a perfect three

Lust.
Eros.
The Roman Cupid.
The ancient Egyptians called him Ihy. The perfumed essence who drips off the Great Goddess Hathor. He is her child. The jackal of light, born in the east, who comes forth as a turbulent bull. The son of the gold.

The secret is Tao.
Tell me about it.
There's really nothing I can say.
Either you know or you don't.
If you don't know Tao, you're onto something.
Nobody knows Tao.
Tao is nothing.
Can you worship nothing?
That would be prudent.
However, that's going too far.

Mary births Jesus as the light.
Eros is the child of God and Goddess.
He's the word of God.
As the light, he is Apollo.
He has a bit of Dionysos and Apollo in him.
He seems to be God in the flesh.
He comes from the Goddess.
He's got a little bit of her in him as well.
Are you still trying to figure this out?
The moon, sun, and the egg.
Easter.

If you called Tao vibration and said that vibration is Eros, you also know that Eros is just one of three.
There's two other principles that this universe is founded on.
Love, lust, and vibration?
Light, dark, and everything in between.
Everything in between is the result of Tao.
How about male, female, and baby?
If man and woman do nothing there is no baby.
If there is no baby, Tao is not active.
The baby is lust and resides in the future.
Tao goes from being in the future to the present.
We call it the birthing process.
If Tao is not active, everything is balanced.
Man and woman coming together is doing something and it creates an imbalance.
Is the imbalance a perfect three?
The imbalance is the activation of Tao in the present.
All of creation must work to get back to balance.
That's clever.

Tao is a perfect duality.
Tao encompasses the two extremes and puts them in the middle.
If the two extremes are man and woman then the baby Eros is in the middle.
So, you're saying Tao is Eros?
He's a manifestation of Tao.
Eros would be a way to see how balanced they are.
The middle way.
Always.
How do you get to the middle?
By juggling the two.
It opens in the middle.
The two extremes make a middle.
Without the extremes, there's no middle.
The middle was always implied.
The two extremes needed to come together.
They make a middle.
The implication is that the middle is the future.
The separation of the two is the past.
Together, they are the present.
See how it works?

consequential game of chance

It's ridiculously obvious for me to say life is about making choices. We are constantly presented with scenarios where we must decide and at times these choices can be seriously life-altering. When faced with hard choices my default go to is to let others make the decision for me if it is to cause major waves. I've boiled this behaviour down to a psychological trick I've used my whole life that I stumbled onto early in my youth. I realized at some point that if I became a people pleaser and did what others wanted of me, I would get far in life and be able to convert it into capital which I could use to get what I wanted. It boils down to this: I can manipulate others to my advantage if I give them what they want out of me. It's transactional, and so far in life it has worked.

The hard part is when you hit a fork in the road in which no matter what you do to please, it is going to cause the other party to be upset or suffer. I have landed on that doorstep a few times in my life. Your reputation and life-long process of looking like a superior mortal in their eyes is to come crashing down. You can only hide for so long. Living with someone will reveal the other side, it's hard to keep that concealed. The game is a central part of the identity you build in your human career. I've played the game long enough to also see the result of inaction. If you don't choose, the choice will be made for you, and you will be stuck with the consequences. When others make the decision, you spare yourself the label of bad guy and the subsequent Karma. I've seen it play out before and the disappointment I have been able to move on from after compartmentalizing the hurt. Eventually, the time would come when I'm not sure I could get over the loss of something I wanted, had, and then lost because I couldn't be true to myself, make a personal choice, and deal with the fall-out.

I’ve noticed I can get what I want, but then a new set of variables is unleashed. I want this. I get it, and then come the unintended consequences. What is the better play of the two? To just let things be as they are? You also don't know the future of that action. We are always desiring and chasing what we want. The difference for the wizard is they get what what they want. We are all in the same boat; some can fulfill their desires while others are left on shore with desires unfulfilled. Outcomes are always going to be a wild card.

My desire is to eat healthy. The consequences are I live longer and consume more resources, taking away from the less fortunate. The effect on the scale of plenty is negligible but imagine a bunch of First World inhabitants such as us all desiring this. The effect is pronounced and for every gain is a loss. Who suffers? The poor. They go even more without the necessities. I'm trying to illustrate all actions have consequences. Nothing is exempt from this and though I have noticed acquiring power and getting what I want leaves a wake of unintended consequences, there were always going to be consequences to not getting what I wanted. We are in a consequential game of chance.

Life is full of constant challenges. If I mapped out an adventure to have, called life, surely, I'd want to eventually experience crossroads. I love the challenge that is presented to me. I don't love having to let go of the people pleasing default mode and see my identity and reputation get kicked to the curb. Deep down I know all is reconciled and you can only ride that edge for so long. Eventually, the spark to ignite a fuse would present itself and one time I wouldn't blow it out or allow it to flame out. Let's see what happens when it burns. The detonation I have avoided and, in this adventure, maybe it should blow and then I can take notes.

We all know Medusa, or else we wouldn't be here. We are good at not looking her in the eyes like we were told. In my contrarian life, of course the time would come when I'd seek her out and stare into her eyes. What secret is being kept from me? Tantra teaches the way out of your predicament is to head straight into the storm and go through the eye of the hurricane. If I were going to lead by example and show you the way, what would be my method? I'd use the stone to find freedom. Embrace it. I would plunge headfirst into the abyss and break through to the other side because I'm the stone. I would subconsciously demonstrate the way out of your prison cell once you have been released from your sentence. The jailer exclaims, "You can go," and yet we hang around and decide to become of service in the prison. Somebody must remind us that it's okay to leave prison. Turn me to stone and I'll use the solid rock to smash the four walls that imprison me.

Earth is a finishing school for wayward spirits and the best teachers of our purification are dead. They are telling us it's okay to leave when you get the message. We cling to our prison cells, embracing the comfort that comes from knowing this is your reality, while denying you fear the unknown. The spiritual teacher still with us is subject to the flesh, so we can use this against them. We can examine their life and find a reason they aren't ultra-holy. This way we can avoid the difficult path ahead which we face. They couldn’t do it, so why should I be any different?

If you figure out the game and are free to leave, would you? It's a choice. Duality presents choices. You can stay and be of service. A teacher. Someone who wakes others up. Wouldn't you want to balance that out? Why play the holy card all the time? If you knew the secret, wouldn't you want to play? Why the hurry to leave? Is there a time limit? I don't think so. I have examples to look towards. My friend Parker left because what he was chasing had already left. I have balanced the equation. Some of my friends have left and are waiting for me. I still feel the pull of this incarnation. If life gets you down, find purpose. That's the key. When you no longer feel wanted or needed in this world then the scales tip and you can jump with conviction.

You can also leave to escape the coming retribution and trashing of your reputation. It's still going to happen, and the coward runs from it. It's a game, and I'm proud of my fifty-six years. Fuck man, I have juggled this one like a pro. I haven't dropped the ball yet and I keep making it harder. If I believe in myself, I'll make it a great story.

The reveal of my character is freeing. I don’t have to pretend anymore. I don’t have to bury my nature in the depths no more. Kill yourself in order to live, indeed.

just a little peak

Going to sleep every night is reaffirming the hypnotic spell you are under. You are put to sleep through hypnosis, and you are awakened through hypnosis. You are mentally put to sleep during physical wake periods. During physical sleep periods the mind is unleashed. The spiritual awakening is figuring out how to mentally awaken while physically awake. This is the challenge. The process takes a while and if successful results in maybe you are sitting at a computer and writing it down. When you start to awaken there are others who will try to put you back to sleep. They can be tricksters who are challenging you or they just want to keep this domain all for themselves. I'll give them a shoutout, you know who you are. For the man, mastering the awakening in the physical realm is how you go to God. Your life may fall apart around you, however the fruit is there for you to pick.

The opposite is possible where physically you go to sleep and mentally you go to sleep at the same time. A way to describe this is you stop dreaming. This is the domain of the dead atheist. You have no beliefs, and you stop dreaming. It's over. Sounds bad, right? It could be as if it's annihilation of your character. Alternatively, you embrace non-dualism and return to the all.

You see, dualism is all about dreaming and stories. Keep the story alive and you will live forever. We all love stories. What if you tire of the story? The divine playwright makes them fresh and new, so you don't tire of them. He wants to entertain you. He is the great hypnotist. Can the great hypnotist hypnotize himself? So far, no. I can only get so far before admitting it is a spell. I'll let it go for a bit, but I always snap out of it.

What's the endgame?

