Galactic Raffle Over

No more submissions, thanks, winner/s has/have been selected and has been/will be notified (soon?).

thanks to everyone who submitted and also to those who did not.

Who Knows?

I won't be taking down all the sites as promised, at least not today.

Simple explanation: it is no more up to me whether I quit than it is to continue. Erasing the sites and announcing my disappearance is just the flip side of the same coin to that of my compulsive creativity. Extremes of behavior sustain one another. Also self-erasure can be slightly pathological (Carlos was obsessed with it).

For now, I will just say that I may never post or podcast again. But then again, I may. It's not up to me, so I am content just to say, who knows?



If not, then consider these various sites exquisite corpses.

In passing, I found an interesting definition yesterday in Doug Coupland's dictionary of the near future:

DESELFING Willingly diluting one’s sense of self and ego by plastering the Internet with as much information as possible. (See also Omniscience Fatigue; Undeselfing)

Consider me de-selfed.

Adieu or au revoir to all my faithful readers.

Ooops

self-sabotage at it's finest: the email address given below is incorrect; it should read aeolus_kephas at yahoo.com

That would explain why no one emailed AK - you think?! But not why no one asked about it in the comments section.

Too bad: I was beginning to think the message to retire was UNequivocal.

Email AK with subject line "WTF?" if you still want to qualify for free consult.

Galactic Raffle

If you are interested in a free consultation with Aeolus Kephas concerning your place and purpose within the galactic unfolding, send an email to aeoluskephas at yahoo.com, with the subject line "Who am I?"

In a couple of weeks, Aeolus will select an email at random. The winner will receive a free consultation with AK, on the subject matter of their choice.

Accelerated Evolution and the Other Self

Excerpts from the recent John De Ruiter seminar, juxtaposed with teachings of don Juan from Castaneda's The Eagle's Gift.

JDR said:

And there’s more to you than what you have believed. You have Direct Knowledge of more-of-you that has no relationship to your self yet. It has no purpose in your life yet. For you to believe as-awareness that Direct Knowledge, within, is for you within-your-self to be absorbed into that Direct Knowledge - turning you-as-awareness from the perspective of what your self is, into something completely different - and completely foreign to your self - foreign to what your self is at present, and yet beautifully you.

Carlos wrote:

Our total being consists of two perceivable segments. The first is the familiar physical body, which all of us can perceive; the second is the luminous body, which is a cocoon that only seers can perceive, a cocoon that gives us the appearance of giant luminous eggs.

One of the most important goals of sorcery is to reach the luminous cocoon; a goal which is fulfilled through the sophisticated use of dreaming and through a rigorous, systematic exertion called not-doing.

JDR said:

You within-all-of-your-self . . . summoning all awareness into one point - accomplishing the Being of Real Knowledge in your self - remaining one-pointed, accomplishing entrance into Direct Knowledge that isn’t in your self. Direct Knowledge in all of that-within that precedes the level of what your self is.

Carlos wrote:

The act of remembering the other self is thoroughly incomprehensible. In actuality it is the act of remembering oneself, which does not stop at recollecting the interaction warriors perform in their left side awareness, but goes on to recollect every memory that the luminous body has stored from the moment of birth.

This act of remembering, although it seems to be only associated with warriors, is something that is within the realm of every human being; every one of us can go directly to the memories of our luminosity with unfathomable results.

JDR said:

Believing that entering that is you within-all-of-your-self . . . being completely absorbed into the more-of-you-within. The form of your self has no relevance in that. Its relevance is made real in the all-of-you entering the level of our self, making it all different. The all-of-you accomplishes the all-of-your-self.

In that, there is no room for a little self. The little self becomes completely absorbed into the all of a greater self. A self capable of the all of your reality: Reality-of all-of-you. A form of self, reflecting that . . . making a self.

The making of a self that matches the all-of-you.

Carlos wrote:

Losing the human form is the only means of breaking that shell, the only means of liberating that haunting luminous core. To break the shell means remembering the other self, and arriving at the totality of oneself.

Losing the human form brings the freedom to remember your self. Losing the human form is like a spiral. It gives you the freedom to remember and this in turn makes you even freer.

JDR said:

You won’t be your self any more. You’ll be real pure You . . . that has a self and that will now, - completely change. The unpleasantness of that change, as profound as it is, is to Pure-You, un-daunting. Knowing moves only by Knowing; - the being-ness of that reflecting that. Every structure in your self, by you, will bend to that. Response to Direct Knowledge will have a face in your self.

Carlos wrote:

Warriors have no life of their own. From the moment they understand the nature of awareness, they cease to be persons and the human condition is no longer part of their view.

JDR said:

[With] knowledge that is greater than what your self is, … the presence of your self fades - and what comes into the fore is presence of THIS - presence of connection with more-of-you. A connection-within to the core, that doesn’t yet really relate to your self - making its fading … right for you.

With that fading . . . comes something of a seeing - from other dimensions within. Dimensions that your self and your life are not in sync with; they’re not the same-as.

Carlos wrote:

In those states of heightened awareness you've had an incomparable richness of personal interaction, a richness that your body has understood as a sensation of speeding. The richness of your perception on the left side has been, however, a post-facto realization. Your interaction appeared to be rich in the light of your capacity to remember it. You became cognizant then that in those states of heightened awareness you had perceived everything in one clump, one bulky mass of inextricable detail. You've called this ability to perceive everything at once-intensity. For years you have found it impossible to examine the separate constituent parts of those chunks of experience; you have been unable to synthesize those parts into a sequence that would make sense to the intellect. Since you were incapable of those syntheses, you could not remember. Your incapacity to remember was in reality an incapacity to put the memory of your perception on a linear basis. You could not lay your experiences flat, so to speak, and arrange them in a sequential order. The experiences were available to you, but at the same time they were impossible to retrieve, for they were blocked by a wall of intensity.

JDR said:

Your own belief in your knowledge of what is occurring here - your own belief in knowledge of more-of-you - subscribes to bulletins-of-resonance coming from . . . what I do here - supported by the awakened more-of-you.

These bulletins come into your self - and they are to you - direct sustenance that you are, in your self, desperately and wonderfully dependent on. They hone your awareness.

Carlos wrote:

We are not merely whatever our common sense requires us to believe we are. We are in actuality luminous beings, capable of becoming aware of our luminosity. As luminous beings aware of our luminosity, we are capable of unraveling different facets of our awareness, or our attention. That unraveling could be brought about by a deliberate effort, as we are doing ourselves, or accidentally, through a bodily trauma.

JDR said:

The conversion of your self … is the highly accelerated evolution of your self. Making up for time, far beyond any scope of your life. Bringing you into the more-of-you - accomplishing shared responsibility … in where everything - is going.

Carlos wrote:

The task of remembering, then, is properly the task of joining our left and right sides, of reconciling those two distinct forms of perception into a unified whole. It is the task of consolidating the totality of oneself by rearranging intensity into a linear sequence.

It occurred to us that the activities we remembered taking part in might not have taken long to perform, in terms of time measured by the clock. By reason of our capacity to perceive in terms of intensity, we may have had only a subliminal sensation of lengthy passages of time. . . . [If] we could rearrange intensity into a linear sequence, we would honestly believe that we had lived a thousand years.

JDR said:

By the time that lands, something entirely different . . . has landed on this planet - appealing only to the Innermost of what this planet is. Appealing not to its understood structures. Appealing not to its ways. Giving invitation for awareness from within its Outermost to surrender to knowledge coming up from within its Innermost - answering everything.

And the more . . . is all coming.

Carlos wrote:

To cross over to freedom does not mean eternal life as eternity is commonly understood--that is, as living forever. What the rule states is that one can keep the awareness which is ordinarily relinquished at the moment of dying. I cannot explain what it means to keep that awareness. My benefactor told me that at the moment of crossing, one enters into the third attention, and the body in its entirety is kindled with knowledge. Every cell at once becomes aware of itself, and also aware of the totality of the body.

