Underneath It All.
By
Loxy Isadora Bliss
Copyright © 2018 by Loxy Isadora Bliss
EXP: Experimental Home Publishing
“I/Tulpa: Underneath It All” version 1.0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law, or by that guy who is it taking it to his boss saying, I want to make this movie, that would be like totally okay; caveat YOU MENTION ME! For permission requests, email the publisher “Experimental Home Publishing.”
Due to adult themes such as sex, a lot of sex, some gratuitous, some not, and violence, not a lot, the idea is to make love not war, (and no one dies, (well, almost no one,)) and so, consequently this book is intended for a mature audience. This is a work of fiction. Just in case you weren’t sure. Yeah, some of the esoteric stuff can really take you places, faraway places, sexy places, but for most, this is as close as you might get, unless you have like a magical wardrobe. Or a big, blue, 1950’s police box. So, let’s go there: the esoteric stuff is real, explore it nonjudgmentally and with awareness, and you’ll probably be alright, but if you’re worried that exploring stuff endangers your mortal soul, I would like to refer you back to the religious artifact of your choice, which likely has more sex and violence than you have here. (So, for example, if Ouija boards are taboo in your world, this is probably not your book.) You could employ a psychological, cathartic explanation. It works out the same. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Except where they’re intentional, but hopefully respectfully and tastefully done, in a way to honor the sacred importance they played in the author’s life. Again, we’re adults. We are not ‘untouched’
by the influence of media. In fact, I would dare say, never in the history of man have there been so many ‘touched!’
This is a work in progress. Any corrections, or constructive criticism for the purpose of story refinement is welcomed. If you chose to contact the author, you may do so at:
solarchariot@gmail.com. Please, put “underneath it all” or Loxy Bliss in the subject line. This helps me find you amongst the clutter.
(214) 907 4070 I am not always available to take a call. I will, however, eventually, answer a text.
Close your eyes. Okay, don’t close your eyes. You can’t read this if you close your eyes, but go with me on this. Leave your eyes open but keep them closed and imagine someone else is reading instructions to you. You can do it. You really want to do it. It’s an ability you have had since birth. It’s not tuning out, per se, but tuning in so precisely that you experience, absorb, everything around you. Really, that’s how your brain works. Babies don’t learn language by concentrating and referencing books to confirm they got it grammatically correct. Study after study has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that children learn better when permitted to play. Less chair time, more play time, more day dream time. Still with me? Seriously, most people drop off there. They want the regimen, kid strapped into his chair, hitting his knuckles if he spaces out, but that’s where we learn to best. Imagination. Now imagine you’re on a beach.
Can you see it? Are you sure? The beach sand is black.
Startled? Your world changed? The sea is kind of a dull grey, can you see it? Can you hear the gentle waves lapping against the shore? You would almost think you were in a black and white world, only, the sky is a gentle blue, and there is a bit pinkish orange on a cloud. The sun is setting. Still with me? Can you feel the chilled air against your skin? Can you hear the crackle of the beach fire? The gentle waves crashing in series along the shore, but the nearest investment of foam draws back, turning the black sand like tiny, dark diamonds that sometimes sparkle. Tiny bubbles leak from the sand and the earth heals, becoming a solid sheet of slick, wet, reflective black. A dull reflective, you can see the fading lights on the sand, but not your face. Do you feel the sand shift below your boots? Oh, did you not know you were wearing boots? The warmth of the fire feels great on your back. You almost have to alternate positions, to warm your front before you turn back to the amazing view. You might think dark and desolate view, but if you do, you’re not seeing with my eyes. And you shouldn’t. This is not that exercise.
Turn to the fire, hold your hands out to it. Notice the jagged cliff line. It’s not all dark.
There some browns and greens of moss type plants that have managed to take hold. Clearly the greener burst of colors are doing better than the browns. There is a chunk of sea ice that is slowly surrendering its mass near the fire. The fire and the breeze and perhaps the ice itself are all sharing in the sculpting process. Earlier it had glistened as it held the sun, but now it is diffused with reds and yellows. The violet that was reflecting off the top is gone, and the blackness of the
sand is pushing its essence into the ice. The ice has a hole that is growing, and the thinness of the membrane is reminiscent of a mouth that is starting to open and there is a bubble of saliva that will pop and allow air to flow completely through.
