There is no moon in the sky

There is no moon in the sky
The moon you think you see is an illusion
Nothing more

Let the appearance of illusion be a reminder
That you have not awakened yet
You slumber on

Your Personal Path to Power Begins with "No!"

On a Thursday morning not long ago I woke up very tired. I went to work but as soon as I got home I went straight to bed. Maybe I read for a little bit first by I was asleep by 10:00 PM.

Unfortunately I was forced out of sleep some two and a half hours later by the sound of some horribly loud music bouncing off all of the walls of the houses in the cul du sac where I live. As I lay in bed, I worked on letting go any feelings of anger or personal hurt and decided to try an energy technique that had worked for me in the past, the creation of a chi ghost.

A chi ghost is created by focusing on one's entire body to the point that every part of one's body is tingling, vibrant with life, and then the creator imagines taking a step forward and turning around to face the body self.

Then the chi ghost is given a task. In this case I asked the chi ghost to turn the music down or off and to return to me when the task was accomplished. And almost immediately the music stopped and I was happy and very pleased with myself for all of about 2 minutes when the music started up again. And so I tried the exercise again with about the same results. And then a few more times until frustration set in and I was no longer effective.

I got out of bed and took a walk through the neighborhood in search of the source of the music but as soon as I stepped outside, I could not tell where the music was coming from. I walked around a little bit until I noticed a big black pickup truck parked right across from my driveway. I stared into the darkness of the truck, in the window there appeared to be a person but I wasn't sure.

I was also beginning to feel frightened as well as frustrated. What kind of person is blasting music in a residential neighborhood from inside a black truck and doesn't stop when a neighbor comes out of his house at 1:00 AM in the morning? And where were my other neighbors? I felt isolated. Was I the only one hearing this?

Suddenly I found myself recalling a Philip K. Dick story called The Hanging Stranger in which a man who has been working underground in his basement all day heads to a TV shop he owns. Once there, he sees a body hanging from a lamppost. Alarmed he demands to know what it is doing there but the rest of the town's folk are ambivalent:

“Look at it!” Loyce snapped. “Come on out here!”

Don Fergusson came slowly out of the store, button his pin-stripe coat with dignity. “This is a big deal, Ed. I can't just leave the guy standing there.”

“See it?” Ed pointed into the gathering gloom. The lamppost jutted up against the sky—the post and the bundle singing from it. “There it is. How the hell long has it been there?” His voice rose excitedly. “What's wrong with everybody? They just walk on past!”

Don Fergusson lit a cigarette slowly. “Take it easy, old man. There must be a good reason, or it wouldn't be there.”

“A reason! What kind of reason?”

And there I was at 1:00AM on a Friday morning. Magically transformed into Ed Loyce.

You can read The Hanging Stranger free on Google books 

Even though I entertained the idea of running to a neighboring town, instead I decided to call the non-emergency number to the police station. The police arrived in less than 15 minutes and I could here them talking to the person/people in the black pickup truck. The noise had stopped but I still couldn't sleep. The police where out there for at least another 30 minutes and I was on high alert.

I decided to watch a Christopher Eccleston episode of Doctor Who as BBC America has been doing a fifty year retrospective of the doctors and for the Christopher Eccleston era they chose the two-part episode Bad Wolf in which our heroes find themselves unwilling contestants on snuff versions of reality TV game shows. The Doctor ends up in a Big Brother house. His main companion, Rose, ends up with a homicidal Ann Droyd android on a version of The Weakest Link, and Captain Jack Harkness ends up on an extreme extreme make-over show where first they change your clothing and then they rearrange you limbs.

Eventually, it is revealed that the Doctor's oldest and most dangerous foes, the Daleks are behind the entire thing. In fact, they have been quietly manipulating human development for centuries. The story ends in a cliffhanger as the Daleks have Rose and they demand the Doctor surrender or they will immediately dispense with her.

Well, the Doctor has a one word response to pepper pot bullies: “No!”

This brought me some comfort. It reminded me of a quote I had found for my Writer as Shaman class but never shared. I heard it on a podcast where the guest, one Frater X was quoting one Mark Passio:

The initial civil right of all humanity is the prerogative to say, 'No! Leave me alone! I do not want to do that!”

The Thursday morning prior to all this drama I had done a search for this Mark Passio as I was unfamiliar with him and I found and started watching a YouTube video of a lecture entitled: The Matrix Decoded.

After getting a couple of hours of sleep, I awoke to watch more of this lecture series and came across the bit on Neo's resurrection.

