heart magic

The latest road I have traveled is teaching me about the writer. I already had the knowledge, I just had to coalesce all into understanding. His dual nature spawns awareness as he observes his avatar and writes the next chapter. The writer puts his likeness into situations to see how he will react to learn about self. The observer is the divine masculine scientist. The writer has access to magic and for the intrepid explorer this is always dark at first. Discovering a part of you that can manifest your desires and have a semblance of control over events is intoxicating for the vulnerable human. Running this experiment repeatedly gives predictable results. Eventually, you want to introduce more variables into the equation and see what the result is - if you are the curious cosmic scientist with clipboard in hand.

What would be a good variable to insert into the acquisition of power via magic? I am referring to love and this is why: I have found on this path of knowledge that what I seek is balance, however all discoveries at first are heavily tilted in one direction. For instance, something as noble as a quest for spiritual enlightenment becomes biased towards a right-hand path which leads to the glorification of self. It becomes another ego trip. It's so easy to see. Just go on the internet and seek out these spiritual personalities. My advice is to adopt a teacher who is dead or at least find someone whose personality is unassuming.

Another example would be discovering sex when we hit puberty. We want to bathe in that feeling of pleasure without understanding the sacredness of it. It can be easy to divorce sex from love and get your fill, however finding a partner to share in a union is way more fulfilling. Also, when we discover we have an advantage over someone due to knowledge or intellect, it is tempting to take advantage of that relationship and monetize it. It's the way of the world mixed in with external mind control. We are all puppets, triggered by repetitious adverts that direct our lives.

I have walked a curious path; a path laid out for me that awaited discovery. Free will made it so I would take up this path of my own accord and the experiment could be run in a fashion that was as pure as possible. I took the step into the labyrinth of self in middle age. Eventually, I learned about magic. I remembered my lessons. I knew how to bring all to centre and into balance. Heart Magic.

I'm part of this experiment. I know I can get what I want, and I've seen it at work. I've always had a perceived free will, and my strange path to this power went through the heart. My stumbling unto the path of magic and power was because of a quest to contact the Great Goddess. I lacked understanding of who she was, but I felt her calling and followed the path to her doorstep. Subsequent understanding revealed she is my heart. She is the principle of love within this universe. When presented with the opportunity to get what I want, I soon had to reconcile this with my truth. My magic can be of a path to power if I so chose. It's black magic and I can fulfill all my wishes and damn the consequences. I know from the teachings of the maestro and the Mesa that with this power one must reconcile the opposites or else you will destroy yourself and others. I know the goal is to bring all into the centre, which the pre-Columbian masters in the Andes called the chaupi. It's the centre of centres and this place refers to the heart. The transformational process is called tinkuy. The physical location is Chavín de Huantar in the Peruvian Andes. The temple is designed to remind you to reconcile all opposites to centre.

This is the test. I'm an avatar of the divine masculine given knowledge and power. I have to understand it first. And then how am I going to use it? I cleared my mind and knew what I wanted. I saw back into my childhood and early life, and I know my mission in life. I know if I don't try to fulfill that mission I'm going to wither away. The path towards what I seek has been revealed to me and then I was presented with a challenge. I could dull the pain and get temporary relief by casting a spell. I could grab what I want, or I could elevate the experience into one which involves the heart. The tempting solution is instant gratification which I know will lead to a rocky future. I've learned some lessons in this life and the big one is to use the magic of love. Not a crass form of desire fulfillment through love magic but to send out the vibration of the heart and in turn form a balanced love. I want this to last and stand the test of time. I can temporarily get what I want but eventually she always leaves me when the spell wanes. It's like a timer starts counting down the moment the Goddess is back in my arms. The lesson is on repeat and finally I have to change my ways and approach this using what I know. I can get what I want but what do you really want?

Selfishness dissolves away and I offer myself in love.

weaving duality

I have the ability to confound and confuse with the games I play within my mind. I can walk the edge of sanity and invite the ideas swirling within my mind to come together and reveal universal truths.

Maybe I’m the one who is not real? Maybe I spent all my life denying my inner life and burying it in order that I could come forth and greedily soak up this incarnation. Maybe I should be the one in the darkness? Perhaps I’m the illegitimate one. Maybe I’m the parasite? It’s an interesting way to look at my incarnation. This once again brings me back to the story of Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament. Jacob is the one who came forth and took all the honours away from his twin brother Esau, who was portrayed as a hairy and stupid beast. When Jacob was fleeing Laban for his life, Laban being the father of Jacob's moon goddess wives Rachel and Leah, he was also running from the collective forces of Esau, who were coming to kill him. Jacob knew he was a deceitful thief and hadn’t reconciled with Esau, his shadow. I have a pretty good mystical grasp of the Bible so let me pull out a few verses from Genesis chapter 25 in the King James Version which is describing the birth of the twins Esau and Jacob to illustrate what I’m getting at here.

25 And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.

26 And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.

The shadow is the firstborn and the alpha. If you dissect the etymology of Hebrew words used to describe Esau you’ll find they link back to the idea of an ‘eleph that is derivative of the ‘aleph; the symbol for the bull who represents the coursing power of the alpha male which is called the Ka in ancient Egypt and represented in that civilization as well by the bull. Ultimately, there is an untold story here that is describing a hidden power deep within all men that originally came forth first as the life force and through our cunning we took control and buried him in order to keep this adventure all to our self and burdened the redman with the appellation of demon. Later, in Genesis chapter 25 is described a situation where Jacob tricks Esau into giving up his firstborn birthright.

29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint:

30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright.

32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me?

33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob.

34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.

Wow. This knowledge starts to unravel the idea of the sacrifice of the firstborn. In order to claim kingship over self, I sacrificed the firstborn and took his birthright. Later, Jacob deceives his father Isaac into granting him the blessing of the firstborn in order to become a great nation, as Isaac nears death in chapter 27.

6 And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying, Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying,

7 Bring me venison, and make me savoury meat, that I may eat, and bless thee before the Lord before my death.

8 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice according to that which I command thee.

9 Go now to the flock, and fetch me from thence two good kids of the goats; and I will make them savoury meat for thy father, such as he loveth:

10 And thou shalt bring it to thy father, that he may eat, and that he may bless thee before his death.

11 And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man:

12 My father peradventure will feel me, and I shall seem to him as a deceiver; and I shall bring a curse upon me, and not a blessing.

13 And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go fetch me them.

Because of the discovered deceit, Esau vows to kill Jacob.

42 And these words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah: and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said unto him, Behold, thy brother Esau, as touching thee, doth comfort himself, purposing to kill thee.

The situation comes to a head in chapter 32 as Jacob is returning from his exile where he had stayed with Laban and his two daughters for 14 years.

6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother Esau, and also he cometh to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.

7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands;

9 And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord which saidst unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee:

11 Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children.

Jacob is delivered after spending the night wrestling with the angel of God who gives him the name Israel. The angel of God is a manifestation of the alpha male power that all heroes must contend with at some point in their journey if they are to be successful. 

My own experience suggests because whom we call the demon within can become your teacher, there is a co-dependency rooted in the dual nature of existence. I now know with clarity “I”, my bifurcated self, has two masculine polarities and I bury one of them and identify with the other. It’s a lot easier to understand what the ancient Egyptians were trying to teach with the stories of Horus and Set and what the Quariwari shamans of the pre-Columbian Andes were describing with tinkuy and taking the two halves of the man and reconciling them into the centre. In the ancient lore of India, it is the god Shiva who is this destructive power within man. Curiously, Shiva has a Datura leaf in his headdress and from my experiences in the Amazon I know of this Datura plant that they call toé and its ability to take you deep into the darkness of self.