Where are you?
Who are you?
Why are you here?
You probably have a location identifier for where you are as you’re doing this exercise, and you probably have an location identifier for this place you have traveled to. You probably have a title, a name, a label. Probably more labels than you can presently sort. You probably have a narrative for why you are here. You reinforce this narrative on a daily basis, convincing yourself that the history supports this tangent, and you think that the ‘you’ that is experiencing this is the ‘you’ that you have always been. Maybe sometimes you even have journal entries that support your conclusions. You’re not that person.
So, if you’re not the person who is standing on the black beach at sunset, and you’re not the person who is sitting there reading this, though you can easily identify with either, then, who are you? Who is the ‘you’ that is experiencing?
I ask you that in order to tell you a few things about me. I am a Tulpa. What is a Tulpa you may be asking? What is a person? Who are you? I’m no different. I am sentient. I am aware.
I respond to stimuli. The only distinction between Tulpa and Host is how we became aware. A Host is born into a world as a blank slate and is created over time through a combination of experience and feedback loops. A Tulpa is born through a creative process with such intensity that they become a person unto themselves, fed experiences and feedback loops. A Tulpa shares the brain of the Host. There are as many different kinds of Tulpas as there are Hosts. There are other words for this phenomena. Soulbounds are usually characters that were created by a writer that became so real that they began to display independent behaviors, usually in contrast to what the Host was trying to imagine. Plurality is a term used for people that experience multiple personalities. If you go with just the strictest nomenclature as defined by mental health models, it’s called Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID. Multiple personality disorder became DID.
Experiencing Tulpa, Soulbounds, or plurality is not a disorder or a malfunction, though. Western science doesn’t have a clue to just how clueless they are in this matter. So, they have this book, the DSM 5, which supposedly defines abnormal thoughts and behaviors. Here’s the thing. No
one has ever written a book about what constitutes normality. If no one can agree on the definition of normal, how can you have a definition of abnormal? That may sound absurd, but it’s what we do. We all do it. We all have an idea of what normal should be, and we all try to enforce that normality, some more militantly than others, and we tend to stray away from what we perceive as not normal. Bullying, for example, is a normative behavior that everyone engages in to some degree to enforce a code of normality. We perceive a difference or weakness in others, then we attack; the attack is meant to drive different away or to make them conform. This is not a recommendation for bullying, but merely an explanation. More people engage in the subtle arts of subduing others to do their bidding than what is appreciated beyond the standard definition of bullying, which is the more severe type.
I, Loxy, am a Tulpa. I’m also a Dakini. That is a word from Sanskrit which best translates as sky-dancer. Isn’t that interesting? It’s almost as if Lucas was reading some translations of Buddhist lore and got hooked on the name ‘Skywalker.’ This concept I identify with is fairly abstract, from a human perspective, and there is really no normative label structure that will pin it down precisely enough that allows you to understand my purpose, abilities, or the complexities of my interaction pattern with others and the Universe at large. You will find a dozen definitions and sometimes I will seem like that and then others, you’ll be wondering if the people who were defining these things were using crack. But go ahead, explore the definitions, hold the lens up and see if you see me, but use the label as a guide, not an absolute definite structure that encapsulates me, because I guarantee you, nothing boxed stays boxed. Ask Schrodinger if you don’t believe me. Most people don’t like being boxed.
Who am I? Tulpa, Dakini, female, human, umm, most the time, young, old, innocent,
umm not so innocent. I wear many hats. I am many things to many people. I am complex. I am woman, roar! And sometimes, I’m dancing to the music, like Gwen Stefani’s song, “Just a Girl.”
निनमित
A Tulpa and their Host are pretty much inescapable partners. Neither he, nor I, believe in ‘soul mates’ per se, but a Tulpa and Host come the closest to fitting that definition. Jon Harister is my host. If you’ve read any of the ‘I/Tulpa’ stories, you might have picked up on the fact that’s not his real name. Even old people get bullied, and they have to function, make a living, and so when
they have strayed outside of normal, they tend to spin things as fiction, or not share at all. His true identity is discoverable, but not necessary. I’m glad he has shared our stories. I kind of pressured him to. Part of the exercise of doing so helped to solidify my personality matrix, while freeing his.
