An Experience of Being Alive

The Nature of Things

2012-01-28T14:34:00.007-07:00

Da rerum natura

what kind of world do you want?

("I propose that a reader of Da rerum natura is going to find joy.")

The highest good?

Joy?

Beauty?

Pleasure?

Ecstasy?

Suffering?

(what's the point again?)

"The Monkey In The Machine and the Machine in the Monkey"

This is a story about the rise of machines.

And why no one believes you can change the world for the better any more.

How we decided that we were machines ourselves.

Played video games.

And helped start Africa's world war.

*please note the amount of dancing in this video. Obviously it's intentional. The clearest expression of JOY is dance.

“Death is nothing to us.”

So, when our mortal frame shall be disjoin’d,
The lifeless lump uncoupled from the mind,
From sense of grief and pain we shall be free;
We shall not feel, because we shall not be.
Though earth in seas, and seas in heaven were lost,
We should not move, we only should be toss’d.
Nay, e’en suppose when we have suffer’d fate
The soul should feel in her divided state,
What’s that to us? for we are only we,
While souls and bodies in one frame agree.
Nay, though our atoms should revolve by chance,
And matter leap into the former dance;
Though time our life and motion could restore,
And make our bodies what they were before,
What gain to us would all this bustle bring?
The new-made man would be another thing.

~Lucretius On The Nature of Things (trans John Dryden)

Lucretius, who was born about a century before Christ, was emphatically not our contemporary. He thought that worms were spontaneously generated from wet soil, that earthquakes were the result of winds caught in underground caverns, that the sun circled the earth. But, at its heart, “On the Nature of Things” persuasively laid out what seemed to be a strikingly modern understanding of the world. Every page reflected a core scientific vision—a vision of atoms randomly moving in an infinite universe—imbued with a poet’s sense of wonder. Wonder did not depend on the dream of an afterlife; in Lucretius it welled up out of a recognition that we are made of the same matter as the stars and the oceans and all things else. And this recognition was the basis for the way he thought we should live—not in fear of the gods but in pursuit of pleasure, in avoidance of pain.~Stephen Greenblatt

good news?

"That's the 'good news'?"

Together We Will Live Forever

Thanks Frank! (happy new year!!!)

2012-01-23T00:00:00.003-07:00

So here it is, a new year. And my wife recently related how one goes about preparing for the Chinese New Year. She said that first you need to be thankful to the previous year for all that it was . . . Thank the spirit animal for all it provided.

And so I need to thank you, Frank! 2011 was a tremendous year. You were a great metal rabbit and you led me to a number of things I couldn't have found without going down your rabbit hole . . .

2011 was a year of celebrations. I spent western new years in a cabin w/ a bunch of punks last year. Thank you!

Later, you led me to The Source on my birthday. That was a lot of fun! Thanks so much! What a birthday!

The big find of the year though, was when I followed Rabbit Creek to the Solstice and The Black Rock. You led me there by following a dream, my Phaedra Dream. WOW!!!

We had a number of other fun adventures also. It was a year of exploration. Thank You! Incredibly, toward the end of the summer, you led my son and I to The Heart of The Monster. Incredible! . . . Add to that a couple of Alchemical Weddings, and a family music festival in the Sawtooths, and it was almost perfect! Thanks!

--The icing of course, was the big meet up at The Sync Cabin. What a time! Thank you sooo much!

ahh yes, there was this too . . .

Thanks!!!!

and having done that, one is to open all the windows at midnight and let the year go, which we just did. NOW,one is to only think and talk about the future for the next 24 hours.

Speaking about the future . . .

So, a dragon huh?

a fire dragon you say?

piece of cake!

an unearthed treasure that changed things.

2012-01-16T20:39:00.009-07:00

(School is back in tomorrow, and I just wanted to share with you what I'm reading and have been reading . . .)

(This one, I can tell, is one I'm really going to enjoy!)

(the following two may be connected to 1984)

(somehow I want to connect the top to the bottom with this . . .)

Sacred Time/Sacred Space: Happy HolyDay!

2011-12-21T10:12:00.016-07:00

Prayer is good, as is meditation–but we also need prompt action!

~the Dali Lama

In the coming few weeks ExxonMobil hopes to parade its monstrous modules past my home. If the Idaho resistance weren't battling so bravely they would already be passing. Our home is passive solar. The south-facing livingroom wall is double-paned glass from floor to ceiling. A wide eave keeps sunlinght out in the summer, when the angle of the sun is high; but lets sunlight all the way through to the interior north wall in winter. The design serves us well—but we've had to learn to close the Venetian blinds in some seasons, to keep birds from flying into the glass. In mating season, when males are setting up territories and chasing each other around in a blind passion, we still have a few collisions.

When my daughter Celia was eleven, a pine siskin flew into the window, then hung upside down in the bushes below, looking dead. She ran out and fetched it. The bird was still breathing. I sat down and showed her a sort of "procedure" I've learned from a life of bird-worship. My Warm Springs Indian friend, Liz Woody, discovered the same procedure, and had recently described it to me: when a bird hits a window and is knocked unconscious, you improve it chances if you hold it to your heart. Right up against the beating of it. (That's right, Syncrude; this is what it takes to actually serve a living bird.)

You hold it against your chest (I showed my daughter where, and she sheltered the little siskin). Then you promise the bird–silently or aloud: I prefer aloud—to be its steadfast guardian. And you have to mean it. You vow to sit still for as long as it takes, no time limit, letting the unconscious bird feel your pulse, your determination, your solid protection. You wish the little bird soul well no matter which world it decides to enter, ours or the other.

As Celia held the siskin I emphasized that it doesn't matter how busy you think you are. The bird's helplessness changes that. Unless someone is going to die while you're guarding it, don't worry. Give yourself completely to that bird. If we claim to 'love nature,' anything less is hypocrisy, because anything less is not love. I have been such a hypocrite, I told my daughter, and I have also been faithful. Faithful to me means: you sit with the bird in a gateway that leads beyond time and let the Unseen decide which way it will fly.

Last spring I held a male Downy woodpecker I felt sure would die. It smashed the window so hard I checked the glass for breakage. I went out, gathered it up, cradled it, then sat in a chair on the back deck—in bright early spring sunlight—holding it to my heart. I began breathing my favorite prayer word onto the bird. Murmured spontaneous stuff, too. I told it was okay to die, if that's what needed to happen, but that it's also beautiful to be a woodpecker. As I spoke, its tongue was lolling—and a Downy's tongue is a marvel. It is striped, black and off-white, and nearly three inches long though the entire bird is only seven inches long. What a tool, you realize as you gawk at the thing. No grub or beetle stands a chance.

The Downy's eyes stayed shut for close to an hour. Its neck looked ruined the whole time. But as it lay up close to my heart, warm in my hand, it kept breathing. So I worked with it, said my prayer word, held steady in the gate.

Then felt something. A slight quickening. The bird's being arrived from who knows where. It happened so fast. The limp body turned electric, the brid sprang back to consciousness, and its ruined neck—suddenly, impossibly—was fine.

I didn't even have time to stand. I just opened my hands. The Downy took one look at me—totem red, black and white, obsidian eye, a lightning look—then was off like a shot.

My daughter, too, held steady in the gate that day. And after a quarter hour her pine siskin filler her hands with the quikening. Opened its eyes.

Celia opened her hands. Received the lightning look. Away the siskin flew.

And my daughter's face as it winged away! When a bird falls into the unknown, lies against your heart, wakes and returns, flies from your hands, something in you quickens, awakens, and knows it too can fly.

~The Heart of the Monster David James Duncan (61-63)

wake!

2011-12-07T22:21:00.004-07:00

it's about time . . .

(need a Key?)

feeling

2011-11-25T16:25:00.007-07:00

sign of the times . . .

2011-11-13T23:54:00.003-07:00

end of term

2011-11-12T09:56:00.014-07:00

ORIGIN Middle English (denoting a limit in space or time, or (in the plural) limiting conditions): from Old French terme, from Latin terminus ‘end, boundary, limit.’

The end of term is quickly coming upon us. Will you have your Theseus ready by the deadline? Or, have you been spending all your time on the 3rd floor commons playing Hearts?

"The End is Nigh!"

does it seem that we're just going in circles?

round and round?

for there is no place that doesn't see you

change your life?

*these are the books that will help you out of the labyrinth, to get us to The New World . . .

11:12:11 -- 1339

a new cosmology

2011-10-31T16:21:00.003-06:00

outatime

2011-10-12T12:58:00.020-06:00

October 10 1988

(twenty days remain)

-"I can show you the way."~Frank

"You know, I love that movie, the way they shot it. It’s so urm… like futuristic, you know?"~Donnie Darko

We need to talk a little today about where our Masters of Sync program is headed. I stumbled on to something today pretty cool and want to let you know that this is the likely direction of the program for a time . . .