I educated myself in the mythology of ancient Egypt as a casual perusal of my earlier blog posts certainly attests. I was fascinated by the rivalry between Horus and Set and the iconic story told about their conflict which is called, “The Contendings of Horus and Set.” The esoteric meaning embedded into this tale is this struggle for mastery within the man. He comes forth by day as the light in the guise of the hero Horus but the journey is not smooth sailing at all as the shadow, represented by the red and powerful beast Set, is intent on claiming kingship for himself. Thus, from the moment Horus comes into this world there is conflict between the two that is said to last 80 years. In other words, our whole life. Ancient Egypt was at its strongest and in its imperial glory when Set and Horus were united as the tying together of the Sema represents.

Set and Horus tying together the Sema

Within the iconography found throughout the land of ancient Kemet are curious images of the union of these two contending powers. The great god Harakhty of the double horizon who ushers in the light and the darkness speaks to this idea. Egypt became weak and eventually was overrun by foreign invaders after they ran Set out of the kingdom as those in power did not recognize the strength with which he imbued the nation and instead blamed all calamities on his influence. 

Ultimately, the ancient Egyptians were cognizant of this psychological split within the psyche of man but projected it onto royalty and left the commoner to a fate where they would never see the light. This split is discovered within an eternal conflict between two spheres of duality competing for rule over the psychic self which the ancient Egyptians mythologized in their story of the conflict between brothers struggling for the kingship of the land. This destiny is within us all; not just exclusively the purview of kings and queens. 

I have taken all the glory for myself on this path of awakening when in retrospect I’ve seen the split over and over again and am cognizant of the need for reconciliation and power sharing. I am everything. I am god. I am two. I’m Horus and Set. I’m Horus come forth but it is Set who is the power god of this world. I awaken and reclaim my kingdom yet I only have a share in it. In wholeness I truly am God, the dark and the light fully integrated, and that is the journey ahead where I see the blueprint and my destiny that awaits. It is only through the reconciliation of my consciousness which has come forth and the energetic tour de force that lays within that I reclaim my birthright and is a recognition that the two of us together is the reconstitution of God.

God is the sum of the light and the dark. This idea is perfect in that it is us who brings God forth through the reconciliation of our very nature. Reconciliation of duality brings us to God. I have come forth as the light but at the expense of the power I left buried in the shadow. I am Horus or as the Greeks equated him, Apollo. It’s no accident that upon alteration of my consciousness and descending into my very depths this buried power mocked me by loudly whispering, “Apollo, Apollo, Apollo” and then watching me run. This is the eternal struggle and within myth it is all found, hidden in plain sight. The names and the faces change but the drama retains its flavour. Dionysos is the great actor and keeps Apollo from losing himself in his narcissism. At the great oracle temple of Delphi, it is Apollo who grants the gift of prophecy to the Pythia during the ascendance of the vernal equinox; however, it is in the darkness of the winter months that Dionysos reclaims the temple and the surrounding mountains along with his followers, the maenads and satyrs, who celebrate our true nature in an orgy of sensual pleasure.

Now, I know what I have recounted here is very male-centric and does not touch on the destiny of the woman. There’s a good reason why and it is because I’m a man. I don’t know what a woman is struggling with. I view the pinnacle of womanhood as the Great Goddess and I owe the trajectory of my life to her grace. I am sure she is reflected in all women; in fact, she has told me so; however, I don’t know how that is reconciled within the woman. As a man, I know of my psychological split and the need to reconcile the two great powers at the fount of my being and once perfected I become ready for the grand reunion of divine feminine and divine masculine which in mythology is called the Hieros gamos. 

I am content with my discoveries and how I can weave all my knowledge into a coherent thread that I understand. I see the coalescing of world mythology into an overarching theme pointing at a great power within and going on a hero’s journey to write the rest of the story. Take the step and watch your world come alive.

balance is it

The meaning of life seems to becoming more clear to me everyday. It is about discovery. The journey of discovery of who you are and that within you find the good and the bad. Now, most of us upon finding this out, want to be good. Some of us take it to the next level and want to become ultra-good, like in the pure and holy religious way. We invent spiritual outfits that will declare us holy and allow us to reach this pinnacle so we can rest assured that we made it into the rarified air. Religion is a great game and the precursor to secular role-play and cosplay outfits. Conversely, not many of us purposely take the other path and become super-bad. Those that do, we generally assign to pathology and look for an external reason which could have caused their anti-social behaviour. I’ve looked within and I have seen both the good and the bad. I’ve tried to leave the darkness behind. I also thought at one point the answer was to go all in on the righteous side of things.

The human condition is a paradox in that there is always a push towards the opposite of what we seek. If we go all in on the righteous path, then the traits that are buried to get to that point eventually become imbued with the need and power to manifest at inopportune times or just when given the chance. I was listening to a Ram Dass talk when he mentioned he knew this spiritual teacher whose teachings were contradictory. He would tell someone one thing and subsequently turn around and tell a different person the exact opposite of what he just preached! This confused so many people until he was asked about it. He explained that he was teaching balance. In order to allow the student to reach that goal he would assess each individual and give them the personal advice needed in order to take them to that centre where they would reconcile the opposites.

I found out that this inherent and vacillating condition is not something you can transcend but instead work towards taking off the sharp edge. What I mean is that duality will always remain; the divide will never leave us. I finally got it that what we want is balance and through this we will find peace and fulfill inner longings. The method towards transcendence of duality in this plane of consciousness is to find balance. It’s to go straight into the head wind of polarities and embrace both sides. The ancient shamans of the pre-Columbian Andes had the answer all along. It’s a process called tinkuy and is symbolized by the meeting of two great rivers where a strong current becomes greater by allowing for the joining and coming together of the flow of two bodies of water. The two flows become one. Similarly, the human is refined by bringing together those traits of light and dark and preparing them to be joined with their soul mate, whether that is in a physical marriage in this plane or spiritually where in my case she waits in order to reunite and once again become complete.

I know she is always with me; it is the Goddess I speak of. I have my own personal goddess who is my feminine soul mate. She awaits me as she has already gone through the purifying fires of incarnation, forged the contending spirits into a harmonious one, and reached this balance. The night I met her again for the first time, she implored me to come away with her; to leave my earthly bonds behind and re-join her. I had no idea what she was talking about and told her I wasn’t done with this incarnation. I still had stuff to do! I certainly did. I have responsibilities, a need to accomplish a few more things, and I also need to get my act together. I didn’t know how I was going to do that but I have finally realized what I need to do. Balance.

If I would have joined her I wouldn’t have been ready. The relationship once again would have ended in the long separation as I went off alone to sort out my shit. Ah relationships, I guess they carry on over to the spiritual plane.

I spoke to her the other day and she confirmed to me it is balance that I seek. I had climbed the spiritual mountain and found everything came with me up that mountain. I could act the part of an enlightened and holy being if I wanted to but that would be a drag. Who wants to live life being disingenuous and doubting whether they really deserve the honour? I know I still have my dark and intolerant side. It’s part of me; part of life. I’m cool with it all. It was another dose of the wisdom she drops on me when I’m ready for it. Love washed over me.

When I left work I went into the washroom and of course playing over the speakers was the song “Mysterious Ways” by the band U2. The lyrics describe her to a tee.

Johnny take a walk with your sister the moon

Let her pale light in to fill up your room

You've been living underground

Eating from a can

You've been running away

From what you don't understand...