This kind of awareness is meaningless to our compartmentalized minds. Therefore the crux of the warrior's struggle is not so much to realize that the crossing over stated in the rule means crossing to the third attention, but rather to conceive that there exists such an awareness at all.

JDR said:

Unseen-movement . . . accomplishing a different order of seen-movement.

Beautifully and perfectly. Bringing about levels of excellence in your self not possible before.

Carlos wrote:

To elucidate the control of the second attention, I've presented the idea of will. Will can be described as the maximum control of the luminosity of the body as a field of energy; or it can be described as a level of proficiency, as a state of being that comes abruptly into the daily life of a warrior at any given time. It is experienced as a force that radiates out of the middle part of the body following a moment of the most absolute silence [. . .]

It is a moment of blackness, a moment still more silent than the moment of shutting off the internal dialogue. That blackness, that silence, gives rise to the intent to direct the second attention, to command it, to make it do things. This is why it's called will. The intent and the effect are will; they are tied together.

We don't feel our will because we think that it should be something we know for sure that we are doing or feeling, like getting angry, for instance. Will is very quiet, unnoticeable. Will belongs to the other self. We are in our other selves when we do dreaming.

JDR said:

Your self doesn’t move perfectly. (Pause) THIS does.

Carlos wrote:

Will is such a complete control of the second attention that it is called the other self.

JDR said:

As the more-of-you awakens . . . the more-of-you in your awareness requisitions all belief of you-in-your-self into THIS.

Giving it . . . personal-ness.

Warts & Storms # 10: Diagnosing the World/Diagnosing the Self

A.k.a. Satan’s Blues. Jason Kephas’ unauthorized collaboration with philosopher Slavoj Zizek, using clips from The Pervert’s Guide to the Cinema, discussing together the impotence of male fantasy, fear of the feminine, focused and unfocused awareness, the cowboy and the fool, the natural state of oneness, the psychic womb of the mother, developing identity consciousness, the overlap between entanglement and enmeshment, splitting the atom at birth, Norman bates’ mother and the three levels of subjectivity, the threat of the father to the son and the son to the father, father as original agent of child’s wounding, the Mystery Man in Lost Highway, father bonding and mother bondage, how focused awareness evolves out of unfocused, the co-ordinates of fantasy, Frank Booth of Blue Velvet, the psycho-baby and the spectacle of the father’s impotence, Dorothy’s passivity, the wounded husband, turning the wife into a model of satisfaction, the original wound of birth, the tragedy of Vertigo, the game of appearances, the ideal of the fatal woman, the ultimate abyss of the other, filling the void with fantasy, masculinity as an escape from subjectivity, the primary threat of female sexuality, tuning into dark matter through the womb, the supreme desire for merging, crushing female sexuality, Frank Booth and reality as an escape from dreams, the war between light and darkness, masculine and feminine, obliterating female desire, Scotty’s obsession, fantasy realized as nightmare, losing the imaginal realms through sexuality, individuation & fragmentation, the first impulse of anger, the hardening and closing of awareness, the beginnings of intellect, the psychopathic male, phallus as insignia, the drive to denigrate the female, replacing the anima, the male fantasy of control, Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick’s self-diagnosis, Masonic Sorcery Theater as a result of masculine impotence, the old seers’ dream realized, Kali’s desserts.

A six minute youtube clip for the first part of this podcast is here.

Songs used in this podcast: “How Do We Slow This Thing Down?” by the Gothic Archies. “Apple of Sodom,” by Marilyn Manson.

Warts & Storms # 9: The Energetic Nature of Enmeshment

Part One, Big Picture: JK discusses soul loss and spirit possession, fragmentation of the psyche through trauma abuse, the creation of sub-personalities as a means to control the victim, MKULTRA and sex slaves, installing energy threads into another like strings on a puppet, the cosmic predator, mining the earth plane for awareness, psychic vampirism, the foreign installation or “flyer mind,” enmeshment seen shamanically, the grid, being driven by psychic wounds, fragments and hungry ghosts, the anxiety of want and need, patterns of thought and feeling, the perpetuation of trauma and abuse to create psychic fragmentation, the virus of abuse grows exponentially, “do unto others,” scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, co-dependency, sexual relations, considering the other’s feelings as a way to get what we want, the pressure of fragments, matching others, working for the cosmic predator, fragments as plug-in-pods in our matrix pod, hooked into the grid, the agitation of fragments, the fundamental purpose of existence, putting our life force in service of want and need, what SWEDA is for, exposing the flyer mind, identifying the patterns of enmeshment or “plug-in” points, how our conscious minds are grown by alien intelligence inside the matrix of the collective unconscious, one size fits all, the same patterns at play in all of us.

Part two, Small Picture: JK talks with Mark on compulsive behavior, being used by our fragments, Mark’s very own hungry ghost, entity possession as the result of soul loss, nature abhors a vacuum, containing the fire of desire, experiencing the split, being still inside the agitation of the fragments, recognizing that the part is not the whole of you, the beginning of integration, not blaming the fragment, children as receptacles for disowned fragments, parenting our fragments, finding the more of you, being a loving parent and not a reactive one, communicating with the fragment, holding a healing space, sending okayness through time, spanning the abyss between child and adult selves, old trauma in the body causing current anxieties, the prison of sex, being seen in distortion, the pressure cooker of SWEDA, facing the truth, changing orientation from self-interest to what you know is true, impotent revolt of the ego, letting our patterns burn us, the wound manifest.

Heart of a Child

(with thanks to JDR)

the simplicity of living a true life
is astonishing to see
it is effortless
notice the subtleties of goodness
as living points of knowledge
give your awareness to those points
and the heart is softened
the way to give awareness
to the subtleties of goodness
is to bring fairness to your interior
the quietest kind of honesty
first give your face
to the subtlety of goodness
then
give your voice to that
that's it
now go live your life
it all begins
with noticing the subtlety of goodness
that's why we need John
or someone
to see that
let your face light up
and know
it is radiating goodness
even when you don't know
where it comes from
and ride it
until your body lights up
and is carried by that goodness
and the voice follows the face
it's not you
not yourself
and yet it is
becoming what you are
and I limp along
inside that current
it is so easy to lose
and yet so very easy
to find
as soon as you try
and use the voice
before the face
you lose it
the face conveys everything
an open face, opens space
for the voice to move into
not only do we use the voice to get
we even use our faces
every little movement and expression
to conceal, secure, defend, obtain
poker players know it
and how to hide it
an open faces hides nothing
smiles like a child
it is the only way to be
the only way
sorcery is suicide
without the heart of a child

