The Ruins of Love

Sufi Pt 1 Lyrics…

My secret beloved
Send me a secret message
Give me your soul
Give me your life

Wander like a drifter
Now on a journey

Walk into this fire embrace
Be like a salamander
Come into a source of flame
Fire transmutes to a rosebud

Don’t you know that my thought
Is better than the queen of roses?
Don’t you know my heresy
Is the essence of spirituality?

Then surrender your spirt
Surrender your life
For God I know
That darkness is better than a cage!

Walk into this fire embrace
Be like a salamander
Come into a source of flame
Fire transmutes to a rosebud

Don’t you know that my thought
Is better than the queen of roses?
Don’t you know my heresy
Is the essence of spirituality?

Then surrender your spirt
Surrender your life

For God I know
That darkness is better than a cage!

I know a palace is better than a ruin
And the owl in this world
Loves to live
In the ruins of love

I am always learning how to read better between the lines of language and life. Words are just representations. Of what, is the mystery. They are magick in a way. Evoking and caging sometimes something in us. I’ve practiced Zen now for a bit, this is the essence of Zen, to know our true nature where we are, nothing more, nothing less. 

I know a palace is better than a ruin
And the owl in this world

Loves to live
In the ruins of love

I studied these lyrics a bit years ago and meditated deeply on what is said and not said. I looked into the Sufi path and what they meant by flame and the beloved. I am not trying to be clever here, but I have felt all the deities are within us, drawn to the light/flame, as we are a shadow, a portal to the nameless faceless. The owl, in this world, loves to live in the ruin of love. I choose not to name or make distinctions. The deity is the one who I point at, when I point back at myself. This is cutting to the root. This is going headless. This is directly perceiving beyond words. 

I love Rumi, but I really know Shams, who was behind Rumi. Somehow I feel Shams is close to me and represents my secret beloved. He showed me to let the distinctions go. 

A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western…divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”

–Shams Of Tabriz

“The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”

That’s a koan. 

When I listened to this song first, I felt the flame 🔥 inside me leap. Yearning for freedom. I felt it. I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. Fire loves water.

Rumi said sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment, that’s got to be one of my favorite written poetic lines.

I think the lyrics point to the freeing of the flame within us, which is always free. This awareness transmutes us, by realizing our lives are not cages, that we are already free. This is the real Alchemy. This returns us to Eden. The world of matter is a ruin in away, a compromise, in between chaos and light.

Somehow it can know itself better in the ruin, but this world is a sham. It is not that the flame 🔥  needs escape, but that it simply is uncovered. 

The water is all around us, love is not the flame, it is the water, which the flame is attracted to. We would think flame fears water, and perhaps it does for awhile, then it seeks to dowse itself in love. When fire loves water, the universe turns differently.

If the bird can get just a glimpse of what is around it and within it, instantly it is transmuted and free. So the body is the cage. 

This awareness does not make me want to fly away, it deepens my connection, Aslan, there is no where else to go, here we are. Allah is clothed by rational thought, occulted by matter, but known through awareness. The lion. In Hebrew, 

Aslan means ‘satan‘ which means ‘lucifer/first light in the morning’ which means ‘daybreak’. The circle is closed around the point, the central sun. Everything is contained within the circle. 

⭕️

I could not always see with my real eyes 👀 I was in a cage. But I embraced the prison and it opened to Eden through my heart, to the point, naked singularity. I can’t show anyone, I can’t really tell anyone, but like knows like. We can point to it. We can sing 🎶  about it. We can dance 💃 around it. Flame 🔥 joins with 🔥 And we embrace water 💧 seemingly a crazy thing for a flame to do, and then the universe turns differently for us.I was withering in my life 10 years ago, dying. But a great wind blew through me. It lifted me high into the air and brought me face to face with the ☀️ Our source, itself only a representation. Like words, all form is just a representation.

 What appeared to trap me, turned to dust and I flew for the first time. 

