Tag: love

Slouching Toward Bethlehem

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

—William Butler Yeats – The Second Coming

—-
No, no one can or wants to take over the world.

Be free knowing there is no end.

Just an uncovering.

That is joyful!

The sky is singing about it.

The earth is groaning for it.

We only destroy the things we want by our grip or live in peace with what we have. 

All of creation wants this technological monster to stop devouring the earth. 

Creation wants man to cease to be termites to the earth. 

The Native Americans say their god has no rules. 

Only ceremonies to know it better. 

That is the true source. 

The true nameless faceless source knows us through the imagination and our emotions and our thoughts.

In fact, your thoughts are its thought. 

In fact, you are one of its thoughts. 

There are many cunning thieves who have given themselves to darkness devouring the weak hearted and minded.

They are playing their parts well. 

To help wake us up.

They give into fear.

Fear not. 

I ride on a pale horse. 

I watch and listen and gather my strength. 

For there is yet a great thing required of me by the highest. 

And I shall gladly give my life so that life may become. 

That is what god calls each of us to. 

To be warriors of the sun and moon. 

If you are quiet and you listen and you see with your real eyes it’s clear as day. 

You can see as Emerson and Whitman and Epictetus.

You will feel the call on you when you let your grip on your life go. 

The veil is thin.

If you are humble and listen, you can see through this false industrial monster we have created and that we all feed. 

It lives on division and hatred and fear.

It probably has a divine purpose as all things light and dark do. 

Whitman saw the rising of the monster in the civil war, he was a prophet of love.

He showed us how to build a boat of love to sail across the turbulent abyss. 

Epictetus gave us a way to master our fear on earth. 

Emerson found a way back to the sky. 

In spite of all the turmoil on earth, there is a clear voice on the wind. 

A call to love.

A call to reunite.

And if we be worthy, to walk the rainbow bridge back to the source of all being. 

What are we to do?

Join our minds and hearts together and know ourselves, remember ourselves. 

All of creation will rise up to help you. 

Know that every word spoken or written or thought are inside you already.

Stop looking to others.

It ain’t in no book or ritual. 

It is sleeping or alive and awake in each of us. 

We only have to accept it and remember it. 

That monster that slouches toward Bethlehem can’t hurt one who knows themselves. 

The goddess sits next to the source, she is no whore.

There is no 1, 2 or 3, there is only One, and we all have a part of it. 

Most live in duality, which is an illusion, nothing is separate.

If you fear, if you are divided, if you divide, you serve chaos, you are the katechon, you will be overcome. 

That was your choice, one of the few you have. 

I don’t believe there is one destiny per one person that is unchangeable. 

Careful though how you approach the gods above, or they may turn you into a smelly goat. 

Each god is just an aspect of this.

There are just great magnetic forces that draw certain elements to them. 

But you can overcome them with the power of Will. 

Maybe all of this is just a way to sort the wheat and the chaff.

To find thoughts that can navigate the darkness without being corrupted. 

So what shall it be?

Fear or love?

For love knows no fear.

I will lead, I do not follow. 

I stand and I care for any bird that shows up on my step.

I won’t go looking for a fight. 

I’ll bide my time and strike when the beast is so close, I feel its hot breath on my neck. 

And then I will drive my blade home, into its black heart.

I know then that light will break forth from it.

I have seen it.  

That monster, is me. 

You are that monster.

It is all our concentrated anger and fear.

That’s what is happening. 

Aleister Crowley and all the great artists are beings of light, connected to their Will and filled with love. 

They are stars and so are we, or have the chance to be.

Love is the law.

Love under Will. 

They have brought us back from the brink of industrial annihilation. 

I will help them. 

The great secret chiefs are alive in us.

We shall meet them in the sky and we will laugh, and will cry no more.

The Hard Fucking Work of Living with the Pain and Fear of this Life

Last night had the craziest dream about a gravitational anomaly eating a hole through the earth.

It was depressing and scary.

I kept trying to get further away from the anomaly but the water kept coming and then I was in this giant whirlpool that was spitting the earth into space.

So damn real.

My fear woke me up, I wanted out of that fucking dream.

I heard the ocean waves on my sound machine when I woke up and the central heater was running and I felt like there might be an ocean outside the window.

Sounded like it.

It turned out a military project triggered the event in my dream.

The mind is just amazing.

Since I stopped smoking pot I can remember my dreams incredibly vivid now.

I never thought I’d stop smoking pot, but I stopped drinking and smoking a bit ago and I can tell a big positive difference.

