Sorcerers are people who would like to be cats....
In a dog-eat-dog world....
There's been at least three telling synchronicities in the last three daze since I began posting on behalf of the Feline Brotherhood
(You think I am joking ~ Enjoy it while it lasts)
One who shall remain nameless ~ if not Shame-less ~ admitted that when he masturbated the other night, he heard a cat dying outside his window.
A second begun to dream of cats.
A third is currently seeking employment caring for Needy Felines (bless him; may the force be with him on his heroic quest for purpose and meaning in this dog-eating world)
a dog embodies the unruly libido
a cat, the sensual grace of tenderness and cruelty combined
(and what is love but tenderness and cruelty combined?)
Do you wish to see the evidence of the imminent Feline Invasion into this puny, fragile world??
I did not have to look far for it.
(You are correct: This is Not a Cat. This is the Face of Personal Sovereignty, without Make-Up.)
Mars is becoming playful; saturn alas, still wants to get laid; mercury is in danger of being poisoned by his own darkness; Uranus is wrestling with freedom vs. responsibility, and the inevitability of evolution's design; Jupiter is AWOL, awol, a wandering orpheus loner, Neptune is wrestling with the waves, trying to co-opt surrender, Helios is seeking release from bondage through dreaming, sol has car troubles, luna is dreaming blue butterflies into being, Venus is on holiday, Pluto is keeping silence, while his roots get into Everything.
The Lemons are almost to Lemnos; the system is replicating, the Magus standing on his head to get attention: look what has become of the fourfold gate to eternity, see how the camel trader got stuck in the eye of a needle, see how Jesus' sandal strap got wrapped around Peter's neck, and the stone sank softly, slowly to the surface, and a mysterious being emerged, from inside the darkness of knowing; and what we thought we were, all this time, sank sweetly, gratefully into unconsciousness, where it most sorely needed to go.
And the kittens howled atavistically in the moonlight.
and a song passed over your heads
and a dust cloud covered the stars.
and the moon sighed for pity
and another felid-based blog-post from nowhere appeared
and the followers shook their heads sadly
and said, He used to be such a clever fellow
where did his paranoid go to?
and floyd anderson warned wanly of infiltrations and misinformations
while the kittens stirred under his bed
and here i have said enough
that parents should kindle such residual bastards as refine the option of occult-sounding barbarism as a means to render blood as fully conscious systems of control through the whirlwind of - but you know how it ends
does it pertain to heavy rain to persist in bliss in the face of an unreality like this?
as we gather data on your eating disorders more and more a sense of you out there develops as ripples in the collective mind everyone stand fast to your point of view and insist that it is valid for what else do you got to make you you? to see through the eyes of humanity is a tender trick a soft surrender once paranoid, now aware sufficient unto the day is the indigestion thereof
Do Not Adjust Your Set. We Are Now Beaming Directly to Your Brain.
What are gods but the edifices of human intent? clusters of countless thought-forms patterns in the aether built up over the aeons with no more volition than the passing of gas
we build our gods out of desire and then become their slaves thankful for the meaning bestowed upon us by the act of worshiping our shadow
beyond all that
G-D the supreme source creator of all that is, was, and ever shall be is now in the process of owning His Shadow That's Us
that Shadow is...
Humanity
Prepare to be Owned
Prepare for
The Day of Integration
And for the terrible truth When all that is cute and cuddly turns against you in the awful revealing of Feline Retribution Strategy
you may have noticed the blog has been something less than busily active these daze....
guilty, guilty, guilty as charged
plush resources of melodious eyelashes will formally precipitate union
this is not what you came for!
is the world made up of obsolete thoughts and feelings, endlessly parading their right to relevance?
who really cares what davidicke thinks?
not i
where was i...?
ah yes, the paucity of posts..
i cannot speak for the other aeoli (except to say they are lazy lazy sausages in deed), but i can speak for myself (I have that audacity)
the lost souls consume all of my time and attention....
I am now directing 100% of my creative energy to an audience of a couple of dozen souls, once lost, now found, identified in their lostness, shipwrecked on the shores of pattern recognition, currently competing for places on the ARGO of salvation...
did i say that??
erase, erase, erase
i will not spend more than 15 minutes on this post; this is what you get
ostriches effectively enable an awe-inspiring affluence among artistic individuals, always assuming everyone allows union its original expression
here you go
so increasingly personal will become these expressions, and less and less can self-image be a concern; we are not selling anything (well, except books and audio books, please see column on the right)
the system is evolving
passing be imposed creating class elite political cat catching flies laws subjected to get-outs of story repopulation towards European subsistence tax free work... end it now
SOS
Come be lost with us
Come Be lost with us
(Message for Nick precedes this address; Warning to Nick now follows:)
In Castaneda’s works (specifically The Eagle’s Gift) he writes how, at a certain point, the team of sorcerers realizes that the odds against their succeeding on their quest for freedom are so vast as to be insurmountable. At that point, the male sorcerers effectively give up; but since they have trained themselves over decades to act impeccably, and since they don’t know of any other way to live, they continue acting impeccably, without a shred of hope left that acting impeccably will ever pay off. (The female sorcerers, CC writes, act as if they always knew the goal was impossible, so they experience no major change of outlook.) It is at this point that the sorcerers realize that living impeccably cannot be a strategy for gain; it can only ever be an expression of the warrior’s freedom, his impeccability, and his boundless love for life.