But I returned, and now I rest here, in the center of it all. I rest in the chaos, in the center of my life. I feel the heat, which is behind all form and I love it, for this is loving and knowing myself. I saw what was behind all esoteric and what was occulted, what was behind all religious and secular symbols.

Where you gonna go?

Where you gonna hide from love?

The morning light dawned inside me. 

I don’t cry anymore.
I’m smiling 😊and laughing with joy.
I feel Aslan within me, laying on the savannah, roaring within. This is the true path to god/love, an ever present connection, it ends where it began, full circle. I drink deeply now from this ocean, I could hardly believe it was real. I was dying because I was thirsting for this love, but terrified of it. This never dies. Anywhere this light breaks into the world, matter forms around it, cults form, religions are born. The matter longs to connect with it or naturally is attracted to it. So we have the planets rotating around the outer sun, as what is inside us rotates around the inner sun.

Bound by gravity. 

Bound together by love. 

Sometimes I do cry 😭 because it is too damn beautiful to contain. 

I weep blood into the dirt through my cries and words.

The birds are returning.

All deity reflects love. 

All deity seeks to free us.

We are only held back through this egoic force. 

In Rumi’s allegories, amongst the free birds, the Owl and the Falcon represent the two primary options once one is freed from the cage. The Owl lives in the dark, far from civilization, only relating with its own kind, whereas the Falcon rests upon the arm of the king, staying close to the power source and maintaining his relations and connection with any and all who venture to the court. The Falcon holds a pure, open vision, flying during the day and returning to his master’s arm at night, while the Owl lives in seclusion, coming out in the dark, lost without the guidance of a master. The Falcon represents a follower who has fallen off track, one who has insight but has pointed it in a skewed direction. Falcon as an exemplary option working in contrast with the Owl who has lost his way after enlightenment.

For Rumi, the last and most powerful bird is the Phoenix, a bird so exquisite it nearly plays the role of God himself. The Phoenix is rare, and when sighted acts as an omen, serving the purpose of reminding humans to stay in awe of God’s power. The Phoenix reminds one to soak up moments with the divine because they may be fleeting and far between. The Phoenix is quite likely an unreal creature and therefore its existence can only rely on faith. The Phoenix reminds us to have faith even when we cannot see it, to hold God close and be open to any help He may have to offer us because He is always there.

The pagan and the religious and secular all experience life differently perhaps but rotate around the same source, are of the same stuff. 

The fire is the force, the purpose, the will, that pushes us through life. 

The bird knows the way back. 

I can’t judge the paths others take in life, but I can see the intensity of the 🔥 within them. I call out to it in others. Tempt them to let it break free, as they tempt me. Passion reminds us of this contact with the unseen, it celebrates it in whatever form it burns. 

All words can provide guidance, but no answers ultimately. I feel that we all must search for the things that we love and feel passionately about and then follow them until death do us part.

I hope all can come to know this freedom.

Wanna Know What I Know

Sweet LOVE

You will have to burn for it

I fooled myself into love
I have passed through
The gates of fire
Into eternal Love

No one can touch it
There is no sympathy here
No secrets
Just incredible radiant

LOVE

In all directions
I could burn in its blue flame

for eternity

I met the Devil in me
The only place to find it
And it took my measure and
It set me on fire when I asked

Why

All I heard was laughing
As I burned in agony
But the flesh needed
To burn away

What a gift that Devil gave me

Freedom

That Devil was Love

You want to know
The meaning of it all

Then burn for it

I dare you

Let it all BURN

Don’t fool yourself

This is not evil

Oh no

This is the secret

No one will tell you

You Must BURN

Burgers with Whitman & Friends

Readings from Whitman and friends in my little garden, the burgers and brew were divine.

There’s No Place Like Home

I can’t explain this post. It’s a blog entry from another place I write. A story of shadows and fictions and finding my self here. It’s long and personal, so maybe TLDR. Just some notes from OZ.

