Stasis – Unlimited

It’s been ages since I last did a course.  I chose one of those science-meets-spirituality online ones.  It struck me it would be a good way to settle back into my life, after all the disruptions of last year – allowing someone else to lead me, gently, into my old ways of learning, musing and wondering.

So there I was, following the course leader’s instructions and working my way into an altered state.  All fine and good.  Next, we were to ask questions and allow the heart to provide an answer.  The yes/no queries worked perfectly, but then we were instructed to ask our hearts, “What do you need from me right now?”

Clear as a bell, the answer came back:  STASIS.

Sorry, what?

An image of those spacecraft pods you get in sci-fi films flashed into my mind, the ones with rows of people suspended somewhere between life and non-life waiting to be brought back to themselves before landing on some far-distant planet.

To be honest, I didn’t get much from the rest of the module I was studying.  I was too busy thinking about stasis – wondering if it had some other meaning I wasn’t aware of; wondering how and why it applied to me; wondering why my heart would wish me, or itself, to be in that state.

The next question we were supposed to ask was, “What do you want me to know right now?”  We were told that the answers would be brief – a short phrase or even a single word.  My heart is clearly less loquacious than its bearer.  Another single word answer: UNLIMITED.

Since then, I’ve pondered on these odd messages.  I checked ‘stasis’ for other meanings.  There are medical ones to do with veins and something about ancient Greek tyrants, but I settled on ‘a period of inactivity or equilibrium’.

(Yes, my heart is doing that glowy, expanding thing that means ‘yes’ as I type this.  I’m simply learning its way of communicating, the way I did with my pendulum, when I first started dowsing.)

My heart has been through a great deal over the last year – all those dramas and emotional upheavals, anxieties and accomplishments, terrors and triumphs.  It needs, now, a period of stasis to recover, to rest, to relax.  It needs me to wrap up in a blanket, light the log burner and spend these winter days regaining my equilibrium.

After that, our potential together is – unlimited.

 

 

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

I know, I’ve been very quiet again lately.

It’s not that I haven’t been writing.  I have – and considerably more than usual.  It just isn’t ready to put here yet.  One day soon, though, I’ll be inundating this blog with the thoughts and ideas that have just about taken over my waking life in the past few weeks.  Maybe you should enjoy the peace while you have it…

Many years ago, a very talented psychic told me I would collect up all manner of information from all kinds of places, and one day I would put it all together in a new way, and this would be original and of interest to others.  At the time I laughed and told her I could scarcely remember where I’d put my keys, let alone recall great tracts of reading and learning.

She was right, though.  Somewhere in my mind (a place I now understand far better) they were all lurking.  I explained the process by which all these semi-forgotten snippets formed themselves into a coherent whole in my previous post: The Answer.  The question these words were answering can be found printed in green at the end of another fairly recent post: A Trail of Breadcrumbs.
OK, it isn’t exactly a question, but it implies one, and it’s one I’d been wondering about and trying to answer for many years before William summed it up so clearly.

So the information slotted itself together very easily.  The hard part has been trying to find ways of recording it in something approaching coherent text.  The different parts jump and fizz and turn cartwheels in my mind, while I’ve been trying to sequence them, so that one word follows the next and it makes sense to someone other than me.

I think I’ve done it, just about.  There are around eleven thousand words there and they seem to make sense.  So the next step is to pass them on to Will.  It was he, after all, who asked the question, and he will be my fiercest critic and most diligent proof reader.  There’s a useful synchronicity there, too; what do you give the man who claims to want nothing for Christmas (but does really, of course)?

I’ve packaged the information up into sections, which will be emailed to him throughout the Christmas holiday season, with ‘The First Day of Christmas’, ‘The Second Day of Christmas’ etc. in the subject line.  Hopefully, he’ll critique it and add more to it than he already has … and then I’ll be ready to share it with you.

Needless to say, in order to work out how people with autistic perception receive and process information led me to question how the rest of us do so.  How else could I understand the differences?  My journalling journey took me to places I never expected to visit, but I’m so very glad I did.  I found nuggets of truth lurking in the most incongruous places, so seeing a partridge roosting in a pear tree would no longer strike me as strange at all.

Wishing you all the happiest of festive seasons, in whatever way you celebrate this turning of the year, and I look forward to joining you again in 2018.