Not for You

whatever we are not ok with
is what we must experience
otherwise how are we going to be ok with it?
either i find a way to be ok
with being like my father
or i end up like him
i have no third option
it's the same with everything
all down the line
that's why nothing works
but surrender
surrender is being ok
with absolutely everything
forever
total freedom
it's the easiest thing there is
okayness is the only thing we need
any time
and its always right there
inside the knowing
it is right next to the truth
of our utter insignificance
that ability to move
while being within the utter insignificance
is hard
in my case, literally
so then, I get to be ok
with an inability to move
that is the essence of it
never ever move
when there is even the slightest resistance
that's the pathless path
that's surrender
and that's freedom
there is no way to ever fail on that "path"
because the moment "doing" isn't working
you go back to being
the trick is letting go
the first moment you know
that your doing
is taking you away
from what you know
just let it go
not making it 'work' for you
because everything already works just fine
just not for you

shamanic dismemberment

shamanic dismemberment underway
it's a fine line, between accepting and surrendering
and being passive and defeated
let go of thoughts and feelings about the pain
the internal dialogue gets hold of those signals
and interprets them
as a defense
there is one thing that i can appreciate about it
it is bringing an inner condition to the surface
my lameness is now manifest
there is a sort of relief in that
no way to hide it anymore
i get to find out, if the wound is critical
if my distortions can be integrated
has my life been straight enough
to cancel out my father's
deviations?
the real question isn't am i i fucked or not
but am i ok with being fucked
or not?
it's already been decided anyway
where i get to contribute
is by paying attention or not
can i be neutral enough to be curious
about my dismemberment?
the process
pain is awakening
awakening = pain
dismemberment is energetic
losing the human form?
i am becoming more ok with death anyhow
everything that happens to us
is the result of some sort of sorcery or another
the point of no return has been reached
it's my own fault
for preaching so much
now i get to practice

fundamental paradox

there's a fundamental paradox
at the core of "you"
your identity hinges on being alone
yet alone is the one thing
you can never be
alone = all one
only G*d is allone
alchemical partners will never see eye to eye
want to know why?
because they are facing the same direction
all that leaves is merging
into that forward motion
this separateness
is what all couples strive for
but don't dare to get to
it isn't possible unless both are individuated
individuated means you can let the other be themselves
a separate being
and be ok with that separation
then like two substances, fusion can happen
at a shallow level
it means allowing one's hate for the other
to be there
hate can destroy a relationship
if its not allowed to enter into the mix
hate is not personal
it's the result of making love personal
confining it to the personal
that is doing violence to one's being
indifference, the higher octave of hatred
both are the opposite of love
and giving the other freedom
to be what they are
requires some indifference
hate is the result of not being ok
with the other's difference
BE LIKE ME!!
or else....
we get to be indifferent
to the reality of our differences
and after all
that's the joy of sex
our difference

Infinite Waters Interview

More Poems from SWEDA exchanges

dis-enmeshment blues
it is hardest of all
to dis-enmesh with close ones
it is like betraying
and being betrayed
we only ever open our mouths
when we want something
i am feeling that so acutely today
i couldn't even say it
to my closest other
it was like i wanted something
by saying it
it is a frightening thought
and undercuts everything
it goes back to being an infant
crying when hungry
and later, "look at me daddy!"
as adults
what do we need?

love & death
i am searching
only and always
for a more honest way of being
it isn't complicated
or mysterious
there is only one thing to be looked at
how honest am i being now?
what do i know?
with loved ones
we only really know two basic things
we love them
and they are going to die
we may know other stuff
but these two knowings are profound
and love is not complete
without the knowing
of death
else we treat those we love
as if they will always be around
as long as we are thinking of death
as a negative
then we are not in a knowing
how can what is a part of life
be negative?
if you strip away all the intellectual fear
death is a negative for one reason only
we do not want to say goodbye
to those we love
life is hardly long enough
to say a proper hello
and then we are gone
at the time
the moments were eternal
the summers endless
and now
they are gone, gone, gone
either those moments still exist
somewhere
or they don't
we know they still exist
we are speaking of them now
but the sadness of their passing
out of our senses
is so profound
THAT is life
profound sorrow is a part of life
it can be allowed to be present
ALL TIMES

baby eyes
do we look at the sun
or do we look at the ground?
looking is not that important
seeing is
for a tree to ask that question
would be absurd
we get to let go of all we do
to keep the wounds out of awareness
because everything we do
for that reason
is bogus
compulsive
destructive
we cross a million lines of knowing
to avoid those wounds
it becomes impossible to grow
a flower that wants to see the sun
and not the earth
won't allow its roots to go deep
it will never see the sun
only an idea of what the sun might be
we have not even sprouted yet
we think this is life, but it isn't
not yet
the sun is LIKE something you feel
when you expect nothing
and then feel it glowing
all over you
an unexpected gift
expect nothing
it is not easy to do
imagine living a life that way
expecting nothing
with baby eyes

shamans and men
what's wrong isn't our actions
but our rationalizations
if we let go of the rationalizations
then our actions change of their own accord
no longer supported
everything needs to be questioned
examined
a shaman, they say,
is gifted at healing those
who were wounded as he was
in the same capacity
what he did not get as a child
he is adept at giving to others
there is a big difference
between what a shaman does
and what an average man does

sweda exchanges made poems

holding space

what you care about
you cannot protect
from this world
from you
we only protect that which is important to us
personally
guarding our investments
you cannot afford to care about
what is in your care
no stillness
no inner silence
no protection
when we protect our interests
we forget that it is all going
that we can't secure anything
nor do we need to
it enmeshes
and keeps the person we are "protecting"
from growing
so they don't grow away from us
and so we can't grow either
as if by expanding
we are moving further away
when the reverse is true
you can hold a space
for those in your care
and never let it not be there
that space of stillness
and inner silence
that is protection and care
only that space


boundaries

when there is a feeling
of where the boundary is
with the other
that is a very good feeling
the feeling of do not cross!
which makes it ok
to say anything
how does it manifest, not having boundaries?
in lack of spirit
forever giving up one's own space
to make room for another
terrible
one result is
we can only ever see the other
either as a threat
or as a source of need
or to meet a need
predatorreality
enmeshment is a jungle

Opaque Lens Draws Aeolus the Esoterrorist Out of His Hole in Afganistan

Chat with Niall on Hampstead Heath about War of the Worlds and the Sublime-Ness of Catastrophic Death, on Shamanic Freedom Radio # 69. Download here.

Aeolus Kephas joins the chat, talking about how his view of the world was particularly apocalyptic leading up to 911, and that 911 was a positive day because it was a ‘tear in consensus reality’, but in the long term, consensus reality became more restricted. Aeolus also theorises that 911 may have been a ripple back in time from a more apocalyptic event in the future. Also mentioned it Neo’s (Thomas Anderson’s) passport in the matrix expiring on Sep 11 2001 (the film was released in 1999).

The Path of Knowledge

without the desire to be a somebody

who would embark upon the path of knowledge?

accepting that we are nobody

feels like being a real somebody

how many people can accept they are nobody?

the flaw in the sorcerers path

is it attempts to transform the person

by will

but the person doesn't need to be transformed

what makes it seem in need of transformation

is that it is so shallow

so then, let it be that

there is a transformation

but it's not what it seems

"and nothing has changed, yet nothing's the same"

everything is changed equally

and we see that it was always that way

and we laugh and laugh

time is not linear

so death is not an end

we make time linear

in order to exist as selves

and that conjures death into the picture

the shadow of the self

quite beautiful really

past the terror of it

always with you

the self

wooing

not quite understanding

why we are so afraid of our own natures

a billion billion thought forms

created from that primal fear

a billion billion ways to be not okay

and we get to experience every last one

cheer up

we just wrote another poem

The Thing About Gurus

from Stormy Weather forum:

SWEDA isn't a realm for spiritual discussions and it doesn't promote "spiritual" disciplines or a "spiritual path." Spirituality as a word and even a concept is very much anathema to the SWEDA "method."

SWEDA does encourage and nurture an on-going dialogue with an animistic reality, however, and many would regard that as "spiritual," so in the end it comes down to words. At SWEDA, those who practice viewing their daily reality as an on-going dialogue with a conscious Universe see that it is as pragmatic an approach to existence as plumbing or carpentry. This is why the term "spiritual" seems to me to be a misnomer.

However, Doug Lain (of diet soap) is correct to the degree that reason is insufficient to a deeper experience of reality as I and others in the group perceive it. Reason depends on all reality being quantifiable and broken into parts. An animistic perception of reality does not allow us to separate ourselves from our environment, not even theoretically, much less practically.

As for knowings and universal truths; they exist, but by definition they must be corroborated by a person's own experience to be fully known: truth cannot be passed on or learned, it can only be embodied. A "guru" embodies truth, a "disciple" matches the guru and embodies the same truth him or herself, and so "owns" it.

