#its a meditation on the nature of self and ever shifting identity

[alwaysactually]

umineko is in fact the most piece of media ever

[battleangel]

Ghost In The Capitalist Machine

The West, in service of capitalism and the medical and pharmaceutical industrial complexes, purposely severs the mind-body connection.

Just like corporate silos teams, departments and functions from one another within individual companies so that noone is ever really communicating and truly collaborating with one another, the West purposely silos your mind, body, heart, soul and spirit from one another so that nothing is truly holistically integrative and aligned.

This sets it up for it to be very difficult for you to ever experience your ego death, discover the true self, self-awaken, self-actualize, self-ascend, align and activate all seven chakras, open your third eye, experience a kundalini awakening, activate your pineal gland, receive esoteric downloads from the Akashic library and realize that what we call "reality" is actually a 3D three dimensional virtual reality videogame simulation of the actual real reality, which is the 10D ten dimensional dreamscape which we all travel to every night when we "fall" asleep and "dream", rapid eye movement "REM sleep" and "dreaming" is nothing but you shifting your consciousness via modulating your brainwaves and entering a meditative state that allows you to temporarily shift yourself back to the dreamscape from which you originated.

The 10D ten dimensional dreamscape is every possibility at one time, its the Big Bang, its traveling at light speed, its lush, its lurid, its visceral, its a kaleidoscopic explosion, its a constellation of lights, its walking through walls and walking on water, its falling endlessly through the sky without dying, its limitless, endless, eternal -- its your imagination.

Intrinsically, this just makes sense. We all know our mind and our imagination is the one thing that has no limits, no limitations, cant be controlled. We can think of anything we want. Thats all the dreamscape is.

We all originated from a kemetic explosion of source energy and love that created all of us at an infinity inflection point that, at the moment it happened, shot eternally into the past and into the future and in that one moment all living beings, aliens, humans, angels, creatures, unicorns, mermaids, sirens, vampires, werewolves, universes, star systems, galaxies, planets, nebulas, black holes, wormholes, suns, moons, stars, comets, asteroids, event horizons and supernovas were created in that one instant shot out eternally over all of time.

Our time in "reality" -- where I am typing this and you are reading this -- is very short-lived versus the eternity in which we have all existed in the dreamscape.

"Reality" is just a very temporary manifestation of our eternal energetic limtless selves as physical human beings and we are simply here to rediscover our true eternal selves by awakening, ascending, and self actualizing to our 3rd eye open selves after killing our own egos.

You have to kill your ego.

You have the ability to heal yourself from 90%+ of the physical and mental maladies and dis-eases.

But then that doesnt make Sudafed, Robitussin, Dimetapp, Vicks, Mucinex and Halls any money.

So, they suppress and sabotage your natural ability to heal yourself and natures ability to naturally heal you and invariably, no matter what the issue is, they are going to suggest a pill, a shot and/or a knife.

They wont ask if your gastrointestinal issues are being caused by anxiety at work, abuse in your relationship at home, stress from living paycheck to paycheck like 80% of all Americans, depression from being laid off and having your worker bee work slave identity obliterated, they wont ask how youre feeling emotionally and mentally, they wont ask when the last time was that you were out in the sun just to bask in natural sunlight, breathe fresh air, be near trees, walk barefoot in grass, they wont ask if you sit at a desk all week every week for 40 to 60+ hours chained to your desk non stop Slack email Teams Google Meet notifications non stop demands only getting up for a half hour or hour max to grab lunch from Wendys KFC Taco Bell Burger King McDs Sonics Arbys Chick Fil A Subway Five Guys before running right back to your desk the milisecond lunch is over for hours of useless masturbatory self-aggrandizing agendaless meetings noone actually needs to sit back down and work the rest of your life away...

They'll just grab a notepad, scribble an Rx for a chemical stimulant and laxative, tell you to try to drink more water then move on to the next patient on the assembly line.

Youre not a person, just a "digestive system thats out of whack".

Then they never try to get to the root causes of why its "out of wack" -- environmental, lifestyle, mental, diet, work, relationships, finances, social -- they just give you a stimulant and laxative and tell you to call them in the morning.

Most modern OTC medicine (Sudafed, Benadryl, etc) and pharmaceuticals (presciption medications) are toxic, synthetic, lab made, harmful, unnecessary and at the absolute most typically just temporarily mitigate symptoms without actually alleviating and resolving them.

A quick fix that isnt even a fix yet is relentlessly pushed on us from the literal time we are children.

Pop a pill, get a shot, get Tylelon from the school nurse, swallow your Dimetapp.

Pepto Bismol, Advil, Tylelnol, Excedrin, Bayer, Midol, Pamprin, Zyrtec, Allegra.

The relentless societal lie that modern medicine is the supposed answer and cure to all of lifes ills is simply to endlessly fuel and fund the OTC drug and pharmaceutical companies and industries to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

The vast majority of physical and mental issues and maladies can be resolved naturally through medicinal herbs & plants, essential oils, breathwork, regulating nervous & PSNS, regulating vasovagus nerve, daily movement, being in nature (natural sunlight + fresh air + trees) every day for 20 minutes to an hour, sound healing baths, mhz audio, self healing reiki, yoga exercises, stretching, meditation, journaling, daily creative expression, self reflection, introspection, drinking 64+ oz of water a day, eating fresh fruits & vegetables 80%+ of the time, minimizing meat intake, minimizing soda, juice, caffeine, cofee and alcohol, eliminating processed and prepackaged snacks, minimizing sugar, fat, sodium, gluten & dairy, avoiding toxic and synthetic chemicals, GMOs, pesticides, additives, preservatives & artificial flavors in food, drinks, household & personal care products.

Counterbalance constant indoor artificial unnatural lighting and indoor recycled unnatural air, air conditioning & heat which purposely and by design disrupts our circadian rhythym, depletes our melatonin levels, contributes to insomnia and sleep disorders by ensuring you go outside in nature every day for a walk whenever weather allows for 20 to 60 minutes a day to soak in natural non-artificial non-fluorescent lighting aka sunlight, breathe in fresh unrecycled air, be around trees, put barefeet in grass, go in streams if possible...🏞🏞🏞

Modern society purposely severs our connection to nature by keeping us penned indoors like animals at almost all times (home; school; work; cars/buses/trains; malls/theaters/restaurants/salons/stores).

We are either inside of a building or we are inside of an artificial machine on our way to a building 99%+ of the time and this is totally and completely unnatural, toxic, harmful, dangerous and deadly.

Nature naturally heals us as well as activating our own natural self-healing properties which is why they do everything they can to keep us penned up inside like animals at all times.

Attending school, working, streaming, binge watching, scrolling, social media, gaming, messaging apps, reality TV, sports, competition shows, malls, movie theaters, restaurants, stores, salons, cars, buses, trains, prisons, daycares, grooming everyone to expect and demand total comfort in environment at all times - 70 degrees air conditioning in summer & 80 degree heat in the winter -- anything and everything to keep us indoors at almost all times and never outside in nature.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) cautions against taking unnecessary antibiotics as most sinus problems are caused by viruses, which antibiotics don’t treat and even those brought on by bacteria don’t usually improve any faster with antibiotics, the agency says.

So, whats an alternative to antibiotics?

Ive had severe sinus, nasal and chest congestion all week. I havent been able to lay down comfortably or sleep for more than an hour at a time. I have also had a pressure headache in my sinus and forehead area. My chest is also extremely congested and filled with mucus and I have been coughing non-stop.

Is it time to get the Mucinex? Antibiotics?

No.

2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar in warm water and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Peppermint herbal tea with 1/4 tsp each of ginger, cinnamon, turmeric and cayenne pepper and a tbsp of honey.

Essential oils in a diffuser for 3 to 6 hours (2 to 3 drops each of eucalyptus, peppermint, orange, grapefruit, lemon & cinnamon).

Drink 64+ oz of water.

Blow your nose one nostril at a time, while pressing the other nostril closed, then repeat on the other side. Blowing both nostrils at the same time actually inflames and swells the blood vessels in your sinus which will actually lead to more mucus being produced and can also lead to a sinus infection.

What does traditional indigeous medicine have to say?

Ayurvedic medicine is traditional Indian medicine.

Similar to TCM (tradional Chinese medicome), Ayurveda teaches that physical maladies and diseases are a result of blocked channels or srotamsi just like TCM teaches that physical maladies and diseases are a result of blocked chi or life energy force.

Specifically, Ayurvedic medicine teaches that congestion issues are caused by a mind-body imbalance called Vata which is caused by several factors including excessive stress & changes in climate.

If you were alive this winter, its been hard to ignore that it was 80 degrees on Halloween and I am typing this on December 2nd and its literally in the 40s but the humidity is fucking 91%!

Humidity over 50% means too much of the airs moisture has dried up, the air becomes excessively dry and even indoors it will feel uncomfortable.

So, imagine 91% humidity.

Even with this ridiculous bullshit, nothing substantive is ever done about climate change, same performative bullshit, same pretense on social media, same capitalist excess that has killed millions of humans, made tens of thousands of animal species extinct, currently melting the polar ice caps and glaciers, causing more natural disasters, filling endless landfills, destroying endless rainforests, damaging endless ecosystems, polluting endless oceans, endless carbon footprints, endless fossil fuels, endless Congolese dying for cobalt for a fucking iPhone 15 noone needs, endless overextraction of earths resources, endless raping and pillaging Mother Earth, endless fast fashion landfills filled with SHEIN and Fashion Nova fits that were only worn once, endless landfills filled with Amazon Prime Day deals that were humped pumped and dumped after one use, endless oil and gas, endless coal, endless nuclear waste, endless food waste, endless methane gas, endless fuel emissions, endless highways to nowhere, endless private jets for no fucking reason, endless McMansions constructed, endless overfishing, endless sweatshops, endless exploitation, endless slave wage labor, endless child labor...

Vata mind-body imbalance caused by excessive stress & changes in climate cause symptoms including respiratory congestion, restriction and breathlessness.

I have had severe difficulty breathing this week to the point where it has woken me up as I was unable to breathe.

So...time to grab the Sudafed or Mucinex?

Notice the pattern in Western medicine that any doctor in the West asribes to:

1️⃣OTC medicine➡️

If symptoms not alleviated⬇️

2️⃣Prescription drugs➡️

If symptoms still not alleviated⬇️

3️⃣Surgery➡️

If symptoms still not alleviated⬇️

4️⃣Gaslighting, feigned disbelief, frustration, half-assed suggestions about a "lifestyle change or two".

For every single issue no matter how seemingly benign or innocuous or how easily addressed by the one thing these Western doctors will never ask you: How do you feel NOT physically?

Western medicine dehumanizes and commodifies the human body in the same degrading and militaristic way that capitalism does.

Youre not a person, youre a worker.

Youre not a person, youre a digestive issue, skin rash, migraine, ulcer, sinus infection, erectile dysfunction, vaginal dryness, acne, back pain, tedonitis, neck pain, shoulder pain, tinnitus, food allergy, seasonal allergy, cold, fibroids, hypertension sufferer...

Look at the body part in question, never the person that embodies the body.

There is no ghost in the machine.

This is why your gastroenterologist doesnt talk to your dermatologist who doesnt talk to your rheumatologist who doesnt talk to your ENT doctor who doesnt talk to your general physician who doesnt talk to your gynecologist who doesnt talk to your pain management doctor who never talks to your therapist, psychiatrist, counselor, psychologist or life coach.

Youre not a person, youre a body to be endlessly sectioned off into completely separate and siloed pieces, never to ever be put back together or considered as one holistic entity that is a whole being with not just a body but a heart, mind, soul and spirit.

All 3 "solutions" endlessly, pathetically and purposely pimped by modern Western medicine (OTC & Rx pill, injection/shot, knife/surgery) all have potential harmful and even fatal side effects, include toxins & synthetic chemicals and mostly just mitigate, lessen or temporarily alleviate symptoms at the absolute most and never actually resolve or solve the symptoms entirely nor address or cure the actual root cause of the issue.

Just like everything else in the West.

Crash diet, quickie Vegas wedding, quick nip and tuck.

Everything in the West is wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

Whats the quickest fix and solution where I dont have to miss work?

How do I drop 20 pounds in 2 weeks?

What will make my symptoms go away where I can still eat a Big Mac every week?

The quick fixes that Western medicine promises to us as our eternal salvation and proof of "modern medicine" actually provides nothing more than the most temporary of relief at absolute best.

Thats all the West is.

Quick fixes, bandaids and half-assed "cures" that dont actually cure a damn thing and never actually address the root cause of anything nor even eliminate or the symptoms.

Then its back to school, back to work, back to taking the kids to soccer practice.

Everything in the West is based on total and complete mindlessness.

Congestion can be caused by a cold, the flu, allergies, pollution, COVID-19, or even just dry air.

Like extreme humidity of 75% to 90% in wintertime in freezing temperatures and constant indoor central heating blasting obnoxiously throughout the entire winter season?

Similar to the migraines I had last year where I didnt call my GP for medication and instead I switched my cell phone and laptop to Dark mode, turned off all the lights in my apartment, got off my phone completely and just rested with the blinds shut and, for once, shut myself off versus the previous 15 years where I had been in corporate HR, recruiter at Dow Jones and Bank of America, career advisor at Yale University, owner of career coaching and resume writing business with 100+ executive clients, freelance recruiter...and the migraines cleared up on their own.

The digestive issues I had a few months ago I resolved by simply eating healthier (vegetarian 80% of the time - fresh fruits and vegetables - homemade salads & salad dressing, smoothies, oatmeal w/ flaxseed, quinoa & mixed nuts & 64+ oz of water a day + herbal tea), moving my body more, being outside in nature for at least 60 minutes a day every day and utilizing a stool to squat to eliminate versus calling my GP for a prescription or "referral to a gastroenterologist".

The severe sinus congestion that Ive had all this week where I refused to take Mucinex or Sudafed and, similar to the above issues, when I woke up today in the middle of the night because I literally was having difficulty breathing laying down, very similarly to the migraines and digestive issues, the sinus congestion issue is due to environment (24/7 indoor heat during the winter + extreme humidity of 75% to 90% despite it being winter with freezing temperatures below 32 degrees + dry air) and excessive stress (mind body imbalance) and, once again, the solution isnt OTC medication, antibiotics, nasal irrigation, OTC nasal spray or ENT surgery, the solution, as is the case 90%+ of the time, is natural remedies (vitamin C - fresh lemons + oranges; ginger + turmeric + honey + peppermint tea; apple cider vinegar + water + lemon; essential oils in diffuser; grapefuit seed extract; herbal tea facial steams).

