Limits of an Infinite Self

From Bernhard Guenther, based on his article of the same name.

To honour and love God and one's fellow creatures - mineral, plant, animal, or human - is the totality of the law. If we do not know ourselves, how can we know others? How can we know God?

To see ourselves in others, not as projections of ego, but as individual expressions of the same essence of God. All that endures is God, all else is but the ever-changing dream in the imagination of God.

To know is to perceive directly. We do not perceive; we are too caught up in chasing our thoughts, from past to future to past again. Fantasy, delusion, worry, regret, interpretation through the filter of the unknowing, conditioned mind. Or we are embroiled in sensation, craving pleasure and avoiding pain. Identifying as the content of our mental, emotional and physical experience, instead of as what we truly are. Thus we enslave and imprison ourselves and are tossed about by outer circumstances and our unconscious drives. Truth as it can be perceived exists only in the present.

To make the unconscious, conscious. This is the beginning of the alchemical work. The proper study of man is man himself. What lies hidden within him. Observing, without bias or judgment, one's actions, feelings, thoughts, and motives. Passionless understanding. Accepting, and accepting responsibility.

This writer is a fool, as are all common men. The only thing keeping him from being a perfect ignoramus and an imbecile is his flickering recognition of the fact that he does not know, does not perceive, only thinks, feels, senses outwardly, and foolishly parrots the thoughts of others without real understanding. Even were this not the case, you would be a fool to assume otherwise. Anything he says must be tried and proven first. And if you know directly, you have no need of his words at all.

What we might call "knowledge" is not given. It is earned. Through suffering and striving. Through patience and labour. And even then it is only one's own subjective experience. True knowledge surpasses all this, all the efforts of man. It is timeless. It is priceless. It is to perceive what is. How shall we who are blind and deaf, perceive?

We are blind and deaf because of the thick miasma and dirt of illusion and sin that covers us. So many are comfortable with this condition, they seek to preserve it and deepen it. You who desire the sincere and loving, all-illuminating truth, must not be so complacent as these. You have your work cut out for you.

Purification. Cutting through the illusion, casting off the sin. This requires brutal honesty and total commitment. Yet it is not merely the work of the separate little you, capricious and weak. It is the work of God within you. The divine will, the divine intellect, the divine love.

With God all things are possible.

God is within you, and you are within God. Rejoice and give thanks, for it is God who created you, God who sustains you, and God who will transform you in ways you never imagined. Life and death, night and day. One eternal Being.

Soundtrack: Deep Forest - Boheme

A richly woven carpet of sand, reindeer lichen, heather, bilberry, lingonberry, pinecones and needles caresses my bare feet as I wend my way over the rises and falls of the forest floor. I marvel at the abundance of tiny, smoke-purple-winged butterflies in these high-summer woods, and taste the first bilberries of the season. I bury my face in the soft, fuzzy green leaves of a waist-high sapling and give thanks for the ever-loving, ever-giving nature of trees.

During my walk, I realize that this rebirthing that I'm going through is a continuous process. Little by little, that which is unreal within me dies away, so that the real can arise. Or, to put it another way, the power of the unreal over me diminishes as my awareness of it grows. I become more able to choose the real over the unreal. But this is all very vague and abstract.

In more specific terms, what I've gone through in recent days has been a painful stripping away of my denial of some very ugly aspects of myself. Narcissism. Hypocrisy. The list goes on. I begin to awaken to the full reality of the deep karmic debt which I've incurred in this life. The people I've treated as objects for ego gratification. The parasitical behaviour, taking everything that's offered and giving only when it's convenient. The refusal to take responsibility for my own situation and change it. The attitude that this world somehow owes me for being so alien to what I'd prefer it to be. The idea that I can just go on doing whatever I feel like with no regard for other human beings or the reality in which I live. Playing games to get what I want. Bending the truth, glossing over inconvenient facts. Gossiping behind people's backs. Using my spiritual and intellectual gifts as a cloak for all of the above, instead of truly devoting and applying them for the good of all beings. I've known all this on some level already, but it took two destroyed relationships in one day, and the frank rebuke of both individuals concerned, to finally break through my denial.

Whatever else this blog has been to those who read it, for me it's been a toy. A game. A diversion. All ego, with just enough Spirit to have some small justification for its existence. I've been playing a role that's only part of who I really am. And this idea that I'm on some kind of spiritual path, that's bullshit. I've done all that, it's not what I need to concern myself with in this life. I've got gifts, and I sure as hell ought to use them when the opportunity presents itself, but this monologue is the least of the ways I can do that. Practically insignificant.

If you want to talk about spiritual or esoteric topics with me, you're more than welcome to send me an email. Whatever insight I have to offer is at your disposal.

I've recently had the opportunity to begin reacquainting myself with my inborn energy-healing abilities. This is an area in which I see myself developing and being of service in the future.

I don't know what the future shape of this blog will be. I will leave it up, and I will post whatever I feel prompted to post, as I've always done. The blogs you see listed on the right are all excellent and worth checking out.

My immediate future appears to hold a trip to southern Spain. During my stay there I will get back into a balanced lifestyle and weigh my options for what to do next. I must ultimately follow my heart. Signs have seemed to be pointing to Africa, but that could just as well mean nothing. I expect to return to both Finland and Canada. I have karmic debts to repay in both places.

A new world is coming. At some point, some of us may find ourselves moving between different dimensions within that new world, or even between planets. All of us who survive will, in whatever capacity, contribute to building that new world. That new world is already here as a blueprint, waiting to be made manifest. The transition is ongoing. It began a long time ago. Everything is under control. There is no need to try to anticipate or stress over what's coming down the pike. All we need concern ourselves with is following the still, small voice within, making the sometimes drastic and difficult changes in our own lives that we need to make. You have a role that you came here to play. It's up to you to discover it and play it to the fullest. And the fact is, you will, whether you consciously decide to or not.

So I indulged in a little sermon after all. Take it as you will, or don't. It's a fart in a hurricane, a desperate cry to have my significance acknowledged. Don't encourage me and for heaven's sake, don't assume that I'm right. Listen to your own truth. It's inside you and nowhere else.

From here on in, I stick to what I know. If I do start spouting nonsense that I can't back up, I pray for someone to write me a comment saying the emperor has no clothes.



Blessings to all.

Over and out.

On the one hand, this is a superfluous entry, because I have nothing to say. But then, would that be so very different from any other entry? Anything in this blog actually worth the bits and pixels it takes up isn't from me, but merely passes through me on its way here from somewhere else. And I'll be first to call bullshit on that and admit that it's all ego, all the time... except for what isn't. Make sense? Good either way. It is what it is.

So I'm leaving everything I know behind in just a matter of days now. Certain details are probably best left unbroadcast in order not to attract the wrong kind of attention, but if I've got it coming, then there's nothing I can do to stop that either. "Irresponsible" and "reckless" would be the judgment pronounced upon me by most people, but I'm just doing what I have to do. Playing my part, from the heart. To do anything else would be unthinkable.

I've been doing a great deal of soul-searching, shining light on some deep, dark issues of the psyche. Issues of self-doubt versus self-confidence, intellect versus intuition, demanding versus allowing, my relationship with the Divine (most acutely with its Feminine aspect), and most confusing of all, sex. I have no idea how these issues are going to be resolved, or how quickly. It will be a natural process of unfolding, more likely longer than shorter. My impatience to be done with all these things helps not at all. And that's another issue in itself.

Self-acceptance, embracing the moment as the perfection that it is from the viewpoint of the Absolute... the presence of the One... gratitude and love. These are the things of which I must constantly re-mind myself. And quite often am re-minded through no effort of my own, but by the grace of God manifest in my life and in the world around me. A glorious sunset, arrayed like a masterpiece of Classical hyperreality and utterly indifferent to my petty thoughts of melancholy self-pity... little things, even insects, so full of significance. The invisible speaking through the visible, revealing itself moment by moment, piece by piece. I need this. I cannot live without it. And to live is to strive toward it.

To my old friends, I say thank you for all that we've been able to share. You'll always be with me in my heart, and I with you. To those new friends whom I have yet to meet, I welcome you in advance and look forward to the fun and the learning we will have together.

That's all for now. There will be more.

Anxiety piles on anxiety. Self-loathing festers and it seems all thought and action only makes it worse, like floundering in quicksand. The mind is a cacophonous sculpture of twisted blades all fighting for position, yet all pointing ultimately to failure and destruction. This is the fate of ego as it struggles in the face of what seems an utterly impossible situation. There is no solution, no right choice, only a series of unsatisfactory options each worse than the other. I can do nothing to save myself. The most I can do is to muster a fleeting moment of peace, gone almost before it arrives. The torment returns redoubled. Processing, prognosticating, all in vain... until there is nothing left but total surrender.