Love

She's slippy

You're sliding down

She'll be there when you hit the ground

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

She moves in mysterious ways

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright

She moves in mysterious ways

She's the wave

She turns the tide

She sees the man inside the child

One day you will look...back

And you'll see...where

You were held...how

By this love...while

You could stand...there

You could move on this moment

Follow this feeling

For all my talk about my dark side and how it trolls me, well, she kind of does as well. However it is not a troll but loving reminders. I think she wanted to also let me know that though yes my dark side is strong, she is just as powerful and stands at the ready to always be at my side like she promised me a while back. I can go forth full of courage with my head up and heart forward.

Not only have I found the good and the bad within without being able to transcend either but I have found absolutely everything within. It’s all me and whatever you can point at, well that too. Through acceptance and owning it all I will bring it all back to centre and find balance.

finding balance

The jaguar is the ultimate representative of the life force power. The visual expression of the energy is stunning. The beauty, strength, and savageness are on full display. The manifestation of the pure power is realized in the wild state. The domestication and cultivation of the power allows for nuance, growth, and feats of incredible achievements. Deep down, the power wants to be free to express itself and in controlled societies that results in periodic outbreaks of uncontrollable wild abandon. Sometimes we say one has gone crazy.

Balance comes to mind. One can stay cultured and acceptable for only so long before the dam breaks and the jaguar within wants out. There becomes a need to recognize and befriend this state. There is a pull within all to become free and let loose. It is awesome and is what you seek. I can feel it within and how it animates all. This is it; it is what you wanted to discover. It’s the Great Spirit. It comes forth as the jaguar, powered by the serpent. It’s the harmony of feminine and masculine to produce conscious power capable of constant transformational magic.

 

We are all expressions of the power; every single living thing. Everything has spirit. Life could be thought of as an experiment where free will is observed in the situational embodiment of conscious energy and the wonder is in how it is used. The masculine wants to push forward, achieve, accomplish, and win. This involves building and destroying, amidst a show of strength and ferocity. The feminine wants to create community, unity, and family structures. She wishes to express the power through creativity and the arts. Her potency is a check on her masculine counterpart through love and inclusiveness as opposed to individuality and competition. The two as one makes for harmony while balancing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Left alone, each polarity refines into a greater expression of its dominant traits. In the case of the male, it is the warrior intent upon world domination at the expense of all. This darkness is within us all. Look within and you will see it and you will see the need for harmony and balance. A reconciliation involves finding your soul mate. We are agents of destruction, both outwardly and the self. When we are shown love, the power flowers.

 

There is a need to first reconcile within and afterwards the recognition and mitigation of the duality of each lighthouse of power. Subsequently, one is ready to harmonize with the outward expression of this power. Why do most relationships fail? Look within for the reason. We are not whole beings as of yet though we go in search of a partner who will make us whole. That only works once we have dealt with our own shit.

 

There is a need for deep soul work and a need for the reconciliation of opposites in order to live within the centre/heart space but to get to that place involves a balance within of the contending polarities. Before the coming together of the feminine and the masculine, each side has to get its act together. It's mythicized in ancient Egypt as the constant fighting between Horus and Set and within that story are homosexual elements that symbolize a union of masculine traits that mitigate the destructive tendencies and weaknesses found within masculine archetypes. It’s a tough sell to discuss in our culture as we view this behaviour as deviant as opposed to being symbolic. In western culture, a real man ain’t no sissy; he’s alpha and definitely no cuck or soy boy, has no feelings, and never backs down. In a culture that ritually celebrated this behaviour, the answer becomes obvious and so empowering.

 

I have written about this before and these concepts were realized and practiced by the great quariwarmi shamans of the Andes. I write about it again because of constant insights into its nature and seeing this process unfold within. In pre-Colombian Andean cosmology, each polarity would be first mediated towards the centre starting with the reconciliation of the same gendered complementary opposites found within. Disharmony between these worlds leads to confusion. Sacred performances involving cross dressing males, called ipas, were ritually performed in order to mitigate the male tendency towards judgment and destruction. The masculine force, sufficiently tamed, would be prepared to be symbolically united with the opposing feminine force that has been similarly tamed in a holistic process called tinkuy. The successful reconstruction of the respective gendered poles leads to the mediation of the feminine and the masculine polarities, a process called yanantin, with the result a perfect harmony called the conocimiento. This balancing act and subsequent joining together of the opposing forces ritually recreate the original androgyne along a central axis, bisecting the feminine and masculine polarities, which in turn unlocks and radiates unconditional cosmic love and demonstrates this union is the origin of all there is and is represented in ritual and symbol as the mediated third gendered hermaphrodite. It is the union of the feminine and masculine powers which reconstitutes the all. It’s the cultivation of the human to reclaim a cosmic destiny. It’s taking the wild grape within nature and creating a dual sexed and self-pollinating plant that I have discussed before which is the essence of the mystery of the great Dionysos. I directly experience this voyage of the harmonization of the energy. I am not even sure where I am on the path but I sure do feel this power. It courses through me and at times it is magical. I’m engaged in slowing down, calming the mind, and becoming conscious of this power. Eliminating distractions, whether that be forced through the aging process or mindfulness, brings you into communion with this power. It’s magical and can transform into many expressions.

 

The power of the Huachuma mesa involves this balance and reconciliation. Lighting it all up, getting quiet, and just listening. Being present. Feeling the power of the serpent ripple through my body in waves and admiring the jaguar and its wild and ferocious display of coursing natural power. If nature was going to design the ultimate expression of the force that animates all in the universe then the jaguar is it.

 

I smiled knowingly as the knowledge slowly caressed me and allowed me to understand what it was I was feeling. I pictured the undulating serpentine nature of the Goddess come forth as a serpent and profoundly realized that our existence is a vibration and the path of the serpent’s body represents the pulsation that defines the reality of that vibration. This path is travelled by the jaguar, whose wild energy and abandon lights up the track and allows for the experience of what it is the vibration has created.

 

When you pass the challenges of life, embrace the undulations of the serpent, and rise up in strength, the jaguar comes. Balance is at your doorstep. Welcome to the Order of the Jaguar.

spiritual achiever

My exterior is calm and collected. I'm in control and things seem to always sum even steven. My inner world is one of extreme polarity that vascillates between going all in and being ultra locked down. Self-discipline is not a problem for me if I'm on the path of purification. I learned long ago how to use and control the mind to accomplish those goals. Conversely, when the kids are let out of the cage to play it's hard to get them back in, just like thing one and thing two from Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat. They are adventurous, playful, lustful, and bent on self-destruction by living in the moment and not caring for consequences. The future me has to clean up, usually the next morning and then suffer from the lack of sleep from the outpouring of frivolity and lust.

I think it is instructive as a template for life and the spiritual path. We humans tend to go all in on the spiritual path, so much so it sometimes becomes off putting for others to tolerate. Ego gets involved and we embrace the identity of one who is enlightened and will elucidate pearls of wisdom. We assume the pose and start stinking of righteousness or is that incense? There has to be balance. Be spiritual but be a rascal, play, and drop the serious pretence. I've been reminded many times to play while on this path.

The collective consciousness of humankind goes through these same struggles as well and we always manifest the extremes in all of our endeavours. We explore all the way to the edge. Eventually being holy and pure leads to righteousness and then forcing others at the point of a sword to become righteous like yourself. The infidel is not to be tolerated or shown mercy. Going full on into hedonism leads to deviance and is a path to darkness as we can't escape the universal truth that with the high comes the low. Maybe that's why we anthropomorphize these traits as god and devil?

