mimicry and reflection

I think it was in the year 1987 when my girlfriend and I rented the movie Blue Velvet. Up until that time in my life I had been fed a pretty steady diet of Hollywood movies like Top Gun, Basic Instinct, Bad News Bears, and so on. In other words, nothing that made me think too hard. Blue Velvet abrogated my childhood and ushered me into adulthood as it was a very disturbing, yet highly compelling psycho-sexual thriller, that contained many layers that spoke to the hidden parts of ourself that mesh with the dark side of society and culture. It's interesting that the cities and culture we create mimic our psychological lives. Specifically this movie was pointing out the inner conflict and darkness within that we hide, along with the seedy parts of town that we consign to the fringe.

Anyways I have been thinking and writing a great deal lately about our psychological makeup and this movie returned to my radar due to some trivial reference. It's marvellous how sometimes events lineup and synchronize which lead to another train of thought or action. I re-watched it last week and was startled by how it portrayed the human condition and how our ego is tasked with burying the darkness within all of us and when it bubbles to the surface neurotically having to integrate these desires into acceptable society. The use of the closet by masterful director David Lynch to symbolize the perversities the protagonist Jeffrey hides away and then Lynch using the closet to allow Jeffrey to peek at the dark side of life are strokes of genius. When Jeffrey comes out of the closet in context with his dark side he assumes the the dark traits of the antagonist Frank, who is a sadistic bully with a myriad of sexual perversions. This reaches a boiling point when Frank discovers Jeffrey at the apartment of their shared interest Dorothy, and takes him on a joyride. The film coalesces at the point when Frank tells Jeffrey that “you're like me." The character of Jeffrey plays the role of a charming and mysterious young man who attracts the love interest of Sandy, who represents everything that is good and pure about small town life. It's Jeffrey's ego that has him playing this part but his dark side keeps drawing him towards the seedy part of the town and the mystery he wants to solve. Up until this point in his life, the expectations of the town and taking over his father's store had controlled his behaviour, much like the concept of the superego keeps us all in line through rewards and punishments. Jeffrey's desire to explore his own darkness though is too much and ultimately wins out.

The brilliance of the film was a catalyst to a reexamination of my own psyche, especially a doubt that was creeping in concerning my night I spent with Peyote. During that night I accessed a wisdom within that acted as a guide and a dispenser of no-nonsense advice concerning questions I had about my life. I started thinking well wasn't that just my higher self as the superego leading me towards the unattainable masculine quest of being perfect and righteous? It was a good question and one I needed to confront. Yes I do tend to over-examine things and I can't hide anything away or accept at face value. I question everything. It's a good way to be if you are a inveterate seeker of knowledge, though you will never find peace this way. Truth is like grasping a handful of sand and trying to hold onto it. Anyway I sat with this problem in quiet meditation out in the woods before reexamining the three Freudian concepts of id, ego, and superego. Explaining these quickly - the id is our base desires, the ego is the character we play identified as the self, and the superego is the controlling voice that praises and blames and keeps us from devolving into a pure pursuit of pleasure. At birth this voice becomes our parents until as teenagers we break free of this control, only to have the role taken up by culture at large that then praises and blames. I was out with my dog and realized psychologically animals are pretty much stuck at the id stage. By giving our pets a name we define their identity and enable a primitive ego in them and then as their master we assume the role of the superego in their lives, as we constantly praise and blame a dog in order to control it.

Okay so back to the question of Peyote and what was that voice? It troubled me that it could have been the superego just playing along that night. I thought about our conversation and realized my higher self was dispensing wisdom and advice but had no expectations or demands of me. This put me at ease but brought up more questions. The threefold nature of our psychological makeup is a pretty good structure. I mean splitting it into three is dubious but in examining our nature it is a solid construct. Now I was introducing another part of us - the higher self separate from the superego, into the equation. Somehow I realized that the higher self was reflecting back into our lives as an entity we call the superego who then mimicked the ideals of the higher self but turned it into demands and expectations of us, used to control us. I have known for a while that to grasp the mystery is to only look at reflection. The Great Goddess taught me that when I was seeking unity in this lifetime. I gazed into a piece of black obsidian and saw all of nature reflected back through this rock and then later realized I too was part of this unified mirror construct. This wisdom is easily applied to the psychological constructs I have been discussing. Ultimately the psyche that we break down into the three parts: id, ego, and superego are reflections of what we ultimately intuit as being our nature. These are the lower self, self, and higher self but are normally off-limits, as in it's hard for an eye to look at itself without a mirror, unless consciousness is altered and you can bypass the veneer of their reflections. This connects back to the idea of psychic entities I wrote about a few weeks ago that try to gain control of us and they are using mimicry to do this. So from this I was able to differentiate between the ego and the self wherein the ego is what we think of ourself and how others see us and the self, which is how we really feel. The same idea of reflection is present here where what is central to our makeup has a corollary. There is the ideal and then an imitation of it. I then got stuck on the id. This is our desires and wants and I thought well that is pretty cut and dry and was not sure how base desire and pleasure are reflected and then mimicked. I knew that if I meditated on this problem I'd get the answer.