Switched to a vegan diet, started exercising more.

Feeling good, clear.

Got my shovel out and started shoveling the shit, put my back into it.

I was letting my body go.

But my heart and body brought me back.

I’m going to volunteer at hospice I think.

I have a knack helping people let go of their fear.

Maybe I can be of a little service to some before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

I’m 50 now and feel like I’ve lived four different lives.

Maybe I’ll read them poetry and shit like that.

Been working on my writing, can’t say it’s getting much better, but I’m keeping at it.

For I have found the best in life is incommunicable.

How bout that?!

Been writing about the folks I’ve come to know and love through their art, but want to know them deeper.

I want to know their pain and joy. Ralph Waldo Emerson has some good shit to say about that. He says know that all in history thought and felt as you did.

I’ve been digging deeper everywhere and have to say I’ve never felt more alive, focused, productive, calm, in love.

Had a surreal day on Saturday.

Very existential, was just accepting of the whole damn mess of this beautiful life.

Had some serenity I guess.

It was nice.

Had some fun and not so fun interactions with some folks on Reddit and FB.

Peeps are angry.

They don’t like their lives.

Downright miserable.

I like to swim out into the deep water with people.

Can’t say I’m very patient with misery.

Fuck that shit.

Recently even stopped fighting with my wife so much.

I love the girl, she’s crazy about my ole smelly 🐐 ass.

Been talking to my Brother more who I’ve never really talked much with

Been really nice to bond over our pedophile father and insanely religious family, haha.

What a fucked up family we got, let me tell you.

The brother of my sister’s husband killed himself.

Found out that fuck molested my niece years ago.

Found out my dad molested her too.

I hope it hurt when he died.

It’s tough not to wish my dad the pain he inflicted on others.

But I can’t judge anyone.

I never hurt a child, but I inflicted plenty of pain.

God only knows how many people my asshole Father hurt.

One reason my sister, mom and niece turned to Jesus.

The only man who wouldn’t hurt them they dream.

That is what makes them so mad at me.

Cause I turned my back on their savior.

I dared to kill my god.

But I tried to tell them, Jesus met me as a brother and friend, not god.

You can’t love your neighbor until you love the worst of you and the worst you find in life.

They can’t hear me at all.

I’m over their shit, I’ll tell ya.

Heartless bitches, but they are just in great pain.

Unbearable pain almost.

Almost killed my niece before she sobered up.

They hate me more than my puke dad.

How fucking ironic is that shit?!

My brother doesn’t understand it.

I kinda do.

I think I’m gonna write a bit more about my father and my old religion and those bitches.

I remember when he got his belt out and beat us the other day.

He must have hated himself.

He took it out on us.

Probably partially what made me such an angry asshole I guess.

It’s good when you know that fucking child disease is not in you.

My brother and I been going deep together.

We share these inner depth sounding experiences.

I feel like a big brother now.

I feel like a husband.

I feel like a friend.

Took me awhile to hit my stride, but I fucking did.

No, I’m not going to leave my marriage again like I did in the past.

I don’t quit shit anymore.

I follow through.

I won’t give up until I’m dead.

I wasted enough time in my life.

If I had known Plato and Socrates and Diogenes, I would have just had a beer with them and talked about the shit in life we all have to bear.

One thing I can say all us humans have in common, we feel this shit.

Deeply.

All these people in prison, destroyed children, terrified and hardened.

It hurts a lot.

One thing I have is some fucking deep emotions.

I’m very close to them now.

Not letting that pain twist us into monsters is the great work and art of living and dying.

Transmuting the shit of life into gold is godly I find.

I dunno, guess I worked my shit out.

But there is always more shit to shovel.

I’ll get back to it.

That Which is to Give Light Must Endure Burning

Some quotes from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” that remind me to endure the 🥵 in life. He lived through the Holocaust. Many on the right want us to forget our ugly history.

No, I won’t forget. I will remember man’s cruelty and hatred towards man. I will not let anger take root in my ❤️ I will vigilantly pull that anger out of myself anytime it sprouts.

I gladly yield to love.

Love is the way, this is beneath that which is occulted, behind and binding everything.

To receive and give love is hardest for those who have suffered most.

They have something to show us about what it is to be a Human Being.

—

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. 

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.

By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.

Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

Walt Whitman and William Blake: Madmen, Artists, Mystics

Walt Whitman is a mystic poet, one of my favorites. One can be transported in the incredible words of Whitman in “Leaves of Grass” and the poem contained within, “Song of Myself.” One can see he was seeing the totality of life and is filled with a glowing Light and great power, as in Blake. Whitman saw everyone as an expression of the whole. Each a work of art. He tried to remind people how beautiful they were. A leaf among the grass.