For those who haven't seen the movie, the Matrix posits we live in an ersatz, computer generated illusion called The Matrix in which machines entrap our minds and feed off of our vital energies, bio-energy, mental energy, and spirit. Neo is prophesied to be The One, a messianic figure who can free all of the human minds enslaved by the Matrix and lead humanity to a final defeat of the machines.

The only problem is, Neo hasn't woken up to his inner nature yet and, unfortunately gets killed by agents of the Matrix. But since his mind only believes he is dead, the Sacred Feminine in the form of Trinity is able to resurrect him. As he come back to life within the Matrix, the agents fire upon him once again and Neo speaks his first word after being resurrected: “No!” and he holds up his hand and stops the bullets mid-air and then lets them fall.

One of the dangers of entertainments like Doctor Who and The Matrix is the human mind may misinterpret the images and symbols of the One or the Savior or the Messiah to be something external to one's own self and the history of human atrocities has been the abdication of the mind's responsibility to accept that it is creating its own reality. That there is no external savior.

When we say, “No!” to the current control system, whatever that may be, we are taking our first steps, as tiny as they may be, to our own personal freedom. To create the world as we would like it. Not to accept someone else's idea of what the world will be.

Whether a stranger is hanging from a lamppost or a truck as black as one of Stanley Kubrick's monolith is playing music way too loud for the hour of the day, it is our individual responsibility to say “No!” And this is the end of our individual childhood and the beginning of something as exhilarating as it is frightening.

This is when the new day dawns. This is when consciousness begins to shift.

It won't look like a savior riding in on a white horse unless you look down and notice you are holding the reigns.

There are no saviors outside of what is inside each of us. There is no sanctuary outside of our own inner world. And nobody can be forced into someone else's idea of Utopia.

“No!” is the beginning of wisdom. The beginning of freedom.

Additional reference:
Frater X interview- The Secret War on Human Consciousness

Mark Passio's Matrix Decoded lecture:

Sync Log

20151109 I was reading Superior Spider-Man number 18 on the bus home from work today which is November 9, 2015.  The story involved Superior Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099 both having to track down Tiberius Stone, each for their own reason.  Stone is Spider-Man 2099's grandfather and 2099's father is disappearing because someone is wiping out his past.  2099's father is also evil and runs an evil megacorp. called Alchemax.  So in 2013, Allen Chemical buys out Horizon Labs after Tiberius sabotages the company and eventually becomes Alchemax.  And 2099 Spider-Man learns that Tiberius Stone blows up Horizon Labs on November 9, 2013 and to re-iterate, I read it tonight on November 9, 2015.

(As a side note, I just noticed I started this log in 2013, October 6, 2013).

2015/07/27 While travelling I ate at a restaurant called Ted's Montana Grill. While I was enjoying the atmosphere and looking it up online, I discovered Ted Turner was an initial investor in the restaurant.  When I got back to my hotel room, I looked for something distracting on TV and happened upon Robot Chicken, a show I have never watched past the first few episodes because it is so stupid. This was no exception but they had a skit about Ted Turner trying to save the world by becoming Captain Planet from his old propaganda TV show from the 1990s. Additonally, at the end of this show, the cup from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a show I did like very much, came on to critique both the content of the show and the viewers. And I couldn't help but share Master Shake's low esteem for the viewers. Myself included for being one of them that night but at least I got a sync or two out of it (recorded 2015/07/30).

2015/06/24 Last night I searched YouTube for videos that have to do with James Shelby Downard.  One of the channels that came up was Horselover Phat which is a homophone for 'Horselover Fat' which itself is a cypher for Philip Dick, Philip meaning "lover of horses" in Greek and 'dick' being German for fat. It was a cypher used by U.S. author, Philip K. Dick in his novel VALIS which is why it was significant enough for me to take notices of.

This morning I checked my email and there were some replies from a Horselover Phat on a thread I am subscribed to on Loren Coleman's Twilight Language blog. (There's A Storm Coming: Dylann Storm Roof)

2015/06/18 Last night in Charleston North Carolina, a young white man murdered 9 people in cold blood, motivated by race.  Charleston and both North and South Carolina are named after Charles II of England.  The young man murdered the nine black people in a double Charlie and then fled from South Carolina to be apprehended in North Carolina, and other double Charlie.  Within the last couple of weeks, Charles Manson has reentered the pop culture in a massive way via the NBC Television show, Aquarius as mentioned in the previous log post. Charlie Manson is famous for predicting and attempting to insight a race war from which he would end up as king of the United States, presumably.