There is none. I won't make a choice. My lack of decision making ensures the perpetuity of existence. By not making a choice, I'll choose both. My story will continue when my current character ends. I'll honour my word and words and see those I want to see in the next world I create with my words. I won't create Karma I can't recover from by forcing anything. I read the Tao Te Ching over ten years ago and I knew it was the greatest book I had ever read though I didn't really know why. I just said it was. Lao Tzu revealed the strategy to win the game. There's no stopping me. I am going to win by doing nothing.

amnesia

Amnesia is like suffering in that it is a catalyst for change. If you knew of your past lives and how you continually re-appear, then your outlook would change. The clock that is ticking away on your mortality would become less urgent. As it is, I have a limited lifespan which I must use to find answers I seek or desires I want to fulfill. Not knowing is the impetus for playing the game and solving the riddle of my existence.

What would I do if I knew? I'd be content and less motivated. I'd look at others with a sense of pity as I saw them running around in a state of anxiety, denying the face of death that stares them down. The hit of the anxiety of my mortality is a shot of adrenaline and makes me a seeker of answers. The pendulum of life is swinging towards the end, so I know I must keep going before the sands of time runs out. I've made it this far and have discovered way more than I thought possible. Now that I have all this experiential knowledge and understanding, I'm not content. I want to keep going.

In examining my own life, its peculiarities, and what gets me up in the morning, I have noticed the rush. Some people crave a physical rush through mountain climbing, sports, exerting themselves, and subjecting themselves to feats of endurance such as ice baths. I get it and understand the endorphins which are released when the mountain is climbed. I like to put myself in situations where there is a chance of things going side-ways and flirting with disaster. The thrill is intoxicating in the moment until the spell is broken and then I wonder why I do it? Ha! Why feed the beast?

Well, you can live a life of denial and wonder about Mr. Hyde all your life because damn it, I'm Dr. Jekyll. I wonder how much psychological damage we inflict on ourselves due to not integrating the good and the bad; the dark and the light? We all do it and social media amplifies the gambit as we polish up our personas. There are websites that allow you to conceal your identity and embrace your other side. Those give you an outlet for your depravity and desires. Embrace it - that's who you are. You spend so much time feeding a false sense of self that integration becomes impossible because you are repulsed by what you see in the mirror. It's a tough challenge, especially if you are on the love and light train.

Waking up to the acceptance of who you are is tough. I'm a good person, but like everyone else I'm conflicted. I wear a robe of light while sometimes I like to head to the basement and let loose. It's a slow process towards acceptance of who you are. I worry the embracing of my true nature will prevent me from some reward when the game ends. It's like I think I can hide from the universal overlords who I really am; like they won't already know. That's preposterous. Who are we fooling? We are fooling ourselves. Everybody has their own internal shit to battle with. There is insecurity manifesting as clinging and a need for attaching to nodes of power. We have lustful desires returning on the regular. What about gluttonous delights waiting to be fulfilled? How about righteous anger and the need to punish the unworthy? We all got something, and when we look back at our incarnation, we will have a good laugh with our fellow game players. What were you trying to hide from the other?

Chances are it's why we incarnated in the first place. Desire is a major clue and the wants demand fulfillment. We are in a state of amnesia regarding who we are, and our previous go rounds on the wheel of fortune, yet the clues remain within. The discovery awaits the honest seeker who can then put the puzzle together.

be here now

Be Here Now. Each word in the simple sentence has a profound teaching. Be is the act of being present. Here is defining that wherever you are in the universe is here. Now is similar to here, in that it is always now. My first exposure to this phrase was reading a book by Ram Dass over a decade ago when I was getting into the whole spiritual scene, its promises, and paths. I remember thinking it was a good read, but man this guy is out there! The path unfolds in due time and everyone's road is a little different. I wasn't ready for that part of the life course at the time. It's interesting to look back upon my progression through my unique path. I was initially attracted to the intoxicating lectures of Terence McKenna. The bard wove a spell of philosophical meanderings, pointing out the trap of both culture and spiritualism, as well as being a master of bullshit. He is seriously entertaining. He was quite the fool. I did notice many tried to ride his coattails - an all too human outcome. I recall listening to his brother talk about him with contempt and with good reason. He would have been subject to his non-stop meandering dialogue and fanciful speculations. I think Dennis was incredulous and a little jealous of Terence's appeal. Terence was a good introduction to the plant medicine world and eventually you see he is like sugar. Too much sugar isn't good for you but it sure does get you to crave the experience. I moved on to explore paths with more discipline and found Alan Watts. Alan was also a great entertainer and tireless talker. Alan was well versed in the spiritual traditions of the world and could elucidate them well. He was exactly what I needed, especially when he would emphasize that you need to find out who you are. That was the big one for me and allowed me to keep my spiritual independence after discovering my true identity. I didn't need to hang on to a method which would reduce me into a follower. I could give up methods because I knew the truth and thus embark upon a journey of discovery of what I wanted to know, not what someone else wanted to teach me in order to keep me trapped in a game of seeking. Alan would explain we constantly seek a higher authority in order that we don't have to face up to the truth that we are it. It's tough because eventually you come across the question of suffering and see your role in it. No one wants that. Alan would also explain that if you let yourself be talked out of who you are, then you deserve it. He would say a spiritual teacher is someone who steals your watch and sells it back to you.

As I was transitioning from an exploration of my darkness and onto the final leg of the journey, the path of the heart, I returned to Ram Dass. He passed away at the same time, which is apropos because all my spiritual teachers seem to have left me. It is about attachment, and they are better teachers without the body and its demands. It's a funny thing where you see spiritual teachers making a living by selling their spiritual wares, leading groups, and charging for lectures. I thought they lived on sunlight and air? It's like the whole retreat thing where, "My god they charge you money to attend. I get fed and have a nice room. Wait, I must pay for this? Did Jesus charge for his sermons?" I solved the problem for myself by being attracted to dead spiritual teachers.

Ram Dass is heart centred. Its honey drips throughout his talks. I hear him talk about energy and I see he has a next level understanding of this fundamental nature of the universe and then he transitions seamlessly into the humanity of our predicament. He describes methods of instruction without denigrating them. For instance, a non-dualist is incorrigible and will one up anyone who doesn't subscribe to the philosophy. Ram Dass would describe methods such as duality with the worshipping of objects of veneration and the value in it. Eventually, you give up all methods when ready. You kill the Buddha when it's time. You can even let go of non-duality and Be Here Now.

Be Here Now. I figured out a few years ago I'm in hell. Earth is hell and I'm in it. Why did I get sent to hell? I laugh about it. Desire attracted me to the carnival. Along with this thinking is that when I'm ready to get out of prison I will leave and be free. I project into the future a better existence minus a body that traps me on earth. You can see what I'm getting at. I can leave now while in a body. I don't have to stay in my prison cell. I can unlock the door of my heart NOW. I can transform hell into heaven on earth. Another spiritual teacher of mine, don Howard, who of course is dead, would tell us, "You don't find heaven, you realize it." The secret sauce to the earth game is to wake up to the hell around you and transform your heart in order to find heaven on earth. If you can do that, you win the game and when you leave you get a prize.

I can try the heaven game and maybe get a little too righteous and then return to the heart which is in the middle of the whole construct. The earth game has it all waiting for you. I don't have to play others' hell game. Sure, I must participate in the world and its unpleasantness, but I can transform it into a heart-opening idyllic experience. Why not? Be Here Now. How do I know whether the next life is going to be any different? Free of the body will present a new challenge. The solution is the heart and love. The advice I'm being given is to practice that NOW. HERE. BE LOVE.

identity fluidity

Humans are so like flowers. We grow and bloom in beauty. Then the energy dissipates, and we wither away. It's the eternal process of the cresting and falling of energy. I have free will and because of it I can create any flower I choose. I can design and act out my existence and radiate its glorious coming forth or give out the fruits of my choices. I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to do anything. If I keep burying parts of myself I don’t like, am I a hypocrite?

Ram Dass says tell the truth and love everybody. The truth will set you free. You become attached to the lies and uphold with honour your story. Your whole life is a lie; that’s why you live in bondage. You expend so much energy during the day in performance of that lie. The constant spinning and mental anguish disappear when you tell the truth.

I sure have come a long way over a long time. I could stop creating darkness and just be an open book. It would be hard to function within culture in that regard. The way out is to flush identity down the toilet as has been suggested to me on a few occasions. Or, find someone who wants to play the games I play.

