Of Spanners and Works

Of Spanners and Works

by Catherine Viel

Posted on January 24, 2025

January 23, 2025

The British phrase to throw a spanner in(to) the works means to cause disruption, to interfere with the smooth running of something. ~ Wordhistories.net

Just when I was taking a cautious breath of relief that LA area fires were not heading north toward Santa Barbara, that fond belief is crushed. Ventura is just one county south and far too close for comfort.

I suppose it’s credulous to imagine that the new administration could deter the Santa Ana winds (which seem a tiny bit manufactured, going on for such length and in such strength) when just on the third day of President Trump’s new term, he’s being thwarted by his opponents gaily defying supposedly sacrosanct executive orders left and right.

When I think of the Q storm being upon us, I never imagined it might be a fire storm, or so uncomfortably close to home. Interesting that the upsurge in the ravenous “wildfires” occurs on the eve of President Trump’s recently announced visit to LA.

*****

Having our plans derailed is nothing new to humans. I’m nonetheless experiencing moments of slack-jawed bafflement at the lengths to which the Deep State continues to cling by its ragged fingernails to its perceived powerbase.

I don’t know if turning up the torch on Southern California is a Deep State action. Nowadays I find it nearly impossible to discern what is the natural order of earth weather or geological activity, and what is manipulation.

And if the LA fires have been caused or made worse by weather weaponization, similar to what occurred in the previous “weather disasters” of Hurricanes Helene and Milton and bizarrely behaving “wildfires” in Lahaina, Hawaii, and Paradise, California, it hasn’t been reported as such by mainstream news or acknowledged by mainstream scientists.

I wonder if the magnitude of the not-yet-over LA fire disaster will accomplish what the mysterious fire and hurricane disasters in far-less-populous areas did not? I wonder if a relentless spotlight on an unfolding story will shine so brightly that machinations and criminal activity are undeniably exposed, even in the mainstream?

*****

It feels almost surreal to go about my day in the usual way, fixing meals, tending to the cats, relaxing with a book. Surreal, but not pointless. I think any of us who can manage to keep a largely normal routine are providing service not just to ourselves and our families, but to the larger world and the human collective. Calmness and normality are as precious as peace, and surely contribute greatly to that divine state.

Peace is always my goal and my objective. I allow my gaze to light briefly upon news headlines and video clips. A small corner of awareness stays alert to immediate surroundings. I can remain lightly vigilant, with a toe dipped into the pool of world news, and continue what feels like my real work of resting in groundedness and normality, when and how and where I can.

Catherine Viel

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

A Fistful of Fiery Stardust

A Fistful of Fiery Stardust

by Catherine Viel

Posted on May 31, 2025

May 30, 2025

Many are exhausted, short-fused, and sitting in a kind of pressure cooker that often makes no rational sense. There’s grief, irritation, and even a deep burning rage…the energy to me feels like a dragon’s fire. It is erupting through me…It’s amazing, exhausting, and sometimes scary…The challenge now is to feel it all, even the rage, and set ourselves free without burning down what we need and want to remain. ~ Jenny Schiltz

I’ve noticed how some of us pay cursory attention to nature, while others experience a deep awareness of and connection with the natural world. I gravitate toward the latter more and more as time goes by.

When I entered Stow Grove Park the other day, a squirrel was chattering madly high up in one of the redwoods. It ceased while I walked the path through the peaceful redwood grove, and when I left the park, I heard the chorus of squirrel barks recommence. 

Being attuned to signs of Spirit delivered through everyday nature encounters, I wondered if that scolding squirrel was a message for me. 

*****

Since there are anger-management courses aplenty, frequently mandated for certain offenders post-trial, it seems obvious that anger is an issue for many humans. 

We have limited choices when dealing with emotions we perceive as negative (or in spiritual correct-speak, “not preferred”). If something causes our temper to flare, we might tell ourselves to hold steady: wait until we can assess, and respond rather than react. After all, reacting is probably how people end up in those anger-management courses. 