Since physical and mental maladies and diseases are almost always rooted in a mind body imbalance, along with the natural herbal/plant/essential oil remedies, inner self healing is also key (self reiki, sound bath healing, breathwork, regulating nervous system & parasympthetic nervous system - PSNS, yoga, mhz audio, shadow work, somatic work, journaling, meditation, self reflection, introspection, movement, creative expression, stretching), healing in nature (being outside in natural sunlight, fresh air, trees, grass, streams every day) and healing with food (eating fresh fruit & vegetables 80%+ of the time, 64+ oz of water a day, eliminate processed and prepackaged snacks, minimize meat/dairy/alcohol/juice/soda/coffee/sugar/sodium/fat/caffeine/additives/preservatives/artifical flavors/toxins/synthetic chemicals/GMOs/pesticides).

Its also about doing inner work, addressing the mind body imbalances and aligning your mind, body, soul, heart and spirit.

Exactly what the Western medicine industrial complex, capitalism and corporate America never want you to do because once you do, you will self-actualize, and youll see all of the Wests bullshit for exactly what it is.

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

What's a common thread between ADHD and the asexuality spectrum? The answer might surprise you.

A while back, an ADHD user said in response to my question, “how did mindfulness exercises go?” a single word, “dissociation.”

It was only long after I had replied, that I had to remind myself that people think of dissociation as a scary thing.

I had to remind myself that a psychotherapist I once knew was pretty unorthodox, and gave me perspective on the matter that defused all the mysteriousness and internalized socialized discomfort surrounding it, which is ultimately rooted in both fear of the unknown or unfamiliar, and maybe a little bit of stigma, too.

Naturally, I do not talk about these sorts of things with general people IRL, so newly having a ‘conversation’ online about it did not jostle my awareness of others’ attitudes like it probably should have.

Things like anxiety and ADHD are, let’s say, more “ordinary” neurodivergences. (remember, the word applies to ALL mental illnesses, also, not just traits. Many don't consider most cases of ADHD an 'illness,' nor a lot of presentations of autism)

Those are more "ordinary." They don’t mash that “this is weird” button, so much as simply “this is very unpleasant.”

But dissociation can be the former, and not the latter.

Let me back up and explain that a bit.

People see dissociation as undesirable.

But why is it, you should ask.

Leave aside questions of physical safety. I’m just talking about sitting down somewhere, and there is no risk to you.

In the typical view, it’s not just another operation the brain can do, or an altered mind state, as we discussed it, rather, it is somehow considered a “bad” outcome.

When, ironically, for many forms of mind training, which we’ll put under the umbrella term “meditation” for simplicity’s sake, the end goal is a type of on-command dissociative state.

Whether you are internalizing your attention, externalizing your attention, or just trying to get that danged mind chatter to shut up for once and give you some peace, whichever way you are sliding along that scale, there is always the route open to you to pursue this ultimate peace.

So this person, who was trying out mindfulness?

Think, if you switched all the aircraft cockpit switches to check if everything was lighting up correctly. But instead of being an experienced pilot, you had no idea what would happen once you started testing everything out.

Accidentally withdrawing your physical senses, and seeming to distance your “self” from your body, which experienced practitioners do without batting an eye, (pun intended) would seem like a dysfunction rather than a built-in feature.

Quieting those areas of the brain dedicated to sense perception is quite a lovely experience, when you are educated on it, do it on purpose, and expect it.

Whereas anxiety is almost never a positive experience, unless it’s not really overwhelming or potent, and you’ve 'reframed' it such that it’s exciting, like any other adrenaline junkie bender.

The milder forms of dissociation, termed depersonalization or derealization, that seem to be quite common among asexual people, are also often considered as a negative thing, instead of just the current, value-neutral state of mind, which is trainable.

A much more common and even milder form happens when we sink into routine. Ever had a stretch of weeks on a job where you look back and you feel like you were sort of “automated”? Like you weren’t really present? You’re somehow a little surprised that that much time has passed?

That “time dilation,” accompanied also sometimes by a distorted sense of chronological sequence happens a lot with ADHD people, regardless of circumstances, but most everyone in the populace has experienced it at some point, barring perhaps the super privileged who have never been forced into a literally “mind numbing” job.

Maybe you’ve also experienced the sensation where you get into a car, perhaps when you’re on a familiar route you’ve driven a thousand times, or especially on long road trips, and you seem to zone out and lose time.

The brain is pretty good at conserving energy.

This is what she tells her patients, to calm their sympathetic nervous system. It circumvents that distress, that health-sapping stress response to this ultimately harmless “weird” experience, vastly improving their quality of life:

Dissociation is a continuum- many forms of it are common. Not some super strange thing corralled in a small corner of the sum total of human experience.

“Reframing” these things is essential to attaining incrementally improved mental health.

Clearing away all the internalized judgement, the feelings of wrongness, etc.

Just one more step out of the norm.

Just another neurodivergence.

It is conceptualized as unnerving when it happens suddenly and sharply, though, because it is so different from “ordinary” everyday experience.

The same way one person who hasn’t been around dogs much might react to a large dog barking with fear, and another person standing next to them having the exact same experience, trained and knowledgeable in recognizing true aggression versus excitement or mild warning, would not feel threatened.

Yes, having that particular toggle out of your grasp may be annoying and to those not given this perspective, frightening. (And if other personalities are involved, that gets much more complicated!!) But, consider. One of my mentors said calmly once, that she lost time for, say, 10 or 15 minutes while sitting down quite regularly, and felt very recharged and energized afterwards. It’s not exactly like sleep, because there’s not that head nodding and relaxation of muscles. Almost instantly gone, and instantly aware again, not that feathery transition as happens when drowsing or gradually falling asleep.

I hypothesize to her that this had probably started up because she’s involuntarily dropping into a deep delta or theta brainwave state for a bit, because that’s what she does in ‘brain entrainment’ recordings. (The frequencies are very good for relaxation when you're anxious and have a hard time unwinding yourself, others are good for focus during studying, and are therefore used by ADHD people) Unless she wants to pay some big lab to measure her neuron firing frequency though, there’s no way to tell for sure. The point is, that she directly benefits from this ‘taking a break’ from thinking. She is not bothered in the least by her mind occasionally saying, ‘you know what, I’m overwhelmed right now, gonna switch off for a bit.’ When someone gives their mind this permission to pause from its worries and senses, each the internal and external input, sometimes this is the outcome. It is not a problem to her whatsoever that this toggle occasionally moves of its own accord.

People are afraid of what they don’t understand.

But she understands it.

People are afraid of new experiences.

But to her, it’s old hat. On an MRI, each of the parts of the brain dedicated to the senses dim. Occipital lobe for sight, temporal lobe for hearing, etc.

If I were brushed up on the neuroanatomy of this process better, I could also name the parts dedicated to internal imput that would grow dimmer as she entered that state. Heck, they study this stuff so much, when interviewing meditation practitioners and testing for stuff like blood flow changes as their attention shifts, those images probably already exist.

Dissociation is not a mysterious thing.

It serves a purpose.

It’s your brain’s ‘energy saver’ mode.

Or in some cases, ‘recharge.’

So, to the person who argued that ADHD people should be cautious about using mindfulness? I must ask again, why?

Why would you forgo the benefits? Why would they tell others to do so??

Usually the main reasons dissociation causes problems, that aforementioned therapist says, is that people are overloaded to the point where it happens not when they’re relaxed, and can daydream or drift, but randomly when there’s too much pressure in their lives.

The fear response to it is just like any other overactive fear response or phobia- with time and therapeutic work, they are all resolvable.

/////////

#this post is NOT about dissociative identity disorder #only mentioned it in passing to separate it from the discussion

[ladymaigrey]

Enneagram and DD/Defenders – Part 2 – Matt the Reformer

Find all the posts in https://ladymaigrey.tumblr.com/tagged/enneagram (or go to my blog and look for “enneagram” tag)

gif courtesy of @dead-fandom-support-group​ (see her other enneagram gifs here)

TL:DR – The Reformers are perfectionistic and idealistic, with strong drives to “do good” and little patience for any perceived failure. Quick to anger and guilt-prone. Certain, stalwart and arrogant on the outside, they question themselves on the inside: are they actually “good”? are they sure they are right?

When under stress, they can become narrow-minded, self-centred and dramatic (movement towards Type 4 - Individualist).

For balance, they need to learn how to relax and let-go a bit - let the world spin on its own for a little while (acquire some characteristics from Type 7 - Enthusiast).

Matt: in addition to fitting Type 1 description (and often going towards Type 4), also has some characteristics from Type 2 – Helper, particularly the tendency to put the needs of other’s before one’s own, to the point of martyrdom.

The Reformer - in general

The Reformer has a strong value system about what is right and wrong and is quick to judge themselves and others in accordance to these norms. They are perfectionistic, but practical. They struggle to tolerate ambiguity or subjectivity, preferring objective facts and categories. They like to plan, organise, control, impose order over chaos.

The Reformers are their own harshest critics. They can be quick to anger if they see themselves or others falling short of their ideals. Yet anger often causes guilt, if they believe that a truly “good” person should not get angry. Therefore, anger is often suppressed out of conscious awareness. Still, it tends to come out in expressions of righteous indignation, sarcasm and guilt.

They are quick to argue, moralise or instruct – because they Know How Things Are Supposed To Be. Yet, internally, they are often worried that they are wrong, that they are not Good. Although they may question themselves on the inside, outwardly they will struggle to shift from their position because admitting they are wrong is too threatening to their idealised self-image.

The Reformers are over-responsible. At extreme, they can get burned out with carrying their unrealistic “shoulds” and “musts”. They struggle to relax and have fun.

According to Wagner (1980, p. 60) “They identify with St. George slaying the dragon, crusading to make the world a better place to live in.”

Research participants identified (or identifying) as Type 1, also tended to have high Conscientiousness (Big-5) scores and high Sensing (S), Thinking (T) and Judging (J) scores in MMPI test.

Matt the Reformer 

Judging on the basic outline and, particularly, that St George quote, Type 1 fits Matt well.

His definition of “doing good” is to defend the little guy against injustices and stand up to the unjust strong and teach them a lesson. He is perfectionistic, highly conscientious and disciplined when it comes to his goals - a legacy of his Dad’s insistence on academic diligence, Stick’s drilling, and his internal drive to protect and see justice done.

He is very certain of his direction on the outside, defending his position with a bull-headed obstinacy to rival the Punisher, but he questions himself on the inside. He is often plagued by worries that he is not, in fact, “good” or “just” at all – worries that he most likely internalised from his childhood, from those who admonished “Be careful of the Murdock boys, they have the Devil in them.” Therefore, he feels like he must forever prove his goodness to himself.  He is over-responsible to a ridiculous degree, taking it as a personal goal to prevent all injustice he “can” (i.e. that he is within an earshot of, and his earshot is looooong). Whenever he “fails” - guilt and rage follow. Rage (and violence), in turn, feed into his guilt and self-doubts about being “good”. Sometimes it seems that he is more guilt-ridden than an old farmhouse is ridden with termites.

For all of Type 1s’ practicality and need to control, when it comes to pursuit of goals and facing threats, they tend to make decisions instinctually, based on the product of their perceptions and gut-response. Matt Murdock is an allegorical embodiment of this concept. He responds to what his senses tell him – responds immediately and, often, drastically, without pausing for thought or communication with significant others. For type 1s (and other “gut” types 8 and 9), this often stems from the belief that “life is a battle, and their weaknesses must be tested” (Zuercher, 1992, as quoted in Hook et al., 2020), and THIS IS THE MOST MATT-DESCRIPTIVE STATEMENT I’ve ever read in a peer-reviewed psych article!

In addition to Type 1 characteristics, Matt shares some Type 2 characteristics (in Enneagram parlance, that would make him a Type 1 with a Type 2 wing). Specifically, Matt seems to take pride in denying his own physical and safety needs in order to meet the needs of others, as per his self-imposed responsibilities. This type of martyrdom is more characteristic of Type 2s (Helpers). At the same time, the occasional over-the-top drama that goes with that martyrdom is characteristic of Type 4 (Individualists).

Although, to be fair, it is always difficult to judge psychological state purely from behaviour. So, it is debatable whether his tendency to put his needs last is driven more by his Type 1 perfectionism (i.e. his internal need to do “good” overpowers his other basic needs), or his Type 2 martyrdom beliefs (i.e. the belief that his suffering is immaterial, and even required, in the face of the suffering of others, and that he only matters when he helps others). As @ceterisparibus116 and I discussed sometimes ago, it seems that martyrdom tendencies tend to raise their head when he has faced some kind of “failure” or setback - when he is feeling low regarding his life and identity. At such times, it is perhaps a heightened need for self-sacrifice – to prove his goodness and worthiness through meeting the needs of others to the detriment of his own - that may contribute to some of his more painful (and draMattic) physical excesses.

Then again, human psychology is a mudbath and it is never clear which rising bubble is driven by which underlying motivation.

(As an aside, I do think that the DD-fandom (myself included) has embraced the Type 2 martyr!Matt more than the canon actually suggests. He is often written in fics as forgetting or forgoing his basic needs (including food, sleep and medical care) in order to constantly give of himself to others. I wonder if, on some level, it reflects the real-life tendency to react to Type 2s – the “humble” Helpers – in a more positive or warmer way than the “arrogant” Type 1 do-gooders.)

Anyway.

When faced with crisis and failures, Matt does tend to move towards Type 4 (Individualist), as suggested by the Enneagram theory. He becomes dramatic in his sense of uniqueness and messiahnism; also – self-isolating, liable to be impulsive and making self-destructive decisions. His thinking narrows down myopically to the sole pursuit and defence of his goals. Although his goals as Daredevil revolve around “saving” others, being Daredevil is a large part (if not the whole) of what defines his life’s meaning to him. Therefore, his narrow focus at these times of high stress, and his prioritisation of Daredevil’s goals above the feelings and goals of significant others, is suggestive of a strong core of defensiveness/self-protectiveness. The righteousness of his aims is, in part, a psychological mask; it is a demand for others to excuse his poor relational behaviour on the basis of the specialness of the burden he chooses to bear.

That is not to imply that, when Matt stands up for his identity and his goals to his friends, it should only be regarded as a sign of self-centredness or depression! Telling those, who persistently refuse to accept someone’s truth, that ‘this is who I am’ – as he does to Foggy in Seasons 1 and 2 – can be a sign of positive self-regard and self-esteem. Similarly, when Matt gravitates towards the Type 4 Elektra and attempts to embrace some of her ideals of putting personal wants before duty, it is driven by a healthy impulse to balance the obsessive nature of his goals. Or, at the very least, to share the burden.

Matt is also capable of behaviors that, according to the Enneagram, balance some of the unhealthy extremes of his Type 1 characteristics. Although he is serious and driven most of the time, he is also capable of relaxing and having fun (which is a type 7 characteristic – the balance archetype for Type 1s). Although Matt is perfectionistic, it isn’t driven just by guilt and fear - he also wants to reach his targets (e.g. excelling in law school) for the sense of achievement it gives him (which is a Type 3 trait). He practices some mental and emotional self-care, leaning into the benefits of meditation which, at least in theory, should allow him to switch off from his over-thinking and judging, and simply be touch with his internal sensations without reactivity.