So this morning I discovered Adam Frank (of course after watching Donnie Darko the night before).

Anyway, Adam Frank, writer and astrophysicist, has put together a tremendous blog series on NPR's "Cosmos & Culture" blog site. The four pieces touch on the subjects of my deepest interests (modernity's relationship to myth, cosmology, time, and reality):

The Tyranny Of Modern Time

Beyond The Punch-Clock Life

The End Of Time As We Know It

The Future Of Time

In considering where we are headed in relationship to the books that we've discussed, I will likely be spending time considering how modernity "sees" reality--it's lens, i.e. the clock and the image. These are the books we'll be looking at likely:

(Cellar Door)

Tangential Information

The shot of the bike ride to Grandma Death's house is an homage to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), in which, Drew Barrymore also starred.

The movie takes place in 1988.
The world ends in 28 days, 06 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 secs.
If you add these numbers, the sum is 88.
When Samantha asks when she can have kids, Donnie says: "Not until 8th grade."
Donnie mentions to his therapist his dog died when he was eight.
According to the television reporter, the fire at Jim Cunningham's house was extinguished "sometime after 8:00 last night.".
Donnie mentions the DeLorean car, which was used for time travel in Back to the Future (1985).
In Back To The Future the DeLorean had to reach a speed of 88 mph to travel in time. ~(Dan Smith)

Happy Halloween!

wonder

2011-10-02T14:07:00.004-06:00

Mr. Fox and a heart of darkness . . . .
(fabulous!)

out of control

2011-09-19T12:17:00.010-06:00

"You will not have peace until you do away with all banks and hedges, and exchange the garden for the wilderness that is unwalled, that wild strange place of silence where 'lovers lose themselves.'"~Evelyn Underhill

wilderness |ˈwildərnis|noun [usu. in sing. ]an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.• a neglected or abandoned area of a garden or town.• figurative a position of disfavor, esp. in a political context : the man who led the Green Party out of the wilderness | [as adj. ] his wilderness years.PHRASESa voice in the wilderness an unheeded advocate of reform (see Matt. 3:3, etc.)ORIGIN Old English wildēornes [land inhabited only by wild animals,]from wild dēor [wild deer] + -ness .

My power to protest this takeover is limited to a language known as English, a feeble prospect at first glance, I admit. But for all its rough and hypocritical edges, English is a wild sonic animal, dynamic, alive, thoughtshaping. And there is an old British word that Americans creatively hijacked, commandeered, and refined to express the well-nigh inexpressible: the word "wilderness." The etymology derives from Old English "wildéor," a combination of "wild" and "deer," and in England, and in colonial times here, the stock of this word was very low. For generations of Manifest-Destiny-spewing china-tipping tea-sipping "Empire builders," the root word "wild" mean out of control, uncivilized, savage, uncultured, rude, pagan, dirty, unreliable, bloodthirsty, bad-smelling, sexually nasty, and low grade–and the innocent word "wilderness" was deemed guilty by association. (John Bunyan: Woefully I walk the wilderness of the world! Shakespeare: Jailed by a wilderness of sea.)How hard it would have been for the ExxonMobils, Shells and BPs if things had stayed this way. But the world "wilderness: underwent a transformation in America, and that transformation had done nothing but bear fruit for two centuries. It thrills me in a patriotic, darned near flag-waving way that the meaning of "wilderness" is one that Americans, as a nation, almost singlehandedly managed to transform. Starting with Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, and the closet wild salmon-lover Emily Dickinson ("Exaltation is the going of an inland soul to sea"), achieving a more physical but still spiritiual fervor in the rhapsode John Muir, taking on "domionionists" and embracing stewardship via the fearless Rachel Carson, revealing the cathedral-like allure of mountains via the version of Ansel Adams, increasing in groundedness but maintaining reverence in the Zen hippie Gary Snyder–love of the wild has spread to the grassroots via the voices and work of more writers than I could name in a day. But even more, the love of the wild has spread through direct experience of the American wild itslef. As John Muir put it, "Nothing can take the place of absolute contact, of seeing and feeding at God's table for oneself ...The Lord himself must anoint eyes to see, my pen cannot. One can only see by loving." The inhabitants of this continent, wandering through its beauty, fell so in love with their particualr wild places en masse that they began, under the visionary (Republican!) leadership of Teddy Roosevelt, to preserve the best of our wild places as no nation ever had. What's more, when Americans tossed the old, suspicion-ridden definition of wilderness back at Europe, a lot of Europeans cried, "What ze hell were we senking? Vive le Jean Muir!", and began restoring the wilds of their own nations.What is the revamped definition of wilderness? I heard David Brower sum it up rather nicely, just before he died. He said that thanks to the lifelong influence of the wild, at age eighty-six he was still "just a gee-whiz kid." He then described his incredulity the first time he saw a wilderness spring at age six. He was so mesmerized by the sight of what he called "all the clean clear water coming up out of dirt" that, eighty years later, he still sounded gee-whizzy as he exclaimed, "I couldn't understand how it could do it!" Like so many wilderness lovers, he couldn't contain himself: "Who invented all this life?" the old man rhapsodized. "All this beauty and mystery! Every wonderful thing that's out there! How did it all happen? Not in a civilization. In Wilderness."~The Heart of the Monster David James Duncan

The New World

2011-09-03T23:21:00.018-06:00

Q'orianka Kilcher

Hawai'i Forever

(a divided tail)

"Q'orianka Waira Qoiana Kilcher (born February 11, 1990) is a U.S. actress, singer and activist. She is best known for her role as Pocahontas in the 2005 film The New World, directed by Terence Malick."

211

Boise State off and running with win against Georgia

Kilcher was born in Schweigmatt, Germany. Her name Q'orianka means "Golden Eagle" in Quechua. She speaks English and some German. She learned some words of the extinct Powhatan language, an Algonquian speech, for her part in the filmThe New World.
Her father is of Quechua-Huachipaeri descent from Peru. Her mother, Saskia Kilcher, is a human-rights activist of Swiss genes, born in Alaska and raised in Switzerland. Q'orianka has two brothers, Kainoa Kilcher and Xihuaru Kilcher, who both work as actors and stunt performers. Kilcher's mother's father was Ray 'Pirate' Genet, a famous Alaskan-born mountaineer, and her mother's cousin is Grammy-nominated singer Jewel Kilcher.^[1]
When Kilcher was two years old, she and her mother moved to Kapaa, Hawaii, where her brother Kainoa was born. Her father, from whom she is estranged, was absent for much of her life. Growing up in Hawaii, Kilcher was inspired by the local society and started hula dancing at the age of five years. She also trained in Tahitian dance and West African, as well as ballet, Hip Hop and Modern Dance. In 1997 Kilcher won Ballet Hawaii's Young Choreographer Award at the age of seven years.
She was selected to compete at the international Tahitian Dance Competition in San Jose, California in 1996 and 1997. She performed in over fifty professional dance performances island wide. As member of the Waikiki Singers, she was chosen to be the Soprano Soloist, performing Schubert's Mass in G and Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti. At the age of six years, Kilcher was the first child to study classical voice at the University of Hawaii with Laurance Paxton. She also studied Drama with Bill Ogilvie at the Diamond Head Theater. At six years, her mother booked her at venues as featured singer and opening act to some of Hawaii's greats, such as Willie K among others.
In 1999, her mother moved the family to California. Kilcher started to showcase her talent busking on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.~Wikipedia

Bird of Jove by David Bruce

"This 1971 volume relates Bruce's training of a Berkut-a species of [golden] eagle-named Atlanta. The text is part falconing manual and part natural history, with doses of humor thrown in. This remains "a real experience to read" (LJ Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.)"

Golden.

class now in session . . .

2011-08-23T22:59:00.006-06:00

(did you buy your books?)

--this is what I'm reading now,

(I'll keep you updated regarding where the discussion is headed . . .)

on the road

2011-08-16T14:20:00.008-06:00

Under this motel, concrete; and under that scab, the land. A single pulse. From the cum-stained black box of the Troubadour to the imperial balconies of the Fillmore, we can't help but be of one mind. Just as the women cleaning the room where we've chased Benadryl with whiskey are singing; so are we, from our atolls of isolation, singing. The song of whatever it is to be living, in a particular skin, one among many, animated by the great pulse of the land. A record of our attempts. All the awful driving toward immortality.~Lisa Wells

wolf like me . . .

2011-07-19T16:25:00.005-06:00

Lupus |ˈloōpəs| Astronomya southern constellation (the Wolf), lying partly in the Milky Way between Scorpius and Centaurus.• [as genitive ] ( Lupi ) used with a preceding letter or numeral to designate a star in this constellation : the star Delta Lupi.ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin, literally ‘wolf.’

looking for The New World

just following the floW. . .

