All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Buckeyes near a Native American Village Site

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APT. 22

  Apartment 22 contains a scale model revealing a section of the foothills during the drought, with large rocks and even most of the trees--oaks, gray pines, sycamores, buckeyes, red-buds--accurately positioned. The reservoir is so low that the river resembles its former self. The slopes of the canyon, however, are stripped of life, except for a rusty crop of cockle-burs, which has flourished underwater, the seeds brought in by the first herds of cattle. If you examine the terrain carefully with a magnifying glass, you can even see ancient Native American trails stretching from one abandoned village site to another, where moss-covered pestles still protrude from the mortars of a few pounding stones. You can also still see in the floodplain an old road used before the dam was built, as well as abutments where bridges spanned the river and its tributaries.
   Buried under water for sixty years, a stone chimney still stands erect near pounding stones. Preserved by the cold water, dead trees still tower, stripped bare, almost black. Overgrown mining and logging roads, sometimes built over ancient trails, wind around the hillsides above the denuded slopes, and in some places the collapsed mines can be still be found, often near Native American village sites. Below the dam are canals and ditches that spurred one of the first water wars in the valley, but no obvious signs of conflict remain. Not far from the river is a creek whose water irrigated the first bumper crop of wheat that attracted the railroad. Around the tracks, the city continues to grow. Not far away from the creek new houses are popping up, the city slowly leapfrogging into the foothills.

(You realize that you are still on the right path because near the model you find an old box containing Pendulum Dreams by Justin C....)

Ithuriel's Spears and Lupine

PENDULUM DREAMS:

Beyond Existentialism

   If your child is dying, you don't sit by them and think that life is absurd and meaningless. With every ounce of your being, you want your child to survive and to experience all the joys and, yes, even all the horrors and tragedies of existence. If your child is dying, you feel broken. But through brokenness we know God.

   The greatest mountains break down into sand and dirt. Through our brokenness we develop empathy and know God in the stones and the flowers and grasses and bushes and trees and the animals and in every human being. Through empathy we know love and learn how to transmute negativity into harmony, and we learn how to neutralize dark forces to create balance. Through our brokenness, through our sense of absurdity and meaninglessness and mortality and through all of our losses, we come to know God in all things. We come to know that the personality and the ego are transitory but the soul is eternal.

