Toril and Drew

Journeyman Paul is still working on gaining mastery over the four-dimensional, emotion-based human experience. He is, however, nearing the end stages. He has nearly gained mastery.
     As Monads approach the end of their use of the Earth School experience, they are offered the opportunity of incarnating with a favored 'soul mate' with whom they have shared many Earth Plane lifetimes. My experience is that this "favored soul mate" is, in fact, one's "split apart," one's "Twin Flame," your "other half." What is meant here is that there exists in the Illusory Realm of Duality another complementary being with whom you were "born" into this, the Realm of Material Possibilities. The story goes that each of us emerged from the Oneness of the Unified Divine Consciousness in a kind of yin-yang 'egg.' In this "egg" form we were one of two polarized halves which then split apart into two Monadic entities, each to 'travel' the illusory paths of devolution and evolution 'separately.' Though acting separately, the two Monadic 'twins' are forever drawn to each other--seeking reunion, if you will. Occasionally, the split aparts connect and work together. But it is only during the end stages of use of the Earth School experience that the Monads actually become conscious of this "cosmic birth" connection. It takes that mastery of Ego and the accompanying Spiritual awakening to be able to see and appreciate the re-connection with one's "split apart."
     Toril and Paul are two such 'twins.'
     The chance to live an Earth incarnation in companionship with one's 'other half' is like a blessed reward, a consolation for all the hard work one has put in in order to get here. This is not to say that this lifetime is going to be a breeze, or that the finding and choosing to live with one's 'Twin' will be all cake and ice cream. No way! This is the Earth School we're talking about! One of the most complicated, frustrating, and challenging game fronts we Spirits have ever devised! As you will see from the example of Paul and Toril's re-union there are always lessons to be learned and obstacles to be overcome during any path of Joy and Ease.
      For his 20th Century Earth incarnation (as Drew Fisher), Paul asked Toril to be a part of his 'support team.' At the same time, however, Toril was being encouraged to move on, to focus more of her energies into activities and dimensions beyond the human. She was being asked to devote her energies toward her next line of soul 'work.' Strong-willed to the core of her Spirit Essence, Toril chose to put up what we laughingly call a "cosmic tantrum" in order to make her beloved's wish happen.
     This incident gives me an anecdote with which to illustrate the fact that though each Monad's Council of Elders and Spirit Guides play important roles in trying to help the individual Monad see the probable consequences of their planning choices, the Monad is usually given final say. Thus, Toril got to come back to Earth one last time. But there were conditions placed upon her visit. Toril and I lovingly and humorously call this chapter of our cosmic dance, "The Cosmic Game of Hide and Seek"--which was previously described in Episode 14.
     While Paul and Toril were allowed to come to the same planet, at the same time, in the same country, Paul was given a head start. I, Drew Fisher, was born and raised in Michigan while Toril arrived in Rhode Island ten years later. Her family moved around a little:  from Connecticut to Maryland and then to Wisconsin. As adults both Toril and I had several careers and "practice" marriages before we finally met in 2004. Then we had to make very difficult, very courageous choices in order to be together; we both had to step out of easy, comfortable life patterns and then deviate from 'normal' societal expectations and conventions.
     Despite the turmoil and tumult our coming together may have caused (which we both know and understand to have been immensely valuable to everyone who watched), we both know, through and through, that the choice of being together is right. It is so natural and easy, so healing and empowering. It has also enabled each of our authentic selves to emerge and shine. Within the safety and strength of our together-love we have been allowed to discover and pursue each our own form of "sacred activism."
     "Sacred activism" is a term first popularized by author and religious scholar, Andrew Harvey. With this term Andrew intended to illuminate that issue or topic that so angers or excites a person that each time it comes up that person cannot help but want to get involved, to do something, to share his or her feelings and opinions.
     For Toril, her sacred activism appeared within the insanity and unstustainability of our world's current food systems. She serves her activism by educating people as to the effects and consequences of their daily food choices--how personal eating habits affect the health of individuals, society, the environment, and our planet.