Das Rheingold

2011-07-18T18:10:00.002-06:00

(Terrance Malick isn't a God, but this is:)

ready?

crossing the deadline

2011-06-07T00:01:00.015-06:00

____________________________________________
Since we recently crossed our Masters of Sync thesis deadline, I feel like a deadman. zonked. (but damn isn't this program fun.)

and so ends another quarter . . . . wholeness? (maybe at the end of summer--no that's not quite right. . . .)

1/4 (fall) + 1/4 (winter) + 1/4 (spring) + 1/4 (summer) = 1

--think about the axiom of maria

summer = 1 (innocence/youth)

fall = 2 (duality)

winter = 3 (transformation/transcendence)

spring = 4 rebirth/wholeness?

anyway in preparation for next fall, I've looked ahead at next term's reading list and will share it with you if you want to get head start this summer.

do enjoy your summer though.

*this list is subject to change at any moment and is by no means comprehensive.

to Bit or Qubit

2011-04-29T22:26:00.011-06:00

A or B?

bit

(binary/linear)

A & B.

Qubit

(quantum/parallel)

"for there she was."

*more information

pop music.

2011-04-21T23:09:00.000-06:00

James 217

2011-02-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, 2/17 tickled me into thinking about that room in the Shining you were cautioned from which to stay away, Room 217--which of course was found to be similar to the number 127 by The Dead Beat Sync Poets over at The Sync Whole.

James is the theme right now. Recently in thinking about the famous bible quote regarding faith without works prior to taking a new leap, I discovered James 2:14 on Feb. 14.

And today, Terry Gross was talking to Franko. . .

James Franco: On Balancing His Many Passions (listen)

February 18, 2011
This interview was originally broadcast on October 5, 2010. James Franco is nominated for an Academy Award for his role in 127 Hours. He will also be co-hosting the Academy Awards Ceremony with actress Anne Hathaway.
It's hard to categorize James Franco.
The star of such films as Spider-Man and Milk is also an accomplished painter and writer — and a graduate student currently enrolled in both Yale University and the Rhode Island School of Design.
The frenetic pace suits Franco, who tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he has an "addictive personality."

-he stashed his books under a boulder.

room 217 is a classroom?

(I was wrong about the Black Iron Prison.)

James 214

2011-02-09T13:21:00.006-07:00

James 2

14 What does it profit, my brothers, though a man say he has faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say to them, Depart in peace, be you warmed and filled; notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body; what does it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone.
18 Yes, a man may say, You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble.20 But will you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 See you how faith worked with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which said, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. 24 You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Bridges.

2011-02-04T17:12:00.012-07:00

eagle & condor

2011-02-02T10:26:00.009-07:00

World Center

for birds of prey

-oh i see. . .

Eagle & Condor

PoP & MoM

Recall these unions of eagle & condor:

Bridges.

2011-01-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

paradigm of The Now

2011-01-11T23:03:00.013-07:00

Blue or Red?

Left or Right?

Primacy of. . . .

The Group

The Individual

don't get trapped in your lens!

(it does make it easier to know what to believe and think though)

recall Star Wars vs. The Matrix from Synchromystic Lunatic:

the bad guy

2010-12-24T14:14:00.007-07:00

In an economy of faith, the doubter is the villain.

In an effort to give a reasoned answer to my critics, and to understand why I behave the way that I do, I will use this time to consider myself as part of a historical world that contains both beauty, and sadness & suffering.

Things that I am, that are "bad":

(-I've been told that these parts of me are failings keeping me from the goal. It would be someone like me to want to state the goal for the record so that we all know what and why we are doing something. I think in this case, in the case against me, "the goal" is pure consciousness, or being without attachment or identification. Pure being.)

i am. . .

judgmental

intellectual

deeply thinking

analyzing

doubting

questioning

ruminating

indecisive

unsure

explaining

over thinking

emotional

struggling

desirous of acclaim

dramatic

over dramatic

really over dramatic

really really over dramatic

relentless

maybe a little bullying

Yes. I cry wolf. I doubt you and then myself, and then you again, and then myself again. I tell you that I have faith in what you say, but then want an explanation of why you hold your beliefs. I am a contradiction.

I will not deny that I am not an asshole. But, I can see a pattern in my behavior as recorded in my writings and work. My values are clearly reflected in my decisions and what I have written about. (I have a core that creates and influences my pattern) My "work" and what I "see" is a reflection of who and how I am. My failings I forgive as best as I can, but as for my inability to go along with the crowd without questioning the reasoning, and my ability to stick my neck out. . .) Perhaps doubting is not a failing but a powerful treasure?

So, why am I this way? Which of course is to ask another question, (but to understand that, and perhaps to even grow, we're going to have to use some of the above listed "red" words to get at an answer)

In the year 2000, my then girlfriend and I moved from Idaho to the heart of Seattle. We lived on Capitol Hill directly above and in front of the Space Needle. I worked at UPS, read fiction, listened to NPR & KEXP, made music, and took in as much culture as I could from what is truly a beautiful world city. My favorite things about Seattle are unique to it: the constant misty rain (like living in cloud), the constantly changing light creating a striking beautiful contrast in the jagged peaks of the Olympics and on the water of Elliot Bay, the fishy smells of living near the ocean mixed sometimes with the burnt coffee smells of the Starbucks roasting facility which we were sure really came from the crematorium next to the college.

Seattle is filled with life, like living in a modern and civilized rain forrest. Eagles overhead, possums running around, deer, foxes, raccoons, in the city. One smells and tastes more in Seattle, I swear, because of the humidity. I love eating at Glows, reading a Stranger waiting for the bus, trudging up the hill to THE ONLY coffee in the world, at Vivace. I love skipping rocks in the changing tide at Alki after the tastiest fish & chips I have ever known. The brothers who serve my order look alike and fight often. Their mother once got so exited when she learned that my daughter has a Greek name. I love Jon, Cheryl, and Kevin. They are some of my favorite people in the whole world, and make feel at home there even when I am so far away. . .

We moved to Seattle because it had been my wife's dream to live there. For the preceding five years I had been pursuing international rock stardom as a singer and bassist for an indy rock band in BoySee, ID. Upon our dissolution at the turn of the millennium, I was open for anything.

I had been in and out of college since '90, and had been sober for 9 years at that time. My wife and I had been together and living with one another for about 3 years, and upon making this decision to move to the big city, we lived with her mother for a time to save money. I had been financially self-suffient by this time for about 6 years--since I decided to dump college for rock stardom. (It was a good time. I behaved like me, but I look back and see that I was alive: trying, failing, creating, loving, fighting, learning, understanding, participating, being.)

I've been faulted for talking about talking, and trying to understand process. I've been faulted for letting the drama of my life supersede the work. My life is my work, and drama is life. Life is comprised of relationships, and growth and life occur in the details of drama. I think this is why we like movies so much, they help us understand our own drama--hopefully not to be used instead of drama. . . What's the point of being alive if you aren't going to be alive?

Another interesting point regarding process and understanding is the idea of graduate level study. Because my wife is now in her first semester at work on her MFA in painting, we've both come to learn that the point of graduate work isn't the work so much as it is being able to consciously know and understand the work--to be able to explain just what it is you are doing and why. I guess the point is that you have to stand up with your work and be able to defend it from your worst critics: your friends, mentors and colleagues. You do this then, in private, so that you don't have to defend it later in public. You've become aware and conscious of your work and process and don't have to defend it anymore--it can speak for itself. . .

In Seattle, I was the quintessential "Blank Slate." Like Forrest Gump, I had done a little of everything for a long time. I had worked in a hot and dusty tire store for a few years; Was a short order cook and baker for five years; Washed a million dishes; Had lifted boxes late into the night at UPS for a year. Studied both music and massage for a time; Had been interested in diet, health and healing for a period; Had even worked in a gold mind for a stretch.

I also had a bit of debt from the rock band days. Seems I would charge the necessary items on a credit card that stood between us and making the dream happen. That was a bad idea. Saving would have been a "better" (more disciplined) practice. Thus in Seattle I had to work a lot (for me). I had two jobs the whole time I was there and probably was working about 50 hours a week and going to school. Early on, I ended up getting my second job at the Seattle Central Community College bookstore. It was a natural hop from that job to reconsidering my collegiate career, and so I began taking classes the following quarter. . .

Seattle Central is a very good school. It was Time Magazine's College of the Year for 2001, and is crazy diverse. It took an uptight white boy from Idaho, and put him in a situation where he was the ethnic minority. My classes also had a high ratio of females to male (sometimes as high as 3 or 4 to 1--colleges are filled with young women. The future will likely belong to them because they, as the educated class, will outnumber educated men by a large margin.) It was here, at SCCC, that I felt that I finally learned the things I should have in High School. I felt educated enough to know that I really didn't know anything yet. It did put a mode of exploration and questioning into me, and it was during this time that I began to check out things (books and movies) from the public library in themes, letting the current lead me to the next question and exploration.