Deliver me, Lord, from this hell. Only you can save me now. Deliver me and I will depend only upon you and your loving merciful voice. Guide my soul. Deliver me. Give me strength. Deliver me. Give me peace. Deliver me. You are my life and my light. Deliver me from the darkness I have created.

From the deepest bottom of my heart and soul, I cry out to my father, my friend, my one and only god. There is nothing else. I fall into oblivion.

...And awaken.

A new day.

Peace. Presence. Knowing.

Just enough.

Gratitude for the grace.

This is how life goes on.

God knows.

I don't.

If I were enlightened, this fact would not move me. I would simply accept it. But since I am not, I seek knowledge. And so I suffer. Needlessly? All for naught? What good has all my pitiful info-gathering and pondering ever done me? The only good I can see is that it gives me some idea, hazy though it is, of what's going on – but even that feels more a burden than an asset.

I'm whining. It's tiresome. I'll stop.

In actual fact, I know (and please don't ask me how I know) that everything happens for a reason. There is a reason why I am in the position I'm in, which is once again at the end of my rope, fast approaching that inky blackness of uncertainty beyond the last circle of light, where all I can do is go on and trust that the next lamp will soon be alight, even if it's only a tiny glow-worm at my feet cheering me on.

How I have wished in these days for some measure of certitude, a clear revelation that would give me something concrete to rely on, beyond simple faith!

Someone suggested I retreat into a bare room for three days with only water for sustenance, and pray as hard as I can. Since I'd been meaning to do something like that for years, I decided to try it. What that wise and well-meaning person couldn't have known is that I have almost no mental discipline whatsoever. In those three days, my sporadic moments of spiritual fervidity added up to maybe a tenth of what I imagine would be required, were revelation to be had for the asking, given enough persistence. Be that as it may, I did not receive much more than what I put into the effort, despite a few instances of feeling rather close to possibly going somewhere grand. Through it all, the Divine in all its "supernatural" aspects remained as silent as ever. I wasn't surprised at that, but I was disappointed inside nonetheless.

(And proceeded to drink, smoke, and party until whatever purification those three days of fasting had effected was well and truly reversed. Base human nature is a goddamn marvel. Yup. Moving right along....)

What I came away with was a deeper understanding of myself, of just how much garbage there is to be cleared out between me now and a future me that could have a dialogue with the Creator on a personal, tangible level. Well, the garbage is one thing. The other thing is developing my spiritual muscles. That would include mental discipline. The shape I'm in now, any manifestation of God would probably destroy me just by engaging with me, hehe. Well, that's all speculation, really. Ego mind assuring itself of its own significance? Because God can do anything he or she wants. I believe that.

So if God can do anything, and everything happens for a reason, then this silence in itself is telling me to just keep working. What I do in the physical realm is no exception, it's an essential part of the whole work. Even the most mundane tasks belong to it. In fact, I sense that my habit of excessive daydreaming without any clear purpose being served is actually very detrimental, simply because it distracts me from doing stuff. Now, I know daydreaming is important in its own way. It's not the what, it's the how, and the when. I think I do my best daydreaming while engaged in some constructive physical activity. But just as important in the balance of things is to be able to stop that mental chatter and just focus.

Am I saying anything here? What am I trying to say? Come on, cut to the chase already. Yeah, this is the chatter. Stopping now.

What I also remembered in the end (before the binge), and I think this is the fundamental point this all came to, is that God is always present. In every thing and in every moment, and behind and between them all besides. Nothing can ever change that.

To me, that is a very comforting thought. And I will say no more.

It's official: we're fucked.

That's been my prevailing analysis of the situation overall since I learned of the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The scope of the damage to ecosystems beggars belief. And there's still no mitigation in sight. This fellow has been covering the sordid story of the political and corporate assfest of a response in his own way. God knows we need a sense of humour with such horrific matters. But taken as a whole, the environmental devastation that we as a species have inflicted upon this planet, our only home – the toxic chemicals in the ground, the water, and the air; seas choked with plastic; wholesale destruction of forests; topsoil depleted, and on and on and on – seems to indicate that if ever a species deserved to go extinct, it's us. I don't want to go all 11th Hour here, but facts are facts. We're all culpable to some degree. The laptop on which I'm typing these words is the product of a long chain of industries that all pollute, all devour natural resources. That's the way we do things. The problem is not that we've done it, it's that we've done it with zero regard for the future, zero regard for anything but satisfying our pathologically single-minded desires. Some, of course, are more guilty than others...

It is not an easy thing to watch the wretched circus of ignorance and deception with the eyes of an awareness too keen for its own good. Not that I would have it any other way, given the choice. But there is the choice, too, of whether to focus upon the appearance of hell on earth in all its unholy forms, and despair, or to turn one's attention to the things in which there is some reason to see good, and rejoice. And always there is the grand perspective, in which all is precisely as it must be, without judgment of good or evil, although that is not one that I would take exclusively. It operates in the background, without impinging or interfering. We who are here, inside the fish bowl, have our judgment calls to make as long as we're here. The trick is to recognize that for each judgment we pass on something outside of us, there is a judgment being passed on the inside as well. Better to go within, search out what offends us about ourselves, and work on that. Far be it from me to prescribe anything for anyone, but I'll tell you what I think is a pretty important key. Forgiveness. That's the magic that'll set you free, from what I've come to understand about the way things work. Karma's a vicious circle. By default, it locks you in. If you want out, you'll need something that transcends that pattern. That's all I have to say about that. Best thing for me here is to shut up and take my own advice. (grin)

As I was about to say before I sidetracked myself, there's plenty to be pissed off about. Plenty of things in life to break your heart and make you weep from the depths of your soul. I get that. There's a neverending stream of things we don't understand the reasons for. We can only carry on and do the best we can, and just know that there is a reason, however beyond our grasp it may be at the moment.

I'm as confused as anyone, quite honestly. The less I pretend to know about my future and the less I project my fears and fantasies onto the unknown, the less work of letting all that go I set myself up for. Our precious fears, our precious fantasies. All is vanity. More anxious wheel-turning in the fevered workings of the monkey mind, desperate to justify its own sense of indispensability. Let it go, Neo. Free your mind.

Has there ever been a more perilous time? I think of the Atlanteans, who (allegedly) had technological advantages that most of us wouldn't even dream of. So much knowledge, and yet so little wisdom. The wave came and the mass of them were totally unprepared to ride it. Is that to be our fate as well? Cataclysm and descent into even further depths of ignorance in the struggle to survive? It is not hard to imagine that future. But what happens, will happen. Ours is not to anticipate the utterly unpredictable, but to prepare our hearts and souls to meet it in whatever form it chooses to take. And in this moment, we yet have that opportunity. It is not too late to take appropriate action according to the promptings of the inner guide, that still voice that tells us what is right, what we need to do and what our focus should be.

Have courage and persevere, even in the face of seeming impossibility. Shed your illusions as they are revealed to you and embrace truth. Know that you are here for a purpose. Seek to embody what virtues you can, moment by moment. Love yourself and see the love around you. Be at peace. Follow your star.

In mutual support and everlasting brotherhood,
this self.

I alluded last time to my commitment to a spiritual path. In my bright-eyed enthusiasm, I neglected to mention the dark side of that coin, which, appropriately enough, now shines upon my life in its turn.

This world is a proving ground. Earthly existence is defined by tension and struggle between opposing forces. On the one hand, the human spirit desires to be free and to experience oneness and unconditional love; on the other hand, it is seduced into bondage, separation, and fear by all the myriad illusions of this world. It is our moment-to-moment freewill choice that decides which influence will win out.

Last week, prior to my trip to Model Expo in Helsinki to display a few of my Lego creations to the public, I was very much of two minds as to the task ahead of me, which is to let go of that material pursuit which has so consumed my artistic impulses for most of my life (not to mention a considerable amount of money). I figured that the exhibition would clarify the matter in my mind and bring me to a place where that letting go would be easier. In essence, I wished for my passion for turning ABS molded bricks into my original creations (MOCs) to burn itself out - a burnout that I've been trying to induce for months already. On some level, that notion did come true. I do feel more able to quit the hobby and sell off my collection than before. Doesn't mean the thought of it doesn't still cause me some amount of pain, but the way has opened up before me to the point where concrete action is feasible.

There's a lot more plot and drama to this story, but I'll try to pare it down to the most relevant bits here.

