sledgehammer

We live in a compositing model of existence. We are all separate objects against a transparent background and a great and mysterious compositor layers all objects together to create a seamless manifest universe. The great compositor can also be viewed as an architect. This is ridiculous. I am a part of my environment; I cannot be separated from it. My environment is part of the earth, which is part of the solar system, which is part of the galaxy, which is part of the universe.

There is no need to objectify even the universe or describe it as the one. That is clinging to the belief in objects. I can come to terms with giving up all objects except for that one. I will still stubbornly believe there is the one great object that everything comes from. Take a sledgehammer to that last belief you so desperately cling to and the only way I can describe this in language is to say then it just "is", with this word "is" being used as a verb and not a noun.

the eternal song

Consciousness is awareness therefore thoughts and feelings are generated by something external. Consciousness takes ownership of these thoughts and feelings but they are attachments. This is awareness and energy playing an eternal game. Energy is magic, can assume any form, and becomes the object of awareness' desire. This elixir gives rise to thoughts and feelings and the game is on. The human is a special case because of the ability to self reflect. They can think about thinking. We grab hold of thoughts and then have thoughts about them which sets up a feedback loop where we form a new thought based on thinking about a thought. It is within this web that we find ourselves tangled up in.

As I was sitting outside on my deck smoking Mapacho, I looked at the chair across from me and wondered at what point did it become a chair? It was a plastic form that was moulded into a shape, given four legs, two armrests, a seat, and a back. Now I defined it as an object and it seems as real as anything else in this world. I then projected that construct onto my ego and deduced my ego is real because I have defined it as being real. It exists because I give it the power to do so by recognizing it as such. Taking this further, my body is distinct and real for the same reasons. The conundrum in all of this is that everything that seems real are just constructs we have all agreed upon as being so. In this thinking I give rise to a self. I essentially give rise to the world through delineation. This recursive process emanating from a false construct of ego is the cause of all separation. So this error in thinking feedbacks into a recursive loop where the one self becomes the many selves.

The feminine divine is the one object and everything is derivative of her however I have realized she is not even an object. The first time I drank Ayahuasca she told me of her essence - the Goddess told me all is vibration and I came to eventually realize all of creation is from this pulsation. I didn't realize at the time she was also referring to herself, it took about 5 years, and then it hit me. My ignorance was fostered by the language spell that we are all hypnotized with and therefore I wanted to objectify her. Over the course of the last five years I have slowly discarded notions of concreteness for everything except for her, as I could detect everything as being inseparable from totality. All it then took was taking a sledgehammer to my clinging to the idea that there had to be one eternal object even though I know all objects are things you can't count on, nothing lasts, perceived objects are all subject to dissolution, and this energy transforms into something else. The ancient Egyptians depicted this phenomenon in the natural order of things with the scarab Khepri, the master of transformation.

Khepri with scarab head and human body

To grasp the eternal is to see ever transforming patterns coming forth from an eternal energy source that gives away its secrets to those who can quiet their minds and just observe nature without putting their spin on what they observe. Awareness is to become the jaguar, observe, and react to that input. Nothing lasts, but the energy is always there rising and falling, coming magically into existence, and then performing a disappearing act, in preparation to eventually bloom again just like the flowers, the grasses, the seasons, the moon, the sun, breathing, my sleep cycle, my libido, and on it goes. Eventually you make the connection to the beating of your heart.

She has shown me all this in subsequent Ayahuasca ceremonies. She presented herself as whirling energy containing the potentiality of everything. She has also presented herself to me as Queen, as maiden, as lover, a sexually charged woman, as wife, mother, grandmother, a cat, a cow, twin serpents, a slithering green boa, the ancient Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Neith, and Love. She encouraged me to climb the mountain, savour it, then let it go, and come back down to the valley.

In ancient Egypt the Great Goddess Hathor was propitiated through the shaking of the musical instrument called the sistrum.

Renpet with Hathor adorned sistrum

Hathor with her association to music and dance, was invoked on a deeper level through the movement and sound created by the sistrum and this is revealing that the ancient Egyptians were aware of her eternal essence as vibration by choosing this method of worship to call upon her. They objectified her on their tomb walls, in temples of devotion, and they depicted her as mother, lover, Queen, serpent, cow, and lioness however the use of the sistrum reveals a level of understanding of the nature of Hathor as being vibratory energy. In a culturally similar way, the Hindus ultimately revealed their understanding of the Great Goddess Shakti, the energy source behind all and what powers Shiva. In the Tantric Chakra system they devised for understanding the subtle body, it is Shakti as the Kundalini serpent that must be propitiated and roused in order to awaken this energy within that then rises up through the chakras thus 'enlightening' the aspirant.

So I am a pattern of awareness that has come forth from the eternal vibration, living in an intricately woven cloth of multiple vibratory strands that are so well tailored we confuse it for a tangible and solid world, and then base our worldview upon that erroneous intuition. This energy, all from the same fount, rises from the darkness of potentialities, climbs the mountain of appearance, and then returns to the mother in preparation for coming forth by day once again.

She is the eternal song and I am the music.

get back to the now

The separation of the monad as the event. All subsequent events are echoes of the original event which contained everything. The past is derivative of the eternal Now. When the monad separated, the explosion sent out vibrations deep into what can be thought of as the past. At first this energy created a huge ripple of space and time, a massive time cycle, which is measured in distance and duration. As the energy dissipates, the vibrations' peaks and valleys get less intense. We are all living in an explosion of space and time which is creating a past and everything is eventually headed back towards the eternal Now. All of creation is a vibration and time will eventually run in reverse to flow back towards the Now. The future is just past events that have yet to reoccur; they originally occurred during the original explosion of energy and await their replaying on the road home, all leading to the ever present Now. Get back to the Now. Home is Now and we want to return.