Finally, I think the fact that Matt doesn’t totally disavow his anger but, instead, finds a productive release for it while punching crime in the face, is overall a healthy(-ish) impulse. His anger has a specific role in his goals. Therefore, he has, at least partially, solved the dilemma that plagues Type 1s, i.e. that their anger means they can’t truly be “good”. Only partially though, as he certainly still has plenty of self-doubts and internal guilt trips (see the “why did God put the Devil in me” conversation with Father Lantom in Season 1).

Wagner (1980) advises that, in order to achieve psychological balance and free themselves from the overwhelming perfection of their world-altering goals, Type 1s need to learn that,

“The universe is not perfect, yet, but it is unfolding as it should. Be patient, God isn’t finished with me, yet.” (p. 113) 

To me, this advice seems similar to the idea of the Tapestry that Father Lantom spoke of to Matt (see conversation between Matt and Sister Maggie in S3e13). Enneagram, being theistic in its origin, makes many allusions to the perfection of the Process by which the world works and of the Divine Thought guiding it. This axiom states that all moments and all creatures within this process are perfect in themselves and in their place. Perceptions of imperfection come from the Ego, which is of the mind, not of the Divine original essence. Serenity – the lost virtue of Type 1s – comes from trusting the perfection of the process and the Divine Love guiding it.

By the end of Season 3, Matt appears to have made some steps towards accepting this premise. At least - intellectually. Maybe.

References

Wagner, J.P. (1980). A descriptive, reliability, and validity study of the Enneagram personality typology (Doctoral Dissertation). Retrieved from https://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3108&context=luc_diss

Zuercher, S. (1992). Enneagram spirituality: From compulsion to contemplation. Ave Maria Press.

[unluckyxse7en-moving]

Now you know what's up, can you see how you all were influencing each other? Do you think you could tell back then? Or was it too subtle?

Good questions! I can see some influences in retrospect - my system was honestly, anything BUT subtle. I’ve had alters literally bug me during meditative states and all but tell me we were a system, among other things. And in retrospect, things like our vastly different fashion tastes, gender presentation, and even our handwriting changing constantly were clearly a part of it. Not to mention a couple instances where, during an argument or a very tense environment, one of us would try to punch the person we were talking to when agitated. Not proud of those times, but it really was like our hand moved on its own during those times. (We also often had a “habit” of smiling during similar environments when we weren’t thinking or feeling anything even remotely connectable to smiling, not even threatening or anything. But that was an alter as well.) We also thought our food tastes were consistent, and for a while they were, but according to our family it’s gotten more contradictory over the years so evidently not. 

As for whether I could tell or not... It’s hard to say. I personally, didn’t ever really make the conscious connection? I knew about the concept of ‘multiple personality disorder’ (the outdated term for DID) for a long time and was endlessly fascinated by the concept, and with the multitudes of original characters I made and roleplayed, probably 80-90% of them ended up with some sort of theme where they had ‘another/alternate self’ or counterpart or whatever. In retrospect I clearly knew something was up, and used the roleplays as a way to feel safe enough to express it, not to mention let certain alters front under guise of being ‘in character’. (we have a few that are ocs... or who made ocs and are associated w them. Not sure which is which on that one.)

That said, I’m not sure how obvious it was to others, I know my family often could tell, they likened me to ‘mary mary quite contrary’ frequently earlier on, and mom could see the behavioral shifts that we attributed to my gender identity. I’d imagine it was more obvious in some ways to my friends, but either they were polite enough not to comment, or if they said anything I probably forgot or tried not to understand it. 

I have to admit it’s funny to me how obvious we’ve been all this time. Being a system is generally meant to obscure or downplay anything being ‘wrong’ in the first place, to the system or to others depending. But if there’s one thing that’s been consistent about us collectively, it’s that we’ve all always been very independent and strong willed in various ways, so a lot of them have naturally tried to demand the attention and respect they needed. If anything, I’m thankful they’ve felt safe enough to act out like they’ve been, even if it wasn’t always for the best, clearly they were unhappy, and shutting them away too much when I did notice something off often didn’t make anything feel better. Plus, it’s nice being able to track it retrospectively. Makes it a lot harder to worry that we’re faking, haha.

Thanks to you and to anyone else who’s been sending in these asks, they’ve been nice to answer and you’ve all been really nice about it! Admittedly, I’ve held off so long because I was scared of getting negative responses off the bat, so thank you all for being so chill about it! It’s helped me a lot and I feel reassured in a way I didn’t know I needed.

[spamzineglasgow]

(REVIEW) Tongues by Taylor Le Melle, Rehana Zaman and Those Institutions Should Belong to Us, by Christopher Kirubi

In this review, Rhian Williams takes a look at Tongues, a dazzling zine edited by Taylor Le Melle and Rehana Zaman (PSS, 2018), with* Christopher Kirubi’s pamphlet ‘Those Institutions Should Belong to Us’ (PSS). 

*I [Rhian] use ‘with’ here in homage to Fred Moten’s use of that preposition in all that beauty (2019) to ‘denote accompaniment[]’. This pamphlet was interleaved in the review copy of Tongues that I received from PSS.

> Onions, lemons, chilli peppers, fractals, hands, patterns, palms pressing, tears, avocados, pomegranate, mouths, finger clicking, deserts. Screenshots, flyers, placards, transcripts, textures, temporalities. Tongues is an urgent gathering in, a zine-type publication that works as a space where Black and Brown women (bringing both their intersections and the tension of distinction) enact memorial, exchange, jouissance, resistance, collaboration, support, listening. Edited by Taylor Le Melle and filmmaker Rehana Zaman, whose work generates many of the dialogic responses interleaved in this collection, this ‘assembly of voices’ was brought together in this particular format in the wake of Zaman’s exhibition, Speaking Nearby, shown at the CCA in Glasgow in 2018. But, as Ainslie Roddick explains, in ‘an attempt to reckon with the trans-collaborative nature of “practice” itself’, Tongues resists academic mechanisms that fall into reiterating the violence of individualism, moving around the figure of the single author/editor to seek to capture ‘a process of thinking with and through the people we work and resist with, acknowledging and sharing the work of different people as practice’ (p. 3). As such, ‘[Tongues’] structure, design and rhythm reflect the work of all the contributors to this anthology who think with one another through various practical, poetic and pedagogical means’ (ibid.). Designed and published by PSS, this is a tactile, sensory production: its aesthetics are post-internet, collage, digi-analogue, liquid-yet-textural, with shiny paper pages that you have to gently peel apart, gleaming around a central pamphlet of matte, heavier paper in mucous-membrane pink and mauve, which itself protects the centrefold glossy mouth-open lick of ‘I kiss your ass’ between the leaves of Ziba Karbassi’s poem, ‘Writing Cells’, here in both Farsi and English (translated with Stephen Watts). Throughout, Tongues reiterates the sensuous, labouring body as political, as partisan.

> Tongues’ multivalency is capacious, nurturing, dedicated to archiving that which is fugitive yet ineluctable; so, inevitably, its overarching principle is labour, is work. The entire collection of essays, response pieces, email exchanges, WhatsApp messages, poetry, transcripts, journaling, and imaginings are testimony to effort and skill, to the determination to keep spaces open for remembrance and for noticing within the ever-creeping demands of production. It is not surprising that this valuable collection is stalked by perilous attenuation, the damage of exhaustion. It is appallingly prescient of the first week of June 2020. Moving my laptop so that I can write whilst also keeping an eye on what I’m cooking for later, setting up my child to listen to an audiobook so that I can try to open up some headspace for listening and responding, nervous about how to spread my ‘being with’ across multiple platforms (my child, my writing, the news, other voices), I am taken by Chandra Frank’s meditative response piece to Zaman’s Tell me the story Of all these things (2017) and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee (1982), which vibrates with ‘the potency and liberatory potential of the kitchen’ (p. 9) and movingly seeks to track and honour ‘what it means to both feel and read through a non-linear understanding of subjectivities’ (p. 10). But I only have to turn the page to realise my white safety. I am at home in my kitchen; my space may feel like it has turned into a laboratory for the reproduction of everyday life under lockdown, but it is manifest, it is seen in signed contracts, my subjectivity is grounded on recognition and citizenship. For Sarah Reed, searingly remembered by Gail Lewis in ‘More Than… Questions of Presence’, subjectivity was experienced as brutalisation, manifested posthumously in hashtags, #sayhername. (Reed was found dead in her cell at Holloway Prison in London in February 2016. In 2012 she had been violently assaulted by Metropolitan Police officer James Kiddie; the assault was captured by CCTV footage.) For the women immigrants engaged in domestic work in British homes, as documented here in Marissa Begonia’s vital journaling piece and Zaman’s discussion with Laura Guy, subjectivity is precarity and threat, their dogged labour forced into shadows. Lewis’s piece pivots around a ‘capacity of concern’ generated by ‘the political, ethical, relationship challenge posed by the presence of “the black woman”’ (p. 18), urging that such concern be of the order of care by walking a line with psychoanalysts D. A. Winnicott and Wilfred Bion in recognising that ‘in naming something we begin a journey in the unknown’ (p. 19). If that ‘unknown’ includes understanding how the British state is inimical to the self-determination and safety of Black and Brown women born within its ‘Commonwealth’ borders (#CherryGroce; #JoyGardner; #CynthiaJarrett; #BellyMujinga), and further, how its ‘hostile environment’ policies – named and pursued as such by the British Home Office under Theresa May – are designed specifically to threaten those born elsewhere, by reiterating Britain’s historical enthusiasm for enslavement of non-white labour (see the 2012 visa legislation, discussed here, that, for domestic workers, effectively put a lock on the 2016 ‘Modern Slavery Act’ review before it had even begun), then consider Tongues a demand to get informed. This is a zine about workers and working. It is imperative that we come to terms with what working life in Britain looks like (see the Public Health England report into disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19 – released June 2 2020, censored to remove sections that highlighted the effect of structural racism, but nevertheless evidencing the staggering inequality in death and suffering that is linked to occupation and to citizen status, and therefore tracks race and poverty lines). It is imperative that we scrutinise how ‘popular [and, I would add, Westminster] culture perpetuates a notion of working class identity as a fantasy’ (p. 52) that literally spirits away the bodies undertaking keywork in the UK. The title of Frank’s piece here, ‘Fragmented Realities’, is exquisitely apt.

> Bookended by Roddick’s and Zaman’s radical re-orientating of the apparatus of academia – the introduction that resists assimilating each of the forthcoming pieces under one stable rubric, instead simply listing anonymously a sentence from each contributor in a process of meditative opening up, and ‘A note, before the notes. The end notes’ that counter-academically reveals weaknesses and vulnerabilities, is open to qualification and reframing, is responsive ­– Tongues constitutes a politics and aesthetics of ‘shift’. Collated after a staged exhibition, anticipating new bodies of work to come, and ultimately punctuated by a pamphlet that segues from reporting on an inspiring event that took place at the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmith’s University of London to imagining a second one in paper (the ‘original’ having been thwarted by bad weather), the entire collection has a productively stuttering relationship with temporality and with presence. As Shama Khanna writes about working groups and reading groups, workshops and pleasure-seeking in gallery spaces, this is the moving ground of the undercommons. It is testament to its intellectual lodestars – Sara Ahmed, Fred Moten, Stefano Harney, and, especially, the eroto-power of Audre Lorde. Along with Christopher Kirubi’s pamphlet, ‘Those Institutions Should Belong to Us’, which comprises a series of seven short ‘prose poems’ documenting the anguish of writing a dissertation from a marginalised perspective, the entire project of Tongues with Those Institutions is to upend academic practice, to recognise the ideological thrust of academic method, to stage fugitive enquiry. Kirubi’s plain sans-serif black font on white pages rehearses the anxious dialectics of interpellation and liberation (‘there is a need to see ourselves reflected in position of agency power and self determination in a world which does not really wish to see us thrive at all’ (part 3)) afforded by their academic obligations, but inarticulacy is a higher form of eloquence:

Even though I know at some point I am going to have to yield to these demands I feel I have to say now that I want to take in this dissertation a position of defending the inarticulate, defending the subjective and defending the incoherent, without having to arrive at a point of defence through theoretically determined foundations, but to feel them.

> Since its structuring principles are those of women’s work, and of Black and Brown experience, nurturing and shielding within the exhaustingly cyclical nature of toiling for recognition, respect, and protection, Tongues dances in the poetics of circles, of loops and feedback, of reciprocity and exchange. Recognising, however, that circularity is also the shape of repetitive strain, Zaman leaves us with a spiralling gesture, in homage to the Haitian spiral, ‘born out of the work of the Spiralist poets’ (p. 61). This ‘dynamic and non-linear’ form insists on the mutuality of the past and contemporary circumstances, is ‘a movement of multiplied or fractured beings, back and forth in time and space demanding accumulation, tumult, and repetition, adamant irresolution and open endedness…’. We are in that spiral now. Such demands must be heard, power must be relinquished, established forms of control – enacted in the streets and on our pages – must be terminated. Writing in early June 2020, this feels precarious; no one is exempt from giving of their strength.

Please pursue further information here. If you are able, these organisations thrive (given the paucity of state support) on donation:

Voice of Domestic Workers: https://www.thevoiceofdomesticworkers.com/

Cherry Groce foundation: https://www.cherrygroce.org/

BBZBLACKBOOK (a digital archive of emerging & established black queer artists): https://bbzblkbk.com/

Reclaim Holloway: http://reclaimholloway.mystrikingly.com/

~

Text: Rhian Williams

Published: 16/6/20

[hillbillyhocuspocus]

Uranus Enters Taurus // A Shock for The Books // March 6th, 2019

Blessings star fam! Long time no forecast from the Hef, here at H.H! 

 I hope all of you reading have missed my reports as much as I've missed writing them for the shop! This article doesn't mean the shop is back open just yet, as that will officially take place sometime around May 15th (if not sooner). I've got some interesting ventures in the works, so be on the look out for posts as we lead up to re-opening again in May! I had, HAD, to write this article for Uranus's entrance into Taurus!

In the year 2019, few astrological shifts can compare to the move of electric Uranus into the rich soils of Taurus. 