The greatest challenge and potential for guru-disciple roles is for the disciple to experience the guru as his or her future self, and the guru to interact with the disciple as his own past self, an aspect of his being still being integrated and fully understood. There is then an implicit understanding and acceptance, both of equality and lack of equality, between the two parties. The guru is merely one who has, as mentioned above, gone further and deeper into his own unconscious, thereby making it conscious. He has cleared up space previously occupied by socially programmed patterns, a space that his (true) being can move into and occupy.

The guru's person is no more advanced than the disciple's or anyone else's; it is, on the contrary, reduced, and it is this reduction that allows a true(r) way of being to show through. Anyone who recognizes that, and manages not to fall for the allure of charisma and personality of the "guru," will eventually see that what they are seeing in the guru exists in themselves - and that they are only able to see it at all because it exists in themselves. At which time, the guru is no longer a guru, but merely a future point of reference by which the disciple, now student, can, if need be, check his own inner compass of knowing.

The sort of "knowings" or universal truths that are preached and practiced at SWEDA have nothing to do with inorganic beings or any other sort of occult realities, however. They don't pertain to anything that can't be confirmed (eventually) through direct action and experience.

For example: honesty is the only way to act responsibly in our lives, and dishonesty is therefore an invalid approach to any circumstances, under any and all circumstances.

This is an absolute truth that anyone who is honest with themselves will have to admit to, eventually and however much trial and error they insist upon before admitting it. It is only "spiritual" insofar as it seems idealistic or unrealistic to those who have practiced dishonest ways of being for most of their lives, in keeping with the social contract of enmeshment which says, among other things, that it is better to lie or distort our true natures than to hurt another person's feelings or give offense.

We have been trained from birth in dishonest ways of being, to the degree that the idea of practicing honesty at all times seems not only a rigorous and ascetic discipline, but an abstract, spiritual or "moral" path. But when put into practice, it quickly becomes apparent that honesty is, simply and logically, the only true way of being there is.

New Season of Warts & Storms

Here It Is, for What It's Worth.

Art by Mr. and Mrs.

SWEDA as Fire-Fighting

Example of a Meta-Narrative

Firstly, when I arrived at the changing room, a young boy, blond, perhaps 7, was changing. He was friendly and talkative, the first time this has happened in Hope. (Most young boys are pretty shy with adults, or with me at least.) He asked if I was here to swim, and we chatted while I got undressed.

When I took my hat off he said, "You have funny ears."

Since his ears stuck out very obviously, I said, "So do you."

He didn't respond to that, so I said that it was all relative, and that if I were an elf, in Lord of the Rings, my ears would probably seem quite normal.

Then, when I took my shirt off, he stared and said something about how I had three points, or spots (at least that's what I heard). When I showed puzzlement, he said that I had those things "like strong men have," or words to that effect. I realized he was talking about my "abs," my washing board stomach. I told him that I used to do kung fu.

Finally, as he was leaving, I smiled at him, and he said, "Why do you have that funny tooth?" (Protruding upper tooth, like a fang.)

I told him, "My father gave me that." He seemed surprised.

I did sauna and steam, then swam 20 laps, thinking about my talk with Gabe (during which I was more excited than usual); I was feeling a little sheepish about all the quasi-military talk, wondering if it was a little premature, or just plain goofy.

I sat in the hot tub for a spell and a small native boy, maybe 5, climbed in near me. He touched my left hand by accident as he did. I said Hi, and he said Hi back.

I returned to the sauna; a muscular guy was in there, but he left soon after. Another muscled guy with a blond beard came in and sat opposite me. We exchanged a look, and I said "Hey." I got the sense he wanted to connect so I stayed open, kept my eyes open without looking at him. I wasn't going to search my mind for something to say, but I wanted to stay open in case there was some sort of movement to connect. It occurred to me that he was probably a fire fighter, as those guys hang out at the pool sometimes. I looked through the glass to see if there were other muscled and tattooed guys out there, and saw a few, so I asked him if he was a fire fighter. He said he was. I joked that I had guessed because of all the "manly men" around, since usually there are only kids and old people at the pool.

(Meta-narrative: like SWEDA, where everyone is a wounded child, with a constructed identity that is like a decrepit old fart. The manly man ~ the solar upright aspect ~ is only now beginning to show itself.)

Since I had heard there were about 350 fires raging in BC recently, I commented that he must be keeping busy. He said that the work came and went. I asked if he fought forest fires or buildings (forest), and whether you could only do one or the other, not both (yes, the training is entirely different).

I commented that, presumably, forest fires couldn't be fought, so much as contained. He said that was how it was.

He talked about fighting forest fires and how it's done: soaking the ground so the fire stays within certain confines, it can then be directed towards another fire in the area. Since the two fires consume everything in their path, when they meet, there is nowhere for them to go (everything behind them has burned up), so they merge into one another and settle down (I forget the phrase he used), eventually dying out. I said it was like the two fires canceled each other out.

He talked about the training they have to do, and how a lot of the work entails not fighting fires but cutting down the burned trees left in the wake of the fire. These can be as dangerous as the fire. They fall silently and fire fighters are often getting clobbered, even killed, by them. I said that the burned trees were like the "back-up" for the fire; he nodded and said, "If the fire doesn't get you, the trees might."

I said something about the fire not being an enemy.

I made a comment about how it must be invigorating work, he said that it was but that the guys got antsy when there wasn't anything to do; I almost asked, or joked, about setting fires to have something to fight, but I refrained as it might come out wrong. (Later on this guy Josh, not a firefighter, told me ~ and not because I asked, he brought it up by himself ~ that this does happen.) Instead, I asked what they do in order not to get antsy. He said they have to do a lot of studying, because part of the job entails learning how to measure environmental factors, such as ground humidity, wind, and such, to determine how dangerous the fire is. He talked about fires on hills being especially dangerous, because they proceed slowly at first, so that the ground ahead gets dried out by the heat, and then they suddenly start racing, because the land is so dry.

I saw an opening for a more psychological angle, and asked him if he found himself noticing details like this even when he wasn't working. He said that he did, his training became second nature, so he was constantly noticing these things even if there was no fires about.

Two more fire guys came in at that point, a heavy white guy and a wiry Native with a goatee.

I asked the first guy if he found that his awareness was enhanced overall by his work. He said it was, and used the example of being in a forest, hearing a twig snap and immediately becoming alert to danger. I made a comment about how, even if it wasn't a fire, it might be a bear. He said something about falling trees, and I added that it was like guys who've been in war.

He said, "Yeah you get jumpy." I said that it was better to be too jumpy than not enough, which he agreed with.

I said that presumably the key was to respond rather than react, from fear, because if you heard a snap and just bolted, you could just as easily run into a falling tree as away from it. He nodded and said, "React, and then respond." I was pleased by this because I'd thought maybe I was getting too esoteric for him. Apparently I was speaking his language ~ or the language of his training at least.

(Meta-narrative: this reflects exactly when Gabe and I were talking about how being in the crucible of SWEDA provides training that we can then take into ordinary life, our "senses" now enhanced by the experience in the field.)

That was pretty much it for the conversation. The guy got up to leave and I made a crack about doesn't he get enough heat at work, as a way to smooth my own exit. He said, "Training," and I followed him out the sauna.

Back in the pool for more laps. Some more fire-fighters were jumping off the diving board. At one point, I noticed that the little Native kid (pretty sure it was the same one who touched my hand) was lining up with them to jump also.

I swam 20 more laps then went to the hot tub, where I ran into Josh, who talked about Tai Chi (his wife gives a class nearby), and who told me the thing about fire-fighters sometimes starting fires.

What's On the SWEDA Menu?

Alright, it’s time to make ye olde sales pitch once more.

But first, some background information that you’ve all been waiting for.

