becoming a child and coming forth as god

We are born as god coming forth once again. A dual sexed offspring of the divine feminine and masculine energies coming together, enacting creation in a sexual union. The spark of life within the womb is dual sexed, a divine wholeness, before it develops into a single sexed sentient being. The child is the god. The parents of the god are the divine feminine and masculine. When they come together they create the child. The child comes forth once again as the all, reappearing on the grand stage of life. Love and creation are deliciously intertwined. In the womb the physical body develops into a distinct biological sex, although maintaining gender neutrality. Culture succeeds in putting one over the child and then at puberty locks you into the physiological split; time to choose sides and make it stick. Our teenage years are spent developing our newfound identity and moving away from our parents towards independence. This leads to confusion in a great deal of adolescents who do not fit into societies expectations of behaviour for their sex and they become hopelessly lost. Not only have we then become a mess in regards to our feelings and what is expected of us but the ultimate truth of who we are is long lost and buried. For some at least this leads eventually to seeking answers. It's a long and winding road to throw off the shackles of culture to discover who you are. In essence you have to become a child again and give culture the middle finger.

Society has opened up quite a bit in my lifetime; it's really quite remarkable. What was once taboo, such as issues of gender identity, has mainstreamed. Change within society is achievable especially when the reigns of cultural conformity are loosened and a libertine spirit prevails. It has allowed us to question gender assignment and roles within our society and this predictably has the stuffy and older among us all aghast. Freedom of expression, like any freedom in general, liberates the repressed. What has always existed within we kept a lid on. When the lid blows, then it comes rushing forth. The amount of humans questioning gender assignments harken back to a prepubescent unity that was lost. It's quite fascinating. You know in the indigenous Americas they recognized more than the two sexes and it wasn't until the European conquest and churchification of the populace that this was buried. For some, navigating the life culture planned out for you allows you to look back upon it and develop a wisdom from experience. At the risk of realizing how misguided I am, these stages I classify into three distinct parts that I can identify within.

My own personal encapsulated masculine self scatters through the prism of life. I detect three distinct divides, as well as an external controlling force. The main part is who I consider my self. It’s Apollo, the logical and reasonable self that is my dominate sense of self. This is the spiritually maligned ego and my identity that is unique to me and I realize no one else will be quite the same. I chafe at any that try to copy my uniqueness as it is my psychological fingerprint. Then there is wise me who speaks when I quiet my mind and listen. At about middle age this part of me started to form or at least I started to finally listen. As the life force wanes, it takes away from certain areas of the body and concentrates the force on sustaining life. Our hair goes grey, senses dull, we tire more easily, it takes longer to heal maladies along with being more susceptible to sickness, and we slow down. There is an unintended consequence of that slowing down. We become more aware since we are not on the move as much and awareness leads to clarity and clarity to wisdom. In our younger years we are easily over stimulated, distracted, on the go, and focused on the self where we don't spend much time in contemplation or slow down to the point where we can see what is happening from a holistic point of view. The diminution of the life force in our declining years forces us into states where we have slowed down so we can focus and observe what is going on. At this point in your life you have reached a level of mastery over the tasks you perform daily at work or at home, so though you tire more easily you can finish your work in less time as you pretty much know how to accomplish it directly and efficiently. Access to wisdom comes from stopping the world and by world I mean culture. Then there's my desires; the me who wants to be a kid again and play with life and who chases pleasures. My dark side, because as an adult I put it away and hid it. Then I learnt they are all divine and to treat them all with respect. The sense of self is as divine as the unity whole we glorify in spiritual circles. The ego is much maligned and we wish to spiritually transcend this strong sense of self however the ego is as divine as any of the other constructs I can label. It's all me and the sum is connected to the all. Connected through the heart.