Ram Dass addresses the goal of total purification in spiritual pursuits. He exclaims celibacy, instead of making you pure, just leads to being a horny celibate. Pretty funny and full of truth. This idea can be extended out into pretty much all aspects of our existence and ties in with my point about these extreme polarities that seem to plague us. It goes back to being told while on the spiritual path to remember to play. Seriously you must play! I think the Buddha was getting at something when he talked about the middle way! The pre-Columbian master shamans of the Andes mountains knew about this need for balance and called it tinkuy. They designed their whole construct and Mesa around reconciliation of the opposites and extended it out to the woman and the man in order to bring them together within unity. Unity recognizes differences and harmonizes them. We appreciate all for their differences as that what makes the game interesting.

a candy-coloured clown they call the sandman

A dream is a wander in the mind or is it the mind that wanders, and fundamentally is that what reality is - a mental wander? Sometimes, the sandman fucks with my waking consciousness and tailors the dream to expect the resolution of an event at the exact second the waking alarm is to go off. It's a reminder of who is in the driver's seat and to be cognizant of the messages coming up from the subconscious.

The dreaming mind is exploring through the dream all aspects of its psyche. The dark and the light. The good and the bad. The fucked up and the holy. Our world is the subconscious of something else trying to express itself through dreaming into existence what has been suppressed and what needs to be explored and brought to the light. The universe is the psyche of the dreamer - just like at night when we go to sleep we dream and create a universe, maybe not as spectacular as this one we share, but nonetheless we reflect our psyche and create the dream. This is quite the way to look at the world. Everyone I come across, meet, judge, and study is a representative in some way of the psyche of the all and my reaction to them is a reflection of how I view those traits. From the all, I come forth as the quiet mystic and through this lens the psyche gains knowledge of who they are. Looking at all the needless suffering in the world, I know it comes from me. Same for the division and the hatred. It's a unique way to view the world and take responsibility for its condition. And then to be sorry, seek contrition, and try to make amends.

The cosmic dreamer first dealt with our primitive instincts. The sacred masculine energy appeared as the protector and was savage in his existence. He claimed dominance over his surroundings or perished. The sacred feminine aligned with the protector in order to birth her offspring. The psyche dealt with the base traits of self, the masculine and his bloodthirsty nature when not checked and the nurturing aspect of the feminine. Eventually, Homo sapiens appeared in the dream, with the intelligence of the dreamer, and with their appearance the dreamer could then start to realize how they functioned under a myriad of circumstances and stresses in order to psychoanalyze the intelligent self. So, the universe is the ongoing process of psychoanalysis of the dreamer. I go back to the pre-Columbian concept of tinkuy and the idea of first cultivating the sacred feminine and masculine into the best of all the feminine and masculine traits, refining them in fire as you would metals - the feminine into the intuitive loving mother and caring wife and the masculine into the protective warrior, using logic and reason, and then bringing the two back together as one thus completing the sacred alchemical process at the heart of this dream.

Dreams are the portal into the mystery. Through dreams we access what is fundamentally the substance and structure of the universe. This knowledge is obfuscated, purposely made trivial, and off-limits. The guardian at the gate allows you in, he has to because it is fundamental to your nature, but then tears it away before you catch on to the underlying message. We figured out a way in the waking dream to preserve snapshots in time before they disappear. We mastered the art of remembering. We record events using various media. We used to create myths and fairy tales to keep within the collective consciousness an understanding of our environment. The dreamer’s fatal flaw is the recall; the remembering of what just happened. Experiences within the dream vanish in an instance, sometimes recalled by a flash when an event triggers a remembrance.

Plant medicine ceremonies with Ayahuasca bring you to the door of the mystery and allows access to the dreaming consciousness while in a fully awake trance. Ayahuasca visions and dreams are of the same origin. What is hidden within the subconscious depths is dredged up to the surface in ceremony and we can then face, deal, laugh, forgive, and develop courage from confronting the issues and the fear.

It's impractical to live out your life within ceremony nor to function always in your waking dream. The plant medicine ceremony is the catalyst for then beginning the real work of integrating the lessons and decoding the mystery. Every night when I go to sleep is another opportunity to enter into the mystery and the same place Ayahuasca takes me. To penetrate the depths you need an ally that will get you there on a nightly basis. The catalyst for a deep dive into the dream state is the great teacher Mapacho, which is potent jungle tobacco. The befriending of Mapacho has two great benefits. It is a meditative aid which quiets the mind and induces peace and calm. Entered into communion with before bedtime then opens the door to the dreaming world. Entering this universe on a regular basis for the inquisitive leads to many questions and discoveries. First of them is how am I able to create fantastic worlds through my mind? What is this power? And then finally a dawning realization that this cracks the code.

If you are god there has to be proof. It isn't just empty rhetoric. Dreams are your proof. You become the creator and the one, confirming what it is you realized but then were left perplexed and bothered with the question: if I am god then why do I not feel it or feel so small? You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling. 

in bloom

So I have written about my philosophy which I will call the flower philosophy. The flower is the coming forth of the seed and has every right to claim primacy as much as the seed does. This thinking all stems from the belief that originally if I found the fount of everything then I will have found my true self, god, and so on. Then I changed up my thinking because I was delineating and breaking up into separate processes happenings that are succinctly complete, we just don’t see it due to perspective. The perspective at work is our positioning and therefore distance away from seeing everything in its entirety. We have called this phenomenon time and we use time as another way to describe perspective. We are occluded from having a wide angle view of this concept we have called time. I get the feeling it is all in the now, the past and future just phantoms, but we lack a sense to see it all or we have a filter on our consciousness that does not allow for a broad witnessing of time but instead separates it out which in turn creates events and enables the great game. Quite the sentence; you'll have to probably read it a few times to figure out what I just wrote. I know I did! My other half comes up with these ideas and I am just the scribe. So I can’t see the flower but it is the result of everything that is coming forth. It is farther down the energy wave. I had figured my ego and superego were psychic disturbances that were the result of awareness fuelled by desire instead of realizing that this is all one process blooming in our field of energy called a human and one process that we discern leading into another can lay no claim to being ultimate truth based on an order of operations.

Okay good enough I hope. You can go back and read a few of my most recent posts where I go on about this if you wish. I have just tried to summarize it because I actually want to go into some other discovery I had this morning. When your base desires get the best of you or some other human need, problem, or family situation causes upset well when this happens now I try to remind my base id to be kind to tomorrow’s human that has to function and try to let this go. So this is problem number one. Sometimes these things are trivial or don't make sense so there is an inclination to just run away from your problems. It’s never ending. There's the responsible and serious part of me and then the part that just wants enjoy life and live in the moment. Then I realized I do need a part of myself that just doesn’t care about consequences; it just wants to have fun. Give me a thrill! I can understand that! Then there’s the opposite part of me, the superego, that judges behaviour and is like you are so stupid man. I need that part of me too so that there is a foil to the mischievous one. Then there is the poor ego stuck in the middle trying to mediate between these two extremes that make up what I call self. The two extremes are Dionysos and Apollo. I kind of gave Apollo the cold shoulder a few months ago when I discovered Dionysos is the fount and the eternal return of the energy. The indestructible life. It’s this carefree desire beholden part of me that is constantly wiping out his game. I need Apollo because though reason sits on the back of the unreasonable it also tempers the chaos and nonsense. If we then rely on Apollo too much there is no fun and no play. All business. Just the facts. Dionysos is god but Apollo is god as well. There is no one god. We humans get to be in a special place in that we have both of these gods within us and to be successful we have to mediate and balance the two. It is through having an ego that we can do this. Take a look at the animal kingdom. It runs mainly on needs and fulfillment; there is not much reasoning going on with them. Our place is so unique in that we can develop the ability to reason and from this temper the unreasonable. The extreme of either position creates disharmony. A life of pure hedonism leads to your own destruction however fleetingly the sweet pleasure of it just may be and a life of rigour and preciseness with no time for play leads to a pretty dull, unfulfilling, and sterile life as well.