Tricky thing about SCCC though, was that they built into the curriculum a kind of cultural awareness and deprograming. Talk about feeling like an asshole. Imagine being the only white guy in a cultural unpacking class with a few black men and a predominantly larger number of women of diverse ethnicities that is unflinchingly looking at western and American social structures, identity politics, equality, and power. Many of these classes clearly pointed out false myths and narratives that engender a power structure based on the false beliefs of the past and the desire to maintain a level of wealth and dominance for those who hold it (my people, the dominant culture, the white guys).

To look upon the world and see how it is, is not judgment. To question why the system is structured the way it is, is not to want to control it, but to have an effect, to be able to influence one's world. Finding liberty in absolute powerlessness is almost impossible. Without hope, life can become a meaningless prison. Of course we do celebrate those who can find liberty in a state of powerlessness, who can find it within themselves, and they do change the world. Victor Frankl is one that comes to mind. His life and decisions are still effecting others. . .

Yet to even beging to allude that contemporary society and a Nazi Death Camp remotely resemble one another is morally sickening. Or is it? I guess it depends upon the individual and the system that we're talking about. Culture and society is comprised of the attitudes and beliefs of the individuals within the group, mostly the IN group. The system that regulates power and communicates your place in that world is a pattern, maybe conscious, maybe not. An individual can and should understand, question, and try to change the primary pattern that orders their world--whether this means family politics, workplace politics, or national politics. Life is emotional, and life is dramatic. I'm not saying that you should get a stick and convince those fuckers that they are wrong, but that an educated discussion of "why" for anything is perfectly reasonable for anyone involved in a activity that has an influence over other people's lives--especially one that seems to be imparting truth or wisdom, or one that says, "We're the good guys, Michael."

What I found missing in me in my cultural identity and politics class was that even though pop culture was a product of my tribe, the white men, I lacked an identity. Dominant culture was my culture, but I couldn't see who my people were, or why we behaved the way we did. I had to look back to my ancestors to find myself by examining what my tribe believed (and this is likely why I studied German literature upon my return to Idaho).

I know that this looks like a huge contradiction. If we are all one, how can we be different? We all live in, and came from different places, and The Land influences who we are because of how we live and what we eat. I followed my trail back to pagan Germany. Yes, I understand now. Recently I ran across this quote--"If you don't know your history, then you're homeless." And this validates how I felt until I ventured forward on my path backwards to my source, back through England to the pagan forests of Germany.

I mean, what's there to transcend if one doesn't know who one is, or from whence one came. It makes sense that you're going to have an identity before you can go beyond it. That said, if your identity happens to be that of the world's bad guys--the Germans--you may likely learn a thing about nuance. Which I think I did, and which I'd like to share with you. . .

Although I've been sitting on this for quite a time now(a few weeks at least), I hope to share more soon. I really haven't even gotten into what I wanted to write about--the transformation of mom into pop--a plastic attempt at heaven on earth (which is the cause of our suffering at this point, and will likely kill us if we don't begin to behave differently).

anyway,

A Murray Christmas to you!

Mindgame

2010-11-17T10:50:00.006-07:00

another crack at Jack

2010-11-16T21:11:00.001-07:00

-Despite this post's strange life--posted at The Sync Whole, and then removed by its author--this evening's family outing is prompting me to again reconsider posting it. Recently, I told some of my best friends in the world that I was done with Jupiter. Well, apparently, he is not done with me. I guess I will be writing about Megamind tomorrow. Although on the surface, this post may look like a desire on my part to have my way with a blunt object at the orthodoxy of The Sync Whole, it actually seeks to understand the nature of Father and how and why he can become a monster.

you don't know Jack

In The Playground

(In this chapter of The Shining, Jack's crackup/healing begins in earnest as he trims the rabbit shaped hedge near The Overlook Hotel playground. After trimming and joking about giving the Rabbit a haircut, he steps back to appraise his work and while his back is turned, all the hedge animals begin moving toward him.)

Let's talk divorce.

As I look back at my work this past year, it appears that I've been advancing a philosophy at The Sync Whole. This isn't something that I set out to do. While following my flow I'm continually reminded how the NOW speaks to my previous explorations and adds more layers to these models--yet I think the culmination of this work yields wholeness, so I continue. . .

As a reminder, this past March, I looked at a number that I called the "architecture of the universe"--432. I had seen this number highlighted before, yet thought its playfulness hadn't been completely explored. One could view this exercise as a scientific dissection of a whole thing: ⊙, yet the aim was the opposite--to make the parts conscious of their entirety, to make them whole.

By my reckoning, The Whole (⊙) is born of 2 Parents, comprised of 3 Kingdoms, and exists as 4 elementary states of matter. When I say "Whole", it's a loaded word for it's a symbolic pointer, pointing to everything (wholeness), and nothing (an empty hole)--it represents being and nonbeing. It's me and you knowing that we are everything, and it's me knowing that I am you also knowing that what we truly are is emptiness.

The focus of this post will be the 2 Parents. MoM & PoP. Right Brain/Left Brain. Religion/Science intuition/logic. Mystery/History. We are the children of divorce. Our healing requires the illusion of their separateness to fade.

That said, it might be interesting to talk about some of the symbolic pointers that are used at The Sync Whole. Let's say you just stumbled upon that blog, your first impression might be that they are some weirdo Jupiter cult. jUPiter, it turns out, might mean something a little different to all of us.

Jupiter |ˈjoōpitər|
1 Roman Mythology the chief god of the Roman state religion, originally a sky god associated with thunder and lightning. His wife was Juno. Also called Jove . Greek equivalent Zeus . [ORIGIN: Latin, fromJovis pater, literally ‘Father Jove.’ ]2 Astronomy the largest planet in the solar system, a gas giant that is the fifth in order from the sun and one of the brightest objects in the night sky.

Keep in mind that all possibilities are valid at The Sync Whole, and obvious associations tend to ring as truth. Thus, the cheerful and friendly quality of "jovial" is ascribed upon Jove/Jupiter.

jovial |ˈjōvēəl|adjectivecheerful and friendlyORIGIN late 16th cent.: from French, from late Latin jovialis ‘of Jupiter’ (see Jove ), with reference to the supposed influence of the planet Jupiter on those born under it.Jove |jōv|another name for Jupiter .PHRASESby Jove dated an exclamation indicating surprise or used for emphasis.ORIGIN from Latin Jov-, stem of Old Latin Jovis, replaced later by Jupiter. The exclamation by Jove dates from the late 16th cent.

Why Jupiter? Answering that question is like trying to understand just what it is we've been doing for the last four or five years. . .

ok, 911 2001 happens. 2003 Iraq war begins using the events of Sept. 11 as a springboard. 2005/2006 citizenry begin to question WTF happened, and when it began (V for Vendetta). Enter Conspiracy. . .

The events of 2001 led some of us through the plots of conspiracy to a general understanding of reality as dreamlike and devoid of a definitive answer. A mystery. (Mrs. Story) Although Fukuyama declared the end of His Story twelve years earlier upon the fall of the Berlin Wall on the resonate date of 9/11/89 (Nov. 9 1989--they put the day before the month in Europe), 2001 signaled both the end of something as well as the beginning. The film 2001 also shed some light upon the dreamlike quality of reality with its various wyncs at understanding 2001 the year and ultimately showed a correlation between the films we watch and the events we experience. Alignment. The Dream is Reel. 2001 ultimately pointed us at Jupiter, as Dave Bowman & Hal made their way toward that planet seeking the next "monolith" which of course (like the first monolith, was a gateway to a new state of consciousness. . .)

And thus, The Sync Whole operates under the guidance that the symbol of The Jupiter Mission points toward: a gateway advancing toward truth, healing, and wholeness. This is what DB discovered when he traveled beyond Jupiter and into the infinite.

A risk of course, is if the symbol of Jupiter is concertized, and no longer points toward the goal, but becomes the goal. As I stated earlier, I think we all read the symbols we use slightly different. On it's face--the truth of Jupiter is Joy in the only moment we have, NOW. This is the Rainbow Bridge. By becoming and staying aligned with NOW, one is completely present and timeless. Everything & Nothing in a moment. The Alpha & Omega Point Break! The Philosophers' Stone. The Fountain of Youth. The Tree of Life.

The Jupiter symbol is sticky for me though. One of the "true" associations that has been made regarding Jupiter is that it = 42 (& 421, & 214, & 1024 & 99, & ect). Because one of our first associations with our jupiter symbol was the Douglas Adams answer of "42" to life the universe and everything, I've tended to read it fairly personally. Like Dave Bowman, I am a "42". Because IMDB. (Douglas Bolles) Also, my birthday is 4/2/72. Sure, just coincidence, and Jim is a 420 which is close (and totally loaded as well.), but I am 42 (db). From the beginning of our games, I couldn't help but read ME as the point. And I'm sure you've well noted how my reading of sync is so micro. That my life doesn't point to it, but it points to my life. I'm always telling you about how everything relates to me! Since I was a little child, I've always known that the movies speak to me, personally. . .

solipsism |ˈsälipˌsizəm|
nounthe view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.