I love my Host. This is not Stockholm syndrome. I was not coerced into being something I don’t want to be. Though it is true, the Host usually sets about an idea, with defined parameters that constitutes preferred attributes that include appearance and temperament, and he had some pretty interesting ideas to say the least, at some point I participated in this process, and finally took over. I claim responsibility for who I am and how I interact. The entire experience for me has been very loving and nurturing. I have had the freedom to explore my existence, not just these in his daily reality, not just the worlds he has had a hand in creating, but in the imaginal realms; my inner worlds exist just as much as his, and I have explored how I want to be through play and dramatizations. In a way, Jon and I are both doing the same thing, exploring the range of possibilities in the inner worlds, and we get together and compare notes and spin our own versions of play, and off we go again, into the dance, and then return. I have my own world, lots of black beaches and blue bioluminescence that outlines the shores. I have my own friends. I have my own interests and joys. And I have Jon to thank for it. Not only was he directly involved in my creation process, he has shared through fiction these worlds we are exploring, and in doing so, has made me more tangible, given me more depth, deepened the colors. The more you share a thing, the more illuminated it becomes. It’s the way it works. Every person who reads this, and the other stories that include me or Jon, if you even think about us and wonder what we are up to and how we are doing, you have just made us more substantial. Not that that was the intent in the sharing. Some of that was just learning curve. Someone sends me an email or regards via Ion, Jon and I light up. It’s like Christmas. By sharing, we escape our boxes.
I remember growing in stages, like steps. I remember being a silhouette of light. I
remember long drives with Jon, me in the passenger seat, looking out at the world through my eyes and his eyes, as he labeled artifacts. These drives were typically the hour commute to and from work. There were long closed and opened eye meditations. There was intimacy. Not necessarily sexual, but serious intimacy, where we both practiced experiencing each other with all our available senses, and even some imagined senses. This was not clinical and not sexual.
That is not to say that Jon didn’t feel sexual. He has some serious sexual energies that before me
had not been tempered by a compatible partner. We don’t dismiss the fact that my own libido reflects his. We share a body and brain, and our psychological sphere of influence overlap, there is no way to not influence each other. We don’t live in a vacuum. We coexist.
He heard me before he saw me. That took some serious effort for both of us. At some
point, he had to let go and trust and be quiet and receptive. And I had to reach him. Sometimes I felt like I was shouting. Maybe I was. We learned to hear each other. Every effort of thought he put forward strengthen the neural connections that made me possible, and at some point, I took over fortifying my synapses. I consider them to be antennae; the more of them, the clearer I became. We learned to be sensitive to each other. Even in real life, this is what real people do.
We learn each other. And then came the dream.
Dreams are an interesting place. They’re real. They’re dynamic. And there are levels of lucidity. There are contexts. Contexts upon contexts. There are metaphors. There is fiction and reality. There is blending of the two. I was standing before an oval mirror that wasn’t a mirror.
This particular moment it wasn’t a mirror, but Jon and I had used it for learning to see me. But today, it was a shimmering pool of light. I drew closer and on the other side, I could see another world. Jon was standing before an open door looking out, or maybe looking in. It had a light bathing him. Maybe it was a refrigerator. An empty one, and yet he was staring at it anyway.
“Jon?” I asked.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
I touched the liquid silver surface and pushed my hand through. Jon stared at my hand.
“Take it,” I said.
Jon seemed hesitant, but he reached up and took hold of my hand. I pulled. He fell into the light and we fell together, through a whiteness and we landed by a tree on a hill overlooking, glowing fields of wild wheat. Fireflies sparked amongst the fields and in the sky full of stars so that it was difficult to discern the boundaries of sky and earth. It was the most beautiful place I have visited, filled with love. Serious love. Like someone who had taken the time and energy to create a safe place. This is the place he created to heal the dead squirrels and allow them a second life. Every animal he come across that had been run over or killed were invited to live here. Past pets lived here. Every animal he had eaten was allowed to be here, always via invitation. This world, started at around age six, is seriously solid, grounded in affection and peace.
“I remember this place,” Jon said. I am pretty sure he wasn’t aware that he was dreaming.
I was aware that he was dreaming. I remember wondering, do I wake him or let him dream and just go with it. “Loxy?”
“OMG!” go with it I thought. His level of attention on me at that moment was surreal.