   Several weeks before we were scheduled to move into John Blackmore’s rental house, I peeked through the garage door at empty shelves, smelling the familiar scent of dust and wood and turpentine and oil. At first I sensed the potential within the perpetually rough, unfinished space reserved traditionally for vehicles, junk, and men. Since women tend to avoid the garage, fearing plump black widows and roaches and rats, for a moment I imagined that I could turn the empty space into a man cave, a work space full of tools, or a modest gym with weights, or a music studio--each of which would require more effort than I am normally willing or able to expend. At that moment I also felt that I was not alone--even though nobody else was in the garage. My attention suddenly turned toward the ceiling. Long boards of different lengths--even what appeared to be a painted door--stretched across the rafters.
   When I was five or six my brother coaxed me up a ladder to a similar makeshift ceiling in the rafters of the garage. After we climbed up the ladder, we searched the dim, fusty space, then stretched out, remaining silent when our mother called us. I felt oddly comfortable in that secluded space and closed my eyes. Apparently I fell asleep, and as I was snoozing, my brother sneaked down and moved the ladder. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was all alone. After a moment of panic, I again began to enjoy the sense of solitude, and I stayed in the same spot, furious that my brother had left me stranded, until my father pulled the car into the garage a few minutes later. After my Dad closed the door to the garage and went inside, I hung from one of the rafters, then dropped several feet onto the roof of the car. I was so small that I barely made a dent.
   Curious about the rafters in Blackmore’s otherwise empty garage, I found a ladder and climbed high enough to peer over the large planks of wood. After my eyes adjusted, I could tell that water had seeped through a hole in the roof. I was about to step down but noticed a lumpy shape that resembled an old canvas bag in a corner. I moved the ladder as close as I could, curious but without much hope that anyone would have left any items of value.
   The former tenant had died on the property. There was a remote chance that the item had been overlooked or ignored, so I strained to reach the bag, barely brushing it with my fingertips. I would have to move a heavy plank to get closer. Instead I strained to reach it one more time and pressed down with my fingertips on the edge of the bag, dragging it with great effort a fraction of an inch. Encountering success, I tried again, and eventually inched the bag close enough to pull towards me.
   As soon as I got it down to the ground, I unzipped the bag, which was stuffed full of old clothes. Disappointed but still determined, I dug to the bottom and felt a hard item wrapped in linen. I unwound the cloth and discovered ten gemstones hanging like earrings from a strange matrix, each gem a different color. Not being a jeweler, I couldn’t tell whether the gems were authentic. I do not know much about jewels in general, but out of the ten gems, I recognized a diamond, a sapphire, a ruby, an emerald, an opal, and an amethyst. Purple is my favorite color, so I was immediately attracted to the amethyst.
   As I touched the gem I felt a door open between my eyes. I don’t know how else to describe it. Suddenly I sensed that I could see into another dimension. I let go of the amethyst and blinked my eyes, and the sensation vanished. I have always been a little psychic, but right after I touched the amethyst, I thought that I glimpsed a ghost in the corner--which vanished as soon as I became aware of it. The experience was so fleeting that I ignored it.
   I stared at the matrix on which the jewels were positioned. Each jewel hung inside a circle. I counted three pillars, the middle pillar with four circles and each outer pillar with three circles, for a total of ten circles. I then noticed also that the matrix could be viewed as three triangles positioned on three pillars. The top triangle pointed upward, and the middle and bottom triangles pointed downwards. One circle, which was not part of any triangle, stood alone at the bottom.
   I needed to do more research to understand the significance of the matrix. I carefully wrapped the structure back up in the linen, then carried it to my car, unsure about whether I should share the treasure with John Blackmore or anyone else.
   When I got home, I stretched out on the couch to contemplate my treasure and perhaps catch a quick nap. I soon drifted off. When I woke up, I was still fatigued, so I closed my eyes again and let my mind drift in a timeless state. I don’t know how long I remained in the void--perhaps over an hour--but suddenly I beheld a horizontal gray figure-eight floating above my head. I also saw the walls of my room so clearly that I thought I had opened my eyes, so I blinked. The figure-eight disappeared.
   That vision, I now believe, was stimulated by the energies in the amethyst.  I also realize now that when touching the amethyst, I experienced the energy of the ninth Sephira of the Tree of Life known as Yesod, an energy that opens up the psychic centers of the aura. Someone must have charged each gem on the matrix with the energy of each respective sphere on the Tree.
   Only an idiot would deny the existence of germs because he doesn’t see them, yet most rational people still don’t believe in spirits--because they have never “seen” one. Instruments for revealing spiritual entities in a scientifically verifiable manner do not yet exist, so people tend not to believe in ghosts or demons or angels until they have encountered one. All the while, a person might unknowingly become more and more unbalanced because of a subtle evil influence. Blackmore has attempted to kill me more than once--how many times I can only guess. I believe he has become obsessed with the notion. It’s possible that his mind has become unhinged by a dark force, what many call a demon, the way that the body can be sickened by germs.
   A few days after the vision of the gray figure-eight, I visited the bookstore. While there, I had an unexpected and totally uncharacteristic desire to buy a pack of Tarot cards. Normally I would hang out exclusively in the literature section of the bookstore, but that day I searched through the New Age section. I was immediately attracted to a book on the Tarot and continued browsing until I discovered the Universal Waite Tarot deck.
   As the cashier was ringing up the items, he confided that he had been thinking about "getting back into" the Tarot himself. Not knowing quite how to respond, I paused, and suddenly the word "synchronicity" popped out of my mouth. I confess that at the time I wasn't even totally sure what the word meant. The cashier smiled and handed me my purchase. I then drove to another store on a different errand.
   Before I got out of the car, I flipped through the book and stopped at a page that featured a striking photo of a man named Carl Jung. I glanced at the text below and immediately discovered that Carl Jung had coined the term synchronicity to suggest how events in the external world can significantly mirror the symbolic world of the subconscious mind; in other words, just as events are connected by causality, they are also connected by meaning. I then opened the pack of Tarot cards. The second card I encountered, known as “The Magician,” shows a figure with a horizontal gray figure-eight floating above his head. I flipped through the book to a description of "The Magician" and discovered that the gray figure-eight, called an infinity symbol or lemniscate, is a symbol of eternity. In the card, the lemniscate suggests the knowledge of the infinitude within.
   I continued reading the book and decided that in my vision I had tapped into another dimension and had encountered a symbol, which a few days later surfaced in my conscious "real" life, and as I read on I discovered that the symbol system of the Tarot dove-tails in every way with the mystic symbol system known as the Tree of Life, which is an expanded version of the primary chakra system.
   I usually avoid telling people about the other "coincidence": Before I envisioned the lemniscate, I had discovered a version of the matrix of the Tree of Life in the garage with gems hanging within the ten circles that represent the spheres known as the Sephiroth.
   When I experienced the vision of the infinity symbol, I had been mentally purifying my chakras. As I continued meditating, I envisioned pearls in the joints of my fingers and I could clearly see the rainbow of wheels spinning in front of me along my spinal cord. I could clearly see impurities in the vortices, and I mentally wiped them clean with a damp white cloth.
   Some of the spinning wheels were harder to keep clean than others, however. I kept mentally draining the blackness from my heart and emptying trash from my crown chakra, for instance, but the blackness and the trash kept returning, so for a long time--in fact, until this day--I continue to purify the primary chakras in my aura.
   I also repeatedly experienced a vision of a golden equal-armed cross with an indistinct angel at each end. I did some research and discovered that the symbol revealed the basis for an extremely powerful ritual known as “The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram.” Nevertheless, despite my visions, I still doubted the existence of a spiritual realm. So I began to perform “The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram,” which invokes the Archangels of the four “Elements of the wise.” Even though I felt clumsy while conducting the ritual, I was touched by the energy of an intelligence so far above my own that I felt like an amoeba in comparison--I was suddenly immersed in a thought-bubble of mind-boggling complexity, which impressed me with a sense of eternity and a level of knowledge and power that I cannot even begin to comprehend. My personality vanished, but I knew that my soul is eternal.

