we are the virus

In my all-time favourite movie "The Matrix," Agent Smith describes the human species as acting like a virus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5foZIKuEWQ

As a species, we stand out from the crowd. It has struck me as peculiar that we are so much more intellectually advanced than every other species on this planet. It's not even close. You would think we'd at least have a rival. Maybe the Neanderthal was the competition, and we wiped that species out because we were the most ruthless.

After three years of this viral pandemic, I finally became interested in viruses. I am not a scientist, so my understanding is limited to what I read and understand. The consensus is a virus is not a living organism; instead, it is a latent strand of DNA or RNA that becomes activated or "comes alive" once it has invaded a host and penetrated the cellular membrane of the host. Once inside, the virus uses the mechanisms and energy of the host to biologically replicate itself. Now, the definition of biological life is what designates the virus as not being alive. In other words, our understanding and prejudice influences categorization.

Our novel MRNA vaccines would mimic the process of replication where they would use the spike protein of the invading virus to penetrate our defences, and use our own biological mechanisms against us by having our cells mass produce the spike protein. Our natural defences would then kick in, which would produce antibodies against the spike protein in order to slay the modified virus. Thus, upon subsequent contact with the unmodified virus, we would have a head start upon defending our territory against this foreign invader. This sounds like a good strategy; however, as with anything allopathic there are usually unintended consequences which have to be addressed. As a species, complex social formations make assessing the results of the human experiment difficult. We will prevail if we return to scientific enquiry, as opposed to protecting the reputations of various actors in the worldwide clown show. But I digress.

Viruses are given a small role in evolutionary biology due to their status of not being alive. From my layman's perch, I am going to disagree with this. Here's my take on it: A virus drives evolutionary adaptations in the host. Friendly strands of DNA or RNA would be integrated into the whole, say for instance a set of instructions which allows us to break down and digest animal protein. New levels of biological functioning are introduced into the host by these "mods." Mods are modifications which is jargon used in the computer world. They are software updates and by comparing our complex system to a computer operating system, I think it can help understand the role of viruses. In a computer system, the threat of rogue code also makes the OS stronger, and strategies are developed to repel unfriendly invaders. Modifications to code that improves the system are welcomed. I realize this is a simplistic example, but I like the analogy.

A virus is putting constant evolutionary pressure upon us to strengthen the species. We are exposed to different pathogens that may eventually kill us. Viruses will evolve to become less virulent and more contagious, thus priming the immune system of the human population. Subsequent generations retain the immunity, and we are better for the experience.

My pondering would eventually lead me to another line of thought. I'm a contrarian and I like to play on the edge of the other side. So, to further push this blog post into the category of fanciful speculation, I want to investigate something that happened to me seven years ago. I was in the Amazon jungle, and I drank this decoction called Huachuma, which is the San Pedro cactus. It's not as visionary as some of the other famous beverages of Peru, however it is a profound agent of introspection mixed in with a grandfatherly wisdom teacher, some open-eyed clear visions of what just is, along with a dose of the "feels." I was deep into the plant medicine teachings and there was this metaphorical explanation of life which was being taught. Being described were galactic parasites, reptilian in nature, that are inactive; however, they use us to come alive. Human bodies are stores of energy which they cultivate in order to resurrect their species wherever they land in the universe. It was very science fiction and "Matrix" like in that a human vessel was their method of reconstituting self after travelling long distances within the universe and then becoming sentient once they adapted to the biological mechanism. Humans were described to me as the ultimate generators of energy with brains who could house advanced intellects. Humans are being used to house these conscious entities. It was a very strange teaching at the time, and it did creep me out. There's always hidden truth to these teachings and they are conveyed through metaphor. I shelved this one because it just seemed so weird.

My contrarian nature comes into play in this regard. I know that humans are a physical product of our environment. The temple of the body is indeed unique, sacred, and is inexorably tied to the Earth. Biologically we evolved to survive on Earth and Earth only. A virus can exist anywhere it is not ripped apart because it uses no elemental energy and is not considered alive. It's pretty ingenious. What I am thinking is we are the product of our environment, and the evolutionary pressures of viruses molded us into a form that is hospitable to them. Instead of being parasitic, a virus is the potter of biological life forms. The human is the master stroke of their genius. The human structure allows their divine intelligence to blossom. The virus created the human to house viral royalty. Ha ha! What an interpretation!

The galactic prison of Earth is an exquisite setup. When you are ready to leave and be free you just do it. If you are still attached, you stay. It makes the universe a nicer place because the least desirable traits among us are attracted to the Earth and so remain. In fact, the greedy and lecherous among us enjoy their time so much they go about researching how to extend their stay indefinitely. The viral essence of whom we are exits the physical body upon death, is liberated, and free to choose their destiny. Subsequent visionary experiences revealed to me we are composed of love, this love being from the divine feminine, and we are powered by light. The light is the impetus of the divine masculine in constant motion, cycling from on to off. In order to taste all the delicacies of the universal playground, we develop means to inhabit form. Those trapped in a reincarnation model are captured by the desire to remain in a familiar form in a familiar place, instead of the adventurous spirit which will take them to places one can only dream of.

A virus' parent is an intelligent creature who has reduced its essence into individual strands of latent instructions which will re-assemble into another biological form within the universe. Having left the least desirable among us on earth, we can conduct another experiment in love somewhere else in the vast universe. How ingenious is that? This theory would make for a great science fiction book.

The technology of the virus satisfies a desire for novelty. The universe can be traversed without the need for biological necessities or energy, and all it has to offer can be sampled through attaching to a biological host on the planet the virus has invaded. The host is modified so the virus can fulfill desire.

They can recreate the essence of their civilization anywhere in the universe. It's clear though that they can't encode and reproduce individual experience, at least not in my experience here on earth. I don't really know who I am or where I came from. We don't know who we are and that's one code I want to crack. I want to remember with certainty my backstory. I'm content with this narrative, however fanciful it may seem. I'm content because I asked the question and I always get answers. I can get an understanding of my origins and where I came from but lost in this process is the unique experience central to my life form.

I can glimpse at who I am through experiences I have encountered, people who have crossed my path, and my own unfolding timeline on this earth journey. A great friend of mine just recently left his body. I was the one who would talk about liberation and attachments, but he was the one who made the jump and literally dove headfirst into the unknown where we once again taste freedom. We shared this uncanny experience at this sacred sight in Peru and he has told me about his revelation that we are star people. We come from the stars. My original maestro would tell us students something similar about our origins. I always thought it was fanciful until now when I'm piecing together all the clues. We came from the stars. Our advanced intelligence figured out a way to deconstruct our essence and scatter it through the universe. We reconstitute the juice in a biological vehicle that is attuned to the environmental waypoint on our fantastic journey. We come forth once again but remain ignorant of who we really are. Once we figure it out, we get ready to make the jump and leave as we have filled up the gas tank and are ready to continue the eternal adventure. I have attachments on Earth and am hesitant. Calling out to me is adventure and those who have left are awaiting my arrival. I know Earth is a penal colony and not for me. It's ruled by psychopaths and always will be because they will be indefinitely trapped. I don't like the greed and animosity. I don't feel at home on this planet. I'm not returning, that I'm sure of but I do feel a responsibility to those I am entrusted with. My prison sentence is extended until I can let it all go.

In closing, I take issue with Agent Smith's classification. First off, viruses are referenced in a pejorative sense by Agent Smith and the general population holds negative views towards viruses. They are a threat. But not always. The virus is our divine intelligence, and the earthbound primate is the host. The combination makes for the human. What Agent Smith describes of our behaviour is true. We are a plague on this planet. It's what we do. We are galactic travellers looking for a place to settle down and build a new world to satisfy our desires. Eros is the impetus for our incessant coming and going and we are so clever we figured out a way to sample the best of the delights of the universe. It's a game of the highest order as we wander vast distances following the trail of those we have established a connection with. I once opined to my friend that I sensed I knew him from some other time and that our teacher was someone from our past. I felt this was part of the game and that no matter where we go in the universe, he will be waiting for us, hidden away in some remote region away from the authorities who are trying to prevent us from discovering the secrets to the game. I realize it's quite a fanciful interpretation of existence. If we are eternal and this is all a game, then I've helped develop a pretty good adventure.

luck be a lady tonight

The forming of the left-hand path into defined groups is very amusing. You are going to find the answers you seek through introspection and a relentless search for truth. The clarity you seek will not come from the other and their words. However, the left-hand path leads to the heart and unity, so the pull towards community is understandable though the homogenization of beliefs will terminate understanding.