For many people, a few deep breaths and reasoned self-talk probably work well. For others, the reaction is like a force of nature erupting from our body-mind-emotion amalgam. Trying to put the brakes on the response is no more use than reeling in a comet by its tail. The comet hurtles onward and we’re left holding a handful of fiery stardust. 

It’s no wonder the comet escapes my grasp. If Ayurvedic and homeopathic type assessments are valid, I’m apparently programmed to be the human version of that angry squirrel: defending my territory, scolding trespassers, and erecting barriers against invasion. 

Those aren’t behaviors I embrace or consciously choose. Perhaps if I’m noticing and feeling this so intensely right now, it’s not just me, but a collective experience as Jenny Schiltz describes in a recent newsletter.

*****

I do think there’s validity in holistic assessment tools as well as mainstream personality type assessments. I took the Myers-Briggs test decades ago, and it landed so accurately it was uncanny, bordering on witchcraft.

If I’m prone to prickliness, defending my territory, or other bad-tempered reactions, does it follow that I “chose” this body and mental-emotional construct? Were they essential ingredients in the recipe that created me?

Hmmm… what if I’m done with having those experiences, but am trapped in a lifelong homeopathic constitution and Ayurvedic type that continue promulgating a fiery, easily triggered temper?

What is the recourse for breaking free from this personal-matrix nightmare?

*****

I’m not sure that animals really get “angry.” I have a feeling that what we perceive as anger in animals is the behavior they manifest when they are threatened. When they are fearful. When their lives, or the lives of their young, or their territory, are under perceived attack.

Are we really that different? Is human anger an elevated response, lifted up above such base concerns as territorialism and self-protection?

I suspect not. No matter how we might justify our negative emotions and the “bad” behavior stemming from them, I think it’s likely that we’re just prettying up an evolutionary and biological response to threat.

*****

Homeopathic constitutions can be modified, the troublesome aspects toned down via dietary adjustments, homeopathic remedies, and holistic therapies. But the undesirable aspects of a homeopathic type won’t simply go away, especially if they are a lifelong imprint.

I ponder the seemingly carefree life of that chattering squirrel in the park. Do the other animals say, “Tone it down, will ya? Nobody’s threatening you.” There are no anger management courses in nature. 

One of Dr. Peebles’s suggestions is to ask ourselves: “I wonder what my soul is mastering?” A slightly more loosey-goosey approach than the dreary “What lesson am I supposed to be learning?” 

Who doesn’t want to be a master at something? It strikes me as peculiar that an immortal and limitless soul would need to master anything, but what do I know? I’m just the vehicle toting this particular God-fragment around on Planet Earth.

*****

The next time I go to the park and hear a squirrel chattering, I will slow down and really listen. I will spot it running across a branch high up in a magnificent redwood, hopping fearlessly from branch to branch and tree to tree. I will ask my soul: do you really want to keep emulating that perpetually antagonized squirrel? How about if we move on from this part of the program?

It’s not a solemn ritual or a fancy, multistep spiritual plan. Just a couple of questions, self to soul. God willing, the dialogue will go both ways, and the human me will be able to hear what the soul is speaking. 

Catherine Viel

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

Soul Scripts

Soul Scripts

by Catherine Viel

Posted on November 22, 2023

November 20, 2024

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;


They have their exits and their entrances…

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

 

I appreciate the notion of resting in neutral. Being in the now, neither pushing toward something I want nor avoiding something I don’t. With the situation in the US, we’re in an enforced neutral position, waiting for the artificial structure called time to ratchet us into the next degree of outward freedom with the January 2025 inauguration of President Trump. 

It’s impossible for me to separate the strands of Ascension/awakening and spiritual blossoming from the reality of unfolding events, not to mention what has already occurred. Have I been prevented from timely personal awakening by longterm dark-controller repression? Did the lockdowns, lying, and censorship these last several years keep us from living our own truths?

*****

If massive censorship of truth and other efforts to quash humanity did affect our ability to further our personal ascension trajectories, I feel like that’s already at an end. I am believing and assuming that whatever the deep state throws at the Trump administration, either pre- or post-inauguration, they won’t succeed in derailing its human-positive agenda. 