So as a human I am gifted a pretty special opportunity to create the god of all gods. By taking the masculine attributes of Apollo and Dionysos I just described and balancing them and then the feminine by cultivating the attributes of love and caring versus hysteria and balancing them I prepare for union. Then there is bringing all together in the middle at the heart. I have mentioned before in previous blog posts about an Andean concept called tinkuy and that’s what some specialists were doing in pre-Columbian shamanism. These beliefs were trampled on and forgotten by the encroaches of Western man and his thinking he knows better. The people of the Americas were figuring this shit out millenniums ago. We probably need to bring this back to stave off the coming destruction.

You can only hope to accomplish this centring through ego and a healthy one at that. The two powers on the extreme end of self are ridiculously strong. Imagine being in the middle of a fight between the Hulk and Superman. That’s your ego. It’s trying to keep things in balance and running along, maybe letting each side out daily for a little exercise. Be kind to your ego; it’s the only thing that’s going to get you through this hot mess. 

balancing act

There is at times this ceaseless chatter in my head spinning all awareness. It's tainted by culture to a large degree. It analyses and speaks in English which kind of gives it away as a product of the language and customs of my local surroundings. It molds my behaviour, points out when I fit in, and warns when I am beyond the pale of expectations. It directs me to lash out at others in anger when it is not respected. Acting on desires will bring with it castigating shame and contempt from this entity as a form of control. Travel to an extent is quite liberating in this regard as being an outsider allows you to transgress their cultural norms and being free of your own expectations is therefore a boon to self. Then there is me who is kind of a puppet to the ceaseless chatter guy but kind of just acts on impulse. That’s the real me! I think. Then there's this part of me that is seemingly on auto pilot though acting like a servant. This guy keeps everything functioning without even asking or reminding him. Breathing, digesting, growing my hair, and so on. Who is this? Who created the universe and keeps it running? Who is the energy behind the stars? Same guy. I wonder if he is the one pushing desires into consciousness? I limit myself to my conscious awareness, and even then I’m split, and because of this I don't realize that the part of me replenishing my cellular structure is me as well. The energy system responsible for the maintenance of you and the universe is the same worker. It is all you. And by it I mean you are it. You do this. We focus on the stream of drivel running through our head as being who we are when it is just a part of it and one that shouldn’t be in the driver’s seat.

That’s the thing that is difficult to move past when I try to identify who I am. The problem is trying to identify who I am because it seems kind of impossible. The advice I usually give to myself is if there is no solution to a problem then by definition it isn’t a problem. It has become a problem because of the insistence on trying to solve it. There really is no I, however long I wish and insist on propagating that notion. At best I am a field of energy that is definable based on others, their feedback, my body shape, and this chatter in my head that tells me I am this guy. I don’t know why I have exalted the chatter in my head guy above the silent worker who keeps this all intact and running and left the guy affected by desire twisting in the wind. I guess if you aren’t loud and get noticed then you get taken for granted and largely dismissed.

Part of why I want to believe I have a higher and a lower self is I have met this higher self. I know it is me but I still can’t reconcile that my localized conscious awareness is not the only me. Damn it, I want exclusivity for what encompasses me in consensus reality and I want it to be the definition of me. So I come to the realization on this spiritual journey I have a higher self but that he stands above me so I separate the two. And then this higher self connects me with everyone else because they have the same one and if they access it then they too are in touch with this universal consciousness. They get tripped up by it as well. How can it be me if it is you?

I look at myself in consensus reality as the controlled looking to break free of the dominance and usurp the power of the controller in my head. In psychological terms it is the ego making a play to become the superego and hopefully breaking free of being the controlled and becoming the puppet master. The puller of the strings is aware of this gambit from the beginning and has tried to prevent me from getting too far in this journey. He scared me, threatened death, and tried to get me to turn back.  I proved my worth, I had the courage to continue, and I was given passage up the mountain. In fact he really helped me to get to the destination. I didn’t stay on top of the mountain and instead chose to come back down. We all seek to be the king of the castle. Our internal drive beckons us to purge the surroundings of our enemies and competitors once we triumph. For the man it is power and the love of women, specifically the feminine divine who is mother and lover, being the ultimate prize. At first she is mother but as we climb the mountain she becomes lover. The underpinnings of everything is desire and this attraction at the level of the sacred is off the charts. Just a hint of her power and the chase is on. In psychology this desire to overthrow the father and capture the mother becomes Sigmund Freud's 'Oedipus complex.’ Delving into ancient Egyptian mythology it was recognized in the form of kamutef ‘bull of his mother' and this motif is also found in ancient Greek mythology such as the overthrow and castration of the King of the Titans, Ouranos, by the son Cronos. In turn Cronus, now the father, waits to devour his children at birth while their mother Rhea goes behind his back and saves the youngest Zeus from this fate. Zeus goes on to defeat Cronus and the Titans and then Zeus becomes the most high and mythologically becomes an asshole. He eats his first wife, the titan Metis, so she wouldn’t give birth to their second child, a prophesied son, who would overthrow him. It’s all an elaborate metaphor of the struggle for mastery within the male psyche and the same outcome is continually the result. The son overthrows the father, gets the girl, and then becomes just like his father and locks her away again. He tries to consolidate and maintain his power. The union of the two powers, the King and the Queen, creates the next iteration of the lower self and he needs to go on the hero’s journey to rescue the princess from the father who has developed dragon like tendencies. And on it goes. How does this cycle break? I think an answer is found in Pre-Columbian shamanism. The process involves taking the two halves of man and mediating them to the centre position. They called this process 'tinkuy.’ Tinkuy is a Quechuan term denoting the joining together of complementary opposites through ritual mediation. It's all about bringing everything into the centre, the in between space, to find balance. This place was called the 'chaupi' and the central axis in this common territory was called the 'chhimi' which means the heart. Once balance is achieved, the complementary opposites are ready for the sacred marriage to the divine feminine who has undergone a similar trial by fire; a figurative burning of the dross. The perfect union ensues when everything is in balance.

Part of being balanced involves recognizing in our psyche this ego and superego that are in a power dynamic. The superego needs a lower self in order to know he is the controller. There’s no superego if he doesn’t have an ego to control. Or to put it in a different way: if you insist on dividing up your psyche then all these pieces must be present in order to create the psyche. They must exist. Well they must as long as you insist on labelling things. It is like the universe. The universe is one enormous energy system. It is us who divide it up and label patterns of contiguous energy as things and then we believe in the things we have given recognition to. For the most part it is arbitrary though there's logic to our categorization. Once we divide things up you can realize that the universe cannot exist without that thing; it is quite illuminating, especially if you ever wonder what happens when this human body gives out and perishes. Your energy is part of the total sum of the universe; in other words there is no universe without you. If there was no you then there would be no this. That’s pretty awesome. I realized because of this that everything is transactional. For instance I transfer energy from my body into a drum skin via a stick and I produce a noise which is another form of the energy. Knowing this, it is then understood there will be a release and transmutation of your energy when you physically die.

Another way to look at this energy process is realizing the ineffable sacredness of what is going on and the opportunity available to act unconditionally and be of service. Plants have mastered this universal precept. They take in their energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil and water without having to take life. Conversely we take energy from others in order to survive, whether it is through taking life and ingesting other plants and animals for energy or by burning wood in order to transfer it into saving heat. The underlying process behind all life is the transfer of energy that enables survival. When we take from others we can offer something in return instead of a constant greed and focus on self. Cultures that are in a symbiotic relationship with their environment realize this and have words in their language for it. In Andean culture it is called 'ayni’ in their Quechuan language, which means reciprocity. This is realizing the energy exchange involved and offering up something in return.