   The next day at the end of the ritual I glimpsed a vague presence from a different dimension. It seemed to to be slanting into our dimension. Unfortunately, I neglected to do the banishing ritual of the pentagram, partly, I realized later, because I wanted to know for sure whether or not I was experiencing a spiritual entity. That night, as I was falling asleep, something shook me so violently that I felt like every cell in my body was vibrating. I didn’t know what to do, so I just continued to lie there, hoping that it would go away.
   But just as I was falling asleep again, something nudged me hard four times. I felt around for my dog and turned on the light, discovering that my dog was sound asleep on the other side of the room, and no one else that I could see was in the room.
   When you contact other spiritual dimensions, beings on the other side notice you. If you are unbalanced in any way, some beings from the other side will try to unhinge you. The people around you become vulnerable, especially if the evil or malicious spirits cannot immediately unbalance you.
   An evil spirit began tormenting my daughter. According to her, as she was falling asleep, she heard a voice that sounded like her mother’s voice whispering, “Don’t turn around.” This terrified her but piqued her curiosity. She slowly turned her head and saw a figure that resembled black smoke in the shape of a human being next to her bed. Suddenly the figure jumped on the wall, then started crawling across the ceiling. My daughter tore off her blankets and dashed to her mother’s room. On another night, my daughter could hear a man weeping and begging for mercy in her closet--a closet which I discovered later had blood splatters on the ceiling.
   My wife began having nightmares. Several times, she stood up, sound asleep, yelling and swinging her arms. When she woke up, she had no recollection of fighting for her life.
   I had no idea, when I first touched the amethyst on the Tree of Life, that each circle on the matrix represents a state of being, and each state contains both a balanced and an unbalanced aspect. Since someone charged each gem on the Tree of Life matrix with the energy from its respective sphere, anyone touching a gem on this matrix also touches the energy of that state of being and opens himself to both the unbalanced and balanced aspects of the energy, a virtue and a vice, so to speak.
   The second gem I touched, the emerald, represents the sphere of Venus: the sphere of nature and the arts and the beauty of the life force. The virtue of the sphere of Venus is unselfishness and the vice is unchastity--a chronic state of lust.
   Right after I touched the emerald, I had the urge to drive out to the Kings River. While lounging on a rock, surrounded by oaks and sycamores, I sensed an overarching consciousness, as if all the plants and trees and even rocks in that place had tuned to one frequency, a peace beyond understanding, and I too had effortlessly tuned my mind to that vibration. My mind had tuned to the Over-soul. I was on the path between Yesod, the ninth sphere of psychism represented by the amethyst, and Netzach, the seventh sphere of nature represented by the emerald. In other words, I had become psychic enough to experience the spirits behind the “outer robe of concealment" of the natural world.
   After I got home, however, I began compulsively surfing through internet porn until I recognized that I had to deal with the influx of energy from the state of Netzach (Venus) in a more balanced manner. I was only able to return to a sense of harmony after I cleansed myself and the house with the banishing ritual for several days.
   I am afraid--and I should emphasize that I am not entirely sure about this--that the demonic spirit that showed up might have followed John Blackmore and edged him even farther into a state of homicidal rage. Whatever actually happened on the spiritual level, I know that I achieved a low point in my own karmic career, considering the circumstances. I could blame my failings on chronic illness and the way society crushes artists and activists and free thinkers, but I intuited that I needed to change radically in order to resolve the karmic debt. Unfortunately, I do not know exactly what I have done to deserve my fate, though I am pretty sure that it is warranted for one reason or another. Perhaps I had committed a heinous crime against John Blackmore in a previous life, or maybe all the negative energy that I had subconsciously projected at other people was boomeranging back to me. I continued meditating to heal my mind and heart to become more balanced--to attract harmony instead of the dark, destructive energies that attracted John Blackmore into my life.

   As I continued meditating and performing The Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram, I began to experience black energies flowing into me, and I released them into the fires below the surface of the earth, just as I had released many of the dark energies within my chakras. I soon recognized that I was releasing and purifying the negative energies within the collective consciousness of humanity, and Gaia, our beloved Mother Earth, was burning them up and transmuting them into harmony, for the dark energies at a certain point in each ritual transformed into light. This of course was an act of sacred reciprocity, for humanity is destroying the earth and itself due in large part to the negativity in our collective consciousness....

Go on another adventure.