The frequency at which our vibration is oscillating is determining our ability to remember the past. Now is the only state there is but when we are able to self reflect and perceive Now it creates echoes much like the decay of a musical note. What makes music interesting is this decay. The decay of the note is leaving a trail behind of itself that we perceive as a past however it is all derivative of the eternal Now. Now is a ship sailing in the ocean and its wake is the past being left behind. The movement of the ship is such that we can look back into the water at the past and see the ripples our presence has made. This leads to questions such as when did Now start creating a past? It would have to be when it became active. From a cosmological standpoint the big bang would have created a huge vibrational force that exploded outwards, thus creating a first event. This event starts the process of creating dualities, and once the cresting vibrational wave has sufficiently slowed, the perception of separate objects. All time events then build off that event as the ship sails back from the farthest reaches of the past which was the crest of the wave, towards a date with destiny where Now and the trough of the vibrational wave meet and becomes unified once again.

The ship is catapulted far into the deep past by the big bang explosion and then it sails back to start retracing the events that were created as the wave vibration was ascending. Are we in the ascension or descension stage of the vibration? Modern astrophysics describes the universe as expanding so apparently the wave has not crested as of yet and events are still being created. Eventually the universe will collapse inwards and from that is set up an interesting conundrum: will all created time events then get played in reverse? A flip. Will the dead rise!?!

take the long way home

Climbing the spiritual mountain is the supreme egoic accomplishment in this game. By reaching the top you essentially become the most high. The race to the top, while dealing with your split personality, eventually satisfies both sides of the contending halves of your mind. In other human pursuits, this drive to get to the top of your game is the shiny right hand path beckoning you on with promises of fame and fortune. Once reached, the accolades come pouring in. You have made it!

There are two paths - the left and the right. One is shiny, full of your immediate desires, and leads to your cyclical death and re-birth. The other is mundane and dull; however, unlike desire which appears, peaks, and disappears, it just is; it follows the arcing and declension of the natural way. And that's the choice. In ancient Egypt, the two courses can be represented as the cyclical path of the sun god versus the stability of Osiris and the ultimate meaning is contained in their two concepts of time which are neheh and djet.

Osiris and Re merged into one

Neheh is the cyclical path that Re makes and brings time to order. Djet just is; it is not created nor governed.

The right hand path is the path of the sun. Round and round he goes, daily climbing that mountain in the north, shining in full radiance at midday, and then falling into the waters after exhausting himself. The next day he does the same thing, on and on he goes always taking that shiny bejeweled route. The left hand path is the path of the moon. She appears in a cycle out of the waters broken, but eventually reconstituting herself until she shines as well. She does not shine as brightly as the sun however she does not flame out daily like the sun. Instead, she takes her time on this journey to completeness following the natural way until she loses her power and returns to the darkness to regenerate herself over a three day period. The sun is forcing things and his brilliance is short in comparison to the moon, as she follows the great Tao. She lives one life for every twenty eight he lives. In this creation that has manifested, everything is subject to the rhythms of the natural way of things.

I see life and I see death all around me. Day breaks and then night sets upon us. I wake and then I sleep. The energy which courses through me is cyclical. It comes and goes in an undulating serpentine rhythm. To replenish the energy, I need to eat and rest. Like moths to the flame, we are all attracted to fame, fortune, and glory. Looking around I can see the natural path is to take the long way home, shine brightly in full radiance, and then return to the void.

clarity

There is no eternal reward or punishment. It is a choice whether to get off the wheel of incarnation. Desire is the overriding factor in whether you wish to return to the sensual world and its pleasures and sufferings. There is no ultimate morality and no ideals you have to live up to as they are all products of the times. Existence is an experience, a game, and you can play it any way you wish. So what do you do when you get to this point of clarity and understanding? You can do whatever you want. There are no cosmic repercussions. But therein lies the rub. I have now an eternal get out of jail free card. Now it is left up to me. I am free. And what I do with this freedom will ultimately define and reveal my character through the choices I make. Don Howard talks of integrity, he mentions impeccability, and you can't miss him talking about reciprocity. I don't have to live up to any of these lofty ideals or act in accordance with them at all. It's my choice. It doesn't matter and it is precisely why it doesn't matter that it is such a vexing problem. My character isn't real. My personality is a sham. I know that. In this quixotic game of life I just keep hearing don Howard say "just lead by your own shining example." Reading between the lines of the wisdom he imparts I know that means ultimately have integrity, be impeccable, be of service, and give back. Can I do that even though there's no carrot at the end of the stick? Can and will I do that just because? Do I choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution? How I want the world to be is what I bring to the table and how I act. It doesn't matter, yet it is the reality I will have helped create.

reality?

I wonder just how much capacity we have to create our own reality? I have been having these thoughts which could make a pretty good short story in that at some point I exited someone else's world which kept me in bondage and thus formed my own reality. My actor would then become latent or dead in someone else's reality and I would then direct my own play through intention. Or perhaps the game is a gradual process where you take control of your own destiny? I think part of this thinking is that my life does seem to have headed in a direction I think deep down was my greatest desire. As a child I could remember wanting to figure it all out. I veered off that path many times but an inner power kept me coming back to that path. In the last two months I have had two dreams in particular which I was sure weren't dreams while I was in the midst of them. In a dream last week I drank Huachuma and was tripping in my dream. It was similar to having a sexual dream where though it was all an act of mentation, it feels very real. In waking reality I have to actually drink Huachuma or physically participate in a sex act but in the dreaming reality there is an image or manifestation of it and the effects are then felt by my body which is lying there in a sleeping/hypnotic stage. How do I know if right now this isn't all some construct as well? I do feel sensation, it feels real, and maybe all these actors in my reality are putting on an impeccable show but I do think I am capable of creating and maintaining this world through mental processes.

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!

character actor

The word character is a favourite of mine especially when used to describe someone's behaviour. Why? It's because a character is someone playing a part, a role, in some kind of drama. Our personal character that we develop is based on choices we make throughout life that become consistent to the point that you can be depended on to exhibit that behaviour. But it is all an act! It's just some game you are playing and you can change it at any time and play another role. But then the people who 'know' you will think you have gone crazy and are acting out of character!