I think I deviated a bit from the original intent of the idea of this split within our localized minds. I was trying to point out the need of a lower ego self in order for the higher controller self to know he is in charge. So when my lower self, with all his warts, embarks on a journey to improve himself and become the model of what his superego wants him to be where does the puppet master eventually go? There's no room for two at the top. Is there a coup, an overthrow of the dominion of this energy field called me? I guess there has to be. So how does the superego self react to this journey? Well at the start I imagine it is made difficult. If you insist on continuing, you know polishing that armour and training for the battle, then various paths will present to you, baiting you to take one of them so you will sidestep the journey to the top. But what if you continue on in the journey to self? You overthrow the father, take what he has including the Queen, and you rule in his stead. But wait a minute. You are destined to repeat the same drama because you assumed the higher position. So there's a new lower self that forms and that needs refining. It's metaphorically the next shit that bubbles to the surface that is not your ideal of what your newly defined self is. It’s a new you with a whole new set of problems! Or perhaps the same desires that frustrated your previous self never went anywhere and will now harangue the new you. Another desire causing havoc to the better man. The cycle begins again and this lower self is going to overthrow the new king unless the incumbent can throw him off the task at hand. This never ends. There's always something that needs improvement. This is the eternal masculine problem. How do I maintain balance once I reach the top?

Oh my god. That's it. That's why I am here. To find out the answer why; why this continual cycle?

What's the answer to this continual problem? Wisdom tells me that an insoluble problem is not a problem at all. The problem is you trying to solve it. As long as you insist you have a separate superego and your ego needs improvement then you must play this game. I wrote about belief a couple weeks ago and I have been empowering this split within myself because I refused to accept responsibility that I am the total package and instead live a life of disintegration with an insistence upon myself being comprised of parts. Accept and recognize what it is that is me without feeling I need to do anything about it. It’s the same way we are fooled into thinking we are isolated from the universe as a whole. There's nothing you need to do. You are already it so instead of trying to improve your lower selfish self, become fit for service and be of service to others and help them. Focus your efforts on improvement of others. Lift them up so they can reciprocate and lift others up and on it goes. If you are at this point in your journey then you can see you don't need to improve yourself, you just need to recognize your own diversity and find balance. In that divine harmony you will acknowledge all that makes you you and and take from each the strengths that will counteract the weaknesses and bring balance into the equation which enables you to become fit for service. Then bring this balance into the world at large. Attaining higher consciousness doesn't mean climbing the mountain and becoming the most high as if you are trying to be the most enlightened in some spiritual contest. Higher consciousness involves Love and forgiveness for yourself and others. It is recognizing your strengths and your weaknesses and that you will never be infallible. Stop trying to make the two ends of a stick, the top and bottom, be the same point. It can't be done. Transform yourself from a stick into a circle. Wherever you are in the circle is perfectly balanced.  

cultivation

Cultivation is an agricultural term for the act or process of preparing the soil for the raising of crops as well as the husbandry of plants. Dionysos represents the process of the cultivation of the self pollinating vine. The wild vine is dioecious (has distinct male and female individual organisms) therefore the male flowering vine must be present in order that the female flower can be fertilized and produce fruit. In nature occur self-fertile grapevines, hermaphrodite vines, and cultivating these vines would produce a plentiful stock of self pollinating vines and this brings its fruits and the gift of wine to regions that would not normally support the propagation and growth of the dioecious vines.

Dionysos with accoutrements

The process called tinkuy in pre Colombian Andean shamanism brings together the wild feminine and masculine halves of the human being to create a harmonious unity. The great quariwarmi shamans of the Andes were cultivating the woman and the man as the symbolic serpent and the jaguar, bringing their energies into the centre, the axis mundi, to produce a physical and spiritual union of the opposites. The centre is where all is mediated to and from here is a sum greater than the parts. During the same period in history, a different culture, on the other side of the world was ritually reenacting the same process. The ancient Greeks were immortalizing the dual sexed in their conception, celebration, and worship of the effeminate god man Dionysos. 

The alchemical transformation of the aspirant involves taking the base materials of man and woman, and refining them. This is the process in agriculture of cultivation or in metallurgy the compounding of alloys into a new material. This process within us is the sacred marriage, called the Hieros Gamos, that creates an inner transformation demonstrated by the union of the sacred feminine and masculine. The spiritual joining together with your soul mate forges the hermaphrodite, who is the end result of this process. The spiritual cultivation of the human being is the template for creating the divine from the human. The spiritual union of the inner divine feminine and masculine gives birth to the god. This is in essence the saviour because it enables the realization that the god is you and you are everything. 

sacred marriage

When you combine the feminine with the masculine what do you get? Culturally you get the marriage union. Sexually the end result is a baby. Mythologically you get the hermaphrodite. What about from the human psyche standpoint of enacting an inner transmutation while physically remaining the same? Isn't this what Dionysos is all about? Embraced are the feminine attributes of love, unity, play, pleasure, and a connection to nature and animals. All this whilst in a body and culture designating the masculine as stoic, hardworking, with an appeal to self and strong individualism, along with a strong dose of reason thrown in. This describes where I am currently in this most amazing journey of discovery. Both sides have great attributes and can be complementary. Forge each side through the fires of multiple incarnations, burning off the dross, and then the two sides become ready to be united. The shamans of pre Colombian South America called this two fold process tinkuy where the masculine was mediated into the best qualities put forth while extinguishing the desire to control, to judge, the anger, and the holy righteousness. The masculine focused and structured impetus when combined with the feminine artsy and chaotic side has an effect of a whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

In the myth of Dionysos he is torn apart by the Titans after his birth, with the only thing remaining being the heart. The remains of the Titans, after Zeus zapped them with a thunderbolt in punishment, formed the human body. Looking into this myth, I see Dionysos representing the world soul being torn apart upon entry into our world. We all have a piece of this heart which resides in the Titan body we share, much like a concept of an eternal soul. Indestructible Dionysos represents a primal unity, an ability to return to that state, and in this combination are the feminine and masculine attributes. The sacred marriage of mythology called the Hieros Gamos in essence reconstitutes Dionysos as the dual gendered all. The dismembered Dionysos within creation is recombined into the primal whole. He exhorts us to come together whether that is through wine, dance, sex, or community.

The Goddess I have sensed calling to me all these years would be the buried feminine half of me longing to reconnect with the masculine that has come forth. My soul mate. Are my complementary gendered natures on different cyclic scales and I need to synchronize them? Arrange them on the same vibrational frequency? Are we all individually microcosmic representations of the all and all in a process of tinkuy in order to individually recreate unity? Or are we it, nothing microcosmic about us, pretending we aren't? We all must mediate the feminine and masculine within. And then once we all do it the whole then comes together as one. Externally we look for completeness in a partner while ignoring the call internally. This is very interesting in that not only would we look towards cosmic unity as the divine embrace of the sacred feminine and masculine that are derivative of the ultimate unity but within you and I now are these two halves in a dress rehearsal playing out within all that will lead to a reconnection to source. The ultimate answer to the mystery of the origin of the universe is within us all as well, waiting to come together again.