Of course the common usage of solipsism has a connotation that points to an egocentric, self-centered individual. The irony of course in all this is that despite this selfish looking practice of mine, the message I personally receive from the Jupiter symbol loudly and clearly is selflessness! Huh?

Jupiter is the father. Others stress that Jupiter is Joy., but I'm unwilling to OVERLOOK the fact that he is The Father.

In Roman mythology, Jupiter or Jove was the king of the gods, and the god of sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus, in the Greek pantheon. He was called Iuppiter (or Diespiter) Optimus Maximus ("Father God the Best and Greatest") As the patron deity of ancient Rome, he ruled over laws and social order.
Iuppiter originated as a vocative compound of the Old Latin vocative *Iou and pater ("father") and came to replace the Old Latin nominative case *Ious. Jove^[4] is a less common English formation based on Iov-, the stem of oblique cases of the Latin name. Linguistic studies identify the form *Iou-pater as deriving from the Indo-European vocative compound *Dyēu-pəter (nominative: *Dyēus-pətēr meaning "O Father Sky-god").^[5]
Older forms of the deity's name in Rome were Djeus-pater (“day/sky-father”), then Diéspiter. Djeus is the etymological equivalent of ancient Greece's Zeus and of the Teutonics' Ziu, gen. Ziewes. The Indo-European deity is thus the god from which Zeus and the Indo-Aryan Vedic Dyaus Pita are derived.~Wikipedia: Jupiter

Traditionally, he hasn't really been a role model, in fact, the state of the world as we find it, is his doing!

See, to get into power, Jupiter in his Greek mask of Zeus, fought the existing power--his father--and overthrew him using his father's methodology and practices thus becoming the self same image of his father. A monster in a monster economy built upon fear and revenge.

Mid-Air

(In this chapter of The Shining, The Overlook's black cook strong with the intuitive abilities known as "Shining" finds himself in Jupiter Country--Up In The Air--aboard an airliner rushing back to The Overlook from his winter home in Florida hopefully in time to save Wendy and Danny from the MONSTER that Jack has become in assuming his ROLE as the caretaker for The Overlook.)

Although this post has now taken us UP into the mind of Jack Torrance let's return to chapter 23, and get back down to the playground so we can talk about one of the major themes that I'm reading from the dream lately. Often my sync choices reflect to me tension in my own being. To find wholeness I'm presented with an overall "lesson" coming at me from all points. For quite some time now, (perhaps a few years even) the theme has been the idea of growing UP & what it means to be an adult.

While in the playground (down to earth), about to give the rabbit a heir cut, Jack Torrance thinks about his father, and his childhood. His father was an abusive man whose authority was based upon his physical power. He beat his order and his idea of civilization into his wife and children with his cane. Vitto Corleone, the Godfather, inhabits a similar world. He explains his role thusly, "Women and children can be careless, but not men." And this is because it is man's duty to maintain our system of living--civilization--a patriarchal little experiment that's been going on now for the past 10,000 years or so.

So then, to be the father, is to be the head of the family. The wife--usually an over emotional and irrational creature-has her duties too, but primarily her role is to serve her spouse, the head of the family. Their Son, the heir to the throne, lacks the discipline and rationality of the father, and at times seems to have too much of his mother in him, but will eventually have to learn his place, his role, and do his duty. It's the father's job to prepare him for a life and world of order, to teach him about a system that lacks carelessness. He has a tool too--you know, "spare the Rod. . ."

Your son is just a Big Baby after all and when YOU can impress upon him the importance of the system, the order, the civilization that makes our way of life possible, then you've done your duty and turned a soft heart into a man. (And the system requires above all else that you do your duty, even if it means choosing the system over life.)

As caretaker for The Overlook, Jack is put in the untenable position of having to chose between what's expected of him and what's necessary. He attempts to satisfy the expectations of civilization upon him in his role as the father, against what is actually needed for the emotional and physical well being of his wife and child. He is trying to balance his egoic adult responsibilities within the system without identifying with and becoming his role. (Impossible?)

Vitto, The God'sFather, wanted to spare Michael, his fourth child, from inheriting the life that was his--the life of a mob boss operating in a Dog-Eat-Dog, vendetta economy. Vitto dreamed of Michael being 100% legitimate, not a gangster, not a thief, not a criminal, not a murderer. Vitto purposely insulated his last born away from The Family. Sure Michael knew the score, but he wasn't part of it.

Michael was a college man, and a war hero. Clean. And God does Pachino look boyish in this role. His father, the head of the family, purposely kept Michael away from the "Family Business", which is a serious business indeed. Of course, like in all myths, Michael too became his father when he acted to avenge him in a situation where the proper care of family's interests required a strong and necessary response to the actions and claims of fellow "business" competitors acting within the bounds of the competitive system. Behaving like a proper king, Vitto stepped down and handed over the kingdom to his son, rewarding him for doing his duty and making him the head of the family business which is later explained in a big reveal to his naive wife as being no different than any other business, just more direct about how it's practiced thus revealing the corruption of the entire system of men. It is a man's world after all and everyone in the system is dirty--lawyers, politicians, judges. Everyone has a price. That the business of business is the exploitation anything or anyone to get more. Material is dirty. More Better Cheaper Faster (the speed of NOW!)

And this is the nature of the Overlook Hotel as well. Although it looks impecably clean and only rich and dignified people stay there--it is run by dirty gangsters. Or this is what Jack discovers in a scrapbook found in the basement of the hotel when he begins learning his duties. His employer made it very clear that their could be no rats in The Overlook, and so as Jack put out traps he learned the true nature of the stately place for which he was assuming the role of caretaker. He learned the nature of the business, that the pursuit of and acquisition of material leads to an identification with material--and thus the vices of The Head tend to be materialistic in nature:

What if our father was different though? What if he did spare the rod? Let us look at another chapter 23:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Oh if only that guy was the father, eh? Sounds like a good life for a kid.

Of course Our Father has a wandering eye, and tends to blow shit up in bursts of anger. . .

-Whose lord is a Shephard? God our parents are screwed up, and with that we begin moving toward the whole . . .

the eyes have it, proceed with the motion. . .

Yesterday, 11/9/10 (written 9/11/10 in Europe), The Goddard spaceflight center reported discovering two giant bubbles at the center of our galaxy pictured above. You'll also recall from a fascinating NOVA program, that at the center of not only our galaxy, but all galaxies is a supermassive black hole.

November 9th is a big day, as I mentioned above. It was, (before 9/11/2001 occurred) The End of History. It's the day that the Berlin wall came down. The subject couldn't be treated any better than it is in a novel called Black Dogs by Ian McEwan.

This is the story of a Man and a Woman, a Marriage, a Divorce

and a kind of reconciliation. . .

The husband in McEwan's Black Dogs is East Germany, and the wife is West. Her being is defined by her spirituality, and in the face of western materialism, she becomes a buddhist. He takes refuge in science, structure, organization, and political policy. The Wall divides the once whole of Germany. It's not a natural boundary, but a created division. This story continues. . .

At our center we are Whole. We are one thing and we are nothing. Yet the two bubbles at the center our galaxy prompt me again toward the idea of the Garden State. Union. The Sync Whole has us looking UP, looking to Jupiter as this loving exemplar of being, yet these two bubbles at our center and my current tummy ache decry that Jupiter is only half of the story. . .

Freedom

2010-09-28T19:51:00.011-06:00

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?" ~DFW This Is Water

Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing. ~DFW This Is Water

"I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." - Hamlet.

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: A fellow of Infinite Jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!" --Shakespeare Hamlet

The King & The Tyrant (Father's Day)

2010-09-25T10:01:00.006-06:00

5/25/2010:

Every month a speck of dust rubs my clammy insides and around this central point, I try and build my newsletter blog posts. My hope is that upon the conclusion of my writing, a pearl is formed. This month has been the most difficult to write of all the newsletter entries I've done. Many things have come together all at once leaving me both confused and exhausted.

--Why is this difficult, aren't you just trying to sell produce?

Sure. But I hope you realize that it is more than this. The [redacted] is not just business as usual, or that is what I strive to communicate and hope to believe. I don't do this for money. I want to believe that I stand for something. . .

--So, what do you stand for?

Each month, I invoke some sort of muse or God toward the beginning of these experiments in advertising. The aim of the invocation is "authenticity", serving something to which to be true.--Wait. Perhaps that's it. Maybe, I just answered the above question indirectly. What do I stand for? I stand for the authentic. That is, a true experience of being alive. This month we celebrate the solstice, and the father. If I'm invoking anything to be true to this month, it is myself. . .