The perception of the left-hand path in culture is perfection. It's two-fold in its relationship to culture. The connection to the occult and satanism keeps people away which is a positive. The difficulty is walking the path when you see it because of the cultural roadblocks. This process assures one of their intentions. You wouldn't do it unless you knew it's the way.

The left-hand path is the path of the heart. The Great Goddess will lead you back home to your heart and like all paths, you sure can get lost on the way. Human beings want someone to worship, and you'll meet Satan along the way, and he is very cunning. He will fulfill all your desires, if that's what you want. Like Odysseus and his men experienced, the temptations are great. You can rub the lamp, the genie will appear, and will give you what you want. These ancient stories are myths which are concealing the truth. The wreckage along the path is great because when we see it, we want it. Power. Greed. Control. Desire fulfillment. Yeah, I want it all! And thus, you show your hand, and the game is over.

The left-hand path is difficult to discover because it is not lit up. The right-hand path of glory has the light and attracts the followers who chase the divine spirit. It's a foregone conclusion that we will be attracted to the bright lights. Who wants to do the work on themselves in anonymity? When I become ultra-holy, I want everyone to know about it. I want to take my place among the great enlightened sages of all time. I want to be famous for my beatitude.

Who knows

doesn’t talk.

Who talks

doesn’t know.

Closing the openings,

shutting doors

Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching (translation by Ursula K. Le Guin)

One of the first lessons I received from my foray into the occult were these two paths of right and left. I remember in vision looking to my right and seeing the nighttime jungle lit up with a radiant 3D quality to it. When I looked to my left, it was dull and lifeless. I didn't understand it at the time but duly recorded my observations. Like everyone else, I was attracted to the light, yet my subsequent explorations of the subconscious led me to the darkness. I fought the presentation of this part of what just is, until finally letting go of my fear, and developing the courage to explore. My world changed after that internal struggle was over and I was free to explore the darkness, unencumbered by the fear inculcated into me by a shepherding cultural authority.

You will be tested. I am intimately familiar with who we call Satan. The truth is the only way is through, and the carnage is immense. Us humans all have something that is going to wreck us and fuck up our game, and the only way to continue along the path of the heart is to walk through the fire. Head straight into the pyre of desire and let it consume you. One of the master teachers, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, died a drunk at the age of 48. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was full of lust and Rolls Royces. Ha! You think little you can do it? Who do you think you are?

I'm naturally left-handed and was gifted this incarnation with the tools to finally walk the path back home to the garden of the heart. This doesn't mean I can avoid the pitfalls, but I do have it within me to be successful. I know what mortal desire I carry within, and I've tried all the tricks to get rid of it. Finally, I accepted it and headed straight for the fire, prepared to face my ruin. I had to do it. I flooded my senses and ate so much of the candy. I then saw the way past the big crater on the path. The truth will set you free. Throw off the chains of cultural control and shame. Full indulging of the senses will in turn make you sick and the overload on your system will repel you. The hangover after a drunken night out makes you claim you'll never drink alcohol again. Sure enough, within a few days you are back at it. The trick is to make revolting the thought of just a drop of alcohol. You'll have to really poison yourself, almost to the point of death, to enact the transformation and come through the fire.

If I only knew about this 15 years ago it would have prevented a lot of suffering! Admittedly, this method didn't help Rajneesh or Trungpa. They succumbed. The teachings were true, but the man was consumed in the fire.

I don't know what the future holds and that gives the game the juice needed to continue. I think I'm past the last obstacle in the path which was the remaining chakra gate to the heart. My fate is resting precariously on the balance at the Hall of Ma'at.

As always, in this strange world time will tell and reveal my fortune. A glance at the clock says 11:11, so maybe luck will be a lady tonight.

satan and me

I think if I really understood what awaits me, I'd pack my things and leave tonight. It's my karma to stay and to see my attachments to their completion. I get it. The next stage of the adventure can wait a little longer while I fulfill my duties. Para el bien de todos. I have seen the template and how it is done. Parker is unselfish and wanted to pass the torch. It's hard to accept he's gone, but slowly I'm getting understanding.

I felt Parker's presence today while out in nature. I brought some Nunu snuff, which is uncured tobacco ground up into a powder. I have more experience with cured tobacco snuff, and I have noticed Nunu burns less. I snorted a good one up my right nostril, probably the most I've ever done at once. Immediate tears to my eyes. As the discomfort subsided, I felt him with me. He is free as a bird and tells me how I'm going to love it. He was ready to leave earth and then it happened. He will be with us when mi hermanos y hermanas go to Peru. He is so happy we are still going. It's going to be epic. We are star people. You'll see.

I've told the story of the first time I drank Ayahuasca several times. The Great Goddess immediately told me to come away with her and I declined. I knew it meant leaving my body and Earth behind and I was definitely not ready. I told her I had a family to support and knowledge to discover. I had my attachments for sure. I know they are what keeps me here. She understood and said she'd wait. I feel the same with Parker as he was ensuring me that death is not so bad, and I picture him saying it with a grin. He always seems to go first and do the heavy lifting. I'm older, but he is more the big brother type. He's the set-up man.

I haven't told the story about my third time drinking Ayahuasca as much as the first. It's uncomfortable and not culturally acceptable, so I am hesitant to retell it. I was in contact with the dark face of God, i.e., Diablo, and he offered me untold power over all the universe, like in the Gospels when he takes Jesus up to the top of the mountain and offers him power over all the world. Instead of the world, I got offered the universe. I'd be the leader of a bunch of misogynist galactic misfits who rule over creation. I was delightfully naive and said I didn't want that. I entered the occult to find the Great Goddess. These sideshows of power were continually distracting me. I wanted to see her again. But I mention this because when you find the doorway beyond the veil chances are you are going to be offered power, and most people are going to jump at the chance of even a little bit of power. I had told Parker this story and he relayed a similar story about being offered power. I was always going to be a tough nut to crack so I got offered the big prize. And I declined it. I met Jesus two days later. I'm not kidding.

The next time I was in direct contact with Satan is when I went back to Peru two years later. When I drank Ayahuasca again he was waiting for me. He threatened to kill me and said I wouldn't get home alive. He definitely wasn't pleased that I returned. He thought he had scared me away for good. He threatened my family, and I said do what you must, even kill me. I'll sign whatever you want me to but leave them out of it. The challenge ended before I signed on the dotted line to give up my soul. It was a test of my intentions, and I was willing to sacrifice my life to ensure no one was affected by my choices. When I drank Ayahuasca again two nights later, the Great Goddess returned and told me he won't bother me again. He hasn't regarding power and temptation, but I still had to clear my fear of him. Eventually, I passed the tests, became a warrior, and then explored my darkness. We are now best friends. This admission is an explanation of the tests which involve gobs of power to really see what I was made of. I know I passed them with flying colours. I know I'm not in this for money, fame, fortune, or power. My intentions were made clear.

Service seems like the only way forward. It solves all my problems I still struggle with. Money is a big one in thinking I need it for security in my old age. I can let it go and support others in their journey, hopefully leading them towards what I have found. I know you have to burn through your desires before you can get down to business. I can use my money to help my loved ones live out their dreams. Dreams are code for desires, and it is desire that brings us here to Earth. I want those I love to fulfill their desires. Project this out to the Great Mother and see the Earth is a place where her children can fulfill all their dreams. If I started a school for spiritual fulfillment, I would model the introductory courses upon Tantric practices. I'd amp up the chances of fulfilling your carnal desires, so you get your fill and then see you are still empty. All calories and no nourishment. Then they will see the emptiness and look for answers.

Earth is the place for you to satiate your lusts. This is why you are here and the gatekeeper, jailer, or whoever you wish to call him is Satan. Satan makes sure that your actions create the distressing amount of suffering on our planet. Suffering is built into the Earth game. After getting our fill, there is a chance we wake up. We can't escape the take. The best we can do is practice reciprocity. When we take, we give back.