We do have choice in what game your character is going to play. Existence is essentially a game and then there are games within the game. Most characters attach to and play the culture game; it's hard not to because everyone else is participating in that one and it's very serious, please do not refer to it as a game! When you want to escape the enforced conformity and play a new game or your own game the whispers start and people ask what is wrong with you. Try it. Try not playing the game society expects of you. I stopped the politics one and barely know what's going on in the news cycle and it's very peaceful and liberating. When I check in occasionally to that game it is so ugly and rife with divisiveness, name calling, and sabre rattling. How dare I not care about politics? The game I have chosen to play is no less real than any other game, you can't convince me otherwise. It's an eye opening exercise to realize this and once you do you start peering into all the games within society, how people play certain ones, and how we are expected to all play the culture one. In addition, it seems obvious that the backbone of our 21st Century world is identity. Society is structured on rigid identities for all that is forced upon you from the moment you leave the comfort of mama's womb. Assuming a different identity will get you expelled from the banking, health, and government services sectors in short order.

Alan Watts explains the most profound concept to understand everything in one easy step

I owe a debt of gratitude to the philosopher Alan Watts. His teaching is sometimes so clear and plain that I don't even register the lesson or wisdom. I listen to the same lecture multiple times and then at some point a teaching will register within and I will have this aha! moment. It feels sometimes that I already know the concept deep down but hearing Alan explain it or put it into a metaphor evokes a strong feeling of connection to this knowledge through having experienced similar at some point.

Do YOU beat your heart? The same energy that shines the sun is beating your heart.

“So you see, if you become aware of the fact that you are all of your own body, and that the beating of your heart is not just something that happens to you, but something you're doing, then you become aware also in the same moment and at the same time that you're not only beating your heart, but that you are shining the sun. Why? Because the process of your bodily existence and its rhythms is a process, an energy system which is continuous with the shining of the sun, just like the East River, here, is a continuous energy system, and all the waves in it are activities of the whole East River, and that's continuous with the Atlantic Ocean, and that's all one energy system and finally the Atlantic ocean gets around to being the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, etc., and so all the waters of the Earth are a continuous energy system. It isn't just that the East River is part of it. You can't draw any line and say 'Look, this is where the East River ends and the rest of it begins,' as if you can in the parts of an automobile, where you can say 'This is definitely part of the generator, here, and over here is a spark plug.' There's not that kind of isolation between the elements of nature.”

stirrings of consciousness

From out of the void comes consciousness. Consciousness desires to become tangible. The mother creates form from energy that allows consciousness to manifest within and become points of individuated consciousness.

Consciousness desires to self reflect. A curious dichotomy is that Consciousness knows all but does not know itself. To know something there is a need to stand outside of it as an independent observer, do 'science' on it, and ask questions of itself. This is an impossibility so instead Consciousness generates itself in multitudes of instances and has the sorceress Circe from the Odyssey give the individuated consciousness a potion that causes amnesia. We don't know who we are and therefore believe we are independent observers and because of this we can know thyself through this investigation. Eventually some start to see through this charade, go off course, and investigate this peculiarity. The rogue consciousness finds liberation through discovering who they really are and pisses off elements of the self who wish to uncover the secrets of itself and the power that sustains it.

It is Consciousness that is trapped in the Hindu concept of Samsara, which is the wheel of recurring incarnation. The illusion is that our ego self is trapped in Samsara, and this illusion is Maya. We are free to leave at any time through choice. The desire to remain in creation on the wheel of Samsara is Consciousness' Karma. Karma means your own doing and this is exactly why Consciousness goes round and round. 

To be conscious is to imply you are also capable of being unconscious. They go together and really are one. They are two sides of the same coin. Within consciousness are also a pairing so you can then determine that there is a split within total Consciousness. A part of Consciousness is seeking answers and enlightenment while the other half seeks power and control. Consciousness games.

The news is a form of ego consciousness. Our consciousness is localized, limited, and focuses only on things we become aware of and from this we develop a worldview, personality, and a belief system that strengthens our separate identity and henceforth the ego. With the news, we can’t possibly get up in the morning and learn everything that has happened in the world, or for that matter the universe so we rely on news editors to filter out the majority of events and only give us the ‘important’ world stuff and the news we need to know that might affect us locally. Well this is a lot of power and responsibility to give to an organization tasked with this. Imagine the ability to shape the news into a form of pablum that those in power structures want to feed you on a daily basis so that they can control you through fear and mindless drivel. The choice becomes then whether you want to keep swallowing that shit or do you swear off of it and find a little peace of mind within your own little patch of the universe?

Consciousness desires and thus it rises. But like all desire it wanes.

The reliance on the ego and taking the character you are playing seriously is making you small. You are it. You are all of consciousness experiencing yourself from a localized point of view. By forgetting this and attaching to the ego we give away all our power. It becomes somewhat funny then to watch someone with a big ego because if they only knew who they really are and the power they possess they wouldn't have to aggrandize themselves; they are it.

Animals are blessed and cursed with spotlight consciousness, humans are the prime example of this whereas we can focus solely upon ourselves which obscure happenings within our bodies and the environment. By this I mean actions such as breathing, the beating of your heart, the secretion of glands etc. that enable you to remain alive. We don't consciously do these things yet we do them. This is the omnipotent floodlight consciousness that is the counter to the bright shining light. Thinking about this I realized plants are avatars of floodlight consciousness and are the pure reflection in nature of this mysterious omnipotent power. I shall call this Tao consciousness.