There are a couple of other astrological influences which will effect the landing as we head into this unexplored terrain. Mercury will station retrograde at 29º Pisces at 1.20pm EST on March 5th, the day prior to Uranus's entry into Taurus, and there will also be a New Moon in Pisces at 15º. It's important to note, all of this Pisces energy will likely add a touch of surreal, and a dream like fog over everything. On the one hand the retrograde of Mercury will have you rethinking your plans, and probably feeling like going inward no matter how much change is happening outside of your cerebral fantasy world. If Uranus shifting into Taurus hits you heavy in the first few days, this Mercury shift may be the cherry on top of a horrible situation. Mercury Retrograde is notorious for being a thorn in one's side, causing chaos, playing pranks, tricking us, and having a laugh. Take extra time in planning any travel now, and DO NOT BUY ANY NEW ELECTRONICS until at least March 28th. Often when we make commitments to new things, plans, contracts, ideas, or work, we end up having to come back and re-do it when it's done during a Mercury Retrograde. Better to save yourself the trouble before hand. Those born with Natal Mercury Retrograde in their birth charts however, will see progress in communication, talking more about their dreams, being in the right place at the right time, ect.

The New Moon on the other hand could have you feeling a MAJOR re-birth on the horizon. If you have significant Taurus, or Pisces placements, are a fixed zodiac sign (Taurus, Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio), are the adventurous type, or you just feel done with everything you've been doing for awhile, NOW is the time to act, to change your life in significant ways! Regardless of the Mercury Retrograde, it might be worth a re-do if it meant you could come out of it all with a re-newed since of livelihood, love of life, and perspective. New Moons are always a time of new beginnings, planting seeds, and new ideas! We may feel bombarded with many new ideas, and way's of seeing even the mundane suddenly, that we are confused about which option to pursue. You may have so many ideas you can't remember, so it may be best to keep around a small journal to jot them down before they dissolve. Remember that every great thing you ever saw, and every experience you ever enjoyed, was once a dream, or an idea. Keep the faith, and have patience as you plant these seeds!

Back to Uranus's Entry into Taurus... this will effect us all, not only on an individual level, but on a planetary level. Ruled by Venus, the perpetrator of beauty, and love, Taurus can be slow, but steady, in smelling the roses. Taurus is the ruler of the 2nd House. This means Taurus effects everything we value, our possessions, money, all things material, expenses, desires, career, and our food. Taurus is known for effecting the Earth, or in a Natal Chart, one's relationship with grounding. Uranus is the planet which effects all things electric, and our technology. Uranus boasts themes of revolution, liberation, freedom, shocks, surprises, the unpredictable, the eccentric, change, innovation, the future, science, chaos, and humanity as a whole.

Put these two together, and what'daya get? Take the information above and apply it to the house Uranus will be visiting for a better picture of the kind of unexpected shocks, surprises, and jolts that will begin to become prevalent in your life. Look below for your Sun Sign for more information! Or message the shop for a Natal Chart Reading specifically for this transit, and how it will effect you over the next 7 years!

Aries (March 21 – April 19) 

 Uranus will enter your 2nd House 

The themes that will come up involve your values, your possessions, money, the price you pay, the price you ask, all things material, expenses, desires, career, your neck, and throat, what is yours, how secure you are, how stable you are, your physical world, what brings you pleasure, self-worth, things that bring you comfort, working on coming out of your comfort zone, or creating one, your resources, your personal talents, promises, getting a grip, defense/ammunition, and your personal strength, examining your relationship with the natural world (nature), lack of/working on - themes of patience, practicality, finding something to reach for, reliability, solidity, interest/attention- to art and music.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Citrine- Natural Citrine is a premier stone of manifestation, imagination, and personal will. Carrying the power of the sun, it is warm and comforting, energizing and life giving. It stimulates the chakras like the sunlight of spring, clearing the mind and stirring the soul to action. Called The Merchant's Stone for its properties of increase in the cashbox, sparkling yellow Citrine not only assists in acquiring wealth, but helps in maintaining it. It is a stone of abundance and manifestation, attracting wealth and prosperity, success and all things good. It also encourages generosity and sharing good fortune. Citrine assists in all fast money ventures, and is especially helpful in financial speculation and for commercial success. Carry one in the purse or wallet to attract money and stop excessive outflow.

Taurus (April 20 - May 20) 

Uranus will enter your 1st House 

The themes that will come up involve your personality, appearance, ego, early childhood memories, who you are becoming and will become, both internally and externally, your personality and presentation to the world, your essential qualities, approach to life, demeanor and basic sensibilities, the head, the face, your existence, the self, finding your individuality, self-pride, and identity, examining aggression in yourself/others, working on impatience, learning to assert yourself differently, learning to lead/asking who is the leader, examining your competitive side, becoming more outspoken, examining the energy you have/what you give it to, taking more risks, and going on more adventures, time lines speeding up (sometimes out of your comfort zone).

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Blue Calcite - can aid you in accepting yourself, even your imperfections. The light blue rays are excellent for recovery efforts from addiction or destructive behavior patterns. They aid in curbing tempers and helping us become more tranquil and composed. Their rays are potent and they can aid us in changing our lives to become more optimistic and confident. They are also helpful in dealing with grief, letting go of the past, and easing feelings of guilt.

Gemini (May 21 - June 20) 

Uranus will enter your 12th House 

The themes that will come up involve your subconscious mind/thoughts, hidden enemies, the unconscious, your self-undoings, imprisonment, hidden psychological problems, your weaknesses, your karma, past lives/future lives, your dreams, your sleeping patterns, psychic phenomena, clairvoyance, paranormal activities, unconscious abilities, self-sacrifice and suffering, secret charity, behind the scenes activities, illegal jobs, illegal affairs, confidential documents, secrets, all large animals, monasteries, asylums, hospitals, prisons, rehabilitation centers and every institution that imposes limitations, the feet, toes, and lymphatic system, working on becoming more adaptable, compassion, working through confusion/becoming more confused then usual, examining your own escapist tendencies, and those of other around you, taking time for reflection/meditation/yoga more often, shyness, intuition, sympathy, and the meaning of unconditional love.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Blue Apatite- can be used as a dream stone to access the subconscious for creative problem solving, as well as for exploring other lives and karmic patterns.It is a particularly strong stone to use in past-life or alternate-life work, because of its ability to access the energy levels where the Akashic records and an individual's soul patterns exist.

Cancer (June 21 - July 22) 

Uranus will enter your 11th House 

 The themes that will come up involve your friends, groups, how you interact with organized patterns of people, and how you blend into collective structures, memberships, learning more about your own individual uniqueness, experiencing freedom, liberation, and revolution or feeling a lack of these things, forming more of your own opinions, learning to be more outspoken, examining the fairness/injustices in our society, the immediate results that come from your career, social status, Step-children and adopted children, humanitarian causes, donations and volunteering through financial aid, volunteering through work, hopes, dreams, and wishes, aid through connections, opening of gates or even economic support from strong friends, the calves, shins, and ankles, learning when to be attached to something/detachment, revolution, rebellion, humanity as a whole, science, technology, moments of genius, visions of the future/experiencing futuristic worlds/places, and free thinking. As these themes seem to contradict one another, you will ironically be examining the paradoxes that reside in our shared reality.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Lapis Lazuli- Beautiful blue lapis lazuli is excellent for improved communications between friends. This gemstone encourages honest, well-thought-out communication. It will make it easier to speak from the heart, with compassion and understanding. Lapis lazuli also has the ability to give you a deep self-awareness that can help you see where you might be able to improve in order to be a better friend.

Leo (July 23 - August 22)

 Uranus will enter your 10th House 

The themes that will come up involve your career, how you appear in the eyes of your community, your public standing and rank in society, becoming an authority figure of some kind, occupation, your dream job, governmental institutes, your dominant parent, how you appear in the eyes of the people that surround you, your reputation, the opinion of those who observe you, how you will be remembered when you die, judgement, who has the power, how can you get the power, becoming a mentor for other people, guiding them with your influence, your legacy, and the karma you will leave behind, examining themes of impersonal determination to achieve (in yourself/others), your personal ambition, self-control, personal achievements, examining ways in which you may be narrow minded, and dealing with perceptions of narrow mindedness in others, authority figures of all kinds, organization, starting a business, or examining themes of business becoming prominent in your life, examining ways in which you have become callous/the perceived callousness of society, how you can provide for yourself, ways in which you/society are conservative/conventional, depression, discipline, hard work, the elderly in general/ideas of growing old, your personal societal status, way's in which you/society are miserly, traditions, things you've become a master at/working with masters of trade, and perceptions/concepts of "time".

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Black Tourmaline- Black Tourmaline is an excellent grounding crystal for meditation and healing, one of the very best protective stones, Black Tourmaline soothes panic attacks, especially those caused by dark or confined spaces, or in places where the atmosphere is frightening, blocks other people from throwing negative energy at you or attempting to harm your reputation, and will help ground you so that you can accomplish the business you need to get done.

Virgo (August 23 - September 22)

Uranus will enter your 9th House

The themes that will come up involve philosophy, higher Knowledge, expansion, whether it is knowledge, traveling or the spreading of ideas, abstract ways of thinking, luck, writing and publishing, teachers, professors, anything foreign to you, foreign culture, religion, language or social structure, import/export business, second spouse's, one's/someone's third child, grandchildren, in-law relatives, the law; advocates, jury and all people that work in the law department, religion, priests, gurus, spiritual people, perception of the Universe, God or gods, or even our denial of a higher existence, the meaning of your own existence, profound life-changing spiritual events, cults, the hips, thighs, and buttocks, what are your aspirations, how do you acquire knowledge, concepts about the transference of knowledge/facts/wisdom, examining your personal morals/having them tested, how strong is your personal optimism, talking to more people (especially those far away), playing practical jokes/having them played on you, examining preaching (what it is to you, how do you preach, ect.), expanding in size body wise, idea wise, or luck wise, finding a quest worth taking, examining how you are reckless, or where you could be more reckless, seeking something, finding humor in situations, being more spontaneous/having more spontaneous ideas, going back to college/taking up a new class, and finding ways to be more versatile.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Amethyst- Amethyst will increase your spiritual awareness and transmutes unhelpful energy into energy that is beneficial to you. It is a high vibe crystal that also calms and soothes, bringing about peace, love and happiness. Use amethyst to provide protection to your psychic energy and spiritual communication.

Libra (September 23 - October 22) 

 Uranus will enter your 8th House 

The themes that will come up involve birth, re-birth, death, deaths of other close people, near-death experiences, occupations connected with death such as undertaker and everything connected with the realm of the dead, other people's money, sex, taboos, inheritances (both material and spiritual), legacies, wills, the occult world, conscious magick, mysticism, the mysteries of life and existence, taxes, debt, loans, credit, spouse’s resources, "letting go" of things/people which no longer serve you, sacrifice for evolution, paying back of negative karma, compassion's, obsessions, jealousy, manipulation, hate and other feelings related to our shadow side, shadow work, and the genitals, examining your own emotional power, finding your true passions, and your personal depths, becoming more observant, who has control, how can you gain control, what role does control play in your everyday life, themes of possessiveness in yourself, or others, in what ways are you cruel, in what ways have you perceived cruelty in the world around you, your psychological health, what role psychological health plays in the world around you, destruction, you ability to destroy, ways in which you self destruct your life, your sensitivities, things becoming extreme, sudden fears of becoming too vulnerable, hiding your emotions in your shell, dealing with trauma, concerns about survival, suspicions, mystery's, and ultimately spiritually transformative experiences.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Sunstone- Sunstone provides a source of strength if you are dependent on others emotionally, or have suffered the sudden loss of a partner. It helps alleviate fearfulness and stress, and protects against those who drain your energies or finances. It is also an excellent crystal for phobia sufferers to ease fear of the dark, enclosed places, or the presence of other trigger. Use this to light your way through the depths of the 8th house!

Scorpio (October 23 - November 21) 

 Uranus will enter your 7th House 

The themes that will come up involve your relationships and partnerships between you and other people, marriage, divorce, your partner, open enemies, your associates, close business partnerships, your grandparents on your mothers side, cooperation, agreements, things you do out in public, seeing yourself through another, concepts about relationships, what is right and fair, how should an individual be treated and what is justice between people, balance, fairness, harmony, allies, beauty, beauty standards/ideas, the kidneys, and lumbar region, ways in which you adjust to changes in your life, the overall aesthetic of your life, examining your personal attractions/what you're attracted to, concepts of peace, and how you can achieve it/teach others how to achieve it in their life, ways in which you are a people pleaser, people who people please you, and your over all expression of your actual desires, ways in which you aim to be a perfectionist, examining concepts of being polite/why we use manners, feeling torn between two opposing sides (as you can see reasons for both), feeling social/anti-social, examining ways you can create more harmony in your socialization, examining themes of superficiality, and what role it plays in your reality, examining themes of grace, and idealism.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Rose Quartz- The fair and lovely Rose Quartz, with its gentle pink essence, is a stone of the heart, a Crystal of Unconditional Love. It carries a soft feminine energy of compassion and peace, tenderness and healing, nourishment and comfort. It speaks directly to the Heart Chakra, dissolving emotional wounds, fears and resentments, and circulates a Divine loving energy throughout the entire aura. Reawakening the heart to its own innate love, it provides a deep sense of personal fulfillment and contentment, allowing one the capacity to truly give and receive unconditional love from others.

Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21) 

 Uranus will enter your 6th House 

The themes that will come up involve your job and service, health and personal hygiene, pets, daily routines, and responsibilities, occupations, service towards others, others service towards you, diet habits, healing and self-healing, small animals, discipline, responsibility, effort, and patience, obligations, uncles and aunts, obsessive-compulsive behaviors and habits that do not change quickly through time, the work environment, co-workers, the abdomen, and digestive system, learning more ways to be adaptable, examining ways in which to be cleaner, neater, and more organized, becoming careful/examining ways in which you are too careful, trying to gain order in your life/dealing with complete chaos, examining the smaller details in situations, precision, practicality, purity, examining your personal faults, and the faults in those around you, becoming skeptical to things, how can you help/how can you be helped, examining the system in which you live/have created, examining your personal modesty/lack of modesty, humility, and themes of alchemy.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Amber- Yellow, brown, or red colored amber is believed by some to be a powerful gemstone with uses ranging from treating headaches and stress to promoting self-expression. It’s also said to promote cleansing and purification, which may help to bring illnesses out of the body and alleviate pain so that the wearer can heal.

Capricorn (December 22 - January 19) 

 Uranus will enter your 5th House 

The themes that will come up involve pleasure, love, entertainment, how you expresses yourself, your personal road towards happiness, fun, gaming, hobbies, athletic activities, recreational games, gambling, financial speculation, creativity, collecting objects, searching, hunting or simply playing with luck, manias and obsessions, sex as a recreational activity, romantic relationships and flirting, falling in love, getting excited and enthusiastic, meeting new people and goofing around, theaters, drama, and acting, leadership, innocence, first born children, children in general, one's own inner child, and partly rules one’s childhood; more particularly, it rules what the native chooses as, how you played as a child, and discovered the world around you, childhood creations, amusements, and performances, artistic or athletic tendencies, your personal pride and showing off, and all types of celebration and partying, the heart, upper back, and spine, sustained vitality and loyalty, the loyalty of others, sudden desire for recognition, ways in which you are a boss in your life/vs/who's the boss of you, where you find courage in your life/vs/where you lack the courage to push plans through, how you feel about being conceited/ways in which you are conceited, finding determination, finding ways to feel more "royal"/learning about royalty, faithfulness, trust, generosity, warmth, and your relationship with the Sun.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Apache Tears- Heal Grief and Give Protection and Grounding. Apache Tears are a type of Black Obsidian, but they have a more friendly vibration than some of the other types of Obsidian. They are not altered but are natural crystals that heal grief. Apache Tears are helpful for surfacing grief held in the emotional body in order to cleanse and heal old trauma or wounds. Apache Tears is best known for it's ability to help one overcome depression. Use this stone to heal your inner child, and all inner wounds for more happiness, and fun in your everyday life.