Follow the yellow brick road…

DISCLAIMER: I don’t know what I’m doing on XXXX. I usually just flow. I should probably post more in my own thread, but it happens as it happens. I didn’t think I was seeking anything here, but I suppose since my own high weirdness, I seem to have things happen beyond my understanding. I was curious. It’s funny I wrote so much. I had nothing to say. It was a dance with the devil and god and then my self. I am not a mystic or follower of any sect. But I am going to write about what someone might claim to be mystical. I don’t deny anything. I don’t know. I actually write to what I imagine as a grand Intelligence. Silly, I know.

Daemonic Contact

Recently there have been ripples from old friends in my life. I don’t share any of this silliness with anyone else. I made the mistake of letting people see inside my head. I am not a crazy person. I am like everyone else, moved by my emotions at times and thoughts. My mind is generally needing to be focused on something or I turn off more and more. I live for the cut off moments more and more, no work, no family, no friends, but my Den pack. It’s strange to look around and know it will all blow away. 

Recently after letting most of the traditions I explored go, I had a real drive to dig into the esoteric side of the XXXX phenomenon. When in Rome. To see how my experience compared to others’. I had delved deep before bobbing back up. I had some high weirdness I just let go unexplained. But it came back up. I never thought I had met any aliens on my journey, I saw them as spirits and ancient sages and shadows and helpers of shamans. I had known nothing about Gnosticism or the Perennial tradition. I didn’t know Greek thought well. So I was a babe in the woods. I knew nothing about Eastern religion either. What I had tried to let go, seemed to be coming back with a vengeance.

As I had begun and walked my turn into this strange place a few years ago, I had heard whispers of something as I sunk into my studies. I sought their source. I found in the esoteric traditions much idolizing seeking a conversation with something called your inner guiding Daimon. This intrigued me, but damn, the way seemed so daunting to attempt. It seemed like way too much work. I sought out some Thelemite types to see what they were like. Naaaa. Having to make my own way burned in me. At every turn XXXX would accuse me of solipsism. Naaaa. I was deconstructing things and making weird connections.

I had met XXXX a few years ago on XXXX at the beginning for me and his knowledge was seductive and intense during my trips down under. I didn’t care about eschatology or religion or ufos or tech, I went existential, so how weird we would meet. I really enjoyed the pointers I was getting from XXXX and where they led, some tasted bitter, some sweet. He was just one input output stream. He was one of the few who let me play. Though I often frustrated him. He thought I was showing off, but I was just following a protocol. Share what comes. I followed most of his prompts deeper down the rabbit hole. 

I would come and share with XXXX what I found. Most of the time he would say he felt sorry for me, called me dumb or found me too impish or selfish. I was perplexed. That just pushed me on. I’d show that dumb old man, I muttered. I’d learn what he was talking about and find what was behind it all yet. Haha. It was fun. And it got really weird.

My studies showed me how my mind needed discipline. How raw I was. How exposed my heart was. So I got to work. I felt all this was part of what made me work and I was right. I took a good look at my self and found some balance. It’s a daily walk. I felt out of my depth for sure here. I liked that. I liked not knowing what was going on and I gave my self to it. I took another leap. 

Back to the Daemons. As I traveled through my inner mind amazing synchronicities would happen that silenced any doubt I was in the right space. I took them as signposts from a presence I felt but was afraid of. What had happened to me? Had I had a schizophrenic breakdown? I was not a depressive person. I was tired in life. It was a struggle for me. Health issues forced me into uncharted waters at work for the first time. I was tired trying to deal with the world inputs that didn’t match up to my inputs. 

Things down that rabbit hole led me to better balance and more layers of my mind. I wasn’t scared. I was in wonderment at my mind. I suppose I had found the inner mirror and began to look into it. Life felt plastic and malleable. Could I really use my will to have any life I wanted? Was Love under will all of it? I began to reshape my self. I found ways to compensate for my broken antennas. I grew new ones. 