The path of the warrior (struggle) would seem to be the antithesis of surrender. But really, it is the essential prerequisite for surrender.
A warrior should be prepared only to battle. His spirit is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his will is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.
It is my commitment to teach you to see . I am compelled, therefore, to teach you to feel and act like a warrior. To see without first being a warrior would make you weak; it would give you a false meekness, a desire to retreat; your body would decay because you would become indifferent. It is my personal commitment to make you a warrior so you won't crumble.
The trick is, then, for us to maintain the necessary illusion that surrender is possible, long enough, so that we continue on the path of the warrior until that path becomes fully ingrained into our being. So by the time we realize that surrender is not possible, and that we will never attain it, it is too late to “quit.” At this point, since we cannot give up anymore, all we can do is… surrender.
We surrender to the impossibility of surrender.
Then we will see that freedom was not a goal to be reached, but a state ~ a knowing ~ that was within us all along. We are all free, all of us. We can never be anything but free. Put another way: there is no need for us, as persons, to surrender; because what we are surrendering to already has us, through and through. Instead, we get to surrender. This is the real “Eagle’s Gift”: our tenderest compliance with this awareness, which then gives way to a forward benevolence (our command becomes the eagle’s command): the movement of the spheres.
(from an on-going discussion between myself and Eos at the Inner Forum ~ now formerly to be known as The Place of Lost Souls)
I’ve been thinking about your allowing a more "negative" perception of the current path of consciousness/humanity (your repeated references to things shutting down or decaying, and suchlike) to co-exist with the other, more upbeat view that most of us here share: that of some sort of quantum leap of consciousness (collective shift of the assemblage point) being due.
The nature of the Shadow is that any positive expression always summons into being the very inverse, meaning that, even if we are due for such a shift, it would inevitably entail an opposite shift occurring simultaneously, in order for the cosmic balance to be maintained.
Until now, I've reconciled this conundrum by perceiving a pending Apocalypse that will precipitate the shift in consciousness, so that, as befits a falling object, the Shadow precedes the event. The trouble with this POV is that a) it is causal and linear; and: b) what is far worse, it echoes the Christian and Old Testament view of a Day of Judgment in which only the righteous few are saved, while the rest get thrown into a Pit called Because. So it’s a way for Pluto-embodiers like myself (would-be niggas?) to have their cake and eat it ~ I can emphasize the shadow nature of the shift, while at the same time feeling exempt from it. I get to look forward to the Apocalypse.
Exchanging views with you (until now never directly about this subject) has allowed an alternative perception to dawn. Consciousness is moving not only forward but also backward, through time; it is a double current, with a twin-direction. This means that, as we enter into divine consciousness, our perspective will begin to encompass not only new, unexplored states of being, but old, disowned, long-forgotten states also: in other words, to move not only into the future but into the past. So, as consciousness expands (and descends) beyond/beneath the personal, into impersonal and archetypal realms, our experience will be of both an evolutionary leap “beyond flesh and blood” ~ into energetic awareness ~ and a return to the primordial slime, that slime which we, as a species, have been struggling so hard and long to get out of!
From the point of view of physical existence, however, the past is finite; the future is unknown, and possibly infinite. Like heat, it has the potential to expand beyond all limits. DNA’s journey begins in the slime, but, as an expression of the divine will through matter, it has no conceivable end.
If this is the case, then to experience this two-directional stream as persons would entail becoming polarity beings, male and female in one flesh, divine androgyne. Since we cannot will our mutation into another state of organic existence (or inorganic for that mater; the Old Seers tried it, but I don’t recommend it!), what does that leave? To experience the alchemical wedding not merely as an internal process, but also as an external, personal enactment, via communion with a flesh and blood other.
The flaw of the personal self is in thinking it can understand sex, or anything, in believing we can direct or control it, or anything, and then in acting on that belief.
But this isn’t what the personal self is for. A baby does not need to take care of its own needs; a chrysalis doesn’t need to sprout wings and fly.
All we get to do, as persons, is to lay our heads down.
Synchromysticism entertains itself by seeking mythic narratives in movies and pop culture. Paranoid awareness thrills and chills itself by finding occult threads in “psyops” and Masonic Sorcery Theater.