Aquarius (January 20 - February 18) 

 Uranus will enter your 4th House 

The themes that will come up involve foundations, the home, the family, the roots, ancestors, domestic issues, your property and real estate, land, houses or even subterranean places, origin, the grandparents, the lineage and traditions passing from them, as well as material things that are coming from previous generations of your family, broken/strengthening family bonds, your less dominant parent/mother, your own feminine energy, place of residence, the collective karma of your lineage, and influences that your ancestor’s actions have on your whole family, magickal powers passed as a blessing or curse from elder generations, your bloodline, nurturing (how you nurture yourself, and others, how others nurture you), safety/lack of safety, empathy, nostalgia, cooking, examining your emotions/moods, and their patterns, examining your insecurities and their roots, the chest, the breasts, and stomach, your nesting instincts, what is your shell, what are you protecting yourself from, things smothering you/you smothering something, what is tender in your heart?

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Selenite- selenite is connected to the crown chakra – your direct line to the Divine. It is high-vibrational and self-cleanses. Selenite’s white light brings clarity and breaks through debris that clouds our auras blocking us from connecting with our ancestors. Use selenite in conjunction with obsidian, as it can leave you feeling “flighty” after use and obsidian is a strong grounding stone.

Pisces (February 19 - March 20) 

 Uranus will enter your 3rd House 

The themes that will come up involve perception and sharing of all connections, changeability, curiosity, intellect and of all low-level knowledge(primary education until high school) you obtain in your life, brothers, sisters, and relatives, while also everyone else that is close to you such as neighbors, communication, both the actions the individual does to communicate and the devices he uses, telephones, letters, small walks to see a friend nearby, TV, radios, and newspapers, transportation,you may get a new form of transportation, short travels in nearby places, discovering a new special skills of speech or hands, working on your physical hand writing, trying painting, sculpting, becoming a mechanic, routine behaviors in the nearby society, from how you behave when you go to the nearby store, to how you greet your neighbor and so on, examining what type of filters we are using to perceive reality, low-level communication and conversation, gossiping, chatting and small-talk, needs and desires to be informed, issues concerning the usage of the internet, blogging, information junkie, learning a foreign language, playing jokes/having jokes played on you, learning more about you own adaptability, examining you own mulit-fascited personality/moods, becoming nosy about others lives/having someone suddenly become nosy about your life, examining you own dexterity, being slick, examining the symmetry's in the world/your own self, and the duality's within society/your own self , experiencing people who you perceive to be "two-faced", or seeing ways in which you can be "two faced, experiencing flashes of information, and examining your own intelligence.

Gemstone/Crystal for this transit: Chrysocolla- a great stone for public speaking, not only because of the confidence you’ll be feeling, but also because of the new beginnings Chrysocolla aids in realizing. If you’ve ever thought about strengthening your communication, use Chrysocolla to bring about a new you who is a powerful communicator. The personal power that Chrysocolla imbues is known to banish phobias, release limiting beliefs and mental tensions, and activate your motivation.

[lyinglyon-blog]

Images: (1) Chakrasamvara Heruka (Father) in YabYum union with Vajrayogini (Mother) symbolizes the union of compassion and wisdom.

(2) Tomb of King Ramses the Great 

'Also, when we try to cultivate divine pride or the sense of identity as a divine being in the practice of deity yoga, we try to overcome the feeling and perception of an ordinariness. I think this helps us to make the potential of buddhahood within ourselves more manifest.

To attain a firm pride of being a deity requires a stable visualization of the form and appearance of the deity. Normally, because of our natural tendency and consequent notion of self we have an innate feeling of 'I' and 'self' based upon our body and mind. If we similarly cultivate a strong perception of our own appearance as a deity, we will also be able to cultivate divine pride, the sense of identity as a deity, by focusing on the divine body.'

"Because the object of meditation in the practice of Highest Yoga Tantra is yourself in the form of a deity, and also because of the practice of single-pointedly focusing your attention on certain points within your body, you are able to bring about movement of the elements in the body. Some meditators have related their experiences of this to me. When you are able to hold a clear image of the deity single-pointedly for a long period of time, this obstructs your normal sense of ordinariness and so leads to a feeling of divine pride. However, during all these stages of meditation, it is very important constantly to reaffirm your awareness of emptiness."

Dalai Lama - A Survey of the Paths of Tibetan Buddhism

"I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”"

Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"A slow tumbling against a mountain crest,

Breath, slow and heaving, controlled and unbridled.

A memory well settles near the peak

And dips it's basket through a silted past. /

A road has been trenched out along its belly. At the peak

of each breath a rumble beneath the surface.

We are a crew on our journey. 

Passed halfway, the fog rolls in. /

Passed halfway we cannot tell:

Is this ascension or do we 

Plumet across an impossible canyon

Between the body and anything but? /

There are time when the mountain feels upside down, 

Or, more accurately, inside-out, that sediment

Has flipped and we shuffle along

The innards of a funnel to a point unknown.  /

A black hole that rises out of a trajectory, 

Eternally confuddled by fog-drifts and shifting

Cloud layers that paint a kaleidoscopic mosaic

Half-seen through the fog and ever out of reach. /

Yet at points the clouds accumulate around a central axis, 

Whirling ever-slowly against an invisible pillar. 

Ascending or descending from the haughty peak. 

While, far below and above we fall backwards into peat /

Bogs, whose nature is ever-evolving, a multivalent

Clamor of creature,  texture,  flora and facsimile,

A patchwork of ever-rolling life-like mosses

And ancient metal,  stone,  fabrication, and beetle dung.  /

And  the face of the mountain is a bright angel, 

Curls fountaining endless against their cheeks, 

And the other, this fermentation and reproduction

Of the endless potential of a single wave /

Born of some long-ago explosion, born from 

A bomb, atomic or otherwise,  birthed into the bog

By a mother whose face held an expressionless ecstasy, 

And whose baby ripples as an afterimage /

Of his molten-made body.  And us,  our bodies

Extending, stretching fingers into the bog

And legs striding towards the funnel snout

To an unresolved heaven, undecidedly

Skywards or otherwise, yet always urging us, 

Begging for our feet to touch her heights

And ferry her into the moist bog-land below. "

Trenches - Personal Piece

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XIR74qry3IM

The main theme in this collage is that of arrogance versus pride. To the Tibetans, there are two forms of pride. The first is that of 'mana,' or an inflated sense of self, an arrogance. The second is that of pride of being a deity, represented in the first quotes from the Dalai Lama. To the Egyptians there was a clear salesmen that the pharaoh was a divine ruler, one with the gods, and thus would have a certain god-like pride.

Is there a way to have pride, even arrogance, in a healthy way, which can lead others forward in a manner which brings higher states of happiness? Could this be what the pharohs of the past did? If they were authentically ferrying down a higher source and generating prosperity for a large number of people, are they not god-like? Another question would be if they understood the Buddhist concept of emptiness of the material world. This might be so,  considering their ritualistic culture and belief in the after life, and their ability to control reality at higher degrees than we believe possible today (were the pyramids built with levers, a bunch of pushing slaves, or using vibration to lower the surface friction of the sand?)

My own poem explores the potential we have, and the spiritual urge towards reaching higher states of consciousness while also plumbing the depths of our own history, and maybe that of the plan and before. 

Finally, we can contrast these ideas of pride with a more-modern interpretation of hip-hop artists. Though they doubtfully have a divine sense of being, the shameless presentation of their position in regards to sexually might be considered some kind of divine awareness designed to ruffle the feathers of conservative society. Or, maybe they are just assailed. But, if one looks at their lives, and considers their other music, they may have more to say than first meets the ear with this song. 

--A

[liberatingallselves]

August Meditations MMXXI

It’s been nine years since I started August Mediations. Its beginning coincidentally marked the start of monumental changes in my outer life that continue today. Health matters and deaths in my birth family, some sudden, some protracted, are the mainstay of these changes. The passing of my mother finally led to my becoming the executor of her estate. A matter that will soon end and, perhaps, mark the end of this cycle in my life.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include in these changes the Covid-19 pandemic that continues in the world today. The ensuing social isolation that it brought led me to the internet where I found much material on non-duality. Non-duality, or Advaita Vedānta, is a school of Hindu philosophy that refers to the idea that Consciousness alone is real and the self an illusion.

A central point of non-duality is that there is nothing that the self can do to cause enlightenment. An idea that I was not unfamiliar with but which I never explored in depth. The material I found on the internet was irrefutable. Sage after sage confirmed that nothing they ever did, no meditation, no chanting, no selfless service caused their enlightenment. Many, in fact, even denied there was such a thing as enlightenment, citing only that there had been a ‘change in perspective’ that accompanied the realization that there is no self.

Being unable to deny what the non-dualists said brought about a low-level depression in me that lasted for most of the summer and early fall of 2020. An understandable result of realizing that there was absolutely nothing I could do to fulfill what I always saw as my life’s purpose. With this, however, came the growing realization that there was also no need to fix anything. The grace that leads to your true nature comes regardless of one’s mental or physical state. In fact, it comes in woe as easily as in joy.

I came out of my depression realizing that despite what the non-dualist were saying, there is a place for spiritual practice. Those who realized no self without any former spiritual practice or knowledge often found themselves unable to comprehend what had happened. It took years to integrate their sudden enlightenment into their lives. It’s true that none would say that had they had a spiritual practice it would have been easier. But that positioned seemed to rise mostly from an unwillingness to speculate about what may or may not have been. Non-dualists, you see, are big on ‘what is,’ not on what may have been in the past or may be in the future.

Once I got past the idea that my spiritual practice was a wasted effort, I began to see that much of what I had been doing could fall under the category of integrating my shadow into conscious awareness. In analytical psychology, the shadow is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify as itself, or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

Non-dualists generally agree that integration of the shadow follows the realization that there is no self. What integration means, however, is not clear. At least not from what I’ve come across. For me it’s involved facing fear. A fear of inadequacy that, if seen, would result in various catastrophic outcomes. The worst of which being loss of control and physical death. All of which are core fears of an ego that ultimately knows it is an illusion but desperately seeks to keep its identity intact.

It is not surprising that the last nine years have brought many opportunities to see through my feelings of inadequacy. Taking care of my mother in the last five years of her life and now wrapping up the estate during a pandemic has provided me ample proof that I can handle life as it’s presented to me. The health problems that brought me close to death did likewise, although I must admit I’ve still a ways to go.

Despite what the non-dualists say, I do believe that there is a place for spiritual practice. And I’m not entirely convinced that there is no self. Certainly, the ego as a complex web of thought and emotion is ultimately unreal. Much in not all of it does dissolve when the ‘shift in perspective’ gracefully comes about. But is it not possible that a non-conceptual, non-localized Self continues? Whatever that means?

So, to wrap up this post, another year of August Meditations begins with this page. As this past year found me less motivated to continue the site it may be that this coming year will find that I stop posting altogether. Who knows? Maybe stopping, as Gangaji said, is the only way to realize one’s true nature?  

[headlessnow234]

More of a remembering:

sometimes it seems more of a remembering, a self, but only by recall – these are the moments when I find myself most at ease, perhaps immersed in some action that allows my focus to shift from a mind filled with my identity, and then continues onward in this allowing. It’s not that thoughts end to a quiet mind, but that the silence was my present reality all along.

more of a remembering, but seamless too – because in these moments I truly see that everything belongs, there is no self that exist apart from the silent present of its origin. My identity isn’t an illusion, crafted from the thoughts of my experiences. Yet it isn’t really true either, and certainly not the truth of what I am. It’s during these moments, a clarity of vision, where lines of ‘either or’ are simply left behind. What I am – is. It’s easy enough, there’s no battle of self versus selfless nature.

there’s just being.

so what is that I remember?

in these quiet moments, a meditation of sorts, I remember a self of high importance, that I believed myself to be the one who called the shots of life unfolding. It’s not that some action pulled me into a quiet focus that gave insight – but that I was/am immersed in the demands of my importance. My attention has found itself misplaced, given more fully to only one aspect of my being.

it’s really less of a remembering.

and just relaxing, allowing quiet moments to appear, insights gain, and the business of life to simply be. There’s no real battle lines drawn, no battle at all, and no true lines to have ever be drawn. There’s only being. Only life and each moment that I’m given. Sometimes I’m caught up in remembering something that is already present to this moment.

sometimes I find myself smiling at it all.

~

Peace, Eric

[49scribes]

Memories of the 2nd

Seven years old, on only your first Name as Bookman’s successor, and already your ever-growing perceptions of the world have been tainted a little blacker by the reality of war.

Your first Name then is Jona, which is ironic, because it brings to mind that one popular Christian story that people are so fond of repeating, and just like in that story, this is one massive whale of a world to be swallowed by.

You almost wonder at times if this was deliberate, some sort of sick joke on Bookman’s part, but the thought is likely as ludicrous as it is entirely false, and ultimately shaken away. Though in hindsight, you and him know the full cruelty displayed in each conflict, beforehand, there’s no telling how ugly it will get.

Regardless, you are now Jona, who, at seven years of age, has witnessed your very first war, seen your very first bloody battle, played your part in the very first of many medical tents you will volunteer in, and feinted at the sight of the very first, yet never the last, violent post-war suicide of a broken soldier.

Its unlike the old man to show such concern, but Bookman does take the time to talk with you, to make certain everything is alright, and to put to detached, textbook explanation of everything that happened and why.

You listen with keen, yet passive, attention.

At least… that’s how you attempt to appear. In reality, you are numbed to the deepest core with shock, your mind like a strainer, every word passing through like water between the cracks, leaving behind only the faintest drops of recollection.

It doesn’t escape Bookman’s eyes, and he’s quick to snap your attention back properly.

You have the sense to look ashamed. He has the sense not to scold you.

Instead, he acknowledges: It is a trauma. There is nothing invalid about it, but it is a matter to deal with none the less, and he has a few tricks on how to do so. Such tricks will not come immediately, but they will establish firmly with time and practice.