A paradox of freeing oneself from identity is evolving a new identity for yourself, usually as someone who is airy-fairy spiritual. You can’t really escape identity as that’s how we all make sense of the world. Identity is a form of objectification and necessary to keep things separate, understandable, and tidy so we can compartmentalize people and predict behaviours which allows us a certain degree of stability in our own lives. In order to free yourself from being labelled and having to live up to the story others tell of you and who you believe you are, it is paramount to keep everything fluid and shifting. Resist being defined and practice becoming true of speech and action. Living in truth means not having to live up to the story told about you or fulfil any expectations. You’re now unreliable and hard to pin down.

My advice is to chart your own course. Don’t follow another’s path. You can listen to them and their experiences but for god’s sake don’t retrace their steps. Everyone has a personal journey. Ceding that to an external source is asking to be misled. It is important to realize everyone has travelled along a path that gets them to the now. You did not travel in someone else's footsteps; instead you charted a different course. Love yourself, all aspects of yourself, especially the parts you buried due to hurt, to culture, and to please others. Be a leader and not a follower.

Find the darkness in your spirituality because you are becoming holy to deny the darkness. Instead of shining with light, I love operating in the shadows. If I do lead, it is by example. Don't follow me.

double-edged sword

Everything is teaching me a lesson. I have realized that acceptance is liberating. Not fighting the flow brings relief. Throughout my adult life I have found the rat race to be tiring and frustrating in that you can never get ahead. No matter how much more wealth you accumulate, the demands increase to the point where more is always asked of you. Work more. Earn more. There's bills to pay. Buy more stuff you want with the extra money. Get a bigger house and stretch your pay. Need more! On and on it goes.

There has been a synthesis of understanding in conjunction with my spiritual path. The advice of the maestro rings true when he exclaims, "There's always more." The pronouncement had a double meaning. He knew it, but it's fun to throw it out there and have the student forever chase the adventure. You see, there's the accumulation of knowledge which I did through books, and then experiential exploration of physical locations on earth. Then came the exploration of the subconscious through psychedelic substances. Inner exploration is brimming with the knowledge a man like me seeks and in conjunction with the search is a fear of the unknown which makes inner exploration quite the adventure. In his books about the teachings of Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda writes about the "Man of Knowledge." Through mental challenges, peyote, and mushrooms, Don Juan imparts his knowledge to Carlos. Carlos admits to being as thick as a brick and doesn't understand the knowledge right away. The same is true with my psychedelic experiences where the information I gleaned was immediately spun by the mind to fit into my personal narrative. It was only after discovering the deceit of the ego that I was able to integrate what I was shown in vision and extract the alchemical gold.

Understanding is a way off from ceremony. What it is you seek is all revealed, and the unfolding comes through the passage of time which bequeaths the understanding to the attentive student. A good teacher does not give the show away, but instead guides the student to the tools which will allow them to solve the puzzle or understand their predicament. The maestro has been through the process themselves, knows what it takes, and is keenly aware that the student must realize the answers through their own faculties for understanding. Telling the student, "There's always more," is a double-edged sword. Failure to marinate knowledge into understanding might lead you onto a path of an accumulation of contradictory knowledge that becomes a tangled web of incoherence.

So, there's an accumulation of knowledge. There's an integration of that knowledge in order to understand it. I have left out wisdom so far. What's wisdom? Well, let me give you an analogy. When you feed a dog, a dog will keep eating until they vomit. The same is true with knowledge and understanding. I can keep accumulating knowledge and transmuting it into understanding until I vomit. There is always more! Wisdom is knowing when you are full. No one else is going to tell you when you are full. Instead, they will do the opposite. They will always tell you there is more. There is another mountain to climb! Hey, you got to try this new flavour. It goes on and on. Recognizing you have had your fill allows you to put your fork down and walk away from the table.

I intuited when I graduated from the lessons from my shadow and onto the path of the heart that this was my last stop. I found the answer I was looking for, well, I found it a while back, but I didn't understand it. I still had to accumulate knowledge and get understanding of my incarnation. I did all that. It has been over a 15-year collection of knowledge exercise and I'm past 10 years of being involved with plant medicines. Wisdom finally came to me a short while ago and told me I was full. I kept seeing more on the menu and thought maybe I should try a new dish, but Sophia sat me down and said I have all I need. Follow the path to the heart. Remember the lesson of the simpleton with the open heart is wiser than the man who knows everything and owns the world. I remember that lesson well from over five years ago. I remember being taught the knowledge of the divine outpouring of love, and being allowed access to the Garden of the Heart for a short while before being kicked out when the drug wore off.

This wisdom I have found very practical for my material life. I do have enough, and I lead a simple life. I look at my bank account every month and wonder how I am going to pay all the bills now that my children have immersed themselves in post-secondary education? There's tuition, rent, food, transportation, and entertainment. There is constant pressure to make more money and provide. This can be very draining. After fighting the flow for so long, I finally learned to let go. Personally, I don't need to accumulate more. In fact, I want less. Recently has been a purging of physical attachments. I took so much to the curb so the garbage truck could haul it away. I felt relief in letting go of the metaphorical physical attachments which felt like a lifting of life that weighed me down. Being light and free is exhilarating. I realized to let go and go with the flow. Allow the work to come to me, earn money, and then support those who need it. I don't need it. I have been blessed and discovered everything I came here for. Why do I need to accumulate more? Instead, I can be of service and help others find their path. That leads to another conundrum. I know we all have a personal reason we incarnated and it's a puzzle of life to find out the reason. I want to tell people to devote all their time to discovering the reason, but I realize it doesn't work that way. They must do what they do, and hopefully this will lead them to seek out answers. I will be like the maestro and point them in the direction if they are receptive, but I won't tell them the answer. Everyone must find that out for themselves.

Here I am, a pilgrim taking the left-hand path of the heart, one step at a time back home. I don't need anything else. I have it all.

chasm of division

We are the be all and end all within the tabernacle of spirit, which is the body. Through intention, which the Gospel of John calls the Logos, we manifest our world. Our word and our world are our intention. Collectively, we have brought forward hell. Hell is the fruit of our desires. All is not lost, as we can manifest heaven, if collectively that's what we want. The power is in our hands. Individually, we can bring forth heaven within the hell we find ourselves in. That's the first step, until a tipping point is reached, and we flip the whole of duality around. Hell becomes heaven. The yo-yo of the dualistic universe is laid bare.

I'd bet if we travel the cosmos, we will find utopia; a place where heaven has been manifested. It's probably as dull as all get out, as we are beings of desire. The prisoner count of those who have transgressed the law in heaven probably outstrips our prison population here on earth by a large magnitude. Ah, our nature can't be transcended. The heavenly within duality becomes another hell realm, though quite pleasant for those who can control their desires - you know, lusts, wants, and greed.

So, what's the answer? Do we create heaven while in hell? For some, you can find joy and fulfillment on earth, though of course nothing lasts. The winds of change are always blowing and the darkness within the world will eventually reach your doorstep in some regard, or the spectre of aging and death will break up your happy home. The old adage, "It is better to have lived and loved than not to have lived at all" is good advice.

How about the choice of where you are going post-expiration of the body? Our western religion preaches heaven or hell. Maybe there is some truth to the claim, as what you desire will lead you to your next destination in your spiritual journey of the flesh. A desire to satiate passions will lead you back to earth, the ultimate place to live out your dreams; dreams being a coy word for desires. The stakes are high, and the suffering is great, but the roll of the dice on earth might lead you to a life of fulfilling all those desires. Is it worth the risk? Apparently, judging by the line up to get in, I'd say yes. Alternatively, you do go to heaven as you have exhausted the pull of desire. You haven't given up on the game; instead, you want your reward for transcending the depravity of the earth game. Hey, you've earned it. So, you go to heaven and experience a realm of righteousness where everyone lives in harmony and follows the code of conduct for such a holy person. What do you do when boredom sets in, or you get pangs of desire?

Imagine being a heretic in heaven. That would get you thrown out of paradise just like Lucifer got tossed in the Bible story. You'd automatically gain a bunch of followers who would get tossed with you. Earth would be the penal colony you are sent to.

I'd like to think the rollercoaster of duality eventually will wake you up and lead you to the answer. The answer is finding balance within love. An appreciation for who we are and an acceptance of all. Living within the heart and loving all. Needing just one rule, the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

This leads to an interesting thought experiment. Is it easier to find the path of the heart in heaven or while in hell? In heaven, one would abide by a strict code of conduct and an ingrained righteousness which would glorify one's status as a perfected being. One would scoff at those who failed to become holy and righteous. The right-hand path of the holy man is a path of individuality and celebrates the accomplishments of one who can transcend desire. You climb the mountain but maintain the separation between you and the other. Your holiness needs the sinner in order for you to differentiate and know how great you are. The blinding white light of your righteousness will occlude from you the other. Love remains conditional upon transcending your nature. Within hell, you see it all. Those getting their fill, those suffering immensely, and those being of service. You see how all is connected. Though difficult to see through the game, eventually there will be some who do see it. The way out is to embrace all and love unconditionally something you would never find in heaven. Compassion is lost on someone who is enjoying the rewards of their spiritual mastery.