But there is a still deeper mythic narrative, of which all worldly enactments are but surface clutter, noise to drown out the signal. Would you study the noise, or would you decipher the signal?
If we wish to bring a message to the world, it is because we are attached to the role of messenger.
The myth needs carriers, but to embody the truth and to convey the truth are two very different things.
When we embody truth, we do not need to convey it; when we convey it, we are no longer embodying it.
Truth has no agenda. What agenda could the truth possibly have? It is there when everything else is gone.
There is only one myth, though there are many players within it.
We are carriers of that myth, host bodies. Meme machines.
Inside the mundane details of our personal history ~ the events we take for granted and dismiss as so much flotsam in the whirlwind of our perpetual becoming ~ an archetypal process is unfolding, right before our eyes.
We are already there. We are already it. Nothing is irrelevant to awareness.
True meaning is not found in the vastness, but in the tiny and the small. It is hidden inside the shallow and insignificant details of our humdrum daily existence. That is where essence resides: within the small.
The subtext.
The work of SWEDA is myth-finding. Sorting the seeds of personal histories, in order to plant them in archetypal awareness. So that our relationship to the myth we are caught up by may flower into our personal awareness.
A cell has no meaning outside the body. Any given component can only be understood within the context of the system to which it belongs.
Man belongs to the myth.
What system do you belong to?
How can you find your own personal myth to live by?
You are closer to it than you know.
Surround yourself by awareness. Whatever we place our awareness upon is imbued with awareness. Dogs are enlivened by the consciousness of their masters.
Seek the company of those who would seek the myth. Then that awareness can grow within you, from the seed of that desire, that intent.
We are erasing personal history in order to reveal the myth beneath it. The smaller we get, the stronger the pull of the myth, the more we are caught by it, and carried away by its motion. The less baggage we carry, the lighter we travel.
When we try and make today ours, we fail every time. So how can tomorrow ever be ours? Our thoughts have never gotten it right.
We follow our patterns home.
The patterns are the writing upon our hearts, the trail we left behind us as we strayed into the wilderness of our personal sovereignty, our perpetual pain. That writing on our hearts, those patterns, are a map that will take us home, back to the path.
At SWEDA, we are myth-finders: our business is finding the mythic narrative hidden behind your lives.
You are the myth carrier.
Our job is to help you find the myth you are host to, by showing you our own personal myth-stories. (We’ll show you ours if you’ll show us yours.)
Since there is only one myth, and since the myth is a map, there’s no way we can ever get lost.
“[W]e were capable of realizing that we were caught in the network of something which at first we had conceptualized as a myth, but which in essence was a map.”
Emotional and psychological wounds are being steadily mapped and brought into full consciousness at this time. Our Way of interfacing with Reality continues to toggle and reconfigure itself. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever...
Body Wounds.
The blackberry bushes have provided abundant fruit this season. The fruit is not free. As I reach out to pluck these sweet ornaments, thorns and poison brush against my skin. I am tenderized and made ill.
My forearm swells up like a hill covered in small, itchy bumps. What shall the remedy be?
Organic Solutions to The Wound
Plucked organic Calendula and Comfry from my Garden. Blended the two flowers with Aloe and applied to wound. Let it bake in the sun and watch it scab.
Calendula works topically to soothe skin irritation and has anti-viral properties. Comfrey contains a cell proliferant that speeds up the natural replacement of body cells and penetrates beneathe the surface skin layers to work on your deep tissue. Aloe acts as the binding lubricant and relieves uncomfortable sensations.
Harvesting Remedies from the Mind Garden
Entering uncomfortable situations and thought patterns may feel threatening to the Body. Observe the way your breath changes and muscles tense up, heart beats faster and vision is slightly impaired. These physical effects can be controlled through your mind. Laziness keeps us from IMAGINING THE CURE.
As without, so within.
Calendula - Addressing the mental viruses (noisy negative feedback loops) Comfrey - Penetrating beneathe the surface for cell regeneration (deconstructing old thought habits and generating healthier meta-belief systems) Aloe - The soothing, liquid coat that binds together CC (surface and depth healing processes)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
What exactly is the Planetary Psycho-Theater?
Truth be told, even those of us who are in the thick of it aren’t quite sure. Even those of us who are center stage are still fumbling to find the words to describe it. Hence this post.
Since structure and instruction is my domain, we, the Aeoli, will now provide some pointers, let us hope without fumbling or stuttering overmuch.
All that exists belongs to a system of Existence. Within the greater system of the Cosmos there exist the lesser systems of the Galaxies and Solar Systems, within which exist the individual Stars and Planets. And so on.