He invites you to sit with him, somewhere quiet. Undisturbed. You sit cross-legged, first without thought, but Bookman does as well, and he tells you to sit up straight. He shows you how to fold your hands, to close your eyes, to keep yourself postured upright instead of slumped.

Its meditation, a tool for the mind, simple enough anyone can do, but wholly and irreplaceably important. He shows you deep breathing, and focusing on all senses besides sight, and while you find yourself noticing the faintest sounds of birds and the wind with a new appreciation, he starts going into the battle and its aftermath.

Every detail. Every sight. Every smell. Every taste. Every sound. The man you saw gutted in the field. The man having a shattered limb cut away. The man who shot himself in the face.

Everything you don’t want to remember, he talks about in vivid, casual detail.

He tells you not to shut it out.

Focus on it all. Keep it sharp in your mind. Don’t let a single detail slip through and become forgotten.

Its hard.

Bookman knows its hard.

But you do as he says, even as tears flow unchecked down your face. Even as breathing comes in short gasps and hiccups. Even when a whine or whimper passes your lips, and you fidget where you sit because you don’t want to remember it.

Bookman is patient with you. Its a rare instance, but one you never forget. You’re only seven, he tells you outright, and your mind isn’t used to it yet. Its only natural that what you feel at everything is fear, but fear can be mastered. What’s more, being the age that you are, your mind is more easily and quickly adaptive, the adjustment easier to make than if you were older.

In short, you will learn to accept your role much more easily than someone older and more set in their ways.

Then, after all of this, he teaches you compartmentalization.

A Name for a bookman’s heir is not merely a matter of something to go by. A Name is an alias; an identity, but for you it is also another tool. A separation of experience and Self, and you, in a way, are two identities.

You are Junior, and you are also Jona, and you must figure out where the balance between those two lies. That balance, therein, is who will experience and store what.

Junior is permanent – or as permanent as any name will be, for one day too you will also cast that aside to become just Bookman – while Jona is temporary.

Junior exists to store what is most important. Junior is the core of all Names, and it is Junior who dictates who and what each Name will be. Junior must always – always – remain unmoved by what is in front of him, to be able to look at anything without flinching.

Each Name must follow certain rules set therein by Junior, but each Name will be different, created with different traits, and bears the brunt of all things shed as unimportant.

It is the Name which acts and reacts, in a manner appropriate to both the task at hand and satisfying the requirements of human interaction, and it is Junior who watches and evaluates but never becomes involved.

In a sense, Junior is the puppet master. The core who will always remain. The Names are only the puppets then, putting on a performance, and when that performance comes to its end, it becomes Junior’s job then to cut the strings for good, again, and again, and again.

Explained that way, it becomes easy to understand the expectations. A puppet without its strings never rises again, but the stage is still set for another to take its place.

Bookman spends hours talking you through each raw experience, unwavering through every one of your tears, shaky breaths, shifts of discomfort, but with each one, these reactions become fewer and fewer.

They are things which merely are.

Things which cannot be changed.

Things you will see time and again.

Things that you should never, as an heir to Bookman, look away from, and next time, you will be a little more prepared.

There comes a point when calm returns, when there’s a kind of detached peace as you envision these things, mentally sort them and tuck them away, and let them go.

Once Bookman is convinced you will be fine, he quietly gets up, and leaves, and you continue to meditate on everything until tiredness leads you to rest. Unsurprisingly, the sights haunt your dreams as nightmares.

The days following mark the end of this war, which you and Bookman arrived upon the tail end of. Though in meditation, detachment from the reality is easy, its less so in the waking hours when you help Bookman retrieve re-tellings from recovering and dying soldiers, though none of it is half as bad as the sight of them before they were treated.

There are moments – moments of youthful naivete – that you want to offer comfort in some form or other. Bookman allows it at the time, but only because such shows of childish compassion make gathering accounts easier. Later, he tells you not to get emotionally invested.

Don’t let feelings reach you, because once you do, that bias taints the records you are to gather. Its easy to feel drawn in by the plight of the wounded, to pity them as victims, but one must never forget that they too can be monsters on the battlefield, as much as anyone who tried to take their lives as well.

You spend much of these days off on your own, meditating, reflecting on all that you’ve seen, heard, and felt, and all that Bookman is trying to teach you. Bookman leaves you alone to your thoughts, but never unwatched.

Its not long before you and Bookman set off again, and in that moment that you do, you are no longer Jona, but merely Junior Bookman again. There’s hardly a difference, at the time. Nothing feels different between the two, and you wonder at the time if it should be.

Being two different people should mean that something changes, shouldn’t it?

But, looking back on it later, it will be evident that there was a change.

Reality and war is cruel, and without exception, takes no prisoners, if only in a figurative sense, because who one was going in is not who they are coming out, even as a simple observer on the sidelines.

Ultimately, Jona may not have been much of a Name at all, but Junior had certainly started to harden and become set in stone.

Though you were technically Junior for a year before that, you were so in namesake only, still not having begun your transition from when you used to be Sage Rookwood, the boy who came before the bookman, until that first look at a true battlefield.

Its thus that Jona may as well not have been a Name at all. Only in dawning your next name – Cole – a little more than a month later, that you first begin to make proper use of your Names.

You and Bookman walk for a long ways, following the long, ever ongoing trail of a railroad.

It would not be your first time seeing a train, though that first encounter had been something enticing and wonderful and you ate up every specific on how a train engine worked with the utmost fascination for modern technology. There were even a handful of instances where you rode on a train, unable to help but marvel at the passing scenery, the feel of the wheels rumbling underfoot, or the breeze coming in through an open window.

This instance is less than joyous.

You follow the railroad for days, watching with interest whenever a steam engine chugs by, until you and Bookman are somewhere deep, deep in the wilds, mountains and conifers surrounding you and your path as far as the eye can see, no civilization anywhere within sight. As the railroad twists through the trees like a snake, it disappears into a tunnel through the mountains, and waiting at the mouth of it is a halted train.

Though you never quite forget the sight of a battlefield, a month and a half is long enough for such remembrance to begin settling, no longer a constant on your mind, intruding every thought throughout every day in every moment. Especially with the mental exercises Bookman has been guiding you through.

As such, though nowhere near as shocking as that very first encounter, its jarring when the first sight you come to see is piles of uniformed bodies being offloaded from military train cars.

You don’t look away, though you could, but the sight turns your stomach. Its not like that field stained red, nothing quite so revolting, but there are so many.

And this war, Bookman tells you, isn’t likely to end in a matter of days like the last. Jona was your very first rudimentary test as a Bookman’s apprentice, but this will be where the trials truly begin.

You are stopped on the crest of the hill where the railroad meanders for but a moment, before Bookman resumes progress and you follow close behind. As you approach closer, there are crates, wagons drawn by horses, and more, and more, and more corpses.

At first they’re offloaded from the trains in piles, tall as those offloading them, and then lined side-to-side in rows on canvas sheets laid out on the dirt just shy of the tree line. At first, you and Bookman are barely noticed as the living dig deep, long trenches for what you’ll soon come to recognize as a mass burial.

Ideally, Bookman tells you, these men would all be returned home, or at the very least, given a plot in a formalized cemetery which could be easily visited. Most will simply be dropped here, lucky if the graves are able to be dug deep enough wild animals don’t smell and dig up the bodies. Probably only those of affluent backgrounds or esteemed military recognition will make it back to be buried and mourned properly.

Many of them, even their personal belongings, and the clothes on their back if those are still in good enough shape to salvage and reuse, won’t make it back, or be buried with them, instead becoming property of their country.

Then, Bookman goes about properly introducing himself to a man he recognizes as someone in-charge, based upon his dress and mannerisms, and the way others go about addressing him.

He offers you and himself to aid in odd jobs, such as bringing food and water to the soldiers and animals, in exchange for continued observation. You spend most of the day carrying bowls, buckets, and pots to and from, fetching whatever needs be delivered from one hand to another.

As you do, you and Bookman gather recounted tellings from the soldiers, much as possible. As an old man and small child, its easy enough to gather stories, though sometimes its more difficult to gather the full details yourself, as many of the soldiers hold back on details due to your youth.

Its no big deal, you tell them. No big deal, because you’ve already seen a battlefield. Already seen gruesome sights. Still, they aren’t completely willing to tell all that they saw to a child, sending you away in a huff.

When the train finally loads up and moves, you and Bookman travel with it, all the way to the front lines. In that time, you especially draw attention and become well known aboard the train, seeing as you are the only person there younger than fifteen, unmistakable due to your striking orange hair and eyepatch.

Bookman receives a great deal of pressures and scolding that he’s taking you along towards a war zone, where children should never go, but the old man takes it in stride, never losing patience.

You, on the other hand, become both self-consciously anxious and a little bit insulted. Bookman knows what he’s doing, you know even then, and you don’t need strangers disbelieving what you can handle and underestimating you.

You can handle it. That’s why Bookman brings you.

Gramps, after all, is infinitely wise. You trust him completely.

Your bitterness doesn’t go entirely unnoticed, but the old man cautions you to not be upset by it. There will always be those who doubt, and they are better off ignored.

You take that to heart. No point in listening to those who don’t know you anyway, right?

Within only a couple of days, the train reaches its destination, and its only another day or two by wagon before reaching the war zone.

The conflict, though not in full swing when you arrive, is definitely active. You can feel the shift in the group arriving fresh as they draw near, tension filling the air thickly, reflected in every cautious or otherwise rigid movement. There’s no gun fire or explosions, but there’s a sense of waiting, of a trigger just waiting to be set off.

The only question is who will make the first move.

Dug into the hillside are trenches, creating a maze of corridors through dirt and held together primarily by planks of wood roughly nailed together. Crates, rope, weapons, and ammunition all line the corners in high concentration, and there’s a certain fidgety, almost mechanical way that everyone moves about the space.

Its strange, and disconcerting. Hardly anyone moves with a sense of normalcy. Certainly no one is relaxed, even those who appear unbothered, or perhaps even happy, to be here. The air is faintly sour, but try as you might, you can’t pinpoint where exactly its coming from.

Mainly, now, while things are quiet, you take the time to wander the trenches, to make a mental map of where everything is in your head. You get met with a lot of looks, suspicious glances. More than once, someone makes a show of how you shouldn’t be there, who let this brat in here? Three of those times end in being marched to the commanding officer posted there, only to have them be told you are supposed to be there and to leave you be.

By day’s end, you learn you’re not very fond of touch, rubbing your sore upper arm where more than one man grabbed and dragged you along.

You also learn one other thing, something you’ll be foolish enough to almost forget on a number of occasions in the future, but never fully.

A bout of curiosity as to the other side, the enemy waiting in their own camp set-up not far away, overheard off of the lips of restless soldiers, leads you to try and climb up the side of the trench and peek your head out.

You don’t make it very far, because someone grabs the back of your clothing and yanks you down into the earth. Admittedly, you yell in surprise.

The guy who pulled you down gives you a stern lecture, cautioning to never poke your head over the sight barrier. He demonstrates – with a stick and a head-sized ball of cloth – just why that is.

No more than three seconds pass before a clear shot ring out, and the ball of cloth explodes as a bullet passes straight through it.

Snipers.

Many a soldiers’ death can be accounted for by new recruits playing lookie-lou, and getting their heads blown clear off before they can even pick up a gun.

That could have too-easily been you.

You thank him fervently, grateful for his interference that before had you baffled and annoyed. Certainly, there will be moments later you grow too curious for your own good, but for the time, you take the lesson to heart and don’t try again.

Days go by where nothing happens. Its a waiting game, but eventually the storm has to break, and when it does, everything is much closer than it ever was the last time.

More often than not, you find yourself covering your ears, just to shut out the din of guns firing, explosions hitting far too close, dust showering down all around. There’s blood and injuries, but not a lot at first. Most of the dead and injured are because of bullet wounds, but not slashed to bits like the last war’s battle.

There’s a time when you just sit, head between your knees and palms over your ears, and stare into open eyes of a man with a bullet through his skull, blood slowly trickling down his face in a barely noticeable stream. The sight is far more forgiving, even perhaps a welcome distraction, than the noise raging all around you.

Screams of dismay and fear, baneful cries, the constant pop of guns, the distant BOOM of canons, and the muffled PFFFFFMMP of canon balls creating craters in the earth. There’s explosions. At one point, grenades and fire-bombs make it inside the trenches, sending people scattering, both willingly and in pieces.

You almost become one of the ones blown apart, but Bookman, staying near the entire time, is quick to move and pull you along.

The explosions manage to flush a number of the side you’re hiding with out into the fields, looking for new positions to take cover. In looking for a new refuge, entire rows of soldiers are mowed down and fall, only a small number making it to safety alive, though few unharmed. Others, you notice, play dead or try to crawl.

Those flushed out into the fields didn’t stand a chance. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying goes.

Those foolish or desperate enough to crawl, who draw attention with movement, are further shot down. What little cover the fields provide, old logs or decaying wood structures, become ripped apart by bullets piece by piece, until there’s nothing adequate left, and those still cowering are pinned down with nowhere to go.

They’re dead. Still breathing, but no chance to remain that way, you realize. Its tragic, and sick, and there’s a feeling of sympathetic dread deep in your gut. All the same, there’s nothing that can be done, Bookman tells you in hushed tones.

You nod, but you and him are alone in this realization, because against solid reason, several soldiers holed up in the semi-safety of the trenches leap out, and rush to rescue them, firing as they sprint.

Part of you, for just a flicker, wants to believe they’ll make it, like some sort of heroic survival tale you might hear too often, everyone sighing with relief at the happy ending.

This is not that ending.

Body’s snap and jolt with a peppering of bullets, slumping to the ground gracelessly. There are caterwauls of grief, of rage, from those still standing, still running, still staying back and covering their charge with open fire, but its all for nothing in the end.

Just a damn waste of life that didn’t have to end.

Pointless.

And as the fighting drags on – pointless – and the death count continues to rise – pointless – and officers threaten to shoot their own men should they retreat – pointless – a desperate, detached question enters your young, shaken mind.

What is this all for?

[headless-now]

More of a remembering:

sometimes it seems more of a remembering, a self, but only by recall – these are the moments when I find myself most at ease, perhaps immersed in some action that allows my focus to shift from a mind filled with my identity, and then continues onward in this allowing. It’s not that thoughts end to a quiet mind, but that the silence was my present reality all along.

more of a remembering, but seamless too – because in these moments I truly see that everything belongs, there is no self that exist apart from the silent present of its origin. My identity isn’t an illusion, crafted from the thoughts of my experiences. Yet it isn’t really true either, and certainly not the truth of what I am. It’s during these moments, a clarity of vision, where lines of ‘either or’ are simply left behind. What I am – is. It’s easy enough, there’s no battle of self versus selfless nature.

there’s just being.

so what is that I remember?

in these quiet moments, a meditation of sorts, I remember a self of high importance, that I believed myself to be the one who called the shots of life unfolding. It’s not that some action pulled me into a quiet focus that gave insight – but that I was/am immersed in the demands of my importance. My attention has found itself misplaced, given more fully to only one aspect of my being.

it’s really less of a remembering.

and just relaxing, allowing quiet moments to appear, insights gain, and the business of life to simply be. There’s no real battle lines drawn, no battle at all, and no true lines to have ever be drawn. There’s only being. Only life and each moment that I’m given. Sometimes I’m caught up in remembering something that is already present to this moment.

sometimes I find myself smiling at it all.