As a member of the produce team, it would be difficult not to be a goddess lover. As one begins to consider the Earth that supports us, it isn't much of a stretch to then personify our home as mother and to take on the cause of protecting her. I recently saw a special on PBS called Born Wild: The First Days Of Life. It showed mothers and babies and how various animals care for their young--and they are all different. Of course the most striking to me was how the Amaurobius spider mother offers her own body for her newborns to feast upon. She willing gives her entire self for her offspring. Beautiful, right? Wait, what if we don't have to kill her. I feel like the spider baby screaming, Wait! Sop! We don't have to eat her! She can give us all milk almost forever!

A week ago, the Idaho chapter of The Friends of Jung presented a sneak peak at The Flicks of an unreleased film called, Call Of Life. The film unflinchingly looks upon our civilization's impact upon the world and life. Talk about spiders eating their mother. It kind of messed me up. And here is the interesting part of being a father. The father wants to control the situation to arrive at the desired results. But by holding on so tightly, the father becomes the tyrant, the monster of the story. The Mother has a natural system and order that supports life. The Father's control of the environment enabled civilization, but he now thinks that it is actually he that is in charge--that civilization is above the natural order, not part of the web of life. The father needs to learn how yield, submit, to let go. . .

I might be the monster in the story, the ogre. Life is such a struggle for me. I'm aware of the harm that our lifestyle causes, yet then create harm in trying to get my house to also be aware. I've become a tyrant trying and teach my children to value the "things" in our life, but not to worship them. I don't want them to waste anything. I want them to know that they aren't the only people in this world, and that their actions effect others and can harm them. We should be conscious of how we live. Of course, I'm trying to control them. . .

Did you know that one can quantify the life of a honey bee? One honey bee produces about 1/12th of a tablespoon of honey (.028 oz). Honey is true gold. To waste any honey at all is to take for granted the life a of a bee. Of course that is the case with everything. The laughter and joy of children is also precious. An ogre trying to impose controls upon his tiny subjects also diminishes the joy in this world.

I wish there was an outside "bad guy" we could point to for this tale. But, like in Gilgamesh the hero is our problem. If there is any evil at all, it is the king turned tyrant. Is Walmart our enemy? What about BP? These corporations are serving us and our needs. They are only giving us exactly what we want, and this is why they are successful. The darkness we fear is ourselves. The so called "others" are us. For a few years now I've been throwing myself against the wall of global consumer capitalism, being ground into nothing from the daily grind against a tyrant of a system. Thankfully there is another way. I recently stumbled upon a wonderful quote from Richard Buckminster Fuller:

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Let me tell you what is authentic. It is Boise, Idaho here and now. There are people doing things here that they love to do, and if we support them, we can create our own vibrant, sustainable local web strong enough to sustain ourselves through any national or global crisis. We can lead the country through our example to a new paradigm and to paradise. Our local farms are beginning to produce right now. Do take advantage of this moment. The old model of everything the same for everyone everywhere is killing us, and it doesn't give us any sense of place. We've lost our sense of home. Let's create a new model. One that ties us to the land that supports us. Let's live in Boise, and all that that entails.

I've personally dropped the ball, and have been selfish with my time. My own "wants" and desires have taken away from the real, authentic work I should be doing. I'm sorry. I haven't been writing about our local growers as I said I would. I will continue. I want to introduce them all to you. I myself want to meet them, and see what it is that they do. I will not struggle anymore. I will try and submit my own greedy wants for the good of the mother, and for the good of our family. You know we are all one family, right?

I will try and be a better father. I promise.

9/25/2010:

I hope to offer some explanation of this tonight after work. I just finished J. Franzen's latest work, and have begun again to consider the question "how should one live?" I can see maybe a local nonlocal sync whole post on the horizon, and well anyway, maybe we'll talk tonight.

mobil ave (intro)

2010-08-04T00:34:00.005-06:00

. . . it's worth recalling that the Greek word psyche meant both soul and butterfly, and that the character Psyche travels down into the Land of the Dead to prove herself worthy of Love. ~Rachel Pollack

"Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

~Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

Mal: "You're waiting for a train; a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together."

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, 1895

locomotive |ˌlōkəˈmōtiv|
noun
a powered rail vehicle used for pulling trains
adjective
of, relating to, or effecting locomotion
• archaic (of a machine, vehicle, or animal) having the power of progressive motion

ORIGIN early 17th cent.(as an adjective): from modern Latin locomotivus, from Latin loco (ablative of locus ‘place’ ) + late Latin motivus ‘motive,’ suggested by medieval Latin in loco moveri ‘move by change of position.’

Loco-Motive

loco
adjective informal
crazy.
ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Spanish, ‘insane.’

motive
noun
1 a reason for doing something, esp. one that is hidden or not obvious
2 (in art, literature, or music) a motif
adjective [ attrib. ]
1 producing physical or mechanical motion
2 causing or being the reason for something

There is an urban myth that when the Lumiére brothers premiered one of their earliest films, The Train Arriving, 1895, the crowd rushed out of the theater--you see, the film was nothing more than a train arriving, but the story was, that those watching this new dream-like technology feared for their lives, expecting this oncoming train to overtake them. . .

I'm being overtaken by this symbol as well. Yet, recall "The Beginning Of Something Big"

I got something coming, and I really wanted to add to this today, but my train didn't arrive. I might need some help getting out of this limbo, out of this belly of the whale . . .

someone get me a train. . .

. . . I'm beginning to make sense of the pattern,

to see an exit from the Labyrinth, to understand the Corn Maze,

(that or I've gone crazy in a lighthouse)

Inception is describing something to me, that much is sure, but what, I don't know. [I think I do today.] There are a lot of sync elements in this film bringing together many strands of thread that I've looked at in the past. The film is presenting these strands together though, perhaps--no definitely--as one piece of thread, but knotted so tightly that to finally see the rainbow connections, one must realize the unity of the previously perceived separate strands while demystifying the paradoxes and untying the knots. That task complete, I believe we can then follow this one thread, Ariadne's gift to us out, of the labyrinth. . . maybe.

Easy right?

Of course, that fucking train . . .

. . . such a potent symbol too. Like the very internet itself, uniting and dividing--an unbroken line of connections, forming patterns, and relationships, but destroying something else in the process too.

Before I get to the sync knots, I want to mention the butterfly I invoked at the beginning. On the final night of The Ti♋er, the fatal 4, became The Furious 5 by way of a ceremony at Strange Eye's place (lovely chap!).

Of course I was wearing my ridiculous blue, 1970's western JackET. During my blessing, Jim sang a beautiful Icaro about a blue butterfly. At that moment I knew that this was my icaro, that he wrote it for me and for this moment. (And that was true for that moment.) It was a very moving evening. Jim literally transformed into my uncle, my father's older brother, and I naturally became my father. In that moment, Jim and I truly were brothers.

Jim's ceremonial gear in the late 50's

Jim on drums, me clowning on the uke.

sync walk 7/27

(more soon!)

∞ (Holy Fool)

2010-01-31T00:00:00.002-07:00

Sahasrara (Ymirsday)

2010-01-24T00:00:00.007-07:00

U R AN US

vii˚

Thousand Petalled

Leading Tone

If we remove that glasslike barrier of which Ramakrishna spoke, ['It is like the light of a lamp inside a glass case. One feels as if one could touch the light, but the glass intervenes and prevents it.' ] both our God and ourselves will explode then into light, sheer light, one light , beyond names and forms, beyond thought and experience, beyond even the concepts "being" and "non-being." "The soul in God," Eckhart has said, "has naught in common with naught and is naught to aught." And again: "There is something in the soul so nearly kin to God that it is one and not united."

The Sanskrit term Nirguna Brahman, "The Unqualified Absolute," refers to the realization of this chakra. Its lotus, Sahasrara, "Thousand Petalled," hangs head downward, shedding nectarous rays more lustrous than the moon; while at its center, brilliant as a lighting flash, is the ultimate yoni-triangle, within which, well concealed and very difficult to approach, is the great shining void in secret served by all gods. "Any flea as it is in God," declared Eckhart, "is nobler than the highest of the angels in himself."

"Glowing Sun"

Ajna (Odinsday)

2010-01-23T00:00:00.011-07:00

Saturn

Command

Submediant

When the tasks of the fifth chakra have been accomplished, two degrees of illumination become available to the perfected saint, that at the sixth, known as savikalpa samadhi, "conditioned rapture," and finally, supremely, at the seventh chakra, nirvikalpa samadhi, "unconditioned rapture." Ramakrishna used to ask those approaching him for instruction: "Do you like to speak of God with form or without?" And we have words of the great doctor ecstaticus Meister Eckhart, referring to the passage from six to seven: "Man's last and highest leave-taking is the leaving of God for God."