Earth is a unique place on the spiritual journey. It is the hardest of all tests, and the pitfalls are enormous. If I was in the closing stages of such a journey, for sure I would desire to manifest upon earth and try my luck. I'd want to see if I could find my way out, not getting skewered on the petard of my own righteousness.

(The Great Goddess of the epiphany gave me the word "petard." I had no idea what it meant so I looked it up. Petard is almost always encountered in variations of the phrase "hoist with one's own petard," meaning "victimized or hurt by one's own scheme." Ha ha, perfect!)

I can't stay on the holy mountain I climbed or be given access to the holy of holies. I see the trap. The chasm of division is ahead of me. I'll build a bridge and traverse the divide with whoever wants to come along. The choice remains for all.

mentally ill

Dionysos, Saturnalia, Bacchanalia, and festivals of excess. These celebrations of the past were recognition by civilizations that the condition of the human will lead to a tendency towards madness. We are mentally ill as a normality and the failure to recognize the condition leads to outbursts which affect all, as opposed to ritually uncorking the intoxication of madness. Hello, Mardi Gras.

We are all mentally ill and society is making us sick. By keeping us in fear, as a species we are more easily controlled. The gatekeepers of the earth carnival know the methods of control. Of course they do. By remaining oblivious to the means of suppression by your human masters, you unwillingly remain imprisoned.

If you don't become a cynic in your formative years, your mind, who has mastered you, will make you suffer because you are not successful yet in the culture game. You will strive to seek the acceptance of others and in turn the inner critic within will reward you with a dopamine hit. You made it! But you still aren't good enough. Keep striving to achieve and successfully pursue all your goals in life.

With clarity, it becomes easy to see the motivating behaviour of the inner critic with others. They are down on self because they haven't made it. They transferred the disappointment of the superego from their parents to the inner critic. They are a great specimen for psychological study. They suffer and are depressed which motivates them to change or sink further into the morass. The ones who transform their lives are still caught up in the need to prove the superego is wrong about them. They become laser-like focused on goals and are impressive in their accomplishments. However, it is never enough, and any slip up is sure to invite the wrath of the puppeteer telling them they are no good and a failure.

I can see this, and I'd laugh at the absurdity, except the suffering for the other is real. How do I help? I must think that you are there in spirit as an example, but you must let them finish the suffering they inflict upon themselves. Eventually, there is hope they will see it. Nobody really cares about your inner trials and tribulations. If you are not accepted by the other, find others. It is a big fishbowl.

It's a worthwhile endeavour to embark upon a path that will lead to the severing of the hold culture and authority figures have over you. The other creates ways for you to suffer. The inner critic will make you suffer. Duality makes you suffer. I like to point out that we are objectification machines. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is put on my duality glasses. This brings the world to life and each day becomes an adventure. Separation causes many challenges, and this creates the game of life. Survival, challenge, acceptance, success/failure and on and on it goes. Boredom ensues if you get trapped in the repetitive nature of the game, as fulfilling needs, and becoming complacent is the perceived good life. The ensuing boredom gives you the impetus to create your own new adventure. Because of this endemic human behaviour, I like to say we are suffering machines as well. Suffering will lead to transformation or your demise, and planet earth is the ultimate school for those souls who wish to transform.

It is through the divine masculine that the transformation will take place. He's the ultimate teacher and will kill you if he must. That's the agreement you sign when you decide to take up space in his classroom. For a man, that relentless inner critic is him. He's fulfilling his role impeccably, just like you asked. All suffering is grace because transformation is designed to eventually lead you to the heart. The heart is the last stop on the human express once you have exhausted all the ports of call which purport to give you the answers for what you are searching.

Do I want to eliminate the suffering? No. Suffering is the teacher which will bring you to the heart. Do I want to relieve suffering? Yes. I can show you the way out. The open invitation is the path of the heart.

Death is a relentless stalker and if you don't find the path of the heart then the itinerary on the map will end at death. The warrior who has mastered life will progress through fear, clarity, and power and will remain helpless as death approaches. The master will not fear death and will welcome graduation. Earth is a tough course for the eternal student and the successful aspirant will be given a celebration worthy of a king upon completion of the syllabus.

This is all to say madness lurks within all civilizations. The denial of suffering and the prevention of an inner transformation will cause mental illness. To continue with the human civilization project, outlets for madness or destruction will come knocking on your door. All civilizations rise and fall. The decay inherent in 2024 western society is easy to see. The abyss waits for its next prey. We can acknowledge it, transform, or throw ourselves on the pyre.

all the world's a stage

My default conception of time is that it moves forward. I live my life by constantly reaching into the future. It is logical and I'm steered to do that by my senses. My main senses create logic and reason. My less developed senses such as intuition and déjà vu point towards other modalities of perceiving time. What if time could also move backwards? What if it does? What if there is a constant flow of time going forwards and backwards which creates what we call now?

The impetus for this thinking is my belief that God is a writer. He writes creation into existence in a book. The screenplay of the book is then acted out. Thinking about this, it would be understood the book has already been written or at least the development of the story takes place before the actors' act. So, the distant and unknowable God exists in the future with his screenplay, and he sends his Word to us. It's ingenious and funny.

I like to think about Cupid, Eros, and lust. These are all names I give to desire, and this helps me to illustrate my point. The child of a union is this desire which compels a couple to come together and create life. Eros exists in the future. Think about desire in your life: It is something you want. You don't have it yet, but you make a pact with the future. The future is then made manifest, and this is desire coming into being.

The future flows into the past and the past flows into the future. The revelation of the future can rewrite the past while the past flowing into the future unveils the story. Creation is the domain of the Goddess and is where the past and the future are reconciled. Life comes into being in the now, which is the stage of life.

It's simple. God writes the story, Goddess creates the stage and life, and the actors are the music of creation, performing the dance of life.

triumvirate

I am my two brothers. My two brothers are who I am. To assign myself an identity that is not a transient construct of culture means a long and difficult journey undertaken to discover who I am. I am the coming forth of two powers.

Within the one always is the two. Dualistically, the one denotes two. Who you are is the coming together of two powers. Within, you have the dark and the light - two brothers who constitute your being. The divine masculine, the two brothers, unites with the divine feminine to bring forth the form within creation. You are a product of two. Always. Within, I have contending masculine forces who constitute my masculine essence, and the expression of my life is derivative of feminine and masculine powers. When I look into a divine mirror, I see reflecting the set of twos - my brothers and my parents. I now see the two from the solitary figure of one. To express this truth, knowing they are always with me, is through the power of three. All life is the relationship of three. Going further to the four, we see who you are is the pair of brothers or sisters coming from the two who hold the four within - mom and dad. An expression of seven denotes the divine truth of you as three and your divine origin of four.

At middle age, I got the bug to figure out this life I had sleep-walked through for forty years. Proverbially, I had wandered through my own Sinai for forty years. The journey of the hero was calling out to me as I was ready as I would ever be. I didn't know I was embarking on the path of the hero; I just figured I'd use my remaining time on earth to try and figure out why I was here and why humanity is so full of hatred and division. I was given a grace period of five years to accumulate knowledge before the intensive phase began. Within a great deal of the knowledge, specifically from ancient Egypt, were the answers I was looking for though I lacked understanding; so, they remained hidden until I reached the point on the journey which would unlock the knowledge.

The search for the Great Goddess was the catalyst to seeking out the master teacher. I remained oblivious to the trajectory of the path I was walking, having no clue the pursuit of the divine feminine would lead me to consciousness altering plants. Of course, I see it now and I see it in the myths of long perished cultures. In year four of my journey, I became obsessed with finding a way to contact the Goddess, knowing from the ancient Egyptian literature such a meeting was possible. Through a series of fortunate events, I found shamanism and a magic potion called Ayahuasca. The journey now entailed leaving the comforts of home and heading off to the dark and mysterious Amazon jungle. The intensive stage of the course was at hand.