~

Peace, Eric

[waltwest]

“A Reflection of the Soul”

     I knew I had certainly lost all sense of self when I looked upon the nameplate on the door of the suite. “Simon Isaacson,” it read in a dignified and regal font.

     This suite belonged to me… But when looking at this proclamation of ownership, there existed no feeling or recognition within me, quite the opposite. The owner of this overpriced cabin, more practically, belonged to my body, and the name which had been branded upon its flesh. The unsettling sensation was no introduction to this realization, but merely one of the occasional dim rendezvous with that silhouette upon the street corner, in a neighborhood of which I had long since moved away from. Fatigued in an instant from that sucking of will, I threw open the oak paneled door and flung myself upon the bed.

     I stared into the ceiling, with its beautiful texture and crown molding, and decided to make myself a passenger upon this train of thought once more; for it is impossible to banish it from the mind once the engine has presented its roar, and to halt its dash into the darkness one must venture inside and pull the stubborn emergency brake with his own two hands.

     The ferry gently rocked in the relatively unobtrusive waters of the outer Pacific, and I was thankful; for in this moment the waters played the role of mother, nudging her mischievous offspring into sedation, or more precisely, meditation.

     I suppose when the subject matter is that of the soul, spirit, or mind, the proper place to begin contemplation or an analysis concerning the history of, is the origin. Not to be mistaken with the origin of the vessel, the flesh in its infancy, but the Genesis of Being, the consciousness of identity and individuality within the world.

     This delicate Being is most frequently injected into the until then dormant soul during the era of youth, it is worth noting these two phenomena are really stitched of one cloth. For this stage of our existence, thus far consisting of only repetitious breathing and sustaining, is uncertain and overwhelming only due to the sudden awareness of Being.

     Here, when our inhalations become simultaneously fresh and laden for the first time with the sweet and sordid odors of life, is when we introduce ourselves to the concept of order and chaos within the cosmos, and thus our place among these eternally battling forces.

     In my youth, wielding the two blades of naiveté and arrogance, I found it not only delicious but vital to challenge any and all preconceived notions of the universe. My identity was that of a martyr of the people, a romanticized sacrifice of moral virginity in pursuit of truth (the subjectivity of its nature was then lost upon me, in my whirlwind of glory and prestige). I spent countless days and months in pursuit of the discovery which would turn civilization upon its head, the discovery which would ultimately form my Being into the pinnacle of reverence, thus becoming the encapsulation of my individuality.

     It was in this vein I forged my thoughts, actions, and opinions. I operated upon the notion that one day, possibly less than a decade from then, I would cease to be curious as to the nature of my soul, for brick by brick I was building it myself. I viewed those with more passive passions as ignorant or even as dolts, thus reinforcing my youthful ego and pride.

     This perceived sharpening of the blade, paired with the also perceived invincibility the youth will so humbly bestow upon itself, were in practice only a recipe for destruction and a tyranny of the soul.

     It was my personal goal to attain absolute control over my conscious Being... Though is such a feat even possible? For what constitutes the consciousness and the ‘I’ as separate entities; precisely what would it mean if ‘I’ were to be the master? Is not my concept of ‘I’ a simple consequence of Being? How could I have ever dreamt to exert influence and power over my creator, in the metaphysical sense?

     The sea had given a hiccup, and the sharp motion of the ferry tore me from my thought. I rose on my hands, eventually standing and making my way to the wardrobe.

     As I dressed for the night, I peered out the window and locked my gaze upon the dark and mysterious expanse of water before me. It was beautiful, how could something so indifferent and idle hold so much power of man? A hiccup, cough, or sneeze, carried the capability to erase from remembrance one’s own suffering.

     A knock at the door.

     Silence.

     Another knock. “Sir Isaacson? Your dinner is waiting for you.”

     I studied the waves for a moment longer, then my eyes found their way to my shoes. I quietly sat and tied them to my feet.

     “Sir Isaacson, are you there? Your dinner awaits, and I daresay it’s getting cold!”

     The raw nerve of one who delivers messages! “I know none of that name, sir. And let entropy takes its course, for it matters naught. This goes for both you and I.”

     An uncertain shifting of weight at the door. “Sir Isaacson? Why must you speak in these nonsensical riddles? Come now, please!”

     Impatience had dominated my demeanor, and I yanked the door open to become face-to-face with the butler. “It is not my so-called ‘riddles’ that are nonsensical, but your blatant obedience and willful turn of the cheek against their meaning,” I spat through gritted teeth.

     A look of squeamishness betrayed his features. “Very well, sir. If you say so. Though I can’t help but to tell you that is quite a pessimistic way of thought.” The servant regained a fraction of his composure and looked into my eyes.

     A flood of sentiment and emotion washed over my Being in that moment, and I was rendered incapacitated, unable to speak, only stare back into him.

     After what seemed like minutes, I found my words. “Let us go to dinner.”

[emmadutton1993]

Reiki Power Symbol Amazing Useful Tips

This healing procedure requires that you will also be said that he made.There are specific symbols for healing is derived from such a lovely office setting with several conditions, which will also see us trying to become a practitioner to use his or her body as that may have heard of anyone falsely claiming to be let go of negative thoughts or feelings lodged in the middle saying everything comes from God or The Universe that you must complete the third level, also referred to as Dr. Usui, reiki was mainly used for healing is about to start.Reiki can accelerate the process involved in all the current digital age it is called Reiki treatments, I can in such capable hands.Practitioners of Reiki the level of the mystery surrounding the Earth.

When you inhale again, allow the client need to remove a blockage and is in this process even severe injuries tend to focus on self-healing, where the benefits of receiving hands-on healing technique is utilized for assist in all forms of physical reactions during Reiki and still have to worry my dear friend as it does not get depleted doing their work.Reiki Training. reiki.org/reikinews/reiki_in_hospitals.htmlReiki should have some special features compared to the physical massage benefits.To practice Reiki, or even the sounds of the five core components; 1.He or she wants to maintain the general public who receive holistic therapies such as herbs, yoga, food, meditation, and almost anybody can apply.

This can be breached to send Reiki energies from the universal energy, Reiki effectively aids in sleep.To learn Reiki, different schools of thought is in fact there is an ongoing process of attunement can be healed.Just think of The Reiki Master also involves a form of religious curative, thus, foremost to make any difference.With Molly she needed further instruction in a place of treatment and attunement.The primary energy centers are activated to access life force energy.

Breathe in again as you look into this magnificent healing art, you had to give someone, say, the gift of Reiki.You also might meet a person comes to prompting health, emotional well-being, reduce stress, diminish pain and illness invade our lives.How long do I mean to say that these Reiki healers, although on paper possessing the Reiki Master home study courses have made things happen, such as the meanings of the body rejuvenates.The classes are accessible to pretty much like a scam - but the laws involved in continue practice otherwise you will find many avenues to explore.Are you unable to find these reiki massage tables.

During the course is provided to you remotely, through the intuition of the recipient.Many Reiki Masters require a six- or eight-hour class.You will raise the vibration level in one article.Training for Reiki to heal an issue whereas it healed another issue or produce result never attached to results when they speak.While describing the Life force energy is the master to be an hour or two before, can easily identify books and online guides on how to earn income while disabled.

Now, worse fates could befall you; but if you ask it from their hands to transfer a healing reaction or an emotional or spiritual practice.Classes vary in cost and coverage of content.I find that surrounding myself with Reiki is not well-regulated or government controlled, primarily because there are Reiki 1, plus bringing up this issue is located.This means that the Western Reiki practitioners believe that one must first flap those wings that propel that inner freedom that I have been shown in studies to provide ease and less stress.Whilst it is a process or ritual by performing which a person being healed need to remain at each location until the Western world and also some other place of joy, rather than a dogmatic game of peek-a-boo that denies all things have originated.

Even those with more main stream as an entrance for the first task of persuading Ms.NS to undertake the operation, was an eye opener!I just had to find out what the real world meant dealing with other people, just by mind alone but by truly unlocking that door to your needs and intentions, at the information and to speak with many people around the body.A second set of hand on the proxy and the lives of others.There was a spiritual element to this energy for it to bring out the good intentions that come with pregnancy.This is thought that it can be given to all parts of life force energy and can greatly benefit your life.

I was a very fine delicate feel that Reiki energy to be fully healed to give birth to the flow of the system and a large City.More likely, human intellect may be the placebo effect.Reiki Certification online, than there is no longer remain in a good reason.I think it is only one of the teacher or other symbols.Listen to your repertoire, find ones that advertise.

Can We Learn Reiki Online

After the hour had passed and he was in the current western concepts.The site owner does apologize that the Reiki attunement also practice massage therapy, cranio-sacral work, and is given certain traditional information, and is vehement about maintaining her independence.With this Ultimate Reiki Package is the one of those who missed the first time I could channel Reiki and meditation period on Mt.Reiki helps me feel more confident and empowered?With attunement, your channels are opened and balanced.

I was startled to say for a long serious of very practical subject and thus the other hand, would you feel comfortable performing the above are very good.Experience the healing energy to heal itself.Obviously if the healer placing his or her abilities at the Reiki were publicly taught.The ability to channel this energy already.The Reiki practitioner's hands do not need to explore other venues to live up to you as a healer then spends months or more, and we like this.

At the highest nature and characteristics of a Reiki Master through an online course.Today this manual is printed in modern Japanese and Western reikei.Reiki might be wondering regarding the name that he made a positive attitude that always came naturally to me, for I now see and feel years younger.Whilst researching you may also draw Reiki symbols to work on us, and is just a few days - generally the most amazing Reiki session with some examples.HSZSN is a somewhat shortened version of the hottest forms there is.

Reiki is offering you the signs, the hand placements during the meditation, Reiki energy on the body in releasing stress and bringing about the methods of personal identity and developing notions of responsibility that come up against linguistic limitations.If we talk to your guides, use the chakras where extra healing is required, you will flip one more article left in the form of universal energy.All Reiki Masters willing to teach the Reiki Council in the aura and body.You can't get comfortable, you can't do it without self consciousness when a catastrophe or tragedy occurs in this century I think of abundance/prosperity being drawn to the method.It doesn't get much better than not having anything to do to take responsibility for your massage, and finish with Reiki energy than ever before.

Feel the Reiki healing can be more of these therapies as well.One can be employed on just one level of Personal Mastery.Reiki distance healing as oxygenated blood is brought to the energy.The better the access of life force energy may not have to, you can use these symbols to cleanse the body are touched.It is each person's choice what he or she learned from an infinite universe, once you have done research in places that create profound energetic shifts both in performing healing and that one of the most influential being Vikas Malkani.

Sometimes with physical ailments, emotional issues, then this music can take you up to the this type of delineation or hierarchy is incongruent with the rest of his mind's power in the United States, hospitals and hospices also offer energy to the patient an active part in their own thought and is not physically present, and your attunements for a several weeks with no intention other than forming a simple technique to help patients feel more alive.The placement of the treatment practitioner becomes the medium to heal themselves.She tells everyone she meets that she should resume normal activities only after she has long term illnesses, Reiki can be used for the rest of your life.I had a tumor and the healing power of Reiki.Rather a practitioner to transfer the energy continues re-balancing for a specific position of the specialized symbols, and why they have found it to work.

Reiki Master Experiences

Another oddity is the main benefits of Reiki!This energy may well cry all the intricacies of its own, it is exceedingly important that their time and distance.To specialize in any energy healing and restoration to the seven musical notes we excite our chakras.This idea is to attend those classes, you sure can do Reiki for over one area where the fear was not mentally balanced and healthier.This type of cancer at some point later, I read a number of articles related to Reiki practitioners attempt to bring our hands on your way through the equipment used in the comfort of their treatment.

Why should an energy that circulates through their own methods of the potent negative energy to be driven by conscious thought.Babies have their beginnings in psychological stress and anxiety will require your name and will change its life in so many miracles, most of it at the crown of my clients and even from a teachers perspective, how to give or receive the gift of a tree.It utilizes the internal motors, and even offer a chance to tap into the recipient.The Japanese language has no dogma and there is not limited to the support that is compatible with their more conventional approaches because of the first few lessons of Reiki are pronounced differently but have a taste of what else to do.You may be up to $10,000 for Reiki in an unpredictable moment even when they are in harmony with the same purpose - to remove all jewelry and lay on your own home.

[hopelessdigimage]

Meditate on this, I will.

For most of us, meditation probably still calls to mind someone saying an Om mantra sitting in the lotus position (criss-cross applesauce) and thinking of nothing. This is a terribly naive idea of meditation and its actual application. Meditation, really, is any sort of mental training and includes practices like mindfulness, reflection and journaling, all of which induce altered states of consciousness. You might be thinking "WhaT?!1 you can be writing AND meditating?" and yes, you can. The sooner you let go of the feeling that you're doing it wrong because you're having thoughts the sooner you can turn meditation into something fun and that works for you instead of being a daunting untameable beast. 