Roadblocks will dematerialize. Bureaucrats using wiggle-words to justify self-serving agendas will be caught out, and then shown out.

It’s likely we each have an individual and individualized role. Haven’t we always had a soul script? Our conscious selves follow along in its wake, sometimes missing cues, but eventually ending up reading the psychically tuned pages alongside our soul, while the God-Universe Director drops hints and switches out scenery to fit some universal cosmic plan. 

Humans are such story-oriented creatures. I’m not sure if any other animal species on earth tells tales from its past and projects dreams into its future. Perhaps it’s no wonder we accept the notion that we’re watching a live-action movie play out. World War III? Not really, just a dramatic scene to jolt those back-row-audience snoozers who’d been hoping to sleep through the whole thing. 

I’ll continue to enjoy this story (except when I don’t), reminding myself to keep an eye out for my cue to walk on. All the world is a stage. Shakespeare had it right.

Catherine Viel

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

Community, In Real Life

Community, In Real Life

by Catherine Viel

Posted on November 17, 2023

November 16, 2024

The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food. ~ Dean Ornish

I escaped growing up in the digital age. While I’m not a digital native, I’ve been steeped for decades in the culture of email, followed by rudimentary group chats, texting, and eventually sophisticated Internet communications.

I shudder to think how isolated I would feel now without electronic communication. True, there was always the telephone and letters sent by mail. But Internet communication has become more important to me than ever over the last several years, as in-town friendships have dwindled to near zero. 

*****

Why did humans invent and then run with non-physical-contact methods of maintaining community connections? Why do we now accept a hug emoticon in lieu of the in-person, thirty-second, warm body greeting or farewell?

It’s almost a bit…robotic to entrust little electronic blips we can’t even see to convey our humanness to each other. One could argue that it’s merely an inevitable progression of hundreds of years of written communication, then the telegraph, the telephone, the Internet.

I suspect our ancestors would view it askance. They might liken it to relying on a distant view of a crackling firepit, or a glimpse of the sun while traveling through dark forest, for heat. The firelight and the sunlight were certainly there. But from a distance, no one could feel the warmth.

*****

With most circumstances that feel skewed, I tend to lay blame with the dark planetary controllers. Disconnecting us from our near and dear ones was a prime tool in their Covid blitz. Lockdowns, six-feet-apart, masking; “sorry, you can’t be with your dying family member because it’s not ‘safe.’”

Because many of us were prevented from meeting in person, electronic meetings became the norm. Online classes probably ruined several years of life for school-age and college kids. The electronic meeting space was a stopgap, but it has made inroads into replacing in-person gatherings even when participants could meet in the flesh. Families text each other from another room in the house. Neighbors send texts instead of knocking on the door. 

*****

Perhaps I’m simply channeling my inner Luddite, but I’m not accepting electronic relationships as the overriding norm. I will go knock on my neighbor’s door instead of texting. Or pick up the (landline) phone and call a friend, rather than emailing or texting. 

If we have been steered toward this non-contact way of interacting by the dark controllers, I trust that new ways of connecting in real life are just around the corner. I imagine instant transport to visit a friend across the country will be as welcome as med beds to fix ailments and peace of mind from knowing many formerly hidden truths.

Catherine Viel

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

Breathing Space

Breathing Space

by Catherine Viel

Posted on November 8, 2023

November 7, 2024

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord

And I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord

Can you feel it coming in the air tonight?

~Phil Collins, In the Air Tonight

Imagine focusing for a few seconds and transporting yourself instantly to your destination. Kind of like a mental transporter without having to stand in that spotlight on the transporter deck of the Enterprise.

And no danger of materializing unexpectedly in an inconvenient locale… or failing to re-materialize.

I can’t wait. Those of us who believe such things are coming in the relatively near future are probably agog with anticipation. And even humans not consciously aware of our imminent Star Trek future must be feeling something is astir in our realm of Earth.

*****

One reason I don’t believe humanity should immediately be deluged with such potentialities is that, frankly, we need some time to recover from years of being lied to about our world and ourselves. I believe that necessary breathing space has been achieved with the Trump team win of the presidency of the Republic of the United States.

