Friday, March 21, 2008

Pluto's Law

Essentially, my philosophy of life is simple, yet words are not sufficient to frame it.

The seed must go into the earth, and abide alone, and crack open, in order to bear fruit.

We must seek out the darkness that will reveal our true natures to us, and bring forth the light that is within us. Without this darkness, we can neither summon nor find nor recognize the individual sparks of light which we are.

This darkness is our Shadow, both individual and collective. We must move towards it, meet it head on, and allow it to embrace us. It is impossible to do this without fear, but we can at least have the grace and humility to surrender to the terror and allow it to bring us all the way into the moment. This way, we can fully experience the confrontation with the Shadow, maximize our gains, and minimize the trauma.

The seed that surrenders to the darkness and pressure of the earth and focuses on what is within it will soon break open and send forth the shoot by which new life can push upward, back towards the light. The seed that struggles against its fate and tries to rise back to the surface by its own power is doomed. Its own resistance will ensure its failure. It will never crack open; it will not sprout; it will not see the light.

This is Pluto’s law, and this is my philosophy—in a nut shell!

From here it is possible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel is my own psyche, and I am going inward. The light is there at the deepest, most recondite place within me.

The will to sprout and push upward can only come from within the seed. No external force can substitute—no love, no god—there is no salvation or deliverance without this will. In the final hour, the light must come from within us or there will be no light at all. It is this that the darkness is for: to bring each soul-seed to fruition.

Here is the true meaning of self-sufficiency: that so long as we continue to reach outside of ourselves for meaning—love, truth, joy, grace—we will always come up empty-handed, and each time a little more crushed and disillusioned.

Each soul must draw salvation from within itself, and this can only occur in complete isolation from all other souls. Until then, there can be no solidarity, no community, no love, that is not contaminated by need, no companionship uncompromised by the fear of aloneness. Only when we can abide alone, as seeds within the Earth, and shine like solitary stars in the darkness of space, will there be togetherness.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Castaneda & Strieber

A couple of new pieces I wrote have been posted a forums instead of here, as I enjoy the feedback

the first is called "Carlos Castaneda, Whitley Strieber, and the Perils of the Literary Shaman," which you can find either at dreamsend2 forum or at Rigorous Intuition

The second is a long piece on Whitley Strieber, Will the Real Whitley Strieber Please Stand Up?

AK