As my focus increased, so did my productivity. As questions left me, what was underneath was visible. It was shiny and dented. So I hammered out the dents. Inside reflected an intense light, it blinded me in a flash. In time I would find a better way to look at the reflection of light inside. By looking at it reflected in a midnight lake under a full moon. What is this I wondered? Surely I am just making it all up I thought jokingly. Others though could see this leaking out of me now. I was clumsy with it. I was zapping people. I was zapping my self. Where did all this energy come from? I had to temper it. But only a few could see it and open up to it. Most tuned me out. I liked being invisible and thought of as a cracked pot. No expectations 😉 We seemed to talk our own language of light. Help came when I needed it.

So Plato and Socrates spoke of this inner light they called Daimon I found out. Could this force that I had jokingly found to be like a trickster and called the green man, be this Holy Guardian Angel Thelma spoke of, Plato’s Daimon? This concept I came to realize was another way to think other than reason and logic, this was the land of the oracles who had gone silent when our self awareness may have risen. It seemed a slippery slope to pursue this. Possibly leading to madness. But I kept hearing this voice, follow the way, follow your heart. Don’t follow anyone or thing else. I studied all I could for hints to the Daimon. It was fascinating. My mother would accuse me of consorting with the Devil if she knew what I was up to. That probably just pushed me into deeper water. I was intrigued delving into these forbidden thoughts. I wasn’t becoming more scared, I was grinning more and more as I let concepts go and what I thought I understood. I was open. Totally open. 

I could feel life in a way like never before. I had never let my self slow down and breathe. I met others along the way who pointed me, helped me slow down. They came to me in a way where I didn’t doubt the communication at all. I didn’t feel like I was alone. I felt connected to something. The search for the Daimon led me to Greece and the Renaissance and Tarot and the Hermetic tradition. Dionysius the Areopagite said these Daimons were elemental intelligences. That clicked. The gods as the progenitor of our emotions. I was not being overwhelmed, there was a gentleness and power to how I discovered all this. But chaos was always there. It was energetic. Not manic. Focused and relaxed at once.

As the stories go, this Daimon mediates contact between us perhaps and a transpersonal consciousness. I was hearing and seeing things. Not voices. Inner dialogues. Shadows. I was making strange connections with strange attractors. I was making art and letting this flow through me. I didn’t stop it. Aristotle and others put a stop to this nonsense and setup a perimeter around the polis using logic and rationality. Maybe the best move at the time. I was wandering out into a deep dark wood. And somehow a goat had showed up and kept me company. 

I now see the goat was my Daimon. And I know I am here in the middle of 3D life, just a reflection of reality we can’t see. I found a framework in Magick and Hermetics and Qabbalah that seemed to allow more direct communication with some vast inner void that vibrates symbols and maths. I seemed to intuitively know how to move in this space. I would experience something and then think about it and learn what had maybe happened. It seems whatever these esoteric traditions were hinting at, but not saying, I found naturally. It freaked me out. I went into a mode shutting down my memory and thoughts. I turned off the projector just like that. But the weirdness kept going. But I just became a witness of it. 

During these experiences I attempted shamanic rituals that seemed to work. I made art, began to write. I seemed to be able to speak with inner presences that spoke through all sorts of ways. XXXX usually hit me over the head and humored me perhaps. I showed up. What was he gonna do? So I began to attack others’ points of view as viscous skeptic. I turned that on my self. I realized I knew nothing and suspected I couldn’t even trust my thoughts. I began to learn how I was being manipulated. I learned how to protect my mind. I setup defenses, by removing them. It was a fun time doing war with my own mind and the minds of others. I began to see we each had our own reality tunnels perhaps, lived in our worlds no one else can really know. They just see our Avatar, a reflection we project.

