Wednesday 13 December 2017

How To Awaken The Divine Masculine Within You - by Teal Swan (and Friend)



SOLVE et COAGULAR

Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha.


The Charm of Making [AND BREAKING], an incantation repeatedly uttered by both Merlin and Morgana, is in an Old Gaelic dialect that translates to 

"Serpent's breath, charm of death and life, thy omen of [re-]making."




Masculinity is all about Direct, Forward-Moving Energy


LADY-VERSION :
I loved being you. 

Every second of it. 
Oh, the way 
You Burn like a Sun

Like a whole screaming 
world on fire! 

I remember that feeling, 
and I always will

And I will 
always miss it. 

How To Awaken The Divine Masculine Within You 

by Teal Swan (and friend)




Regardless of whether we are male or female, we all have divine masculine and divine feminine energy within us. 




It is beneficial to draw on these energies within ourselves whenever they serve us. 

But it is especially important that we release resistance to the essence of the specific gender that we chose for this life. 

As it applies to men, the path of self-actualization asks that those who were born male, embrace and express their masculine essence.





In our modern society, masculinity has been seen as a problem rather than something that should be embraced, because it is rare that any man exhibits true masculinity. 

The only example of masculinity we currently have is the Shadow-Side of Masculinity. 

This shadow side of masculinity fuels the societal idea of competitive hierarchy


In other words, it fuels the idea that one person on top of another person. 


The shadow side of masculinity perpetuates vertical thinking.




Vertical thinking is comparative thinking; where it is possible to be better than or less than someone else. 

And so, the power struggle was born. And so were the Abrahamic religions. The Abrahamic religions replaced the traditional view of divine balance in the universe (which up to that point had been represented by god and goddess) with a solo male god. 

When a solo, male god became the source of life and hope for salvation, the feminine characteristics of fertility, creation and life were now seen as masculine qualities and femininity held no more cards. It was diminished. The result is that for thousands of years, men who succumbed to the shadow side of masculinity (not those who embraced divine masculine) ruled the earth. 



The men that ruled the earth, ruled with domination, control and patriarchy; things that have nothing to do with divine masculinity.



Divine masculine represents :



  • action, 
  • direction, 
  • movement, 
  • responsibility, 
  • strength, 
  • focus, 
  • fatherhood, 
  • the sun, 
  • generosity, 
  • encouragement, 
  • material abundance, 
  • clarity, 
  • intellect, 
  • transformation and 
  • growth. 

The divine masculine is what is going to support the birth process of the new earth, which is being brought into manifestation by divine feminine. 

Thus, the new earth is a co-creation that depends on divine feminine and divine masculine both coming into its full respective power. To allow the divine masculine within yourself to surface, search for these aspects within yourself. 

Every Man is a unique expression of the divine masculine. Therefore, coming into alignment with the divine masculine within you is not about conforming to an archetypal idea of what divine masculine is or isn’t. It is about releasing the things that disallow your own unique masculine essence from radiating through you. 




It is about re-claiming Who You Really Are. 

Ask yourself, “is there any part of the traditional male gender role that I actually enjoy”? 

For example, do you enjoy going to the gym? Or do you go to the gym because you think you’re not good enough if you’re too skinny or too fat?




Most men associate masculinity with being a jerk and hurting people. 

Even though hurting people has nothing to do with masculinity. 

The goal for you, as a man, is to awaken the highest aspect of masculinity within yourself, not to become testosterone driven, competitive, egomaniacs. 

It just so happens that the standard example of the “masculine man” is the man whose divine masculinity is drowning in shadow aspects. In our society, the typical masculine man is also known as “the asshole”. A person most men don’t want to be. But it is because of this association with masculinity that most men don’t want to embrace their masculinity. 

You throw the baby out with the bath water, which is understandable because the only version of masculinity you see, is not an actual version of masculinity.