I was told, in a Tarot reading, that I would be going through an energetic battle (8 of Swords). That seems to be coming true already, although it may be that the real thing is yet to come. But judging from my dreams last night, and the way I've been feeling... yes, this is very much a battle of opposing energies. And it's one that I've been losing quite badly so far. Through emotional heaviness and negative thought patterns, I've found myself succumbing to confusion, powerlessness, and victimhood.

One of my dreams last night showed a small, reptilian demon acting like a harmless, cute little puppy that just needed someone to open a sealed packet of food for it. The girl's sympathy and compassion were winning out over her better judgment... next thing I saw was the same demon, ten times larger, swallowing a man's arm while its friend went for his other arm.

Don't feed the demons.

I was also shown, prior to falling fully asleep, a vision of myself and my shadow self. My shadow self was just too strong, too cunning for me; no matter which way I turned or what I tried to do, he was there ahead of me, sabotaging, overturning, perverting, diverting everything I did so that it fed into his plans instead of my own. There was no way to win at this game. As difficult as it was, I knew I had to stop fighting him, stop resenting him, stop relying on my own strength and limited vision. I tried to quiet myself, find peace, connect with the One in whom there is no separation and no conflict, to realize that I and my shadow were of the same stuff, just different expressions. The true I was neither little-me nor shadow-me, and yet contained both. The key to ending the struggle was understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, release. I did not actually attain that at the time, but I knew it and I went for it.

I'm being tested. I've been warned about this by a lot of people who've walked the spiritual path. There's no free lunch, no pill to be perfect, and no one-size-fits-all solution. It's a process that has to play out for each person. A process of shedding all those endless layers of false self, revealing always another, slightly more realized image of the perfection at the center. Every experience, pleasant or unpleasant, is an opportunity for progress. It's all in the attitude with which you meet it. For best results, choose love. Choose faith. Hold fast and have courage.

The Divine can appear as a terrible, punishing schoolmaster, or as a gentle, supportive teacher. Both forms have the same goal and the same purpose, merely different approaches. Life as struggle; life as gift. Both equally valid ways of seeing, both necessary. One to be transcended, the other to be realized.

Namasté, my friend. All the best. See you at the destination. Back Home.

On the Mayan Tzolk'in calendar, my birthdate resonates as 13 Cimi. The number 13 stands for ascension and the completion of all things, a transcending force. Cimi is Death, the Transformer. A Death person is naturally prone to change and comfortable with transitions. Both of these qualities well describe my nature and my experience of life.

I was given a dream some time ago in which I had one simple task. There was a veil that could only be crossed when a person was ready – if they weren't ready, they wouldn't be there facing it. The veil seemed to be contiguous with the flowing garment of a skeletal figure who I recognized as Death. My job was to lift the veil for each person as they came through, so that they could see what lay hidden on the other side. The object they came to view was no mere object; it was a hole in space. The hole appeared as a single eye with lids on the sides instead of the top and bottom. Through that eye, when one looked intently, one could see something rather surprising: a little house on a hill, simply outlined and coloured, like a child's drawing. That drawing was a symbol for Home. A comforting place. It was where we were all from, and it was where we were all ultimately going. Each person who came through would look at this revelation and break into a smile. They'd known it all along, they just needed a little reminder to remember what they already knew. All the fears and doubts they might have had before entering, some timidly, some boldly, were shown to be pure illusion. There was nothing to do with them but to let them go and have a good laugh. Everyone left feeling greatly relieved, lightened, and renewed. Where they went after the viewing, I could not tell; they certainly didn't go out the way they came in. And that was my dream.

I felt quite troubled after I had the dream. I was very reluctant to accept that I could be one to carry out such a task, even though it had all felt most natural and easy in the dreaming world. I wondered if the dream meant I had to be some kind of “keeper of the veil” in this life. Would people come to me for a glimpse of that Truth? Seemed a little far-fetched. I still don't know what it means. But it was certainly one of my more interesting dreams.

Death is a theme I've become comfortable with on some deep, basic level, even though I have never actually been very closely touched by it in a concrete way in the short twenty-five years I've lived so far. I have never been to a funeral and I have never lost a family member closer than a little-known cousin. All my grandparents are still alive. I have often wondered at this, why it is that I've been spared those experiences for so long. It can't last forever, and it could end tomorrow for all I know. I do know that I would like to be present at the departure of my mother's father, to hold his hand and ease his passing. Of course, given that I'm leaving the country for the foreseeable future quite soon, I'd rather not necessarily have that come true, either!

Hmm, I was supposed to write about friends here. Bonds of friendship. Social ties. They've been greatly emphasized in my life in this past little while, following an extended period of relative, voluntary isolation. At a time in my life that's full of things to do, deadlines, and uncertainty (nothing I can't handle on my own, mostly, although I am keenly aware of and grateful for all the help and support I receive), destiny has decided to make friendships a major theme. I've felt drawn to reconnect with people, particularly those with whom I feel the closest spiritual kinship, but also many others. Part of it, I'm sure, is the need to finish things up before I leave, but that doesn't explain the case of one person, who just suddenly showed up in my life one lazy Sunday afternoon to shake things up even more when they were in pretty high flux already. I'm really glad she did, though, because the ensuing series of events and dynamics has been a challenge I can really sink my teeth into. I've been tested pretty hard by it already, and I know this is only the start. It's a nice grueling uphill climb, spiritually, after a whole lot of comparatively smooth territory for me.

Here's the thing: two things actually, that I've occasionally been feeling the desire for: a passionate but non-committed relationship (to balance out my first one, which was all commitment and not so much passion), and somebody to whom I could be a spiritual mentor. It's easy to see how the false ego can hijack such desires and really go for a joyride. A lot of potential for hurt and long-lasting damage there, if those things were to be pursued as actual goals in themselves. The only goal that should matter, the only one really worth pursuing, is to find one's way back to the divine source: back Home. Anything else is a diversion, purely optional and only desirable insofar as it is in line with the highest good for oneself and all others. Destiny, of course, is just that, ultimately: the highest good, the most desirable and perfect script for this play called life. And it really is all in hand, if we can just let go of our need to control events and control other people for the spineless satisfaction of our own Death-fearing ego selves.

In short, that weak and myopic part of me perceived the chance for both these desired things in the appearance of this new player on the stage. And so I set myself up for a fall, which I am happy to say I have pretty much worked through by now, but that bears telling here. What Destiny had in mind was something quite different, of course, than my misguided imaginings. Yes, she had just broken up with her boyfriend and seemed to be in the market for a new one; yes, she resonated strongly with me on a soul level and had questions to which I felt I could offer answers; but she was already on a different path, one that required an absolute, core-level renunciation of both desires on my part. I admit that it has not been easy, not easy at all to do that work on myself, but I have the necessary skills and tools to do it and since I committed to it, Destiny has been helping me along in little ways (thanks, universe).

The story is not over yet, but the rest remains to be seen. All will unfold as it must, regardless of the puny intentions of anyone. We human souls who walk this earth are as mites compared to the will of the Divine. Utterly inconsequential (that is, until we learn to be a lot closer to the Divine, at which point I suppose we will have bigger and better places to be). I am committed to the Great Work; that and no other shall be my guiding star.

In closing, I send a heartfelt prayer of thanks to the source of all things, which in its infinite wisdom has seen fit to try my heart and purify it in the flames of this holy purgatory which has but the appearance of profanity, for all things are holy that proceed from God, and there is nothing in existence that is not from that same source.

The perfection of your works, O Lord, is absolute. I embrace all things as they are: the suffering and the joy, the grime and the glory, the fall and the redemption, the loss and the gift. Whatsoever I lose for your sake, I will gain better in return. Help me to walk this path of your righteousness, for without your signs and angels I would quickly go astray. All is well when I am with you, and as long as it is so, I shall have no fear. Thank you for your longsuffering patience and your abundant grace gifts every day of my life. Your Love is everything, and everything is a manifestation of your Love. Let your Love be known in my heart and let it shine through even in the darkest hours to come. ~Your humble servant, this self.

I suppose I'll start by describing a dream I had last night. In point of fact, I did not dream it at night, because I actually slept from morning to evening, after staying up watching the SF anime classic Akira and the comedy classic Monty Python's The Meaning of Life on DVD, which may serve to provide a bit of context.

Essentially, the dream was about me being cajoled, enticed, tempted, and drawn into a state of total powerlessness. The process began in earnest when I found myself hypnotized by the soft, flickering bluish glow of a little LCD monitor that was showing a movie of some kind. That was the tipping point, when I slid into apathy toward the “real world” around me. Soon, through my lack of effective resistance to the reassuring but treacherous hypnotic suggestions of “agents” around me, I found myself lying on a sort of hospital bed that was more like an operating table in actual function. The sexy “nurses” projected the impression that they were there to help me, that they had only my best interest at heart, and that the best thing I could do was relax and let them do their job. By the time I realized that their true intentions were less than benevolent, it was too late. My muscles would no longer respond, due to some drug they'd injected in me. They began their work by taking samples, violating my body with their needles in a way that was simply humiliating. Mercifully, I lost consciousness. My last, dimly felt emotions before slipping away completely were outrage and resentment.