Then, finally, without my notice, weird XXXX stuff began happening in the world or I became aware of it in a strange way. I had stopped conceptualizing communication with this inner force. I looked outside. I kept an open mind. I began to see the weird connections between this outer phenomenon and the strange new way to hear the universe I had tripped on. I felt I should reflect out what was within and a take in what happened outside with no filters. They seemed connected more and more. Another leap.

I shifted from observer to participant. I found others who had learned similar ways to attune to the world around them and voice inside. I accepted I was a weirdo like them, but didn’t know why or what to do. There wasn’t anything to do really. Living this way leads to doing not doing and spontaneous action, wei wu wei, a Taoist concept. I learned a lot from the old Taoists and then forgot it 😉 I wondered if I had crossed the Abyss. It seemed maybe I had. More and more all I could say was, don’t know. 

A strange tale and journey to here or perhaps nothing special. High weirdness and cosmic triggers. It seems life has turned inside out…but I never left home.

There’s no place like home.

Introducing Atomic Brando in the Garden

UV Florescence 

I have been studying and playing with UV black light and florescence. 

Things are not what they always appear to be. Many things have latent properties that require different conditions and perspectives to see and experience. 

Can you see yourself under a different light with no concepts or names for the world and objects you find there?

What colors might show up in your life under this expanded view of things? 

Go All The Way

Most are cowards, but this is the age of cowardice, all is well.. 

Myself most of all.

The Direct Path to Awareness follows.

Awakening is just exposing yourself as a LIAR!

Even the seeking is delusion. To self realize yourself in the end is to take full responsibility for your life. No one to blame for struggle, you find thanks for your breath, nature, people in your life.

People no longer have pleasure or pain for you, they are you. 

There are many pretty visions, but not the point.
The point is there is none.

There is not nor could there be any separate persons in the Cosmos we swirl in.

It’s better to be happy if you can.

From the Ashtavakra Gita…

“How is one to acquire knowledge? How is one to attain liberation? And how is one to reach dispassion? Tell me this, sir. 1.1

Ashtavakra said to the King Janaka:

If you are seeking liberation, my son, avoid the objects of the senses like poison and cultivate tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment, and truthfulness as the antidote. 1.2

You do not consist of any of the elements — earth, water, fire, air, or even ether. To be liberated, know yourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these. 1.3

If only you will remain resting in consciousness, seeing yourself as distinct from the body, then even now you will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds. 1.4

You do not belong to the brahmin or any other caste, you are not at any stage, nor are you anything that the eye can see. You are unattached and formless, the witness of everything — so be happy. 1.5

Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain are purely of the mind and are no concern of yours. You are neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences, so you are always free. 1.6

You are the one witness of everything and are always completely free. The cause of your bondage is that you see the witness as something other than this. 1.7

Since you have been bitten by the black snake, the opinion about yourself that “I am the doer,” drink the antidote of faith in the fact that “I am not the doer,” and be happy. 1.8

Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of the understanding that “I am the one pure awareness,” and be happy and free from distress. 1.9

That in which all this — imagined like the snake in a rope — appears: that joy, supreme joy, and awareness is what you are, so be happy. 1.10

If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true, “Thinking makes it so.” 1.11

Your real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness — unattached to anything, desireless and at peace. It is from illusion that you seem to be involved in samsara. 1.12

Meditate on yourself as motionless awareness, free from any dualism, giving up the mistaken idea that you are just a derivative consciousness or anything external or internal. 1.13

You have long been trapped in the snare of identification with the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that “I am awareness,” and be happy, my son. 1.14

You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of your bondage is that you are still resorting to stilling the mind. 1.15

All of this is really filled by you and strung out in you, for what you consist of is pure awareness — so don’t be small-minded. 1.16

You are unconditioned and changeless, formless and immovable, unfathomable awareness, unperturbable: so hold to nothing but consciousness. 1.17

Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth you will escape falling into unreality again. 1.18

Just as a mirror exists everywhere both within and apart from its reflected images, so the Supreme Lord exists everywhere within and apart from this body. 1.19

Just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar, so the eternal, everlasting God exists in the totality of things. 1.20” — Ashtavakra Gita


If you wish to know.