Here are some suggestions, which will help you tap into your own divine masculine:

1. Explore, question and heal your ideas and feelings towards fatherhood and towards your own father. 







It does not matter whether or not you actually want kids; most men still have unhealthy ideas and feelings about fatherhood, which need to be healed. Your first introduction to the divine masculine is your father. If you have resistance to your father, you have resistance to the divine masculine within you. This means that one of the most important parts of the process of coming into your own masculine essence is to examine and heal the relationship between you and your father. For some of you, this will feel like a tall order a tall order but don’t worry; this does not mean that you have to take action to re connect with your father. Your father does not even have to be alive in order to heal your relationship with him. 





What you do need to do is separate yourself from your father so you can shed off all the damaging ideas he passed on to you and set yourself free from him. 

You will find that once you distance yourself mentally and emotionally from him, You can learn to be yourself and only then can you make peace with your father. 

Only then can you truly embody the divine masculine within you.

2. Examine the current perception of manhood in your family and in your culture. Is your concept of masculinity benefitting you? 

Examine what you learned while you were growing up about what it meant to be male. Examine the traditional gender roles and associations with masculinity on your culture. This will vary even from culture to culture in your own country. 

For example, where I live in America the traditional role of being male entails: 

  • Being the provider 
  • Protecting and defending women and children 
  • Managing money 
  • Either playing or watching sports or both 
  • Being the head of the household 
  • Responsibility 
  • Strength
  • Hunting 
  • Weaponry 
  • Gaining power 
  • Being a husband 
  • Being a father 
  • Not expressing fears/other emotions (especially not crying) 
  • Having a successful career 
  • Achievements 
  • Owning a nice car 
  • Building or maintaining fitness and physical prowess 
  • Being able to fix things 
  • Doing the manual labor jobs around the house 
  • Opening doors for women 
  • Doing the heavy lifting for women 
  • Shaving facial hair or deliberately growing it out 
  • Standing up for yourself and others 
  • Keeping your hair short 
  • Confrontation 
  • Being goal oriented 



After you examine what it means in your family and culture to be male, decide what parts of that you connect with and enjoy and what parts you do not. 

Which ones do you personally feel reflect the divine masculine within you and which ones do you personally feel suppress it? 

The answer will be different for all men, because the divine masculine expresses itself in different ways.

3. Embrace forward movement. 




Imagine you were watching your life third person. Imagine following yourself for a day in your life. Are there areas of your life where you feel stagnation? What choices could you make (and enact) right now to bring forward movement into those areas of your life?

Masculinity is all about direct, forward moving energy. 

When you make a decision, you open the door to what you want and close the door to what you don’t want. This prevents you from scattering your energy in different directions. It ensures that your vital energy will move in one direction with force and direction, like a missile locked on a target. 



A big part of moving forward is the willingness to take risks and learn how to turn mistakes into beneficial lessons to propel you forward even faster. 

Stagnation is the opposite of masculine energy. 

When you are unwilling to make mistakes, you stagnate and the divine masculine energy within you becomes suppressed. 

No more hiding from fears. 

If you’re committed to embracing your masculinity, it is time to face your fears head on.

4. Adopt a confident posture. 



Confidence is forward moving energy. 

Your confidence will naturally make your body language and posture change; but what most people don’t know is that you can deliberately use confident body language and posture to create mental confidence. Stand up straight and tall with your shoulders back and your chest exposed.. Walk with purpose. Look at people in the eye and hold your body in a posture that exudes purpose. Everything about masculinity is direct. This type of posture is quite different than using posture that is defensive. 

Divine masculinity does not actually manifest in the body as closed defensiveness (which is what many of us identify as masculine… we’ve all seen the gorilla guy at the gym). Masculine energy is not a wall, instead it is very open, and it rushes forward to meet you. Making sure your posture reflects masculinity goes hand in hand with making sure your clothes reflect masculinity. 



Wear clothes that fit you. 


If you are drowning in your clothes, you will naturally feel smaller and this can diminish masculine energy.



Take a look at your wardrobe - Does your current personal style reflect who you want to be (which is who you really are)? 

Or does it reflect someone you don’t want to be any longer? Does it make you feel powerful and progressive? Or does it make you feel young, small and stagnant? 



If your personal style does not reflect the masculinity within you, it is time to change your personal style.