The fourth external part I have noticed is culture that controls my behaviour and makes me conform to its conventions. There exists a voice that influences the way I act, dress, and how I remain cognizant of my place in society relative to others. The voice speaks up when I waver from the ideal defined by society or if there is someone out to destroy my reputation. There’s no escaping the confrontation when you embark on a path that will sidestep its demands. It will manifest as an entity that will do whatever it can to get you to turn back or run into the arms of a cultural institution waiting for those just like you who tried to escape its grasp. Do not take this lightly. He is the puppet master, the superego who controls you at this conscious level. He has a bunch of tricks up his sleeve as he can play god as well but that god is a dragon and will eventually reveal himself as such. He wants glory, obedience, and worship. He loves power and riches. That’s how you tell the difference. He can take on other roles but they are all designed to enslave you and keep you under his control. If you try and get away from him he will react and threaten you with dire consequences. If you do free yourself from him he is still there and will become a new character. It’s just a part of you to accept and be mindful of. There is a need to inculcate within your life activities and patterns that allow you to not rely on this part of yourself.

In my case the veiled mystery beyond this prism gets back to the idea of a dual sexed god coming forth at birth. My feminine half I buried and to recover that knowledge and then to believe what I found was a trip and a half. I detected a faint crying out and went on a voyage of discovery. To Egypt and then to the Amazon jungle in order to find what it was I was seeking. Finding her solved a piece of the puzzle; figuring out who she was entailed another journey in itself. It’s a gradual process, as given this knowledge one can’t be expected to actually believe it without methodically experiencing each step on the path to awakening.

Becoming god once again is the act of harmonizing within the sacred feminine with the sacred masculine. This alchemical union creates the divine child. A battery analogy of the life force that powers us is an interesting analogy in that it deals with polarity. The combination of the feminine and masculine creates the power! Mom and Dad generate the vehicle that the spark of desire comes forth in. The effeminate Greek god Dionysos is this unfettered desire; appearances revealing the dual sexed aspect of creation. When the sacred feminine and sacred masculine come together their union creates the god and the god is Dionysos. Dionysos is the desire that causes all sacred coupling so as the eternal return he-she can manifest once again as a sentient being. Dionysos is forever coming and indestructible. Dionysos is the creator of the drama, the tragedy, and of the grand theatre. The renewer, the game player, the actor, and the joker. Dionysos loves to play at god. The total performance encapsulates within the human experience the joie de vivre of ecstasy and of ultimate tragedy. 

The big takeaway is that all parts of yourself are divine and need to be honoured in their own way. It correlates to my flower philosophy where it is the natural order of things, the course of the energy, the Tao, that is the pattern of life which is the energy coming forth and cresting before returning. We are born as the god come forth again, full of wonder, curiosity, and desires and connected still to that oceanic consciousness. Then we develop a separate sense of self and identity and we strive to make it shine as bright as possible. This is the pretty flower. So beautiful, giving off a heavenly scent. The energy peaks, and here we are! Then the energy starts to wane and return to source. As the self lets go we have an access to wisdom and our third stage of life comes forth. We can start to see through the game and remember where we came from and who we once were, if we throw off the shackles of culture and ingrained beliefs. In order to shine as the self we let go of omnipotence! In order to to reach the pinnacle of self we eschew the fact that we are already it! Crazy right?!?

Our path is to fulfill our destiny which will lead us to unity within and seeing this externally in all. We become god once again. What a game! We search for god and then read mystics of all ages telling us that what we seek is within. Then we dutifully ignore them. Eventually we see it and we recognize what we were searching for was in us all along. That final leap though is non sensical. So I recreate god? Isn’t god omnipotent and external? Nope, it’s within and through your actions you birth the god once again. 

joker

The theme in my life is now the joker as I have altered my consciousness enough to see through the pretence of culture, spirituality, and existence. The joker is the wild card in the deck of playing cards. The cards represent the currency in our life we accumulate and then use to get ahead in the game of life. The joker comes along and through chance and happenstance, upsets the applecart of expectations, making the drama of life unpredictable and worth playing. The joker is the jester with the funny hat with bells, never taking things seriously. The joker is the one who likes to dress up in costume and play different roles; who causes upset and laughs at culture. Who makes fun of those who hold power. Who dispenses with the need for morals and boundaries. The joker reminds us that all will pass. The one who just wants to play. It's the crazy and wild one Dionysos, god if you will. The outcast, the scapegoat, and the denied.