The answer brought me to my knees out in the wilderness. The id is of course desire, pleasure, and the darkness we keep hidden in the closet. However this conception is doing the work of veiling the ultimate thing we keep in the closet. The voice in my head asked me if I know what that is? What is the one thing we all lock away in the depths and don't express as we should? I then knew the answer and started bawling in the midst of the forest. The lower self is not only desire and the pleasures we seek but most of all it is where feelings and love comes from. Love for ourself and for others. When I come home from work my dog, who epitomizes this concept and is free of the need to imprison its feelings, is exuberant and literarily jumping up and down over seeing me, so full of love with no hesitation or reservations in showing it. Imagine if you could live your life that way? That was the lesson and how we buried love and our feelings even deeper than desire and how we use the disparaging terms of dark side, shadow, and closets to further dig a hole where we can bury all this away and caution people against exploring the subconscious depths. The real thing we hide away in the dark are our feelings and abundant love and then use the subterfuge of pleasure, desire, and peculiar fetishes to avoid the whole construct at large and this in turn allows us to stop the discovery of the hidden subconscious realms before we get too far and hit the spigot. There are no goddesses in our religions because we buried her away in these subconscious depths and tell all to avoid going looking in the those dark places.

When I was at SpiritQuest in November of 2017, the last retreat I attended with the maestro don Howard, he talked to me on the walk back from visiting a local tribe about this very thing. My heart was wide open and I was feeling this powerful love for all. He told me it takes courage to bring this out into the world in everyday life and live your life this way. He cautioned me it's not easy. It's the warrior spirit that he was trying to instil in us all. Ultimately the fight is against what has conspired to cause you to bury your feelings and the power of love away. The hero's journey is going deep within and freeing love from the impenetrable castle you have built that locks her away. 

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. 

language as a spell

I think you are right; err I think you are correct. Ever notice how language makes you think always in terms of I, self, right, and objects? Language puts a spell over thinking. Thinking is extremely useful but needs to be treated as something you do and not do.

It is so curious why the left is denigrated, and a spell is put over us so that we will by instinct choose the right-hand path. The advertising industry would be proud of this accomplishment. Looking into the roots of this conundrum it is discovered that the left is associated with the word sinister and those familiar with the “sin” in sinister will immediately connect this to the moon. The moon has feminine qualities and the sun, the righteous among us, relate to the right-hand path. In ancient Egypt there are the ubiquitous eyes, and the left eye of Horus depicts the moon as it waxes and wanes, attacked by the forces of darkness, becomes divided, and then is renewed eternally into a wholeness once again. The right eye is the eye of Re and is the path of the sun. The feminine is denigrated in masculine religious constructs, the left-hand path is treated with disdain and called sinister, and the ultra-achievers of our spiritual disciplines are called the righteous. What is being hushed up?

The construction of the ancient Pre-Columbian Mesa of the Chavin temple is three-fold.

three-fold Huachuma Mesa

The left represents the life giving feminine, the right side is the life taking masculine, and in the middle, we find a reconciliation of these opposites to find wholeness. Our western society is not whole in that the feminine is not given her proper place and language casts a spell over any attempts to do so. The third time I ever drank Ayahuasca, at the end of the ceremony I was presented with these two opposite paths as I stepped outside the ceremonial maloca. Though it was past midnight, to my right I saw the jungle lit up in shining splendor. The plants were 3D-extruded and the whole scene was very inviting and welcoming. To my left the jungle was dull, dark, and flat. I looked back to my right - shiny, and then back to the left - dull. I remarked to myself that the right-hand path is sure shiny. Why this Vegasesque allure of the right-hand path combined with a hypnotic spell perpetrated by constructs of language?

Here's my speculative answer: the cyclical highs and lows are on the right path, they go together, and presumably at some point you'd tire of that; well I guess you call that old age but perhaps that is the spice of being alive, maybe this great game of forgetfulness we all play is to experience all the right hand path has to offer and then we eventually tire of the merry go round and say no more for now thank you. We follow the left-hand path back to wholeness and unity and then eventually we want to play again and so we create another world, head on into that, and hide the mystery so we won't figure it out too quickly. And within this construct my game of seeking the answers to these mysteries is no more valid than someone on a quest to sample all the beers of the world.

Language reflects the culture we live in, and the beliefs society is structured upon. Somewhere in my indoctrination, I was taught my thoughts must be filtered through language. All my higher thinking and speculation is accomplished through language and because of this all is tainted with the stench of the values my ancestor's thought were important. It is as if I need to train myself to bypass language and delve into the worlds of symbols, archetypes, feelings, music, and art to try and express what it is I am cognizant of and feeling.

Take the phrase, "it doesn't matter" which puts down something as not real and trivial. The language spell has tied it into the word matter, so we think that what is “real” is material. So, when we investigate matter and can't find anything concrete concerning matter and discover instead it is a bunch of vibrations woven into something that resembles what we call an object we get all concerned because our world view can't handle it. See how it works? The game we are playing has convinced us our existence is really real and serious, when it is not. It's transient and illusory. That's not to say we can't take it seriously or shirk responsibility, however it is incredibly liberating to realize that it really doesn't matter!