5. Be an active giver. 





Masculinity is not a passive receiver of love. 




It is an active giver of love. 



This means, learn how to initiate. 


Be a transmitter. 


Masculinity is generous; it isn’t stingy with itself or  with its resources. 

This applies to sex as well. Masculine is to sexuality what feminine is to sensuality. Channel your sexual energy instead of repressing it. A real man does not let his energy get stuck in the sacral chakra at the level of lust. He is brave enough to let it move up through his heart and mind. When you feel yourself getting sexually stimulated, take the energy you feel in your pelvis and breathe it up through your body. Visualize breathing it up your spine and into your chest and neck and head. Visualize it flooding your whole body. Channel this energy towards heart-centered pursuits; let it drive you to action. Visualize that energy radiating through your heart chakra. 

You are not at the mercy of your carnal energies. 
Sexual energy is energy you can use. 
You can channel it towards anything you desire. 

In fact, many male athletes find that their most successful performances are the result of deliberately channeling sexual energy towards their sport.


6. Take on the role of the encourager.


If you are the worrier or the skeptic, who warns yourself and others against going through with things (who warns against forward movement) you are suppressing the divine masculine. 



Don’t warn people around you off the path they are headed towards. 

Instead, encourage them towards their fears; encourage them to make the attempt. 

Honor their process. 

Allow them to make mistakes without rescuing them. 



The rescuer is not a function of manhood; it is a function of boyhood. 

The rescuer is a boy trying to prove himself. 



A Man does not need to prove himself. 


Divine Masculine is all about growth and encouraging others towards growth. 



Encouragement is the most divine manifestation of the masculine expression of love.


7. Take responsibility. 




To embrace the divine masculine within you, you must learn how to own your own life, mind and choices. Inner strength rides on the ability to consciously take charge of yourself. This means, no more blaming other people for your problems. You can only move forward when you discover what you are doing to hold yourself back. Divine masculine understands that you can only change yourself; so your only axis of power is what you do with yourself. Hold yourself accountable for everything you think, say and do. Catch yourself in the act if you are thinking and acting like a victim. Part of taking responsibility for yourself is coming to know yourself. A big part of the forward movement of divine masculine is the inner quest for self-actualization. If you are avoiding things, most especially yourself, you are suppressing the divine masculine.

8. Pick a skill, trade or specific expertise to fully develop. 





Divine Masculine is about Excellence

To excel means to move forward. It means growth. 





It doesn’t matter what you choose to turn into expertise as long as you have something in your life that you are determined to develop and master. 

It may be beneficial if you struggle with masculinity, to choose something to master that you already associate with masculinity.

9. Examine your resistance relative to being male on the spiritual, mental, physical and societal level. 



Resistance is a word we use to describe the energy behind negative emotion. Do you have resistance (therefore negative emotion) relative to how tall or short you are? Do you have resistance relative to being a husband? Do you have resistance relative to opening doors for women or paying for dates? Do you have resistance relative to your job? Do you have resistance to your level of fitness? Do you have resistance towards being direct with others? Do you have resistance to sex? Does some part of you believe that it isn’t manly to express your emotion? Or to really get your hands dirty raising children? If you feel resistance relative to any aspect of life that you identify as “male”, you have something in the way of the divine masculine within you. For example, you do not need to play sports to embrace the divine feminine, but you are suppressing the divine masculine as long as you associate sports with being male and continue to harbor resistance to sports. Try to find your core beliefs relative to the resistance you feel and then release those core beliefs. Nothing allows divine masculine to shine through better than releasing your resistance to the things you associate with masculinity. Many of the beliefs we hold about masculinity have nothing to do with actual masculinity; they are just the cultural byproduct of resistance. You need to be willing to heal your negative emotions relative to anything you identify as male to set the masculinity within you free. It is exhausting suppressing the essence of who you are. And so, it is time to quit suppressing who you are. Trust me, as soon as women stop accepting the role of victim and come into alignment with their own feminine power, they will all thank you for it. 

We are not actually attracted 
to what we have tried 
to turn you into

We disrespect what we have 
turned you into

We secretly LOVE Men!