Psychic SatNav

 

I want to share information I’ve been receiving about the Etheric Body which, as my title suggests, is remarkably close to the kind of GPS you probably use in your car or on your smartphone.

Each of us has a physical body; we are incarnate – ‘in flesh’ or ‘in a meat suit’ as I’ve seen it translated.   The fact that we are IN this physical casing, though, tells us that there is more to ourselves than just that body.  We have consciousness and a soul and we are linked in to a great, overarching All That Is.  Just about anyone who is reading this (unless they stumbled here by mistake, hunting for my other blog  – http://www.steampunk-shrunk.com, people!) already knows that.  

You are almost certainly also familiar with the idea of the subtle bodies – the sort of Russian Dolls idea of a range of higher aspects of ourselves that surrounds us.

Yes, I know – one minute I’m saying we are ‘in’ a physical body, the next I’m saying the subtle aspects of ourselves ‘surround’ it.  The paradox arises because these other aspects are in a higher dimension – that is, a dimension beyond 3D SPACE.  Consequently in those terms it’s perfectly possible for our souls to be in and around us at the same time.  It just makes drawing diagrams harder!

Think about how SatNav works:  It links in to a satellite system high above our planet and grabs a higher perspective of where we are in relation to what is around us.  When we decide on a particular destination, it can find a route and feed that back to us.  Of course because it is viewing our route from a higher perspective, it won’t distinguish between an easy, straightforward road and one filled with potholes or a removal van.  Negotiating problems on the ground is our problem.

Similarly (quite strikingly so), each of us has an etheric body which works in exactly this way.  It has access to the soul/higher self and is able to guide the physical ‘us’ where we have decided to go – as in give us clues, insights, gut feelings and synchronicities that will lead us towards an outcome we have chosen.  (This body, incidentally, is made of aether/ether, so it is not non-physical.  That’s why some people are able to see it, under certain circumstances.)  Like the GPS, it takes no responsibility for the conditions, or even the directness, of the route it sends you on: “You said you wanted to go to X, so that’s where I’m sending you.”

Something I personally find fascinating – as this was a route I chose to explore – is discovering what happens when someone decides to turn off the SatNav.  Things do get a tad more metaphysical from this point on…

At soul level – when a soul decides to incarnate and enter the 3D world for a spell – it chooses how closely this human it is being will connect to the etheric body.  It will decide whether to be the sort of person who follows it absolutely, all the time, regardless of where it leads, or whether to just check into it from time to time, when it’s feeling particularly lost.  A third option is to abandon the body without any conscious connection to the soul and let it find its own way.

For the soul, this is simply an interesting experiment.  When our consciousness is lodged in the physical, though, the results are very far-reaching.  For that reason – Koimul explained to me – the soul does a series of major reviews of how things are working out for the human at the level of etheric connection it has chosen.  The first happens in the second year of life – at around 18 months old, when the infant is moving from telepathic and intuitive communication to the use of verbal language.  The next is at around 13, the age when abstract thought is kicking in.  The third happens as the individual is moving into adulthood, around 17.  The final review – the one that will decide how the rest of the human life is conducted – occurs around age 30.
Koimul was at pains to tell me that we also have an override: “PEOPLE ARE CAPABLE OF CHANGING THEIR MINDSET AT ANY POINT, BUT THOSE AGES ARE FOR SOULAR REVIEWS.”

So what does it look and feel like to turn off the etheric body connection?

At its most extreme, it is being lost, in full fight-or-flight panic mode.  It is the equivalent of hurtling through life screaming, “Got to turn left or I’ll hit that building!  Quick, right or I’ll go over that cliff top!” It is being in pure survival mode with no chance to relax or think or plan.

Why would any soul choose to inflict that on its human self?  I’ve watched people living that way at close quarters, and it isn’t pretty.

Well, there are advantages – the same sort of advantages to switching off the GPS in your car.  You forge direct links with the wider environment.  You can perceive and notice more than those with one eye and both ears on the SatNav.  In a car, that might mean noticing an amazing view, a distant landmark or a hawk hovering overhead.  In a human life, it can be forging direct links with aspects of the soul.  You might develop psychic abilities, perceive beyond time and space, develop knowing or ‘Caw’ (see my previous blog post for an explanation of Caw – the shorthand concept word Koimul uses).

