POSTS

Sorry I’ve been AWOL on my own website. I haven’t stopped writing, by any means. I just haven’t been doing it here.

These days I do all of my writing of newsletters and blogs over on Substack, which is a much better multimedia platform for such things.

Please check me out there; you can subscribe for free, or gift me by choosing the paid subscription option.

I don’t mind either way — I always love to receive a spontaneous gift given from the heart. But I have no desire to force you (or guilt you) to pay in exchange for access to content. My content is freely given. Any gift received back will be cherished due to the heartfelt spirit behind the giving.

For you, this means all content is identical for free and paid subscribers, and freely available to all, including extra book, audio and video content not found here on my website.

Carrie Triffet: The Newsletter is my main Substack, full of the lengthy sort of spiritually-themed newsletter articles I always write. Many of them are also offered as audio recordings, so you can choose whether to read or listen.

You’ll receive that one in your email inbox once every 3-4 weeks. (And you can always go directly to my home page on the Substack website itself, for full access to all my previous newsletters and other material.)

Tales From a Half Wild Garden is my secondary Substack. It’s a more informal blog about my ever-evolving, spiritually-based relationship with Nature, as seen through the lens of gardening, and off-grid/lighter impact living. It’s not overtly teachy, and not in-your-face spiritual. Yet I feel its subject matter is easily as important as my other,  more overtly spiritual writings, as we all move forward toward new, higher consciousness ways of being, on this planet.

These Half Wild posts arrive in your inbox approximately once every 10 days.  Some of those are offered as audio recordings as well. And of course you’ll find all the earlier posts on the Half Wild home page.

I hope you’ll consider subscribing to one or both.

Thanks.

For me, there’s a beautiful alchemical process that takes place at a certain point during the creation of a book. It happens someplace after the first draft and before the final edit. It’s a moment that’s awe inspiring, hugely engrossing–and a grand cosmic mystery besides.
Not that writing the book itself isn’t a total hoot. It is. Inspiration flows, incredibly deep wisdom that may or may not have anything to do with me pours out—and I crack myself up in the process. (Hopefully other people too.)
When I write a book, it pours out in dozens of individual essays. I never have a clue how each essay might relate to any of the others, or the order in which they should all fit together in the finished book.
Each essay is like an irregular bit of mosaic glass. Jewel-like, each one twinkles and gleams in its own specific way. None of the pieces seem to resemble any of the others. I polish an individual piece until it sparkles, then I think to myself, damn that’s pretty good. And then I move on to the next irregularly shaped piece.
I used to worry and wonder how all these random pieces could possibly come together into any kind of flow that makes sense. I can never imagine how all these disparate twinkly bits will transform into a coherent book. And yet they do. Every time.
I take no credit for that; it just happens. Something beyond my own consciousness is in charge of that process. Four books in, I’ve finally learned to just relax and let it happen.
So here I am, back in that old familiar place of not knowing. Dozens of individual printouts lay scattered around me, color-coded paper clips adorning various sections. Who can say how any of it will fit together? I just know it will, in ways that are bound to astound and amaze me. And I wouldn’t miss that process of discovery for anything.
It’s just always a little tricky figuring out where to start.
~ Carrie Triffet is the author and twinkly-bit-polisher of 3.5 books. That last .5 of a book is THE FRICKEN MAP IS UPSIDE DOWN.  Look for it later this year.

About a year ago, a wide-awake young friend contacted me. “Are you still writing?” She asked. “I sense that a book about the development of trust is being written in the ethers, and it feels really good.”
“No,” I answered rather coolly. “I have zero inspiration to write these days. And even if I did, the development of trust is Nouk Sanchez’ topic, not mine.”
Today I remembered that conversation and had to laugh. A book is nearing completion. And dammit, one of its key themes is the development of trust.
Unlike my earlier books, this one does not adhere to A Course in Miracles. It takes its inspirations from a broad range of sources, including The Lotus Sutra, esoteric mysticism and even galactic wisdom.
And yet, even without me realizing it, the deep underlying themes are mysteriously, unerringly, in harmony with the Course. Even though on the surface, the teachings look startlingly contrary to what the Course teaches.
So I honestly don’t know who this book is for. It’s probably not, I’m guessing, for students of the Course who enjoy Course teachings and no others.
And yet. This book (and this author) are unmistakably being employed as vehicles for something pretty amazing. Something peculiarly Course-related, in its own renegade, thoroughly un-Course-like way.
The resonance of Christ Awareness rings out like a bell through this writing project. I have no idea whose ears will perk up and hear it.
We’ll see. As usual, it seems I’ll be the last to know.
 
~ The Fricken Map is Upside Down is in its early editing phases. Look for it in 2019.

