Ground Lupine
(April 20, 2023)
ROOMS THAT DREAM:
APT. 30
In Apartment 30, you are hurt in just about every way imaginable. People yell at you and vilify and demonize you. They punch you and hit you with sticks and throw rocks at you and now and then point a gun at you. They say that you are subhuman, that you have no soul, that you are meaningless and absurd. They give you a tolerable job and then take it away even though you did nothing wrong. They whip your back until hardly any skin remains. They drive nails into your palms to obliterate your hands as they fasten your wrists to the bloody cross. They drive nails into your feet to destroy forever your ability to walk. They place a crown of thorns on your head, and the blood pours down your cheeks as if you are crying tears of blood. Somehow they know that you are an empath and that you take on their black, negative energy and drain it into the center of the earth, where it is transformed into light and harmony. Flowers are blossoming all around you--even around the pounding stones and in the house pits of Native American tribes massacred over a century ago--and you feel a peace beyond understanding emanating from the grass and the flowers and the trees, a peace that fills you like the breath of the Source of all Creation.
(You realize you are still on the right path because you find an essay by Justin C in the corner....)
Tidy Tips and Miniature Lupine
(April 20, 2023)
REBOOT, REFORMAT
I have always known that I have needed to leave my society far behind in order to heal myself on the deepest level, which explains why for many years I have journeyed into the woods at every opportunity. For me, at some point, on just about every trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I lose my personality, and my soul surfaces; I sometimes even experience knowledge that transcends my five senses, intuitions about events in the future and beyond the range of my perception. On each trail I experience anticipation and dread as well because with that shift also comes the fear of annihilation of my ego and my identity. Authentic spirituality, I believe, cannot exist without that moment when the personality vanishes and the soul communicates with the conscious mind—the divine core, the soul, and the conscious mind all aligning. I seek that shift in ritual also, not only to align the divine spark with my soul and with my conscious mind, but to connect my soul with healing cosmic forces, invisible forces represented by angels and archetypes and gods. Whether I'm connecting with Raphael or Mercury or Thoth, Auriel or Saturn or Ptah, or Haniel or Venus or Isis, I am using the symbolic representation of the Archangel or God as a bridge to their extremely powerful forces of harmony, and I must leave my personality, with all of its social conditioning, outside the door of my spiritual room in order to join with those powers.
When I was in junior high school, I was a jock, and I hung out with other jocks at recess and at lunch. We would usually roam the halls as a herd without ever saying a word to one another. We were members of the “in-crowd,” providing protection for each other, clearly showing the other kids that individual members of the group were not to be messed with, ever. After about six months as a member of the herd, I felt an emptiness as we drifted through the halls. I turned my head and gazed at the boys beside me and realized that I had not said more than two words to any one of them. One day I couldn't stand the feeling of emptiness any longer. I started hanging out with someone who was more vulnerable socially, but far more real and more fun.
So often as I was growing up, I just went around on auto-pilot, half-asleep. My family and society conditioned me to maintain the unexamined self as a survival mechanism. I adopted their beliefs and developed physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual habits as I learned to play by the rules. In the process, I became passive, allowing others to control and manipulate and even crush my imaginative powers, and it was this very habit of inner passivity that became a veil within consciousness. Even though these habits and beliefs interfered with my ability to live fully and creatively—since nothing challenged my belief systems too much, and life didn't treat me too badly, I remained passive and didn't question anything. But as I grew up this tower that I was building was hit by lightning. For me a thunderstorm formed from the inspiration and exultation I experienced within nature and the arts, and that, along with my chronic illness, compelled me more and more to step away from the herd.
The more I separated myself from the herd, the more I became aware of my ego, which I realized is concerned primarily with survival and gratification, not with sympathy and union. After many years away from the herd, I eventually recognized that my ego has dominated my soul, my higher self, driving it deep into my subconscious, so far down into the depths that for over thirty years I was not even aware that I have a soul. As soon as I began to live more in the higher self, I recognized that my ego is willing to compromise the truth for security and status—my soul is not. I am keenly aware now that those who step out of the herd and insist on truth are treated as troublemakers and traitors. Fortunately or unfortunately, now that I am aware of the higher self, I cannot turn back. Spirit has shaken up my ego without any apologies whatsoever. At times Mars is a lot like Shiva, burning away everything except the essence of the soul. When Mars burns the transitory away, the spirit remains.
I realize now that over the years my excursions into nature, my spirituality, my art, and my music have all led me to one key event: rebooting and reformatting. In other words, I have had to burn away my conditioned self, access my divine core, purify, and rise from the ashes. I have retained all my software, my memories and knowledge and wisdom, but I have lost my ego and cleansed my psyche so that I am renewed. When I recall bad times, I remain detached as I experience the memories, like when I'm watching a video, and I don't feel anger or hatred or regret or any other negative feelings.
With global terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, environmental degradation, species extinction, climate disruption, overpopulation, the volatility of capitalism, and on and on, humanity is approaching a time when many of us will need to reboot and reformat as well. The more I purify my mind and lose my sense of ego and personality, the more I see how much social conditioning has thwarted my creativity and fragmented me, how deeply I have been damaged, physically, mentally and emotionally, by my chronic illness and by the herd instinct. Our problems collectively are becoming more and more acute—a reflection of the deep inner conflicts and schisms created by social conditioning and the veils within consciousness. Cleansing our psyches and becoming balanced is truly a revolutionary way to manifest harmony in the world. All other revolutions are just noise and violence in comparison.
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