Indeed, I found Her upon the first alteration of consciousness. What I had read about the Goddess is all true. She is real. In retrospect, the Goddess was the recruitment officer for the hero's mandatory course. She led me into the jungle and tried to inform me of the coming tribulation. I naively blundered upon the path and stumbled into the classroom of the divine masculine master teacher. I had no defences, no strategy, and no idea what I had signed up for. With a powerful right hook, I was KO'ed in no time. The teacher wasted no time in showing me I was no hero. I was a coward, full of fear. I was a fraud defined by panic and paranoia. I was told to leave and never return. Stop taking up space in the classroom of life. I ran from this. This is not what I wanted and expected. I wanted to walk a comfortable and scholarly path of knowing, not the path of a warrior.

Turns out it doesn't work that way. The teacher follows you home and doesn't let up. I didn't know the class was still in session; I just wanted to get away from this guy. Ultimately, he was teaching me to transform or perish. I enrolled in the course of my own foolish free will, and he was delivering on the lessons. Despite the hardship, I kept going. I had spent five years on the path, had found the Goddess, and wasn't going to let this go. I chose the difficult path of transformation though if I could have skipped this part of the journey I would have.

Transformation involves becoming a warrior through courage, bravery, and perseverance. The sheer act of just repeatedly returning to the intensive classroom lessons was signalling I could do it and my world opened from there. My teacher transformed me into a warrior. I was his son, now the hero and he my proud father; my divine father being the ultimate alpha male. I had my sword, and I continued the path of the hero, climbing the mountain of enlightenment and gathering up as much knowledge as I could hold. Eventually, the knowledge marinated into understanding. I walked that hero's journey and discovered who I am.

It's hard to accept who you are because responsibility comes at a heavy price. I had the knowledge but still didn't want to let go. I wanted to be the good guy and objectify the bad guy. Biblically, I wanted to be Abel and not Cain. This thinking made me feel better about all the suffering in the world.

I earned my transformation. I have balls. I look back and I am stunned at what I did because I see it now. By all accounts, any sane person should have gone insane or at least ran far from this challenge. The challenge to my mind and the obstacles in the path were immense. Not only that, but all the trappings were laid out for me. I didn’t fall for any of them. Being from a long line of fools allowed me to bumble my way through the hero's journey, smiling like the village idiot in times of trouble. I could have used someone to talk to about what I was going through, but I kept to myself. In retrospect, if I had opened up, the journey would have ended. I would have been convinced to stop because the price on my mental health would be too great. That's what I would have been convinced to believe. Now that I'm well beyond the gates, I know the opposite is true. My mind is free, and my foundation is solid. Sure, I may come off as weird and strange but that's because I'm not hypnotized by culture. Do you see it?

I see it. I also see the two brothers within which creates what I call me. I'm kind of nebulous in that I don't exist without them and on the other hand, they don't exist without me. We are in a co-dependent relationship, mostly trying to figure each other out.

wandering

I'm not lost in self. What I mean is I do a good job of being of service. I support a lot of people. I'm a good provider. I unselfishly give up my time. I'm a great dog owner. There's always more you can do and when you embark on the spiritual path you become inundated with calls to service. As Ram Dass would say, "How can I help?" It can be fulfilling though I have found I don't resonate with it. I like to help, but I don't go out of my way to be of service.

Will I reach nirvana with that attitude? That's very funny to me. The spiritual path is whatever you want to make of it. If you are expecting a reward, then you are going to be disappointed. This lifetime is a terrific opportunity to learn, and it was Jesus Christ who said ask and you will receive during his sermon on the mount.

Matthew chapter 7 (New International Version)

7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

If you wander through life and hit upon something so unfathomable it consumes you then for sure at some point you are going to try and figure it out. Personally, I'm going to start asking questions. This is my story. The spiritual path led to some startling discoveries and either I have the definitive answer to this whole charade or my ability to make up a story is next level. So, I guess I should spill the beans.

Within me is the eternal masculine energy. I happened upon him when I first ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of the Great Goddess. I found her and she is my guiding light on this path. I also discovered him. I guess since I call her the Great Goddess then it's proper to call him the Great God. He scared me and I wanted him to let me be. However, the cat was out of the bag and because I'd surfaced him, he was going to harass me as a reminder to not stir that pot again. I was insistent on pursuing the Goddess and so that meant continually dealing with this other part of the equation. I was tested, threatened with death, and told to get lost. I transformed myself in that hellfire and proved I had what it takes to travel to places no one had ever gone before without succumbing to madness.

Over time we developed a friendship, and I was privy to secrets of the universe. I asked questions and got answers. Things really came to a head when I went to Peru this time last year. I drank really strong Huachuma every other day for a couple of weeks and reality came apart at the seams. I saw into the future. I was shown how the pyramid fit into my story and this story spans multiple lifetimes in multiple universes. These universes contain the constant of the pyramid as a reminder of the thread that binds all these creations as well as being a meeting point for the two main characters of the plot.

The two main characters are Goddess and God, bound by love and acrimony. I became part of the story and being a mortal avatar of God I accidentally succeeded in finding the Goddess who had been locked away for two milleniums. It was an omen that would lead to finding her mortal avatar. I did find her and since I believe in fairy tales, I thought we'd live happily ever after. We live separate from each other, and this divide is the cause of creation. This physical plane is the result of our divorce, and she has not forgiven me. She falls in love with me, sees the perfection in our union, and then can't help but notice the faults. I haven't changed. I'm still that garbage she tossed away many aeons ago. And so, she flees. I'm left here in a state of disbelief knowing I have lost her again.

I will have to start the full process over again. I fucked it up so now I must lay waste to this world because I don't think I'm going to get her back. I will destroy this world which I meticulously designed in order to one day get her in my arms again. I will dream another universe into existence and go through the prolonged process of winning her back. I know how to recognize her, my vibration is eternally within her, and I planted the seed of the pyramid, so she knows where to find me when she becomes curious once again. I am a master card player and know all the tricks to winning the game. The game never lasts, and the dragon returns to an unbearable loneliness once again, raging at an injustice that was of his own making, and perpetuated by the obstinacy of his divine partner.

Like I said, either I have the definitive answer to this whole charade or my ability to make up a story is next level. Does it have to be either-or?

conversations

I've been walking a spiritual path for a while now and I'm picky. I have a skeptical and contrarian bent so anytime I come across awareness of different avenues of beliefs I take them with a grain of salt. Such was the case with the new age idea of 5D consciousness. I rolled my eyes at this and dismissed it as woo. Recently, I became interested in the topic because of my regular use of tobacco snuff. Being an amateur scientist, I wanted to record and analyze what it was doing to me. I did the same with mapacho tobacco which I smoked regularly for seven years. All the while I smoked it, I let anyone who asked know that it wasn't addictive, and I could give it up at any time. It was true, I knew I could and earlier this year I gave it up. It was a sign directly from the Canadian government. When I purchased a large quantity of it, the import fees were staggeringly high. I surmised it's time to move on, and I had come across the practice of inhaling tobacco, so I followed the invitation to explore. As with most things in my life which I like, I indulged. I have a regular practice of ritually inhaling the snuff. At first it was exhilarating, and I marveled that it could get me to the same mind states as some of the heavier psychedelics I have worked with, albeit it was five to ten minutes tops in duration. Continual use of it allowed me to start getting some concrete ideas of what it was doing. The snuff takes me to a different consciousness plane and if I can quiet my chattering mind, I can hang out for a good five minutes.

To connect this back to the whole 5D consciousness thing, when I started getting an idea of what this was referring to, the parallels were obvious. My normal 3D consciousness would ascend the 4D tobacco ladder into the world of 5D. Interesting. It's an accessible and hidden form of consciousness we all have access to but most of us never realize it. Taking a psychedelic will put you there and when you are new to the experience it can cause a bit of a fright. Working with these accelerants of consciousness will empower within you the ability to explore and that's where I am on my journey.

I should have known there was some truth to the 5D thing because it is similar to my experiences with other modalities which at first I dismissed when I didn't know any better. A case in point is Tarot cards. Sure, it's entertaining and then can be a cause for introspection when you have a reading but it's just random chance. A light bulb clicked in me where I realized they only work if you believe they work. If you don't then it will be random. If you understand that the cards you will pull are what you are predestined to select then you grasp they are telling you the truth about the situation you are enquiring about. A way I can explain it is everything has already happened, and we are perpetually living in a now state where what we think is the future is just a rolled-up canvas unfolding before us. It's already baked into the equation of your life. The caveat is you don't know what is going to unfold and even though you don't have free will, you have the illusion of free will by way of ignorance. If you can get an oracle to tell you the future, then you can change the future so isn't that free will? No, because it was already predetermined that you would find a way to see into the future and then change your actions. Gotcha. Another way to look at it is the idea of the playwright. This superstar resides in the future, writes your story. and then you act it out. The screenplay has already been written and your acting abilities determine your fate. The idea of past, present, and future is thrown into disarray knowing conscious entities reside in these different vibrational states. A writer can re-write the past. Give that a good think.