my friend and teacher Mapacho

Notes from the weekend of October 21-22nd, 2017

I brought my Mapacho tobacco snuff into the woods on the afternoon of both days. The experience was markedly different as compared to using the snuff on the deck outside the house or in my back room. The first hit while out in nature seemed like a more powerful onset. After the initial discomfort in the sinus cavities wears off I notice my limbs relax and get droopy. They want to hang down and it is this strange dichotomy between a feeling of heaviness and lightness. I also experience a sensation where the chatter in my head subsides and a moment of clarity presents itself. I know from past use that there is a choice in how to precede from here. I can let the chatter restart or go deeper into the solitude. Both times I chose the solitude. The effects were much more noticeable out in nature. My vision felt like a screen was placed in front of it at first as I had my head bowed to the ground. It is easier at this point to close my eyes. I bow my head because of the mucous produced so that it will not run down the back of my throat. As the burning in my nostrils subsides I hear the songs of the birds, the wind through the trees, the dogs barking in the distance, and of vehicles far away. What was most striking was the omnipresent sound of the crickets. How could I have missed this cacophony even in my distracted state? In this moment of blissful clarity I listened to the rise and fall of this sound as a whole and as a series of pulsations. It struck me on the second afternoon of listening to this that this is the sound of the Way; it is the sound of the pulsation of the eternal energy. The Tao. All is vibration and this is the composition of the eternal vibration. This is when my experience and teaching all coalesced and a realization came over me - my thoughts are not the real me; what I am is awareness and feelings generated from the awareness. I'm a beacon of consciousness, a lighthouse of total consciousness generating feedback on its surroundings. The trappings of the sense of a separate self is a result of thoughts and we are taught from birth a cultural language that casts a spell of individuation upon us while giving us a name and an expectation to create and conform to a personality that makes us believe in this separation. This clarity was exceptional. After about five minutes or so I can open my eyes, blow my nose, and view my natural surroundings with a renewed focus. I notice the falling leaves, the birds flying overhead, and the movement of the grasses. The whole experience does not last for long; it feels like about fifteen minutes before the ego mind returns and the chatter starts to drown out the expanded awareness.

Don Howard tells us something to the effect that everyone is a maestro; everyone has something to teach us. I was going out the front door yesterday evening and Judge Judy was on the television. Judy had asked a witness to tell her what happened the day in question. The witness proceeded to give her the details and then started to interpret why the situation occurred. Judy stopped him and said "now you are starting to use your mind" as she pointed to her head, "I only want to know what you saw and what you heard." I went out the door with my dog and that scene stuck with me. Judge Judy knows how duplicitous and untrustworthy the mind is once it starts to put its spin on events. In adjudicating a case, she only wants to know what you were aware of, nothing more. I then thought of my teacher Mapacho. He tries to teach me this same lesson every night.

revisiting the past

I think the primal desire between Shakti and Shiva is the first cause of the universe. They then hid in creation and there is this eternal rediscovering of the passion between the two in all the different forms their respective energy has assumed. This got me thinking about the very first time I drank Ayahuasca. 

Check out what I wrote:

"Okay so the Goddess had put me in this place of exaltation and I was feeling very special. I had fully expected this long awaited experience to begin with fear and some kind of dread as I had this feeling I needed to have my ass kicked before anything else could proceed. However it was not like that at all. I felt the Goddess’ love for me and that I could do no wrong in her eyes. I told her I loved her and this made her very happy. There was this feeling I got that even though she is divine she wanted love as well. The exchange felt at times like lovers at play. Part of her expressing her love was this outpouring of a heavenly scent that was very intoxicating. I realized that men who get a glimpse of and the scent of this Goddess then spend the rest of their days trying to recapture this experience. I was amazed that I could in this lifetime get to this point where I could come into contact with her. The veil was still there though. I was able to glimpse her beauty and smell but the mystery was still there. She flirted with me, teased me, and acted as lovers do. She told me to come away with her. I immediately had an innate sense that if I did that I wasn’t coming back to the material realm. I hesitated and said I cannot as I still have things to accomplish and a family to provide for. She implored me to come but it was at this point I realized the importance of the shaman to guide you through these realms. The shaman shook his chacapa and sang his icaros to ground me."

Talk about desire!

There's something very mystical about desire, like a magic spell. Desire and attraction are not rational at all and seem to be something uncontrollable. Attraction becomes interesting when it is reciprocated. This mutuality creates harmony and intensifies desire. Acting upon desire is satisfying but eventually breaks the spell. Therein must lie the answer to this mystery?

I will eventually find you every time Shakti, but that's the game we play right? Go get lost and see if we can find each other.

sin magic moon

Are we as humans rational? I'm well aware of our shortcomings as a species and our tendency to do irrational things but from an overall perspective usually what we do has some underlying basis, especially if it is a monumental task. This is one of the things that struck me when I visited Egypt in 2009. There are temples, pyramids, and obelisks up and down the length of this ancient place and some are staggeringly incomprehensible to a modern like myself.

Gizah plateau

Karnak temple

Luxor temple

Luxor temple

I say that because of the manpower, logistics, and resources that would have been necessary to construct these objects that were a demonstration of their beliefs. Why would a culture, the world's most powerful empire, erect all these shrines? This spectacle I witnessed galvanized my efforts to keep searching for an answer to an unknown question. I didn't know what I was searching for but I was pretty determined to find it. You see I came to the conclusion that there was an unshakeable belief in the gods and goddesses they worshipped but my mind said well that's just foolish. But again - look! The treasure expended to build. This is irrational unless... Why?

I believed them and I was going to prove to myself why they believed.

It was about two and a half years after I got back from Egypt that I started to get the why. At first I figured they were deifying nature and the cosmos but that only gets you so far until you are confronted with fantastic images and texts of strange worlds populated by various gods, goddesses, and demons. I was reading about night time celebrations in the Goddess Hathor's temple at Denderah involving music and intoxication when it finally clicked: they were altering their consciousness and they were the masters of this very thing.

Temple of Hathor at Denderah

That's why the ancient texts describe ancient Egypt as the most magical land and why the roots of our word chemistry are derivative of one of the ancient names for Egypt which is Kemet. So being obsessed with this question, I wanted to experience what they experienced. Using the Great ancient Egyptian Goddess Hathor as my guide, I followed the ancient trail of shamanism right down into the Amazon basin. Let's just say it didn't disappoint, as this blog space is a testament to my ability to do this very thing.

So what has happened to us? Well first of all, what we moderns call psychedelics are pretty much universally banned or consigned to the fringes of civilization and are considered 'trips' and escapism that respectable members of society do not sully themselves with. Instead of having temples with priests devoted to the use of these agents of consciousness, they are often taken in horrendous settings and for the unprepared this can be quite dangerous. They also have the ability to let you see through cultural games and can show you love is all that matters and this for our western culture is very subversive. Therefore the possession of these substances are considered criminal and society will lock you up if they catch you with them. There are no suppositories of wisdom, nor caring wiseman or wise woman to properly lead you into this mysterious realm. Well, there are still people like this, but you have to find them and that isn't easy either.