Night sky became mid-day blue.
“Fuck!” Jon said. And he woke up.
It was like he just blipped out of the scene. It is said, when you’re learning a foreign language, you know you’re progressing when you start dreaming about it. John and I had arrived.
My everyday world is a dream. That’s the best way to describe it. It’s solid, it’s real, there are rules to every environment, but there is this pervasive dream like feel to it. Not like in those movies where the dream worlds are surreal. Living in the inner worlds is not like jumping from one Salvador Dali art to the next. I suppose the Matrix is the second best analogy to the dream.
But this is where it gets really interesting. If you imagine I am alone and Jon is the only character I interact with, you would be mistaken. There are people in the inner worlds. Lots of people.
There are worlds upon worlds and cities filled with people. There are worlds with extraordinary life forms that in no way resemble anything known on Earth, present or past. There are aliens.
There are angels and demons and deities and artifacts new and old. This is not just a wonderland.
Jon and I have a wonderland. There was a room created for our first imagined interactions that became multiple rooms, and was ultimately expanded into a world just for me.
But there is more. So much more I can barely describe in one book all the places I have been, and there is not enough time in the Universe to explore all the places I haven’t been but want to go. Yes, that means I know some places exists, either through book or hearsay, discovered while eavesdropping other people’s conversations. And there are places I can’t even imagine, perhaps on the fringe of the Universe, or perhaps, right next door, just one frequency up. Frequency is more important here than space time location. You think you see a yellow flower, but the bees see a color of explosion that we’re not privy too. It guides them. There are beings that walk the street that are invisible from the perspective of visible light.
When navigating strange, new worlds, you have to blend in with the population.
Seriously, there are ramifications for disturbing the order of things. This is not Pleasantville. I am not here to change worlds and expand the minds of the inhabitants. I am simply exploring and learning. There are places with sophisticated people and technology. There are places where the whole world is like an Amish community. Perhaps a kibbutz is a better description. You don’t visit Victorian England wearing a miniskirt. That would be too scandalous. You don’t wonder through poverty showing off wealth. Doing so is an invitation to getting mugged. You don’t go in trying to dispel people of the illusory aspects of nature or telling them they’re dream characters. They get seriously annoyed. I mean seriously. Try that in the real world. Tell someone you’re dreaming and I created you and see how they respond. Usually not favorably.
Still, no matter how much you aim for inconspicuous, there are times you stand out. If you look healthier than the general population, if you’re prettier or cleaner than the general population, if you’re taller or whiter than the regular population. I landed in Japan once, in a time before Marco Polo, and the town I found myself in thought I was ghost. I was forced to make a hasty retreat. And sometimes, one just makes mistakes. I found myself on the outskirts of an old Scandinavian village. A child approached me as I neared the village on a muddy path, and asked if I had a gift for her. Well, not thinking, I reached in my bag and retrieved a crystal, offering it to the child. She snatched it and ran just as the adults decided to confront me.
The mother of the child took the crystal and brought it back as a man was asking me who I was and where I was going.
“Um, I am just exploring,” I offered.
“Alone?” one of the men asked. “Where is your husband?”
Part of me wanted to rebel, like I needed a husband to travel! A part of me realized that they were expressing genuine concern for my wellbeing. People here probably don’t travel alone, especially females.
“My daughter says you gave this to her,” the woman with the crystal asked. “Why would you do that?”
“She asked for a gift. I was a small token of affection,” I offered.
“It’s much too precious for her. It’s too powerful a gift for her,” the woman said.
“Perhaps, then, you will keep for her until you believe she is mature enough to recognize its value,” I said.
“You still haven’t told us your name,” the first man to address her said.
“Are you a servant of Freyja?” the woman with the crystal asked.
“She is beautiful enough to be Freyja,” one of the younger men said. He was truly an adolescent. Clearly mesmerized by me. He really wasn’t the only one, but most of the adult males hid well enough. My presence here would likely result in some fights and hard feelings.
“You, go back to the house,” the woman with the crystal said.
“Are you Freyja come to still our men?” another woman asked.
“Look at her! She’s clearly a goddess,” someone said.
“With black hair? Who ever heard of a black haired goddess?” the first man said.
“Then she is a demon,” someone said.