1

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

…

I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.”

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version

Whitman and Blake experienced and saw amazing things in being and themselves as part of the whole. They suffered greatly in life and felt the suffering of others deeply. I could read them forever and barely see where they walked. It is as if the Sun filled them with Light, but also the Shadow clearly speaks through them. Each contains Legion voices. They captured I think what it is to be a Human Being captured between worlds. I am moved deeply by them both.

In “Walt Whitman Speaks,” Whitman says about Blake, “Blake began and ended in Blake.” I researched this and it turns out, Whitman was confounded by and then came to appreciate Blake. Harold Bloom, a great literary critic, felt the two were of the same cloth. The falling of America made Bloom miserable. He would despair about today’s world. I recommend a great book by Bloom who loved Whitman, “The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime.” This sublime aspect of Whitman’s time was a presage of our time. Whitman warned us about technology and the age of specialization. Like a hippie version of Ted Kaczynski. Where Ted used real bombs, Whitman used bombs of Love. I love Bloom’s YouTubes. He had a photographic memory and remembered everything he ever read. Amazing to listen to, poetic in his writing and speaking. I highly recommend Bloom.

“Bloom loves Emerson and Whitman but he doesn’t believe them: to him, belatedness is now a permanent condition of man, and there can be no overcoming it—no return, even in America, to an original fullness or freshness or purity of spirit.” —The New Yorker Profile on Bloom – The Prophet of Decline 9/22/02

About Blake, Bloom thought…”The true Romantic, as represented by Shelley and, above all, Blake, looked not to nature—a thing external to the self—to save him but to the world-altering power of his own imagination. Nature was material, and therefore fixed and limiting. Only by struggling to liberate itself from the world entirely—to fill itself with invented mythical forms rather than natural ones—could the imagination be free.” —The New Yorker Profile on Bloom – The Prophet of Decline 9/22/02

The genius of all three of these men drips off their pages and is seen in their art. There is a deep sadness in them all, Bloom the most. Whitman and Blake though saw through the sadness.

Blake invented a form of art combining images with texts, relief etching. The first comics? He had incredible visions. I have a large folio of his work and he strikes me like Jung’s art does in The Red Book. These men have walked through heaven and hell. Whitman wrote, like Blake painted. But Blake’s poetry! My god. Blake was mostly ignored in his time. He said he wrote for his audience in eternity. His visions he felt were real and removed all doubts. Perhaps it was this assurance Whitman didn’t initially like. Blake was a rebel and feared by the establishment. Unlike Swedenborg, Blake spent as much time in the hell of London as the heaven of his soul. For this he has earned my esteem and respect. Whitman felt him dark. But Whitman didn’t like Poe either at first, but in “Walt Whitman Speaks” Whitman comments about writers of his day and confesses he came to like Poe after reading him again and again. He and Blake were so alike, but very different, as Whitman himself wrote.

“Awake! Awake, O sleepers of the land of shadows, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine. I am not a God far off, I am a brother and friend; within your own bosoms I reside and you reside in me: Lo! we are one, forgiving all evil, not seeking recompense” (Blake-Jerusalem.,Chp.1,lns.6,18).

Whitman wrote privately after reading Algernon Swinburne’s “William Blake: A Critical Essay”, that while both he and Blake were mystics and “extatics“, the differences between them were vast. I admire Whitman very highly and see in his work a sweet pragmatism that inspires me. How these mystics loved. Whitman took care of civil war wounded and this grew a great compassion in him.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35995/35995-h/35995-h.htm

If you are following the call of your deepest pain and love, one must spend time with Whitman and Blake, both truly sublime and profound.

To Thine Own Self Be True

I have seen the fields of light
I have run with all my might
I have been touched by golden light
I have now taken flight

When they punch my ticket
I’ll go gently into the night
But until then
I shall enjoy my flight

—smelly da 🐐

girl in the car

There were plenty of questions.

But I found there ain’t no right or wrong answers. 

There is just old Uncle Charlie’s bar down by the pier. 

I found my way to the end of the bar one fine orange fall day when all my questions had flown away like a murder of crows.

There I was, sippin a bitter warm beer at the end of the bar.

Old Uncle Charlie sat down beside me, he laughed and clinked his beer against mine, “L’chaim!”

“How’s life so far kid?” he growled in that old wise sandy voice. 