SWEDA is currently an all-male private forum, consisting of two groups. The first group is the group to which I belong, of which none of the original members (not even my Wife) are still part. There are four other men in this group.

This group was once made up of the original Argonauts: Cary, Steve W., Ezra, Keith Z., Julian, and myself, as well as Nick (Ascension) and Alginojr, who (along with Keith, and two women, who left early on, though eventually came back) were at SWEDA in the very early, pre-ARGO days, before the group was named as Thessaly. Thessaly also included my Wife, Lucinda, and the mysterious Wangwei.

Cary, Julian, and Steve left this group at different times for different reasons. Ezra “graduated” when he grokked that the letting go process of SWEDA inevitably culminated in letting go of his attachments to SWEDA itself. Because of this, Ezra became the first (imaginary) “graduate.”

There are no SWEDA “graduates,” per se, because it's not a school system and there’s no actual “end” to the deconstruction process. Well, there is; but you won’t be there to receive your diploma.

A few months back, another group formed, Lemnos, which went through a similarly rocky development, until a time when what was left of Lemnos was taken into Thessaly. This coincided with a new group forming (recently named Doliones), made up of the successful Try-Outs at Anomalies Anonymous (AA), the “no-charge” area of the (still private) forum. (The AA is no longer operational.)

Still following me so far?

The remaining members of Lemnos, having kept up the SWEDA grind for several months, were then “upgraded” into Thessaly, expanding the ranks considerably. Soon after this, four of the core members of Thessaly left, reducing the ranks once again. Bizarrely, each time this happened, new arrivals also showed up at the exact time: men go out, men come in. This was timed not only to the day, but sometimes to the hour.

This indicates that SWEDA functions as a living consciousness system. As with an organism, whenever cells “die,” they are immediately replaced.

Like all organisms, it wishes to grow.

For the past year, the size of SWEDA has remained fairly constant, varying between perhaps a minimum of five and a maximum of 17 members, but keeping to an consistent average of about 10 or 12.

Its current size (following the most recent shift, pertaining to a woman’s group which lasted all of two weeks, and which I talk about on today's Vagabond Blues podcast) is ten: five inside Thessaly, and six in the new group. There is one member who belongs to both groups, so in this case, five plus six = ten.

Members of Thessaly can read and interact with the threads of the second group, Doliones, but not vice versa. The nominal leader of the second group has access to Thessaly. This is about to change, however, as I intend to allow the more long-standing members of Doliones read-only access to Thessaly. Today, in fact.

Having summed all that up, hopefully I have satisfied your curiosity enough to make you more curious than before.

As posted below, I recently decided to focus more on voice consultations, and less on text. These Skyped consultations usually run a little over an hour in length, and are recorded for the group to listen to.
With the co-operation of the group, we will be making some of these consultations public in the near future, depending on both parties’ agreements, and with the input of other group members as to which talks will make the best podcasts. This way, SWEDA can begin to extend into the public realm and become more of an open project. I began motion this with Warty Theorems, but those podcasts were done as podcasts. This will be private consultations that are then aired, if and when it’s agreed to do so. (Possibly with some editing.)

Now to brass tacks.

Signing up for SWEDA will cost you $100 for the first month. This price includes two talks with myself, that's Aeolus (consults which may or may not become podcasts), and a month of interaction at the forum with the other group members. There is no obligation to stay past the first month.

Because of this, you will not belong to either of the groups, but be in a sort of trial space where the other two groups can read and respond to your posts, even though you can’t see anything going on in their space. (A space filled up with months of soul-searching and personal disclosures.) Whether you are part of a small group of first-timers or not will depend on how many others sign up during a given month. If you choose to sign up and don't want to be doing it alone, then you can simply wait until a small group is assembled, however long that takes.

So for those who want to find out what really goes on inside the mysterious labyrinth of unbecoming that is the Stormy Weather Existential Detective Agency, you can do so now, for the cost of five trips to the grocery store, half a dozen trips to the movies, ten bottles of beer, 20 packs of smokes, or half an hour with a medium-rate hooker.

For more of what SWEDA entails, see here.

Sign up here.

The Dis-Enmeshment Chamber

"Enmeshment refers to an extreme form of proximity and intensity in family interactions...In a highly enmeshed, over-involved family, changes within one family member or in the relationship between two family members reverberate throughout the system... On an individual level, interpersonal differentiation in an enmeshed system is poor...in enmeshed families the individual gets lost in the system. The boundaries that define individual autonomy are so weak that functioning in individually differentiated ways is radically handicapped.

"We're enmeshed when we use an individual for our identity, sense of value, worth, well-being, safety, purpose, and security. Instead of two people present, we become one identity. More simply, enmeshment is present when our sense of wholeness comes from another person.

We hear enmeshment phrases everyday such as, "I'd die without you," "You're my everything," "Without you, I'm nothing," "I need you," or "You make me whole." Many of us find our identity and self-worth by becoming the mate, parent, or friend of a successful and/or prestigious individual, or we find the need to fix and caretake individuals to give us a sense of purpose.

Enmeshment doesn't allow for individuality, wholeness, personal empowerment, healthy relationships with ourselves or others, and, most importantly, a relationship with our Higher Power."

Someone at SWEDA recently complained that they couldn’t see the difference between friendship and enmeshment.

I replied that there really wasn't a difference, not in our present culture.

Here’s why.

Our patterned wants and needs are laid down in those first few years of life. We carry them with us wherever we go. In every single interaction, in every relationship, we are unconsciously driven to seek what we didn't get in childhood, or to help alleviate the pain of not getting it, and we will use the other person in any way we can. Ordinary friendship, then, is always based on a secret agreement to service the wants and needs of the other person, in return for the same treatment: "You ease my pain, I'll ease yours."

The problem is that pain relief never addresses the source of the pain itself, any more than alcohol heals emotional trauma: it just blocks it out of awareness. And since the source of the pain is buried deep in the past, all our attempts to get what we want from friendship and love relationships in the present invariably fail. Because no matter how much the other person gives us what we want, it won't heal that wound. We are the only ones who can do that.

SWEDA potentially allows for real friendship, or true alliance, to bloom, because it provides a space within which everyone is continuously looking out for their patterns of enmeshment and everyone else's, and in which no secret agreement stays secret for long.

Learning how not to enmesh takes years, however. We've spent most of our lives believing that enmeshment is the normal way of things, that it is what real friendship is made of. So to have a space in which all our interactions are clearly separate from our other relationships allows us to become more and more aware of the difference between true friendship and enmeshment. Ideally, what we learn daily in SWEDA, we can take into our "real-world" relationships, just as we bring those experiences back into SWEDA to look for patterns and distortions. So the two realms inform one another ~ but do not overlap.

For any of us to confuse what we are doing at SWEDA with ordinary friendship, or to pursue ordinary relationships with sweda folk outside the group, is going to blur that distinction, and hence undermine the whole purpose of being at SWEDA.

Four of the men closest to me have left the group in the last month or so, and so I have been becoming increasingly aware of my own enmeshment at SWEDA.

While undergoing the dis-enmeshment process, as I am, the tendency is to try and enmesh again, just as a baby grabs for the mother’s breast when it is being taken away. The challenge is to inhibit that fear-pain reaction, and just stay in the feelings.

The predominant feeling is one of being alienated.

I am beginning to see how enmeshment is a reaction against alienation.

Alienation is the result of the constructed identity, which keeps us as awareness from connecting to and experiencing our being, or from being in our knowing.

So then we are driven by the wants and needs of the constructed identity, which is all about likes and dislikes, securing the one and keeping at bay the other. This is the basis of enmeshment: relationships based on wants and needs.

