgement beckons, as place of deep agreement – where no-thing but love, light, life matters – it just is and it feels like heaven.
Maybe the last judgement is the last tine you make a judgement.
I got to the Coffee shop
After a walk that included
more work chat.
Sitting down.
I
Open the blank lined page
Green tea poured.
Red pen chosen.
Ready.
Tired.
But ready,
The page.
Blank.
Inviting.
Alive with possibility.
Daunting with expectancy.
Weary limbs picking up the pen.
Mind unsure.
Facing the unknowingness of what to write.
This side of the release.
Blank page
Bleak page.
Write,
The place of comfort
as the words flow from you
to you.
As inside your heart breaks open its loose edges
Awakening itself from the slumber of the tired mind.
Pen
Writing
a melody.
A tune echoing in the line of ink flowing onto the page
Uneven, breaking, heart leaking its colour on the page
Giving itself as it appears,
To be immediately read by the eyes,
A message from the heart eyes.
Eyes read,
What the heart bleeds.
Colour lines appear as meaningful imaginations of the soul
Read back into the same mind that consumes it all with acceptance
Rage, Wonder, Hurt, Joy
All taken in in the moment of the hearts disposal in the pen
Soul imagination writing its truth
Soul imagination writing its love
For your mind to keep reading
Head healed by Soul
The Delicate passage of time.
Imagination working at the speed of consumption
Consumption furthering the flow of imaginaion
One stoke
One flow
One ink bleed at a time
Word by word.
Connecting the disconnect within the fracturedness
As mind embraces the speaking heart
Consciousness watching the cyclical orbit around it
Increasing as the mind and soul unite in divine imagining
Heart creating space for the soul to expand
One
Flow
Of
Ink
at
a
time.
Soul words written by flesh hands
Transported back into the mind
Sealing the divine circle
With love within
Eyes read,
What the heart bleeds.
Bleed love
Bleed kindness
Bleed it all through the hand
Restoring fragments buried underground
Subconscious soul connection in the pathway of the pen
As I walked home from town the other day, I noticed the sad sight of this butterfly on the pavement in front of me.
Nearly dead.
Prematurely dead on concrete that wasn’t its destiny.
I walked past at first, my heart somehow ached for it.
And then I went back, slowly, no one was around and so….gently, lifted it up, its wings so so delicate in my open palm, and still reflexing, or having its last few beats. I so so gently placed it over a wall and into a garden, so that at least it could spend its last few hours on soil and not pavement. Slightly closer to where it was meant to be.
A colourful butterfly dying a premature death, probably hit by a car and then concrete.
A soul less death after spending so long in its life to be, finally who it was meant to be, the end of the cycle. (possibly unless it laid eggs)
It at least had a slightly softer death rather than a sudden one.
And I said goodbye to it, and walked on, for at least in that moment, it had been cared for.
And I heard a voice saying to me, as I walked away from it.
You did not go through being small.
You did not go through being silenced.
You did not go through scraping around on the floor.
You did not go through being afraid.
You did not go through eating fifty times your body weight.
And then…
You did not then die a thousand deaths
or
sink into a darkness
or surrender to change
nor melt into a secret sacred home
nor hide away nor stay
to then emerge
and fly…..briefly….only
to live a curtailed life.
You did not change to live a soul less concrete life
You did not die, only to die again and again
The cocoon doesn’t have a return door.
You can’t go back.
The universe is waiting for your flight,
The universe is waiting for your colour,
The universe is waiting to look up and watch and wait for you to dance upon the wind, and be interrupted by your joyful wonder.
You were chosen for this life,
You were chosen for this life to be life,
You were chosen to be light and in the light,
You were chosen for colour and to be colour,
You were chosen from the beginnings of silence,
From before colour and before time.
To radiate eternity, poured out from hearts sacred colours.
Caterpillar in the tree How you wonder who you’ll be Can’t go far but you can always dream Wish you may and wish you might Don’t you worry, hold on tight I promise you there will come a day Butterfly fly away
(Miley Cyrus)
So often, the butterfly is a metaphor for change, as this song I really like describes. The change from caterpillar, to cocoon to butterfly is rich in symbolism, rich in mystery and describes, often perfectly, the necessity for acceptance of an ongoing death, an ongoing inner change, even if both the caterpillar and the emerged butterfly are still so fragile in the hierarchy of the animal pecking order. As a friend once said to me, what’s the point in doing all that healing work, only to be as fragile, vulnerable and prone to attack as a butterfly, even if you can fly and look astoundingly beautiful for the shortest of flight times?
What if, instead of much change being required to embody the butterfly, that the butterfly was there all along? What if you already had that inner butterfly, that which moved in accordance with the air, that fragile, wispy-ness, of colour, that closed and opened at various speeds, an inner butterfly, less something that emerged, or that you turned into, but was there all along.