The center of the the first of these ecstasies, know as the lotus of "Command," Ajna, is above and between the brows. The uraeus serpent in Egyptian portraits of the pharaohs appears exactly as though from this point of the forehead. The center is described as a lotus of two pure white petals, bearing the syllables ham and ksham. Seated on a white lotus near its heart is the radiant six-headed goddess Hakini, holding in four of her six hands a book, a drum, a rosary, and a skull, while the remaining two make the "fear-dispelling" and "boon-bestowing" signs. Within the yoni triangle is a Shiva Lingam, shining "like a chain of lighting flashes," supporting the sign of the syllable OM, of which the sound is here fully heard. And here, too, the form is seen of one's ultimate vision of God, which is called in Sanskrit Saguna Brahman, "The Qualified Absolute."
When the mind reaches this plane, one witnesses divine revelations day and night. Yet even then there remains a slight consciousness of "I." Having seen the unique manifestation man becomes mad with joy as it were and wishes to be one with the all-pervading Divine, but cannot do so. It is like the light of a lamp inside a glass case. One feels as if one could touch the light, but the glass intervenes and prevents it.

For where there is a "Thou" there is an "I," whereas the ultimate aim of the mystic, as Eckhart has declared, is identity: "God is love, and he who is in love is in God and God in Him."

Vishuddha (Thorsday)

2010-01-21T00:00:00.010-07:00

Jupiter

Purified

Dominant

Once the great mystery-sound has been heard, the whole desire of the heart will be to learn to know it more fully, to hear it, not through things and within during certain fortunate moments only, but immediately and forever. And the attainment of this end will be the project of the next chakra, the fifth, which is at the level of larynx and is called Vishuddha, "Purified." "When the Kundalini reaches this plane," said Ramakrishna, "the devotee longs to talk and to hear only of God."

The lotus has sixteen petals of a smoky purple hue, on each of which is engraved one of the sixteen Sanskrit vowels. In the middle of its pure white central triangle is a white disk, the full moon, wherein the syllable ham, of the element space of ether, rests on the back of a pure white elephant. The patron of this center is Shiva in his hermaproditic form know as Ardhanareshvara, "Half-Woman Lord," five-faced, clothed in a tiger's skin, and with ten radiant arms. One hand makes a "fear-dispelling" gesture and the rest are exhibiting his trident, battle-ax, sword, and thunderbolt, a fire, a snake-ring, a bell, a goad, and a noose, while beside him his goddess, here called Sakini, holds in her own four hands a bow, an arrow, a noose, and a goad. "This region," we are told in a Tantric text, "is the gateway of the Great Liberation." It is the place variously respresented in the myths and legends of the world as a threshold where the frightening Gate Guardians stand, the Sirens sing, the Clashing Rocks come together, and a ferry sets forth to the Land of No Return, the Land Below Waves, the Land of Eternal Yourth. However, as told in the Katha Upanishad: "It is the sharpened edge of a razor, hard to traverse." ~The Mythic Image Joseph Campbell

Shiva Ardhanari, "Half-Woman Lord."

I need to break in here and point out how special and exiting this post is for me. For a quick recap of what I've been doing, I've begun making an association built upon our primary sevens, such as the seven lotus centers (chakras), the days of the week, the seven notes in the western diatonic music scale, & the important heavenly bodies/western deities. With that in mind, I started climbing the chakras combining the associations with the help of Joseph Campbell's explanations of the lotus centers. So then, why is the post exciting?

In the west, Zeus, Jupiter, and Thor are most definitely Male powers. This lotus center being at the throat originally illustrated to me the patriarchy's vocal power for verbally stating the law. However, when viewed from the Indian, as J.C. related--this center is balance. The representative deity is Ardhanari, "Half-Woman Lord". Amazing! So in this post we find all the recent sync whole themes coming home to roost. Here is the purple. Here are the two faces of Janus. Here is the tiger, the trident, the thunder bolt. Here is Avatar as the new religion, which is plant consciousness. Here is the west relearning how to live. Here is a feminine counterpart to the western patriarchy. Here is the moon and Jupiter together. Here is a union of the dualities. Here is the way. . .

And this is also the threshold of adventure. Indeed. Here you go between the guardians, and through the moon. This is the jumping off place, The cantina on Tatooine, "the gateway of the Great Liberation." Sorry I ever doubted your faith in Jupiter, Jim and Jake. This is so exciting. This is wholeness. . .

Anahata (Heartsday)

2010-01-20T00:00:00.009-07:00

Earth

Not Struck

Subdominant

And so we ascent to chakra four, at the level of the heart, where what Dante called La Vita Nuova, "The New Life," begins. And the name of this center is Anahata, "Not Struck"; for it is the place where the sound is heard "that is not made by any two things striking together."

Every sound normally heard is of two things striking together; that of the voice for example, being the sound of the breath striking our vocal cords. The only sound not so made is that of the creative energy of the universe, the hum, so to speak, of the void, which is antecedent to things, and of which things are precipitations. this, they say, is heard as from within, within oneself and simultaneously within space. It is the sound beyond silence, heard as OM (very deeply intoned, I am told, somewhere about C below low C ). "The word OM," said Ramakrishna to his friends, "is Brahman. Following the trail of OM, one attains to Brahman."

In the Sanskrit Devanagari script OM is written either as ॐ or as ओ , and in the posture of the dancing Shiva image the pose of the head, hands, and lifted foot suggests the outline of this sign--which makes the point that in the appearance of this god the sound resounds of the wonder of existence.

The sound AUM, the, "not made by any two things striking together," and floating as it were in a setting of silence, is the seed sound of creation heard when the rising Kundalini reaches the level of the heart. For there, as they say, the Great Self abides and portals open to the void. The lotus of twelve red petals, marked with the syllables kam, kham, gam gham, ngam, cham, chham, jam, jham, nyam , tam, and tham, is of the element air. In its bright red center is an interlocking double triangle, the color of smoke, signifying "juncture" and containing its seed syllable yam displayed over an antelope, which is the beast, swift as wind, of the Vedic wind-god Vayu. The female triangle within this letter holds a lingam like shining gold, and the patron Hindu deity is Shiva in a gentle, boon-bestowing aspect. His shakti, known here as Kakini, lifts a noose and skull in two hands, while exhibiting with her other two the "boon-bestowing" and "fear-dispelling" gestures. ~Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image

Wish-Fulfilling Tree

The Hatch

Just below this lotus of the heart there is pictured a lesser [octagonal], uninscribed lotus, at about the level of the solar plexus, supporting on a jeweled altar an image of the Wish-Fulfilling Tree. For it is here that the first intimations are heard of the sound OM in the Silence, and that sound itself is the Wish-Fulfilling Tree. Once heard, it can be rediscovered everywhere and no longer do we have to seek our good. It is here-within-and through all things, all space. We can now give up our struggle for achievement, for love and power and the good, and may rest in peace.~Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image

Manipura (Tiwsday)

2010-01-19T00:00:00.003-07:00

Mars

iii

City of The Shining Jewel

Mediant

Chakra three, at the level of the navel, is called Maipura, "City of the Shining Jewel," for its fiery heat and light. Here the energy turns to violence and its aim is to consume, to master, to turn the world into oneself and one's own. The appropriated occidental psychology would be the Adlerian of the "will to power"; for now even sex becomes an occasion, not of erotic experience, but of achievement, conquest, self-reassurance, and frequently, also revenge. The lotus has ten petals, dark as thunderheads heavy laden, bearing the seed syllables dam, dham, nam, tam, tham, dam, dham, nam, pam, and pham. Its central triangle, in a white field, is the sign of the element fire, shining like the rising sun, with swastika marks on its sides. The ram, its symbolic animal, is the vehicle of Agni, Vedic god of the scrificial fire, bearing on its back the syllable ram, which is the seed syllable or sound form of this god and his fiery element. The presiding Hindu (as distinct from Vedic) deity is Shiva in his terrible guise as an ascetic smeared with the ashes of funeral pyres, seated on his white bull Nandi. And at this side is his goddess shakti, enthroned on a ruby lotus in her hideous character of Lakini. Lakini is blue, with three faces, three eyes to each; fierce of aspect, with protruding teeth. She is fond of meat; her breast is smeared with grease and blood that have dripped from her ravenous jaws; yet she is radiant, elegant with ornaments, and exalted from the drinking of ambrosia. She is the goddess who presides over all rites of human sacrifice and over the battlefields of mankind, terrible as death to behold, though to her devotees gracious, beautiful, and sweet as life.~ Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image

-a note here. I realize that Earth is the 3rd rock from the sun, from our sol, our source. However when I found this connection between the chakras, the planets, the gods, and the days of the week, I saw this connection between Mars and Earth flipped. The interesting thing of late is how I'm beginning also to see a heart/navel connection as they relate to the center. Is Heart center? Is Navel center? Heart is the source of love or the conduit of love. Navel is the source of life--portal to the womb, the galactic center. Our navel shows our connection to The Mother's navel--our home, the universe.