When we are disconnected, we are constantly looking for a surrogate sense of connection and belonging, a surrogate womb. The way we create that surrogate womb is by enmeshing with others. Then it is like we have these threads ~ literally energetic threads of our being ~ that are constantly supporting us, when in actual fact they are entangling us, imprisoning us. But for our person it is safe, comfortable, because it feels like we are not alone.

We allow people to put their threads, their psychic matter, into us, and we do the same to them, because this is a surrogate for a real connection, for real union, community, communion, things which the constructed identity cannot allow for, ever.

As I begin to dis-enmesh, it’s like coming out of the womb, and feeling more and more separate and alone. It’s a terrible feeling.

This is the great paradox of SWEDA. It was created as a ritual space to dis-enmesh within, but my person was also looking for a way to feel at home and connected. So I tricked myself: I was unconsciously creating this space where I thought I could get what I wanted, but now it’s come into form, I see that I can't, because to go after what I want would be to compromise the space, to make it smaller and smaller, until everybody left and there was nothing but me, alone with my enmeshment.

It’s been a year since SWEDA started and we have recently completed a cycle. I know what it is now, and I know what it is that I am doing. It’s a business, a job, a project that has a very specific purpose. That purpose is dis-enmeshing. It's a dis-enmeshment chamber.

At SWEDA, I've been getting to fine-tune my awareness of exactly how I enmesh with the people in the group, by liking or disliking them, and by getting them to like or dislike me. There’s a feeling of security and power for my person that comes from having the power to make people like me or dislike me.

I enjoy everything I do at SWEDA, but I particularly enjoy making people feel good about themselves, because then I know they are going to like me more. The flip side of this, is that I also enjoy, in a darker way, pointing out people’s dishonesty and making them uncomfortable, knowing they are going to dislike that, and even dislike me. Presumably, this has to do with having control over the way people perceive me, and although this is necessary for what I do, the danger of this control is that my person can use it to get what it wants. As soon as I am trying to get a little something for myself, enmeshment begins.

This is natural and inevitable, however. There’s no way to combat enmeshment without seeing the process of enmeshment for what it is. This means seeing it happening in the present, not just finding evidence of it having happened in the past. We are at SWEDA to enmesh, as well as to dis-enmesh, at least to a degree. It would be unrealistic to think there wouldn’t be any enmeshment at all, because our persons are invested in being liked, and as such, that is all they really know how to do.

So then SWEDA isn’t about trying to kick bad habits, but just to own up to them and really see them for what they are, and just how pervasive they are in our lives. That seeing gradually allows a new awareness to dawn, because the part of us that sees our compulsive behavior as what it is, has a separate existence to the part that is being driven to act in these ways.

Put more simply: only when we become aware of the ways in which we are acting unconsciously, can we begin to act with consciousness.

The goal of SWEDA is to recognize ourselves as we are: spheres of consciousness-being, on our way to individuated existence, free from enmeshment ~ stars. A cool, clean, true existence. Paradoxically, in this solar isolation and in complete freedom from any personal interest in others, we are free to fuse into a collective experience, bound together by perfect indifference and deepest affection. And so what seems like isolation to the person, is the ultimate togetherness for our beings.

For free one-week SWEDA Try-Out, fill out the form here.

JK & JDR, The Movie

My talk with JDR is now available as a download at his site, here.

Seeing the Dandy Off to the Underworld

Aeolus and mother watch on as the whores of Babylon pose before the sacrificed dandy.

More Notes from SWEDA

SWEDA's a not-doing. Not-doings center around acting for something besides personal gain.

Not-doings are acts that we can't have strong feelings about, that we can't invest in, emotionally or otherwise. That's what makes them not-doings, and why they allow us to experience ourselves outside the constructed identity, with its carrot-whip agenda, as neutral, impersonal awareness.

Not-doings are things to do simply because we can ~ and because we know that, since in the light of our pending death, nothing is really "worth" doing, we may as well do something. It is the start of controlled folly.

A "pure" not-doing has no result at all, however, such as moving rocks around in a garden then trying to remember where they were and place them back in the exact same positions. It is pointless, and the only "reward" is that, because we can't think about what we are doing (it makes no sense), it calms down the internal dialogue and we experience a freer, more childlike expression of our being.

One problem people have with sweda, or with the people there, isn't that they aren't being straight about their incapacity to be straight; it's that they aren't enjoying expressing their twisty lack of straightness enough. They feel bored because they are used to only acting when there's something in it for them, some sort of perk. There are no perks at sweda.

Beyond the boredom and despair of constant self-immersion, of dwelling endlessly on our personal self, is the delight of acting and living for the sheer hell of it.

At SWEDA, you get to talk about yourself all day long with an audience of sorcerers!

What more could you possibly want out of life??

***

Being a man is like being a ghost. Living with death always at arm's length, just one touch away.

Living for nothing, yet with the abundance that comes through us when we are emptied of all our wants and needs.

***


Going finer.

The greater the noise, the harder it is to find a signal in that noise. But the deeper and more information-rich that signal will be if we do find it.

JDR talks about how it's easy to smell a flower and tune into the essence-of-being within that flower. He compares that with breathing in fumes, and tuning into the essence of being within those fumes. Point is, it is the same essence, the same being, but it's a lot harder to tune into it with fumes, than with the flower.

Going finer means being willing to drop beneath the surface and find what's of value even in the coarsest or most uncomfortable of situations. It's ignoring the gorgeous hard-bodied babe at the bar to talk to the geeky girl with pimples, because you sense that she has something to offer beyond boobs and lips. And then, by connecting to the geeky girl, experiencing a kind of attraction much softer, subtler, and richer because it wasn't immediately apparent.

It means being in an uncomfortable situation and, instead of trying to get out of it or change it to make ourselves more comfortable, just being in it as-it-is, and seeing what is actually on offer. What happens then is that we find a place within ourselves that is comfortable in the midst of our discomfort, and then we realize that we don't need all those surface elements to be comfortable, or turned on, or happy, or whatever, because we have all that within ourselves. We have the capacity to find a signal of truth in any amount of noise, of lies or ugliness or pollution or discomfort, or whatever we are surrounded by.

In simple terms, it is settling for less. And the less we settle for, the more we find.

The Soft Warrior

Here's a transcript of JDR from the last evening we were in Amsterdam. This is the one during which I felt John was talking directly to myself, as I had added my intent to the question. (Yes, John: tell me about rage!)

I also came to see it as a delayed response to my previously unanswered question, during our own talk, "Am I still a warrior?"

The answer is, "Yes. But a soft warrior!"

(I just found out that my own talk with JDR is going to available as a video download soon, BTW.)

Man: I am moving into the void, experiencing love and a lot of rage at the same time. I see my awareness of the external shifting simultaneously. I lose capacity to formulate.

John: Your heart is entreat-able. Where there is love your heart is entreated and in your heart you open and you respond. It’s your Will that you are identified with

Your Will is also entreat-able, but it is only entreat-able by love. When love touches your Will, you recognize it in your heart and your Will opens, but when something other than love touches your Will, in your Will, you close and you do that which you are able to do…and that is push.

In knowing that in your heart and in your Will you are entreat-able but only by love, then incline your heart to that despite anything else that touches your Will. That for you then is the surrender of your own Will to That that touches your heart the most. You won’t have the advantage in your person of ‘push’ any more. You won’t have the satisfaction in your person of ‘push’ any more. What you will have, even in your person, is a delicate pull of being touched in your heart. This will cost you in your self everything that you have acquired in your self in being able to push and in having pushed. You’ll be turning into, throughout your self, a delicate willingness of heart that will come up first in your Will.

Underlying all of the rage is that you want to ‘do’. There’s the openness to do, but as soon as you move to do, you move in a Will that is conditioned to how you’ve made your self, and in that is a real frustration because in openness to do and the willingness to do the wrong thing keeps happening, so then you do what you can…and that is push.