I live a good life. Giving back involves service. I have gifts I can share with those who are looking for answers. I can give them knowledge and understanding and steer them in directions which will help them find what it is they are looking for. I've been through the fire and came out the other side. Fulfillment of the spiritual path is the most difficult undertaking of your lifetime, propelling you through challenges and encounters with the darkest of the dark. Making good choices always works out. Once you see the answer to the multitude of tests, you can let go of the fear and find your way.

exit stage left

What happens when we die? This is a question we all ponder at some point and the unknown leads towards an understandable fear of death. Realizing I'll never 100% know what happens until my time comes, I've constructed the following scenario:

When I die, I will be immediately be tossed into the throes of uncontrollable laughter due to the realization of the great cosmic joke. The joke is I was in hell, didn't know it, and I didn't want to leave. I was content with my imprisonment. As the laughter fades, I will be struck with a deep compassion in my heart for all my sisters and brothers who are still in hell. I will see their suffering and want to do what I can to alleviate it. The ancestral spirits will come to me and tell me to let it be. The suffering is designed to lead us to our heart and the heart is the ticket out of hell. Later, I will be invited to a great celebration and the guest of honour will be me. Not only did I go to hell, wallow in misery, and suffer, I also transformed my being into my destiny of an eternal being of love and light. I went to hell to enact the transformation I was seeking. In the direst of circumstances, I learned to love and follow my heart.

I think my predicament is not exactly the same as yours. What I have learned over my 50+ years wandering the earth is that we have a reason we came here to the earth carnival. I intuit for some it is to fulfill desires of power and greed, some to satiate lusts, and so on. I sense I subconsciously knew when I was much younger, in my teens, why I was here. I wanted to figure out the riddle of existence. I was enthralled by the questions pertaining to why this all exists. I found apocalyptic literature very interesting. I was exposed to ancient Egypt in an enrichment class at school. I saw the treasures of Tutankhamun at the Art Gallery. I also recall being intrigued by tobacco, though I dared not try a cigarette due to my parents' influence. They also steered me away from any kind of drugs, telling me I would go crazy if I used them. For that guidance, I give them much thanks. Finally trying psychedelics drugs in my 40's, allowed me to properly integrate the experience. Taking these substances in my youth would not have turned out well.

So, I can look back upon my life and see the clues to my path, though I didn't know it at the time. At middle age, I was finally ready to explore the reason I was here. This is quite recent and so when I look back at the events that have unfolded, I have realized that as soon as I picked up my sword and started following the trail, the doors would open. The coincidences and synchronicities were astounding. At the time I didn't know I was the magician performing these acts; instead, I just marvelled at what was happening.

I started studying ancient Egypt. I was gifted a trip to Egypt.

I went in depth on a search for the Great Goddess. I took a course on her at university.

I learned the ways to contact her. Percussion, ecstatic dance, intoxication, and shamanism. This led me to Ayahuasca.

I found her and plunged headfirst into the occult world of spirit.

I found a maestro and my tribe.

I respected the path and found the path of the heart.

I led with my heart, let go of the judging mind, and saw with clarity the beauty of the world and the horrible suffering.

It's my karma, my path, what's yours?

Psychedelics such as Ayahuasca will make you a "man of knowledge" as Carlos Castañeda would say. It is important you understand what is meant by knowledge. Knowledge is observing through the senses what is, and psychedelics unlock an occult sense. You are witness to a strange inner world. You now know about this realm. Going by personal experience, you don't understand it. That comes with time and in my case from shedding layers of preconceptions that were inculcated by culture and a refusal to accept who I am. Once I dropped the spin, I understood.

Psychedelics will cause a lot of casualties if released upon the general population. Our educational system breeds obedience and the mind of the follower is weak. When one is given knowledge and an opportunity to throw off your chains, you'll want to retreat to the safety of your overlords. I know this is the case because it is what I experienced. Psychedelics scared me at first because I saw into a strange world I didn't understand, and then I was shown I'm in prison. I spun the information around thinking psychedelics were going to imprison my mind. Turns out they were freeing my mind and my ego's instinct was to turn me against the agent of consciousness that would free me. Ego was attached to culture and culture is the puppeteer. The master said psychedelics are bad. Of course they are because they will turn you against him.

The mind's inclination is to fear the unknown. Psychedelics show you the unknown and thus the trepidation. I also feel a twinge of unease before each trip. A bad trip early in the game will chase you away. I needed a long time to recover from such an experience. The pursuit of knowledge led me back and I conquered the fear. I'm not scared anymore and once I transformed into a warrior the game changed. I see into the mystery, and I see who I am. I saw the great game and I know why we aren't supposed to know until we are ready. Once ready, you see the path back home.

I don't have anything pressing left in this incarnation to discover. There's always more, but I intuit what I came here to do, I've done. I will live out my remaining years with the knowledge of having discovered my path and walking it to the end. My heart is open and as long as I'm alive I will continue to cultivate Her and allow the flower to bloom in a glorious coming forth.

When the Great Goddess first told me to come away with her, I told her no. I still had attachments and knowledge to seek out. The knowledge part is complete. I still have the attachments; however, I see the purpose set out before me. As long as I choose to remain in this world, I will honour my commitments and intentions to provide for my attachments. I will be the node in the flow who is the dependable rock which allows for a safety net. I will be the rock for those who I am directly attached to as they find their way in the world. I don't need the riches; I live a simple life. My gift is to provide. I sense that instead of fighting a continual battle with money, I should just let it go. It took me a while to figure out this puzzle because culture instills in you a need to accumulate and prepare for an unknown future. Then you spin on the hamster wheel trying to get ahead, and situations are thrown your way which prevent you from ever getting too far ahead of the game. So, you move your legs faster, trying to get there, but you never know where there is.

The goalposts always get moved and there is always another mountain to climb. It never ends, whether material or spiritual. I finally have the wisdom to say that's enough. I know I have all the spiritual knowledge I need, and I've walked the path back home. Materially, I have more than I need and can use the bounty to help others find their light on the path they are uniquely walking. To free yourself from an artificial necessity to accumulate is the way. I'm ready to leave, but I will honour my incarnation. Honouring my life means helping others and being of service. I can let go gradually of my attachments and in the process be of service.

in passing

I was taking some time to think about time. What I was thinking about is that time is a measurement of motion and distance caused by motion. This line of thinking leads me towards throwing away notions of the past and future and understanding it is always now. To reconcile this conundrum in my brain I think of existence as an unfolding of a process. The process is not pre-ordained but like a plant that flowers, ultimately it is going to flower unless an event terminates its growth. Without getting bogged down in the vagaries of the philosophy of time, I transitioned into a related topic. The topic is the intrinsic knowledge that everything is the flow of the same source, which is my way of describing non-duality. We are the ones who create separation through our sense perceptions. Much like time, it is distance that creates duality in that objects that are far apart in time give the illusion they are separate. Conceptually, I understand all this.

The fact remains though that we do have specific sense perceptions that evolved in order to give us a sense of separation. So, was this by accident or is it the natural order? In other words, is the progression of energy that cycles between non-duality and duality; to wit darkness and light, all part of the process? Is the pull of adventure and gamesmanship the juice that manifests the universe and creates a giant playground to make all our dreams come true?

You see, I became skeptical of non-duality being the only true state of energy and that duality was an illusion because of the fingerprint and how no two human fingerprints seem to be alike. What is the purpose of that biological curiosity? I deduced it is because of the divine feminine’s power of being able to take energy and create form in conjunction with the divine masculine’s ability to separate form. The mother gives birth to the form and the father cuts the umbilical cord thus bringing the game to life. The mother tags all her children as unique snowflakes and the father wills his offspring onwards to create a life worthy of a god. Non-dualism and dualism go together, no matter how hard you linguistically try to keep non-duality away from the intellectual morass. I'll concede non-duality is one up on dualism and that the darkness is the base from which light comes forth. Duality saves face by knowing non-duality is unrecognizable without duality.

So, does this mean our expressions of intelligence and behaviour reflect the characteristics of the source? We are but projections of the psyche of our eternal parents. As children of the eternal twinned power of feminine and masculine, we are given the gift to live out the adventure of life in a playground created by the mother and given the enlivening power by the spirit of the father. 