Oddly enough, those emotions came back to haunt me when I woke up and read my mail. Through simple incompetence more than any plausible ill will, the tax bureau is still operating as though I were an entrepreneur making a modest living off of my business, which has been officially defunct since September and only ever really existed on paper to begin with. In reality, I don't owe them a dime, but they still sent me invoices for hundreds of euros that I'm supposedly due to pay this year. Realistically, it's only a matter of a visit or two to the local tax office to clear it up, but the infuriating emotional impact of the letter came regardless of that fact. It doesn't help things that I'm already caught up in a more advanced stage of a similar, less easily resolved game with an evil, bloodsucking little company that managed to “sell” me a worthless, yet ridiculously expensive Google advertising package on the phone last summer before I even knew what the hell was up. The wheels of legal action in that case are already turning, and I really don't think there's anything I can do. I'm not equipped to defend myself against that sort of thing, and I suspect the law may well be on their side. So I suppose I'll see where that goes. I'd really like to see them just choke on their own vomit. It's not like they'll ever see the money. I'm more likely to receive a prison sentence, haha.

So the darkness is closing in, even as the days get longer up here in the north. The web of the matrix tightens. I made mention earlier of some plans I've been cooking up. I feel obligated on some level to make a disclosure, but I think it's too early to go into detail just yet. I have made my intentions known to some, though, and if the surveillance/intelligence complex is doing its job, then the data is already in its files. (conspiratorial wink)

I will say that by the time summer is in bloom, I intend to be off the grid and hopefully off the radar of officialdom. Worldly security and status hold very little allure for me, now less than ever. I do find myself caught, though, between the impulse to continue creating and displaying my whimsical little works of material configurations, and the impulse to drop everything, let go of my material attachments, and withdraw from the mainstream entirely. I do believe there is a middle road encompassing both, if I can only traverse it. I just need to figure out exactly how. I've got some ideas. Time will reveal the right course of action. I have already consulted the runes and the pendulum regarding the basic nature of what I'm set to go through, and I will probably make use of them and other modes of communication with higher self in the near future.

The dog poet is on something of a hiatus and that (or whatever invisible causes are behind that) is affecting my mood as well. His latest audio broadcast was, however, very comforting and very touching. He read some lovely poetry in there. I would recommend it to anyone.

Overwhelmingly, in my more conscious hours (there are times of relative oblivion too), my heart is crying out to the higher power that governs all things with ultimate perfection.

Help me to see. I want to see. Please show me more.

Lord, grant me strength.

How much longer will You allow evil to rampage unchecked in the world? How much longer? Until 2012? 2050? If it were up to me, Lord, I would start turning things around right now. I suppose you are too wise and perfect to think as I do. Evil will destroy itself eventually, though, won't it? When it has run its course, served its purpose in the dreaming of Your children.

Lord, take away from me that which is holding me back. Help me to subdue my petulant and demanding ego. No, not subdue: merely help it to see that it is not the one in charge, and that it has nothing to fear by releasing its desire to always be in control.

I know that I have a path to tread in this life. I chose it before I came here. However haltingly and imperfectly, I know that I am on it right now and have always been. Everything that comes into my life has a purpose. Help me to see it through the impartial eyes of divinity as the perfection that it is.

Thank You, Lord, for being with me. For guiding my every step, for protecting me, for comforting me. For testing me and trying me, though never more than I can bear. You provide for every need of my body and soul. Above all, You grant me freedom in every moment, to choose my own experience. I am Your child, and one day I will return to You and give you back all that I am, all that I have gained through all my millions and billions of years of existence.

Thank You.

These past couple of days have seemed to follow some kind of weird script. I've spent them with a friend of mine who's been going through some internal malaise that could be described as depression, but that I might also term an existential crisis. I've been through quite a doozy of the same myself in the not-too-distant past, so on some level I can understand what it's like.

My own deep existential crisis occurred in September of 2008. I was visiting the town where I was born, seeking my next foothold out of a dead-ended life situation. I was looking for answers with a mixture of nervous hope and bright-eyed desperation. But instead of the answers I was looking for, I found something I never expected.


Chaos.

The Void.

The complete and utter antithesis of God and Creation and all that might give a shred of meaning to this cruel joke of an existence that we call “life.”

In deep metaphysical contemplation, I saw God and looked past his shoulder; right through him, in fact. What I saw behind him was absolutely terrifying. The Abyss swallowed every last bit of my capacity for joy and pleasure and satisfaction. Next to that mind-boggling nothingness, the Divine seemed an insubstantial dream of the utmost audacity.

In that moment, I hated God. Almost every fiber of my being was turned against him. I raged at him for being such an idiot, to think any of it justifiable. I cursed him out for a good six hours straight, no exaggeration. For six hours, I ran a loop in my head saying “fuck you” to the universe in general and its maker in particular.

Not surprisingly, that didn't make me feel any better. I could almost physically feel my frequency resonance vibration dying down, down, down, weaker and darker, to what felt like the bare minimum to function as a human being. I was a weary, grey husk. As therapy, catharsis was a failure. As a tool to mess myself up, though, as some twisted revenge, it was perfect.

That night, I was drawn into imaginings of my own death, by my own doing. The most convenient location would be the local ski jump, if I could get up to the top and throw myself off. I never fully intended to do it, but I was engaging in a reckless game of brinksmanship with the Creator. I wanted to see how far this cruelly compassionately dispassionately orchestrated universe would let me go before it either stopped me... or didn't.

I snuck out of the place I was staying at and went for a hike up to the mountaintop where the ski jumps were. The new one was inaccessible, being a walled concrete tower, but the older, wooden one was open. I went up and found myself in the company of a romantic couple, a few years younger than me. “All right,” I thought. “So much for this game.”

By then, though, my suicidal motivation had cooled down by several degrees due to the walking it had taken to get there. Walking is always good therapy. It helps one mull things over and see them in a new light. I was still pissed off, but only a little. I could see the humour in the situation. I knew I was ruining the kids' romantic interlude, but I didn't give a damn about that. I chatted them up a bit, friendly-like. Commented on the view (amazing) and the stars (awe-inspiring). Asked them if they believed UFOs were real, a usual question for me. They were polite, but soon realized I wasn't going away, so they left. I had the tower to myself, and I lingered there with my thoughts, admiring the view, until the cold got to me and I hiked back to the apartment and snuck back in with no one the wiser.

It actually took me about three weeks to recover from this crisis, to feel like myself again. It was not easy to come back around, but I did. I had the support of a few especially dear friends with whom I was able to share what I'd been going through.

It was as much a crisis of belief in general as it was a crisis of my relationship with the One. I think that may have been the point where I finally gave up on the idea of being able to grasp anything objectively. I realized that my personal reality is the one that has meaning for me (if any), and that it can only ever be subjective. Therefore, belief is purely a matter of choice and it is probably best to indulge in it (if at all) with a generous helping of “I really don't know.” At the same time, I recognized that eternal agnosticism on everything until proven or disproven is a hell of a useless and boring way to go. One needs to have faith in something. On some level, faith is a risk. As such, I find it's also very exhilarating, and, more often than not, pretty rewarding.

Since that time, I haven't really had any issues with belief. My approach to truth-seeking has been psychologically pretty well-balanced, in my opinion. I'd say it was well worth passing through the darkness of that existential nightmare. Once I faced it and won, I could move on and not look back.

Returning to the present case of my young, deeply intelligent and aware, but troubled friend, I had a dream about him before we spent this weekend together. I dreamed that his car had blown up while parked on the side of the street, with him in it. Gasoline fumes, most likely. Blew the roof off and charred everything. He was dead. I saw his body in the remains of the car, somehow perfectly intact in death. His face looked peaceful. I mourned the loss of him and my soul wept. But then I felt this knowing, like he was still around close by, floating above our heads somewhere. I felt his relief at being released from his pain and bondage, and his joy at discovering that it was all right after all, there was nothing to feel bad about, and that, truly, there is a divine agency that sustains and embraces all existence with its eternal and all-surpassing love.

It wasn't long before I saw him again in the dream, wearing a brown leather jacket and a smile that reflected the awesome gnosis he had received in death. After considering things from that new perspective, he had chosen to come back, and he was READY TO ROCK THIS WORLD.