I had a meet up with a bunch of friends a little out of the way and took the commuter train to the city and then walked the remaining distance. On my way, I passed on by a Muslim cleric dressed in his religious robes. This was a Tuesday but it struck me that some religions still do make observance a way of life. In the Christian tradition I am familiar with, the priest dresses up on Sundays and the congregation gets all pious on Sunday morning and appointed holidays but that's it. All cultures have an outlet for spiritual practice as the call is a curious happenstance in Homo sapiens. Set up is a cultural institution that accumulates power based on others looking for answers that then profits off you, all the while requiring you to have a belief in someone else's beliefs. It stops you cold from pursuing it on your own. Going solo is always an understood no no. Even if you look towards the Eastern traditions, there is the admonishment that you need a guru. And you have to be obedient to the teacher and sweep up at the ashram for a decade before you make spiritual progress and they let you in on the secrets. I must admit the philosophy that arose out of the east is impressive and top notch. They invented enlightenment and by practicing their methods and understanding their philosophy you will grasp it and become enlightened as well. I think you then get this healthy glow or shine.

We as men chase our idea of either god or enlightenment. Righteous and pure, shining in the sky like the sun, a fully realized and enlightened being. We long to be like him; to enact a personal transfiguration and transcend the morass of humanity. A desire to one up the masses and climb the mountain to get to the top. We concoct religions and rites to lead us up the mountain to this ideal. We put on righteous robes and condemn the sinners. Spirituality the world over is white robes, a sense of morality, and an underlying asceticism with a dose of righteousness. The masculine half of the human race is peculiarly attracted to these qualities. I say this because of this particular trait I have noticed within us that seems to mostly affect the majority of men. This trait is a striving to be sinless and righteous. Since we all dabble in the opposite, there is this strange pressure exerted by society to rise above and strive to ascend that mountain and become perfected. All the world's great religions were originated by men, are dominated by men, and lead to the perfection of self. This right hand path is fundamentally a noble endeavour however it's missing the balance a little bit of the feminine left hand path of love and unity would bring.

Some forms of spiritual enchantment make you live a life of obedience to an idea and its god. It's a form of hypnosis as we are easily taken in and bewitched; a lot of the time it is due to fear of death and an inner knowing you are a sinner and needing to make amends for your wretchedness. Ultimately, we don't do it because we want to be good, instead it is the human need for a reward. If I'm good I will be rewarded in the afterlife! Scriptures are full of this carrot. It isn't enough to do something unconditionally, there always has to be a prize and an out-group of the damned. It was good drama at some point but this act has become tiresome. The last few centuries have seen its diminution and people breaking free of its grasp but really this stage needs to be burned to the ground.

The refuge of those who have either not come to terms with who they are, are ashamed of themselves, or want to live their life in a divided state thinking somehow they can be 100% pure and good is religion. You can’t ever reach the idealized state. Society in turn sets up this bullshit saying it’s wrong to seek pleasure, to embrace your kinks and passions, and declares you’re a sinner and a degenerate. Then you have to hide your behaviour and put on the act. You live your life in a state of denial, obfuscation, and operate in the dark. Psychologists know how damaging this is yet they say nothing; they just continue to see patients and enable the charade instead of telling people just embrace who you are and don’t think you can transcend yourself into some model of perfection. The joker loves to reveal the hypocrisy of the righteous knowing full well we all have our faults and the side of us we strive to keep hidden. Underlying this is the need to come clean; to embrace our faults, fully knowing that the only way through is to bring all into the light.

Fortunately in the cards no one has a monopoly on enlightenment, paths can be divergent and yet can all lead to the same place. You can do it on your own. It's simply an awakening to whom you really are, your immortality, and the nature of existence.

The stench of all of man's spiritual traditions permeates the paths I travel. I say man because he's the guilty party. Women tend towards earth centric celebrations of life. I have seen through the culture games and the desperate longings of the spiritual man to get to the top of the mountain and then try to pull you along as a follower. I looked within and found all I need. I have no need for any affirmation from an agency vested with omnipotence, spiritual truth, or authority. It's ultimately a con game and if you want to play it, then play it. I'm the joker now. I can laugh at it all.