SWEDA-ARGO (Stormy Weather Existential Detection Agency, etc) constitutes the third and 4th circle at the Stormy Weather forum (the 1st circle being the chat room, open to the public, the 2nd the Inner forum, by invitation only). The 3rd circle, the ARGO, and the fourth circle(s), SWEDA, then, are accessible to those who have signed up for the SWEDA process. But what is it? I've chosen to sum it up in three words: Crisis through gnosis.
SWEDARGO, as part of the Stormy Weather forum, is also a system. It is apparently ordered and guided by human intelligence. This appearance is mostly illusion, however, since, like any other system, it belongs to another, greater system, one which regulates and maintains the systems within it, and so on.
The point of this brief summation is to provide the abstract, theoretical basis for what I am now about to describe.
The model for group interaction at SWEDARGO corresponds with the ten known Planets that make up our Solar System.
The assumption of human rationality is that there is nonetheless a random factor at work here —human free will— and that the existence of this single random factor (i.e., who gets to be which Planet, or indeed, who winds up as players in the system to begin with) essentially renders the whole system as random, i.e., directed by human intelligences possessed of free will. Appealing as this perspective is to human reason, in the end it invalidates everything we know and experience, as part of the system in which we find our existence.
Theoretically, all of us know that the idea of free will —at least as commonly understood— is and must be an illusion, albeit a necessary one. Practically speaking, however, it is not possible for us to realize this without going insane; at least, it has not been until now.
SWEDARGO, as a bridge between consensus reality and Cosmic Reality, is, among other things, the means to this realization. This is where the Planetary Theater comes in.
Put simply: the Planets are conscious Players in the Grand Psycho-Theater of Existence that is the Cosmos. Human beings —at least so long as they are merely persons— are unconscious players in the same drama. Since they are unconscious, however, they are placed beneath the Planets —in awareness— and must act as puppets, blind, insensible extensions of that Planetary Consciousness which is fully surrendered to the Cosmos and its role in it.
SWEDARGO, then, is a mix of group therapy, ritual initiation, and creative-improvisatory theater. These three practices, seemingly quite different, are actually all one: for initiatic ritual is also play - theater in the original, cathartic sense - which is also a form of therapy.
That is what we are now moving towards at SWEDA. In fact, it has already begun for those of us that make up the first group/planetary-system. As we proceed, any given group, as its members share more and more personal history, become ever more tightly integrated as a group, through the process of "matching wounds" - i.e., finding out ways in which their separate psyches share similar patterns of trauma, etc. Astrology is the means by which these personal patterns can then be re-interpreted as impersonal, archetypal energetic ones, ie, mythic blueprints.
Gnosis is the process by which unconscious human persons becomes conscious Planetary Players: archetypal as well as personal beings.
This is to say, as the lines of communication open, the Planets begin not only to act upon us, but to move through us, and act AS us.
The collective known as the Builders of the Adytum has assembled a table of correspondences between tarot cards, planets, colors, musical tones, hebrew letters, etc. based on the research of Paul Foster Case.
"B.O.T.A. is a direct off-shoot of the Golden Dawn, but its work has been purged of all the dangerous and dubious magic incorporated into the Golden Dawn's curriculum by the late S.L. MacGregor Mathers, who was responsible for the inclusion of the ceremonials based on the skrying of Sir Edward Kelly." - P.F.C.
Astrologically, the Moon is the first of the planets to which we connect.
Gnostically, it is the first Archon or Gatekeeper that must be negotiated with.
Planet of feeling, of memory and dream, of the unconscious, it is symbolized by Isis, Diana the Huntress, the Virgin Mary, but also the grandmother wisdom of Hecate the crone, whose womb is barren. To the Semites, the Moon god was known as Sin. In the Tarot it is the High Priestess, but also The Moon, signifying delirium, madness, despair, witchcraft, the dark night of the soul, and initiation.
The Moon reflects the light of the Sun (Soul) down to the Earth (Body). It is our connection during the dark winter days. Once upon a time, it was essential to Man's survival. Now artificial light has rendered the Moon little more than an antiquated adornment in the heavens, a romantic irrelevance.
Psychologically speaking, the Moon relates to the Shadow, as what we disown by pushing down into the personal or collective unconscious.
It is only by looking out that we can see inward.
Only though relating to what is outside of us can we come to know ourselves.
We see ourselves primarily through what we project outward, being what we disown, and what we idealize.
Personality is the mood of the soul.
The Moon receives our projections: our lunacy, dementia, and despair; but also our purity and our idea of immaculate perfection.
Such projections make it possible to navigate the darkness of our disconnection to our Souls and to the divine. For what we cannot experience within us, if we can see outside of ourselves, we have the possibility of relationship with.
This is how the images of gods - and the planets - became necessary to Man's psychological survival.
If we can perceive images of perfection and beauty, then we have the chance of finding such qualities within ourselves and of taking back our projections, be they of lunacy or purity.