As for what transpired in the waking world, I won't bore you with too many details. It began and ended with highly significant and impossibly mirror-image-like events, and the middle involved mild inebriation and dancing at a local watering hole, spiced with a mysterious triple synchronicity from Bill Shakespeare. What's to tell, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. You think I'd tell you about that cute girl who was totally digging me? Forget it. (grin)

I am often frustrated by the inadequacy of language as a mode of expression. Stringing words together in a linear sequence to form sentences and paragraphs seems so clumsy and crude. The confluence of brevity and precision is so hard to achieve. In writing, thank goodness, the process of composition is at least somewhat non-linear and unbound by time, which is a big help. But the fact remains that one is limited to a single perspective and a single voice at any one time, and as a result, the literal description of a complex thought or idea takes a great many words.

Poetry seeks to circumvent this limitation by calling upon the imagination of the reader as a decoding device. It is well understood that poetry is not like prose; it cannot be absorbed in an instant of literal understanding. It requires the engagement of the intuitive faculty. Because it depends upon the ability of the reader to decode it subjectively, poetry remains more or less opaque to the mind that is not already calibrated to receive it.

Even now, looking back on the few sentences above, I despair of my inability to express what I mean. I feel like a painter without the ability to mix his colours. If I say this, then it is automatically not-that until I say that as well.

I would like there to be a mode of communication that were more like a holographic projection than a flat image built up of one-dimensional lines. Instead of one word illuminating one little piece of an idea at a time, I could convey the whole idea at once, with all its shades and subtleties, in such a way that it could be viewed from all the multiple perspectives that I perceive.

Of course, such a mode exists, although few of us are yet able to make much use of it. It's called telepathy. My concept of telepathy is that it is something like poetry, something like music, something like sculpture and painting and photography and dance and theatre. It is all these things and more. Speaking and writing would be included, but in their higher-dimensional aspects.

The Internet gives us the ability to start bridging toward that model. Using hyperlinks, mouse-over texts, context menus, images, sounds, videos, and other interactive media, it is possible to convey information in an almost fractal or holographic way. For this reason, I sometimes think of the Internet as “training wheels for telepathy.” True telepathy will be much smoother and faster, since we will no longer need these crude technological interfaces and our brains will be operating at a much higher bandwidth than they do now, in higher dimensions, allowing for exponentially greater data density.

The transhumanists believe this will be achieved through man-made technology. Maybe it will, for some, but I would much rather let it happen naturally, through the activation of DNA. That, I think, would ensure that physical evolution doesn't happen without the corresponding spiritual evolution that is needed to be able to handle the new abilities responsibly.

I know there are going to be people reading this who think this idea of our consciousness evolving is just New Age bullshit being pushed on the masses to distract and placate us while the controllers steal the last of our wealth, genocide the useless eaters, and implement the final stages of their world police state. Others will call bullshit on both of these views. It doesn't matter. You can believe whatever you want, and you will. This is just me talking.

Anyway, I'm of the opinion that we're all one mind to begin with, so telepathy is ultimately nothing more than us realizing and manifesting a slightly truer image of ourselves. Whatever you might think of that, isn't it interesting to note how there's less and less privacy, more and more transparency in all human affairs? That's why so much dirty laundry is coming out into the open. You can't keep secrets anymore. The times don't allow it. For those who only want the truth, that's great news. And if you've got something you're hiding from the world, well... I'd say you'd better come clean while you still have the chance, because it's going to come out one way or another, telepathy or no.

This is the sixth and final Night of the Galactic Underworld. Shit stinks and there's no hiding the smell. We've all got our own shit to deal with. Hoo-ee! These are the times that try men's souls. (And women's, obviously. Stupid language with its stupid conventions.) Yeah. So let's all work on ourselves and not waste time about it. Evolution ain't optional, I'm afraid. It's happening whether you want it to or not, and the more you resist, the tougher the schoolmaster'll have to get on you. Might as well do it the fun way, huh?

That sounds like a good idea to me.

As you know, I was recently given a test in life. One of those experiences that life throws at you just to see how you react to the circumstances, I guess. Circumstances that may look challenging, but can also offer a needed opportunity to go beyond your comfort zone, to learn something new, or remember something you'd lost sight of along the way.

Now that the trying situation has come to its happy resolution, it is time for me to reflect: how did I do? On the one hand, well; on the other, not so well. Five days of total isolation did not bring out the best in me at some points. I found myself terrified of facing the quiet, clear reflection of my own thoughts and feelings in the mirror of my mind and heart, and so I did everything I could to disturb the surface. I even overwhelmed my senses with loud, restless, pounding music, with a certain vengeful satisfaction at disturbing my neighbours as well, which is totally out of character for me. It was a far cry from where I'd been at the beginning of my trial, when the isolation only worked in my favour as I purified myself and moved into the power of stillness.

I don't know how seriously I believe in interdimensional interference. Certainly a number of people of integrity and knowledge whom I highly respect are of the opinion that such things go on, and some have described their extensive experiences of them in detail. My own experience leads me to consider the idea a reasonable one. I have had unequivocal subjective proof that hyperdimensional forces are active in my life, guiding me, giving inspiration, and effecting some mind-blowing synchronicity. Why, then, should I disbelieve that negative forces are also at work on me, doing everything in their power to lead me astray, distract me, weaken me, and prevent me from fulfilling my potential?

Is the notion too wild to entertain that, by engaging in spiritual warfare, I made myself more of a target? I may have, I don't know. Or maybe all that is just another way of seeing things, another illusion that points the way to the truth. After all, there's nothing external that doesn't somehow reflect something internally. If I succumbed to a non-material counterattack, that means I still have work to do on myself. I should qualify that: I have a lot of work to do on myself. And I've just barely begun that work, even having come as far as I have in some ways.

I once half-jokingly told a friend on Internet chat that I consider myself a Jedi, and that I'm just waiting for my Force abilities to activate. Big LOL there, no? Just waiting around isn't going to make them appear, of course. Universe, however, is kicking me in the direction I need to go, so waiting around isn't even an option. And the more I start to carry my own weight in the right direction, the more I will find universe meeting me halfway, boosting me forward.

Knowing what to do is easy. I've been hearing what I need to do from so many people, so many sources, including the voice of my own inner knowing. The first and foremost thing I need to do is to consistently seek God. And the only place a person can “get” God is within themselves. That's where the divine spark is that sustains our life and is indeed made in the image of the One. To practice that connection to Source is the key to an abundant life. It is necessary to meditate, or pray, daily, and not in a half-assed way, either. It has to be absolutely the single most important thing in my life. I had grasped that before the holidays, and then I forgot it again just as easily in the midst of all the hustle and bustle. That is what I had lost sight of, and may well have been the main reason why I had to go through this five-day blackout and the ersatz insanity that came with it. It showed me how lost I am without that awareness of God, without my recommended daily intake of Awake, Focused, Here and Now.

No one ever said this would be easy. I'm still at a stage where I'm wavering between strength and weakness, remembering and forgetting. For every victory there is a defeat, but I am reminded of the motion of a pendulum: every swing moves the hands of the clock forward another notch. There will always be challenges; of that I am sure. But as what was challenging before is easier now, so the future will bring ever greater challenges. From each according to his ability. No one is given a burden beyond their ability to bear. I find that, for all the complaints I might choose to make, my burden is still mine, and it still fits me perfectly. Really, I wouldn't have it any other way.


Adiemus - Adiemus on YouTube

P.S. This morning, when I woke up, I put on some music from Adiemus' Songs of Sanctuary. The effect was immediate and overpowering: my emotional dam, which had been doing such a wonderful job of shielding me these past few days, broke to smithereens and I found myself weeping uncontrollably for several minutes, followed by alternating and intermingled laughter and tears. Perceiving the simultaneous horror, tragedy, and injustice of this harsh world together with its incredibly noble, stoic beauty, and the possibility of Sanctuary from it all, is what did it. It is at once a heart-rending and a cosmically humorous scenario that we are in, we humans.

December 30, 2009

9:00 PM – 27 hours until Zero Hour. Went for a sauna, threw water on the hot rocks 3x3x3 times. Began fasting.

9:30 PM – Started writing this entry.


December 31, 2009, New Year's Eve

6:30 AM – Wake up. Breakfast is plain porridge and water.

7:30 AM – Catch ride with uncle to city where I live.

8:00 AM – Arrive at home.

To-do list for the day: Go through mail. Clean apartment. Cleanse out toxic holiday crap. Work out, meditate, nap.

11:33 PM – Final preparations for Zero Hour. As far as possible, remove all frequencies within self that might interfere.


January 1, 2010, New Year's Day

12:00 AM – Zero Hour. WEIRDing.