I don’t think humans do well with absorbing startling information or experiencing new realities when we are weary or ill or traumatized. Also, while the Trump win feels like a done deal to me, the legal transition of power is still to come. It seems unlikely the Biden administration, ostensibly still in charge, would release extraterrestrial-origin goodies the government has squirreled away over the years, no matter the pressure put upon them.

There are a couple of areas, though, where I think immediate release of technologies not sequestered by the government could save lives and significantly help people in dire need. Such devices could believably be introduced by people like Elon Musk as “new innovations” (why confuse people by saying they’re from outer space?). Why not provide long-term emergency power sources in North Carolina and other disaster-stricken areas? Why not make med beds available to the seriously ill?

*****

It’s hard to explain the differentness I’m feeling. There is something in the air. There was something in the air for the last several years, too, but that was tainted with dread, whiffs of sulfur and less savory stenches permeating the etheric atmosphere like the decades-long stink of secondhand smoke you can’t eradicate from old plaster walls.

It occurs to me we’re coming out on the other side of a long, slow-motion disintegration that very nearly took us down. We need not just breathing space, but splints and gauze wrappings and a few sutures here and there. I feel we’re in need of triage as a species, and in medical triage, they leave plastic surgery and other niceties for later. First, they stop the bleeding, restart the heart, set bones, remove bullets. Whatever needs doing to keep the patient alive gets done.

So our instant-mental-transporter gene will likely remain dormant for awhile longer. We might not hop into 5D or even fully into 4D as quickly as we’d like. There are many 3D wounds that need addressing; much of humanity is crying out for physical, mental, and emotional triage, not to mention the economic wherewithal and freedom from medical dictatorship to take better care of ourselves and our families.

I see the Trump team as the spearhead of the triage required in America. We will be assisted and comforted, rather than squashed, mandated to, belittled, and sidelined in favor of an agenda completely unrelated to the prosperity and health of the USA.

And once our wounds are tended to (perhaps by the expedited release of the med beds), the dreaming can begin. While we’re recuperating, while powerful people in our government are, for once, working for us rather than against us, we may catch glimpses of our Star Trek future, and begin mapping journeys to destinations we’re not even aware of yet.

Catherine Viel

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

Consistently Inconsistent

Consistently Inconsistent

by Catherine Viel

Posted on September 15, 2023

The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself…that’s where it’s at. ~ Jesse Owen

Not to be inconsistent, but I’m really not over my angst about people wearing masks. A mental exclamation point and eye roll were my reactions yesterday when I was in a parking lot and saw a woman wearing TWO tightly fitted N95 masks, elastics crisscrossing the back of her head.

I find myself increasingly longing for consistency. Not so much in the world, that’s fruitless. But in my self, in my moods, in my dealings with life. After an emotional roller coaster day yesterday, today I’m thinking: I realize humans are emotional beings, and we, as souls, supposedly chose to incarnate as these volatile creatures in part to experience all those emotions. 

But isn’t enough, enough? I’m not sure there’s an opt-out option, other than the obvious ones of death or insanity. Neither of those is appealing at the moment. 

*****

Yesterday demonstrated how inconsistent I am. Within a two-hour period I went from exasperated and flustered, to genuinely enjoying myself, to exasperation and worry. 

In retrospect, the enjoying-myself part of the program was all self-motivated and self-propelled. I went to Starbucks to cash in a gift card on a pumpkin spice latte and pumpkin cream cheese muffin, followed by a happy search for Fall-colored clothing.

I used to regularly partake of such mundane pleasures, but over the last several years, because of family obligations, going out and having a little fun has become so logistically complex it’s too much trouble to make the effort. 

The parts of the morning that were unpleasant happened because of other people’s behavior. My reaction to the unpleasantness sent my emotional elevator plummeting from the penthouse of enjoyment to the basement of resentment.

Oh, no, not this floor again.