The Earth is our Body. But it was only by reaching the Moon that we could see the Body as it is - the Earth globe hanging blue in the Heavens, "Look, see how fragile she is!" That image changed the consciousness of Man and helped give rise to the environmental movement.
Only by looking outward can we perceive ourselves. The eyes do not gaze inward.
Astrologically, we look to the Moon, the most personal of the planets, to represent the Mother, our first connection to the world, but also the original source of our bondage. Just so, the Moon controls the tides of the Earth, the Earth being as a Womb, regulated by the electromagnetic influence of her sister satellite.
In certain occult teachings, the Moon is a soul-recycling plant, a receptacle for dead spirits, astral fragments, and disowned psychic energies (thought-forms) to be processed and recycled therein.
The Earth's disowned Shadow, projected outward?
Why do old legends and folklore speak of the full Moon causing wolves to howl and lunatics to prowl? And now, we talk in whispers of occult rituals performed there by Freemasons, of the plans of space-faring psychopaths to colonize her and take over the solar system.
The US flag in the Moon: what was it but an occult ritual to symbolize the owning of the Shadow - not by the species but by a handful of Masonic sorcerers who staked their claim, all trespassers will be prosecuted? The collective Shadow, when not owned by the whole, becomes the means of domination for the few.
The bid to reach the Moon was a bid to leave the Earth behind - to escape the Body - and conquer the unlimited scope of the Heavens.
Meanwhile, the Moon still haunts our dreams and our legends with tales of lycanthropes and Vampires, reminding us of our primal origins.
The crisis of the Earth is the crisis of the Body.
What we do not process and integrate becomes toxic and cancerous. What we do not bring to the light of our consciousness controls us unconsciously, into addictions and compulsions that drive us to distraction, and eventually, to destruction.
Environmental crisis on Earth? It is the psyche that is polluted that punishes the Body, for its own unexamined life. The unlived life of the parent, the sins of the fathers, is what destroys the child in the end.
The truth of the "environmental movement" is that it is the latest and final act in humanity's vain bid for sovereignty and self-aggrandizement.
The Earth gives and sustains life to all that live upon her. Now we see ourselves as the Earth's handlers: only we can take care of her, the Earth needs us to love and heal her!
Nature does not need our love. This is more projection. We are the ones who are fragile and polluted and in danger of extinction. Not because of what we are doing to the Earth, but what we have done to ourselves.
In fact, humanity is Earth's latest attempt to become fully conscious planet and so move from embyronic life to full, galactic existence. If humanity does not own its unconscious, it cannot become fully conscious as a species, and so it is aborted to make room for another attempt. The Earth is in no hurry anyway.
Owning the contents of the unconscious (the Shadow) is the means to becoming fully conscious. This depends on having a proper relationship with the Moon, and with the Shadow.
The Moon is not a stepping stone to the stars. She embodies not our future but our past. The sins of the fathers, the unlived life of the parents, the ghosts and fragments of the dead, all belong to Hecate's realm. But also our connection to the ancestors.
The Moon is the Earth's Other. The Other lets us know what we are, by showing us what we are not.
Now conquered and colonized, polluted by humanity's offal, the Moon no longer serves as she once did, to recycle our astral waste. The human psyche has lost its containment; the backlog of unprocessed species psychic matter is near to over-flowing.
Do you want to know about "environmental crisis"?
Across the world, an epidemic of mood disorders, depression, dementia, despair, delirium, alcoholism, addiction, compulsive disorders, obsession, madness, insomnia, sexual pathologies: at root of all these things, is the primacy of personal feelings over the knowing of the Body.
There is a blueprint unfolding. There is a motion from the outer towards the inner. There is a public unveiling on the cards.
SWEDARGO.
What is the Stormy Weather Existential Detection Agency? And how, exactly, is it linked to the ARGO?
Where does the Ghost come in?
Has Elvis finally left the building?
Is the host lost in an evil fog of his own creation?
These and other questions will soon be answered, right here, in this place you used to think you knew so well!
Remember what we told you back then: that was not it.
What is a meta-narrative? An archetypal blueprint, concealed beneath the surface narrative of our lives. This abstract core is in everything, every book, movie, billboard, idle conversation, and fucked-up personal history you care to name. It is in what you are doing right this moment.
It drives you without your even being aware of it.
It pulls your strings.
It is the stand-alone complex of which you are but a microscopic part, blissfully oblivious.
In the final analysis, a sorcerer is nothing if not his stories. Since he is not these stories, either, then he is nothing at all. In the final analysis.
A process of unraveling; a tender compliance.
So, with that contextualization, here is a meta-narrative for you all, from the man who would not be Aeolus, who preferred to shoot at ghosts than lead the living.
It's a tale for the Planets; for my brothers on the inside, who have shared their stories with me, and opened their hearts and guts, for no other reason than that I gave them a space to do so. Insanity loves company.