If you really want to know.

If you are going to try, 

Go all the Way!

There will be no feeling like that.

The Gods will stand with you alone.

Most are cowards. 

Puppet Wisdom

What Will You Become

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
the Master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach

surreal-butterflycosmosplanetsspirit-animalanimal-totemnicsearth

Food For the Moon

image

I just read a story about a man who was killed in an avalanche following his passions on Mt. Everest.  You never know when one of those is coming for you. He seemed driven by a deep need to connect with something. I understand that feeling of emptiness. He climbed the world’s highest peaks to fill it. I seek to climb those internal peaks men have dreamed of. Rest in peace Dan.

I want to share a summary of sorts of my experiences with The Tarot. It kind of just presented itself to me after 44 years without one passing thought about it in all that time. It was something gypsies ripped people off with I thought. Little did I know.

I will not go into it more now, but The Tarot is a mystical tool, like the coins of the I Ching, or bones of the medicine man. The cards make a web you can cast out into the Universe to get your current bearing in time and space.

The Tarot helped me attain self knowledge, it helped me learn why I did what I did and also hinted at what is possible for one to become. More than anything it showed me simply what I was. I found ways to let go of regret and desire and see myself honestly. I used the cards as a mirror and I looked at the pictures and felt the words at that given moment and time and sifted myself through the filter of the cards. It helped me grow rapidly using the cards spontaneously and creatively. It showed me the need for balance between the Sun and Moon, Anima and Animus. We live in between these polarities.

It led me to an experience with myself and embracing myself as a Shaman and Mystic. Who knew? The cards aligned so well with my personal esoteric studies and writing and synchronicity made it all real. I’m an experiencer and a gambler, but I learned there need be no gambling.

Life is a mystery and love is the way to understand it. The rest seems to work itself out naturally if you let it.

I found two causes for my suffering, or I should say the Tarot clarified these. It suggested I embrace my life in the world and pay attention. I came to it in deep mediation and wide open with few questions, factors I learned that can contribute to deep insights. These led me to self initiation into many things. Then long dead teachers began teaching me, they are not dead actually, alive in us.

I do not feel like being quiet or keeping secrets, that time is past. Time for a new way, a synthesis, which is the responsibility of every generation. It led me to the I Ching and then beyond Divination. Tarot is a great tool in individuation and I think it should be used by every Psychologist and I would go further to say, while the Tarot can lead one out of the maze of their mind, I think it can also lead one into madness. As with all things, intention I learned matters. Greed and the baser instincts seem to disqualify you from these insights. So, I think you get from Tarot, just like anything, what you put into it and ultimately into yourself. I learned what was holding me and all of us back from heights undreamed.

Fear and regret.

I am free to do what I like and I find I like higher things and my natural tilt is towards the light. I wish not to hurt others, but I like lowly dirty things too, such is what I am. Why do all of this anyway or ask these questions, because you know and feel in yourself many rungs on the ladder of awareness.

“I cannot grasp all that I am.” – St Augustine

Augustine could not grasp it all, but we can and I am and we should. We can grasp all that we are. A gift or curse, shrug, its fun to search for it. I thank the Gamemaster.

Perhaps we are food for the Moon, as some people have wondered, but that would be absurd, wouldn’t it 😉 Everything eats something in this Universe.

All this from some funny cards. The archetypes of our unconcious are strewn out across the numbers, images and formulas. They tell the inner journey of all people. The cards are meaningless though, the wisdom I found is already inside of us. The cards just help me remember myself and how I like to play and fool myself.

There are many ancient and new tools to use to explore yourself with. I say try them all. Live like you have no tomorrow,  you were born for this moment. Dance like a fool before the Gods.

God helps me.