10. Learn about women. 




Learn about our cycles, learn about our bodies, and learn about our minds, our cultural conditioning and our desires. In the past, the collective belief among men has been that if you want to be a true man, femininity is an off limits subject. But how do you intend to support the divine feminine and conjoin with the divine feminine if you know nothing about it? All that is, is child like ignorance. The more you learn about women, the more confidence you will have around them. This is especially important if you are in a relationship with someone. Every woman is different. We are only a mystery to you if you don’t take the time to understand us individually. So learn to ask us questions and pay attention to us. Continuing to propagate the belief that women are a mystery sets you up to fail. Once you become convinced that we are a mystery, it is my promise that we always will be. There is a little theory that goes like this, women like men that are either ass holes, or treat them badly. It isn’t true. The reality is that one of two things is happening.



a. We had a father that treated us badly and so we are constantly love reincarnating our fathers because our brains are trying desperately to get the love we needed from our father. 

Our subconscious minds are on an agenda. If we can make a guy who treats us badly, treat us well… we have solved our daddy issues.

b. We are biological creatures. 

We want to feel safe (most of us don’t) so we want to breed with someone who is a good protector and we are driven to create genetically superior children so that they will survive too. 

It just so happens that most men who are protective (therefore subconsciously make us feel safe) and possess the features that we subconsciously associate with strong offspring tend to be more “jockish” and aggressive. 

We are not attracted to the asshole within them. We are simply attracted to the little bit of divine masculine that shines through these men. 

And since so few men have learned to awaken their divine masculine, we take all we can get. 

We are not attracted to meekness in men, and it just so happens that many men, who are nice, are meek. That feels like weakness to us


It makes us feel vulnerable and it shuts down our biological sex drive toward you. We do not want to breed with weak men. And so we often find ourselves feeling sexually turned off by nice guys. 

But the truth of the matter is, it has nothing to do with your niceness; it has to do with your meekness

We want a man who is a perfect blend. One who is tender towards us and towards children, but who exudes the masculinity that we melt for. We’re simply convinced that this type of man doesn’t exist. So, we settle.

As women, we tell you a very confusing story about what we want and don’t want from you. We want you to be men and do things for us but we want to do everything for ourselves. We have a “come support me” and then “now go away” type of attitude. This is not your fault. We do this because it is confusing to be a woman. We want you to open our door for us; most of us just don’t know it yet because we’ve been taught that you opening the door for us, makes us powerless to you and incapable. It has nothing to do with you.

This is not your problem. We as women have not come into our divine feminine power and so we’re still fighting you for power. 

We are full of beliefs about the things that strip us of freedom and power over our own lives and bodies. 

And so, we’re afraid to let you be men. We have erroneously believed for years that the manlier you are, the more we get hurt. 

Why? Because our only model of masculinity is “the asshole” too!

Feel free to ask those of us who are stuck in a fight against you for our own sense of power, to question our own beliefs. Expose us to your beliefs as well. It will aid our expansion. Most of us haven’t questioned our beliefs relative to gender roles. 

So help us out. 

We hate fighting against you this hard. 

We’re too stressed in our own lives to keep it up and it isn’t healthy for us or for you.

If you are interested in learning more about divine masculinity, I would suggest reading the book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore and Douglass Gillette. 

It is a wonderful book that teaches men how to become the embodiment of the matured form of masculine energy within them. 

Divine Masculine does not need to be cultivated or created within you as Men. It is you. 

It is the essence of your choice to come into This Life as a Man. 

It is an ever-present energy that is always there, it is merely obscured by your thoughts and actions. If you begin to clear your minds and lives of the things that are obscuring that essence, it will immediately shine through on it’s own. 

And I can tell you as a sensual woman, there is nothing more intoxicatingly addictive than a man whose divine masculinity shines through.

Into The Volcano



"Be Mindful of The LIVING Force, my young padawan."

"This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' 

And the friend jumps in the hole. 

Our guy says,
"Are you stupid!? Now we're both down here.' 

The friend says,
'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

Nyota Uhura: 
At that volcano, you didn't give a thought to Us. 