*****

Other than praying mightily to become as serene as a Madonna with not a worry in the world, I haven’t come up with a workable approach. Everyone has responsibilities. Maybe our only control is in how we react to them, particularly if we feel that we did not ask for that “job” (even on a karmic level). 

From a slightly different perspective, perhaps I did agree to a particular responsibility. But did I really request that it go on quite this long, and in quite this fashion? It’s said that the devil is in the details, and apparently I didn’t look into the details when reviewing this part of my soul contract.

Before I embark on the HMS Poor Poor Pitiful Me, time to get quiet for a moment and check in with my dear heart. Or check in with my dear tarot cards. Seventy-eight cards, each with a unique voice and a unique tale to tell. It might be an interesting experiment to check in first with my dear heart, and then see what the Universe’s heart-voice wishes to whisper through the sacred tool of tarot.

I stroll to the inlaid cedar box where the colorful, chatty cards nestle, shuffle them thoughtfully, and center my attention on my queries.

Catherine Viel

https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

The Next Joy

The Next Joy

by Catherine Viel

Posted on June 20, 2023

June 19, 2023

…I imagine the long

climb out of the dark…

up there to the dream she keeps

lifting, where it’s noon all day.

~Frank Steele, Sunflower

 

Watching my mind is like watching the antics of a hyperactive two-year-old. Since I’m an adult with serious responsibilities, I like to pretend that my mind’s antics are of paramount importance.

Instead of being content to gaze dreamily out the sliding door at the glorious, sunny morning after months of mostly fog, my mind pokes me to add more water to the cats’ food. I dutifully arise and do so, and have to deliberately resist the next assignment. As long as you’re in the kitchen, you might as well empty the dishwasher…

It’s humbling (and irritating) to realize how much of my day is filled with “as long as you’re here, you might as well…”. While some tasks are nonnegotiable, like making food, everything surrounding such nonnegotiables is open to interpretation. 

*****

My wandering gaze always alights upon the next task. Not the next joy. My next joy would be to do tai chi in the sun. But I see my notebook and pendulum and feel the pull of duty. Better check those two remedies I created…Then I realized the morning is slipping away and I haven’t done my video exercises. Better do those before it gets any later…

My first impulse, that unfiltered call of the heart, was to seek the sun. But the dreary taskmaster disguised as “necessary and beneficial activities” stepped in before I even got up from my chair. 

This is a lifelong habit, not a temporary aberration. I reckon it dates to the days of “you have to do your homework before you can watch TV” and “you won’t get any dessert unless you finish all your dinner.”

I find it fascinating and bizarre that the habit of “duty before fun” that was imposed in childhood still rules me 60-some years later. 

*****

Even though the compulsion to keep things tidy might be generated by the Archon implant (to keep me perpetually unsatisfied with my life), I’m willing to continue to do what needs to be done. However it originated, it’s a practical habit to maintain some sort of order in one’s life. 

But I do feel some things need to be reevaluated. Acting as if we’re about to receive a surprise visit from Good Housekeeping at any moment is not a relaxing way to live. I’ve noticed that if I consider settling in with my frivolous but fun novel, or my tarot deck, that activity gets subsumed beneath the important task of putting things away.

Important according to whom? The taskmaster of the mind is a terrific companion, but not when it’s in the driver’s seat. 

*****

The sun is still shining. Crows chatter in the sky, and in the distance the hawk calls to its mate. The cats have settled. There’s nothing preventing me from going into the sun and absorbing its joy.

My mind reaches toward all the tasks that it remembers need doing. It’s so tempting to follow its dictates. Compliance with internalized programming is the easier path, the one I usually take. 

Did socialization—or indoctrination, some might say—encourage me to accept this grim taskmaster? I find it easier to resist blatant control tactics like mask wearing and mandatory vaccines than inner promptings that feel organic, but upon reflection, show themselves for the grafted-on, parasitic influence that they are. 

I put this writing away. I take a deep breath, open the door, and step out into the sun. 