Time separates us from our ancestors and future prodigy. Our birth allows us to interact in a physical form with beings who have come forth in our lifetime. We are shielded from the past and we will become a memory for the future. While in a body, distance can also play the role of time. We are separated from others by large distances which is resolved by investing some time into the problem. Time allows us to close the distance on objects that are far away from us.

Birth into a body and the death of the body are events intrinsically tied to time. Instead of distance being the cause of separation, the lack of a physical body causes separation with those who are beyond time. Conversely, having a body separates me from those who don't have a body. I remain in a harmonic field with people, animals, and plants and do not resonate with the "dead."

So, to recap, separation is caused by chronological time, distance, and energetic form. Objective distance can keep us separated and is bridged through the primitive investment of travel. I am shielded from interaction with other physical beings who have come and gone before me because they appeared in this plane at a different time than me. The different states of our energetic forms prevent us from now meeting. My energetic signature is vibrating at a different frequency than one who doesn't have a shell of a body. My frequency instructs my energetic pulse to create a shell, which is my body. Death releases me from my shell, my oscillation increases, and I enter a different energetic plane. Another phrase for energetic plane would be plane of consciousness.

When a great shaman I knew was in failing health he would tell us students, "Where do you think I'm going, brother." He knew he was going to depart to the other side of the curtain. He gave us the tools to access the other side and the expectation is we will use them. A dear friend of mine and fellow student recently just passed, and this catapulted me into further completing my studies about vibration.

At death where does one go? We change frequency and become part of an occult world which is shielded from the living. I've known for over nine years that changing your vibration allows you to bridge the gap between these consciousness planes. The sum of the universe is all here and now. Now is the state of the universe. Time gives the illusion of separation; however, we are never apart. We just think we are because of the rate of our energetic vibration. If I want to interact with the "dead," I need to change my frequency to match their rate and enter a harmonic resonance with them.

If you strike a tuning fork with a hammer, the adjacent tuning forks which are in tune will start to vibrate. Think about that for a moment. If physical beings are tuned, then we can interact with each other. Language is a tuning fork. Love is a tuning fork. Hate is a tuning fork. If you have a disturbance in your frequency, i.e., schizophrenia, then the ability to harmonize with others is impaired. Along the same line of reasoning, if I can discover the secret to harmonizing with the dead, you know the ones without a body, then I can interact with them as well.

I know how to change my frequency and have had further instruction about the process. If you sit in an Ayahuasca ceremony with a good shaman, they will sing a song, called an icaro, which creates a shared frequency for the circle of drinkers. The visionary activity will have the potential to be shared. The Ayahuasquero can in turn send out a song of healing to the group. Furthermore, your frequency is being altered which allows you to enter previously obfuscated realms of consciousness. The change is gradual enough that an attentive student can witness the acceleration or deceleration of their vibrational signature and in turn describe the experience as a trip. The movement through different frequencies gives the experience a sense of adventure, while being able to maintain a frequency for a period of time allows for interaction with various gods, goddesses, demons, ancestors, and the like.

Ayahuasca is a Quechua word, and the meaning is something like "Vine of the Dead." Sounds spooky! Being an attentive student allows you to understand that the language used describes that through Ayahuasca you can interact with your dead ancestors. In other words, the potion will lift the veil by allowing you to change your frequency. Ayahuasca isn't the only substance which can do this. I've experienced the phenomenon as well with Huachuma, Peyote, Magic Mushrooms, and this little-known snuff called Vilca. Vilca gets you there in an awful hurry. In addition, dreams can catapult you into other worlds and so plants like tobacco and mugwort can fall into the vibration altering category as well as these are dream plants.

Energy is just what is and the nature of energy is manifest in all systems and objects within our dualistic universe. Sound is the best path towards understanding the vibrational nature of the universe with music holding the key to understanding. An octave describes eight steps to get from one note to its next appearance at a higher vibrational rate. The frequency is doubled each octave. The relationship of the frequencies of the notes stays true as the octave gets higher and higher. You can combine these notes and they will sound pleasing. The Hindus have a chakra system, which is similar to the musical scale, that has seven nodes located within the physical body. The eighth chakra would be the next repetition of the energetic scale, similar to the musical scale. Applying this knowledge to my understanding of traversing planes of consciousness reveals though I am limited by the frequencies I can access while in my body, I know that if I discover the note/frequency of where I want to visit, I can go there by being in "tune" with the mathematical relationship between all the notes.

My energy can exist on many planes at once. The body caps our ability to traverse these planes but through resonance we can still travel. Our echo is felt through the realms we inhabit without a body. In our world we call this phenomenon a ghost. The energy that remains here on Earth after our bodies perish is the posthumous ghost.

Ever since experiencing an awakening of consciousness that allowed me to go beyond this plane of consciousness into other frequencies, populated by gods, goddesses, demons, dragons, jaguars, serpents, gold castles and so on I’ve noticed that back in the "real world” if I get real quiet I can access altered forms of consciousness. Deep meditation is an example of being able to get still and just let it flow. On occasion I can enter visionary activity that rivals an Ayahuasca vision though I can’t do this on command, and it is rarer I can get this far into it. Something I’ve noticed since I first drank Ayahuasca is with focus and tunnel vision I can see energy. I see little strands darting into and out of existence. This I can do on command. I took it up a notch on the weekend as I sat in the woods as the sun set. The sun’s rays glistened upon these silk threads in a glorious display of beauty and awe. I figured these strands were spider’s webs catching rays with their movement making the light dance lightly upon them. Some of them were just hanging in the air without attachment. One of these fine pieces of the threads of consciousness appeared right in front of me and danced a familiar dance to a light ball of energy I once witnessed about four years ago. It was awesome to glimpse the energy which makes up this mental construct that pulses between this world and wherever it comes from.

My first time drinking Ayahuasca involved the Great Goddess telling me all is vibration. I had a cursory idea of its role, but I didn't understand. Drinking Huachuma in the Andes mountains involved the grandfather spirit of the cactus giving me a course in frequency and challenged me with homework to figure it out. It's been a slow journey to understanding. My friend's death has once again sparked the flame within as he always has. I know I can get answers if I put the question out to the ether and I don't abuse the privilege. After he passed, I asked for understanding of death, where do we go, and how do I contact the dead if it is possible. I have the answers and now I just have to run the experiment.

remembering to forget

The greatest gift you could give yourself is the ability to forget; especially if you are omnipotent and capable of transforming energy into anything you desire. Not only that but an additional gift would involve a sense of something finite instead of the infinite. The rush would certainly be enlivening as the race against time commences. This universe is running down so the game will eventually end and thus the motivation.

If you couldn’t forget about all you know then eventually there’s no novelty left in the universe. Have you ever overdosed on a new tune that originally pulls you in and you long to hear it repeatedly? In time, the enchantment wears off and occasionally you listen to the old song for nostalgia's sake, but by then it has lost the hooks it once had in you. Love affairs follow a similar path. After sitting with this dilemma for a long time, I’d hazard to guess we’d all say, “fuck it - let’s have an adventure where I get lost in my own creation, forget the sum total of my experience, and see what happens."

If I’m god and I can forget I’m god it makes the game pretty good, while at the same time a psychological experiment to see how I’d react in a simulation where I don’t know the other characters are also me. I would see how I treat them when I designate them the other.

Amnesia gives you a chance to enter an earth world of suffering with a clean slate. The test is to see how you react to the temptations, the chance to enrich oneself at the expense of others, or to become of service. Without prior knowledge of self, you learn valuable insights into your nature if you find yourself ignorant of your omnipotence. Knowing of your divine nature and the intrinsic oneness of all allows you to embrace your sisters and brothers as they are you. Why would you hurt yourself? Not knowing of this relationship gives the opportunity to love the other unconditionally or to use others for gain and perpetuate suffering. It's a sobering test because all will fail at first. Nobody will get a perfect score. As with all teachings, failure will force you to look for the answer. If you wake up to the human condition, you can make your way towards the answer you hoped you would gravitate towards.