Was our home and heart once the red Mars? Did we destroy that and then claimed the previous rock our new heart?

This work I'm doing now is leading to my "Diagram of The Universe: 432" where I explore the architecture of The Goddess through her numbers. I'm finally climbing Jacob's ladder here on the blog, but notice how the first three chakras represent the underworld. The fourth is material, is Earth, is the mother, is the tree upon which life hangs. 5, 6, 7 are the heavenly centers. So then of the tree of life: 1, 2, 3 = roots; 4 = tree; 5, 6, 7 = branches.

More from Campbell about these lower charkras (I also recall with interest how our Martian charioteer, George II, made his decisions from the gut.):

These, and these alone [the first three chakras], have supplied the motivations of historical man, his effective moral systems, and his nightmare of world history. They are the centers of the basic urges, furthermore, that mankind shares with the beasts -- namely, (1) to survive alive by feeding on other lives, (2) to generate offspring, and (3) to conquer and subdue. Unrestrained by any control system, these become devastating, as the history of the present century surely tells. For as declared in the IndianArthasastra, "Textbook on the Art of Winning": "When uncontrolled by virtue (dharma) and the big stick (danda), men become wolves unto men." The Inner Reaches of Outer Space, pg. 63-64 by Joseph Campbell, St. James Press, Toronto, 1986.

Now all three of these lower chakras are of the modes of man's living in the world in his naïve state, outward turned: the modes of the lovers, the fighters, the builders, the accomplishers. Joys and sorrows on these levels are functions of achievements in the world "out there" : what people think of one, what has been gained, what lost. And throughout the history of our species, people functioning only on these levels (who, of course, have been in the majority) have had to be tamed and brought to heel through the inculcation of a controlling sense of social duty and shared social values, enforced not only by secular authority but also by all those grandiose myths of an unchallengeable divine authority to which every social order--each in its own way--has had to lay claim. Wherever motivations of these kinds are not checked effectively, men, as the old texts say, "become wolves unto men."

However, it is obvious that a religion operating only on these levels, having little or nothing to do with the fostering of inward, mystical realizations, would hardly merit the name of religion at all. It would be little more than an adjunct to police authority, offering in addition to ethical rules and advice intangible consolations for life's losses and a promise of future rewards for social duties fulfilled. Hence, to interpret the imagery, powers, and values of the higher chakras in terms of the values of these lower systems is to mistranslate them miserably, and to lose contact in oneself, thereby, with the whole history and heritage of mankind's life in the spirt.~Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image

Svadhishthana (Freyasday)

2010-01-15T00:00:00.001-07:00

Venus

Her Special Abode

Supertonic

The second lotus of the series, called Svadhisthana, "Her Special Abode," is at the level of the genitals. (See fig. 313.) It is a vermilion lotus of six petals, bearing the syllables bam, bham, mam, yam, ram, and lam. Water being the element of this center, its inner field is the shape of a crescent moon, within which a mythological water monster known as a makara is to be seen, supporting the sign of the water syllable van. This is the seed sound of the Vedic god Varuna, lord of the rhythmic order of the universe. The presiding Hindu (as distinct from early Vedic) deity here is Vishnu in the pride of early youth, clothed in yellow and holding a noose in his hand. Beside him sits a wrathful form of his shakti, Rakini by name, of the color of a blue lotus, bearing in her four hands a lotus, a drum, a sharp battle-ax, and a spear, her teeth showing fiercely, her three eyes blazing red, and her mind exalted from the drinking of ambrosia. 11

When the Kundalini is active at this level, the whole aim of life is in sex. Not only is every thought and act sexually motivated, either as a means toward sexual ends or as a compensating sublimation of frustrated sexual zeal, but everything seen and heard is interpreted compulsively, both consciously and unconsciously, as symbolic of sexual themes. Psychic energy, that is to say, has the character here of the Freudian libido. Myths, deities, and religious rites are understood and experienced in sexual terms.

Now of course there are in fact a great many myths and rites directly addressed to the concerns of this important center of life—fertility rites, marriage rites, orgiastic festivals, and so on—and a Freudian approach to the reading and explanation of these may not be altogether inappropriate. However, according to Tantric learning, even though the obsession of the life-energies functioning from this psychological center is sexual, sexuality is not the primal ground, end, or even sole motivation of life. Any fixation at this level is consequently pathological. Everything then reminds the blocked and tortured victim of sex. But if it also reminds his doctor of sex, what is the likelihood of a cure? The method of the Kundalini is rather to recognize affirmatively the force and importance of this center and let the energies pass on through it, to become naturally transformed to other aims at the higher centers of the "rich in happiness" sushumna.~Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image

Muladhara (Lokisday)

2010-01-11T00:00:00.010-07:00

Mercury

Root

Tonic

The lotus at the base of the sushumna, called the "Root Support" (Muladhara), is described as crimson in hue and having four petals, on each of which a Sanskrit syllable is inscribed (reading clockwise, from the upper right: vam,´sam, sham, and sam). (See fig. 312.) These are to be understood as sound-counterparts of the aspects of spiritual energy operative on this plane. In the white center is a yellow square symbolic of the element earth, wherein a white elephant stands waving seven trunks. This animal is Airavata, the mythic vehicle of Indra, the Vedic king of the gods, here supporting on its back the sign of the syllable lam, "which," Woodroffe writes, "is said to be the expression in gross sound of the subtle sound made by the vibration of forces of this center." 9 The elephant, he continues, is symbolic of the strength, firmness, and solidity of earth; but it is also a cloud condemned to walk upon the earth, so that if it could be released from this condition it would rise. The supervising deity made visible in this lowest center is the world-creator Brahma, whose shakti, the goddess Savitri, is a personification of solar light. On the elephant's back is a downward-pointing triangle symbolic of the womb (yoni) of the goddess-mother of the universe, and within this "city of three sides," this "figure of desire," is seen the first or basal divine phallus (lingam) of the universal masculine principle, Shiva. The white serpent-goddess Kundalini, "fine as the fiber of a lotus-stalk," is coiled three and a half times around this lingam, asleep, and covering with her head its Brahma-door. 10

Now to be exact, the precise locus of this center at the base of the human body is midway between the anus and the genitals, and the character of the spiritual energy at that point is of the lowest intensity. The world view is of uninspired materialism, governed by "hard facts"; the art, sentimental naturalism; and the psychology, adequately described in behavioristic terms, is reactive, not active. There is on this plane no zeal for life, no explicit impulse to expand. There is simply a lethargic avidity in hanging on to existence; and it is this grim grip that must finally be broken, so that the spirit may be quit of its dull zeal simply to be.

One may think of the Kundalini on this level as comparable to a dragon; for dragons, we are told by those who know, have a propensity to hoard and guard things; and their favorite things to hoard and guard are jewels and beautiful young girls. They are unable to make use of either, but just hang on, and so the values in their treasury are unrealized, lost to themselves and to the world. On this level, the serpent-queen Kundalini is held captive by her own dragon-lethargy. She neither knows nor can communicate to the life that she controls any joy; yet will not relax her hold and let go. Her key motto is a stubborn "Here I am, and here I stay."

The first task of the yogi, then, must be to break at this level the cold dragon grip of his own spiritual lethargy and release the jewel-maid, his own shakti, for ascent to those higher spheres where she will become his spiritual teacher and guide to the bliss of an immortal life beyond sleep.~Joseph Campbell The Mythic Image

0 (fool) The Nothing

2010-01-01T00:00:00.002-07:00

An Experience of Being Alive

The Nature of Things

"The Monkey In The Machine and the Machine in the Monkey"

Thanks Frank! (happy new year!!!)

an unearthed treasure that changed things.

Sacred Time/Sacred Space: Happy HolyDay!

wake!

feeling

sign of the times . . .

end of term

a new cosmology

outatime

The Tyranny Of Modern Time

Beyond The Punch-Clock Life

The End Of Time As We Know It

The Future Of Time

wonder

out of control

The New World

Q'orianka Kilcher

class now in session . . .

on the road

wolf like me . . .

Das Rheingold

crossing the deadline

to Bit or Qubit

pop music.

James 217

James Franco: On Balancing His Many Passions (listen)

James 214

Bridges.

eagle & condor

Bridges.

paradigm of The Now

Red pill or Blue pill?

the bad guy

Mindgame

another crack at Jack

Freedom

The King & The Tyrant (Father's Day)

mobil ave (intro)

Mal: "You're waiting for a train; a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together." Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, 1895

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, 1895

∞ (Holy Fool)

Sahasrara (Ymirsday)

Ajna (Odinsday)

Vishuddha (Thorsday)

Anahata (Heartsday)

Manipura (Tiwsday)

Svadhishthana (Freyasday)

Muladhara (Lokisday)

0 (fool) The Nothing

Mal: "You're waiting for a train; a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't be sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together."

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, 1895