2015/06/17 On Memorial Day weekend a video went viral on how to contact a Mexican demon named Charlie. About a week later, I watched the first episode of Aquarius and Charles Manson is a character in this show. Shortly after that, I stumbled upon the Sabaton album Carolus Rex which is an album, in which King Charles the XII of Sweden is a prominent character.
 
2015/04/14 After having an argument today over whether I should care about the feelings of the the type of people who like to force everybody to live in their idealized way and how I should be respectful of their movement when they aren't respectful of me, I got a message in my kombucha bottle cap that says, in all caps: SPEAK YOUR TRUTH.

2015/04/14 Reviving the Sync Log. Yesterday I was working on a drawing and texted a friend about the difficulty in drawing ears (as a way to make light of the frustration in trying to draw my ears).  Later that night I watched the following and there was a scene where a serial killer had hung up all these cut off ears in his trophy room.  It was quite a bit creepy and I felt this sort of surreal rush of a vortex and also the feeling that my texting about ears had somehow created this scene.

2014/01/11 In the shower this morning, I saw my white board with the words "Where am I right now?" written on it with a green squiggly serpent underneath. As I pondered what this might mean, I saw a Christian fish symbol and the word Rapture.

After the shower I felt compelled to create this on my white board. Then I was driving on Highway 51 toward the Beltline and a car passed me with a bumper sticker that read, "I'd rather be here now."

2014/01/10 Two days ago, on the 8th, someone I work with was telling me about the volcanoes of Nicaragua. Yesterday, on the 9th, when I stopped in the breakroom the Weather Channel was showing some documentary on volcanoes and volcanoes were also mentioned in a podcast I was listening to specifically about how Vulcan was the Roman god of technology. Today I found a story on the Red Ice page about an Indonesian volcano that spews a beautiful blue lava.

2013/11/22 The name Small has come to me three times in the last week. Last Saturday, I listened to an old interview about the origin of The Matrix and Terminator with Sophia Stewart and Ed Small on Red Ice Radio.

2) Watched a movie called Neverwas and the protagonist was named Zachary Small.

3) on a poster at work, the name of a scientist named David Small.

And starting with watching the movie Neverwas, the symbol MW or WM  has come to me three or four times. I do not remember every instance because I delayed too long in writing it down. 

1) The asylum in Neverwas is called Millwood and its logo was MW on a shot of letterhead.

2) Monday, I happened to catch a bit of the sports section of the local news and they first had WM displayed for a Wisconsin team and a Milwaukee team and then went to a story on a Wisconsin team and a Minnesota team and had the same two letters up.

3) I noticed the WM or MW on a dumpsters yesterday, Thursday, as I was walking to where I work.

2013/11/08 Listening to Bram Stoker's Dracula. Just as Van Helsing is narrating that all these parties, Jonathan Harker, the Quincey Morris, the gypsies, on Van Helsing's and Mina's position, both Patti and a carpenter we have doing work converged on my position where I was doing yard work interrupting my listen.

2013/10/11 about 7:30 PM. Driving home from work first got behind a taxi with the number 33 on it, then behind a pickup truck with the number 31 on it then passed a gas station where the price for gas melded those two numbers into 331.

Noted on 2013/10/08--Banjos have come to me three times over the last week, first Randy on South Park made a lame excuse about playing a banjo. Then Sunday at the Co-op there was an actual banjo player who struck me as being good enough to give a $1 to. Finally, today in the elevator at work people were discussing somebody's banjo playing. 

Around 3:15 PM 2013/10/06--Thinking about The Matrix, specifically Joe Pantoliano's performance and all the little nuances of his performance I missed back in 1999 even though I thought I was paying so much attention in the theater when suddenly I see a Toyota Matrix, black or dark blue. I didn't even know such a car existed. I saw my second one, a red one, about 90 minutes later.

Why does everything want to be a circle?

 This is the very first writing prompt from Julie Tallard Johnson's class "Writer as Shaman" that really captured my imagination. Written between 9/13/2013 - 9/18/2013. I feel this is an exercise I can return to again and again.

Why does everything want to be a circle?

Ever since this question has come up I have been meditating on it almost non-stop.

My first thoughts went to roller derby. For some reason, roller derby and roller skating have been with me my whole life.

Often when I am watching a bout, I try to imagine the jammers and blockers and pivots as atomic particles and the track as a particle accelerator. So more then, “why does everything want to be a circle” why doe we always want to travel a circular path?