My conception of god is of the divine actor who acts all the parts and gets lost in doing so. It’s all about play and because all are immortal and exist for eternity there is no need for morals, righteousness, or striving to be the best. That’s all cultural baggage; a byproduct of the grand stage we do our dance upon. I have ultimately learned to act with love, for yourself and for others, and the rest will take care of itself.

Do you want to beat the game? Practice unconditional love and remember to play. Now, I didn't say you have to be perfect but instead I chose my words carefully and said practice. You know, if life was a utopia it would eventually get pretty dull. A good game has an element of chance or a wild card. The joker in the deck of playing cards creates and extends the drama. In the end, it is all play. There's nothing to worry about. Play along.

The greatest role the joker plays is in the lives of those who seek spiritual enlightenment. You can get far up that mountain but eventually the joker will reappear and challenge you. Why are you doing this? What do you think you are going to get out of this other than glorifying yourself and personal satisfaction? You may have gotten up the mountain and received your white robe, maybe fooled yourself and others, but every part of you came along on this hike. Are you going to deny them like Peter did Jesus three times in the garden of Gethsemane? Are you going to declare your true self the higher spiritual calling you pursued and attained and relegate the other parts of you to non-status? You’ll be a fraud and you know it. Your impulses and desires aren’t going to leave you alone; they will keep haranguing you. 

You play it small when you take the shiny right hand path and glorify the self. Curiously, the fame and fortune fool you into thinking you are larger than life. The ego gets satisfaction but the joker has the last laugh. The dull left hand path of service, the one that required you to turn down the opportunities and overtures of the world, shows you each act of service lifts up the whole, and glorifies us all. It's the all in gambit, playing it large, like cosmically huge, but will never admit to it. Perceptually, we recognize the self and are naturally attracted to self-improvement. To find balance is to be of service to the all and elevate not only the self but everyone else along with it. Everybody gets to climb to the top of the mountain and then walk back down hand in hand. 

teacher plants and enchantment

The first thing I noticed about the master plant teachers is how hypnotic and enchanting the ceremony can be at times. This circumstance set off alarm bells in my head as I was pretty wary of being put under a spell and I thus fought it on and off for nine Ayahuasca ceremonies until I finally learned to let go. The first time I ever drank was a pretty special occasion and I noticed immediately how enchanting the plants can be. The mystery and allure of the ceremony was strong and after a few hours I kind of wanted off the ride for the night, as I had lost control, and I didn’t like that part of the experience. Overall it was so profound I knew I’d be back for more. The second time I drank was so strange and had a sinister feeling to it. The hypnotic trance confusion was off the charts and to this day six years later I can barely describe it and I have a hard time reforming the perception of it in my mind's eye. It frankly escapes capture by memory or words. The only thing that jars it back into my consciousness is if I drink Ayahuasca and I follow the darkness. The feeling returns and then I remember. This happened more than once and I would try and leave myself notes within the ceremony to not drink Ayahuasca again because of this darkness. I eventually moved past this block after finally heeding the advice of the maestro to not engage the mind, stay in the heart, and to just listen to the plants. I had to do it my way though and take a bunch of knocks to the head before heeding the knowledge and instruction given to me. It’s a wonder I stayed with it because any sane person would have tapped out and said enough of this. This isn’t fun. Something however kept me going. You know when I finally made it through to the other side of this darkness it was an incredible feeling of accomplishment and a great achievement in my life for which I am forever grateful. I mean the strength, courage, and perseverance I showed to get to that level was something I didn’t think I had in me.

Last month when I spent a night alone in the desert with the master plant teacher Peyote, I was able to revisit this darkness from a detached point of view, examine it, and let it go. It is a good example of what I experienced that night with Peyote as the teachings were very no nonsense and straight forward, showing me how I reacted to the situation, engaged my mind, and then spun the whole encounter. I was the one who assigned it the context of fear and wanted to run from my dark side. I had wanted to explore my dark side and when given that opportunity I ran, which then instigated some serious soul searching within and a journey to conquer my fears through cultivating strength and courage. In the immediate chaos of the experience I faced the decision to fight or flight. I chose flight, I ran, and then in retreat had a decision to make. Do I spend the rest of my life a coward or do I get up off the mat and face my inner demons?