It’s an interesting – if extremely challenging – way of being human.  Hence the Soular Reviews.

Parents will speak of how infants who were developing ‘normally’ suddenly stop and develop ‘autism’ around age 18 months.  That’s why vaccinations can get the blame.

Even the most relaxed kid can become introverted, prone to panics and meltdowns and to struggle with communication as they enter their teens.  Just hormones…?

Many ‘snap out of it’ as they exit puberty, while others move into what is diagnosed as bi-polar or clinical depression.  By about 30, there can be similar deep changes of attitude and ways of being.

For me, Koimul’s information explains a great deal.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

The Book of Caw

I was woken this morning – as I am almost every day – by Caw.  And I knew, suddenly, that the Book of Caw needs to be written.  Maybe by me, maybe by someone else.  Who can say?  All I know is that the image of The Book of Caw is lodged in my mind now and the only thing that will move it on is for me to start writing.

So what is Caw? I imagine you asking.  (And why are sentences – proper ones – so elusive this morning? I ask myself.  Probably because the words are coming from somewhere where punctuation doesn’t hold sway.  I’ve visited that somewhere quite a bit recently, which would explain a lot.)

OK.  An easy way out of the definition conundrum would be to say something like, ‘Caw is Oneness, or All That Is’.   That, though, is so all-encompassing as to be almost devoid of meaning for us – a bit like asking someone to imagine an infinite universe…  Fortunately, Caw can be explored in many ways, and each of them helps us to discover more of the truths behind the truism, and to apply them to what we know of our own existence.

Say the word aloud, and you will immediately have one of it’s aspects – Caw is core.  It lies at the very heart of every facet of existence.  It’s the point we come back to, after our little forays into the game of materiality.  We have Caw strength at the centre of our existence.  It’s unmoving, solid, steadfast and entirely dependable, yet it will flow with us, wherever we go.  (Yes, there’s a paradox there – the first of many.  Always think ‘and’ rather than ‘or’ with Caw.)

If it were an acronym, CAW could be formed from, perhaps, Consciousness Applying Will.  In that sense, it is placing intention into consciousness – or vice versa – in order to manifest or create.  That, after all, is how our miniverse here is fabricated.

Let’s stop metafizzing, briefly, and bring Caw into our familiar material world.  As I said at the start, Caw wakes me each morning.  It is the sound of the corvids – the rooks and jackdaws and magpies that restlessly circle  my cottage, squawking to one another, playing some complex aerial game of tag and scattering black feathers in my garden.  I won’t even begin to delve into the folklore that surrounds this family of birds, but it’s found all around the world.  They are mysterious, intelligent, cunning and wise.  Certainly not light and fluffy.  They have a gravitas that commands attention and respect, verging on fear at times.  Caw is all that.

Caw is the rook on the chessboard, too.  Sometimes hiding in the corner, biding its time; sometimes castling – not afraid to reveal itself in order to protect what is of the most value.  Then, when the time is right, striking suddenly – covering vast distances in a dead straight line to get to the core of the action.  Caw is that too.

Caw is gnosis, knowing, deep knowledge that comes from a point of insight and certainty.  It is not born of opinion or consideration.  It is not gradually acquired through study.  It is our direct link to the Akasha and it comes in instant flashes.  Once recognised, we know – absolutely and with utter certainty – that this is right.  It cannot be any other way.

That is in no way an exhaustive account of Caw.  Other aspects will occur to you, and they will all be valid, but I will let that serve as an introduction.

 

To work with Caw, we need to dispense with a few sacred cows.  We need to try to rid ourselves of:

• cause and effect
• common sense
• rationality

There is, of course, nothing wrong with any of them, except that they only work in 3D.  They only apply to the mechanistic model of the universe we built for ourselves with our cosmic construction set.

To work with Caw, we need to put aside that much-loved toy and move into reality.  It is Caw that will lead us there.

 

The Symptoms of Normalism

Not easy, but I’m trying, for a moment, to look at my tribe – the people who regard themselves as ‘normal’ or ‘neuro-typical’ – from the outside.  I’m trying to see us from the perspective of those Version 2.0 people who are wired differently.  (I’ve reverted to my ‘Version 2.0’ label because not all of them are on the autistic spectrum as it is normally described.  Many are – but there are others, variously called ‘sensitives’, or ’empaths’ or those with various diagnoses or descriptions of differentness, and I wish to include them all.)