Post-Zero Hour – Turn focus to other, unrelated things. God knows there are enough of them. I have some crazy plans. More (but not too much more) about those later.

Subsequent WEIRDing sessions will not require quite such an involved process of preparation. The first session will establish the tone and is therefore the most demanding. After that, it will only be a matter of recalling that frequency, holding it, and refining it.

EDIT: I noticed that the clock on my computer said 22:22 immediately after I posted this. Just a little nod from the other side of the veil. (wink)

It goes almost without saying that I've been going through a very transformative time lately. What else is new, right? (grin) This time I feel I'm really making progress in some fundamental areas. My whole sense of reality has begun to shift on an ever-deeper level, beyond mere intellectual awareness and into the level of basic belief and manifest experience.

The last time I wrote, my breakthrough was the laying of a particular foundational rock, the ability to stand firm in the knowledge that I AM, therefore I AM. The implications of this knowledge are far-reaching. If I Am as the Infinite Is, then truly I am the Infinite. (As are you and as is everything in existence.) My conscious, egoic mind now has a way to become a tool and a partner in life, such that it might eventually know its place and be able to be called up and used or set aside at will.

After this epiphany, it was natural for me to attract to myself the next piece of the puzzle. It's a piece that I've always had with me; again, this was simply a matter of having it clarified and brought home in a more personally meaningful and relevant way.

The re-Minder (re-Hearter) in this case was David Icke's Tales from the Time Loop, specifically the latter portion. David, in his inimitably down-to-earth style, makes very clear his understanding that “Infinite Love is the only truth; everything else is illusion.” He reduces our seeming reality into the vibrations of energy that it fundamentally is. We are infinite consciousness choosing to have an experience of being human. Our five senses function to receive vibrational signals and construct an immersive virtual reality experience that we then like to think is perfectly real and solid and existing, in an absolute sense, independently of ourselves. Wrong!

Where did all that vibrating energy come from? It came from consciousness to begin with! So what we are observing as this seeming world “out there” is in fact a direct reflection of the thoughts that consciousness is having. Thoughts become things through the alchemy of creation. By thinking something, consciousness also creates it. Because it's all just a virtual reality, right? So, then... what's the power behind it all???

It's Love, silly! That's the whole reason for creating anything in the first place. Love is what makes up and sustains everything that is. And the Love of Prime Creator is a perfect, all-encompassing Love that is the only thing that really exists in an absolute and eternal sense. When we speak of Oneness, we are speaking of Infinite Love. They are the same thing.

Oneness does not vibrate, because there are no two different states for it to oscillate between. It is totally still. It simply IS. David Icke puts it so well when he describes how to get in touch with Infinite Love. All it takes is stillness. He doesn't feel the need to “meditate,” but he often does simply “sit quietly,” allowing all illusory thoughts to recede from his mind, allowing stillness to enter in. In that place of peace and stillness is the awareness of Infinite Love.


In my very limited experience, I have found that David's method can work to at least some degree. I have personally, however, had more success (i.e. a more “spectacular” experience) by placing my hands over my heart chakra and visualizing it opening like a flower with layer upon layer of petals, becoming ever more exposed and vulnerable. At the same time, I let go of ego as best I can and focus my being on just surrendering to the awesome truth of what is, to the experience of divine Love. With this method, I've been able to feel half-second bursts of the most incredible feeling I could imagine. And yet, I know that all I've allowed myself to feel has been the merest shadow, the faintest holographic imprint, of what Infinite Love really is. If I felt much more than that, I think I'd blow every fuse in my body. (grin)



I've been exposed to the idea of “You create your own reality” in an explicit way only since I read an e-book on “manifesting” using the so-called “Law of Attraction” a couple of years ago. However, that book didn't really seem to convey a full grasp of it all, in a practicable way, now that I compare it to Montalk's excellent summary on reality creation (Part 1, Part 2). You'll want to read that one for sure.

Reality creation is nothing more than the use of certain metaphysical principles to influence a given reality into being. Key factors are conscious intent (confidently deciding something, declaring it as your intent), attraction (holding thoughts that resonate with the desired reality), appropriate action (meeting reality halfway, creating possibilities for manifestation), and non-anticipation (anticipating something energetically blocks it from occurring in the way anticipated). Anxiety and doubt are obstacles to manifestation, whereas a nonchalant attitude of confidence and simple trust is key.

I have had at least one quite persuasive, though small-scale, success with reality creation. I once had a veritable clan of indestructible warts on my feet that persisted for many years, far longer than warts are supposed to last, despite my every attempt to scour them away with whatever wart cures the pharmacy had to offer. Finally, I decided, “Heck with it, I might as well try some of this voodoo, woo-woo stuff.” I put myself into as deep a trance state as I could achieve and thought wart-free thoughts as fervently as I could muster. For the next two weeks, I took “appropriate action” by eating a strict raw-foods, vegan diet. I hardly thought about my warts. I was emotionally detached from the results of the whole endeavour. Lo and behold, one morning I took a look at my feet: not a single wart nor any sign that I'd ever had one. As far as I'm concerned, that was reality creation at work, by the book. For a long time, I kind of half-dismissed the whole thing as an unrepeatable fluke, but I'm now hoping to use it to manifest progressively more spectacular results.



“Flow” is a related concept, also relevant to my current situation. I've been more or less pretty well in it lately, except for a few rough patches. Flow happens when you're following the path of least resistance. Conventional wisdom might call this laziness, but I call it not being a stupid goat-head, bashing yourself against the fence when you could just walk around it. One of David Icke's aphorisms is “Flow equals Go; Stuck equals Chuck (or change).” Being in the Flow is simply a sign that you're on the right track in life, doing what you're meant to be doing. Life isn't meant to be a miserable cycle of soul-sucking drudgery and failure; if that's your experience, then UR DOIN IT RONG. Either that or you actually signed up for such an experience before coming here; in that case, don't complain. (grin)

It's absolutely essential, if you want to get into the Flow and stay there, to follow your intuition. It'll never steer you wrong if you just cultivate the ability to hear what it's actually saying. Your intuition comes from the part of you, the non-egoic part, that's connected with all things and knows all things. It may come as the merest whisper or nudge, but you ignore it at your peril. The logical, reasoning mind can only see to the next bend, but the intuitive mind sees the whole route at once. It's there to guide you, so make use of it.

Remember the Little Engine that Could? He believed he could, and so that was his reality. If he'd believed the opposite, then he'd have gotten the opposite reality, “can't” instead of “can.” Believing makes it so. Be careful what you believe, what you tell yourself, and what you let others tell you. Your core beliefs are more than just the lens through which you view reality; they ultimately create that reality.

That's all I've got this time. Thanks for tuning in!

Human experience follows a limited set of archetypes. One of the best-known models of this set is laid out in the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot. Card XVI, The Tower, represents the archetype of the Dark Night of the Soul.

I just passed through a Dark Night of the Soul experience, and am still very much in the process of learning from it, seeking and assimilating the wisdom to be gained. I am grateful to several individuals in particular for helping me pull through. One of them is a public figure, rapper KRS-ONE. His lecture Hip Hop Beyond Entertainment was instrumental in bringing about the personal epiphany that brought this most recent Dark Night experience of mine to a definitive close.

KRS-ONE re-minded me (re-HEARTed is more like it) of the primal significance of the realization that I AM. That's where our true power comes from, the power to truly end slavery – to end the entire idea, the very consciousness behind slavery. To paraphrase the hip hop philosopher, as long as you're looking outside yourself for validation, you are FREED – not FREE. Freedom – self-actualization – is what gives someone the ability to take a worthless rag, tie it around their head, walk around in public like that rag is worth ten thousand bucks, and end up having other people actually pay ten thousand bucks to have one just like it.

And that's pretty much what hip hop did. It came out of seemingly hopeless circumstances: war overseas, fatherless families, an epidemic of heroin, substandard education, and a cycle of poverty. That generation, in order to survive in a world where it was effectively excluded from the mainstream of society, had to self-create its own identity outside the mainstream. If they'd waited for permission to have a culture, or to join the wider, established culture, they'd still be waiting. Except they'd probably be dead. It was Do or die, so the ones who refused to die... Did. Lacking instruments, they made their own music with what they did have. Lacking approved venues for their visual art, they used the surfaces that were there, whether they had permission or not; hence, graffiti. Their solution to the impossibility of their situation was to reject the reality of their parents' generation and replace it with their own reality, one that they could understand and that reflected their own values. Hip hop didn't need approval, it approved itself... and flourished. By the same token, FREE human beings don't need to earn the right to exist, they have that right intrinsically, because they exist. I AM, therefore I AM.