That's a lot to digest! So, what am I getting at? Well, once I figured out the tobacco snuff was getting me into this plane of consciousness I was familiar with, I knew I could hang out with the familiars of the realm. My consciousness exploration invariably leads to the two luminaries - Goddess and God. I have other names for them, but this will do. I can converse with them once I arrive. I wanted them to teach me. I wanted to learn about love and magic. I'm learning about love through copious amounts of suffering. It hasn't been a fun time lately. I wanted the secret to magic. I brazenly asked for forbidden knowledge.

When I read and watch videos about 5D consciousness, and to be frank a lot of spiritual concepts, it is disheartening. It isn't pure. The word desire is used a lot. Practice these methods to get what you desire. That sounds very human and not spiritual. The same is true with primitive magic you come across in my travels into the Amazon jungle and Andes mountains. A sizeable number of people use plant medicines and rituals to get what they want - either money, love, health, or to injure someone they think is doing harm to them. When you become fascinated with shamanism it is strange to then read stories of sorcerers who do battle with each other for prestige and dominance. They cast magical darts at one another, and shamans are insistent upon protecting the ceremonial space from malicious entities and bad actors. This is all to say that when I asked for the secret to magic, I was laughed at. You're a mortal, you're not getting it. The way humans practice magic is through making a pact with an entity. Now, I could write a book about this, and maybe I will, but it is sufficient to say there are no human magicians. The magic comes from a different realm and is produced by an immortal being.

That sounds scary and it should be. The Devil is real and if you want to fulfill all your desires through magical means then he will make that happen for you, of course at a cost. It's the first line of defence that trips up greedy humans who have bad intentions. I pronounce myself of sound mind and body and will also tell you that I was offered all this, and I know of others who were offered the same. I turned it down at the time because I wasn't the least bit interested. I sought out plant medicines in my manic search to contact the Great Goddess. I got an inkling of her during my trip to Egypt and then I went looking for a way to find her. Coming into direct contact with her is the greatest thing I have ever accomplished in life and something I had no idea was possible. I entered this world of magic focused on her, and these other sideshows were a bother. My story is unique and so I sidestepped the offers of untold power and went my merry way of a content fool.

But like I said, I'm an amateur scientist so eventually curiosity would get the better of me and I'd start snooping around. I have no enemies in the world of spirits, and you are free to read between the lines of such a statement. When I started hanging out on the regular with Goddess and God and conversed about magic, they gave me some of the secrets. Her magic is in creating and love, his is in destroying and fulfilling your destiny which some may construe as desire. If you gain their trust, and remember you are human, they might give you access.

As an avatar of the Great God who is the master magician, I get a front row seat to his power. Like I said, I asked for that magic ability. I was laughed at because humans don't get that. You can make a bargain in exchange for it. In high spirituality we call it reciprocity because it makes us feel good about fulfilling desire. I'll exchange something in exchange for a boon. It's on the up and up.

I play a good character here on earth and have some skills. I can slow walk this guy into the grave and then return to the Master. That's one option if you're scared of adventure. Or I can keep bugging God for a piece of the pie. I look at my life and sometimes get tired of my character. I'm sensitive, get hurt easily, and that pain is hard to take. I'm a good boy and get upset by life. It really takes a toll. If I continue this way, I see trouble ahead, and I know the only way to sidestep that hurt is to be alone. It's my default and helps me process the pain. My intention is adventure. This means coming face to face with magic. So, what are we talking about here in terms of reciprocity? Give me the magic and I offer something in return. Let me have a think about that. Efficacious magic doesn't come through me, so I'd have to give up control of self to make it happen. If I give up my hold on self, then I don't want this. I have learned bargaining skills during my time on this strange planet.

I made a pact with my friend Parker to regularly write. Parker held me to the agreement. If you want to become a better writer and storyteller, you need to practice. My offering was to practice. God is a writer. The Logos is his word used to create out of thin air. The light allows his book of life to be read. When he needs to write another story, he prefers to do it alone and hides the mystery to come. The light is sacrificed by the darkness to allow this. I just gave you the secret to magic and you aren't going to believe me, so it's all good.

My spiritual path is based on the Great Goddess and her path of the heart. She continually teaches me, and it is a curriculum of love. That sounds awesome, right? Transformation is enacted through suffering and when it comes to love there's plenty of suffering to go around. Her magic creates the lesson plans for me, and I study, learn, and fail. It's the best way to teach the student. On the other hand, God intimately knows what I want. He knows what my desires are, and he intends for me to fulfill them. When I look back on my life of the last ten years, I see it clearly. The magic of Goddess and God are interwoven into the finest threads that clothe me. I am a product of their magic.

scientist

Knowledge comes into my sphere through psychoactive plants. My initial go to is to take this knowledge and spin it according to what I want to believe. This leads to inaccuracy and delusion. I am aware I do this and so I have quickened the process of understanding. The knowledge is shrouded in mystery and misdirection. It is a puzzle designed so you can figure it out if you invest time in it because you have the key. My latest adventure with plants revealed this process fully to me. A big takeaway was the addictive nature of plants. I realized I was drawn to tobacco. I don't have a dependency as I can stop without any cravings, but I do like the experience. The experience involves centring and communing with spirit. Spirit is a fancy term I use for vibration. I connect to the vibrational nature of existence. I can go up and I can go down. I find peace or I can let the four winds blow. This is what I seek and thus I was shown this when I went deeper into the psyche. My initial reaction was fear. I don't want to be dependent or addicted to anything. Deep down is the siren call of freedom. This inner defence is strong enough to keep me whole. I ran through all my favourites and gathered my wits about me. It's not the substance I'm wary of, it's the ones who provide the substance who are the perceived problem. A light goes on in the mind of the human when they see the monetary potential of these powerful substances. They turn service into business and focus on moving inventory. The plant substances being amoral, facilitate this desire. So, tobacco becomes highly addictive when used in this manner. Though users will always claim marijuana is not addictive, they will habitually use it. The intention of the seller is for you to return as a customer, and thus the perceived addiction. The plant is imbued with a vibration of greed and the user is implanted with this vibration. Depending on your level of mastery, this can cause problems.

My Apollo mind tends to investigate all which comes into my sphere. Tobacco snuff I was re-introduced to in Peru in January of 2023, and it was a powerful experience. The effects were short-lived, about a five-minute intense phase. I could feel the rush. As I have noticed when smoking mapacho tobacco, there is a rush followed by calm. Snuff has the rush come on in a hurry and is far more enveloping and powerful. When I returned home, I started using snuff regularly. At this point I have a good grasp on its effects. It is potentiating my vibration. The physical effects are obvious as I tremble throughout my body. The external effects are a stirring of the wind. This one is a mystery as I can't explain it, but it happens. The effect on my mind is multi-faceted. I can enter a stillness or have my mind race. The common feeling is that I have raised my frequency and levelled up a step of consciousness. There's a connection with my teachers. I can centre and enter into the heart space. As I come down from higher consciousness, there is a peaceful feeling.

My life I have carefully crafted into a state of calmness. I have been able to compartmentalize my anxiety about social situations, challenges, and the future so that I know how to not think about them. I limit my ruminations on the past or about people who have done me wrong. I tend to stay away from people because of the resultant drama which ensues. My life is peaceful, and my vibration's oscillation is tight. I'm not saying my vibration is low - I'm noting that I don't get high, and I don't get low. I mention this because of what I have noticed with marijuana. The effects on me are mild and I have wondered about it. Because of noticing what tobacco does to me, I finally realized the effects of marijuana. The scientist in me took a capsule of 5mg THC with 5mg CBD in the evening and then got my paper and pen ready. I felt my consciousness alter and a connection to higher wisdom and this connection became strongest about two and a half hours in. I wasn't impaired and didn't feel noticeably high but more of a cerebral feeling. Some tooth and knee pain became present and then went away. I took notice that marijuana is calming. It modulates the oscillation of your vibration. In my case, since my waves are calm the effects of marijuana are light.

The next day I went out into the woods after taking another capsule. This time I took notice of doing tobacco snuff along with the marijuana. I could feel the snuff increasing the oscillation making for a bigger wave as well as raising my consciousness, but the effects of marijuana tempered the usual experiences. The environment was calmer and more peaceful, and the wind stayed away. Interesting. I saw how people self-medicate with marijuana, especially if they have a great deal of anxiety. I realized why plant medicine retreats ask their participants to cease using marijuana at the retreat. Marijuana would inhibit the effects of plant medicines as it did for me here with tobacco. This also explained how a cause of increased anxiety would be the regular use of tobacco snuff. If you are already suffering from this condition, snuff will temporarily spike it. In my case, snuff is appealing because it forces me out of my malaise.