Nearly everyone I have spent time with since last class I have brought up this prompt and most of the time, instead of “why does everything want to be a circle” becomes “Why does everything want to be round.

Sitting in a circle in a friend's  condo when a mutual friend was visiting from Minneapolis was simple natural. And while we weren't in a perfect circle I looked on the floor and there the throw rug was a perfect circle.

Talking to an old classmate about the usefulness of certain classes in highs school I brought up this writing prompt when she mentioned she has been a hair dresser and how working with the human head you are working with a person's personal geometry.

The reason everything wants to be a circle is because everything seeks completeness, wholeness. Our lives are a circle with life and death demarcations. Words like “womb” and “tomb” are very similar. Inside one, we come into the world. And then after we have already departed the world, our remains are committed to the other.

And while human beings are defined by their outer limits and seemingly shaped vertically, more or less, it is only within the sphere of ourself that we are infinite. It is inside our “circle” where we are free to travel anywhere. Anywhen.

Tales of the Moth

What I thought was a dragonfly shaped circle of writers and shaman was actually a moth of wisdom. Walking back to my car after class, my attention was caught by a moth, a rather large moth, fluttering several feet above my head.

Moth first came to my attention a little less than 20 years ago when I first started reading Carlos Castaneda in the wake of my brothers death. In the early spring of 1995, I knew my brother was going to die and I found myself almost transfixed, staring at the then current selection of the month in the catalog for the Quality Paperback of the Month club. They were offering an omnibus edition of Carlos Castaneda's books that included The Teaching of Don Juan, A Separate Reality, and Tales of Power. I did not have any religious or spiritual practices at the the time and, even though I had tried to read a Castaneda book some years before and found it disturbing my dreams, I knew that in the wake of the coming stresses I would need some form of spiritual practice to through myself into so I ordered the book.

Later in 1995, in October, I went to Los Angels, Culver City, to participate in a weekend Tensegrity workshop, October 10 sticks out in my mind so it would have been a little over 5 months since my brother had died and I had started devouring the works of Carlos Castaneda. By this time I must have read Tales of Power. I flew out of Milwaukee's Mitchell Field so I went to visit my mom and aunt. My aunt made me breakfast that morning, oatmeal, too salty to eat, as I recall, and before heading for the airport, my aunt wanted me to shoo away what she thought was bat that was clinging to the side of a storage shed. I went to look at it and it was one of the strangest, most beautiful and ugly moths I had ever seen. I took it as a good omen because much of Tales of Power had to do with Carlos Castaneda learning wisdom from a moth.

Since I read Tales of Power from the omnibus edition, I never saw the actual cover of that book for some months after this point but the moth on the original cover of that book matched the one that was on my mom and aunt's storage shed!

I was thirty at the time and felt ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

Now, I am 48, or so they tell me. The ability to remember how old I am is not innate in me. How old is Now?

Now it is nearly October again and I just finished the first writing class I have taken since high school, well, so it feels. And all around these last three weeks of class and writing the world has bloomed around me in ways I could never have expected even though some things were planned for a very long time.

Now I find myself siting in a circle of writers, citing our favorite poets, journeying to other realms, all the while taking part in forming the message of the moth.

Words or Silence

A meditation on a phrase from Borges' Anticipation of Love

What comes to me of your life, settling in words or silence?

Words are the quality of acts.

Silence is what is.

Words are how you present yourself to the world, what I can see of you.

Silence tells me who you really are.

Words are the sculptor's chisel

Silence the marvelous marble in which David is hopefully revealed.

The blank page is silent, whole, and complete as I come to it, contemplate it. It seems a shame to write anything at all and yet I feel from the page a kind of shivering anticipation of my first division of it.

“What will be the first letter that divides me? “A,” aleph, which means Ox? The mind is the ox of the writer as the as the pen is his plow cutting deep furrows into my rich silence. Or will it be the letter “G” from gimel, meaning “camel?” Could the camel be likened to the imagination of the writer? Carrying him over vast stretches of what would otherwise be called “writers block?”

“Oh, perhaps it will be the letter B which comes to us from beth, meaning house? Could I, the blank page be said to be the house for the writer's ideas?”

“What of the letter Z? Called zed in some places and zee in others but originally meaning “sword?” Will this be an adventure story like the story of Zoro? Or might it be the pen of this writer will be the sword and I will be filled with biting political satire?”

I often wonder, after despoiling a page in my notebook or even a new text window on a computer, does the page find my divisions compatible with its wholeness? I hope the page finds some sort of ecstasy in my divisions of it but often, I am only disappointed in the result.