I recently had an epiphany on the way to work. The second time I drank Ayahuasca, the dark and hypnotic ceremony, I also encountered this strange being. I went down into the visionary subterranean realms and came across this darkness. He was sleepy, sitting cross legged in a lotus position, had a thin moustache, and when he spoke it came spatially from my left and he said “Apollo, Apollo, Apollo” in a whispered tone. It freaked me the fuck out and I ran. It was the quintessential WTF moment! The feeling just prior to coming into contact with this being was a weaving of a magic spell designed to confuse so you couldn’t easily find your way back to this strange place. Above me was this spinning of what I think were the four symbols of a deck of cards in this green and off pink environment. It was a realm designed to stay hidden but I was allowed in for a peek, though afterwards I was pretty adamant I didn’t want to go back to that place where my darkness resided. Let’s put the lid back on it! Actually nothing sinister happened during this visit. The fear I conjured up all by myself as a reaction to coming face to face with what I called my dark side. The next ceremony another malevolent being I did come into contact with and I have always conflated it with the being that manifested in the second ceremony. I guess it is because my intention was to come into contact with my dark side and so I did in the second ceremony but my dark side is the obfuscated part of me that is a trickster, demands to play or makes you suffer outburst of uncontrollable passions and vices, and is the great actor. Referencing the four suits in a deck of cards I finally figured out this entity is the joker in the pack and basically the joker is the pot stirrer, the one who creates and moves the play along when things get too comfortable. We all try to build a life that eliminates the nasties, but this game doesn’t work in that way. I had no reason to be afraid of my dark side; I just chose to be. I brought it upon myself because I wanted to believe it was scary when thinking back now I did not need to react the way I did.

I think why the ceremonies are hypnotic is part of a lesson. You see the greatest spell upon us all is the culture spell and the only hope to break free of that spell is to demonstrate to you how enchantment works. So the plants enchant you, challenge you, and if you are strong you move past it. If you run from or bury this knowledge, then it owns you. Through this experience you then see how society has done the same and you see through the bullshit. You laugh and are incredulous at the things people fall for. It’s funny, if not tragic. 

mapacho lessons

Quiet the mind and make the connection. When you are silent it speaks. When I smoke mapacho in the forest it is a cheat code to connection with a wisdom beyond my ordinary consciousness. I recognize the awareness and shift in consciousness. I hear the wind whistling through the trees, the insects humming their tune, and see the sun glistening off of a falling leaf. At this point I know I have tapped into the wisdom frequency.

Earlier this week I came across a news story where the US Navy had released video of a fighter jet coming into contact with an unidentified flying object, locked onto it, and then saw it maneuver in a flash out of its sights and then back in. The pilot reported that it was nothing like he’d witnessed before and the shape of the object resembled the typical flying saucer that the layman has been reporting since the mid 20th century. It’s a pretty cool affirmation of something being out there. I wondered and pondered about this and got the answer out in the woods after I started listening. I have been speculating upon the nature of existence being a dream lately or to put it in a more exact term the mentation or energy of a mind that is creating the universe and we are all avatars of that one consciousness. So what we are witnessing here is a tipping point where enough of the many believe in the UFO and so it manifests through the collective mind as if it is in a dream world. The same paradox is true for all gods and goddesses throughout the ages. If you believe, they exist, and if enough of us believe then they are palpably real. So the exhortation is to just believe! It doesn't matter if it seems beyond logic or is preposterous, it is the collective mental energy we produce and channel that conjures and gives rise to the idea or deity. Mystics in the past came to understand this and some then originated and promulgated the monotheistic ideal which has been passed on down to us. Their beliefs and god would become paramount and eventually the sole god because all others have been stricken from belief and memory.

So you know this then leads me to believe it is possible to create a world of love and caring for all. If we all believe and carry love in our hearts for all it is possible it will happen instead of believing it is not possible. On to the work of showing people that love one at a time. The work involves opening up the heart, blossoming a love for others, and removing the blocks preventing love for yourself.