What it would do to me if you died, Spock. 

You didn't feel anything. 
You didn't care. 

And I'm not the only one who's upset with you. 
The Captain is, too. 


James T. Kirk: 
No, no, no. 
Don't drag me into this. 
She is right, though.

Spock: 
Your suggestion that I do not care about dying is incorrect. 
A sentient being's optimal chance at maximizing their utility is a long and prosperous life. 

Nyota Uhura: 
Great. 

James T. Kirk: 
Not exactly a love song, Spock. 

Spock: 
You misunderstand. 
It is true I chose not to feel anything upon realizing my own life was ending. 

As Admiral Pike was dying, I joined with his consciousness and experienced what he felt at the moment of his passing. 

Anger. Confusion. 
Loneliness. Fear. 

I had experiences those feelings before, multiplied exponentially on the day my planet was destroyed. 

Such a feeling is something I choose never to experience again. 

Nyota, you mistake my choice not to feel as a reflection of my not caring. 

Well, I assure you, the truth is precisely the opposite.

James T. Kirk: 
I'm scared, Spock... help me not to be... how do you choose not to feel? 

Spock: 
I do not know. 
Right now, I am failing. 

James T. Kirk: 
I wanted you to know why I couldn't let you die... why I went back for you... 

Spock: 
Because you are my friend.



"By far the thing which I like most about 'Time' is that it's not real -

The Past exists only in Memories, whist The Future of infinite possibilities, exists only in our Imagination.

Truth is Truth - Though never so bold. And Time cannot make false That-Which-Was-Once-True
If our watches were truly accurate, the only thing that they would ever say, is 

"NOW"

It's Not About YOU.


So, this guy's walking around, hopping from rock to rock, being carried along the various molten lava streams, deep inside the crater of an active volcano, when he falls sees his chance to leap across onto a rocky outcrop that leads to a steep path up the walls of the crater and ultimately to escape and safety. 

Only, he badly misjudged his leap and despite achieving a successful touchdown on the rocky outcrop, he does so only  after brutally suffering the complete loss and amputation of both of his legs below the knee, as well as the complete removal of his one, remaining "good" arm, burned away to a cinder by  boiling magma splash complications. And the walls are so steep and high he can't get out -Certainly not without a full team of Sherpas from Nepal,a broad selection in the choice of maps, and an Indian Spirit-Guide.

A male nurse/natural remedies herbalist and wholesale brand rep passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, recommends a short supple,entry course of therapeutic gastrointestinal purging, staring with series of back-to-back warm hot salt water enemas for openers, waits for the patients final personal cheque transaction to clear, and moves on.

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer for mercy and intercession, combined with a more-than ordinarily generous and self-starting series of  innvocations intended to provide the opening volley of ancient and powerful counter-curses as a prelude to a full rite of exorcism and spiritual cleansing and self healing workshop exercises, sanctifies entones in Latin the various,  different benedictions of his blessing, concludes the completed operation of gestures, chants and waves of every kind down into the hole, genuflects, and continues on by resuming his journey, as originally intended.


He's actually wreathed in ravenous tongues of burning flame at this stage, actually ON FIRE, as his mutilated body gradually slips further and further down the steep, sloping sides of the vast  molten firepit, when his best friend  walks by, 

'Hey, Master Obi-Wan, it's me, your Brother Jedi and studiously maverick  Padawan learner apprentice - it's perhaps possible I may have made some humongously bad and stupid choices because I was afraid for the future and welfare of my family and felt this was the only way  I could go to act, if I was to guarantee their safety and protect our future happiness together - now though, I'm a quadruple amputee, trapped inside an active volcano, being slowly burnt - can you help me out?"

And his Old Friend jumps straight into the maw of the eruption crater hole, and lands only a few yards lower down the shale slope of the hell-hole slag pit and immediately begins his own process of physical combustion, smouldering initially only to begin with and for the first few searing, scorching seconds, at least up until the point where the liquification and just thereafter, the flash-ignition  point specific for the subcutaneous bodily fats is achieved, after which, The Long Lost Friend to Our guy just goes up like a Roman candle doused in gasoline by that point. 