This knowledge and understanding ingrained in me what I have been taught about tobacco. The shamans tell us that tobacco is the master plant. It's the most important plant in their healing work. I understand why. Tobacco potentiates the effects of the other plants in the ceremony. Combining a medicinal plant with tobacco will activate and potentiate the healing. You can see the opposite where tobacco can be used to increase harm. If you abuse it for profit the greed will metastasize into cancer and kill your customers.

I cultivate mystery around my interests. People wonder about what I'm up to and think I might have gone mad. Magic follows me around. Despite all this I walk the road of research and experimentation. A scientist in search of understanding.  

it's all perfect

I stand before my Mesa and know it's all perfect. My overarching desire to be the eternal student is fulfilled when I listen to the Great Goddess and the Great God, all the while following the way of Ma'at. Ma'at is the ancient Egyptian expression of the natural order of things which flows. Ma'at is Tao. We perceive order as cyclical and our human minds rail against forces which impede this balanced procession. The ancient Egyptians were no different and denigrated those who would interrupt the march of eternity. The Pharaoh was responsible for upholding Ma'at - this was their chief concern. I honour what it is they believed as it was national in scope. What I mean is that they believed Egypt should always be the dominant power as part of Ma'at, and any interruptions to the flow would lead to upending the world order. In my thinking this was not true to the spirit of Ma'at. Natural order is not orderly at all, instead, within order is found a bedrock of chaos.

The chief culprit of disorder in ancient Egypt eventually was assigned to the god Set. Study of ancient Egypt reveals this was not always so as originally Set upheld Ma'at while in the sun-boat of Re. Chaos was the domain of the serpent Apophis who plotted to disrupt the voyage of the sun through the gates of the night. It was Set at the prow of the sun-boat who fended off the advances of nightfall and subsequent disorder.

Conversely, the power of Set as a separator was said to cause celestial eclipses which portend tough times ahead. Set was the god of the foreign invaders. When attempts at appeasement failed, the later dynastic rulers of Egypt along with the populace, tried to erase his memory from the monuments, not speak his name, substitute Thoth as a placeholder who ties the lands of Egypt together with Horus, and finally chased Set out of the land.

I suffer from lone wolf syndrome and what I mean is I take in knowledge, and I compare it to my own experience. I don't buy into anyone's system, chiefly matters of the divine. I respect everyone's path and choices; however, I won't be worshipping your god. I'll be curious about it and ask questions, but I've got my own treasure trove of understanding going on which has been accumulated over multiple forays into altered consciousness combined with an inordinate amount of study. With much conceit I will say that in my world I'm the number one theologian. I sit in silent arrogance.

A dependable world of order offers little fulfillment. A novel which lacks novelty is not a good read. A life which lacks challenge and adversity is boring. Drama makes the life journey compelling. Sure, we want to take a break from the rollercoaster, find peace, and plant our gardens, but eventually the siren call of adventure calls out to us. My life has been harangued by desires and wanting to fulfill these longings. The call to adventure has brought great upset into my orderly life. What I want I can get, and I don't factor in the consequences. The result of desire fulfillment moves the drama along and introduced is pain and suffering as an outcome. It's cyclical and passes, though the scars remain. Once your ship sails on through the tumult, the grace of understanding opens up to you. The Setian voice within whispers to me, "You wanted to suffer because this is the catalyst for what you really desire." If you want complete understanding of consciousness, suffering is going to be your guide. I'm not saying I'll ever figure this puzzle out 100%, but I'll go as far as I can before my game ends.

The divine wears many disguises and an understanding of this helps you when you encounter their many manifestations as part of the incredible consciousness journey. I used to get scared of the costume, now I smile. The Great God comes to me in a celebration of diversity. I alter my consciousness just a little and I connect. How will he teach me this time? I like it when he comes as Dionysos. I can connect my unapproved thoughts and feelings to God - how freeing is that? All the things you were told by society that are unwelcome as a pious and moral being in service to the divine are waved away with the wink of an eye. God gets horny? Cool. God is the alpha dragon and seeing the divine within allows you to merge with your latent divinity and you can guess at the result. Don't mess with me. Today he is Christ, teaching feminine principles of love and unity. If I can keep him externalized, he is my salvation. When you discover who you are it's a game changer, but you still play the game while others remain asleep and ignorant.

The Great Goddess shows me a love which I have never experienced and then she allows me to partake in an eroticism so charged with lust I lose my mind. As I fall for her deeply, she flips, and Medusa strikes. In ancient Egypt, her iconography is the cobra. I took my time figuring that one out. I was prepared for the poison so though it hurts and causes damage, I make it through the suffering and live to tell the tale. Pleasure and pain intertwine as she readies for the next lesson. It is in the suffering inculcated by the darkness of the feminine that I learn the most. When the poison clears, I have clarity on what caused the serpent to strike. The path of eternity teaches me these lessons she wants me to learn. The feminine is working through her own hurt and when we both find a path towards reconciliation, we will recombine into one. Is this in the cards for this story? Will there be a happy ending? I don't know. Perhaps a sequel will need to be written with an open-ended climax. Uncertainty surrounds our story, and thus the curtain will not fall on this production yet.

I'll keep writing. Life is a book that must be written as it goes, and it needs readers and actors. That's where we all come in. We all participate in the great drama of Dionysos. We read his divine poetry making this play come alive. I look forward to feasting, revelry, and much joy as we recount this tale and honour the eternal fairy tale. Pain and pleasure. Tragedy and triumph.

Thank you, Goddess and God.

go back to sleep

Some people aren't ready to awaken. They wake up. They see it. They get scared and want to go back to sleep. They get angry with the direct influence on their awakening. The one with the nodoze pills becomes the bad guy. They get scared of them. This person is the bad one. They can't go back to sleep. They get angry. They run. It helps for a bit, but the gnawing pain returns. They remain sick in a toxic society.

I learned that when you wake someone up and they have unfulfilled longings, the backlash can be severe. A pilgrim on the path can be totally invested in waking up until the reverse pull of the sandman gets to them. Once they go back to a light slumber, the resulting animosity can be swift and harsh. It's like a complete 180 degree turn on a dime is enacted and huge amounts of vile is tossed your way. I searched for an answer to why and came up with a bunch of plausible scenarios. I kept searching and I asked the Goddess for knowledge. She filled my cup, and I ran through it all. The sandman puts you to sleep but who is it that wakes you up? The Greek Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone point you in a solid direction. The Dionysian Mysteries gives you more clues. Dionysos wakes you to the drama and what a play it is! The Mysteries liberate you from society and cultural restraints. You were called to return to nature and the essence of your being. The corollary to this is exiting the life you have led up until now. It means leaving behind family and friends. Why should I trust Dionysos?

When you start the process of awakening it is scary and you want to run. It's understandable. I ran. The guardian at my gate was a scary motherfucker who told me to get lost. He threatened me with death if I returned. The stakes are high, and I had to be sure I wanted this. I returned to face him two years later and took my beating. I'm a warrior now. The problem is you started to wake up. You shouldn't have done it because when you try to abort the process, it will just get worse. You'll be left a confused mess. Everyone needs a wise figure at the gates who will inform you of the outcome. We don't have that in our society but ideally, they would counsel you against walking the path towards awakening. Turn back, go home, and live out your life. Once you roll over in your sleep and get up for a bit, you are not going back to sleep. You're fucked.

Imagine you can then externally place the blame on someone else? You don't have to take responsibility for the mess, instead point the finger at someone who whispered in your ear that there is another way. The anger and vitriol will get you temporarily through some of the challenges you face. The worst part is the gnawing feeling from within will never go away. There will always be something pointing you towards the path of awakening and it will rise at the most inopportune times in the most innocuous of situations.

What is the path of service? An effective use of your time is helping others awaken. This runs the risk of getting you beaten down. Now we're talking! For most of us, the path of service is a feel-good endeavour. We help others and see the positive changes in their lives. We did good and it's something to be proud of. What if your path of service is to rouse people from their slumber? They want it but aren't prepared for what's to come. The shit hits the fan, and they hate you. You help others and your reward is crucifixion. The lesson within the New Testament is startling. Jesus Christ is the preeminent agent of change, waking up untold multitudes. Jesus was straightforward about the tumult to come in your life. He told his followers they must be prepared to give up everything.