Disclaimer:  I use the term ‘Normal’ throughout this article in a somewhat ironic sense.  I personally consider terms like ‘normal’ and ‘disordered’ to be chauvinistic and symptomatic of what is wrong with common assumptions in our society.  Also, I am a person with ‘Normalism’ and I love words.  I can’t imagine life without their richness and beauty.  This post is just a thought experiment, okay?

 

Probably the most difficult aspect of Normals to comprehend is the disparity between what they say and what they actually feel or think.

“No, it looks great on you, honestly.”

(‘It would actually suit someone twenty years younger much better, but I understand you’re going through a bit of a mid-life crisis and if it makes you feel good to wear it, that’s fine by me.’)

“Oh it’s nothing.  Really not worth reading – just something I scribbled off last night.”

(‘I poured my heart and soul into these words, but I’m terrified you won’t understand and will dismiss them as trivial or stupid, so I’m pretending it’s not important to me in order to shield myself in advance from any critical comments you may make.  Anything hurtful you say will still upset me deeply, though.’)

“Well who’s the teacher’s pet, then?”

(‘I feel envious of the praise you received for that assignment and my inability to produce anything that good.  I am therefore attempting to make you feel uncomfortable.  It is my hope that my negative reaction to your success will encourage you to try less hard in the future, thus letting me gain more approval from the teacher.’)

“It’s important for you to get an expert opinion.”

(‘You are inferior.  You are incapable of reaching a satisfactory answer, due to the prejudices and fixed ideas lodged in your brain.  There are far better individuals than you whose prejudices and fixed ideas come for other individuals with letters after their names.  These people know what is best for you, despite not knowing a great deal about you.  I know this because I learned it from experts.’)

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m aware as I write this that I live in southern England, an area particularly renowned for this kind of double-speak.  Northern Brits, Americans and Australians, for example, would readily assert that they are far more inclined towards plain speaking, calling-a-spade-a-spade and otherwise using spoken language to express what they feel.  Really?  Try, for just one conversation, to avoid any sarcasm, any ironic aside, any well-meant but artificial compliment, any indication that you sort-of agree, despite the fact that you don’t, or any self-depreciating statements that are not in total resonance with what you feel.

You’ll argue, perhaps – you Normals – that without such social niceties, speech would be brutal, hard and cold.  People would be offended.  They might take against you.  They might (this is the greatest fear) not flatter and praise you in return.  Normals require an almost constant drip-feed of approval.  Without this, paranoia sets in.  That’s why Normals struggle in their contact with the other tribes.  The Asperger guy is not going to tell you that you look good, that it’s great to see you, that he’s glad you came.  You’re there; he’s there.  No more to be said.  Normals are needy, though.  They want that stuff.  They’ll cheerfully relinquish honesty to get it.

In a previous post I mentioned the 7 year-old Version 2.0 child who came to me distraught after a quarrel with his friend.  “She told me she was sorry,” he said, “but I can see into her heart and that isn’t the feeling that’s there.”
It wasn’t the quarrel that had upset him, but the fact that his friend didn’t respect him enough to share her heartfelt feelings. She insulted him by feigning an apology.

If the Version 2.0 people can ‘see into someone’s heart’ (all this is explained far better in the previous post, written by The Snacking Sage and in Suzy Miller’s important book ‘Awesomism’), nothing but honesty will do.

The small child who asks, “Why are you sad, Mummy?” and is told, “I’m not sad, dear.  I’m fine,” by a mother who attempts to conceal the truth because she doesn’t want to worry him will – obviously – worry all the more if he knows he’s being lied to.

There are more of these Others – these Non-Normals – than might be imagined.   They are way-showers.  They can teach Normals – if we’ll truly stop chattering and listen to their silence – to discard the fake conversation and to return to the openness that is a natural by-product of telepathic communication.

Yes, I can see that there would be difficulties and challenges, but ultimately, aren’t we all yearning for greater transparency?  Aren’t we, after all, sick to death of being lied to and cheated by those in authority, by multi-nationals who mislead us for their own profits, by those who claim to be acting in our ‘best interests’?  It’s worth considering that there are many individuals who are similarly sick of the lack of honesty in ‘Normal’ social interaction.