Our guy screams, 
'Are you stupid? Now we're both trapped inside this volcano, and likewise, we are both currently on fire." 

His Long-Lost Friend says, 'Yeah, but someone kicked me down here before, and I still know the way out.'"



It's about redirecting...

....evading.

And actually caring about the welfare of your opponent...

...so you have to care about yourself.

You have to believe your life is precious, that ALL Life is precious...

...you have to redirect those thoughts, the history that tells you otherwise.

What we've done, we've done.

We evade it by moving forward with a code to NEVER do it again.

To make up for it.

...to still accept what we were.

To accept 
EVERYONE...

...To protect 
EVERYONE.

And in doing that, protect yourself...

...to create Peace.





"Only a Master of Evil, D'aath...!!"

"Hey, you know what - 
Screw You, White-Hat!!

You wanna know something "Evil" - Leaving your BEST FRIEND, who is in PAIN, has just made a series of HORRIBLE (to your thinking) mistakes, to DIE, ALONE, inside a FREAKIN' VOLCANO, on FIRE!!!

And lecturing him on evil and betrayal, watching him burn whilst WEARING A BLANKET.!!

You don't get to Judge me."

I'm entitled to my Anger.



WESLEY

I thought Delothrian's Arrow was used to protect "good" magicks.


WILLOW

It is.


WESLEY

So, how can you use it to break the jar? 
The Muo-Ping is a sacred object. It's holy.


WILLOW

It's glass, therefore crunchable. 
The sacred's what's inside. 
"All life a container..."


WESLEY

"...For the heart of all life." 
You've studied the Daharim.


WILLOW

It had to be something specific. There's lots of jars in the world—can't shatter them all. 
I mean, you could, but good things come in jars - 
Peanut butter, jelly, those two-headed fetal pigs at the natural history museum. 
(Wes doesn't respond
Come on, everybody loves fetal pigs.


WESLEY

(leans forward
Sorry. I think my sense of humor's trapped in a jar somewhere.


WILLOW
Does seem like you've given in to The Grumpy side of The Force.


WESLEY
A lot's happened. Not just Angelus. 
I've been—I've changed. 
I've seen a Darkness in myself. 
I'm not sure you'd even begin to understand—


WILLOW
I flayed a guy alive and tried to destroy The World.


WESLEY

Oh. So...
 (stands, doesn't make eye-contact)


WILLOW

Darkness. Been there.


WESLEY
Yeah. 
Well, I never flayed... (seems sickened
I had a woman chained in a closet.


WILLOW
Hey.


WESLEY
That doesn't compare.


WILLOW
No, Dark. 
That's Dark
You've been to a place.





Tuesday 12 December 2017

Otherstide Eve : Perfectly Innocent Fun & Games - 'Til Somebody Loses anEye

D

 In one movement, they turned their backs.

'Goodbye, Lungbarrovians,'
he called. 'Don't worry. I don't ask for your forgiveness. Time runs in circles. I have other families!'


He looked away across the slope to his companions. Close by, the Director of Allegiance was standing with several of his agents.

'If I keep my job,'
Romana said, 'I'll have Lord Ferain suspended on a charge of misdirection of power. I'm going to have the Agency doors thrown open to Public Register Video for a full investigation.'


'What it is to have power,'
said the Doctor.


'You'd know.'
She grabbed his arm and tried to steer him away as Ferain started towards them.


The elderly man caught up with the Doctor. 'Has she told you why she summoned you yet?'


Romana scowled. 'Go away, Ferain.'


'Has she told you about the mission she's arranged?'


'I changed my mind,'
Romana said. 'The Doctor's not involved.'


'What mission?'
said the Doctor.


'To Skaro,'
Ferain said.


'Cairo?'


'No, Skaro.'


The Doctor shook his head. 'Is this some new Skaro? Or the one that I destroyed with the Hand of Omega?'


Romana flailed her arms. 'I said it doesn't matter!'


Leela and Chris and Dorothée were drawn in by the sound of the argument.


Ferain stood smugly back while the Doctor and Romana argued.