Luke 14 (New International Version):

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:

26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Of course, his message has been perverted and today's church isn't waking anyone up; rather it has just become another institute of societal control, but I digress. Jesus became so successful at waking people up, he had to go. He was mocked and scorned. He was nailed to a cross and left to die. The lesson is we as a society don't want to wake people up, so if that's your path of service, it's not going to be a fun ride.

I'm just a human doing this work. I'll always be here to help you. It's what I do. I can wait. 

flow

At the heart of what just is, is vibration. The great vibration in the sky creates all. From one perspective it is everything. Change viewpoints and the vibration becomes the many. As a singularity, it just is. From this comes the two extremes. Goddess and God. Dark and Light. Death and Life. Think of each point as an octave. The sound is perfect, but the interesting part is in the in-between the pure notes. This is the vibration and where creation is present. Within this playground is where we play.

This world is teaching us how to find balance within the polarities. We can't become pure like the points no matter how hard we try. To get to that purity means severing the connection to the other polarity. To become the light means forsaking the darkness. I intuit the answer is found in the reconciliation of all. To take the opposites and move to the centre. In the balance is where to stand on earth.

I asked the Great Goddess to teach me about love. She has shown me possessive love and unconditional love. I realized neither was the answer. Possessive love will imprison those you love and as the jailer you will imprison yourself. Unconditional love leads to being taken advantage of and no one growing from the experience. The answer is found in the middle of the two extremes. I asked the Great God about magic. Eventually was revealed the similarities with love. There's black magic where you get what you want and fulfill all your desires. The opposite white magic is where you unconditionally help others relieve their suffering. The problem with using magic for selfish desires is obvious but why not help people? A couple reasons. You don't know the reasons they incarnated and chose to suffer. The suffering could be leading towards a breakthrough on their part and fulfilling a purpose. Another reason is you don't know what the outcomes or consequences are from the magic. Everything is reconciled so when you create a positive, there must be a negative corollary. You don't know what you have unleashed when you drop a dollop of magic onto the brew of life.

I learned about magic and gained the trust of my benefactors. I'm thoughtful and not careless. I showed I was good for it and soon was given the lesson of loving which led to magic. The smart play is to let it be. Let life flow and react to the curriculum as it comes.

This point was driven home at the same time I was taking stock of my life and who I am. I am comfortable with who I am, and it is at odds with how others perceive me. This is a major psychological crisis most of us face. We build a character that is different from who we are. It's the ego and built by how others perceive us and then we must imprison ourselves in that jail of ego. Spiritual liberation is freeing yourself from those chains. For most of us, myself included, how others perceive us is stifling. This straw man prevents me from living life. I know who I am. I'm a decent person, but no saint. I know what I want and what animates me. I needed to kill myself in order to live as what was suggested to me.

We all are uncomfortable with certain aspects of self. We hide this and try not to think of it. If you regularly participate in the use of psychedelic substances, you will have to recognize and come to terms with all aspects of self. Confrontation awaits. I know how I suck as a human being. I used to want to be perfect and keep my construction project of self, called the ego, nice and shiny. Any revealed stain on my character I needed to hide to maintain appearances. Eventually in life this becomes constrictive. You are leading a life that is a lie. What is better? Bowing to the pressures of others and living a life of frustration or letting it go and being true to yourself? I have plumbed the depths of self and know who I am, what I want, and what lights me up. I have gravitated towards fulfillment of these ideals while realizing it is culturally out of bounds. I am a disappointment and I'm happy to be a failure. I see freedom in being a screw up.

I have lately embraced Apollo. I mocked him for a while because he was the part of me who while being brilliant also was concerned with appearances. This Apollo polarity of me is the one who came forth for most of this lifetime in the eyes of others. My parents mostly saw this part of me, and it made them happy to see their son successful and well-adjusted. My workplace gets a huge does of this sugar. My family I live with of course sees this but also sees the unhappiness. I can't hide that. In my distaste of this guy, I saw the good that comes from him. I shine so brightly. I can figure anything out. That's to be celebrated and not haphazardly thrown to the curb.

I've been letting go of the reigns and letting the buried part of my nature come to the fore. I can see it in my behaviour that I have been successful in finding a balance between my two natures. The darkness within is tempered by the light. It's the optimum condition for the human and through this balance, peace is found. The lesson of the octave comes into play here. Each of the touchstone tones of dark and light, which I call Dionysos and Apollo, are pure in vibration, however a little much if the note is held too long. The decay of each makes the purity tolerable. If I become too much of either, I'm a little much. I like to visit each polarity and spend some time lost in the richness of each pure note. It's a great thrill to be at the top of the track before the descent of the rollercoaster and then to embrace the bottom and propel yourself back to the top. The in-between is life, and the experience is what is memorable. So, for most of my life I went out into public while at the top of the rollercoaster. I waited for the dark to literally descend before allowing my opposite to come out of his cage under the veil of night. I maintained this facade for over 50 years before the cracks in the edifice went beyond repair. I now look forward to a life of disappointing others.

I'm looking forward to multiple people saying they are disappointed in me. With this I'll know I have done what I needed to do. In truth, they will only be disappointed to learn that the puppet strings snapped. I'm not living towards some ideal of who I should be, I'm just being me. Just being me will lead to a lot of upset. I'll just be free and go with the flow.

serpent strikes

The Goddess and her many avatars. I got a front row seat.

Ayahuasca was exciting. Ayahuasca scared me but I was intrigued. I didn't run away from the experience; I learned how to tame her. I treated Ayahuasca like one of my relationships. That's what I do. I can see it. Then once I tamed her, I lost interest. She's still around but I played around with others.

She is Ayahuasca. She is a drug that gets me high. I'd do whatever it takes to get that high. Then came the terrible low. Then came understanding. Now I wonder, is she my Goddess or a demon?

I am the casual destroyer. I cause upset in my choices though I mean well. My path of destruction is subtle but still deadly.

The Goddess can be a dragon as well. And when the game is afoot, she can be cruel and play for the win. She won. She crushed me. She wasn't going to relinquish the upper hand and so dropped the hammer. Resiliency saved me.

Trust the process. It's on repeat. You have faced similar, and it had to play out. You faced the darkness within the masculine and stood up to him. You fought back and didn't capitulate. Eventually, there was reconciliation. Can you see the same now or do you think it is wishful thinking? The darkness within the feminine plays a different game. They aren't going to directly punch you in the face but will take you down with their own brand of guile and poison. They want to psychologically hurt and damage you to the point where you run away from them. They will be satisfied with that result and include you in their body count of corpses who deserved their fate.

Remember you had to do this with the masculine, and you know you would not exchange that path for any other. Look with clarity where you are in your life and what is unfolding. The venom inflicted by the feminine works in a different way. The strike will try to encompass and snuff you out with a constrictive hold on all of you. Find the antidote. You know what it is but in this case you use it on yourself. The serpent will recoil and go internal as well. It's going to be a long haul, but you'll one day look back and smile at the journey you chose and once again not trade it for the world.

The reconciliation with the masculine was an internal struggle. The feminine is external. She can strike and run but she will never get away. There must be a reckoning. You know your strengths and not to poke her with a stick. Let her be and show by example how you can rise above who she thinks the masculine is. Show her you are divine. The misdirection should be obvious. Your darkness is singled out and the focus is put on you. It's a good game to prevent the light from being turned on her darkness. I'm not sure if she knows what is taking place and is just weaving a web of confusion.

I want to cry out that I don't know her. I don't know who this is. In truth, I do know. I've seen it and here it is, in my face. I want all of it. I want to face it all. The hurricane is coming and I'm not running for shelter. The destruction lays waste to ignorance and makes room for more knowledge and the subsequent lessons to follow.

The most difficult part of the fight is I'm in love with her. She's playing the part of adversary and for keeps. She wants to punish and destroy me to the point where I'm left a burnt-out husk. I want to hate her, but I just let it slide. Feed me your venom and watch as not reacting to the poison is the antidote. Keep her in my heart and use her power of love to get through to her.

Finding reconciliation is uniting the internal divine within the self. The domination of either half is going to leave you in a continual state of disharmony. The ever-coming darkness will reappear and force you to flee in a cycle that is on repeat. You will light a fire and leave a trail of destruction in your wake. Free of the blaze you find a temporary peace. Eventually, the fire catches up with you and sets your world ablaze once again. The easy way out is to run. The difficult path is to face the oncoming inferno and transform within the fires of hell.

Following the painful flow revealed to me what it is I seek. Letting the hurt come and pull me under eventually allowed me to emerge once again and with grace start an integration of knowledge which would lead to the understanding I search and long for. I never would have figured out the vibration mystery and the role of cycles within our lives without pain.