Of course, I’d try and figure out the game. That’s part of what makes it so grand. I created this impenetrable game board but did leave some agents of consciousness to discover along with myths and coincidences that follow the seeker around - well, enough of them to keep you guessing. You see, I’m on to the ruse and can see through it a bit, however I can’t be sure. I’m not sure I will ever be 100% convinced either way. I don’t find that frustrating; instead, I find it funny and rather ingenious.

I’m going to keep seeking.

I wanted to know the origins of beliefs at the onset of middle age. I wanted to figure out why we humans believe what we do. This question led to many others and fourteen years later I satiated my desire to know. It's funny as I answer all my questions, I do have a new one. I realize novelty is what makes eternity interesting. New experiences light us up and so we bake amnesia into the cards of our comings and goings.

The Greek god Dionysos is the master of the drama. He keeps everything fresh and new and gives us so many roles to play on the grand stage of life. Why would the eternal return involve playing the same part? If I come again, I want a new role to play, and of course I want no recollection of my previous roles.

But why not? Is it cheating if I do find out my previous roles? Is it unfair if I definitely find out I have done this trip before, and the spectre of death becomes laughable? If I know for sure how the game is set-up then I think I can play it with more gusto, instead of conserving my life energy. I know this incarnation I wanted knowledge, so I avoided the dares, situations, and addictions which would terminate my life. I look towards a new game of adventure.

So, that's my new project and ask from my benefactors. I want to find out the way to explore my previous comings before the going. I can at least ask.

breakthrough of understanding

Repetition is the hammer of the teacher's toolbox. The constant pounding of concepts eventually breaks through my thick skull, and I understand the lesson. The constant repetition of events is the knowledge that eventually leads to the breakthrough of understanding.

It's been opined that there are no coincidences and there's a reason for everything. It's true because there are infinite threads each moment may lead to, but your choice determines which path will be followed and produces a result you were intrinsically intertwined with. There're random choices each moment that may seem trivial but have consequences which could inexorably forever alter your life. When you make the decision to get in a car and travel on the highway, one of the paths you may take could lead to a car wreck which maims or kills you. A slight change in your trajectory and you avoid disaster. This way of the world sums up fortune and the unfortunate nature of this strange life. A great friend of mine was involved in a fatal accident a short while ago and this thought occurred to me - if only I had texted him that afternoon, I could have changed the outcome. The situation would have been altered and he'd still be with us. I also have the thought that it's selfish of me to hold on to him. I'm not privy to his inner life. His work on earth was completed and thus the incidence of catastrophe was increased, and the chances of exiting earth multiplied. If you wanted an example of the love and light we are striving for, he had it in spades. He had another good fifty years in him to lead by example, or he could exit the big blue internment camp and let his memory be the pole star to what it is we all seek.

The attachments weren't strong enough to keep him here. I don't think he had any. He is a wandering sadhu and a cosmic vagabond. I remember Ram Dass telling a story about a guru who was going to leave his body and he implored his followers to get him some tobacco. The attachment to tobacco would keep him here. I see my attachments and I remember one of my initial teachings from the plant medicine Ayahuasca. The Great Goddess appeared almost immediately to me and told me to come away with her. I intrinsically knew it meant leaving the earth plane of consciousness and re-joining her. I was laughingly naive to the whole understanding of what was taking place. I told her of my attachments and how I couldn't go. The lesson was showing me how attachments keep you in your prison clothes. When I die, I know she is waiting for me. I know who she is and the awesomeness that awaits me. I feel a responsibility for what I have brought about on earth and desire to fulfill my responsibilities. I understand why I'm here and I have found what I was looking for; in other words, though I know there is always more, everything I came to earth for I have fulfilled. Like my friend, I am ready to leave. It was almost ten years ago that the Goddess asked me to come away with her. If she did it now, I would.

In the last year I physically started letting go of stuff. It's very cathartic to let go of belongings. I'm down to the basics in terms of necessities. This coincides with knowing on my spiritual path I'm on the last leg. I'm walking the path of the heart back home. It's a tough climb and I struggle with it. My heart is open, however still I am a work in progress. I know it's the last mountain I'll climb. My attachment is to family. I recently let go of the attachment to money. Mentally, it is one of the most liberating experiences available. I always worry about having enough and then there's the spectre of retirement and saving for old age. After letting go of an attachment to life and subsequently wealth as security, I was able to channel the energy into being of service. I guess you could say I'm attached to being of service! I have no problem making money; it's easy for me. I use it to allow my children to live out their desires. I want them to fulfill their dreams. I want them to experience life, and then hopefully see through the game and find peace. This seems to me to be the secret sauce to the life game. Burn through your desires, see how fleeting it all is, see through the game, ask questions, and then find the way back home.

Oh, that hammer. My inner life is darkness. Physically, I love the night. I feel energized in the evening, while the mornings are a drag. Getting up early makes me die a little inside each day. I'd stay up all night if I didn't have responsibilities in the morning. I don't radiate light like my friend. I wrote that he is the light to my darkness because I recognized it after his passing. My inner journeys have been overwhelmingly dark. In terms of my inner masculine experiences, it was a major clue that I explored the darkness before the light. The love and light that I strive towards have always been challenging. I can feel the love in the darkness; however, the light does remain elusive at times. I have learned not to fight it; instead, I go with the flow. I look within and I see the darkness brings me peace. My calm and peaceful nature comes from my inner experience of darkness. The coin always has two sides. The raw elemental energy of the darkness can explode in a destructive rage and the flip side is an unbelievable calmness. And here I am, riding the ebb and flow of what just is. On the other hand, look at the light. The light brings us together with the other side an unbearable righteousness as we castigate into hell those who do not see things our way and prolong our separation. Every blade has a double edge.

Part of the exploration of my shadow involved reconciliation with my dominant nature. I ceased to objectify that part of my psyche and befriended my shadow, eventually leading to accepting the shadow as my dominant nature. The teachings coincided with my last semester and the path of the heart. My life journey has been unique and ultimately led to an understanding of self. I sought knowledge. At first, knowledge of the world and universe was my goal. The external search led to an inner journey of discovery. The darkness comes naturally to me. I look within and I see the light and the darkness which constitutes self. I gravitated to the darkness and after a lifetime of denying him, I finally realized my work in this go around revolves around understanding my darkness. The why and the purpose. What is the reason for the darkness in my universe?

The big understanding this past year is the divine nature of suffering. I was taught how suffering is the greatest tool for transformation and if I wanted to change my ways then a healthy dollop of suffering was the path forward. This applies to all who have incarnated into the flesh here on earth. Earth is designed to make sure you are either suffering or its spectre is always creeping up on you. There's no escape and it forces you to look for a way out of the suffering. One way is to accumulate wealth and try to control your situation for as long as possible until finally chance nails you or the inescapability of physical decay and death gets you. In today's world, you can prolong your life and extend your suffering if you desire.

The darkness is the rock upon which everything comes forth in this dualistic universe. Without the darkness, there is no light. The opening chapter of the first book of the Bible totally gets this. Here's the passage from Genesis (New American Standard Bible):

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

The universe is conjured. There is no separation as all is dark. From the darkness, God introduces light. Light ushers in duality and the universe comes alive. The ancient Egyptians used two concepts of time to explain the nature of existence. Djet time refers to a linear unbroken line of eternity, existing in perpetuity. It is the darkness upon which all rests. Neheh refers to the cyclical nature of time in a dualistic construct where light as energy comes and goes. The cycle is observed, and we create our idea of time. Time comes and goes. Time comes forth by day and returns to the dark by night.

Every day the hammer strikes. Eventually, one of those strikes cracks the shell and understanding pours forth.

faithfully

Based upon my own journey, I'd hazard to guess we all are here for different reasons. We all have our unique Karma. That's why it's hard to pin down religious beliefs or a spiritual dogma. Eventually, someone will experience something so profound and different from the rest of the group, which will be at odds with the teachings. I like to think we share this incarnation via accessing a plane of consciousness, ala a shared frequency, and conspire to live out our desires with ample conscious playmates. Ultimately, what I have conjured is different than what you have brought into being, though the world may share aspects, and so we live in a common dream.

The information I have mined from plant medicine experiences has been truthful. There has been no deceit. I didn't understand a great deal of it, that's for sure. I was scared of some of the knowledge and feared the cast of characters I met. I was subsequently challenged, and the fear threatened to lay waste to me. I passed the tests and made it through to the other side.