His words were sharp and sank deep. 

Silence hung between us forever it seemed, until we both burst out laughing. 

I shot him a side glance and blurted out, “My favorite part was kissin the girl.” 

“There was something about her that was different.”

“Something that gave me hope.”

“That’s my boy! Love is really never lost!” he shouted as he smacked me on the back.

“What happened?!”

“She’s waitin for me outside.”

“Well hell! Why did you end up here again then at the end of the bar with a groovy girl outside?!”

“I just wanted to say thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

Peace Beyond All Understanding

When your life is said and done, it won’t matter anymore what the meaning of it was.

You lived it.

One day I will look back and say, if I am fortunate, I had a fine life, no regrets.

It was filled with wonders and doubt and fear and courage and love.

I spilled ink on the paper.

I left my blood in the dirt.

I made my mark.

Kindness and compassion are the best things in us.

Pray they do not die in thee.

For surely then, you are dead to love.

The worst tragedy a human being can experience.

When no one is looking, can you look at yourself in the mirror?

Did you hurt others?

Surely.

Did you make the best amends you could, hopefully.

Did you find your passion in life?

At the moment of your death, all the passions will be silenced.

No one will ever know when you hit your stride maybe, if you did.

Your life will flash before you.

May it not be an ugly sad ending to your story.

May you have learned, as Scrooge did, to give all the love you can while you can.

It is never too late to fall in love with life.

Don’t live with regret.

Don’t hurt those you love and love you.

Do better now.

I must say about life, it surprises me everyday.

The joy grows deeper now every moment.

As the world appears to be unraveling, it isn’t here.

Things just work out for the best.

There will be a moment, when it is your best time to die.

May that day be far from you.

Once you find love, you want it forever.

It bubbles over inside you sometimes at a mad boil.

Other times it just simmers on low.

It just doesn’t matter what’s happening out there.

Here, in the middle of life, one can find a peace that surpasses understanding.

If you are at the bottom, get up.

I was and did and I’m glad.

I look back on the birth of love within me.

I smile and I am thankful to have known life up and down, inside out.

As the loons rage against those they hate, one can experience peace beyond all understanding.

What a world!

What a life!

Life is inspiring and calls one up and out of their doubt and fear.

Sometimes you can see that hand from nowhere reaching out to you.

Take it.

Offer that hand to the other, and you will realize what love is.

Hold that hand offered to you long enough, until you are steady on your feet.

And then run!

Run like the wind 🌬

Run as far and as long as you can and don’t look back.

Don’t try to understand or explain, you can’t.

And then maybe at the end, nothing will be left to regret.

Peace to you Minerva, my sweet aunt.

You showed me kindness when my own mother couldn’t and wouldn’t.

Much respect ✊️ and love.

RIP

Thunder Perfect Mind

I know both her faces. 

I have met her in the women I have loved.

She was born of the source and she birthed the source in time. 

I have hated and loved her.

I have cursed and praised her. 

She is the wisdom of the Greeks.

She is the knowledge of the Barbarians.

She is the White Buffalo Calf Woman.

She brought the Seven Sacred Rites to the Lakota. 

History is not fact, it is narrative. 

What does she want of us?

She will never let me go.

She echos in my heart and mind. 

She soothes my soul and makes me rage.

Every real man has had to contend with her in time.

Lilith and Eve. 

How to pierce her duality?

When I go to my resting place beyond time, she will meet me there and I will live and not die again. 

My head hurts. 

But I am sober. 

My heart longs to be worthy of her, but I fear her. 

I feel she wants to eat my heart. 

Maybe I have to give it to her willingly.

I would not be here now without her.

The way my wife clings to me, is like how she grasps for me. 

I have always pushed my women away. 

Out of fear of being loved and known and maybe exposed as the weakling I can be. 

But now, I am falling into a black hole.

How Best to Live Your Dreams

With all your being!

Life may be but a dream. Dream or not, we appear here as dreamers of dreams, so how best shall we live? The stoics still have some of the best practical advice in my opinion.

The below is from a stoic discussion board. I did not write this, but thought it damn good.

Stoicism 101: The Stoic Love for Mankind

The Stoics believed that we are essentially social creatures, with a ‘natural affection’ and ‘affinity’ for all people. This forms the basis of Stoic ‘philanthropy’, the rational love of our brothers and fellow citizens in the universe. A good person

“displays love for all his fellow human beings, as well as goodness, justice, kindness and concern for his neighbour’, and for the welfare of his home city (Musonius, Lectures, 14).” – Donald Robertson

Humans are rational and social beings.