This is only a personal viewpoint, but I suspect the ‘shift’ that occurred around 2012 involved a fundamental change of mindset amongst humanity – a desire to move beyond ‘them and us’ towards a fairness and openness based on personal responsibility, not the imposition of rules by a corrupt leadership.  That could work, if only we could communicate heart to heart.

 

Listening to Llull

This wasn’t the post I was intending to write this week, but the Friday 13th events in Paris, and the Western governments’ entirely predictable responses have prompted me to insert a few thoughts on someone who for me is a new-found hero: a man who lived many centuries ago, but perhaps has something to teach us all today.

Ramon Llull was born to courtiers of Jaume the Conqueror – a mediaeval Spanish king responsible for taking Mallorca, among other places, from the Arabs.  Ramon became a page at court and later tutor to Jaume’s son.

Bear in mind that this was the time of the crusades.  Bitter wars between Christians and Muslims had been raging for well over a century when Ramon was born.  The divisions between the two cultures could not have been greater.  Hatred and distrust of all things Arab would have been endemic in his world.

gardens of Arab baths, Palma

Arab baths, Palma

Perhaps, as a young man, he wandered amongst the beautiful Arab buildings in his home city of Palma.  He certainly thought deeply and studied hard.

Leaving his family, Llull went to live on a mountain in the centre of the island, taking with him an Arab servant, from whom he learned to speak Arabic.

Certainly, like every Christian of his day (and many in our own) he believed that his religion was the one true way and that Jews, Muslims and anyone who didn’t share these beliefs should convert.  Unlike his contemporaries, though, he did not believe this should happen at the point of a sword.  He proposed the use of logic – philosophical argument – to convince others.

He produced intricate diagrams and many books which he was sure would convince anyone of the veracity of his beliefs.

He travelled tirelessly to visit heads of state across Europe and the Middle East, offering them his works and begging them to engage in dialogue rather than warfare.

Miramar, the site of one of Llull’s universities, on Mallorca’s north coast

He set up a series of universities, where young monks could learn Arabic and other less-studied languages, the better to engage in discourse with those of other faiths.

Ramon Llull had discovered a great truth.  He had realised, centuries before Einstein would turn it into a sound-bite, that the definition of insanity is

doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

He was blazing a new trail and trying to move humanity on from endless, pointless bloodshed; he was proposing respectful, open dialogue and discussion at a time when the divisions were apparently intractable.

We have to start somewhere – why not with ourselves?  Might it be time to listen to his ideas?

 

 

 

Thinner than blood?

Blood, they say, is thicker than water.  Maybe so.  Sometimes, though, the thinner, more watery relationships can show a surprising strength and tenacity.  Ours has.

Wondering what might have happened if… is a fairly pointless occupation, but I do sometimes find myself considering how my life and William’s would have been, had he not, at the tender age of six, joined the class I was teaching and had his mother not, almost immediately after that, developed breast cancer and slowly and sadly passed over just a few years later.

Regardless of what might have been, those things all happened.  I believe that’s the way all three of us – at soul level – planned it.

I was destined to devote many years of my working life to helping children with speech and language difficulties and autistic spectrum perception communicate with the rest of us, and many more years helping this one boy in particular.

William was a child with a formidable intellect, an enhanced sensitivity which made ‘normal’ sounds, tastes or smells virtually unbearable, a gift for strategy bordering on brilliance (he was the school chess champion at 7, thrashing talented 11-year-old opponents – and me! – with consummate ease), marked telepathic skills, a smile that would melt the hardest heart and hardly any comprehensible spoken language.  While he would spend endless hours contemplating life, the universe and everything, watching Star Trek and devising codes and cyphers, he was totally baffled by everyday life and found other children particularly puzzling.  He couldn’t read facial expressions or tones of voice.  He could follow only the simplest of verbal instructions and idioms or sarcasm threw him into a meltdown.

I was fascinated – totally hooked – by this intriguing little kid, long before the tragedies in his life threw us together.

I did my best.  I befriended and supported his mum, did what I could to help the family – taking the children out to give the parents some time together or sitting with the mum so that Dad and the boys could have some afternoons doing normal family stuff together.  My head teacher came and read stories to the class once a week, so that I could give William some individual time to draw pictures, talk through his fears, his nightmares, his frustrations and fury.  A strong bond started to form between us.  Inasmuch as he could trust anyone in those days when his world was falling apart, he trusted me.