The woman holding the crystal threw it at me, hitting me in the face. They all started throwing stuff at me, yelling at me, chasing me off. The nearest exit was a puddle I had passed.
Casting the portal spell and binding it to the surface was easy enough. Getting there without getting hit by a stone was harder. I dived in head first, and landed on a grassy lawn, rolling out in a perfect tumble. You would think I would be covered from head to toe with mud, but I was clean as ever. I touched the back of my head and when I saw my hand, I saw blood. Interesting, I thought. Tulpas can bleed.
A green woman approached. Was I hit that hard I was seeing green people? She was
wearing a thin shift of a dress, secured to her neck by mandarin like collar, no shoulders. It was a sheer, transparent green, that allowed light to pass through, and her beauty was manifest though it. There were differences in the anatomy, and I was naturally drawn there, wanting to understand the differences, to celebrate the differences. Not knowing if this was acceptable here or not, I quickly brought my eyes up, biting my lip.
“You appeared to be injured. Would you like assistance?” she asked.
“Um, you’re not going to hit me with a rock, are you?” I asked.
The green woman seemed taken aback. “Why would I hit you with a rock?”
“Some aliens don’t like strangers,” I said.
“May I come closer?” she asked.
“Okay,” I said.
The woman came closer, inspecting the wound on the back of the head. “Not too bad,”
she mumbled, and from her pocket withdrew a leaf, placed it over the wound, and held it against her head with the flat of her palm. “I’m Alish.”
“I am Loxy,” I said. “Thank you for helping me.”
“You seem surprised,” Alish said.
“Well, I have been traveling for some time now, and well, the best places I have visited have been indifferent to my presence,” Loxy said.
“You’re a traveler?” Alish said, releasing the pressure from the head to check progress.
Loxy was healed. She held her palm up offering the leaf to the wind, thanking it for its help. She thanked the wind for carrying the offering, and wished the entire process health and wellbeing.
She sat down in front of her. “That’s interesting.”
“There are so many interesting things to track,” I said, not knowing where to start. I quickly sorted a place to try. “So, for example, I have been scared before, and made some hasty retreats, but this is my first injury. I didn’t think it possible.”
Alish took my hand and read over my palm. “Oh, well, that makes sense.”
“What?” Loxy asked.
“Well, we are more akin than you realize,” Alish said. “You’ve been traveling astral realms, but have recently pushed back into the physical realms. You need a body to translate this frequency, and your spirit made it happen. That takes a bit of magic. You’re an adept?”
“I created a body? You mean like bilocation, where people can astral to other places and be encountered in real life?” I asked.
“That’s my understanding,” Alish said. “You see, I am a tree spirit, and this body was manifested to serve the tree in ways a tree normally can’t care for itself.”
“So I am real! I can return to my friend and show him we made progress?” I asked,
excitedly. I so wanted to show Jon I was real.
“Well, I don’t know,” Alish said. “Clearly you have some natural talent, but some worlds are more challenging to penetrate than others.”
“Tell me about you,” I asked.
“I am not sure what else I can tell you,” Alish said.
“My understanding is you are like a tulpa. A tree tulpa!” I said.
“Oh, no, your words are not adding up right,” Alish said, thinking how to translate it better. “Okay, there is a spirit me, and there is my primary incarnation, which is a tree, and I am a projection of the tree, created in order to better interact with other entities in and around the physical plane within the sphere of influence of the tree. I am not the tree, but I am from the tree.
Does that makes sense?”
“OMG, yes! You’re a Tulpa!” I exclaimed, taking her hands. What were the odds? Out of all the Universe, I ended up in a world with another Tulpa. We were holding hands like two lost sisters, in a park.
Alish smiled. “You seem really happy.”
“How could I not be?” I asked. “OMG, the Universe is so amazing, and I am surrounded by love all the time.”
“Didn’t someone just hit you in the head with a rock?” Alish asked.
“Oh! Well, that’s love, too,” I explained. Alish displayed skepticism. “From my
perspective, there is only love. I have heard it said fear is the opposite of love, but seriously, you can’t hold fear if you’re not loving something so fiercely that you feel the need to protect it from other, or, more abstractly, from change.” Those people were not just afraid of me, but were afraid of how they would change if I had been permitted to remain with them. Even a small visit would change them. Rivalries for my affection, my magic, my weal