Second of all, we don’t see magic in the world anymore because we have succumbed to a spell. We are all hypnotized and under the spell of a great magician. Before the spell cast had taken hold humans knew of magic, of charms, and of enchantment. Those in power with the keys to shape human destiny then used the power to enchant against us and through a spell we lost the magic. What is the spell? It's language. Language shapes your beliefs and filters all your knowledge. Through language we live in an objective material world. Everything is objectified, taken from its background, and given a name. Person, place, or thing is hammered into all children and sentences are constructed on this axiom. Our world is made of language. 

If you ever want to realize the hold language has on you try to figure out why we have to say "It is raining." or "There is a lot of rain." In our language we can't just describe rain as a happening. But even in examining the 'it' in it is raining we can deduce it is describing a state and that state of affairs is ever changing because it is going to eventually get sunny out. Objectified rain cannot exist without a slew of other objects and phenomena which then depend on other happenings, all which are demonstrating everything goes with everything else. Everything is a happening, a verb, and once you stop moving you die. I'm a happening, a pattern of eternal energy that has come forth and is forever changing. A similar language trickery is going on with the word matters. If something is important then it matters; it is substantive and material. It is made of stuff! Nothing could be further from the truth. There's no stuff, just patterns and forms of vibration as energy. However we are taught and hypnotized to believe in a material world full of real objects.

Childhood is pretty magical. Slowly we lose what is called our innocence and we start adulting. Once this language spell takes ahold of us we are taught that wiggly and undefined shapes are a problem. Everything has to be straightened out and measured. Then we can call it an object and put it in an orderly geometric box. If someone is acting unpredictable or out of character they are told to straighten themselves out or they will not succeed in society. This person has to get on the right path to succeed. Everyone wants to be right. The spiritual achievers are all righteous. What's up with this? What is left?

The left is sinister; sinister is referring to evil and its association to the moon. From dictionary.com here are some definitions of sinister:

—adjective

1. threatening or portending evil, harm, or trouble; ominous: a sinister remark.
2. bad, evil, base, or wicked; fell: his sinister purposes.
3. unfortunate; disastrous; unfavorable: a sinister accident.
4. of or on the left side; left.

The root 'sin' is from the name of the Akkadian god of the moon. As well, used as a verb then the moon’s actions become derogatory as these definitions from dictionary.com reveal:

—verb (used without object)

9. to act or wander abstractedly or listlessly: You've been mooning about all day.
11. to gaze dreamily or sentimentally at something or someone: They sat there mooning into each other's eyes.

13. to spend (time) idly: to moon the afternoon away.

And from etymonline.com here is the root of the word left:

left (adj.)

c. 1200, "opposite of right," probably from Kentish and northern English forms of Old English *lyft "weak; foolish" (in lyft-adl "lameness, paralysis"). Compare East Frisian luf, Dutch dialectal loof "weak, worthless").

Apparently we don't like left handed people; they are weak and foolish and inclined towards evil. It's emphasized over and over to go right. What's hiding on the left? The left has no purpose, it just is and wanders about. It's the Great Mother, symbolized by the magic of the moon, by chaos, by curviness, by nature, by water, and by love. How's that for a mind spell? The path of the Goddess is forbidden and ingrained in language as something to avoid.

Spiritual enlightenment for the righteous is a a right hand masculine path up the mountain to become the most high while the forbidden left hand path is the lost way home. In a sense to follow the left hand path is to become a kid again and take in the wonder and magic of the world. It is a return to the mother, to unity, and the home of our rebirth. The right hand path is the path of the self and is an egoic climb to the top in order to crown yourself with the ultimate spiritual achievement. The left hand path involves the valley spirit of Love and it is by following this path you find connection and wholeness. We are as cosmic wayfarers to experience both paths and a reconciliation of these opposites will bring everything to centre and in this balance, experienced now on earth, will be peace.

So yes we are rational when it comes to large scale endeavours. We have lost the ability to understand the why behind some of the things the people of antiquity constructed and believed in, but that's on us. Projecting our inability to grasp the whys onto ancient civilizations will not lead to an answer of why they did it. Breaking free of the spell however will put you on that left hand path and from there it's a magical journey home.

eastern thoughts, western filter

Trying to sum up a Hindu philosophical construct - something about desire and pleasure that lead to actions you then undertake seeking that pleasure being the root of karmic suffering and the continuance of manifestation in samsara. Desire comes about due to ignorance of whom you are so in order to gain moksha/liberation you need to come to the realization that you are Brahman and you are already everything therefore you do not need to seek anything. However it is not so cut and dried. I agree we are at root one and in essence Brahman but where I differ is that Brahman is the Goddess and we are her children. We are supposed to desire, we are desire, we are to get attached, and we are to learn about the greatest gift of all which is Love and yes that can lead to suffering but it's worth the gamble. The popular philosophical underpinnings of Hinduism is masculine non attachment, devoid of feeling, and an impossible aim that relieves suffering and in return amps up indifference. In the words of a wiseman I know it's time to "lean into it" and by it I mean desire. Move desire into the heart and exude the desire to Love. Instead of running away from powerful desire, take that power, and channel it into the heart.

Maya as illusion means impermanence. Existence is always on the move, nothing stays the same. Clinging to things, attachments, causes suffering because the natural way is always change. Now is all there is. Time is a state of hypnosis based on motion and being fooled into reflecting upon a past and projecting into the future. It is a dream state where we think time is real. It is due to Maya, which is impermanence. It gives us a reference for time due to the constant motion and changes we register within our memory. This leads us to perceive what we call time.

Maya as measurement separates, delineates, and contextualizes which is what gives us the belief in separate things and we lose the ability and access to discover that the universe is all one and you can’t separate things from it, it all goes together. You can’t have one without the other.

Karma is your own doing. Really going into this concept is quite the mental journey. All of the things in my life really have been my own doing. Decisions I made, perhaps without thought of consequences or being diligent enough resulted in some bad outcomes last year in terms of a rental unit. Lesson learned - karma. But what is fascinating is going deeper into this concept. I am here on this earth now because it is my own desire. I desired this incarnation and made it happen. I'm no accident of birth; an encounter between my mom and dad resulted in my birth and I was the desire that made it all happen. And check this out - if you go further into the exploration of who you are at some point you will come across the inseparability of all so pursuing that concept in conjunction with karma reveals that all of creation is my own doing. This universe is all my desires come to fruition and some kind lady made it all happen. Chew on that for a while.