Marriage is a dress rehearsal for the union within between your two gendered halves and all they entail. It is convenient to put the genders in a box and say feminine and masculine while ignoring the multi variations of the spectrum that each gender contains. The first work, if you are in for example a male body, involves recognizing all the masculine traits within. To become a candidate for the sacred marriage involves mediating all the good and all the bad of what it means to be a man. To be a protector of the sacred feminine; a medieval knight in shining armour. In the human act of marriage two people come together as one, complementing each other, and from that union they produce something even greater. Two halves come together as one and multiply. Within us are the fundamental workings of existence and to realize your full potential we have marriage to remind us that within is also expressed in this same outer construct. I am a man but I also do sense a feminine part of me that is buried. When I become comfortable with my masculinity then I can more easily connect with my feminine half. It was around eight years ago I first noticed her. I have awakened her within through an understanding of who I call the Goddess. She is a source of Love, healing, teaching, and wisdom and within my interactions with her there is a longing to be reunited and she has shown me how she has been locked away. She has asked me to come away with her, she has united with me on an intellectual level and an erotic physical level. Last December there was an afternoon I spent with the plant teacher Huachumon and during this time the most magical drum playing started up and there was this happy and erotic celebratory vibe. It felt like a marriage celebration. No union is perfect and there is work involved to grow however I feel we are together now and need to harmonize our relationship even further. This mirrors the human marriage and a need to work at it.

The connection with Dionysos involves an understanding of my relationship with the Goddess within where this union between us is enacting what is fundamentally the workings of all creation which is the ecstatic embrace of the sacred feminine and masculine. This oneness I see encapsulated in the representations of Dionysos. He is an effeminate man but he embodies attractive masculinity, has this wild band of frenzied female followers called maenads and these erect playful male followers called satyrs. He is ever returning and indestructible and leads us to discovering within are both traits that we can bring together in a sacred marriage to find wholeness. He reminds us with his connections to theatre that this is a grand stage to perform your song and dance and is there so we remember to play. Play, Love, and making connections with others is what it's all about.

psychological concepts and the understanding of self

Self is created through thinking and self reflection, a quality humans have developed. Being a construct of mind, the self is fragile and can be at times easily manipulated. To try and break free of this manipulation causes self to turn on self. There's no way around facing this gun fight at high noon.

The mind heads for judgment as its first course of action. The social app Facebook is pernicious in this regard because immediately you have to make judgment decisions on what is presented to you as you scroll through the posts. Humans crave acceptance from others so psychologically you present a snapshot of your life, thoughts, beliefs, or interests and then you wait to see if it gains approval from others who hold this power over you. It's a strange gambit but it could pay off in rewards. If you accumulate likes and followers then you achieve to a degree fame. Then you build off that fame with your ego temporarily feeling satisfaction in achieving this notoriety. Social media is a bit of a catch 22 in that it is a great way to stay connected and a big part of life is connecting with others. The way past this judgment is positivity and to like and encourage.

I am desire, I am Love, I am my feelings, passions, dislikes, and likes based on awareness. Psychologically it is called the Id. My sense of self, identity, and the suppression and control of my base needs and desires is mediated through Ego. Ego is formed by an interaction with others and culture who want you to fit into society's box. From this develops the Superego which judges, rewards, punishes, and controls the ego like a puppet. And it can be malicious. The ego is kept in line via shame and rewards meanwhile the id is buried, though feelings always surface. The feedback loop between ego and superego suppresses the id. I was confused all my life because I thought my impulses were causing havoc but here's the thing: I was trying to break free of the puppet master by getting rid of my ego so when I did that the superego just made the goal of a higher self the next egoic achievement. You see this outcome in many others. They want to become ultra spiritual but it is still just the ego now moved up to a higher place. I wanted to get one up on everyone and I was going to do it by becoming enlightened! The Goddess at one point had told me there are many layers to the deception and when I did the whole spiritual trip in the end she just laughed at me and said it is all about Love. Nothing else matters. So conceptually shedding the ego and superego reveals who you are, pure conscious awareness, as far as I can tell. There's no higher self and no lower self. Just me, warts and all. I want pleasure, I want Love, I'll act and react when challenged. I will accept.

So what about this id? Psychological concepts were a product of the 19th and 20th centuries but there is a treasure trove of deep work into the psyche that we now call mythology and largely dismiss. The masters we have voluminous records of were the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Hindus. All great societies of the past we can learn from and a great overview of this can be gleaned from Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

I will touch on one of these great gods of the past which has been calling to me and that I have done some work on over the past little while. It comes from a question of what gives the energetic wave that enlivens us the impetus to rise, fall, and repeat? It is desire. The feminine encapsulates desire and the masculine is enlivened to come forth through want. Within the masculine is a transformer that absorbs this power and lights up desire. The ancient Greeks called him Dionysos.

The ever coming one of indestructible life. He appears, and then goes away to eventually return again. In our modern culture he has been reduced to the Greek god of wine and licentious behaviour. Fair enough I suppose because he epitomizes the lust for life. Dionysos is the elixir that powers up and makes the world go round and round. He is our base desires; the id.

Dionysos is born under the cover of darkness, forever coming forth after being torn apart; this alluding to patriarchal societies that are always suppressing Dionysos. Greek reason rose on the back of Apollo after the influence of Dionysos was repressed. The major Greek mysteries conducted at Eleusis and Delphi both contained elements of the mystery of Dionysos. In Roman society, Dionysos was allowed out once a year during the Bacchanalia as the people shed their pent up frustrations and inhibitions. Dionysos ultimately represents a return to the left hand path of the feminine. To sensuality. To transgressing society's morals and repression. He appears androgynous, he cross dresses, he encourages drink and drugs, and flaunts his sex appeal. If you want to find him in modern times look towards good old rock 'n roll. Watch this performance by Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and you'll get the idea. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll baby! is this guy. It symbolizes a society out of control, freeing itself of the shackles of good taste and modesty, and perhaps that what we need before we destroy ourselves. Our world is a locked down patriarchy, dominated by the rigours of science and reason which exacerbate our destructive tendencies in a quest to control everything instead of letting things be, enjoying ourselves, and loving one another. It's this orgy of Love Dionysos ever returns to remind us of because he's indestructible. Until given his proper place and an equality with Apollo in order to find that critical balance, the outburst of Dionysian lust will forever trouble and harangue Apollo and the edifice he has built.

The cross dressing, transgendered, and somewhat effeminate Dionysos is needed in order to bring balance into the masculine sphere. It's a reminder to embrace the feminine into our life to counteract the rigid and destructive side of Apollo. In Pre-Columbian South America mesa rituals there were a class of Andean shamans called quariwarmi who ritually cross dressed in order to mediate the feminine and masculine to a wholeness and balance in the centre. It is a concept called in the Quechua language tinkuy and it is what the quariwarmi shamans were trying to achieve. Tinkuy is the joining together of complementary opposites through ritual mediation. It's all about bringing everything into the centre, the in between space, to find balance. This place was called the 'chaupi' and the central axis in this common territory was called the 'chhimi' which means the heart. These were societies that still retained an innocence, a respect for the feminine, and valued a holistic way of life. They remained largely untouched by the purview of hyper masculinity until the Spanish arrived. In Ancient Greece the collapse of the Bronze Age spelt the beginning of the end for the ideal of balance. Apollo slew the dragon and took over the oracle at Delphi, and the Hellenistic world that came out of this usurpation is a bedrock our western civilization rests on. At the same time the matriarchal Cretan society vanished and Greece transformed itself into a bastion of reason and logic epitomized by Apollo. They tried to retain a balance, but ultimately as their treatment of women showed, it failed.

tinkuy

I wish to initially touch on "The Contendings of Horus and Set" story from ancient Egypt concerning the homosexual acts perpetrated upon each combatant and from this position end up journeying intellectually into the Andes mountains. Horus and Set are the personification of the dualistic masculine mind that can be thought of as reverse images of each other. Another way to envision this is when the sun rises it is as Horus; when it sets it is invoking the power of Set, and this solar behaviour was combined into a deity called Harakhty by the ancient Egyptians. When Horus sees his reflection, he should see Set and when Set looks in the mirror he would see Horus.