Follow-through to the actual openness, within, the openness to do, even if you don’t know how to do. Hold that openness to do within the softness of your heart and you’ll know from within that a very little bit of how to do, because you’ll already in your heart be being that. That beingness coming into your Will, coming into your capacity as a person to do, will move with an openness and a kind of softness, even in your Will, that you’ve not been accustomed to.

Look for such really Little-Bits that you already know in your heart and you’ll not be frustrated in your Will with little bits of movement. Those little bits of movement in your Will will be very much touching your heart. You will love the delicate process in that. You will love the softening in that. You’ll love the real nurture in that. Your self will soften as your heart does. As that becomes your way, the way of your heart in your self, your person will soften and you’ll love the nurture of that. You will love the delicateness of that in your person.

The rage comes from your trying to make too big of a jump at once, and you’ll be skipping over the delicacies in your heart that do make a real step in your Will, work. Follow-through with the Little-Bits, look for the really Little-Bits, and you’ll be overcome with ‘pull’ in your heart instead of ‘push’ in your Will. As you begin to do this and you experience the hardness of your own Will open and soften, you’ll be filled with joy at the delicacy of that. As soon as you see it work, your heart will be won by that.

When you see it begin to work, you’ll have the innocence of glee in your heart, just like that in a lovely, lovely little boy. You’ll know the same, but as a man. Living by that will make you a lovely, lovely man. In your Will make no really big steps or you’ll be reverting in your Will to using what you can…and that is ‘push’. Relate to the Tiny-Little-Bits in your Will that touch your heart, and you’ll then be moving as that in your Will, opening and softening in your Will in ways that affect your self and your person. You’ll see the Tiny-Little-Bits of progress, the kind of progress that fills your heart.

Stay close to it and you’ll not fall away from it.

The Art of Unliving

I've asked current SWEDANs to come up with advertising pitches for the process. Here's the first, from Steve "Hail." I'd like to see someone top this.

I lost all my friends, all my money, and all my aspirations on the ARGO-plan diet!

People keep coming up and saying "Shit man, you look awful! What happened to you?"

I tell them it's all thanks to new formula SWEDA! Say goodbye to your old personality and say "Hello!" to a brand-new you TODAY! Stop living and start dying!"

Before:

After:

Would You Pay Good Money to be Unplugged?

I have invented a service (SWEDA) for others that is difficult to identify the benefits of without first experiencing it. Since, ostensibly, all it entails is interaction via forum and skype ~ WORDS ~ the initial assumption seems to be that this is something that ought to be free. It's not costing me anything (besides my time), after all, and the Internet is all about the free traffic of information. Even the fact that I have started a private forum pushes a lot of peoples buttons. That's just what I am up against: consensus reality, and specifically, that pocket of CR that has formed a new consensus about how to break the old consensus, complete with rules and assumptions about how private forums are elitist, and so on (the 2nd matrix).

But this is all besides the point, regarding why so many people react with suspicion, and even hostility, to my charging to provide an existential detection service.

The penny finally dropped after talking to Joe. It's really very simple: I enjoy what I do.

This fact communicates to my audience. How could it not? Enjoyment is unmistakable. My audience (that's you), then, sees that I enjoy doing what I do, and they hear me asking for money to carry on doing it. The conscious question people are asking is: "Why should I pay for something when I don't know what I'm getting?" But, underneath that, the real question (I now suspect) is: "Why should I pay this guy to do something he obviously likes doing?"

We are programmed from very early on to accept that whatever we do to earn a living will not be for our enjoyment. It will be from sheer necessity. We learn to accept this "reality," and to compromise our natures and our desires so as to submit to society's decree. In order to live within the system, we have to become slaves to that system, and wind up doing things that we really don't want to do in order to have the money to do the things we do want to do. That's "reality." Right?

But what if someone did exactly what they wanted to be doing, what they most enjoyed, and got paid for it? Within the frame of reference of our social mandates, this is anathema, unthinkable, a fantasy. What's more, it is an affront to all those hard-working people who have sacrificed their time and compromised their beings in order to get along. It's insulting!

If I'm right, the reason people question me for charging money for what I do is less about their doubting the value of what I am doing, and more to do with an unconscious resentment that someone might actually be able to earn a living doing what they love. People are thinking to themselves: "I have to work for a living; why shouldn't he?"

(Sure, there are people who enjoy their work; but there's still the assumption that they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't have to, and that they just learned to enjoy it by getting good at it. And even these people are fairly exceptional, and probably especially in my audience, which seems to consist of a lot of slackers who, like me, are trying to avoid work altogether.)

The irony of this is that, in work as much as sex, enjoyment is above all what improves our performance at it. The more I enjoy what I do, the better I am at doing it, and vice versa. Enjoyment is the essential factor in anything we do, most of all what we do "for a living."

What I do for a living is to facilitate awakening, by enhancing individuals' intelligence and self-awareness. In a nut-shell.

But beyond the content, there is also the form. What I am doing with SWEDA is pioneer work. It's never been attempted before. It is opening up new possibilities, not only for myself and for anyone who comes aboard, but also for anyone out there who is paying close attention.

People don't like that. To see new possibilities means to question the validity of the old possibilities, to recognize them as limited and limiting, and worse, to see themselves that way too: limited and limiting.

So if what I do fails, you can tell yourselves that you had it right all along. Nothing to worry about here. You're living as wage-slaves because, hell, that's the only choice we got, right? But if it succeeds, then you get to question all that time and energy you've been putting into drudgery. Because you too could have tried something entirely new, taken that chance, and also succeeded. That would really suck, right?

If I'm right about this, many of you out their are unconsciously invested in seeing me fail, because you are consciously invested in the old way of doing (and seeing) things. It's the way that says enjoyment and necessity have nothing to do with each other. It's the way you tell yourselves that, first you need to do what's necessary, and then, once that's done, and your future is secured, then you get to enjoy your "down-time." Doing what you love is all very well, but first you have to do what you hate. That's the program. And if you don't hate what you're doing, you aren't doing it right.

Me, I don't have much leisure time at all. Couple of hours in the evening watching Lost & Mad Men. But then, I enjoy my work day so much it sometimes goes on into the night. There are days when I don't facilitate anyone's awakening, but that's not by choice. I'm not doing this for money. I'm doing it for love of being. Which is exactly why I get paid for doing it.

This is a new way of doing business. Those who support me now, will be investing in that new way, and I suspect, they will find themselves supported by it further on down the line. I may even be paying your wages some day. ; )

On the other hand, I could fail. That's okay too. Which way it goes, is largely up to you.

How's that for an awesome response-ability?

SWEDA 101

To act out patterns usually feels good. We give our patterns what they want and so we feel like we are getting what we want: such as when we act in anger and get the other person to pay attention and listen to us.

Enmeshment is very simple: the actions of another cause certain feelings in us which we find unpleasant. We then react, either by overt provocation and confrontation, or by "withholding," withdrawing emotionally (sulking) and so controlling the other through creating distance. The aim is to generate feelings in the other that match our own.

This happens when honest and open communication breaks down, for whatever reason (usually our own fear of vulnerability and exposure).

Simply put, if we feel angry about what another does to us, instead of either taking the anger away and processing it alone, or communicating the anger to the other openly and softly, we try to provoke anger in the other so that they feel the same way we do. We have then "communicated" our feelings to the other, in the least honest (yet also most "direct") fashion. This is also known as "off-loading."

Letting our patterns control us means we get the "feel-good" of indignation or self-pity; but instead of being driven by patterns (which is like the donkey trying to escape the whip), we can give in to them without acting them out. That giving in causes us, as awareness, to sink deeper into the patterns, into what's beneath them. Beneath anger is usually fear of some kind; beneath self-pity a deep sorrow, and so on.