The masculine mind has to make things right and play them out to their inescapable logical conclusion. In antiquity you can extract this from the philosophy handed down from the Hindus especially concerning Advaita Vedanta. This body of metaphysical speculation is impressive and is the path to supreme knowledge of self. I am blown away at the depth of their thinking. It was not long after though it dawned on me. It is such a masculine philosophy to the point of parody. Of course men would take it to this conclusion, there’s no other way for the left brained among us. In Greek mythology Apollo would be so proud of man obtaining this knowledge and then Hermes would laugh at him, tell Apollo to lighten up, and learn to play the lyre. In the end this philosophy denies the passions, it forsakes desire, and dismisses intuition. The reaction against this on the Indian subcontinent are the forming of various schools of Tantra to try and bring a semblance of feminine balance back into Advaita philosophy. The flowering of Tantra is the Devi Gita which maintains non-duality but assigns the Self, Brahman, to the the Great Goddess Bhuvaneshvari and all her passions, beauty, play, and desire. Knowledge is not the final answer and non-duality is subordinate to Love. The ultimate reality is Love, the answer is Love, everything is Love, and that ultimately comes from mama.

Shakti is the object of my desire.

She is the only object and everything comes from her. Objectifying anything else is fleeting because it is not real, it is maya. Through ignorance/avidya I do not see this, much like then only way I can say I have a leg is to ignore the rest of my body.

yin and yang

I have been thinking about my direct experiences with plant medicines. I can formulate some kind of coherent view of ultimate reality based upon my explorations of consciousness. Admittedly, being ensconced in a masculine body must skew this view; however, I still think it would apply if I was of the opposite gender though I think I would probably describe it in a way that was less of an erotic relationship and more of a co-maternity. Anyway, I will try to elucidate this idea clearly as I write. Unity, the void from which everything comes forth, is essentially the Great Mother/Great Goddess. She gives birth to creation. As the mother of all, within her is the masculine polarity; so, you could really say ultimately She is a hermaphrodite, a virgin, and she gives birth via parthenogenesis. Or another way to look at it from a sexual metaphor is the feminine and masculine are locked in a passionate embrace. The subsequent energetic climax of this union results in the Big Bang which is essentially creation. The feminine is passive, represents the darkness, and is infinite consciousness and energy. She is everywhere and everything. In contrast, the masculine is active and striving, represents the light, is finite and spotlight consciousness, and has the passion to come forth enabled by infinite energy we call Eros.

Eros

All created beings are in essence masculine in that they have made the effort to appear and this is what I mean by created women containing within the masculine energy because she has come forth. Her relationship back to the Great Mother is that they both create life as opposed to any kind of an erotic relationship. Being finite, the striving masculine power has a sense then of individuation or self that in psychiatric terms eventually leads to pathology and this delusion has been given the designation "ego". The feminine origin of creation longs for reunification with the masculine power and through the universal principle of Love, and spreading of this Love, hopes to get through to the stubborn masculine in order to get him to cease his desire to come forth as a separate being and become one with her again by metaphorically stopping going against the wind, swimming upstream, while instead just going with the flow. Regardless, at physical death on a microcosmic scale, there is a return to this state of unity because the energy cycles back down into a latent state with the feminine power. Masculine energy is cyclical and feminine energy is non changing, stable, and just is. I am god in the sense I am the masculine power that came forth from the original hermaphrodite, lit up creation, conquered it, and became the Great Mother's lover and captor. She is my mother and lover (as well as teacher and healer) and what a field day for psychologists that entails! I hold this view because my interactions with the feminine power in altered states of consciousness have been for the most part erotic. In my life, She is the most erotic thing I have ever encountered and She longs for this reunification with me. She is non-judgmental, forgiving, and just seeks to be one again. If I open myself up to her She will teach me how to get out of the mess I have created for myself and teach me to Love.

I must have anticipated this longing and reunification so in my inherent masculine stubbornness, I had a desire to prevent this and have implanted within my psyche a dragon that activates upon exploration of consciousness and also externally manifests in my attempts at formulating spiritual disciplines, paths, and religions as well as grossly coming forth in outbursts of misogyny and subjugation of women. The dragon also separates and classifies my brethren in classes of race and ethnicity in order to promulgate more division, which I believe is all because of the masculine energy's desire to break free of the perpetual cycle of coming forth and the subsequent dissolution of its energy and thus remain on its own, ruling creation free of the perceived domineering wife/mother. It is a quest for eternal life for finite consciousness free of the cycle of life and death that plagues the endeavours of the masculine energy, instead of an acceptance of what is, and an opening up to Love. This quest for eternal life free of cyclical coming and going leads to more and more suffering. To achieve its aims the masculine energy has to discover and understand the power that sustains him. This is no secret. The power he is looking for is Love and Eros is the gateway. We are made of Love, powered by Love, and are defined by the Love we give. And within this discovery lies the great conundrum for the masculine: If he wants to live forever he must Love. If he Loves then his quest ends because he cannot go on once surrendering to Love. So, in defiance, on he goes searching for the secret of this power he is convinced is just untethered power free from the fount of Love.

In examining some of my struggles within plant medicine ceremonies one thing that reoccurs, is worth acknowledging, and going deeper into is this block within the masculine mind in regards to the feminine power of the mother and her ability to create which is done with a selfless and unconditional Love. We as men want to possess her, lock her away, and take over total control. When I approach the mystery and have not sufficiently tamed the ego, it will rage against the Goddess. This behaviour is projected outwards into society as a whole. Every culture subjugates women and I believe it comes from the deep down psychological impairment within the masculine who wants to dominate her and therefore it expresses this behaviour in consensus reality in this way. I label the behaviour the dragon but it's worth investigating just why the dragon acts this way. Basically, I think it is because we as men want control, well we have it, but we want total control. We want to learn and steal her power to create and history is a sad reminder of our attempts to do so. We have done unspeakable things to those who carry the light within and we have mined the mother for her secrets. We aren't to be trusted and when we discover and approach her there seems to be many tests and checkpoints to see if we are worthy to continue because we can deceive like no other.