What value do you place on yourself? Are you worth more if you own more real estate or have a bigger bank account? Are you more human because you have a family and other people who care about you? If you don't value your soul, does it have worth? Are you less than completely you if you lack the university degree or the job you want? Does your self-worth depend on someone else's say-so? And who is responsible for you? Do you want somebody to protect you from your own choices, or are you willing to face the consequences without blinking? If you say you're going to do something, and then don't hold yourself to it, what was the point? Your existence either means something, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then you might as well not exist. And would you choose that, really? Because it is a choice. You may not have to earn your right to exist, but you sure as hell ought to claim it. Because if you don't own your life, someone else will.

Me, I'm still working on getting this through to myself. It's been four and a half years since the first time I consciously came to this realization. That time I ended up losing my nerve, sliding back. I reckon it's a case of “not being ready 'till you're ready.” But I think the point's been driven just a liiiittle closer to home this time. If it takes another Dark Night before I'm really ready, then so be it. But I'm not throwing away this chance.

Thank you, God, and thank me, God.

Espavo, Namasté, and peace out.

(This dream didn't seem very important at first. But the more I recalled of it, the more I realized how significant it might be – for its entertainment value, if nothing else. The following story is 95% straight from the dream, as close as I can get it and still have a coherent text.)

~

Buddy and I are messing around in the school gym. No one's around, so like the kids we are, we open up the bleachers and start running up and down, making kiddish little jokes. All of a sudden, I get this strong premonition, as if the fire alarm were sounding, even though nothing can be physically heard: “Danger, danger! Look outside!”

I run out, up the corridor, and through the two sets of glass doors to get outside. I look up. There's a gigantic thing in the sky, coming down. At first it's just a bunch of glowing straight lines, but as it slowly makes its spinning descent, its form becomes more solid. It's a friggin' alien spacecraft, and it does not feel friendly at all.

Before the thing even lands, I'm making to run inside to warn everybody, 'cause I got this huge adrenaline rush, fight-or-flight, and everything in me screams FLIGHT. But there's already a cascade of bodies piling out of the doors. People are going out to meet this thing. All they've got is curiosity and excitement, no idea that they're walking straight into the monster's jaws. I'm screaming at them as I fight the current to get back inside, but nobody pays any attention. I'm just an annoyance to them.

I watch helplessly as the crowd makes its way up to the ship, which has now landed on the grass of the playing field and opened up its large bay doors. A ramp bridges the divide between ship and schoolyard, nice and level. There's some kind of really weird mind control going on, like a voice in your head, and it seems to affect everyone but me. The message is basically that everything we could ever want and need is on board, and we'll all be so much happier if we leave our old lives behind and go along with the ship. It stinks to high heaven and I don't believe any of it for a second.

But everyone else is going. So what can I do except tag along?

~

I'm on the ship. It's a lot bigger on the inside, more like a city than a building. Earth is gone, we're stuck in outer space somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere.

I have to say, they've got a pretty good set-up here. It's the perfect prison. There are no guards, no bars. But the conditioning! It was all done in stages, but now everyone's used to it. The meaningless jobs that they slave at for most of the day. The rules and regulations covering every aspect of their lives. The ugly, crowded accommodations. The sterile, artificial food.

I go visit my friend. He's still his happy old self. He's one of the first to have voluntarily moved to the new living quarters: a grid of concrete cells sunk about a metre and a half into the floor. Oh, but you can still move around freely, visit your neighbours. It's not that bad, really. He digs into his meal ration, a new and improved option: what looks like bread crumbs (but probably isn't), mixed with a chemical cocktail of different powders for enhanced flavour and nutrition and performance, with a little oil to make it stick together and go down. He offers me a taste. It's really good, he says, beaming. I decline.

Next day, there's an announcement: no work today. Just fun and good times. They call it Entertainment Day. They have these, what, once a month, once a year? Always a surprise, and it's such fun that nobody complains. Wouldn't dream of it. Aren't they so awesome for giving us Entertainment Day? I watch as everyone crowds into the coliseum. Not into the stands; their place is in the arena. Oh yeah, here they come: the bat-winged terror babies. Are they monkeys or babies? Whatever they are, we're all terrified of them. They swarm us and strafe us and swoop down to scrape us. We all run around like headless chickens, screaming, hooting and hollering. The masters love it. And somehow, so does everyone else. They like being terrorized.

I'm not like the others. I've never succumbed to any of the masters' conditioning. Oh, but I keep forgetting: they've got their own special conditioning just for me. You see, I serve them too. It has to be that way. In return, I get some pretty good perks. But I'm not a willing servant. I hate them for what they've done to us all. In my heart, I swear I will see their rule ended.

I suppose I should be thankful they let me keep at least part of my mind. I never remember any of the stuff I do for them, and maybe that's their sick idea of mercy. I'm not really human anymore; I'm something more... and less. I can appear in physical form, like the rare times I visit my old friends, but mostly I stay ghostly. It's a lot easier to explore places and observe what's going on when you don't have to explain your presence.

There are two of them, a male and a female. I belong to him, so I don't see as much of her. In my mind, I call them the Archons. Everyone loves them. Supposedly. Yeah, Big Mommy and Big Daddy. Nobody suspects the truth about Mommy and Daddy Archon: that all we are to them, and to their real children, is a big family food factory. We are their food.

Mister Archon is a giant, a four-metre-tall, reddish humanoid with a pair of long, black horns on his head. I have a hard time remembering what Missus Archon looks like. I think she's rather similar, except bluish. She tends to the demon-babies most of the time. Her partner is in charge of us slaves, it seems. I can tell their union is one of expedience and barely-disguised dysfunction. They both have terrible tempers, and I suspect they hate each other, but on the surface, everything is okay.

I only have one trick up my sleeve when it comes to getting back at them. Sure, I can play little tricks, get them to go at each other, but that's too sneaky for my tastes. I want them to know it's me.

I grab Mister Archon by the horns.

When I do that, he's totally helpless. It's amazing. 'Cause normally, he's this huge, intimidating beast of a being, and those horns are like the dot on the 'i' of his incredible fearsomeness. But they're so long that if I grab on close to the ends, he can't even reach me. He's reduced to a flailing, stamping, wall-banging, totally out-of-control, impotent mess. And who can respect a guy that suddenly goes apeshit like that for no apparent reason? His wife doesn't, that's for sure.

Maybe she'll take over from him, lock him up so he'll stop being such a public embarrassment. I daresay she could do it; despite his braggadacio, she does seem to be the one wearing the pants. I don't know how the slaves are going to react, but she controls the monkey army for sure.

I don't know what else to do. I don't have a plan. I don't see much hope for a revolt, much less a successful one. Maybe I'm a fool. But what do I have to lose? My life? Hah. I'm a ghost already. Maybe some miracle will happen, deus ex machina comes to set things right. The probabilities don't favour us, but maybe the universe does. That's my only hope.

In the meantime, all I can do...

... is grab the devil by the horns.

If anyone's been wondering why I chose “New Renaissance” as the defining term for my recent series of posts on influential personalities, the answer is simple.

It's an unoriginal, pretentious, forced-sounding name that borders on the ironic, and yet, in a very deep sense, it does capture the essence of what I see beginning to happen. And yes, I did pretty much just pull it out of my ass. So much the better!

Because of something I caught wind of today (the 2nd of November as I write) concerning an upcoming significant date in (one or more of) the Mayan calendar(s), I checked my pitifully meager offline resource to see what, if anything, it had to say about this. As I expected, there was nothing specifically about November 8, 2009 – but there was a short piece on the Sixth Day of the Galactic Underworld, which just so happens to be ending right about now. And wouldn't you know it, the Sixth Day is also called the “Renaissance.” Synch!

Those doggone Mayan calendars keep cropping up; I find them impossible to ignore. Not to mention that their way of structuring and assigning meaning to time actually makes much more sense to me than this arbitrary Gregorian calendar we seem to be stuck with.

The 260-day Tzolk'in, for instance, gave me a whole new insight into who I am and what I'm all about in this particular lifetime. My Gregorian birth date translates as 13 Cimi. Thirteen is the sacred number of ascension and the completion of all things. Cimi is Death, the Transformer, which is big on transitions. Both are highly appropriate to my sense of purpose and my life experience thus far; taken together, they do as neat a job of summing me up as such a simple system could ever do.

To me, Death implies Rebirth. Rebirth = Renaissance. We are witnessing the steady and sure Death of everything that is out of resonance with what's coming. Some things will not survive at all; others must evolve or suffer the same fate. This is good. We don't want to bring the nasty baggage with us, and not only do we not want to, we can't. Those who insist on trying will find out just how futile that is. At the same time, seeds that have been lying dormant for as long as our “modern” dark age has existed are now sprouting. In the end, those seeds will spring up luxuriantly and exuberantly through the mulch of decay, bringing about the hard-won, glorious Rebirth of humanity.