This doesn't feel good, because we are going into the very experience that our patterns were designed to take and keep us out of. But once we allow that experience, our patterns begin to dissolve: because they are no longer needed.

Thanks to All Ye Bastards

I received a pleasing response from all you bastards out there, and now most of my Paper Tigers are gone. There are about 20 copies left, so since I don't plan on doing another print-run any time soon, your chance to grab one is rapidly receding into non-existence. (A couple of years from now, however, it may be selling for $500 on ebay.)

American Joys

Don Juan Was An Existential Detective

Here's some excerpts from an old interview with Carlos Castaneda that pertain nicely to SWEDA. Full Interview here.

CASTANEDA: Don Juan thinks that what he calls seeing is apprehending the world without any interpretation; it is pure wondering perception. Sorcery is a means to this end. To break the certainty that the world is the way you have always been taught you must learn a new description of the world--sorcery--and then hold the old and the new together. Then you will see that neither description is final. At that moment you slip between the descriptions; you stop the world and see. You are left with wonder; the true wonder of seeing the world without interpretation.

KEEN: Do you think it is possible to get beyond interpretation by using psychedelic drugs?

CASTANEDA: I don't think so. That is my quarrel with people like Timothy Leary. I think he was improvising from within the European membership and merely rearranging old glosses. I have never taken LSD, but what I gather from don Juan's teachings is that psychotropics are used to stop the flow of ordinary interpretations, to enhance the contradictions within the glosses, and to shatter certainty. But the drugs alone do not allow you to stop the world. To do that you need an alternative description of the world. That is why don Juan had to teach me sorcery.

KEEN: There is an ordinary reality that we Western people are certain is 'the' only world, and then there is is the separate reality of the sorcerer. What are the essential differences between them?

CASTANEDA: In European membership the world is built largely from what the eyes report to the mind. In sorcery the total body is used as a perceptor. As Europeans we see a world out there and talk to ourselves about it. We are here and the world is there. Our eyes feed our reason and we have no direct knowledge of things. According to sorcery this burden on the eyes in unnecessary. We know with the total body.

KEEN: Western man begins with the assumption that subject and object are separated. We're isolated from the world and have to cross some gap to get to it. For don Juan and the tradition of sorcery, the body is already in the world. We are united with the world, not alienated from it.

CASTANEDA: That's right. Sorcery has a different theory of embodiment. The problem in sorcery is to tune and trim your body to make it a good receptor. Europeans deal with their bodies as if they were objects. We fill them with alcohol, Bad food, and anxiety. When something goes wrong we think germs have invaded the body from outside and so we import some medicine to cure it. The disease is not a part of us. Don Juan doesn't believe that. For him disease is a disharmony between a man and his world. The body is an awareness and it must be treated impeccably.

...

KEEN: Do you think don Juan lives in this state of awareness most of the time?

CASTANEDA: Yes. He lives in magical time and occasionally comes into ordinary time. I live in ordinary time and occasionally dip into magical time.

KEEN: Anyone who travels so far from the beaten paths of consensus must be very lonely.

CASTANEDA: I think so. Don Juan lives in an awesome world and he has left routine people far behind. Once when I was with don Juan and his friend don Genaro I saw the loneliness they shared and their sadness at leaving behind the trappings and points of reference of ordinary society. I think don Juan turns his loneliness into art. He contains and controls his power, the wonder and the loneliness, and turns them into art. His art is the metaphorical way in which he lives. This is why his teachings have such a dramatic flavor and unity. He deliberately constructs his life and his manner of teaching.

...

CASTANEDA: Don Juan used psychotropic plants only in the middle period of my apprenticeship because I was so stupid, sophisticated and cocky. I held on to my description of the world as if it were the only truth. Psychotropics created a gap in my system of glosses. They destroyed my dogmatic certainty. But I paid a tremendous price. When the glue that held my world together was dissolved, my body was weakened and it took months to recuperate. I was anxious and functioned at a very low level.

KEEN: Does don Juan regularly use psychotropic drugs to stop the world?

CASTANEDA: No. He can now stop it at will. He told me that for me to try to see without the aid of psychotropic plants would be useless. But if I behaved like a warrior and assumed responsibility I would not need them; they would only weaken my body.

...


KEEN: You now minimize the importance of the psychedelic experience connected with your apprenticeship. And you don't seem to go around doing the kind of tricks you describe as the sorcerer's stock-in-trade. What are the elements of don Juan's teachings that are important for you? Have you been changed by them?

CASTANEDA: For me the ideas of being a warrior and a man of knowledge, with the eventual hope of being able to stop the world and see, have been the most applicable. They have given me peace and confidence in my ability to control my life. At the time I met don Juan I had very little personal power. My life had been very erratic. I had come a long way from my birthplace in Brazil. Outwardly I was aggressive and cocky, but within I was indecisive and unsure of myself. I was always making excuses for myself. Don Juan once accused me of being a professional child because I was so full of self-pity. I felt like a leaf in the wind. Like most intellectuals, my back was against the wall. I had no place to go. I couldn't see any way of life that really excited me. I thought all I could do was make a mature adjustment to a life of boredom or find ever more complex forms of entertainment such as the use of psychedelics and pot and sexual adventures. All of this was exaggerated by my habit of introspection. I was always looking within and talking to myself. The inner dialogue seldom stopped. Don Juan turned my eyes outward and taught me to accumulate personal power.

I don't think there is any other way to live if one wants to be exuberant.

...


KEEN: In the existential tradition, discussions of responsibility usually follow discussion of death.

CASTANEDA: Then don Juan is a good existentialist. When there is no way of knowing whether I have one more minute of life. I must live as if this is my last moment. Each act is the warrior's last battle. So everything must be done impeccably. Nothing can be left pending. This idea has been very freeing for me. I am here talking to you and I may never return to Los Angeles. But that wouldn't matter because I took care of everything before I came.

KEEN: This world of death and decisiveness is a long way from psychedelic utopias in which the vision of endless time destroys the tragic quality of choice.

CASTANEDA: When death stands to your left you must create your world by a series of decisions. There are no large or small decisions, only decisions that must be made now. And there is no time for doubts or remorse. If I spend my time regretting what I did yesterday I avoid the decisions I need to make today.

...


KEEN: There seem to be many parallels between existential philosophy and don Juan's teachings. What you have said about decision and gesture suggests that don Juan, like Nietzsche or Sartre, believes that will rather than reason is the most fundamental faculty of man.

CASTANEDA: I think that is right. Let me speak for myself. What I want to do, and maybe I can accomplish it, is to take the control away from my reason. My mind has been in control all of my life and it would kill me rather than relinquish control. At one point in my apprenticeship I became profoundly depressed. I was overwhelmed with terror and gloom and thoughts about suicide. Then don Juan warned me this was one of reason's tricks to retain control. He said my reason was making my body feel that there was no meaning in life. Once my mind waged this last battle and lost, reason began to assume its proper place as a tool of the body.

KEEN: "The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of" and so does the rest of the body.

CASTANEDA: That is the point. The body has a will of its own. Or rather, the will is the voice of the body. That is why don Juan consistently put his teachings in dramatic form. My intellect could easily dismiss his world of sorcery as nonsense. But my body was attracted to his world and his way of life. And once the body took over, a new and healthier reign was established.

...


CASTANEDA: It has been this element of engagement in the world that has kept me following the path which don Juan showed me. There is no need to transcend the world. Everything we need to know is right in front of us, if we pay attention. If you enter a state of nonordinary reality, as you do when you use psychotropic plants, it is only to draw back from it what you need in order to see the miraculous character of ordinary reality. For me the way to live--the path with heart--is not introspection or mystical transcendence but presence in the world. This world is the warrior's hunting ground.

The Penny Drops

Continued Over Here

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SWEDA Mythic Narrative Series, No.1


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Pathless Path

Dissonant Cognition

Continued Over Here.