My eyes are wide open. I saw that this incarnation is the embodiment of what we call hell. I was harassed by the Devil himself, and then having survived the experience we became friends. If I were part of some religious group, how could I tell them about my experiences and not have them wonder if I was nuts or worse throw me out for entertaining the occult and a relationship with Satan? He's two-faced. Satan is the dark side of whom we call God. I know why he does what he does and it's all part of the divine unfolding. I laugh at the bullshit in the world. I marvel at how dumb and hypnotized people can be. It's alright. It's what makes the world go round and that cyclical turning will eventually shake your tree, wake you up, and propel you on a journey to seek answers. The answers you get will be different than mine. That is assured.

So, the above primer and admission of my dark dalliances, which probably either repelled you because you now think this guy is a disciple of the Devil or made you wonder if I was certifiably insane, was an introduction in order to tell you about my journey to the path of the heart where I found my way back home and discovered the reason why I have done this whole trip.

When I look back on the events of my life it's undeniably a progression that finally led to finding my soulmate and my mate is the Great Goddess.

This story is uniquely my own and if you are still reading, you will undoubtedly laugh at the connections I will reveal but be assured it makes perfect sense to me.

When I hit puberty, I had an open heart, and I idealized the opposite sex. I daydreamed of falling in love and leaving little notes to my beloved at breakfast expressing the love I had for her. My favourite rock group was a band called "Journey" and I spent many hours listening to their albums. My favourite song of theirs is called "Faithfully." It's a rock ballad and in my youth these songs spoke to my open heart. Faithfully embodies the separation from your loved one and the resulting longing. There is a line in the song that exclaims, "I get the joy of re-discovering you." I've previously written about the idea of novelty, and how we humans are always seeking out the thrill of a new experience or discovery.  If somehow you could bake amnesia into the game, then eternity would be given quite the boost! The song goes on to ask his loved one, "Oh girl, please stand by me. I'm forever yours. Faithfully." The singer tells his soulmate to wait for him and makes a promise to return a new man. Faithfully recently popped up on my music playlist and really struck a chord with me.

Another song of theirs called "Separate Ways," tells the story of the separation between lovers. The time apart will renew the love between the pair though at the time the divide was so great they had to part. The song ends with the cry, "I still love you girl. I really love you girl."

All this sounds trivial and part of the irrational brain of a pubescent boy, flooded with hormones and new feelings he can't process. My teenage years are still with me, and I know subsequent relationships with women closed my heart and I lost the ability to love. Caring for a pet kept a tiny crack open and eventually a search for meaning led me to this man called don Howard, who I met in the Amazon jungle. He was a sly man and had this program that was designed to open your heart though he never told me that, but after he did it I clearly saw what he was doing. There was a ceremony we did with a plant called Bobinzana where he'd tell us this is good for your heart. He did so many subtle things that would lead to a moment where finally a dose of this plant medicine called Huachuma blasted open my heart.

When middle-age struck, I started searching for meaning and answers. The process led me to Egypt, and I started to intuit the presence of the divine, specifically the Goddess. This feeling just grew stronger until I was quite sure that not only did she exist, but that I could also contact her. This led me to find a way to be in her presence. The searching led me to shamanism and plant medicines. Upon drinking Ayahuasca for the first time, I was immediately placed in a hidden realm where I was with her. She placed me in a position of exultation, and I felt special and so deeply loved. It was the greatest experience. She told me to drop everything and come away with her. I didn't understand what was happening and I told her no I still have things left on earth to accomplish and a family to take care of. She accepted my answer, and we spent the rest of the night together, with her teaching me about the nature of reality and to honour the feminine divine in my life.

Further to this meeting, I had visions of this cosmic love affair. I visited her castle made of gold, where she was held prisoner. She told me to go after her captor husband to release her. In the castle, we made love and became one again. As I set out after her jailer, I found out it was I who was that prison guard and that she was my heart. I kept her imprisoned. That was a tough lesson. I later had a vision where she put on an erotic dance for me in the Temple of the Great Goddess Hathor at Dendera in ancient Egypt. When she approached and laid on top of me it was the most insanely erotic feeling of pleasure I have ever felt. I remember it well. The shaman's song ended, and the scene disappeared. I thought to myself I'm not in Peru for sexual thrills and did not want the vision to continue. I still wasn't ready.

My plant medicine journeys led me towards transformation into a jaguar and climbing the mountain of knowledge and discovery. I physically made a trip to the Andes mountains and climbed to the top. While drinking Huachuma, I was witness to my own wedding ceremony with the Goddess with this blindman called PJ playing a sacred drum. I had no idea someone could make drumming sound the way he did. It was surreal and a perfect day with my eternal love.

It has only been in subsequent years where I gained an understanding that I was able to see she is my soulmate and after a long separation we were ready to reconcile; however, my current attachments and lack of knowledge of my own divine self meant I was not ready. My continued journey with plant medicines revealed my nature and opened my heart to the point where I could finally say, "I'm ready." The transformation of self and the opening of my heart is my gift to the Great Goddess. I have transformed back into the idealistic lover of my youth; I understand who I am and why I have done this whole trip, and I'm ready to come home to my eternal bride.

My understanding of this path I have chosen and weaved into this strange world is a recent revelation. As with all my understanding, I soon got confirmation that what I intuit is correct. Two days later, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and the TV was on in the background. Normally, I play my own music and can't hear the TV but this night I wasn't playing any music. The show on the TV ended and as the credits rolled the song "Faithfully" played. I thought to myself, "There it is. This is all true and my understanding is correct."

I am ready to return to Her. I'll live out the rest of my life, tend to my attachments, and take care of my dependents. I'll be of service. It's all good. Nothing really matters. Then I will come home.

I'm forever yours. Faithfully.

pandora's box

Knowledge that leads to understanding enables a process which is like the peeling away of layers to an onion to get to the core. Each successive layer of understanding which is bequeathed to me, grants me the ability to go deeper into the forest of enlightenment. I am grateful for the process, as unravelling the puzzle seems to be my reason for incarnation. It seems that every week I say to myself: Well, for sure I have reached the end and there's not much more to learn. Then I'll have some epiphany, usually while smoking Mapacho tobacco. The analogy of the onion is fitting because the root of existence is a mystery. If I ever do peel away all the layers, I intuit the last layer will reveal the absurdity of my seeking. The joke is I already know the answer to the riddle, as I am the inventor and designer of the puzzle. The gift of eternity leads to a sense of adventure. Laughter, joy, play, friendship, connection, discovery, and love. At the heart of the great cosmic drama are these values. All stage plays, whether they may be poignant dramas or gruesome tragedies, will point towards these aspects of love.

A couple of years ago, the word Pandora kept showing up in my life and it still does. I didn't understand the connection because I hadn't peeled away enough layers of the onion to figure out why. Well, I finally reached that layer last week, helped by a recurring theme of opiate drug abuse and the helplessness and despair caused by the addiction. Derivatives of the poppy are everywhere, and it makes sense when one realizes earth is a place of suffering. Opium takes away the suffering, both physical and mental. It becomes highly addictive because of this ability and the continual use will send you to the depths of hell. A lesson of the poppy is the higher the high, the lower the low. The poppy teaches that in a world of duality, there is no escape from the reconciliation of high and low. It's a zero-sum game. If you see the connection between all life, you further see that when you are in the positive ledger, someone else is in the negative.

I see that Pandora's Box is life on earth. Pandora's Box is Maya; the weaving together of an illusion which creates the stage for biological life to do its dance. The Great Mother Goddess created the playground we desired. She enables the suffering and within this world she places the gift of the destroyer. When we see through the game and tire of the dance, we hail the destroyer and he puts an end to the drama, dancing the Rudra Tandava. Pandora's Box is once again shut up, until the next curious seeker unwittingly opens it.

Subconsciously as a species, we know this. Peering back into the sands of time, we find Mother Goddess worship. She is the creator of life buttressed by her destructive masculine offspring. The practitioners of the mesa in pre-Columbian South America seek to balance the feminine and the masculine - the energy of creator and destroyer. The balance creates healing and harmony. The attentive student sees the dualistic relationship between the two and knows they must work at maintaining the balance, against all odds, in order to curtail the suffering to come. As a species we worshipped the Great Mother and then later we buried Her. We wanted to forget about her and wipe away the memory. Our religious past as taught is patriarchal and there is no room for the Goddess. Why did we do this?