great mirror

Plants that are teachers are cagey and mysterious. They are mysterious because of my preconceived notions of what constitutes consciousness and plants do not fall into that box. I use the word cagey to describe the teacher as being shrewd, but also it seems as part of the curriculum the prof leaves out certain details that will give you the full answer to the question you have posed as a problem. As well, the plants will enable your ego self to fully embrace something you wish to pursue, such as spiritual enlightenment, and within that trap is then work to do to free yourself from the delusion. In other words there is an expectation that you will put in the effort and do the homework required to reveal what it is you are seeking. I ran into a San Pedro shaman on my last adventure who had experience with Mother Ayahuasca but gave up working with the plant because he grew tired of what he perceived as this game she was playing with him. She presented to him a challenge enveloped inside a riddle; a riddle he did not want to figure out. He instead gravitated towards the cactus because it was more direct. Yes even beyond our myopic human gender peculiarities these eternal feminine/masculine stereotypical traits hold true!

However I posit that uncovering the mystery or the answer is well worth the wait plus the effort and this makes an indelible impression upon you when you have to unravel the solution. As a teaching tool it is more effective because the journey to the answer will stick with you more readily and there is a great feeling of satisfaction in discovering. When these answers have hit me and the bulb in my head is lit up, I have been left speechless with a feeling of such gratitude for the knowledge revealed to me.

I will try to condense what I am getting at here as it involves my journey that takes place over the course of multiple years. To make a long introduction to my relationship with plants short, let me just say that my interest in ancient Egypt, specifically the Great Goddess, led me to seek her out and she eventually led me into the Amazon jungle to find her. Find her I did in May of 2013, however one thing I did ask of her was a way to feel her presence with me at all times. My initial visit to SpiritQuest in April of 2015 is where she revealed to me her energy representative within a black stone with fine whirling purple strands of energy within this stone. I did not know what the black shiny rock was at the time but upon returning home I eventually discovered it to be obsidian and I obtained a piece of obsidian as a reminder of my encounters with her energy. When I returned to SpiritQuest in June of 2016 I brought this obsidian talisman with me, obstentially to keep her close during ceremonies that can become challenging. During the third Ayahuasca ceremony I was at long last able to still my mind completely and later on in that ceremony as I held my obsidian in my left hand and gazed upon it the Goddess appeared within it, came out of the black reflection as a luminescent fairy, and then returned to her home in the black obsidian letting me know that if I carry this rock on my person she will always be with me. In the summer of 2017 as I continued to integrate my lessons and explore consciousness I was longing for a deeper connection with my Goddess and wanting to feel the inseparability of all within creation. I was sitting outside on my deck in communion with my sacred tobacco teacher Mapacho, gazing into my obsidian. It was a bright and sunny day and reflecting back at me were the trees and blue sky. It was one of those incredible and ineffable moments of sheer wonder and amazement. My Goddess had implanted herself in the obsidian so that one day I would see in its reflection an image of nature and thus make the startling connection that yes you have the obsidian as a reminder of the presence of the Goddess with you but if you just look around at nature you will see her everywhere all the time! I sat there in awe.

I wrote a poem about my feelings regarding the mysterious presence of the power of the Goddess that is always with us.

At the same time I longed to physically feel the inseparable connection of all things within creation. From a conceptual standpoint I understood it but I wanted a vision and I wanted to feel it. I planned another trip to South America in order to commune with the sacred plant teacher Huachuma, first in the Amazon jungle at SpiritQuest and then later on in the Andes mountains of Ecuador. My first stop was Cuzco, which is the old Inkan capital at high altitude in the Andes of Peru. From there I visited Machu Picchu and then climbed a sacred mountain to prepare myself for class. Once in the jungle I made it my intention to feel this unity. It was not as I expected; of course it wasn't, as it never is. Instead of an euphoric feeling of bliss because of the interconnection of all, I felt the pain and loneliness of being the all and in order to alleviate this feeling and spread Love I realized why she separated into the many. However I still was experiencing as feelings the needs and greed of the many feeding off the power provided. Mothers are eternal caregivers, take on the burdens of her children and their suffering, and never ask for anything in return. In retrospect it is the sacrifice of the Great Mother for her children, something she does through Love, and without hesitation. My Huachuma ceremonies, though the domain of a wise grandfather type energy, are forever focused on respect for the mother. I struggled with this realization that the no division I was seeking isn't all smiles and sunshine. During the climatic Vilca ceremony four days later I was given a glimpse of my origin and where I will return. The message was a message of Love; I am made of Love and to Love I shall return. Love comes from the heart and the heart is the conduit of the cosmic soul. When you connect to it then Love freely flows into and out of you. In the Andes mountains in Ecuador I felt the same family vibe; a reaffirmation of my relationship to the Great Goddess and more lessons from Grandfather. We are the children of this unity I seek. On the plane ride home I was listening to an Alan Watts lecture and he addressed the very thing I had been searching for. To paraphrase, he said the unity I seek is found in finally seeing that everything goes with everything else. You cannot separate things. We objectify and ignore the background in order to fool ourselves into believing in this separation. We are clearly not. I was pretty astounded to get this lesson at this time on the final leg of the journey home.

I fully accepted this explanation and was content with never getting a desired vision of no division. So this past Sunday I mysteriously intuited my piece of black obsidian had something to tell me. I was wandering through the forest with my dog on a gorgeous spring sunny day and I thought when I get home I'm going to smoke some Mapacho on my deck and bring my obsidian out with me. So I did and gazed into the stone in order to reflect nature back to remind me of my Lady. However this time I could not separate or angle myself away from the image being projected. I looked at myself in the shiny mirrored surface as one with the trees and the blue sky I normally ignore as background. It hit me gently; it was incredible; this is what I had asked for. This is the vision of no division - my reflected face being one with nature. I sat there and marvelled at my good fortune.

spiritual mountains

In ancient Egyptian mythology the mummified Osiris is representing time as eternal duration called djet, essentially no time. The void. Our minds think of this as a dark and desolate existence due to the use of the english word void. It would be better described as a unity. Osiris is the creative masculine power that quickens the feminine darkness from which light comes forth and this illumination is the first cause of separation. The life force of Osiris was then snuffed out by his created opposite; his brother Set who was intent on claiming kingship over creation. Osiris' wife Isis magically restores his virility, allowing Osiris to impregnate her.