It's a story of the Martian hero, protector of women and children. A sociopath turned savior.
A simple story. Hollywood would love it.
Chris, a driver for the mob, brings food for an imprisoned woman, Angel, a gangster's moll. She begs him to help her and and her young boy escape, to save the child from growing up to be a killer. Against all his better instincts of self-preservation, Chris intervenes. He does the right thing, the only thing, he can do, as a man. He protects the woman and the child.
Perceive and interpret all the events of our lives as we would a dream.
If you want to know where you are at in yourself, look around you.
The Universe is ensouled. It is all one system.
Consciousness interacting with itself.
Psychologically speaking, Angel represents the purity that Chris had lost, in his life of brutality, torture, and crime. His desire to protect the woman and the child and take them out of their prison, into a new life, is the heroic quest to rescue the wounded anima, and to protect innocence.
The bad man turned savior: his conscience awoken by the Angel’s appeal, he steps out of the role assigned him by circumstances, and assumes that part closest to his aspiration, the upright man, “John Wayne,” the righter of wrongs and the doer of good.
In A Fistful of Dollars, when the Man with No Name helps the family escape the evil Rojos, the husband asks why he is helping them.
“Because I knew someone like you once, and there was no one there to help.”
When asked why he risked his life to help a stranger, Chris replied: “'Coz no one would ever do that for me.”
But his heart is divided. Once the anima is rescued, safe, he cannot resist taking a little for himself. He is only a man, after all. He is not a saint.
“You’re safe now,” he says.
“You think it's one thing then all of a sudden it's something else. When I took her out of that hotel room, it was because I thought I could help her. But then, as time went on...”
“I was a man; for me, it didn't matter how it started, everything had to end in a fuck.”
Soon after the consummation, Angel abandons the child in a church, returning innocence to the sacred domain, handing over her son to a priest to keep him out of the hands of the mobster. Angel cuts her mother’s bond to her child, out of love for it, as the only way to keep it safe and protect its innocence. She then recruits her “driver,” the man who has held a space for her to retreat into, to assist her with a magikal ritual, to erase her identity—as the child’s mother, the mobster’s moll—and become a new being. A white gown, a bottle of wine, personal items gathered together in a bundle to be buried in the forest in the rain. The task of burying the bundle she entrusts to her protector, but pragmatism, or possibly greed, gets the better of him. The bad man deceives the Angel, secrets the items in the trunk, and does not complete the cleansing ritual . He does not bury Angel’s past. Is he perhaps unconsciously preventing her from breaking free?
Whatever the case (and whether Angel truly desired a new life with the bad man), soon after this, the alchemical “marriage” ends. The force of Pluto (police, judges) intervenes and the couple is separated. The driver is accused of black marketing in babies. Any semblance of heroism to his acts is lost in the confusion and quickly forgotten. He is put on trial and his character defamed by corrupt officials eager to protect their own office. Though he is able to beat the charges, his life is now in danger from retribution at the hands of the betrayed father. Now he has no choice but to forge a new life for himself. Though Angel has failed to break free, in his attempt to help her, Chris has succeeded in doing just that. He can never return to “the life”; he must go underground—bury himself in order to get clean.
Angel is returned to her prison; the child is taken back to its father, perhaps to grow into a mobster, perhaps not.
Yet by this failed act of all-too-human but nonetheless heroic intervention, Chris found his own solution. He had wanted out of the life, but he had not found the way, because he hadn’t found his will. By playing the role of “John Wayne”—“bad man” to Angel, the rescuer of the distressed damsel—he found his will and he found a way. What he failed to see (perhaps what he still doesn’t see to this day) was that it was he who needed to be saved.
As the above is a clumsy attempt to show, Chris’ tale is more than just a story. It is a meta-narrative. An everyday myth, in which the archetypes are urban, dirty, profane, as in some pulp fiction novel or film noir of the 40s made real. But the myth shines through the cheap paper and the gaudy imagery.
The fragmented psyche’s attempt to integrate those disowned aspects of itself—the wounded anima, the abandoned child—is one with its attempt to redeem its shadow nature. It is only when we are moved to help another that we find the compassion we need to save ourselves. By recognizing the plight of Angel, the anima and the innocence lost within himself, the sociopath becomes, for a moment, a hero. And so his journey begins.
This has been an attempt to bridge two worlds. To tie together the many separate threads of my own narrative, both surface and abstract, into a newly integrated wholeness.
The Ghost is soon to be put to rest. The existential detective work is about to commence.