Catherine Viel

https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/

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After the Fire, After the Rain

After the Fire, After the Rain

by Catherine Viel

Posted on March 16, 2023

Everybody’s thinking about the rain…

Wonder if the sun is gonna come again, things are looking bad…

Tell me if you gotta build a world what that world would be…

Tell me if it’s gonna be a home for all humanity…

~Cat Stevens, The Rain

 

News reports insist I should be worried because California is undergoing torrential rain dumped by atmospheric rivers. Catastrophic flooding throughout much of the state is predicted; a major levee broke in Monterey County. A friend in Silicon Valley texted that she’s turning off her phone since they’re going into day two without power.

Another friend sent a video clip of ducks frolicking in the lake that now covers parts of I 580 in Oakland.

I look out the window and see a painter’s landscape of mountains, multi-toned clouds, sunlight, palm trees. There’s a peacefulness completely at odds with the mainstream presentation of this day in California. 

Granted, this may be so only because I personally am not affected. Perhaps the peace is only within me. But perhaps that is enough.

*****

The drought we’ve endured here for decades has never felt normal to me. The epic wildfires of the last 20 or 30 years have been heartbreaking, terrifying, and weird. 

Even before I started tuning in to the alternative viewpoint and consciousness, before I heard about direct energy weapons and weather manipulation, the endless drought and the inferno-level wildfires seemed malevolent. Unnatural. Doesn’t God love California anymore? 

It seems delusional to imagine this excessive rainfall could be benevolent when looking at what it’s caused: broken levees, flooded towns, power outages, and extensive loss of mature trees. Despite current appearances to the contrary, though, rather than feeling abandoned by God, it feels like God has returned to California with celestial buckets of water to douse the smoldering and cleanse this gorgeous, beleaguered state down to the core of the Earth. 

*****

My heart is deeply connected to the heart of this golden state, this paradisiacal California. I was born here and I’ve lived here all my life. But it’s more than that. It’s a love of the land, a love of the spirit of this state, that’s so intrinsic it’s almost never conscious. 

It grieves me that the land and the spirit have been sullied and manipulated over the decades by forces outside its populace’s control. I can understand why the truther community tends to view a woke California, apparently an entrenched Deep State asset, with undisguised derision (and zinger memes).

But we’re not all woke, here. If intel such as that from Simon Parkes is to be believed, California voted landslide-style for Trump in 2020. I happen to know that a handful of households just on my short street in coastal Goleta voted for Trump in the last two elections. A tiny snapshot, to be sure, but tellingly opposite to California’s blue reputation.

*****

What is truth, what is illusion? If our trust is most deservedly placed within our own selves, I believe the truth that I sense over the illusion that I see.

In a storybook context, this tumult of California makes perfect sense. We dry with the drought, we purify with the fire—whoever instigated it—now we cleanse with rain.

After the fire, rain. After the rain, saturation and abundant water to nourish our artificially parched lands. And after this abundance, peace. Prosperity. True community and true sharing.

I’m not sure if I’m talking about apparently imminent bank collapses and the financial reset, or polishing up the golden state and setting its crown once more upon the land of California. Either way, I sense rebirth and benevolence, despite how it appears.

*****

I bet there’s a rainbow over the broken levee up in Monterey. Children are probably giggling at the ducks swimming on the freeway in Oakland.

I feel like California is being rescued, raindrop by raindrop, from the weakening clutches of the globalists. The governor’s Covid emergency powers finally expired on February 28 (though there’s a toehold in the form of a “pandemic plan”). Effective April 3, the Department of Public Health will downgrade its “mandate” that everyone must wear masks in healthcare settings to a nonbinding “recommendation.” 

They’re holding on through recommendations and contingency plans, but apparently admitting that statewide mandates must be scuppered. Sounds like the needle is moving from “Woke” toward “Awakening.” 

If the deepest and darkest pockets of the dark forces take the longest time to ream out, and if California is infested with such pockets, this California cleansing must surely indicate we’re nearing the end, and the beginning.

Whatever else happens, whatever we endure, I want to return to this unshakable sense of rightness from my heart. Even if I have doubts, even if my throat constricts with a fear reaction I can’t avoid, I hope I’ll always know that despite how it might look, things really are turning to the good.

Catherine Viel

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/author/catherine/