You might be asking how I can state those things with such seeming certainty. My friend, these things are written. They are written in ancient heirloom teachings from eras past. They are written deep in humankind's genetic, racial memory. They are written in the movements of the heavenly spheres. They are written in the phenomena of the nature around us, if we but stop to observe and to ponder them. And from where I'm standing, these things are pretty much written on the wall. Not to mention in my heart, in the place that never, never knew a lie.

(At the same time, I don't want to pretend I'm totally free of any doubts about this thing. But those doubts come from a lower place. They're there to keep me on my toes and remind me how much work I still have to do on myself.)

I can't hope to convince anyone. I'm not equipped for that. But I can point you to some of the folks who might be able to help you convince yourself, if you're open to that.

I know, and I want to emphasize this, that everyone has their own truth, their own unique path to follow. This isn't about me trying to herd people onto my path. God forbid. Hell, I barely know what my path is. And I could be wrong about anything. The wise ones tell me to always be aware and to keep reminding myself of the eternal fact that I just... don't... know. The minute I forget that, I'm setting myself up for a fall. And falling hurts. But it's OK. Because everything is OK. We live and learn.

Now that I and my writing have once again come down to the level of a child, I think I shall call it a night.

P.S. The Dog Poet is rescheduled for tomorrow. Suspense getting to you? You know, you could just google it, find his stuff, and never glance at my blog again. (grin)

P.P.S. Children are amazing teachers. Seems like the younger and simpler they are, the more profoundly that holds true. ^^

Who am I?

I honestly don't know.

I've got a general idea, though, so I'll get that out of the way first.

I am a bundle of energy. The same fundamental energy that makes up everything in existence, from gross physical matter all the way up to pure enlightened consciousness. This bundle that I experience as being “me” – or, perhaps more precisely, the bundle doing the experiencing, I don't know – vibrates on many planes, in many dimensions, of which I suspect most are more or less hidden from my current mode of awareness. There's an overarching part of me that's outside the whole concept of time, and then there's a bunch of little selves protruding out from that, through the veil, into the temporal realms. From this side of the veil, they might appear to occur at separate points in time, but viewed from the other side, all are simultaneous. They are all my incarnations in physical form. Unfortunately, the only one of them about which I consciously know anything is the one doing the writing here and now. He is, I'm afraid, only a very limited expression of who I truly am. A pitifully blind, foolish, and faulty being compared to the fullness of his unimaginably more evolved, timeless “future” self.

(Staying on this side of the veil for convenience, I use the terms “past” and “future” in their conventional sense.)

Having thus briefly established the general context, I am now left with only a puzzling series of clues as to my soul origin and my reasons for incarnating here at this time.

The first clue is that very little in this world of man's creation makes sense to me. I struggle to understand why the power centers of this world are dominated by psychopaths. I struggle to understand why the people tolerate being ruled by psychopaths whose greatest goal is to create a social system antithetical to freedom, hostile toward all things good and pure and true and natural. I struggle to understand the senseless violence and cruelty and destruction visited by humans upon those whom (and that which) they ought to love and cherish and protect. I struggle to understand the petty, selfish, manipulating ways of so many people.

The best explanation I've been able to come up with for all this is that Earth, in this age, is a tough, tough school. A “free-will free-for-all,” where these things have been allowed to develop because nobody is going to come along and fix them for us. They're not allowed to, even if they'd like to. This planet is the way it is because we, collectively, have made it that way through our free will. All it takes is a small minority of truly evil beings, left unchecked, to transform paradise into the pit of hell. We allowed these people to come along and slowly subvert our systems and our values. We're the ones that gave 'em the green light, when we went along to get along, didn't stop and say “Hey, this isn't okay.” We did that because most of us were too busy with all of our little preoccupations in life. We weren't paying attention. We ignored the signs they waved in our faces. And, quite frankly, we weren't grown up enough to take responsibility. Our history is mostly a history of adult children. Earth humans, on the whole, just haven't been very mature. We've been obsessed with the needs of our egos, and we've spread our disease over the whole earth. Hence, we suffer, and we pass that suffering on from generation to generation.

Now how is this a clue?

Well, my intuition has told me, and my readings up and down the Interwebs have indicated, that Earth is in transition from an age of darkness to an age of light. This is a common thread through so many different prophecies that it's hard to believe otherwise if you put any stock in such things. Of course, one must always employ the good old-fashioned reality check with such matters. As it turns out, I do see the signs of that happening in the real world. I certainly don't believe in any storybook climactic battle or any human revolution of the kind we've seen before. I do believe that change is happening in uncountable ways, large and small, from the mundane to the cosmic. The evidence is there if you just look for it.

So I chose to incarnate at this time of transition. I, who feel so strongly the desire for a better world, am, in my own small way, a part of making that better world manifest. If you have the same desire in your heart, then you are a part of it, too. :)

That assisting, supportive role is, I'm sure, a big part of the reason I came here. But how, specifically, am I supposed to fulfill it?

The best answer I have at the moment is, in whatever way I can.

I'm sure a large portion of my work here is done without my even being terribly aware of it. Just by holding my energy in a physical body, participating in the collective consciousness of Earth humanity, going through my own inner process of becoming, and touching the lives of those around me, I am helping.

I've worked at a lot of different jobs in my time here, most of them menial and some more obviously “service to others”-oriented, some less, but none of them have especially said to me, “this is what you're here to do.” They've all simply been learning experiences and ways to earn my bread. At the moment, I hail from the deep ranks of the unemployed. For my next job, I hope to deliver the mail.

If you were to ask me what my best talents are, I'd probably say writing and building my own creations out of LEGO. The former I am just about passable at, and the latter is simply the end result of a prolonged childhood hobby cum artistic pursuit which I am now apparently in the process of leaving behind (but not before I finish a few final works in progress, heh heh). I daresay neither is a realistic career-driver. I'd rather do those things on my own terms, for my own reasons, than subject to the demands of a market, anyway.

I haven't confirmed this, but I've been told (post-initiation) that I have an especially powerful ability to channel reiki. I'm pretty sure reiki isn't bull, because I've felt its effects several times. One of my former employers had a natural ability, which she demonstrated on me. I didn't even know what she was doing, but I suddenly felt like I was burning up from the inside. All she'd done was hold her hands over my shoulders. So that was definitely something real. And if I can develop that “talent” in myself, I'm sure it will be a good way for me to serve humanity in the future. (Besides, I really like the idea of what reiki is supposed to be: a sort of loving, intelligent life-force energy that replenishes and balances the energy centers of the body, bringing healing, peace, and vitality to both patient and healer. :) I'm sure science will one day explain it, and my mind will be glad when it does, but I'm satisfied with just the touchy-feely understanding of it, too. It's one of those things, I guess, that you have to experience for yourself to truly understand.)

Obviously, since I mentioned writing, that is one way I can be of service. I've actually had a couple of “guidance” dreams that seemed to underline the idea that I should keep a blog like this one. So here we are with that. Yay!

I won't get into the things I've learned about myself and my life purpose from numerology or Mayan astrology here, because this entry is long enough already. Maybe another time.

OK, so much for what I'm supposed to be doing here. (Besides the obvious life purpose of gaining experience and using it to grow, I mean.) But now I'm left with the hardest puzzle of all: where the heck am I from?

The short answer is, I don't know and I don't think it really matters at this point. On the other hand, I'm dying to find out. Is it inner Earth? Jupiter? Arcturus? The Pleiades? Sirius? Andromeda? Cassiopaea? Orion? Just throwing out names, lol. It could be any one of these, or none. I don't feel a special affinity toward any star system, species, or channeled group. I'm just “me,” plain and simple. But I must have been “somewhere else” in recent past lives, because even our very 3-D physicality seems so quaint and painfully limiting to me. (haughty voice) “Where I come from, you know, we have telepathy and instant teleportation.” Or something like that. (grin)

The question of my so-called “soul origin” remains open. I'm open to clues, but I'm not very hopeful, either. I think if I knew, I'd run the risk of identifying too strongly with some off-planet past, and distract and distance myself from where I am now. Because for now, I am one of the ones I came here to help. I'm as much an Earth human as anyone else here. It's the only way I could do what I'm supposed to do. And you know what? If a friendly stranger offered me a ride in their spaceship, I might be tempted... but I don't think I'd get on board. In this life, my place is here, among these fallen souls who I call my brothers and my sisters. I, along with all the others like me, am in this with them. Together we'll make what happens, happen. And “the Lord and all his angels” shall be with us. :)