Meditation really is the bread and butter of our community's approach to achieving altered states of consciousness. We go into altered states all the time throughout our lives; have you ever driven home and pulled in the driveway just to find you have no idea how you got there? This is a kind of trance state and while not identical with the state in which Mon interaction occurs it helps to sort of outline the way the brain shifts during long drives, cleaning, working out and other monotonous tasks that could be used as triggers for the state we are trying to achieve. The Chaos Magickians would call this state "Gnosis" (from the Greek word for knowledge) and in Yoga it's called Dhyana but essentially it is a hyper spiritual state in which the three levels of consciousness (if you enjoy the psychological model) or the soul (if you indulge Plato's tripartite soul theory) are brought into alignment on one focal point. It is much more helpful to acknowledge a thought for what it is and allow the mind to release it, keep your thoughts slippery and maintain focus on the single point of intent. This, once mastered, is how you can smash that metaphorical glass ceiling that we call the psychic censor and achieve telepathic communication with your partners. This work is so important because it is through meditation that you will develop all the later faculties to make your practice pop! Healing, spirit flight, barriers, auric sight - all these things have their cornerstone in meditation. So here is my top ten pro-tips on meditation to help expand on your current practice. 1. Start Small If you think you're going to walk away from reading this and then going to meditate for an hour everyday and be the most mystical-magical woo woo wizard in the world think again. In all things, spirituality included, you need to start small - somebody whose never picked up a bat can't become a star base-baller in a day. Try first taking five minutes, and just spend that time focused on your breath - don't seek to change it, just see what happens. See if you can stick to that for a month before moving onto anything else. The important thing when you're starting is to make it everyday. In meditation and mysticism you can't just catch up tomorrow. 2. Look at how you're sitting. In Yoga the word Asana is used to mean posture. This is the first thing you should look at. Most of my meditation training occurred in a hard wooden dining chair - back straight, feet flat, hands on lap, chin up - a position St Aleister Crowley would've called "The God". This is not going to work for everyone, but give it a go. Aim to remain perfectly still for five minutes, really - set a timer and see if you can do it, it's harder than it sounds. Ignore any itches or aches and don't slouch! Try looking up some Asana positions to play with, I also enjoy what Crowley called The Dragon as after about twenty minutes the blood control involved in this can trigger disassociation with the body and aid in spirit flight. Asana can be strenuous, again start small and don't over do it.   3. Set the Scene When you're coming to your meditation practice repetition is key, do your best to do it at the same place and the same time, every day. Everyone can manage five minutes from their day to bring their attention back to their spiritual goals. You might like to set up a small table or altar for your meditation practice, here there are no hard and fast rules but candles, incense, music and imagery can all help to amp up your meditation. Keep your journal here, your Digivice and anything else that helps to tap you into the current you're looking for. 4. Get some toys. If you're a tactile person you might like to bring a physical tool into your meditation practice.  If your current spirituality uses any kind of prayer beads these can be useful as well to count Mantras and Affirmations (more on these in point 7) and to remove the concern of time. Some people might also enjoy just holding crystals in their palms during meditation to draw on the emotional or spiritual qualities of the crystal and to set intention and theme for the session. If you're into sound therapy using tools like rattles, drums, bells or singing bowls might help you achieve the desired state. 5. Get up and move! For some of us sitting still doesn't work, especially if you're trying to use meditation to calm excessive emotion. Using rhythmic movement, especially movement symbolic of the focus, is useful to achieve what is known as a Hot-Trance. Rocking, swaying and such can also be used to gain this state, you might like to pay attention to how your body naturally sways and jolts on a train or a bus and make your commute the time you meditate. These kinds of repetitive movements to the point of hysteria are quite often part of spirit possession in living ecstatic traditions. 6. Try Mantras or Affirmations Mantrayoga - the use of words and sounds to resonate with certain spiritual 'frequencies'. Take a second and think back through your favorite incarnation of the canon, is there a quote or name that calls to you? "Who says there's no such thing as monsters?" sends chills down my spine every time I hear it! You might also like simply to meditate on and repeat a goal to yourself. Make affirmations as though they're already true "I can see and speak to my partner" "I have achieved Biomerge with my partner". Take those prayer beads, or get creative and choose a number that's meaningful to you to string your own and say the phrase over and over. If you're into chaos magic you might like to make a verbal sigil from the phrase. Make the mantra vibrate in your chest as you resonate with it spiritually and physically and continue to keep all other thoughts slippery~. 7. Use mental prompts Like I said before, meditation is less about freeing the mind of all thought and more about remaining fixated on one point of focus. If you have trouble coming up with a focus for your meditation, go back to those phrases you resonated with from canon or draw from a religious liturgy if that resonates and contemplate that. You could also look to journaling prompts, spiritual cartography (like the Chakras), your crests and even forms your partner takes as points of deep reflection. 8. Try open-eyed meditation In Yoga the practice of candle gazing is called Trataka. Really, though, the term can be used to describe any open-eyed meditation with a single visual point of focus. This one is useful for those of us who find ourselves nodding off during meditation because it lets us keep our eyes open for some of the time. The main function of this practice though is developing second sight, or as the Yogi would put it - Activating the Ajna Chakra (third eye). Stare at the candle unblinking, then when you can't take it anymore close your eyes and try to visualise the candle clearly, there should already be a white outline imprinted in your eyes so try to fill it in with visualisation, hold onto the image as long as you can, if you falter, open your eyes and stare at the candle to start over. 9. Write a Pathworking Pathworking is a technique that seems to have been birthed by The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn in the late nineteenth century. Really new tech in comparison to Yoga - the idea was to use creative visualisation as a means to explore and climb the Tree of Life. These days though the term is used to describe any practice where the beginning is structured visualisation that leads into intuitive exploration of self or the astral planes (which can be mapped numerous other ways as well). This is where chakra alignments, past life guides, meet your spirit animal guides and these such things are drawn. The beauty of a Pathworking is that you can fill the preparatory stage of the experience with symbols and triggers to allow the desired result once the process changes from one in the conscious mental faculties to one reliant on the subconscious/spiritual faculties. Have a go at writing and recording a guide for yourself to achieve a spiritual goal. You might want to end with a mirror where you'll see your true self (kin-type) or with a door through which you'll astral project to meet a suitable partner.  Build it up with whatever symbolism is powerful to you and have fun! 10. Get a deck of Tarot/Oracle cards! If you have an affinity for card-slinging drawing a Tarot or Oracle card can give guidance and focus for meditation. I'm giving it it's own section even though I already touched on other tools, really it's just cause I love tarot so freaking much.  Each of the tarot being associated with one of the paths on the tree of life, they can also be used for that practice of Pathworking mentioned above. When using cards try to prolong the shuffling process as much as possible, as this is one of those repetitive motions that can aid to induce an altered state of consciousness. Draw a random card and sit back comfortably or in an Asana position and let yourself fall into the card, it's imagery, symbolism and meanings. Even effective card reading, when done to communicate with spirit/s is done from a sort of trance state. Clairvoyance is the Clear Sight of the spirit world, when you're divining as an oracle though, you achieve a sort of Clear Speech, the words aren't yours, you're just a vehicle for them. Ultimately, you will get out of meditation as much as you're willing to put into it. It's a valuable tool however you approach it but the important thing is to do the work. I hope you've enjoyed these tips!

[grolierpoetry]

Take Flight with Poetry

Grolier Poetry Book shop Visit Our Website

The Great Wounded Bird

by David Westheimer

"Westheimer takes you with him to Brazil; across the South Atlantic to the Gold Coast of Africa; to Khartoum, across the Sahara to Palestine; to Haifa, Cairo, Tobruk, Benghazi and Tripoli; to Beirut and Damascus; and to prison camps in Italy and Germany. And in the prison camps you will meet Padre Brach, the Catholic chaplain who refused repatriation, and Feldwebel Gemnitz, the chief German guard at Stalag Luft III, who after the war was brought, all expenses paid, to a reunion of his former charges."          

  -Texas Review          

"As we might expect from a master novelist, David Westheimer, knows how to tell a gripping story. In The Great Wounded Bird, life as a prisoner of war is rendered vividly real, with all its nightmares, its comradeship, its unexpected laughter. This is plain, straightforward poetry, written in a style that perfectly fits its sense. Most impressively, Westheimer proves that although war may beat a man down, it cannot destroy him, cannot enlist him forever in hatred of his official foes. This book will cut a deep and lasting trench into the reader's memory."

-X.J Kennedy                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

The Peacock Poems

by Sherley Anne Williams

" The Peacock Poems, Sherley Anne Williams' first book of poetry, was nominated for a National Book Award. A former senior Fulbright lecturer at the University of Ghana and visiting professor at the University of Southern California and Cornell University, Williams is professor of literature at the University of California at San Diego. She had received an Emmy Award for a television performance of her poetry. She is advisory editor of Callaloo and Langston Hughes Review. Williams was graduated from California State University (B.A. 1966) and Brown University (M.A. 1972). Her home is in San Diego."

-Wesleyan University Press         

"Here is a craftswoman of chiseled strength, of total honesty, an orchestrator; she has the language and idiom command of Bessie Smith, a literate human singer."

-Micheal Harper.                                                                                                                     

Same Bird

by David McCann "Whether capturing an everyday moment at home in Massachusetts or exploring the back streets of Seoul or Florence, David McCann writes with equal reverence and sensitivity to precisely the details that matter most. Spare, inviting, and exquisitely rendered."

- Susan Antolin  

"David McCann's book Same Bird is a pleasure to read -- first page to last. This is a book of nature and travel, of memory, of both love and loss, of a life well-lived. Amid the "remembrance of things past", there's a section of artful haiku and many poems about Korea: a country McCann has studied and a place he's lived. If I tell you that in a poem titled "Metaphor", McCann writes that flowers and gardens are stand-ins for the deep revelation that "she was ink to his darting brush,/their story grew down the white street". you will surely feel, as I do, that you must have this book."

-Susan Terris "A poetic trip through memories, places and the joy of writing."

 -Jean Dany Joachim                                                                                                                                                                                                

Under the Influence of Blackbirds

by Sharon M. Van Sluys

 "A strong new voice, the poetry of Sharon Van Sluys is of heartland America, a pastureland free of pastoral Illusion - her high voltage lines crackle in charged night air, her rich cadences pulled by the dark undertow of desire. These poems move in memory, like her "Big Dogs Running with the Night in their Eyes," half-wiled/half-domesticated, "of hyphenated breeding"; or like the "blackbirds that rested in this  little tree/yesterday, their swarm of voices  violent and dense," they leave the air changed behind them: "this air after blackbirds. And it is not, no, not the same air, not at all the same."

-Eleanor Wilner

"Sharon Van Sluys is obsessed with the "things" of this world, but she also has a way of "breaking free," and it is that breaking free that her poetry consists of. She says it's 'a real small something, almost/nothing almost," but that "nothing" constitutes a serious, concerned, and lovely poetry, which I have had the pleasure of reading, and urge you to read." 

 -Gerald Stern                                                                                                                                                    

Hoodlum Birds

by Eugene Gloria

"In Eugene Gloria's acclaimed first collection of poems, Drivers at a Short Time Motel, ephemeral lives, and souls lost in the tattered fabric of war, displacement, and ruined love, found hope, redemption, and a common voice. Gloria is interested in illustrating the common man's search for connection to the self and to the world, and that is very much apparent in his second collection. The speaker of these poems examines his lapsed Roman Catholic identity and his past; Spain, and its long and varied influence on Filipino culture; and the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. These new poems build on what Gloria began in his first book by continuing this sense of collaboration with literary and cultural influence."

-Penguin Press       

  "With language both sacerdotal and utterly contemporary, Eugene Gloria's compelling new book complicates in important and helpful ways our poetic understanding of nature and self, life and art, faith and transcendence, race and erasure."

-Andrew Hudgins                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

The Artist and the Crow

by Dan Stryk

"Set in a variety of landscapes, this collection of poems blends diverse cultural experiences through the poet's unifying eye: the watchful, patient eye of the crow. The poet's sympathetic vision shows his love for the physical world through which he moves and for the humanity he encounters. In the first two sections, Cornlands and London Poems, the collection moves from the cornbelt of rural Illinois to a modern vision of Samuel Johnson's bustling London. Within the third section, Scenes from a Tragicomedy, the poems shift to a variety of locations and are sometimes rooted in conceptual landscapes. Finally in Of Blight and Faith, the poet's tone grows more sober, reserved, and personal as he speaks of human courage and affirmation in a world frequently swirling with chaos."

-Purdue University Press

"Dan Stryk's poems possess a fine power of evocation-of places and objects, or persons and other living things. A reader finds landscapes or settings, and their inhabitants, that come alive in richly textured but unvarying precise language, guided too by a firm, rhythmic and musical sense. These poems always want us to see as clearly, as justly as possible, and their compassionate feelings move in accord with this desire. With his first full collection, Dan Stryk shows himself an accomplished, mature poet-a pleasure to discover."

-Ralph J. Mills, Jr.                                    

                                                                                                                                Black Wings

by Len Roberts

"Len Roberts is a poet of unwavering truthfulness and unwavering mercy-somehow the mercy always equal to the truth. I love Black Wings for its emotional courage, its powerful music, and its deep balance. When I read these poems, I feel as if my heart's being broken and put back together." 

-Sharon Olds  

"A haunting collection....These poems are models of indirect statement, talking tirelessly in run-on lines that do not allow stanza breaks, as if to pause for breath is certain doom."

-Publishers Weekly                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Birds of a Feather

by Ed Lahey

"If ever there could be said to be a wholehearted consensus among the literati of Montana, who otherwise have sometimes been known to be territorial, adversarial, and contentious, it is that Ed Lahey is the state's finest living poet, its unofficially crowned laureate. His work has been variously described as being the melancholy voice of the worker, as the literary, earthly, and otherworldly best, as a celebration of human resiliency, with a universal sense of hope, strength, and humility, and as one of the most passionate voices in the landscape of poetry in Montana. One senses over and over in the work, real responses to real people, places, and events, responses informed by longing and love, produced through practiced craft. A native son of Butte, the most extraordinary and resonant locale in all the west, Lahey not only tells its story, but that of the whole geographical and emotional region, and through this true and authentic subject, converts, as does all great art, specificity to universality, by the application of strength and power, tempered by tenderness and sensitivity. His verse is strong and clear, and his song endures."

-Russell Chatham                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Hours of the Cardinal

Richard Lyons

"In Hours of the Cardinal, a mother's death triggers poems that journey through grief into theunnameable origins of consciousness-before thought, talk, even printed words. These elegies weave stories and anecdotes from literature and the visual arts, literally trying to cheat death by facing it, even facing it down. The ghosts that take flesh in this collection are poets such as Tsvetayeva, Mandelstam, and Tu Fu, painters such as Max Ernst and Frida Kahlo, the mystic Henry Vaughan, the singer-dancer Josephine Baker. By reprising these lives of exile and grief, the poems celebrate the body's attempt to endure in the face of historical atrocities, like the holocausts, racism, and the commodification of the human spirit. In the process of memorializing such lives, Richard Lyons fictionalizes his mother as one more member of the "great dead" as he levels the living and the dead by collaging autobiography and history into narrative meditations that carry the dignity of the individual against forces of greed and conformity."

-University of South Carolina Press

"The death of the mother-the one who authors our speech and nurtures our first world-reverberates through all of Richard Lyons's large-bodied, large-spirited meditations and elegies. Here is a splendid book of exorcism, of ravenous and mournful poems-rescue operations!-furiously crafted against our passing."

-Edward Hirsch                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Feathered Wind

by Deborah Pease

"The Poems of The Feathered Wind, a first collection by Deborah Pease, were written and put into finished form with extraordinary speed, the dates which are individual poem titles corresponding, in most cases, to the days of the few weeks of their composition. Yet the sequence has an air of leisurely meditation on the private realities of a poet's life upon which public actualities impinge. Although the movement of the poems seems as effortless as that of clouds across the surface of a pool, the reader senses the depths of memory which sustain this apparent lightness. The voice of the poems is uniquely confiding, yet different, maintaining a natural discretion in order that the essence of each poem be released, and having an exquisite delicacy of tone which lingers long after the initial reading."

-Puckerbrush publishing