Misogyny is a good answer to begin with and may explain the situation. I don't buy it 100% though because it defies what just is. If we worship a masculine god, he is just half of the equation. Of course, there is a counterpoint that makes the worship whole. Having a divine masculine god and his son being the be all and end all is preposterous when you think about it; notwithstanding the initial preposterousness of a religion that allows you to get to that point to begin with. But this is not intended to be a polemic against religion, so I'll let that be. What I think is that we collectively stamped out goddess worship because we know she initiates our suffering.

I came by this knowledge through plant medicine use - specifically Ayahuasca. I experientially met the Great Goddess through the use of Ayahuasca and I have had multiple visions of what I am describing. My knowledge is from a subconscious origin, is not verifiable, and could be considered a tale of fancy. I'm totally down with that and don't expect anyone to take my word for it. I'm just writing about my experience.

In vision, I've seen the illusory nature of the world. I saw through the transparent curtains of the dream - a spinning realm of fortune and chance, defined by the four suits in a deck of cards. I saw the worship of the Goddess and how man stamped it out. I was harassed to no end in vision by an inherent dark warning to stay away from the Goddess and her charms. I didn't heed the warning and soldiered on. I am a student of history, and so I know about Goddess worship and what it entailed way back when.

The study of the Goddess reveals a connection to the earth and her bounty. You see her in full display in ancient cultures such as Egypt, the Levant, Crete, Phrygia, and Greece. You can trace the stamping out of her influence in mythic stories of the taming of the serpentine monster of the sea or in stories of the crushing of the lunar bull such as in Phrygia where the sky father Sabazios is depicted on horseback placing a hoof on the head of the bull, which represented the crushing of Goddess worship. The Minoan snake goddess of ancient Crete is iconic in the depiction of Goddesses because of the serpents and the poppy. The poppy is the teacher. The roshi. The head of the poppy instructs, and you'll find the word for the head teacher congruent with the idea: "Siri, what does the Hebrew word 'rosh' mean?" Goddess worship involves the ingestion of narcotics and for some this would lead to addiction and a life of hell. Goddess worship would be equated to being ensnared in her world of intoxication, enchantment, and pleasure seeking. Give in to the worship and all will be fine. Try to leave and suffer. You can find polemics against pharmakeia - the plants of the Goddess, within ancient sources. We now call these substances drugs, i.e., the bad drugs. The New Testament warns of her witchcraft. In Galatians chapter 5 of the King James Bible translation, we read:

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

In verse 20, pharmakeia is translated as witchcraft. Other translations will use sorcery for the translation. The term was used a pejorative for the woman healer. In the Book of Revelation, we find the mention of pharmakeia in chapter 9, where many are killed by the wrath of God.

20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk:

21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.

Those made to suffer did not repent of their sorceries, sorcery referring to the drugs of the Goddess. A last mention of drugs is in Revelation chapter 18 where the sins of the great whore of Babylon are enumerated. The whore is the Goddess, and in this setting, she is a great city of the world, namely Jerusalem, who has been soiled by the company she keeps. Here's the passages:

23 And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

24 And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

It is by her enchantment and seduction that all the world was deceived. The deception is taking men away from the worship of God back to Goddess. These attitudes permeated all ancient cultures. A student of the Greek play-write Homer will find plentiful comparisons in the story of the hero Odysseus. Odysseus spends seven years with the nymph Calypso in a narcotic haze, seduced by her witchcraft until he finally leaves her for home. The Greek warrior and his men are also ensnared by Circe and her magic potion. Odysseus and his men also become trapped on the island of the Lotus Eaters, another warning against the use of narcotics. Also extracted from this story is Odysseus' run in with the Sirens. Delving deeper into the tale, one realizes the Sirens are the call of the addictive properties of opiates. Odysseus' men are given beeswax by Circe to plug up their ears so they wouldn't heed the call, while Odysseus is bound by rope to the ship's mast and tells the sailors under no circumstance should he be untied. The pull of narcotics is strong and would summon Odysseus to his doom much like the fields of wasted men on the rocks of the shore of the Sirens' call. Odysseus urges his men to free him, but they sail on. The hold of the addiction and cravings is defeated. The lesson being taught is the warrior spirit of a man is crushed by the enchantment of the Goddess. Narcotics will definitely do this to you, but underlying this understanding is that love and compassion for your fellow human as taught will make you think twice about conquest, pillage, and the killing of others. I'll bet you want to re-read the story now that you have been given the understanding!

The Goddess will take away your pain with her poppies but then make you see it's not free. Opiates will take you to hell. There's a terrible lesson of reconciliation in duality within the pain reliever. Hers is the toughest course of them all. The man on his journey of conquest wants to get to the top of the mountain, not find unity at the intersection of the valley plain and the base of the mountain.

There is another way to escape the suffering and ultimately the course of the Goddess will take the studious practitioner to the doorstep of what it is we all eventually seek. The way is through the heart and the path is only discovered through the fires of transformation which involve suffering. Every course on my spiritual path is designed to lead to the heart. In hindsight, the progression is obvious. The path of the heart is laying it all bare. The Goddess is showing me all she has done and how the immense suffering is designed to lead you back to the heart. She is showing me how you can't escape the lessons. You can deny them, but all is reconciled and eventually comes together in the middle. The Tao Te Ching teaches one to go with the flow. Following the flow leads to the centre.

The world is perfect. With all the environmental destruction how can I say that? I didn't say it was ideal! It's progress. We are making our lives easier on earth and accumulating more and more stuff and the corollary to this is the destruction of our habitat. This is how perfect duality works. The lessons stare you in the face and you can't escape it. Eventually, we will destroy ourselves. I look at this with ambivalence. What we have been gifted by Pachamama, we will destroy. What we have been bequeathed, we turned into hell. We will destroy hell and close Pandora's Box. Maybe we should put a sign on it warning against ever opening up this gift of the Goddess? The illusion will lay its trap once again and it will take another monumental nuclear blast to destroy it. On and on it goes. What a vision of existence I hold!

It's what we wanted so we opened the Box. Leave it alone! Our desires and curiosity will once again lead us to her magic and sorcery. She will conjure another world of our dreams into existence so we can play out our eternal recurring fantasies of conquest. We will ask her once again and being love, she will give her children what they want. Within her creation is placed the destroyer so that when we have had enough, we can blow the whole thing up. In our eternal universal travels, we will pass by the big blue marble jail cell and shudder at the memory of what the siren call of desire can do to us. Will we pay heed?

My experience with drugs is not with opiates. I have an addictive streak within, and so I know enough to stay away from the highly addictive substances. I am curious about the juice of the poppy in its unrefined form and if given the chance at the right time, I would smoke opium or drink opium tea, preferably in a group ceremony. I picture a scene from Eleusis in ancient Greece and a crowd of ecstatic adherents welcoming the Goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone in a shared vision; feeling the connection between the group and the divine feminine. My history with pharmakeia is with the psychedelics. I have enough experience with them to know they are definitely not addictive, but they do offer a doorway into the occult, if that is your intention. Magic, sorcery, mystery, and knowledge are at your fingertips if you do want to see for yourself. From these trips, I came to know the Goddess intimately. No one can take that away from me or convince me it was a flight of fancy. She showed me love and taught me the answer to all I seek is love. It's that simple.

So, what's to make of the lessons of the Goddess and her opiates? To me, it is as it should be. I make the statement from the standpoint of duality. Within my masculine self, I see the light and I see the darkness. I hold them both in equal esteem and I make no exultation of one over the other. On the contrary, my discovery of the divine nature of the darkness strengthened my love of the gifts of the Goddess. I posed a question to the ether a while back in which I acknowledged I have no idea of what a woman grapples with. I saw in myself God and I saw Satan, but I knew a woman does not see the same. Externally, I see love in the woman and exuded by the Goddess. I see maternal instincts and I pedestalize these aspects of the divine feminine. True to the unfolding of understanding in due time, I have been shown the opposite spectrum of the feminine. I see the enchantment and possession and how the pursuit of her charms can lead you to destruction. As with my own darkness, I know that not only is this the way it has to be, but I see how the enchantress who sends you to your doom is just as divine as the maternal feminine who is full of love. The tension between the opposites in this mysterious world we inhabit is what keeps the world spinning.