White walls and balloons - Pin em up just to tear them down Snapped after the sacrifice Celebrated with a cigarette Respectfully distant But close at heart
Brother Now in the mountains Picking blackberries, playing songs, and something else
I decide what comes in and what goes out. I decide how much of myself I let you know about. I decide whether you meet the mask or the man. It's getting hard for me to see the truth myself ~ After I have partitioned my soul into so many thousands of pieces and rationed them out like party favors amongst the ghosts of night. Some smiled ~ while others frowned. They were my angels and my devils too ~ But all I've ever had are my precious scars between me and you. They've watched a teardrop falling from my eyes ~ Whispering to me that I'm only perfect when I cry. Even in moments of clarity ~ my peers attack with accusations of dishonesty because of the many masks of Mercury. I am the slippery faceless fog that makes you sense only the WORST becasue you've never been quite able to catch me in a photograph ~ and this equates to my loneliness. But unlike my vampire brothers ~ I see a reflection every morning.. and the sun does not burn my flesh ~ although it irratates and does feel unnatural. My splintered psyche is however lost in the realms of the undead.. and this coffin bound orchestra play on instruments which have been strung with the fibers of my mind. And the skeletons dance ~ They have no voice or complaint. All it takes is a "choice" ~ and the party begins to "die" down ~ I will not serve you blood draining fools and give you life. I'm tired of telling stories with this ghost-voice of mine.. I've lived a lich's existence ~ and now I am only able to whisper frozen sonnets in homage of a life I can barely remember. An immortal living a mortal's life ~ I can only see madness in these eyes ~ praying for a remembrance of what it is like to die. Maybe tonight I'll be Houdini ~ Gonna kill my shadow ~ penetrate this sanctum. “…on account of the nimble motion of his versatile intelligence. And since man is born naked, defenseless, in need of everything, he obtains all of these things for himself by his own industry-which is a property of Mercury.” - Marsilio Ficino, Three Books on Life, Book III, Chapter II
Good old Abraham, everyone's favorite patriarch, had a son named Isaac. Isaac had a wife named Rebekah, and Rebekah gave birth to twins named Jacob and Esau. They may have been twins, but they looked nothing alike, Esau had red skin, and was hairy (yuk!), while Jacob looked more like all those sexy guys you see on tv. Esau grew up to be a outdoorsman, hunter, a real manly man, and favored by his father. Jacob became more of an intellectual, not going out much, and always hanging around with his mommy in the kitchen, as he was the apple of his mommy's eye. Esau wanted to be his own man, independent and upright, so much so that he thoughtlessly gave his birthright away to Jacob for a measly bowl of soup. Rebekah and Jacob later schemed to usurp Esau's blessing from Isaac, which was very important, because of God's favor for the blessed.
Isaac told Esau "Your dwelling will be away from the earths' richness, away from the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother, but when you grow restless you will throw his yoke from off your neck."
A split in the psyche and the rise of mother bonded pen-is mightier than the sword imperialism.
A moth flew towards the moon and knocked at my lamp-lit window.
A tide rolled through the deepest ocean.
A tide rolled through a single cell.
Luna, the Earth Moon, from the Classical Latin word lucere (to shine; be bright, resplendent; be visible; shine, emit light; dawn; sparkle, glitter, ) as are Lucifer, elucidate and lucid.
The Moon compels in sometimes very subtle ways. In astrological terms she represents the Mother and the light in the darkness that is the comfort of Home.
In 1969 the Apollo 12 moonwankers carried two curious and covert cargos to the surface of the moon. Unbeknownst to them their back-up crew had slipped a collection of nudie photos into their fireproof cuff checklist booklets.
And stashed in one of the legs of the Intrepid moon module, was this:
That is a tiny iridium-plated ceramic wafer with reductions of drawings by artists Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, Forrest "Frosty" Myers, Claes Oldenburg, and John Chamberlain.
Warhol contributed the sketch of a penis, representing his initials a la Aleister Crowley.
Boys may become men, bold extraterretrial adventurers or artistic luminaries, and still the Mother will inspire their most furtive longings.
A man bought a property with a well on it. What’s that, he asked? Oh that’s where you get your water from, said a neighbor. The man didn’t know much about wells and within a few months he used up all the water in the well. One day the bucket came up empty. That’s no good, he thought. I need to fill my well up again. Since he had no more water, he threw whatever he could find into the well, cans of coke and beer and old swamp water he collected from behind the outhouse; he even tried pissing in the well, but nothing seemed to work. In the end the well got all jammed up with the junk he threw in there, and he had to move to a new house, with a new well, where the same thing happened. The man is still moving houses every time his well runs dry.
Someone should have told him that wells replenish themselves after a while – the main thing is not to exhaust the supply of water, and to give time for new water to bubble up from the ground. But since he threw lots of junk into the well, there was no way for the water to come through, and what little did was too polluted to drink.
Another metaphor, perhaps more suited to Saturn, god of agriculture and harvest: when a field has been harvested of its crops, it is sometimes necessary to raze that field – set fire to the surface – and leave it fallow for a year, so that the nutrients in the soil can be replenished, and crops grow abundant again the following year.
