I don’t like the idea of spending “eternity” in a place called “heaven” playing a harp. Yeah, I said it.

I wouldn’t even want to spend all of eternity playing a French horn, which happens to be the musical instrument I played from 5th grade through high school and love. It’s such a lovely instrument- I smile just looking at it.

I’d love to play it again, but since it’s been well over 40 years since I’ve even held one in my hands, I doubt I’d remember many notes. There’s also that niggling fact that even though I knew the notes (e,g,b,d,f and a, c if memory serves) I didn’t know the notes. In plain English: I couldn’t read music.

I could play the music- my sister would play the French horn part for me on her clarinet and then I could repeat what she’d played just fine once I’d heard what it sounded like, but I couldn’t look at a piece of music and tell you by looking at it what the tune was. 

As I’ve spoken of many times before, this also parallels my not being able to get the given in geometry.

“But the given is given!” everybody would tell me in the same slightly puzzled manner they give me when it seems that the rest of the world is in on something that is simple and necessary to know and I was absent the day they all found it out.

This happens to me often.

I do understand now, as I also did then, that the given was given and that is why I do wonder why I was blocked from receiving it in the same manner others do receive it and if it’s the same blockage I had regarding reading music.

Perhaps if I took a crack at it now with an open mind and under the tutelage of a person who understands such difficulties (unlike my 10th grade Geometry teacher Mrs. C.- and no, not the nice one from Happy Days) does not regard them as stupidity or a rebellious unwillingness to learn, I might finally get the given, learn to read music, and write my own songs.

Then again, perhaps it’s not the universe’s plan for me to “get” any of this in the usual manner because it would prevent me from interpreting geometry and music in a way that is individual to me and not obscured by human interception- i.e. the “right” way, compromising my otherwise unbridled enjoyment. 

So to circle back😁 though playing the French horn again is on my bucket list, neither that nor a golden harp is how I want to envision eternity.

I’m picturing something MORE– something beyond what my human capacity allows me to actually “picture” but know by faith is for each of us and our greater good, for the greater good. Something SO spectacularly not of this world that my human-ness can’t fathom its miraculous magnitude in “logic”.

We fear not knowing for sure what comes next, so naturally we fear death because we don’t know what comes after it.

We may have ideas as to what we believe comes next, but we don’t have any proof and God forbid you try to run something by people without solid proof.  Oh how we woo woo types love to keep those data driven types (who most likely ALWAYS got the given and probably are reading sheet music as we speak) rolling their eyes in impatience… 

Not surprisingly I also don’t happen to have any solid proof of my beliefs, but that’s the great thing about beliefs: they’re your own. It took me far too many years to learn: 

your beliefs do not require anyone else to believe them in order for them to be valid. They’re yours. 

You know what you know for reasons you may not yet know, but if you know that you know it, then stand by it.

Things will be revealed to you as you need to know them, so take my word for it: trying to convince yourself that you believe what you don’t really believe for reasons you may not even realize, is an effort in futility and frustration.

I was not fully aware I did that -I say fully because somewhere inside I just had to have known, at least unconsciously– until the day came when I was called out on it by an incredibly sage homeopathic practitioner whom I duly respected who asked me point blank why I pretended to believe things that I didn’t actually believe.

Further details are unnecessary, but she opened my eyes to what would become the beginning of my endeavoring to get real with myself. 

About many things, but we’ll touch on those another day… 

Anyway, to make a long story even longer, I realized that the reason the thought of me playing a harp in heaven for eternity was horrifying was because I don’t believe for a second that we spend eternity in white robes playing the harp, nor do I think that we can comprehend a word such as “eternity” since our understanding of time is based solely on what we practice as human beings in the physical realm.

It’s my true belief that time as we know it here does not exist in the same manner in other realms.

And “going to Heaven”? Don’t even get me started! Why would a creative force of such powerfully astounding energy, of such goodness AND greatness put us in what’s imagined by some to be a fluffy place forever and consider it “our reward”? 

I also don’t think you get slapped into Hell because you’ve done “wrong”.

Whose definition of wrong would we be referring to? Why would we be created out of love only to be destroyed for being the imperfect human beings we were created to be?

I believe it’s nearly impossible for us to understand the kind of unconditional love that is not of this dimension, so we use our human reasoning and end up applying the same kind of “rules” that apply to love on this Earth, which includes conditions and requirements. 

Unfortunately, religion has often served to further cement these beliefs, leading many to feel unworthy, unloved, and constantly aiming for a perfection we are incapable as humans, of achieving. 

I’m here to tell you that whoever and however you are, you are already loved- as is. I’ve been shown this through many mystical experiences in my life- enough to assure both you and me that I know it for sure.

While I don’t have a signed document to prove that, go outside and look up at the sky and ask for a sign that you are loved. Be open. You will get many. You already do. You’re just not seeing them. *p.s. you don’t have to be outside, but in the beginning especially, when you’re new to receiving information, it helps.

Once I could be honest about the truths of what I didn’t really believe, my beliefs about things I thought I’d been confused about spewed out of me as well. Turns out I’d actually known what I believed all along, I’d just been too afraid of the vulnerability required of me to risk the possibility of rejection when standing in my truth.

Until I wasn’t.

I eventually realized it was no different than me playing my French horn in high school: I didn’t need to read the music in the same way as my band mates in order to play the songs with them.

I just needed to play my part in the way I was capable of, as did everyone else. How we arrived at it didn’t matter.

The resulting music would speak for itself.