Although we learned that friendship and other people are ultimately indifferent, they are very much preferred. The Stoics prefer to live with a friend, a neighbor, and a housemate, but they do not depend on them for the Good Life.

Basically, Stoics are able to live the eudaimonic life without a friend but they prefer not to go without one. Why? Because of their natural affection for mankind and because they can practice the virtues much better when around others (think about justice and courage).

“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has born.”
– Marcus Aurelius

It’s our human nature to do good to others and we should not care whether they care or not. Marcus goes so far as to say that all our actions should be good ‘for the common welfare.’ This is our nature, it’s our job.

And he could practice this very well since he was the Roman emperor… Wouldn’t we like that the people in power only had the common good in mind rather than their own?

There’s a caveat to this: The main reason to act for the common welfare is the underlying virtue of justice. We live in accord with virtue and therefore benefit ourselves when we act for the common welfare. Also, the better a person has developed himself, the better he can serve mankind. As Rudolf Steiner said, “If the rose adorns itself, it adorns the garden.”

“Man is born for deeds of kindness; and when he has done a kindly action, or otherwise served the common welfare, he has done what he was made for, and has received his quittance.”
– Marcus Aurelius

Do good for the sake of doing good. Expect nothing in return, remember, virtue is its own reward.

And what if others do wrong?

The Stoics believed that nobody errs on purpose. People act the way they think is best for them. They don’t know any better.

Massimo Pigliucci said it well:

“The wrongdoer does not understand that he is doing harm to himself first and foremost, because he suffers from amathia, lack of knowledge of what is truly good for himself. And what is good for him is the same thing that is good for all human beings, according to the Stoics: applying reason to improve social living.”

The wrongdoer does wrong to himself. We should not blame them but rather pity them. As Epictetus said,

“As we pity the blind and the lame, so should we pity those who are blinded and lamed in their most sovereign faculties. The man who remembers this, I say, will be angry with no one, indignant with no one, revile none, blame none, hate none, offend none.”

Don’t hate the wrongdoer, he does not know any better. It’s your job, because you see, to act as an example and do the right thing for its own sake. Do it for yourself (at the same time it will benefit everybody else).

It’s what you do that matters. It’s what you do that makes your character.

The Greeks had a word for this, Agape.

Seven Petals of Love

From the Interwebs…

I. Heart to heart, smitten by inner thunder, and the veil between our souls is torn asunder. Naked feelings, purity of our being, and no more doubt to stop what we are seeing. Eye to eye, beyond the world of form, as we transcend the voices of the storm. No more division, only sounds of bliss, as we dissolve in an eternal kiss.

II. I believed, but that only caused me to doubt, and I could not be devout, for the belief could be wrong, and I could not complete the rapturous song, but now I see it is a call of destiny, and the song is flowering, it is all-devouring, a passion so pure I drop a tear, but of blood red in lyrics that are shed into a shoreless sea of love and beauty.

III. My love is now infinite, it is embracing all time without limit of any kind, a never ending source of rapture sublime. I cannot shake it, like a dream or a thought, it cannot be fought, this love I’ve got. When the sun is standing still, this love I still feel, and when the moon is dim, and the earth is grim, it is still aflame, this love without shame, without desire, pure will, on fire.

IV. Dancing in a trance of romance, without a dancer, only the dance, the free movement of circumstance, like the planets and moon floating in a swoon, my true will in motion, an act of devotion, for union with the one, the all, and none, for weal or for woe, above or below, with a smile or a tear, with the blues or a cheer, for my law is, Do what you WILL with LOVE and no fear.

V. Love does not fade like a romantic serenade, even when we are apart, there is the eternal song of the heart, and no matter how distant from each other we may be, we are still united by the arms of eternity, and still we converse in the inner universe, with feelings beyond sense, without pretense, with words without letters, meaning without fetters.

VI. I love you more than words can convey, but here I am with so much to say. I love you, my dark flower, during every hour of the day, you have changed my heart and made me want to stay in this world of ignorance, greed and dismay, for you, for us, and for the lovely Way, the Will of Pan, and Nature’s play. I love you, my dark flower, my Rose of Agape.

VII. A reverent kiss, this lyric of love, for you, and every goddess below and above, for you are the One, the Goddess BABALON, the moon in scarlet riding upon the sun, drunk on the blood of the stars of dawn, my BABALON, my love, my flower, whom I call upon this passing hour, for life or death, with fleeting breath, for all, for one, O BABALON.