A rather big shift of awareness happened the other day: I finally invited divine love, with all its unruly magnitude, to come crashing in. Not only did it arrive on cue—it stayed, taking up residence within me. As me—kind of. But not yet 100%. Nowhere near. So now it seems, in effect, that I’m living with a very large celestial roommate. For lack of a more accurate description.
This was no sudden incident out of the blue. It was precipitated by a month-long series of more or less daily shifts and realizations, occurring along two parallel themes:

1. Everything I’ve ever depended on for happiness has been a self-created lie.

And

2. Divine love is surprisingly, unexpectedly delicious in all possible ways—and I genuinely want to go around seeing and being only that. (Because, yes, everything else sucks by comparison. See theme #1.)

I am inspired to speak openly about this particular shift, because there are aspects of it that might be helpful to others who are walking their own paths home to love.
There’s a very good reason I haven’t spoken about any of the other shifts, even though each has been deeply worthy in its own way. These pedal-to-the-metal stages of the letting go process are messy, you see. They don’t have to be, theoretically at least. Spiritual teachers always hasten to assure us of that.
But let’s be real: As long as the small self is in charge—and it will always be in charge until the letting go process is virtually complete—you can expect a mess.
Besides which, these are messy times we’re living in. High-strung instability is the new normal. The unstable times bring with them a huge opportunity for transformation, yes…but it isn’t likely to be comfortable.
Think of the times we’re in as a rising tide that, potentially at least, can lift all boats to far greater heights than our civilization has ever known. But the water is choppy, and the effects on one’s own dinghy are unforeseen at best.
But hey: If not now, when?
So I, intrepid spiritual explorer, have knowingly and repeatedly steered my vessel onto the rocks. Inviting boat breakage so I can find my own freedom, and maybe also help clear the way for other sailors to follow in my wake.
And that strategy does pay off, a thousandfold. Eventually. When speaking of it in the abstract. But here’s how it goes in realistic day-to-day terms:
When I least expect it, some part of my boat suddenly sideswipes a rock and falls to bits. I cry out with shock and pain. The shock and pain prompts a sudden realization or shift of great depth and loveliness. As a result, I spend 24 hours bathed in joy and peace. And then the next 2 days after that are spent frantically trying to scotch tape the waterlogged boat bits back together, because it’s so deeply uncomfortable to be partially boatless.
And so it goes.
So that’s why I haven’t spoken to you about any of these prior shifts. I was too busy alternately smashing up, and then fruitlessly patching my sad little boat back together.
Like I said: Messy.
But here’s the thing about this most recent shift, and it’s important: I discovered there’s nothing to fear, in the loss of your boat. It was a crappy little craft anyway.
•   •   •   •   •
I always get symbolic visuals in my communications with the divine. This welcoming in of divine love occurred because I finally surrendered all my habitual attempts to manage it, or contain it or squeeze it down in any way to fit into parameters I might feel more comfortable with.
Divine love will not be contained. It will arrive as itself, fearlessly free, or not at all.
So the symbolic visual I was given was of the Johnstown Flood, a catastrophic dam failure that occurred in the late 1800s. The dam collapsed, the water roared through the town and swept nearly everything away. The small self, not unreasonably, would have found this a frightening image.
But here’s the thing.
This heavenly flood was incredibly peaceful. There was no fear in it.  And that’s because the small self wasn’t the one doing the looking.
As soon as I surrendered and caught sight of that sparkling water rising up over the wall, my perception shifted and I was now seeing from the divine perspective of the water itself, not from the interpretations offered by the small self. In fact, the small self was nowhere to be found.
The rushing water was lovely, pure and clear. And I was actually glad, relieved, to watch as it swept through all the rickety-ass structures I’ve built in my lifelong futile quest to feel happy or safe in this unhappy, unsafe world.  I marveled that I could watch this process so peacefully and entirely without fear. My safety wasn’t even slightly in doubt.
And I heard: It’s impossible to drown when you know yourself as the water.
Whoa.
And then I was wordlessly given to understand that, in fact, not everything would be swept away. Some people, some objects would still be left standing after the floodwaters receded. But my relationship to each of these, my own perceptions of each of them would be washed clean, and made new.
And that’s good to know, that some things and some people will accompany me forward. But I couldn’t bank on that beforehand. It was only because I was ready to allow absolutely everything to be swept away, that I could issue the no-strings-attached invitation to let love in. As long as I hung onto anything out of fear of losing it, fear itself was the thing that blocked love’s entry.
And that’s how we usually tend to do it. We hang on to the bitter end, kicking and screaming, clutching our various small treasures, afraid to let them be removed and replaced with something infinitely better. Until we eventually figure out the hard way how worthless those trinkets really are. And only then do we consent to let them go.
But I see now that it really doesn’t have to be that hard.
So here is my advice: Be incredibly bold. Chart a fearless new course—the rockier the better—and do your best to be excited each time your pathetic little boat springs another leak.
Because when you’re finally ready to take that plunge and surrender everything—(how bleak and juiceless that glorious choice seems beforehand!)—you will instantly be shown how unspeakably wonderful it actually is.
But of course you won’t get to see any of that until after you surrender. Because that’s the way it works.
I know. Bummer, right?
But that, my friend, is why they call it faith.