    For me, my sacred activism started within the modern systems of mass education but eventually evolved into social systems that "civilized" humans have devised (and the masses have accepted) in order to create and perpetuate an oligarchic caste system of "masters and slaves." In offering information to others that might provoke expanded beliefs and alternate perspectives both Toril and I have hoped to effect awareness and change in these areas.

During our current human lifetimes, both Toril and I have had several past lives revealed to us in which we were together. It is our opinion and understanding that the revelation of these particular past lives have occurred because of the potent information that these lifetimes have to offer to our current lifetimes. It is quite likely and probable that there are many, many other lifetimes from which we could access and draw information but that the weight and import of these other experiences would not be as relevant to some of the current issues we are working on--that they would more likely serve as fog and clutter.
     Toril and I know that we had a lifetime together, albeit a brief one, in Ancient Egypt. In this lifetime Toril had been born into a royal blood line while I (Paul) was raised within a family and society of the scribe caste. Raised within the same palatial compound, we met and fell in love. Of course, our youthful love was forbidden by the caste system of that time. The indignant parents and family of Princess (Toril) fought particularly hard to prevent any contact between us. However, the power of our attraction was not to be denied (nor was the indomitable will of the Royal Princess). (Toril) and I managed to find ways to communicate, even occasionally to get together. Found out and separated, scolded and punished, we continued to choose to persist in the pursuit of our love affair--at first clandestinely and later overtly, defiantly, until we were once and for all separated:  (Toril)'s family had the interloper scribe beaten and banished to the Western Desert where I soon perished. Much to her family's chagrin and sadness, (Toril) chose to abandon her family and her royal comforts in hopes of finding her "true love." Alas! her efforts were all for naught as she failed to find any sign of her young partner and, eventually, ill-equipt to survive on her own and despondent at the loss of her lover, she, too, died, young and unfulfilled.
     The lifetime in the small fishing village on the Mediterranean island that you have already seen in Episode 3, "The Mediterranean Wise Man," was one in which the Paul and Toril were together for a long and relatively stable lifetime. However, the patriarchical religious orientation of their particular culture, augmented by the way their culture systemically conditioned of the male population through its male-only education system, effectively 'brainwashed' Paul's Ego Consciousness to such a degree that he led his entire life deep under the influences of the Illusions of Separation and Superiority. The worldview that his theocratic society constructed for him--and which he was never able to recognize in order to break its spell--caused him to go his entire lifetime without ever really seeing or feeling the gift of True Love that he had in his very presence in the form of his spiritually advanced and unconditionally loving wife. So clouded was Paul in the arrogance of his Ego constructs that he lived virtually alone and isolated within his own mind despite having a loving spouse, daughters and grand children. So, whereas in the Egyptian lifetime Toril and Paul were kept separate by the overt rules of social caste, on the Mediterranean island they were kept separated by the mental conditioning inherent in their community's religious traditions.
     Another lifetime that Toril and I became aware of was one in which we were childhood playmates in a small rural village in China. Set about two hundred years ago, Paul and his slightly younger friend, Toril, were practically inseparable. The two were gradually forced apart by Toril's family's upwardly mobile aspirations.
     Little Toril possessed the kind of natural beauty that was much favored among the landed, moneyed classes. As a possible means to better social and economic status, her fairly lowly family chose to begin subjecting their daughter to the custom of 'foot-binding.' This tactic was often used at that time to try to attract the attentions of the local aristocracy. If their daughter could win favor and perhaps even a marriage or courtesanship within the household of a local lord or state official, her family would benefit as well.
     Toril, however, proved to be so stubbornly strong-willed in her fight against this effort that her family went so far as to hire a professional foot-binder to come in and tend to the job.
     The foot-binder was an unusually tall man with quite a sadistic nature. He came to Toril's home with a coffin-like box within which he would confine his subjects while he performed his ministrations. Immobilizing the girls within the coffin was quite effective for him to better perform his torturous work at their feet without having to fight off the flailing arms and kicking legs of the usually raging victim.