'No, Doctor. I'll get someone else to go.'

'If it's the Master's remains, then I should be the one to fetch them.'
'It's too dangerous!'


'What could be worse than facing my miserable Cousins! Filling in forms with Lethbridge-Stewart? Lunch with the terrible Zodin. . .?'

 
Ferain said, 'But it's true. The Matrix predicts a ninety-six percent chance of fatal injury.'

 
The Doctor closed his eyes and said quietly, 'Then that leaves me with a clear four per cent margin.'


'Don't be so Otheringly flippant!'
snapped Romana.


The Doctor laughed. 'You should see yourselves. The President and the CIA locked in your eternal skirmishes. One side always tilting at the other.'


'That's how the balance of order is maintained,'
said Romana.


The Director of Allegiance smiled grimly. 'It has been that way on Gallifrey ever since the Intuitive Revelation.'


'But you must be so bored,'
said the Doctor. 'Buried in a state of perpetual Harmony, no wonder you play these games.'


'And what will you teach us with your manifold wisdom?'
said Ferain. 'Whoever you are or were?'

 
The Doctor met the old man's eye. The wind stilled.


'What do you want, Ferain? What do you want me to be? Shall I reveal my blazing power? Might that not fry you to a crisp? Shall I sweep away evil and chaos? Reorder the stars in their courses? 

Banish burnt toast forever?'
 
He paused.


'Well, I won't. I wouldn't if I could. Who do you think I am?' He thumbed his chest. 'I'm me. The Doctor. What I have been, someone might have imagined. What I will be, how can I tell? I'm not immortal. I shall go to this Skaro, collect the Master's remains and bring them back to President Romanadvoratrelundar.'


'With such backing,
' said Ferain, 'how can she fail?'

 
The Doctor's eyes flashed. 'Be quiet, my lord. And remember your place!'

 
The birds had stopped singing.


Ferain was silent.


Romana cleared her throat. 'Please be careful.'


The Doctor eyed her sternly. 'The Daleks. The Master. Romana, who have you been talking to?'

***


They stood in a line beside the TARDIS. 


'Please,' the Doctor said,'I didn't ask to be seen off.'

 
'Tough,' said Dorothée. 'You'd better have these.' She fished her last battered box of teabags out of her pocket. He took them and hugged her tight.


He looked fondly at Leela for a long time, peering into her eyes as if he recognized something there.


'This love thing,' he mused. 'Interesting. A father from Gallifrey and a mother of Earth stock. That's an unusual pedigree.'

 
She pushed back her hair and said awkwardly, 'I don't have  anything for you, Doctor.'


'Just call him after me.'

 
She looked startled and then nodded.


'Who exactly is the terrible Zodin?' butted in Chris. 'Some sort of Galactic megalomaniac emperor?'

 
The Doctor's eyes went misty. 'Zodin was a celebrated sword-swallower at the Grand Festival of Zymymys Midamor. She had an amazing trick with a scimitar.'

 
Chris grabbed the Doctor, lifting him off his feet in a monstrous bear hug.


'Roz bet me that I'd never dare do this,' he said. Eventually he put the Doctor down again and picked up his hat for him.


'Give my love to Bernice,' said the Doctor, squeezing Chris's hand.


'And ask her if she wants to lecture at the Academy here,' said Romana.


She turned to the Doctor.


'I know. I'll be careful,' he said.


'I want you to have this.' She slipped a metallic object into his hand. 'It's my sonic screwdriver.'

 
He smiled. 'Thank you, Madam President. I shall see you soon. Back at the Capitol.' He walked to the TARDIS, a small figure clutching his presents. He turned his key and went inside.
 

One by one they moved away.
 

'Will he come back?' said Leela.'

'Dorothee!' The Doctor's head re-emerged from the door. 'I just remembered. I haven't been Merlin yet!'

He vanished and the door closed.


'What?' chorused the others, as Dorothée began to laugh.


The light on the TARDIS flashed like a bright idea.


A flock of startled birds rose from the trees as the TARDIS grated out of existence.


Then they were alone on the sunny mountainside.