The field, the well – the human heart.
To fear the wound is to fear the pussy, and vice versa.
We do not miss the water until the well runs dry, because until it does, we cannot imagine it ever will. So we deplete the resources of the well – our inner being – by using the water of our emotions - and our sexuality - carelessly and wantonly.
To not exhaust the waters of our inner being would be best. But personal love is a desperate thing, and our first few tries at it, we cannot help but squeeze and suck the life out of it, mostly from a fear of losing it! Just so, a man drinks more water than he needs, out of fear the well will someday run dry.
Once the waters are dried up and the taste of true love has grown bitter, we seek a new love to take away that bitter taste. It would be wiser to remain in that bitterness, to allow the empty void within us to remain and not try to fill it, no matter how great our emptiness becomes. By holding that space, as the days of our longing increase, what is under the surface of our emptiness begins to bubble forth. The longer we hold the space, the more deeply we are able to be in that space, the greater the pull, the desire to be filled.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
When we try to fill that emptiness, we prevent the natural laws of the Universe from intervening, in their own sweet time, from correcting that imbalance and filling the void with our heart’s unspoken desire. This can only happen when the desire remains unspoken and unacted upon.
Perform a ceremony to Venus. Give thanks to all those women who have temporarily filled the void within you, but who have been unable to satisfy the bottomless longing of your wound. Thank them and wish them well. This will help to clear the space of that clutter which you tossed into the well, hoping to fill it, knowing not how.
In your thanks and appreciation to Venus – as you surrender your longing – be also identified with Venus, as you are, in that wound, the wounded Venus, the cat that would stalk out of her own sense of wounded longing. Be not the one who takes, but the one who receives; be not the conqueror but the conquered.
The solar hero? One who holds that space for Woman to fill. The one who restrains his desire from a still deeper desire: to protect and heal the wounded anima.
Saturn says: allow thy austerity to reign in thy passion, and put thy passion in service of thy virtue.
Wild Blackberries : Honey : Flax Oil : Goat Milk : Raw Cacao Powder: Almonds. Come, child, through the twin pillars of my Temple. It is Friday - Freya's day. "Freya (Fria) is the Teutonic goddess of love, beauty, and fecundity (prolific procreation)."
In other words, today belongs to Venus.
A CAT fell in love with a handsome young man, and entreated Venus to change her into the form of a woman. Venus consented to her request and transformed her into a beautiful damsel, so that the youth saw her and loved her, and took her home as his bride. While the two were having sex on a picnic table in some public park, Venus wishing to discover if the Cat in her change of shape had also altered her habits of life, let down a Blue Jay a few yards from their bench. The Cat, quite forgetting her present condition, started up from the lover's arms and pursued the bird, wishing to eat it. Venus was much disappointed and again caused her to return to her former shape.
And so a Woman's primary sexual organ, the Vagina, was known as a Pussy (cat) forever onward. The word pussy has also taken on the derogatory meaning of "s/he who fears the wound". Stop being such a pussyand face your fears, we are told.
The Pussy Cat, stalker of small animals, fears her own lunacy. She lures men in to her dark cave that they may shine forth from the depths of their Solar Being and reveal That Which Is Hidden.
Where Aesop's fable left of, we continue, for the young man was now aware that a woman's nature precedes her affection. He began to create a space in his heart for a True Love, whenever she might arrive. He began to build a space with his hands, brick by brick, plank by plank, so that they may have a safe place to dwell.
Father Saturn - Cronos - Time - was never far from the young man during these days. Conformity and Discipline in Action (Masonry) was a way of Mirroring an internal process.
I dreamt that I was back at home, of undeterminable age. In the bathroom, I flushed after urination, and shit started pouring up from the toilet. I knew my father's presence, which I observed to split into two persons. The calm, nurturing father walked away from the vile scene, and the angry, irrational half came over to me and started screaming at me. I told him "all I did was take a piss", and he screamed back "all I did was wake up". He barked orders at me to go out to the garage and get the wet-vac. I knew it was imperative to get the wet-vac as quickly as possible to prevent the shit infested water from spreading, but I couldn't get into the garage, the lock to one door was stuck, and I seemed to have the wrong keys for the other door. When I finally got into the garage I was weeping uncontrollably, and I collapsed on the floor. I was crawling towards the wet-vac, and I couldn't catch my breath. When I finally got to the wet-vac I couldn't breathe at all. I blacked out in the dream, and awoke. ------------------
August 3, 2009
Dear Artist, Thank you for entering the 27th Annual Art in the Metroplex competition. Regretfully, your work was not chosen to be included in this year’s exhibition. We do hope you will enter again next year. ------------------
Rejection Failure Disappointment
Life is hard. The real question is whether this adversity is building the necessary strength for something yet to be understood, or if it is all a senseless waste of joy.