I am grateful for the remaining layers of the onion, as I head towards the core of the mystery.

beyond mind

The reality I wake into daily is a world of mind. The mind is the great separator and conjures this universe into existence. The mind creates the exhilarating rushes we seek and sends us cratering into the abyss. The mind is God. The mind is Satan. One who does not know the other side of righteousness is cruelty knows not that the dark side of the face of God is the face of Satan. Let that sink in, deny it all you want, condemn me, and cast my prose into the virtual trash if you wish. I don't care. I'll just continue to call it as I see it.

What does it mean to be "awake" from a spiritual point of view? There's no world standard and of course humans will argue anything spiritual to its pointlessness. We will divide up experiences into cultural tribalisms and claim we hold the truth and all else is heresy, promulgated by infidels who must be eliminated. So, yeah, to define being "awake" is problematic.

But what's to stop myself from defining this state of being? Well, nothing really. I'm a spiritual free agent. I don't buy into anyone's system. The great thing about my beliefs is I can see the core of people's beliefs and though they have laid a cultural blanket over these spiritual realizations, I do see so much truth in their objects of worship. The big one for me is Jesus. I see him everywhere. I know him. I'd never worship him in the mainstream Christian sense, but I personally love the guy and my heart is filled with love for Jesus and Mary. I physically feel it, and I have this pull towards the divine pair.

Let me illustrate the love I have for Jesus and Mary in my heart which comes from a deep understanding of what was taught by spiritual masters of a long-ago age. Their teachings are now a curiosity, though the civilization of ancient Egypt is exhaustively studied.

When you engage the heart, you birth a King. The prodigy is the result of the marriage between the divine feminine heart and the divine masculine quickener. The process was called by the ancients, Hieros Gamos - the sacred wedding. The union of Goddess and God creates the child. Christianity is a patriarchal religion and thus proper due is not accorded to Mary, mother of Jesus. The elements of the myth are all present; however, the story is modified to fit the patriarchal narrative. If we go back further in time to the land of the Pharaohs, we can see the same story come forth in unadulterated splendor. Our king is the great god Amun-Re, and all Pharaohs of the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt maintained a connection to the light of Amun-Re. In the palace of Karnak at Luxor, we find the great precinct of Amun-Re which is dedicated to the god, his wife Mut, and their son Khonsu - the great healer. The goddess Mut is the great mother Goddess, as the hieroglyphic for Mut is the vulture and the symbolic nature is one of motherhood. Mut is mother, and very interesting is the phonetic connection to world languages and the pronunciation of mother. The sacred coupling of the King and his Queen give birth to the healer; the healer is the coming forth of the love of the divine pair. The story becomes even more intriguing when we look into an epithet of Amun-Re. He is the kamutef. Kamutef is the bull of his mother. I have written about this subject previously if you wish to learn more about it as I won't go into detail here. Kamutef points towards an incestuous relationship between Amun-Re and his mother in order to produce the child, who is the coming forth into this world of the god. Cultural prohibitions make us squeamish of the taboo but to the ancient seeker of wisdom, they were more interested in spiritual truths and not distracted by Netflix, so they produced many wonderful contributions towards an understanding of what this mortal experience is all about. Let's go back to the mother goddess as a vulture. Lost in the sands of time is parthenogenesis. The female vulture was thought to give birth to the world without the need of the masculine. Aha! The concepts of maya and of the virgin birth are laid bare. The Parthenon of Athena in Athens of ancient Greece reveals its mystery. The connection by Plato of Athena to the primordial vulture of this parthenogenesis in ancient Egypt, the goddess Neith, is unveiled. I wrote a long blog post about this called, "weaving the rich tapestry." It's some of my finest work, though without an understanding of the ancient Egyptians, it comes across as a difficult read! Anyway, within the post I wrote this about Neith:

"Neith weaves the rich tapestry, this garment the all. The shuttle she wears is symbolic of not only the weaving of the universe but also has associations to the linen bandages that encase the mummified. In addition, she had warlike attributes as she could be represented with the bow and arrows. This aspect contributed to her masculine aspects with the act of releasing the arrow carrying allusions to the masculine sexual act. Curiously, the writing of her name in hieroglyphs contained within it the determinative of an ejaculating phallus giving rise to the aspect of her that contains not only the mother but the power to enliven the seed within her."

Yes, the goddess Neith who is said to be the Great mother goddess, gives birth to the light as Amun-Re. Amun-Re impregnates his mother and gives birth to the son. This is how the concept works. Khonsu is the coming forth of the love between Mut and Amun-Re. The great healer is love and thus all demi-god Saviours of religions who owe their heritage to ancient spiritual masters, teach love as the way and the light towards healing and salvation.

So, what does it mean to be awake? I'd call it lifting the veil. You see through the game and start to clue into why you are here. Being awake doesn't mean you have all the answers; however, when you see your predicament with a newfound clarity, the answers to life's riddles start to unravel. Being awake lets you see the immense suffering and understand why there is suffering. The atheists cry, "If there is a just God, why is there so much suffering? Why does a small and innocent child get stricken with cancer? Why would He let that happen?" Suffering is the denominator of desire and the impetus for change. Without suffering, our seeking of pleasure would bring us into a utopian bliss of stasis and thus pleasure must have the elasticity of pain. A world of duality bakes the suffering into the cards. The chance fulfillment of desire in a biological form came with its inherent risks but we all wanted a roll of the dice. I'll take the hit of the drug and put off the reckoning, with interest, until later. This is how the earth game works.

Being awake allows you to understand all suffering is grace. It doesn't mean you don't do what you can to help relieve suffering. You see, the earth is a place for people to suffer and there will always be suffering. Suffering will never be stamped out. If you are awake, you see that the death of the biological form will allow you to escape your imprisonment in a land of suffering. If you are selfish, then you would seek death because you see through the game and are going to check out.

Being awake allows you to see beyond the mind and when you do the clarity of your heart is undeniable. You see the Garden of Mary and all she has created. And then you see her son and eternal flame Jesus and know that he is the essence of who she is. Jesus is love who has come forth. El Corazón de Jesús! The eternal pair is within and comes forth when you are awake and enter into the heart space. The heart space sees the suffering and propels you into service. One who becomes of service to Mary and Jesus in Buddhism would be called a Bodhisattva. A definition of such a being, pulled off the internet, is such: "A Bodhisattva is one who is able to reach nirvana but delays doing so out of compassion in order to save suffering beings."

The definition still puts a Western concept of salvation onto such a being. I'm not sure of the idea of "saving" anyone. There's no eternal damnation but there is desire. If I wanted to help someone full of wants to be "saved" I might point them towards Tantra and have them burn through all their desires in order that they may turn the page on suffering. Carrying desires with you into the afterlife will indeed attract you once again to the carnival called earth. And the suffering will be repeated. For sure, this is a form of cyclical damnation, though hardly eternal. Eventually, all tire of the amusement park! To be eternally damned would be a result of your own damn self being a glutton for punishment. Even the soundest sleeper will eventually wake up.

I am aware I'm casting a shadow upon the playground of Pachamama. I'm equating what she has bequeathed her children to the Christian hell. We have collectively made it hell. I said it before, and I'll reiterate - you're in hell. A hell of our collective making. Take a sober look around you, watch the news, read the papers, and try to tell me it's not so. Once you see it, you'll never un-see it. Better to remain ignorant of your predicament and pretend this earthly existence is a rung above hell. If you see it, then comes the question: What did I do to deserve to go to hell? Desire is the answer you are looking for.

Luckily, the questioning will eventually lead you back to the machinations of the mind and the inherent duality conjured by the great magician. You see with clarity the hell world of suffering brought forth is buttressed by its opposite, which we call heaven. The enlightened being does what they can to relieve the suffering and the degradation of our home in order to lead us to heaven. A further questioning of this strategy reveals it is not heaven we seek, as heaven is another dualistic construct. Through suffering and struggle we find the heart, our mother. We see the heart path to the central axis mundi of our spiritual family, and in tears of joy return home.