Waiting to flutter, waiting to rise
Waiting to be seen, waiting to astonish
Waiting to be revealed, waiting to be freed
Soul rising, soul living
Feeling the wind, feeling the life through its wings
So, profoundly, Psyche, can be both translated as ‘Soul’ and also ‘Butterfly’ .
And to one extent, therefore, this might mean, that you do not transfigure into your inner soul/butterfly….. you are born with it, it was given to you. Your inner butterfly has never not been there, and will never not be there. Its gentle, quiet, wing beats need stillness and space, and the various coverings over and around the soul walls to be gently, carefully, lovingly melted and removed, to allow your soul, your being, your inner butterfly to be free.
Its path is cleared with softness, not with power tools that scare it.
Your inner soul, your inner butterfly is the mystical Love, Being, God or consciousness that dwells within, always there, always, it is your full true self, eternal divine goodness, joy and beauty – fragile and majestic as the flight of the butterfly. Vibrant, Colour, Free.
It is not to be changed into, but to have its flight path cleared of blockages, for the falsities to be removed, for it to be safe to fly.
You will become……maybe you already are.
Never a caterpillar deep inside, always a butterfly.
There will come a day when you stop believing in your own smallness.
The great suppression that you were colluded into, when you played small to stay safe, when you played small to get paid, when you played small, played the part of the extra in someone else’s drama. Hiding your gifts, hiding your voice, hiding your immensity, chasing love, chasing one more thing to something other than a gnawing sense of inner tiny.
In stormy waters you are going to feel small, and those who want you to feel inadequate, ashamed, powerless, guilty often keep chucking the stones into your pond, or start up the wave machine, or turn the water into acid, gently corroding you bit by bit. For some, you born into a pond full of nasties, creatures roaming in the deep, heavy rocks, and tiny little vulnerable you, barely able to breathe as the water around surrounds, swallows and tumultuates.
You cannot see yourself when dodging the rocks, trying to swim, trying to stay alive and afloat, your concentration and energy is on staying alive and afloat – whatever it takes, and colluding with their small opinion of you is one such way. You have to believe your parents view of you, because you require them to feed you, or your partners view if they’re threatening you, or the places of escape and safety from these, jobs, churches, whatever, when you’re in need of a rescuer or saviour, you’re also vulnerable.
One storm after another, and the great collusion continues, small you rages in the corner like a jack Russell at a vegetarian ball. The great suppression erodes so much that if you can’t believe it when you are believed in, or it feels uncomfortable, or it is dismissed and denied. Believing in our own inferiority, self oppression, and all of a sudden the stone thrower has won.
John O Donahue writes about the different ways of sight we have, and in considering how we might have an inferior eye, as we look at ourselves we might say:
To the inferior eye, everyone else is greater. Others are more beautiful, brilliant and gifted than you. The Inferior eye is always looking away from its own treasures. It can never celebrate its own presence and potential. The Inferior eye is blind to its own secret beauty. The human eye was never designed to look up in a way that inflates the other to superiority, nor to look down reducing the other to inferiority
John O Donohue – Anam Cara
I lived for so long small. Feeling weak, small and inferior on the inside. Feeling shame for having needs, feeling shame for my body, shame and belittled for having emotions, others upset internalised as my fault and responsibility, and carried all of this from childhood into adulthood, carried on the ongoing wings of various incarnations of faith that required me to stand small inside in the face of the all powerful God, and still continually feel inadequate or a sinner, on a constant loop of need, fuelling my inner smallness and insecurity, and giving me far too many reasons to stay feeling small inside. God perfect, me inadequate.
When we forget our own immensity, or we have been conditioned from birth never to have it, it’s a long road to find realise it, because its not trusted, its not just self care we need, but self trust is harder to find. When we act from self smallness we are desperate, needy and tossed around on other peoples waves, unable to see ourselves, looking out for others – approval, acceptance, protection…
Lovingness and Compassion alone dont produce insight. They smooth the waves of emotions. When those waves of grief, pain, lamentation, worry, fear and anxiety, envy, jealousy, dislike and resentment have finally come to rest, there is a clear reflection without any obscuring ripples in it, like a mirror, the mirror of the mind. That mirror of the mind makes it possible to get a clear vision
Ayya Khama- Being Nobody, Going Nowhere.
Safety comes first, emotional safety. Then feeling all the feelings, the grief, pain, envy etc have come to rest, they are not avoided, dismissed or sidelined, they are felt. Beyond the rage and tears, and in the place where you can ride the stones, if they can’t be avoided or escaped from…yet.
In the place of rest is a clearer reflection.
When we don’t believe it when someone tells us that we are incredible and beautiful, we need to be angry about those who have convinced us into feeling small.
Once you stop making yourself small to fit into others.
Once you stop agreeing with their insecurity, because they have to coerce you into staying small.
Once your small thought is given the redundancy slip. That job is not required anymore.
You realise, tiny step, by tiny step
That inside you is huge.
Divine, Universe, Consciousness in its expanse
No apologies for being you darling human.
The dawning of your new large inner age is upcoming.
James Ballantyne 