     I remember sitting on my haunches outside of Toril's family's home, my back to the wall of the house, arms wrapped tightly around my knees, teeth biting into the skin of my own arms, all the while rocking back and forth, back and forth, as I listened helplessly to the screams and curses of my cherished friend coming from within the house.
     Once the binding was finished and the foot-binder gone, I remember sneaking into Toril's family home under the cover of dusk. Toril's family had gone out so the house was quite still. I found my exhausted friend curled up on a bed, half asleep, half in shock. Picking her up, I cradled her body, blankets and all, against my chest and carried her outside--determined to take her away from this house. Through the backyard, I carried her, across our beloved stream, stepping gingerly across the rocky stream bed. I did not stop or look back until I had reached the safety of a favorite hiding place of ours in the woods upstream a ways. There I placed Toril on the ground and proceeded to unbandage her broken, bloodied feet. Then I picked up her still limp body and carried her into the stream where I let the cool waters of the stream wash, bathe and soothe her tortured feet. I remember feeling the tension and pain leave Toril's body as she nestled up tightly against my chest.
     Later on I carried Toril back to our wooded hideout where we fell asleep among the bed of pine-needles with my arms wrapped protectively around my beloved friend.
     During the night we were found. We were forcibly separated and I was sent away to a distant monastery the very next day. We never saw each other again in that lifetime.

You can probably see the pattern here: Paul and Toril's mutual attraction leads to a continuous theme of courageous, strong-willed defiance in the face of often-insurmountable odds. Love is undeniable, indomitable. And yet when Toril first encountered Paul in this their 21st Century lifetimes--when her eyes first looked into mine--she knew instantaneously that this was he:  this was the one. The one she came back to Earth for. The one she had been searching for. The one she had denied the tempting beckon of premature death for. And still she waited for months and then years before approaching him with her Truth. You see, Toril knew in her Heart of hearts that, now that she had found him, she could finally rest. She saw that her true love was happy--that he was alive and happy--and this alone was enough. As is the case with all truly unconditional love, seeing his happiness was all that she truly cared about. Under the gaze of true Unconditional Love, his happiness was enough to bring her happiness. And Peace.
     However, there came a day that she could see that my happy, stress-free life was changing. My usual carefree, happy demeanor was showing signs of fatigue and failure. That's when Toril knew it was time to step in. At first the role she chose was simply that of friend. In this new friendship, I was able to find a great deal of revitalization, healing and inspiration. Toril's wisdom, words and example served as a veritable spiritual 'bath.' I felt as if my True Self were being awakened, as if I was finally becoming open to the free flow of Spirit, as if the mud and tar that had caked my Soul for so long, limiting and debilitating it, was being washed away.
     You see, that is the effect Toril has on almost everyone. The infectious strength of love and support that emanates from Toril has the uncanny effect of bringing out "bigger" versions of those with whom she comes in contact. Accordingly, I found new impulses, new courage, new life coursing through my veins--thanks to the ministrations of my friend, my spiritual mentor--whom I liked to call my "butt-kicker."

    Though Toril and I each know of several lives we have led without the other's company, we feel certain that we have passed many lives on the planet together. We believe that the past lives and alternate forms that have been revealed to us in this, our current lifetimes, have been revealed to us because of their particular relevance to the lessons we are currently working on. As you can see, love, courage, will power, perseverance and fortitude have been themes that we have been developing throughout other lifetimes and which we have carried forward into our present ones.
    Our Monadic Selves fought hard to be together, just as they have fought hard to achieve their individual progress. We both believe that they had no choice: that the magnetism of Love between them was far too powerful to overcome--that it would be laughable to do so. Our Monads were meant to be together again, to share their love and support, to celebrate reunification. They also recognize that the individual entities are both so much stronger, so much more powerful and engaged in Life, Love, and evolution because of the loving support they have coming from each other. Thus, togetherness just makes so much sense. But what it really comes down to is the fact that, like Toril and I, our Monadic Selves really enjoy 'holding hands' with each other.
     It is my hope that each of you, my readers, are able to find a partner whose hand-holding empowers you to ever expanding Truths, to ever-expanding versions of Who You Are, to your Love Supreme.