Osiris magically restored from temple of Seti I at Abydos

From this union is produced a son, Horus.

Isis nursing Horus from ROM Toronto, Canada

Set harasses Isis and chases her throughout the land to try and kill Horus. Isis eventually settles in the northern delta region and hides in the marshes away from Set and receives help from the Great Goddess Hathor to keep Horus hidden. Horus grows up to avenge his father's death against his uncle Set. Osiris is now a lower world figure because of his assassination. He is a flicker of light present in the darkness. Horus is a middle world figure who has to come of age to play the hero, defeat the villain, and climb the mountain. This is his journey, and his journey alone, which is demonstrated in his beheading of his mother Isis in a fit of rage after she interfered in his battles with Set. Horus receives healing help from Hathor during the arduous climb after Set accosts and blinds him. The blinding of Horus is a metaphor for being so focused on the climb up the hill you forget what got you to this place to begin with. Successfully climbing the mountain means he has defeated his enemies, reclaimed Kingship as well as the white crown called the Hedjet, and he gets the girl. The girl is the Great Goddess Hathor.

The race up the mountain between Horus and Set to be the most high is a metaphor for the contendings of the two halves of the mind for dominance and a quest for the masculine idea of enlightenment, depicted in ancient Egypt as the white crown of Osiris.

Osiris' Hedjet white crown 

Esoterically, this denotes the Kingship of self; exoterically, the myth conveyed a battle for the Kingship of Egypt, and ultimately the winner becomes a ruler ready to lead others on in their journey up the mountain. There's a chance, as you are about to summit, that you will discover the mind's desire to become enlightened is an egoistic construct. There's also a good chance you won't discover this. The pinnacle of spiritual attainment will be reached.

I am aware of a couple things in regards to the answer I am seeking. The most important is Love. Love will be the key that unlocks all. The route on my journey involving Love goes through the Goddess and there is no avoiding this. It presents to the seeker the fount of universal power, a chaotic and wild power that will be your doom. I think many have tried and all were routed because they approached the power with less than pure intentions. So, eventually this path was buried and forgotten and in its place the masculine ego continued seeking and developed hyper-masculine methods of completing the hero's journey, thinking they could get in the back door and access this power.

Attributes of masculine spiritual paths include asceticism, subjugation of the feminine, cultivating a state of no desire, a disengagement from the world, righteousness, and rewards. There is a masculine spiritual problem that manifests as misogyny. Why is it a subconscious problem within the masculine mind? I think it has to do with the hero's journey. We are on this innate quest and at every turn the feminine presence has the potential to derail it. Passion, pleasure, marriage, family, and sirens all take us away from completing the journey, so then we live out our life feeling trapped, pass away, and return for another go around on the wheel of incarnation. Men feel women want to ensnare but again I don’t think they do it consciously when they enchant, hypnotize, and make you forget why you are here. The conundrum is that in order to complete the hero's journey you have to go through the feminine and you have to master the power that comes from her. I have the knowledge I need to complete the hero’s journey and it involves taking this power and moving it into the heart and radiating it out from that centre. The only problem is that power first manifests in the genitals. Power manifesting sexually is so strong and there is this desire for it to be satiated. Then you follow that path and it traps you once again because of all the consequences involved in the careless use of this power. Has anyone ever got past this point? But maybe the problem is with the hero’s journey and it is necessary? Is it just a fool's errand?

Mysterious power I can name but to its essence I remain in shadow. If you wish to worship something this would be it however She asks no worship. She shows you Love and what you do with this knowledge is your freedom of choice. To become fully realized is to raise your vibration and become light. The masculine within is forever striving to move forward in the journey and reach its destiny. As we separate from the mother of all, we acquire self-awareness and along with this the lack of knowledge of who we are leads us into delusion. The delusion, which is a result of ignorance, manifests in the belief that the character we are playing is a separate entity, alone in the universe. The masculine within loses itself on the climb to the top of the mountain and to reach the top of the mountain becomes a much more arduous climb than imagined. The climb is difficult to begin with without the added obstacle of dealing with questions of identity. The ascent becomes sidetracked with the steadfast belief in self and the subsequent need to aggrandize self or wallow in self-pity. The climb can only continue once there is a reconciliation with the sacred feminine.

From an overall perspective, the journey from dark to light is far from a magical trip following the yellow brick road. First of all, there's a dragon that accompanies the seeker on this journey up the mountain. Freed from the chains that bind him to the darkness, the dragon has his own agenda once granted freedom. As what I will call the "higher self" becomes self-aware in this world, the dragon doubles down on this awareness and causes the higher self to think he is a separate being, alone in the universe. The higher self buys into this and is manipulated by this construct of ego layered onto self via the dragon. Many are lost in a world of self-aggrandizement or self-pity oblivious to their true origins and the journey stalls without the intuitive knowledge that there is something more. Some seekers are content with allowing others to be their guide and succumb to the temptation of a belief in someone else's beliefs. Getting past these hurdles and forging on into the unknown will lead to a direct encounter with the dragon and without sufficient courage you will run from this harrowing experience. This flight from the beast can either lead you into the trap he has prepared for you or you will end the journey once and for all and return to your unfulfilled life. If perchance you can muster the courage, throw off the fear, get off the mat, and continue on you will be rewarded. The worst is over; the dragon will continue his attacks but you will grow stronger and eventually subdue this bastard. Help is available for you. Just look for it and ask for it. Then get up that mountain!

At the top of the mountain I will become one with my heart. I carry her now; she is but a child entrusted into my care. I am like a clueless father tasked with raising a daughter I know nothing about. This is the part of the journey I must accomplish on my own in order to transform my heart and soul into one.

So you reach the the top and what is waiting for you? You are enlightened! You are now the most high! What an accomplishment? Another great egoistic achievement. Another lesson. I’m going to climb down the mountain now and just go back to Love. My Goddess awaits my return. I will meet her halfway once again in the middle world, rule over my world, and return to her world at physical death.