Later I’d visit his mum at the hospice.  We talked through what was to come and she begged me to stay in touch with him and keep caring and helping him after she’d gone and after he’d left my class.  I promised.

Caring was never a problem.  Helping often was.  There were times in the years that followed when we got along amazingly well together.  We shared many interests – chess, train journeys, a fascination with cosmology, time travel, past lives and the like.  There were times when he retreated totally and refused to speak to me.  There were times when he wanted to talk on the phone for hours every night.  There were dodgy mates and dangerous situations.  Adolescence is something of a tightrope for even the most well-adjusted boy.  Add in difficulties reading social situations and hidden motives, family rifts (he didn’t get along well with his new step-mother), childhood trauma and residual speech difficulties and you have a drug-pusher’s dream client, a bully’s perfect victim and someone guaranteed to swell the coffers of the local off-licence.

I carried on doing my best.  I made it plain that I’d be there, whatever happened, and somehow – even when I’d more or less given up all hope – he’d eventually drift back into my life, start to share his amazing and original ideas with me again, and I would keep them safe.  There would be strange predictions about the future, diagrams of the cosmos, theories about anything from life after death to interdimensional portals.  I kept them in old journals, on scraps of paper and in all manner of files on my hard drive.  It felt important.

What happened to William, and all those words, will follow.

To be continued.

 

 

 

 

The Flow of Language

Language is slippery.   It drifts and eddies through time and space, toying gently with syntax and vocabulary. Scholars and leaders may try to tame and subjugate it, but language – the true living vulgar language of the people, the ‘langue des oisons’ – resists. No sooner is it caught and caged in learned texts, than it laughs gently and, like some mythical sorceress, shape-shifts before the eyes of its captors and flies free once more.

I live on an island, one whose shores were, for millennia, invaded and settled by tribes from North, South and East. Each left their marks upon our languages: Celtic and Gallic, Latin and Norman, Angle, Saxon and Norse. The river of language swallowed up or skirted around new words and concepts and flowed along regardless. When The Conqueror’s men, with swords and the mediaeval equivalent of clipboards, arrived to question their subjects about the places they newly owned, language was of limited use.   The rational Normans were categorists.   There had to be a name for everything.

“What is its name?” they would demand of locals, pointing, perhaps, at a river.

“River,” the bemused peasants would answer, for why should it need a name?

River Piddle  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In their tongue, the word for river was ‘afon’.  Thus the unsuspecting Normans duly wrote ‘River River’ on their maps – and England is littered with River Avons. If there were two rivers close by, of course, it might have been useful for the locals to have some linguistic means of differentiating between them.   One might be fast-flowing, for example, while another less so. It takes little imagination, then, to understand why the River Piddle in Dorset is so named.

The fluidity of the vulgar language allows for local diversity.  Where I grew up, in the south east of the land, we’d trot along the twitten to school. My children, born in East Anglia, would have used a folly.  Elsewhere these are snickets, alleys, cuts, twitches and footpaths. This gives each area – each neighbourhood, even – a private way of conversing, one which excludes outsiders.   Doubtless there have been many times in the history of this land when the ability to chat thus,  beneath the radar of the highborn and oppressors with their Norman French, Latin or King’s/Queen’s English, has been of considerable value in preserving customs, secrets and even lives.

A recent visit to the island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean Sea revealed a similar linguistic heritage.  Theirs too is a history of occupation and assimilation: the mysterious ‘Sea People’, Spanish, Moors, Romans, Knights Templar and others have come and gone.  The current place names are a glorious mix of Arabic, Spanish and, most commonly, the two native languages of the island – Catalan (the island’s official language) and Mallorquin.

I was unaware of the existence of this latter tongue until I arrived there.  When spoken, it sounds like no language I’ve ever heard, although there are elements of French and Spanish lurking within.  Mallorquin is truly a ‘vulgar’ language – a language of the people.  Its words and cadences vary from village to village, town to town.  It’s not a language of books and scripts, but of concealed local gossip, heritage, history and legend – belonging to and confined within the island.  Its fluidity and rusticity are its salvation.  Outsiders will shrug and leave it well alone.  That way, it will flow and flourish.