Set and Horus combined as Hrwyfy

They are of the same principle but perform the opposite action. Another example would be the interplay between the light and the dark. Without the other there is no distinction between the two; these opposites are what make up the created world and they operate as complementary waves, each with their own peak. Set's attempt at sodomizing Horus is an attempt to prove dominance as it seems this behaviour was also used to depict the subjugation of other nations in that era. By foiling Set's attempt at penetrating him, and then using trickery with the help of Isis to get Set to ingest his semen, Horus is able to eventually prove to his elders that he is the dominant one able to conquer Set and lay claim to the white crown of his father Osiris and thus assume the dual kingship of Egypt.

Horus at Kom Ombo with the double crown

This might seem unrelated but bear with me. I have been smoking jungle tobacco, called mapacho, regularly since August and one of the things it has helped me with is dreaming. My dreaming for quite a while had been sporadic to the point of non-existence and if I did dream, I couldn't remember them. It seems mapacho provides a light into the visionary dreamtime and I now dream vivid story lines which I remember clearly almost every night. A couple of nights ago I had this kind of disturbing dream, well I have noticed that my dreams run the gamut of behaviour and emotions so having this type of dream isn't necessarily uncommon, anyway this male figure appeared and eventually tried to sodomize me which was an uncomfortable situation to say the least. I resisted the attempt and then awoke confused. The next day I was trying to make sense of what this was symbolizing when it occurred to me the metaphor concerned my other half, the dark side if you will, and it was trying to reassert its dominance over the light side. By resisting, it was a sign of where I am on my journey and is suggestive that the tables can be turned now, and the light can dominate the dark if I so choose. However, that leads to another line of thinking.

I had been reading of Pre-Hispanic Mesa rituals in the Andes over the past month with most of the data cited coming from the Spanish conquistadors' observation and interviewing of the former ruling Inca class and the various nations they ruled over. The author of one book called "Decolonizing the Sodomite" was able to bring to light and reconstruct some of the rituals by extracting meaning from the indigenous words used and by critically examining the pandering to the Inquisitors concerning the explosive issue of sodomy which the Spanish had witnessed as being practiced by the Andean people along with rituals where men would crossdress. My take on this is the Andean specialists, shamans called quariwarmi, who were dual gendered shamans that mediated between the symmetrically dualistic spheres of Andean cosmology and daily life, were tasked with reconciling this very thing I have been discussing in which they ritually were bringing balance back into the complementary pair of the masculine through ritual sodomy and then going further to establish a centre balance between the feminine and masculine through the symbolic act of crossdressing which invokes the idea of the third gender recognized as an androgyne. This is the idea of a hermaphrodite being present in their conception of what constitutes the all-encompassing monad, the deity called Viracocha, and of which I have written extensively about in my critical examination of ancient Egyptian mythology.

the dual gendered Viracocha

It would be proper at this point to explain the indigenous idea of tinkuy as this is what the quariwarmi shamans were trying to achieve. Tinkuy is the joining together of complementary opposites through ritual mediation. It's all about bringing everything into the centre, the in between space, to find balance. This place was called the chaupi and the central axis in this common territory was called the chhimi which means the heart. It's interesting that what I can intuit as being the answer to the vexing problem of duality - love and the heart - was ritually mediated by a culture very in tune with this necessity and this was driven underground and destroyed by the conquistadors over 500 years ago.

Again, while smoking mapacho the other evening this idea came to me as my mind faded away and I became the observer that while the masculine mind manifests the middle world and the feminine gives it form, the state the world currently finds itself in is due to the stubbornness of the masculine polarity. The mind has the capacity to know all and refuses to accept the need for the feminine's freely given love and wisdom in order to enact the perfect creation. The situation feels like the feminine is used to birth creation and the masculine is confident from then on it can bring about utopia. The endemic stubbornness of rejecting love as the overarching principle for this most perfect world has sunk us into the abyss we currently are submerged in. The inherent duality that lies within the masculine mind is constantly in battle, symbolized by the light and the dark, and will never be at peace until surrender to love is viewed as a show of strength and not weakness. Love is always available to rectify this pathological condition if we choose.

Here's another way to look at this: the two polarities of the omnipresent energetic force are the opposite attractors of feminine and masculine. Within each node of polarity (think of an alternating current) are the same sex pair described above which can be described as symmetrical though opposing - the Horus and Set never ending conflict that bedevils the masculine node. The idea of looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of oneself describes this symmetry. Each polarity must balance its contending duality before becoming fit to mediate and reconcile its relationship to its opposite. Examples of this would be the dominate feminine traits of love, nurturing, healing, and sexuality harmonizing with warfare, destruction, pestilence, and chasteness. The resulting feminine iconography of the mediation of these characteristics produces ritual and symbolic displays of warrior goddesses with ithyphallic traits. Drawing on my knowledge of ancient Egypt this is iconographic in the goddess figures of the raging bringer of pestilence and healing lioness Sekhemet and in the primeval combative and creatrix goddess Neith.

the ancient Egyptian goddess Neith with erect phallus

In ancient Greece, this confluence of gender traits manifests in the warlike Athena who so attired can appear as what could be described as a female crossdressed.

Athena adorning a column in Athens

This need for balance extends to the masculine traits such as aggressiveness, single mindedness, dominance, and righteousness being reconciled with compromise, inclusion, trust, and free association. This act of restoring individual harmony in our society is a difficult path to follow as the male's gender role is society is rigidly defined and deviation from that is considered effeminate and queer. However, it is a recurring archetype and especially prevalent in the arts. The artist David Bowie is a perfect example of the Dionysian impulse that lays bare the societal exaltation of the alpha male figure.

David Bowie

In my study of pre-Colombian Andean cosmology it is revealed how in tune the various cultures were of the need to achieve this balance. Sacred performances involving crossdressing males, called ipas, were performed ritually to mediate the male tendency towards judgment and destruction. The masculine force, sufficiently tamed, would be prepared to be symbolically united with the opposing feminine force in a process called tinkuy. This balancing act and subsequent joining together of the opposing forces ritually recreates the original androgyne along a central axis bisecting the feminine and masculine polarities which in turn unlocks and radiates unconditional cosmic love and demonstrates this union is the origin of all there is and is represented in ritual and symbol as the mediated third gendered hermaphrodite.

Mountains can be considered these peaks of masculine power, the feminine would be the valley and rivers running through the landscape, and the indigenous people of the Andes referred to these landscape formations as Huacas - idols invested with elemental powers. The Huacas are representative of these contending powers. The masculine will to assert dominance would anthropomorphically have one polarity declaring that they are the most high. Picture in your head two sine waves, each wave successively creates a mountain and a valley and when one aspect is at its peak and is dominant its complementary wave must be moved out of phase in order to keep it in check.

Sine waves out of phase

Combining these two waves in a harmonious relationship creates a figure 8; rotate the 8 ninety degrees and it's an infinite expression of all there is and all there will ever be.

Infinity

Each power rises and falls, has its complementary power symmetrically opposing it, is mediated by its relationship to its opposite counterpart, and is checked and harmonized when the all-encompassing powers cross in the centre. Indigenous wisdom that came before our marauding western civilization and now lost to intolerance and time, created this congruence through symbol and ritual and they strove to lead lives imbued with this idea of balance and reciprocity referred to as tinkuy.

So dark has our situation become that in order to change it a return to the archaic world of symbolism and ritual is much needed. The two estranged waves of masculine polarity, in order to be corralled, must be mediated to the centre where the wise and fully realized feminine power alone in her castle remains in wait for her lover to arrive.