The transient nature of existence where nothing lasts is a major clue to the fundamental nature of the universe. All patterns of energy eventually disintegrate leaving but a memory before reforming into something else. This same pattern I visit every night when I dream. I create worlds, but they change and then upon waking they dissolve away into nothing, like magic. We create tangible objects to try and defeat the relentless onslaught of the time wave that spells the end of all. We try to forever capture the moment with photography. We revere gold and other precious metals and stones because they give off some idea of permeance. Ancient cultures built pyramids as a testament to the belief their civilization would last and defeat the ravages of time. In the end all will dissolve away, the energy reforming and repatterning, and creating something new.

The great pyramids in Egypt are however unfathomable. They are impossible. UFOs are also pointing towards the reality of our situation being but a dream and the connection between the pyramids on the Giza plateau, where the construction of them is impossible, and the UFO are pointing towards this mystery. I’m not saying aliens built the pyramids, instead I am clumsily trying to say that an ancient civilization built them through collective mental energy. When logic overruns our senses these mysteries appear. The UFO phenomenon is another manifestation of the illogical wreaking havoc upon reason. It is dreaming the world into existence.

I'm curious: the people in my dreams who have lives what happens when I wake from my dream? Do they still go on? What happens to them? Are dreams just frivolous and nonsensical? Just because I suck at dreaming doesn’t mean I should necessarily dismiss the process. I suck at playing the guitar but I know there are other who are maestros at playing. There is no need to reach that elite level of playing the guitar or dreaming but I do have the passion within to level up and find out. Desire fuels all.

Do memories get wiped at death or birth? We chase novelty, always looking for a new and cheap thrill. If we know and are cognizant of everything that has ever taken place, then when we return and tap into the universal fount novelty is the unfortunate casualty. Death is a liberator. It frees us from the connection to the body, its identification, and all that we have experienced and attached to ourselves. When we let that go we can become as a child again and experience all as new. What a gift! When constructing this playground of life that must have been one of the primary considerations. A need to let go of the past so life doesn't become a bore. We fear death but it is the most sacred of all and allows us to once again take in the grandeur of creation over and over again. When it becomes commonplace and we start to figure it all out, death catches up to us and begins the process of renewal. Thinking about this construct further I imagine it is birth that wipes all knowledge and experience. Upon death it would seem all is revealed and we return to unity. It is the impetus, or riding the energetic wave, that sends us towards self again and the self rises from a situation of being a blank slate, ready to create another god. To shine once again in self absorbed glory before once again blowing out its game and returning to the all.

Some of man's religions and philosophical speculations have devised a way to get off the hamster wheel. They saw through the game and realized we keep coming into and out of existence, as the universe is a constant game of transformation. What enabled this constant coming and going is attachment and desire so they preached to cut out desire and do not get attached to anything. They didn't realize however that they were desiring not to desire. It didn’t stop there. The goal became then to silence all thoughts in meditation. Cultivated was a mass of stone buddhas, dead on arrival. You can't escape. Desire is what brings us back. The attraction to novelty and shiny things gets us every time. That right hand path to self is like a carnival, full of wonders and curiosities, and a chance to win at the game of life once more. Come on, take another spin on the wheel of incarnation. Incarnation is such a great word - carne - enter into that meat body once again! We come into the next incarnation full of excitement for the journey. Then it becomes difficult and the suffering makes us desperately look for a way out. Then we return to our origin and boredom creeps in and the sense of adventure promises us this time it will be different. So we ride the roller coaster of appearances again.

We take life very seriously. If we didn't then the game would become a joke. However I think it is a joke and if you want to beat the game you have to become the joker and see through the pretences of man and life. Ultimately if liberated you'd throw it all away and live on the periphery of civilization. What am I striving for? An expensive car and a bigger house so I can let my family, friends, and neighbours know that I am successful and am one up on them? To spend my free time shopping for the latest style in high end light fixtures? To beat the game, if that's what you want, treat it like a game and play it to the best of your ability or laugh at its absurdity. You sir or madam are creating the hamster wheel. You are creating the suffering. Let me say that again - you are creating the suffering. Cultivate and surround yourself in love and dream into existence a world transformed by love. That's how to beat the game and rescue the princess or wake the prince.